#pet peeves with all fiction fandoms in general

[lost-technology]

I was about to respond to someone directly on their thoughts in the ether, but I decided that I didn't want to harsh their buzz or cause a fight, so I'll just let out my thoughts here. Someone was talking about Wolfwood's grief-reaction in Badlands Rumble to thinking that Vash died. How he wrecked the red fridge in his hotel room (I also see red things and think of Vash. I've had a few things named "Vash" because they were red - good thing Wolfwood wasn't anywhere near my old tower computer). How he donned Vash's sunglasses to go to battle. Vashwooders point to that and go PROOF OF THE SHIP! and I'm like, huh? Really now. I don't think it's just because I'm an asexual. I think if people want to use that as romantic subtext, it's fine. I just think that it's proof of closeness, whatever the form. This is a problem I have with fandom in general, actually - people taking any and every interaction and making an entire thing on it and acting like people who see things differently are wrong. I am going to share a sad story now. I lost someone very dear to me this year. A found-family / chosen family nephew who was also my best friend. (An adult). This was back in January. A huge part of my grief-reaction early on was anger... like pure unfiltered rage without direction. I didn't put my fist through a fridge but I did other things. I screamed at so many people who did not deserve it. I actually had to quit the fast food job I had at the time because I feared that I was going to beat this one snide high school kid who worked there who liked to purposefully antagonize me upside the head with a greasy spatula and decided that getting therapy was better than getting an assault charge. (He did not know my situation, he was just a jerk in general, but I knew that he would be evil if he knew and I was just... not well). Another part of my grief reaction and subsequent healing has been surrounding myself with Eevees. I spent many days doing a canvas painting of a frolicking Eevee. I made careful displays of my nephew's Eevee figurines. We bought a big Eevee-plush for his memorial service that now lives on my bed. This was because my nephew loved Eevees and I associated Eevee as his icon. Either that or Optimus Prime. I can tell you absolutely that if my nephew had been murdered by a bandit rather than a random heart attack and it was time for me to go to battle to bring said bandit-gang to justice, I'd be ornamented with every Eevee-related item I have in his honor. We never banged. We never wanted to bang. We were Aunt and Nephew. We were peas in a pod geeks. And I think that is lost to people in fiction fandom sometimes - the value and importance and even the possibility of other kinds of relationships. I think it's because our society puts so much importance on romance and sex that all else is forgotten. It is perfectly okay to see certain Vash and Wolfwood interactions and reactions to each other as romantic. I know full well that my little Vash x Meryl heart SOARED during that scene in Stampede where Vash comes out of his Plant-coma and tells Meryl that he heard her (Rem's) voice through her / "I heard your voice, too." depending on whether you're watching dub or sub. I don't think it makes Vash x Meryl canon in any way and the relationship is just as easily friends / "Hey, some humans like me!" But, yes, I understand the impulse. It's just... it's not the only way to interpret it or "irrefutable proof" for all fans.

[just-eyris-things]

Vent post. Because i feel like kicking a hornets' nest.

Honestly im just tired of how people will call someone ignorant/uneducated and will go for the throat for every little thing, while they themselves say shit like pierogis all the time. If you're going to point fingers at others, you yourself should be without fault.

The question is... can you?

[esther-dot]

The debate about the appropriateness of Jonsa overshadows the political/feudal argument. Unless you can make a convincing case Sansa is going to run away and become a peasant with Sandor (didn't GRRM literally mock that...), or that she can singlehandedly Elizabeth the first it, then you need to be thinking about marriage. Marriage is just as important as war in GRRM's books, if not moreso, and it's a symbolic struggle at that.

Of course Stumpy has searched for Sansa's husband and applied this thinking, but it's one that's otherwise severely lacking. GRRM would go there. We know he'd go there, cousins or not. The question is, why?

Stumpy's Find Sansa's Husband is one of my favs!

No worries! Each of us has a fandom pet peeve we need to rant about. And you're right about Martin's criticism of the "running off with a stable boy trope," in fact, it sounds like the idea really annoys him (his quote below the cut)

And then there are some things that are just don’t square with history. In some sense I’m trying to respond to that. [For example] the arranged marriage, which you see constantly in the historical fiction and television show, almost always when there’s an arranged marriage, the girl doesn’t want it and rejects it and she runs off with the stable boy instead. This never fucking happened. It just didn’t. There were thousands, tens of thousand, perhaps hundreds of thousands of arranged marriages in the nobility through the thousand years of Middle Ages and people went through with them. That’s how you did it. It wasn’t questioned. Yeah, occasionally you would want someone else, but you wouldn’t run off with the stable boy. And that’s another of my pet peeves about fantasies. The bad authors adopt the class structures of the Middle Ages; where you had the royalty and then you had the nobility and you had the merchant class and then you have the peasants and so forth. But they don’t’ seem to realize what it actually meant. They have scenes where the spunky peasant girl tells off the pretty prince. The pretty prince would have raped the spunky peasant girl. He would have put her in the stocks and then had garbage thrown at her. You know. I mean, the class structures in places like this had teeth. They had consequences. And people were brought up from their childhood to know their place and to know that duties of their class and the privileges of their class. It was always a source of friction when someone got outside of that thing. And I tried to reflect that.

I think the issue is, S*nsans and people who shipped Sansa with LF were some of the first to write real meta on her (from what I've heard), so certain fans/perceptions got pretty firmly established, and then a new generation of Sansa fan came along who rejected the Sansa x adult man/molester ships, but it was pretty easy for them to assume that due to Sansa's age, Martin would leave her marriage to the future.

Also, a lot of people don't expect Sansa to be QitN, so the succession issue isn't putting pressure on the marriage timeline, and if you're someone who thinks Bran will actually be king over all Westeros or Rickon will be KitN etc etc, you can imagine Sansa's endgame is safety in Winterfell, not a romance or marriage.

