#there are a lot of harmful tropes in fanfiction

[nomazee]

a month ago i said i would yell about misogyny and patriarchal themes in fanfiction and eventually i will but there are so many thoughts and feelings in my head that it will take me forever to type it down. But i will say this

Be critical of the things you read. i’m not saying you CANT read for enjoyment—you CAN and SHOULD read for fun. But i’m saying that sometimes you should take notice of the themes in writing and think “wow, i wonder why that’s written like that. Is this harmful or is this helpful?���

it’s a given that fanfiction is widely heteronormative because society and media blah blah blah We know all of this … but in my opinion i think it’s important to think about why women in hetero fics are portrayed the way they are sometimes. I think reader insert fics have gone a long way in being more inclusive and less harmful than they were years ago BUT. Do not let that stop you from recognizing themes in the works you read right now

like; Why are misogyny-affected people written a certain way?? Why are there often degrading themes in a lot of tropes and fics regarding women?? Why are there certain roles that misogyny affected people are expected to fulfill even in fiction?? why are women often the “default” for fics with male characters?? think about any of these questions for like longer than two minutes, read a bad fic, and you will probably see where i’m coming from

[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

Support the SAG-AFTRA strike and other unions. Trust @neil-gaiman. Register to vote if you haven’t yet. Hold yourself and others accountable with compassion. Read books. Keep doing the work. Rest. Then watch Good Omens 2 again.  

[dixons-sunshine]

★ You can just call me Krys.

★ I’m a woman and I go by she/her pronouns, although I don’t mind she/they.

★ In my country, and the UK, I am legal to drink, but in the USA, I am not.

★ I like to read and I write stories, although I feel like they’re not that good.

★ English isn’t my first language.

★ I love a lot of things, including The Walking Dead, Supernatural, Marvel, Stranger Things and a lot of other stuff I can’t think of right now.

★ My comfort character is Daryl Dixon.

★ My favourite seasons in The Walking Dead are seasons 2 and 6.

★ Richonne is my favourite TWD ship.

★ Young!Daryl and Dad!Daryl writer until I die.

★ Snakes and spiders can go back to the depths of hell from whence they came.

★ I have kinemortophobia, which is ironic, considering my love for TWD.

★ Proud owner of one doggo that means more to me than most things in my life.

★ I tend to stay up late. I’m a night owl.

★ I started watching The Walking Dead for Glenn, but I stayed for Daryl.

★ English nerd.

★ I have a huge tendency to ramble, so I apologise in advance if I do.

★ I love to interact with everyone online, but I’m too awkward to reach out first.

★ I’m always down to discuss theories, headcannons or anything else. Just inbox or DM me!

★ I write whenever I have time, so I might post very frequently or every once in a while.

★ I don’t tolerate any racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, hate language, or any other bad-isms. This blog is a safe space for everyone!

★ I edit on TikTok. My username is @/dixonssunshine.

[...x Reader Oneshots]

[...x Reader Drabbles]

[...x Reader Imagines]

[...x Reader Headcannons]

[...x Reader Series]

[Vampire AU]

[Werewolf AU]

[...x Georgianna Marianne Hawkins]

[Quarters Of The Undead AU]...Coming Soon!

[...x Reader Oneshots]

[...x Reader Oneshots]

[...x Reader Oneshots]

[...x Reader Oneshots]

[...x Reader Drabbles]

[...x Reader Imagines]

[...x Reader Oneshots]

[...x Reader Drabbles]

★ My requests are: OPEN.

★ I’m taking requests for:

↳ Daryl Dixon

↳ Scud Frohmeyer

↳ Murphy MacManus

↳ Vincent Bauer

↳ Van (Floating 1997)

↳ Rick Grimes

↳ Michonne Hawthorne

↳ Rosita Espinosa

↳ Glenn Rhee

↳ Carol Peletier

↳ Negan Smith

★ My default is Fem!Reader, since I myself am a female. However, I am very open to write for GN!Reader.

