Honestly, I think “yes, you are allowed” is something a lot of fandom needs to hear right now. We had, what, a decade of “what not to do” writing advice, starting with anti-Mary-Sue campaigns and on through sporking and fanficrants and RaceFail, and now everything is this cracked parody of social justice and ~this is problematic~ is the ultimate “what not to do.” And just look at the messages we’ve taken to heart: don’t get too big for your britches, everything has to be accurate and realistic, no one the reader is supposed to sympathize with should be within shouting distance of “problematic.” We’re writing about these larger-than-life characters whose lives are full of over-the-top, implausible events, and it’s like we’re afraid that if we handwave or take narrative shortcuts or spin crazy yarns about their adventures or don’t treat Bad Shit Happening with the expected amount of solemnity, somebody’s going to call us out for not doing our due diligence.
In fact, the one “yes, you are allowed” message we’ve taken to heart is that we’re not beholden to the original canon, which is a phenomenon I… have mixed feelings about. But the point is, that message combined with the fear of fucking up, of writing “unrealistic” or “problematic” stories about monsters and aliens and superheroes, means that mundane AUs and domestic fic are the path of least resistance. And not only is fic being pushed towards the generic, the moral pressure that drives fandom SJ makes it feel almost… risky?… to stray from the fanon status quo. Breaking the mold, instead of being a sign of creativity, increasingly feels like a sign that you’re Doing It Wrong and may in fact be a bad person. I have seen people say that they want to write about post-CA:TWS Bucky but don’t, because they don’t want to slog through dealing with the “obligatory” recovery issues. Or that they’d feel guilty, like they were committing some sort of erasure, if they wrote pre-war fic without Queer Brooklyn and The Docks a bunch of romanticized-poverty porn.
For the love of God, fandom. You are allowed to come up with whatever fictional means you feel like to undo the Winter Soldier’s fictional (and almost totally unspecified) brainwashing. He’s an amnesiac cyborg assassin hopped up on a knockoff version of the super-serum that lets Steve Rogers get flung off a freeway overpass hard enough to overturn a bus and get up with barely a scratch. He starts getting memories back whenever they leave him out of cryo long enough. If you want the serum to heal his brain damage and leave him twitchy, angry, and guilt-ridden, but more-or-less compos mentis, so that he can go face down his demons without spending months on Steve’s couch eating soup and relearning how to be a human? YOU CAN. YOU ARE ALLOWED. THAT IS A STORY YOU ARE ALLOWED TO TELL. The “it was the super-healing” handwaving already puts you about fifteen realism steps ahead of the comics, where Steve used a magic monkey’s paw ex machina to bring back Bucky’s memories with the power of his love. And then a bunch of stuff happened and Bucky wrestled a bear in a Siberian gulag, okay, and this is the level of Srs Bsns we’re starting from.
You can do whatever the fuck you want. If you want to dwell lovingly on all the interpersonal issues and mental scarring that resulted from that time aliens made them do it because they got fake married in space, go for it. But do not pull out the DSM and start checking off PTSD symptoms out of a sense of duty if what you actually want to write is banter, UST, sarcasm about absurd situations, reckless displays of loyalty, and porn where they realize the depth and true nature of their feeeeeelings about each other. Both of those things are okay things to want.
tl;dr Internal story logic > realism. Write whatever ridiculous tropey or out-there shit you want, and use exactly as much judiciously-applied realism as you need to sell the story.
Please read the whole damn thing, because I feel like this is super important for everyone to hear.
Fandom is a meme, and it has its fads, mostly borne of emulation. Before the advent of SJ, there was a time where there was a “realistic sex” diktat, and there were posts going around with instructions like “use condoms, water-based lube and nothing else, cleaning up after sex with a damp towel is The Most Important” and other stuff about “realistic” sex practices that should be used in fanfiction as well. (And – it’s fine, you know, if people who don’t know anything about sex want information and want to give a realistic vibe to their fics, but if you want to bypass that entirely, Fuck That Shit, who cares)
So anyway around that time I wrote this threesome fic in the Sherlock fandom and I remember someone reblogging it and commenting “it’s a great fic and the sex is pretty realistic, except they don’t clean up with damp towels at the end” and I was like “what the fuck is wrong with you what is this damp towel business and how on earth is it a bad thing that I haven’t added it in my fic” and then I remembered all the fics that I had read at that time which had dutifully incorporated The Damp Towel™ and I realised that it was merely the fashion of the times. And after that Omegaverse became all the rage so no one gave a shit about damp towels anymore
Like, I guess it’s always a cycle, you get a certain type of fic everywhere, then someone tries something a bit different (like realistic sex at a moment where unrealistic sex abounds) and then all the cool kids want to do it as well, and then it becomes The Law, and then people get fed up and go 180° at the other end of the spectrum
Right now I’m kind of bored because recently a majority of the fics that I read are very prim and proper, with disclaimers that are kilometers-long if the fics ever venture into something even remotely shady morally speaking, and I have a marked preference for fics that explore stuff that’s not Healthy or Sane or even Consensual, because to me fandom and fanfics are this big laboratory that really should allow you to delve into the unconventional and the morally grey (oh, the Golden Age of the Sherlock fandom… the amazing fics I read back then…)(not necessarily all the time, though. I mean exploration and pushing the boundaries of what is ethically acceptable or not are definitely cool, and then sometimes you want all the fluff and the safe, sane and consensual. I’m just saying, a little bit of everything is good)
So I hope that the dam will crack soon, as it always does, and I’m interested to see what weirdo monster will come out of it
Boring fanfic is boring and no one is under any obligation to read it. That’s why the super “realistic,” everyone’s perfect/non-problematic (spoiler: well rounded characters and stories can be “problematic”), 70,00000000000000000000 word “slow burn” has no responses.
