Being an extremely picky reader, I have a lot of sympathy for people who can’t find the kind of fic they want to read, who don’t resonate with many popular fanon, who have tastes that just aren’t often addressed in most fic. The smaller the fandom, the worse off these woes, usually. What I don’t give two shuddering shits about are the folks who make this the authors’ problem.
Fanfic detractors love to say it’s not real writing, but even putting aside the 101 ways that’s total bullshit, the sheer act of writing takes time. At my fastest, I could write maximum 1200 words an hour; these days, it’s closer to 500. Yet, you have so many writers churning out fic after fic, ranging from bite-sized bits to epic-length monstrosities. That’s hours and hours of our lives. I set aside 2–3 hours a day for writing, and you can bet those add up fast.
So here you have these people creating scores of content for the hell of it, putting it up for free, and expecting damn near nothing in return. There are outliers, of course, but the general sentiment I’ve seen is that we don’t want money, and we don’t demand comments, though we appreciate the everloving shit out of them. At the core of it, writing fic is a labour of love, and fandom is a gift economy.
You know what’s not a gift? Being a little shit in the comment/ask boxes of your local fandom writers.
It’s fine, absolutely a-okay, spectacularly acceptable to not like or even viscerally hate any given character, trope, ship, or even specific fic. But listen, that’s a you problem—and it doesn’t have to be problem at all if you just click that pretty X and exit the story posthaste. The author won’t even know you’d been there, and you’re free to go wash out the taste of whatever fuckery made you nope out. If you’re inclined toward writing yourself, you can even give the tried-and-true art of writing out of spite a go.
But, for the love of god, don’t hop into the comment box and list all the ways in which the author could’ve made the story the one youwanted.
It’s not your story. It’s also clearly not for you. The writer wrote the story they wanted the way they wanted it. Leave it the fuck alone.
Some writers may ask for concrit; feel free to give it, provided you’ve nailed the constructive part of constructive criticism.
But their writing has typos and grammar errors: Shit happens, and we’re not robots. Ignore it, or if you can’t stand it, stop reading.
But it’d have been better if it was another ship/character/direction: That’s your opinion, which will remain valid for only as long as it stays solely in your head. Again, stop reading. Exit quietly.
But the content is problematic: My brother in Christ, it was meant to be. We’re not all pearl-clutching puritans. Stop reading things that upset you, especially if they’re tagged!
Harassing authors won’t get you the content you want. Nor, for that matter, will politely pestering them make them see the holy light of whatever crusade you’re on. Most you’ll manage is break the confidence of a fledgling writer or drive someone vulnerable out of fandom. And if that’s your endgame, you’re the kind of trash a handful of words from voxofthevoid.tungle.com can’t change, so fuck you anyway.
Creativity begets more creativity. In every fandom I’ve written for, I started writing because, after a point, reading wasn’t enough. I have specific tastes that don’t always align with broader fandom tastes—for instance, I like out-and-proud sadists and writing my favs as tops/doms, whereas the predominant trends seem to favor the opposite. I also like very specific kinds of fuckery with my fluff, which are often hard to find. All that’s fine. I have MS Word and the will to use it.
Granted, writing fic deliberately tailored to my tastes isn’t the same as reading fic that’s coincidentally tailored to my tastes, but that’s fine too. I can be immeasurably grateful to the wonderful folks whose writing does strike a chord in me while also endeavouring to one day make someone say, “Damn, voxofthevoid, this is exactly the story I needed.” That’s what I want to give to fandom.
Others are free to think, “Yikes, voxofthevoid, you’re fucked in the head,” and be on their merry way; just don’t make it my problem.
And if you, personally, don’t have the time or inclination to be the porn fic you want to see in the world, there are other ways to encourage the kind of content you want to see. Participate in fandom exchanges. Seek out writers that take prompts or requests. Send positive encouragement (not rude demands) to the writers whose work you enjoy.
