what would you have me do?

Okay but there is a reason that we as people go absolutely feral for redemption stories and narratives that end with the person who was in the wrong confessing their faults and their loved one - be it romantic, familial, or what have you - forgiving them and saying, "Forget it, I'm here with you now and I'll be with you until the end." My dudes that is the GOSPEL. WE ALL LONG FOR THE GOSPEL.

A few of these are probably referring to the date posting bug thing, but AAAAAAAAAAAH!

I beg of all the younger folks on Ao3 to understand two things:

Do not repost the same work multiple times on AO3, or change the date/time to put you back at the top of the list, to boost your stats. Do not post new chapters of a chaptered work as individual stories. These things are extremely rude and people who are angry at you will not want to read your stories.

DO REBLOG everything on tumblr because that is the only way this site functions. On tumblr, YOU are choosing what your followers see. They see what you reblog. They don’t see what you like. There’s also no algorithm robot AI whatever seeing what you like and showing you related comment. NOTHING HAPPENS to likes that affects what content ANYONE on this website sees.

DO SHARE stories you like on AO3 with others, perhaps by sharing them with your Tumblr followers. AO3 has features specifically for this purpose. Fic recs are a wonderful way for fanfiction to get more attention, because, as we’ve discussed, there is no algorithm on AO3. AO3 is the opposite of TikTok.

also idk folks might argue with me but people who write theories, metas, headcanons, and especially fic writers are also content creators and it's very discouraging spending hours writing something only for it to get 5 likes and disappear

Someone just reminded me of this post and I have recognized why I'm so upset to the point of near panic attack by people reposting my stuff.

Some of the reposts have been done by folks with twice as many followers as me. Some of them have been done by people with FIFTY times as many followers as me. And everytime they praise me and say wow you're so insightful and your posts are great and I love your analysis and like yeah I'm glad for that but

You were on tumblr. You didn't even like my post (I know because I still check all my notes). You never even reblogged it.

I'm not a mind reader guys. And I have deep self confidence issues. How am I supposed to know people like my stuff if I don't see it getting notes or I don't see it being shared. I use tumblr. You're reposting stuff from tumblr. You have a tumblr. Why is it so hard to reblog something and ask for permission?

I'm genuinely thinking about taking a break from this analysis making because I'm seeing one thing in my blog and another entirely everywhere else. There's a lack of respect here that is crippling and incongruent with all the praise I get for this. It makes me wonder what is even the point.

If you like something, reblog it. If you read something and think oh that's so good I want to share it or use it, reblog it. If you like it and want to share it on another platform but don't know if I'm on it, ask me and I will probably let you if I'm not there.

Don't just scroll by and think I don't need it. I really do. I think people think I have more followers than I do. And I have some great ones I see a lot, but most of the time it feels like I'm talking to a huge room with a small audience, but there's one person in the back recording it all to share on their own accounts.

And it isn't fair.

Wise words 👏🏼

I wholeheartedly agree. It's the same with fanfictions: how many people read a fanfiction and don't even bother to leave a like, or a kudos, or a "please continue"? people say that they're afraid that the author won't appreciate their comments? Comments are our bread and butter! I'll tell you a little secret: if the author didn't want comments, they would have ticked a little box and removed the possibility to comment from the story. If there's the button to comment it means that the author *wants* and *appreciates* comments. Receiving a comment sometimes makes the difference between me writing a chapter of a story or me be demotivated and completely unwilling to write a single word. Not because I expect anything; I do write my stories for myself (and for the very selected teeny tiny small group of friends that I discuss my plots with). However, when I publish online the story, I do it because I want feedback. I want people to read it and tell me what they think. Otherwise i would just keep it in google docs and give the link to my few selected friends.

As a writer, I'm naturally very insecure of what I write. I never know if I'm doing the right thing or if the story is appealing. if I get no comments on a story it makes me feel that people didn't like it. Even if there are 4 or 5000 hits, seeing only 1 or 2 comments HURTS.

Same is with content that is published on tumblr or other websites: reblog. comment. like. Do something with it. And especially, don't copy and paste and pass it for yours.

