#this isn't necessarily about fic writing but it's mostly about life in general

[conarcoin]

So Elon bought Twitter. I'm honestly not gonna push away Twitter newcomers, but if you're in the MCYT fandom you need to understand that the social etiquette and expectations and culture here are very different than over on Twitter. So as someone who's been an active part of mcytblr for two years now, I'd like to offer some thoughts and advice!

One: Shipping. MCYT communities on Tumblr have always tended to lean more tolerant towards shipping of roleplay characters due to the idea that this is a space for fans primarily. The creators who visit or actively use Tumblr like Eret and Martyn understand that this is a fan space primarily, and don't bother us for the content we make, and we don't bother them with it.

The number one worst thing you could do is share shipping content with creators who have not asked for it. This is a huge social faux pas here. Secondly, on the other end — writing callout posts for shippers here isn't gonna fly. Even for RPF shippers and people who may ship boundary-breaking pairings, our default is usually to not engage with these people rather than publicly call them out. It makes the space a healthier place for everyone and makes it much less likely that CCs may come across content they are uncomfortable with. It's also considered a social faux pas to ask CCs their opinions and boundaries on shipping, since that's bringing it up when they didn't ask!

Speaking of shipping, people typically don't mind you maintagging ship content so long as you also tag it as shipping so people can filter it. For Hermitcraft the tag is hermitshipping, Life Series has trafficshipping, and the lesser known DSMP tag is dsmpshipping.

Two: Reblogging. This is something a lot of newer users tend to struggle with. There is no algorithm on Tumblr, at least not one that works, so content creators rely on you reblogging their work in order for it to spread. If you see a fic or piece of art you enjoy, please reblog it! I often reblog art for MCYT fandoms I'm not even personally in.

Three: Tagging (again). There are a wide variety of tags you can use for your content! The most common tags you'll want to use are "mcyt" and "mcytblr", and any relevant series, pairing/group or character/CC names. However, please don't use the tag "minecraft"! Minecraft has an entirely separate fanbase on Tumblr that we co-exist with and have some overlap with, but don't necessarily appreciate seeing MCYT content in their tags. Any tag with "minecraft" in it is also a no-no, such as "minecraft youtubers" or "minecraft championships". Please use shorthands!

Four: Opinions on MCYT drama tend to be very different here than they are on Twitter. For instance, you should assume by default that most bloggers here either like or are completely neutral towards "problematic CCs" like Schlatt. But also, we tend to be very against spreading anything originating from leakers, and we also tend to not be fond of making posts "holding CCs accountable" for things they did years ago. Generally, mcytblr prefers to be a more drama-free community, and if you do engage in discourse, many would appreciate you tagging it as such!

Five: CCs do not need you to babysit them.

Generally speaking you will see a lot of jokes and memes on mcytblr that wouldn't fly on Twitter, and it is generally looked down upon to try to speak on behalf of CCs personal boundaries — they are grown adults, and you are a stranger! Calling out or harassing people for "breaking boundaries" is mostly just going to get you looked at strangely, especially if you don't have a source for your claims. Most of us will stop doing something if asked, but we don't need stans to tell us to! CCs can speak for themselves when uncomfortable.

Six: Most mcytblr blogs don't want CC notices. There are quite a few CCs who are active here, but the community is chill with them as they don't tend to talk about us elsewhere and allow us to do our own thing. We do not, however, like encouraging CCs to join Tumblr or to follow us or reblog our posts — many people here actually prefer being out of sight of CCs and many of us consider it rude to seek out attention from CCs outside of sending the occasional ask.

Please treat CCs kindly and don't gawk at them like you just saw a celebrity on the street — the ones who are active here are just Tumblr users like the rest of you! Seeing Eret reblog fanart or respond to an ask isn't something to point out.

While we joke about Twitter users joining, we don't actually have anything against you guys, it's just that we've built a very different community here and ask that you respect it and the etiquette we've come to establish! Thank you, and I hope you enjoy your stay on mcytblr ^_^

[byoldervine]

I've been writing fanfic for a long time, but now I want to write real stories. Do you have any tips?

First off, fanfics absolutely are ‘real stories’ - just because you’re not starting from original grounds doesn’t mean it’s not valid writing. That said, I’ve written plenty of shitty fanfic in my time, so I can definitely help out here

1. The full transition. I once wrote a fic and realised “Hey, if I change a few names here and there, I’d actually have an entirely original story”. Now I’m 73K words and counting into Byoldervine and you’d never guess that it was ever inspired by that specific fandom. You really can just take your fics and tweak them into something original

2. New everything. In fanfic, the world and the characters in it are already pre-established; if you’re reading fanfiction about a piece of media, you’re almost definitely gonna be familiar with said media. You don’t have to introduce new characters or explain the world to us, we already know, so we can just get straight in - but this doesn’t work in original stories, where the reader is new to everything. Remember that you have to do more explaining and add more descriptions in original writing than in fanfic

3. Action-packed. In fanfic, everyone is already emotionally invested in the characters, so slice of life and downtime is much easier to get to without it feeling boring. In an original work, however, the reader needs a balance of high and low tension in order to emotionally connect to the character. Looking into internal conflict (the problems that are going on within your character's mind or within their social circle) vs external conflict (the problems that are directly linked to the plot) can help you with this, but in general you need to balance high tension that shows us the excitement and the suspense and the fun stuff with low tension that shows us why we care about all of it beyond it just being cool

All in all, though, there isn't a huge ton of difference between original and fic writing, as far as I've picked up on. Mostly just cases of more blatant tropes or cliches or something like that, and it's not necessarily a bad thing for those to pop up in original works. Just have fun and put your heart into it like you would with your fics and you can't go wrong

[thothxv]

I really don't want to talk about the present AO3 controversy (I have opinions, I think anyone paying attention does, but I'm so. Very. Tired. And the internet chews up tired people with opinions and spits them out for fun. So that's not happening).

HOWEVER!

I see many people out there championing Squidgeworld as an alternative to AO3. If you don't like AO3's staff or leadership and want to go somewhere else, this is actually pretty reasonable. The Squidge folks have been doing this a long time, they know what they're doing. They are a smaller team, hosting on smaller infrastructure (a dog knocked over their server once, apparently), but they seem up to the task of running an archive.

However. I also see people talking how Squidgeworld's policies are better than AO3 in various regards. And I want to address this because it's... mostly wrong. There are some differences in the TOSes, but for most of you they will be the same.

First thing, top of the list: Squidge's TOS is much smaller and vaguer than AO3's. A whole ton of rules around tagging in the TOS are just... not there. There's a bunch of information in AO3's TOS about how complaints are treated, that's all gone, any specificity about how Squidgeworld defines what they do or do not consider acceptable behavior is just... not there. In their place, we have Wheaton's Law: "Don't be a Dick". You might thing that covers it all, but a good TOS that makes it clear what is and is not allowed gives a lot of piece of mind. Nothing is worse than waking up to see that you've been given the boot because you and the mods disagreed about what the TOS meant. It sucks, you don't want that. It probably won't happen to most people, especially if you're not an asshole, but it is a thing.

