#there are a lot of harmful tropes in fanfiction

[murdleandmarot]

Hello hello hello, may I ask you for your favourite trope?

hi hello!!! this is going to be long I think. I love stories and archetypes and art ❤️

I gotta structure this somehow augh

1. Fanart

I’m a sucker for pseudo religious reference. By that I mean tarot cards. I’m working on a couple pieces for the Mabel Podcast that use the Emperor and Chariot respectively. My favorite is 100% the Hanged Man. Basically symbolism, eyes, flowers, and strange structures

2. Character archetypes

-> final girl

-> guy who gets beat up a lot/just kinda constantly is having the worst day

-> morally grey women <3

-> constantly aware of the camera/narrative (think Jemima cats or Hannah Foster from Black Friday)

-> become the very thing they swore to destroy

-> guy with long hair. Not sure if that’s a trope but! It’s true

-> men who become Santa (smosh vs Christmas you should watch it)

->cares about other people to the point of self destruction

3. Fanfiction (figured out how to bullet point)

Kidnapping. There’s just something so terrifying and so disturbingly intimate about it?

came back wrong/right/different/with a vengeance

Thwarted/interrupted suicide/some sort of self harm. I love those moments when characters realize that they’ve been severely underestimating/mistreating a character? There’s genuinely something about self harm in particular that makes me like actually sick. It’s a bit cathartic for me as well so. Yeah.

Fix it. Sorry if I wanna see them happy. Fuck you

TIME TRAVEL 🔥🔥🔥

TIME LOOP 👹👹👹. My favorite thing I’ve invented is a time loop that restarts and passes play whenever a character dies. I LOVE for that concept, especially if every time someone comes back, they only remember where they left off. There’s something SO good about it.

When characters talk about things that were severely undermentioned in the og material. Especially if it’s fucked up.

Soft love. I am not a person that enjoys reading smut at all. I hate it. It makes me upset for some reason (asexual). So I like it when a lot of the relationship is within the dialogue, and not physical. Preferably at all.

RECONCILIATION 💖💖💖

AU’s that are adjacent to the original material so that it’s thematically satisfying to watch play out

[veganineden]

On the Evolution of “Happily Ever After” and Why “Nothing Lasts Forever”

A reflection inspired by Good Omens 2

One of my favorite Tumblr posts on the second season of Good Omens 2 was actually not about the series at all, but our reaction to it, primarily the ending. @zehwulf wrote, “I think a lot of us—myself included—got a little too comfortable with assuming [Aziraphale and Crowley would] work on their issues right away post-Armageddon.” We did the work for them through meta, fanfiction, fanart, and building a plethora of headcanons. Who among us AO3-surfing fans didn’t read and love Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach by Nnm?

In the 4 long years since season one was released, we did more than seek to understand and repair rifts between two fictional beings: we were forced to reckon with ourselves too. We faced a global pandemic, suffered traumatizing losses and isolation, and were forced to really and truly look into the face of our atrocities-ridden and capitalistic world. The mainstream rise of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice work, and our participation in this work, showed us that the systems in place were built to oppress and harm most of us, and they are. 

So, what does this have to do with the evolution of “happily ever after”? 

My friend put it best in a conversation we had following the season finale, when she pointed out a shift in media focus. The “happy end” in old stories about wars and kingdoms used to be “we killed the evil old king and put a noble young king in his place and now citizens can live in peace” and we’re transitioning into a period of “we tore down the whole fucking monarchy.” 

If we look at season one, written to follow the beats of a love story, it comforted us by offering a pretty traditional happy ending pattern: you get your fancy dinner with your special someone, the romantic music plays, and you have a place to call your own. Season one’s finale provided a temporary freedom for Aziraphale and Crowley, the “breathing room,” but it didn't solve the problem that was Heaven and Hell, or the agendas belonging to those systems of oppression. 

Is it good enough to keep our heads down, pretend the bad stuff isn’t happening, and live our own personal happy endings until we die? Moral quandaries aside, if you don't die (or if you care about the generations after you), then, like Aziraphale said, it “can’t last forever.” There’s a clear unpleasant end to the “happily ever after” that’s based on ignoring our problems– it’s the destruction of our relationships, and humanity. 

Ineffable Bureaucracy can go off into the stars because they do not care about humanity. 

You know who does?

Aziraphale. 

And Aziraphale knows that Crowley cares about humanity too. (He knows because Crowley was the one who proposed sabotaging Armageddon in the first place, who only invited him to the stars when he thought all was lost, because Crowley would save humanity if he thought it was possible, and Aziraphale knows Crowley has survived losing Everything before, and he will do all in his power so that Crowley does not need to experience that again.) 

In season one and two, we see how much they care about humanity, beyond their orders, to the point The Systems begin to frown at them. Aziraphale hears Crowley’s offer to run away together in the final episode of season two, to leave Earth behind, and just like the first time that offer was made in season one, he declines. He knows choosing only “us” is not a choice either of them can live with for the rest of eternity.

I believe season 3 will provide an opportunity to “dismantle the system,” but I don’t know how it will play out. I worry that Aziraphale has put himself in the now-dead trope of the “young noble king.” (I wish Crowley had told him why Gabriel was dismissed from his duties.) I worry that he would martyr himself as a sole agent for change. I worry that he doesn’t actually know how to dismantle anything by himself: because you can’t. He needs Crowley. He DOES. He needs Crowley, and Muriel, and other angels and demons and humans without fixed mindsets to help him. Only by learning to listen and making room at the table for all can they (and we) move past personal satisfaction to collective liberation. 

Crowley was right when he said that Aziraphale had discovered his “civic obligations.”

So, I think we will get our modern-day happy ending– and it’s going to involve a lot of pain and discomfort, communication, healing and teamwork– and in the end, it’ll all be okay. There will be a time for rest and a time for “us.” 

And most likely a cottage. 

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

 - Maya Angelou

[elumish]

One of the reasons that I consistently push for critical engagement* with entertainment media (novels, TV shows, fanfiction) is that it is really easy to fall in the habit of only engaging critically with things being said or done by people you already disagree with. This can let rot grow and fester in your communities, with people refusing to recognize that their community members may be carrying out or perpetuating harmful behavior or systems.

At the risk of temporarily sounding contradictory, once you put some initial effort into it, lot of critical engagement doesn't need to be as active as you think. You don't need to go into every piece of entertainment media looking for flaws or issues or things to pick apart, and you don't need to sit there fifth-grade-English-class-style after each piece picking apart the meaning of all of it.

What you can do is start to recognize trends, tropes, and rhetoric that mimic, mirror, or resemble racist / sexist / ableist / antisemitic / imperialist / fascist / etc. viewpoints, so that you can spot them when they pop up.

Then, when something flags to you because it looks like a piece of rhetoric or a stereotype that you recognize, you can stop and think about it, without having to use all of your brain otherwise scanning the book for All Of The Things.

For example, I was recently reading the Tales of the High Court series by Megan Derr. I really enjoyed the books, and I thought the way that they handled gender and queerness was really interesting. But I also got to the end of the series and thought, huh, the way that these books handle imperialism felt a little more pro-imperialist than I expected. So I spent a bit of time thinking about why it felt that way. I still loved reading the books, and I would recommend them. But I would do so cognizant of the fact that they show some pro-imperialist leanings, even if (given how other parts of the series are framed) I don't think that was intentional.

Once you're used to spotting theses patterns in entertainment media, it will also make them easier to spot in non-entertainment media (e.g., speeches, lectures, news media), and vice versa.

I see white nationalist rhetoric, pro-imperialist rhetoric, anti-democratic, biological essentialist, racist, sexist, ableist, antisemitic, etc. rhetoric and tropes show up in all sorts of ostensibly progressive entertainment media all the time, and as long as we keep uncritically reproducing and continuing these patterns, we will never be able to break free of them as a society.

