#like he writes characters like a fanfic writer

[cantareincminor]

Fandom Eras in an Ongoing Canon

Something I've been thinking about recently, as I've been writing SxF fic for about one year, is the inherent uncertainty of writing for an ongoing canon as the characters evolve gradually with each new arc Endo creates.

For example, Twilight. We can joke about how the man is taking forever to acknowledge he loves his family, and the slow slow slow burn of Twiyor. But after 100+ chapters, he is indeed different from where he started. Chapter 1, he was willing to return a poor little kid to the orphanage like a defective toy when he realized she might not be a prodigy as he originally thought. He also left her at home alone and literally barricaded the door to keep her there.

Later, he acknowledges the trauma she must have faced as an orphan and becomes hyper-sensitive to little signs like how she arranges the sand table in his office (even if he reads her completely wrong).

By the time exams roll around, he avoids criticizing her for the Tonitrus bolt in math and gives her a genuine smile for her achievement in classical language, appreciating how she worked really hard.

With Yor, when he initially met her, he told himself he would figure out a way to trap her in the marriage if needed for the sake of the mission. Luckily he didn't have to do that, but the fact he remains that he was theoretically willing to. Then every ten to twenty chapters or so, Yor does something to surprise him with her kindness and strength and unconventional understanding of the world, and he grows to trust her and care for her wellbeing, to the point of taking a bullet for her and sparing Yuri.

In another 100 chapters, or by the end of the manga, whenever that will be, how much more will Twilight change?

As fan creators, how will our imagination of these characters change by then? Will we remember how we viewed season 1 Twilight? The fics we wrote and the characterizations we gave him? How about season 1 Yor, who had an obsession with knives and tended to imagine murder as the solution to any problem she couldn't solve immediately?

My main frame of reference is the ATLA fandom and how the characterization of Zuko and the flavor of Zutara fics changed over three seasons. Fics written during season 1 sometimes characterized him as a dark brooding villain with the trope of capturing or threatening Katara, mixed with uncomfortable power dynamics. Fics written during season 2 cast him as more vulnerable and uncertain, imagining how he might join Team Avatar, as we started to see him as the immature teenage dork he was all along. By season 3, immature teenage dork took over much of his fanfic persona as he finally joined the good guys in canon and added a fresh dynamic to the team. Fans wrote lots of friendship and redemption fics, diving into how he reconciled with Katara and won her over as a friend before pursuing her romantically.

I haven't participated in the ATLA fandom for a long time, but I imagine that few writers now will write fics based on season 1 Zuko, at least not with the fan-imagined version of him that was popular back then. Too much has changed about his canon character to make that palatable.

So, I wonder what it'll be like years from now when Twilight and Yor and other characters are notably different. What will it be like to look back on fanfics written in 2022-2025? Will we still enjoy them easily, or will we have to suspend disbelief as they'll feel like AUs with OOC characters?

Part of me feels sad about this, but I suppose this is always the risk of writing for an ongoing canon! At least I am not the only one risking so much of my own time on creating these stories out of love for these characters.

[bestworstcase]

@cindersfall

actually that does make me think of a real point abt this, that a lot of the fandom does this thing i like to call walking backwards on the same wrong path, where you validate incorrect premises by trying to refute them. see: hatedom says jaune arc is a self insert and gets too much screentime, and fndm reaction is to be like "no way! jaune isnt even a main character! he doesnt matter!" like hm i am not sure thats true either mate

lol yeah. & then the venn diagram collapses into a "jaune is getting too much screen time" circle because the deuteragonist is not in fact a "side character." although i do think the strident insistence that jaune is a trivial side character is less a direct response to the self-insert bullshit than it is motivated by how extremely fucking weird a lot of jaune fans are about him re: making him vessel for their self-insert misogynistic power fantasies.

which i also think is probably a contributing factor in the "jaune is an authorial self-insert" claim having the staying power that it does—the section of the hatedom that rages about jaune getting too much screen time finds the incessant power fantasy harem jaune bilge just as obnoxious as the mainstream fandom, but where the fandom tendency is to be honest about it (i.e. "i don't like jaune much because jaune stans are so gross and annoying about him that i just can't enjoy him as a character") hatedoms—don't operate in good faith, and even outside hatedom there's a pernicious tendency in fandom (generally, not specific to rwby) to fault creators for unpleasant fan behavior. in that mode the background radiation of power fantasy harem jaune self-insertion by jaune fans very easily fuels an unspoken sense that this sort of textually baseless projection is in fact the intended response to the character, and that's exacerbated by the high proportion of hate-fans who don't really watch the show and strictly engage with fanon and hate-fanon.

