#the treatment of fanfic writers lately is HORRIBLE

[mithrilhearts]

RESPECT FANFIC AUTHORS.

Let them write what they want to write and don't harass them because it's not exactly what YOU want to see. Writers don't owe anyone anything. We do this for fun (and for free), and to constantly see readers harassing authors about their works is making me so angry.

To see readers bullying writers into going back to writing something they were taking a break from to pursue other stories/aspirations? TERRIBLE. Support the writers with whatever they are writing if you love them that much.

Let them know how much you appreciate their FREE hard work!

We are not here to cater to anyone but ourselves - yes, we share our stories with people to build a conversation about the things we all love, but ultimately we create things for ourselves.

The bullying and harassment of writers needs to stop, or the writing stops. Be appreciative, be respectful, and show the authors love instead of tearing them down for other things they enjoy.

[stupidlittlespirit]

Hey this was the anon who said you made Ford a cutie patootie 🥺🥺

I really agree with the whole 'bill and Ford were never romantic' vibe. I do believe Ford cared for Bill in a way, but Bill in general is also the abusive partner that enjoys having you in his arms and the moment you try to leave will make your life a living hell.

I think that's honestly why I hate most asshole!Ford fics lately. Except for your of course! Society really sees abuses victims horribly and especially men. Theres a pretty big part of the Fandom that vilifies Ford in a hateful way. Like I know he's done horrible and yes he treated Stanley and Fiddleford bad. But I wouldn't be surprised if his father never brought up Stanley after he kicked out, and expected his wife and Ford to follow. He if he did it was only negative talk on how useless he was. Ford was a child at the time and as he grew up he probably missed Stanley but was too prideful to pick up the phone first. And then he met Bill.

Someone who praised him and told him he was in the right no matter what. Yes he was awful to Fiddleford. But that's what abusers do. They tear down everyone else who can help you until it's only the two of you against the entire world. And honestly, I'm sorry but Fiddleford needs to get some hate for just leaving Standford like that. Being a friend to someone in an abusive relationship is awful. But if you know that they don't have anyone else, you have to put boundaries, you don't just leave! But I also can't blame Fiddleford all the way.

Idk idk I'm sorry for rambling, but honestly I think that's why most of the fanfic writers who write about Ford really forget that he was so horrifically abused and when as he got older all he felt was shame and he was alone for 30 years with that feeling.

First of all, sorry it took me so long to answer this! My PC is fucked and I needed to sit my ass down and type out a proper answer for you because I have so many feelings on this, anon.

This is all below a cut because it's looooong.

tl;dr if you don't care: Bill put a noose around Ford's neck the moment they met and convinced him it was a scarf until Ford was hanging from the rafters, feet twitching, face blue.

TW: Abuse, suicide.

Anyway, the kitchen is open so let's cook!

Bill is an absolutely horrific being.

I fear that sometimes (oftentimes) he gets the fandom woobification treatment where he becomes entirely The Meme or somebody's silly widdle guy and when it happens so much, especially when certain groups of people are hellbent on saying 'this is canon!' dead seriously, it warps perceptions around him.

He effectively manipulates his audience just as he manipulated Dipper and Ford.

Bill is a demon. Not just any old demon, either: The Demon. THE guy. He's vicious and powerful and manipulative, and sure in TboB we get to see that he carries some significant trauma with him but it doesn't mean he is any less than what he is: Evil.

Some trauma influenced behaviours can be explained, but they can never be excused.

Bill is a push-pull, hot-cold, jerk around asshole who gets off on hurting people because he's so badly hurt himself that it makes him feel good to see others suffer even a fraction of what he experiences. There are two types of people who go through trauma: 1. It happened to me and I was nearly destroyed, I'll never see it happen to another person for so long as I live. OR 2. I suffered so why shouldn't they?

It's pretty clear which category Bill fits into, right? So, while he hurts because he's hurting, he has also just grown accustomed to enjoying the suffering of others. It's sustenance to him.

I remember watching GF for the first time and seeing Bipper, and it awoke something within me: That demon is torturing a child. A CHILD. I hadn't been allowed to watch horror movies much as a kid and seeing this line be crossed where something was literally throwing a 12 year old boy down the stairs, stabbing him with forks, threatening to kill him, was incredible to me. I was floored.

