#i also love trans harry potter idk those fics are so good

[maladaptivewriting]

i don’t usually headcanon regulus as trans, not to say i don’t read and love fics with trans reggie, but it’s just not in my personal repertoire.

i do however headcanon dorcas as trans. always. even if i’m reading someone else’s fanfic, dorcas is trans unless otherwise stated. 

[byesexualsatan]

OTPS/SHIP LIST

i feel like you get to know people better when you know what they ship so... here’s a list of my past & current ships ?? im bored, can u tell?

also if u know me, ignore this ty 

MILEVEN aka LITERAL KIDS PLS😭

mike wheeler and eleven/jane hopper from stranger things

otp in late 2017

personal hcs: they’re queer/bi. 

eleven def uses they/them pronouns

tbh i prefer byler and elmax now

background ships i like: joyce/hopper, jonathan/nancy... steve being bi and robin being the iconic lesbian that she is

DAMONA aka simonte

... simona and dante from the argentinian series simona

LMAO this one is from when i thought i was straight

otp in 2018

uhh bi dante and pan simona bc why not

literally forgot they existed until now

please don’t bully me

i truly thought i was straight

background ships: marisiena, junior/ailín

i was one of THE FOUNDERS of this ship istg... i was THERE when we were deciding the ship name (i voted for simonte but damona won smh)

SIMBAR aka bi awakening 

simón and ambar from the disney tv show soy luna 

yeah... sorry

otp in mid 2018

they’re gay!!! 

bi she/they punk ambar yesyesyes

totally forgot about them but they’re sexc af

so glad they were endgame

background ships: idk but luna is pan 

STEVEBUCKY aka stucky aka the end of the line

so... steve rogers (captain america) and bucky barnes (the winter soldier) 

otp in late 2018/early 2019? 

personal hcs: trans steve, bi bucky 

favourite fanfic trope: found family, high school smau

fuck endgame, all my homies hate endgame

background ships i like: thorbruce, scotthope, nat/sharon

im with u til the end of the line, pal :c

PERALTIAGO aka jamy 

jake peralta and amy santiago from brooklyn nine nine

started shipping them in 2018/2019 (i have no idea)

personal hcs: bi jake

favourite fanfic trope: casefics, pretend marriage 

(THEY’RE FUCKING MARRIED WITH CHILD NOW,,, BUT IN THOSE FICS IT WASN’T REAL YET)

background ships i like: gina and rosa, holt and kevin

PETERMJ aka spideychelle

peter parker (spider-man) and michelle mj jones !!1! from the mcu

otp in 2019

personal hcs: they’re both bi, mj is demisexual too

he/they & she/they solidarity

... trans/demiboy peter and demigirl mj🥺 

fav fanfic trope: school trip to stark tower, meeting the parents/avengers, smau 

obviously let’s ignore infinity war and endgame

background ships i like: ironstrange, pepperony, shuri/any woman

THORBRUCE aka gammahammer aka gays in space

thor odinson and bruce banner (hulk) from the mcu

started shipping them in 2019

personal hcs: thor also likes women

they both use they/them and neopronouns too 

fav fanfic trope: university au, smau, no civil war, no infinity war

this one is from my stan twitter era

background ships: stucky, tony/strange, nat/sharon, scotthope

CARMUEL aka spanish sexiest couple

carla rosón and samuel garcía from élite

otp in late 2019

...they’re bi. bc yes. and he/they samuel. 

she/vers carla sounds very sexc to me

i ‘shipped’ them in s1 simply bc they were both very hot and when it became canon in s2 i SCREAMED

deserved so much better.

INEFFABLE HUSBANDS aka i almost forgot about this one, sorry

crowley and aziraphale from good omens

uhh started shipping them in 2019/2020 ?

bi genderfluid crowley, non-binary aziraphale

idk they’re being anyways

fav trope: raising children!! confusing ppl bc crowley is sometimes a snake!!

background ships: uhh anathema & newton ig?