Don’t throw a tantrum in the comment/ask box. It helps no one. It pisses off a lot of people. Nobody benefits.
Sincerely,
Someone who’s very, very tired of seeing entitled shits make fandom a nightmare for everyone
we need to start supporting more content creators and not just the blogs with large followings and/or a reputation. there’s a lot of good content creators on this site getting a lack of notes because people choose to engage with the same blogs.
One of the main reason why I love Akito and Shigure’s ~toxic~ romance so much is that - for once - the girl is allowed to be damaged and nasty in a genuinely uglyway.
Akito is not an uwu precious, broken waifu. She’s a nasty bitch with a horrifically sad past that perfectly explains but doesn’t excuse any of her shitty, bad, no good actions.
It’s usually male characters who are allowed to be this way, especially in romance stories.
And the guy - for once - is not a naïve, spineless simp who passively lets the damaged, nasty love of his life use him and walk all over him. He’s a vicious, fearless man who laughs at his lover’s dangerous outbursts, challenges her, taunts her, knows her tragic ugliness inside and outside and doesn’t excuse any of it but still shamelessly love her despite AND because of it.
They both truly love each other so deeply and so possessively that it constantly breaks their carefully constructed personas. And while they always feel the need to re-build their carefully constructed personas around each other and wear them like a shield at all times, they still can’t resist the magnetic bond between them and let it destroys and re-build them over and over, bringing out the worst and the best of each other.
It’s only at the end, when Akito is finally free and starting to heal, that they allowed their love to breath and flourish away from it’s toxic foundation.
It’s one of the very few romance stories where the ~toxic~ love is achingly real but not romanticized, and the healing from toxicity is beautifully moving and believable.
good morning on this fine day to Rian Johnson only, who in 2017 directed a star wars movie that utilised beloved romance themes, was visually a masterpiece with only six main colors present (red, black, white vs blue, green, neutrals) and made us all once again believe that a feral nobody can bewitch a byronic prince ❤️
this is difficult to put together how i want to phrase it but i just… wish people would be more considerate and deliberate with how they treat the relationship between dimitri’s delusions and his violence—especially toward his allies. like i cannot stress this enough dimitri never actually hurts or is even implied to hurt anyone he considers his friend/ally in pt 2 azure moon. and i just so often see it discussed as though (1) it actually happened or (2) not only would it happen, but it would essentially play out as something to the effect of the randolph scene following chapter 14.
i’m (obviously? i hope) not denying that he uses violent language/threats, nor do i want to diminish the significance of that as something that should also be addressed. i’m not even saying don’t explore the relationship between dimitri’s mental illness and dimitri’s violence—however you see that, that’s not what i’m addressing here. but i do think that people have decided that dimitri operates by some sort of incoherent and indiscriminate blood for all logic which is simply not true for his character and IS so often an avenue for really gross ableism.
if you read the context of dimitri’s threats/violent language (especially towards byleth as this is the one that gets mentioned the most), he is so often couching those threats in language that suggests he wants byleth to kill him. like not ambiguously at all. he asks byleth to kill him multiple times in part 2 azure moon. and this is very reminiscent of his gilbert support chain (which can be viewed pre or post ts) where he essentially asks gilbert to kill him as ‘recompense’ for gilbert’s own perceived ‘failure’ at the tragedy—which, just as a related aside, the only thing dimitri thinks gilbert ‘failed’ to do was let him die with everyone else. like dimitri is so often expressing a sentiment of suicidal ideation/general suicidal thoughts in these scenes that mirror his support conversation with gilbert. the major difference is the specifics of the language itself, which is a reflection of the only interpersonal context (violence) that we know for certain dimitri has operated within for the last several years as a literal fugitive following his escape from his execution. like he is expressing a very difficult and very painful mindset to attempt to communicate when you do have clear and accurate language and a safe environment to do so and dimitri has neither!!