(<- like i'm always saying when i talk about hatedom, the latter phenomenon—fans who don't actually engage with the text at all—is not restricted to hatedom and any fandom that is moderately visible Online is likely to have a contingent of fans who solely engage with fanworks. that contingent is usually not disruptive or noticeable in large fandoms but can be a bane in small fandoms if they start writing fanfic. 🫵 longtimer tts mutuals know of my seething disdain for certain popular cassunzel fic writers who Did Not Watch The Show. lmao)

but yeah. people are fucking weird about jaune in particular and like so much of it boils down to somehow not grasping that he is… the deuteragonist… for nine volumes and counting.

and to be fair i (obviously lmao) do think there's analytical value in starting with a take you don't agree with and building out an argument against--imo it's often easier to pin down your specific reasons for not agreeing with some interpretation than to articulate your own response to a text from nothing, which is why a lot of my posts are Like That. but for that to be valuable requires you to be intellectually honest and fair about what you're arguing against, and that means giving it actual serious evaluation and being skeptical of your intuitive disagreement versus kneejerking in the opposite direction, lol.

rwby fandom has a Particular very funny set of incentives where its like

a) rwby itself is a story written with and interested in nuance + moral complexity and it's most rewarding to engage with the narrative in that way;

b) rwby has a dedicated hatedom, which entails the development of a hate-fanon predicated on deliberate misinterpretation and bad faith reading of the text;

c) the fandom-wide persecution complex re: the preceding point makes platforming the hatedom [via mockery, rebuttal, or whining] broadly socially acceptable within rwby fandom spaces;

d) which serves to embed "[you/these people] don't understand nuance" into the fandom vernacular as an automatic response to perceived Bad Takes;

f) fans making hatedom watch a core part of their engagement with rwby fandom tend to gradually degrade their ability to differentiate hatedom bullshit from good faith discussion on parts of the narrative the hatedom fixated on (e.g., "ironwood right!" vs "ironwood's decisions all make sense from his point of view and it's reductive to read him as a one-note villainous caricature");

g) in a similar vein, because rwby hatedom constructs the hate-fanon primarily around (misogynistic) moral-reversal whereby male antagonists in prominent conflict with the main heroines are lionized while the heroines are reinterpreted as the 'real' villains (and female villains are variously either ignored, treated as accessories for male characters, or demonized), textual interpretations that engage with the moral complexity + nuance in the text (good characters can do bad things and be wrong in non-trivial ways, bad characters can be right and are always unapologetically humanized) become suspect in certain circles of the fandom;

h) ^ that is in addition to the general tendency, not at all specific to rwby fandom, among people who can't handle moral complexity or nuance to project their own black-and-white thinking onto everyone else.

…& the outcome of all this is to create a social environment in which the accusation of "lacking nuance" gets leveled at specifically readings predicated on the understanding that rwby is a story that wants and invites the viewer to think critically about its characters.

[theogygiaisland]

It's my birthday and to come into the ripe back-aching age of 28 I just binged watch two Quentin Tarantino films. Just wanted to say that if he could do the movies he does, you can certainly publish that fanfic no matter how badly you think you've written it

[destiel-wings]

this is dean directly speaking to us with the fanfiction writing power and living outside of the narrative he's trapped in, asking us to do what chuck and the cw don't allow him to have

[greenerteacups]

What do you think of jkr as a writer? I for one has always felt like she didn’t treat her female characters well. It felt strange, being critical of her when she was god queen of the earth, and also being 10

I think most of the problems in her books can be chalked up to genre hopping. Books 1-3 are perfectly good and serviceable children's books — great children's books, even! They have compelling, relatable characters and juicy mystery plots. They have problems, sure, but for the first three books someone's ever written — especially someone with little or no background in creative writing — they're really fucking good. So: there's her flowers.

