#i mean i like noncon but don’t have much interest in actually writing it tbh

[atopvisenyashill]

[title redacted for legal reasons]

i actually am most interested in maegor/rhaena but i’ve never found a fic i liked for them (except this noncon one here, it’s mostly porn with some slight character introspection with maegor) and also i’m obsessed with rhaenyra/viserys but ditto there, there’s not even good porn of those two. there’s also not any cat/robb which imo is a travesty considering i am convinced that michelle fairly and richard madden fucked nasty on set. i find ramsay/theon interesting aesthetically but i need some sort of emotional buy in from both parties and i just don’t read ramsay as being obsessively in love with theon so it’s not super interesting to me to read about. which leaves the one that people actually write fic about and coincidentally is the one i’m most interested in.

BUT. the problem i have here is that most aligon fic tends to go the route of aegon ordering alicent into ~something fucked up after he’s crowned, which isn’t to say this can’t be done in a way i really enjoy, like this one here that i think is just amazing, seriously it’s actually the one i think about the most, aegon’s dialogue just rings in my head. but most of these involve alicent actively fighting aegon (which is like, probably the point tbf) but on an emotional level i’m more interested in aegon attempting to seduce her than just forcing himself on her.

that’s part of why i really like this series, because it’s very much a back and forth dynamic where they are re-enacting their traumas on each other but like, willingly repeating the cycles over again against each other until they’re so disgusted they can’t go on (don’t read it unless you want your day ruined tho lmao).

there’s this one that basically does exactly what i’m bitching about tho - aegon forcing himself on alicent right as he’s being made king - but this one has it focus more on the moment she doesn’t tell him she loves him and then doesn’t just turn immediately into noncon porn, it really digs into the two of them and the structural issues surrounding consent, which is why i like it. i realize it’s maybe a big ask for well written incestuous sexy character pieces, but that’s why i’m pointing out the ones i like lmaooo because this one does a thing that’s also very common - aegon getting fixated on alicent’s seven pointed star necklace - and it’s also really sex heavy while still saying something about the characters (besides “i think tom and olivia are hot” i mean). i think the more forceful behavior from aegon works here because he is trying to seduce her, and also trying to punish her for hurting him. i’m also a sucker for fics that try to work within canon, taking something this fucked up and complex and pretending it’s happening just offscreen. idk, i think that’s fun!

there’s also this one, mostly it’s sex but it’s fucked up interesting sex and also from aegon’s pov which is rare tbh most of them focus on alicent, but i liked seeing the play of anger, sexual violence, and intimacy in his head here.

most of the rest of it that i’ve found is much more on the noncon side and like,,,,,, that’s just not the appeal to me for this one, it’s about them deciding to drown together, it is important and integral to the dynamic that alicent is at least a little into it and being forced to confront both her own revulsion towards targaryen incest practices as well as her own complicity in that cycle continuing to harm her own children, and aegon can’t just be the aggressor to alicent’s madonna here, he needs to be purposefully trying to pull her in because he’s conflated sex and violence and family and romance, and wants her to want him back. alicent has gotta be eroticizing her own disgust and reenacting her time as a teenage mother otherwise what are we even doing here!!!!

cersei/taena doesn’t count as dead dove that’s just regular fucked up lesbian shenanigans it’s fine. i see the appeal of otto/alicent but rhys doesn’t do anything for me i think he has negative charisma i’m sorry. i don’t think i’m interested in any others tbh, the main draws are maegor/rhaena and alicent/aegon.

[self-spaghettification]

rb as this is my pinned post, (despite rebrand) here’s a

preface to my blog

hellooo i’m riley :) they/he, young adult, adhd, pan+nb, & my side / general stuff blog is @freefloatingtemporally , dm for nsfw tdp acct

i moved over to twitter in early july !!

@viiravos : art, writing

other stuff:

top posts, aaravos masterlist & my meta (analysis) list, aaravos playlist full explanation

fic recs

april fools rayllum shipper bit

go here to view the site with the theme as intended :)

this blog is primarily sfw besides cussing i believe!

My page WILL have TDP spoilers and they WILL NOT always be tagged (bc I don’t catch everything/don’t have the time for that tbh) additionally i will be posting tdp criticism sometimes, post s6, but it also will usually be tagged

about me

eensy teensy op lore rant: i am a programmer but i also have a variety of hobbies and bounce between them like a ping pong ball. im adhd, nonbinary, pansexual, and ace-spectrum. my username came from this, i’m not too shy about sharing info about myself. and i’ve been in fandom & drawing since 2016 :)

you can learn more about me here

i also took ap lang and lit in hs so like? analysis credentials ish hwejrwehrwejr lmfao

i’ve been in the fandom since may 2023, although i’ve been casually watching the show since season 1 came out.

i’ve only watched the show like 3 times total except for, mainly, the aaravos scenes (look don’t @ me HFJSKJFDSK) or for screencap reasons aaand i haven’t read through much of the bonus content </3 [puzzle house, tox, etc…. though i believe i do know most of the important bits :) ]

i'm kinda lazy and am a slow reader buuut i do like making fic, meta, code, art, uhh probably whatever you can think of i'm down to make it. actually, i'm not super familiar with 3d art. so. not that. rip

my fav characters are aaravos, viren, terry, claudia, and callum, and crow master (tho every character has their merits) —tier list

i generally do not take interest in ships outside of viravos & kimditi, except in specific contexts: ie, the relationship dynamic affecting how characters will be manipulated

i also made a guide on what i've learned about tumblr so far if you're interested!

boundaries:

be an interesting person worth talking to I guess

I don’t like Leola and try my best to forget much of season 6 happened so—discussion and new perspectives are great, but please don’t come into my askbox only saying how good it was or feeling sad about Leola or Aaravos. Expect a short response if you do 😭

not a pro or an anti but a secret third thing

if you’re going to call proshippers groomers keep that shit to yourself. i’m friends with some and saying stuff like that is not ok i don’t like incest, underage, aged up, or noncon, so you won't see any of that on this page, but —everyone deserves a safe space to do what they want if it’s not harming anyone 👍 also depending on how u look at it like viravos is a weird ship for age differences, dubcon depending and all that too so yeahhh :) —>

i try to operate on a don’t like, keep scrolling, basis: outside of people with the same stance, the occasional salt and sometimes being a hater in a lighthearted way (or i hope that’s how it comes across), i kinda keep my opinions to myself. but if someone is bothering me for what i post, i'll hear you out but i'll defend myself. + if we’re mutuals / interact a lot and something i did made u uncomfortable or upset, please let me know! Feedback is important-it’s the only way people can grow and change. At least, if it’s considered.

i'm picky with blocking ppl. generally, it's fine to disagree with me about things. even if certain things bother me abt someone in fandom as long as we can still connect over something else it's usually not a deal breaker by any means. i favor blacklisting content and tags.

i will take writing/art/analysis requests

feel free to tag me in things, tag games, send posts/asks, or dm me! i take a sec to get back sometimes but i always try to anyway!

i’m fine with tdp crit, and i sometimes have my own (but it will always be tagged dw) ! + i kinda yap alot

co-creator of the aaravos cult discord B)

It’s tiny and while I’d say u gotta like aaravos generally please don’t ask to join if I/someone there doesn’t even know you, yk, is mutuals/friends with you!! that’s about it

find me here!!

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/self_spaghettification Twitter: https://twitter.com/viiravos Tiktok: https://tiktok.com/@viiravos Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/viiravos C.AI: Aaravos Bot (39k chats) ->my thoughts on AI usage Discord: freefloatingtemporally

tagging system

all of my original posts are under the tag #self-spaghettification if you’d like to see what i think without scrolling thru rbs! (not all my thoughts are bangers. but hey, they’re there!)

i also very much enjoy organization so i tag everything i rb, so anything related to aaravos will be under #aaravos, any tdp theory will be under #tdp theory, and so on :)

analysis tags: tdp meta, tdp analysis, tdp theory, tdp speculation, tdp parallels, tdp s5 speculation, tdp s6 speculation

Foil/ non-shipping-relationship tags:

Claudia & Aaravos: starlight

Callum & Aaravos: caallum, keys

Misc: parallels

other big tags: #my art, #my writing, #my edit (s) my #aaravos playlist! #tdp poll ,,

stuff not always under my main tag: #q&a , #tag game & then general shit that is like #riley rambles and #spaghetti salt

i do have tdp s6 spoilers / leaks but they’re all tagged. if something’s not initially tagged it will be eventually

have a nice scroll! ❤️

new banner because these fuckers wont leave my brain and they don’t pay rent >:(

[morgenlich]

frankly no longer interested in events that don’t allow incest or noncon as like a matter of principle

[olderthannetfic]

Ah, I do see your points, anon. I'm not going to post all your asks publicly because if you really feel that unsafe, it's probably best not to have a bigass chunk of your text for people to analyze and try to guess your identity from. I think one of the best points you made is about how close to home it hits when the non-fave is not only your fave but is similar to you in some way like demographic. You're not wrong for having those emotions. I do wonder if they make it hard to see how some other people feel similarly embattled on other axes.

TBH, I think one of the big problems here is that the large aggregate patterns you're talking about are racist, but most individual fics and fans are not really the problem. It's hard to know how to talk about this or who to tell to "fix" it when we're looking at free, hobbyist art.

A lot of people's tastes are certainly formed by shitty society, but once they're formed, they don't change fast if at all. Asking someone to rewrite their libido is a big ask, yet tumblr does it all the time as though it's as simple as snapping your fingers.

This leaves me with the sense that a lot of tumblr is... like... the political lesbians of porn fic or something: desire is not real, only choosing based on logic and politics. Or maybe people are so asexual that they just don't understand the lizard brain's "YES!" at some porn things and complete indifference to others?

I don't think it's great if great swaths of people feel like bottom!Nicky is super hot and top!Nicky fundamentally isn't, but I also don't think they can necessarily just turn it off like flipping a switch.

(If someone reading this doesn't like their current tastes and wants to attempt to alter them, I do think it's possible. What you should do is line up a large slate of media that prominently features characters of the ethnicity or whatever that you don't find hot/interesting. These should be leads whose emotional development drives the plot and is supposed to be central to the audience's enjoyment of the media. Watch/read/etc. this media all the time. All. The. Time. Try out many pieces because you won't like every character or every show, and we're looking for genuine enjoyment, not the fandom equivalent of a pity fuck. Spend enough time on this, and your unconscious sense of who's hot and interesting will eventually shift somewhat. This is a project you should expect to take a few years.)

But I digress.

