Goth Agent Stone Is Something I've Been Spinning In My Head For The Past Couple Weeks... I've Been Into

/post/718441984343293952/no-actually-im-mad-enough-about-it-to-speak-up when we do it people get mad and say that we're misunderstanding the characters and that we're so wrong and that it's fucking shit. i don't know what to do, i feel pressured to not fuck up

Anon imma give you my biggest secrets to fanfic writing, the ones that have carried me thru 15+ years of fic writing, of unwanted critics, of haters, and of little to no attention to my fics.

1) this is the most important one: write what makes YOU happy. Writing fanfic is a hobby and it should spark joy. It should make you happy. If this means you’re taking the big bad of the series and turning him into a baby that the heroes have to raise? Go for it. If it means a villain is your meow meow and you’re gonna rewrite the story to make him a good guy? Go for it. Whatever makes YOU happy. Because in the end, you are writing for yourself and for you to have fun. Yes validation is nice, but—

2) —but it’s not the end all, be all. It’s always so so sooooo good when people comment on your fics and leave you reviews and go nuts for your work. But I write for dead or niche fandoms and I rarely get attention on any of my work. And I made peace with that. You need to make peace with that. Validation is nice, but kudo/comments/hits are not the goal here: you having fun is.

3) ignore the haters. There are SO many gatekeepers in fandoms nowadays that it sucks the fun and joy out of life. Block them, don’t even reply, just block them. AO3 has mute and block buttons. Use them. And if they are extra rude? Report them. In the old days, we used to say “flames will be used to warm cold feet” which translates to “your hate is less than dirt” (flames here being haters and unwanted criticisms). It still applies.

4) this one is optional but: find like minded people! People who’d enjoy your work! People who you love discussing ideas with! It goes a long way to give motivation!

5) this one is hella important: it’s not ooc if it’s an au!! :) A person growing up in a war zone is gonna have very different experiences than a person growing up with parents who run a coffee shop and will have a different experience to growing up in an orphanage etc etc. and all of these things WILL affect a person’s behavior and will change how they interact with the world. Even if all those three scenarios had the same trauma (i.e. a fire), each one would react differently and would lose different things, which again, affects how they’d act.

6) BE ooc!! DO IT. Why? Because NO ONE is gonna write the character as “ic”’as the original writers/creators. The character in your head is different than the character in another person’s head, and in another’s, and so on. This is because our own lives and experiences affect the way we interact with the world—and fictional works. And working super hard to please the public means that someone out there will always go “that’s ooc how dare you.” You can never please everyone, remember that!

6.5) but also: write crackfic. It will help you break out of the fear of oocness so much. Even if you don’t write them, have crackfic ideas. They’re so good for your soul—humor is so good and cringe is dead.

7) and this is hella important: Anon you are human. Humans make mistakes. We fuck up. It’s how we learn and grow. And NO ONE was born perfect. Writing takes practice. Writing in character takes practice for every new character you write! It’s not easy! But you gotta trust yourself and your writing skills, and that requires practice too! Practice practice practice!!

So, TL;DR: Do what you want. Do what makes you happy. You are not being paid for this, and if people don’t like your writing, they can pay you to write exactly what they want. And fuck up as much as it takes for you to feel satisfied with the pieces your working with. And most important—aus and oocness go hand in hand.

Comment on fanfics

A few days back on AO3 I found an unfinished, two chapter spideypool fanfic that was cute and had lots of potential and was also last updated two years ago. Two whole years! And it had only three comments, all of which on chapter one, none on chapter two. I enjoyed the fanfic, despite it being far, FAR from being finished and the chance of it ever updating again anytime soon was just about zero. So you know what I did?

I wrote a damn comment. On chapter two.

And I made sure that fucker was long and had a small theory of where I think the author would take the fanfic in the future. I let the person behind the fic know that I friggin LOVED the two chapters I got to read! That I would LOVE to see more! That I’d jump out of my skin in happiness and virtually hug them half to death if I saw that they updated it.

Let me remind you this fic wasn’t updated in two YEARS! I was the first to comment on it in a year. And the first to comment on chapter two! And you know what happened today?

I got a reply.

From the author of the fanfic. And the author said how I gave them life for a project they had loved (still did) and that they were now working on a third chapter. After two YEARS of not updating. Of not writing. And it makes me so friggin happy seeing what I did. What I caused.

With a single. Damn. Comment.

All that it took for me was to think a bit about what I wanted to tell the author and the comment it. All it took was one comment. And suddenly this person was inspired to continue a fanfic they had abandoned for TWO YEARS!!

I couldn’t be happier. I couldn’t be more proud.

Comment on people’s fanfics. No matter how few chapters there are. No matter how many years have passed since their last update. Comment. You like a fanfic? Comment on it. It’s that easy.

unless they specifically asked, you don’t get to tell a fanfic writer you think they mischaracterized the character by the way. because the second someone writes a fanfic about a character, that character becomes the writer’s own version of the character. canon is only a suggestion, but whether or not an author will follow it / how much of canon an author will take is entirely up to them. you don’t get to stick your nose in their world and tell them “hey this is not to my liking therefore I think you’re doing it wrong” when you can simply leave quietly and move on to something else you may enjoy

Even anteaters have fun...

This is the same guy that posted that group selfie titled „yes, these are both my hands“

follow-up to this

maybe the real horror was finding your family gathered around reading your diary

bath time :]

Just followed for brilliant Stone x Robotnik, Stayed for "Oh they're actually chill as fuck okay-"

Anyways love your art, keep it up- (also slight pleading request for possible "Stone goes apeshit" or a "Stone gets injured and doc obsesses over defensive tech")

It was scary at first, but now Robotnik knows what to do (just talk to him)

ko-fi