#(bc queer writers often write queer stories)

[meruz]

another ask post

i mean i also read it because a friend whos rly into queer SFF fiction circles recced it but she did kinda lead with "the writer used to write hs fanfic...tasmyn..taz...?" to which i replied

of COURSE I read the locked tomb because i heard taz had written a book. of course. ill consume most any media made by a beloved homestuck bnf. thats also why i played undertale. and read like..snotgirl. and idk... watched the new dub of neon genesis evangelion.

if u made homestuck fanwork 10 years ago and havent even made it since chances are I still remember and I love you for it.

sdlkfhsg its funny you sensed that because that drawing did in fact start kinda more........ well, I'd be lying if I said my hands never wrought a drawing toeing over the pg-13 line LOL...

NOT to say i have a secret stash of porn or anything. in general im more interested in the implication of sexuality or mature themes over any explicit depiction. like everything i draw is so softcore itd almost feel silly to make a nsfw acc for anything.

but im not rly jumping to post anything on main either bc i get the sense i have a lot of kids in my social media following. it varies from site to site and fandom to fandom but the themes in my work often circle around childhood, coming of age etc and in general i like stories about kids so the fandoms i draw for have a lot of kids in them. even stuff like IT (stephen king) which is about kids but isn't necessarily for kids.. there were a lot of kids in that fandom lol.

actually thats why ive been censoring swears in comics lately because the tmnt fandom comes across to me as a little young...IDK I've had MULTIPLE people ask me what "sodomize" means because of the joke in this post and I'm like... I Cannot be the one to explain this to you. you have to look it up on your own klfsdhsdg like i wouldn't be doing this if i were doing a comic for mgs or even homestuck wherein the characters textually swear constantly LOL but sometimes u gotta change tacks depending on the faces u see in the crowd yknow.

i HAVE been thinking abt drawing nsfw of sunspot/richard rider/kobak from x-men red just because that comic seemed to be really asking for it. who knows.. if the need rly arises maybe my separate account policy will change.

its rly more a matter of the fact that i havent read/watched much of any other iterations... im sure id like most lol. I like most things related to my interests regardless of quality. i rly like the marvel ultimate alliance games for instance. sometimes seeing my fave guy is enough he doesnt have to be well written LOL. i dont exactly have a wealth of free time tho thats the real impediment.

i did watch the 2007 movie on new years eve and found it quite charming overall. and i have read about 30-40 issues between the mirage and idw comics. still feels like im barely scratching the surface but i liked em. i rly want to read all the sophie campbell stuff bc i think her work is interesting. jason aaron will be a mixed bag i think lmao. i say as the worlds biggest Wolverine and the X-Men (2011) fan.

hmm this is kinda hard bc i feel like i naturally draw very loose and the hard part for me is tightening it up. maybe some suggestions tho...

1) hand excercises. i think its easy to forget this when many artists sit in front of the computer all day but drawing is a physical activity u do with ur actual...bodys...muscles lol. if u feel urself tightening up it might help to strech (any google search for "artist hand excercises" should yield good results) or do a page of loose practice strokes like..big circles. long lines. scribbles. that kinda thing. whatever feels good for ur hand. this is also just good to do as a general warm up before u sit down for any drawing sesh.

2) draw further away from the canvas. as a general rule...when ur painting traditionally you do the big strokes with your whole arm outstreched and a long handled brush. and when you do the details its smaller wrist movements and a shorter handled brush. so it might help to take a step back or push back from ur chair a little.. or hold ur tablet a little further away. and hold your pen further away from the nib.

3) change mediums / brush types. some brushes and mediums are more suited to loose sketching and some more inclined towards detail work. so changing ur tool could help. also! i personally have this problem where sometimes if im using a brush i feel really familiar with the pressure to make a "good" "finished" "perfect" drawing is greater... if i want to force myself to loosen up ill switch to a tool i dont use as often so it feels like the pressure is off. a lot of times for me this is switching from digital to traditional. but sometimes its switching from a small pen to a big marker. or a smooth pen to a textured one. or a nice brush to a shitty dried up marker.

but also every body is different so i dont think these tips will work for everyone. u should listen to what ur body and mind tell u and how drawing feels to you

bro just sign up and set it up i dont think theres much to it... i dont rly think too much abt my itch.io store because its digital goods so u just upload the file and let it do its thing. no distribution work needed on ur part. youll notice i barely even advertise my itch unless i have smth new on there lol.. its easy. but good luck!!!

idk if im the best person to ask this im more a comic fan than i am a comic professional... a comic hobbist.

well. scott mcclouds understanding comics and making comics are good books on the craft. i think i had to buy them for a class in art school once.

other than that idk just keep at it. comics are really laborious i think for a lot of people the hardest part is sitting down and doing it.

i think a lot of people have a very instinctive understanding of how to read comics and what they look like so whatever you think seems like good way to tell the story you have in mind, its probably right. if u get stuck, study comics that have done something similar. most people in comics are relatively self taught and actually it can be problematic bc you can tell when a lot of comic artists are all copying the same like 5 old white guys LMAO. but on the flip side if you make sure to reference and study broadly your comics will almost assuredly feel unique.

sorry im responding to this anyways. this is just a really nice ask. i like when people reference my older work bc i feel like sometimes theyre subtly implying it wasnt very good LMAOOO. but its true! at least compared to the work i make now ^^ and the fact that im still making art is whats keeping me from being embarassed abt how much of my old art just floats around online lmao im never ashamed to be growing and learning. isnt that a nice thought <3

[crimeronan]

hi I saw you posting about the silt verses. it sounds interesting so I googled it but I'd like to hear what You have to say about it!!

(I'd also like to ask if it has any emphasis on bug-related horror bc that's a huge no from me, but if it doesn't I think I'll take a listen)

oh lord i have So Much to say about it. asking me what i have to say about the silt verses is like asking me what i have to say about call down the hawk or the owl house, like. it's a piece of media that is so immaculately conceived and well-executed that i can meta about Literally Every Single Line. if you've followed me for a while you probably know that i have high standards for horror media bc it's my most-consumed comfort genre; the silt verses is my fave piece of horror media Of All Time.

as for bugs, they don't play a huge role in the overarching story, but i do FOR SURE remember some imagery about parasites, insects, and people being transformed into bug-like creatures. so i'd look up episode warnings prior to consuming it, i can't remember off the top of my head which episodes specifically involve that.

the silt verses is, on the surface, a typical horror story about another world where gods are created through belief & fed through sacrifice. different gods have attracted cult followings, some gods are outlawed, some are not. it's stuff you've probably seen before if you're an avid supernatural horror fan.

however the writers then take the time to do absolutely Vicious and Scathing social commentary about pretty much every leftist topic you can think of. cult abuse, late-stage capitalism, corporate "we're all a family" speak, war, fascism, the creation of Unpersons with unhoused and mentally ill populations, prison violence, police violence, copaganda, generational trauma, environmental catastrophe, rural vs city mindsets and the political manipulation behind them..... Every Single Plot Point and piece of imagery serves a social commentary purpose. every single god and political movement is a transparent metaphor or allegory for our own world.

but what really keeps me coming back to it are the character arcs. from a horror writer's perspective, i can see exactly how carefully those arcs were sketched and plotted out. each of the narrators is dynamic and goes through a huge amount of character development -- positive for some, Horrifically Negative for others. characters are frequently caught between a rock and a hard place, forced to choose between two things they've always wanted...... and they also frequently choose Wrong.

and then they have to live with the consequences of those choices.

the protags are all messy and flawed and complicated, the antags are all messy and grounded and Very Real, and the relationships between people grow in organic ways that make me go MMM... before falling apart in equally organic ways. if you've ever enjoyed the same kind of desperate codependent and messy relationships that i most often write, HOO BOY you will have a good time with this podcast.

and if you like stories about people who are Genuinely Trying Their Best In The Face Of Impossible Circumstances, you'll ALSO get a lot of mileage out of this. it's a show where people make a lot of terrible decisions but also, people care So So So So So Fucking Much. really hits that sweet spot between nihilistic "everyone sucks" media and saccharine "everyone is always good at heart, all the time" media.

it also features some of the most stunning voice acting i've ever heard, not just in podcasts but in any media, ever. méabh de brún, b. narr, jimmie yamaguchi, and lucille valentine in particular all fucking KILL IT. like DAMN

and i can wholeheartedly recommend it without adding this, but if it's important to you: like 98% of the characters are queer. lots of trans cast members, lots of gay relationships, ace rep, los jibbities who get to be just as Fucking Terrible and embarrassing and hopeless as the characters in my fave White Man (TM) tv shows. u know how it is. i want queer people who are shitty bitches, always. and the silt verses DELIVERS

it's just. really good. i realize that this doesn't even get into the intricacies of who the characters are and what they want and what happens, bc like i said, i can talk about this show for a novel's length of meta. but these are the broad strokes of what has me in love with the narrative. it's So Good.