The last four books pivot sharply into much more emotionally complicated and sociopolitically loaded territory, because they're describing a war. And it's hard to write children's books about war. I would venture you can't really do it, at least without dramatically misrepresenting what war is! And so Rowling makes the executive decision somewhere during the writing of Book 4 that she's not going to flinch away from that, she's going to go for dramatic realism, and she kills Cedric Diggory to let us know. People had died in Harry Potter before, of course — Quirrell gets sent to the fucking shadow realm, for example. But children haven't. (It also gives parents who are reading these books with their children a warning shot: shit is about to get significantly more real, think twice before you buy the next one of these for your 10-year-old.) After that, Rowling starts leaning much more into dramatic realism, and the fast-paced mystery-novel plotting of the first few books is replaced by a slow, simmering political conflict that unfurls over the course of about a million words.

The problem — besides the fact that she's picking one of the hardest things to write about, like, in all of literature, war is really insanely complicated and emotionally intense and hard to portray well — is that she's now trying to use characters, plot points, and technologies she developed for a children's series to enact a sprawling war drama among teenagers and adults. So Hermione, who was a reasonably precocious snobby eleven-year-old, becomes this sort of encyclopedic all-knowing savant of the wizarding world, who somehow remains functional and mostly even-headed despite her identity being the chief target of a prolifically murderous terrorist group. Draco Malfoy, a schoolyard bully whose primary tools included 1. namecalling and 2. telling teacher, JOINS said terrorist group (and admittedly does react reasonably, i.e., has a total crashout and takes to sobbing in a girls' bathroom whenever he gets a free minute). Dumbledore, who starts out as "whimsical friendly winky-wink trustworthy grandfather type", ends up being Magical Winston Churchill in a violent game of spycraft and espionage, eventually revealing he's only been keeping Harry at all these seven years because he wants to KILL him! And like, maybe really good technical writing could smooth out these transitions and make the first-order dramatic choices seem more natural, but Rowling is like, a Fine Writer, technically speaking. meaning she's reasonably consistent in characterization, her plotting is well-paced and believable, she has a clear authorial voice, and her prose is readable. personally, that's not enough to get me to buy into some of the changes that happen in the later books, and because she stuffs these things so full with new elements every installment, a lot of stuff ends up getting glossed over.

And like, I still love the books. I think they're wonderful, and they taught me how to read. but i can say that and also say that Rowling probably did herself a disservice by trying to write four giant war novels as sequels to her first three mystery children's books.

[restesdelune]

TOWL magic in Alexandria ❤️‍🔥

I love listening to Danai Gurira talk about Michonne and Rick’s characters & relationship. After watching The Ones Who Live, I got to this interview about episode 4 "What We", and I believe it planted the seed of an idea for my first fanfic When In Alexandria.

Their story is so compelling, and as she explains so well, this episode had to have them talking, finally. So much have happened.

Things between them couldn't stay inferred anymore, and they had to express themselves to find each other again. Danai the playright was about to show us how it's done, and Oh boy, she did !

Danai was so specific and detailed in her writing, and it shows, it can be felt thanks to their incredible acting performances. The theatre quality of writing of also makes up for a perfect bottled emotional episode that I can't get enough of.

So I started writing, and it took me a couple of chapters before understanding that what I was trying to do, was to bring some of that DG magic to The Walking Dead Alexandrian arc when, after a very difficult time on the road, they find themselves struggling to adjust to the new community.

I wanted to experiment with what could have happened, specifically with Rick and Michonne, if they actually took the time to talk to each other. What would they say, what would they learn, what would be revealed by the change of environment...?

It's also born out of frustration about the way Michonne’s character has been handled at that point of the story in the show, like so many Black women characters who are obvious love interests for the main protagonist, but neither the writers nor the fandom (bros and other racists) can deal with their white hero being in love with such a sensible and badass woman who happens to be Black.