Seriously. I hate plagiarism of any kind. I just reported a person who plagiarised my story "The Naked truth" on Wattpad. i don't know if wattpad will take it seriously, I hope they will, but I have to do my best for ensuring that my work isn't copied. What kind of enjoyment does people get when they receive praise or feedback for something they haven't written? It's beyond my understanding!

Thesis: the rise of fanwank and anti culture correlates directly with diminished understanding of what “romantic”, in a literary sense, actually means.

It doesn’t mean “this is ideal or healthy or even realistic”. It means “this is beautiful, this is tragic, this is grotesque, this stirs emotion”, even if it’s not, as @starryroom puts it, something you would be comfortable seeing play out in front of you at Taco Bell. It’s about grandiosity and mythology and heroism writ large. It’s about playing with the id, as beautiful and terrible as it can be. 

LET LOVE AND LUST BE MONSTROUS.

i feel like Guillermo del Toro ghostwrote that

“I didn’t say I liked it. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference.”

- Oscar Wilde 

@gentil-minou asked me to post this and I wasn't going to but she found me a really good pride and prejudice fic yesterday so I kinda owe her one. here you go

anyway, this is goristier (ie Gorilla x Ms Bustier). it was meant to be a crack ship but idk where it stands now lol. I drew this back in JUNE and I never finished haha. maybe I will, who knows

THIS IS THE BEST SHIP HANDS DOWN YOU CANNOT SAY OTHERWISE

Once you get into the habit of reblogging every fic you read, it’s so easy

Once you get into the habit of commenting on every fic you read, it’s so easy

Once you get into the habit of encouraging the fic writers you love, it’s so easy

And when fic writers get reblogs, comments, and encouragement, it’s so easy to make more!

im so obsessed w the mixed sides of the square lol i feel like my brain is constantly ping ponging between marichat and ladrien bc im like…..friends to lovers…..mutual pining…..secrets hangouts in Marinette’s room…..secret hangouts in Adrien’s room…..cuddling……CUDDLING….

like don’t get me wrong, I adore ladynoir and adrinette and think about them a lot too lol. but marichat and ladrien specifically are like crack to me!!! bc while ladynoir and adrinette can operate completely independently of marichat and ladrien (like, marichat and ladrien don’t even have to interact ever for ladynoir and adrinette to exist/develop), by nature of the pairing marichat and ladrien CANNOT be independent. their relationship inevitably affects ladynoir and adrinette and the entire square. when ladrien and marichat are developed, you have to think about how this affects the other ships and the identity shenanigans go through the ROOF oh man like……..chat noir feeling slightly smug bc he’s finally dating ladybug and she doesn’t even know it…..marinette staring at the back of Adrien’s head in class thinking about how they made out last night and he has no idea it was her…..adrien desperately trying not to let all the inside jokes he has with marinette as chat noir slip out……ladybug being so tempted to cancel patrol for the third time in a row bc playing video games inside a blanket fort sounds like a funner way to spend time with her catboyfriend……

i will stop myself there but in conclusion superhero x civilian good

@crocojagged very glad you brought this up bc I frequently think about how both marichat my beloved and ladrien my beloved could be canon at the same time. platonic best friends marichat and dating ladrien or even dating marichat and “‘moved on’ and now we’re just Very Good Friends” ladrien. it doesn’t matter that there are not enough hours in the day for them to somehow maintain two secret relationships and be superheroes and high schoolers I don’t care we really could have it all

Speaking of that (this isn’t marichat and ladrien exclusively but) I love the fic the definition of insanity by @peachcitt bc they date and break up on every side before the reveal and it’s so bittersweet and beautiful how they always come back to each other and can never truly move on from “either” person bc they are the same all along 🤧🤧🤧

Y'know what it's late and I'm not done thinking about this because like. They meet for patrol. Chat Noir's thinking "haha she has no idea that she hangs out with me as Adrien all the time." And Ladybug's thinking the same exact thing about him hanging out with her as Marinette. They're both so smug. They each think they're the one that knows everything, but they KNOW NOTHING. THEY HAVE NO IDEA.

