#we talked about fanfic for a while lol. I’m very passionate about fandom as a learning and artistic tool so it was fun ^_^

[e77y]

Made a friend at poetry club!!! We talked about fan studies, creative writing, etc. and we are gonna join another writing club together 😎

[choicesficwriterscreations]

CFWC Writer of the Month: the-pale-goddess

Each month CFWC highlights one of our talented fanfic writers, and this month’s writer of the month is @the-pale-goddess! We hope you will enjoy learning more about her and her work below! The writer is selected at random. More info can be found on the navigation page.

Quick Links:

Tumblr Blog: the-pale-goddess Blog Masterlist

1- When did you start playing Choices? What was the first book you played? 

I downloaded Choices in an extremely terrifying moment of my life in late 2019. I was seeing the ads everywhere and thought that this game might serve as a fairly decent distraction. Well, I wasn’t wrong skfjksjfk 

I’m not sure which one was actually the first, but it was either the default TRR or Save The Date promoted at that time. 

2- When and why did you join Choices fandom?

My obsession with Open Heart and Ethan Ramsey tied nicely with the release of the second book in 2020. The lockdown allowed me to explore this fictional world further, so I started looking for more content. I found the legendary Denise, aka @justanotherrookie, while lurking on IG. That’s when my long-forgotten Tumblr account came to my mind, and I logged in with the intention of scrolling through the tags to satisfy my EJR thirst.

3- How did you pick your blog name? 

Oh, dear…It’s very silly! My skin is extremely pale and I have always been obsessed with music; hence the combo. 

Fun fact: this account is quite old (though still not as old as my tumbroke card; I had like three other accounts before this one), and I was slightly embarrassed to enter a new fandom with my dusty aesthetic blog signed by some ominous name, but decided to go with the flow. Then the-pale-goddess has become my brand, and it was too late for any changes–anyone who has changed their URL knows how problematic blogging is afterward.

4- Pull up the first post in your archive, and tell us about it!  

My first fandom post was inspired by the frustrating ending of the softball chapter AND the first hiatus announcement…It didn’t age well. As we all know, Ethan & MC didn’t ‘talk about it.’ What’s more, we had to survive a long OH drought before PB decided to resume the second book. 

Three years later, the very same shitpost is still the most popular Choices post on my silly little blog lol

5- How long have you been writing fanfiction?

3 years, fanfiction is my pandemic baby! Though I’ve been writing since I was a kid, it was mostly poetry and never in English. But as time passed, I got more occupied with my teenage life and eventually lost motivation to write. That old passion resurfaced several years later, at the beginning of the pandemic. Apart from the obvious need for distraction from the COVID situation, I was frustrated that my English skills were getting rusty, so I decided to dive in. 

6- What is your favorite Choices book, and what is your favorite Choices book to write about?

No surprise here: Open Heart (the first book) and Open Heart 😂 I never tried writing about any other Choices book. 

7- Share the first fanfic you wrote with us. Do you still like it, or would you change it if you were writing it today?

Miami Heat aka my smutty Miami AU. The concept is brilliant, but the execution…Yikes! I often think of rewriting the entire thing because the writing is amateur at best and my inner perfectionist cringes whenever I think of this mini-series.  

8- What is your favorite fic that you’ve written?

It all depends on my mood, so here’s a list of my favorites!

9- Do you have a fic that you didn’t expect to be well received, but it was? What about one you expected to be but found could use a little more love?

Cabin Fever - apparently this 69 plotless smut is iconic for some reason? I don’t really get the hype. It has an insane amount of kudos on ao3, my other fics can’t compare lol 

Burnt - Book 1 mutual pining E&T classic and one of my absolute favorites (we’re talking top 3); it could definitely use a little more love!

10- If you could write only angst, fluff, or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why? 

I’ll shock you all and say that I wish I could write fluff for the rest of my life kjgkdgjkdf But since I suck at it, I’d love to be stuck with angst and a dash of smut. 

It’s probably a sad thing to admit, but I feel the most comfortable while writing angst. The realism of pain and the emotions that follow are simply very familiar, and it’s easy for me to conjure up a creative image to match the idea. Besides, there’s so much to explore in the angsty realm: all the flavor, nuance, layers, and symbolism. The possibilities are endless!

Smut doesn’t need an explanation, does it? I live on the thirst street 🤡

11- Do you ever recognize yourself in any of your MCs or in your writing?

I do. That’s probably why Open Heart got me sucked right in–OH MC felt very real and relatable, I couldn’t help but see bits of myself in her. Though we share many traits and experiences, Tiffany definitely isn’t an extension of me. I poured my heart and soul into this woman, but she has become her own person and I try to avoid self-projecting into her character unless there’s a clear purpose. 

12- What element of writing do you struggle with most?

Recently, I have been struggling with writing in general lol The internet is ruthless!

My biggest issue is that self-loathing perfectionist who doesn’t let me enjoy the process, nothing seems to be good enough for her, and that attitude dims my motivation and hinders creativity.

On a more technical note, I absolutely suck at describing basic movement. I could churn out a long essay on a character’s internal struggle explaining the most complex emotions or a 4K elaborate smut, but when it comes to finding the right words to portray the simplest action, like walking down the stairs or setting the scene for an early morning conversation at the hospital, I feel lost kdhdkhdkdb 

13- Do you have any neglected work you really want to finish?

Pretty much all of my WIPs are neglected 🤡 But here are the most important projects I’m hoping to finish at some point in the not-too-distant future: 

Home With You AU

Past, Present, Future

My Way Home Is Through You

14- If someone you know in real life (who isn’t involved in fandoms) asked to read your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you recommend they read first? 

Since fanfic is based on an existing work of fiction, and the core plotlines and characters should be well-known to the readers, I guess it could be a tedious and confusing read for someone who isn’t involved in the fandom. But then I have received comments from people unfamiliar with OH who have stumbled upon my fics and gave them a chance, so maybe I’m wrong lol 

I like to think that I would be okay with sharing my works with someone I know and trust in real life, but let’s be honest: my crippling anxiety would stop me ksjfkjssd However, if I were to pick a fic rec, I’d choose Heaven Upside Down AU because it doesn’t need an extensive OH knowledge. Plus, I’m very proud of this series.

15 - Are there any writers (published authors and/or fanfic writers) who influenced your writing? 

While I try to keep my writing style unique and simply mine, there are three lovely ladies who had a huge impact on my writing journey:

@writinghereandthere (aka an actual genius and my writing role model) was the direct source of inspiration behind my fanfic revelation. I fell in love with Ethan and Mariana, Ana’s beautiful prose, her wit, unparalleled talent, and fantastic characterization. Her writing changed the trajectory of my life. Though she left the fandom long ago, her masterlist is a must-read for everyone, trust me! (Ana, if you’re reading this: I miss you more than words can convey. Sorry for the spam I leave in your inbox every now and then skgjksgjk Hope to hear about your original work soon ❤️)

@starrystarrytrouble & @terrm9 - these two literary geniuses have inspired me to follow my own writing path and develop a distinctive style. Their masterpieces offer poetic, raw emotions, encouraging me to allow myself more creative freedom. I’m in constant awe of their unmatched talent and come back to their works whenever I want to feel things ❤️

16- Which one of your stories would you most like to see as a movie/series? 

Can I have all of them, please? 

I would pay all my money to watch a TV series based on my canon OH plotline…I’m not kidding, I even made a bunch of Netflix edits because I need it in my life. On the other hand, my precious AUs would look amazing on the big screen! The most scrumptious one still hasn’t left my head though, so you have to trust me–the cinematic potential is truly there kdgjkdgjk 17- Do you write original fiction? 

I have a few ideas, but they’re so complex I’m stuck on the outlining phase. Mayhaps one day?

18 -  What other hobbies do you have?

I’m a certified music freak and a cinephile. I practice destroying male egos on a daily basis. I love photography, niche sports, playing with my dog, lifting people’s moods, random unhinged facts, and ignoring reality, and I have just entered my skincare expert era. 

19 - What’s your favorite emoji? 

🥰 + ✨ + 💀 

These three emojis perfectly encapsulate who I am as a person, I think: full of love and magic, but also dead inside ksjgksjgks 

20: BONUS - tell us anything you’d like (if you want to)

I’d like to thank our lovely admins for giving me this exciting opportunity to ramble about my tiny corner on this hellsite and showcase my word vomit. My heart is full of gratitude! I may not be as active as I used to be, and real life doesn’t allow me to change that, but our fandom will always have a special place in my heart, and I feel very lucky to be a part of this community. Thank you for still putting up with me and supporting my fictional world ❤️❤️❤️

[aroace-number-eight]

Oh my word there’s still an LL fandom on here????!!!! I’m rereading the books after a couple years, and was a bit saddened to find that most of the fandom fell away after the series had ended (bc I actually only read the books for the first time when the entire series had been published for years), but you post regularly and reblog regularly, so yay, it seems that people are still here!!! After years of loving these books and rereading them I’d love to finally join the fandom— any blogs you’d recommend I follow, ppl who are still into LL and active at least every couple months? (I’d say ‘acgive regularly’ if I was a normal-ish person, but I’m rarely online, so I don’t mind people who post sporadically too— in fact I almost prefer that, you get me?). Anyways ahhh tldr I’m so glad other people are still obsessing over these aliens lol, like super happy :D

Hey hey, welcome to the fandom!! Yeah we're still here, it kinda gets a bit quiet now and again with all of us being busy, but the fandom is still around and kicking!

Most LL fans as far as I'm aware post about the series on their main blogs that have frequent activity, so if you don't mind following people that post any kind for a while but have something LL related now and again, this would be your option. If you wanna chat them up about the series then I would say @kip-loric @biddybaboop @simpforsix are very active and occasionally share LL art or incorrect quotes or memes!

If you are looking for LL blogs, I would say @5s-missing-eye and @apocalx post on occasion, but they're super passionate about the characters and have tons of interesting aus and headcanons and book thoughts to read through!

Kip currently has a Gem AU with the Garde that you can ask them about if you happen to know about Steven Universe, and both them and apocalx have LL OCs who are Human Garde with some detailed backstories and personalities!

I usually just follow the lorien legacies tag and find stuff from there, and once in a blue moon you get a new person come out and post some art or incorrect quotes or fanfic ideas for a while! The tag updates sporadically as well, but sometimes in the year it gets pretty frequent (like now for example since it's break for some of us in school).

If you wanna hang out with the community and have a discord, we have a tumblr fandom server here and an instagram fandom server here!

I also wanna note that though LL posts aren't frequent year round, the fandom in general is happy to discuss the series and talk about our favorite characters or what we think about the books, and there's lots of us who got things we wanna say to someone. Send over an ask or hop in DMs with a question or two or three!

This is a bit of a messy answer, but I hope it's a start and helps you meet some people from the fandom!

[ghosts-and-blue-sweaters]

Name five things you're passionate about.

:D

In no particular order…

1. Music! Lyrics, sounds, ukulele, whatever!! MUSIC!!! I LOVE MUSIC!!! I COULD TALK FOR SO LONG ABOUT MUSIC!!! MUSIC MY BELOVED!!!

2. Dream SMP (hehe) I loooove rambling about this crazy fandom so much <3

3. Star Wars! I was talking about Star Wars with my brother a few days ago and it reminded me of how much I truly love Star Wars. It’s just… wow. It’s so cool. I’m such a Star Wars nerd. I love Star Wars. Yes. Star Wars.

4. Writing!! Ideas for fanfics occupy my mind a Lot lol. And this past year I’ve gotten into writing poetry, and that’s been fun :)

5. Definitely a bit of a turn here, but the whole abortion topic never fails to get me worked up. I’ve researched so much into this topic, and heard so many stories, and talked with so many people, and it’s so… I don’t even know the word for it. It’s such an important thing to discuss. Definitely pretty passionate about this.

What makes you feel at home?

A couple things :)

My own blankets, my stuffed animal, my little pink blanket I’ve had since I was a baby. A bathroom that feels safe (I am very picky when it comes to bathrooms lol). Praying. Chatting with friends. Hanging out with my family and being weird together.

More so that last one, than all the others, I think. I was just in the car earlier with my parents and we just… chatted, and I felt so content and safe and happy :)

Share the last dream you remember.

Unfortunate question, my friend.

Aksgajstajsgajsgajs

OKAY SO

MY MIND IS A STRANGE PLACE

MY DREAMS ARE EVEN MORE STRANGE

HERE IS MY MOST RECENT DREAM

Alrighty, so I was at the beach. But it was like… set up like a video game?? I found this overweight guy and had to follow him—for some reason—because of like… a side quest?? Or something???