WOLFSTAR aka the one true way (and... puppies, too??)

sirius black and remus lupin from the harry potter saga

otp since 2020 (thank u, @aretheygayvideos​)

personal hcs: he/they gay sirius, he/they bi remus 

also love nonbinary remus and genderqueer sirius

fav fanfic trope: getting together !!!! FLUFF!!!!

background ships i like: jegulus, regulus/barty jr, dorlene, jily

VILLANEVE aka murdering wlw

villanelle and eve polastri from killing eve

s.s.t in 2020

she/they bisexual villanelle and pansexual eve

fav fanfic trope: flower/coffee shop :)

ty tumblr for spaming my dashboard when s3 came out bc that forced me to watch it to understand all the posts

sandra oh is the love of my life

ANDERPERRY aka this one is for the depressed dark academia folk

neil perry and todd anderson from dead poets society 

started shipping them in 2020

personal hcs: nonbinary neil, trans todd, both gay/androsexual

demiboy/nonbinary todd has a special place in my heart

fav fanfic trope: ALIVE!NEIL, roommates

background ships i like: charlie/knox, meeks/pitts

ZUKKA aka my favourite blue/red gays

sokka and zuko from avatar the last airbender < 3

started shipping them in 2020

personal hcs: gay zuko, genderfluid and bisexual sokka

sokka has adhd !! zuko is autistic !

favourite fanfic trope: fake dating

background ships i like: suki/yue*, ty lee/azula/mai, kataang

* please go check out s4pphos’ ig edit of them 

CASMUND aka royal pirate gays !!

caspian x and edmund pevensie from the chronicles of narnia

started shipping them in dec. 2020

personal hcs: bi caspian, mlm edmund 

love bisexual and nonbinary edmund too bc 👉projecting👈

fav fanfic trope: just. the plot of the movies but gay.

background ships: the dawn treader (ha-ha, get it? bc ship? im so funny)

tbh i don’t REALLY ship them that hard i just hate caspian/susan lmao

(susan is a lesbian)

BELLARKE aka m/f sexual tension™

bellamy blake and clarke griffin from the 100

started shipping them in 2021

personal hcs: she/they/xe bi clarke, he/ze omni bellamy

favourite fanfic trope: single parent bellamy, modern au (college, roommates)

i saw 2 seasons with my mom and then moved so,,, fuck i gotta finish it

EXTRAS

the “i don’t really ship them but if they’re together it’s better”

ty lee and mai

john watson and sherlock holmes

suki and yue

regulus black and james potter

azula and katara

regulus black and barty crouch jr

bugs bunny and daffy duck

emma and mr knightley

carol danvers and maria rambeau 

valkyrie and carol danvers

natasha romanoff and sharon carter

sam wilson and bucky barnes !!! (post endgame)

charlie “nuwanda” dalton and knox overstreet

dorcas meadowes and marlene mckinnon

azula, ty lee and mai

klaus hargreeves and dave

paul coates and alec hardy

cassie and maddy

jules and rue 

rue and lexi

fleabag and the hot priest

. . . more to add, probably

[firelxdykatara]

Hey, I've been following you for while now, and I've noticed that you are really good at being critical of the things you love, and I just wanna ask, how? This may not make sense, but whenever I love something I loathe to look at the bad sides of it, and I don't know to overcome this. I suspect it's because of the people around me(online spaces,, mostly) who take criticism way too far, and if something has bad stuff in it, they automatically think you're a bad person, if that makes sense?

Idk, I just wanna to like something while acknowledging the bad things, or could've-been-improved things about it lol

Ok, first of all, I want to let you know that being vocally critical about the things you love is not necessary.

What I mean by that is, you do not have to justify why you love a thing, no matter how 'problematic' it is, with 'i know it's problematic, but' or any variant thereof. You can just say 'I like this thing' and leave it at that, or reblog fandom posts, or whatever. Shipping and other forms of fandom engagement are not activism, and there's really no need to self-flagellate over your love of something that has issues, because everything has issues (especially if you dig hard enough), and no one else is entitled to that energy from you. It takes work to dig deep into a thing, especially if it's to critically analyze it, and not everyone feels the need or desire to do that work, and that's ok.

That said, you also shouldn't pretend that reasonable criticisms of the thing you love don't exist. As an example, if you love Kataang, you don't have to say 'i know the EIP kiss was problematic, but I still love their relationship and ship them together'. (Although if you do want to talk about the issues that exist in their canon development, while still loving them as a couple, that is also valid!) However, you absolutely shouldn't say 'I think it's totally fine that Aang kissed Katara without her consent and actually that's a healthy and romantic moment in their relationship' or 'it's fine that Aang never apologized because kissing her is what made Katara realize she liked him'. (Both of which being actual takes I've seen in my fandom excursions.) You can simply choose to enjoy the good parts of their relationship, reblog fics and art and gifsets and metas/headcanons you like, etc. Some people simply don't have the energy or even desire to do deep dives into fandoms for any reason, and this kind of passive engagement with a fandom is perfectly ok.

