Don't want to put this on the post itself for risk of derailing it, but that post the other day about Terry Pratchett's early work really stuck in my mind. OP had sent in an ask saying that they heard some of Pratchett's earlier works had problematic elements (not unusual for a male english writer in the 80s) and they weren't sure whether to go ahead with reading the work anyway.
What I really want to ask that person, or indeed all persons who are hesitating over whether or not to read problematic works or works by imperfect authors:
What are you worried about happening, if you read a work with problematic elements?
I'm worried that if I read this art, I will run across hateful images or words that will shock or upset me
I'm worried that I will spend money on a work of art that then financially supports a bad person, and that thought makes me uncomfortable or upset
I'm worried that I will read works of art written by a bad person, and comment or react on them, and other people will see what I am reading and will think less of me because of it, or will assume that I hold the same bad beliefs as the author
I'm worried that I will read works of art written by a bad person, and I will enjoy them, and the author will find out about my enjoyment and feel emboldened to do bad things because of it
I'm worried that I will read works of art written by a bad person, and their badness will contaminate my way of thinking and make me a worse person in turn
Because these are all different answers and some of them are more actionable than others
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Fictober23 Prompt: 28 - "I may not get another chance to say this."
Fandom: DPxDC
Rating: T
Warnings: -
A/N: Plays into the Forgotten Twin AU setting. Basically for this: Danny was sent to the Fentons as a mission when he was seven and Damian forgot about it until someone found an old mission report from Danny. Their first meeting didn't go well… But Damian has his reasons wanting Danny to come to Gotham with him that are not all completely selfish. I tried to make this little scene sort of funny with a bit of angst in it.
"So…" Danny floated next to a giant Cujo while 'sitting' cross legged in the air doing his best to suppress the growing grin on his face. "Are you convinced yet?"
He heard an inaudible grumble and laughed doing a little air flip before 'laying' in the air and resting his head in his hands. "I didn't catch that Dami, can you repeat that?"
"Get him off me!"
"Who? Cujo?" The dog licked Danny across his entire head before laying down on and making himself comfortable on his twin brother who grunted and Danny chuckled. "Didn't you say handling a ghost animal won't be any different than handling an actual animals?"
His twin grunted once more but did not say anything else. Danny grinned as he looked away from Damian and Cujo towards the rest his twin hand brought with him to Amity, he hadn't bothered learning their names when Damian had introduced them the first, second, third and fourth time. All in an attempt to convince him, he was surprised that his biological father didn't appear before him as often as Damian did after he told them no.
Red helmet guy, Danny believed his civilian name was something with J, was currently getting chased around the Main Street by Johnny on his motorcycle and Shadow trying to trip the poor guy up. He had heard the guy curse and complain very loudly that he was not happy about his bullets not working.
Another guy in blue who's hero name was something with Wing but his nickname was Dick, a fun fact that funnily enough made his name the easiest to remember, was currently doing a bunch of flips dodging Skulker. He wasn't entirely sure but with the way Skulker was glaring he was pretty sure that the other ghost was now hunting the guy out of annoyance for real instead of just as a favor to Danny.
The third guy Damian had brought with him to Amity, who's hero name was also that of a dinner, was locked in a weird tech battle with Technus. Danny was pretty sure he had heard that guy yell something about upgrading Wayne Tech to the point that Technus would never be able to take control of it. Good luck with that, Danny thought, so far his parents' and with his own ectoplasm infused tech were the only ones that could resist that ghost's control.
"Danyal, this is ridiculous!" Looking toward Cujo again, Danny found that Damian had managed to dig his way out from under him.
"Well you're the one that bet that you could handle some 'silly' ghosts, to convince me to go to Gotham with you. That there wouldn't be a problem if I left Amity Park behind." Danny moved to float before his brother spread his arms out. "Do you see now that I can't just leave? That I have a responsibility here? That I have a perfectly good life here? You didn't care for years that I lived here and now suddenly out of the blue you keep pestering me to come with you to Gotham."
Danny heard something muffled but he hadn't been able to make out what exactly his twin had said. Instead of asking he slowly floated down until his feet touched the ground and then proceeded to sit with his knees drawn in so that his head could rest on them on the ground. His head was slightly tilted as he watched his twin blankly, the same way grandfather had him do when he had been way younger.
Danny knew this was a habit left over from the League, something Jazz wouldn't have been able to help him get rid off without Damian around.
Damian was obviously struggling, trying to push that giant ghost dog off him so he could have a proper talk with his twin, muttering how a 'ghost' dog could be this heavy or solid. Yet even if Damian was late, there were things he needed to explain. Things he needed Danny to know, things he had only learned after he had started living with father, after he had left the League for good. Even if he didn't deserve his twin's forgiveness, he finally could be the brother his twin deserved. Besides he had made a promise to his twin's sister on his second visit, when Jasmine had been the one to sit him down and talk when Danyal refused. She tried to figure out why Damian had appeared so obsessed about taking Danny with him to Gotham and in the end she had made him promise something for Danyals health.