The one tweet thing is a very toxic pattern. If TOG fandom is doing that, guys, please try to be more conscious of holding the actors of color to a higher standard (or the women or whomever). I know this often comes from a place of paying more attention to our own and wanting to set a good standard, but the effect is that minorities can't fuck up ever while white dudes get infinite passes.

Okay, on to the fic thing... Gotta say, my instant reaction to that description is "Ooh!"--as it would be for the same scenario with the characters reversed. (Ships who start out trying to kill each other are my favorite! x1000 if they're resurrecting style immortals and they literally do.) I can see how it would feel like slamming into a brick wall if you aren't kinky in just the right way and you didn't know it was coming though.

Part of why I react so strongly to a lot of discourse that runs along these lines is that I am a naturally extremely kinky person. It's not so much about what I do (which as a deeply lazy person in a long distance relationship is essentially nothing), but it's absolutely how I'm wired.

And I can tell you that my quotidian experience in fandom is sharing something I don't even realize is a big deal only to have someone I like, respect, and trust react in horror and tell me that it's triggering and awful and should not be allowed in fandom spaces because it makes "people" unsafe. It's such an instant, kneejerk reaction they don't even realize I was sharing it because it spoke to the very core of me. Lesson learned, friend. Lesson learned.

That sounds a bit off topic, I know, but bear with me: The point of that anecdote is that it's pretty common for me to get people trying to raise my awareness of things I have already thought deeply about while denying my essential humanity and not even realizing. As a kinky person who likes to make my fave the top (and generally a conflicted sadist), this constant request to explain and justify is exhausting.

I doubt most of the top!Joe fans have this precise problem simply because people who make their fave the top are much less common in fandom than people who make their fave the bottom, but I see a similar pattern with fans who are just fundamentally wired for rape fantasies (one of the most common fantasies that exists) vs. fans who just don't get rape fantasies at all. Or substitute your BDSM/kinky/messed up fantasy trope of choice. Covertly radical feminist attitudes towards kink and power are on the rise in fandom, and as a naturally kinky person, boy do I notice it!

I know that it feels like crucial activism to share these insights about why the ratio of top!Joe is hurtful, and the pain you feel is real. But it's also the case that it's a big ask to want people to listen. (Not me. Obviously, I routinely choose to engage with discourse. I mean overall.) The reason for that is that you're only seeing a fraction of what they do or who they are, and you don't know how many previous people they've listened to how many previous times. It's a very different situation from someone whose job is making some major TV series or movie or something. That person does, in my opinion, owe you some amount of listening.

Now, I'm not saying no top Joe fan was ever a jerk. I'll bet they were. There's a tendency to be rude and to publicly air your schadenfreude when you feel like everyone has been yelling at you. What I am saying is that a lot of the problem here boils down to conflicting needs, and that means there isn't a good solution. It's a situation where people are genuinely hurt, but I don't necessarily agree that other people have harmed them.

I like that you did an actual count of the explicit fics, btw. It's good to look at the real numbers. I see too little of that in these situations. My off the cuff reaction is that 2/3 to 1/3 is not a bad ratio at all compared to many fandoms, but yeah, it definitely shows a strong trend, and that can be painful. (I have a fandom where I think there's maybe like 1 bottom so-and-so fic in the entire zine era fandom. One. It's pretty extreme.)

I guess my thinking here overall is: What is the practical solution? What are we hoping to gain? What is reasonable to ask of people?

And it can't be "Well, if they would just listen..." That's just a sneaky way of saying "If you haven't done it my way, it's because you haven't listened to me yet."

So the question I would ask of people is this:

What does a non-racist fic where Joe tops look like?

What does a non-racist sex pollen, dubcon, or even noncon fic where Joe tops look like?

And if you say the latter is impossible... well... sadists exist everywhere in the world. So do doms. So do people who prefer to top in a purely physical sense. People with rape fantasies where they're the rapist exist (people who are not actually rapists, I mean). None of this is restricted to any one group. We can't categorically say fic like that about Joe is coming from a place of racism without denying the fundamental humanity of kinky MENA people who'd want to make Joe like themselves or like their ideal partner. (Yes, I agree this won't be the majority of fic writers writing top!Joe, but this is a place to start for figuring out what the better version would look like.)

IDK, maybe you're that kinkster yourself, but your asks gave me the vibe that you don't really get the drive towards those darker kinds of fics and what might be motivating it besides stereotypes and shittiness.

If we can answer these kinds of questions, we can better critique the way people write what they write without telling them all of their taste is bad and they should just stop writing. Even if we think the latter is true, it isn't going to get us anywhere. Figuring out how to make Joe more multidimensional in the fic they already want to write or finding very specific wording that should be avoided might actually work.

Beyond that, the actions I think are productive would be running prompt fests, exchanges, or other events for bottom!Joe or for top!Joe where he's the main character and the fics are required to be from his POV. Themed collections and recs lists are great. (I've seen a bit of this going around in TOG fandom in the past, and that's an excellent approach! Keep it up!) Positive actions tend to work better here. Make more of what you want. Promote what you want to see.

I don't mean this in some fluffy magical thinking way: you aren't going to change that ratio radically just by the power of positivity. But I've seen this kind of thing play out in many, many fandoms, and going after the people who write what you don't like, even in a well-intentioned effort to educate and even in a polite, kind way doesn't do much. A few people feel guilty. A few feel defensive. A lot ignore you. The overall fic doesn't change. It's not a good use of your limited time and energy.

I'm off to look up that fic to see what I think of it in practice, but I'm going to post this before tumblr manages to eat it.

[nuclearforest]

12, 13, 16, 23 and 30 for the ask? (Only if you feel like answering them all. It's a lot but I am curious lol)

Rotten I am a slut for rambling on and on and if you (or anybody else who wants to chat) ask i will alWAYs answer. So thank you lmao.

12. Are there any tropes you used to dislike but have grown on you?

tbh this one was like, a long time coming but long ago I used to hate the idea of mary sue/gary stu. mostly because i was concerned about being too carefree and wanting to be far too serious/anti-cringe as i am a wee bean terrified of scorn (i didn't actually share ANY fic until One Dog Night). (and this is like, a years long thing. i used to hate it, spent a long time not caring, and now i encourage it lol).

anyway the fuckin minute i started working on getting over myself and just enjoying stuff because it's made? honestly helped. so go and make whatever OC you want overpowered because you can have a convincing story even with a perfect character. sometimes you just gotta have fun and the perfect character is the way to do it.

13. Are there any tropes you used to like but don’t anymore?

this one's hard. the things that i like i don't tend to let go of easily (surprise, surprise?). i promise i'm sitting here thinking and trying, but i will have to get back to you on this one if i can even think of it lmao. it's like the time you asked for my fav ships and i sat there agonizing like "UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SHIT" because i'm a filthy casual and appreciate a wide variety of things without selling my soul to them. (and yeah i am still scratching my head at that one, too).

16. What’s an AU you would love to read (or have read and loved)?

ok other than the "office predators working on their home planet in mundanity" AU that we briefly discussed today, i kinda love slapping really intense characters into like. slice of life settings (and sometimes the reverse can be pretty damn funny, too. i probably just like the whiplash tbh). so Hellsing, for example, would see the big three being rivals at the local remote town's firehall's bingo night or something. (anybody wanna take that idea and run?)

23. What’s a trope, AU, or concept you’ve never written, but would like to?

i know i write a lot for my beloved stinky wolfman but i keep stumbling on the idea of how Doc made Schrodinger (I wanna know what experiments he ran) and desperately want to use all my knowledge for the dumbest purposes just to write about Doc giving people acute radiation syndrome in the pursuit of creating a supersoldier. and then failing. many times. atomic science was running wild in the early 40s.

30. Have you ever written something that was out of your comfort zone? If so, what was it, and how did it affect your approach to writing fic thereafter?

so i don't know if i'm out here writing too much of the same shit or if my comfort zone is just hella broad, but i can't think of much that i've written outside (i mean, i doubt i'll ever touch something like noncon which sits outside my writing comfort zone). i mean, closest to answer your question was the two male reader inserts because i don't know if i could give a good fic experience with them! and i got some warm reception and don't feel like i did awful, so i am interested in continuing to try it out as time and inspiration allow.

[samsflannel]

survey results are in!

sorry, this is gonna be a long post. yesterday i posted a survey with a list of polls regarding Supernatural, and it was SO much fun. I got over 300 responses, which was A LOT to sort through for the short responses, but I’ve gathered all the “data” and here it is! My responses to each poll will be under the screenshots (they are in groups of 2). I’m going to include the short answer responses in another post. ENJOY!

1. Starting off strong.

2. Pleased with this one as well.

3. Yep, I expected this response from most of us.

4. Sami, I made the wincest and destiel response just for you. YW.

5. CMON YOU GUYS......live a little!!! samjack sexy

6. I’m not really surprised that Playthings got the bulk of votes here, but I think my vote would have been 8x23.

7.  :)

8. i’m disappointed that more people didn’t choose the yellow one tbh

9. it is sexy. it is. wake up.

10. i love Dean, but he’s definitely an asshole. and that’s what makes him a great character!

11. hehe.....i understand why not a lot of people picked noncon bait....u r valid its ok im gross.

12. WHO THE FUCK PICKED NO......have you ever consumed media

13. WBK.

14. damn, Dean kinda got the short end here! a lot of samgirls took this survey

15. i get why you wouldn’t like Bugs bc it does have harmful stereotypes about native ppl but the rest of it is peak season 1 wdymmm

16. almost 50/50 here! old vs new fans we love to see it. I am definitely wincest old guard.

17. YEP. Eric Kripke needs shock therapy for that one

18. The fact that some people admitted to being dry.....tragic. I think Eileen is a great character but they are NOT endgame.

19. SO YOURE JUST GONNA SIT THERE AND ADMIT HOW WRONG YOU ARE??

20. ugh. yeah. same.

21. who tf picked blue. cmon. red meat incest agenda.

22. SAM MOMMY MILKERS!!!!! hucow sam <3

23. Mixed on this one! My response is obviously yellow :)

24. I do think Bobby favored Dean somewhat.

25. Johnzazel agenda so true

26. HIGHKEY CANON. AND SEXY

27. someone requested a combination of blue and yellow and you’re so right i apologize.

28. mixed on this one for top vs bottom fans! almost a 50/50 split

29. ANNA DID NOTHING WRONG

30. I can’t believe this one is almost 50/50. Ruby girlboss you guys are haters

31. again. admitting you’re dry. THEY FUCKED

32. yeah :(

33. Q-anon level conspiracy theory.

34. I actually fall into the blue. I do believe Cas was in love with Dean, but not the other way around. I think Cas loving Dean makes wincest so much more spicy

35. I love sam so much

36. those of you who answered yes........join my movement.

