Racing Turtles

this is ur intermittent reminder that thoughtcrimes aren't real and sin doesn't exist even if you call it by a different name! There's no invisible watcher keeping track of your Moral Indiscretions and no cosmic consequence for increasing the amount of Immoral Thought engaged with or enjoyed in private. Harm is done when someone gets hurt, and anything less is none of your business ♡

specifically this post is saying that flirting or playing with Fucked Up and Inexcusable ideas in fictionalized contexts with consenting adults is completely fine, actually, and does not hamper anyone's ability to have reasonable feelings about these things in real life situations where someone is being hurt.

Video games don't cause violence, and kink does not cause sexual abuse. Live and let live, y'all

when the objectively bad person has traumatic and honestly reasonable reasons for why theyre like that but it doesnt excuse their actions and only serves to make them more tragic as a character

since time to orbit: unknown by @derinthescarletpescatarian is over, i decided to start reading curse words to ease my withdrawal

and idk, there was something very funny to me about finishing a story where trees were of such profound cultural importance to the protagonist and then immediately opening the first curse words ebook and seeing this

One of my pet peeves in fanfiction is the "What if [Character] was actually SMART???" AUs. That's how this specific type of fic always phrases it, too.

Like, I have read some good stories that fit that generic sentence, to be sure! There are some fascinating and fabulous AUs based on asking questions like: "Okay, but what if this character had the household and social management skillset that would be expected of someone high-ranking in this time period?" Or: "What if this starship actually had a set of safety protocols inspired by actual workplace safety laws and abided by them? What if the engineers displayed basic problem-solving abilities?" Or: "What if the heroes of a Monster of the Week show developed some basic defense tools and a buddy system to prevent themselves from being kidnapped by vampires or werewolves once a month?" Or: "What if the character did this trivial thing to communicate with their loved ones instead of flying off the handle in a kind of OOC way, honestly, just to force some particular plot to happen?"

I love it when the story gets unfolded and expanded for some delicious and often funny Canon Divergence. That stuff is great. Stories are often full of plot holes and definitely not above criticism!

What I don't love is when the character is made "smart" by... essentially making them a doomsday prepper? Like they're a time-traveler or transmigrator blessed for foreknowledge of the plot, except this isn't actually a Time Travel or Dimension Travel AU, and there's no inciting incident for the main character to start training at 4AM every morning and stockpile supplies and make political alliances with random strangers. The fanfiction's main character's actions / progress only really make sense if they are secretly an isekai manga protagonist, but they're not...? It breaks my suspension of disbelief.

this goes double for any time travel redux fic that doesn't meaningfully take on board the fact that the cast of characters are young now/again. like sure okay it's engaging with the central premise of naruto that these twelve year olds go to killer martial arts school. but canon at least also acknowledges that twelve year olds have short attention spans, vague and contradictory goals, and little grasp of national or even interpersonal politics.

it gets a little more ridiculous when somehow harry goddamn potter manages to talk his fellow twelve year olds into a regular heavy-duty calisthenics program.

all stories are about time loops, except for time loops, which are about grief

every single time (template from @mhuyo)

I mean I know a certain level of projection on fictional characters and situations is inevitable and even healthy, but sometimes you got to step back into the real world to remind yourself that Character X is not your shitty parent/abusive ex/asshole boss/bully from high school, and that people who like Character X are not personally victimizing you.

op is getting death threats now probably

Things that work in fiction but not real life

This post breaching containment has taught me that a lot of people seem to think they can accurately profile complete strangers. For the record, no the fuck you can't.

i miss remix. you remember remix right. some of the best fic i ever read or wrote was a hallucinatory misunderstanding of some other author's tegan/ace or vriskan. do the kids still do this, is there femblem remix fic out there that i don't know about

at first i was thinking that terror fandom would go the fuck off with a remix exchange but i honestly feel they can't be trusted with it. like the author's notes will be like 'op, i took a deleuzian analytical lens to your work to try to tease out the themes of alienation. fitzjames' outfit is taken from a clipping the historical james fitzjames had in his diary, which i own, from 1845' and then the actual fic will just be the original fic from the opposite pov with no other changes

anyway this was and remains legitimately my favorite way to interact with doctor who fandom because doctor who fandom is just a remix exchange anyway. nothing has ever been so natural a medium. i'm not sure i really believe there are 'other types of who fic' even now. all doctor who fic is fundamentally a montage of jack harkness looking at martha longingly that in the original story was like a fun slice of life thing but in this one indicates that he is dying from being too immortal somehow

too many fanfics have the guy be like "oh me and my wife are in an open relationship im totally allowed to have sex with other people." we need more fanfics with straight up infidelity ! adultery even !

#he would not fucking be ethically nonmonogamous

"I can fix him" good for you. I need to craft a scenario in which he betters himself, to prove to myself that I can meaningfully atone despite how much of myself I see in him.

"I can make him worse" I can too but first I have to prove that there was hope for him somewhere, at some point, which he rejected. Because if there was never any hope for him, what hope is there for me?

chapter two is up!

for the record when i made my spouse beta read chapter two their response was to pterodactyl screech "WHY IS [redacted] SO HORNY" like six times

I just want to go on the record that this chapter has Driven Me Mad :|

I am tearing out my entirely metaphorical hair, I am Standing on a Chair, I am EATING GRASS, I didn't even REALIZE how gigantical Lara was and how Gnomish Jor was in the first chapter until rereading it in-prep for this one, a Serious and Traumatic romantic confrontation occurs in an Arcade---

I Am Going Mad :| :| :|

you can write whatever the HELL you want

whenever someone in a story tells a character they're training to fight to treat their weapon like an extension of themselves i always feel like more weight should be put on that statement. on the implication that in learning to wield a weapon you must become it. you must make it a part of you. you must walk down a path from which you will never be able to come back from.

weapons should mold to their wielders like grafts. great warriors should appear fused to their blades, and unbalanced - amputated - without them. their hands should be unsteady without the grip and weight of a killing instrument. there should be more body horror in the choice to take up arms.

That post about 30 year old coming of age stories?

I’ve been thinking about it all morning. What would the plot points be for that? What makes a 30 year old coming of age story?

Old folks sound off in the comments

A few ideas:

Obtaining a diagnosis for a health condition (mental or physical) and finally getting treatment and recontextualizing your life.

Student loan forgiveness kicking in, suddenly you can afford to live. That one small change snowballs into something big.

Starting over after the end of The Big Relationship you thought would define your life. Engaging in a new hobby/social group that adds context to how small life felt in that relationship.

You find yourself with a pet you have to care for, which teaches you to care for yourself.

You take a class somewhere that unlocks skills you didn't know you had.