*This does not mean criticism, it means thinking critically about it

[orfisheus]

The Problem With the Eddsworld Fandom's Depictions of Red Leader/Future Tord, A Disabled Perspective

Disability is a contentious concept for most of society, with most either treating us with disgust, confusion, refusing to treat us as human, or to see our struggles as what they are. Ableism affects all people in many different ways, but as someone who focuses a lot of my energy in fandom spaces, the pervasiveness of ableism with how media and their fans interpet and react to disabled characters is a very personal situation for me. While many may argue that an ignorance to these topics in fiction has little bearing on real life, the prevalance of these tropes have echoed and led to feelings of othering for many disabled people, and oftentimes support the same notions that lead to the day-to-day ableism in our own personal lives.

In recent years, I have experienced this most often with the prevalance of negative disability tropes perpetrated by fanfiction surrounding the character of Tord, also known under the alias of Red Leader in some fanworks. It is a problem not just common in the Eddsworld fandom. A more recent, and much larger fandom in Mouthwashing also shares a common trend of repeated ableism in fan depictions and interpretarions of disabled characters. Most fan creators are unaware of these tropes and the harm that they cause, but as a disabled person, I am unable to ignore it.

For context on myself, you can call me Fish. Get it? Or"fish"eus? I like to think I'm funny. I am a mentally ill, disabled, and neurodivergent creative who has niche interests in representation in media and the intersection of intersectionality and fandom spaces. I experience chronic pain due to a multitude of conditions, all of which are invisible disabilities. I am NOT an amputee or have a facial difference, like the character I am analyzing. I can only speak based on my own research in my attempts to portray him positively, but I want to mainly focus on the ableist tropes I see and the real life effects they have. That is something I CAN focus on, because I've been dealing with it for years from conditions that came onset later in my life. I will be speaking from that perspective, but will be doing my best to try to educate on what I do know from my research to help authors, artists, and creatives create a better portrayal of him in fanworks.

The most common tropes I see with him are what I will call "The Disabled Villain", "The Innacurate Disability", and "The Ignored Disability". There are a few tropes in each, but for ease of organization (and the sake of your (and my) time), I will be talking about them together in these sections. There are also overlaps in many, but I will define the main issues with them.

The Disabled Villain

James Bond, Wonder Woman, The Witches. You name it. You have most likely seen this trope at work in cinema. A malicious evil-doer is revealed to have a "horrid" face symbolic of the true evil within their soul, while the beautiful, able-bodied hero is meant to stop them. It's a trope as old as time, one that goes back to even Plato. Tropes are tropes, people subvert them, so a few cases down the line may be excusable. But that has not been the case For many years, the most prevalent form of representation for disabled people was in these villains. Imagine if the only representation you had for yourself was narratives surrounding how the way you look or what your disability is and have it only be equated to evil people. It leads to a villainization of disabled people. People react to facial differences with disgust, because they are "shown" that it is "evil", or "ugly", or equal to being a horrible person. As stated by The Nora Project, "According to the book Disabilities: Insights from Across Fields and Around the World, disabled students are two to three times more likely to be bullied in comparison to their nondisabled classmates. The disabled villain trope contributes to this phenomenon in overt and subtle ways. For example, the trope implicitly encourages fear of disability and difference, while validating, and even elevating, those who fight against the evil, Disabled Villain. Bullying based on fear and disdain is almost a natural consequence of the trope when viewed in this light". Another big issue is that disabled characters have not been given space to exist outside of villainy. There are not many complex narratives surrounding them. This leads to our disabilities being downplayed, us being dehumanised, and we are seen more like props in real life, or simply tools to achieve a message in a narrative.

Tord's disability is never explicitly shown in the show. It is something more prevalent in Fanon, specifically in fanworks that focus on the "Future" era of the show's timeline, where the narrative and outside discussions on the show implies a high tech society, potentially dystopian, potentially a consequence of his actions. These ideas have taken a life of their own in the fandom, with many creators fully expressing these ideas. The problem arises when Red Leader falls in line with this trope. In many works, he is the sole disabled character, a figure of pure evil, or given little nuance in the narrative. Artists illustrate his scars as bright red, crimson, or, in TBATF, green. For some reason. In this way, they attempt to highlight the villainy by equating him with common symbols of evil: facial differences and disabilities. Unfortunately, these are not just symbols. These are conditions and scars that real people have, which the fandom tends to ignore in favor of dramatization.

This was a trope I most commonly saw explored in fanfiction when I first joined in 2016/17. The show, unfortunately, subtly and accidentally perpetrated it by having the only character visibly and irreparably "damaged" by the giant robot fight be Tord, despite the fact that Tom, who had a whole missile directed at him and got buried under a house, was fine with at most a leg injury and a cut on his arm. Luckily, we have grown past the need for ableist tropes, and the faults of the show can be left in the past!

... Not.

Disability tropes have simply evolved in how the fandom treats Tord. Even if it is now done with more consciousness and sympathy towards his character, ignorance still prevails. Let's talk about common pitfalls people fall into when writing him.

The Inaccurate Disability

In fanon perception, Red Leader is an amputee with a high tech prosthesis and a facial difference resulting from burn scars. Like many disabled characters, he suffers from a collective fandom lack of research. But never fret! That is what I have subjected myself to for the past four years, so your friendly neighborhood disabled Fish can tell you how to right your fandom wrongs! Just kidding! Take this as a pointer, and do your own research.

As is common with fictional prosthetics, his arm prosthetic is treated as a perfect fix for his amputation. It acts just like, if not better than an actual arm. The issue with this is that is isn't realistic. Yes, I know, I'm criticising Eddsworld fanfiction for not being realistic. STAY WITH ME HERE. Once again, if it was one instance, or a few, that explored prosthetics being incredibly functional in science-fiction, then it could be a cool concept. But when every sci-fi work has it, then that is no longer a concept. That is a misconception. And I have interacted with people who believed that prosthetics were 100% functional! The thing is, like all disability aids, it does not suddenly make us able-bodied. For example, I have ear defenders that I wear when I experience pain within my ears. But that does not mean my hearing will now become normal, and I will no longer experience pain from the sound I'm hearing. What WILL happen is that I will straight up not hear you. Like, literally. Can you repeat that? I had my ear defenders on. Oh, you're saying that my ear defenders aren't prosthetics and are not a fair comparison? Well, that's fair, but take this as an illustration of a disability aid and how they differ from able-bodied experiences. Also, many prosthetic users do many things without their prostheses, and some even prefer NOT to wear them. Blogs that explicitly cover disabled representation, such as @/cripplecharacters, have posts that cover WHY many amputees are not fans of this trope. The problem comes with that it erases disability, and yet also treats us like we are given a space at the table of representation. It's just another way that authors avoid actually doing research.

Other things that people tend to ignore are how burn scars, or any scars, would not only appear on a character, but also affect them. I have seen, aside from skin tones that looked like they were picked out of a crayon box instead of what would appear on a person, teeth exposed, wounds that look as if they are fresh from the explosion YEARS after they occurred, and what I like to call "paper shredder" scars. Because instead of them looking like burn or shrapnel scars, it appears as if his skin was put through a shredder. Once again, another consequence of the show's at most-30 second scene with questionable decisions that made massive ripples in the fandom. With the injuries Tord received, it is most likely that he would have two kinds of injuries: a burn on 18% of his body (minimum, based on rule of 9s), and/or shrapnel scars from debris. While shrapnel scars would manifest as darker scars, the burn scar would likely be a hypertrophic scar, as "70% of patients develop hypertrophic scars following burns" (Finnerty et. al). The scars, when healed, are warm toned on the boundaries of their areas and cool in between. When on a pale skintone, they are not too dissimilar, and would therefore not have such a drastic color difference as seen on skin. They would also not go down to the bone or skin, as that would be a completely different kind of injury, and are also commonly done to make him look "scarier", which then aids the Disabled Villain trope. It also treats these scars and injuries more like a work of fiction, rather than something that many real people have experienced, adding to continuous misinterpretations of real life disabilities and facial differences.

