This is true, this is real, this is Straight Edge

While everybody was lolzing at Dashcon's stunning display of incompetence, the Welcome to Night Vale fandom was running a ficcer out of town in a vicious and grudgy witch hunt.

sodomquake, a ficcer and official WTNV contributor, was subject to a witch hunt based on her having written some non-con fic that featured (sometimes, not always) underage characters. ( Deets on her fic ) She was doxxed and forced to delete her fic and tumblr out of fear of losing her RL job as an educator (of college students, not little kids, before anyone starts clutching their pearls).

This kind of shit is why I'm so cagey about what I do when I meet fannish people IRL. Several times at meet-ups people have asked me where I work and I give them an uneasy smile and change the subject. Ain't no way I'm trusting any of y'all not to be bitchy grudgewankers the first time we have a disagreement about your thoughts on yaoi or what-the-fuck-ever. The first time I heard about doxxing was like 12 years ago in X-Men fandom -- we just didn't call it that then -- it's been going on that long.

Anyway, theladyscribe and I had an interesting talk about what in their writing gives it away that a ficcer is British, American, or Australian. There's been a big influx of British/Australian writers into Captain America fandom and oh boy is it obvious. It's not just vocabulary that's a giveway like calling an apartment a "flat" or saying that Steve and Bucky grew up on a "council estate", there's also grammatical structures, especially in dialogue, that clue me in that the author is British. For example: dialogue like "Oh, so you'd like to join me for dinner, then?" There's a tendency to British ficcers in particular not to write blunt, direct sentences. They like to front-and-back-load dialogue with fillers like 'then', 'so', 'perhaps', 'quite', etc. It sticks out especially when the characters in canon don't structure their dialogue anything like this.

Americans also have a tendency when speaking in a slang manner to drop some constructions like simple present tenses. "Where we going?" as opposed to "Where are we going?" British/Australians seem to do this less.

And every time I write a post about ameripicking, there's always some blithe soul who pipes up with "I'm American and I use those Britishicisms in daily life!" Bitch, am I writing the fucking fanfic about you?

...Well, fuck.

I wish there was more that I could say or do about this, but unfortunately I, along with the rest of fandom, am powerless to help these poor fanfic writers sentenced to prison for promoting "homosexuality, gore, and violence". I have always been against the mainstreaming of fandom, mostly out of fear of nightmare scenarios like this one.

Some intrepid soul has created a Marvel Cinematic Universe kink meme with minimal content warnings/modding. You're only required to warn for rape/non-con, underage, and graphic violence; everything else is CNTW. Gen is allowed but porn is encouraged.

Let the games begin!

I was a-gog at this throwaway line in an Avengers fic found on A03:

"[Bruce had] spent last Christmas sweating in a Maori hut in New Zealand. His hosts had known it was Christmas but they didn't care, and honestly neither had Bruce. Bruce had more important things to do than spend money and wear sweaters, and in the end he'd been able to trace that tribe's dysentery outbreak to donated foodstuffs from overseas."

Like, wait, WHUT? Okay, this raises so many questions.

-- Maori tribe in huts? Really?
-- Why did this Maori tribe have dysentery from donated food from overseas? Why were they eating donated food from overseas in the first place? I mean, it's New Zealand. Not really a place that, even during national disasters, needs donated food (from aid workers?) sent to it.
-- Even if these hypothetical hut-dwelling Maoris got dysentery, why do they need Bruce Banner to care for them? Why not go to any of NZ's excellent, free hospitals and partake of that godless socialized healthcare?
-- It's 20-fucking-14, I'm pretty sure it's not a Thing for Maoris to be aware of the existence of Christmas.
-- I don't give a shit what anyone says, that is straight copy-pasted from Medecins Sans Frontieres website, with cholera replaced by dysentery and Haiti replaced with NZ.

Thoughts prompted by my reading a fic that had very 'ATG-ish' characterization for the Shield members.

'ATG' is an acronym for 'Any Two Guys', and its a not-very-complimentary phrase for what might otherwise be called paint-by-numbers characterization; when the characters in a fic are only vaguely identifiable as themselves, to the point where the fanfic might as well be original fic. Looking at this particular story, which is fairly well-written but in no way actually about Dean, Seth, or Roman so much as its about OCs that happen to look like them, got me thinking about the guys' characterizations and how much can be inferred from their on-screen appearances.