Personally, I think Sansa's interactions with Cersei and LF indicate that she wants to be the right kind of queen (in defiance of Cersei's advice) and is being equipped with tools to achieve her own ends / play the game, for the right reasons, to good ends, but being handed tools nonetheless. She is so unfocused on her birthright and power, it seemed like she was meant to be contrasted with Cersei and Dany. The natural endpoint of that imo would be her becoming queen. And, if she is queen, I've argued that based on other queen's experiences, we must see her married as being a queen is a whole new set of risks, not a happy ending in and of itself.

Of course, some have speculated that the endgame will be indicated, not actually chronicled on the page, as in, Jon and Sansa fall in love, but Jon does get sent to the wall or goes into exile for a callback of what Sansa imagined she could do to save Ned, and we end kinda knowing, eventually they'll get back together, but the actual happy ending isn't on the page. Or the alternative scenario is that Jon is named KitN because of Robb's Will and marries Sansa to resolve all the chaos after parentage reveal. That's where your thoughts on the political aspect of marriage comes in because that would be very tidy. Actually, whoever is recognized by the Northern Lords, whether it’s my preference of Sansa or Jon, the heir issue was a big deal for Robb, so marriage / heirs will certainly come up and impact the plot.

As for Jonsa itself and it being icky to some, I've said before, I think Martin must have something he wants to do with incest beyond showcasing how toxic it is. As in, that is not a way to challenge the reader, by saying something we all know, and his whole shtick is to write complexity into every relationship, every hero, even many villains, so I don't for a minute believe that's he's introduced this topic without planning to ask the audience to think a little more deeply on it. To force us to look at it from a different angle. The way he does that is to give us heroes who are tempted and make us squirm until we get parentage reveal.

[licollisa]

i’d love to hear your take on sans’ personality!

i was going through your whole blog (as you do) and saw ur post on how sans tends to be mischaracterized, but fanon takes are also very normal and generally just fine, and i agree - i feel like some amount of personal spin from the author is always expected (and keeps things fresh and fun to a degree), but i also feel as if sans is a somewhat tough character to actually pin down when you’re writing him, so i’ve similarly had to drop some fic when they stray too widely from my non-negotiable sans traits lol. (like Being Calm and unruffled. bc while some of that is depression, a large part of it is Just The Way He’s Built lmao.)

Oh for sure, I also have my own set of Sans mischaracterization pet peeves in fics (though I'd often look the other way if the fic is well-written because beggars can't be choosers, no writer owes anyone a perfect Sans voice, fanfics are for fun, etc etc. Hell one of my favorite fics of all time portrayed Sans as an asshole and I'm not complaining because good god the writing is just THAT delicious and I still can't believe I'm reading it for free).

E.g Sans calling another adult (often times the MC) with 'kid'. Or like I've mentioned on another post, if he's quick to anger or aggressive enough to attack at the slightest provocation. Sometimes it's not a case of mischaracterization at all, just something I personally can't read without feeling like a wet kitten (the next time I read an overused skeleton related pun I will escape my own and DIE).

I often theorize why this is a Thing. I yearned to understand why I'm subjected to read yet another skele-ton, tibia, humerus, funny bone pun. Maybe since Undertale was popular with a big ass fanbase, and Sans is like our mascot, so when you combine this with a majority of the fandom being in the younger side -- youths full of time and creativity and energy though lacked the writing experience -- what's left of our poor skeleton is a pile of flanderized bones. Which is often the case when you're young and you just started writing because damn that blue skeleton is too romance able to deny (want write... But HOW write???).

You thought of some of his traits you often see (ketchup, touch Papyrus and die, blue glowing eye, epic bones & blaster attacks, puns, depression, have I mentioned the touch Papyrus and die? Puns again, threats, the bad time catchphrase, so on so forth) and you use these as a guiding bible to writing Sans the Skeleton. Boom, Sans x Reader 200k enemies to lovers.

,,,Bottom line is, I'm kind of sure the tendency to mischaracter him stems from Undertale's popularity and the younger part of the fandom. That, or after all these years, people had simply grown to love and accept Fanon Sans in all his slightly unlikeable behavior glory (heartwarming). So the inaccurate potrayal is now, like, on purpose -- on top of fanon him being easier to pin down because the canon guy are too tricky to pin down, like you said.

From what I've seen though, the canon Sans starts to get the love he deserves again! All is good. Now I can read a Sans x Reader 200k enemies to lovers, but with the actual dude this time. Awesome.

Ight, that said. I legit also think people should write him in the way that makes them the happiest. Sans is fictional but your happiness isn't. Even if your Sans will finally be the one to prompt me to escape my own skeleton. Or your Sans is RABID and deserves JAILTIME and GROWLS and BARA. Go wild, be free, and more importantly, have fun! <3

[julienbakerstreet]

Hi! What’s your favorite sherlock Holmes story/adaptation? Do you have any specific Holmes takes?

Hi! This is an overly convoluted answer because I’m incapable of brevity and love to ramble. In my defense, you asked. Obviously favorite story is an impossible question, but I will share the best response I’ve ever heard to this question by Sherlockian Peter Blau: “I am often asked that question and my standard answer is: the one I’ve read most recently. And to be mean, I’ll then say that it’s a story that most people don’t like, like The Mazarin Stone. I maintain that no matter what the story is, there’s something interesting and fun about it.” I definitely have preferences, but I agree that you can find something interesting in each of the stories!

On mystery value alone, I think The Red-Headed League and Blue Carbuncle are two of the best. Doyle didn’t always write fairplay mysteries, but I like it when they’re at least close! I generally recommend those to readers new to canon and/or the mystery genre. I also really enjoy how the stories deal with the concept of justice and social oppression, for which I love SCAN, YELL, COPP, SPEC, CHAS, and ILLU. It’s a pet peeve of mine when adaptations divorce mysteries from their social contexts and downplay Holmes’ deep-seated love of justice. Finally, there’s stories that I just love for how they expand the world and deepen the characters, like STUD, HOUN, GREE/BRUC (for giving us Mycroft), GLOR, 3GAR, DEVI.