[walrus150915]

Why the kingdom in "Nimona" doesn't have a name: a possible explanation from a literature nerd student

Hey! So, I know nobody has probably thought about why the kingdom in which "Nimona" plot takes place in doesn't have a name, but I, as a person who likes to overanalyze stuff, was wondering about it. Like, it's the name of THE REALM. Why is it nameless? Was this information left out on purpose? Were the creators just lazy?

What if I told you that there's meaning behind it, and it's much deeper than you can imagine? Let's unpack that!

FYI, I'm a literature student who likes to nerd out about things I've studied. Also I'm from russia, so the examples I'm gonna talk about are from my curriculum.

(Have to warn you tho - there will be a mention of Mikola Gogol, who was Ukrainian yet lived in russian empire, don't assume he's russian)

Towns without names are a common trope in the satirical genre of literature. Examples: "The Government Inspector", "Dead souls" by Gogol, "The history of one town" by Saltykov-Shedrin and uhhh literally any short story by Chekhov. Instead of placing the story in a one specific town, writers use "Gorod 'N' " (which literally translates to "Town 'N' ") or don't name it at all.

The reason?

Comedy and satire were often used to mock the government, rich privileged people, people's conservative mindset or all of the above.

Example: in the comedy "The Government Inspector" by Mikola Gogol, the main character Khlestakov is confused to be a, well, government inspector. Mayor and other people in the government try to pander to him and show that honest people rule the town. Shenanigans ensue

It wasn't given a specific name because "The Government Inspector" is a commentary on the government in general. Something something people in power always end up corrupted something something capitalism bad something something Mikola was a real baddie for writing this in the times of tsar russia.

Now. What does a story written by an asexual author like 200 years ago has to do with a queer masterpiece that "Nimona" is?

The whole story is about how prejudice is taught, how people fear something they don't immediately understand.

The kingdom doesn't have a name because it doesn't need one; it's a commentary on the system in general.

It's nameless because everyone all across the world can recognize the issues "Nimona" brings up, bc uhhh we live in the world where everything considered abnormal is considered dangerous and how we need to question everything we've been taught, because, in Ambrosius's words, "What if we're wrong? What if we've always been wrong?"

(Also maybe because kingdoms in fairytales don't have names ("Far far away" typa stuff), but what do I know)

It took longer than it should have but ermmmmm yeah!!! I hope you liked this analysis of something not many people think about!!!!!!

Remember: fight the system, break stuff, live your truth and respect "Nimona" for being a queer household classic :D

[sageshadowed]

🧅 im hope finally i can send memes also *boops*

yeah hey. thanks sir. boops you with the force of like a thousand suns

i think the original character i wanted to make this meme for was sigyn norsemythology, like "only gets mentioned in völuspá 35 and lokasenna end notes in the poetic edda" sigyn, but also the version of sigyn i've been writing in a like norse retelling story i've been working on since like high school? though it's changed a lot since then.

the rest of this is 1. i will tell you more about sigyn bc i'm too shy to do so above a readmore 2. rambling abt my taste in stories and tropes and opinions abt story/mythology retellings

ok hey. first of all: sig is loki's wife, exclusively known in the eddas for holding a bowl over loki's face when she[^1] was bound, catching as a serpent dripped venom into it. so like. gestures vaguely. the narrative parallels are remarkable, except macaque didn't stay.

my sigyn is a butch lesbian and loki's transfem and theyre super married ok ! also both of em r chinese [or at least jötunnheim is based on china/ne asia] loki's from the north and sig's from the south. my citation for this is the beginning notes of lokasenna: þórr kom eigi, því at hann var í austrvegi, amirite?[^2] iirc there's scholarship out there about how this is supposed to be an allegory for the sámi people, probly sámi/russia/eastern europe would've been better ethnicities/cultures to pull from, but. yknow. i am the person i am

second: i think a lot about what get lost in mythological retellings and how we rewrite sigyn in norse mythology retellings specifically. this has actually been kinda a hot topic in norse retelling lit recently. everyone wants sigyn to be a bigger character in the myths-- you see more books written from her or loki's perspective or whatever, especially since loki's a more popular character, since everyone loves a trickster god. this is supposed to b feminist, or whatever. (few of them are actually good and i can tell u this bc i've read most of them. special interests are wild)

but like what if you consider that sigyn didn't want to be in the myths, seeing how they talked about loki and going "huh. no thanks! i don't wanna be written about like this, actually." what if the myths aren't true, or misrepresent what events actually happened?? what then becomes ur attitude towards the writer of/subjects of the myths?? what gets recorded in history and what gets forgotten or smoothed over. what do we do when the queers are considered the monsters.

anyway i think a lot about how jttw (novel) exists in universe and often i wonder how macaque is written in it. and if it stays as-is, i think about how he would know, deeply, that he is not a guy who just shows up in two chapters. but he is written that way bc stories and histories are cruel.

also wrt just norse mythology vs. jttw in general, a lot of my blorbos are guys who have been fucked over by gods so wukong and loki have that in common. both of them have been my favs for a long ass time. shoutouts

[^1]: she/her pronouns for loki thx. she's a trans woman unless u wanna argue abt how old norse gender was constructed ! i can also do this infodump on request [^2]: norse mythology has been my special interest since i was ~12 and i learned a bit of old norse for it and i'm so sorry for the person i am about it

[hussyknee]

I'll be honest. I didn't expect Red, White and Royal Blue to be this fucking good. I know it was always the number one rec in the gay romance rec lists but I kinda carried a grudge that Boyfriend Material was relegated to number two. I also thought it would be a typical romcom about "yay rich white cis gays" representing the most devastatingly colonizing nations on the planet. I didn't realise one of them would be the biracial grandson of Mexican immigrants and they'd interrogate that shit. Or that it would be a legitimately beautifully written book with a whole host of complex characters that didn't feel like token minorities.

It's an actual queer story about identity and politics and tapestries of unacknowledged, suppressed loves reaching across time. Blended families and ambition and duty and authenticity. A moderate and rather thrilling dive into US politics, although a little bit more work into the institutional nature of Buckingham Palace would have been nice, instead of simply making the Queen a stock bigot. The royal family exists in a very precarious yet entrenched power balance with Westminster and the Church, and the queen is herself a sovereign entity managed by a rigid power matrix.

However, while the first half of the book was very funny and lively, I was pretty lukewarm about the pairing itself until the second half. I only felt invested in them after the stakes escalated into an emotional precipice and spiralled into angst and pining and yelling in the rain and "don't you tell me I don't love you bc I can't be with you" "then tell me to leave" and nearly being outed and having state-mandated beards and being miserable and desperate. And I only got gooey because Henry writes emails like the kind of anguished, repressed Victorian poet halfway to manic depression and a laudanum habit. But I have to say, the second half of this book really delivers. The actual climax of the book being the 2020 election rather than a dramatic denouement was somehow both unexpected and inevitable. Nothing could ever have come close to the historic experience that was Destiel Putin Total Landscaping 2020 (also it was pretty funny what happened to Nevada in the book vs real life), but the fictional election was still a nail-biter because the book is just realistic enough to not make you complacent about the outcome. It makes the characters earn their stripes, no pun intended.

This book is first to last a political wish fulfillment fantasy, where the characters openly say, "aren't we glad we're not in some darkest timeline where the USAmerican people betrayed each other right after Obama's term was up?" (Apparently the idea for the book came to the author in mid-2016. Ouch.) Its primary conceit: What if Washington doesn't completely ruin or reject everyone who starts out with good intentions? What if a non-traditionalist union in the '80s turned out a couple of Royal kids who ended up decent people who interrogated their privileges? That most fantastical of premises – that at least a handful of people who attain power and privilege could hold onto their values and compassion. It is, achingly, sorrowingly, the ultimate wish of the disenfranchised and disillusioned the last few years: that just enough people had stepped up where it counted and turned the tide of history. And that they might continue to do so, more often than not.

Overall, a very good, solid, compelling read, far, far better than Love, Simon or whatever else the white cis het mainstream inexplicably latches onto. I won't say better than Boyfriend Material. Alexis Hall is still the better writer. But it's such a completely different book, speaking to a different demographic with different expectations, that it's a chalk and cheese comparison. The London Calling series (Boyfriend Material, Husband Material and the upcoming Father Material) is a quintessentially British romantic comedy with a deeply queer beating heart for an older Millennial audience, interrogating the UK's systemic class and colonial issues, delving into the universalism and diversity of the human condition with richness and complexity. Red, White & Royal Blue is an extremely USAmerican Zillennial fantasy, caught somewhere between YA, US political intrigue and queer romance with a dash of British glamour – high quality escapist pop culture. I might be biased towards LC because I'm its target audience; but the exponentially greater popularity of RW&RB is definitely due to the power of the USAmerican cultural hegemony. I was complaining about fandom refusing to engage with actual queer art and literature before; all of Alexis Hall's work merits only a handful of pages on AO3. RW&RB alone has 154 pages on AO3 no I am not bitter that y'all are tasteless and disgraceful and if that doesn't speak to the power of having a USAmerican base then nothing does.