As for me, personally, I think it's because I just... have lots of words, and thoughts, all the time, about everything I consume. There are often things I notice--either at the time, or in hindsight when I go back and reread or rewatch something (see: how much more I loathe Xander Harris every time I watch btvs)--that I would've done differently or I think should have been changed, or that may sour certain aspects of the work for me, even if I still enjoy the whole. I love atla, but I also see the flaws in the worldbuilding and writing, and will talk about those because it often coincides with my other interests--like zutara, and how I think the story could have played out if that were the endgame rather than what canon actually gave us.

For a bit of a more controversial example--I still love Harry Potter. I don't engage with it as a fandom nearly as much as I used to--I'll reblog the occasional post, but otherwise it simply isn't an active interest of mine. But I know that the books themselves are full of issues, and I'd never begrudge anyone their dislike/hatred of the series given the author's own bigotry. I also refuse to give JKR a single cent of my money, and as a queer woman I can only hope that some day, when the series finally enters the public domain, the old bat rolls in her grave at the popular reboot featuring trans girl!Harry and her adventures. I completely understand why a lot of the flaws in the books are looked at much more critically now than they used to be, given recent revelations about the author's own beliefs--but the books are still important to me, were a formative influence on my life, and I can't hear so much as a single bar of Hedwig's Theme without wanting to burst into tears.

So, at the end of the day (i guess this would be the TL;DR:) your blog is your own space and it is for whatever thoughts you choose to put out into the blogosphere, whatever those may be. If focusing on the bad parts of something you love is distressing to you, then don't! As long as you know they are there (and don't begrudge other people who may feel differently or more strongly about those flaws than you), that's all that can really be expected--and, again, no one has the right to demand critical energy from you. Tumblr blogs are not hubs of social activism, and everyone has the right to decide what content they wish to create, spread, and consume. People may not want to follow you if you post a lot about something they think is deeply flawed without touching on those flaws, and that is their right, just as it's your right to post whatever you like on your blog. If someone is going to think you're a bad person based on what you do or don't say about fictional people and worlds on your blog, then that probably isn't someone you wanted following you or engaging with your content in the first place.

I kind of rambled a bit, I hope that I answered your question and you find this helpful!

[thevagueambition]

Tagged by @everyonewasabird - thanks!

1) how many works do you have on AO3?

48

2) what’s your total AO3 word count?

207,828

3) how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Let me go count 😂 I tend to write oneshots for random things then never write more for that fandom (when it even has what can be called a fandom lol)

Hmm, something like 24?

Les Mis and Harry Potter are definitely what I’ve written for the most. I’ve written a fair bit of Star Wars stuff as well, but most of that is unpublished wips.

4) what are your top five fics by kudos?

Oh god, I don’t like the first two anymore

1. Mr. Harry Potter, a trans guy!Harry ficlet (this was originally just a headcanon post)

2. Practice, a B99 bi trans guy!Jake ficlet

3. Aching for You, MDZS Wangxian porn with plot (that novel blue balled me lmao)

4. Just Like That, Disco Elysium Harry/Kim (I still really like this one, it was one of the first in that tag too)

5. Handsome as ever, Doctor Who fic where Thirteen and her companions meet Jack Harkness (written before his canon reappearance)

5) do you respond to comments? why or why not?

Usually, yeah. Not if it’s just a heart of a single word comment, though. Not that I don’t appreciate those comments, there’s just not really anything to respond to. If someone does it on every chapter of a longer fic, I might go like “thanks for taking the time to comment!” on one of them to show that I appreciate it.

6) what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Hmm, I’m more of a hurt/comfort than outright angst sort of guy... particularly in terms of endings, I really like things to be really angsty but then end on that note of “things are going to be okay”?

That said, it’s probably In Other Circumstances, a fic based on the movie Joyeux Noël, which is already fairly angsty, given the subject matter (that time during WW1 opposing armies celebrated Christmas together). That, or the Dumbledore fic To Be At Peace.

7) do you write crossovers? if so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Not really. I do have a little bit of a Les Mis/Order of the Phoenix mash-up where Dumbledore’s Army do a student activism after Dumbledore is sacked (Lamarque is dead!) lying around somewhere, but I think that’s about it. God, that was a good idea though. I should get back on that some day.

8) have you ever received hate on a fic?

I think I once got one from a terf on that trans!Harry one but it was pretty vague lol

9) do you write smut? if so what kind?

Yeah, occasionally. I have a lot of kinks in the bdsm area of things, so that’s always pretty apparent in the smut I write. I just think power dynamics are sexy lmao

A lot of the smut I’ve written is original work stuff though, so that’s not up in the same place as my fanfic.