For writers wanting to include consequences of burns, what would be more likely to be affected are his hearing, vision, and nerves on the right side of his face, as burn scars can go as deep as nerve endings. Also, burn scars, especially third degree burns, require treatments, such as burn-specific skincare. Scars, especially burn scars, can affect you and become disabling. For artists, the main thing I don't see artists do is draw him with damaged hair follicles. Burn scars damage the scalp and eyebrows, preventing hair growth. I am sorry, but he would not still have fluffy, luscious hair. Do not kill me. He just wouldn't. And if you are saying that he had it in the show, I can't hear you because my ear defenders are on, but I hope you heard me, as we've gone over that the show is inaccurate and we should do our own research.

Even well intentioned authors and artists ignore many aspects of the disabilities he would likely have!

Which brings us to the last trope...

The Ignored Disability

Many well meaning people intend to give him nuance by trying to avoid the Disabled Villain trope. Accidentally, however, they end up completely ignoring his disabilities instead.

Just like the high-tech prosthetic, the real disabling aspects of having a disability are at best rarely mentioned. I have seen, in some fanworks, that he goes straight from amputation to having a prosthetic. And that is where his disability ends. Because the prosthetic ends up being a fix-all situation. Authors refuse, or forget, to include aspects of amputation, such as the healing process, stump or phantom pain. Artists will cover up his scars with a helmet or a mask, another trope that undermines his disabilities and attempts to brush it under the rug. I understand that there is a discomfort for able-bodied authors in thoroughly exploring how a character feels about their disability. That is something I think we should. Avoid. If you're not familiar with the experience of being that minority, you do not need to add commentary on it. And if you do, and it just falls into more negative tropes, I will send a salmon cannon at you (/j). However, I do not agree with brushing every disabling aspect of his life under the rug.

People can assume it's not a problem, like it isn't something blatantly apparent. But, if you assume that disability and being disabled is not a "big thing", you end up where your medication is denied because your insurance refuses to see your common procedure as not a necessary medical intervention because you're "too young". And that is not fiction. That is what inspired me to write this essay, because the day that I got that news was the same day I sat down and told myself that I needed to share my perspective on the perception of disabled characters by honing in on one of my favorite characters and how the fandom treated him.

Disabled characters deserve to be included in media, disability and all, with care given to how their life would operate as a result and what they would experience with their specific disability. That's why many people recommend sensitivity readers who can give proper insight upon that disability and can advise people to properly portray it.

But if you cannot afford or access that resource, what can you do?

Fish's Non-Cohesive List of Ways I Tried to Write Tord as a Non-Amputee Without a Facial Difference

Do research!! The more you are to try to understand what you are writing about, the less you are to misinterpret or misrepresent it.

Look into resources that focus on portraying disabled characters, especially with those you wish to write about. Read blogs, research tropes that are common in disabled characters, and hell, read medical journals. They can provide great insight (<< nerd who likes reading medical journals)

Include more disabled characters. Make the other boys be disabled! Want to be canon compliant? Create OCs who have disabilities! I have a bunch! It's 2024! Be cringe and be free! The character's disability would go against the traditional narrative form of "usefulness"? I'm an animator who can't wear headphones and a theatre performer who can't physically handle the volume of a band. And yet, we find ways to persist, to exist. We will always find our way to live in the way we want to, in whatever way we can.

Look into disability activism. Learn the difference between the Medical Model and Social Model of disability. Know what an invisible disability is. Listen to us when we say that we don't want to be treated as special or an inspiration for simply living (inspiration porn). The more you are aware of what we struggle in real life, the more aware you will be to not repeat those mistakes in your fiction.

Write what you can. Highlight little talked about aspects of having a burn scar or being an amputee, such as the recovery, or treatment for the chronic pain, or how different he would be in battle due to decreased depth perception. As a disabled author, I have personally touched on the experience of gaining a disability later in life, and how he copes with it. Now, not all of y'all can do that. But that is a personal experience I do have, and it is something I have highlighted in my own work. So, while I couldn't tell you the ins and outs of having a burn scar or a prosthetic arm, I could describe the shock and frustration that comes with suddenly experiencing difficulties, or even being unable to do what you had done before.

I ask that, if you are willing to do better, or to start on the right foot, you take what I have written, reflect on it, and treat disabled characters, and in turn, disabled people, better from here on out.

Fiction is not reality, but the way we deal with it is reflective of who we are and what we believe. The boundary for our own personal being does not suddenly stop within fiction. When we interact and interpret it and create for it, it is integral that we remain conscious that bigotry runs rampant, albeit often as an unseen force, within fandom spaces, and do our best to counteract that.

I have doubts that the new eddisode will treat this topic with the same respect. I hope you can all go forward with what you have read in this WAY LONGER than I expected essay, and do what those grown British men cannot. Even if they erase it, retconn it, or do not treat it with respect, let's all go forward and do better!

As for always, you can discuss more in the tags or my inbox!

I hope you have a wonderful life,

Fish

[kiefbowl]

What's your take on written erotica/smut like fanfiction? Obviously it's nowhere comparable to porn, but I definitely see problems with it as it can perpetuate misinformation and harmful stereotypes all the same (ie. many tropes are very likely based on exposure to porn).

I do see fanfiction as something of a hobby/safe space made predominantly by women for women. There's creativity and a community involved, and real people aren't being harmed in its production.

What do you think? Is it something feminists should be against? Or is it a gray area?

It's situational and depends on context. Women are allowed to be sexual and explore their desires as much as their boundaries. I also think it's sticky to assume that anything "bad" that a woman says is sexually exciting can only have been learned through socialization. However, socialization can never be removed from sex. So, should women be treated like grown adults who know their own sexual appetites? Surely, yes. Does that mean adult women can't be coerced or socialized into "liking" something they otherwise would not have? Obviously not, that is very possible.

I think there is a history within feminism that can swing a little conservative in this area, moralizing natural sexual instincts and assuming women ought not have sex at all. This is problematic thinking for me, but also I don't ultimately disagree with the benefits of celibacy and how radical and political that decision can be. I celebrate every woman who takes that course of action, for whatever reason and whatever sexuality and to whatever degree. Women do not need to have sex, of any kind, with anyone.

The issue I take, however, is the impulse to assume women can't know their own minds, bodies, and intuitions - or that an individual woman's body belongs to a political agenda before it belongs to herself. This is a general impulse of misogyny as a whole, and I think it's false to assume you don't have this impulse just because you are a feminist. It takes a lot of work, constant lifelong work, to see women as full capable adult humans and also to have a theory of mind about women. Women are not infantile, and sexuality is not inconvenient.

To loop this back to fanfiction, I think we can see a convergence of different issues (mild and serious) with some things that are fact-of-life or even positive. My main concern with "smutty fanfiction" is actually young girls, rather than women. I think a lot of tweens and teens are exposed to raunchy fanfiction before they're exposed to scientific and unmoralizing sexual education. That can cause huge issues for young girls that can lead to issues as young (and even old) women. Should a 13-year-old be masturbating to written BDSM of cartoon characters before she even learns that masturbating is normal and healthy & before she can see any affirmations that "normal" sex is meant to be pleasurable, and women are active participants to it? Not to be puritanical but, uhm, no. Are there, like, policy fixes I think should be in place? I struggle with that.

I think the policy fixes for these issues aren't so much about regulating fanfiction and who gets to access the internet - I think it more has to do with disseminating proper sexual education early and thoughtfully. When it comes to the role of fanfiction and erotica in women's lives in general, perhaps backstage activism is a better route here. Conscious raising groups, books & magazines, getting together with women and girls and having frank and open discussions...these things go a long way in our communities.

