#thats the benefit of making fanworks

[ven-of-oath]

I think what makes me feral about the ending is that I think martyn was going for the ' the watchers want a poetic final battle so I'm not going to give it to them' which is true in a 'we the audience are the watchers' but in the whole fanon 'watchers are the higher powers that control the games' he technically did exactly what they wanted him to do in last life but in lim life this time, in last life the watchers wanted him to kill ren then Scott and claim the victory but he failed to betray ren last minute getting himself killed, in lim life same situation except this time he succeeded in killing his ally then finishing the other person left taking the win.

Idk I just really like the 'the watchers finally got to him angle'

[portgas-d-rouge]

I've been following you on Twitter and you're really cool but I'm really concerned if you're normal or not. You have proship dni in bio, but you follow proshippers like lawlu and even acesabo and I know you used to follow a coralaw shipper. You keep interacting with lawlu and mipero shippers and are friends with proshippers' friends, too. Also your account is 16+ but you're following a 15yo kid. I'm worried if you're really okay to keep following or one of the weirdos that pretends to be normal.

hmm im really looking to stay out of any fights or drama buuuuuut ultimately i think its important for everyone to make informed decisions abt their own safety so ill just give a quick rundown of what im about 👍🏻

first of all... what 15 year old am i following?! i assure you its not on purpose.

second, ultimately i think "anti/proship" is kind of reductive discourse. i like psychosexual horror and toxic relationships and self shipping. and i dont think everyone who enjoys exploring dark topics is an abuse apologist. i do think sometimes people can be reactive and overcorrect with those things. there are plenty of grey areas!!

HOWEVER anyone who actively identifies as "proship", or believes strongly enough to start debating people about how "fiction doesnt affect reality" and has no bearing on rape/abuse culture is a fucking idiot. i especially cant stand anything shipping characters with their childhood caretakers or incest. which is what im trying to weed out w/ the DNI. ill always have more sympathy for "antis" even if i dont always agree with them.

that being said, theres certain things that personally ick me out that I don't find morally reprehensible/block worthy. i would never post or encourage la/wlu or mihawk/perona - the age gaps are gross to me - but i also don't think theyre really that bad. not nearly on the same level as something like coralaw or shanksluffy. like, peronas fully an adult and luffy only really gets to know law when hes 19 already. but i can promise id never retweet or reblog anything with those ships.

in general i try to give people the benefit of the doubt and don't hold people responsible for who they interact with (within reason). people are not necessarily friends with everyone they follow. people often use twitter much more casually.

im also like, a person, with a full time job, and i dont always extensively comb through someones twitter. sometimes i follow someone i think draws normal cora + law or asl brothers and i get jumpscared by nasty shit and it is! very unpleasent for me!

i care a lot about abuse/rape culture and how we as individuals are still complicit in it and can combat it, and I apply feminist analysis to all types of media - even fanworks. i was legit traumatized by 2010s fandom, and saw a lot of people get hurt and abused by fandom adults, so I know the effects of this "anything goes" mentality can have on people! i wish we could have these discussions without getting defensive and hostile and accusing nervous teenagers of being evangelical zealots (🙄) because theyre trying to protect themselves

if anything i said is something youre not comfortable with, then thats fair and block me if you need to. i encourage anyone, especially younger people, to enforce their own boundaries as they see fit. 👍🏻

[saltwukong]

nah bc ur so right sometimes rwde people make posts just to make post sometimes i think and thats coming from a very active member in the rwde tag. sometimes the curtains are just blue, and sometimes characters get roles to fulfill story beats lol like i also feel like ciel was a waste of a good character concept and could be expanded but thats what fanworks are for? idk lol i just agree that sometimes i just want to stage an intervention and tell some people that just bc YOU didnt like a thing that doesnt require a paragraph of justification about why its actually morally bankrupt that the thing you didnt like happened

I'm hesitant to answer a question like this because it feels like the sort of opportunistic thing some anti-rwder would leap to say but I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt here because at the end of the day you're right.