Edit: THERE'S A BONUS CHAPTER????

[possibilistfanfiction]

if ava uses alternating any pronouns, does that extend to neopronouns as well?

also i feel you on writing characters with alternating pronouns, nonbinary myself and use alternating pronouns and it’s so confusing how to Word Properly in writing and make it clear who’s talking to whom and who’s being referred to, etc, and that’s just with characters who use a singular set of pronouns

i don’t think actively ava uses alternating pronouns so much as she just really doesn’t care. i think it’s like… nice to her? i guess? when ppl she knows use a pronoun other than she/her but like it’s not something she ever really seeks out. tbh sometimes people take ‘any pronouns’ & rly run w it trying to be Respectful lmao which is also fine to her but like… not a concern either. so she would never like seek out or ask for a neopronoun but if someone randomly decided to use one i guess it would be fine lol

but yes just to clarify once & for all lmao ava genuinely like… really just genuinely doesn’t care abt gender or words ascribed to it. even non-binary or gender-fluid probably feels kinda funky & limiting — but like, not enough to care to explain to ppl lol. but queerness in general for ava is just about ease & freedom & not having to be in a shitty box, but beyond that she’s never stressed about it, ESPECIALLY not pronouns

so yah i mean for me as a writer an easy way to communicate that to readers is to have ava says ‘any pronouns’ or whatnot but truly is never a concern of hers. even getting people to use they/them pronouns is a fucking task so she definitely doesn’t care abt trying to use a neopronoun bc again she’s just… not really thinking about her own gender often. once she’s like ‘ah, gender is quite literally fake, i am a divine being lol’ & bea is like ‘cool love you’ lol that’s all ava needs for her own sense of self

(also pronouns are so dumb in general i’m sorry lol. it’s just easier to use that as a shorthand — in stories & life — to try to signal some ‘i’m not cis’ vibes but like. pronouns are so fucking stupid lmao. like i will never use the wrong pronouns for someone obviously but like damn whole gender identities are not held within those little words jesus christ lol. not that this ask implied this but i’ve gotten a few abt ava’s pronouns & i just want to say that like……. the neoliberal rhetoric of the pronoun (ESPECIALLY in english) as the ultimate form of advocacy……. drives me up the fucking wall 😮‍💨 lol. anywho ava’s just vibing)

[skibasyndrome]

Hi Simon! If you haven't answered already, 5, 22 - and 33 again bc you deserve it 💜

Hi W! Thank you so much for the asks and also for saying I deserve the compliment! 🥰💜

5. What's a tag you never want to use for your works even when it applies?

Okay I have a bit of a gripe with the pwp (as in porn without plot) tag. I sometimes feel like I'd be expected to use it because well, in case you've looked at my ao3 you might've noticed that I post e-rated oneshots a lot of the time. But, at least to me, the sex scenes are never ever without any plot. And if I'm honest I gotta say I've rarely seen truly plotless sex scenes in other fics as well. I'm sure it exists, but I think that smut-writers could, more often than not, just like... be confident in the fact that a oneshot that's 70% sex can still very much have a plot, even when there's no like... running around or action or anything else beyond just two people who connect physically.

22. What is it about watching the same two idiots falling in love over and over again?

RIGHT?!?!?!?!? I have no explanation for why I (or all of us) love that so much, honestly. I mean... idk. Wilmon and their story just mean sooo much to me, for so many reasons. But I just love getting to write and read all these different versions of one of the most beautiful queer love stories that I've ever seen.

33. Give your writing a compliment.

People have told me that I have a good grip on Wille as a character and I hope they are right 👀💜

Please send me writing asks <3

[rollercoasterwords]

why aren't lesbians more popular in fanfiction?

hello literally no one asked for this but i feel like i’ve seen a lot of discussion about the disparity between mlm and wlw fanfiction, and i simply. have thoughts about it lol. this is mostly focused on marauders fanfic bc that’s really the only fanfic community i’m plugged into, but i feel like it probably applies to others as well -- this is definitely gonna get long so if u don’t feel like reading a lil essay abt it then just scroll past :) 

anyway! i do think the prevalence of gay ships in fanfic is a particularly interesting conundrum given that the vast majority of people who read + write fanfiction are women -- and, particularly in the marauders fandom, i’d guess that the majority of those women are queer. so i guess the question i find interesting can be boiled down to: why do so many gay women gravitate towards stories about gay men?

generally, i tend to see a mixture of three answers in conversations about this question.

1. there’s more canon info about male characters

essentially, i see a lot of people say something along the lines of, “well, it makes sense that there’s more fanfiction written about men, because in the stories these characters are originally from the male characters are main characters/much more developed than female characters.” and i think this answer makes sense, but i don’t necessarily think it’s a sufficient explanation on its own for two reasons:

fanfiction can branch quite drastically away from canon, and there are plenty of popular fics where canon is completely disregarded. even if writers have very little canon information about a character, that doesn’t necessarily mean the character won’t be loved in fandom spaces. which leads to the second reason...

in the marauders fandom specifically, male characters with almost no canon information have become very popular. i feel like i’ve especially seen this more recently with characters like barty crouch jr. and evan rosier, but even some of the bigger marauders characters -- peter, regulus, etc -- have very little information about their actual characters in canon. additionally, there are characters like lily evans, narcissa malfoy, andromeda tonks, etc, who, if we’re going based on the amount of canon information, seem like they should be more popular. 

however, none of this is to say that certain characters should be more or less popular--this is just to point out that i don’t think “there’s more canon information” is a sufficient explanation on its own for why mlm fics are so much more popular than wlw fics. i certainly think it accounts for some of the disparity, but i also think there’s more going on!

2. “fetishization” of gay men

i’ve also seen a lot of people throw out the answer that “it’s because women are fetishizing gay men,” and i...just don’t really think this is the issue that some people say it is. honestly, i think that in most of the cases where i’ve seen people saying this, the term fetishization is being misused. in the marauders fandom, at least, i’d argue that the vast majority of fanfiction is not fetishizing gay men, in that it isn’t reducing gay men to sex objects--in fact, i think that oftentimes the opposite is true. even in heavily explicit fanfiction, the characters are often built out as well-rounded people, and there’s almost always an equal emphasis on the relationship and emotional dynamic between the two characters being shipped together. 

i think when people talk about the fetishization of mlm couples, a lot of times the person they’re arguing about is this imaginary cishet woman who’s like foaming at the mouth to read about gay men fucking each other while simultaneously not really viewing gay men as real, complex people--and sure, maybe there are some women like that. but something that i think this straightforward answer of “fetishization” misses is that there is fanfiction catered specifically to straight women, and it often looks very different from queer fanfic. like, i can almost always tell when i’m reading fanfic whether it was written by a straight woman or not, because heterosexual desire and queer desire manifest in very different ways. and my impression is that the majority of queer fanfic is catered towards other queer people--even if straight women read it, too, i don’t really think they’re the main audience. i haven’t tried to research statistics on this or anything; it’s all just based on my impression of this one specific fandom space, and i’m not trying to claim otherwise. but in the marauders fandom, at least, it seems as though the majority of the readers are queer women; in fact, many writers, like myself, are actually lesbians who literally hold zero attraction to men. so why do we still love reading and writing about gay relationships?

3. *vague hand-waving* misogyny 

once we get past these first two explanations, i typically see people saying something along the lines of, “well, of course mlm fics are more popular than wlw fics, because of misogyny!” and then just...leaving it at that. and it sort of drives me a little insane, because i’m always like, yes, but WHY??? that’s like someone asking why the sky is blue, and answering, “well, because of science.” like--okay, yes, but WHAT science? why?? what’s actually happening??

so, if you’ve made it this far into my little esay, here are some thoughts that have been marinating in my brain about some specific ways in which misogyny effects the popularity of gay vs lesbian fanfiction (and, in some ways, gay vs lesbian media more generally). essentially, there are two big things that it boils down to, in my mind:

the inherent alientation of womanhood

the universality of queer desire

and those two things kinda play off each other, but i’m gonnna take them one by one!