★ I don’t feel comfortable writing for Male!Reader. I can’t place myself in that situation, meaning there’s no fun in it for me and the story will most likely suck. However, I do know of blogs who’d happily write that, and I’d be more than happy to show you to their blogs. Feel free to ask me and I’ll do it!

★ I’ll write for any race, culture, etc. Just specify it in your request! However, requests with a specific culture in mind might take a bit longer to write, seeing as I’m a perfectionist and will spend hours googling to make sure I have my facts straight.

★ I always try my best to keep appearances regarding the reader neutral so that everyone can enjoy my stories. However, if I slip up, I apologise!

★ I’ll write any tropes/kinks I’m comfortable with, and if I’m not comfortable with it, I’ll let you know!

★ Some tropes/kinks I’m not comfortable with writing is non-con, dub-con, incest, stepcest, pedophilia, pervert!(character), piss kinks, mommy/daddy kinks, huge age gaps where the reader is barely pushing 18 and Daryl is in his late 40’s, hardcore degradation, spanking/any bodily harm, cheating (if it’s on the reader from the person I’m pairing them with), rape and abuse, unless it’s in the past, and fetishes, like foot fetishes for instance. There are a few others as well, but these are the main ones I don’t feel comfortable writing.

★ I will not write character x character. I obviously have my favourite ships that I want to go canon, but I don’t feel comfortable writing fanfiction like that. It’s just not my thing.

★ I will not write character x random OC, meaning an OC that I didn’t personally create/aren’t a friend’s OC.

★ I also will not write for Norman Reedus x Reader. He’s a real human being with real emotions. Not to mention he has a beautiful partner and two kids who he loves very much. No hate to those that do write it, though. It’s just not something I feel comfortable writing.

★ I’ll try my best to write every request I can, but remember I have a life outside of Tumblr and it might take me a little while to get to your request.

★ As the writer, I have the right to deny a request if I don’t feel up to doing it.

★ Tumblr has a tendency to delete asks sometimes, so if I don’t get to your request, there’s a huge chance that it got deleted.

★ If it’s been a while since you’ve sent it and I haven’t gotten to it or you feel I’ve forgotten about it, feel free to remind me about it.

★ Other than that, request away!

©dixons-sunshine 2024. I do not give permission for my works to be copied, modified, adapted or translated to any other site or platform without evidence of my given consent.

[kingofbodyrolls]

End of the World (m) | myg | teaser

→ Summary: Your government has been telling you to prepare for war, just as a precaution given the recent political changes around your country. Did you listen and prepare? No. Are you paying the price now, friends all but gone, and your city burned to pieces? Yes. Survival instincts kicking in, you search for a place to rest, nourish your battered and hungry body, only to find yourself at the porch of a stranger. Will he help you, or leave you to your own demise?  → Pairing: Yoongi x reader (female) → Genres/AUs: science fiction, apocalyptic, survival, co-dependency to stay alive + heavy angst, fluff and smut. → Tropes: strangers to lovers, forced proximity (because love that shit) → Rating: mature/explicit/R18 (this is mature/explicit content, so minors, please do not interact.) → Word count: still writing (approx 10-20k) it’s a one-shot! → Author’s note: hiya. I’m currently writing this apocalyptic story with Yoongi, because… well. I’m fucking scared. So this is me working through and with my fear for something that I’m afraid is actually going to happen. We don’t need to talk about it, because a lot of bad shit is happening all over the world 😭 This is purely a story, though made up by my fears, yeah. Anyway, it’s okay if you’re not into it! The vibe for it is like The Last of Us and maybe a bit Fallout, I think if you enjoy that type of stuff, you’ll enjoy this one too. But it’s really heavy, but there’s a decent amount of fluff to balance it out, because, it’s still a fanfiction and it wouldn’t be that without some good old fluff and smut 🥰

You know you must move, but before you leave, there’s a promise to fulfill for Yuri.