37. c’mon. even if you don’t ship wincest you need to admit this one.

38. sorry this one was self-indulgent.

39. JESS PEGGED SAM.

40. idk, i personally think Cassie deffo pegged Dean. She has top energy.

41. So all the people who answered no have definitely not read the fic (were too young to remember it) or are squicked by underage which is ok! its one of those fics i read back in 2010 so i have fond memories of it

42. hahahah you guys were mean on this one

43. it’s canon bro sorry

44. thank god this one was majority yellow

45. i give wincestiel a valid pass! dean has multiple holes

46. Jack is hole <3

47. I actually think both are great (and ppl were mad I didn’t have that option srry) but deanpussy is incredible and underrated.

48. SEXY>>>>>>

49. thank you for enabling me.

50. can you guess the redacted part? it was: insert various objects into himself :))))

51. ok heres the big question! i’m not surprised ilysmmbb won, but i personally vote for “yeah, there he is” !! i think its underrated and such a tender moment.

52. i’m in the blue. i like cas.

53. i actually am in the yellow on this one. i think its more realistic, although blue is hot forsure

54. top 3 cas moment right there.

55. objectively yes on this one. thank god for COVID- *gets shot at*

56. sorry this was shady i’m not really like this usually haha. i think death is my fave besides Rowena

57. obviously i’m in the red. i’m shocked that so many people said Yes.......

58. Clearly.

59. I enjoyed fan fiction! i love campy episodes as you all know (like Dog Dean afternoon and such) so i loved fan fiction. it was a nice nod to someone like me who has been watching for a long time.

60. HOW THE FUCK COULD YOU NOT KNOW WHO ANDY IS. i wish he would have been in the show longer........

61. uh....yeah.

62. Yeah c’mon. Dean would and you know it.

63. Thank god you guys didn’t fuck this up. I would agree, but Corbett is a close second for me.

64. IN THE RED BABY!!!!

65. we love a man bleeding out. we do.

66. i actually think misha is chill with J2 but.....you can’t deny J3 have more chemistry.

67. I uh......don’t think Dean would be a great father. is this me projecting my own issues with my father onto Dean? maybe,,,,

68. i’m surprised this was so negative! I think i would be interested

69. thanks for reading my shitty poetry!! i also had s4 dean in mind when writing this

70. CMON.....ITS KINDA SEXY CMON.......that spice of battered wife syndrome.......violent man in the house.......sam beaten down....im barking

71. haha yessss go yellow.

72. go yellow again.

73. I think I would actually vote yellow on this one. what a sweet and beautiful thing to say to someone, and its so very DEAN.

74. mhm. i think so. 

75. SEXY CONTROLLING OLDER BROTHER!!!!!

76. no idea why people answered yes to this one. that punch was fucked up. was it sexy? thats another story,,

77. WOKE. 

78. I do. I love pilot Dean.

79. Dean is a carfucker. any side of the fandom can recognize that

80. thank you GREEN!!!!!!

81. Sam is bi wtf! Sera Gamble erasure

82. Padackles commune <33333 they all fuck and they don’t know whose kid is whose!!!! (not really but this is sexy)

83.  THESE BROTHERS ARE WEIRD FOR SURE.

[aces-to-apples]

Tagged by @sl-walker!

How many works do you have on AO3? 92?? Christ how did that happen???

What's your total AO3 word count? 207,007, apparently. Buckwild.

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? Sticking with AO3 (and specifically this AO3 account) and discounting fusions/AUs: Star Wars, Red vs. Blue, The Magnificent Seven, The Umbrella Academy, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Stargate SG-1, Game of Thrones, and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, iirc.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? The Fallacy of Freedom: 2035 Pretension Is Key: 1614 poor reception: 566 Renegade: 473 two can keep a secret: 436

Do you respond to comments, why or why not? Not usually tbqh. When I first started writing I tried to be the sort of person who replies to each comment but honestly it’s pretty exhausting spoon-wise and I rarely have anything to say to most comments that don’t have, like, specific questions/comment to respond to. Plus it artifically inflates the comment count and honestly I get few enough comments that that’s just depressing to me.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? Ah. Hm. I don’t view myself as much of an angst writer, and honestly angst doesn’t interest me much, but like maybe? philter of the phantom? since it’s got kind of an ambiguous ending?

Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written? I tend to do AUs more than crossovers because crossovers tend to involve, like, actual plot and shit? So I think the only crossover I’ve actually written is Starvb/Haat Verd?

Have you ever received hate on a fic? Not....really? I mean mostly I just get Fucking Stupid comments, or That One Asshole Who Pretty Much Always Leaves Bitchy Tags On Bookmarks. I think there was that one twit fairly recently who bitched that the second chapter of poor reception “should have a noncon tag since cody isn’t in the right mind to consent” as if it didn’t already have a fairly explanatory “Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs” and “Identity Issues” tags.

Do you write smut? If so what kind? Yes! When it doesn’t drive me fucking crazy! *looks over my pornographic portfolio* It looks like I tend to favor consent issues, mild to moderate kink, possessiveness, and wonky power dynamics. And if it’s tagged “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” I’m probably extremely fond of it lol.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not to my knowledge? I think that tends to happen to more plotty writers tbh.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Breaking my “only on this AO3 account” rule because yes! One of my older, on-a-different-account fics, was translated a few years ago! I think it’s in Mandarin...?

What’s your all time favorite ship? Ah. Ahaha. Not really something I can definitively answer, sorry, I’m a multishipper at heart and also have debilitating ADHD.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? Ooh, yikes, again with the debilitating ADHD. Um. Probably that Gravebone fic, the Fright Night fusion with vampire!Graves? Idk maybe one day I’ll get bitten by the Fantastic Beasts bug again but idk I kinda doubt it.

What are your writing strengths? *blinks* Um. Funny rarepairs, maybe?

What are your writing weaknesses? *blinks harder* I definitely can’t do plot to save my life, I know that. And also I assume “the writing part” isn’t an acceptable answer.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? I think it’s fun! But also my first real fandom was RvB so like! I have an extremely lax viewpoint on making sure that the other language is actually accurate! Like I actually tend to try with Mando’a but that’s literally because it’s like a fun little puzzle, trying to make something make some kind of sense in a fake language! Actual languages I tend to just Google Translate because, again, Red vs. Blue was a formative fandom.

What was the first fandom you wrote for? ...........Yu-Gi-Oh, next question.

What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written? Uhhhhhh, that’s a really hard question? “bells sometimes ring for weddings” and “darkness hides and always lies” and “trouble in mind” are things that I wrote purely out of spite that I ended up really really liking, and “peace is a lie” has indirectly made me a shocking number of friends, and “got me all beguiled” was the first thing I wrote for a fandom exchange, and “she wore it wonderfully well” came out pretty decently even if only about three people have read it, and “The Sun, The Moon, And All The Stars” is The Worst AU In The World (affectionate), and “where there’s poison, there’s a remedy” chews on my brain nonstop. So like. It really depends on how you’re measuring that.

Tagging: whoever wants to play because I’m shit at tagging rn

[cobalt-penguin]

y’know what i’m still feeling annoyed and petty, plus i’m stuck inside and it’s storming out so why not type out a checklist of what everyone in TOW did to me.

since i am mean and manipulative, petty and pathetic, and so much more? why not bring up some old beef and give ya’ll something to eat. 

Gansey: tried repeatedly to instigate drama -- if not actively break up -- my OC ships by encouraging -- through IC shenanigans -- cheating and lying. One of these happened while I was on vacation with my family and i still remember crying about it in a hotel bathroom because i thought one of my few ships in the RP was over and I hadn’t even been asked about it. This also included trying to get his OC Tomas to make IC/OOC (hey you can feign innocence when it’s in that dubiously OOC space, until its receptive in which case you can say it was IC the whole time!) at one of my ship partner’s OCs. Made repeated fat jokes at one of my fat characters (the same one they were clearly trying to get away from their partner...hmm...). Claimed I was always running to vague on my personal. Fair enough, I did, but they did the same thing. In poem form. Never answered my message about leaving the RP group because they felt ‘disrespected” by it. Repeatedly including untagged dubcon/noncon elements on the dashboard and triggering me. Lying to Ivy and me about having a full Overwatch party then trying to say “oh it just emptied you can join now”. hid this “FAR” idea from the rest of the RP community and then played coy when they got found out and asked about it by another anon (not me). Made fun of other RP groups in Tumblr tags then, when I asked them and their friends not to, was told “we’re a step above them.” Saying I was excluding them from things when I asked to play OW with them AND invited them to my horror RP group AND, only months beforehand, were inviting them to my Marvel RP??Trying to emotionally manipulate me through threatening to kill characters they had obviously grown tired of playing (probably because their major connections were to me and not their other friends) -- “haha i’m probably going to kill (my oc) idk but doesn’t that make you upset?? what will (your character) even do??” Engaging in nasty “”IC”” interactions with my character, basically telling me, through them, off, and being supported by the entire community in doing so. All of this really hurt me because I considered Gansey a friend and a major inspiration at one point in my life. Someone I non-jokingly looked up to and trusted. I feel like Gansey left TAR, our first RP group, because of how controlling, self-interested, petty, and mean-spirited the admins there were. That they were limiting other people’s creativity while building up their own narrative -- everyone else just there to be their audience. But you and Roman literally became Usa and Jen. Congrats. You lived long enough to become everything you’d rebelled against. And yes Gansey -- I saw all of your messages to everyone. Emotionally manipulating others -- telling them how terrible you are you don’t deserve their friendship, but would like to -- isn’t an apology. Its a tactic. Do better in the future. And despite me “blocking” you? There were a hundred ways to still reach out to me if that was what you really wanted. But let’s be real. It wasn’t. That was part of your gambit to. Goodbye. 

Rosie: asked literally EVERYONE about what had happened with the ““TOW explosion”” except me. never even asked my side of the story. Rosie I don’t even get because the other admins treated her like shit -- making her do all the coding and technical components for the entire RP -- but she was still defending them to the end. Okay. And then to treat Shelly like utter SHIT even though Reyne was running her passive-aggressive mouth off about people who couldn't even defend themselves? Amazing. Yeah, she’s the bully. Your perspective was so twitested by your biases that you were ready to victim blame Shelly just because Reyne had to run at the sight of someone actually throwing their bulltshit back at them. 