i realize that it’s a thorny thing to untangle but dimitri’s violent language vs his actual violence are two different things to an extent especially depending on WHO he is speaking to and the context of the conversation. again i cannot stress enough that i’m not trying diminish that just using language like this IS harmful, but i don’t think it should be equivocated with action especially action that doesn’t actually happen! dimitri doesn’t hurt his allies. he doesn’t. i can’t (and won’t try to) convince anyone whether or not he would or even under what circumstances but he doesn’t and i do not understand the desire to act as though he not only unequivocally would but also to make the scenario incredibly violent and cruel (which i’ve seen very often). at the very least it flattens his character if nothing else but the actual implications of this interpretation re discussions of mental illness (especially mental illness with ‘unsavory’ symptoms) like. please just operate with a considerate and deliberate mindset. like as the bare minimum.
Being an extremely picky reader, I have a lot of sympathy for people who can’t find the kind of fic they want to read, who don’t resonate with many popular fanon, who have tastes that just aren’t often addressed in most fic. The smaller the fandom, the worse off these woes, usually. What I don’t give two shuddering shits about are the folks who make this the authors’ problem.
Fanfic detractors love to say it’s not real writing, but even putting aside the 101 ways that’s total bullshit, the sheer act of writing takes time. At my fastest, I could write maximum 1200 words an hour; these days, it’s closer to 500. Yet, you have so many writers churning out fic after fic, ranging from bite-sized bits to epic-length monstrosities. That’s hours and hours of our lives. I set aside 2–3 hours a day for writing, and you can bet those add up fast.
So here you have these people creating scores of content for the hell of it, putting it up for free, and expecting damn near nothing in return. There are outliers, of course, but the general sentiment I’ve seen is that we don’t want money, and we don’t demand comments, though we appreciate the everloving shit out of them. At the core of it, writing fic is a labour of love, and fandom is a gift economy.
You know what’s not a gift? Being a little shit in the comment/ask boxes of your local fandom writers.
It’s fine, absolutely a-okay, spectacularly acceptable to not like or even viscerally hate any given character, trope, ship, or even specific fic. But listen, that’s a you problem—and it doesn’t have to be problem at all if you just click that pretty X and exit the story posthaste. The author won’t even know you’d been there, and you’re free to go wash out the taste of whatever fuckery made you nope out. If you’re inclined toward writing yourself, you can even give the tried-and-true art of writing out of spite a go.
But, for the love of god, don’t hop into the comment box and list all the ways in which the author could’ve made the story the one youwanted.
It’s not your story. It’s also clearly not for you. The writer wrote the story they wanted the way they wanted it. Leave it the fuck alone.
Some writers may ask for concrit; feel free to give it, provided you’ve nailed the constructive part of constructive criticism.
But their writing has typos and grammar errors: Shit happens, and we’re not robots. Ignore it, or if you can’t stand it, stop reading.
But it’d have been better if it was another ship/character/direction: That’s your opinion, which will remain valid for only as long as it stays solely in your head. Again, stop reading. Exit quietly.
But the content is problematic: My brother in Christ, it was meant to be. We’re not all pearl-clutching puritans. Stop reading things that upset you, especially if they’re tagged!
Harassing authors won’t get you the content you want. Nor, for that matter, will politely pestering them make them see the holy light of whatever crusade you’re on. Most you’ll manage is break the confidence of a fledgling writer or drive someone vulnerable out of fandom. And if that’s your endgame, you’re the kind of trash a handful of words from voxofthevoid.tungle.com can’t change, so fuck you anyway.
Creativity begets more creativity. In every fandom I’ve written for, I started writing because, after a point, reading wasn’t enough. I have specific tastes that don’t always align with broader fandom tastes—for instance, I like out-and-proud sadists and writing my favs as tops/doms, whereas the predominant trends seem to favor the opposite. I also like very specific kinds of fuckery with my fluff, which are often hard to find. All that’s fine. I have MS Word and the will to use it.