The next thing in the TOS is the CSEM clause (the technical term for most of what people refer to as child pornography), and this is what I heard a lot of people talking about. I have heard people say that Squidge "actually bans child porn". However, the only difference between AO3 and Squidge's policies on CSEM (which is, to be clear, they they do not permit it) The only difference is this line: "This includes anything deemed pro-child sex or child-sex advocacy symbols." The thing is, that's subjective. A fic that involves this kind of content is not necessarily pro-child sex. Yes, even if it's RPF. And no, RPF is not CSAM. Nor is RPF CSEM, which is a broader umbrella term. At least, not under US law or US definitions, which is what both AO3 and Squidge operate under. I have done my best to get the official definitions for these things: RPF isn't covered. This has nothing to do with my opinions on RPF, it's just fact. In short, if you're upset at AO3 for not banning sexually explicit RPF containing real-life minors, Squidgeworld doesn't ban that either. Whether or not it takes down a fic with that kind of content in it is basically down moderation staff opinion on whether it might be advocating for child sex.

Now here's the juicy stuff. Squidgeworld prohibits links to any kind of fundraising... except in the case of original work. So, if you are a writer who posts original work to fic archives and wants to link your Patreon... you can do that on Squidgeworld. Just don't do it on fanfics. Or in the comments or in your profile. Standard AO3 rules everywhere else. Honestly, unless squidgeworld takes off on a scale that is frankly unlikely, this probably won't matter, but for some of you, this is a good thing, and it's worth bringing up.

Squidgeworld, unlike AO3, does not allow AI-generated fanworks. Now, I'm sure a lot of you are very happy, but this does actually present some problems: Specifically, you can't always tell AI generated and human work apart. Sure, a lot of the time it's pretty easy, but you can mask it, and sometimes the output could be confused for real writing. More importantly, real people's writing could be confused for AI writing. I could easily see fic authors being attacked with accusations that their work is AI generated, or co-written with an AI. I don't know if that will happen, but... well, some people are assholes, and fan communities are often drama-laden. It could happen.

Squidgeworld prohibits web scraping for the purpose of use with AI. AO3 basically has the same policy, and they've taken more technical measures to prevent it now that we're aware it's a thing that happens (the first time AO3 was scraped was pre-ChatGPT, people just weren't paying attention to this stuff. I imagine squidgeworld takes similar anti-scraping technical measures, although I don't know for sure). I think people don't think AO3 does this because in the post where they explained this they also said they allowed AI-generated fics, and they went on to say that they couldn't make it impossible for someone to scrape the site and feed that into a machine learning model. That's something Squidgeworld can't do either: if you really want a website scraped, that website can be scraped. This is why AO3 went on to say that archive-locking your work would make it less likely for scrapers to catch it, and that you could do that if you were concerned.

So yeah. I think broadly that these policies shake out mostly the same as they do on AO3 in terms of content. There's more vagueness and subjectivity and more things that malicious users could potentially abuse to waste staff time and attack other users, but... well, you can always submit false reports. That's a problem on AO3 too. Same as it ever was. And hey, at least there won't be any blatantly AI-generated fics over on squidgeworld. Mind, I haven't seen any in any of my fandoms anyways...

[spoofymcgee]

i'm going to caveat this by saying this is me, ranting about a personal preference on my own personal blog, stating an opinion and not a fact.

because. look. twelve is actually probably my favorite doctor. he's such an excellent personality, vivid and bright and he takes himself very seriously while also being a little bit ridiculous with how pompous he is. i love him with my whole heart.

my problem is with any kind of shippy fic about him.

because, and don't get me wrong, i am a world champion sucker for twissy and river/twelve. there are so many incredible fics about them that i absolutely love.

but even in those fics, there's almost invariably a bit, either a one off sentence or a reccuring joke or just a background fact, that twelve doesn't like sex, isn't generally interested in it, is mostly asexual, and his one exception is either missy or river.

which. and i'm speaking as an allosexual person here, which is why this is very much just an opinion about something that rubs me the wrong way, and not like a call out or anything, but i don't. like that?

because the implication there is kind of that even if you aren't interested in sex, you must be interested in it with someone as beautiful or cool or intelligent or badass as river and missy are. even people who don't want sex must want sex with The Sexy Lady. and i don't like that? that makes me really uncomfortable.

because it's pretty clear in, like, their canon interactions that twelve doesn't really have, like, aesthetic appreciation regarding people? like, that scene with river on darilium in the restaurant, which i think is meant to be played as 'oh he's like a man he doesn't get beauty' but really just comes off as he always thinks she looks nice because he loves her but genuinely can't tell the difference between one look and another because his appreciation for her isn't based on her appearance. (and the bits with clara but those get. weird. sometimes.)

which i don't think necessarily means that he doesn't experience sexual attraction, because that is separate from aesthetic attraction. but i just.

i think there are totally valid, text supported interpretations to view twelve as allosexual, asexual, or anywhere along any sort of sliding scale between the two. you can also have a totally valid head canon that isn't text supported, regardless.

but framing it, consciously or unconsciously, as 'he doesn't like sex, except for his one exception, this super sexy lady, who he does like sex with because she's the love of his life/super stunning/some other strange reason' just. really weirds me out.

because old people can like sex! just because twelve is old doesn't mean he doesn't want to fuck! but it feels like so many people who want to fuck that old man don't think that old man should want to fuck. which is strange and uncomfortable.

and this is a problem because the only way i can think of to solve this is to write my own fic but i don't think i'm super good at romance so.

[jacksprostate]

Love, love, love your beautiful writing, all my soapshipping fics sound exactly the same 😭 (at least to me) any tips on how to avoid this? I think the more I follow along to a similar style as Palahniuk it gets so much more repetitive

Aw thank you :)

The question of sameness is a daunting one... I am assuming you mean the same between separate fics, but if you mean that they sound too similar/repetitive within the same fic, just let me know and I'll try to give advice for that;

First, I WILL say that this problem is probably more apparent to you than to others. You spend way more time with the work and carefully considering them. So it's probably not as bad as you think. Plus, things will sound the same because you wrote them. Natural effect of authorship, especially if you're consciously trying to maintain any one style.

That said, I do get it can also become a big enough effect that it's a problem — hell, my friends who've read more of Chuck's stuff say Chuck arguably has the issue, which is funny to me. There's a few things you can keep in mind to help create more differentiated fics.

Mostly, it's about taking different angles and moods. Especially focusing just on soapshipping you may find yourself falling into similar themes because you quite like them and you know how to write them. This isn't necessarily bad — it's a good skill to have if you want to write something long, for example — but again if your goal itself is more variety, you may want to take a step back and look at your ideas a little.

Lots of my ficlets are essentially just "the narrator thinks about or has a small interaction with Tyler". But variety — why is he thinking about him? What point of the story are they at? That really influences the degree of bitterness, loyalty, etc. What's the actual situation going on? What's the specifics of the themes and their character dynamics?

I often like to deal with little hypothericals. You don't have to do that. But my advice; either purposefully develop the little different paths these characters can take, or, if you're a firm believer in having One Story that overarchingly they follow unilaterally, pick different spots in that story to write from.

Finally, I think it can also really help to diversify where you're getting your inspiration from. If you're coming into tryint to write something but you're starting from a very generic ideapoint such as wanting them to kiss or fuck or confess or something, you may struggle to get those interesting story nodes and flavors that make it more unique. You want specificity. The easiest thing to do obviously is watch the movie or read the book and go 'wow but what if this happened'. That grounds you right in a specific spot and lets you write in a way that reflects what 'had' happened. But say you want to break from being that close to canon, you want some of that mysterious inbetween time — try and pick up inspiration from irl. That's where a lot of my little ficlets come from. The key with that is you need to meter it and make sure it makes sense for the characters. You CAN go all wacky but then you have to sort of approach it like a crack story, which involves Full Commitment but also awareness.