Not completely sure lol

Anyways, I followed this random dude for a short while, until he went into this long, cheap-looking trailer. I had no idea what was inside the trailer, but I went in anyway (because of the side quest, I suppose).

It was apparently a black market??? It had a really weird setup, with DIY walls creating suspicious pathways throughout the building; I found like, a whole bunch of stuffed animals (apparently being illegally sold) including some of my very own irl stuffed animals!!

I picked up the ones that were mine, trying to figure out this situation…

And then I turned around and realized I’d been caught :0

There was this older man (not the same one from earlier) standing behind me, and he… had Ghostbur?? 🥺 HE HAD CAPTURED GHOSTBUR!!! I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW GHOSTBUR WAS IN THIS TRAILER!!!

And Ghostbur was really scared and it was sad :’( He may have been crying? I think he was, but I don’t quite remember.

:’(((

The guy holding onto him was basically like, “girl, if you don’t stop messing with the black market stuff, something Bad is going to happen to Ghostbur” and obviously I didn’t want that, so I complied.

Time jump!

Ghostbur wasn’t ever in the dream again (I hope he was okay :’0) but me and the older guy started having this really obscure heart-to-heart lol

He told me that his mom (keep in mind, this guy is like, 50 or 60. I’m not entirely sure how his mom is still alive) wanted to send him and his brother off to an asylum because she no longer felt safe around them?? Which… is weird??? Oh my gosh??????

I pretending to listen genuinely, and I asked questions and nodded my head, and he seemed to trust me.

After a bit, he let me leave, but warned me to not mess with his business again or else he’d alter the US government XD

That dream kinda ended after that lol

[rainbowdolphinrealm]

It’s me again! 🎅

Happy Monday! Hope you’re having a great start to the week. I’m here with my first gift-related question!

I just realised I totally forgot to tell you what type of gift I have in the works for you - I’m a fic writer, so over the next few days I’ll be bombarding you with fic-related questions 😅 I can’t wait to get started on your story!

And also, I’m just so excited to get to know you over the next two months! I’ve had a little snoop through your blog and I just want to say I absolutely love your writing, you’re so talented! Have you been in the fandom long are you new to ACOTAR? Do you have any favourite headcanons, or pairings you love other than Elucien?

As for your gift, I think the first thing I’d love to know is - would you prefer an AU story, or something set in the canon universe? Is canon just a suggestion we like to ignore, or would you like to read something set post-ACOSF?

Sorry if this was a lot lol - I promise I’ll be super chill once I have an idea of your preferences!

Talk to you again soon!

Hi!

Oh I'm so excited for something new to read!

Thank you for the compliment about my own writing. While I'm a veteran fanfic author, I'm new to ACOTAR fanfiction. Heck, I only finished the books this past spring. So I'm not very confident about my contributions yet.

Headcanon I subscribe to: Eris is actually a good male, and Helion is going to be ridiculously excited about having a son. I love Bat-Boy banter.

Pairings: Feysand, Nessian, and while I hadn't considered it until stumbling through Tumblr, I'm becoming a major Azris stan. I'm perfectly fine with Gwynriel too, though.

As for your last question, I don't have a preference. I often write/read AU for other fandoms so I know they can be done well, but the canon is so good so far, I'm willing to stay in that lane as well. I think the only thing I wouldn't like is a militant Elain. Passionate, sure, but not literally militant.

No worries about showing enthusiasm. I'm excited too! Feel free to fire as many questions as you like.

😁🎄

[nuatthebeach]

HI, I love your blog. My ask is

What are your top 5 fictional girls who inspire you and you genuinely love them and why?

I love questions like these because they always force me to reflect on why I prioritize certain traits over others in fictional characters in the first place. And this question in particular is fascinating because I’ve come to realize that a certain pattern that correlates with my liking of fictional characters is usually to do with how supremely underrated they are and how much hate they receive from fandom (and it's for really dumb, hypocritical, double-standard reasons in most cases).

I actually for the life of me cannot come up with a top 5 because my brain absolutely refuses to work, and I love so many female characters to the bottom of my heart, so asking me to just choose five is actually really freakin' hard. I’m sure I’ll hate myself when I do remember, like, five minutes after I post this, but until then, I’ll give you my top three.

These are ones I feel so supremely attached to that my fingers itch to write, talk, and obsess about them to the point that I’m sure I’ve scared off all my family members by now lol. Particularly because these characters are not usually a fan favorite (with the exception of one).

My Top Three:

3. Piper McLean - yep, that’s right, I said it. God, I wish I could go back to my fanfic writing days with the wisdom I have now to fully express just how underrated this character really is. A lot of people dislike her because in many ways, she appears to act like she’s “not like other girls.” They point to instances of her cutting her hair haphazardly to not draw attention, having dark skin, hating on her cabin for having Aphrodite as her mother, being “super obsessed” with Jason, and - the part that really gets to me - preferring Jason’s looks over Percy’s. I repeat, people hated Piper for saying her boyfriend was better looking than a dude she just met. And she still is (in fact, it’s literally a TikTok trend).

Reasons why I like her: all of these claims are bullshit. I think she’s just a teenage girl who is very passionate about her culture, wants to protect her father, loves her boyfriend and her friends, and desires to do the right thing. When we first meet her, you realize that all of her memories from her time at that school I highkey forgot the name of were all a lie. She had to relearn everything and get to know a boy she had always thought she knew. Can you imagine how heartbreaking it must be to lose (for lack of a better word) someone she loved in a manner she had no control over? As for all of the “wanting to be not like other girl stuff,” well, I think a lot of people forget that there is this huge stereotype of Native Americans being oversexualized in the media as well as in history itself, and while I can’t make assumptions that is what Riordan was going for, I’m not surprised that fandom has a way of focusing on dispositional factors as opposed to situational and cultural ones because frankly...what's new.

Also, at the time, people used to hate Jason as well, but now I’m seeing more love for him and even less for Piper. Again, this is one of those things I’m not surprised about. Nothing like that good-old fandom misogyny.

How does she inspire me? Y’all, hear my girl out. People are always telling her that she’s weak and the more useless one of the seven. You think she hasn’t internalized that shit? Because she’s the first to have done so. After fighting that ice goddess-villain-bitch on the ship in one of the books, she started becoming really hard on herself to improve her skills and become better. You all are forgetting that Percy, Jason, and Annabeth had years of experience over her. And she learned how to fight with a sword within that same book! Talk about badass development!

Phew, sorry for the rant. For those who agree (or still need convincing), I had written a lot of Piper x Jason fanfic back in the day if you want to check it out on fanfic.net. I stopped writing about them for…well, obvious reasons that people who are caught up on the series would know about 😭

2. Jude Duarte - this is actually one of those rare instances where I am absolutely in love with the main girl character who’s not underrated even the tiniest bit by fandom. And they don't love her because she's perfect they love her because she's morally gray. A glow-up for all of us, let's give each other a pat on the back. She makes mistakes (anvil-sized ones) both on the society- and emotional-level, but she sincerely, whole-heartedly learns from them. I think all BookTok authors have something to gain from reading and writing about her (I'm looking at you SJM die-hards) because seeing a female character who is so unmistakably and unapologetically human is just so refreshing to read. You can trust that when I say I have never read a female protagonist like her, you can believe it, and I'm almost 100% sure you haven't either (at least in American contemporary literature). I won't prattle on more about her because, again, she's fairly well-liked so I don't need to "defend her actions" (rolls eyes) as they say, and this post is getting severely long as it is.

1. c'mon. You know why you follow me. Hermione Granger.

Jk.

Ginny Weasley.

(still love you though, book!Hermione)

I'm just going to copy and paste the reasons why I love this girl from a previous post because it still sums up my feelings pretty well. Stay tuned for some additions at the end.

This girl. If she were real, I’d give her my babies. She is almost the most developed female character in the book series, considering the little number of relevant scenes she was given. I say almost because I actually do think JKR missed the concluding bulls-eye with her arc, particularly in HBP and DH. I, like everyone else, expected her to do a lot more than she did (c’mon she’s one of the only kids connected to fucking Voldemort, that had to have counted for something?!?!). With that being said, she’s the only female character who has a consistent rise in characterization throughout the books: starting off as a bubbly 10 year old waving and crying to see her brothers leave, a shy 11 year old who can’t speak around Harry but can to her diary and trauma ensues, a quiet 12 year old who still doesn’t talk to Harry but is overcoming her reputation as the girl who opened the Chamber and was victimized by literal Voldemort himself, and so on and so forth to the flawed, stubborn, angry, petty, defensive but also caring, compassionate, funny, clever, sassy girl we have by HBP and DH. As the books go on, you really see her shine and become a woman in her own right. And interestingly enough, her arc doesn’t repeat, like Hermione’s and Neville’s does; it has a clear direction that journeys from Book 1 to the end. For all of these reasons, I notice a lot of people claim she isn’t very developed - and while I agree she could definitely be more - I’d also argue she’s one of the most obviously developed too. Plus, I’ve always been fascinated by her connection to Voldemort and wish JKR explored it more herself: from her wand being made of the same wood as his (while Harry’s is made of the same core…hmmm interesting) to the interactions being much more gendered and personal than I’d even argue Harry’s. If I had to read about someone’s relationship with Voldemort other than Harry, Ginny definitely takes the cake, sorry Draco. I could go on and on about her, but if you want more Ginny meta, just check out my other posts dedicated just for her.

I'd also add that I like the fact that she doesn't always fit the mold of a stereotypical book!female hero: she isn't the absolute smartest in the room, she isn't a nitty-gritty perfectionist, she doesn't pine after and date only one boy, she likes nuances and creativity, she isn’t at the beck-and-call of the male protagonist who helps him all the time to complete His Task™, she likes sports and flowery perfumes, she is conventionally attractive and popular and knows it, she does quit her quidditch career to be a mother from an early age, and she does take Harry's last name as her own. None of the aforementioned are bad characteristics/intonations, of course, but the point is that girls' personalities (like all personalities lmfao) can and do vary. You don't have to be a certain type of woman to be a woman. Ginny Weasley is proof that if anyone tells you otherwise, they're delusional and need to get their internalized misogyny in check.

Because that is what being an independent, feminist is... having the power to choose what being a woman in this world means to you.

Thanks for the ask!

[bonvoyagenoona]

About Me 12 | Being Cited in a Teen Vogue Article on Y/N Fanfic, and Linking that with BTS, Psychology, and Narrative Therapy

source: Teen Vogue, article written by Stitch

What are you talking about now, Cheryl?

Lol you all know how much I love talking about writing! Talking about the motivation behind it, the structure and process of it, the way I feel about it, the experimentation I’m doing with it, etc. Thanks for reading along with me as I share those thoughts, which I post under #how i write!

The amazing fandom writer Stitch (here’s their Teen Vogue portfolio, their Linktree, and their Twitter!) put out a call last year for fanfic writers to weigh in on reader insert fics. They asked questions about what motivated writers to use this format. Naturally, verbose li’l ol me jumped at the chance to contribute, and I was lucky enough to get selected as one of the snippets for the article! 

I highly, highly recommend you read the full article, as there are so many discussion points about wish fulfilment, representation, and passion, but here’s my contribution!

source: Teen Vogue

And this relates to what I love talking about when it comes to BTS, writing, and psychology! What I refer to here, this aspect that Stitch so astutely identifies, this process of working through a problem and connecting with others who are going through something similar --- this is narrative therapy!

Here’s a wonderful definition from Psychology Today:

I’ve seen narrative therapy work wonders for people. Some use journaling techniques to get their thoughts on the page. Some use traditional story structure. Some use poetry. Some write raps. It can be very painful to re-access traumatic moments in order to heal, but shown the right guidance, time, and patience, it can make all the difference. And, as I mentioned in the excerpt above, I use some of these elements to reflect on and address my own life experiences.

So how does this relate to Y/N fanfic?

In reflecting on this more, I began unpacking my thoughts on format and the Y/N structure, specifically as it relates to motivation and impact of fanfic. 

Let’s talk about what the fanfic world calls POV, or first-, second-, and third-person voice! 

Here’s a quick summary from Merriam-Webster:

And here are my thoughts on the difference between them as they relate to fanfic!