You relieve yourself and step back onto the road, eyes fixed on the distant horizon that seems miraculously untouched by the ravages of war. That glimmer of hope pulls you forward. You have to reach it. No matter the distance, no matter the obstacles, you must get there. 

It’s your only chance.

You walk and walk—days blur into weeks. Your clothes hang off your frame, tattered and too big. Bombings have become a constant backdrop, each explosion a distant rumble you barely acknowledge. The earth’s violent shudders no longer faze you. Hunger gnaws at you, a relentless companion, its grip tightening until you can’t even remember your last meal. Water, your only steadfast ally, has kept you moving; without it, you’d have long since fallen.

You trudge along the desolate highway, the city a distant speck on the horizon behind you. You have no sense of how far you’ve traveled, only that the remnants of your home have shrunk to a mere dot in your vision. The road stretches endlessly ahead, a bleak reminder of the ground yet to cover.

Dizziness is your constant companion now, your throat as parched as the Sahara despite your efforts to hydrate. Water is scarce, and you’ve been rationing it for days. Hope feels like a distant memory, and though the elusive horizon you’ve been chasing for weeks appears closer, it still seems maddeningly out of reach.

Your body feels like lead, your feet swollen and throbbing with every step. 

Sleep is a distant memory, haunted away by visions of blood-streaked faces, final breaths, and echoing cries. Bloodshot eyes and a disheveled appearance mark your struggle; you’re still in your tattered nightdress, stained with blood and reeking of fear and sweat. 

No food, no shower, just the relentless march through this wasteland.

You’ve lost track of time—is it still September? 

The biting cold cuts through you, your torn and ruined shoes barely offering any protection. You trudge onward, desperate to find shelter, weary of hiding in the bushes from strangers who might wish you harm. Paranoia grips you; every rustle in the distance, every shadow makes you jump. Trust is a luxury you can’t afford. You feel like you’re unraveling, teetering on the edge of sanity.

When your eyes land on a solitary house down a side street off the main road, you can hardly believe it. You’re nowhere near your end goal, the neighboring city, yet here it is—a lonesome house in the middle of fucking nowhere. You chuckle, convinced you’ve lost your mind. Why would there be a house out here, untouched by the chaos? You blink repeatedly, but the house remains. Your feet carry you forward, despite your spinning head and the jumbled mess of thoughts in your mind.

The house, partially concealed by tall trees and lush bushes miraculously untouched by the war, seems like a relic from a forgotten world. An old jeep, battered but intact, sits beside the porch with its white picket fence. You approach cautiously, every step feeling surreal, and lift your hand to knock. Your bloody knuckles leave crimson smears on the pristine white door, a stark reminder of the nightmare you can’t escape.

You lose track of time standing there, every second stretching into an eternity, before the door is abruptly ripped open. You find yourself staring down the barrel of a rifle.

“Who are you?” a male voice demands, harsh and suspicious, but the words barely register. Your vision blurs, darkness encroaching, and the last thing you feel is the hard impact of the porch floorboards against your head as you collapse.

→ Do you want to join Yoongi on a quest for survival as the world crumbles around you? Let me know and I’ll tag you when it drops 💜

Also please let me know if you’re interested, excited about it— otherwise I’m probably just gonna post it on my ao3 only, lol. I’m scared 🫣

Read the second teaser + book cover [here]!

It's been posted!!!!

[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.

[xviiper-rents-houses]

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.

[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.

[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?

[airrec]

will you ever make janitor ai or character ai bots out of any of the characters from your fanfics? if not.. can people make them? (please i’m dying to make a Dream Blob au bot i’m on my hands and knees begging here)

In short: no. Please, please, please do not.

In long: please do not feed my fics or posts to A.I. To do so would be actively against my wishes, and even the thought of it is upsetting and angering to me.

A.I. has a lot of potential to do good – in the medical field, in the sciences, etc. There is nuance to the subject of A.I. in general. Regarding specifically A.I. art, the technology is not yet advanced enough to be used as a tool in the way that a tool is meant to be used – it is not a brush you can download, or a digital model you can pose. It is “trained” through being fed lots and lots of real, human-created pieces of art, and copying that art.