Reyne: Like Gansey, frequently indulged in cheating/cucking scnearios for fun -- again, including my own characters without asking or telling me. Don’t think Reyne ever apologized for this, IC or OOC. Dropped ships with me repeatedly -- leaving the group even -- without a word. Passive-aggressive to the max. Made a ship with Gansey just to play out her Teen Wolf OTP -- something that will never not be funny to me, when she called Gansey’s “character” Stiles. Smooth. 

Frankii: Repeatedly dropped me and my characters from plots. Gave me one of the most hurtful comments of my RP community by essentially being like “maybe if your plots and characters weren’t so confusing than more people would want to RP with you.” Invited to join my horror RP group and never made a character. also told me this after Gansey wrote that enormous callout about me, that Roman piggybacked on while the getting was good: “also I'm not here to advocate on behalf of my friend but I really don't think Gansey was trying to be rude last night, they can come off a certain way when they're stressed.” COOL. The rest of Frankii’s message I really appreciated, at the time, but, surprise surprise, then despite us being “cool” they never spoke to me again. 

Laura: I actually really liked Laura tbh but I guess she didn’t feel the same. Some of our interactions back in TAR were actually some of my favorites. I invited her to join my horror RP group and she never made a character. When I asked about this -- and if she needed any help making someone or wanted to leave -- she said she was working on it. Basically stonewalled me over time. Honestly though? Not a lot to say I actually think Laura is a good writer and pretty cool. Its just obvious who her friends were and I, stupidly, thought I was included in that. 

Anna: Actually I really liked Anna too tbh but I guess I vastly overestimated our friendship? It happens. Dropped me from one of her plots -- after talking to me about including me in one of hers because she felt “obligated” basically, from being featured in my own -- without mentioning why or talking to me about it. Invited to join new RP -- refused (not mad about this, just making note of it). Refused to follow my new account when I lost my old one because “lol they’re such a furry”. 

Roman: lmao where to even start. Roman was condescending and elitist literally from the beginning of TAR. barely acknowledged my existence until he had to.I started a plot with an open invitation to the entire RP group, with a deadline so I could start writing. Roman waits until its over and complains that they were left out. I include him anyway. Roman mocks the fact that I ask to tag or outright remove aphrodisiac dust -- because I don’t like seeing untagged dubcon/noncon on my dashboard, it upsets me a lot -- and then goes on a whole thread about it after I go to bed and can’t even defend myself. Apparently told his friends not to invite me to things because he doesn’t like me??? And then he has the nerve to be like communication is key and you can come talk anytime??? While having me on their public “friends” list with a description about me on his blog??? omfg...I literally can’t. To this day. Actually let this image speak for itself.

Everything Else: The repeated, childish treatment of strippers as immoral (���”your character is stripping?? my character is so upset and is going to protect them!!”). The implication that characters who were stripping were also automatically sex workers. The continued references to my character, who owned this establishment, as being sleazy and manipulative. Also, honestly, what was with ya’ll adopting some random teenager into your OW groups? That was weird af. And then bringing some random person into TOW without asking anyone and trying to pull rank like “we’re the admin team and we can do whatever we want”. and shit-talking Meg and me in your “open forum” when all we wanted to do was get on with out lives. Like? Who cares? Ya’ll didn’t want me, at least, there anyway, clearly. You don’t get to exclude me then talk about how disrespectful and “wrong” the way I left was..........

Me: I didn’t do everything perfectly either. I know I could be passive-aggressive. I could be self-interested. I could make bitter comments. I dealt with feeling angry and upset by making memes -- which, I’m gonna be honest, I get why ya’ll were upset but I don’t regret either. I had spent so long in TAR/TOW with nobody interested in my characters and plots -- originally because I didn’t vid and played furries but, later, well.........see above -- that I did focus on my own narrative. I wasn’t invited to plots. I didn’t have sexy vampires and boy band werewolves. I played weird characters that didn’t fit the common niche of the cast of an angst and hookup filled supernatural YA novel. Maybe my plots were confusing but, honestly? It was because they were always going to be in the background. I wasn’t disinterested in anyone’s stories. I had just been left out of them for so long -- having to beg to even be a mention in a single mention -- that I had to make my own. I wasn’t there to just be an audience member to be aghast by Roman’s newest quirky boy or Gansey’s newest possessed twink. I was a writer. A member of the community. And, at the time? I thought a friend. Someone who deserved appreciation and respect. 

I know who my true friends are now. We did, ironically, exactly what you did -- we have out own group, our own setting, our own community. 

And I still live with the mean and manipulative things YALL said everyday. Even as an adult -- even with everything I’ve accomplished and am so proud of -- I’m still traumatized by being treated so poorly -- for years -- and not even realizing it. Something I’m still working on -- one of the many reasons I still have trust issues to this day. Congrats. That’s your legacy on me. aNYWAY

byeeeeeee

[spacesnail3000]

Ok so I got a legit question bc I don’t really real dark!characters imagines/fics and I just read your stucky one and I’m actually intrigued by what do you think it’s the difference between the dark narrative and actual rape kink? This is not meant to offend you in any way, I’m just curious to see your perspective on it

Hello lil homie!!! This is such an interesting question, not offensive at all! It’s kind of hard to answer, honestly. I can only really answer for myself, with my own personal  experiences and my opinions about dark stories that I’ve read and written.

This accidentally ended up being sooo long, because when can I ever be concise? So it’s all under the cut. Sorry!

So generally, people have a wide variety of reasons for reading dark! fics. Some people read them to work through trauma, some people read them just because they like them. Some people do have a rape kink, and that’s okay! People are into different things and as long as nobody is getting hurt in real life, I see no problem with it.

Being turned on by the sex scenes where someone is being raped is what I believe to be the “rape kink” that you’re referring to. I don’t feel like I have a rape kink tbh. I like the scenes where there’s a little bit of force but then eventually the Reader character or person being forced/pressured/persuaded enjoys it, despite some residual unease (more like dubcon). That is a situation I’ve experienced plenty of times, but I don’t consider myself to have been raped. Doesn’t make what happened okay, obviously in real life, enthusiastic consent is the right way, but, this is fiction.

Now, this is where I actually answer your question. The “rape kink” is separate from the “dark narrative”. A dark story doesn’t need rape/noncon/dark sex to be dark. It usually does have sex, and that does reinforce the dark narrative, but in general, the sex scenes are separate from the rest of the story and nonessential. I still write them bc I have kinks and I like to be self indulgent. But it’s really just porn.

The “dark narrative” that I’m trying to write in Brooklyn’s Sweetheart is more about the complexity of the characters and their relationships. Steve, Bucky, and Reader all have problems and are ultimately influenced by the mob in their life. What I enjoy writing is how this effects their behavior and their interactions with each other--in a negative way, obvi, that’s what makes it dark.

Steve, Bucky, and Reader all have a lot of trauma and adverse childhood experiences. It’s why Steve has anger issues and is an asshole. It’s why Bucky is so dependent on Steve and the Reader. It’s why both of the boys are controlling and manipulative with her. Ultimately, they’re scared of losing her. Also, none of them ever saw how a healthy relationship is supposed to work. The mob has corrupted them and their characters at a fundamental level, and every part of their maltreatment of the Reader has resulted from that.

That’s what I consider to be the dark narrative. The fact that they manipulate her and treat her poorly if she doesn’t behave. Now, I believe they are the way they are for a reason. It’s their upbringing, their environment. That’s why I include all this information about Steve’s and Bucky’s past; their parents dying or being abusive, Tony manipulating them, the mob corrupting them. Not to use it as an excuse for their behavior, not as a sob story, but as an explanation. Steve wants to control her and feels like he owns her because that’s all he’s been shown.

Is he redeemable? I don’t know, I think he can be. In real life, I like to believe that all people who do bad things are redeemable. I don’t like to think that bad people are bad just for the sake of it, I think their actions are a learned behavior or a result of an underlying psychological dysfunction. It’s a little bit of both in Steve’s case. Now, if he was redeemed, I don’t think it would be much of a dark story anymore. I mean, I guess it could be, I have a lot of thoughts and ideas, but this is already long enough and I need to get off of this soap box.

Anyways, thanks for asking this question, but most of all, thank you for asking it in a nice and respectful way. I’ve never personally gotten anon hate for writing this controversial material but other people have and that’s some bullshit. In the end, we’re gonna write what we’re gonna write, and as long as we tag properly, if other readers don’t like dark stories, they can ignore them.

[effervescible]

Trick or Treat 2020 letter

Hi there! Thanks for checking out my letter! First, I want to note that while I hope my likes & prompts are helpful in sparking ideas, optional ideas are optional, and I'd rather you go with a premise that you feel really good about and are jazzed to create rather than something that checks a lot of boxes but you don't feel strongly about.