Partially because I think it's good to show kids suffering trauma; they're not immune and they're more often than not the main victims. It's a disservice to make adults comfortable by protecting the children in media imo. Even nowadays I'm pissed off when the child character escapes unscathed from the 'all knowing totally evil demonic force' in a movie because I still crave that rawness and cruelty I saw in Bipper when I was younger.

But I digress. It's also because here was a being so nasty that he'd play GTA 5 in a kid's body just for funsies and to get something that he wants. He'd bully and torture and tease and humiliate. That's rough, man. Real rough. Especially knowing the kid was watching it all happen, completely helpless.

Anyway; Bill memes are fun, but not at the cost of forgetting just what Bill actually is.

When it comes to Ford, Bill does the same thing we saw with Dipper, except Dipper has morals. Dipper has love and light and people to keep him grounded.

Ford had none of that. Ford was abused, just like Stan (though I could go on for hours about the differences), and grew up equating love to success and respect to fear. He was set up for social failure. He was put on a very different track to his peers almost immediately and he was isolated from everyone bar Stan from the moment he was born. Stan grounded Ford and kept him human.

Ford had no chance right from the start. The equation of being smart, knowing you're smart, and then having people Grima Wormtongue in your ear your whole childhood, when you're most malleable, that you're responsible for lifting your family out of poverty, you're the Good Son, you're meant for more, you're the one we love the most but only because you serve a purpose so you better not fail or we'll snatch everything away from you and you'll be just like your purposeless brother.... And you don't want to be like your loser brother who we hate, do you Fordsy?

He doesn't start lost in the sauce, but his head is held under until he has no choice but to breathe it in, and when someone is drowning it's hard to tell from the shore if they're having fun or if they're in trouble. Nobody noticed his distress and if they did, they didn't care. He was vulnerable right from the start.

And you're right about people hating male abuse victims. The stats are really skewed on the amount because there's such shame around coming out about it as a guy that we'll never really know just how prolific it is. The same as sexual assault stats for men. But what I can say is almost every male friend I've ever had has told me about a partner of theirs or an old relationship that is just plain old black and white abusive. Most of the time, they shrug it off or don't even know that's what they suffered, and if I have to watch the light change in another man's eyes when I gently tell him "hey, you know that what you're telling me is that he/she abused you, right?" then I'm going to scream. They're looked down on for coming out about it; considered weak and less manly for it. Humiliated for it.

Now imagine how it was when Ford was a boy in the 40's (or whenever he was born, there are no solid dates afaik). He'll have been raised to believe men are strong and that they don't cry, they don't let people push them around, mental illness isn't real you're just pathetic. It's everything I just mentioned but 1000x more intense. Nowadays, men are laughed at. Back then, you'd be ostracised and made the joke of the town until you killed yourself.

So poor old Ford, who is already on the back foot, ends up suffering for his genius and throwing himself into his work when it becomes apparent to him that he 'has no other uses' as a person. He isn't funny, he isn't handsome, he's a freak, he can't hold conversations (all his opinions and from others) etc etc. All he has is his research and his brain.

He loses himself in it. In his excitement (which is innocent and genuine by the way, I don't believe he had bad intentions), he drags his best friend along (and we'll get to Fidds in a minute, I have a lotta thoughts on him too) and ignores other people's distress because he's having fun and 'doing the right thing' in his opinion, he's driving innovation and he's always been told by other, more prestigious people that he's justified in his cause.

His father probably enforced at a young age that people that get in his way are just trying to hold him back (ie. Stan), so; If the hillbillies in this damn town don't have the IQ to understand me, then they're idiots. It couldn't possibly be that I might be encroaching on their lives or causing them problems and getting in their way whilst they try to work as labourers or whatever, it's because they're wrong and I'm right.

And of course, there were times when Ford didn't really actually do anything wrong and was met with animosity, but he didn't have the social skills to diffuse the situation and explain himself in layman terms, so it fed into this Ouroboros of try to be nice and social - fail - create friction - get lost in research - create friction - try to be social - fail etc.