Miles Luna's and Kerry Shawcross's racism has manifested itself in RWBY in dozens of uncomfortable ways but I don't think one of them was making a conscious decision to give Winter and Penny a compelling dynamic in Volume 7 (which was likely the work of Kiersi Burkhart anyway) specifically to spite a one-off character they probably did not even remember exists, and loading the language up with words like "German" and "cop" is more than a little bit of overkill, especially since Ciel was just as Atlesian as Winter and has a French name.

I mean, if I wanted to play that kind of game, I could ask you what you think black people think of France and its history and try to finagle that into some kind of commentary re: Ciel being obviously part of the 'elite' Atlesian cast allowed to associate with Penny, but I'm not because that's dumb and a waste of time.

It's okay to just not like things. It's okay to want more for Ciel. But sometimes you gotta ask yourself if your anger is seeing efficient use, and this was not it.

[yonpote]

i just remembered i had a grand idea to create a tag specifically for content that you wouldn't want dnp to see, but unfortunately that wouldn't work if it's not the creators themselves establishing the tag. thats why the magns archives "do not archive" tag worked so well in the first place bc there was that trust that the creators wont look in that tag and that the audience would tag things appropriately.

thankfully dnp's like Still Posting fanbase is quite small nowadays so theyre not just overwhelmed with porn or themselves anymore, but at the same time that means theres less stuff to see, therefore theyre more likely to see things. im sure people want that attention, thats why vying for replies and likes on tweets and insta posts is such a thing, but when it comes to making more uhh. salacious? fanworks i think we would really benefit having some kind of space like that so if people dont wanna see it they can block the tag and ppl who do want to can go ham.

[bunabi]

how would you rewrite dragon age, or what are some things you'd wanna see in the new game?

Aside from the content that aged poorly in retrospect I actually wouldn't change much about Origins & II

I don't know if that's just nostalgia talking or if Inquisition's writing is just that wild to me. I've discussed DAI to death at this point though. Even if I focused on one character, it would probably be long. Let's try:

Sera could have been the savvy leader of an organized group of spies. Woman-Loving Elven Robin Hood is a super easy sell. The decision to make her head clown of a prank brigade instead is a little baffling. I dislike the amount of condescending dialogue options she gets versus other companions. I would have loved seeing her as an equally goofy and brilliant tactician. I think her disinterest in actually dismantling the nobility makes her rivalry (?) with Vivienne that much more confusing. It was silly to add her aversion to elfyness with no intention to approach it sincerely. It's like the writer just asked himself 'hmm what would I do if I was a minority' and wrote his own reactions. Not to speak for every person in a diaspora but when I felt disconnected from my culture and not ethnic enough to participate in it, I was not acting this way at any stretch of the imagination. Corny and contrived sneering, parody levels of irreverence. If I were to review Sera, I'd say she's a great character overshadowed by a lack of understanding and unwillingness to understand. The fact she's so interesting in meta and fanwork is proof of it. I dont know if thats a symptom of their crunch or what, but I wish it panned differently.

Look at that?? I can yap forever about DAI.

What do I want for DA4? I'd like the devs to have fun and not suffer during its development. That's kinda it. The Solas thing was already resolved in my unhinged web of headcanons like four years ago. Any new information is just an 'enjoyable side benefit'. Unless Sten is literally a love interest and there's full frontal nudity I'm just kinda riding the waves.

[dreamteamspace]

We hit 400 so here’s a- ✨ DREAM APPRECIATION ESSAY ✨

(by Yours Truly. Much thanks to the one, innocent anon who just wanted to ask a small talk question but hit my serotonin-providing hyperfixation.)

1. Self-esteem

I love the way he’s confident in his abilities when it’s become such a “trend” to either be completely and utterly self-depricating about your own skills out of fear of being labelled an asshole or overconfident nowadays.