General likes: adventures, complicated relationships, loyalty/BFFs being rock solid in the face of adversity, canon divergence/"for want of a nail" AUs, time travel, exploring the setting beyond what's shown in canon, outsider point of view, established relationships, found family/unusual family arrangements, in-world texts, amnesia, exploring identity issues, supernatural elements, characters wrangling with past mistakes without demonizing anyone, close friends forced to fight, missing scenes, post-canon events, characters being very competent DNWs: AUs other than canon divergence, omegaverse, cheating/infidelity, non-canon gender identities, major character death, hopeless endings (anst is fine though), excessively saccharine fluff (but general good feelings/happy stuff is fine) If you're interested in writing smut, please no scat, watersports or dubcon/noncon (though bad idea sex that characters might kick themselves for later is absolutely fine). More detailed stuffed regarding my requests: KINGDOM HEARTS I only requested Roxas as a character because I'd really like something where he is either the main character or has a strong role, but feel free to include whatever other characters you like! I adore the sea salt trio to the moon on back, but I also enjoy seeing him interact with characters he had no or few interactions with in canon. His relationship with Sora and how complicated it can be is also endlessly fascinating to me. I also enjoy bouncing him off Riku, Ven, the BBS trio and his former Organization comrades, especially those who only knew him as a dazed clueless kid and not an angry ball of pointy fury. A few canon-specific requests/notes: -If you write something post-KH3, feel free to fast forward slightly and assume Sora's been brought back somehow, you don't even have to explain how. -Please no post-KH3 resurrected/redeemed Vanitas; I felt satisfied with the resolution of his story in KH3. That said, if you wanted to include him in some other way, that's cool! -Also please no dad!Isa. I think their relationship becoming something more positive is interesting and complicated, but I just can't buy that he'd ever have that kind of emotional authority over Roxas. (Using him as a Fake Parent for plot purposes makes me chuckle though.) As far as ship stuff goes, please no Axel/Roxas (nothing against it, it's just not how I see their relationship) or Namine/Roxas (KH2 leaned too hard into the Sora/Kairi parallelism for me to enjoy it romantically.) Platonic friendships with both of them are A+++ though. tbh I'm not super shippy about him with anyone, but if you have an idea that includes a ship, I'm pretty okay with all other characters, male or female. Spooky Scary ideas: -Delving into the nature of Nobodyhood and being half a person and just being different from standard humans has a lot of potential here. And of course Roxas has identity issues ahoy. He might be in a much better place post-KH3 but that doesn't mean everything is 100% great now. -Visiting creepy places. Maybe a missing portion from Days, or something post-KH3 now that he can travel as much as he wants? -Canon divergence AUs/time travel/supernatural stuff where Stuff Goes Wrong is always interesting. Sweet Treat ideas: -Post-KH3 ADVENTURE TIME. Suddenly Roxas has a lot of free time! He and some friends deserve to go exploring. -Roxas meeting and getting to know the Twilight Town kids for real. What was that like? -General trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life now that it's his own. Getting to know the other wielders outside of a crisis situation. -Terra and Aqua dealing with Ven's sudden non-evil twin also has a lot of potential. ASSASSIN'S CREED Similar to Kingdom Hearts, I only listed Altair because I like him so much, but feel free to include most other characters! He became one of my favorite Assassins because I'm really fond of the Huge Jerkass Learns To Not Be a Jerkass and Becomes Kinda Cool Actually trope, as well as his boundless intellectual curiosity and extreme competence (while still being very flawed.) Sweet Treat ideas: -What about some slice of life, even if that life is mainly in an Assassin stronghold? The mundane side of being a mysterious stabby brotherhood is alway fun to explore, along with Altair having to actually run Masyaf once he takes power. Would especially love to see Malik by his side for the latter, because I'm sure there's a lot to mine there. -Maybe a look at younger Altair hitting some milestones as he grew up, before he became an arrogant dick. -I'm pretty fond of dad!Altair because I doubt it would come naturally to him but he'd care so much. Spooky Scary Ideas: -The Pieces of Eden are always really creepy when they activate in-game, so inventing new ancient artifacts that facilitate creepy shit happening would be a lot of fun. -An Assassination gone wrong in some way? I do enjoy angst and whump. Also, not sure which this would fall under (maybe both), but finagling time travel (either real or simulated somehow) so Altair can meet other AC characters is something I enjoy a lot. Caveat - I have not played Oddysey, so please nothing after Origins if you want to give this a try. Character-wise, I love how his relationship with Malik evolved from bitterness to ride or die. Altair and Malik as either best friends or a couple are both excellent, but if you write them as a couple during a time period when Maria Thorpe would be around, I'd prefer you just pretend she doesn't exist rather than finagle a breakup or infidelity. (I also like them as a throuple but please don't feel pressured on this - I'm mainly looking to avoid a 'Altair never really cared about her' scenario.) OVERWATCH NGL, I ship Mercy/Moira like burning, but very much as a complicated thing where their differing ethics present an insurmountable barrier between them yet they're incredibly drawn to one another both personally and intellectually, and a lot of angst ensues (well, for Mercy; I'm not sure Moira actually cares about the ethics division.) They're especially interesting to me when Moira's edges aren't smoothed down - I LIKE that she could take some really dubious actions and still be someone Mercy can't quite get over. That said! If you don't feel them as a ship, pretty much everything I just said also applies to them as professional peers/onetime friends/science rivals, just without the sexual tension. Sweet Treat Ideas: -Pre-Overwatch shutdown/Talon era where they're actually working on a project together or sparking cool new scientific ideas or just smoochin' if you go for a ship. -Likewise earlier in canon - Mercy and Moira both want to woo the other one but have VERY different ideas about how to go about it. (Babe, I did some mad science for you, isn't it romantic?) -Surely Overwatch had at least one obligatory office Halloween event -Epistolary fic feels like it could be really fun. Spooky Scary ideas: -I mean, Moira is the evil/amoral scientist trope, I feel like you could get a ton of creepy stuff just from there. -Bad idea ex sex -General clashing of ideals + angst Also I'm explicitly counting Dr. Junkenstein-verse AU fic as being the exception to my request for only canon divergence AUs. That would be a ton of fun, for either a trick or a treat.

[thatyanderecritic]

been reading a lot of yandere stuff and it feels like the targets of the yanderes' love are not allowed to feel anything besides fear or all-purpose kindness (or arousal in the dubcon/noncon works). ex: they can't feel frustrated enough at their situation to vent (without the yandere/world deciding to "punish" them violently for it). its pretty frustrating... yeah twisted love is cool, but why does it seem like a lot of yandere works lack the romance and are just rape/torture porn fantasies?

And I OOP.... You just spilled all the tea on this message box anon. 

Anyways, Kai here to answer to the call of rants! Cause this pathetic sack of flesh (That’s me, Kai!) just loves to bitch and moan about yandere stories :) So let’s ponder why this is the case...

All the blame falls onto the author. I mean, they’re the only person who’s writing these stories after all. It’s not like these characters are real, ya know? But why is it that authors just like to copy one another? Well, I have a bunch of theories but none of them particularly nice. But they’re the hard truths.

1. Authors who write yandere stories are simply unimaginative and they just copy their predecessors.

While writing is a passion, I know there’s a grind in wanting views and increasing in popularity. I can’t tell you the type of schemes Julie and I came up with to make this blog more popular on tumblr since the demographics here seem to want the yandere aesthetics or the dramatics. Sometimes, authors just like to chase those clicks and views. So the appeal to the majority and what is a safe to write is normally the go to. Since they see that other people who write ‘X’ about yanderes get to cum money, they don’t really have the incentive to think outside the box or explore an avenue they were interested in because other people might not want to explore that avenue with them.

Or they aren’t schemers (like Julie and I lol) and are simply that unimaginative. They see something they’re predecessors wrote and go, “I like that” then just copy it thinking they’re doing something original simply because they’re the one writing it now. Let me say this now before anyone mistaken me: there’s nothing wrong in writing an overdone trope or following a path of your favorite author/story. Tropes are fun and if you like a certain thing, that’s cool. There’s a reason why the liberal arts study previous works compared to, say... the sciences. You wouldn’t study a medieval medicine practice since it’s outdated. But you would study the Scarlet Letter to widen your horizon and develop your craft. And that’s the important key: “wide your horizon and develop your craft”. The problem with most writers is that they see a book and consider it the word of god. It is terrifying when I hear people say something like “I’m trying to copy Stephan King’s writing style”. Fucking yikes my dude! Besides the fact that Stephan King is generally a bad writer, you shouldn’t mimic a teacher but become your own person. Take a technique or two you like and blend it to your style. Don’t become a chameleon (unless you are going to parody/satire said author). If you’re going to do a trope, I say consider two things: 1) Are you planning to do anything with the trope? Are you going to push it forward or explore a facet that you don’t think others explored? and 2) If you don’t plan to push it forward and just do a gratuities writing of the trope, are you willing to accept that fact? Are you going to accept it and not cover your ass when someone comes around to point out  that it’s a copycat of another story (Ex. The Hunger Games Series and the Divergent Series)? Are you willing to stand up and say “Fuck yeah I was inspired by them and made my own version because I love the trope.” If you’re will to answer these two points confidently, then go for it. Cause the worst thing you can do with a trope is A) Not do anything with it and B) Lie to yourself that you’re doing something new.

This suddenly reminded me when I saw one of these writing blogs complaining about getting copy and paste writing requests. They were complaining about wanting to be original and not wanting to be a commodity. Well... first of all, if they don’t want to be a commodity then stop writing people’s requests, the fuck lol. Next it’s laughable that they think their original. Let’s ignore the fact of the complete irony that they think they’re writing something original when what they’re writing is a plot given to them by a stranger and also that they’re a fandom writer (oops, spilled the tea again). There’s really nothing “original” anymore since we can point out a specific trope and trace it back to an ancient text that done the exact same thing. What is “original” is the blending of tropes, the reactions of tropes, and the element that authors put in their writing to give it life. Cause at the end of the day, if you entertained an audience, then you won.   

2. Authors who write yandere stories secretly hate yanderes.

Okay, so this is a theory that Julie came up with and I probably won’t have a lot to write on it compared to the first point. Anyways, the theory is that some of these authors who write yandere stories just hate yanderes. I mean, look at half the shit that are yandere stories. Straight up torture, clickbait yanderes, and scumbags. This is what people imagined a yandere would be. You can at least tell the difference between someone who liked yanderes or hate them. For example, when yandere’s has a “gentle moment”. If it’s genuinely sweet and soft, then that person probably likes yanderes. If not, then that person probably doesn’t and can’t get their head out of “I hate yanderes” mode. We can also look to the first point about scheming and getting them views for tossing in a yandere. Just like the otome game community, even if the product is shit, we’ll still eat it up because it’s a product for a community that doesn’t get a lot of products of their bias. 

3. Authors who write yandere stories are simply bad at writing romance.

Again, probably not a lot to write on this point since I spent it all on the first point. Anyways, as this point state, sometimes authors are simply bad at writing romance or not interested in romance. It just happens, you know? An author will bite off more than they can chew and end up making a mediocre story. And that, combined with point one and maybe point two, then of course no one can make an actually good yandere romance story since they can’t get out of their head of “Romancing a scumbag”. Also, sometimes people read a story thinking it’s a romance story when really, it isn’t. It happens and we can’t fault the author too much since they either need more practice or it’s our fault for assuming it’s a romance to begin with. Also, can I complain about all these people who tag some stories as a romance when it’s clearly not? Now they’re the real villains here. 

4. Specific authors who write yandere stories have a fetish for rape/torture porn.

Okay okay. I get it, some people got their fetishes and coping mechanisms. Put down your pitch forks. What I’m annoyed about are people who don’t acknowledge their fetish or at least state it at the beginning of their stories. Come on, don’t be those tagging jackasses who incorrectly tag their shit. Not everyone likes your fetish. You stay in your clearly defined lane and I stay in my clearly defined lane. Cool? Cool. Well, on this website. People are pretty good at their tagging and warnings. The problem are the jackasses outside of this hell site. If tumblr is hell, the rest of the internet is the void.

Well, tbh, this point isn’t too bad. People do what people do and I can’t complain too much. And hey! I would rather read these rape/torture porn stories versus the copy cat stories. At least we get porn and the possible reward of being able to jack off to it. It’s just that nine times out of ten, the “yandere” isn’t a yandere. What a surprise. 