So he's not getting socialisation from others, he's pushing Fiddleford as hard as he can and Fiddleford understandably has other interests to balance which makes him slowly seem less invested, and then, conveniently, up pops Bill.

Bill, who agrees with everything Ford says. Bill, who justifies all the thoughts and feelings Ford has ever had. Bill, who tells Ford everything he's ever wanted to hear from his father and his peers and his brother and his wildest dreams.

Bill, who knows how isolation and flattery works to weaken prey.

You have to admit: Bill's work was impressive. He spent a year, maybe even longer, committing to the bit over Ford. Giving him everything he wanted, feeding his ego, making it seem like all he was doing was helping him and encouraging him and propping him up.

Ford had had a weak form of that before from other people, but those people were parasites. Bill presented as the host and he offered Ford a crutch for the first time in his life. A friend, an equal, possibly someone of even higher standing.

And Ford, who has NO social skills, no street smarts, no emotional awareness, had no idea that nothing comes for free from somebody like Bill, so he jumped into the shallow pool from the 100 meter board with both feet down, eyes shut and hands off the wheel. Ford was desperate for someone to meet him on his level and the moment somebody did, he let himself be swept away by it.

Which, of course, was Bill's plan all along. Bill had probably always been around Ford when he'd first come to Gravity Falls. He'd been watching and waiting for the right time to strike, as ambush predators do, and the moment Ford had stumbled on a metaphorical crack in the path and exposed a weak spot, up pops Bill to hold his hand and tell him that the pavement was in the wrong the whole time and really, Ford shouldn't have to look where he's putting his feet, the whole world should just move for him instead.

From there, it would have been easy.

I think Ford likes to think he's complex and hard to read, and he probably is to people who don't recognise his type, but he's a fucking picture book to the people that do. That's why he works so hard to make himself seem cool and mysterious: because he's really obviously none of those things but simple smoke and mirrors go a long way to confuse people who don't care to look any deeper or are too naïve to do so. If people see the real him, they'd laugh at him (in his opinion).

So Bill, with all his flattery and gassing up, would have let Ford think the ball was in his court for a while, and Ford, emboldened by lies and a literal god-like being telling him he was right (plus everyone else from his past telling him the same thing), got bolder and more intense and lost himself without even really realising it was happening.

Ford, in his enthusiasm, pressed on Fidds even harder and was disappointed that the only man he cared about (other than his brother, because we know he still loved Stan dearly) wasn't able to match his stride. After all, I think Ford probably thought Fidds was the closest thing to an equal he'd ever had, and Bill used Fidds' hesitation to push Ford further away from him.

Once Ford was fully blinded, Bill began to cut off the blood to the other parts of Ford's lifeforce (and there weren't many to begin with) with delicate expertise that even the most prolific of abusers would die to achieve.

And don't forget that Bill also loves attention (he's a genuine egotistical maniac, whereas I don't think Ford is inherently egotistical, I think he's a product of his environment) and Ford gave him that unconditionally because Ford thought that blind worship equates to love, which is only possible through fear and forced, submissive respect. By cutting off Ford's other connections, Bill got all the attention to himself.

That's where the fun part started for Bill. Bill started to make him second guess himself. He tricked him under the guise of helping and then, without Fidds to ground him, Ford bought into all of it. He told Ford the townsfolk hated him because he was better than them, he told Ford he was too good for everyone else, his brother, etc. Bill effectively became Filbrick's voice in Ford's head. He needed to control Ford.

People think 'seduction' is inherently sexual or romantic, but it isn't. Seduction is manipulation in its purest form. Seduction is negative. It is used to pull people away from their path in order to convince them to give up or go against the part of themselves that knows better. It lowers one's guard. It gets under someone's skin and convinces them it belongs there. I've been a sex worker for 10 years; trust me when I tell you I have a PhD in both doing this and being victim to it. (I'm also an abuse survivor and my abusers trained me well in this which is hard to unlearn at times.)

Bill seduced Ford into thinking he was safe and in control right up until the last moment when Bill could strike. He put a noose around Ford's neck the moment they met and convinced him it was a scarf until Ford was hanging from the rafters, feet twitching, face blue.