Using first person, or “I” / “me” / “we” / “they”, indicates a motivation of wanting to share a personal experience from one’s own perspective. It’s common, and it actually reminds me a lot of how stories are told, and how advice is given, in collectivistic cultures. Whenever I talk to family or friends from such cultures and seek their advice, they usually tell a personal story and hope that I can glean advice from their experience rather than answering my questions directly. As it pertains to fanfic, this voice is very intimate. The story and author are inextricably linked, and that suggests that the motivation is to speak one’s truth, to share an experience in order to share oneself with others in a deeply personal way.

Using third person, or “she/he/they” (which I am using for A Map of Mrs. Kims!), provides more of an objective narrator, so there’s more space between the author and the story, though third person omniscient provides some commentary along the way from the narrator’s POV.

Here’s are small examples of third person omniscient with Bongseon and Jihu:

Bongseon suddenly understands why this trait is something her mother found so annoying.

“Jeez, fine, then read or something.” Bongseon replies, focused on her canvas. “Get something from my shelf over there. Just hurry up, and please don’t talk while I’m getting started. It takes me a while to get into the right head space.”

Jihu nods. He should’ve known better by now. Like with all things, there is a process.

It’s less intimate in the sense that you don’t have the author’s presence to shape your experience of the story; they are focused on painting a vivid picture for you. And I think I am leaning toward shaping AMOMK as purely third person for the main fic moving forward for several reasons, including:

It helps with managing a bigger cast of characters’ thoughts, actions, and motivations.

Third person omniscient still allows for fun little commentary, like what the characters are thinking and feeling (see snippet above).

Most of your asks refer to characters as “they” already! You also call Sad Girl and refer to the Bachelorettes introduced so far as “she”, so like with the entire AMOMK universe, I’m following your lead!

Using second person, or “you”/”Y/N”, straddles 😏 these two worlds. Readers are allowed into the story, which provides that rich immersion. You get the sensations, the thrills, the feels. The sexy feel of Yoongi’s hand on your cheek. The caring kiss Jungkook places on your lips. The way Jin fucks you with his massive cock.

Lol but for someone like me, who also writes in order to work out a past experience or inject a personal life theme into the work, it also allows for some separation to provide empowerment and reflection. It’s how I think messages to myself, every day: 

“C’mon, you’ve got this!”

“Wait, what are you doing?” 

“You know better than that!” 

“You need rest. Take a break!” 

At the top of this very post, lol, “What are you talking about now, Cheryl?”

And talking to myself in this way allows me to depersonalize enough to actually do the figuring out part of narrative therapy, the sorting through my thoughts as objectively as I can so that I can focus on telling / rewriting my story --- which is what narrative therapy is all about.

Whoa, that’s a lot to think about. Honestly, I’m just here for the fluff/angst/smut.

Lol thanks for indulging me. But for those of you who are interested, I’m endlessly curious about what you all think! When you read fanfiction, do you think this actively about POV? I’ve certainly gotten questions about in the past, and I’m still developing my thoughts and style on the more common structures that I use. When you write fanfiction, do you think about motivation, or just generally gravitate toward a particular style? At any rate, I’d love to hear what you think!

Also, if you want to contribute to an upcoming podcast on fanfiction, started by a wonderful co-worker and fellow researcher of mine’s friends, take this survey!

Finally, check out Stitch and their awesome work! Follow them on Twitter, check out their sites, and, if you can, buy her original work, too! Talking about fanfic and supporting people who write about fandom are small ways to help with normalizing and detoxifying fanfic, as well as advocating for representation, because they’re trying to showcase just how beloved and powerful fanfiction truly is. 

As always, thanks for reading with me, and I hope you enjoy this content as well. And don’t worry! I promise I’m not done writing about Yoongi’s hands, Jungkook’s lips, and Jin’s massive cock.

[moononastring]

hello, my darling,

today I found out that a friend of mine from school has read acotar, which was very exciting news for me, since I didn’t know any people in real life who liked these books, and while we were conversing, i broached the subject of elain’s love interests.

unfortunately, she is an el/riel.

She has yet to read ACOFAS and ACOSF, but still, my instincts are pushing me to gather evidence to prove to her of what the superior ship: Elucien.

If you could be ever so kind to help me convince my dearest friend that elucien is everything good in the world, i’d be most grateful.

therefore, if you could link posts from yours or other blogs or even make a list of why elucien is what we all deserve, you’d make a loving follower very happy.

Sincerely, 🧃anon

(See what i did there??? All formal and shit??? I’m proud of myself!!! ‘m not gonna lie to you!!! It reads very funny and i love it!!!)

My dearest 🧃'nonnie!!!

Sorry it took me a hot minute to reply!

To be honest, I want to give you a piece of advice (and know I mean this in the most loving way) but...let your friend ship them lol. After all, it's what fandom is about, no? I personally don't like trying to convince anyone of anything when it comes to shipping. I legitimately don't give a rat's ass if you ship what I ship or not just don't be mean lol!!!!! There's nothing wrong with her shipping the ship that shall not be named even though I hate that ship with a burning passion.

My issue has never been so deeply with the ship itself (like yeah, they had their moments here and there and prior to Azriel's POV I can see why people liked it) but I did not like it regardless because to me, Elucien just always made more sense. And I don't like a ship that has to be at the expense of another character. My issue is certain shippers that just forget canon and decide they are correct and nothing else matters lmao.

However, I do not like to shove my ship down anyone's throat. I’m just very clear about who I ship and what I don't lol.

She hasn't read ACOFAS (which will give her fuel lol even though I personally have always read it as Elain being a cheeky friend elain, azriel, and lucien could've had such a great friendship but that was ruined and i'm still bitter about it.) and especially when she reads ACOSF and his bonus POV, she might no longer like them? I know a lot of shippers jumped ship after Gwyn came into the picture. Azriel being super gross about his thought process regarding Elain in his POV also made people uncomfortable enough to stop shipping. Said it once and I'll say it again, there was nothing romantic about the way he was thinking about her in his POV but whateverrrrrrrr. I say...when she reads ACOSF, she will end up changing her mind on her own because the potential of Gwynriel (plus Azriel's being disgusting in his POV) has changed a lot of minds haha.

Let her ship it and discover Elucien goodness for herself! It's more fun that way to suddenly be hit on the head with feels for an unexpected ship haha. As long as she doesn't become an asshole shipping that ship like some people end up being, I say ship and let ship. You can casually share elucien fanart and fanfics to her and be like look!!! cute stuff!!! 🤣 My blog is a plethora of elucien content girl! send her here haha! There are so many great blogs that always have elucien content so if anything...you can always casually slip links hehehehe.

Don't worry too much about the shipping and enjoy talking about the series with her!!! I know it seems like that's all ACOTAR is ever reduced to but it's such a fun series to enjoy so have fun talking about it with her, shipping aside!

[yumeka36]

Thoughts on Rebuild of Evangelion (all movies plus ending interpretation)

*Artwork credited to リオ on pixiv*

Now that Evangelion 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, the last movie of the Rebuild of Evangelion saga, has been released, I'm finally ready to discuss all the movies as a whole, including my interpretation of the ending...

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

I've been a fan of Evangelion for nearly 20 years, starting back in 2002. After hearing the series praised by some classmates, I asked for the DVD set of the original TV anime for Christmas that year. I was 15 years old and a fairly new anime fan at the time, so naturally I was blown away by the show. The Internet was young then, and since there were no fandom wikis or YouTube explanation videos available in those days, I had to rely on a few scattered fan sites and my own resources (mostly bonus features on the old DVDs) to try and figure out the lore and symbolism. Even though many aspects of the series, as well as the eventual "true ending" movie, End of Evangelion, left me scratching my head, I still loved it and it left a long-lasting impression on me. And now, here I am almost two decades later, sharing my thoughts about the new movies...

-Before Thrice Upon a Time was released, I hadn't touched Evangelion since 3.33 came out in 2012. I had forgotten many details, and since Evangelion is a franchise that is fraught with nuances and subtleties that can be key to understanding what the heck is going on, I wanted to watch all the Rebuild movies again before watching Thrice Upon a Time. So I plowed through all four movies this week, and I gotta say, after being away from the franchise for so many years, I'm happy to report that I still thoroughly enjoyed it. But I can also recognize that it is definitely not a series for everyone. The drawn-out technobabble, constant introduction of lore jargon with little to no explanation, and the ambiguity between what's real and what's symbolic, can certainly turn off casual viewers (it gives Kingdom Hearts lore a run for its money!) Funnily enough, as I was watching the Rebuild movies, I was thinking, "I understood the lore better 20 years ago than I do now, lol" (maybe it's because I was younger and didn't have as strong of a theorizing mind as I do now!) But after reading through a bunch of pages on the EvaGeeks Wiki, I learned enough to get a gist of the story's vaguer elements. But unfortunately, the fact that information necessary for understanding the plot can only be found by Internet research, could certainly be a turn-off for viewers. But at the same time, for those willing to make the commitment, or at least appreciate the series' other qualities even if you can't follow many aspects of the lore, it's definitely an anime unlike any other. There's a reason it's been such a well-known franchise in Japan for so long.

-Asuka has been one of my favorite anime characters ever since I saw the original Eva TV series, and thankfully, I'm happy with what they did with her character in the Rebuild movies. My only complaint is that I preferred her original backstory that emphasized her relationship with her mother, rather than having a "clone-complex" similar to Rei. However, her character development in this new storyline made up for it. The Rebuild movies really nailed her abrasive, no-nonsense personality that hides depth within. There were also more scenes that showed her "softer" side, something I always felt was lacking in the original series, such as when she confides in Misato towards the end of 2.22 and when she confesses her feelings to Shinji in Thrice Upon a Time. I also felt her initial dislike for Shinji and Rei was a bit more warranted this time; despising the fact that they were able to become Eva pilots purely by connection to Gendo while she had to work hard for it. But again, we get more hints at her kinder side when she makes the sacrifice to help Rei get Shinji and Gendo together. This is pretty contrasting to the original series, where she was always oozing hate for Rei. Even their infamous elevator scene ended differently in 2.22 compared to the TV series, where instead of hitting and yelling at Rei, she agrees to help her (in her subtle, Asuka-way). Asuka and Rei also had a brief scene together when they were at Village 3 in Thrice Upon a Time, and the way Asuka talked to her made me feel like she actually cared about her, or at least didn't hate her. But even with the Rebuild movies giving Asuka more scenes to show her goodness, they still stayed true to her tough-love personality - it's not like she suddenly started smiling a lot, or gave Shinji a passionate hug, or broke out in tears...they developed her character without making her do a 180 change, which I appreciated. Even in her final scene with Shinji on the beach before he saves her (loved that scene, and the shoutout to End of Eva there) she still reacted in her "tsundere" way (though not as harshly of course). I'd also like to mention that they made the fourteen year time-skip in 3.33 very believable in terms of Asuka's growth. I really liked the hardened, lone-wolf, protector role she had in Thrice Upon a Time because it makes sense - fourteen years had passed and she not only matured during that time, but she had spent all those years being the sole Eva pilot along with Mari fighting to protect humanity, so settling into that kind of identity makes sense for her. But yeah, Asuka's always been a great character, and the Rebuild movies made her even more awesome in my opinion.

-When I first watched 2.22 years ago when it came out, I was puzzled that they decided to put Asuka in the Eva that Unit-01 ends up destroying rather than Toji. But looking back on it it now, it worked better since they had a plan for Toji's character that had nothing to do with the Evas. I did kind of miss Asuka's friendship with Hikari though (they could have tied that into her staying with Toji and Hikari at Village 3 instead of with Kensuke). I actually wrote a WYDS fanfic for End of Evangelion way back in 2003 that emphasizes Asuka and Hikari's friendship (that's somehow still on Fanfiction.net!) But she got a friendship with Mari instead, so it's fine, lol (I also liked that they removed her crush on Kaji, which I never thought fit well in the original series). But I do wish we got to see what was going through her mind while she was stuck in the Eva and getting attacked by Unit-01. We know she was aware of what was going on because she knew what Shinji did (that he didn't try to save her or attack) so it would have been nice to see a scene or two of her reactions.

-Misato was always my second favorite character after Asuka, but I wasn't thrilled with the coldness she exhibited towards Shinji after the time-skip in 3.33. I know she probably got hardened after all those years and maybe still felt resentment towards him for initiating Near Third Impact (which killed Kaji among others). But even so, I felt like her coldness was more to keep the suspense rather than stay true to her character (plus she was the one encouraging him to do what we wanted at the time of Near Third Impact). It makes sense for Asuka to be cold to Shinji, since she was always standoffish like that, but Misato was always shown to be a source of warmth and the most "human" of the characters. But at least she made up with Shinji in the end and got to finish her story arc with a bang (literally).