Sometimes a story is boring. It’s simple as that.
Here’s the great news: the fic can be saved! JUST DO SOMETHING UNEXPECTED AND HAVE SOMEONE REACT. That’s it.
I am the biggest “do your research” person there is, but 5 minutes of googling to make sure you’re not treating a broken collar bone like a paper cut should not get in the way of an interesting story. Suspension of disbelief is a thing.
Let the purity crusaders’ heads explode. The entire world does not revolve around them. Let them scream and cry and wring their hands and learn that they are in charge of what’s in their browser. They know where the back button is. If they don’t want to read your crackfic MCU/Yuri!!! On Ice crossover set in dystopian future England, they don’t have to.
And that towel thing is ridiculous. If someone is nitpicking about something like that, they’ve passed the realm of absurd and landed in “Everyone must be alike because I’m too lazy to comprehend anything new” and should be outright ignored.
Tag things that could be upsetting and leave it at that. Tagging doesn’t mean you can’t write about upsetting things- it means you’re empowering your reader to make their experience more enjoyable by encouraging curation of their own collection of content.
By that same token, you’re making YOUR experience much less stressful.
them: “THIS STORY HAS CHARACTER DEATH AND MENTAL ILLNESS I’M UPSET”
You: “How is it you got 10,000 words into the story to complain but not 15 words into the summary to read the warnings?”
And then cackle. Because they will have exactly no excuse.
I’ve been waiting for Kazurasei to finally upload an image with just this motif, and they finally did a few days ago! It’ll become clear soon as to why I wanted to show this motif alone. As always, all kanzashi are from Kazurasei.
One of the only summer motifs that stays strictly within the month it represents, pampas grass is a unique and stand out motif! For starters, it’s one of the only monthly kanzashi motifs that does not depict any flowers. Yes, it has a very shiny center that is filled with rhinestones, but those are there for a separate reason: pampas grass has fluffy, silvery-pink tufts in real life and looks absolutely dazzling when it catches the sun’s rays, especially when covered in dew. The rhinestones are present to show that concentrated reflection. Like the center, the outside “petals” are also made from very reflective and iridescent fabric, with more traditional designs featuring silver paper! As is apparent by this point, it does not feature the usual tsumami (pinched silk) techniques that non-summer motifs often do and cannot be found in alternate tsumami form like some of the others have.
Being a grass, it can also grow pretty much anywhere, with entire fields being filled with the ethereal plant. You can buy and grow your own from almost any nursery nearby as they’re quite hardy and easy to take care of (side note: the Japanese pampas grass is actually considered a dangerous invasive species in California, so please make sure that you take proper care of the plant and do not toss it into the wild). The second image shows a bit more of where the pampas grass can grow and why its known for its sparkle. As you may have surmised from the inclusion of dew and now dragonflies (hint: the next motif), pampas grass can be found growing wild along the shores of rivers and ponds. Their silvery tips reflect the water and provide a stunning display with the dragonflies that mate during this time who are as iridescent as the grass, which makes the combination seems almost magical!
When being worn the kanzashi seems completely different as its blue shine brings to mind cool rivers and its spread “petals” like those of fireworks. Like with Ryōka (涼香) of Sakaemasa (栄政) in Gion Higashi (above), you can’t help but stop and stare when a maiko wears this kanzashi! Whether in one large burst or smaller bursts (like the example with the dragonflies) it’s extremely popular with maiko of all ranks for its sparkle and shine!
I think a very revealing moment on Queer Eye was when Tan said to the man they were making over: “I look good for my husband, what are you doing to keep her?” And it like. Absolutely astounded, dumbfounded this man that he should possibly be doing anything for his wife other than merely Exist as her husband
Queer Eye is redefining masculinity one Georgian slacker at a time and I am HERE for it
Found this Lisa Frank eldritch horror at a goodwill in Portland, OR. And yes I ended up getting it because one of my friends wanted it and thinks it’s cute
PLEASE STOP
HATING ON PEOPLE WHO LIKE THINGS THAT YOU DO NOT LIKE.
THE WORLD,
IN ITS INFINITE WISDOM, HAS CHOSEN NOT TO REVOLVE AROUND YOU.
^^^This.
Take your hate to private forums. Blacklist tags and blogs you dont want to see. Waving the hate flag at people who want to explore stuff through fiction that doesn’t fit into your neat little box doesn’t make you into any kind of SJW – it just makes you an asshole.
I also have aspects/pairings/ideas I don’t support but I’m not gonna publicly shame anyone for it because it’s not some kind of Holy Truth – it’s just my private opinion which I’m either keeping to myself or discuss with friends privately.
I’m getting sick of the toxic environment people seem to be spreading on Tumblr.
Chartreuse Abstruseness Export 