Ford was never in love with him and Bill wasn't with Ford. You can't be in a situation like that. Ford respected Bill and to command the respect of someone like Ford? Well, you'd have to be pretty special, in Ford's opinion.

Bill only wanted to possess Ford, literally and figuratively. He wanted something to control and use and keep as a pet while he got what he wanted. Every king needs a jester.

There are signs that Bill also, deep down, might have wanted a friend and to be understood in the same way Ford did, but it was a small part of him that came second to his desire to hurt. Bill was also an outcast and he knew how vulnerable that makes a person; why else are all his henchmaniacs outcasts too? Because it's easy to persuade a person with no support into a perceived 'found family' than it is to do it to someone who is grounded by love. It becomes a game of in-group out-group.

Ford saying no to Bill would have taken great strength after all that time and as soon as Bill doesn't get what he wants, he destroys. It would have been an immediate punishment and that whiplash would have been vicious.

Ford, with no real friends, would have considered Bill his bestie, effectively.

Now, idk if you've ever been betrayed by someone you love as a best friend, but it is INFINITELY more painful than a regular breakup. Like, impossibly so. Especially when you don't have many to begin with and you're already damaged by abuse.

My love for my best friends runs deeper than any romantic partner I have ever had and will ever have. To be betrayed (and for me, it was seriously significant) was the worst feeling in the world and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I attempted suicide (conflated by other things but also because of this friend betraying me) and I will never get over their betrayal. I am wary of getting close to others now because of that and I don't think I'd ever be friends with someone so intimately again, beyond the best friend I have currently (shout out @/ghostbu, i love u).

So to experience a rug pull of astronomical proportion would have been devastating for Ford. We see Ford try to leave, try to say no again and again, literally begging, only to have his life threatened, his body violated, his work destroyed, his entire existence made into nothing. Which is a hard enough fall for someone with a big ego, but for someone who is also vulnerable and frankly, quite very emotional alongside being intelligent, would be gutting. Some people miss Ford's emotionality and reduce him to being The Smart Guy and I think that's a disservice.

So Ford was utterly ripped to shreds, both physically and emotionally, until he could only turn to the person he knew would still come running: Stan.

Stan adores his brother, so of course he came when Ford clicked his fingers. Ford, I think, also adores Stan, but is so manipulated by everybody else in his life that he convinces himself that his emotions do him a disservice and make him weak (as mentioned before about old attitudes), so he can't 'lower' himself to examine them. Bill doesn't help with that, either.

Stan came running and we all know what happened next.

Ford then spends 30 years NOT being the smartest guy in the room and realising he never really was the smartest guy in the room outside of academia. That kind of ego death is brutal and he would have gone through some incredible soul searching in that time period, which is why I think there are several versions of Ford that exist. Childhood/College!Ford, Research-era!Ford and Post portal!Ford. They all different men to me, personally.

So yeah, he's a deeply difficult character to understand imo and he's often a paradox because he doesn't know how to hold all these emotions in tandem; he's black and white, not grey.

Now, onto Fidds:

You gotta remember, Fidds had no idea what Bill was doing to his beloved friend.

Ford kept him a secret because in his view (a view manipulated by Bill), 'they'd never understand us. They'd separate us'. A common sentiment by people being abused. 'They' being really anybody with half a brain who saw how dangerous Bill was and cared about Ford.

Fidds was already absolutely terrified by the stuff he was seeing. My guy grew up on a pig farm in the country, he wasn't prepared for all this stuff to be real. Even Ford didn't know the supernatural was provably real before he came to Gravity Falls.

Now, I love cryptids but if I came across a dogman or bigfoot in real life, I'd fucking shit myself. They're scary! They'll kill you!

He also saw his best friend fucking lose his mind and that's really frightening too, especially with no one around to help.

Fidds had people that loved him back home (and I know he wasn't great to them, that's a different kettle etc) and relied on him. He had a life outside of his research; a son, a wife, a family and probably other friends. He had something to lose. If he died, it would have an effect.

Ford was cavalier because the only thing he thought he had to lose at that point was his work (not true, of course, but in head I think his life came second to his work).