-I'm not sure if it's still a thing now, but back in the day, Shinji got a lot of hate from anime fans for being too whiny and indecisive when confronted with his task of piloting the Eva. But even all those years ago, I always thought those reactions made him believable. Maybe it's because he's compared to anime shonen heroes like Naruto and Luffy, who are always cheerful and brimming with motivation, while Shinji is pretty much the opposite of those kinds of characters. But it makes sense for him to be like that...if I were a fourteen-year old kid who never knew my mother, had a father who abandoned me, and had to live on my own in a crumbling world while witnessing death and destruction all around, I'd be pretty hesitant and scared too. He's definitely not a "wish-fulfilling" protagonist like many shonen and super heroes are, but a protagonist grounded more in reality, representing a disillusioned youth. So it was nice to see him finally get over his insecurities and be proactive with saving everyone at the end of Thrice Upon a Time (compared to everyone giving him the pep talk at the end of the original series). Though I did think his personality shift was a bit abrupt...he was at his lowest point at the beginning of Thrice Upon a Time, but the one kind gesture from Rei seemed to immediately snap him out of it. A little more gradual build-up to his change would have been better, but it's a nitpick.

-Mari was an enigma in 2.22 and 3.33, so I was hoping Thrice Upon a Time would give us her origin story. Unfortunately, it didn't offer much and maybe brought up more questions than not. My main question is, we see that she knew Gendo and Yui when they were younger, yet if she was their age then, that doesn't match up to the age she appears to be when Shinji first meets her. So she must have been afflicted with the "Eva curse" all those years back, which means she must have become an Eva pilot around that time, but it seems too soon. I thought the first Evangelion pilots didn't exist until after Yui died, so Mari should have been older...I don't know, I'm still having trouble figuring out her place in the timeline. But besides that, I did like her relationship with Asuka that we see in Thrice Upon a Time. Again, it makes sense in terms of the time-skip that they'd develop a good friendship after spending all those years being Eva pilots together.

-I don't have a lot to say about Rei, since I feel her story arc is one of the simpler ones (which isn't saying much for this series, lol). The scenes of her in Village 3 in Thrice Upon a Time were endearing, though I knew they would end in tragedy. Actually, that whole part of the movie with the characters spending time in the village was great. The world-building in those scenes was fantastic too - it really felt like what a post-apocolyptic survival camp in that situation would be like. It was nice to see the characters partaking in and reacting to situations that don't have to do with Angels and Evas (spin-off series for this when?)

-And lastly, how did I interpret the end of the Rebuild saga? Was I satisfied with how it ended? Right after I watched Thrice Upon a Time, I wasn't totally sure. But after reading some more wiki pages and watching some explanation videos, especially this one here (it's a great explanation if you can forgive the bad pronunciation of the names), I've realized just how brilliant of a conclusion it is. There's been speculation that the story involves a time loop, with the events of the original TV series, as well as the Death & Rebirth and End of Evangelion movies, being different versions of the time loop, while the Rebuild movies is where the loop ends because Shinji finally overcomes the pain of his past and can restore the world this time (while he had failed to in the previous loops). I don't think it's a time loop so much as a cycle that keeps resetting and repeating. Further support for this theory is that Kaoru acts like he's met Shinji before, since he's reborn in each cycle to meet Shinji only to be killed by him later (all the coffins seen on the moon are for his past/future selves). I think the final movie title is symbolic of this too, with "Thrice Upon a Time" meaning "three times upon a time," the three times being the three cycles of the Evangelion story: the original TV series, the movies Death & Rebirth and The End of Evangelion, and finally the Rebirth movies. But mostly, the scene towards the end where Shinji meets Rei in the anti-verse, and they're standing in what appears to be a filming room while projected images from the Eva TV series are shown behind them. This to me symbolizes that the original Eva series exists in the Rebuild movies as one version of the cycle, and Shinji has now finally broken out of the loop. Once Shinji has saved everyone, the filming room (which symbolizes the old versions of the story, as I believe it's supposed to be the room where live-action footage used in previous Eva works was filmed) fades away and the literal animation around Shinji begins to break down into its purest forms, as key animation, then layouts, etc., - a near 4th wall-breaking depiction of the world resetting. However, Gendo and Yui had sacrificed themselves so that Shinji wouldn't have to, so Mari is able to pull him back into the world, just like she had promised. In the end, Shinji is able to join his friends in the new world that's free of Evas. Without the Eva curse, all the pilots are now their proper ages as well. The movie closes with Mari and Shinji heading off somewhere in their new lives while the environment merges into live-action footage, representing the fact that the story has now transcended animation and is now "real" because the cycle has finally ended and a true Neon Genesis took place. Like many aspects of the franchise, there are many ways to interpret this ending, but this is the interpretation I've settled on.

-While I am satisfied with the ending overall, I do wish the epilogue showed us more of what the other characters were doing, especially the survivors from Wille and Village 3. I know we can assume they're living out their lives as well, but it would have been nice to get confirmation of that with a few quick cameos. But there are some main characters whose fates are uncertain, particularly Misato, Kaji, and Fuyutsuki. I'm assuming the only people Shinji was able to save were the ones whose souls were still bound to Evas, namely Asuka, Rei, and Kaoru. I don't know about Kaji since I'm still not clear on exactly how he died. Maybe Shinji couldn't save Misato because she died "for real" and wasn't just trapped inside an Eva/Angel. But it is implied that many souls, not just Eva pilots, were saved when the world was restored...so maybe she was too? And like Kaji, I'm not sure what happened with Fuyutsuki. Did he turn into LCL because he gave up his humanity in some way, like Gendo? I'm also a little salty that we didn't get a decent shot of adult Asuka at the train station, lol. I'm not sure if the ending was hinting at Mari and Shinji being an item...possibly Rei and Kaoru too, maybe even Asuka and Kensuke. Like many things in the franchise, the eventual pairings, or lack thereof, could be interpreted in many ways.

In conclusion, while there were some aspects of the old Eva TV series and movies that I liked better, the Rebuild movies overall did an excellent job of retelling the story with the same rich lore and thought-provoking symbolism that we're used to for the franchise, but with enough new twists to make it stand out. And as I mentioned in my interpretation of the ending, these movies weren't just a retelling but a redefinition of the franchise as whole, bringing together the previous versions of the story and giving them true closure. Though we could see some spin-off material at some point, Thrice Upon a Time does seem like it was intended to be the final installment of the Evangelion series. While I was satisfied enough with the endings for the TV series and End of Eva movie, having watched the Rebuild movies, I do believe they're the "retelling we didn't know we needed." It's a tad bittersweet to know that such an influential franchise, and one of my favorite anime for years, has come to its true end. So, to translate the text in the below fan art...

"Thank you , Evangelion."

*Artwork credited to リオ on pixiv*

[jacepens]

1: HamilTurn(you can differentiate if needed) or MCU, 2: Washette, 3: Anna Strong

And generally a fandom list would be nice to know what to pick from ;) (Love you♡)

You said HamilTurn or MCU and I say both, I'm going to try my best haha. But anyway, thank you!:) Apologies in advance if this gets rambly, but that's the point of this right? Anyway, for ease of scrolling sake, I'll probably put a cut if this gets long but don't worry, it's just me talking a whole bunch lol. Ok, thank you again!! <3 (love you too!)

1. Hamilton/Turn (fandom)

Favorite character: I have to say Lafayette for both. Oh and Mary

Least favorite character: I have no real reason behind this so sorry but Burr, and Simcoe for many reasons

5 favorite ships: washette, lams, hamliza, benwash, whamilton

Character I find most attractive: ...all. But I have to say overall Brian Wiles as Lafayette. That face just…🥺

Character I would marry: Mary Woodhull or Eliza

Character I would be best friends with: you know I'm not sure, but in an ideal world Lafayette (both versions) or Ben but I feel like we wouldn't be best friends. But also everyone, is that an option? Even some of the "villains" would have good stories to tell

A random thought: I feel like most people in the fandom now are so new (they joined in with the movie release!) and unaware of the uh atrocities of back in the day. And y'all are lucky, but those of us who know. Know. (yes, I was unbearable but that's ok because I was having fun, and despite what I just said: have fun in your fandoms even if you're "unbearable", just keep it welcome to all and enjoy the enthusiasm you have for it:))

An unpopular opinion: Oh boy. Maybe stop making quick judgments about people based on what they write/who they ship? There is a line, but I've genuinely never seen it crossed by anyone at least openly sooo just let people have fun? And don't say anything about something? Unless it's actually harmful but even then, keep it to a dm or something and have an open discussion. Just let people vibe, please? Especially younger fans. Just, I’ve seen a weird amount of negativity towards them. They’re kids having fun, we all used to be like that so please, be kind and patient. They’ll learn if they make a mistake. Ok? Ok cool:) (maybe not unpopular but still I wanted to say it)

My canon OTP: Am I allowed to say lams?

My non-canon OTP: washette, wow, who would've guessed? xD

Most badass character: Mary my beloved

Most epic villain: Robert Rogers hands down

Pairing I am not a fan of: no one murder me, but in general I'm just not a fan of jamilton. also whatever was the deal with Anna and Abe

Characters I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): um. Where to begin? Honestly I think every woman in Turn at one point or another, except perhaps Peggy in my opinion. Oh but especially Anna. Also Simcoe. With Hamilton, probably again everyone at some point, but the way Angelica was written just feels so overwhelmingly fictional it bugs me. (But at least Hamilton had some genuine relationships between women, not great but still)

Favorite friendship(s): Ben and Caleb, Washington and Lafayette (what?? yes, you fools. lol). It may sound a tad ~cringey~ but I generally like Hamilton's vibe with the boys, maybe it's just the gender envy, but it's kinda cute and fun.

Character I most identify with: well jeez, I won't lie but Washington. In both versions, except god knows I could never be that chill. Also a dash of Laurens.

Character I wish I could be: wow what a loaded question ummm. I don't want to be like him, but I want to be like in his position so Hamilton lol. Playing an active role but I know personally I am not cut out for a battlefield, so a desk suits me well.

2. MCU (fandom-that I am so out of date from, please take all of this with a grain of salt)

Favorite character: so when I was younger it was Tony Stark but now it’s definitely Wanda and T’challa

Least favorite character: ummm. I genuinely couldn’t tell you, I’m very out of date

5 favorite ships (canon or non-canon): wandavision, …ngl I can’t think of anymore, I honestly never shipped many and wandavision was like the only couple I remember really liking. Oh, I don’t know them but Loki/Mobius and/or Sylvie

Character I find most attractive: embarrassing confession time, Loki was my first bad celebrity crush. Wanda now and Shuri is cute. Also Sylvie

Character I would marry: if I could, Wanda 

Character I would be best friends with: Vision and Peter Parker

A random thought: y’all it’s been so long since I’ve touched MCU I should catch up/refresh shouldn’t I?

An unpopular opinion: I don’t know if this is an unpopular opinion but I’m going to say it anyway. Personally, I really don’t like the movie Civil War, I think it’s what sorta made me disinterested in mcu. It’s been years since I’ve watched it so maybe I would have a completely different opinion if I saw it today, but at the time it just felt so...wrong? And childish? I literally don’t even remember why they were fighting or how that movie even ended (I feel like it just wasn’t satisfying??) but I think also, as a kid or teen watching that, it reminded me sooo much of the dumb drama that, you know, kids get into. I mean, getting your friends on someone’s side like that?? Like, I know they were mad but- but there are other ways of dealing with emotions??? And involving everyone's friends too? So yeah, it just felt off to me at the time, and looking back now, from what I remember, it just frustrated me. Especially as a kid who deals with dumb drama like that all the time, kids would want to see a better example especially from adult superheroes or at least not be reminded of the bs they have to go through sometimes. But, rant over, that’s all just my opinion:) 

My canon OTP: wandavision

My non-canon OTP: ummm. I guess just Loki/Mobius and/or Sylvie lol

Most badass character: I have to say Natasha but actually there are many

Most epic villain: when I was younger I liked that Ultron was voiced by Robert California from the Office lol

Pairing I am not a fan of: I don’t know if it’s popular but I never liked Tony and Pepper. What happened with her?