And then! As Adrienette they're even more protective of each other as civilians. Whenever an akuma attack goes off they're arguing, both trying to take each other to safety before they transform to fight the akuma. Their brains turn off because they must protect their verygood™ friend!! "I already put them at risk by visiting them so much as a superhero, so I gotta make sure to look out for them" and that's definitely the only reason, it's definitely not because they're in love and wouldn't know what to do with themselves if the other got hurt ever ... (whoops it got a little angsty there)

Anyway I think Plagg would explode from being witness to this

Unpopular opinion: Gabriel doesn’t truly love Adrien or Emilie.

What he feels isn’t selfless love—it’s entitlement. He actively disregards the will of others and behaves possessively.  

Fatherhood is treated as though it were a hobby. It isn’t a priority to Gabriel. It’s scheduled according to his valuable time and interest, irrespective of Adrien’s needs. It’s cumbersome whenever his son requires affection, attention, or praise—so he frequently drops the chore and moves on to something else.

Adrien has the same amount of autonomy as wall décor. Charming, well-educated, attractive, classically-trained pianist, fluent in multiple languages—the best child money can buy. Proudly on display for the world to admire.

…Except when he isn’t.

Any time Adrien voices an opinion or disagrees, it angers Gabriel. How dare he? Possessions aren’t meant to have free-will—their purpose is to merely exist and be of use.

But this was a big investment, tossing it aside would be a complete waste—so Gabriel uses incentives and punishments to bend Adrien accordingly.

Complaining about my absence? Fine, you’ll be deprived of affection. Questioning my judgment? Then I’ll revoke your freedom and you will remain isolated inside this mansion. Talking back? Your friends are permanently barred from seeing you. Your only source of emotional fulfillment is now gone.

If you want my love and approval, you have to earn it.

But, everything has a limit. When investments don’t pan out…you permanently cut your losses.

Whenever Adrien becomes a major obstacle—preventing him from achieving his true desires—Gabriel will cast him aside without hesitation.

That’s not love.

To have a fully-realized character arc, Adrien must internalize the truth and break the cycle. Love isn’t conditional. There is no list of requirements to meet. It doesn’t have specific terms or strings attached.

He deserves to be loved. He deserves to have full autonomy—to be free. To make his own decisions and not exist as an extension of someone else. He has inherent worth, which cannot be defined by anyone.

There will be an inevitable moment of confrontation between Adrien and Gabriel. I hope it unfolds the way Zuko stood up to Ozai. 

In conclusion, Gabriel must face consequences by the end of the series. The pain and suffering he has inflicted on so many must be addressed—not swept under the rug because s-s-sad man just have poor coping skills!!! He is good actually™!! He only do big bad for “““love””” uwu;;

Unless Gabriel’s life is sacrificed, reviving Emilie from the dead would reward his atrocious behavior and defeat the purpose of the story. If the writers believe otherwise, they’re delusional or being willfully ignorant.

WHILE understanding that a hereditary ruling class is a fuck-stupid thing to have IRL, I have no intention of leaving off reading and writing about secondary-world nobles and/or royalty. It lets you elevate family drama to extremely weird levels and really raise the stakes on questions of obligation, tradition, inheritance, and being tied into a job you actually might fucking suck at. Feels like all my life I’ve been seeing finger-wagging about how it’s more virtuous to write about regular folks, and how dumbass fantasy fans just project themselves onto princes and princesses because they’re in denial that their ancestors did physical labor, and I’m like, “irrelevant. Sometimes you just want to see sibling rivalry escalate to stabbings”