Fiddleford was a victim of Ford's unintentional abuse. And Ford did abuse people, even if he was also being abused. The cycle of abuse is, unfortunately, very very real and it can't be justified just because someone who inflicts it was also a victim: Manson was abused, but no one excuses his crimes.

Explanation, not excuse, remember?

I think Ford was turned into a bad person temporarily and Fidds bore the brunt of that and went on to neglect his own family because he was also being isolated by Ford.

It's so fucking tragic and I could go on for hours about this (I already have, this took me two hours to write). They're really complex people and it does frustrate me when people pooh-pooh them as silly yaoi babies or as just plain bad people. It's never that simple.

And disclaimer: Everyone is entitled to their interpretations, obviously. They're not my characters and this is my own interpretation, so it isn't 'right', it's just how I see them as somebody who experienced similar things as Ford and Stan (minus the literal demonic element).

Whew sorry for rambling!

[delphiniumblooms]

fic writer review

thanks @daisy-appreciation-week for tagging!!

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

28 :D

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count?

44507 and much more in my fanfic google drive - WIPs or never-posted fics

3. How many fandoms have you written for?

i wrote a lot in fantastic beasts (18 out of my 28 works are fb) and potc, and have done a hamilton oneshot

4. Top 5 fics by kudos?

these are all fb because they’re older lol

You’re All I Need - honestly I don’t like this one that much, no idea why it blew up. a slightly angsty newtina fic written for a secret santa fic exchange in 2018 for a newtina discord server.

Special Treatment - a newtina crackfic, where theseus scamander teases tina about showing up to work late with a hickey. one of my best attempts at comedy!

nativitas - a short fic about theseus scamander meeting his baby brother newt for the first time, first in my scamander brothers series

Taken By Surprise - newtina fic written based on the rayllum kiss scene from the dragon prince

discidium - the second instalment in the scamander brothers series. newt sees theseus off at platform 9 3/4. he doesn’t want his brother to leave him.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

yes i do!! i thank everyone for leaving comments cause i don’t get that many and they do wonders for my writer’s ego. please don’t be shy to leave comments, i am very friendly and will be eternally grateful for compliments on my fic!!!

6. A fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

as a general rule i don’t write angst cause i treat fic like escapism and so need happy endings. the angsty ends i have are usually in line with canon. duty-bound covers the end of potc3, where will and elizabeth are separated, so that’s pretty angsty. a little fall of rain covers queenie leaving jacob in the crimes of grindelwald.

7. Do you write crossovers?

ive written only one and am not likely to write another LOL

annexus is a fantastic beasts-bbc sherlock crossover. i was thinking about how similar queenie and sherlock are, and how sherlock’s deduction powers have about the same effect as queenie’s legilimency, so boom, this fic was born. also they have the same birthday! i posted the fic on that day last year

8. Ever received hate on a fic?

never, thankfully. i’ve never become well-known enough or written sufficiently controversial stuff in order to get hate

9, Do you write smut?

nah. i write sex but i shy away from the details. i like to say i like subtlety but really i am just a coward. maybe when i become a more experienced writer and grow some balls then i will write proper smut

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not to my knowledge

11. Ever had a fic translated?

no but that would be really cool!!

12. Have you ever co-written a fic?

i think i’ve tried to multiple times but it never really got anywhere

13. All time fav ship?

oh no,,, uhh it’s gotta be either willabeth, newtina or sylki. can’t pick one, all three have had such deep impacts on me

14. WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

this 7k+ monster of a newtina fic that i started in like 2019 and still haven’t finished. kinda cringe at the thought of it, because it was just me projecting really bad. premise was tina has a really really bad period and newt takes care of her

15. Writing strengths?

i think i do emotional impact very well. i know how to use rhetoric devices and things like internal monologue and third person deep pov and i can string words together in a way that create absolute bangers of lines

16. Writing weaknesses?

i am really bad at plot/exposition LMAOO and am also like a really inconsistent writer. i have horrible perfectionism issues and so i don’t write often, only when i’m inspired, though i am making an effort to write more. also sometimes i think i’m too obsessed with certain ideas or certain ways of wording things such that i force them in even though it might not necessarily make sense to

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

i’ve never done it before! i don’t dare to do it in languages i don’t know, and so far chinese (my second language) hasn’t really been useful to write dialogue in. that might change though because i’m getting into more works with chinese rep, like agents of shield!