Characters I feel the writers screwed up: I guess I’ll say Thor because I just felt such a weird difference in his personality that did not make sense to me

Favorite friendship: Wanda and Pietro!! Honestly I think a lot, there were a lot of good friendships but I can’t think of which ones are my favorite

Character I most identify with: ummmmmm. 

Character I wish I could be: My gut says Thor

3. Washette (ship-bless you<3 get ready for rambles oh no)

When I started shipping them: So I first had the thought in 7th grade while my history teacher was talking about them and my little brain went: haha that’s pretty gay. (teacher keeps talking about them) wait a fucking minute, that is pretty gay! But it wasn’t until I got sucked into Hamilton that I really started actively shipping them by reading fics and what not, but something about them became an instant favorite. And later (little personal story time) I pretty much completely stopped reading fic and being active in fandom for years and actually, when I got my first panic attack that - no joke - lasted for 5 hours, for some reason my brain (as it’s decaying lol) said I want to go and reread all my favorite washette fics and also do what I was I always too scared to do. Write!! So that night I binged the fics and found myself falling in love again, feeling all the old passion I had for them again, and the next night (still very shaken) I wrote an outline of a good ol washette confession + kiss that was extremely thoughtful and good, and honestly, I have not actually used that outline yet! Maybe I’m saving it. But yeah, this is a long answer, but I have a weird amount of attachment to them and this ship, I wish I knew why too. <3 

My thoughts: so many. Too many. First of all, I love that I have so many versions of them in my mind, right? When I started writing, I had never watched Turn but then I did and then it was like: hell yeah, another washette set. At this point, my brain has created it’s own unique version of them but it’s like, they’re so versatile! That’s one neat thing about this fandom as a whole, we get more than one character and personality and that’s just fun right?! More specifically on washette I mean, they’re just so sweet. Historically, their relationship is unique and cute, and you’d have to be a fool to think that to Washington Lafayette was just another friend. Even strictly platonically, it was something special and it’s so obvious I just love them. Ok. Enough thoughts for now <3

What makes me happy about them: the loooove, the comfort they found in each other, the fact that like every person at the time documenting them knew and understood they were special to each other like, they were just that in love. 

What makes me sad about them: oh so much that I try to ignore lol. There is the one year when Lafayette went to France and all his letters to Wash are like: “I have not received one letter from you, but it’s ok, I love you and I know you love me too :)” WHO WAS NOT DELIVERING THESE LETTERS, I HAVE NAMES, NOW I WANT ANSWERS. Anyway, also just most things that happened when Laf went back to France. And then when he visited America in 1824 and visited Washington’s grave. Yeah. ow. (also, you know what, I have done too much research on this event. lmk if you would like a post)

Things done in fanfic that annoy me: Generally, I’m not annoyed by much in fanfic at least with them and what I’ve seen. I’m still nostalgic for the old school nonbinary Laf fics, so it ain’t those. Literally maybe it’s because I’m starved for content but I can’t really think of anything, I love it all.

Things I look for in fanfic: back to the whole starved for content thing, I am a library of washette fics but I think if I was to pick a certain thing that I would love it’s just um fluff? And honesty, if that makes sense. Love confessions are very good as well. Canon era, please :) pining but not too much that it hurts me lol

My wishlist: literally all my wips. If I could whisk them into existence I could die happy and knowing I have put a variety of washette content in the world. Something else though, more fics :’) I love writing but sometimes I want to curl up with a cozy, new washette fic like a cup of hot chocolate and be surprised and learn something new and just..yeah:)

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: what. Ok but actually, Martha and Adrienne because they are both honestly perfect for them and I love them too (I’m going to be biased, especially Adrienne)

My happily ever after for them: Can Lafayette just move the family to America? But also, it’s sad, but like I know Laf would be sad in America while France suffers. So...maybe a world where things in France go better and Lafayette gets to visit Washington more often and bring the family!! (Washington visit France too??)

4. Anna Strong (character)

How I feel about this character: I like her! She’s fun and…strong (oops lol) and she’s made some mistakes sure, but I feel like she did her best to learn from them and move on

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character: Honestly, I know they didn’t have a lot of interaction in the show but Anna/Mary has potential. And Anna/Edmund

My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character: her and Ben and Caleb

My unpopular opinion about this character: I really can’t think of anything unpopular

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: in general, her having more screen time with less men you know? I mean like one-on-one kind of scenes. Also I would’ve liked to see at least her and Selah talk. Like, really talk. They never really did that, right? I just have so many questions about them

Favorite friendship for this character: Anna and Ben

My crossover ship: I have no idea

And well, I know it’s been a few days but for a fandom list, I’m just a weeb lol but here

Octopath Traveler (my beloved)

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Star Wars

Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812

Persona 4

Zelda (to a point)

Pokémon

What We Do in the Shadows

Sailor Moon

Literally anything historical

Ok!! I tried to add a lot because I’m not sure what you might know or not haha. But thank you again!! I had fun <3

[adorpheus]

on fujoshi and fetishization

Lately, more and more, both here on tumblr and on other sites, I keep seeing people spew unfiltered hatred at fujoshi - that is, women who like mlm content such as gay fanfic and fanart featuring men with other men. And I don’t mean like a specific type of fujoshi, like the ones who are genuinely being weird about it, but just like a general hatred for girls (but especially straight identifying girls) who express love for gay romance.

I hate to break this to you all, but women (including straight women!) actually are allowed to like mlm fanfiction and fanart, even enthusiastically so. A woman simply expressing her love of gay fanfic, even if it is in kind of a cringey way or a way that you personally don’t like, is NOT automatically fetishization.

I’ve been on the receiving end of fetishization for my entire life, from a very young age, as many black and brown folx have, so I consider myself pretty well acquainted with how it works. Fetishization isn’t just like, being really into drawings of boys kissing, or whatever the fuck y’all are trying to imply on this god forsaken site. 

Fetishization is complicated imo, and can encompass a lot of things, such as (but not limited to):

1 - dehumanization, e.g. viewing a group of people as sexual objects who exist purely for entertainment purposes, rather than acknowledging them as actual people who deserve respect and rights

and

2 - projecting certain assumptions onto said people based on their race/sexuality/whatever is being fetishized. These assumptions are often, but not always, sexual in nature (like the idea that black people in general are more sexual than other races, etc etc etc).

I’m going to use myself as an example to illustrate my point. Please note this isn’t the best or most nuanced example, but it is the most simplistic. A white person finding me attractive and respectfully appreciating my black features as part of what makes me beautiful is not, on its own, fetishization. A white person finding me attractive solely or mostly because I’m a PoC is now in fetishization territory. Similarly, assuming I’m dominant because of my blackness (like saying “step on me mommy” and shit like that) is hella fetishistic. 

That being said, theres definitely a difference between how fetishization works in real life with real people, and how it shows up in fandom. 

Fetishization manifests in many different ways in fandom, but most commonly on the mlm side of things, I personally see it appear as conservative (or centrist) women who love the idea of two men together, but don’t actually like gay people, and don’t necessarily think LGBT+ people deserve rights (or “special treatment” as its sometimes dog whistled). These women view queer men as sexual objects for entertainment rather than an actual group of people who deserve to be protected from systemic oppression. I’ve noticed that they often don’t even think of the men they “ship” together as actually being gay, and may even express disgust at the idea of a character in an mlm ship being headcanon’d gay. In case its not obvious, this is pretty much exactly the same way a lot of cishet men fetishize lesbians (they see “lesbian” as a porn category, rather than like, what actual LGBT people think of when we read the word lesbian). There’s a pretty popular viral tweet thread going around where someone explains seeing this trend of conservative women who like mlm stuff, and I have also personally witnessed this phenomenon myself in more than one fandom. 

The funny thing is, maybe its just me buuuut.... The place I see this particular kind of fetishization happen most is not in the anime/BL fandom, from which the term fujoshi originates - I actually see these type of women way way more in western fandom spaces like Supernatural, Harry Potter, and Hannibal. I can’t stress this enough, there’s a shocking amount of people who are like, straight up trump supporters in these fandoms. If you want to experience it, try joining a Hannigram or Destiel group on facebook and you will probably encounter one eventually especially if you happen to be living through a major historical event. Like these women probably wouldn’t even be considered “fujoshi”, because that term doesn’t really apply to them given they aren’t in the BL/anime fandom, yet they’re the ones I personally see actually doing the most harm.

Of course this isn’t the ONLY kind of fetishizing woman in the mlm/BL world, there are other ways fetishization shows up, but this is the most toxic kind that I see.

A girl just being really into BL or whatever may be “cringe” to you, or she may be expressing her love for BL in a “cringey” way, but a straight woman really enjoying BL is not, on its own, somehow inherently fetishization. Yes, sometimes teenage girls act kind of cringe about how much they like BL and that might be annoying to you, but its not necessarily ~problematic~. 

That being said, IT NEEDS BE REMARKED that a lot of the “fujoshi” that you all hate so deeply, are actually closeted trans men or nonbinary people who haven’t yet come to terms with their gender identity, or are otherwise just NOT cishet. I know because I was one of these closeted people for years, and I honestly think tumblr and the cultural obsession around purity is one of the many reasons I was closeted so deeply for so long. STORYTIME LOL!!! In my early adolescence, I was a sort of proto “fujoshi”. I identified as a bi girl who was mostly attracted to men, or as most (biphobic) people called it, “practically straight”. I wrote and read “slash” fanfic and looked at as well as drew my own fanart. We didn’t use the term fujoshi back then, but that’s definitely how I could have been described. I was obsessed with yaoi, BL, whatever you want to call it, to a cringe-inducing degree. I really struggled to relate to most het romances, so when I first discovered yaoi fanfics (as we called them at the time), I fell in love and felt like I finally found the type of romance content that was made for me. I didn’t know exactly why, I just knew it hit different. LGBT+ fanart and fanfiction brought me an immense amount of joy, and I didn’t really think too hard about why.

At some point, in my early 20s, after reading lots of discourse™ here on tumblr and other places like twitter, I started to get the sinking feeling that my passion for gay fanfiction was ~problematic~. I had always felt a sense of guilt for being into mlm content, because literally anyone who found out I liked BL (especially the men I dated) shamed me for liking it all the fucking time (which btw is literally just homophobic, like can we talk about that?). In addition to THAT bullshit, now I’m seeing posts telling me that girls who like BL are cringey gross fetishists who inspire rage and should go die? 

Let me tell you, I internalized the fuck out of messages like this. I desperately wanted to avoid being ~problematic~. At the time, I thought being problematic was like the worst thing you could be. I was terrified of being “cancelled”, before canceling was even really a thing. I thought to myself, “oh my god, I’m gross for liking this stuff? I should stop.” I beat myself up over this. I wanted so badly to be accepted, and to be deemed a Good Person by the internet and society at large.

I tried to shape up and become a good ally (lmfao). I stopped writing fanfic and deleted all the ones I was working on at the time. I made a concerted effort to assimilate into cishet culture, including trying to indulge myself more deeply in the few fandoms I could find that had het content I did enjoy (Buffy, True Blood, Pretty Little Liars, etc). I would occasionally look at BL/fanfic/etc in private, but then I would repress my interest in it and not look for a while. Instead I would look at women in straight relationships, and create extremely heterosexual Couple Goals pinterest boards, and try to figure out how I could become more like these women, so I, too, could be loved someday. 

This cycle of repression lasted like eight years. Throughout it all, I was performing womanhood to the best of my ability and trying to become a woman that was worthy of being in a relationship. I went in and out of several “straight” relationships, wondering why they didn’t make me feel the way reading fanfic did. Most of all, I couldn’t figure out why straight intimacy didn’t work for me. I just didn’t enjoy it. I always preferred looking at or making gay fanfiction/fanart over actual intimacy with men in real life. 

Eventually, I stumbled upon a trans coming out video that someone I was following posted online, my egg started to crack, and to make an extremely long story short, after like 3 years of introspection and many gender panic attacks that I still experience to this day, I realized that I’m uh... MAYBE... NOT CIS..!? :|

I truly believe if I had just been ALLOWED TO LIKE GAY STUFF WITHOUT BEING SHAMED FOR IT, I probably would have realized I was trans way way sooner. Because for me, indulging in my love of gay romance and writing gay fanfic wasn’t me being a weirdo fetishist, it was actually me exploring my own gender identity. It is what helped me come to terms with being a nonbinary trans boy.

Not everyone realizes they are trans at age 2 or whatever the fuck. Sometimes you have to go through a cringey fujoshi phase and multiple existential crises to realize how fucking gay you are AND THATS FINE.