10) have you ever had a fic stolen?

Doubt it

11) have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, Just Like That was translated into Chinese.

I’ve also personally translated a Odin/Loki fic I wrote in Danish into English. Fun fact, it’s way harder to translate than if I’d written it in English in the first place. I like to write fic in Danish where it makes sense to, though.

12) have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope. I’ve partcipated in events where I’ve drawn and the other person written, but never co-written. Frankly I’m not even sure how that works.

13) what’s your all-time favourite ship?

Gah, idk. All-time, huh? I shift between fandoms too much for that.

Obviously I ship Enjolras/Grantaire a lot and have for a long time, but then I’m also super particular about what I want that to look like lol.

I still really love Sirius/Remus even after all these years. Disco Elysium’s Harry/Kim deserves mention here as well, although that’s a lot newer, so it’s difficult to talk about in an “all-time” sense.

Despite not really caring about any aspect of Marvel anymore, I also still really love Matt/Foggy from the Netflix version of Daredevil.

14) what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

A lot of unposted stuff 😂 Maybe once I finish Elysium I’ll pick one of those up again... If it’s a wip I care about, I won’t start posting it till I have a good sense that I’ll continue being able to update.

15) what are your writing strengths?

Hmm, I think I’m good at inserting myself into the mindset of the protagonist. This is also why I practically never write alternating pov, I’m filtering everything through that protagonist so shifting around would be harder. Dialogue tends to come easily to me as well.

16) what are your writing weaknesses?

Descriptions, moving characters around in space in particular. On a more meta level, plotting things out to the right degree where I still actually want to write it but I’m also going in a particular direction. Just... plot, in general, really.

17) what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Generally speaking, if my character speaks the language in question, the dialogue will be rendered in the same language as the rest of the text with a dialogue tag like “he said in German” or w/e. If they do not, the dialogue will be rendered in the actual language being spoken.

Of course this is also hugely guided but what languages I personally speak. I will never use google translate for something like that because I personally find it infuriating when people do that lmao. It’s like saying “Hey, you, who actually speak this language? This isn’t for you. Fuck you. This is just here for flavor. Surely no-one who actually speaks this language will ever come across this.” I’m sure that’s not what most people who do that are thinking, but that’s what it feels like to read. So I won’t do that.

I can’t recall if I’ve done this in anything that’s up anywhere, but if I wanted to include a foreign phrase I would either use Danish, use triple checked German or ask someone I know who speak a given language about the phrase in that language. Or, you know, just use an established quote.

An exception is Latin, particularly for Les Mis fic, where I follow the brick’s habit of rendering Latin untranslated, despite the pov character understanding it (but again, these are always established phrases).

If I wrote something in Danish taking place in the modern day, I would render English untranslated as well, since that is just how young Danes talk and I can assume that 99.99% of potential readers will be able to understand it either way (this, I think we can assume, is also what was going on with Latin at the time Hugo was writing).

18) what was the first fandom you wrote for?

Probably Harry Potter. That, or Avatar: The Last Airbender. I don’t really remember. The first thin I put on FFnet was certainly Harry Potter, though.

19) what’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

Predictably it’s On the Path to Elysium. As I’ve mentioned before, I wasn’t really able to write long things before Elysium. Most of my fics are oneshots and while I really like oneshots, I had long been frustrated that I never managed to get any of my longer ideas off the ground. Elysium represents a lot of growth for me as a writer.

Apart from that, like I said, I’m still very fond of Just Like That, if nothing else then because I wrote it in an emulation of how the game itself is written.

I tag @thebearmuse @teddy-stonehill @antirococoreaction (no pressure ofc, just if any of you think it looks fun)

[canonicallyanxious]

13, 21, 31, 34

13. First fandom you ever wrote for?

lol Bry

okay yeah first fandom on my ao3 is nothing much to do/lovely little losers, a pair of modern vlogseries adaptations of the shakespeare plays much ado about nothing and love’s labour’s lost. also happens to be the fandom we met in! how nostalgic [dear god i’m realizing now that was SIX YEARS AGO. WTF?????]

as for first fandom i wrote for EVER... honestly unclear sknfksdjnfsd my first memories of writing fanfic are from when i was 11 or 12 but i could not for the life of me tell you what those fandoms were and it’s also pretty likely i wrote fanfic adjacent things even younger than that. WHO KNOWS. if i had to guess at the fandom i’d probably say harry potter or the hunger games and it was probably embarrassingly heterosexual. i will say i busted out my hard drive just now and the oldest fic file i could find was a dramione fic [!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! @ MY CHILD SELF WHAT WERE YOU DOING] from Jan 2010 [would have been 12 at the time]. the file is just called “A Harry Potter fanfic” which i find extremely funny. the second oldest fic adjacent thing on my hard drive is a story i wrote based on taylor swift’s you belong with me. and no i absolutely do not want to talk about it.

