There really isn’t such a thing as “coming late to a fandom”. I know we all joke about it. But different people get involved with different things at different stages in their lives for different reasons. No one is more or less of a fan because they haven’t been following the fandom since pre-release or whatever. It doesn’t matter how much more knowledge or fandom know how you have–it doesn’t make you an inch more of a fan than anyone else, “casual” or no. Get off that high horse before you break your neck.
It doesn’t matter how popular a headcanon is, not everyone has to incorporate it into their fanart/fanfiction/etc (*cough* to cater to you *cough*). You can’t get mad at people for not having the same headcanons. It doesn’t matter whether those headcanons serve to make the characters more diverse…if it isn’t canon you can’t get mad at people for not going along with it. You can definitely get mad at them for erasing diversity in canon–but don’t be so petty as to get angry and self-righteous over them depicting characters as they appear in canon. You’re not helping your cause.
Alternately, you can’t get mad for people having headcanons or “alternate versions” that make characters more diverse just because “they aren’t [x] in canon”–that’s why it’s called a headcanon or fan theory you big lump.
On a similar note, you also can’t get mad at people over ships just because you have a “conflicting” ship or because the character(s) have canon pairings that are different or any other petty reason. I can understand being upset by pairings involving an adult and a minor…but most of the time ship wars are just the dumbest source of fandom drama ever. It costs zero dollars to ignore.
If your fandom has “multiple gens” then don’t fight over which gen is better. A lot of people’s reasons for preferring one over the other is because of familiarity and nostalgia (like which gen you were first introduced to and that got you into the franchise). You can say “[x] gen is my favorite” but don’t press that it’s THE BEST and anyone who disagrees is on your shitlist.
Just because the majority of a certain fandom is seen as “crazy” that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the show/video game/comic/etc. Just ignore the other fans.
Just because a show/video game/comic/etc has problematic content (like wow everything because nothing is pure or completely perfect)–doesn’t mean the fans are all complicit and ignore its flaws. We can all enjoy some media/entertainment while acknowledging there are some things wrong with it. It’s just not all of us are constantly writing essays about it. Don’t shit on people for liking something you don’t.
It doesn’t matter how irredeemable you think something is, you don’t have a right to tell other people they’re terrible human beings for not “canceling” it also. What are you the purity police?
TL;DR: Being in a fandom and interacting/creating fan content is all great fun. But you the moment you start having a “my way or the highway” mentality then you’re going to start having a bad time instead and suddenly no one wants to RP with you and your one-dimensional OCs. It’ll be like playing chess with yourself.
It’s funny when you’re weaving in a plot twist and someone unknowingly mentions something that will be super important later, and you can neither confirm or deny it without giving too much away but inside you’re dying to tell them how right they are, they just have no idea
Tumblr: #this fucking donut #can we talk about this fucking donut for a minute #can we #because on this donut #the sprinkles just comfortably melt into the icing #you can tell that they are so perfectly in tune with each other #and they’ve come so far from when the sprinkles just sort of sat on top #barely touching for fear of rejection #just ugh I can’t #otp: comfortably melting
4chan: here’s a picture of someone putting their dick in a donut.
reddit: that donut needs to go back into the kitchen and make me a sandwich.
academia.edu: Here is a pdf of the seminar paper I wrote about the erotics/poetics/semiotics/science of donut eating.
deviantArt:I did not steal this donut. I traced it so now it’s mine.
It got better
Fanfic.net: The donut is the setting for a high school AU, were two sprinkles meet and realise they have more in common than they ever thought possible, however, the mean chocolate sauce has caught wind of their secret relationship. Will they be able to make it together before it’s too late? M for a lemon flavoured donut.
This has officially become one of my favorite posts.
I JUST REBLOGGED BUT FANFIC MADE IT PERFECT
Ladies and gentlemen, I present you with: The Internet.
archiveofourown.org:Graphic Depictions of Gluten, doughut/sprinkles, doughnut/glaze, doughnut/sprinkles/glaze, doughnut - character, sprinkles - character, glaze - character, dsg threesome, first time, morning doughnuts, AU - doughnutverse, omg i don’t even know, knotting
The weird thing about the whole “how dare you, an adult, write a fanfic with adult content in it” is that a lot of the time the writers of that fanfic are people who grew up on the franchise they’re writing fanfic for??? Like Pokemon is PrEtty old. A lot of us were playing it on our boys of game before y’all were even born. I’m not saying that excuses everything but like…if someone who has been a fan of Pokemon for like more than fifteen years wants to write about an “aged-up” Ash then there isn’t anything wrong with that? Ash would technically have to have been born in the 80s. Think about that. He’s almost an “old man”. Yugi? Also born in the 80s. Naruto? He has literal children, in canon. Even Avatar: The Last Airbender is more than ten years old. Adult fans exist and not just because adults are allowed to like things but because they’ve probably been in the fandom since they were like five or some shit.