Of course, taking inspiration from irl may be easier or harder for you. You may have less stuff in your life that's easily applied, stuff that may require way more translation for the idea to be relevant — but the idea is essentially, use things as little nuggets you can sort of grow upon. This process naturally results in a decent amount of variation.

Otherwise, becoming very focused on one aspect and distilling the specific themes involved also can serve as a good jumping point.

Tl;dr, the best way to create more differentiated fics is to have a higher degree of specificity to your ideas and to the themes and imagery (didn't really mention that but that's part of where where your inspiration comes from will flavor the fic, in your comparisons and focuses) you're writing. Not all of them have to be super specific and Different! But those are the things you'll want to try and work with. It's easy when writing fic, I think, to accidentally get a bit too generic because the material is already largely written; it's a sandbox. But you can consciously do much more in depth stuff with that sandbox, you just have to approach it with more specificity. Anyway hope all that makes sense!

edit: wrote all this and realized you may mean literally on a sentence level of scale. If so send another ask and I'll try to write out some advice for that though essentially for me it boils down to the same thing of keeping your writing focus different and not falling too repeatedly into using words and phrases as crutches. I'll be the first to admit I love to have people cradle the narrator's head lol

[souglias]

I see there's still a slot left for foul legacy: raging tide so I hope I'm not too late to request something 👀

Three things about me:

As I said in my other ask, I love to draw and write and I try to do that as much as I can during my free time between hw and class. Although it's been much harder to find time during college and I am often plagued with art/ writer's block 😔

I'm a bio major and I have no problem with handling bugs and other little critters that most people get queasy about. Once you've dissected sheep brains and whole squids, grabbing a spider isn't such a big deal lol

It generally takes me a while to start seeing someone as a close friend rather than a friendly acquaintance that I sometimes see in class. In the same vein it also takes me a while to begin considering someone as a possible romantic partner bc I only start to feel attraction after I've known them for a while and established an emotional connection

I'm a big fan of the star student/delinquent trope and even though I'm not really the type that only cares about studying, I do generally prioritize that over other things

Thank you in advance!! I can't wait to see the rest of this event unfold :D

The Delinquent [Childe]

c/w: mentions and implications of rumours, implication of bad school culture, Biology dissection (not described in detail)

Note: Hello!! I'm so so sorry this fic took so long! I wasn't particularly inspired for this fic so I was holding it off, then school came in the way for quite a bit. I don't know much about dissections, but I did a quick Google search and I hope I've written it such that it's not too difficult to believe. I hope that you enjoy this!

word count: 1.5k

--

Sun and moon. Both you and Childe live worlds apart. The two of you are only in each other’s orbit, seeing each other from a distance. The closest that you’ll ever get is being a few seats away in biology class. However, even though you only share one class with him, you know him all too well.

Childe is the infamous sporty kid in school. He’s also one who often wins academic competitions for the school. The student body doesn’t necessarily dislike him either. In fact, the girls adore him. They think that he’s hot and charming. But outside of his friend group, everyone is mostly too intimidated by his aura to approach him. 

You can also always count on Childe to constantly talk back to teachers and staff. Now and then, you would catch him breaking school rules by exploiting their loopholes. The school hasn’t expelled him, given that he’s not causing harm or trouble to anyone. On top of that, he largely excels in many areas. Though… There are rumours of him beating other students up. But no one has actually seen him do so.

You, on the other hand, keep to your group of friends. That’s how you decided you were going to spend the rest of your school life. Comfortable with a group of friends that you cherish deeply, out of the spotlight. 

That is until Childe decides to collide into your world for a reason you cannot bring yourself to turn down. Okay, you could have, but you don't dare to.

As a short breather from studying in the library, you doodle a little. Childe walks up to your side while you’re doing so. 

With a volume lower than usual, he greets you. “Hey, [name]- Oh these look pretty cute.”

You dropped your pencil on your notebook, taken aback that the Childe is talking to you. 

“What’s up, Childe?” you ask as your hand subtly shifts above the doodles in your notebook. Honestly, you want nothing to do with him. But, at the same time, you are courteous enough not to shut someone out the first time they speak to you.

He smiles sheepishly as he requests, “Sorry to bother you, but could you give me a demonstration on the dissection of a sheep’s brain?”

You only blink at him in response. You asked him to repeat, making sure you didn’t mishear him. Assuming you couldn’t hear him, he raises his volume. Only slightly, so as not to disturb other students. 

“I need some help on dissecting a sheep’s brain and I’d like you to show me a demonstration. Would that be okay for you?”

Fumbling over your words a little, you agree to help him with his dissection. “Great! Thank you so much, [name]. Will tomorrow after our biology lesson be good?”

“Yeah, sure…”

With that, he walks off with a slight skip in his steps. But you, on the other hand, are highly preoccupied with your thoughts. You think you got a little too nervous around him. They say you shouldn’t show fear in front of what you are afraid of. Wait, since when were you afraid of him?

On top of that worry, you aren’t sure if you should be proud that Childe thinks highly enough of you to ask you for help, or if you should be concerned that you are now responsible for tutoring the infamous school delinquent instead. 

Do you really know the dissection like the back of your hand? What if he asks you about the details that you've thrown to the back of your mind? As an extra precaution, you start to relook at your notes on the dissection. Before you sleep at night, you give your notes one last read too.

The next day, you realise during lessons that you forgot to check if there was a supervising teacher present after school. For students to use the laboratory after school, there is a rule stating that a teacher has to be present. Childe probably wouldn’t heed that rule in normal circumstances. But since your last lesson is Biology in the laboratory with him, your teacher would definitely know both of you are staying back. If there was no one around, your teacher wouldn’t permit you two to use the room and kick the both of you out. 

So, you pray. You pray that there wouldn’t be any supervising teacher, so you’d get to slip out on Childe. But unfortunately, when class ends, you find out that your teacher is on duty today.

Sighing internally, you resign yourself to helping Childe. As you prepare your workbench, you catch your teacher's eyes darting between the two of you. Likely surprised that both of you speak to each other, you suppose. You'd be surprised too.

When all the preparation is done, you try to hide your disappointment and ask, “So, how do you want me to teach this to you?” 

“You can do a step-by-step demonstration, then I’ll try to follow along.”

After every step, you check on the steps that he executes. While doing so, you notice how slender his hands are and the little faded scars on them. 

“[Name]? We can continue.”

You snap out of your daze and mutter an apology, continuing the dissection. At some point, you stop him. “Hold on, you’re about to cut the wrong part.”

He shifts his gaze over to your scalpel, trying to assess the exact point to cut. Before he does anything, you move over to his side as you always do when you teach your friends. You wrap your hand around his that holds the scalpel and you guide his hand.

Childe becomes momentarily distracted by your touch on his. He tries to ignore the feeling of his skin tingling and regain his focus. 

(But it is for nought because all he can think of is how cool you are for being so good at Biology. Heck, not just Biology, but other subjects too. Words of your consistently stellar grades don’t escape him.)

You only realise the proximity between the two of you after you let go of his hand. Taking a step back, your leg bumps into the stool. You stumble for a bit. Childe’s hand reaches out to your arm and it hovers right above your skin, ready to catch you. But you don’t fall and a few moments pass.

Inside, you beat yourself up a little for almost falling onto the ground in front of someone you’ve barely spoken to before. You straighten yourself and Childe withdraws his hand back to his side. 

You clear your throat in an attempt to dissipate the tension in the air. “There’s only one more step left to go. I can show that to you and if you’re good, we can pack up.”