At the same time you can still tell he doesn’t want to pull anyone down ever, and will always be really careful with that and take every oppertunity to lift up the people around him. Dream has a very emotional voice that gives him away a lot, so you can really tell he genuinely admires the people around him and he’s never afraid to say that they could totally easily beat him in something if he doesn’t have practice with it.

He tends to be a bit too hard on himself, so his friends always encourage him in his abilities, and that’s just. So nice. He celebrates his victories! He gets so so excited and happy when he wins in the manhunts, and I think celebrating your hard-earned victories isn’t something that should be villanized.

He won, and we should KNOW by now that doesn’t mean he thinks he’s somehow better than everyone. He has a pretty good eye on his abilities, and that allows him to really use them to the max.

2. Morality

He isn’t afraid to change the game! His adhd picks out a Cool New Thing and he just goes, You know what? Why not! His adhd goes “do this thing repeatedly another 3847 times” and he’s like, yeah sure!

Nobody expected him to release a song, but he just went for it! He’s been speedrunning so much, but he isn’t afraid to stream it every day 5 days in a row for hours while his friends bicker in the background.

Dream genuinely does the things he finds fun, but at the same time puts in so much effort to make them good and entertaining to watch and never forgets about his viewers.

He’s kidfriendly because he wants to be! Fame-wise, at this point he could definitly swear more if he wanted to (and he does when in other people’s content who don’t care about swearing), but despite that he doesn’t swear on his main because he wants his content to be accessable for everyone.

Sure, on one hand it could be for clout/money, but consider: Dream doesn’t stream the DSMP because he doesn’t want to take attention away from other people. He participates in the videos of his friends. He lets compilation channels and the like do whatever they want and even monetize his content. He lets his friends stream Road Trip on twitch as much as they want for free.

Dream doesn’t not swear just for his fanbase, but he does it because he has so so much respect for people. No matter how high he goes, he’s always consciously focused on respecting and admiring the people around him.

He has genuine respect for creators so much smaller than him, and he has respect for people in his fanbase that are younger than him. He isn’t afraid to go against the norm and STAND for that, either (see the video where he defends his stans).

And he defends his friends so much too! So much so it could almost be a little bit of a flaw sometimes, but I feel like he truly wants to learn from his mistakes. He apologizes for things even when nobody asked him to, and that just shows that he does it out of genuine guilt and fear of hurting someone.

He’s always seemed like someone who is genuinely willing to change to be a better version of himself, who isn’t afraid to challenge what he thinks and what other people think and what the norm thinks in order to improve everything for everyone.

Dream also doesn’t let any of the fame get to his head! As I said before - he’s confident in the things he’s good at, but in a way that doesn’t pull other people down, and he still remains firmly admirable of other people.

And even when OTHER people let fame get to their head (it was a while ago, but there was a video he made about five block jumps, where he added in a clip of a video of another guy doing it complete with credit and link etc. The guy was 100% alright with it at first, but when his video started getting more views because Dream’s video blew up, he started accusing Dream of “stealing” his content (when dozens of other videos of the 5 block jump already existed, and Dream could’ve just put in a clip of himself doing the jump)),,, but he insisted in his reponse that fame gets to people’s heads sometimes, nobody should blame anybody, he genuinely was never upset at him and just said that this just... happens sometimes.

He’s a very forgiving person all around, in part due to being willing to challenge his own norms and give people the benefit of the doubt JUST in case he’s wrong. He lets people enjoy things so long as they aren’t hurting anybody, like allowing people to ship him w people who are also alright with shipping, but at the same time taking a hard stance on, say, how shipping minors is absolutely wrong and should not be done ever (and he’s right).

3. Fandom

He appreciates said fanart and fanworks as well! He thinks dnf fanart is cool and he even appreciates the fanfic part of his fandom, something many ccs wish to ignore or forget it exists altogether (and it IS ofc in their right to do so or be uncomfortable with such content!), but Dream sees the work put into it and how people find connections and friendships through the fandom and appreciates it all the same.