It does not learn how to use specific brush strokes, or specific colours, or how or why certain details are included or left out. It is wholesale lifting from what it is fed and mashing it together into new configurations, Frankenstein style – there is nothing creative about it. Similarly, when fed fictional writing, it does the same: it copies and pastes common tropes, common story beats, common plots, common phrasings – there is nothing of creativity in there at all.

There are currently no legal protections for artists of any kind against A.I. algorithms; the technology is still too new, and already it is causing harm. Even just on the practical side, the environmental impacts of the excessive electricity usage needed to run the A.I. is immense.

A.I. generated art is theft, pure and simple. It cannot be currently described as anything other than that. And creative writing is a form of art. A book that you pick up in an airport, or a fanfic you open in a tab on your phone, or a well-thumbed novel you found on a shelf in a café – these are pieces of art. Perhaps you do not think of them that way, in the same way you might look at a painting and say, “Yes, that is a piece of art,” but they are.

I was talking to a friend of mine some time ago, and they said (and I agreed) that writing is often devalued as a form of art, because the idea that “anyone can write a book” is so pervasive. And, yes, anyone can write a book – or anyone can write letters onto a page in a specific order. In much the same way, anyone can draw a picture, or paint a mural. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t a creative process involved, and it doesn’t mean that there isn’t the development of skills and immense amounts of knowledge and experience going into story-crafting as much as there is visual arts. Quite frankly, anyone who says, “Oh, anyone can write a book,” has almost certainly never actually tried to write a book themselves.

My friend went on to say that very often books are considered objects, just things, not pieces of art that have been handcrafted just for you, just for someone to pick up and immerse themselves in and enjoy. In much the same way, fanfic has also become a commodity – perhaps even more so, because its content is based on a pre-existing canon that does not belong to the writer. But fanfiction is still art, in much the same way that fanart is still art, and the devaluation of it and its creators is upsetting and frustrating.

I am not a machine. I do not press some buttons, pull some levers, and start outputting fanfic. This is something I do for fun, because I enjoy it. It is something I post online because I want other people to come enjoy it, too, and for it to be an expression of art meant as a part of a fan community’s expression of love for a canon. That is what being a fan is all about.

I am a real human being, and I don’t deserve to have my art stolen from me, fed to a shambling corpse spouting out things it has “learnt” from both my art and from every other piece of art that has been stolen to feed it. Anything it would say – that would not be my story, because it doesn’t come from me. It would just be an amalgamation of thousands of people’s stories, cut down into something mainstream and palatable because the point of so-called A.I. art is not to create unique and interesting stories – it is to create generic ones that will sell easily under the model of late stage capitalism.

You know, I got the email notification for this ask last night. I have my email notifs on because I spent so long being shadow-banned on this blog, and I fear missing things in my inbox. I checked my phone in the middle of the night because I couldn’t sleep, and while I was reading the ask I could hear my mother breathing in her sleep just nearby – we’re in a caravan together, because it’s been a while since I went away with my parents. I am typing this answer up from that same caravan, and I’m squinting a little because the sun is reflecting off my screen. We’re going to have a barbecue later for dinner – we just bought the food for it not three hours ago. Did you think of that? Did you think about the way that I am a person, living my own life, and now I am being forced to beg for you to respect me as one?

Because that’s what you would be doing, if you did this: you would commodify me, and you would commodify my art. It would be just another machine-made thing, not something that’s handmade for others’ enjoyment; not something that work – my time, my energy – has gone into, that my passion and love has gone into. But I am not a thing, and I resent being implicitly treated like one.

If you really want to know more about people’s fanfics – talk to them! Leave a comment, send in an ask, engage with them in some way. Fanfic is created by fans for the enjoyment of other fans, and fan communities are still communities, which means there is a social element to them. Stealing from others, as one might expect, is frowned upon greatly – they gave that to you, for free. You pay nothing for it – and shouldn’t – and now you want to plagiarise and thieve what was shown in good faith?

