madcrona

[madcrona]

For real, people need to give Fate more of a chance.

Yeah, I know, "started off as an erotic visual novel", blah blah blah. "Has way too many characters after the mobile game", sure. But if you do some digging on even one of those characters, you'd be surprised to find not only how accurate many of those depictions are to the source material, but how obscure some of these choices are.

I know everyone sees Astolfo as a meme nowadays, but keep in mind, he was a comic relief character in the text he came from. He was almost never spoken of in popular culture, partially because the Orlando Furioso is more obscure than Arthurian myth, but mainly because Astolfo just wasn't that central to the main plot of the story.

Then he shows up in Fate, and believe it or not, he's actually pretty accurate to his character. He really was an exceptionally pretty guy who was known for diving headfirst into wacky adventures. Now he's more popular than he ever was before.

I guarantee if you do a bit of digging you'll find something to like.

A lot of people write Fate off entirely as that Weird Japanese Franchise (insert Orientalist sneer here) that made King Arthur into a Girl, but as someone who read a book of Arthurian stories at a formative age in a school library and was disappointed by almost every subsequent contemporary adaptation of the mythos I found, from movies to TV to games, I still feel that Fate/Stay Night was one of the only modern works to truly convey the sense of sheer beauty and tragedy I felt while reading those stories back in the day. Artoria with her mix of stoicism and melancholy, of might and helplessness, is one of the best adaptations of King Arthur, full stop, and certainly the best in current times after The Once and Future King. I hear Westerners react with derision and mockery every time they see a work from Asia adapt their mythologies and folklore on account of an unfounded belief that those silly Easterners with their "anime tropes" could never hope to convey the supposed cultural complexity of Western culture, and then when you look closer to see what complexity they're taking about, you find nine million dogshit works that are either a) D&D slop that run on race science arithmetic or b) adaptations of Greek mythology with the whitest people and the most neoliberal politics you'll ever see. I'll take the visual novels, thanks.

[madcrona]

Alright, gonna gripe about this again.

I keep seeing the argument about criticism in fanspaces and as always I want to preface this by saying that I get what people mean. People can be cruel to each other and obviously people shouldn't be subjected to that. Not saying that there aren't antagonistic people out there, that's obviously a problem.

Having said that, sometimes I see this argument pop up whenever the topic of criticism - warranted or unwarranted - comes up.

"Why are people taking this so seriously? It's not like the writer is getting paid to do this, they're doing this of their own volition, so why throw criticism at them for their work? It's just fanfiction!"

It's "just" fanfiction, huh?

You do realize that by saying that you're implying that the work people put into fanfiction doesn't mean anything, right?

Like, I'm not gonna act like a lot of fanfiction is publication-level quality or anything like that. I certainly wouldn't say mine is at that level, that's not what I'm saying here. What I am saying is that I put a lot of work into what I do write, and to take the attitude that fanfiction shouldn't be taken as seriously as published works and therefore should be immune to criticism is telling me that the work I did put into my writing will always inherently be lesser. That it isn't worth thinking about on a deeper level because it's part of a specific group of fiction, and by its very category can be disregarded out of hand.

I'm sure if you put hard work and effort into what you make, you don't want to be told that. And sure, the people saying this kind of thing may not realize that's how it comes off, or that they're contributing to the very same social stigma they bemoan. But the thing is, if you do love something, then you have to be prepared to have discussions about it that aren't just endless praise. You have to be critical of the work to understand what you like and dislike about it, and that includes fan projects, made for profit or not.

And if you're a writer perpetuating this same mindset, then it just comes off like you don't have any faith in what you make. If you did then you'd be able to properly defend it against critique, instead of just shutting any arguments down or pulling the tired "don't like don't read" bit that should've died off in the FF.net days. And this is especially true if you're the type to throw out any negative comments whatsoever and only allow positive ones to remain. That just comes off as conceited. If you really believed in what you worked on then you'd be able to leave negative comments where they are and move forward, but wiping them out and not allowing any to even reach your public display just showcases how insecure you really are.

Again, I get it, there are people with bad intentions out there who just want to hurt other people for no justifiable reason. At the same time, if you just throw the baby out with the bath water then what do you really gain from that? You obviously want some form of validation, that's why you post the work in a public space to begin with. If you didn't want that then why not just put it in a private forum and have it so only you and the select people you want to see it can? Everyone wants that validation that comes with artistic work, but you have to accept that with that chance of validation comes the chance of getting some form of blowback. That's just part of making art. Making art and then confining yourself within an echo chamber just invites stagnation.

(To be clear, yes I'm talking about a specific case with all of this. Talking to them directly is like talking to a brick wall so I'm doing this instead in the hopes someone else might give this some thought.)