Adaptations are also tricky because I love seeing how different people interpret the same stories and what aspects they choose to emphasize. One of the coolest things about being a Holmes fan is getting to see so many perspectives on my favorite stories. I love comparing how different adaptations from different countries/time periods depict Victorian England, because you can really see a difference in how the 80s viewed the 1880s versus the 2000s versus the 60s, etc. My favorite genre of adaptation, however, is Holmesian antecedents. The Holmes/Watson dynamic is really big in the mystery genre, but I have a soft spot for Holmes-inspired duos in other genres, like Bunny and Raffles and Jeeves and Wooster. 

As for Holmes takes, I recently watched a video essay that asserted that the main draw of the Holmes books is the mysteries, and I couldn’t disagree more. Sure, we all love the mysteries, but the pop-culture ubiquity and enduring appeal of the stories and the fandom are primarily due to how fascinating of a character Holmes is and how personal Watson’s narration feels. Reading these stories, told through the POV of a close friend, you feel like Holmes is teaching you his methods and encouraging you to apply them. I love Doyle, but other writers (specifically from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction) have written far better mysteries on a technical level that haven’t garnered half the attention and staying power as Holmes. The way Holmes encourages us to think about mysteries is dramatically more relevant to his popularity than the actual mysteries he solves. We see this in how people who’ve never picked up a Holmes book know where the “eliminate the impossible” quote comes from. There’s just something so cool about being in a niche community that’s simultaneously been so wildly popular for so long that references to it are inescapable– like, I caught a Holmes joke in Veep the other day! 

[redysetdare]

I always find it interesting that homosexual coded main characters don't really get shipped with every single side character of the opposite gender. And people get told off for shipping lesbian coded characters with men or gay coded characters with women by the rest of the fandom. But it's always aroace coded main characters getting shipped with every single side character that exists. And aroace fans getting told to "not generalise the entire aspec community" and "let people ship whomever they want!! It's just fiction!!!" as if we don't deserve to see characters living happy lives not being in relationships. And my biggest pet peeve is the trope of an aroace coded character "growing up and maturing" by... getting in a romantic/sexual relationship. Really shows what these people think about non-partnering aspec people irl. It's not just about fictional characters but they'll never admit it 🤷

I will say that there are some idiots out there who do ship gay characters with the opposite sex because they believe in people being able to ship whatever they want (which can lead to some disturbing places but I digress) But those kinds of ships do get a lot more push back and the same people who get after people for changing characters from gay to straight do not have the same energy when it happens to aro /aroace characters.

These same people are the ones calling for representation and how we treat characters identities in fiction does reflect how we view those identities in the real world EXCEPT when it comes to aspec characters. Suddenly then it's "fiction doesn't effect reality!!!" there's some double standards happening and it's beyond frustrating that no one seems to even notice and get mad at us for pointing it out.

Not to mention it's incredibly funny to hear them cry "Don't generalize the community" while they generalize the community by acting like every aro/ace/aroace person can date and have sex - which like you said ignored the existence of non-partnering identities and I'd like to add it also erases repulsed identities.

None of these people actually care about the aspecs who date or have sex. they don't actually care how those identities work or those experiences at all. they're using them as a get out of jail free card. a loop hole. a "I can't be homophobic because I have a gay best friend" card. They don't care about QPRs and how those relationships can be experience in wildly different ways. All they care about is if they get to have two characters kiss without having to genuinely look at themselves and their biases and possibly have the revelation that they might hold bigoted beliefs about aspec people.

And at this point I'd rather them admit that they don't actually care about aspec identities or experiences instead of tying themselves into knots to try and prove "I'm not aphobic!!!!" because they actively tried to find a loop hole to make it so that they could feel superior and in the right for being able to erase an entire identity of people.

[fitzrove]

Now that I'm talking about history sklslsldldld here's another post...

Historical accuracy in fanworks - why?

A recurring thing w me is that people get annoyed with how obsessed I am with historical accuracy 😭😅 Like people have had to physically restrain me from doing 5 hours of research for a throwaway line in a fanfic, and one friend and I once had an hour long argument about word choice... But unfortunately I am just Like This lmao.

The thing is though, it's not because of any inherent sense of superiority or anything like that lol, I just have preferences. Also, I'm not the kind of person that needs everything to be 100% accurate all the time, I can still have fun JAPFLDPGPF. Basically, for me it comes down to a few things:

1. Suspension of disbelief / immersion

With historical fiction, the "he would not fucking say that" kicks in w dialogue easier than w something set in the modern day. Sometimes it's because of glaringly modern language (a 19th century guy going "sup" or something xD) but other times it's because a character is way too familiar with people of a different class, or acts/dresses/speaks too casually in general.

My hugest pet peeve with this are character names for side characters that the author made up 😭😭😭😭😭 As a non-native English speaker I don't really get the urge to insert random English names into my stories even when the stories are in English, I always look up the historical context and try to use names that a parent would give their child in that context. I'm sorry for naming and shaming but in one tdv fic Alfred's surname was Smith and I had to put down my phone because it broke my immersion so badly xD

2. Enjoyment

Historical accuracy can also be a characterisation thing!!! With crown prince rudolf of austria specifically his whole appeal as a character comes from his neuroses, and his neuroses are the specific way they are because of his specific position and status, and all that those entail in his historical context. It makes a story so much more interesting if these are properly taken into account 👀

3. What's the purpose of fanfic?

To me personally the purpose of writing and posting FANfic, as opposed to writing other stories, is threefold:

Making a point about the original story (is it a fix-it fic? An AU reimagining? A canon-compliant elaboration on something I think could expand upon a character's personality or two characters' relationship? These approaches all comment on the original work and its themes and characters.)

