rllybadfanfic

[rllybadfanfic]

the w in writing stands for weeping

[rllybadfanfic]

90% of ‘representation’ problems could be answered with just more variety. “This rep is BAD because a gay guy being femme is stereotyping”/”no it’s important, femme gays exist and deserve representation” – sounds like we need both kinds. “Queer stories shouldn’t be focused on sex”/”sex is important to the queer experience and should be represented” – sounds like we need both kinds. “Hypercompetent disabled characters like Toph and Daredevil don’t represent me and suggest that disabled characters are only valuable if their disabilities aren’t ‘disabling’ them”/”hypercompetent disabled characters like Toph and Daredevil are empowering” – sounds like we need both kinds.

Most of the Problems of Bad Representation TM aren’t problems at all, except when they’re the only Representation available. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with gay or disfigured or mentally ill villains… except when it’s a pattern across media, and there’s no variety. There’s nothing wrong with stories where the character  who happens to get killed off is the minority and all the cishet white abled people make it through and live happily ever after… except when it’s a pattern, and it’s always the minorities getting killed off, rather than teh frequency you’d expect in a random distribution. There’s nothing wrong with a walking stereotype (people who are walking stereotypes do exist!), except when the stereotype is the only kind of character we’re given.

Expecting anything with a diverse cast to act as a PSA that fully explored the nuances of every race, sexuality, gender or subculture it includes and decrying it as ‘problematic’ if it doesn’t meet (your idea of) Perfect Representation is shooting ourselves in the foot. 1 piece of Perfect Representation is so, so much less valuable than 100 pieces of kinda fucked up representation that are fucked up in different ways.

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the fact that i'm no longer the same age as the protagonists of novels and films i once connected to is so heartbreaking. there was a time when I looked forward to turning their age. i did. and i also outgrew them. i continue to age, but they don't; never will. the immortality of fiction is beautiful, but cruel.

[rllybadfanfic]

Alright, to ao3's soon to be arriving Wattpad Refugees, a basic guide to general user culture:

1.) Unlike Wattpads vote system that let's you like each chapter, the ao3 equivalent kudos only allows one per work. Everyone is generally quietly annoyed about this. To engage with each chapter, you're heavily encouraged to comment. Trust me, it makes people's day.

2.) Ao3 has no algorithm. By default it's latest updated work first. You can find things to your taste through searches, filters and tags.

3.) 'No archive warnings apply' and 'user has chosen not to use archive warnings' mean two very different things. No archives warnings means the work is free from any content that could require a warning tag (character death, graphic depictions of violence, non-con, etc). User has chosen not to use archive warnings means it could contain any of the warning content, be it hasn't been explicitly tagged. Treat it like an allergen. No archive warnings apply is allergen free. User has chosen not to use archive warnings, may contain traces or whole chunks of the allergen. If you're likely to have a bad reaction, maybe don't take the risk.

4.) Speaking of warnings, ao3 has very few restrictions on the type of work that's allowed. Whatever your personal thoughts or feelings on that are, thats how the site is. You're likely to run across some dark subject matters and a lot of people are uncomfortable with reading that. You're well within your rights not like these works and have your opinion on whether they should be allowed, but harassing the authors of such works (or any works) is more likely to come back on you than them. Ao3 operates on a strong policy of 'don't like, don't read'. Use the tagging system to your full advantage to only engage with the kind of works you want to see.

We look forward to welcoming you all and seeing the fantastic works you create. Happy writing!

[rllybadfanfic]

I feel like many people have a fundamental misconception of what unreliable narrator means. It's simply a narrative vehicle not a character flaw, a sign that the character is a bad person. There are also many different types of unreliable narrators in fiction. Being an unreliable narrator doesn't necessarily mean that the character is 'wrong', it definitely doesn't mean that they're wrong about everything even if some aspects in their story are inaccurate, and only some unreliable narrators actively and consciously lie. Stories that have unreliable narrators also tend to deal with perception and memory and they often don't even have one objective truth, just different versions. It reflects real life where we know human memory is highly unreliable and vague and people can interpret same events very differently