[madcrona]

people who say izuku "did nothing to further his dream of being a hero" clearly have no idea what the school system in japan is like. late elementary school is a grind to qualify for a good middle school, which is a grind to qualify for a good high school, which is a grind to qualify for a good university where desirable companies scout pre-grads to hire. children don't have extracurriculars for funnelling them into a dream job, because for the vast majority of college grads, getting hired is all that matters. what job you actually do at the company that hires you is not really up to you. you're trained by the company, for the company, according to the company's needs. that's it. (it's also why job-hopping is extremely rare.)

the people who blame izuku for not doing more don't appreciate that "becoming a hero" is no different from "becoming a vet" or "becoming a carpenter." it's not something you can actively pursue at that young of an age, because of society's rules and the requisite for special schooling and licensing. nobody anywhere is going to take on a 10-14 year old to administer drugs to animals or work with power tools.

it's even stated that citizens are not permitted to use their quirks publicly or brazenly. you need a license to operate your quirk on the regular. that's why heroes exist, and why villians and vigilantes are a problem.

like, c'mon, the answers are right there in the show/manga if you even follow the story, and they're answered fairly early on.

it'd be like if izuku said "i want to be an olympic track athlete" but was born with mangled legs. he can desire it all he wants, but it's simply not going to come true because he can't run.

when allmight agrees to train him with the intention of giving him ofa in the future, izuku takes to that training like a meth addict, to the point where allmight tells him to lay off the gas before he hurts himself. kid still has no quirk, but the idea of even being able to take a shot at hero school--to have working legs--is enough to light a fire under his ass.

and then when he gets in, he's so desperate to catch up to his peers' level of basic mastery that he repeatedly seriously damages his body, to a degree where he's told he could permanently lose mobility of his dominant hand.

teachers and upperclassmen are dumbfounded by izuku's desperation to level up his quirk use.

so where the hell are yall getting this notion that izuku's a lazy do-nothing protagonist waiting for shit to come his way on a platter?

just say you didn't follow the story, and stop bullshitting.

[madcrona]

Well, to try and clarify my stance, I'll just answer the question directly. Unfortunately, it's probably not going to be an answer you'll like, given the arguments you've made.

I'll admit that yes, it is completely impossible for a fanwriter to get things completely accurate to canon. They aren't the original creator so they don't know everything that a character would do or how the setting would adapt to certain things and so on. All we can do is interpret things as best we can based on our own understanding, and even that will be coloured by our own individual biases.

However, I would like to think that there are still general traits for a character that people can agree are there. Consistent elements that are seen when someone consumes a piece of media and through discussion understands are there. How people interpret those elements will differ when those characters are put into new situations that aren't in canon, and when fans try to fill in the blanks on how those characters handle unexpected events around them. Even so, those elements are still consistently there.

So you have what would probably be a universally-agreed upon starting point, and then a wide variety of different paths taken with different authors at the helm.

To be clear, none of what I just said is what I have a problem with.

I think what I find bothersome is "perceived intent" when it comes to fanworks.

If I come across a bit of fanfiction and the author has written a character in a way I don't agree with, I don't automatically feel like I have to jump down their throat about it. If it's just a case where there's enough of the character still there that I can see it, but the creator just made a different interpretation than I would, then I would do what most do and just move on. Or if it's a case where the author is clearly new at this and they might have accidentally done something I find distasteful, I still keep in mind that they're learning the ropes and try to move on.

What I was originally mad over were cases where it feels more like the author not only doesn't understand the characters or the setting, they don't seem to care either. They have their own idea of what to do and no matter how much it flies in the face of everything, they're going to do it. Even if they have to purposefully make other characters dumber or more hateful to prop up the one they've latched onto, or make the setting much darker than it was originally stated to be to hold up this idea that they're committed to. That's what I find insulting because it's not coming from a place of love, no matter how misguided that love may be, but from a place of active hate for what they're doing.

Basically, I was talking about bashfics.

But to reiterate, I don't just head out and do that on a whim. I haven't left a negative comment on a fic in I don't know how long. I was expressing the frustration I feel when looking at stories like that and thinking of the catharsis I would get if I did speak up. I already said in the original post that I know it's not the healthy option; talking to people in private and venting my feelings would be better, I know that. And I know that catharsis likely wouldn't come because the words would be wasted on whoever I threw them at. I just latch onto the idea that maybe somehow I could get through to them if I just worded my argument in the right way, as pointless as that is.

And to go back to the start of my original post, I just don't like this idea of not expressing criticism at all. I get that we want to create a safe space and not chase off just about everyone who comes into a fandom, but I feel like this belief of "we can't criticize anyone ever" is going too far in the other direction. There has to be a middle ground somewhere, even if it's just me speaking in very vague terms like this to get my point across without directly calling anyone out.