Anyways, I hope writing this post help vent out your frustrations anon. 

Julie: Just edited Kai’s rant here. She’s really spilling all the tea 🍵.

[bigskydreaming]

maurianasravenholdt replied to your post:

So, okay. The posts about how psychodrama and...

I read all of this and was very interested. I have to sit with it for a while, because I have questions. If, for example, a non-con fic is written by a survivor, is it not also taking away personal agency to say that ‘there are too many of that kind of fic’ or ‘someone else might be titillated by your fic so it shouldn’t be published’? Some of it feels… eerily familiar to what survivors of rape and harassment face regularly. The censorship of their coping mechanisms.

See, but this is precisely why I always make a point to stress that my aim is fostering an environment that encourages personal accountability, rather than people ducking and hiding communally behind the shield of ‘well some survivors use it to cope’ - when we all know damn well from the sheer volume of noncon, pedophilia and incest SMUT specifically....that its not all being written by survivors. Not to mention there is a significant tonal difference between various fics, with many feeling more ‘permissive’ and even encouraging of the noncon scenarios vs those that have at least a bit more ambiguity to them and suggests that the author has at least mixed feelings about what they’re writing and more likely is working through some stuff than just seeking to write masturbation fodder for people into this stuff.

Like, its impossible to know how many fics like this are written by survivors as attempts at coping mechanisms vs how many are written by nonsurvivors just for sexual gratification.....just like its impossible to know which are written by which. Nor, do I think, should it even be attempted - that’s the gatekeeping I’m so often accused of wanting. The idea that survivors must flash their trauma credentials at the top of a fic as a disclaimer for being allowed to write it.

The point is not identifying works written by survivors vs non survivors, the point is merely hold a macro level awareness that REGARDLESS of which fics are written by which authors.....it remains inarguable that there is no stretch of the imagination in which EVERY ONE OF THESE FICS is written by survivors for self-healing reasons.

So the thing about the coping mechanisms argument above all else, in terms of why I hate it so much, is because by extension....given how often its held up as a defense against criticism of these works in general....there’s no way that everyone who trots out that argument is ACTUALLY one of the survivors writing these things for self-healing.

Which is a big reason why the sight of that argument always has me raising my hackles in the first place....because again - I don’t know who’s a survivor and who isn’t, I’m not TRYING to vet anyone or tell the difference...but I don’t NEED to in order to still be aware that over the years there’s been a shitload of people who have happily used survivors that happen to agree with them or hold opinions that enable their own ‘kinks’....as kinda a human shield against criticism. And that to me, is absolutely disgusting and reprehensible, and the willingness people have to engage in that kinda bullshit is a problem in and of itself, IMO.

But all of that ultimately circles back around to....personal accountability. I’ve never argued for any kind of fandom accountability, where only certain people, appropriately vetted and appointed or what the fuck ever, get to weigh in on certain conversations or write certain content. I’ve merely always been arguing....regardless of whom these things might or might not apply to...I at LEAST want the people who hear what I have to say on these matters and find I’ve mentioned new angles or perspectives they hadn’t considered before, that make them question the....unquestioning way they’ve parroted these arguments before or written these fics assuming its no big deal because general fandom sentiment assured them it wasn’t....like, if people just stopped running from even having these arguments or hearing these criticisms at all, and just started re-examining their own choices on these matters and whether or not they’re entirely comfortable with long-unquestioned decisions or arguments once they apply a little more scrutiny to them....honestly, that’s a good enough start for me. 

Again, I don’t know who is a survivor who actually uses writing dark noncon fics as a coping mechanism, and who isn’t a survivor and just writes them because they’re their ‘guilty pleasure’ or whatever. But YOU know, as in you, any individuals reading me writing posts like this. And I don’t have to know who is whom, in order to just ask that people who DO know perfectly well what applies to them and what doesn’t, like....then THINK about these things.

I’m well aware it won’t do anything to address the people that categorically just don’t give a fuck because they actually ARE pedophiles and the like, and actually get off on all this stuff with full self-awareness as to what they’re doing and seeing appeal in it at its basest levels.....like, they’re not going to do a damn thing differently, sure. But the more people stop seeing ‘well survivors use it to cope’ as an acceptable shield to hide behind if it has nothing to do with them and their reasons for writing certain content....the more these other people have to scramble for other arguments entirely, to hide behind. Which is more and more likely to show them for what they are, and make them stick out as predators rather than community.

Censorship is useless and always will be, IMO. Because the problem isn’t that these works exist. The problem is that these works and the permissive atmosphere they’re regarded in blanket all of fandom in such a way that actual predators have abundant camouflage to move around in and act like they’re just part of the gang, like any other fan.

Censor these kind of works, shut off the faucet....doesn’t accomplish anything towards the true issue of there still being predators in all these fandom spaces....and now they simply have to be even more circumspect and subtle about grooming potential victims, etc.

But the more we build atmospheres of personal accountability in our fandom spheres, expecting people to look honestly at their own actions and impacts and make their choices based on actually asking their consciences what they’re okay with rather than just blindly repeating the things they’ve been told that save them from having to do that work...THAT actually has potential to address the real root issue. Because the more being expected to be aware of your impact and footprint among your own community becomes actually commonplace....the more the behavior of those who still refuse to prioritize anything over their own wants, 24/7, sticks out and makes people wary of that. While at the same time....the more people, minors especially, are encouraged to do their own critical thinking in regards to these matters before drawing their conclusions on what THEY feel most comfortable with.....the less vulnerable they become to the grooming tendencies of predators who RELY on this idea of just....accepting ‘this is the way fandom works though’ when presented with it by older, more established fans.

So ultimately, my beef with the coping mechanisms argument is that as long as fandom’s happy to spout it unanimously as their go-to defense against criticism on these matters, really it just goes to show its being used as a derailing tactic. Allowing the people who AREN’T survivors whom its true for, to just toss it up there without a second thought, and never have to engage honestly with the conversation we’re trying to have.

As to the validity and viability of these fics as coping mechanisms? Tbh, like....that’s not really something I’m all that interested in arguing. The concerns I outlined in that other post are still there and things I stand by, but like I also said in it, and said here....I have zero interest in arguing with someone who says “no, this helps me” and instead telling them no, you’re wrong, it doesn’t. 

I do think its still reasonable to at least ask people keep in mind the arguments about why they perhaps do as much harm as good. I do think its appropriate to expect people to be a little less confident in putting forth “this is the way this works” to newcomers and minors in fandom who look to them as examples, hear all this validation of this specific coping mechanism and assume it must be a good thing, and if it doesn’t seem to work for them too, well they must be doing it wrong. And also, I think its important that people acknowledge that coping mechanisms are NOT innately good or healthy. They’re simply tools we come up with to deal with our traumas, and like any tools, they’re not inherently good or bad, right or wrong. I mean, you start going around getting into fights to distract from shit you have bottled up and aren’t dealing with, to just feel alive, as a way to punish yourself, etc....all of those reasonings for frequent physical fights can still viably fall under the umbrella of being ‘coping mechanisms’ for being physically abused at home yourself and with no possibility of fighting back against your abuser....but does that make them automatically healthy? And does that mean that you’re not still harming the people you pick fights with just to have an excuse to beat on someone? No and no.

And so on that note, I don’t think its unreasonable to expect even survivors to keep that in mind when making decisions as well, because our desire to heal and move past our trauma is not permission or an excuse to hurt other people in the process. And again - I have zero desire to track down any single individual, figure out whether or not they’re a survivor, and quiz them on their choices and motivations and decide whether I approve or not. I just want people to stop trying to act like we all live in a vacuum and our choices can somehow affect people positively, but never negatively. Simply because we don’t want to pair any kind of responsibility with the escapism we come to fandom for.

But we talk a lot about how online fandom was ‘made’ and who made it and a lot of other things that basically signal our awareness that fandom is an artificial construct. It didn’t just exist as it is, and we stumbled across it and what we found is what we got. We made it. Its homegrown.

And there’s a big problem, IMO, when we’ve ended up in a state where we go about literally building communities....while simultaneously trying to hold on to the idea that we’re each only here to take what we can from our communities and have no responsibility towards each other, to at least honestly be aware of our impact and influence on others around us...and to make an effort to not carelessly inflict or help perpetuate harm, while blithely saying oh that has nothing to do with us. 

When we ask ourselves even the simple question of “are these fics actually helping me or do I just want to believe that, or are they a placebo maybe, or are they maybe simply desensitizing me, and either way, what effect are they having on my community at the same time? And if I can’t actually confidently say they’re helping me heal, they’re what I NEED, and other people are claiming concern and harm stemming from this overall trend I’m contributing to here....does it really hurt me to look around for other potential coping mechanisms that I might feel more confident in, or won’t carry such concerns?

The reason I object so much to being constantly accused of wanting censorship, is that’s the complete ass backwards takeaway of literally everything I’ve ever said on this subject.

After all, censorship is ultimately an external third party being responsible for deciding what is and isn’t published and proliferated, based on their reasoning.

What I’m arguing for, and always have been, is the EXACT LITERAL OPPOSITE:

Encouraging and ultimately expecting individuals to be responsible for what they do and don’t publish and proliferate, and actually APPLY their own reasoning to their choices there, rather than simply hitting “Publish” without a second thought and waiting for the kudos and comments to roll in while preparing to ignore all criticism, regardless of what it may be.

[vecna]

For fandom meme-swtor?

Send me a fandom!

This one isn’t as spicy as the Dragon Age one, but I still got Wordy.

Also there’s lots of KOTFE/KOTET/etc spoilers in here, so don’t read if you don’t want to see em. (Looking at you, Chignon.)

The character(s) I first fell in love with:

My own OCs haha.

But more seriously: It was actually Darth Malgus! I was always going to play a Star Wars MMO, let’s be real. But when they started posting promo videos and cinematics for the game, my Sith-loving ass immediately gravitated to that guy haha. And then, it turned out he had the same VA as The Architect from Dragon Age, and that was it for me.

If we’re talking about companions, then it was probably Malavai Quinn. Sith Warrior was the first class I got to 50, and Quinn was the first companion that I really got overly attached to haha.

The character(s) I never expected to love as much as I do now:

Most (not all, but most) of the “new” companions that came in with KOTFE and beyond. I was initially really sour when I realized we were losing all our class storyline companions, and they were being replaced with a new crew of Lana, Theron, Koth, my mother-in-law Senya, etc. Especially when they – at the time – said we’d eventually get our class companions back, but it would be a while. So I started KOTFE sure that I would hate the new crew because I would rather have the old one…. and ended up liking them quite a lot! Mostly, lol.