1. womanhood as a process of alienation

so, this is something that i’ve been turning over in my mind over the past few months. generally, i try to avoid broad generalizations about women/womanhood, because i think of gender much more as a socialized series of performances rather than any kind of fixed identity category, however! that being said, i do think that womanhood is, in many ways and for a majority of people, a gradual and unrelenting process of alienation from one’s own body, sexuality, and desires. 

what i mean by that is that in a patriarchal society, becoming a woman means being taught constantly and consistently that you are meant to center men in your life (which is one reason that so many lesbians have such a complicated relationship to gender--because removing men from the equation essentially knocks out one of the pillars propping up “woman” as a gender category). teaching someone to be a woman means teaching them to ignore and suppress their own sexuality, physicality, and desires in favor of men’s. i think many people raised to be women learn to think of their own sexuality as an object of male desire; we are told that we should want to be wanted, but not that we should want. learning to be a woman oftentimes means learning to separate yourself from your own desires--women aren’t supposed to be hungry, or messy, or loud, or ugly, or ambitious, or sexual.

obviously, everyone raised in a misogynistic society internalizes that misogyny; so i think that for most people taught to be women, there’s this shared experience of alienation from your own body. we are systematically and purposely cut off from lesbian desire, from sapphic desire--from any kind of desire or sexuality where men are not a focal point. this makes it understandably difficult to envision rich, complex, sexual and romantic relationships between women, because anyone taught to be a woman has to spend a significant amount of time unlearning internalized misogyny in order to truly embrace queer desire.

so, yes; i think that mlm fics and gay ships are more popular at least in part because of misogyny. but i don’t think it’s this conscious, purposeful thing that queer women should be condemned for--in many ways, i think that gay fanfiction actually provides queer women (especially young queer women) a space to explore queer relationships and queer desire outside of the patriarchy that hangs like a specter over any relationship involving women. for queer women who are still working through internalized misogyny, who still struggle to envision romantic and sexual relationships between women that exist outside the bounds of patriarchal narratives, i think it’s understandable that gay relationships in fanfiction have become this sort of refuge. we are taught to center male desire and sexuality; we experience queer desire that we must learn to stop suppressing; when we look at these two ideas together, i don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that the exploration of gay relationships in fanfiction is oftentimes a way for queer women to explore their own sapphic desire.

2. the universality of queer desire    

this first point leads me directly into my second, which is that gay fanfiction can oftentimes provide a space to explore lesbian desire specifically because queer desire has a unique sort of universality--it is outside the boundaries of cishet norms and narratives, which often leads to different expressions of desire and different relationship dynamics. for example, as a lesbian, i feel that my lesbian relationships generally have much more in common with gay relationships than they do with straight women, simply because the dynamics of typical heterosexual relationships are so far removed from my own experiences with sex, romance, and dating.   

something that strikes me is that, in many instances, these fanfictions about gay men read to me, a lesbian, as lesbian romances--i find myself reading about these characters and thinking that the way they relate to one another, the way they process emotion, etc, feels very much like a lesbian relationship. i think part of that is because many of them are written by queer women, but it’s also because of this overarching universality of queer desire.

anyway, i don’t really have a final point or conclusion that i set out to make with this. i guess i just think it would be nice to move the conversation a little further past “wlw fics are less popular because of misogyny!”, y’know? at the end of the day, i don’t think it’s inherently harmful that mlm fics/ships/media are so popular in queer spaces, and more often than not i think it’s actually an important medium for all kinds of queer people to explore desire + sexuality + gender + relationships through stories written by other queer people. however, i do think it simultaneously calls attention to the ways in which internalized misogyny and compulsory heternormativity can make it very, very difficult for people to envision lesbian desire and lesbian relationships, and i do think it’s important to like...do some soul-searching, y’know? like, just on an individual level, especially if you’re a queer person, and especially if you’re a queer woman--if you struggle to get into wlw fics/media the way you get into mlm fics/media, it doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong, and it doesn’t make you a bad person, but it does mean that you should probably take some time to think about why that might be! what kinds of things did you learn to internalize that might be preventing you from embracing lesbian/sapphic/wlw (whatever u wanna call it) desire? and i say this as someone who had to spend years coming to terms with their own lesbian desire, who knows how difficult it can be to work through the layers of internalized misogyny, internalized homophobia, and compulsory heterosexuality. but at the end of the day, a lot of this fanfiction we’re reading is all tied together by the same elements of queer desire <3 

this is by no means meant to be a comprehensive or even particularly academic analysis of the situation--i’ve just been thinking about these questions a lot lately and wanted to write down some thoughts to help me organize them. if u actually took the time to read all of this and have any thoughts or ideas to share i am clearly dying to discuss + my dms + ask box are always open :)    

[dekusleftsock]

I saw your post about Bakudeku and Horikoshi's use of romantic tropes. I wanted to add a couple of my own thoughts. Bkdk also use the trope of "impress the girl" a bunch. In stories the mc often has a crush and wants to impress the girl, but she's just not interested. As he progresses in the story, the two of them start to interact and flirt more. In a lot of ways, bkdk reminds me of Astrid and Hiccup. Both of them

1: use the Impress the girl trope a lot

2: have a nerdy and emotional mc

3: have a beautiful bad tempered warrior blonde as a love interest.

4: mc knew said love interest even as a kid.

5: Said love interest disliked them and considered them a rival before finally befriending them.

This is also what I often want to say to bkdk haters. We've basically already seen relationships very similar to Bkdk on screen before, they just weren't gay. But in terms of dynamics and canon trope use, both of these couples share multiple romantic tropes. People argue that bkdk is toxic, but Astrid/Hiccup also had a rivalry and bullying going on. People say they are childhood friends and brother-like, but Astrid/Hiccup grew up in fairly close company to one another. I haven't seen many people mention the similarities between the two couples so I figured I might as well.

Definitely! The thing that’s so weird about bkdk is that it’s like this.. idk.. “cringe” queer ship. That bc Katsuki bullied deku it is automatically both toxic/abusive, and also that it is the “cringy, girl who likes gay ships way too much”. In a weird way, it’s trying to say that it IS the queer ship for straight girls, completely ignoring the many other people (99% of the time queer writers) that ship it!

It’s kind of like seeing bkdk as competition for izuocha in a weird way. Because, yeah, bkdk DOES fit a lot of romantic tropes, and the only reason it’s not seen as both a valid and possible ship, all circles around homophobia and the alt right.

Cringe culture was born out of the alt rights nihilism (that’s why the indomitable human spirit trend is so interesting to me personally) and that nihilism stretches to everyone. Queer, leftist, liberal, or even down to who ships what and how much they expect it to happen.

Let’s be honest here, if izu//ocha becomes canon then it’s bad writing. Simple as that. Bkdk has followed romantic tropes, had more development, had more screen time, his LOVE INTEREST has another love interest that better compliments her, (toga and possibly tsu) and it fights what makes a shonen well, shonen. The parody of the stereotypical shonen, but when you look under the cracks nothing really follows the normal tropes. From something as minuscule as an unwise mentor (all might) to the love interest of the story.

I have many, many thoughts on this subject, (my absolute monster of a meta post that’s in the works and thankfully almost done can attest to that) because I truly do think it’s deeper than people not understanding how shipping and fandom works. There’s more to it. Could be due to horikoshi making a character driven shonen over a plot driven one. (Another example of breaking the tropes of a normal shonen) Could be general homophobia in the anime community. We just, don’t know.

Kiri//Baku is also an interesting character in this whole idea of shonen. And that’s because of the fact that Katsuki not only doesn’t have a female love interest and therefore has to have a male one that’s closest to them and not Izuku (ofc without destroying the carefully built system straight love interests, like Mina for kirishima, jirou for kaminari, etc) because Izuku has ochako.

That’s why people always say that the ship is the “most straight queer ship”, even if there’s a lot of queer people who do.

Sorry kinda rambled a bit bdisndidkdji I just have a lot of thoughts on how shipping works culturally in a fandom. Super interesting.

Anyway, how to train your dragon was a great example and I’m glad you brought it up!

Btw I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this but just in case, please don’t harass anyone who ships anything. Block them if they’re attacking you in any way that genuinely hurts you or your mental health. It’s just better if we all stay a little more positive in general. Starting a nonsense argument in a tag? Ignore it. Block it. You’re only giving them your platform which is exactly what they want. The attention you’ll give them and the argument you’ll start. Also if it’s just some guy being a mild dickwad, don’t harass him. Please.

Like I say this every once in a while just so everyone remembers that being positive and creating art out of crappy things people have said (but keeping them anonymous) is infinitely better than giving someone your platform. (This isn’t targeted at the person who asked this btw, you’re all good this is just a general positive message I talk about sometimes hedjidndl)

Be safe, be happy, and let’s uplift each other than being crappy people down. That way, we’ll always go higher :)

[lucky-clover-gazette]

For the ask meme: Vio and 7, bc while I know you like the ship, I'm curious about the characters individually!