And one more thing - can we just be real here? 

A lot of anti-fujoshi sentiment is literally just misogyny. omg please realize this. Its “women aren’t allowed to enjoy things” but, like... with gay fanfics. Some of the anti-fujoshi posts I see come across my dash are clearly ppl projecting a caricature they invented in their head of a demonic fujoshi fetishist onto any woman who expresses what they consider to be a little too much enthusiasm for gay content and then using their perception of that individual as an excuse to justify their disdain for any women, especially straight women, ‘invading’ their ~oh so exclusive~ queer fandom spaces.

 god get over yrselfs this is gatekeeping by another name

idk why i spent so long writing this no one is even going to read it, does anyone even still use this site

*EDIT: HOLY SHIT WHEN DOING RESEARCH FOR THIS POST I FOUND OUT THAT Y-GALLERY IS BACK OMG!!! 

[sarkywoman]

Writing Asks

Tagged by @under-the-shady-tree, thanks!

20 questions, writer’s edition, let’s go!!

How many works do you have on AO3? 85

What’s your total AO3 word count? 712708

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? Oof, uh... since like, 1999? Um, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Andromeda, Supernatural, Heroes, NCIS, DC, Marvel, The Umbrella Academy, Kingsmen, ASoIaF/Game of Thrones, Borderlands, Community, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Doctor Who/Torchwood, Final Fantasy, Harry Potter, Misfits, I think I’ve forgotten some...

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Noble Blood (Game of Thrones, ASoIaF - GRRM)  A Song of Bastards and Wards (ASoIaF - GRRM, Game of Thrones)  Young God (Borderlands)  Story and Sorcery (Loki: Agent of Asgard, Marvel)  My Shame is True (The Umbrella Academy (TV))

Do you respond to comments, why or why not? I try to! Comments are so important in the fanfic community and I know how hard it is to think of something to say about a story, even when you’ve loved it to bits, so I don’t want people to feel ignored. Especially because I appreciate comments so, so much! I will say though, I have lapses, often when my mental health isn’t good, where I simply don’t know how to respond to people and then months go by and I feel weird about replying... so sorry if you’ve ever commented on one of my stories and got silence - it was me not you!

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? The Aimless One (Misfits (TV 2009)) Straight up the saddest story I’ve written, no question. Normally writing sad stuff doesn’t make me sad but I had to take a break in the middle of this to just try and grapple with the idea I’d had because it tapped into a lot of depressing thoughts I have about life and death in general. The comments were all complimentary but so upset that at first I was like ‘hooray, it had the desired impact’, then after a while I started to think ‘why did I want to hurt people like this?’

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending? Probably  Realising All You Ever Wanted, a Hobbs/Dirk fic for the Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency fandom. There’s such minor conflict in that one that the sugary sweet ending isn’t out of place. 

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written? Well. I have some fandoms that are sort of crossovers already, things like Marvel where you have comic versions and movie versions and it doesn’t really feel like a crossover to be picking and choosing. Same with a Dirk Gently/Thor fic I did, because Thor cameos in the DG canon, but not this Thor. I think the most ambitious crossover I’ve worked on was a collaborative chatfic with @freshgratednutmeg that we’re never likely to post, where the need for more background characters in an Umbrella Academy A/o fic led to it being crossed over with Marvel and Brooklyn 99. (Leading to such amusements as Diego sparring with Rosa, and Five competing with Shuri in class.)

Have you ever received hate on a fic? Yeah, but it’s never been very well-reasoned so it’s been fairly easy to dismiss. Some people expect everyone to share their own perspective of the characters and it’s weird.

Do you write smut? If so what kind? Not really. I can go there and have done on occasion, but it doesn’t interest me very much. I think I did it more when I was younger because I felt like it was a necessary aspect of grown-up fanfic writing (when I started I was a teenager amongst mostly adults... or other people lying about their age too lol). These days I’m more likely to fade to black or allude to the acts. But I’m not averse to writing it or anything, but it’s never the focus of my story.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Only in the sense that I see them on other sites I didn’t upload to, sometimes in other languages, sometimes not. They normally say my name somewhere on them so they’re not stolen as such, but it’s still uncomfortable to see my work circulated to other sites without my permission.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Not with my permission, but yeah. I don’t know how to feel about translations. Obviously I want people of other languages to be able to read my work, but at the same time I’m not fluent enough to be able to check the translator’s work, so I won’t know if they’ve done any better than google. Word choice is pretty important in fiction. A bad translation can totally warp a text.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Not for posting or sharing, but me and @freshgratednutmeg cowrite all the time.

What’s your all time favorite ship? All time?! That’s impossible to answer. I’m a multi-shipper for starters, in pretty much every fandom I’ve been in. When I find a ship I love, I love it intensely above all others for the duration of the fixation. Then eventually it gets set aside when I find a new fandom. I’m also indecisive enough to not really have an all-time favourite anything. 

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? A Song of Bastards and Wards (ASoIaF - GRRM, Game of Thrones). I can’t begin to describe the pages of notes I have for this beast. Unless I threw them out, which... scanning my room... is a distinct possibility. Ouch. I’d hoped to parallel the books for a long time with this one, but the amount of work for a project like that is too much when you’re no longer as passionate about the source fandom. I suspect what I might do is scenes with interconnecting notes, just so people get some sense of closure.

What are your writing strengths? Dialogue, baybee! Kinda makes me want to be a scriptwriter. People are always telling me that the characters ‘sound like’ them. I think it’s from reading voraciously from when I was young and being quite a social child, that moving speech patterns and quirks into writing is something that comes very naturally to me. Too natural, in fact, because IRL I write how I speak and that’s not always suited to the situation.

What are your writing weaknesses? Most things other than dialogue. Even thought processes are an internal dialogue, so they’re okay, but then like... a fight scene? A sex scene? Just even... what are their hands doing while they’re talking? How are these people physically present? Where are they? Are they inside, outside, is the building on fire? My descriptive skills are lacking, to say the least. It’s something I’m working on.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? I’m not quite sure what’s meant by this. I’m not fluent in anything other than English so I don’t see that would work well for me. I know a few phrases in German/French/Welsh/Latin/Spanish but nothing useful for conversation. Dropping in words can work, if it’s the same way the speaker would use them amidst their English. Most of the time the characters I’m writing wouldn’t be speaking in another language anyway. We can blame the tag-team of English colonialism and American media for that one I think. I think that sometimes authors utilise a character’s language in a way that just exposes how little the author actually knows of the language and that’s a bit cringe for me.

What was the first fandom you wrote for? Buffy the Vampire Slayer. None of those are online atm because they’re so so bad XD I should post them just so people can see improvement but... I can’t even read them, they’re hilarious. The most gratuitous self-inserts, the most ludicrous arguments, the most out-of-character romantic declarations.

What���s your favorite fic you’ve written? Hmm, that’s a quandary. I think I’ll differentiate between favourite to write, and favourite end product. Favourite to write was probably  Noble Blood (Game of Thrones, ASoIaF - GRRM) because it was just a romp through my favourite themes. Given it’s one of my most popular stories, I’d say that just proves you should write what you want! I was going to quickly say  Young God (Borderlands) is my favourite fic for quality of the finished product, because I pretty much just sat down one evening and spilled it into a word doc then reread it back and thought ‘huh, did I write that? Awesome’. But I’m happy with a couple of more recent things I’ve done for The Umbrella Academy fandom, notably  The Price of Parenthood, which is very different to what I usually write and is a look at the life of one of the mothers who gave up her child to Reginald. Also The Water Calls, which was the only thing I managed to write for the recent MerMay event. It took me a little while to puzzle out how it all fit together, then once I had it worked out it came together wonderfully and I was very happy with the tone of it. 

Tagging anyone who fancies doing it.

[ofmermaidstories]

About making comments on other people's comments: I did that once on a fic. Person didn't agree with the route reader was taking and sided with a character who had a different viewpoint, then asked if they were the only one who agreed with that. I love that fic, and I thought it'd be fun to have a conversation with someone else who liked it, so I replied to them with some points I thought attributed to how reader was acting. I ended my comment by saying something along the lines of, "But it's not real, it's just a fic, so I'm okay with just glossing over [the issue] in order to enjoy the fic."

This person replied thinking I was the author of the fic. They implied 'I' was 'rushing the fic' by not considering [the issue] and all they got from my comment was that [the issue] was ok because it wasn't real, which they very much disagreed with. And they ended it with a passive aggressive remark about taking their comment however I wanted. I was bummed I couldn't have a fun convo with them but also annoyed with their attitude. I simply replied saying I wasn't the author, just another reader, and I didn't think they got what I said in my original comment. I didn't plan on responding after that to avoid dumb drama. They of course commented back, apologized for mistaking me as the author, but then went back to commenting about how my view on [the issue] was wrong.

That pretty much ruined commenting on other comments for me 😐

Oh, that’s an interesting perspective, Peachie, from a commentator’s POV. 🧐 I’m so sorry that it ruined the experience for you!!! 🥺 It’s hard here online, because people are many and varied — and you can’t always predict someone’s reaction to something!! It’s disappointing, especially when you want to connect with someone over something you enjoy, or find interesting enough to talk about. Clearly, this other commentor you engaged with felt very passionately about the [issue] in the text — I’m sorry your attempt at providing another view-point was so misinterpreted. 🥺

I think it can be hard to like… find a happy middle ground where you can safely express and discuss different perspectives on something (in fictional matters, that is). Like, what classifies “discussion” for one person can be belittling and contentious for another, and it’s hard to read (between the lines) sometimes! I wonder how the author of this fic of yours felt???

Personally I tend to read very critically, of like, literally everything LMAO. it’s a part of my brain that i can’t seem to switch off (and honestly i 100% blame my senior English Lit class for that, so, thanks Mr. M) — the result being that I genuinely enjoy grabbing ahold of any sort of subtext, intentional or otherwise, and dissecting it within an inch of its life. Especially if there’s a subtext or issue within said text that like, I either flat-out disagree with on a creative level, or I find interesting in how it’s being presented (I feel like perhaps you and I are opposites, Peachie, in how we enjoy engaging with our varying choices in media — I like to think I’m a forgiving reader a lot of the time, but there are a few things that can ruin my suspension of disbelief and one of them is very much the question of emotional consequences. Like — if i feel a choice in-text has a very clear emotional-consequence that isn’t addressed, or is addressed (what i consider to be) poorly, then that immediately takes me out of the story. like, i’ll keep reading, especially if i enjoyed other things about the fic, but it’s definitely something i’ll keep in the back of my mind while i read. there’s been like, maybe two fics that have stuck with me because of this lack/mishandling of ✨emotional consequence✨. One was a fic where i 1000% disagreed with the author’s choices regarding their love triangle (specifically the fall-out); the other was a AU that was meant to be a romance but had introduced a very heavy, emotional plot point in the beginning that…. kind of got swept under the rug in order to facilitate said romance. LOL.

But the thing is, though, when i disagree with something in a fanfic — even those emotional consequences! — i will turn around and vent about it to a friend — either one who operates on a similar wavelength and will understand my frustration (often another writer!), or a friend who is just very, very tolerant to my impassioned rambling LOOOL (mostly my non-writery friends). i know how into these things i can get — and so, accordingly, i find the appropriate containment chamber for it LOL, because i would never want to hurt another fic-writer’s feelings, even when i disagree with them on a creative level!!! fanfic is such a labour of love…….. and it’s hard to gauge what someone will be okay with, in terms of constrictive criticism, even if someone asks for it. 🧐 on the flipside, i have absolutely zero compunctions airing my grievances with a published text LOL — maybe it’s the level of removal, going on there? 🧐 Maybe it’s because a published text has to go through a few rounds of editing — so there’s less… hmm, forgiveness, maybe, when something’s overlooked? HMMMMM much to think about 🧐).

Basically, Peachie — you need to do what you need to, to make reading — and fandom — fun for you!!! I hope though one day you’ll feel welcomed enough to comment and find the kind of fulfilling discussion about your fave fics that you want, though. 🥺🌷

[embrythecall]

a twilight tag game, you say?

pick 5-10 characters and write your take on the canon version of them vs. fanon version of them. fanon doesn’t have to be what is generally accepted in the fandom, it can be your own idea of what you think a character is like. then tag the same number of people as characters you pick, if you can.