You note how hot your face feels and hope he doesn’t tell this to his friend circle. You don’t particularly like them, given the amount of drama they attract. 

You try to concentrate, though the incident earlier remains at the front of your mind. Soon, he ends the procedure without a hitch, so you assume that you’ve taught him the right step despite your lack of focus. With that, both of you clean up the workbench. 

Childe finishes cleaning up faster than you. He always packs up quickly after class, and you chalk up his speed to his desire to leave class early. You think he’s about to leave when he comes over to help you. When he does, he thanks you.

“Thanks for the tutoring session, [name].”

A few seconds of silence lapse. You’re not sure if you should thank him for helping you. But before you say anything, he asks, “Say… could I ask you for more help next time? I struggle quite a bit with Biology.”

Immediately, you nod. It'll just be more tutoring sessions that'll benefit you too. Though, you ask, “Don’t you have friends who do Biology?”

Childe’s face sours a little, a smile still plastered on his face. He whispers, “Let’s just say that while I do hang out with them, I don’t like to stay around them more than I need to.”

Your eyes widen slightly. The two of you have more in common than you thought.

As the two of you walk down the hallways to the exit, he exchanges contacts with you. Childe does a tiny fist pump in the air. “Nice! Now, we can easily arrange study sessions!”

He turns to look at you and offers, “If you need anything too, you can always ask me!”

Childe flashes you a smile. He’s really not so bad.

When the two of you part ways at the school gate, you wave to him. He returns one with that annoyingly vibrant smile of his. But, maybe you could get used to this.

Only then do you realise, oh, you are in so much danger. The moon is reaching its orbit closest to the sun now.

--

All likes and reblogs are appreciated! Thank you <3

[leohttbriar]

1, 8, 10, if you want to!! :)<3

<333 yeah i've been called "opinionated" too many times in my life to not want to lol

all of these got soooo long, but i answered them on my lunch break and didn't have the energy for any proper editing so like. just remember you asked. this is on YOU. and i can only hope for a similar level of expostulation in your answers!

the character everyone gets wrong

so i don't think everyone gets her wrong but a lot of people do.

eowyn is in fact precisely concerned about the role of women. she says so. i've seen this popular reading that eowyn is not feminist-girl badass--she's really there to learn a wwi-eque moral lesson about how reknown is not going to cure your depression and so on. and i think that's fairly reductive.

eowyn is aware of her vulnerability. she is losing her protectors one by one. and "reknown" is not, like, the narcissism the other reading is implying. it's an achievement allowed only for those within the male-sphere. it's an implication of power and a sense of responsibility, to answer the vulnerability. like tolkien isn't going to write a character who wants to be sung about and disparage either being sung about the desire to be sung about. the rohan characters he wrote are very inspired by anglo-saxon culture and poetry and eowyn being like "i'm going to hang up my shield now" can mean A LOT of things, including Tolkien just being sexist. what i don't think it means is a condemnation of eowyn's previous desires to begin with. she wants to hang up her shield only after she's secured her place in history. like, as someone who wants to be a keeper of a hall and protect her people, that's an ideal heroic ending for her. idk, that last bit is probably super generous to tolkien but i still think that eowyn is absolutely a character meant to express feminist values.

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

okay i think it's a relatively common opinion that the reason f/f ships and even just female or female-coded characters are less popular than m/m ships and male or male-coded characters is due to big Misogyny. digressed.

but i also think that fandom is bad at understanding male characters, mostly because they are very busy applying an overly-good faith to all of them to the point of fantasy. my unpopular opinion is that this attitude is like when moms love their son or sons the best. my unpopular opinion is that the word "babygirl" applied to any male character is not in fact the transgressive epithet that everyone thinks it is. i opine that actually terms like "babygirl" and "malewife" are ways to emasculate male characters in a specific way that separates us from the very real realness of the kind of masculinity that suffocates shes and theys outside of fandom; while still celebrating how very Male they are. calling a man "babygirl" is not real condescension. it's pure affection. which isn't necessarily wrong. only that affection for men frequently joins hands with empathy, understanding, and impassioned defense. i just can't really get behind the sweetening of male characters--whether that's making them perfect angels in fics and stuff or calling them "my poor little meow meow" as if the media in which they're being portrayed isn't trying it's hardest to get you to feel like that to begin with.

i probably wouldn't care about these definitely funny turns of phrases for dudes of fandom, but there isn't an equivalent term for female characters. and that really annoys me :/

there are also like a few people who use the term "babygirl" in a genuinely transgressive way: like in media where gay-coded villains do something evil and we're not supposed to root for them in any way, for example. i've just seen too many gifs with the words "babygirl" or "malewife" edited over male characters faces who do not deserve that fondness, imo.

10. worst part of fanon

other than the blatant misogyny expressed throughout all fanons in just a variety of ways that only an academic could enumerate...

generally speaking, hate when fanon makes characters like books/music or political opinions that are obviously just an effort to project likeability. like when i said johnny lawrence in cobra kai probably voted republican at least once in his fictional life and quite a few someones were like "that man has never voted." like i get what you're trying to do there. but it's also very very boring to only read about characters who have the exact right opinion about culture and politics.

i think it comes down to the fact that fandom is very fun place to hang out but it also be very absorbing and so people sort of forget about distance. and the distance between "queer-reading" and simply saying this-is-obviously-gay is probably the distance that gets trampled over most. like, it turns into people using things like "toxic masculinity" to prove how interesting their babygirl character is, bc look how repressed, look how sad, look how he needs queer liberation. the power of a queer-reading is its interpretive possibilities, not its potential canonization. along those lines, i think people should call "toxic masculinity" just plan old misogyny. if your masculinity is toxic, ya probably hate womenfolk.

likeability is like the core value of all fanon i have seen and it is boring

[pebblysand]

Hi pebbly, I hope work, life, and all the things are going well. Big fan of castles.

Question: What is your opinion on male readership of HP fanfiction/guys reading your works?

Sincerely, a male reader aware of his odd demographic status within the fandom.

aw, thanks anon! hope all is well for you too!

to be honest, i don't really have an opinion! i mean, i'm so glad you (and maybe others) are reading this fic - thanks so much for your support! that being said, i don't think i have any particular hot takes on this! i'm just happy you're there!

i am - of course - aware that my audience (and the fanfiction community in general) is majority female. that's been established by many studies on the topic. but, assuming that the audience for my fanfiction podcast is somewhat representative (even if it doesn't entirely line up with my readership), it appears that around 10% of our audience is male. around 20% is non-female. so this isn't negligible.

