#FFS JUST PUT FEMALE READER ON YOUR DAMN POST

[dragynkeep]

I have been writing a story since July 2016 and one of the pairings has Scarlet paired with a woman. One year before the manga release where his sexuality was confirmed. No readers at the time had a problem with it since, 1) it was the readers that encouraged me to make this pairing, and 2) how was I supposed to know the writers would confirm an LGBT+ character in supplementary material? I had to be *told* he was gay because I didn’t consume anything outside of the show!

Only… now it’s becoming a problem. All the sudden new readers are side eyeing me in the reviews because of this pairing. I’ll explain why it’s a pairing, but it’s like they aren’t reading my replies. It’s gotten so bad I’ve disabled PM’s on FF, and I’ve gotten comments on AO3. I’m afraid to put any development on their relationship at risk of angering people, especially since it isn’t the main pairing. Any advice or feedback? I feel guilt that I previously didn’t. Rewriting the whole thing is not something I want to do, especially since I already rewrote it once to improve upon the prose, and also… it’s like, over 400,000 words. I don’t have time for that.

It’s really disheartening. I recently came back to finish this story because I know how frustrating it is to find a story you like only for it to be abandoned. But I just don’t feel… I dunno, appreciated? I know lots of my readers love it and my writing style, but these comments are seriously wearing me down. I’ve made it clear I don’t intend to ship Scarlet with any female character in other projects I start (I don’t intend to write him at all anymore, tbh, since I’m disgusted with his VA). Its obvious my Scarlet is nothing like books Scarlet, since I had to create a whole fucking personality for him. I’ve taken measures too. Addressed it in the first chapter’s notes. Answered every PM and comment before it became too much. This story is my baby. There’s this whole plot that is more than just who is with who and yet the new readers only care about the damn ships. I’ve never given grief to another writer because I didn’t like one of the relationships in a story I liked, so like. Why? Why don’t you write your own damn shipping story if mine offends you so much?

Aaand I got another one while I was writing this ask. One of the new readers got pissed that Yang wasn’t with Blake. I kept my rwde identity separate from my writer identity specifically to avoid this. Now my old readers are happy but the new ones sometimes are fine and sometimes give backhanded comments as they keep fucking reading. Makes me wish AO3 had a block option. And I really want to comment and just tell them to stop. Fucking. Reading.

It makes me want to stop again. But I also don’t want to, because I love sharing my work. Uh, so anyway, sorry this turned into a vent ask. I can normally handle hate comments fine, but to be accused of erasing a queer identity when that identity didn’t exist at the time of the pairing’s creation is frustrating and demoralizing. Criticizing my writing constructively is totally fine and I encourage it, but accusing me of being homophobic or participating in queer erasure when the damn show won’t even let the gay character exist beyond books that are subpar, or who let queer rep exist for maybe five minutes of screen time before they’re shuffled off? Like, what the fuck? Why am I being held to a higher standard than the damn show who profits off this shit and actively damages the community with their Bury Your Gays bullshit that they’re upset they didn’t go through with when it came to Pilot Boi? I’m terrified to reveal my pen name on this damn site because I don’t want people attacking my work, but apparently it was just a matter of time before I got attacked anyway. I don’t even want to associate my tumblr name with anything about my story out of fear, so that’s why I’m on anon. It’s just… URGH. That’s also part of why I admire you two. When I saw you posting AZRE stuff I was just like, “Wow, they’re not afraid to post their fic stuff on their rwde blog? Impressive.” I’m too paranoid to post my fic info!

I just realized I started ranting again. Sorry lol. I’m just so tired.

wow, straight up i’m so sorry for what you’ve gone through with this fandom.

firstly, some advice to give would be to put moderation on your comments, that allows you to screen comments before they’re registered as reviews on your work; you have the ability to change this at any time on ao3 but unfortunately i don’t know what more can be done on ff as neither of us have been there in over a decade. it really doesn’t put the creators first which is one of the pros of ao3 in my opinion that it does put author safety first.

secondly, a suggestion luke made was to also put a disclaimer in the actual description of the work if you feel like that’s something you want to do. obviously it won’t help those determined to be assholes but it might help some who are just not paying attention to the chapter notes.

as for scarlet & his sexuality, while other queer people may feel differently, this obviously isn’t a case of you being malicious & deciding to ship a gay character with a woman. we’d had scarlet in the general show for years before he was confirmed by a non canon manga to be gay & then further for miles to see that & decide that he wanted only that portion to be canon. that is not on you, it’s on the cishet writers for deciding that queer representation comes on a whim for them & then everyone else needs to bend to it when they spent years mired in ambiguity. unfortunately the same issue is with coco & other characters assigned queer throughout the show that is now putting artists & writers at risk with pieces they wrote before the confirmation & now don’t want to delete because obviously that’s a lot of hard work to just flush down the drain because mkek set their queer gun ray on another character.

& the reviewer who was miffed that yang & blake don’t get together can choke on a fat one; there’s no obligation for them to get together when the show itself can’t even decide if they’re in a relationship or not, despite milking fans for money about it. & even if they were canon in the show, it’s not yours or anyone’s obligation to then have them be together in fanfiction. the whole point of fanfiction is that it’s transformative works, they don’t have to be beholden to canon & it’s not on you.

to the reviewers & people in the rwby fndm who see that coco or scarlet are shipped with the opposite sex; don’t get mad at the writer / artist. get mad at the writers who took over half a decade to confirm these characters as queer & then threw them away to off screen land. fan creators are not beholden to the same level as the actual writers & they never should be.

& honestly just hot take but a fic about a confirmed queer character being in a mlw relationship is not the end of the world & it’s honestly not anywhere near actual oppression queer people face. stop crying about a fanfic & for the love of god shut up & get offline. this is the same mentality that led to a child being harassed last year by whole ass grown ups because they shipped poly cfvy. for fucks sake this is so pathetic.

you absolutely should do what you feel is best to protect yourself, thankfully there’s been little to no backlash for us over azre  —  which was surprising considering it’s a adam centred rwby rewrite  —  but what works for us might not work for others. if you feel comfortable though, absolutely dm us the link to your fic as i’d love to give it a read & toss some nice reviews your way!

#rwby #scarlet david #coco adel #mkek critical #owl.txt #answered #q #honestly im tired of queer rwby ultra stannies #they're so embarrassing