18. First fandom you wrote for?

fantastic beasts

19. What’s your fav fic you’ve written so far?

my most recent one, (wolf’s) teeth! it’s a sylki songfic based on teeth by 5sos and honestly i feel like it’s my magnum opus. i love these two so much and the song fit them and the plot so well!! i banged it out during a really busy school week in like 3 days, i’m so proud of myself for doing it

https://archiveofourown.org/users/delphiniumblooms here’s my ao3 page!!

tagging @swinging-stars-from-satellites and anyone else who wants to do it!

[goldentailedmermaids]

hey! sorry if this sounds entitled but i wanted to know why you abandoned daughters of chaos? you wrote so many stories and so many words and you completed most of them and you left (what is for me) your best story as a wip? 😭 i’m sorry i read all your viking rollo/gisla stories but i truly feel in love with this one. i really wanted someone to tell the story of siggy and angrboda so bad bc of hirst’s horrible writing and ill treatment of daughters on the show i was delighted to find that story in ao3. and i loved it even more when i read it bc i thought you really understood what the characters most likely would have evolved if given the chance, it was very interesting to read. anyways i’m not demanding anything i hope this doesn’t come across like that i’m just hoping/begging kinda that some day you pick it up. you’re very talented btw

if that ask wasn’t long enough i forgot to say that the fact that you made boda and siggy best friends was beyond cute and angrboda being a healer and sorceress was amazing. and her relationship with ivar is literally my favourite thing. and siggy’s relationship with bjorn too. it’s honestly how i would have loved the show to be in my dreams. galaxy brain

I am incredibly flattered by the attention and the fact that you sent me an ask about this story I have left unfinished. Honestly, I saw this app and I suddenly remembered the fanfic and to read that you think it is, as of yet, my best work, is so rewarding because I have put a lot of thought into that fic (and now that I have re-read it I realize that some edits must be done in regards to the characters.). I have been pretty busy with uni lately and I have been in a writing slump for more than over a year now and managing to write a decent sentence has become so excruciating I am feeling like I am losing my English.

I am so appreciative of your words and you cannot believe how much I cling to them. I am so pleased that you think the characters are well-written, especially Siggy and Angrboda. I tend to believe Siggy’s harboring a destructive rage that leads her to do rash things and being reckless like she believes her life doesn’t matter while Boda is more poised and generous and calm enough to weather Siggy’s temper. I really wanted them to be friends and truly their friendship will bloom into something more once the first act ends (though I have yet to write past that 1% I have already written) because I think that their bond runs deeper than that. They cannot live without the other, I think. Truly I want this fic to be about female rage and female agency while bringing sense and logic into the characters Hirst has (poorly) written. I wanted it to be a long and grand saga spanning thousands of words, but I don’t know if I have the time and energy to write it now. I have the story and I know where I want to take the characters in the future and I also have ideas on how to bring in more female characters (especially poc because I want a black shieldmaiden amid Siggy’s crew as well as Sami women and Muslim women) and I also have an idea on how Thorunn and Bjorn may come to term with their relationship and I also want to introduce Blaeja in the story and give the Ragnarssons their saga ending while tying it up with Harald’s saga. I also want to include that scene in Children of the Wolf, where Sig and Boda meet Rollo’s children and manage to work past their family feud. I want Thorunn and Siggy to meet and I want Solveig to become friends with Sig and Boda and I want to fulfill the Seer’s prophecy and include a scene where Siggy mocks and taunts him because she’s a little shit and I love her.

I want to write all that but inspiration is a cunt and has left me barren with words. That and I am currently working on several wips, one of which is the third installment to an original story of mine called Salvation (which I love very much because I love my OCs, meaning they get to suffer under my quill), another which is a university-based wlw romcom, another which is the rewrite of Crashing Waves in which I change names and backstories and also gender because who said mermaids had to have one?, another one which is a dark psychological romance that’s currently left as a wip, and of course my gay fantasy trilogy.