I tend to assume their characters are the same as their previous characters, so that Dean Ambrose is the same person as Jon Moxley, Seth Rollins is Tyler Black, etc., except for special cases like NXT's Sami Zayn, who is not El Generico and never was. But even if you only take their WWE appearances as canon, its clear that all three Shield members have some fairly in-depth characterization.

Dean:
-- Likes to present himself as the reasonable authority figure of the group, but we can all smell the crazy coming off him
-- Little to no regard for personal boundaries, seems to enjoy making people uncomfortable (such as when he pets Randy Orton backstage)
-- Will trash-talk, but will also taunt opponents physically, ie. mocking the Undertaker's throat-cutting gesture, licking his hand before slapping Sheamus
-- Mannerisms are "off", has tics and prone to erratic, jerky movements
-- Extremely verbal, speech is always fluent and smooth
-- Confident and dominant body language

Seth:
-- Verbally harasses opponents
-- Smug and mocking in promos
-- The risk-taker of the group; most likely to attempt a big stunt
-- Easily and loudly frustrated by failure and setbacks
-- The "cheerleader", shouts encouragement/warnings to teammates
-- Unafraid to jump up in someone (or several someone's) faces and tell them off
-- The most dramatic of the group, likes making a big entrance (ninja roll), likes big stunts, likes butting into conversations to put his two cents in

Roman:
-- Quietest of the group, but expects to be listened to when he speaks up
-- Gets VERY angry when attacked ("Try to break my arm, I'll break your face!")
-- The least touchy-feely of the trio
-- Over-confident (Roman taking his sweet time to walk up to Ziggler after getting tagged in, giving Ziggler precious seconds to regroup and nail Roman in the jaw)

On a related note, can anyone make out Dean's dialogue from this clip?

Ohmygod, I laughed so hard at this prompt that I had tears pricking at my eyes. The prompter manages to nail every single bad characterization trope (it should be noted that this is entirely intentional on the prompter's part). Just... read it and try to imagine any of the characters ever acting this way. The part about Natasha being a "cheerleader" for Loki and Steve's Twu Wuv is the best. I mean, can you picture Natasha's cheerleading *anyone's* relationship, ever? Just try to fix that image in your mind. Go ahead. I'll be sitting here waiting for you to come back.

But Odin's entry is great, too. Even in the comics, where he's kind of a dick about Thor and Jane's relationship, it was more because she's *mortal* and is gonna croak long before Thor, not just out of evil evility. Read it:

Odin = Evol dik of ebil who is evil and acts evil and loves evil and also eats babies for breakfast. Every one of his acts is in order to make Loki miserable for nonsensical reasons and inconsistent motivations. He also doesn't understand how ~special Steve is and doesn't think he's good enough to be a prince's consort, which doesn't make sense because...oh fuck it.

This is Odin's characterization in, like, 35% of Thorfic.

This article doesn't really break any new ground, but it does neatly summarize what's been going on in fannish circles for the past couple of years now: Social Justice run amok. What started out as a call for better representation and deeper contemplation on things we take for granted, transformed into a witch hunt led by some of the biggest fattest hypocrites out there (what are charmingly referred to as "Social Justice Warriors"). While often referred to as Tumblr Social Justice, it's actually been around on lj since way before the mass fandom migration to Tumblr. I honestly feel like this movement sucked the fun out of fandom.

Three, four years ago, people were writing FIC in my fandoms. People were writing meta. I go on my flist now, and there's a handful of fic posts. Almost no feedback. What meta there is seems to be written by the same two or three people. I don't see squee posts with pages of comments anymore. Even the kink memes are running on empty. Fandom has been around for DECADES, it's not as if it just *suddenly* burned itself out.

Everyone seems... beaten down.