Granted, writing fic deliberately tailored to my tastes isn’t the same as reading fic that’s coincidentally tailored to my tastes, but that’s fine too. I can be immeasurably grateful to the wonderful folks whose writing does strike a chord in me while also endeavouring to one day make someone say, “Damn, voxofthevoid, this is exactly the story I needed.” That’s what I want to give to fandom.
Others are free to think, “Yikes, voxofthevoid, you’re fucked in the head,” and be on their merry way; just don’t make it my problem.
And if you, personally, don’t have the time or inclination to be the porn fic you want to see in the world, there are other ways to encourage the kind of content you want to see. Participate in fandom exchanges. Seek out writers that take prompts or requests. Send positive encouragement (not rude demands) to the writers whose work you enjoy.
Don’t throw a tantrum in the comment/ask box. It helps no one. It pisses off a lot of people. Nobody benefits.
Sincerely,
Someone who’s very, very tired of seeing entitled shits make fandom a nightmare for everyone
I will forever be angry about mage/templar conflict
anders was always right.
like imagine if there was 14 schools(what circles are said to be places to learn and nurture magic like art and knowledge) in the whole country.
And then in nearly every: administration harasses, abuses their wards, rapes in even more free ones(from Anders Sebastian banter). In one of those 14-15 schools people’s literal personalities had been destroyed for no reason except the madness of the leader, they can’t have any contact with outside world. There is solitary confinement for a year! The primary reason of death in all of circles combined is suicide! Children are taken from their parents! It’s inhumane!
Any system that allows such atrocities should be shattered to it’s core! Like circles have literal children in them.
And there are minimum 15k mages in Thedas. Something needed to be done.
i think actually the key to successfully doing tumblr (and especially doing fandom on tumblr) is realising that your blog is your little house and you can post about whatever you like there. once you realise you are just living in and decorating your very own silly little online house you start focusing on what makes you happy rather than constantly performing for & compromising your tastes for & placing all your self worth on little scraps of clout, and you will be a lot happier for it
Anti-Polyam attitudes that center around “It’s just cheating, but the other person knows about it” SO clearly come from people who have no understanding of why cheating is bad.
Cheating isn’t bad because you had sex with someone else. Cheating is bad because you violated the terms of your relationship. Cheating is bad because you violated your partner’s trust. That’s why things other than sex can be cheating- it’s why there’s emotional cheating.
Cheating is bad because it is violating your partner’s trust. It is bad because you and your partner(s) decided on something, trusted one another, and you said “fuck them and their trust”. THAT is why it is bad.
Polyamory is not cheating. In polyamory, everyone knows about everything and everyone. Everyone consents. There is communication. If not everyone is aware and consents, then it’s fucking cheating. There’s a damn difference.
There’s also the “Polyamory is bad because you’re having sex with someone who isn’t your one true love” which… I could go on all day about how fucking stupid that is, but same principle.
In honor of Pride month- stop shitting on polyamory and polyam people. And stop telling us that we’re all cheaters, because if you say that, you’re coming from a place of totally misunderstanding why cheating is bad. And, spoilers, cheating isn’t bad because of the sex.
Friendly reminder that bi, pan, trans, aro, and ace people in relationships with someone of a different gender aren’t less queer than people in relationships with someone of the same gender, and they aren’t bad representation or “less good” in any way
Also, REAL WORLD RELATIONSHIPS aren’t fucking REPRESENTATION.
They are QUEER PEOPLE living THEIR damn lives
As a bi person in a relationship with a straight, opposite sex partner, I’ve been excluded from queer spaces. I’m not any less queer because this partner is a man. Just like how your sexual orientation doesn’t cease to exist if you’re not currently in a relationship. You are you, no matter what your current circumstances are.
i’d rather have rainbow capitalism then living in constant fear of discovery. the woman in the pride flag disney t-shirt might be missing the nuance, but at least i know i can be myself. a street full of rainbow flags makes me more comfortable holding a mans hand. look. corporations aren’t your friend. they will sell to whoever will buy. but kids seeing gay everything every year is only ever a good thing, and a massive improvement in history
The more it’s shown in the mainstream that gay and trans people are accepted, the harder it is for conservatives to pretend that they’re the silent majority. You can’t act like everyone silently hates queer people when an entire month becomes an inescapable morass of acceptance and positivity.