Even if the actors couldn’t be more obvious in their performances, Andrew Lincoln being the incredible ship captain that he was, we barely get to access Michonne's layers once they get to Alexandria. She's on the sideline, so the Jessie mess can happen, and it's really not gracefully done in my opinion.

I love the fact that Michonne remains quite mysterious, to us and to Rick, and I wanted to try and find a way to make Richonne happen as soon as the group get there, because it made sense to me and to a lot of us I believe.

I am not Danai Gurira of course, and it's my first attempt at fiction, but I put all my heart in it, and I'm now approaching 20 chapters, a few dozen thousand words and having a blast.

So if you’re still in TOWL withdrawls, if you like The Walking Dead, and you enjoy Rick and Michonne the way I do, maybe you'll enjoy it too. NSFW.

Happy Shipping

Danai and Evette talking about episode 4

[cluescorner]

I cannot imagine being a Damian stan right now. You've got both Zdarsky's bullshit (where he clearly doesn't give a shit about your boy) and The Boy Wonder (where Juni Ba clearly gives so many shits about your boy) coming out on the same day. The whiplash must be insane. I hope y'all get some nice warm soup for your efforts jfc

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

I wanna know ur Fontaine msq criticisms 👁️👁️👂I’m all ears

I'm not sure if you wanted me to talk about this secretly or publicly but! Here I go!

The TLDR: Fontaine MSQ aestheticised prison, poverty, child abuse, the justice system/court and didn't properly address any of it.

More:

Focalors/Furina has way too much of a sympathetic angle for a dictator who's lets people drown with her inaction.

Neuvillette feels Bad for sentencing some people to death/prison, but that's it. He's one of the most powerful people in Fontaine. If he felt like there are systemic injustices, I.E sending an abused Child to prison, he should be the first person to DO something about it, not just cry and be sad so the audience can be like aw, that's complex character writing isn't it? No it's not! And guilt doesn't absolve you!!!!!!! (These are stuff we deal with in OTCOJ read my fic now /j)

Meropide has children in it, both Sentenced there (Wriothesley) and BORN THERE (Lanoire), and this is just a quirk of the place. Not only that, Meropide accepts prisoners of all genders and crimes. There are abusers and abuse victims in one place. Do you know how bad that is? How much potential for crimes to happen in a place like that— oh wait, Meropide isn't under Fontaine's jurisdiction. If you are assaulted as an inmate it literally means nothing to the court.

Wriothesley had no qualifications when he took over. Depending on how long he lived on the streets, how old he was when he killed his parents, how old he was when he was first taken in by the orphanage, etc, the man might never have more than 4–5 years of formal education. Sigewinne probably had to teach him how to write reports. And do Meropide's spreadsheets. Edit because I forgot to elaborate on this one: This isn't a point brought up anywhere, which is bad, because when poverty and incarceration robs you of a proper education (and the rights to vote in many places too, too, by the way), it reduces your prospects for jobs, reduces many people's ability to get a home etc etc. Wriothesley was just, narratively, Given his position.

Meropide is an industrialized prison, and they portray this as a good thing. Prisoners are paid in coupons for their labour, and this is also portrayed as a good thing.

The One-Meal-A-Day reform was something Paimon gushed about being so great of a perk, that people might want to go to jail for food (could be interesting and reflective of systemic poverty if MHY had brains, but they don't, so I was just Pissed because essentially all Paimon wanted to say was "Prison isn't so bad, but still don't go to prison guys! Prison labour is really hard!"). By the way, in most real-world prisons they are obligated to feed you three meals a day. Because that's how much food a human needs. MHY went with one meal just so they can say "if you want to eat more, you have to work." And then the welfare meal is a goddamn gacha. So imagine you're a starving child who's too weak to work in the fucking robot assembly line, and you wander up for your first meal in 24 hours, only to luck in with a shit one. I'd kill myself.