Another question for writers and readers. What kinds of female characters would you like to see more of in fiction? What qualities and traits do you think are underrepresented in female OCs?
I asked the same question about male OCs a few days ago, and I got a ton of replies so thank you for that, my friends!
A strong girl who’s strong because she’s smart, determined and/or brave, not because she punches people and puts down other women!
For fantasy; Women in power who aren’t femme fatals and never used seduction to gain their position, but rather their smarts and cunning.
As much as we all love badasses the whole “punch first and then don’t even ask questions later” gets really boring, really fast for me. I also think it’s a bit of a cop-out to make your female OCs “emotionless” and “aloof” and “snarky” because they just can’t be fighters otherwise, I mean, I guess! (Anyone remember Ty Lee? She was super bubbly and could also murder you before you had time to blink). It also tends to steer into that otherwise badass lady character being toxic and abusive to other characters because they aren’t allowed to react with other characters and the setting with any nuance. Which is gross and hard to read.
Basically, if being a snarky, overbearing asshole looks bad on a male character–then those same traits aren’t going to magically become “cool” or subversive because you stuck them on a female OC. (I know there are a lot of people who stan really mean OCs even though they’ve been given no redeeming qualities…I’m just ignoring them).
Let female OCs start using their heads to get out of things and not their fists, is basically what I’m saying. Writing a strong character doesn’t mean make them LITERALLY a bulldozer.
Next time antis are being, well, antis, show them this:
So a child came to you with concerns and criticism, and rather than ignoring said criticism because it wasn’t relevant to the fan work (taking your word for this), you decided to belittle them and imply their parents should be monitoring their internet use.
Cool. Cool thing you did there. Cool way for an adult to treat a child.
I wonder how they’re going to respond the next time they see something fucked up in fandom, or worse, experience it. Like the rampant sexual harassment and assault at conventions. Do you think they’re going to talk to an adult? Or do you think they’re going to internalise it as just part of the fandom and their fault for showing up?
If a child came to OP with concerns and criticism about adult content they shouldn’t be viewing, then their parents should be monitoring their internet usage because they aren’t obeying rating based restrictions.
If a 12 year old snuck into see Deadpool or It and then complained to the threats about it, the theater would probably call their parents and report them for sneaking into an R rated movie.
Ratings are their for a reason.
Also, ‘talk to your parents/other trusted adult’ if something upsets you is good advice. OP is telling them they need to talk to an adult, their parents, not a stranger on the internet.
If an adult has a problem with a child’s behavior offline, a light warning and speaking to the parents is how it goes, nothing odd about that. But online, as much as we would like to have an adult conversation about how little Timmy needs to stop peeking in neighbor’s windows because he’s not ready to understand swinging and pony play yet and besides he’s breaking the law, we have to interact with the children themselves in a more direct fashion. We have to rely on them to ask their parents to step up and parent, and that’s more responsibility than some of them want to handle.
What I do find ironic about this entire situation is that the children don’t hesitate to demand that the adult fans treat them like the children they are, but when we do, they’re upset. They don’t want, “The sign means ‘stay out’ Timmy,” or “I’m going to have to talk to your mother, Timmy,” but “Pour the booze down the toilet, babyproof the house and turn the whole world into a Zero Tolerance zone because Timmy exists.” For a group that’s so staunchly anti-kink, they’re very into ageplay and topping from the bottom.
“…the children don’t hesitate to demand that the adult fans treat them like the children they are, but when we do, they’re upset.”
T H A T is the fucking truth right there. I get sick of hearing “I’m a minor, it’s your responsibility as an adult to protect me from seeing bad things!!” and then when my response is “stay away from my blog, stay away from my AO3, and if you aren’t old enough to be seeing occasional porn then tumblr isn’t a good place for you because it’s a poorly designed website and you’re gonna stumble on that shit”, then I’m still not doing my job.
what the fuck do you expect me to do? I really wanna know. other than tagging and slapping big, obvious warning labels on anything I post, I want to know what I’m expected to do to protect minors with internet access.