The character(s) everyone else loves that I don’t:

Doc is the main one, jesus christ. If you didn’t read my last post, I just really really really do not mesh well with overly sexual and Adult Humor-y characters who scold you with a “You’re no fun.” if your OC isn’t into it. Doc is the worst example of it that I’ve ever encountered. I always play a male JK, and the fact nearly all of his convos amount to, “Boy, you and me are going to be up to our eyeballs in vagina when this war ends, amirite?” “You don’t want that? Come on, the Jedi Code doesn’t say you can’t FUCK, live a little.” “You’re no fun. Well, more for me.” drives me NUTS. This combined with how he interacts with Kira just does me in. Shoves him out an airlock.

Dark Side Jaesa is another big one, albeit mainly for OOC reasons. I just hate the fact that she even exists, really. I get the appeal of a story where a Sith corrupts a Jedi to the Dark Side, but the way she does a total 180 into gross hedonism while Serving You always just makes me cringe. Plus there’s the fact that straight dudebro gamers are really nasty with her, and she’s the main companion I always see men put into the slave bikini outfit, and just yikes.

Also just a lot of one-off NPCs that everyone goes crazy for and ships their OCs with, but I  constantly forget who they even are lol. Attros Finn comes to mind. I don’t hate them! Just don’t get the appeal I guess.

The character(s) I love that everyone else hates:

Lord Scourge, although I’m not sure he’s really hated as much anymore. I just remember at launch, when all of the overly invested Revan stans absolutely HATED him because of what he did in the Revan novel, and then flooded the tags with vitriol over being “stuck” with him as a Knight, and having to hear about Revan in his companion convos. It was really, really tiresome! Maybe it’s because I never really cared that deeply about Revan as my personal character, but I could not understand the backlash.

Anyway, Lord Scourge is my favorite companion in the game by a long shot. I love the conversations you can have with him about the Jedi vs Sith, and I love the mutually respectful tone those conversations take. (Where other Bioware companions who disagree with you have a tendency to just go, “You’re wrong.” and shut you down.) The fact that he’s so tied in with the plot just makes me love him more, really.

The character(s) I used to love but don’t any longer:

Cytharat, Koth and Theron mostly. Although this takes a bit of explaining, and is a bit Discourse-y – because I really appreciate them as characters, but their role and Bioware’s decisions with them is what made me no longer love them.Here’s the thing: Bioware has a bad habit of introducing male characters that are bisexual, and then having them betray you, leading to situations where they either get murdered or vanish from the narrative entirely. Meanwhile, bisexual women like Lana are untouched and around forever.

I was overjoyed when I first saw Cytharat. Y'all know I’m a ho for purebloods, and the fact that he was Malgus’ apprentice was fascinating to me – and then he turned out to be a bi romance. I got very hyped for him, only to find out he dies like 5 minutes later – or if you save him, he’s never seen again. Huge letdown.

Koth was the first character I fell in love with of the new KOTFE crew – I even initiated a romance with him! – but it quickly became obvious there’s no way to play the expansion without him turning on you judgementally at some point or another. And then, hey big surprise, you can kill him or else he’s never seen again.

Theron I’ve loved since we first got to know him in the Forged Alliances content, but that whole storyline where he seemingly betrays you out of nowhere, only to later reveal he didn’t actually, idk. And then, once again, you either kill him or he disappears from the story. It felt like a weirdly shoehorned in plot for shock value, and robbed us of a second bi MOC character.

You see the trend here? I want to love these characters, but Bioware continually electing to do this shit with bi dudes is tiresome and makes me unwilling to invest any interest in the characters anymore.

The character(s) I would totally smooch:

None.

The character(s) I’d want to be like:

None really come to mind? I just want to be a Jedi, come on.

The character(s) I’d slap:

Hunter all day every day.

The pairing(s) that I love:

Haha, this question is hard, because most of the SWTOR ships I’m invested in are between my OCs and my friends’ OCs.

However.

SCOURGE / KNIGHT IS THE BIG ONE, THE ULTIMATE, THE ALL-TIME FAVORITE. It’s really hard to describe just how much I love this ship, and just how much time and energy I’ve invested into it over the past… 8 years wow……….. To the point of being almost territorial. And it’s also near impossible for me to talk about why I love it, because the version I ship is so personalized with my specific Jedi Knight, especially since it had to live exclusively in headcanon land for so long. Scourge is, more or less, my Knight’s support pillar and the thing that grounds him and keeps him humble, in a world where my Knight is surrounded by people who expect him to be a pure flawless messiah. But, I mean. How can you have a man look at your character and say, “I’ve waited 300 years to see your face.” and not immediately ship it. And then I finally got vindicated after all these years when it was made canon!

I really love Arcann / Knight for a lot of the same reasons as the above, but I just really adore his one (1) romance convo haha. Granted, yes he did a lot of fucked up things, but I was so grateful when he had like… a Zuko-esque redemption. Where he comes to your character and firmly believes he doesn’t deserve forgiveness, and especially doesn’t deserve affection, and is instead met with acceptance and a chance to grow and heal. That’s the good shit.

Others:

Lana / Warrior and Lana / Inquisitor are my particular jam. I endlessly enjoy the mutual respect between Lana and those particular PCs.

Malavai Quinn / Sith Warrior is a longtime fave, and although I DO love him with a female Warrior, I really do with he’d been an option for dudes as well. And I feel the same in reverse about Vette / Warrior – I do like her with a male Warrior, and it’s so sweet and wholesome and endearing, but man I wish she’d been an option for female Warriors.

I ship Risha with every woman – especially Vette and Sumalee – and will be salty until my grave that Risha / f!Smuggler isn’t possible, because I love Risha with the Smuggler but she gives me powerful WLW vibes.

Agent / Watcher Two is also a lowkey favorite, but I ALSO wish it could be done with a female Agent instead. Same with Agent / Raina Temple.

Agent / Vector is very sweet, but again, I will be salty until my grave that it couldn’t be done with a male Agent.

Can you guys sense a running theme here?

Finally: NGL I love Valkorion / Senya, even though that ended in pure disaster.

And people around here used to ship Keeper / Lokin, and tbh, I still kinda love it lol.

The pairing(s) that I despise:

In general terms, I fucking hate every single romance that involves the male PC romancing his padawan or underling, especially since most of them seem like very young girls. I don’t know why this is so pervasive in the game, but yikes Bioware. Consular/Nadia is the worst offender, but they’re all just cringe central for me.

But the big one is Agent / Hunter. This would have gotten me run off Tumblr back in the day, but god I hate this pairing. I mentioned in the last post that I just will never enjoy ships where the two characters actively want to murder each other, but. This just gets magnified for me with Agent/Hunter, where all the mind control and blatant abuse comes into play – and people have a tendency to write noncon rape fic of the two and present it as ~sexy rivalmance~, which is awful. Add to this the “no homo” reveal where Hunter turns out to be a woman, after getting everyone hyped about a dude flirting with their male character the whole game, and it’s just a huge No Thanks from me all around.

And for largely personal reasons I just don’t like seeing female Knights with Scourge. Listen, for YEARS  I was treated like a pariah for shipping Scourge with my male Knight, while being unable to find Scourge content that didn’t have a female Knight plastered all over him. Even though he wasn’t even a romance option one way or another, the way the fandom treated m!Knight/Scourge with disdain while ardently shipping f!Knight/Scourge was offputting as shit. And then, after years, he was made a romance option for women AND men, and all these awful people acted like they were robbed, the way people reacted when Kaidan and Jaal were made bi in Mass Effect. I’m so tired. I never want to see Scourge with a female Knight again.

[strange-destinations]

Dear Yuletide Writer 2019

(As usual, please ignore this if you don’t know what this is about!)

Hello, and thank you so much for writing something for me!! I adore seeing what people come up with for Yuletide and I am super excited for what you end up producing. I want this to be a good and enjoyable experience for you as a writer, so don’t try to second-guess yourself too much - just have fun making whatever it is!

Squicks/DNWS - no sex, please! (And it also follows that I’d rather like to avoid any noncon, kinky stuff even if it’s nonsexual, any other sort of sexual content, etc - that’s just not my sort of thing, really.) Romance is all right, if that’s the way that you want to take things, but I much prefer close friendships and family dynamics. However!! I am pretty much completely fine with body horror/violence, hurt/comfort, etc. 

I love good dialogue, character interaction, twist endings, and imaginative plots - and worldbuilding! Happy endings are preferred but not necessary if it just isn’t working for you.

In general - if you’re thinking about making something gay/trans/queer/ace in any way, you should probably absolutely go for it, because I’m wild for that sort of thing.

AUs are… fine and good, as far as I can think of! (Obv no A/B/O or sex-related stuff please, but) canon divergence, fantasy, high school, etc seem all good to me! Especially if there’s a whole lot of clever nods to original canon in there. 

In addition, I'm always welcome to receiving stuff in interesting and unusual mediums/styles. This includes stuff like Interactive Fiction (additional info here) and multimedia stuff.

Anyway, fandom time. Let's do this, y'all!

->

Fandom: Ruby Redfort series - Lauren Child

Available:  I managed to acquire a copy of the full series online via my local library - and the physical copies were at my local library too. I don’t have a link to them, I’m afraid.

Tvtropes page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/RubyRedfort

Characters: *** Any from *** Ruby Redfort, Hitch, Blacker, Clancy Crew 

About the fandom: I just love it a lot.  I dragged its fandom out of the depths of Tumblr singlehandedly a few years ago and have been doggedly creating content for it ever since. There's just something really compelling about 'bright young kid gets accidentally adopted by spy agency' (yes i know that's not EXACLY what happens but I can dream, right?)

Prompts/suggestions:

Like I said above, I really like the idea of Ruby being essentially adopted by the whole Spectrum team.

I’d love to see some casefic! Blacker and Ruby working together to solve a puzzle or problem - either serious or mundane - or Hitch and Ruby on a stakeout of some sort. Or both!

Some general stuff I like - heists, murder mysteries, rescue missions, characters playing games (e.g. Travelling Lemon, word games, throwing increasingly ridiculous hypotheticals at each other) because they're bored or similar,

Spectrum office shenanigans - stuff that happens between books, when Ruby and everybody else aren’t in mortal danger and that LB will most likely glare disapprovingly at.

On the angstier side of things, if you want to stick Ruby in even more mortal danger than usual I am ALL RIGHT WITH THAT. Rescue missions hell yeah.