7- What do you like most about this character?

warning i went on an entire meta philosophical Thought Journey with this one and you will literally be able to SEE where it went off the rails. and then it just continued going off the rails until the rails disappeared from my field of vision and i have no idea if anything i wrote actually makes sense but here just take it

honestly i think part of why I love vio so much as a character is i did NOT expect to like or care about him, and then he ended up easily my favorite. the only thing i knew when i picked up the manga was that i would probably enjoy shadow as a character, which. of course i did. bc he's a very specific flavor of character i always gravitate towards, but vio was like... girl what? why are you in this story and doing the things you are doing? and by the end of my first reading i was just BLOWN AWAY by him and shadow and their entire subplot so i went to tumblr because i felt like i was hallucinating it and here we are now.

re: what i like most about vio... i go into it a lot in this post. vio is fascinating to me as a character from several perspectives, as a writer, a gay person, and just... having the philosophy and experiences that i do. there is such an inherent tragedy to his character that i don't think is lost on the authors--like i say in the post, shadow and vio both don't quite feel like they BELONG in this story, especially with how it ends.

like, i often write vio in particular struggling with the ways he deviates from the narrative set for him, both in canon and out of it. yes a lot of that is tied to queerness, but it also relates to themes of self-determination sub-textually tied to his arc. vio seriously just does whatever the hell he wants a good amount of the time, to like an eyebrow-raising degree. when he separates from the others and joins shadow he's on the Side of Good from the start, but i think he also realizes very quickly that there's more to himself than he'd expected. that doing what he had planned to do, especially to shadow of all people, was going to be shockingly difficult, and perhaps not even the correct choice at all. which is why vio's canon ending kind of falls flat to me, even though i can't imagine it could have ended any other way. this isn't to say he shouldn't have tried to betray shadow--it's an internal conflict he's going through, and a character usually makes the choice antithetical to what actually fuck i just boiled it down to the essentials i know exactly and fundamentally why i like vio as a character holy shit okay

SO normally a character in a story will start out Wanting something and Needing something else, and their entire arc is realizing, "aw beans, my Want actually sucks, i Need my Need" and then they pursue that instead. hero's journey etc.

think about the general premise of vio, and to an extent the other three: character is given individual consciousness to serve a specific noble purpose, and then cease to exist once said purpose has been served. and with the others, that's basically it, minor emotional and relationship arcs aside. but with vio? the premise GOES somewhere. oh no! character finds themselves drawn to the dark side by a "tempting" "evil" person or force, who CORRUPTS them into THINKING they WANT to defy that destiny! that they should be selfish, and bad, and turn their back on what they actually Need to do. so says the narrative, the character NEEDS to accept that they're not meant for anything but being used and discarded, because that's what good people do, and these are the Sacrifices We Must Make to Be Good. does your hero have any kind of unconventional or deviant leanings? well either that shit's getting straightened the hell out, or they are going to perish to save the Pure Good Guys, because that's all they deserve. that is a very common way to handle's vio's exact sort of character premise, and at first glance at the manga, one could argue that it's no exception. link still reforms, after all. arguably this kind of happens with shadow, but i think i like his ending a lot more outside of the shipping context. it says something more nuanced than above, but this isn't the post for going into that.

i would argue that almost every fiber of this manga pertaining to vio is actually trying to do the opposite of what i described above, even though it never is able to come to fruition.

quite simply, compared to the typical Needs and Wants of a corrupted hero type, vio's are like subverted. he's given a corruption arc, and it looks pretty basic at first, but it quickly becomes so... unconventional? and fun? and, dare i say, queer? i say it lot in reference to his whole turn of character once he joins shadow, but vio commits to the bit way more than is necessary to carry out his plan. shadow's not that perceptive and vio didn't need to be so close with him, so snarky and clearly enjoying himself, so bizarrely extra and innovative with the means by which he psychologically tortures his friends. his internal conflict, especially towards the end of his villain era, is less "i'm miserable because i'm a good guy and i want to save the world but i HAVE to pretend to be evil and like shadow," and more "i'm miserable because i'm actually enjoying a lot of these villainous theatrics and also i have become genuinely endeared to shadow, but i know i HAVE to betray him and rejoin the others because the world needs to be saved." i don't think it's a reach to say that that's what vio's conflict is, in the text. we see it in his expressions, his dialogue, and his reactions to things that happen.

i think this whole subversion was something the authors did with his character, whether accidentally or purposefully, REALIZED they did with his character, and didn't want to give up. but still, the story needed to end with vio rejoining the others and reforming the hero, because like. duh, of course it does, nintendo and source material and all that. but with the way a himekawa built up their obvious faves' (vio and shadow's) stories, it's like well shit, we came up with something we love but we can't really see it through. because within this brilliant subversion of the typical corrupted hero arc, the WANT is vio's sense of obligation to turn on shadow, reform link, etc, and his NEED is to say, "hey fuck this actually, i deserve to be a person and have relationships and do things i enjoy, and that doesn't make me any less of a hero. i'm smart and resourceful and there's definitely a way to both save the world and preserve who i am and get through to shadow."

self-sacrifice isn't inherently heroism. in fiction, it's often a deeply shallow and underwhelming resolution, especially when the character spends so much time growing and becoming who they truly are. i didn't grow up with religion, but i have a slight suspicion it plays a huge part in this entire attitude, and it sucks how much that permeates into media culture. doing good isn't something you can just phone in at the last second; it is a constant and ever-changing way of life, based on a moral system you develop for yourself as you grow. pretending to be someone you're not, acting solely under a prescribed ethical code especially as a grown-ass adult, makes you hollow and spineless, as well as unhappy, resentful, and unfulfilled.

doing good is hard. staying alive is hard. making decisions and forming connections and constantly being challenged are all very hard. but when you choose to embrace life, to accept failure and flaws but still try to be good, make meaningful connections and allow yourself to be genuine and happy and queer? that, to me, is the Goodest of the Good. and it's unique to each of us, while being something we all have the ability to choose for ourselves. and it's never too late for that. until the narrative tells you to jump off a cliff because that's, like, way too nuanced to be sustainable, and sure the story's resolved and it ended happily for the purest of heart, but what a bleak happiness that is. fuck that.

like, compare to vio to adora from she-ra. adora got the ending revelation i wish vio could have gotten. the whole, "i am worth more than my usefulness to others, i deserve love and self-determination" thing, and THAT's what really saved the day. adora saw her future, living happily with catra and the others, not dead or used but just LIVING, and said "hey, maybe the real answer here? the key to being a hero and saving the world? maybe it's loving, and letting myself be loved, and not sacrificing myself because someone said it's what i'm meant to do." and holy shit, she was right. and the narrative rewarded her for it, with a kiss from her catgirl gf and also destroying Big Evil and saving the galaxy or whatever.

fucking IMAGINE if that could have been the thing to save the day in the manga, just for a second. if you isolated just vio and shadow's arc and made them the Main Characters, like how adora and catra are in she ra. if it was truly allowed to be Their Story, if it was able to transcend the source material, if if if. it wouldn't even have to be just vio and shadow's story, honestly -- the four could realize, each for their own individual reasons, that maybe they can't unring the bell of their own existence. that they can protect hyrule better as themselves, that they deserve to continue the development they're been experiencing for the past 300 pages. and maybe vio would be the one to set that line of thought in motion, because has it not been set up exactly so he could?? if you've read my main au, you know exactly what i'm picturing here. and while i like some of the manga's canon ending, there's a reason most people who love these characters engage most often with alternate resolutions.

i think i like vio so much because he surprised me, and that's because he surprised the fucking AUTHORS OF THE MANGA. even more than a decade after publication, they made a point to say in their note that they appreciated the way people "got" what they were trying to say with shadow and vio specifically. i can't speak for them, and i will concede that i am mostly overthinking just for fun and none of this is that serious, but... come on. do you not see what i'm seeing here. they did something so fascinating and tragically unfulfilled here, and that all hinges on vio. and it's also just. so resonant to me as a gay person, in the same way she ra was.

obviously i could say more, and this is embarrassingly unhinged and maybe delusional, i don't know. i just wrote a lot of words about something so silly and arbitrary, but i took the time to write them because i care and can't get that time back now. so i might as well commit to the bit like gayass purple boy and post anyway

[raisinchallah]

the recent discourse re:yuri is so curious to me. my two cents is that some of it can be attributed to the very well researched book on yuri history by erica friedman that came out a couple years back which made the seemingly legit claim that the genre started with women authors. of course the whole picture is more fraught than the viral posts i see on this paint it. and the book itself has a long section on The Bad Parts of yuri. but the quotes i see people use and word of mouth fail to mention that part. i can kind of get the defensiveness bc yuri is so often dismissed as a genre JUST for the tillitation of men in a way that really erases the quite large subculture of lesbian/bi otaku and the women writers themselves. which tbf is often the case with a lot of these subcultures (sooo much "moe" was/is written by women but was imediately dismissed as a dude thing. this kind of radicalized me as a teen.). all of that being said there WAS an interesting shift these last few years on the stories being told and how they are told (maybe because of the critical/comercial success of kabi nagata's memoirs and of series like kase-san and yagakimi? the overall evolving discourse about lgbt people on the public sphere? the uptick in openly queer women writing independent webcomics? none of these? all of these and more? shrugs). i've been reading unhinged gay manga in dynastyscans for like, a decade by now. and it's become increasingly more common for them to feature adult women, people actually saying the word "lesbian", lesbian bars even. it still surprises me constantly. comic yuri hime actually split itself in two (the idea is that the core mag is for women and the other is for men. fostering this idea of yuri by women to women). even the kirara magazine started including a lot of yuribait in its publications. which is a different beast entirely but is amusing enough that it makes me go "okay who is this FOR? yuribros? just to snatch the stray lesbian reader?". sorry for the long message i am just fascinated by all of this.