[sorry this is in french, idk why/how to change it. it says: women, men, other, non binary]

i've spoken about this before but i think the fact that men aren't super present in fanfiction communities is down to two big factors:

men (sadly) aren't encouraged to read. i feel like this is particularly true for straight men (although, to an extent, gay men as well): for some reason, in the past 40 years, someone somewhere decided that reading/writing books wasn't "manly". that somehow, sitting at home watching sports on the sofa was worthy, but not sitting at home reading a book on that same sofa - which, when you think about it, is basically the exact same activity. it's especially bizarre because when you look at literary history, a lot of our "great writers" are men - to the point that many women writers, at the time, were completely ignored/disregarded. so, like many things, it seems that writing/reading was a worthy pursuit for men, until women started reading/writing as well and being successful, which somehow lessened the appeal of the activity. i think it's a real shame and i feel like it's a chance that's missed by a lot of men who might actually enjoy the activity, if only they were given more of an incentive. anecdotally, i was once talking to a (female) friend of mine, saying that to me, if a man i could potentially date does not own at least one book, that's a bit of a red flag. she said to me my standards were too high (😆) and i think that's a bit sad. but, it does explain (partially) why men aren't in fanfiction spaces. they're (mostly) not in original fiction spaces either.

men are also socialised (at least in western culture) to value the pursuit of activities that will yield the most monetary returns. there is still, to this day, a lot of pressure put on men to be the main breadwinners and fanfiction, famously, is anything but that. writing fanfiction is a lot of work, for - guaranteed - no money. i think women are used to working for free: in the home, but also because of the gender pay gap. so, they're more likely to accept this situation than men who are like: 'what do you mean i need to spend a hundred hours writing a fic for no money?' when i was unemployed during the pandemic, i freelanced as an editor and you would not believe the number of men who sent me novels where they were like: this started as fanfiction for [x] (usually video games) but then i filed off the serial numbers because it didn't feel worth it to work on something i couldn't publish. then, fanfiction gets ridiculed as this thing that's only for teenage girls/women with no ambition, and men are even less likely to participate.

so, i think, naturally, this reflects in the readership (and writership) of HP fanfiction. it's unfortunate, but it's kind of an undeniable fact. and, this is worsened because when it comes to entertainment, men and women are also socialised to like different things. and thus, because fewer men write fanfiction, men who would only be readers don't necessarily find content that "speaks" to them, and thus don't read it. especially because studies show that men, because they are often cast and shown as the main protagonists in media, find it harder to project themselves in women/works written by women. they feel like they can't relate. so, it ends up being this chicken and egg situation of: women make up for most fanfiction writers, thus men feel left out and don't read, leading to fewer men writing it, etc.

and, to be honest, i feel like castles (and my works in general) is a perfect example of that:

i don't think i write for women. i think i write for humans. but also, i'm not dumb. my fics centre around themes and characters which mostly speak to women. i'm a hardcore, bra-burning feminist. my harry is definitely a man-written-by-a-woman (although, jkr is a woman too so i don't think i'm changing much, there). i write a lot of strong female characters. i write at length about violence against women. a lot of men don't want to read about that, because they don't think it's "for" them.

we all know and have seen in the past that the issue of feminism and women's rights is mostly owned by women. sure, some men are allies, i'm not denying that, but most of the campaigning and the shouting and the screaming is still the burden of women. we're still at the point where in order to get men to care about women's rights, we need to tell them: 'what if it was your sister?' 'what if it was your mother?' as though women don't have value unless they are part of their family. so, i'm not deluding myself into thinking that i have a large male readership because i know a lot of men don't relate to the things i write and aren't interested in trying.

that said, knowing that some of my readership (even if it's only ten per cent) is made up of men, fills me with joy. it fills me with hope that things might eventually change for the better. that men are starting to care/get educated, and also maybe see that feminism can benefit them too. the idea that some dude on his sofa is reading my very feminist fanfiction makes my day, really. i write about feminism and politics because i hope to see a change in the world and part of that is broadening my audience to people who might not be familiar with these themes. do i suspect most comments i get giving me pointless nitpicky/unsolicited criticism or telling me ginny is slut come from men? sure. but these are a minority and it's the price to "pay" when you write about these things.

so, my opinion on guys reading my works is that i don't really have an opinion, aside from the fact that i think it's amazing that you're there and my only hope is that there will be more of you in the future.

thank you so much for reading, and for being part of this community. it really means the world! 💚

[piease-iove-me]

all. of. them

hiiii thank you 🥺🥺

✨What's a fic you've posted you wish you could breathe life into again and have people talking about it? (or simply a fic you wish got more credit)

mmmm absolutely that one jibaro inspired thing i write this September? i love that baby so much :')

💘Is there any posted fic you want to rework/re-edit/re-write?

yes!!! it's something i started years ago and then dropped. but always think about:') it's got mercenaries and familiars and a whole gang of idiots stuck in one place :')

💫what is your favorite kind of comment/feedback?

omg absolutely those who mention lines from the chapters OR even better when people go on and on about plot points and characters 🥺 just make me smile so incredibly wide

🌈is there a fic that you worked *really fucking hard on* that no one would ever know? maybe a scene/theme you struggled with?

omg idk?? i honestly always scream about it to someone/everything when I'm in trouble 🥹🥹🥹

🦋what are you most insecure about when you post a fic?

mmmm everything???? mostly I'm just afraid it's not good enough but isn't that just how it is to post and put something of yours out there

🌻what makes you want to give up on writing? what makes you keep going?

oh uh... answer to both would be me, in all honesty:') my brain mostly

🎀give yourself a compliment about your own writing

oh god that's a tough one. wishfully i can say it's nice enough to pass general approval????

🎈describe your style as a writer; is it fixed? does it change?

wordy. it's wordy. but ever-evolving

🎉how often do you celebrate completing & posting a work? how often do you give yourself the credit/validation that you seek from others when you post? (if you don't, you should!)

i don't really know how to???

💞what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language

idk depends? lately I'd say the writing itself and characters rather than the plot

💝what is a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

mmm as i said, my first dd which got lots of support 🥹

🤍what's one fic of yours you think people didn't "get"?

mmm omg mind blank. maybe all in some kinds? but not necessarily in a bad way

🕯️was there a fic that was really hard on you to write, or took you to a place you didn't think it would take you?

yes😓 there's this heavily dd fic I'm writing with a friend's help that's such a challenging thing to write. i actually had to take a break from it because it often took me in a bad place mentally and i really can't do that rn

💥find your least kudos'd fic - say something wonderful about it.

omg... i can't find anything good to say about them. they're so old all i wanna do is orphan it😭

🍭why did you start writing?

for funsies? just to see if i could pull it off, still trying to understand if i can, actually but it's fun

💎why is writing important to you?

oh ig because it became a way to escape everything? and to throw in all that's going onb

📡why is writing and sharing your writing important for fandom?

oh god idk? don't think it is djhdhd

🪄what is your post-writing/sharing aftercare? How do you take care of yourself or celebrate yourself when you've finished a fic?

a whole snoozing week 🥹

🎙️which one of your fics would you like someone to make a pod-fic of?

oh uh idk? doubt any is good enough for that but if i had to pick one maybe that one jibaro inspired fic? I'm particularly fond of that one

🤲what do YOU get out of writing?

oh i guess i feel lighter? as in it's my own way to get rid of everything going on in my mind so good therapy

💋when you leave comments on a fic, do you want to hear back from the writer?

yes!! but i do understand when it doesn't happen. no big deal

☯️how do you think engaging with each other through tumblr, twitter, comments, kudos, creates healthy fandom experiences? How do you deal with that if you're not a social person/experience social anxiety?

oh god... i know it's important to create a following and it's great to have amazing support from the fandom but sometimes it adds up and turns into pressure for expectations so awful for anxiety. i think there's the need to find balance but I'm personally still struggling with that. so what i can do is take occasional breaks from everything as self-care

🧿what steps do you take to not take things personally if a fic doesn't do well, or if your writing/posting/sharing experience isn't going how you'd like it to?

oh uh actually nothing? i just shrug it away. it's okay

💌share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

_ “As long as she does her job, I don’t need us to like each other.” And his eyes drift to Scott, staring back at him already.

Theo holds his gaze—taking in the disappointment turned discomfort—and then lets himself stand.