I suppose that, ultimately, if you were truly determined, there is nothing that I can do to stop you. You could copy/paste my works into your A.I. bot creator and go on your merry way, despite how I’ve told you that such would make me extremely upset, and that it isn’t something I want. I can say, “I forbid you to do this,” - and make no mistake I do forbid you – and ultimately I have no power to actually stop you, because there is no law in place to prevent you from doing exactly as you please.

I can do nothing to stop you except this: I am asking you not to. Please.

[ghost-bxrd]

Hey! I was the anon asking about your thoughts on Bruce being a bad dad (or really just closer to who he is in recent times) and honestly I just wanted your thoughts on it, so thank you!

I also love reading batfam fics where Bruce is a father that loves his kids and believes everyone can be redeemed regardless of whatever crime they may have committed: that’s honestly the Batman I like reading about bc thats what got me into his comics. But it gets complicated when I read fanfiction that uses stuff like UTRH as part of the fic’s lore and then just glosses over Bruce nearly killing his kid to save the Joker, bc that’s very uncomfortable to think about. It’s hard for me to believe that Bruce and Jason are cool when Jason now has the experience of his throat being torn open by his ‘father’ (bc I wouldn’t call someone like that my parent), and our last glimpse of him being his body crumpled to the floor in a pool of blood. Like thinking about how much had to happen between then to ‘now’ in the fic takes me right out of the fic bc that’s just what mentions of times Bruce was a bad father do to me 😭

I prob could’ve worded that more succinctly and shorter but as you may notice I expand a lot on my thoughts lmao. But if you do think up any prompts on Bruce being a complicated father in regard to Jason’s rule over Crime alley, please share!! I’d love to read them and MAYBE write something if the creative juices start flowing

Side note: Good mom Talia is my life blood. Like the struggle of trying to raise her children in such an unforgiving environment where she’s been trapped since SHE was a child OR in a place that, while not actively harming them (in a League where Ra’s isn’t evil), isn’t giving them the opportunity to shine the way she knows they could. Good shit.

Very valid. Everyone’s got their own preferences regarding tropes and world building 💚 and I can totally understand the batarang incident part. Jason should be pissed about it. Rightfully so. On the other hand I refuse to view this part as canon because the Batman I know would never and I steadfastly refuse to write this part as anything other than an accident/misunderstanding in every single fic ever lmaooo

Hehe I’ll try to come up with some complex parent Bruce Wayne prompts soon, so keep an eye on the corresponding tag ✨

And y e s, good mom Talia is awesome. Talia’s life hasn’t been easy but she’s trying to make the best of it and carve out her own little space of happiness for her and her son, and upon realizing that it’s still not enough immediately prioritizes her son’s safety and wellbeing to send him to live with Bruce. Something I imagine would be absolute agony for any loving mother. 🥺

[myfandomrealitea]

I always want to wholeheartedly agree with the "create what you want, just label it" argument. I really want to. Right up until people defend unexamined bigotry. For example, I once ran into a story where Martha Jones was actually about to fail out of medical school when she met The Doctor, because she was "incapable" of learning human anatomy and medicine, and despite "bribing her teachers". I wrote in my journal that I thought the story was racist, in a public post, and people scolded me for being censorious and not letting people "have fun". (This was back when LJ was viable.) I have a pile of other experiences like that. I would never agree with the antis that Someone (aka them) should prevent people from writing whatever, but I feel like to completely agree with "create what you want, no limits, nothing matters but creating," I have to agree that a fan of color has no right to be hurt by a story that turns an intelligent Black woman into a cheat and an idiot, even in that fan's own space. What do you think?

You have every right to feel offended or hurt by a story. But your hurt and offense does not negate someone else's ability to create. Nor does it dictate that you can tell them what they can and cannot create.