no worries at all this is actually extremely interesting thank you so much for all these extra details yeah i have been curious about like general demographic surveys or such of major yuri magazines yeah that makes sense from a lot of my research as well erica friedman seems to be the main source of a lot of information about yuri i have also wondered in general if some of the confusion around the genre also seems to come from a lot of western bookstores manga hosting sites and so on seemingly grouping memoir and short like joke comics about lesbians and so on under the yuri label i mean im sure part of that online is cuz dynasty scans has a really wide interest in what they seek out and translate which like i love that this stuff has a wider audience but its odd to call it yuri yeah ive noticed that as well in terms of shifts in whats actually focused on i read one yuri manga that was also about broader yuri fandom i guess like about a lonely lesbian who wrote yuri doujins and so on helping another manga artist find her love for drawing again and talking about like actual stuff about being gay and so on idk very interesting the places things are going like i think thats the other funny thing about the new narrative around yuri is like as you said its often kinda surprising still when characters actually say they are lesbians cuz a lot of works kinda held onto like oh ur my exception oh this will fade etc idk fascinating stuff thank u also for the details about the states of different magazines very interesting also if u wanna discuss this more in dms :3

[padfootastic]

Do you think fandom can be sexist towards female characters?

I see the Jegulus fandom wanting to write Lily completely out of the picture and wolfstar people generally hate Tonks.

oof. i have…a very rambly, very long answer to this bc i don’t think it’s a simple yes/no so i’ll put this under a cut for people to skip if they wanna, yeah?

so, straight off the bat, im not a fan of using pejorative labels for writers in general but particularly for fanfic authors. for one, we don’t know who’s writing behind the screen + what their motivations/inspirations/intentions are. two, everyone writes for a different reason. perhaps someone is venting, or projecting, or using it as a therapeutic release; often it’s lifted straight out of their own life. so i try not to judge the text in front of me based on stuff like that. (this leeway could also be because i used to read a lot of bashing fics where the majority of them are women, i think, and often with the flimsiest, most irrelevant reasons that are straight out of the Sexism Handbook of Traditional Patriarchy too so maybe i just started rationalising it for myself? idk)

second, i think it’s pretty well known that the majority of fandom is some combination of women/queer/neurodivergent/POC etc etc. so applying the lens of ‘critiquing mainstream media produced by cishet men’ doesn’t…really work here, i don’t think. the way we would analyse sexism in say, marvel or disney won’t (shouldn’t?) be the same as how we do it for fandom imo.

that being said, it’s still entirely possible for certain ‘problematic’ tropes/ideas to be prolific, right? this is where the sexism u mentioned comes in. i prefer to use symptomatic language here so saying ‘xyz has sexist/x-phobic elements’ instead of an absolute ‘the work/author is sexist/x-phobic’ because i don’t think the latter is either useful or accurate. when it comes to this, there’s one really important thing i look for here. is the author aware of what they’re writing? (which is a whole other issue tbh, complete w why i feel more comfortable around darkfic authors but let’s not go there rn lol) because a lot of the authors who write out lily or tonks in these ships do so knowingly bc it’s the only way for their plot to exist/evolve. sure, you can have an amicable resolution but will it provide the conflict u need? will it make for good entertainment? will it lead to 3D characters?

stories often need an antagonist and is it unfortunate that women often end up filling the role? sure. absolutely. i’d argue that one of the reasons we have so many mlm ships compared to wlw is because of mainstream media giving us better written men more often than not. and i think it’s totally fine to feel angry/frustrated/upset about that, especially when it carries over into fandom which is supposed to be a fun, inclusive, safe space. i get really frustrated at a lot of wolfstar discourse that entirely ignores the possibility of bisexuality. the vehement insistence that that a certain character can’t be with a woman bc they’re queer, for example, rubs me the wrong way and i think what you’re mentioning is something similar too. but, i always stop myself from assuming malicious intent on the author/fic’s part bc just because they write/believe something in fiction doesn’t make it true, ykno? and i can always step back and go look for something else that’s more to my liking.

and i think every creator would have something like this in their works tbh. i certainly do. i know for a fact that the way i’ve written lily in shovel talk and the patronus fic isn’t exactly favourable to her—even though i’ve tried to be neutral, she has definitely come out looking worse than the others and i admit that that’s on me. i wanted a certain dynamic & characterisation for james & sirius and this was the way to achieve it. people are allowed to dislike that. but they must also acknowledge that i’m allowed to write her that way.

i think, more often than not, we end up looking at this in simplistic binaries. ‘i like this -> good -> allowed to exist’ or ‘i don’t like this -> bad -> shouldn’t exist.’ i’m…not a fan of that. my opinion is we should advocate for more mindfulness within our writing but allowing writers to craft their stories the way they want (bc ultimately fic is supposed to simple and fun and not something you agonise over). and this is all interlinked, right? because the moment we say ‘ok. this might be portraying women in an icky manner, i don’t like it but the author can do that bc it’s a piece of fiction’ then u open the gates for more responsible reading & writing. authors would feel comfortable tagging their works with this, they can discuss it openly w/o being worried about reproach or ‘being cancelled’ and readers can make a more informed decision. but if you go in guns blazing with ‘ugh this fandom is so sexist, look at how it’s treating its women’ then you’ve pretty much killed all possibility for dialogue and improvement and that’s not helping anyone.

this kind of also ties in with my previous point about having differing standards for mainstream vs niche mediums of art. fanfiction authors are often, ironically enough, held to higher standards than published/paid creators which is interesting bc u can argue that their work doesn’t even have the kind of social impact that mainstream media does.

anyway. i’ve gone off on enough tangents here lol but i think i’ll end it with this: yes, women definitely come off worse in certain spaces, especially when they have to compete with mlm ships but i think that’s a conscious decision that authors take within the bounds of the material they have. as long as they are conscious of the fact/acknowledge it, i think likening it to sexism isn’t fair because u can’t have a story without plot devices, uncomfortable as they might be. if you see a pattern in someone’s stories of women being constantly shunted aside negatively, then i think u can take note of it and avoid it. maybe have a conversation with the author if they’re willing to talk about their creative choices. i feel like that’s the most u can do when it comes to online writing where u have no idea who’s on the other side of the screen.

[rahleeyah]

So this is kind of random, but a while back you had reblogged a post about fanfic authors' knowledge bleeding through into the work and mentioned that you were curious about if you did that. I've been contemplating that a little so I thought you might be interested in a response.

First, I'll say I don't think you do that in the way the OP was describing. I think you do an excellent job of meeting you audience where they're at and then building what knowledge you want us to have for the story to work. I feel like that comes down to exposition and you are great at exposition.

That being said, my undergrad major was in English and I feel like I've never been able to turn off the part of my brain that it always analyzing who the author is and what they're saying between the lines. Every author that's ever lived has put their own context into writing so like it's not a bad thing. But I thought I'd tell you the things that I've guessed about who you are based on your stories.

1) I think you have good parents and a nice family. Idk if this is actually true or not, obviously people can write about good families without having one, but there's something about the language you use and the assumption that the natural order is for parents to be selfless and set boundaries and for families to care about each other. I think the parenting in hof definitely made me think that, but also trying to think back I think I thought about it in the two stories with Elliot's sister and maybe hov or monsters or even haunted (I love haunted!!). I don't think this is a bad thing at all, I think just coming from a place of having a fairly dysfunctional family myself I had thought "I think this girl has a nice family."

2) I think you are not Catholic. Again this is something that I think is different about us and so it stood out to me. I think Catholics tend to just be a bit more practical about their religion and it feels a little mystical when you talk about Elliot's Catholicism. To be clear, I love the way you write this. I love any time you engage with Elliot's religion. I just think more Catholics aren't really engaging with their religion all that much. Like it's more about just doing what you're told? Idk I guess I'd say it reads as either an outsider, or super devout and given the rest of the context I do not think you are a super devout Catholic. Elliot is though so that really could just be down to good writing and I'm making things up.

3) I guessed you were gay. The way you write you queer characters is so perfect to me. Like I think people get bogged down in trying to make queer characters seem normal and organic without realizing that queer characters ARE normal and organic. Like can straight writers write good gay character? Absolutely. But do they usually? Eh. I'm trying to think if this assumption pre-dates Jimmy from hof. Was Elliot's new partner from hov gay? I can't remember when I started thinking that, but it's been around a while.

4) I thought you might be British. This one is funny. Idk if it was just because a lot of people on ao3 are or if there's something else. I think you just have a good vocabulary and I'm crazy sometimes.

Anyway, now that I've written this I'm not sure if I should send it. I love your writing so much and I'd die if you thought I was being critical, I just was thinking this was a fun/funny way to engage with the material. Okay I'm going to send it, but please know none of this was intended to be negative at all. You writing is such a gift to me. And also my experience with literary analysis is that the people doing the analyzing are often the most biased, short-sighted people of them all and we tend to completely miss the point more often than not.