21. Favorite pairing to write for? (platonic or romantic!)

Mmmmm good question. again my answer for this kind of question is basically whatever i’m into writing for at the given moment but if i go by pairing i have had the most fun writing for at the time i’d probably have to go with davenzi [druck], like i just love both those characters so so much and i think there’s something about their dynamic that really suits my writing style?? idk all i can say is david schreibner is my ultimate comfort character and probably always will be even if i don’t write him anymore. holsom [check please] is also a very fun dynamic to write!

31. Do you have any OCs? Tell us about them!

LOL BRY

i mean obviously i gotta talk about the golden trio right [for everyone else - these three are my and Bry’s shared oc’s, we’ve had them since like 2016 at least. will we actually do anything with them? stay tuned to find out!]. they’re not oc’s for any fandom related thing but i love them very very dearly

So from left to right we’ve got Harper St. Clair, Charlie Tang, and Olly Reyes-Mendoza [this art we commissioned from miivrt on twitter is more of a modern au version of them and the most current iteration of them is in a cyberpunk verse but neither here nor there]

in the context of cyberpunk verse, these three are old ex-friends, now estranged, who used to be in the same crew together running illicit jobs and such. Harper and Charlie are also exes because we love a good friends to lovers to enemies to tentative friends again??? to lovers dynamic in this house. quick breakdown of these three:

Charlie - Indian trans woman [she was adopted by a woman named Diana Tang, hence the last name] who mistakenly thinks Harper and Olly betrayed her in their youth. she’s now a prominent writer who is trying her best [and failing, tbh] to put her past behind her.

Harper - black nonbinary lesbian with a military background and a heaping dose of unresolved trauma. now works in a mechanic shop and tries their best to keep their head down.

Olly - Afro-latine genderfluid hacker who is now completely off the grid and basically keeps themself as incognito as possible. once was the rock of the group; now harbors a lot of complicated feelings about being caught in the crossfire of Charlie and Harper’s massive falling out.

i just think these characters and this verse is a lot of fun for us to play around in bc we both tend to gravitate toward complicated relationship dynamics with a long and complicated shared history, and characters who have to work very hard to help each other heal from past hurts and traumas. and cyberpunk is a fun thing to play with because, like, so much fun stuff with gender and autonomy and social commentary you can do! i just love these characters so very much :’]

I do have other oc’s i created on my own [Jessie Yang + Sydney Walker and Constanza Torres and Jamie Luong; i’ve linked to a couple short pieces i posted about them in the past if anyone’s curious] but tbqh i haven’t really thought about them in ages skdjnfskdnfs so i’ll save that ramble for another day

34. Copy and paste an excerpt you’re particularly fond of.

Technically already answered this one but oh well here are some MASSIVE SPOILERS for the davenzi star wars au [i am not joking these are literally the last lines of the entire fic skdjnfksdjnfsd but idk i just like the way i ended this fic a lot so that’s what we’re going with]

His heart was beating so hard, like it was on the verge of collapse. Who was the real victor here? He didn’t know, he didn’t care. All he knew was that the body under his and the face he was looking at belonged to a man who meant more to him than he had ever imagined someone could mean to anyone. It had terrified him, when first he’d realized it. It terrified him still. He hadn’t planned for any of this to happen the first night he’d latched onto Matteo with near-feral desperation in the Neon Butterfly. He had never even planned to return here, to the pool under the sky.

And yet here he was. Here they were. The trust in Matteo’s eyes as he looked up at him was wholly complete. And he wanted nothing more than to be worthy of it.

David bent down and kissed him. He was so sweet and yielding under him, his mouth so warm, his body somehow so familiar to him. David let go of his wrists so that he could cup his jaw and tilt his head up into an angle that brought them closer, and Matteo’s hands slid into his hair, cradled the back of his neck, brushed up softly against the shell of his ear.

David pulled away with a shiver, keeping their foreheads pressed together because he couldn’t bring himself to be farther from him than that, and he would be damned at this point if he did a single thing he didn’t want to do.

“I love you,” he said.

He was close enough that he could feel Matteo’s eyes shut, lashes fluttering against his eyelids.

“I know,” Matteo whispered against his mouth.

It was true. He knew better than anyone.

q’s for fanfiction writers!

