A Few Reminders Because Im Tired And Angry

a few reminders because i’m tired and angry

fandom is a hobby, not a form of activism

adult women aren’t inherently creepy for being in fandom and having hobbies apart from raising babies and doing taxes

the vast majority of people pushing back against the worrying trend of instigating harassment over fictional characters and relationships aren’t incest supporters or pedophiles, actually

liking a m/f ship doesn’t make someone a dirty heterosexual invading your space

preferring gay ships doesn’t make you ‘’woke’’ and good

no one owes you a disclaimer that they are a good person who recognizes that their favorite fictional villain’s actions are evil and that they don’t condone those actions irl

liking a fictional villain is in no way comparable to advocating abuse/murder/genocide/etc and you’re a fucking idiot if you believe that

just because a woman is attracted to a fictional villain doesn’t mean she’s promoting toxic relationships or going to end up in a toxic relationship. assuming women can’t tell fiction and reality apart stinks of internalized misogyny 

some rando’s a/b/o fanfics have none of the level of influence that popular tv shows and movies spreading propaganda have

no one owes you a detailed description of their traumas and mental health problems

abusive relationships are not the same as enemies to lovers ships

y’all need to chill the fuck out over people, relationships, actions and events that don’t actually exist and learn how to enjoy and discuss them like normal people

fandom is a hobby, not a form of activism

feel free to add more

i think one of the reasons i get mildly annoyed about worldbuilding threads that are 200 tweets of why you should care about where blue dye comes from in your world before saying someone is wearing blue is that so few of them go up to the second level of "and that should impact your characters somehow" - i don't care that blue dye comes from pressing berries that only grow in one kingdom a thousand miles away if people are casually wearing blue

I've seen a lot of fics disappear from my bookmarks, some 10+ years old, because they were added to an unrevealed collection. It makes me wonder if people realize what your fic being added to a collection actually means and if the authors approved it automatically without realizing what would happen.

If someone adds your fic to their collection, they can hide it! They can mark the collection as unrevealed and your fic will be unreadable to anyone other than them! If you're writing works for a surprise event, like a Secret Santa, this is really nice.

But if you're just writing and someone adds your fic to a collection for their own personal use and marks it as unrevealed, that. . . really sucks.

I bookmarked this fic in 2017, almost 5 years ago. Knowing me, the fic itself was probably at least a couple years old at the time I bookmarked it.

This is a 5+ year old fic that is completely inaccessible now because it was added to a collection that, as far as I can tell, is literally just for the collection owner's own reference. There's almost 30 fics in the collection, all of them unrevealed.

Please don't blindly accept collection requests and if your works ARE in a collection, make sure that they aren't being hidden without your knowledge or consent.

One merit of fanfic that I don’t think gets mentioned enough is that while you are starting off without having to create new characters and worlds, you are also uniquely constrained by the characters and worlds that you choose to write about, because the audience has expectations for them that you must match.

In that sense, it’s essentially a writing challenge in consistency with a specific style, in a particular range of voices that aren’t always your own.

What’s the worst thing a fanfic can be, in my opinion? Out of character. If you’ve come to a fic to read about a specific character, with a distinct personality, style of speech, and set of morals, and the author of the fic hasn’t done their job properly, you won’t feel like you’re actually reading about that character, and you will have a hard time reading the fic.

There is so much that goes into creating a unique character that is easy to not think about until you have the extreme constraint of writing the actions and speech of a character you did not originate, where you have to match the thought process, ideas, and syntax of someone else, essentially trying to insert yourself into the mind of the professional writer who originated the character, and extrapolate how they would make their creation react to the situation you’ve put them in, what words they would put in that person’s mouth, etc.

So fanfic is an excellent exercise in making sure your characters have distinct personalities, and making sure those personalities are consistent. Because if they’re not, your audience will be able to pick up on it immediately.

the ideal werewolf novel

just looked through about 700 werewolf books, good grief.

most seem to fall into two categories:

werewolf serial killer mysteries

domineering alpha romances

neither is really what I’m interested in.

here is what I’d want from the werewolf novel of my wildest dreams:

good relationships, especially friendships between packmates (lone wolves are boring)

werewolves who like being werewolves. (angsty wolves are boring)

the practical details of werewolfery: who’s got the bail money for animal control, whether anyone’s microchipped, what you pack in a bag for a night out werewolfing

the uses of werewolfery: hiring yourselves out as trackers or canine rescue, getting certified as service dogs, spending your free time at the library letting little kids read to a friendly doggie

female werewolves, and no weird gross hypermasculine alpha stuff going on in werewolf culture

queer werewolves, and no weird gross heteronormative ‘laws of nature’ stuff going on in werewolf culture

dog jokes.

FANFIC WRITING RESOURCE MASTER POST

so in the spirit of wanting to see writers thrive I've decided to make a big master post of every single resource I use in order to create my works. It can be really hard to find concrete resources and it's frustrating to feel like you just don't know how to do something or how to get started but no worries hopefully you can find answers in this post ^⁠_⁠^

ON WRITING SMUT

› writing resources to keep on hand while you write

The Ultimate Guide to Writing Smut Fic by QuinnAnderson on AO3

The Sexy Thesaurus by Laurel Clark

Lewd Vocabulary in Erotic Fiction Survey by KJ Scott (from a survey done on r/fanfiction)

75+ Ways To Say Heart Pounded by Kathy Steinemann

Ways To Describe Breath & Breathing by Kathy Steinemann (everything on her site is super helpful tbh)

21 Other Words For Vagina by Lisette Marshall

The Gay Sex Positions Guide (be advised this is a photo guide!)

Writing Sex Scenes by Michael La Ronn (video resource)

GENERAL HELPFUL WRITING TOOLS

› things that can help when you feel stuck on certain words, want to avoid repetitive sentences, or check your spelling and grammar

Reverse Dictionary (search for words based on their definition)

Related Words (help you find words related to another word or phrase)

Describing Words (find adjectives)

Words to Use (reference that groups subject related words by parts of speech)

Wordhippo (has synonyms/antonyms/ect based on different definitions)

Netspeak (search for words you don't know yet/internet slang)

OneLook (thesaurus/dictionary)

Fighters Block (overcome writers block by setting it up as a game to achieve a certain word count)

Scribens (lesser known spelling and grammar check but does more! Helps prevent word repetition, rephrasing, vocab enhancement, + other stuff)

THE BASICS OF WRITING

› helpful resources to give you a solid foundation for your writing

7 Fundamentals of Writing by Michael Stover

Fundamentals of Writing by Jim Westergren

RECOMMENDED BOOKS

› this section is books on writing I recommend reading, you can either purchase them or if you know how to pirate you can get them that way too

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

On Writing Well by William Zinsser

The Elements of Style by William Strunk & E.B. White

Ernest Hemingway on Writing by Larry W. Phillips

The Writers Journey by Christopher Vogler