🧍‍♀️

I -

Wow you read me lmao

Please don't be sorry this is DELIGHTFUL and also incredibly on point like

I do have good parents and a nice family. And that's precious to me, I've always felt incredibly lucky bc of them, and so when I write about family - esp about Elliot and Olivia making a family - a lot of the time it is bc I want to give something good to the characters, I want to make family good for them, even if their family of origin hurt. And yeah a lot of my relationships with my own siblings informed the fics about Elliot's sister. My mother was the best person I have ever known, and a lot of the time when I'm writing about family I'm really just writing about her, and how much I admired her generosity and her heart and the work she put in to make family something worth having.

And I am not Catholic I'm not anything but I was raised evangelical and I'm a melodramatic bitch with a background in classics so I always go big on the mysticism 🤣

And I am really happy my gayness bleeds thru 🤣🤣🤣I honestly can't remember now but yeah I do think Elliot's partner in hov (Sam) was gay.

And I am not British but I spent a good idk like. Five years writing fic for British and Australian shows and the Australian show I wrote the most for was set in the 60s, so the pacing and tone and turns of phrase were different. I had myself trained to use "mobile" instead of "cell phone" and as many of the other little Britishisms as I could remember and it still crops up from time to time. I also always use the British spelling for grey rather than the American gray bc I just think grey looks nicer. So that was particularly intuitive even if the conclusion wasn't correct the evidence was there 🤣

Well done you I'm impressed lmao

[jeanmoreaux]

Hi, I'm absolutely loving all of the literature talk (your taste is exquisite<3) and wanted to ask you what you love about Frankenstein (if you would care to elaborate). I just finished it today and enjoyed it, but didn't love it and I would love to hear your view of the book

hi! i am glad you enjoy the occasional literature talk—it's what i live and breathe for :') i think my love for frankenstein really comes down to how closely i worked with the text over the years. i think i read it for 3 different classes throughout my academic life, so i had the chance to really read the text thoroughly and engage with it from different angles. what i love about it most is probably how much is just *there* in the text; it's about parenthood, it's about nature vs. nurture, it's about hubris, it's about humanity and what it means to be human, it's about the romantic sentiment, it's about the consequences of your actions, it's about the scientific progress and how to (not) approach it and the responsibility that comes with that, it's about the consequences of being ostracised to the human psyche, it's about the cycle of violence, it's about transgenerational trauma, it's about what it feels like to live up to other people's idea of you, it's about being forced into a life you haven't chosen for yourself, it's about taking responsibility, it's about language, it's about writing and the creation of art...... and that's not all of it! i mean, you can adopt basically any of the lenses of the literary analysis toolkit and have the text make sense from that perspective (from historical criticism to marxist, feminist or queer theory -> the feminist and queer theory ones make for such interesting readings of the text. i mean i am sure you've heard about how the creature can be read as an manifestation of victor's homoerotic desires (and subsequently a externalisation of his internalised homophobia). the queer subtext in victor's dynamics with henry and elizabeth is definitely there. and ofc when looking at it from a feminist perspective how there's a clear absence of women with agency in the story and as a consequence the absence of female qualities and how all that contributes to the characters' eventual downfalls. yet the story is framed, presented AND centred by (indirect) women's narratives that seem to be almost overshadowed or suppressed—women's writing is essential to the existence of the story BUT there is only the indirect allusion to women narrators, we never actually read from a female writer (think captain robert walton's letters to his sister margaret walton saville in the most outer layer of the story and safie's letters at its core -> also consider the historical implications of how the writing of narrative letters was often practiced by women etc.).) do you see what i mean??? that's just a couple of examples and far from an exhaustive list of readings!!!

((there is a text post that provoked this ask that brushes on some other aspects of the novel.))

this novel really gives you so much to think about and talk about when you take the time to really engage with the text and sit with it. that also makes it great for rereads bc every time you go in with another focus you'll get something else out of it. and i love when a novel is able to work on so many levels.

and ofc it's also such a monumental text. that fact alone manages to sparks awe in me???? i mean, mary shelley really wrote the first sci-fi novel at 17 and lay the foundation for one of the biggest genres we know today. that's just mind-blowing to me as well.

that's the gist of it, really. but yeah, i have a lot of love for this novel in my heart. it's definitely my favourite classic.

[sassygwaine]

😈🛒🤗 for the fic ask thing!

😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

…in a way.

there have been many occasions where i come to a choice and the deciding factor is ‘which is more devastating’ which becomes: ‘which will make more people yell at me?’

but it’s rarely on purpose

rarely.

not never. 👀

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

the biggest ones on my mind atm:

family of choice, particularly a favorite of mine: friend’s parents pseudo-adopt character bc character’s parent(s) suck ass. of course, this includes found family (queer), begrudging found family, blood-related family forging new relationships from estrangement, etc.

mental health, particularly in terms of healing/coping with an emphasis that shit is never ‘fixed’ because life doesn’t work that way and i want to be hopeful about that instead of it being a death sentence. (i have spent a long time seeing my suffering at something i could never escape. it is much more freeing to understand suffering (whatever that might mean to an individual) as an aspect of life and not the purpose of it (‘what did i do to deserve this’ has a lot less power when you know the suffering to be purposeless: nothing, you could do nothing to deserve pain))

🤗 What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?

write what you want to see; if what you’re writing excites you, it will excite others

just bc somebody else wrote something similar doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write your own. if given the same exact prompt, five people would write five wildly different stories.

return to the source material: if you get stuck, if something feels funky, take a break and go back to the source for a thread to pull or a different perspective. this is especially helpful if you operate solo and don’t have people to talk things through or don’t want to talk to somebody about what you’re writing.

you’re going to write things that could be better. things could always be better. there is such a thing as leaving well enough alone!

sometimes you’ll have an idea that you don’t know how to write: write it anyway. dump random scenes on a page, write a timeline, a plot outline, a description for one of the characters, any little thing that comes to mind, just write it down. there is a myth that writing has to be: get idea, plot idea, write idea, it’s a story! do not hold yourself to that because nobody does!! you’ll often find that things pull together as you get them out of your head and on to paper (proverbial).

and i think one that i’m working on: talk about your shit. whether it’s in author’s notes or your blog or whatever, talk about shit, invite the readers in. we’re all just freaky people telling stories about our barbie dolls, it’s fucking fun and it should be!!! an element of this also that sounds a little clinical: market your stuff. post new chapters individually, tag your stuff, reblog yourself! sometimes it feels like shouting into the ether, but the ether loves you! it loves when you talk to it, so do it for them if nobody else.

[breitzbachbea]

How I Outline: An Example

I am sure I have talked about it before, but when I write my longer stories, I am a plantser. Not quite a planner, not quite a pantser. I need a finished outline before I start to write, otherwise I will get stuck at some point in the story, unsure on what to write next.

The nature of these outlines however ... It's usually no more than a sentence of vague description for each scene. Often it is a dialogue snippet with no indicator of who says it, because only I need to know. Only I need to know the tiniest bit of information (Who is involved in the scene? Whose POV could it be? Where does it happen/what is one thing that does happen, either character or plotwise?).

As an example, and also because I will delete it as I work on the rewrite's outline, I wanted to post the outline I wrote today for my fic Irish Problems. It differs a bit from the outlines I do before I start a project - since I wrote this one based on an existing work, it is much more detailed and notes little details to keep in mind for restructuring. It is still a good insight in how I work and maybe it is interesting for other writers.

Most of all, I hope it will amuse some of you!

Plan for Irish Problems

In Medias Res

1.Nice camera pan and unecessary O’Connel backstory (or maybe …) and everyone else is a caricature of himself. Harry is ranting to infodump to the audience, Paddy is a doormat and Charlie is a flirty airhead with a flair for drama who APPARENTLY WENT OFF AND DECIDED THE BUSINESS FATE ON HIS OWN BC HE RESEARCHED HOW TO GET IN CONTACT WITH VENTO??? HELLO???

2. Illogical and useless meeting at the harbour, using tropes of a genre I don’t even read.

3. The Irish gang shows up somewhere in presumably Palermo to meet Michele and the twins in a dilapidated building. Harry is OOC by not simply smacking a bitch. Business talk that makes no sense and sounds suspiciously like a Parship match is exchanged.

4. Harry and Michele are left alone and Michele is being a fucking creep.

5. Harry has informed the other two about scene 4, the creepiness is sadly played for laugh, Paddy is being a terrible uncle :c There is an insensitive historical reference dropped. I think the English are mentioned for the first time.

6. Michele and the twins are in his office and the twins voice their concern about Michele’s obsession with Harry. Michele continues to be a creep and will hear none about it.

7. Harry wakes up in his Hotel room and describes the view from it in a way that sounds much more akin to Syracuse than Palermo. Soph calls Harry and is thusly very poorly introduced into the main series. Michele has set another meeting at ten, as Charlie informs Harry at the end.