They wrote Wriothesley, who's a victim of the system, into a guy who's say shit like "I'm the Duke I can do whatever I want" for a cool moment where he choke-slams an inmate (I know he was a bad guy. But also, in copaganda when cops are violent/disregarding protocols, they are always only portrayed to do that against bad guys, so what does our critical thinking tells us about this one?) They wrote Wriothesley, who was an inmate of a prison so bad, so notorious that it is the literal boogeyman of Fontaine, that has a legal (???) fighting pit, with an administrator who abuses his position to be unreasonable, to willingly stay in the place and become an Administrator who would choke-slam an inmate while saying a cool line about how he has the power to do whatever he wants. They wrote him, the guy who had to be fed on the streets by melusines, to think one-meal-a-day was a good enough reform (while he spends god-knows how much on his boat). This wasn't a victim-turns-into-abuser narrative either, they want all this to be seen as positive character growth.

And then, the final kicker is, they gloss over his entire abuse. You can only read about these shit in his profile, which most people don't because they don't Have Him or doesn't care to unlock it/read it online, and they jammed his entire backstory into a flaccid info-dump at the end of his character story quest. This man isn't Allowed to feel abused and neglected and show any reaction to it within the narrative of Fontaine itself, because if they actually Gave Weight to what happened to him, they'd have to confront THE FUCKING JUSTICE SYSTEM they had NO PLANS on criticising. I don't think they ever explicitly said the fucking Crime-Theatre nonsense was Bad either.

I could go on, but this is already so long. But yeah, I hope this gave you an idea.

[meiko-komoko]

rewatched The Mind Robber yesterday and I can't stop thinking about a sequel where the new Master of the Land is a fanfic writer from the 2010s

[raifuujin]

“I just don't like Gosho's use of ideas nowadays” do you have some examples? I’ve been feeling the same but I still don’t have like articulate thoughts on it

Well, 'nowadays' has been for. About ten years, ish? The most glaring example that always sticks out in my mind is the Sun Halo MK chapters, with the complete and utter waste of the very common fanfic tropes of 'Aoko gets suspicions' and 'Kid gets injured around someone'. But it kind of matches the general problem I have with his writing that I don't think used to be this bad: He's trying to stuff too much around the strict case-by-case structure (or for MK, introducing the heist-by-heist structure) without actually giving anything focus. (And for MK it's so much worse because he writes it so rarely, that he makes everyone cameo every time but they tend to just get hand waves to whatever drama plot gets instigated by Kid having his next heist.)

For DC, it's the whole. 1) Overarching plot with the BO and suspects and 'here's the available suspects for who's involved with the BO that we introduce one at a time at the end of cases and then maybe leave more clues about them during future cases'. 2) Dangling character or relationship progress and then constantly pulling it away, usually as a joke. 3) When we do occasionally get some of the major plot, it's all at once and then maybe mentioned once in the next case, but otherwise completely dropped. (Amuro and Akai and Kudo tea party tease also lingers as a 'Gosho is just evil at this point'.) Basically rigid structure that doesn't allow for much of the subplots aside from breadcrumbs.

For the current situation, it's also tied into interview comments. Which. have no bearing on the story until he actually uses them. But instead of even that, the movie gets exciting stuff instead and puts it in a giant limbo of is it meant to be canon or not, because no one has been able to settle on that for any movie, even as some details get connected back to the manga more and more.

It's bad writing. Gosho has been a bad writer for a long time, and it's kinda just getting worse. It's my opinion that it's because he tries to have his case after case after case (because mystery manga), and then stuff little bits of everything else in the seams, whether it works well with the case he's writing or if it's a good delivery or (more usually) it's just. Kinda tacked on.

It's partially because of time investment, partially because I have low standards of entertainment, and partially because I want to see how it all ends that I stick with DC. MK is. Similar, but hurts more because I really hate how it morphed into the DC structure when old MK had more you could do with it. Gosho will never drop his rigid case-by-case structure at this point, but it really would be better if he did at this point. Things need development that they're not allowed to have. Or at least smooth out the lines between his hints. And stop with Heiji and Kazuha, just. God. Stop. Is this how people felt about Kid appearances? I feel like at least when people were mad about Kid, they knew nothing was going to happen from the get go, the romance 'tease' is just painful.

[chodzacaparodia]

Sometimes it really amuses me that in some stories the characters have to cross the magical border of the love confession so that they completely forget about their previous shyness and throw themselves at each other in a mad rush of desire, using really dirty language during sex.