Personal enjoyment/self indulgence (I write what I would like to read)

Hopefully connecting with other fans (persuading them to see my Vision re specific characters/relationships, the setting, or the work as a whole; keeping the fandom alive; inspiring other people to make fanwork; providing entertainment; finding people who are the same kind of insane as you and making friends)

To me, putting historical accuracy into my fic or drawing inspiration from history fulfills all of these goals. With the first one: the original work usually comments on its era in some way as well, so drawing inspiration for the fic from that era complements it and keeps them grounded together. IRL history can also give you fun ideas to put in. W the second one: I love late 19th century history specifically and historical accuracy is my kink KSLFPEPDOFO. W the third one: I like sharing weird/funny/interesting historical facts w people so we can enjoy them together 😌 I also like Informing people of things that happened in history so hopefully they can have as much fun w the knowledge as I do. I try not to do this unsolicitedly and in general try to avoid criticising anyone for historical inaccuracies without being asked to because that's boring, I'm not trying to be cinema sins here

4. Exceptions

Sometimes historical inaccuracy is more fun than historical accuracy, though this is highly personal - you just have to do what you think is best and accept that something you enjoy might be something that breaks another person's suspension of disbelief (and hence makes them not enjoy the story). My personal metrics are roughly:

Sojblfpldlpf fun fact an unnamed person and I had a conversation about rudolf's probably not existing [redacted] register last night and while writing a fic about it would be historically inaccurate, the conclusions we arrived at about it were pretty funmy and interesting. With gay and homosexual implications

One of my favourite pastimes is to comb over crown prince rudolf's life and purposefully misinterpret random things as gay KSOGODPFOTK 😌😌😌 it's a good way to get fic ideas. So um yeah idk where I was going with this post haha

[azureflight]

Young Rhaenyra, Old Rhaenyra and the point of children

I have a personal pet peeve, of a certain trend I see especially in adaptations.

Stop erasing what makes a story/char unique and different from mainstream/conventional wisdom/contemporary perspective.

This used to be most dominantly seen when a non-western, or non-American work gets a "USA" adaptation. They would just erase the fundamental differences in perspective and approach to a certain topic or subject, that mostly stemmed from the cultural differences between USA and the original country.

One of the latest and most egregious examples of this would be Ghost in the Shell live action movie with Scar Jo. And no, it was not the choice of actress, that was actually fine. But they have fundamentally changed and in fact reversed the philosophy and conclusion of the story from the original, turning from a profoundly different take on transhumanism and question of what is a human and do we even have to be one, and made it into a generic "oh you are you no matter your memories or body and should stick to regular modern human individualism".

Which would be fine, if this was an original work. Ghost in the Shell 2017 would be a damn fine sci-fi action movie, if it was an original work. A bit flawed and somewhat cliche, but damn fine.

But it isn't. It is an adaptation of the iconic Ghost in the Shell, and as an adaptation, it has one of the most gratuitous examples of betraying the soul of the story.

Now, this brings me to HotD, and specifically the depiction of young Rhaenyra and the constant fandom arguments about her seemingly random turn from not wanting kids to having a brood of them.

Up until the very recent past (and indeed in a lot of countries in the rest of the world still), women having children and many of them, was the norm, the expected, the forced upon. However, within the last two generations, this has most certainly reversed in the western world, at least for the overwhelming majority of the population.

Nowadays, women not wanting kids and then not having them, is the norm. We understand and accept this as a perfectly valid position to hold. Beyond that, a lot of the traditional gender roles imposed on women got a lot of pushback, with defying and denouncing them being seen as not merely a novelty, but almost a necessary condition of being a truly independent woman.

This means we are now a different society with different norms, different expectations and different judgements. For us, now, a female character who doesn't want kids and doesn't like the traditional gender roles, is the normal person that we can all identify and sympathize with. For a lot of us, when such a character opens their mouth, our words come pouring out. And there is nothing wrong with that.

However, this does mean, now, the unique and different character would be someone who doesn't fit this new norm, this new expectation. And indeed, it is difficult to foster sympathy and connection between audience and a character, if the character has a fundamentally different perspective on some crucial social and cultural aspects of life. But therein exactly where the power and importance of fiction lies: The ability to produce and introduce different humans with different opinions and give us the ability to try and understand them.

The main function of fiction isn't to reaffirm and reinforce our contemporary morals. Indeed, validation is the least and perhaps the most debased thing fiction can do. And we most certainly oppose it, when some group or institution tries to do that for their own morals and values which we disagree with. No shortage of accusations of indoctrination and propaganda, and rightfully so.

But when we are faced with characters, societies and stories who defy and challenge our own conventions, suddenly we get chicken shit and start bending them to make them palatable ourselves instead of enjoying the difference and charging into see what this other perspective might provide us.

Rhaenyra in the books, never had a "not like other girls" phase. She was not a tomboy, she was not a generic pseudo-modern "gender no-confirming" girl from west coast who didn't want no kids and no husbands.

Rhaenyra was very feminine and enjoyed it. She wanted power and felt entitled to it, without trying to imitate traditionally masculine behaviors or trying to fit into some Madonna role. As far as we know, she wanted to have children, wanted a large family, and loved her kids to bits. Her being fully and unapologetically female, feminine and embracing all of the sensual, sexual and biological aspects of it while still demanding power and authority, is what drove the sexist green shits up the wall.

If she had been some tomboy, her attempts at trying to be "more like a man" would actually garner her more sympathy and support, as she would be seen as admitting and accepting the "weakness" of her sex. If she stuck to some virgin/maiden role, she could have been put on a pedestal and celebrated by the established sexist power holders.

Instead she was the Realm's Delight. A gorgeous woman who didn't know how to fight but dressed impeccably, who was not interested in swords or pants, but rode, hawked and feasted, who flirted and danced with admirers and deigned to tour the realm to see if there was a man she would enjoy having as a husband and when she was forced to marry a gay guy, she took a lover and started to pop out kid after kid with him.

Rhaenyra was undeniably female, in a society where being a woman was lesser. She was not someone they can put into a sterilized icon to strip from her flesh and blood humanity and she was not some "not like other girls/almost like a boy" type that they could rationalize accepting as their ruler because she "technically didn't count as woman" due to how different she behaved.