I was tagged by @teamjacobthot -- thank you so much! I’m excited to get into this :) 

EMBRY 

(obviously because i adore him with my whole soul) 

Canon:

chill aka probably just shy let’s be real here

likes to bet on things? 

seems to have the most common sense

Fanon:

HERE WE GO, EVERYBODY *cracks knuckles*

def the smartest one out of him, jake and quil. 

an observer. definitely a people watcher. he reads the VIBEZ

very, super, ultra, mega sarcastic. almost cynical. I feel like he’s probably a realist in a lot of situations rather than either an optimist or a pessimist. probably leans a little more towards pessimism though 

refuses to learn about his dad (though, I personally believe it’s Joshua Uley, but that’s a long headcanon for another day unless someone specifically wants to know my thoughts on it more haha)

a super romantic without knowing he’s a romantic? 

real tight with his mom-- they’ve only ever had each other since old daddio has been out of the picture the entire time and she’s probably never really dated (once again, i have more thoughts on that too but you know, i digress)

also i SUPER headcanon that he almost ALWAYS only refers to her as, “Ma,” unless it is a serious situation in which he uses ‘mother’ but i do NOT feel like he is a ‘mom’ person. at least for his own mother. 

honestly these are just all my own headcanon i have no idea what people think about him :S 

for me, i think him and Jacob are closer than Quil is to either of them. In my mind, when embry’s mom Tiffany first got to town, she became really good friends with Sarah Black and thus, Jacob and Embry have kind of been friends since birth, quil only coming in a little later maybe and just not having the same kind of friendship that embry and jake have

I think him and Leah secretly get each other. Like they don’t talk much or anything, but Embry never makes comments to or about her and doesn’t participate in the guys being absolute jerks to her. 

also, he just guzzles that respect women juice. like, he was raised solely by his mother so like... he was taught to respect women and also i think this makes him more empathetic to other people which is why he wouldn’t be mean to leah or say mean things about her because he’d understand to a level and might even see pieces of his own mother in her because they both were screwed over by men and he never EVER wants to be that to anybody ever

probably plays guitar but NEVER shows anybody 

usually the but of a joke between jake and quil. 

also the decider in arguments between jake and quil

i have a zillion more but i’ll quit while i’m ahead

also

is a slut for muffins

QUIL ATEARA V

Canon:

he thinks he’s a ladies man (thinks) 

more outgoing?

likes hanging out with friends 

took his cousin to prom 

Fanon:

so, so, so funny as in a total dork with a lot of unearned confidence

book smart but NOT street smart

prefers name brand foods over generic because it just ‘has that extra something something’ and also, class

loves to debate with jacob. he always ends up taking it somehow more seriously than jacob does. 

i actually do not know why nobody talks about quil i feel like he’s super underrated and actually hilarious.

@teamjacobthot‘s one of this tag game mentioned he was a soundcloud rapper and i think i DIED so imma also go with that and second you there

very particular about how things are done 

a lover of the puns

toy story is his favorite childhood film, and he announces it as so. 

LEAH CLEARWATER

Canon:

angry and bitter 

thinks nothing more than of sam 

hates vampires 

sassy

Fanon:

i absolutely LOVE practically every fanon i’ve ever seen of leah in the fandom like...ever. they are all so amazing and i actually just want tons and tons of fanfictions about all of them

Ngl, i really am a big AngelaxLeah fan

BUT 

I PERSONALLY hc that leah gets fed up with being in the pack and she feels like there’s really nothing there for her. She ends up leaving la puzb to go off and explore the world-- she wants to see it and experience more than just the memories and the life that surrounds her in la push. she travels all over and often does so in wolf form when she can. I HC she imprints there-- on a real nice super cool lady from some other country. (this is another thing i could go on for days about, i will write a fanfic about it one day. ONE DAY i shall PREVAIL!) 

Honestly, i really do like Leah as she was canon. I think that it was the way everybody acted around her that i would change and i feel like the fandom as a whole agrees on that 

like yeah, Leah is a badass bitch with a great sense of humor. she’s witty and sarcastic and smart and wise and i just love her to pieces. everyone else just needs to wise up and be nicer

JACOB 

Canon:

super supportive and kind and loving and understanding and THEN smeyer swooped in and DESTROYED MY BOY. 

like, don’t even get me STARTED on my feelings about what she did to her OWN CHARACTER 

i mean really

smeyer straight up didn’t know what to do with him so she did... all of THAT. it makes me want to wheep.

Fanon:

the fanons out there on Jacob are just... they are SO WONDERFUL and give me SO MUCH JOY 

i’ve heard him being a mechanic obviously, i’ve heard about the HILARIOUS details of his friendship with like, alice and rosalie and emmett like... that shit is so funny i live for it 

i could read jacob fanons all day

i guess personally, i just love to bits. he’s super patient. very funny but also is really understanding and can (and loves) to get into deep discussions about stuff and listen to other people’s passions and share his own. 

purposefully pushes quil’s buttons so he can get a rise out of him because he LOVES their dumb bickering and enjoys a good debate 

is also almost always right in those debates 

quil probably won like... twice in all of history and it was based on some kind of weird trivia fact he learned in a biology class or something lol

i bet that when the time came he had kids (not with you-know-who obviously cause just...no), he’d be SUCH a great dad and he’d be SUPER hands-on with them, like always taking them places and teaching them how to do various stuff

and if one of his kids was really into something he didn’t know how to do, you KNOW his ass is up on youtube all night long learning how to do it so he can spend THAT MUCH MORE TIME with his kids 

oh he’s just so sweet love him to pieces 

RENESMESS

...I had to do this but i have a good reason:

Canon:

exists

Fanon:

absolutely does NOT exist

who?

the only ONLY acknowledgement i will give her is i read a fanon somewhere about how she HATES her name. like she is downright royally not okay with it and when she gets older and has to go to school for eternity with her family (weird. seriously so weird but i’m pushing through this) she decides to announce that she is only going by this other name (personally i feel like it’s Carlie because it’s still her middle name and jfd;akfsd but also because it’s A NORMAL NAME) and so she is never called renesmee again because that is straight up a monster name and even her nickname is a monster so like, ugh. 

also, i REFUSE to believe that Jacob imprinted on her, okay? if she has to exist, he did NOT imprint on her and they can be buds or something but just... no. (i have so many issues with imprinting guys, i should just sit down and write a long post about it but the ENERGY and it isn’t like it’s not all things that have been said before. it’s more what I’d fix about it so it could still exist but not be a legit code word for grooming and an excuse for blatant p*d* grossness because that’s all it is and i HATE THAT) 

so I don’t talk to anyone in the fandom really because i don’t really know how to start conversations like... at all. I really WANT to talk to people but I’m a chicken and i have a hard time, BUT, i really admire so many of the blogs on here and i LOVE so much of their content. Off the top of my head, i shall tag: 

@chiefjacob @911esme @jacobblackredemptionblog @embrycallsmuffin @leahclearwaterdefensesquad AND anyone else who wishes to do this! it was so much fun! I say do it! and if you’ve already done it, i just tip my hat to you for being an awesome blog :) 

seriously! tag me when you do it, i want to see your answers!! 

[saphira-approves]

What do you think of some the criticism the inheritance books have got (the ones all nicely collected and available on the wiki) my main thoughts reading through were wow did they stretch before saying that because yikes and I really wish I could get financial compensation from this because in uni I sat through (and enjoyed) a course all about intertextuality; the way things relate to each other like Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

I assume you’re talking about how many people accuse Paolini of “ripping off” Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and Dragonriders of Pern? 

So, it’s a touchy subject for a lot of people—not for me, I’m an English major, this is my bread and butter—of how “original” you have to be to be a “valid author.” The problem with the attitude of “you have to be PERFECTLY ORIGINAL” is that unless you’re writing your autobiography, nothing you create will EVER be perfectly original. And even with an autobiography, you’ll probably still have echoes of someone else’s writing style in your work.

This idea that you have to be “perfectly original” is a) impossible and b) a very modern idea. Just look at art history: Master painters, before they became masters, would first apprentice with another master painter, copying that master’s works, before ever making their own. In my art class last year, I did a research project on Artemesia Gentileschi, an incredibly skilled oil painter of the 1600s and apprentice of Caravaggio, who combined her talent, knowledge of anatomy and light, and her own experiences with sexual assault and general feminine anger to create beautiful, emotionally charged works of art, far greater (in my opinion) than those of her master.

On the right is Caravaggio’s original work, Judith Beheading Holofernes, with a waifish Judith and stiff expressions and not-quite-realistic-looking positions. It’s still a great work, but it lacks life.

Gentilechi’s Judith Beheading Holofernes, on the left, is completely different. Judith is brawny, holding Holofernes down while she cuts off his head, with a determined grimace. It’s a copy of Caravaggio’s work, but Gentileschi added her own knowledge and experience to create an entirely new piece. And this is how art was taught! By copying the masters!

Art and creation don’t happen in a vacuum. Even Star Wars and LotR and the Pern books wouldn’t have happened without other works being created first. For pity’s sake, the names of the entire cast of Tolkien’s Hobbit were ripped straight from the Poetic Edda! Star Wars was a culmination of George Lucas’ favorite space opera tropes! I’m not sure about Anne McCaffrey, but the fact that her stories are centered around dragons means she was inspired by dragons in media she herself consumed. Tolkien’s Smaug was probably one of them!

So what do I think of the criticism? I think it’s ridiculous. As someone who grew up on Star Wars and LotR, as someone who loves the Pern books I’ve gotten my hands on, as someone who aspires to be an author herself, and as someone for whom Paolini’s books were an inspiration, I think that criticizing him for what authors all over the world do—taking inspiration from things they love—is really stupid. 

Let me contextualize something for those of you not convinced. If you’re here, and you’re in other fandoms, you probably read or have read fanfiction. A common trope in fanfiction are AUs, or Alternate Universes, which can be as simple as a canon divergence, or as specific as a time, place, and setting completely outside canon. For the purpose of this metaphor, let’s take the example of Coffeeshop AUs. 

Now, for every fandom with 100+ fics on AO3 or FFN or Wattpad, there’s probably at least one—if not more than one—Coffeeshop AU. A lot of people write Coffeeshop AUs. A lot of people read Coffeeshop AUs. It’s a great medium for telling a story: it can be short and sweet, long and dramatic, happy and fluffy, angsty and sad, or any other combination thereof. No two Coffeeshop AUs are the same. We recognize that, obviously, a Coffeeshop AU written today is not an original idea, but it’s still something that a lot of people love to read and write.

Similarly, the tropes that Paolini uses—and they are tropes, used by many, many authors, and I highly doubt any of them were actually invented by Tolkien or Lucas or McCaffrey—have been used all across the world in hundreds (if not thousands) of stories. But the ones that he chose to use, and the way he put them together, tell a rich, beautiful story unique to Paolini. 

Sure, Eragon has some similarities to Luke Skywalker, but Eragon’s relationship with his family is different from Luke’s. Sure, the dragon and Rider bond of Alagaësia is very similar to that of Pern, but Saphira can’t teleport or time travel, and I haven’t seen any Pern dragon turn a burial mound to diamond. Paolini was inspired, yes, but he added his own unique spin to the stories that came before. Hell, I’ve joked about it before, but there are even similarities between the Cycle and The Wizard of Oz.

To reiterate, art and creation don’t happen in a vacuum!

So unless you’re going to criticize nearly every fanfic author ever for writing a Coffeeshop AU, or you’re going to criticize Tolkien for taking his names from the Poetic Edda, you should back off and let contemporary authors experiment and explore with the tropes and stories we grow up with.

And for those of you out there who are aspiring creators, some advice: take inspiration. Don’t just isolate yourself to your work and the impossible ideal of “perfect originality.” If you want to be an author, read more books. If you want to be a painter, look at art. If you want to be in the film industry, watch movies. You must first breathe in to breathe out.

Anyway, thanks for the ask anon! As you can see this is a topic I’m highly passionate about lol.

