(((Digimon Is Forever)))

[image description: tweet by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg (@TheRaDR) from 12/2/18, 9:44 AM saying ‘We need diverse representation not only so every kid can see themselves as the hero of the story, but so every kid can understand that *other* kinds of kids are *also* the heroes of the story.’ id end] 

fic writer: I need to spend months writing a detailed backstory justifying everything I actually want to write before I can write the good part

me (internally);

me (externally): have you considered just starting at the good part? It’s called in media res. It’s a whole thing.

fic writer: but I have to establish-

me: characters and tropes your readers are already familiar with? The concept of an alternate universe? The reason why two characters are in a relationship, even though your reader has clicked on a story labelled as those characters being in a relationship?

fic writer: but-

me: it’s okay. This isn’t school. You can still get an A in fic writing without all that stuff.

me: need a hug?

*opening a book* this better not have any themes or motifs

Suddenly, an English teacher appears

fuckin enchanted by the concept that cracking open a copy of Les Mis for example can summon an English teacher from the murky depths as if unleashing a demon from a grimoire

vampires always like “i could kill you if I wanted” like? yeah? so could another human being. so could a dog. so could a dedicated duck. you arent special

"You got vampire lore wrong in your story because real vampires do this and that" Buddy I have terrible news about all of vampires. Heartbreaking news. Worst news you're gonna hear all day.

This tags are so important

fic writer: I need to spend months writing a detailed backstory justifying everything I actually want to write before I can write the good part

me (internally);

me (externally): have you considered just starting at the good part? It’s called in media res. It’s a whole thing.

fic writer: but I have to establish-

me: characters and tropes your readers are already familiar with? The concept of an alternate universe? The reason why two characters are in a relationship, even though your reader has clicked on a story labelled as those characters being in a relationship?

fic writer: but-

me: it’s okay. This isn’t school. You can still get an A in fic writing without all that stuff.

me: need a hug?

My ideal wish-fulfillment story as a kid was a fantastical portal fantasy where the protagonist actually gets to stay at the end. Sometimes real life sucks and kids NEED to believe that you can escape forever, y'know? The "you're always fated to go home in the end" thing is NOT a hopeful narrative for a lot of people. It's not inherently bad, of course, and it suits plenty of stories, but it's not the only way to tell a portal fantasy.

Sometimes a better narrative is, "you can stay with the people who have taken you in and given you a better life. You don't have to go back just because of some arbitrary concept of 'home.'"

I'm working on a portal fantasy now and I cannot FATHOM making my portal-jumper character go "home" at the end. The portal found him for a reason, and my concept of the portal is entirely grounded in, "sometimes people just need to get away from something awful." My portal isn't the type of portal that teaches a lesson, my portal is the type of portal that gets people away from awful circumstances and brings them where they need to be. The core question in my WiP is less, "is he going home at the end?" and more "how does he save his new home so it doesn't fall apart and force him to go back to a bad place?"

Taking my homeless runaway transmasc character and crafting a "you always have to go home in the end" narrative just seems like a bad philosophy, you feel me? He's not going "home" in the end, because "home" was a parking garage with lackluster security that he's sleeping in instead of going back to abusive parents.

I'm not sending him back to that; that's not a good story! That's not fun OR heartwarming! That's just sad! So he gets to stay in the cool magic world with all the other cool magic trans people, god damn it!!!

I have to confess I'm a sucker for Chosen One narratives where the protagonist is the Chosen One not because they're secretly some sort of fate-bound sorcerer or genetic übermensch, but because their bizarrely specific skill-set just happens to be exactly what's needed to save the day.

it vexes me terribly when people posit being in a fandom and enjoying a piece of media for its themes as seperate things because like. I get into fandoms in order to talk about what I like in a work's themes? I write analysis and fic in order to further explore a work's themes? I get invested in character dynamics because I think their contrasting arcs and motivations are thematically interesting? like these are the same thing to me, I don't get how they're meant to be incompatible.

Hanya Yanagihara, Electric Literature (via feuilletoniste)

That autism feel when you see something and your eyes light up and you get that spark in your chest… you’re like, “Yup, there’s my new special interest!”

I’ve seen so many negative reviews of sci-fi movies and superhero movies and SFX-heavy action movies of all sorts that boil down to “all of the action scenes and all of the special effects are superfluous and the only portions of the film that have any merit are the parts where the characters are sitting around in dimly lit restaurants talking about their feelings”, and it’s only now occurred to me that these critics are literally just giving the movie a bad review for not being a coffee shop AU of itself.

Beyoncé’s Lemonade: A Lesson on Appreciating Art That Wasn’t Made for You | Consequence of Sound (via luxuriousvulgarity)