How do you know the author wasn't a person of color themselves? How do you know they weren't writing the story based on their own emotions, difficulties or experiences? Is painting a person of color as 'unintelligent' a common theme in their works or was it just the plot device of this specific story? If Martha Jones was Asian or Indian or Caucasian, would you have still been offended on her behalf that an intelligent woman/intelligent woman of color was being turned into 'an idiot'?

These are questions we have to ask ourselves when trying to determine if a work was genuinely created with the intent of being harmful. Because individually not liking or being hurt by the content's of a story is not a good enough reason to advocate against it.

The 911 fandom, for example, saw a lot of it with Eddie Diaz. People were so entrenched in fandom virtue signalling that pretty much any depiction of Eddie Diaz in fanfiction was getting bitched about as 'out of character' or 'racist' including works written by actual people of color. It got to the point where for quite a while fanfiction production within the 911 fandom dropped way down because people were too annoyed with or upset by the constant accusations no matter what was being written.

And I know it probably sounds like I'm just smokescreening for racism or excusing it. but I can promise you, I've blocked and reported authors and fandom creators before for being blatantly racist in their content. But fanfiction and literature become trickier because the purpose of stories is not to be palatable or feel-good. Stories do not have to be pleasant. Fanfiction does not have to conform to the source material.

Describing someone as "incapable" is typically a turn of phrase and has nothing to do with trying to allocate unintelligence to a specific type of person. Plenty of people would be classed as "incapable" of learning medicine because its a hard fucking thing to learn. You need to dedicate more or less five-ten years of your life to studying it before you even really get anywhere with actually practising it.

If you're someone who's easily distracted or has trouble remembering things and vice versa, you're unlikely to go into a career field that especially demands these things of you.

I imagine in any case her failing out of medical school was likely the plot point that leads her to going off with The Doctor. Which is a simple narrative and not a case of "unexamined bigotry." Its just as likely that if the author had had Martha Jones simply give up her aspirations and career to follow The Doctor, someone else would've been offended by the trope of a (black) woman giving up everything for a (white) man and deemed the story sexist or racist. Possibly both.

When analysing literature you have to be critical of if something is offending you personally or if it was intended to offend people of color as a whole. If the answer is only the former, then its a situation where you just have to recognise the work is not for you and move along.

[goodboyaudios]

i love how you give listener a personality and values. a lot of people have brought up ‘inexperienced listener’, so i’ll zone in on faithful and arkov. i’m sure many people like this particular type of dynamic because it applies to them personally, or because it just works. i don’t imagine myself as the listener and so i tend to find that in many rp audios, they have little to no impact on the plot. when you don’t imagine yourself as ‘replying’ to the speaker, you hone in more on what the character’s reactions are, etc. sorry, for the tangent; my point is, the whole ‘inexperienced’ trope, is super popular, but with your listeners, the characters actually have values, flaws, and their own convictions. it makes the plot dynamic and interesting! often the listener is glorified and ‘can do no harm’, but, despite being sheltered or ‘unskilled’ for a lack of better words, as we’ve seen with faithful stepping over albus’ boundaries, or arkov hiding things from yargywnn, these people actually seem human!! the same goes for your characters; i believe people have already mentioned a few times how zed, despite being shy, actually has a personality and is loveable character you want to see succeed! his thoughts and emotions for behind just being a stuttering mess. it’s *so* refreshing. albus is just some angry, horny, bloke, but has understandable reasons for his actions that make his ‘flaws’, justifiable.

i know it might seem like i’m just recounting the basic requirements for a decent story, but you’d be surprised at how rare it is to find all these elements in an audio rp!!! not only is it done, but it’s done so, so well! 

i apologize for writing an essay, tldr: thank you for giving people personalities and writing interesting stories. your contributions to the community are much appreciated <333333

Honestly, this makes me feel good about my own writing and I thank you for it. I constantly battle fears and doubts that it's not good enough or it sounds too much like fanfiction, so to hear people say such kind words, especially from those who truly go into detail, it makes me feel like I'm not out here wasting my time.

So, tldr for you, Thanks. I really do appreciate it.