She was the embodiment of every fear about women these people had: Powerful despite lacking traditional mastery of arms, charming and hot, making her deeply desired by men which meant she could influence and "control" them, sexual meaning they couldn't control her, holding authority, meaning she could reject them, and cuckolded her husband, meaning she could emasculate them. Oh, and she also had a dragon so she would most definitely win if they were to ever try to assert themselves physically against her, as they would try against women like this in general.

The books try to paint Alicent as virtuous against fat Rhaenyra with her whorish ways, but it cannot hide the fact that Rhaenyra had men fighting, dying, killing and conspiring to be with her, even when she was "fat". 

The Rogue Prince they all feared, despised and admired, was caught in her orbit since she was 14 and stayed there until his death and despite all the attempts at trying to make Nettles into a big deal, the man died fighting for Rhaenyra.

Almost all of the lords who courted her, save for Lannister twins, remained loyal to her to death and even beyond her grave.

She was not a warrior herself, but she had gallant, honorable sons all accepted as competent and capable. And she was a mother who loved her children to the death, to the point of insanity and her sons loved her back, to their own ends.

Erasing this more feminine and traditionally conforming aspect of Rhaenyra, robs the story of the fundamental dynamic of her tragedy, how her more traditionally "normal" sides conflicts with rest everything else about her and work to exacerbate the opposition and vitriolic, murderous hate against her.

HotD traded away a beautifully complex character and a very interesting take on a sexist social dynamic, for a cheap narrative shorthand of "this is the character you should like".

If they had stuck to the truth of the story, of the child Rhaenyra who was isolated, tormented and abused in her own home by her own step-mother and her lackeys, under her father's nose, with his willful ignorance, they wouldn't need to invent such a generic skinsuit to shove her younger version into, in order to make the audience "sympathize" with her. A dutiful daughter, who loved her father but still felt entitled to her birthright, a feminine woman who still wanted to rule, a sensual woman who wanted to have a brood of her own because she lacked a proper family to belong to in her own youth, would be a much more complex, deep and interesting character. And one we could all cheer for, if the writing was decent.

Instead we have a pretty generic teenager powergirl who then grows up to be a completely different person as an adult and half the audience complains about how this was a “disservice” to her character or the change didn’t make sense. And you know what? They are right. The show never explained it because of time constraints, but also the show just refuses to properly set-up and explain stuff when they know the plot demands something happen anyway, which is shit tier writing. And it is a great disservice to Rhaenyra’s character, but in the opposite direction.

The story didn’t take a strong, independent woman who wanted no kids and made her a mother of 5. The story took a strong, independent woman who loved and wanted her kids and injected a completely made up phase of not wanting them into her youth just to make her more palatable to modern audiences with minimal effort.

So now, half the people who liked the first 5 episode version of fake Rhaenyra are stuck with a never explained, never resolved dissonance and all of us are robbed of a truly interesting and unique character and story.

[frozenambiguity]

𝘒𝘕𝘖𝘞𝘐𝘕𝘎 𝘠𝘖𝘜𝘙 𝘗𝘈𝘙𝘛𝘕𝘌𝘙 𝘞𝘌𝘓𝘓 𝘊𝘈𝘕 𝘗𝘖𝘛𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘐𝘈𝘓𝘓𝘠 𝘔𝘈𝘒𝘌 𝘞𝘙𝘐𝘛𝘐𝘕𝘎 𝘛𝘖𝘎𝘌𝘛𝘏𝘌𝘙 𝘈 𝘓𝘖𝘛 𝘌𝘈𝘚𝘐𝘌𝘙.

REPOST DO NOT REBLOG !!

NAME: Cláudia

PRONOUNS : She/her

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION : Discord. Ims, sometimes, though I often forget to check them asdfghfds I also enjoy communicating via tags.

NAME OF MUSE(s) : Kaeya! But I also like calling him Kae or Yaya when talking ooc with friends. He's my pookie, so it's only natural that I use nicknames of endearment.

BEST EXPERIENCE : honestly sobbing my eyes and soul out because of interactions or potential scenarios that I discuss with friends. I crave that sweet, sweet pain. It's at times like those that I really go, 'wow, all this that we create... Art, really. This is what makes life worth living'. It is honestly one of the best feelings for a writer to feel.

RP PET PEEVES / DEALBREAKERS : I don't think I have many...? Mostly because I am pretty chill with stuff. I guess I will mention the usual god-modding stuff or forcing headcanons onto my character, though it rarely happens.

If I have to give a more specific answer, though...? Hm. This might sound controversial, but it is heartbreaking to see that people do not distinguish fiction from reality anymore. Especially when that translates into attacking//bashing//starting fandom witch hunts, only because someone likes certain contents or ships you don't like or find "immoral".

I have been roleplaying for many years and I have always thrived in fandoms whose contents or nature could be easily seen as controversial ( if you know Diabolik Lovers, I'm blowing you a little kiss ), so it's rather weird to see people so sensitive these days. Not that you have to enjoy x or y, but if you don't, then simply curate your own space and go on with your day. You don't have to attack others or make them feel inferior for enjoying something you don't. I've seen firsthand, multiple times, people who stopped writing, drawing or just creating in general because they were attacked for it. Not cool.

TLDR; Just let people enjoy what they want and write what they want. I don't need to be more direct than this to get my point across. Learn to differentiate a person's interests from their true nature. If you're not capable of doing that, then... Well. We're probably not meant to be.

MUSE PREFERENCES: For settings, I prefer writing angst! Fluff! And surprisingly domestic, day-to-day stuff. But when it comes to muses, I tend to lean toward complex, multifaceted ones. Usually ones that choose to present themselves in a certain way and carry out a performance of sorts, that may not truly represent their deepest inner musings, thought patterns, or genuine feelings.

PLOTS OR MEMES : I tend to lean toward memes because I'm not very good at plotting + Kaeya has a mind of his own. I'm just here to type, he leads fdghjhr

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES : Long! I do not know how to be concise and I love partners who match that energy www

BEST TIME TO WRITE : It depends on my mood. I don't have a preferable time to do it. When motivation strikes --- that's the best time to write.

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S) : I have been finding more and more that yes, I am. More than I initially thought.