I'm just gonna say it.

I have problems with this fandom idea of "anyone can make whatever they want, it doesn't have to adhere to canon, if you don't like don't read, etc. etc."

On paper it's a nice idea, and I get it. We don't want to overly police what fandoms consider "acceptable" because that's a deep rabbit hole to fall down. Everyone has their own tolerances for what's OK and what isn't, and we can't really set any ground rules when everyone looks at things in different ways. What's OK to me may not be for someone else and vice versa.

And I get that the idea is meant to encourage people to explore new ideas while discouraging others from shouting them down. Which is what you want to do when trying to keep a fandom alive and healthy. And yeah, a lot of these odd takes are harmless in the grand scheme of things. It's not like riots are going to break out because of the umpteenth coffee shop AU that maybe has one character conveniently ignore a part of their backstory that the author thought was contradictory to their overall character. A lot of these fics do merit the response of just moving on with your day if you don't agree with it.

But I am willing to bet good money that just about everyone reading this post has come across a couple of fics in the past that are just wrong. I don't mean that in the sense that it has some content that just doesn't sit well with you no matter what the context of it is. I mean in the sense that it seems almost designed from the ground up to go against everything you understand about the canon material. Like they're going out of their way to mischaracterize just about everyone in the story to prop up their bad take that completely misunderstands everything, or deliberately write everyone wrong just to prop up one OC as the greatest and most amazing who can do no wrong and makes everyone fall to their knees in deific worship just at the sight of them.

You might still say that it's better to ignore those and move on, and you're probably right. But that feeling of anger and disgust that wells up inside of you when you see that happens because you care about the fandom you're part of. You care about the characters that are getting mishandled, you care about the setting that's being twisted into something else, you care about the plot that's getting mangled beyond recognition. We can argue about what's a level of healthy care, but regardless, you still care. And that means that anger won't always go away when you try to disregard the fic and move on.

So what can you do?

Well, most people head off to write something new to counteract the bad fic they saw, and that's entirely valid. Probably the healthier option, even. But sometimes that just doesn't work. Because it's not specifically about showing other people how to handle the concept right, it's about showing that one specific writer who's fucking it all up how wrong they are. And making a retaliation fic isn't always guaranteed to be viable because they'll likely ignore it, or maybe you already have a dozen other projects you're working on, or you have other things going on in your life that make it less possible to do something like that.

So no, essentially walking up to that author's home with a list of 90 reasons why their fic is trash and is built on the worst take you've ever seen and nailing it to their door isn't the healthiest option. It's also likely to get ignored or disregarded, and the fic somehow has fans and they'll just end up going after you for whatever reason they can think of.

But isn't there a part of you that feels better after getting it out of your system?

[madcrona]

I'm just gonna say it.

I have problems with this fandom idea of "anyone can make whatever they want, it doesn't have to adhere to canon, if you don't like don't read, etc. etc."

On paper it's a nice idea, and I get it. We don't want to overly police what fandoms consider "acceptable" because that's a deep rabbit hole to fall down. Everyone has their own tolerances for what's OK and what isn't, and we can't really set any ground rules when everyone looks at things in different ways. What's OK to me may not be for someone else and vice versa.

And I get that the idea is meant to encourage people to explore new ideas while discouraging others from shouting them down. Which is what you want to do when trying to keep a fandom alive and healthy. And yeah, a lot of these odd takes are harmless in the grand scheme of things. It's not like riots are going to break out because of the umpteenth coffee shop AU that maybe has one character conveniently ignore a part of their backstory that the author thought was contradictory to their overall character. A lot of these fics do merit the response of just moving on with your day if you don't agree with it.

But I am willing to bet good money that just about everyone reading this post has come across a couple of fics in the past that are just wrong. I don't mean that in the sense that it has some content that just doesn't sit well with you no matter what the context of it is. I mean in the sense that it seems almost designed from the ground up to go against everything you understand about the canon material. Like they're going out of their way to mischaracterize just about everyone in the story to prop up their bad take that completely misunderstands everything, or deliberately write everyone wrong just to prop up one OC as the greatest and most amazing who can do no wrong and makes everyone fall to their knees in deific worship just at the sight of them.

You might still say that it's better to ignore those and move on, and you're probably right. But that feeling of anger and disgust that wells up inside of you when you see that happens because you care about the fandom you're part of. You care about the characters that are getting mishandled, you care about the setting that's being twisted into something else, you care about the plot that's getting mangled beyond recognition. We can argue about what's a level of healthy care, but regardless, you still care. And that means that anger won't always go away when you try to disregard the fic and move on.

So what can you do?