[pebblysand]

[writing rant - on the monetisation of fanfiction]

a couple of months ago, when i updated my long fic, one of the people on the comments wrote to me the nicest possible review (one of the ones that you keep in your feel-good 'saved' emails - you know the ones), which, amongst other things also said: 'If I could pay you for this...believe me, I would.'

in the moment, i kind of smiled and laughed, and thanked the person for their kind words before moving on with my life. yet, since then, i have to admit that this sentence has kind of been living rent-free in my head. i think it is also because since diving back into fandom a few months ago, i've noticed something that kind of shocked me at first: more and more fanfiction writers seem to be monetising (or attempting to monetise) their craft.

now, back when i started writing fanfic, we wrote fanfic on ffnet and livejournal. it was accepted that thou shalt never (ever) charge money for your writing or else the author and their mean, angry lawyers will come after you for damages and you will die a slow and painful death. we wrote disclaimers at the start of all of our posts and thanked the gods every day when we did not get sued.

i have seen this change gradually over the years. first, in the mid 2010s, the disclaimers went. then, i noticed that people were getting 'tipped' for fanart, sometimes even charging commission. from what i understand (though, don't quote me on this, i'm not an ip lawyer and this post is not intended as legal advice), this is because the way the concept of fair use is framed under us law makes it easier to monetise fanart than it does fanfiction. maybe this is why visual artists came first on this trend. later still (and more recently) i've noticed fanfic writers, doing the same thing.

to be fully honest, the first thought i had when i saw this trend, considering the fear of god (and his lawyers) that was instilled in me in the past, was: how on earth is this even possible? (i'll come back to that in a bit). the second, though, was: fuck, i wish i had the guts to do that, lol.

because, yeah, i will admit, the idea of getting paid for writing what i love to write does appeal, to a certain extent. i won't lie. dear fanfiction writers who've tried to do that recently: i one hundred per cent get it.

looking back at the last fifteen years, i would say that for me, writing fanfiction has been (in terms of time commitment and energy consumed) the equivalent of having an on-and-off part time job. a job that i have held for one or two years at a time, then quit for a while, before coming back to it when i needed (wanted) it again. i obviously can't realistically give you a number re:the actual total of hours i have spent at this since i started out, but i can give you an idea. recently, i started clocking my hours out of interest and calculated that a chapter of my current long fic takes roughly between one hundred to two hundred hours to produce (and they're around 10,000 words). at that rate, i'm probably working 20 hours a week-ish? sometimes more, sometimes less? something as small as a three-sentence fic (like this for instance), takes roughly two/three hours. i'll be honest, i have cancelled plans to write fic. when i'm working on a long project, i do tend to organise my life to give myself the time to write, so i opt for socialising after work during the week rather than on weekends, as i've found this is when i write best. i won't lie: it is - for me (i know some people write quicker, bless them) - a huge time suck.

so, yeah, i understand, in the capitalist society we live in, wanting to make that time count. our world has unfortunately, repeatedly taught us that time is money and getting more does seem like a nice bonus (as long as you have an audience for your art that's willing to pay, obviously). after all, year after year, i've seen a lot of my friends try and monetise their passions as side hustles, with varying success. at first, glance, i look at the time i spend on writing fanfiction and think: man, i wish i could get a bit back from that too. i couldn't even draw a stick figure to save my life but i assume that the time commitment and energy put into that kind of work is roughly similar for visual fanartists as well. i thus very much understand the sentiment, both with fanart and fanfiction.

additionally, though i appreciate this is a bit tangential, the fact that fanfiction is free, i would argue, hinders its potential to be as representative as it could be. it's a bit sad because on the one hand, the fact that it is free makes it completely accessible to the masses but on the other, it makes fanfiction quite exclusive to rich, privileged people who can afford to spend the time and energy putting content out for free. if i spend this much time writing fanfiction, just because i like it and it makes me happy, it's because my full time job pays me enough to cover my bills. if it didn't, i probably would have to forgo writing and get a proper side gig. if you look at my periods of inactivity on ao3, those also kind of coincide with the times in my life when i had to have more things going on to put food on the table.

so, now, assuming that monetisation is a thing that, as a fic writer, one might want to look at, the next question is: how do you go about monetising it? obviously, the law hasn't changed since the days where we were all terrified of getting sued (although enforcement has been quite lax over the years) so it's more about finding workarounds around the law as it is, rather than actively seeking payment for fanart.

from what i've seen: two main solutions seem to exist.

first, there's the tipping/buy-me-coffee technique. as i understand it, this involves either setting up a page on one of the dedicated websites or just putting up your paypal account link on your tumblr posts. with these links, people can then send you however much money they want (however much money they can afford/think you deserve?) on a one-off basis. they're not actually paying for fanfic because there is no actual exchange of services, it's basically like them giving money to charity, except that charity is a fanfic writer/ fan artist whose work they enjoy.

there are two main issues i see with this: one, legally, i'm not sure how much ground this actually holds. assuming you're quite prolific/successful, if every time you're producing new content, you receive dozens of tips, although you're not actively charging for your fanart, making the argument that your content isn't what these people are actively paying for seems hard. imo, the fact that this method sort of holds is that realistically, you're going to make very little out of this. even if you're really good, you might make what? a couple hundred dollars. now, sure, that's a lot of money for a lot of people but in the grand scheme of things, no one sues anyone for such a low amount. as long as you're not making 'proper' money from it, it is highly unlikely that anyone would come after you.

this being said, the second issue, from my perspective, is that this is not in any way, shape or form, a reliable income. it also does not represent, at all, the cost of the time and investment actually put into said fanfiction (or fanart, i assume). for example: if you're going to tip someone who's worked on something for, say, fifty hours, ten dollars, that's very good of you, but that isn't going to be 'worth' their time. it is only worth their time if tipping is done at as scale, which imo is quite unlikely considering you're putting your content out for free anyway. there are kind souls who will tip you, but not that many, meaning that ultimately, you're not working for free anymore, but you're still working at a huge loss.

additionally, because this income is not even reliable on a monthly/weekly basis, it isn't something that anyone can actually rely on, even if only to fund their coffee habit. it's nice to have, don't get me wrong, but from my perspective, is the legal risk outlined above worth the trouble for the $20/30 tips i'd get every once in a while - not really. such low amounts also don't help diminish the class issue that i talked about earlier. again, if you're going to spend fifty hours on something, you might as well work a minimum wage job - even that will pay you more and will be dependable.

second, there's patreon (and patreon-like sites). here, the income is monthly, people pledge on a subscription basis, which does solve the last point above. it might not be much, but at least it's regular.

the main issue i see with patreon is that it is contingent on the author providing more services on top of what they already provide. in most cases, the author will keep putting their usual content out for free + provide their patreons (depending on tiers) with more content, specifically for them. this, to me, makes this scheme even less appealing than the previous one because a) if i can't provide fanfic to potential patreons (again, you can't sell fanfic), i'm not sure what on earth i could give them (original content? that's not really the same market) and b) that's even more work on my plate. honestly, considering the amount of time i already spend writing fanfic, i have neither the energy nor the willpower to provide extra content for an amount that, regardless, will probably pay me less than a part-time job would. again, you'd have to scale this (i.e. have enough patreons) to make it all worth your while, and even in very big fandoms, even for someone waaaaay more successful than me, i doubt it would be likely.

lastly, as a side note, both of these "methods" are solely accepted if they occur on tumblr/writer's own website, rather than on the writer's ao3 page/fic. there was a post going around explaining why that is (nutshell: it endangers ao3's status as a non-profit archive) but as with all things, i seem to have lost it. [if you do have the link to that post/know what i'm talking about, hit me up and i'll rectify this]. this, regardless, supposes driving traffic from wherever you post your fics towards tumblr/your own website which, again, decreases your chances of scaling this.

so, in the end, where does that leave us?

i think, at this point, we've kind of reached a crossroad. ultimately, i see two ways to look at this:

option one: if you believe that fanfiction writers should be paid for their art, you also probably agree that the methods outlined above, while they do offer some sort of solution, are less than ideal. the ideal solution (for this option) would obviously be to allow fanfiction authors to be properly paid for the publication of their work through 'normal' publishing/self-publishing deals, without the need for a licence from the author (bar - perhaps - the payment of royalties). that would create a proper 'market' for fanfiction, treating it as any other form of writing/art form. it would mean a complete overhaul of the laws currently in place, but why not? ultimately, in a democracy, laws are meant to be changeable.

this being said, though, while my personal knee jerk reaction would be to shout 'hurray!' at this solution, i do not actually think i want this. or, maybe, only part of me does. the part of me who has been writing fanfiction for free for fifteen years is like 'hey, yay, maybe i could get paid!'. but then, there is another part of me that would like, maybe, one day, to write more original fiction (i already do a bit, but not much). that part of me is feels frankly a bit icky about giving up her ip rights.

would i be comfortable with people writing fanfiction of my original work? hell yes. that would be the dream. imagine having your own ao3 fandom, omg. however, would i be comfortable with people profiting from writing fanfiction of my work? honestly, i'm not sure. to me, the answer to that is: it depends (how much time investment was put in? how original the concept is? etc.) which, in fact, kind of brings us back to the current concept of licensing. and yes, maybe the current frame imposed by copyright law has also shaped the way i view the concept of property, and maybe i should be more of a communist, free-for-all kind of person, but unfortunately, i'm not that revolutionary.

also, and slightly tangentially, i find it interesting how profiting from fanficition/fanart is seen as more acceptable i certain fandoms rather than in others. taking the hp fandom for instance, even prior to jkr expressing her views on transgender rights, i often read things like: 'ah, she's so rich anyway, she doesn't need the money.' now, that argument has not only gained traction but is also reinforced by: 'ah, she's the devil and i don't want to fund her. it'd rather give my money to fanfic authors/buy things on etsy.'

while i completely understand the sentiment and do not, in any way, shape or form, support jkr's views, i do find that argument quite problematic. if you set the precedent that because someone is too rich, or because they've expressed views you disagree with, you don't believe that they should be entitled to their own intellectual property rights, i do wonder: where does this stop? this being justified for jkr could lead to all sorts of small artists seeing other people stealing/profiting from their original work without authorisation. 'i don't pay you 'cause i disagree with you,' would then act as a justification, with i find highly unfair. the fact of the matter is: jkr created hp. knowing that, the choice of buying hp products, regardless of her opinions is completely and entirely yours, but buying the same stuff unlicensed, from people who are infringing on her copyrights seems, to me, very problematic as this could potentially be scaled to all artists. either we overhaul the entire copyright system or we don't, but making special cases is dangerous, in my humble opinion.

option two: we choose to preserve copyright law as it is, for the reasons outlined above. this means that most people will not get paid for the content they put out and that the few that do will operate on a very tight, legal rope, and work for tips that are a 'nice bonus' but not a proper pay. this sort of perpetuates the idea that fanfiction is 'less than' other art forms, because in our capitalist society, things that don't generate money (things often made by women, may i add) are not seen as being as valuable as things that do.

for me, personally, while getting paid to write fanfiction sounds lovely (and makes my bank account purr) in theory, i think i side to preserve the current system. as an artist, i think that intellectual property protects us and our concepts from being ripped off by others, including by big companies who might find it handy to steal a design, a quote, anything, without proper remuneration. this is even more important for smaller artists who wouldn't necessarily have the means to defend their craft otherwise.

this being said, i do appreciate that it depends on why you're writing fanfiction. i think that topic probably deserves a whole different post in its own right but ultimately, most people write fanfic because it's fun. we know it's for fun, and not for profit. and if that's the case, then we're okay to receive compliments, reblogs and sometimes, for some people a little bit of an awkward tip for our work. for me, fanfic has been a space to make friends, to get feedback, to learn and to experiment without the pressure of money being involved. that's why i don't particularly mind doing it for free, and wouldn't even bother setting up a patreon or tip-me jar. i love being able to do it just for the enjoyment of myself and my five followers (lol), without worrying about scaling it, or making it profitable. not every part of our lives, not every passion has to be profitable. as we say in ireland, you do it 'for the craic' and nothing else.

this, though, as i already said, also depends on your means and level of privilege. to me, writing for free is fantastic and a bloody relief - it means being able to do exactly what i want. original fiction writing is full of rules, and editors, and publishers. in fanfic, i can write whatever i feel like, and i'm willing to forgo a salary in exchange of that freedom. again, i have a full time job that covers my bills. this does mean, though, that i don't have as much time to dedicate to writing as i would like to.

and also, the thing is: i'm a small author. i happily write in my own little niche. bar that one comment, it is highly unlikely that anyone would actually want to pay me (or even tip me) for my content. but when you look at very successful people, like the author of all the young dudes, i could see how they'd want to get paid for their art, and why they'd feel differently.

bottom line for me is: the flaws of the current systems of remuneration combined with my strong belief in copyright law as a means to protect small, original creators, means that i don't really think it would be right for me to get paid for fanfic, even if i was the kind of person who had the market for it. whilst it would be nice, this very long rant has, hopefully, explained why.