[rllybadfanfic]

(3rd Party Sites/Apps are any apps/sites that you use to store your writing stuff (ex. Scrivener, Trello, Fortelling, journalling apps, etc)

#my stuff ends up on dics whether i started it there or not but I also use notes app and open office #not to be confused with microsoft office

[rllybadfanfic]

i love when sibling characters are fucked up from the same event but in opposite ways

[rllybadfanfic]

why won’t SOMEONE ELSE create media with all the highly specific extremely esoteric themes motifs imagery and allusions i personally wish were in things

[rllybadfanfic]

had a dream where i logged in to ao3 and saw this

so i'm manifesting it for every author who sees this

likes charge reblogs cast, rb to wish kudos and comments upon your favorite fics

[rllybadfanfic]

it came to my realization that 99% of my fandom related headaches would be cured if everyone understood this

[rllybadfanfic]

Fandom these days is wild.

I remember how Jaydick used to be the go to vanilla, childhood-crush-to-lovers soft ship for young, first time shippers that wanted something simple and completely unproblematic.

Now going by the general consensus if you ship Jaydick you're a fucking freak of nature and you should repent or burn in hell.

#also comic ships are the wildest things to go after bc there is no singular canon. any character can have any relationship #even the people who are blood related aren't always and ages are constantly changing #and also who cares?

[rllybadfanfic]

[rllybadfanfic]

there's this specific kind of "bad"/unsympathetic victim narrative that i'm obsessed with when it's executed well, where someone's trauma response is to become increasingly destructive and selfish, at first in the hope that there will be consequences - that someone will follow the broken, bloody trail they're leaving behind them and try to stop them - because that will mean that they've been seen. that someone has finally noticed them, acknowledged their pain, and done something about it. but then, when those consequences never arrive, or are too easily brushed aside, they realise that they're enjoying being in control (or the illusion of control) for once far too much to stop, and start to buy into this delusion they've begun to construct for themselves, where what they're doing is Justified, Actually, because of what they've endured to reach this point. they've long since crossed sunk cost fallacy event horizon. to look back now would be unbearable. which is, of course, when the consequences they cannot so easily ignore arrive, and they're forced to reckon with the fact that they've mistaken the grave they've been digging for a great and gleaming tower, the crumbling walls of which are now starting to collapse inwards on them. it's such an inevitable but compelling tragic route to go down.

[rllybadfanfic]

nothing makes u feel stupid quite like being a writer. out here googling “rooms in a house” to make sure i didn’t forget one of em. blockhead behavior.

[rllybadfanfic]

He would not fucking say that but let's indulge

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Crazy to me bc I frequently canon men headcanoned as trans women too. It goes both ways pretty evenly at least in the fandoms I'm in. But as a trans man I'm used to TERFs telling me my existence is misogynistic or that I'm a naive little girl or a traitor to my sex or whatever. I automatically assume people who say stuff like in the screenshot are TERFs and block on sight. I don't have patience for that kind of bad faith take.

I think I’m gonna stop using tumblr search to find posts made by and for trans guys bc everytime I search ‘trans man’ on tumblr i see posts of people trying to act like trans men breathing is misogynistic

Like oh no someone headcanoned a character as a gay trans man. Gonna cry. Gonna piss your pants maybe?

[rllybadfanfic]

Friendly reminder that fan-made content (fanart, fanfic, fanvids, etc) are:

extremely time consuming. Remember someone actually took time out of their life to create that, time they could’ve used to, idk, sleep, for example

entertainment you’re consuming for free. I can’t stress this enough: you’re enjoying someone else’s craft for free. You paid exactly zero money to look at/read/watch it.

S H A R E D  with you, not made for you. This is the most important point: someone created that, put it online and you found it. No one forced you to consume that fanwork, you C H O S E  to do it. 

Whenever you feel like leaving a mean comment, anonymous hate or make a ~clever post about how ‘lol look at all of these overused tropes every fic writer crams into their fics’ remember you’re being a dick to someone who shared their work with you. You’re not being funny, you’re not being edgy, you’re not being brave for calling something out - you’re being a dick.