“You’re gonna be a team, Mr. Raeken,” he hears, but is already turning around from the table. “You will want them to like you out there.” _

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

Assorted One-Shots - MASTERPOST

The fics in this post include various ships that I don't necessarily write for very often, as well as gen fic with no major ships. They're mostly spread across two collections: MXTX Reverse Trope Fest 2022 and Prompt Fills.

ChengQing:

No Such Thing As Too Good - ChengQing figure out that the vanilla sex they've been having isn't really working for them, and that it's okay to do what does work (read it on tumblr: X)

Grannies Are To Be Feared - Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing finding unlikely allies for their relationship in each other's grandmothers, written for the trope 'Accidental elderly acquisition' (read it on tumblr: X)

Indigo - Dom Wen Qing guides sub Jiang Cheng through their first forays together into non-sexual BDSM (read it on tumblr: X)

Jiang Cheng /& Others:

Lan Xichen's Romance Novel Brainrot - XiCheng don't hook up in a hotel on a work trip (but they do later), written for the trope 'there were only two beds' (read it on tumblr: X)

How Vicious You Are - A ChengYao lens for the Divorced Energy of their brief conversation in Guanyin Temple, inspired by a tumblr post and written for the trope 'lovers to enemies' (read it on tumblr: X)

It's Not That Simple - Jiang Cheng goes back in time with the intention to kill Wei Wuxian to prevent every problem he caused (read it on tumblr: X)

Where We've Been - Post-canon Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji coming to a truce for Wei Wuxian's sake (read it on tumblr: X)

General:

Life Is Short, Do Art - Lan Xichen-centric character study written for the trope 'college drop-out AU' (read it on tumblr: X)

Unexpected Solutions - Sect Leaders visit the Burial Mounds and realize that Jin Guangshan was lying about Wei Wuxian's 'army' and fix things (hints at Nielan and Wangxian, but the relationships are not the focus) (read it on tumblr: X)

[not-poignant]

Hi! Thank you so much for writing FFS! I've been following since the beginning of it and it's still the story I get most excited about updates for!

I wanted to ask, if you don't mind, will the encounter with Augus be happening in an actual club or at something more like one of the play parties? I mostly want to know so I can have a better idea of how to manage my excitement/anxiety levels for chapters when I know where they are.

Whether you answer or not, thank you again for the story! Ef in this story is my fav character of anything ever! Healing is work but he is willing to do it!

Hi anon!

(Spoilers, folks!)

Efnisien would never meet Augus at a play party because Augus is too much of a disaster to ever be invited to a play party. Augus is not with the 'in crowd' of these extremely experienced people, when he was a rapist in SOTS who put his victim in the hospital (something Efnisien never actually achieved - not that it's a competition) whose entire understanding of consent came from (fairly non-consensual) pornography.

He improved with some education, but he and Gwyn never developed a contract, have non-negotiated CNC in their relationship that is safeword-dependent only (this isn't entirely safe with the kind of play Gwyn and Augus engage in), and I imagine read as a huge red flag to anyone who has been in the scene for a while! After all, 'dubcon in fic is generally noncon in real life.' What Augus and Gwyn have works for them, it does not work at play parties. A dungeon monitor would probably kick them out, lmao. Also, Augus has never really liked shibari in the SOTS universe, so there's no reason Kadek or Arden would ever invite Augus to a shibari party.

For me, it goes against his characterisation for Arden and Kadek to like, casually hang out with Augus in general. Knowing someone is not necessarily being friends with them! Given Arden and Kadek are both extremely well known educators with a YouTube channel, and Augus was actively seeking education at the end of SOTS, it stands to reason that the only way Augus knows Arden and Kadek is as a student who knows these people as teachers/educators at kink clubs once he was old enough to be legally allowed entry. Honestly, he probably met at least one of them when he tried to get in with a fake ID. I'm sure Augus has been barred from at least one club, lmao, before he stopped being as much of an edgelord. Me saying in the past that 'they know each other' does not mean they like each other, or get along, or are friends, or share in kink parties/events etc.

But also I will warn people before that arc starts, and it's a while off! The first chapter of it will start in a kink club (though we won't meet Augus in that first chapter) - it will be an arc of more than one chapter.

We will never see Augus at a play party - he is not getting invites. I love Augus and Gwyn to pieces, but in the SOTS universe, what they do works for them, but is still pretty disastrous on the outside looking in. They'll get there eventually.

[slutnali]

What are your Drag Race hot takes? Your most controversial opinions?

That moment when I actually have so many hot takes but as soon as I got this ask suddenly I've forgotten them all... Took me a minute to remember some ogeruig I'll probably get hate for some of these since imma bring up some fan-faves, also these mostly have to do with the recent American seasons

The first one I could think of: the finale lipsync for the crown should have the queens all in a leotard or something basic. I'm tired of the reveals we can see coming from a mile away, I wanna see a good ol' lipsync

Jackie and/or Heidi should've won the Worlds Worst challenge [the one where Gigi was also in it and they were playing the Del Rio trio] rather than she who shall not be named.. she wasn't even funny or memorable in the challenge

Bob is the best winner imo

S13 was actually a good season but people were hating on it because of the first episode which was shitty and out of the queens control. Additionally, it aired the same time UK2 did and while I admit that season was good, people kept comparing the two and favoring one over the other and hating so much on s13

Kandy was right in the untucked fight with Tamisha. tbh she didn't do anything wrong in saying that Symone was her toughest competition bc by that point she'd won 2 challenges, it's not like she insulted the other girls and said 'fuck the rest of ya'll '

I'm glad Daya did say/call out that skinnier/little queens have it easier when it comes to their outfits and getting away with a lot more than people that don't have that body type

People hate on/criticize Jorgeous for winning that design challenge/the favoritism she gets from Ru that's completely out of her control and for doing bad in the challenges but... another queen that isnt even doing well is Jasmine too.. she's been in the bottom 2 more than Jorgeous has but I see people talk worse about Jorgeous.. idk..

Bosco's nun/succubus look wasn't that good

This isn't just a drag race hot take but a drag one in general, I rather go watch a queen that doesn't look as polished but puts on a fucking show and entertains rather than a queen that just looks pretty/polished and boring to watch

Tina's runway looks were bad but she didn't necessarily do bad in challenges, she didn't stand out either but she shouldn't have gotten as much hate as she did [i dont condone sending hate to anyone ofc, 'fans' who do that are horrible]

As much as I love Denali and Rosé, I'm glad neither of them won. Also made me super upset to hear from Kandy that in the end she didn't wanna win because of the amount of hate she knew she'd get if she did

This isn't a show hot take but a fic one, I dont like it when Mik is called GottMik throughout a fic... also don't like when Mik's written as a trans girl.. esp if Mik isn't even in one of the ships if it's a writer that prefers writing lesbian/wlw ships, just write him as a trans man if he's gonna be a background character.. in real life u dont only know women so why does your fic have to be a full woman cast???

[lgbtqlegends]

something makes the legends hallucinate with their biggest fears, sara’s is ava dying - because she killed her. + aftermath

oh wow lmao this is Almost Exactly like the premise of a fic that mod choco and i are working on in which the legends are put into a nightmare scape type thing. so uh,, im probably mostly gonna focus on the aftermath for this ask, but i will Try to briefly touch upon what i think each of the legend's biggest fears would be. thanks for the ask n hope you enjoy!!