REMINDER THAT LAIKA’S FIRST FILM SOLELY PRODUCED BY THEIR STUDIO HAD TWO FEMALE CHARACTERS AS THEIR ANTAGONIST AND PROTAGONIST WHO, BY SOME FORM OF DEVIL MAGIC, HAVE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FACES
REMINDER THAT LAIKA’S SECOND FILM NOT ONLY CONSISTED OF A CAST WITH FOUR CENTRAL FEMALE CHARACTERS BUT INCLUDED AN ENTIRE TOWN OF DIVERSE CITIZENS OF VARYING RACE, GENDER, AND AGE. LIKE A NORMAL TOWN HAS.
REMINDER THAT LAIKA’S THIRD FILM FEATURED SAME SEX COUPLES IN THEIR TEASER TRAILER
REMINDER THAT THIS IS ALL STOP-MOTION SO EVERY CHARACTER WAS DESIGNED, MODELED, SCULPTED, RIGGED, AND EVEN HAD TINY CLOTHES SEWED FOR THEM.
also reminder that they make chump change compared to disney who whines and cries that in all their years of experience they can’t handle the prospect of animating a girl with a face different than the rest and that it’s “too hard” because only females can express such a wide range of emotions that it makes them difficult to animate
if a studio with 20-30 years of experience can manage this then SURELY an established studio with NEAR 100 YEARS of experience can maybe, just maybe, include a female that ISN’T a part of their formula
LAIKA !
Also paranormal had a canonically gay guy in it just saying
I feel the 16ft tall skeleton from Kubo certainly deserves a mention
Laika are goddamn ARTISTS and MASTERS OF THEIR CRAFT. Look at the animation on Kubo and tell me it doesn’t feel more like CGI than stop motion sometimes because it’s so smooth.
I love them so much.
Wait wait wait… Kubo was STOP MOTION?!?!?
Yup.
I mean obviously all of Laika’s movies have had some effects added afterwards, because there’s some things you really just can’t DO in stop motion (like falling snow, for example), but all of their films have been stop motion.
I don’t know how to embed videos successfully, but there are some REALLY cool behind-the-scenes stuff for Kubo that you can probably find if you look on youtube. :)
Yeah narrative conflict is not conflict as in “war and bad stuff”, it’s conflict as in “what keeps the blorbos spinning above the fire like rotisserie chickens”
adult women aren’t inherently creepy for being in fandom and having hobbies apart from raising babies and doing taxes
the vast majority of people pushing back against the worrying trend of instigating harassment over fictional characters and relationships aren’t incest supporters or pedophiles, actually
liking a m/f ship doesn’t make someone a dirty heterosexual invading your space
preferring gay ships doesn’t make you ‘’woke’’ and good
no one owes you a disclaimer that they are a good person who recognizes that their favorite fictional villain’s actions are evil and that they don’t condone those actions irl
liking a fictional villain is in no way comparable to advocating abuse/murder/genocide/etc and you’re a fucking idiot if you believe that
just because a woman is attracted to a fictional villain doesn’t mean she’s promoting toxic relationships or going to end up in a toxic relationship. assuming women can’t tell fiction and reality apart stinks of internalized misogyny
some rando’s a/b/o fanfics have none of the level of influence that popular tv shows and movies spreading propaganda have
no one owes you a detailed description of their traumas and mental health problems
abusive relationships are not the same as enemies to lovers ships
y’all need to chill the fuck out over people, relationships, actions and events that don’t actually exist and learn how to enjoy and discuss them like normal people