"I may not get another chance to say this. With you pinned under Cujo and your siblings distracted by my rogues this might be my only chance for now. I was convinced I hated you yet was loyal to a default until Jazz thought me I actually didn't hate you but cared in a messed up way." Danny started watching how his twin stilled. "It took Jazz exactly one year to mostly undo the mindset the league trained into me, she shouldn't have to but she wanted to for her new little brother and took all the steps needed to ensure my mental well being when she was nine and I seven. After that year I was sorta lost. A limbo between wanting a normal life and the duty that had been trained into me towards you. I didn't know what to do and then Tucker picked up the slack, showing me what 'normal' was. Well after I sort of went feral on Dash during my first day in grade school."
Damian looked up at his twin who wasn't even looking at him but sported a far away look. Seeing but unseeing at the same time as he remembered a childhood he knew nothing about. "I kept sending reports, not out of duty but hoping to protect the live Jazz had offered me. When they stopped responding, I also stopped reporting and grew wary."
Laughing humorlessly Danny returned his gaze back on Damian. "At first I believed grandfather gave up on me. That he would send you to kill me. After all, I was just a disposable spare. But no one ever came."
"Me appearing after years must have been shocking." Damian admitted, by now he had given up trying to get that giant dog to move off him, less he embarrassed himself like his elder brothers were currently doing. "That was why you attacked without waiting to hear me out once we were in a secluded area during our first meeting."
"Can't blame me. I thought you were still with the League and brainwashed into the perfect hire grandfather wanted." Damian huffed at that causing Danny to chuckle lightheartedly.
"Valid reasoning." His twin agreed. The half ghost signaled to Cujo, the dog only tilting his head before licking his tongue over the entirety of Danny's head once more, not moving an inch off of Damian. "I would most likely have done the same if the roles had been reversed."
"I got a family here now, Damian and you got yours with our bio-Dad and all the siblings you have been trying to introduce to me." Danny voiced after a moment of silence between them. In that moment Cujo finally changed size and moved to cuddle up to his twin, giving Damian a chance to sit up on his own.
"Danyal."
"No Damian. I will not go with you to Gotham. You tried to show me that others could take care of Amity. But look at those you took with you? They don't even have the equipment needed to handle ghosts." Danny was looking over his shoulder watching Damian's brothers. "Amity Park is my responsibility, the same way Gotham is Batmans."
"It is a responsibility you shouldn't shoulder alone. Father has us in Gotham but who do you have?" Damian watched his twin from the corner of his eyes. "It would be better and safer for you to come with us."
"Damian, I can't just-"
"Jasmine has made me aware of the danger to your physical as well as mental health here the longer you stay. She has inquired with us to see if we could help you to start thinking more about your safety than the safety of everyone around you but yourself."
"Of course Jazz would. Look I can handle my parents and the GIW, it's not like-"
"She has stressed the fact that you have been returning injured more often. Injuries not caused by your ghost rogues." Damian cut him off. "You are a lot more like father than I am but there is one fact we both clearly have inherited from him in the same way?"
"Oh, really now?"
"We are both quite stubborn and won't give up easily." Damian smirked as he stood up and dusted off his pants. He took a couple steps forward towards his elder siblings before turning to look back at his twin. "I believe the bet was that if we could prove to you that other hero's could also handle these ghosts that you would reconsider your stance on coming to Gotham with us?"
"Wha-?"
"IT WORKED! He's in my mini computer! I trapped him in my mini computer!"
"HA! Not so fun getting chased by your own bike, is it?"
"Oh come on dude, this isn't that much of a tied situation. I just roped your own weapon around you. No need to be so headless."
Danny blinked slightly unbelieving, Johnny and Shadow where now the once getting chased around, Technus was apparently stuck in one single little computer and Skulker was tied up with one of his own weapons, aktual Skulker not the hulk of his mech suit.
"Danyal. I… We want to make it up to you. For all the years of mistreatment during our childhood as well as forgetting about your existence for nearly half a decade. All I am asking is to give father and me a chance. According to your sister, your foster parents as well as this GIW organization are posing a threat to you. My siblings are just as capable as father and I, so allow us to help your situation… please."
Once again Danny was blinking in disbelief, this time though he was blinking at his twin he hadn't seen in years, he had sort of resented at first but came to sort of love and miss him through Jazz's constant help and deprogrammed in his childhood.
"Wow… you must have swallowed a lot of your pride to say that." Danny couldn't help but mutter. None of his twin's behavior matched what he remembers from his childhood with the League but maybe it was better this way. What did Jazz tell him a couple days ago? To give it a fresh and new start? To at least listen to them?
"Danyal, if you speak one word of what I told you to any of them, I will kill you."