So, I found yet another thing to hate about the whole Madelyne Pryor mess, and it’s that you could have had the “Maddy is Jean’s clone” story happen and still NOT shit all over Madelyne in the process.  Because like…her being Jean’s clone makes more sense, let’s be honest. Claremont’s original plan for her to just be the, as he says, “one in a million shot” human woman who looks just like Jean isn’t just problematic and pointless, it’s also stupid. He says it goes back to lots of lore and media about doubles, such as Hitchcock’s flicks (uh, did you miss that those were horrors, dude?) and he wanted to basically fake the audience out by dropping lots of hints she was somehow connected to Jean or the Phoenix, and then pull the rug out from under ‘em like NAH, JUST KIDDING, SHE REALLY JUST A NORMAL LADY and like…that’s dumb, dude. I get that you want to go with the opposite of what the audience is going to expect, but in this case, the reason they expect it is because it’s the only thing that actually makes SENSE.  So, I’m cool with her being Jean’s clone. I’m cool with Jean coming back, there’s nothing wrong with Jean. You can do these things without warping Madelyne’s character or killing her off. In fact, I think you could even write her spiral downwards into the Goblyn Queen the exact same way and have it be fine, right up until Inferno itself. Because Maddy’s descent is MASTERFULLY written. She did NOT turn into a villain overnight, she goes through REPEATED trauma, loss, and violation that strips her of her husband, her child, her very identity, and ultimately her agency, and even then she’s still too strong and too good, she has to be TRICKED by a demon and infected with demonic energy before she becomes evil. It’s not by her free will at all, which both fans and current writers forget. She’s the very definition of a victim here, as much as, say, Illyana Rasputin. It’s done really well, she is portrayed as a victim and as a three-dimensional character, and I am fine with it staying. Countless heroes go through horrible dehumanizing shit and/or become temporarily evil due to forces beyond their control, I don’t have a problem with that, any more than I do with Bucky Barnes or Laura Kinney. But unlike Illyana or Bucky or Laura, once Madelyne actually DOES become the Goblyn Queen, we’re meant to lose all sympathy for her. It’s like the writers felt that since they had done the required work to making her downfall believable—which to their credit they did, I really appreciate that they made it make sense and not be a sudden thing—then they could now just make her a straight-up wicked witch, complete with misogynistic tropes like her being suddenly super-sexualized, seducing Havok, and wanting to kill her own baby while Good Woman Jean contrasts her by being the mother that wants to save the baby, and the baby telepathically reaching out for her in preference over Madelyne. She’s no longer simply dehumanized by what’s happening around her in the story, she becomes dehumanized by the story itself. Like…to go back to Laura Kinney again, when Laura is dehumanized by other characters and circumstances in her story, it’s written in a way where we the reader are not supposed to agree with her dehumanization. We’re supposed to sympathize with her and be angry at her treatment. I would say that Madelyne is still treated with some sympathy towards the very end, mainly through Jean who sees her as the victim she is and says so, but ultimately this story was not Madelyne’s own story in the way that Illyana’s, Bucky’s, Laura’s stories are their own—-it was constructed for the purpose of killing her off, and making a way for Scott and Jean to be together without Scott being vilified for it. And that’s what’s shitty. The fix is pretty simple—just let everything happen as it did in canon, but take out the shitty sexist aspects of the Goblyn Queen persona, don’t make a Madonna/Whore dichotomy out of Jean and Madelyne, and let Madelyne survive and be treated as a victim and let her keep being a hero with the X-Men like she was before, just like many other X-Men have after being villains (especially since it wasn’t her fault or her choice) Basically, treat her the way any other character would be treated, instead of deciding to get rid of her by literally demonizing her, and let her just continue to be an interesting character like she was even before all this. It’s really not a hard fix.  So yeah, pretty much everything could have happened the way it originally did WITHOUT it being terrible to Maddy in a meta sense (it would still be terrible in-universe, but that happens to all X-Men characters) but they still made it terrible because they wanted Jean and Scott back together and since a lady is nothing without her man, that made Maddy superfluous so she had to be evil and die the end.

if u dont acknowledge the fanfics u read, the writer won’t think anyone is actually taking the time to read their stuff, which makes our effort feel wasted and our passions feel worthless

Tell. The. Fanfic. Writers. How. You. Feel.

I will always reblog this. It’s important.

Very important.

As a fanfic writer I always get scared that people are going to be upset by my late chapters

I will always re-blog. Remember that as writers or creative’s in general we are able to improve our craft by getting feedback because it helps us to know what our audience likes and responds to so don’t feel anxiety about commenting because commenting is literally helping and you should never feel anxious about helping someone

As someone who writes fanfic I always want to know what the people who read my work think about it.

I’ve loved fanfics since I was like 10

Same 😭😂

i stg i love the comments when the readers are mad at me

it fuels my motivation bc ik they are getting into it

Yes!!! Those are the best comments for real

sometimes the comments are actually the best bit 🤷🏻‍♀️