But also - girls get to be sexual too, and I think the ways taboo intersects with sexuality isn't so surprising. I don't think feminists need to be overly alarmed when girls are curious and maybe a little naughty. I don't think reading fanfiction is ever going to be worse than watching online porn, least of all that the way your brain processes video is different than how it processes the written word. I don't think a young girl is "doomed" if she reads a particularly explicit book or sees something that is, broadly, disagreeable to feminist thinking. If anything, maybe feminists should be targeting mothers and giving them resources on how to intervene in a healthy way. How do you talk about weird furry porn to your tweenager without making her feel ashamed? How can you make it so that the embarrassing is funny and she feels safe? How can you say "I don't think you should be looking at this" not because it's sexual, but because it distorts sexuality? How do we help mom be cool when maybe mom isn't cool?

I think this is a very interesting topic that deserves attention, and a lot could be written about it. Thanks for the great question.

[xviiperr]

can I please request yandere romantic headcannons of scourge and sonic with incredibly smart reader? like, really really cunning and observant. thank you in advance!

Of course! Man oh man am I excited! Thank you for the requests you guys! I looked at both of the requests and an idea popped in my head— the most clever one I have ever had (joking)— what if I combined them together?

A smart reader with two smitten hedgehogs fawning over them is a brilliant mix of unknown chaos and adventure! (And of course, danger). I sure do like the concept of a competition between hero and villain, a trope used since the dawn of time. I wasn't able to elaborate much on freedom fighter stuff because, no matter what I wrote, I just didn't like it lol.

Also, I made art for this! Looks a little cringe but, I couldn't help but try something new! Y'all can use them as pfps or whatever if you like them a lot but, please credit me! (Sonic's came out a little....interesting lol. I keeping on thinking of those Snapcube dubs omg).

Reader is gender neutral and uses you/your pronouns!

TW: cursing, physical harm (not to you but, definitely to Sonic and Scourge) blood, yandere shenanigans: stalking, possessiveness, obsessiveness, murder, sabotage. Another note! Sonic thinks about putting you, the reader, in danger.

Is it proof read? Sorta, not as much as I like to! School's getting busy and fanfiction is helping me survive! Figured if I was able to post this, then I am able to do anything that school has me involved in!

For Sonic and Scourge, it would be incredibly difficult, basically impossible for you to be shared with either one of them. You wouldn't get much down time with these guys around, constantly following and pestering you about: "Who's the better hedgehog?" Your life, Anons, will be a living Hell. Prepare for a game of tug-of-war between two idiots!

Let's start with talking about Scourge.

Scourge would be very adamant on trying to get you to join his team. You're smart and he knows this, much more clever than his compatriots and his now ex-girlfriend, Fiona. He's so desperate for your attention, picking fights with anyone who gets in the way of talking or being by you. And here's where the first problem comes from: you're on Sonic's team. You. You are a part of the Freedom Fighters. And that pisses him off.

Why are you wasting your talents on a bunch of babies? Scourge doesn't care if he has to travel across the zones to find you and take you with him. But, he doesn't count on you being much more smarter than he thought. In the midst of a battle with Egghead's badnicks, Scourge appears out of a portal to try and snag you away. He launches across the greenery, grinning madly. He's finally going to get you and—

Scourge could've sworn that his jaw was dislocated and then broken. It throbbed furiously and he struggled to gather his bearings. His head spun violently. You saw him coming from a mile away, despite his quills supposedly blending him in with the environment. That damn jacket of his gave him away. His prized possession! (Aside from his crown and you, of course). You sent a hunk of Dr. Robotnick's heavy machinery straight at him, letting the robot do the work for you and send him flying away. He was way too dizzy, blood dripping from his nose and a possible concussion. Hell.

You spared him a moment's glance and then took off to help Amy clobber some more tin heads. By now, Sonic had noticed Scourge and was already working his way over in record time, something even Scourge wasn't expecting. The expression on Sonic's face warned of a promised beating and perhaps, even worse, death. Scourge staggered to his feet, turned heel and bolted as fast as he could before he got a generous pummelling from the Blue Blur. He soared into the portal just in time, avoiding a nasty fate. Scourge hit the ground with a bone rattling thud, cursing when he bit on his lip too hard.

He's angry, oh yes he is but, he had to admit, he kinda liked that. Scourge hates to say that he did. You have the same quality that drew him into Fiona— your mind. It's really unfair that you're on Sonic's team though. Now he has to figure out how he's gonna come back, not get his ass beat and take you home with him. You're much smarter than he was anticipating. Scourge that night decides to spare no time for sleep, mind hooked on how you looked at him. How you outwitted him, not even using your own fists to take him down.

Scourge stares at a cabinet in his castle, pondering. Gutting Sonic doesn't sound like half of a bad idea. With that idiot out the way, Scourge gets to have all of your attention on him. The Freedom Fighters though...those mutts are still going to be in the way. Scourge has been itching to become the one and only Sonic, even if he liked the attention he was getting from the rest of the crew, Scourge needed to be in charge of things here. He's gonna figure out how to worm his way into your life and force you to work with him.

Now, what about Sonic?

Sonic loves your intellectual prowess, constantly checking back with you. He wants to hear more about your ingenious creations, (maybe he can even use them to his advantage!) and in general, have you speak to him about everything you come up with. Sonic does not want to share you with your friends though, as much as he likes how they positivity impact your mind, he feels that he should have sole possession of your heart. (He might just go and take it anyway, don't worry, you'll have a mechanical heart to keep you alive!) Instead, Sonic encourages you to hang out with his friends. With you being around his friends, Sonic doesn't have to worry as much.

Whatever your brain delves into, Sonic wants to hear all about it, as said before but, reiterated. (Y'see, this is a really important point). Now, Sonic knows that another hedgehog, specifically the embodiment of a snotball, is also after your affections. He's not going to let that bully get any of your time, always being the first to rush towards Scourge and hit him with the old sucker (his fist). Sonic will do anything to get that vermin off your tail, even convincing Shadow and Knuckles to help him out. Now depending on whether Shadow and Knuckles are yandere will also determine on how much they're willing to help Sonic out. Either way, thanks to Sonic's undeniable charm, he is able to enlist assistance to fend off Scourge. Sonic is even proud of beating Scourge up.

And to make matters worse, Sonic will boast about beating up Scourge at every chance he gets. Now, that being said, it's not out of character for Sonic to gloat over his victories, especially bullies but, he goes further into detail. Sonic is happy that he gave Scourge a well worth punch to the snout to think about. And if Sonic hit Scourge hard enough to the point that Scourge was bleeding—he's ecstatic. From then on, Sonic will constantly bring up the subject of hitting someone so hard that they started bleeding. Sonic uses this as bragging rights and also, a not so well hidden reminder of how strong he is. You belong to him.

Sonic cannot help but replay that day over and over again in his head. Scourge slips through the portal, laughing out loud and being an overall idiot. Scourge's first move is to find and capture you, even stating it out loud. That was his first mistake, giving him right away to Sonic, who started hitting heavier on badnicks. Sonic remembered that he felt panicked, that he wouldn't get to you in time to save you. But, as it turned out, you didn't need any saving. You were just fine on your own. In fact, you had the time to set up a little surprise, just for Scourge.

Shock was an understatement to describing Sonic's face after your clever trick. Instead of fighting tooth and nail to get away from Scourge, (you didn't even have to worry about stepping close at all, due to your ingenuity) you had sent the biggest badnick catapulting at Scourge, hitting him smack dab in the face. Sonic was sorry that he wasn't able to catch up to Scourge, to give him a nice little beat down. That factor made him rather pouty for the rest of the evening, however, that didn't stop Sonic from singing praises about your smarts. He acted like he couldn't believe that you were able to do that. It almost felt like Sonic was being condescending. That you should have been captured, only for Sonic to save the day.