[janiedean]

After joining tumblr, my dream of becoming a published writer is forever broken and ruined. It may be drastic but I cannot imagine a future in which I'm a happy writer, knowing that what a large amount of people think is that you can't write about a gay character if you're not gay yourself, you cannot have a poc character if you're not poc yourself etc. It's frustrating and sad. That's what tumblr taught, along with simultaneously complaining all the day about the lack of rep

anon, let me tell you something first and foremost: tumblr is not a good audience when it comes to original fiction and if that’s what you want to do, delete tumblr from your perspectives.

now, I’ll go and say a lot of unpopular things before addressing your concerns, but here we go:

people on tumblr don’t read. or better: either they read fanfic which then they decide to consider the same thing as published writing, and like... while there’s a lot of fic that’s better than some published writing technically, the fact that they say it about classics or stuff they’re supposed to study in school shows that they have no idea of the basic difference in between the two media... or they read YA that gets hailed as the Next Best Thing In Literature when at most it’s a good YA and at worst it’s mediocre stuff that looks revolutionary because they haven’t read the fifteen other things that YA has taken inspiration from. at most they read harry potter when they were kids and never moved on from it, as showed by the fact that it’s 2019 and I still have to see people arguing about sn/ape being BAD OR GOOD when he’s the standard gray archetype, and if you can only think of sn/ape when you think about a gray character and you still haven’t made sense of his moralities or lack thereof, then you haven’t read anything else; (never mind that once I read writing advice like SORT YOUR CHARACTERS INTO HOGWARTS HOUSES LIKE FFS SOME OF US HAVEN’T READ HP THAT’S NOT A UNIVERSAL ADVICE FOR CREATING A CHARACTER’S BACKGROUND)

as people on tumblr don’t read, their understanding of how you write or anything else related to the craft is pretty much useless - like, the only thing each single writing manual agrees on is that if you want to be a writer you have to read a lot, because how are you going to deconstruct tropes (to say one) if you don’t know how those tropes work? or how are you going to play into them if you don’t know how they work regardless? I can’t write a tolkien deconstruction if I haven’t read all of tolkien’s writings back to back ten times at least, I can’t write a good novel about vietnam veterans in the early eighties if I don’t read all the history books on the topic I can find and at least ten tomes about how war-related ptsd in veterans works and possibly a lot of books written by vets themselves. I can’t write a stephen king deconstruction if I haven’t read stephen king back to back ten times either. which shows they think original novels are like fanfic - like, I personally have researched the shit out of things for fanfic, but I wouldn’t ask anyone to do it for a thing they do for free. like, if I see badly researched italian reinassance AU fic I won’t gaf if the author just wrote it based on the anglosaxon tv shows about the borgias around because I can’t expect them to read ten books about the topic to write a thing they don’t get paid for and that just people in fandom most likely will touch, but if it’s a published author that gets paid for it I’ll expect that at least they’ll do some research if they want to write stuff somewhat realistically. people on tumblr think that writing a novel requires the same effort as fanfic, as in, not much when it comes to background work, which is ridiculous, because that’s the difference - with fanfic, unless I write a detailed AU or smth, the author already did that work for me. I just have to expand on it and trying to understand the characters. like, it’s nowhere near the same thing;

which means that people have gone with this concept that ‘you can’t write X if you’re not X’, which is honestly ridiculous and counter-productive because it shoots down any chance that you, as an author, might actually understand what people who aren’t from your background feel like. also, I personally think that if you want to do that and you want to be good at it you need to a) find a way to relate to your characters that goes beyond your differences, b) talk to people from the category you don’t belong to. now, if I had to write a 50k short romance novel about two guys falling for each other at a record shop without too much drama happening, I’d probably just write it myself, some people who are actually guys into guys, ask them to read it, tell me if I fucked it up, get them to explain me how I fucked it up and run it by them until I’m done, but admittedly I don’t need research to find out how people run a record shop. if I had to write a story set in europe but idk there’s a zombie plague and one of the protagonists is a black american tourist I’d go ask someone who is black and american and possibly from the area I decided that person is from to give me background info on how I could write this person etc. and then run it by them after I’m done. if another of the protagonists is idk polish (because there’s not many polish people in mainstream european fiction outside of polish authors), I’d find a polish person to do the same thing and run it by them etc., because I’m not a black american nor a polish person but I still want to write those characters etc. but I mean, let’s say it’s the zombie apocalypse - can I make sure people connect with both of them because they’re surrounded by zombies and as all human beings in existence they don’t want to die? most likely I can. meanwhile I’ll have learned a lot of things about both categories because I talked to people belonging to them;