-sara's, like you said, would be ava dying, maybe not Necessarily bc she killed her, but the fear would definitely be in a scenario where sara was somehow the Cause of it. also, to go a step further, obviously ava dying would be a big fear for her, but honestly i think her Biggest fear would be ava And the team dying, especially if she was somehow the cause and if there was nothing she could do. ava's biggest fear is pretty similar; sara (+ the rest of the team) dying, bc then she would've lost the only family she's ever really known

-okay listen i said i would try to come up with something for each of the legends' biggest fears but i'm exhausted and my brain just isn't gonna pull anything out for anyone else, so,, sara n ava's biggest fears is the best you're gonna get so,, i'm gonna get on with the aftermath part now:

-they're all pretty shaken, and they all kinda retreat into themselves while they try to deal with everything

-most of them try to help each other out and be there for each other, but most of them also generally refuse the help bc they're all kinda stuck in their own heads

-any of the couples (ex: sara n ava) would probably try to spend as much alone time together as possible bc they find comfort and solace in each other, n that's something they desperately need after hallucinating with their biggest fears

-eventually they all kinda stop retreating into themselves. it takes longer for some than others, but eventually they all get there. once that happens, they all come together n just spend a lot of time together for the comfort that being found family n everything brings them

i wish i could've done a bit more with this ask bc its really good but i am just,,, too exhausted and stressed about life right now. but like i said, our nightmare scape fic is really similar n were super excited abt that so,,, and hey maybe once I'm less exhausted and stressed, maybe i'll write an avalance angst oneshot with this specific idea, who knows.

[zippers]

cw: discussion & general description of drug use

im thinking about making a "writing about/portraying addiction in fic/literature/media" infopost specifically targeted towards people who have never used before

i actually think its really great when non-users are curious about drug use because that info can save lives, if not your own than someone else's. drug use, ESPECIALLY harm reduction practices, shouldn't be something that can only be written about by people who've experienced it...

plus learning about drug use in an educational context makes you the perfect person to act as a trip sitter for a friend who wants to experiment, again potentially saving lives...

drug use isn't something edgy, it isn't something dirty (improper hygiene practices can bring personal danger to the user but that's not what i mean), it isn't something scandalous, it isn't even necessarily something dangerous, it's just a fact of life.

weed is becoming more acceptable to write about and that's wonderful, but people who use and/or are addicted to hard drugs, hallucinogens, party drugs, and anything else are also just regular people. your favorite actor, your professor, your neighbor, your librarian, your dentist, your favorite fanfic author, your tumblr mutual...

of course, descriptions of drug use can be extremely triggering for recovering addicts and should always be preceeded with a comprehensive content warning. for addicts, recovering or not, graphic descriptions or imagery of drug use can cause a relapse... but even now, and I've been clean from my DOC since 2017, I would still rather current users or curious readers know about how to perform a cold water extraction (link is to a user-submitted hydrocodone trip report on erowid that discusses a cold water extraction technique) from reading about it in a supernatural fanfic than have them die from liver failure or acetaminophen overdose...

also i get so annoyed when an author clearly just got all their information from a drug off wikipedia or drugfacts or webmd and maybe, like, an episode of degrassi XD drug use is mostly just a lot of waiting, a lot of measuring, a lot of jaw clenching, a lot of twitching, a lot of paper towels, and a lot of sweating.

[yndigot]

Question: do you have any headcanons/a personal favorite explanation for how Branson could have possibly wanted to return to Downton after being in America? I've been going in circles with his character and what is/isn't shown on screen, but I feel like something major must have happened for him to travel back after being away.

I wish I had really good thoughts instead of just long, rambly thoughts. But my best idea that isn't re-writing the stuff I wish Julian had done with more care is to over-analyze what Tom says and try to wrestle it into something that makes sense!

Like, the straightforward answer is that I think NOTHING Julian gives us justifies this. I'm kind of not sure why he brought Tom back. Don't get me wrong. I want Tom there because I like him and I like the way he interacts with the rest of the family, but Julian didn't seem to write him very consistently re: what he wants out of life, especially after Sybil dies. And not in a way that reads to me like a "grief is making him directionless" deliberate choice. More like "idk what to do with a character like this if he's not shit-stirring, so now that I've integrated him into the family, I don't know where to go next."

I think Julian has a real problem writing working class characters and showing them having desires that don't either a) serve to uphold the aristocracy or b) get painted as sinister in some way. Thomas vacillates wildly between the two -- his ambition to have a life outside of service is often cast as sinister, and then his "redemption" is being the good servant. (Don't get me wrong -- I think if Thomas has to stay in service, he's probably much happier running the place than taking orders, but he gets "rewarded" by having his place in correct order confirmed.) See also: the way Julian seems to treat Anna's "friendship" with Mary as though it's entirely sincere and devoted and uncomplicated by the fact that she depends on Mary and the family for her salary, her husband's salary, housing, and childcare. (I don't have trouble believing Anna would have a certain fondness for Mary after many years, but I find things about the way their relationship is portrayed as though it's uncomplicated and transcends class to be uncomfortable.) And Daisy's ideas about wanting better rights and questioning the monarchy are played for laughs and come across kind of childish. Basically, I do not trust Julian for one second to try to get into the head of someone who, the first couple series establish, is an Irish republican and socialist. Because as much as I enjoy it, I believe Julian writes Downton to glorify institutions that early Tom would want to dismantle, which means he's either a source of trouble, or he needs to be watered down and neutered. We get the first for the first three series and the second going forward from there.

Tom going to Boston feels to me like Patrick Gordon and the endless murder trials -- a storyline that I think got away from Julian and then had to be wrapped up without changing the status quo, even if it was a waste of our time in the process. (I swear I really enjoy the show, I just think it has a lot of flaws!) I just don't think there's a lot there to build on. I went back to check, and the stated reason is that he didn't like starting over again in a new country and didn't like taking Sybbie so far away from family. That's fine? I guess. I loathe that he comes back saying that American capitalism is somehow better than European capitalism and he's kind of digging it now. That's just uncalled for. (I do appreciate that the greater social mobility of the US might appeal to him in that it strips the absolute top layer of society in the UK which is determined exclusively by birth, but I prefer a Tom who wants to dismantle the class system, not just escape the aristocracy and live in a class system that is slightly more permeable to people who get lucky. Julian's bullshit about "American capitalism is all down to hard work so that's why it appeals to someone like Tom!" makes my skin crawl.)

I can think of some things I wish happened in Boston! I don't think they're headcanons in the sense that I think they almost certainly having nothing to do with what we're actually given (and may in fact lowkey contradict some of it), but I'd love to see (or write, if I ever get off my ass) fic that actually deals with what it's like for Tom to be in a job and a life that isn't tied up in the aristocracy anymore for the first time in years (even when he was in Ireland with Sybil, I feel like it would have hovered over them) and confronts what he likes about being in business with his cousin -- and what he doesn't. I know it's 0% supported by canon and even contradicted by it and his new love of sucking capitalist dick, but I like to think of Tom seeing his cousin's purely capitalist enterprise and beginning to form the idea of starting his own business based on a cooperative model. Is it believable that Talbot & Branson has any elements of the cooperative model in the way it's run? Probably not, but I like to pretend. I think, despite the fact that he says he gets on great with his cousin and there wasn't any bad blood between them when he left, it would be interesting if there were some ideological differences about the business.