That day, Sonic sat out on the beach, daydreaming about the many different ways that he could save you. From that fight, he learned that you wouldn't actually need him and that fact hurt Sonic more than he liked to admit. Yes, putting you in a dangerous situation might be the trick to get you to fall even more in love with him. But, that could also mean that Scourge would be there to save the day instead. And knowing Scourge, he would definitely out Sonic for his actions, just to win your favor. Sonic had to think carefully on how he was going to handle this.

[anonymousredactedconfessions]

Let's have a talk, shall we?

Major Trigger Warning for rape, false accusations, and mentions of child sex crimes

I let you guys get away with a lot of shit. I let you be a little bitter, or mean spirited, or pissed off. I let you guys vent and let out grievances and complain for the sake of complaining. And i do all of this because it is important to have a space that you can do so without fear of judgement, it is unhealthy for you to bottle up negative emotions. I provide this in a public space because with the way this fandom is, if I didn't many of you would be pressured into not doing so at all. This fandom has a habit of ostracizing those who have differing opinions and interpretations, those who wish to critique the art they consume, those who have unpopular opinions, and all of it is done with the utmost aggression and vitriol. The things that have been said to some of the people in this fandom genuinely makes me lose faith in humanity if i think about it too hard.

This blog exists explicitly to counteract that. I refuse to encourage or enable it. What you are doing is actively dangerous, and I won't be having it in the space I curate within this fandom.

If you haven't noticed, this is one of my rules:

It means that you are not allowed to come in my inbox and accuse people of serious harm over this fiction.

You will not come and accuse people of something as egregious as rape apologia in my inbox. You will not accuse people of rape, abuse, assault, or child abuse/rape/exploitation in my inbox.

These are serious real world issues, and the reason they are bad is because they cause direct harm to real living people who can feel pain and can be violated. Your disgust holds absolutely no ethical weight. At All. You should have the mental, emotional, and intellectual capability to understand the ethical difference between allegories for rape, stories with/about rape, erotica of rape, and actual real life people being raped. Making accusations of this weight over make believe is abhorrent, and as a matter of fact, it shows that you don't treat these tragedies with the weight or gravity that they deserve. If you believe that it is appropriate to accuse someone of violating another person like so because of the creation of or opinions about art, then you have some serious learning and growing to do as a person if you wish to navigate these topics with any level of maturity or respect towards victims.

There is no good that comes out of accusations such as these. They only ever serve to:

Demonstrate to victims that the tragedy of their abuse is as trivial as fanfiction/art that you deem nasty (but is ultimately ethical), or even something as inconsequential as someones' love for a fictional character.

Shame those who love these characters, or this art, or creating, into hiding their opinions for fear of harassment and serious accusations when they have done zero harm by enjoying it.

Stifle creation and participation in fandoms.

Limit the spread of ideas, interpretations, critique/criticism, and general opinions in the fandom, which just turns fandoms into boring echo chambers devoid of variety and creativity.

Encourage actual censorship and moral policing. (More on that on this reblog by @escapedaudios on a post of mine. Thank you Escaped for your two cents, they are much appreciated 💖)

Spread the incredibly harmful idea that people are defined by the art they enjoy. You cannot accurately judge a person’s values or morals based on what tropes and themes they enjoy in fiction. You create an environment and culture incredibly dangerous for vulnerable individuals (like minors) when you tell them that they can know who is safe to trust based on whether they consume "the good kind" or "the bad kind" of fiction. This makes it so very easy for predators to virtue signal about fiction to lure in potential victims to abuse.

The majority of you are very good and well behaved when it comes to this, but the amount of people i have had come into my inbox and accuse others of being rapists with no evidence other than "they made X" or "they like Y" is not zero. And i will not be satisfied until it is.

This is all i have to say about the subject.

[besttropeveershowdown]

The WORST Trope Ever Showdown

Hello again! After the success of the Best Trope Ever Showdown, from which Found Family emerged victorious (by, like... a lot), it is now time to find its corollary. Its parallel. Its foil, if you will.

What is the worst trope of all time?

This tournament, just like BTES, will be run on a bracket format. Each week, tropes will be matched up against each other, and the winner of each matchup will go on to the next round.

Here is the submission form. You can submit as many tropes as you want. Submissions will be open until Tuesday of next week (that's Tuesday the 5th, for those of us who do better with dates), though I may decide to leave them open longer depending on how many I get in the first week. As usual, I encourage adding a link to a TVTropes page, but if your trope doesn't have one or you don't feel the page accurately represents it, you can also leave a brief description of it! (And if you do both, it makes things a lot easier for me during the organization stage)

THE RULES:

Yet again, medium-specific tropes will not be accepted (i.e, tropes that are specific to video games, or fanfiction, or musicals, or any other medium). This is because I want all tropes to be on equal footing as they enter the tournament, and there are some mediums that certain people simply never consume (not everyone plays video games, not everyone listens to musicals, not everyone watches professional wrestling) and thus don't know anything about the tropes of.

Genre-specific tropes, however, are okay as long as they can apply to any or most media.

I'm going to change the rules around problematic and offensive tropes for this tournament, because a lot of Worst Tropes Ever are probably problematic or offensive in some way. However, I also don't want this to become a game of Which Real-Life Stereotype Is the Worst. So, the rule for this tournament is, tropes that are problematic or offensive to a certain group are allowed in if and only if they are about how the group is treated specifically in media. So, All Gays are Pedophiles is not a valid submission because that is a real-life harmful stereotype that many people believe, but Bury Your Gays is because that is specifically about how queer characters are treated in fiction.

Tropes about sex are allowed if they are about sex in general and the role it plays in a story, but NOT if they are about specific parts of the sex act.

TVTropes is very vague with its definition of a trope, and for good reason: it's a very hard word to define. However, for this tournament, genres are not considered tropes, and neither are settings. Anything else you can find on TVTropes listed as a trope is fair game, EXCEPT:

Writing pitfalls are also not tropes. Although TVTropes has entries such as "Plot Hole", "Mary Sue", or "Pacing Problems", those are mistakes, not intentional tropes, and should not be submitted.

Propaganda is encouraged and makes the tournament a lot more interesting! I will also accept propaganda in the ask box over the course of the tournament, but if you want to send some in with your submission, put it on the form!

Have fun and be civil!

@tournament-announcer @tournamentdirectory

[saintsenara]

As someone who isn't the biggest Hermione fan and keeps it quiet because greater fandom LOVES her, I'm honestly gagging for more of your Hermione takes. Especially your takes on fanon Hermione, who I can't STAND. Have a good one x

thank you very much, anon - there are dozens of us!

hermione is certainly the character i struggle to find common ground with the most - and this has been the case since i first read philosopher's stone as a child.

[which has actually been a really fascinating pop-culture experience - i think we tend to overlook, both because the media landscape and its representation of child and teen girls has changed since the 1990s and because of jkr's increasingly harmful views on gender, just how groundbreaking hermione was as a female protagonist in media which wasn't marketed primarily or exclusively towards girls. there is a reason why so many girls and women identified with her when the books were coming out - and it was very interesting for me growing up to not be one of them.]

the cause of my beef with hermione is for the incredibly petty reason that i find people who possess many of her more... striking traits quite difficult to deal with in real life, particularly if they don't acknowledge [which people in the hermione vein often don't...] that these traits are things it might benefit them to work on in their interpersonal relationships...

but this doesn't prevent me recognising that canon!hermione [and any real person like her] is interesting - and that her more annoying traits work well with her more straightforwardly admirable ones to create a fully-rounded character who, from a fanfiction perspective, is a great vehicle for all sorts of tropes, themes, and storylines.

which brings us - of course - to fanon!hermione...

fanon!hermione is, at her core, another brick in the wall of mary-sues. she's beautiful, and so clever she can solve millennia-old puzzles without batting an eyelid, and she's preternaturally emotionally intelligent, and she's morally spotless, and she's always right, and the story's preferred romantic partner worships the ground she walks on, and anyone who doesn't like her is punished.