Well, most people head off to write something new to counteract the bad fic they saw, and that's entirely valid. Probably the healthier option, even. But sometimes that just doesn't work. Because it's not specifically about showing other people how to handle the concept right, it's about showing that one specific writer who's fucking it all up how wrong they are. And making a retaliation fic isn't always guaranteed to be viable because they'll likely ignore it, or maybe you already have a dozen other projects you're working on, or you have other things going on in your life that make it less possible to do something like that.

So no, essentially walking up to that author's home with a list of 90 reasons why their fic is trash and is built on the worst take you've ever seen and nailing it to their door isn't the healthiest option. It's also likely to get ignored or disregarded, and the fic somehow has fans and they'll just end up going after you for whatever reason they can think of.

But isn't there a part of you that feels better after getting it out of your system?

[madcrona]

For those who are worried about AI bros copying their fics into chatGPT, this link provides a work skin to get around that. Just follow the instructions on there and you'll have a work skin that prevents people from copying the text in your chapters.

Please note that this is not perfect and that there are ways to get around it. But if you can make things even slightly more difficult or not worth the lazy AI bros' time, then that's enough.

[madcrona]

Writers on a random Tuesday: Sits down, locks in, giggles, writes 10k, does not sleep

Also writers on a random Tuesday: writes one sentence and then stares into the abyss for five fours

[madcrona]

fandoms need to stop mischaracterizing characters into: uwu twinkatron 3000, bootleg zade meadows, a gummy worms for brains MORON, an unredeemable creature of hell, a poor little misunderstood victim (where they are the whole ass abuser) etc.

[madcrona]

If you're using gen AI because "you want to make art but don't know how/can't learn/it's easier/whatever"

You don't want to make art.

You want someone to make art for you, but you don't want to pay or exchange anything of equal value for it, and also you want it right now, in whatever style you fancy that moment, and in whatever quantity you want. You're greedy and entitled and it is just that simple. You don't want to make anything.

[madcrona]

An Analogy

Let's say that you want to have a pizza.

But you don't just want any pizza, no. You want the authentic pizza experience. You want the true pizza that you get from the old country. So you save up your money, maybe you spend a few nights learning Italian, and then you get a flight all the way to Italy.

Then you head to a fancy authentic Italian restaurant. You looked online and you saw that this one got rave reviews, five stars all across the board, everyone tells you this is the best you can get no matter where you go. So you get dressed up all nice, you head inside and take a seat, and then you ask the waiter for a truly authentic Margherita pizza.

Then a minute later that same waiter comes back and slaps a frozen Digorno's pizza on your table. Not even properly cooked. Looks like they just ripped it right out of the packaging.

And they still want you to pay the absurd price you would expect for the real deal.

That's AI art in a nutshell.

[madcrona]

How can I become a writer?

Write.

But I don't know where to start.

Write.

But I'm worried.

WRITE.

What if nobody likes it?

W R I T E

What if it's not very good?

Write. Write. WRITE. WRITE.

W

R

I

T

E

Write

Write. Write. Write. Write. Write. Write.

Write.

Write

Write

Write

Write

Write

Write

Write

Write

W R I T E

Write write write

Write

Write

[madcrona]

Bro absolutely COOKED with this.

[madcrona]

Not “Only my reading of canon is correct” or “Interpretations are subjective and all valid” but a secret third thing, “More than one interpretation can be valid but there’s a reason your English teacher had you cite quotes and examples in your papers, you have to have a strong argument that your interpretation is actually supported by the text or it is just wrong and I’m fine with telling you it’s wrong, actually.”

[madcrona]

Honestly I can tell you finding out art was made by AI really does immediately, legitimately sour it for me, like people will trot this out as a Gotcha for anti-AI people but it's just making it clear they don't consider art to be the conversation that it is lol. It's similar to the way Harry Potter immediately soured for me because engaging with it while knowing the kind of heart Rowling is writing from changes the way the work feels; there isn't any moralizing or whatever that I have to do, it's easy to drop it because it's rotted in my hands.

"Oh but you LIKED this song before, nothing changed!" The conversational partner did. A very large portion of what is interesting to me about art is thinking of why the creator chose that instrumentation, or what made them want to make the thing in the first place. Finding out I've been talking to a wall completely removes an entire third of the force that art is to me, and I can't argue that anything about art or its consumption is Objectively Correct but I can argue it's fucking boring lmao

[madcrona]

"how can m/f ships be good-" first of all through the power of bisexuality anything is possible so write that down. second of all if we start othering ships based on gender and nothing else we're no better than the opposition. third of all you need to watch more addams family

[madcrona]

It amazes me that this is a website filled with jokes about people not being able to meet up to play a single game of DnD and yet there are still people claiming that 1-A ghosted Midoriya for eight years.