"And there is the Dami, I remember."
Damian clicked his tongue and Danny laughed as he finally stood up with Cujo in his arms to stand next to his twin.
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So instead of sending an ask clearing up misinformation on these tags bc that would be pointless and serve to only make people upset, instead I am going to illustrate to all of you how short, quippy, and wrong statements completely control the conversation. Any attempt to clear up misinfo is going to take twice as long and be a lot less clipable (tbc this person isn't doing this intentionally doing this (at least to my knowledge) but it goes to show how pervasive these quick and wrong statements are). Watch:
"dream gave gumball's va alcohol" completely wrong, dream and gumball here both went to a birthday party of a mutual friend and met 20 minutes prior to the interaction in the Uber. There's nothing to show that Dream even brought alcohol to the event, let alone saught out a 20 year old to give it to him.
"VA is underage" technically correct in the specific context of America's legal drinking age, but so misleading it feels intentional. For most people underage means below 18, a minor, and not a 20 year old adult making the decsion to drink a year before it's legal. Any reasonable person is going to assume 17 or younger here.
"VA had a bipolar swing" There's nothing to suggest this besides people decided it. You can't diagnose a manic episode from a 4 minute clip and the majority of you are not capable of diagnosing anytime at all. No one has confirmed this, not even gold statue Michaelangelo (who by the way has deleted every tweet involving the situation). But even in the scenario where he is manic in those clips, being manic is not a free pass to verbal harass minimum wage workers and be freely antisemitic, ablest, and homophobic. But I digress.
"and called Dream a faggot" yeah that parts true
Even more additional context that is relevant is Dream was physically assaulted by Gumball's VA. Gumball's VA directly asked if Dream was Jewish after saying Dream would never get rid of his money, called the Uber driver the r slur and said the Uber driver had down syndrome. He then threatened to kill or paralyze Dream.
See how long that took? Almost 400 words to counter 4 lines. And I'm giving the original commentor the benefit of the doubt here and assuming they're just repeating what they heard but you see how that's dangerous? You see how this method of controlling interactions keeps the flow on the side of the person who is factually wrong?
And I didn't even get into how this is a tactic of the alt right, how it serves to normalize using faggot as a weapon, how it actively desensitizes people to bigotry if the person on the receiving end "deserves it". Or how harmful instantly trying to make the assaulter in this situation the victim, or using mental illness as an excuse to assault and threaten to kill people is also bad! Because even though that is all true and absolutely necessary in this conversation, I can't get into it! Because it would take even longer and "I ain't reading all that" is the most annoying, damaging phrase on twitter right now.
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do you think you'll put "Stasis in darkness" on AO3 eventually?
see, when the idea first came to me, I hadn't really planned on doing anything with it because I wasn't sure if I could make it work. there's a level of gravitas in the relationship between a god and their devoted servant that I didn't think would translate well to steddie because, let's be real, those boys are goofy dorks. but the idea wouldn't leave me alone so I typed up the original post in an attempt to work it out of my system and move on.
(the post kind of blew up, which I was not expecting at all!! like, not even a little bit! i post all sorts of rough little ideas for my own amusement and I've been able to do that without drawing much attention until that point.)
Anyway, I wouldn't have done much with it but @acowardinmordor left some comments/tags/what have you that helped me nail down the setting in my head which really opened the door for me to explore how the story could progress. (apologies, strife, I'm not sure I ever properly thanked you for that burst of inspiration, so please accept this shoutout as an expression of gratitude). And the amazing @ent-is-indecisive allowed me to rant about it which really helped flesh out the story. Seriously, there are elements and lore coming up that would not have existed if it weren't for ent. (and thank you once again ent for the ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL fanart you made for the reveal scene, I'm still overcome with joy whenever I think about it!).
Once it got to that point, I knew I wanted it to be a self-contained story and I was afraid that if I did a multi-chapter fic I'd lose the thread and never make it to the ending I want the fic to have. (no, the end scene hasn't been written yet but I KNOW what it's going to be and I hope everyone will love it as much as i do). So I promised myself that I was not going to post it on ao3 until the whole thing was written out completely.
However, I occasionally need a confidence/motivation boost so I've been posting consecutive parts of the rough draft here. you have no idea how much the people who reblogged with tags or left comments have helped me fight off the discouragement my brain likes to bog me down with; off the top of my head, @godsweakestboy , @redfreckledwolf, @fuctacles , @spectrum-spectre , and @lawrencebshoggoth have given me lovely, enthusiastic words of encouragement. and they're only the ones I can think of at this moment. there's so many other people who've done this, so if you've ever left me nice tags or comments, please know that I've read every single one of them repeatedly whenever I need to get over a slump. I'm so grateful for all of you!
Anyway, all this is to say yes! It is going to be posted as a oneshot on ao3 once I've finished writing it. <3
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