Tagged by: @nagareboshiko thank you for the tag!! <3

Tagging: you!

[a-hell-of-a-time-archive]

Respond to the following prompts out of character, then tag others you'd like to get to know a little bit better.

Roleplayer name: Jo

Roleplayer pronouns: She/Her (also receptive to they/them)

Muse name(s): Andrealphus, Octavia, Dawn (OC), Caim (OC), Yui (OC), Yukitaka (OC), Peter White (HNKNA hellaverse crossover), Shuren (Bleach Hellaverse crossover)

Preferred communication: Discord, Tumblr DM's

Experience: I've been roleplaying since 2009, and on Tumblr since 2011. I am still fairly new to this RPC (About 7-8 months now?) but not new to rp'ing itself! I've been in many fandoms and rp groups during my time on here, and my main blog is a collection of my muses to date (my most active and cherished ones, actually).

Preferred roleplay type: Anything goes by me, but I prefer crackier, shorter styles of roleplay. However, I will not say no to multi para/novella type rp's (they will take longer for me to answer though!) I also love angst, fluff, and everything in between and am a huge shipper.

Pet peeves & dealbreakers: Anything that's in my rules that I won't touch with a ten foot pole, along with the basics (godmodding, forced shipping, etc etc.) I also don't like people who are into drama and live for callout posts/reblogs, especially if they are not serious in nature or something that could have been handled privately via ooc communication. Unless the person is legitimately dangerous (aka a known pedo/groomer/abuser, etc. I do not give a rat's ass what people do with fiction and will block shit I hate like a normal person. Leave me out of it. Also: Do not bring me drama involving people who have changed/are in the process of changing, and do not dictate who I follow/don't follow. I will make my own decisions with my own judgment because I am an adult. I am far too old for this shit and have too much irl bullshit to deal with as it is.

Basically, do not be a pushy asshole, a bigoted asshole, or an asshole in general and read/adhere to my rules and we will be fine.

Best time to write: Whenever I get a day off and sleep, so usually some evenings and weekends!

Are you like your muse? Not 100%. I will put bits of myself into each of my muses, or see bits of myself reflected in them, but I will never be any of my muses.

Tagged by; @angelsandemons

Tagging; All of you. If you see this, you are tagged.

[magpiefngrl]

You know the square people use to decide what fics they’d take with them to a deserted island? I was thinking about it and I sat down and wondered what my top fics were from the HP fandom specifically. When I boiled it down from the hundreds I’ve read, 9 1/2 Days tied for first place with Heal Thyself by astolat. (Just after those two was The Miseducation of Draco Malfoy so I suppose you can tell that I love character development in fiction.)

What I love about your fic in particular though was that you didn’t shy away from the not-so-nice aspects of Draco’s personality, such as how he used to bully Neville or play tricks on Dobby. You addressed the more difficult aspects of his personality, implied strongly that it was in no small part, because of how he was raised, BUT at the same time, you did not reduce him to victimhood and I really really liked that.

A trope that comes up a lot in fiction (in general, not just fanfiction) is making a villainous character into a victim. It seems to be the fastest and easiest way to get the audience to root for them.

But that doesn’t always sit right with me, because sometimes it feels as if the writer is trying to get the audience to side with a particular character without any actual growth from that character. I think there’s a fine line here because an explanation for why a person is the way they are should not be used as a justification or an excuse for the harmful things they do.

That’s why I really really loved your fic. I loved that you used World War II and the Holocaust as a vehicle to help Draco address his own bigotry. That being lost in the world with Harry helped him to confront and struggle with the things he had taught to believe as opposed to what he was actually experiencing for himself. The romance between Harry and him was believable and breathtaking and didn’t take away from Draco’s journey. In all my years of reading, I’ve noticed that this is a very very hard balance to strike. One that even very successful, seasoned writers struggle with and you pulled off so gracefully! I’m in awe.

I’m sorry for the long comment and for rambling I just think you really need to know that your story was wonderful and I’m so glad, so thankful you wrote it.

Gosh. What a lovely and thoughtful ask 💗💗

I'm really happy to hear that you enjoy my fics, esp. 9 ½ Days, and I'm thrilled beyond words that you enjoyed the way the romance unfolded side-by-side with Draco's unlearning. It was indeed very hard for me to write a convincing romance which evolved little by little with Draco slowly changing at the same time. I banged my head on my desk so many times while writing the fic and it's a significant reason it took me 5 years to write.

I hear you re: Draco's growth and portrayal. One of my (many) pet peeves is fics portraying Draco as a victim who only got into the DE because he was being forced but in his heart he was an innocent baby. I find that this, besides being inaccurate, also strips Draco of all agency. It makes him nothing more than a puppet, which in turn makes him very boring. I find canon Draco fascinating. I like the idea that yes, he happily joined the magical equivalent of KKK and he used the equivalent of the n-word with abandon (while also being a bully and a rich toff that looked down his nose on people), and that later he saw some atrocities and realised the true meaning of belonging to a hate group. The cost of it. I imagine the enormity of his guilt and how hard he works in order to change himself, and all this is what makes him such a thrilling character. For me, anyway.

Heal Thyself deals with all this so well! I absolutely adore this fic. It blew me away when I read it. I kept pointing at the page and going "Yes! THIS!"

Look, I don't expect every single fic to make a song and dance about his redemption, sometimes a girl just wants to read a 3k PWP, you know? But when I come across a story where I can tell the author relishes in Draco's complexity, I sure do appreciate it.

I'm very pleased you liked the way I explored this side of him in the fic. Thank you for the very kind message! My fic being one of your desert island fics is so, so touching! I'm all emotional now 💗

[countlessrealities]

Questions Often Left Unanswered: Mun Edition || Accepting !

@angelichooves asked:

What’s your biggest pet peeve when it comes to RPing?

What’s your biggest pet peeve when it comes to the fandom you RP in?