or, let’s say I want to write some story with a large cast where I decide that for the purposes of it straight character falls for a trans character and it ends well because fuck that I want people to be happy. I’m not trans, but I do know people who are. I’ll definitely talk to them running stuff and ask if thing X is offensive or not etc. because of course I’m not so I can’t know for sure, maybe I’ll stick with the straight POV or maybe not but I’ll definitely run it by them to make sure the thing is actually well-planned/not in poor taste, and meanwhile I’ll have learned a lot about the topic that I might not have known before, which is good because it means I know more about experiences I don’t have which is, guess what, how the entire point of writing stories is. you want people to empathize and feel for characters that might be not the same as them, that’s exactly your damned job, but if you don’t do it yourself first how do you assume others will?

all these people who think you can’t write a gay character if you’re not gay are the same people who think that if you’re a straight woman you can’t write about two men being in love/fucking but you should be able to do it about f/f pairings because since you’re a woman then you have to guess how that works out of that, which shows that they have no idea of how anything works - like I argued with half of tumblr on this topic so whatever, but as a straight woman I think I have more aesthetic tastes in common with a gay man since we both want to fuck men and we both are familiar with handling that equipment, so I’d find it easier to write about that rather than about the contrary as I don’t generally find women attractive in that sense except for like two very specific people who are not a very common aesthetic in general. but like, assuming that in virtue of being a woman then you have to know how it feels to be attracted to women while you can’t possibly do 2+2 about how gay men are into each other when technically you’re into men yourself shows exactly how these people have No Idea Whatsoever of how attraction works, never mind how empathizing with someone else works, never mind of how writing things with research behind it goes;

also, assuming that if you’re X then you can’t understand Y is extremely damaging because it means you can never understand other people’s struggles and that’s......... worrying? I mean, it’s an incredibly dangerous (and calvinist) position to say that if someone is X and so doesn’t know how it feels to have a specific kind of issue then they can’t get it not even intellectually. idk, I’m straight so I can’t possibly understand or relate to why would lgbt+ people want to marry and adopt kids/have their children recognized/have the same rights as I do? are we serious? so if idk I wanted to try and change some bigot’s mind about it when I see that they’re just parroting bullshit and they haven’t thought about it I shouldn’t even try because they’re a bigot and they’ll never understand or change their mind? so people who used to be bigots, then found out their kids or their kids’s friends were lgbt+, listened to them, realized they were bigots and are now allies/supporters couldn’t have done that because at some point they used to be bigots? how the hell do you want people to change or to be an activist or change the world if you don’t believe that people can change themselves or worse that you don’t believe that people coming from any background can’t understand people coming from another background? that’s not how it works. I mean guys ffs I read a bunch of nonfiction lately about endemic poverty in the center of the US out of personal interest and I’m as far from the US and any of those situations as it goes (I’m not a veteran, I never was not taught to read and write even if I finished high school, I never lost 90% of what I had after getting sick, I never needed to hop on a train illegally to go places, I never had to sell my own plasma to buy lunch, I never needed to live in a tent when I was going to middle school after my parents had to move to a totally different state and I never had to go live in a trailer after my house was sold by a bank before I couldn’t pay off my loan, I don’t have a five year old child that won’t be insured because she was born with a pre-existing medical condition), and like... I cried while reading some of them? because I could envision it and I felt like the system failed them and I hate reading about people being failed by a system that should support them, and I swear I’m not a US person who comes from that background whatsoever. I could probably write you a full novel about how immigrants in Italy have it like shit whether they’re legal or not because I worked in the field for two years and one of my oldest friends has immigrant parents and she was born here and she can’t use her ID to travel in europe only because she still doesn’t have a citizenship and she’s been waiting for years to get it. I’m not an immigrant in italy but I’ve known enough, seen enough and heard enough from them that I could most likely do it and it wouldn’t be badly researched. like, you can’t tell people to not tell stories if they want to do it with respect and not wanting to make it about themselves only. that’s bad writing. but if you care about the people you’re giving rep to then you should try imvho;