The absolute most interesting thing that could have happened to him in Boston would have been to see him re-introduced to radical politics, but canon pretty clearly contradicts that and in fact has him become less and less radical as time goes on. Unfortunately. But I'd read the hell out of a fic that explored the way the Irish in the US were funding radical movements back in Ireland and Tom getting sucked into that. I'd also love to see him involved with the GAA or Gaelic League in Boston (or in Yorkshire, tbh -- I want more Tom and the expat community in general). /tangent

Genuinely, working with what we're given, my actual headcanon is super boring. Again, I do think that Tom's life/career drift after Sybil's death is at least as much a product of Julian not knowing what to do with the character as it is a conscious choice to show him lost and grieving (though we do get hints of that), BUT let's go ahead and interpret it as Tom feeling lost and directionless after he's lost his wife and the life the two of them planned together in Dublin. (Let's also set aside whether he'd actually be able to return to Ireland following the establishment of the Free State -- he's working under the assumption that he's lost his wife and his country in the space of a few months and can't get either back.) That's a huge loss and a lot of grief, and the two are compounding each other, and he gets into kind of a rut at Downton over the next few years. I think it's reasonable for him to think "Maybe I can just move and start over, and it will shake up my life, and this lost, listless feeling will be fixed!" And then it turns out that, actually, depression and grief and mourning for your wife and the life you planned together doesn't go away when you go to a new country! It doesn't fix things, it just takes away a lot of the support system he had in Yorkshire (the family generally, but mostly Mary tbh, and Isobel a bit, and maybe people at his church if we look outside what Julian lets us see). I think when he says that starting over in a new country all over again was too much, maybe that's what he's getting at. He may be writing to his cousins and keeping in touch, but presumably he hasn't seen this cousin face to face in years. He may have a few other contacts in Boston in the immigrant community. He can find a church and a community with the GAA and/or Gaelic League and other organizations like that. But these aren't people who've been in his life in a meaningful, daily way for a long, long time. He relied really heavily on Mary (and Matthew for the first year or so) and whatever the rest of his community in Yorkshire looked like at a very vulnerable time in his life, and I think maybe he underestimated how hard it would be to leave that and start over. For all that I whine about the way Tom's written later on in the series, I actually really like his friendship with Mary and Matthew and the way he and Mary seem to drift together after Sybil and Matthew die. I think it works very well and is very believable that, despite the fact that Mary wasn't jumping to welcome him into the family, they would become incredibly close.

Starting over is hard. He's probably trusting Sybbie to someone like his cousin's wife or a woman recommended to him by the local church while he's at work in Boston, and at Downton he was leaving her with the nanny while he worked, but she was in the family home, with her grandparents and aunts in and out of the house all day, and being with a stranger in Boston may have been hard on Sybbie. Also, to go from having a relationship with George that was probably more like siblings than cousins to being separated was probably difficult. Part of the problem could be that Sybbie was having trouble adjusting. And he fell into being the agent because the position was open, and he was drifting after Sybil died, and he needed an occupation, and it feels like he fell into the thing with the cousin because he felt like he was in a rut and wanted something different, and that's what was offered. I'm not sure stumbling between things that are available is the same as making conscious choices about what you really want out of life. Looking at it that way, maybe it's not so surprising that whatever he had going on in Boston never quite gelled. That doesn't necessarily make me think it makes tons of sense for him to come straight back to Downton -- I can think of other choices I'd make for him if the initial plan with the cousin doesn't work -- but for all that he disapproves of aristocracy, I do think he loves the Crawleys and regards them as family by the time he tries moving to Boston.

All that feels unsatisfying. I'd love a good take that had something big happen in Boston, though. Old girlfriend from back in Ireland has also immigrated? Old boyfriend? Is he lying when he says he and his cousin didn't have a falling out? Did he manage to get himself into politically related legal trouble again? (I can't quite make that last one work in my head because while he doesn't seem to mind destruction of property, he seems disinclined to participate in anything that might lead to people getting hurt, and I think he'd be very hesitant to put his neck out in a big way once he's Sybbie's only living parent, but it would be interesting if someone could come up with something. Labor organizing goes sideways, maybe? Even though he seems to be leaning into capitalism more than I like...?) You definitely make me want to come up with something better than the hints we get.

[abri-chan]

So, if Proscuitto isn't your favorite, then which one is? And I don't necessarily mean La Squadra, or in terms of writing potential. What I mean is, which character out of Vento Aureo is your favorite, in terms of anything from personality (even if everyone's morally grey) to best/most interesting to write about to most interesting to analyze as a character?

I like Prosciutto lol. The joke was I'm not attracted to him as in a character I'd like to fucc or a character that is my type. I realized some fans have strong crushes on characters and can only write for them that way. Imagine a bit like self-inserts or OTPs, which I don't strongly have.

I also don't tend to write for my favorite characters only, because to me writing comes as having a story idea and what characters would fit it best. As a result I'm very ship or character agnostic in writing, and can end up writing on anyone.

For example, no other Vento character would fit the backstory I gave Prosciutto, bc in my head the story was best told through him. I feel Prosciutto is the big brother type, and that's a popular trope for a reason imo: it's a very comforting and versatile trope bc a big brother character easily interacts with others.

Basically my writing is detached from the characters I like and more about what stories I can tell or what ideas I can explore, especially if it's a story that would surprise someone. I will write for any characters that fit that story; some character tropes are easier for me to write about than others but I'll explore whatever characters the story needs. I also like to write cross-genre a lot, so it is really about coming up with cool stories (admittedly I get frustrated when my writing skills don't match up my ideas, but I'm a DIY writer and using fanfiction to grow as one). Sometimes my favorites don't get the coolest stories either haha. (In my drafts and I have too many, Formaggio gets my favorite backstory, and he's not a character I particularly like). Sometimes I grow to like a character as I write about them; the more you understand of someone the more you love them. (That happened to me with Ghiaccio)

As a general rule of thumb in characters I like to write about: the otherly. It really fascinates me. In stories this can take various shapes: aliens, artificial intelligence or robots, misfits... so anything that is different from you bc the fun is in exploring what that means and what it tells us about ourselves. If you liked any of my fics, I'd recommend to read Object of Desire... I plan to rewrite it one day as multichapter/novel style but it is a clear example of how I love the otherly and how I realize that in stories. (You are welcome to come back and tell me who the otherly was haha-- I also experimented with writing styles, prose and poetry).

Now for my favorite character in Vento; it's Melone. Mostly because his stand is an artificial intelligence stand and a highly sentient one. Stands have usually been like a shadow; more like limbs to a character than actual realizable characters themselves. In Vento we see two exceptions in BabyFace (I suppose the juniors) and Mista's Sex Pistols. The thing is Babyface Jr causes no damage to Melone if the stand offspring dies (unless that very specific case with Giorno returning the bit of the stand back to him); while if Mista's case if the stand gets hurt so does he. It begs the question if BabyFace could survive with a dead Melone? So BabyFace is the only stand so far fully autonomous, with a will that can overrule the user requests (he goes against Melone a lot) and overly sentient. And it's a stand that learns based on experience (it is machine learning if you will based on data, be it Melone's , the mother, or experiences it has in the world). It's the coolest stand I've seen in JoJo, and it makes me wonder how can someone like Melone get the only stand to be fully autonomous and so intelligent (imagine if you found sentient alien life)? If I were a Speedwagon Foundation scientist, it'd be the stand to study; the stand to end all stands. (Followed by Valentine's stand in part 7).

Stand aside, again I love otherly, Melone fits into the psychotic pretty boy trope; which I also like: he's attractive (even though I prefer more muscular Melone from fanarts) and very smart and very quirky, and multi-layered (he's all sorts of fucked up and beyond redemption but makes for good psychological exploration). It's a bit like where our minds break that's something interesting to learn there, and that's why messed up or unhinged characters like Melone or Cioccolata are interesting in fiction.