i don't think - to be clear - that there is anything wrong, per se, with people wanting to write fanon!hermione [nor, to be frank, with other flawless fanon versions of female characters, oc mary-sues, or self-indulgent self-inserts - i'll defend the right to have fun with characters to the death]. this is a hobby, and people's way of engaging with that hobby doesn't have to appeal to me - it's fun escapism sometimes to write a character who is wonderful and perfect and beloved and has a sexy partner; and when it comes to accusations of writing someone "out-of-character", let she who is without sin cast the first stone...

but i also think - and [sigh] here comes some discourse - that fanon!hermione is part of a slight... girlbossification of female characters in the harry potter fandom [and presumably in others, i just don't follow closely enough to know] which i've always been a little uneasy about.

i understand why this happens - this fandom, like many, has an overwhelming preference for making blorbos of male characters and for imagining these characters in slash relationships. the treatment of female characters in slash subfandoms - i.e. tonks in wolfstar spaces; lily in jegulus spaces - is often straightforwardly misogynistic, and even in cases where it isn't, female characters are often shuffled quietly to the sidelines, except when they pop up - often suddenly in a queer pairing of their own - to benignly cheerlead the male couple.

and i think it's good that this is challenged - as i also think it's good that the heteronormative vibes of a lot of slash are challenged - and that we, as a fandom, are increasingly interested in female-centric works [whether focused on a romantic pairing or otherwise] and discussions. i hope these continue to take up fandom space.

but i have also noticed that the way female characters are written and talked about in these context is - as i've said - quite #girlboss in its approach. the focus is on women as clever and competent and feisty and unruffled and brave.

[including female villains, there are a lot of girlboss bellatrixes knocking around...]

and great! it should be! - but from what i've seen this also comes accompanied by a resistance to the idea that women can also be boring, unintelligent, self-infantilising, vain, arrogant, ignorant, talentless, meek, domestic, rude, dislikable, conservative, incurious, complicit in their own victimisation, plain wrong, and so on, and not only still be worthy of exploration, but be worthy of these characteristics not being automatically considered bad things for someone to possess and it not being seen as letting down the sisterhood to explore a woman who possesses them.

and, sure, hermione cannot be described as many of these things - but she is...

self-righteous; cruel; petty; from a privileged class background in the muggle world which blinkers her understanding of the class structure of the wizarding one; stubborn; terrible under pressure; shown by the text to be intelligent largely due to an ability to rote learn; a people-pleaser with a tendency towards a slightly hagrid-ish blind loyalty; extremely deferential to authority and willing to tolerate cruel treatment from authority figures [i.e. snape]; the most childlike of the trio [she takes her schoolbooks on the run and reads through them for comfort! she's an enormous animal lover!]; interested in one of form of stereotypical femininity [knitting! wearing pretty dresses!] even if she rejects the form of stereotypical femininity liked by e.g. parvati and lavender [and anyone who thinks she's not going to get along with her mother-in-law because molly's a housewife is dead wrong - she's having the time of her life helping put together a sunday lunch at the burrow]; possessed of a filthy sense of humour [i will never understand why emma watson said that the key to playing her was to be prim...]; someone who obviously wants to be liked and to be loved; and so on...

[and also, by the end of the pre-epilogue narrative, eighteen. she's often written in fics in a way which makes her sound like she's seen a lot of life - especially if the fic wants to claim she's "too mature" to bother with men her own age... but she hasn't - she's a teenager, and the reason she's so unpolished and abrasive is because literally all teenagers are unpolished and abrasive. it's just one of the mortifying agonies of growing up.]

we should love this. it makes her thorny and messy and mixed-up and human - and i am perfectly delighted by explorations of her character which delve into unravelling this tangle.

i just like her less as someone who is there to be right and beloved and uncriticised.

unless it's by ron. everyone should be uncomplicatedly adored by their wife guy.

[cripplecharacters]

Hello! I'm in the middle of a story where my character is about to become Deaf/HoH in one ear as a result of a gun being fired right next to her ear.

I've been doing a lot of research on the effects of being deaf in one ear and was hoping for some tips on how to accurately depict it without falling into any harmful tropes if I haven't already?

Some key things to note are that this is a fanfiction about Attack on Titan, so she's fighting a lot and hearing is very important.

She has had an ability that she was essentially born with that she can see memories of the past and future, and she also visits another world in her dreams and such. Would it be harmful if in this other world she could still hear? She's one of the only characters who can go into the other world and it's not as though she could rely on her hearing in the other world (shes rarely there with other ppl) or use it to hear properly again in reality (if that makes sense)

I just figured it'd make sense since she was essentially there in spirit

When she's seeing someone else's memories she's essentially seeing through their eyes/in their body so that's another instance where she'd still he able to hear assuming the person she was seeing through was hearing

It's really mostly going to affect her ability to fight, and because a big part of her motivation is gaining freedom and not letting anyone fight/die for her, it takes a toll of that makes sense.

This is the first time I'm writing someone with a disability such as this so I want to make sure I write it right, and if I can't or am causing any harm, I won't write it at all

I hope this all makes sense, and if not I apologize

Hi!

You did not write a lot about how you are treating your character’s hearing loss so I don’t know if you are falling into any tropes. Here are some tips:

Deafness in one side, especially when used to equal hearing in both ears, can make someone feel off-balance due to the uneven input. Your character will have trouble locating sounds and may find herself constantly turning her head to try and locate where noises are coming from with her hearing ear. She will also likely struggle with conversations among multiple people because of that difficulty with sound location.

In terms of accommodations: I don’t know about tech in your world, but a lot of audio these days is mixed/surround sound style, meaning there is a difference in audio to each ear. In many modern devices there is an option for mono audio so output through both ears is the same—your character will want to use that. A hearing aid may also help, but not necessarily, and hearing aids are not a cure.

You mentioned she’s a fighter. Hearing loss may affect her ability to hear commands or incoming attacks, but with assistive technology (like a hearing aid or an fm system) if those work for her, and an increased reliance on visual cues, I don’t think she would have to stop fighting because of her hearing loss. (Admittedly I don’t know the source material so if I am missing something about how fighting operates, please let me know. But deafness shouldn’t remove her fighting ability.)

As for the dreamworld, I think it best if she was not functionally hearing because that is acting as a cure. Maybe it can work sort of like a movie, where someone else’s input is received through her own senses? So even if they are hearing, she still hears with her hearing ear.

Mod Rock

[avatarcompanion]

Lol someone posted about what I said about the red blue prison cell korrasami fanfiction lookalike lesbians.

No I am not hating on the red blue prison cell korrasami fanfiction lookalike lesbians...

Like good for them, it's great, go on and so on.

I just said I don't personally care. Because I just don't. I have no idea about that show, and I won't watch it. I didn't watch shera either.

Not wanting to watch is not hate, it is not an attack. It's just me mouthing, and it's not that deep. Nothing is taken away.

Also it is not hate to say they look like Korrasami fan content. Because they really literally absolutely do. And it's fine. I personally do not enjoy those tropes, but even I can realize it is in fact great if animators looked to wlw animation fanbase's content and wanted to cave into what they wanted to see when making a new story.

Caving in to an audience is not inherently bad, and building on fan favourite romantic tropes (even if those tropes are not common in pop culture) is not bad, but also might not be doing it for the next person (me), just because it was for you. Or maybe it would if I watched. It's not deep, and it's not a crusade against a media or a ship to not run with the crowd having excitement for the newest thing in the mediasphere or Netflix rec queue.

That's kind of my stick on this blog. Yes I will post my own salty ass opinions when I feel like it, but ultimately that is all this is. Someone disagreeing with you is not harming you, feeling differently is not taking the thing away from you. Enjoy it on your own terms. We can debate without having to self-victimize that someone had another experience of it.