11. What’s your biggest pet peeve when it comes to RPing?

This is going to make me sound like a picky jerk, but there are a lot of behaviours in the rpc that piss me off these days. It's kinda hard to choose one, and I could write a novel about it, but...well, I'm tired and I can't English that much, so I'll pick one thing. Namely how self-centred and uncaring the RPC has become.

Ofc, we're here all here to have fun and handle our blogs. Get interactions for them, share our ideas, have fun for ourselves, and so on. However, at times I feel like this has become an extreme focus to some RPers, to the point that they forget that RP is supposed to be a two-way street, and not just something you get amusement from. It's not just about you, it's about your RP partners too.

More often than not I see people disregarding the most basic etiquette, as liking HCs posts or sending in OOC memes just to reblog the same fucking meme 30 seconds later. And don't get me started on people, on one hand, forcing their HCs on others or, on the other, completely disregarding their partners' HCs / canon divergence /etc.

I honestly find this behaviour incredibly disheartening. It kills my motivation to reach out to people, to be curious about their ideas and muse, and in general to show interest, when I know that they won't give a damn about my ideas. Not even to make sure we can mesh them together so that they work for us both. I can't find the will to engage with them because I'm too old for that shit, plain and simple.

Aaand, I'm stopping here, because I've already said too much. Just, seriously? Have a look outside your lawn from time to time, folks. It's not that hard.

12. What’s your biggest pet peeve when it comes to the fandom you RP in?

Since it wasn't specified, I'm assuming that this ask was implicitly about Hazbin Hotel / Helluva Boss.

Well, very unpopular opinion, it really gets on my nerves how most of the fandom states, first and foremost, how they are against the creator. It seems to have become a must in the fandom and it makes me extremely uncomfortable? I'll admit that I don't know all the details of why people seem to have Viv so much, but from what I gathered is all about fictional stuff?? Which confuses the shit out of me because...it's not real.

Yeah, I'm one of the people who doesn't think that fiction equals / influences reality. It's stated in my rules, I don't tolerate people bullying other over fictional stuff. If you're following me, you should know that. Not to mention that I've been clearly open about this, several times, so...

I like her stuff, just as I respect that some people don't. It's all the hate that's thrown out without a proper, actually relevant reason that I don't get. I mean, sure, you do you, and if that's what makes you comfortable, I won't argue with that. But it means that you must respect that I don't agree with it in return.

[thelordofgifs]

🔥 relating to silm fanfaction?

(send me a 🔥 and I’ll drop an unpopular opinion!)

Oooh a broad topic! Firstly it’s worth noting that of all the fandoms I’ve ever interacted with, silm fandom is by far and away the most talented. The general quality of fic is just SO high. Do people even realise how lucky we are here??

That said, I am human and probably do have some pet peeves about silm fic. Hmm let’s think. One very minor and specific thing that frustrates me is when people just use Quenya words for absolutely everything in the fic? Like it’s so incredibly impressive that you know so much of the language, but I often find it makes the tone of the fic a little jarring: not even necessarily in a pretentious way, though that’s often the case. It just makes the characters feel more distant to me I suppose, and it makes the story feel more like an examination of elven culture (which is often very good!) than a work of fiction. Not sure if I’m getting my point across very well? But, to take a fairly common example, if you use the word amilessë instead of mother-name I might side-eye you a little. You can keep things in English without losing the necessary interesting worldbuilding, in my opinion.

Of course this is all very much a matter of personal preference and I’ve read several excellent fics that take this tack, so I’m not trying to vague anyone here!

[storiesofsvu]

Hello dear :) I'd like to get into writing fiction again but it's been a long time and I don't know where to start. Do you have tips? Any for maybe starting to write for new fandoms/series/characters? Thank you.

ooo... i think it's a little different for everyone, but here's things i would do/do.

-spend some time reading, esp the fandoms that you want to write for and the tropes you like. read as much as you can to submerse yourself into that world

-same goes for watching said show/movie/whatever. i always like to throw on a few eps to catch the vibe and then maybe go for a character specific episode to get the feel of them back

-for new characters/shows i like to go through the SFW/NSFW alphabet headcanon things, or find other headcanon templates online and start with that, get a feel for the character/fandom, play around with things a little bit before delving into a full fic

-again with watching the show: i find that's the easiest way to come up with "fix it fics" or just ideas for stories in general. like, the stuff we don't see on screen that may or may not have happened, or should have happened. Like, character a comes home from a case/day at work that was a shitty shitty time, someone got hurt/etc, and they don't have a partner on the show to wind down with, so write those kinda things (ships or reader insert)

-find prompt lists! it can take a bit to have people sending stuff in but i found some, wrote down a bunch of ones that i really liked, and then went through that list and thought about which character they fit the best and did some little drabbles to start off with.

-as for getting engagement: post everything you write, if you think it's crap there's a chance it's not and you're just being hard on yourself! the more you post, the more you'll pop up in the tags and people will get to recognize you and interact more. also that being said, use the tags! but use them appropriately (ie; tag the fandom, the character you're writing for and what ship it is. you don't need to tag all the other characters in the fic, just the one/ship you focus on. personal pet peeve there lol.) follow people from the fandoms you want to write for, whether they be fandom blogs, writing blogs, gif making blogs, send req's into them, read/comment/reblog on their stuff, again, the more often they see your name, the more likely they are to check out your stuff. you can create a google doc to make a taglist, or you can make a general note all "tagged some people who i thought might be interested? lmk if you want me to take you off" and most of the time people seem to not care. it's easy to ignore a tag imo.

hope that helps!!