now: I suppose that you’re belonging to categories that are Not Minorities given how the ask is worded. (same as me more or less unless you consider atheists a minority but nvm that.) there’s a lot of writers around that are Not Minorities and most get published more than people who are actually minorities. people saying that you can’t write X if you’re not X and X = minority are pretty much telling you that you shouldn’t use your spotlight to give people rep when you could and you could do it reasonably well if you do your research and talk to those minorities. so they’re basically going against everyone’s interests because you could learn things and become a better person and make sure your readers empathize with your characters and more rep is always good esp. if well-done. I personally think that people should write about what they want - there’s topics I wouldn’t feel comfortable touching because idk if I could do that well and things I really wouldn’t want to write about so I most likely never will -, but that they should also go for what they want if it’s what they believe they can do. so if you feel like you want to write gay characters or whatever go for it and then find yourself a sensitivity reader or ten before you send your book around instead of worrying about what kids on tumblr who are still arguing about snape’s morality and think that writing the divine comedy is the same as self-insert fanfic think, because they will never create shit for anyone, you might. and you’ll have automatically done more than people who complain about everything but wouldn’t produce one single piece of fiction themselves and wouldn’t most likely waste ten minutes of their life researching the fiction they want to write.

tldr: if you want to write professionally, influence people and give the world good stories, don’t give a fuck about what tumblr says because it’s people who most likely will never read your books anyway unless you want to write the next YA saga that has the same six archetypes of characters in which then the only slightly problematic white cishet dude will be without further ado compared to sn/ape and everyone is going to get sorted into hogwarts houses and people will fight about that rather than giving a damn about whatever message you wanted to pass. don’t give a damn about tumblr and do your thing anon, no one deserves to have any perspective ruined because of this hellsite’s opinions on anything. ;) 

[quirkfics]

You have any fics your into? Anything that you think is really good? I feel like you'd have the best ones picked cause your already such a good writer!!!!❤️❤️❤️❤️

So I read lots of crossovers, AUs, fix-it fics, and self inserts and those span.. a thousand fandoms. Because I’ve been writing frequently for BNHA, I don’t have many of those to rec (though there will be a few on this list!), so be prepared for a weird variation of fandom in.. oh.. 9 fics I have on my “re-read” list

BNHA

Oil Paintings and Late Night Jam Sessions by insanityrunsinthe_family (finished!)Bakugou Katsuki x Reader - College AU, and I’m not going to lie, Katsuki and the reader being art majors guaranteed that I would love this, but then the writing was absolutely wonderful as well.

Picking up Steam by tsume_yuki (WIP)Technically an Endeavor x Self-insert/Rei bodyswap fix-it- Oh my gosh. I started crying while reading a few days ago? The focus is less on the ship, though it may get there at some point. Obviously avoid if reading about past abuse is upsetting to you.

NARUTO

Time Flies Like An Arrow by katlou3o3 (or 303?? i cannot tell and idk why) (WIP)Some past!Sakura x Ino, but Sakura-centric and full of time travel and making all the sad things in Naruto go. Away. I cried over this too because my heart was so full?? ((And her other most current Naruto fics are lovely as well, I just like her work))

Addendum by shanatical (WIP)No ship, self insert/body swap/gender swap of Sasuke Uchiha and it is just. Rather darling. Can you tell I like fix-it fics for Naruto????

A frustratingly lot of the Naruto fics I end up enjoying are either WIPs, or the things I would like to read about just.. Don’t have as much traction in the fic world. (where are the emotional intimate naruto-verse x reader fics?? i wail)

BUFFY

West of the Moon by knifeedge (finished!)Buffy Summers/Spike - AU S5, it has been actual years since I’ve read this, but knifeedge put some gosh dang work into this fic and it shows. So much. The only place you can find it in it’s entirety is on elysian fields, a fic archive, and you will have to sign up for an account to be able to read it. If you enjoy this ship, and like slow, SLOW burn AUs - well. This is for you.

Buffy’s Guide to Surviving in 1962 by pprfaith (finished!)Crossover, polyship Charles Xavier/Buffy Summers/Erik Lehnsherr - pprfaith is another author who puts lovely work to good use. Did I know I needed this in my life? Not at all. I am better for it though! Buffy fixes X-Men: First Class

HARRY POTTER

the girl who lived (again) by dirgewithoutmusic (finished!)Trans Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley - the whole fic is just lovely and another one that made me cry the good tears

BATMAN

Sorrowful and Immaculate Hearts series by unprettyWith a Bruce Wayne focus (but also a bit of Superman), this series is just... Some of the most heartwarming and funny fic I have read to date. If you only want to try it, read Bad Publicity.

SAILOR MOON

Key to My Heart by antigone2 (finished!)Usagi/Mamoru - Give you cavities sweetness about Usagi getting a key to Mamoru’s place. gosh. Such cuteness.

And that’s it! I’ve already spent too long searching through my bookmarks, oh my goodness. Apologies for my... Varied taste??