8. The English are introduced and again, everyone is a caricature of themselves. Historical allusions are dropped that no one cares for (rightfully). Robert is sitting on the desk like a Queer [insert homophobic Dachshund] Foreshadow*gunshots*

9. Harry and Michele are on a city stroll date, in a city that again sounds much more like Syracuse than Palermo. Michele is again so much more openly gay than he should be. Some digs at the catholic church are exchanged. Robert is being such a tasteless strawman homophobe. The punch is well-written, everything about how they managed to accidentally come across these two in a random alley and kidnap them in broad daylight is not.

10. Clumsy ass Charco foreshadowing. Stupid ass throwback for Charlie to the first scene that never comes back. They are informed that their bosses have been kidnapped btw.

11. Harry and Michele wake up, Michele continues to be a creep, everyone INCLUDING Tahir wants him to stop. Arthur is being a terribly bargain bin bond villain. Waste of a use of Tahir.

12. First Soph solo scene way too late in the story. Mainly just an infodump why she is sad. Should perhaps still save the flashback between her and Paddy to somewhere, because it still makes me CRY.

13. They are literally just sitting on their asses when they ARE INFORMED THEIR BOSSES, THEIR BEST FRIENDS, THEIR FAMILY!!! HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED BY ONE OF THE BIGGEST PLAYERS ON THE INTERNATIONAL SCENE AND SOMEONE WHO IS THE MORTAL ENEMY OF AT LEAST 50% OF THE PEOPLE HERE!!!! More incredibly SHITTY Charco foreshadowing. Paddy, rn is not the time to indulge your boy, it is never. However, 10/10 for Paddy having to squeeze himself into the Mito and everyone’s reaction.

14. Harry and Michele wake up in the box, bicker and it ends with them starting to try to strip off the zip ties.

15. Robert is being sadistic maniac and again a strawman homophobe while playing with knifes. Honestly, it is just that one scene from Asterix conquers Rome where Caesar tells Brutus to stop playing with his knife. Except Tahir, who is still way ooc as smug sexy knife cat, GAVE him the knives and then left him to it. Also, the entire warehouse thing as temporary HQ without it being an explicit trap is stupid.

16. Charlie and Paddy experiencing Italian traffic <3 No notes. Nothing will rival Neapolitan traffic and Palermo is actually hugely pedestrian friendly, but MAN, rush hour in a bus in the evening sure is SOMETHING.

17. Soph is visited by Niamh, which is nice, but also, the O’Briens deserve a better and earlier introduction in the story, to really firmly ground Soph in the reality of her situation. Also, Niamh, please, Harry is a horrible unattainable-grown-up teenage crush.

18. More Michele and Harry bickering, why THE FUCK is Harry telling Michele about Soph and they both end up out of the zip ties by the end.

19. The twins and the Irish contemplate on how to sneak into the temporary English HQ and Paddy should put his boy on a LEASH, how have Lorenzo and Marco not shot him yet for his terrible flirting.

20. Robert is on the Receiving End of a lotta bad news and it ends with the cheesy, dramatic standdown between Charlie and him, which would be a lot better if Robert wasn’t such a goddamn STRAWMAN.

21. Ian is introduced, the cutiepie, and Soph has a turbulent phonecall.

22. The twins and the Irish hit it to free their bosses, but not after Charlie got spooked by Robert and had half a mental breakdown, which had to be postponed. Soph calls Charlie, who quickly has to tell her he’ll call her later. They arrive at the warehouse at the end.

23. Michele and Harry escape the box, finally. Michele kisses Harry and DOESN’T get slapped. All their right hands are far too nonchalant about it all. This is the last time the laptop Paddy stole in the previous scene will ever be mentioned again.

24. Railey hate-shipbait on MAIN, Tahir and Arthur being condescending assholes, Caito being the archetype of a sleazy mafioso

25. The Irish car scene is just dated pop-culture references you couldn’t torture out of me anymore, Paddy being WAY to chill about Harry and Michele’s thing and Harry tries to call Soph with Charlie’s phone. The memory indulging at the end on Paddy’s part is cute though.

26. The Sicilian car scene is rinse and repeat. A fucking nonsensical Godfather reference. All three of them find out about the betrayal via Silvio calling. Michele has a stupid dream with nonsense symbolism re: harry at the end.

27. Soph wakes up in Niamhs room and discovers she has a missed call by Charlie near the end.

28. Harry woke up, ponders his feelings for Michele, borrows Charlie’s phone to call Soph and gets visited by Michele to be invited for dinner, talking national pride inbetween. Harry says he will get back to him in an hour and bolts out of his room after Michele left and isn’t in the hallway either to talk to the other two.

29. The English are at the hospital, everyone acts as always and Arthur has a batshit solo plan to which the other two should OBJECT if they loved him at all.

30. Michele sits in his office, doing Generic Paperwork, while the twins hang with fuckall to do and they once again argue about his attraction to Harry, when Harry calls and says “Yes” to dinner.

31. The Irish talk about whether or not Harry should go to dinner. Paddy is way too much “I don’t like dudes” “You like dinner” about it all. Charlie is way too focused on the “I do like dudes” part. Ends with Harry getting ready for dinner and him bickering with Charlie ft. some fashion advice.

32. Soph is on her way back home on the train, thinks about her dad and a weird beach day anecdote, then worries about the boys.

33. Lorenzo and Michele prepare dinner, who has a very Sicilian but also tbh pretty unspectacular menu, and have some adorable and very telling interactions while Marco prepares for playing security -cocks gun-

34. Harry is on his way to his dinner date, thinks gay gay thoughts about Michele, who talks cryptically about how haunted his house by the past is (AN: Sexy), they again talk business too vague to make sense and too concrete to be handwaved over the primo and secondo piatto. When it gets personal before they get to the dolci, the scene ends with an eating metaphor for intercourse (AN: SEXY!!!!!)

35. Arthur is putting his stupid bond villain plan into action, bitches about the weather and remembers his childhood and his grandfather, related to a gun, all sadly too misplaced to really matter. You’re on a mission to kill the main characters, stop thinking about the now Problematic Children Books. Also way too vague mention and way too late into the story of Michele’s and François’ alliance.

36. Paddy and Charlie play cards, Charlie contemplates his daddy issues and Paddy reminds him that he has to learn that shit just Is Rough Now. Bringing up the civil war is highly problematic, but could be done well if I think about it now. Ends with Charlie and Paddy getting pizza and Eddie, who is shadowing them with Eliza, regretting once again his career choices.

37. Michele and Harry have dessert and go for a walk after Michele has the twins assure Harry nothing will happen. They talk about their feelings on a way to a cliff, which, where the fuck in Palermo ARE THEY?? Not in Palermo is the answer. They are gay, talk about relationships in a way two grown men with experience would never, and then they kiss on the cliff. AND THEN SHIT HAPPENS!!! (Arthur coming out from behind a bush). Now they all bicker and the scene ends with another cliffhanger after Michele asked Arthur for a final kiss. (To kiss Harry, not Arthur). Also, brief mention of Michele’s father and his fuck-ups and the Vargas brothers as being interested in Sicily. Also, Gavin is mentioned again, for the first time since the second chapter.

38. The twins are chilling on another cliff, doing fuckall, bitching about Harry and getting intel by Alessia about the other two Irish. Then panic when they notice Arthur and it ends with a cliffhanger of Marco’s finger on the trigger of his rifle.

39. SURPRISE!!! Arthur got shot in the foot, Harry and Michele are smooching on the ground, they bicker at Arthur once they got up and the twins get Arthur to a hospital. Michele and Harry get back to the house, way too familiar and end up spooning on the couch. Does it get anymore Fanfiction. This borders on My Immortal Randomness.

40. Soph arrives back home, decides to clean the pictures on the fireplace for a lot of exposition dump on the Irish and the Scots. Ends with something inconsequential that won’t come up except for a throwaway reference last time, but has a lot of mom guilt in it. Alby is mentioned for the first time but only super vaguely.

41. Arthur is in the hospital, reading Sherlock Holmes and remembers the bickering between him and the other two in the hours previously.

Epilogue

Some more structural info at the end: Each numerated point refers to one scene, three of which form one chapter. (I write long chapters). IP is a bit of an outlier, since the first chapter is only two scenes long. In Medias Res is a bit taken from another chapter, which is put at the beginning of the story as a hook. I actually write this one first, picking one scene from the outline for it and later have to integrate it into the scene, come hell or high water! For the rewrite I will write the story first though and then pick my In Medias Res. The Epilogue, is, well, an epilogue. I don't write an outline for it since I often have my Epilogues very clear in my head anyways.

I then use the outline also to compile snippets and ideas in another document which form the basis for my vomit drafts! So this is truly the barest bone skeleton, upon which I then build with each steps muscles and sinew, put skin on it, dress it up nicely etc.