I still want to write daughters of chaos, don’t get me wrong, but I need to begin the next chapter and I have to reconnect with the writer in me to begin it. I also need to reconnect with the story to know precisely what is going to happen. Maybe by the end of the year I’ll have a chapter to present, who knows. I still love this story very much and sometimes gush about it and I am so happy you sent that ask, because it reminded me that this was/is a good story and that people actually read and enjoy what I write. The fact that you said you fell in love with it absolutely enchants me and I am so thankful you sent that ask.

[rulerofsawdust]

Way back in July, @smilesandstarryrainpours asked me for fanfic recommendations. Being a horrible person I didn’t get back to them before they deactivated. I’m very sorry about that, if you’re lurking out there, I have a handful of Batman recommendations for you based on whether or not I thought they were good enough to download.

Some things: I adore Dick and Damian as brothers. They are like the Sam and Dean Winchester of the Batfamily, which explains all the slash fiction since people have a problem with intense non-romantic relationships. They’re peanut butter and jelly; good on their own and amazing together. Most of my recommendations will be stories that explore their sibling relationship because I’m a sucker for sibling relationships. In that vein, I’m also skewing heavy on Stephanie Brown and Damian both platonic and romantic. Talia has been railroaded for the last ten years which irks me so I have a handful about her that I think are worthwhile. Unless the writer has Talia shown in a fair light as a reasonable parent along with Bruce, I will not recommend anyone who thinks Bruce is a good dad. I know good dads, many of my friends are good dads: a couple of them are biological dads, some of them found out they had kids years after the bitter and brutal breakup, some became dads because CPS called them; some are straight and some are gay. None of them are anything like Bruce Wayne and most of them actually stopped being fans of Bruce after Damian was introduced (they also started my reading of comics because they related to Dick’s relationship with Damian. When people say Damian isn’t a self insert character, they don’t realize that his fan base prior to the movies was primarily people in their late twenties or older who had C-PTSD and could relate to his struggles to adjust, or people with child custody and felt like they were Dick dealing with their own cranky demon brat. Naturally this confused the heck out of DC, as did the dramatic rise in Damian as a baby name after 2007). There’s a great article on 13th Dimension using Tomasi’s Batman and Robin run, arguably the most caring version of Bruce since the ‘80s, to demonstrate he’s a sociopath based on his treatment of Damian. Keeping that in mind, consider Bruce being a good parent seriously ooc and fanon, but there are a few stories where he’s a good dad that I’ll suggest. Most of my recommendations are on AO3, two will require an account to view.

There are some self imposed rules. First of all, no incomplete stories. There are several incredible stories out there that I’d pay to see finished when my student loans and credit cards are paid off and I have disposable income (@hauntedlittledoll’s 12/21 series, which the first part is on my recommendation list; “Monsters to Laugh At” by aradian_nights, read it on fanfic.net instead of AO3 as it has more chapters; “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by j23k; The Demon Inside Me series by Hawkstout, of which I am including a single one shot; and several more), but outside of the aforementioned parentheticals, I’m only suggesting completed stories. Aside from a few exceptions which I will explain why I think they’re worth my risking a suggestion, no smut. I’m old enough to buy alcohol in the US, which means I’m too old to recommend smut without knowing your age. Considering that everyone has different preferences, and nsfw stories literally being the whole reason AO3 exists, you don’t need outside help for that. Finally, except for one glaring exception due to being so beautiful, original, well thought out and researched that I can overlook its issues, grammar matters. Having worked in engraving I have huge grammar pet peeves. Using ’s as a plural is my biggest one. Unless it’s an otherwise phenomenal character study and intriguing plot, if I see a misused apostrophe I’m hitting the back button.

So all that in mind, and once again a massive apology for not making your tumblr experience worthwhile, I’ll start posting my suggestions.

Disclaimer: I know no one, Jon Snow. As you may have realized, I am not someone who needs or even necessarily wants human interaction (to the confusion and distress of almost all humans in my life). These recommendations are all based solely on my personal perceived quality and enjoyment of the stories. If they follow the Margaret Atwood/Neil Gaiman/Ursula le Guin/Naomi Novak et al rules of fan fiction, then there’s a good chance I’ll be fan and encourage others to read them.