He loves his fandom. So much. But not in the overdone, fake-feeling way I’ve seen other ccs be,,,, he’s just. Quiet and shy and genuine about it but not afraid to defend it.

He’s said before - and I QUOTE - “If you send hate to people or have sent hate to people, in the form of hateful comments or DMs, you aren’t welcome in my fandom. You’re no fan of mine”, which is the HOTTEST take he’s ever uttered and I love that. He really just went and said that. And he’s right. I like that despite how he’s usually more held back and waits things out before taking a stance, he chose this topic to really take a hard stance on and not budge and stick to it.

Pmbata has also said that he believes his fans have his back no matter what!! And that he really loves them a lot!!! And I am!! Emotional!!!!

4. ND/Adhd

He has adhd which is something I relate to personally (I have it as well sdlkfj). He gets excited sometimes!! I love how he shows being fidgety in mc, always pacing and parcouring around,, the way that in manhunts you can SEE when he’s thinking or bouncing back and forth between two options,,, or the way he gets close to people in mc to laugh with them.... He shows so much with his movements by them being quick and daring and calculated (and it’s especially hilarious to watch other people react to it in the video “mc but three people control one player”, where he’s the one moving and Sapnap and George will gasp or go “Dream!!” in surprise when Dream was THIS close to falling off a ledge, but he just laughs sdlkfjsdf).

When he’s not moving around he stands perfectly, perfectly still (which, idk if thats what all adhd ppl have, but I know I have something similar? Like when I’m nervous I’ll sometimes just. Freeze in place. No movement at all). He’s just relatable sdkjf.

There was one Manhunt extra scenes where he,,,,, stims by clapping,,,,,, the lil excited clap in the background,,, I’m gonna cry. I’m so soft for excited Dream that one is such a comfort clip for me!

He also tends to stim by getting under trap doors and then jumping back out of them, or jumping up a block and then walking back down over and over (especially noticable in The Village Went Mad tftsmp episode, where they were all discussing who the murderer could be and he was the only one moving, hopping up the log and then running back down again).

Also it is. Really Soft when he starts rambling and overexplaining something. What’s even better is that George, who is usually present at such moments, will laugh a little at his antics, and Dream will automatically laugh with him.

5. Rp/Uplifting other ccs

Dream wasn’t all THAT into the rp at first, but his server has been so strongly supporting and giving attention to smaller creators that he’s since completely rolled along with it. Being a villain in the RP is a difficult role because you will, inevitable, as much as it is just roleplay and all scripted, always get some amount of dislike from people for it.

Despite that, he’s basicly the main big villain on his own server where he let a bunch of theater kids beat him up in character and imprison him on his OWN SERVER. He wasn’t as into the rp at first, but has obviously been practicing and joins every Tales of the SMP when he can, despite getting zero clout for it.

What Dream also tends to do is find small content creators, see their talent and lift them high. His entire discord server is dedicated to give smaller ccs a place to grow, and when he first found Tubbo, Tommy, Ranboo, etc., they were much much smaller than they are now. He truly wanted to help them make it big.

He’s also added Foolish Shark and Hannah onto the SMP, both much smaller ccs (not tiny, but you get what I mean), allowing them to grow. He doesn’t stream on his OWN SERVER. He let himself get imprisoned to let the good guys win on his OWN. SERVER. He’s willing to play the villain and everything.

An interesting thing though! A lot of people used to/still do clown on Dream a bit for his sometimes uncertain acting,,, but when he’s around people he knows well (Sapnap and George, Tubbo and Tommy) we’ve seen him go ALL OUT. I have the theory Dream might be genuinely afraid to accidentally be mean to someone in character and have them misinterpret it sldkfjsdf,,, so he’s rly careful when he goes into the rp, and sometimes even when he’s in it he goes quiet, especially with other people around.