In the "Pretending You're Oppressed" article, the author points out the 'plight' of self-identified groups such as otherkin, transabled, and even transethnic people. Look, if you want to be a unicorn, I'm not gonna get in your face about it. But yeah, it does kinda make a mockery of what the whole movement was supposed to be about. I think Shae hits the nail on the head when she says, "Personally, I think they all suffer from plain old “being boring” oppression. You know, the kind where you’re dull and you watch too much TV and you feel a desperate need to be cool, different, part of a group."

Hits the nail on the head. Because, at the end of the day, most people are *boring*. I don't care what you've got between your legs, you're probably boring. But none of us what to be boring, do we. We all want to feel special. If *those people* are getting a piece of the pie, we want a big fat piece for us, too. Other than that, I dunno. I just want the fun back. I want to make friends again (I used to make friends on here all the time). I want to SQUEE again. I'd like to see more personality on here, and less rhetoric.

HAHAHAHA. May I express my feelings in the form of a rap song?

Get a job, motherfucker, get a job
Wait tables, sell grub, shake yo ass in a club
Get a fucking' job.
You want money, bitch?
So do I! Work for it
Don't sell your fucking fanfic!
Nobody wanna pay for your shit.
You say you're selling your skill?
Are you for fuckin' real?
Bitch, you ain't invent dick.
Get a job, motherfucker, get a job
You wanna buy icies? Nicies?
Then pay for it on yo knees
Don't matter to me!
Get a fuckin' job.

I spent Friday and Saturday partying in New Orleans, and me and some friends threw a Repo! party to celebrate the DVD's release. It was mucho fun and v. v. entertaining. Also, I ate crab claws, alligator, and catfish at Muletta's, but I couldn't bring myself to try the frog's legs. They looked too... froggy.

However, I got a rather bizarre review on Repo! The Genetic Archive for "Deck the Halls." Read and you'll see why.

Omg! I read this on fanfiction.net and I saw it here and I re-read it. I love this fic, just so great. You didn't make them too OOC and I just loved the Amber+Zydrate- three kings in there, so funny.

But waitaminute... I've never put any of my Repo!fics on ff.net. So how could this reviewer have read "Deck the Halls" there first? I would hate to think someone's been copying my fic to ff.net.

So I've been writing up a storm over on The Repo! kink meme and really enjoying myself. It's pretty PR0N0, so consider yourself warned if you decide to check it out. Anyway, an Anon (nothing against him/her being Anon, it's a kink meme so we're all Anon) is angry at my characterization of Graverobber/Shilo. I explained why I wrote them like I did and why the story went where it did, and the Anon responded WITH CAPSLOCK OF RAGE!!!!

I just really need to rant about it. I mean, how the hell are you supposed to write this pairing and not have it be a little bit disturbing on some level or another? Shilo's a 17-year-old girl who's been locked in her bedroom her entire life. Graverobber's a 28-year-old drug-dealer who robs graves. The power imbalance in any relationship between them should be fairly obvious.

I really did sit down and think it out before I ever started writing. He is fond of her, and he truly has convinced himself he's doing what's right for her, but Graverobber is not about to move to the suburbs and get a dog and a mortgage. He really does think he's doing her a favor: getting her off the streets (or in this case, out of the cemetery) for a couple of days, feeding her, buying her clothes, and leaving her a bus ticket. Of course, we (the audience) know that what he's doing isn't right, and I (the author) do not inherently agree with his actions. I thought I did a good job of putting in a lot of hints as to Graverobber's true intentions -- he thinks of Shilo as his 'child bride' when checking them into the motel, he doesn't get a room with two beds, he puts her in the bed with him, he constantly considers abandoning her. Graverobber justifies everything he does to himself as being in Shilo's best interests. He doesn't force himself on her, and makes an early attempt to back out, but when she shows a bit of willingness he gives in pretty easily. I didn't intend for it to come across as perfect and romantic and wonderful, but I guess I went a little too far.

midnight_united, I'm sorry I inadvertantly started anything resembling a flame war in your lj, and after we've been friends for only a day. I really did not mean to. Repo! is such a small fandom that I would never want to stir up any shit and alienate anyone. It does suck for me in the sense that I was really enjoying myself and having a good time, and I thought I was entertaining folks and not pissing them off. That's not my intention in any way. I try not to harsh the squee, y'know?