To be ruined to satisfy another’s desire

The look of disbelief and betrayal

Fushi and The Beholder (he’s teaching his orb new tricks) full sketch here

Fushi!!! THE BEHOLDER!!

really i think one of my favorite character dynamics is “i don’t actually like you but we’ve been through so much together that i’d trust you with my life and know that we will always back each others calls. but i still wouldn’t trust you with my car keys.” like “we aren’t really friends but we’ve been thrust into an intense situation where you are the only other person i know so now we’re besties.” and “if it weren’t for our years of history i would have literally nothing to talk to you about at this work dinner.” Enemies to lovers has NOTHING on general disinterest to begrudging acknowledgment to discovering that this person is now an inextricable part of your life

So lately I’ve had this idea in my head, for a type of whumpee that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

I want a whumpee that’s just…nice.

Not the nice, cheerful, sunbeam-sugary-sweet type, those characters can get annoying real fast.

I mean a whumpee who’s kind, gentle, probably on the soft-spoken side, probably fairly introverted. They’re not naive and helpless, though- they’re just genuinely the nicest person you can imagine. Anyone who knows this character knows they wouldn’t hurt a fly and would apologize to it if they did. And they’d mean the apology, too.

So when the whump starts happening, it begs the question: why them? Why this gentle, kindhearted person? They’re the last person anyone would want to hurt. So why is it happening? What possible motive could a whumper have to hurt someone so good?

I think it would be a fun challenge to try and answer that question.

Hm, maybe I´m weird for this but maybe I do have an answer for you. 

Because they don´t exist. People who are that kind, well, even if most people are honed not birthed, this personality in specific screams *secrets*. No I´m not saying they´re some new breed of whumper with a truly depraved mind. I´m saying, nobody gets to be like that without a little pain softening their tough head. 

What is it that made them this soft? 

Or even if they´re simply normal. The usual hustle and bustle and rocky paths of life happened to them, and that´s it. 

Then, wouldn´t it be fun? To know what sound they would make when they break? How slowly, or how quickly, they give way to fear and desperation? What do you even need to get this tough rock of a person to crumble down into dust? 

There´s so many answers, it´s just fun to try get them one by one. 

Haunted and excited by this being a field of study

im sorry, tortures??

Do y’all not remember the arm burn? The hand squeezes to rattle your bones? The ritualistic stories where you beat up on each other’s arms until their red? (Look it’s roses!) all the weird little pain rituals we did to each other as kids?

Sorry but this is so fascinating because children asking to be tied up/tie up someone could also be part of childlore. But the simple meaning of the action has nothing to do with what it means within the category.

ppl with chronic illnesses, rb and put in the tags the most annoying medical advice you get from randos trying to “cure you”

I don’t know who needs to hear this but be nice to fanfic authors. Reblog their stuff. Tell them you liked it. How you felt when reading. What school assignment you didn’t finish because of how captivating their story was. Don’t just scream to your friends about it. But tell them.

So many wonderfully talented people out there don’t get the praise they need. If their work brought you joy, make their day better by telling them it did.

Long ago I wrote a fic. Posted it under a different name without telling anyone in the fandom group I was active in. Watched how the online fandom group loved the fic and had a conversation of it in a positive spirit with each other - what did they like it, theories of this and that, how nice it was to get a new fic into this small fandom etc. - but did they leave feedback to the fic? No. I think it was only one person who commented the fic from the group.

I know the fan group liked the fic because I saw the outside comments. But, if I hadn’t seen them - like readers don’t - then I’d think the fic was not worth of my time and no one read it, or read it but didn’t care about it as it clearly was not worth of any comment.

We’re not telepathics. We don’t know. Tell the creators. They want it and appreciate the feedback. If we didn’t want you to interact with the stuff we create, like comment it/share it/reblog it/etc. we wouldn’t post the stuff online for you to see.

It occurs to me upon reading this that we don't have conversations like this in the comments to the author's fic---so much of fandom is interacting with each other about media we love, but in the fanfic comments section the conversation is almost just commenters talking directly to the author, and maybe the author talking back.

Nobody launches a metacommentary thesis for other readers to debate about in the AO3 comments, or has long comment threads gushing to each other about their favorite character's interactions; it's like the tendency to give the author space while we go play with their creations, a relic of our past when we weren't supposed to exist, has extended to fic authors who are themselves playing in the same mud we are.

We act like it's bad manners to love a fic in front of an author, in the ways the fandom that writes fanfic loves a fic.

And that shouldn't be the case.

They're one of us too.

I have had one or two fics where readers engaged with one another in the comments and I can say with 100% surety that it was REALLY COOL to see!!! Even if they weren’t talking to ME, they were talking about the thing I made where I could see it and that made me feel GREAT. Absolutely loved it.

I write fanfiction and let me tell you: comments about the fic and what you like about it make the hours of work all worthwhile. Literally there is nothing else going for me right now. I get up, go to work, come home, go to bed. To get a (1) in my inbox instantly makes me happy and I'd be nothing without it.

Conversations about the fic used to happen all the time in fic comments on LiveJournal because -- LIKE AO3, or like a reblog chain -- the comments were threaded, so people could chat in a thread without feeling like they were "taking over" the comments or "bothering" anyone. But guys! AO3 has threaded comments, too! For this reason! You're never bothering anyone anyway!

We've lost so much of the spirit of communication in fandom over the last few years, and I think it's the bleed of platforms where views alone count as interaction... your YouTubes and TikToks and Instagram Reels. If you feel like you've already interacted with something simply by consuming it, it doesn't occur to you to actually, actively interact with it by responding. (The kudos button has, I think, contributed to this as well, but I would rather have kudos as an option than glaring silence, and I think kudos is a godsend for social anxiety.)

But fandom has existed as long and as richly as it has because its existence is predicated on fans interacting with each other about the stuff we love, and if we forget that and let the Meta model of the internet dictate how we behave, we'll lose what makes fandom... fandom.

Fandom CAN be you sitting alone in your bubble consuming old fanfiction from a dead show you just discovered years after the fact, reading at a rip-tear and happy in your solitude, but... it can also be you commenting on a years-old fic for a dead TV show and making a human connection because the author is still around and still has THOUGHTS. The spirit of fandom is community. Community cannot happen without interaction.

And interaction can't happen without vulnerability. Fic authors have been SO BRAVE in putting their work on the internet for everyone to see and read and judge! Every act of art is an act of vulnerability. Answer it with a little bit of your own (insofar as reaching out to a stranger with kindness is also inherently vulnerable!) and trust that it's appreciated -- fic authors are never going to be angry or annoyed about a kind comment, no matter how old or popular the fic is. Everything posted online is an affection bid. Answer the call! Turn and look at the cool bird! Comment on the painstakingly hard work!

Shit, I recently read a fanfic hosted on a personal website for a movie that came out in 2005. The author's email was at the end of the fic, and you know what? I emailed them with my compliments, not knowing if there was still a person monitoring that email. And you know what more? They replied. And they were thrilled. I'm so glad.

Comments make my day, even if its just a simple '<3' or 'extra kudos!' Or something simple like that. Its all appreciated! It makes me all mushy inside and sparks the brain chemicals for MORR WRITING!

"I love you" is OUT "I'll crawl out of the depths of hell to protect you" is IN