But also the fact that he needs time to feel comfortable around ppl is,, a mood,,, and adorable,,, sdlfkjsdf-

Apparently he’s also shared his youtube algorithm secrets with Tommy?? Which he had only shared with Sapnap and George before?? Dream took one look at that chaotic kid and immedietly adopted him as his little brother. He literally got up super early to rp the prison visit. Idk about ya’ll but I would die for someone first and get up horribly early for them second-

6. Friends!!

Dream?? Considers so so many people his friends?? And despite having so many friends, he also has his few closest friends (George and Sapnap) whom he would absolutely die for in a heartbeat. He WILL defend them with everything he has and loves them so so much.

He listens to them and really, truly wants them to succeed. He respects them so much and will go OFF about how good they actually are and how talented they are and how important they are to him.

I can’t even COVER everything about how much he is SOULMATES with Gorg. They live in each others heads rent-free. He mentions him all the time. They get!! So happy when they’re around each other!!! Their voices get so soft,,

And I can’t even BEGIN to explain the energy of Sapnap and Dream just moving together permanently. Imagine moving together with your best friend. Like, permanently. Into one house. They’re best friends Your Honor,,,,

Also,, remember the Techno and Dream rivalry? And Dream has recently said that he’s hesitant to make a serious manhunt against Techno because he doesn’t want there to be any feud between them or have them be compared to each other. He said that while he absolutely wanted nothing more than to beat Techno at first, now that he knows him better he just wants to be friends with him. He wants to be FRIENDS. With his, essentially, mc RIVAL. Friendly rival, but still. He doesn’t even wanna fight Techno or have ppl compare them cause he,,, wants to be friends with him,,,,

7. Vulnerability

What I feel like really sets Dream apart from some other ccs for me is that he’s willing to be vulnerable. He will tell George he loves him. He defends his friends. He sounds so, so genuine when he tells his fandom that he loves them.

What’s just really rare to see, especially in male ccs, is that vulnerability. It’s becoming more acceptable as time goes on, but it’s certainly not easy, and a lot of people become and stay long-term fans BECAUSE they can see how genuine he is.

I know Dream looks up to Mr. Beast a lot, for example, but honestly? I think he’s a little better than Mr. Beast. Because he feels more genuine, more bound to what he believes is right. I’m sure Mr. Beast isn’t a bad content creator! But ultimately they have different target audiences and I’m very glad Dream is the way he is.

Less of that insecure masculinity and more willing to be vulnerable, to care about things, to get emotional and to encourage and uplift the people around him.

8. Pure Brainrot

Green boi has nice deep calm soothing voice. Little shy laugh. Wheeze laugh. Gorg live in his head rent-free. He lov friends. He lov block game. He good at block game,,, a little shy but confident,,, big heart,,,, soft voice,,,,, rambles sometimes....

He also Gender. He’s so gender. I don’t know how else to describe it. I want That. Whatever That is. My gender is Dreamwastaken

[gaberoothekangaroo]

i see so much ao3 discord on my dash and its ridiculous. its getting to the point where im going to start blocking posts cause its miles long arguments about how theres better archives or theres other sites for fanfic and how those sites are run by negative term x, y, z.

what many, if not most, are failing to grasp is that it is an archive. i work in archives. i know what an archive is and what an archive isnt. i know what grassroot and community archives are. and are not. i know how sometimes what an archive collects is sometimes open to interpretation. however. the main point and goal of an archive is to keep and maintain items for future use in that community. they also act as a way to keep and log the history of a community.

for example, the national archives in america. that is an institution that collects specific items and records that pertain to the nation such as government records, founding documents, government correspondence, laws and literature, indigenous records and documentation, etc. it doesnt have everything. and the process to get an item accepted is typically multi step because there is a verification process. say you have a letter supposedly written by abraham lincoln to someone and that letter has been kept and passed down or kept and sold, etc; the person that now owns the letter wants to donate it to the national archive, but the national archive first has to verify the letter and compare it against other letters in the collection, the handwriting, the age of the paper, etc, etc., all before it can be accepted. if its ‘valuable’ enough, itll be placed in storage with potentially a copy that the public can handle and request, or it may be digitized, or both. at some point, 100 years from now lets say, the person in charge of the collection may look to weed out items that havent been requested in a while, arent popular, are no longer relevant, etc.; this letter may not have been checked out for the past 10 years, which gives the archivist reason to find it a new home at some other archive and weed it from the national archives.

