A ficcer who somehow managed to read Redwall of all series and not come away with the knowledge that being enslaved is a big deal. No, the characters really shouldn't be having happy chatty friendly fun times with the pirating slavemasters who captured them and probably murdered most of their families.
Okay, I'm just weirded out by the person who blocked me now. She joined in a group writing project, suddenly blocked me and refuses to reply to the other cowriters, and published fics of her own with suspiciously similar premises to the group project. No one is gonna think it was her original idea, she clearly took it from us, and I don't understand at all why she feels the need to create knock-offs when she was welcome in the original group. If we'd hurt her feelings somehow we'd have tried to make it right if she just told us, and if she was mad at us it seems weird she'd want to use our ideas immediately afterwards. I somehow feel more offended that she's not at least stealing from me competently.
Okay, I was somewhat wrong. Closer examination shows those fics were posted before she blocked me. I'm still somewhat annoyed, though, because if she isn't talking to me anymore for some reason which merited her not even telling me why, it feels weird for her to still have up fics that are clearly based on mine. I don't think there's any specific reason why she shouldn't but it still somehow feels like a boundary has been crossed and I'm not sure why I have that feeling.
(Taking away the ping because you probably won't see this anyways, just here for clout.) Welcome to the concept of 'psychological ownership'. Ever heard of people 'stealing' parking spots? What about when someone takes the last item in the shop about a second before you arrive, and you see them put it in your cart and walk away. In neither case does anyone actually take anything away from you, they aren't your property, but you still feel wronged. Likewise, you have poured years of work into your fic series but... well, let's face this from a rational angle: 'Assorted characters have trauma, have such dismissed, go to group therapy and share their stories where they can finally be heard' is not a particularly unique concept. In fact, one could argue that premise actually applies to fiction itself, as many times, people have their experiences disbelieved and belittled until they make a beloved character go through it and slap a warning label or two; then it's finally taken for what it is. I have no idea what communications were like prior, Chel, but if you showed such fierce ownership of that concept prior to the falling out, or maybe if that person had been through some experiences that they wanted to work through in their own way that differed from the group's vision.... Honestly, as a survivor, you taking ownership of this hurts me. I want to see more cathartic stories, I want people who have undergone trauma to be able to both read and write things that validate that what happened was real. And I don't want it written by someone who hasn't been affected by most of what they write on.
Three paragraphs into an A:tLA fic and the author just referred to Zuko as a "Noirette". I just about yeeted my fucking phone.
Depends on the rest of the fic. If it's a good premise and makes me happy to read, a silly descriptor just adds flavor.
It was a modern AU and no. They were just referring to the color of his hair. You know. The black hair that half of the rest of the cast also has as a differentiating euphamism. And using this descriptor completely seriously.
look, fic writer, i know that this is the paragraph where you really cross that Big Taboo Line, but using italics, underlining, and bolding all in one sentence is a bit much. (really not a gripe, more wry amusement, but honestly. the same sentence also uses both ellipses and a triple dash. not a double hyphen em-dash, three full hyphens. we get it, it's shocking.)
Someone's commenting on every other chapter on my group's megacrossover going "I don't get it" "I don't get it" "I don't get it", even in cases where there is nothing to get. Some of the chapters they've made such comments on have an unreliable narrator or format screw thing going on, but others have neither, and in one case they actually said "I understand X, Y, and Z parts, what about the rest?" when there WAS no "rest".
Or, the inconsistencies should be on purpose, to convey the fae bullshit or gaslighting or whatever that is going on in the story. But that, even more so, requires the author to know what they are doing.
I would argue that even that requires a high level of internal consistency, in order to convey a sense of illusion - that the narrator is being deceived as to the nature of reality - as opposed to incoherence - that the author simply doesn't know what 'reality' is at any given moment. Edit: Which I guess is a lot of what you said, just elaborating and quibbling about 'incosistency'...
The fact that I probably shouldn't make Sonichu references in a serious Sonic fic but I'm totally going to.
Weird hyper-specific nit-pick but it throws me right out of a story that's set in a far back or fantasy era if the characters start talking about abuse by specifically calling it that. In most of our culture it's an extremely modern idea, and even in a setting where abuse (especially of partners and children) isn't necessarily normalized, or is even outright frowned on, talking about it in those terms is anachronistic. Which sucks because I like the stories where the canonically abused character has people stand up and say "what you went through is awful, not normal, you didnt deserve it, and it's not your fault." Would simply enjoy it more if authors could address it using language and concepts appropriate for the story setting.
I see this issue a lot, but in a slightly different context —namely, characters who I can’t see using that language. Like, there are characters who I can’t see saying “that was abuse,” but I could see them saying, for instance, “wow that’s fucked up”; it’s more an issue of some people just really not being great at character voices in that context, imo, but it’s kinda annoying in its own right. And it’s a shame, because in a lot of cases those moments are conceptually sound! But then the voices are just off, and it just doesn’t hit right for me. :/
same thing as people using modern gender and sexuality terminology. it doesn't even fit with plenty of modern characters, let alone characters from the fantasy 13th century or whatever.
Honestly, the "abuse" one bothers me even more than that because at least with the gender and sexuality terminology somebody just might not want to go to the trouble of coming up with a completely different set of terms and slang that fit the worldbuilding for their idfic where someone with X identity is told they're valid. But it is stupid easy to come up with other ways to say "the way they treated you was terrible and you didn't deserve it" than to use the word "abuse," starting with the one I said right there. The English language may not have a word for "nonbinary" that won't make you sound like someone who knows what a hashtag is, but it has a millennium of accumulated ways to call someone a jackass.
if I ever write in a fantasy or sci-fi setting I will Always make the characters speak a language with personal gender indicators splashed all over the place so I never have to deal with stupid pronoun questions. what gender are they? oh well he just used the "he" suffix on the word "I" when introducing himself so there's the answer no fuss no muss no trouble