[strawberrywinter4]

Honestly, I could imagine John taking up boxing.

Just like… think about it. Him only wearing a simple t-shirt and shorts (or maybe sweatpants).

I feel it would be an impulsive decision, you know? He just decides to wake up early one morning and head to the gym, feeling a burst of adrenaline that he just has to unwind.

And I feel like once he starts, he’d begin to enjoy the exercise. It would allow him to release any tension building up in his shoulders or maybe a lingering thought that annoys him to no end.

And most importantly, he’d like the feeling after he’s done continuously punching the bag, feeling fresh and his thought process being replaced with a new mindset.

Sherlock would notice after a little while, seeing how his muscles are a tad more defined or how his grip has increased whenever he cups Sherlock behind the neck to place a kiss to his lips.

Sherlock would also begin to notice how John’s step has a little more power, a little more of a stride than a walk. Don’t get him wrong, he appreciated John’s obvious confidence before and he fell in love with the soldier’s assurance, but now he seems more happy with himself.

John allowing himself to clear his head in the morning with a healthy workout has made him feel better, Sherlock can tell.

Of course John wouldn’t have every day to do his boxing exercises and some days he’s content on taking a full day of relaxation, which Sherlock adores. John decides when he wishes to put his body to work and when to give it rest, not rushing any specific process. Sherlock is glad to see John simply taking the reigns of his mentality, assertive of what he wants when and where.

It’s quite hot, Sherlock thinks.

John is a holder, enjoys touching Sherlock any way he can to show affection (mostly in the comfort of their flat), which Sherlock has learned to become obsessed with.

A hand on Sherlock’s lower back when leading him through a crime scene, a grip to the chin to press their lips together when John’s about to leave for the surgery, or a simple cuddle session on the sofa, John’s arms wrapped around the detective as he absently watches the television.

And Sherlock doesn’t miss the stronger holds, the tighter squeezes. He sucks in a shaky breath, his cheeks flushing at the slight change. He wouldn’t say anything, only appreciate John’s new routine.

Sherlock loves John’s body in every way. He has a bit of a stomach that he can snuggle into and specific birth marks that he’s memorized. Sherlock will love John no matter the circumstance and just seeing John happier with his exercise decision makes him happier.

[jonathanssweatercollection]

you still resent nancy and jonathan for getting together???? for “hurting steve’s feelings”??? despite the fact that he verbally supported their relationship like 2 hours after seeing them together. this from a season that released 6 fucking years ago. a season prior to him saying that he was NOT in love with nancy anymore. do you want me to call shawn levy and tell him of your dilemma. bestie do you need to rewatch the source material

[keithsandwich]

I still can't stop thinking about Keith being obsessed with Maeve when she's the fictional character and he's the player of her game.

He wouldn't even have time for other suitors, there's only Mae in his (their) mind 😭

[dennisboobs]

do you guys ever sit and remember that dennis takes a mental health day is an episode that exists

[tired-gae]

terminology - a BBC Sherlock Drabble

Fandom: BBC Sherlock (TV)

Rating: Gen (on all fronts)

No warnings! (As always, tell me if I need to change this :))

Summary: A conversation I wish had happened in the show, where we address the use of the term 'Asperger's' by multiple characters.

Original post date: May 20th, 2024

Wordcount: 148

---

"...with your Asperger's?"

Without looking up from his phone, Sherlock replied, "Hans Asperger was a Nazi sympathizer and human experimenter who categorized autistic people by their 'usefulness' and brutally killed the ones he decided were not." John's eyebrows furrowed and he blinked rapidly. Sherlock continued, "Additionally, it hasn't been an official diagnosis for a year or so now. I believe the more acceptable term for my condition is high-functioning autism."

John paused, opened his mouth as if to say something, then shut it again. He shook his head briefly and took a sip of his coffee. "Right. Okay. Someone been on the internet recently?"

"Yes," Sherlock drawled, his eyes still on his phone, "Mrs. Hudson told me to go on a journey of self-discovery and I didn't feel like leaving the house."

John snorted quietly into his mug. "High-functioning in all your aspects, are you?"

"Indeed." Sherlock murmured.