Also another point for me is there is a lot of LGBT representation in media today. I have seen women love & fuck before. I'm not jumping into a ship or show just because u say u have more of that. What will and always have made me connect with a story is something that makes my heart go on fire, and that's that.

I think it's fine today to discuss wlw ships on their own merits as a story based on personal perspectives as well as # facts, because they can and really should not claim to represent some universal monolith.

Yes it's sesbian lex or whatever, but more than that it's a moment for those two specific characters... right?

So I can not care about something, and also realize it's something good for the girlies.

[tossawary]

As I post about rereading SVSSS for lore and characterization, and about sometimes ignoring canonical details for the sake of whatever story I want to tell / explore in fanfiction for fun, I want to make it clear that I don't make these changes because I think it makes a "better story" or that I can write a "better story". I don't even like using the term "fix-it" for my canon divergence AUs that avert some in-universe tragedy, even if it is the "correct" fandom term in some cases, because I don't think that SVSSS is a story that needs to be "fixed".

(Honestly, a lot of my minor alterations to canon's details are because I can't remember what exactly canon is and can't always be bothered to hunt for one sentence (which I may or may not remember existing at all) across multiple volumes, especially when I don't always think strict faithfulness to canon is that crucial to the main concept of what I'm doing. I wrote PINTWILF and several other fics before the official English translations were fully released, when checking minor details was an even greater pain in the ass. Sometimes, I'm cooking without the recipe in front of me because I just want to eat.)

Like, I have criticisms of SVSSS, definitely. When I first started writing SVSSS fic, I was more frank about this (fond but less fond of the characters and world than I am now), and I've talked about things I wished the story expanded on more. I think it has flaws. I know those flaws are a dealbreaker for many people. But it's not my story. I can't tell MXTX's story better, because I believe that every author's story belongs to them and only they know what they're trying to achieve, even when I may personally think that the story might have been stronger if it had done something differently or I'm ignoring some minor detail specifically because I don't really like it.

It's awkward, sometimes, occasionally being told by someone that they enjoyed my fic more than the original story. It's very flattering (I can't pretend I don't have an ego) and I don't think anyone means any harm by this, people enjoy stories or don't for many different reasons (enjoyment is not necessarily an indication of quality and I think engaging with fandom can often be more fun than just reading a story on its own by yourself), but it is a little awkward, especially when SVSSS is not an English / western story. I have an advantage appealing to western readers. Reading a translation of the original story, I know there are details of SVSSS going over my heard, references I'm missing, nuances I don't recognize, even as I endeavor to keep learning. I personally enjoy some of my fics more than SVSSS itself because I associate them with good experiences and a lot of them appeal to me personally in some way or another (all of my favorite tropes! we all have favorite tropes!), but they are built on the back of someone else's original work on the other side of the world, and I want to be respectful of that.

I don't want to compete or fix. I'm not trying to compete or fix, I think I would fuck it up if anyone seriously set that task on me, and I don't think that's a good way to view anything. I want to explore and appreciate. I'll type up a lengthy post at some point as to why I'm generally not interested in concrit on my fics (honestly, mostly it's because I'm not interested in being told that a reader hates the present tense and wishes I would rewrite the entire story, which has happened to me before), but I hope that doesn't come off as disinterest in the original story or its cultural context, or as me thinking even a little bit that any of my stories are flawless and/or better than the original.

I want to make a "why would you put two bad bitches (compliment) against each other like this?" joke here, but I also want to be clear: I think MXTX is by far the badder bitch (compliment) in this situation.

(Turning off reblogs, btw, because this post skews more on the personal side.)

[genericpuff]

I'm not sure if you've answered this question before but what were some of the things that made you interested in Lore Olympus in the past and at what point did you lose interest?

I adored the art in the beginning, and just like, the really warm-feeling romance that just had me feeling so giddy reading it. There were some red flags in the beginning like the age gap, but I kinda fell for the same mindset of "well they're gods so what does it matter" (obviously I can't in good faith use that argument anymore because if the age gap didn't matter then it either wouldn't exist or wouldn't be brought up in the first place lmao but it took me a while to realize that).

Now, to be fair, LO was also one of my first introductions to webtoons as a format, prior to that I had read mostly manga and left-to-right indie webcomics (i.e. comics that were hosted on their own site) and I was still in the early years of my own development as a writer and artist (I still feel like I'm early in that development tbh) so of course there were undoubtedly a lot of obvious flaws that went over my head (and I was younger and inexperienced so I wasn't as critical of what media I was watching / reading as I am now) but that's been half the fun of catching them now - it's given me a lot more perspective and helped me hone my own skills in my writing by analyzing what's wrong with LO and brainstorming on how those problems can be avoided.

But then there was the Act of Wrath plotline and I was completely sold on it being gold. Anyone who's read my original work knows how much of a SUCKER I am for "dark alter ego" plotlines, I eat that shit up like junk food. But what I like about the dark alter ego tropes is when they're used to explore the subconscious, question one's morals and true identity, etc. That was what I was hoping for and expecting with the AoW plotline in LO - that her "dark self" was gonna be a reflection of how she felt "held back" by her circumstances in the Mortal Realm, and her wrath being something she could use for retribution (in a "do no harm but take no shit" kinda way). Especially with how naive and innocent she was in the beginning, I loved the idea of her slowly coming to terms with her "darker" side and learning not to suppress her emotions until they had nowhere else to go and exploded (which was how I interpreted the AoW).

So when it didn't do that, or even explore an ounce of nuance regarding her relationship with her wrath, I was very disappointed to say the least. When Eris was revealed to be the one who "blessed" her with wrath, that was when the rose colored glasses started to fall off and I realized "wait, does Rachel not have an actual plan for this whole Kore vs. Persephone thing???" And now her wrath is literally just there to... give her the power to bully people?? It just feels so disheartening to see such potential squandered.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not gonna chastise a story if it doesn't go exactly where I want it to go, there would be no fun in that anyways (and that's what fanfiction is for lmao). But when a story is leaving very interesting but connectable breadcrumbs that are VERY clearly leading you somewhere and then just... doesn't, that's when it's disappointing and unsatisfying. LO feels like a "creator vs. the reader" story in the worst way possible, where it's constantly leaving breadcrumbs, getting pissed when the audience "figures it out", so then it overcorrects and tries to "subvert" itself to keep the readers "on their toes"... but the problem is that all it really does is punish the readers for paying attention and investing themselves in the story by giving them a worse story. It's like Rachel's getting mad at people for figuring out a story that she's writing and hinting towards.

And this has been going on for YEARS now, it's like a Shepard tone where it sounds like it keeps getting higher and higher in pitch but then doesn't actually resolve so your brain is just scrambling trying to figure out what in the world it could be "building up to".

There's nothing. It's not building up to anything. It's just constantly putting down new plot threads that are slightly altered versions of previous plot threads and expecting you to keep following along while it makes a mess of itself. It feels like you're going somewhere but you're actually still just running in place. It's just Rachel never learning how to progress past the middle school writing level of "and then this happened and then this happened and then this happened". Not only is it disorganized writing, but it's just... it's so boring. Nothing's exciting or interesting anymore when it keeps distracting itself with shiny new plotlines and characters that never get resolved.

It's like when you were a kid and thought "man , when I grow up, I'm gonna eat nothing but chocolate cake and ice cream every day forever!" and then you get older and you realize you were being silly because eating nothing but chocolate cake and ice cream every day 1.) isn't good for you and doesn't feel good, and 2.) the appeal and novelty of it wears off if you can have it any time you want, it doesn't feel as special anymore as it did when you were a kid and having those things was a treat.

To compare this back to LO, none of its "reveals" feel like treats anymore, they feel like just another half-assed attempt to keep people interested. It's clickbait.