[c0rpseductor]

im just doing all of these at once regardless of likes and i'm doing it here because i hate twitter's character limit. and i love the sound of my own voice. feel free to steal it from me if you like in fact please do

i listen to music when i write Sometimes. i try to keep it to stuff without lyrics or stuff with lyrics in a language i don't speak fluently enough for them to distract me. sometimes i do listen to music in english if i've heard the song so many times that i can kind of tune out the words but in general music with lyrics pulls the language bits in my brain in too many directions

i tell my close friends about plans for my fics and talk to them about it and sometimes let them beta sections of writing but in general i'm a no beta/loose beta kind of guy.

third person limited babyyyyyyyyyy

depends. i used to write more often in past tense but i switched to present recently and i feel like the immediacy of present makes it a lot easier for me especially where more figurative prose is concerned. i've been meaning to try past tense again just to see if it's really more difficult or if my decision to switch tenses is unrelated

pretty even mix. i start and abandon longfics like nobody's business

see above.

i guess if you count oc/canon or oc/oc stuff as rarepairs but. not really? shrug

i try really hard to write principal characters as close to canon as possible, but background characters i take more liberties with. in general i don't like discarding canon characterization bc it feels like, ok, why not just write an oc? after a certain point. like the point is that i enjoy the character as depicted yknow

i don't really think about this. if you put some cliches or tropes in front of me in a story i'd be able to identify them and say whether or not i like them but a lot of times it's contextual and i like the execution more than the trope itself. or vice versa. i like reincarnation romance conceptually but do not often like the way it's written

i fucking hate omegaverse. gender is a prison

obviously im an emetwol freak. emetwol is my otp. sickos voice

i dont have any notps really. i dont spend time thinking about specific ships i hate i just ignore them

nice dichotomy, now what lies outside it? i guess i like both fluff and smut but i don't know that i really care for fluff vs smut as a binary. my personal definition of "fluff" encompasses any particularly tender feel-good warm fuzzy kind of fiction and that doesn't preclude sexual intimacy in the slightest. conversely i love a good bit of tender feel-good warm fuzzy smut but do not really like "fluff" in the way i tend to see it used in fandom as specifically like sexless "wholesome" feel-good slice of life stuff a la coffee shop au. nothing wrong with that but i get a little bored of it unless it's a breather in a longer work with dramatic weight personally

i love angst. i think my personal hangup is that angst has to have a point and be about something. angst for the sake of angst inevitably feels kind of cheap and shallow to me. whenever i write angst it's like to process something specific so i tend to have a lesson in mind at the end of the work

in the shower or lying awake in bed at night the same as everyone else i assume

plantser. i always have an outline in mind but it's flexible. vague. mutable. gossamer

i title my chapters and i kick myself for starting the habit every time bc i'm dogshit at titles

i think most of my pet peeves are smut-related which says a lot about me. stop saying core to mean vagina. stop saying sex as a noun for genitals. i never want to see sac again. also i fucking despise orbs as a noun for eyes and i thought we'd abolished that like via geneva convention sometime in 2015 but people still use it.

scene transitions and communicating the passage of time. im still working on that

bold of my amateur ass to give advice but i think READ REAL BOOKS. is high on the list. not just fiction, either. read nonfiction, both bc it can be surprisingly engaging and poetically written and because it's good to learn facts about things. read wikipedia. recipe blogs. i dont care. read everything you possibly can that is not fanfiction. and when you are watching tv and movies pick apart every narrative you encounter to see how it works. you will be a better writer for it i promise

[midchelle]

Thank you @raylangivins for tagging mwahhh kisses :)))

How many works do you have on ao3?

A humble 6.

What's your total ao3 word count?

34,148, would be 90,571 if I hadn't orphaned a fic a while back.

What fandoms do you write for?

It's currently the Beatles, but I used to write some other stuff. YA series. Let's not get into it.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

oh, what a night! - Paul's not looking at John, he’s watching his fingers follow the line of John’s clavicle to his shoulder. “Not going to sleep, then?” “No.” John swallows, feels the dexie scrape down his oesophagus. “Was rather hoping for an encore, myself.” Obertauern, February 1965

Sorry Girls, He's Married - The morning after the Ed Sullivan Show, John is in a strange mood. Cyn is asleep. Paul makes a bad choice || New York City, February 1964 (Added a summary to this a while ago because I remembered it just didn't have one lol)

the late, great, johnny ace - 1981. Paul is making an album.

my brother's keeper - There is a certain clinical satisfaction in seeing just how bad things can get || Chicago, August 1966

you and i have memories - Over the years, John has had many way-out ideas, but fucking off to California and having his memory wiped is certainly a novel one, even for him. (2/5)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yeah I try to! I'm kind of a boomer when it comes to AO3 functionality, so sometimes I miss a few of them, but they're always super appreciated and I try to make sure that I show that.

What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably tell me all my love's in vain. The actual situation in johnny ace is much, much angstier, but the ending has a bit of hope, at least.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

oh, what a night! Absolutely zero conflict throughout.

Do you get hate on fics?

I had one person be irritating in the comments of a fic, but otherwise everyone's been lovely.

Do you write smut?

yeah

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I haven't yet, might after I read the Marianne Faithfull/Edie Sedgwick bios that have been sitting on my desk for ages.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Someone could've stolen something I posted on Wattpad/ff.net and I wouldn't even know at this point because I can't get into the accounts.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Think someone on ff.net offered to translate the now orphaned fic a while ago. Can't recall what language.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, but I'm open to doing it should the muse strike us simultaneously.

What's your all-time favorite ship?

this dynamic <33

What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I had an idea for a Twilight fic some time ago that I never finished because I didn't know enough about Twilight, but it was a pretty good concept. I might use it for original fiction sometime, I dunno.

What are your writing strengths?

I dunno, you tell me. Descriptions, jokes, bad vibes, idk.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I hate writing the connective tissue bits between scenes, which is why most of my longer fics are in vignette form, and I get fed up of the fic if I've been working on it for a while, so my endings tend to be a bit lazier. Also, I'm not very good at plot. I'm mostly a vibes-based writer.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

It's usually pretty easy to get around, especially if the character themselves doesn't speak the language. One of my biggest pet peeves in fiction in general is the egregious use of recognizable foreign words to show the audience they're speaking another language when everything else is in English. Don't be doing that.

First fandom you wrote for?

Percy Jackson, I think. Self insert ofc, never posted anywhere.

Favorite fic you've written?

Doing the opposite of the way parents pic their favourite child and saying whichever was the last one.

tagging (no pressure!): @aquarianshift @boshemians @eveepe