AUs??? AUs!!! Modern!AU with Ruby doing extreme sports vlogs and occasionally failing to hide the fact that she's part of a secret spy agency. Is Blacker a hacker? Or a fantasy/medieval AU? Or Ruby Redfort, in space!

I feel like I’ll be delighted with whatever you create, tbh. I can’t think of many ways you could go wrong with it.

->

Fandom: Bernice Summerfield (Big Finish Audio)

Available:  Via the Big Finish website, and all of the boxsets from Epoch to New Frontiers are available for free on Spotify! Just look up Bernice Summerfield there.

Tvtropes page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/BerniceSummerfield

Characters: *** Any from *** Bernice Summerfield, Third Doctor (Warner)

About the fandom: It’s like if Indiana Jones was shorter, actually did his job, and was a kickass woman who was also the Doctor’s companion at one point! Several points. And also she has a considerably larger family than Indiana Jones. Her spinoff kind of transcends a lot of forms of media - she’s in comics, print, animations, audio dramas, and one really hilariously terrible sort-of-fanfilm made by Lisa Bowerman and Sylvester McCoy when they were on some kind of cruise together. And it more or less transcends genre too. There’s been musical episodes right alongside the episode where someone very dear to her manipulates someone else very dear to her into killing (you guessed it) someone who is also very dear to her. It’s a wild ride. Anyway.

Prompts/suggestions:

The Warner!Doctor and Benny era of this series particularly delights me, because Benny and the Doctor just have such a lovely dynamic. There's a bit in the writer's guide for this era that mentions that the Warner!Doctor 'seems to be a grouch' but is actually 'a playful spirit who loves to have fun', and... I just love that? And there is literally no fic with them! Which is an absolute travesty.

I particularly like: heists, murder mysteries, rescue missions, adventures, playing around with genre and style.

It's Doctor Who/Bernice Summerfield!! Which means there's an infinite wealth of planets and times and worlds to explore, if you choose to set it in the regular universe. If, on the other hand, you choose to place it in the Unbound universe, slowly collapsing in on itself, there's probably a lot you can do with this too

The found family dynamic between them!! It's clear that, despite all the snarking and sniping, they really do adore each other quite a bit. If you'd lean into that, I'd be forever grateful.

Apologies for no real specific suggestions - mostly, I just would really like to see these two having fun together and being buds. But also? The angst is good too. Make me laugh/smile or make me hurt, I don't care which.

 ->

Fandom: Beanworld - Larry Marder

Available:  ...I have literally no idea where you can pick this up. I first read it at my local library. I think you can get copies at various book retailers?

Tvtropes page: Non-existent. I should rectify that.

Characters: *** Any from *** Professor Garbanzo, Mr Spook, Beanish, Heyoka (but honestly please throw in everybody in there. I love them all so much)

About the fandom: It's a weird, brilliant, complete unique experience of a comic book set in a world where the rules are very different to ours!

Prompts/suggestions:

I know that pretty much the entire point of Beanworld is that the characters are not human in the least, But I can't help but wonder what a human AU would be like!! Beanish as a struggling art student, the Hoi'Polloi as the local street gang with an unfortunate gambling habit, Heyoka as the weird chaotic neutral genderqueer acrobat who babysits occasionally and is always standing on their head. Or any other direction you want to take it in!! I adore seeing familiar characters in settings that they couldn't possibly find themselves in, in canon.

Bean shenanigans!! What sort of things do they get up to on their Goof-Off Days that we don't see on-screen?

Explore some of the friendships/relationships between the characters! I love some of those good good Bean interactions. For example (but not at all limited to):

Professor Garbanzo and Mr Spook - the ultimate BroTP. I particularly love how well they get along even when you wouldn’t expect them too - how Mr Spook isn’t really a scientific sort of guy but is really encouraging and helpful to her endeavors. It’s good and soft.

Mr Spook and the Chow Sol’jers! A dedicated fighting team that work together and protect each other every day. I’m now wondering what the Chow Sol’jer in-jokes are. They’ve gotta have some, right?

Beanish and Dreamishness - the greatest love story ever told! (If you do end up including this relationship in particular, I’d prefer it if it wasn’t the focus.) Additionally, I’d really love it if you could play around with the idea of love in the Big•Big•Picture being different to how we see it/perceive it in our world! I know it’s kind of vague, and it’s definitely not necessary, but I figured I might as well put it out there.

Heyoka and... everyone. Literally everyone. I love how she interacts with the Beans - how they’re kind of confused as to how she works, but accept her as one of them anyway - and how she interacts with people outside of the Beanworld. The sequence when she’s falling upwards and through the Inspiration Constellation, and how the Constellation is so pleasantly amused by and encouraging of her - it’s really nice. And her as the teacher to the Pod’ll’pool babies!! She’s such a cool character.

Other AUs or canon divergences! Can't think of anything specific off the top of my head, but I'm sure there's some stuff out there.

Literally anything that takes stuff from canon and extends upon it! Especially if you’re playing into the amazingly bizarre and extensive world of the Big•Big•Picture. Because the rules there are definitely not at all the same as they are for our world, and that delights me to no end. I have so many questions about it that I’m nearly certain aren’t going to be answered anytime soon. Like, where does the Thin Lake/Four Realities/Hoi-Polloi zone end?? There’s gotta be an end to it somewhere. Are there other islands like the Beanworld? 

->

Fandom: Rainbow Magic series - Daisy Meadows

Available: on your younger sister's bookshelf or at pretty much any library, bookstore or garage sale you'd care to visit.

Tvtropes page: 

Characters: *** Any from *** Rachel Walker, Kirsty Tate, Titania, Oberon (but feel free to throw in any of the million-plus other fairies that exist at your discretion)

About the fandom: Oh, jeez. What to say about this? It's such a bizarre interest of mine. The series has suffered from intense seasonal rot, with literally every book following the same formula. And there are hundreds of books. But it's such a large part of my childhood that it's hard to not feel some sort of affection for it. Plus, there's so many interesting things to explore!

Prompts/suggestions:

Feel free to throw some Kirsty/Rachel shipping in there, because we all know those two were lesbian as all hell. I'd prefer it not to be the focus, though!

Any exploration of the fact that the girls have been doing this for far longer than is strictly reasonable with no complaints, questions, or problems. They've been through like ten Christmas specials and don't appear to have aged a day since the beginning of the series. What's up with that, huh?

To that end - there's plenty of myths and legends about the rules that fae traditionally have. What about applying some of these to the RM fairies? Are Titania and Oberon the leaders of the Seelie Court, with Jack Frost as the Unseelie leader? Do they do the whole Changeling thing? Are Kirsty and Rachel Changelings?

(And bear with me for a second while I point you at a specific line from the very first book, because I think it's very good inspiration for the whole 'giving a fairy your name' thing:)

Kirsty wanted to ask the fairy so many things. But she didn't know where to start.

"Tell me your names, quickly," said the fairy. She fluttered up into the air again. "There's so much to be done, and we must get started right away."

Rachel wondered what the fairy meant. "I'm Rachel," she said.

"And I'm Kirsty," said Kirsty. "But who are you?"

"I'm the Red Rainbow Fairy - but you can call me Ruby," the fairy replied.

Very suspicious.

A Discord server I'm on has been throwing around the idea of the fairies (yes. All of them.) ending up as humans in the human world abruptly, and having to adjust to living life without magic - and dealing with the fact that somehow, their magical domains are functioning perfectly without them. Which is a very compelling idea. How do Rachel and Kirsty deal with their now-possibly-permanent, no-longer-magical neighbours? How are Titania and Oberon coping, now that they no longer have to rule a whole kingdom? What sort of the things do the fairies get up to? Where do they stay?

Aged-up Kirsty and Rachel get called upon to deal with new adult problems that are blooming in the fairy world. (Tiara The Tax Evasion Fairy, anyone?)

...or anything else.

->

Again, thank you for writing for me, and I hope you get something awesome in return from your own writer! Good luck!

[dabistits]

What would your ideal solution be for the problems you see?

ideally i’d start with a much more wide-ranging study about rape fic/fantasy, community proliferation, impact on community norms and attitudes, etc. and let that inform more action (i have my own thoughts, but it’d be very interesting to actually have data…)

for now though, i’d simply say that the onus of keeping that kind of content away from wider fandom should on those who write it, not on everyone else to avoid. that means more than ‘block tags’ or ‘don’t like don’t read’ - you should actively have to go looking, perhaps on a specific corner of the internet. i’d probably also discourage that corner from having a community tbh, since building a community that consists of people who identify as “noncon” consumers is having some pretty awful results😂

[pinkheichou]

Thank you for the reply. It’s interesting to read your take on it but I can’t help but feel slightly like you’re judging the use of dubcon and noncon a little? It’s obviously completely okay if you or anyone avoids these topics, and maybe I‘m sensitive because there is so much hostility towards noncon writers in my part of the fandom. I just want to remind people that the reasons for writing noncon aren’t only kink related but often a way to cope or vent, and we already face a lot of judgement.

I know that people do write non-con or dub-con without presenting it as a “loved kink” of theirs or something they romanticise. It’s just… that (for me at least) they are on the rarer side. If only you’d know how many times I clicked on a fic and was met with (bc there were no tags) stories where it was plotless/pwp rape and that’s it; rape bc the writer “likes it when A forces themselves on B” or whatever. I won’t deny that there may be fics where everything around this stuff has a reason and isn’t glorified and the plot is giving more than plainless nothing where many questions are left unanswered.

I guess using this type of writing to cope and vent is fine as long as warnings and additional notes are made for those who can’t deal with it. PLEASE always write the proper tags y’all, it’s important for everyone.

And I think I can say it now, just so that you won’t be left confused if you ever end up checking out my fics. I’m someone who rather avoids reading dub-con/non-con (because of the experiences I made and tbh I am more keen on other problematic stuff :/ ), but that doesn’t mean I can’t write such a thing. Actually I did. My dark Rivarmin fic deals with one of the two mentioned issues and that’s because it’s a serial killler/victim AU, so nothing is glorified there. Nothing graphic though because I like to think and write more about dark stuff that doesn’t include any of these two. And it’s clear right away that the Levi/Armin ship isn’t healthy in my story. All intended, however.

In the end you can write what you want, but a writer has to make sure that they aren’t surprising a reader witht their “dark stuff”, so trigger warnings are a must. I hope you don’t have to deal with haters who judge you for writing what you are writing. Everyone is free to not read something that they don’t like and if some people don’t understand that, then it’s a waste dealing with their attacks. Stay safe in your fandom.