circling back to ao3, it is a community archive centered on the topic of fanfiction. ive heard complaints that ao3 is us-centric; yes, it ends in a .org, it is owned and operated within the us, the servers are within the us, many of the original volunteers may have started in the us. ive heard complaints that they just let any ol fic in there, no matter how gross or wrong or bad or ‘not pure’ it is; yes, archives dictate what they will and will not accept, and when you are collecting a history of a community you tend to collect the good, bad, and indifferent--you wouldnt expect a black community archive to only collect positive instances of their history, youd most likely expect to see som sort of narrative about slavery and other historical injustices.

ao3 does host fic and allow users to upload fic but that is not its sole intended purpose. there are many other sites and blogs on the internet for uploading fic and hosting fics. ao3s prime directive is to collect fanworks and record it for future use and historical significance. that means when you willingly access ao3, it is comparable to you going into a museum, the national archives, or some sort of gallery dedicated to a single artist. its like going to the library to do research or going to your university/college to look at the old books they have for an assignment.

please understand that ao3 is an archive, on par with the national archives or a museum. people typically make use of an archive to do research on a particular topic thats highly specialized and specific. its great that any user can tag and upload a fic, as well as read a fic, but just know that that is an added benefit to how the archive is run.

[diminuel]

maealoril replied to your post “I should just have gone to sleep instead of making people hate me....”

I here ya, thats how i always feel when i leave feedback on ao3. Apparently constructive criticism is no bueno.

deanwinchester-1979 replied to your post “I should just have gone to sleep instead of making people hate me....”

@maealoril I kind of feel that if people put their fics out there, then they're asking for constructive Crit. Anytime you put something up you're open to crit. If it's GOOD crit it should be welcomed. People only grow by someone telling them what they need to work on. As a writer and an artist in real life, I had to grow a thick skin and take teh crit as it's meant, to help. It's hard to swallow but needed

That’s actually a very intersting topic.

I think the problem is if you put something out in fandom, be it fanfic or fanart, you aren’t necessarily asking for constructive criticism. Not everyone in fandom is doing fanwork with the aim of improving their craft after all. And not everyone who leaves what they think is constructive criticism is actually leaving constructive criticism with the aim to help.

I for example am fine with constructive criticism, though it’s up to me to decide if the criticism is constructive and helpful or not.

Back when I was still new to fandom and got hate and criticism and flames thrown my way I told myself the mantra “it’s online, people are going to be mean, you just have to suffer through it and not let it bother you” which is... nearly impossible. And very painful. Because the hate hurts. Constructive criticsm also hurts if you’re new to it and/ or didn’t ask for it. A “read and review” request at the end of a fic doesn’t mean that you want the readers to point at all your flaws and teach them how to improve. Usually it means “tell me what you liked and how this made you feel”. Sometimes it’s also a plea to not be silent. 

Now that I’ve been in this particular fandom for a while, I am now of the opinion that as a creative person (in fandom) you shouldn’t be expected to have a thick skin. If you receive hate it hurts, sometimes if you receive (constructive) criticism it hurts. I think that’s okay? Most people in fandom are writing and drawing for the joy of sharing it.

I think this has to be taken into consideration when constructive criticism isn’t received well? 

BUT I also see the point of those who leave criticism with good intents; how are you suppose to know by heart if someone is open to it or not? How do you handle it if you feel an author or artist would really benefit from the things you noticed?

So to smum up: intersting topic that is relevant for many people in fandom, you probably didn’t want to read my essay, I have no helpful answers.