And don't get me wrong, you CAN totally subvert the breadcrumbs you put down for your audience and go in a completely different direction than where the audience was expecting, but it takes a shitload of skill and thought to do it well. Attack on Titan is one of the best recent examples of a story appearing to completely throw out its original script halfway through, only for that script to actually still be relevant in a very complex and thought out way. Especially when there ARE hints towards the big "twist" that make you go back and rewatch it and realize "WAIT, THEY'VE BEEN GIVING US THE ANSWERS ALL THIS TIME?!?!"

(it would be TWO MORE FUCKING SEASONS before this ending would make sense, that's fucking GENIUS foreshadowing and in the CREDITS SEQUENCE LIKE ?? IT'S SO BLINK AND YOU'LL MISS IT HOLY SHIT-)

Evidently Rachel does not have that skill and is not willing to put in that thought; maybe she could some day, but I don't think she's learning it on the job as well as she thinks she is.

And it's disappointing as fuck because it could have been so much better than this. Rachel is literally the only one getting in her own way of LO being something truly great.

[multi-fandom-lunatic]

Is it bad to read romance?

No. Absolutely not.

Romance, as a genre, has evolved greatly from its creation. The original romance book, Pamela, was a romance written by a man for a man, and is problematic because of how misogynistic it is. However, romance has shifted greatly, and is primarily written by women for women nowadays.

There's nothing inherently bad about romance. As any other genre, it has its good and its bad and should be regarded in the same way. Romance becomes problematic when it's used to normalise and even promote sexism/racism/queerphobia/general bigotry. This is a problem that has recently arisen with the creation of Booktok.

As a staunch Booktok hater, I can confidently say that romance has gotten the short end of the stick. Out of all the genres, I would say romance has been most harmed by Booktok. Fantasy is a close second, but a lot of the inherently bad/problematic parts of Booktok stems from the romance aspect of it, be it a fantasy-romance, romantasy, or even just a fantasy book that happens to have romance.

Books like It Ends with Us by CoHo is the best example. It's subpar writing that is hailed on Booktok as a good book. Aside from just being bad writing, it's harmful writing. It promotes sexism and misogyny. The book tries to be about abuse and moving on from an abusive relationship, it's about going from one abusive relationship to the other, the only difference is that the second relationship is treated as healthy, when it's not. The worst part is, the book could be well written if CoHo leaned into what she was writing and explored the themes she's writing, but it's as if she isn't aware of what she's writing, and it results in a shitty read (authors being unaware of what they're writing is actually a very interesting topic but I'll save that for another discussion).

Books like It Ends With Us becoming popular and praised has the effect of romance as a genre being diluted. The entire genre stops being a genre where people can explore complex themes through romance, and instead a genre purely made of leisure reads. And when romance as a genre stops being taken seriously, authors stop writing for it seriously, and the market just skews toward promoting shitty books.

Romance isn't inherently a leisure read. Romance can be thought provoking. A good romance book is. And sometimes, romance books are just fun silly leisure reads. And they can be good too, in their own right. But when romance having complex themes and being good literature becomes the exception instead of the norm, it's evident of problems in the way we perceive not just romance, or even reading as a whole, but also how we perceive relationships and society. And Booktok seems to promote the kind of romance that's more equivalent to fanfiction than literature.

I suspect romance becoming a leisure read and "silly" has a lot to do with sexism. Men think "oh it's by women for women so it's feminine and it's silly and not to be taken seriously" so romance gets labelled as a silly, and sometimes inferior genre. And Booktok worsens by promoting the kind of thoughtless, boring, flavourless, fanfiction-ass romance that makes romance look like an unserious genre as a whole, and only feeds into this notion, and it turns into a vicious cycle. And a cycle like this can only be dismantled by reading, writing and promoting good romance. My general tip for finding a good romance: if the plot can be summarised by a few shitty tropes, not worth the read (so...avoid all the Booktok stuff).

[lexosaurus]

Hi uhh i have a question i was scrolling at ao3 and i keep seeing pompous pep fiction a lot but i thought it was illegal because there is at least 20 year age gap im getting confused

AO3 is a creative writing/fanfiction archive that allows anything that's legal under US creative writing law. There are some limitations, like scripting out an episode of DP would not be allowed because that's copyright infringement, and posting something disguised as a fic that's not actually one (say, posting your headcanons list or your grandma's cookie recipe) isn't allowed because that's not a transformative work. But otherwise, people are allowed to post any fictional content that they so wish so long as it's tagged properly.

The tags are an awesome feature of the site and are why many people, myself included, choose to use AO3 as their main fanfiction domain. It allows you to opt in or opt out of any tag that you do or don't want to see. For example, I read/write a ton of gore, so I often filter in tags like "Dissection" (using the sidebar) so I can only see those types of fics. But there are tons of people who get squicked out by gore/dissection, so they might prefer to filter those tags out. Maybe they just wanna read a good smut fic, so they'd filter in that tag, while for me, I'm not so interested in that content, so I almost always filter it out before I browse.

I know this seems a bit long winded of me, but what I'm trying to get at is that because fanfiction is fictional, that means that ships and tags that you or I might argue are morally gray or even morally unethical are totally allowed on the site (aka no real children were harmed in the making of said fic, so not illegal). This includes Pompous Pep, which is Danny/Vlad. And if you don't want to see that, as many people probably don't, then the site makes it extremely easy to filter that stuff out! Woo!

The DP Phandom is a really really old phandom and we've had a history of "true vs anti" ship wars back in the 00's, which while a bit different than the kinds of shipping wars you see in other fandoms today, they still happened and were incredibly destructive within our spaces. People were fighting, there was lots of bullying, angry cliques, and overall moral policing "you can't sit with us" behavior to people who frankly didn't deserve it. There's not a lot of creatives left from that era, and the ones that did come back don't have a lot of positive things to say about it.

So yeah, maybe some people on AO3 write things that might squick you out, but from experience we've found it to be far more beneficial to just do our own things. Write the content you wanna write, read the content you wanna read, interact with the people you wanna interact with, and block/mute/filter out/whatever the rest. It's honestly not worth your mental health or sanity to try to police fics/art in here. We're too old, most of us got jobs, bills to pay, maybe even kids to feed, and it's honestly not worth our time. Besides, it's much more fun to participate in phandom events and nerd out with other creatives about silly AUs and tropes and geek out over art styles and colors than it is to worry about that stuff!

[elumish]

I've been thinking a lot recently about unpacking "not liking" something in stories.

And this isn't pointed at anyone or in response to any particular discourse as much as just something that's part of my own journey of thinking about the type of media (books, movies, TV shows, fanfiction, etc.) that I engage with and how, as well as what I write and how I write it.

So I think there's at least five types of "not liking" something in media:

I don't like it because it's poorly made/poorly written. Stuff that is just not well done (imho) from a technical or writing standpoint, even if it's something I would have otherwise enjoyed (e.g. fanfiction with no paragraph breaks).

I don't like it because I'm not into the writing/directing/editing/etc. style. Sometimes I just hate how stuff is made/written/created, even if by many standards it's good.

I'm not into it. There are some genres/tropes/etc. that I am just generally not into (e.g., horror, hard sci fi, raunchy humor).

It makes me uncomfortable. There is content that causes visceral discomfort when I engage with it (e.g., body horror).

I think it causes or perpetuates societal harm. There are some things that I think do actual harm to publish in whatever medium (e.g., ableist stereotypes, racist narratives, antisemitic tropes) and that i wish people would be more cognizant of when writing and publish less of.

One of the biggest issues that I've run into time and again is that the fourth and fifth ones are really hard to tell apart sometimes. Is my immediate reaction of "this shouldn't exist" because it disgusts me or because it's something I think perpetuates harmful ideas? Where in this framework do we fit under- or un-negotiated kink, or characters ending up with the person who sexually assaulted them, or positive representations of torture? How do we talk about all of these in a meaningful way?