See, what I think is happening is that they REALLY want to not have to see the age-inappropriate things they PERSONALLY don’t like, without having to put in any effort to avoid said things. If their parents start monitoring their computer stuff, they won’t be able to see the age-inappropriate stuff they DO want to see. After all, if NSFW stuff is properly tagged, they shouldn’t have been able to see it in the first place unless they were already looking for NSFW things, right?
This.
Warnings are posted for a reason. As a content creator, the extent of my responsibility is to appropriately rate and tag things that have potentially upsetting content. Avoiding those things is the responsibility of the consumer, not the creator.
If I forget to tag something, by all means, let me know! But don’t complain to me when something tagged with tw: gore contains graphic violence.
I legit bought a small, cheap computer with the single purpose of using it to write -
and I can’t find a way to fucking make a question mark or about three different things I need to fucking write dialogue fight me new computer
Why are ya’ll hearting my misfortune fight with me
I’m broke but I’ll offer moral support
I have moral support and question marks you can copy and paste
? ? ? ?
THANK YOU and also, in case you’ve never tried it, writing dialogue without ? “ and ‘ is pretty hard
How on earth can it be missing those buttons?? That’s ridiculous!
It sounds worse than the time my keyboard changed itself from US to UK layout and all the symbols across the top moved.
That’s the dumb part; they’re there - I just can’t find a way to use them. Like, you press one button and the one that the ? sign is on, but there’s no combination I can find that can do that on my new computer.
I googled and I changed settings over and over again, but I can’t figure out how to do it and I wanna dieeeeeee
I’ve been planning on saving up for a small, cheap computer to use for writing so that it’s easy to lug around with me (I’m really fond of going to the local cafe and library). So I’ll keep in mind the need to check if all the buttons work.
no offense but the soft uncertain kiss followed by a pause where the people look each other in the eyes and then fucking pull eachother back into a more passionate kiss will always be the most soul destroying trope , catch me lying on the fucking ground sobbing and rewatching The Scene™✌🏼✌🏼✌🏼
how do you describe clothing?? without it sounding awkward?? how much detail do you include?? how do i;;;;; write
Stephen King says not to include any clothing detail unless it is important to the story. Given his success, it should be considered, but as with every piece of advice you should take it with a grain of salt.
I try not to go into huge lengths with clothes, personally. But you can really characterize an outfit by just offering a small bit of information.
For example “I tugged my boots on,” “she grabbed hold of his checkered tie,” or “her jeans sat low on her hips.”
These focus on just one aspect of the outfit, but they paint a fairly vivid image in the reader’s mind. You can associate quite a few things with just singular garments, as well as the type of character who might wear them.
If you’re writing a script, it’s usually customary to give a brief description of the clothing worn, or just a generic cliche. “JOHN, 26, wearing nerd glasses,” or “BARISTA, forties, in uniform,” gives you a characterization with just a few words. In a script, the audience will be seeing the whole outfit, so just a single detail or two is enough if it’s necessary at all.
Readers don’t need you to hold their hand every step of the way. Part of what we like about reading is filling in details in our own mind. Think about your genre and what you would like to read.
Hope this helps! This is just some stuff I picked up in college, and I think it’s helped my writing a lot!
thank you, this was really helpful!! <3
I like writing historical stuff on occasion, and since clothing can denote social class/status, prestige, wealth, etc. it can be good to add detail about a character’s clothing–because it would tell a lot about where that character fits into the setting. In more modern times it might not say as much unless it’s very opulent clothing which would probably be used to point out how vain they are. But you could also use a character’s fashion choice to hint at things like what interests they have (like a t-shirt with their favorite comic), what sub-cultures they might belong to, how their casual dress might be vastly different than how they have to dress at work, etc. Either these details can be important in the long run or just add more substance to the character.
I hate tumblr’s idea of ‘problematic’ characters so much.
An example of a problematic character would be a stock character of a marginalized group that’s reduced to a conglomeration of stereotypes that have a harmful effect on people from that group in the real world.
A problematic character is not a developed character with developed flaws and belief systems that people irl happen to be at odds with. It is not a character that interacts with other characters in ways that hurt them within the narrative. That’s what a story is. That’s what creating characters means. Developing a fleshed-out fictional person to serve a function within one’s narrative.
And characters that are solely mouthpieces for the creator’s own moral views and belief systems, regardless of what those views are, are bad characters, and make bad stories.
I just reblogged this but I’m going to reblog this again with the addition that people will get mad at you for writing #Problematic(insert trademark) characters in your own stories with one hand while jacking off to a villain who doesn’t even have a half-assed, let alone half-cheeked redemption arc with their other hand because someone drew steamy fanart. You are, all of you, transparent in your intent.
