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garycxjk · 2 months

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Second chances

Let's get this out of the way. Throughout this post, I will not name one certain individual, not because she has done anything wrong, but to make ego searching this post a lot harder for her. This also means that this post will not be easily found. The thing is, I don't really even need to mention her to make a point, as her situation isn't a big part of it, it only serves as the backdrop. So I will neither name her previous life nor her current.

Second, I'm not gonna shit on Nijisanji EN. Too many have already done that before, and it's getting a bit tiring. Plus, again, it doesn't serve the point I am trying to make, however, it does serve as a backdrop.

So, basically, to keep it short, recently a certain person had been terminated in a pretty fricken dumb way which I'm not going to get into, which involves them self-exposing their own incompetence. This termination also came after the person who was terminated made two attempts on her own life, fortunately she's still with us.

But that's not the point of this story. Recently, three of the talents have released a not really smart video, basically digging themselves deeper into a hole, if I may so personally, those being Elira Pendora, Vox Akuma and Ike Eveland. Now there are theories going around, but let's keep it as a fact, they were used as spokespeople, either against their will or otherwise, we don't know. We'll get back to the three.

Now, out of all of this mess, one thing was clear. Zaion LanZa, also known in her current life as Sayu Syncronisity, was right. After her termination a month after debuting at Nijisanji as Zaion, she was terminated, and she wrote a scathing expose about how her experience at Nijisanji was, and spoilers, it wasn't great, and later, it turned out a lot of it lined up with what the most recent terminated member experienced.

The thing is, at the time, she was mostly ignored. Not by everybody, but by too many, in my opinion, mainly because she was only there for a month. I know, I was there when it all happened. People either ignored her, or just said that she was salty or straight up called her a liar. Her reputation as Sayu therefore tanked, and it was only after a week after the most recent termination that people slowly began believing her completely.

The thing is, her reputation only improved almost a year after it happened, and from what I understand, her offenses weren't even that severe. People called it mistakes, yes, but not bad enough to warrant a termination. But okay, maybe Nijisanji didn't think she fit into the Nijisanji ecosphere, so she was let go. I'm not going to go into how she got terminated, that's a whole different can of worms, all I'm going to say is, she got terminated, and her reputation didn't exactly recover.

But, and excuse me for repeating the same phrase but, here's the thing. After almost a year, people should have forgiven her. She had already apologized, I'm not sure if she's done it multiple times, but she did at least once. She had admitted she made mistakes.

I'm a firm believer of second chances, everybody deserves one. Now, I do have to say, people don't deserve second chances from everyone, depending on how bad the offense was, but, look. If we can forgive James Gunn for his tweets he made when he was dumb and stupid, we should be able to forgive Sayu for the dumb shit she said, right?

It's as if people don't actually believe in second chances. Now, I'm gonna be honest, I'm not really willing to give Nux Taku a second chance, not after he did Coco's graduation notice dirty, essentially acting like a rrat. But that's my personal issue, I've been betrayed too many times in my life, taken advantage of too many people that my flight response gets triggered quite easily. Fuck, it's why I stopped associating myself with the Steven Universe fandom, despite me still liking the series. It's not that they're inherently bad or that I think they're bad, it's that they're bad for my mental health, which is why I distance myself from them.

And if you ask me what my opinion is of Charlie (penguinz0) or Asmongold, I don't talk about them at all. They just give me too much of an I-don't-trust-them vibe. Not that they're untrustworthy, but I just don't want to burn my fingers on them.

The thing is, yes, the SA jokes were in bad taste, I agree. However, it just feels like people were looking for an excuse to hate on her. And now that all this shit with Nijisanji EN is going on, she's suddenly being hailed as someone who was right all along. It just doesn't sit well with me.

The thing is, we all want second chances, but we don't all want to give them. I personally believe that everybody deserve second chances. Not just one, but many. People continue to make mistakes in their lives, and yes, if it's better for your own mental health, you can decide not to give that person another chance. Maybe there are some people who just don't deserve second chances because they never take them, they never learn from them. As cynical as I am in life, I still believe people can change, either for the worse or the better.

Which brings us to Elira, Vox and Ike. No matter whether they're guilty of whatever people accuse them of or not, their reputation is toast. In the short term, they won't be able to recover it. However, let's look at another case.

Mikeneko. Amemiya Nazuna. Yes, even Uruha Rushia. Her reputation has sunk to the bottom of the ocean. However, I don't think it'll remain that way. In time, there will be people who will give her a second chance. Remember, it's forgive, not forget. People may forgive her, but they won't forget. Honestly, I've decided to stay away from that drama, as I really do not care about it, but I do believe she can, in time, recover her reputation.

I mean, fuck, if Logan Paul can come back from that Aokigahara controversy, as much as I still think there should have been more repercussions from it, anyone can.

So, as a closing thought. Elira. Vox. Ike. Your reputations are pretty much toast, at least at Nijisanji EN, but possibly also in your PLs as well. However, it's not unsalvageable, it never is. As long as you're willing to change, as long as you're willing to better yourselves, as long as you want all of that, you can come back on top.

Tanking your reputation isn't the end of it all. You'll probably have to start over from scratch, and you'll most likely never going to go back to the reputation you had before. But it's not the end. Just live and learn.

But I do think Nijisanji EN is practically done.

#nijisanji #nijisanji en #kurosanji

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citrusella-flugpucker · 6 months

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20 Questions For Fic Writers

Tagged by @novantinuum! Nearly forgot to make the post because I cleared my Firefox session around when I finally updated my install. XP Which is sad because I love a good tag. XD

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

105, though three are tests. The remaining 102 are spread across 7-8 fandoms (depending on how you count spinoffs, though the fic that falls under that purview is one fic tagged with the original and the spinoff so maybe safer to say 7? XD).

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

465,512, though it should be noted I'm listed as an author for Connie Swap's omake collection (which is a standard fic with chapters) in which I wrote 2 of the currently 82 chapters/oneshots present in it. That fic has a total current word count of 223,825, so my personal word count is around/a little more than 241,687.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

(In order of fic count, excluding Testing)

Steven Universe (91 works)

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom (7 works)

Habitica (3 works) -- Feel like noting 2 of these are hard vent fics (current pinned Tumblr post is a good summation of why) and the other is a draft fic that crosses over with (and is also counted in) Steven Universe)

Wreck-It Ralph (1 work)

Infinity Train (1 work)

Holes (book and movie are listed but it's the same fic) (1 work)

Suite Life on Deck (and Suite Life of Zack and Cody since it's the same fic) (1 work)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

All Steven Universe, and excluding Connie Swap's collection which has more than any listed here

He's Gone (544 kudos)

The President Kisses Babies, and Other White House Briefs (447 kudos)

I Can't Say with Confidence (373 kudos)

Eternity in a Moment (343 kudos)

Change (339 kudos)

Interestingly, three of these are based in the SU Future "worm theory" popularized by (but not originating from) the person who tagged me. XD

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I want to and make a concerted effort right after a publish, but my likelihood to reply to a comment lowers exponentially the further from publish an update gets. XP I read them all! It's just that unless I find the specific comment really interesting and have a reply to it, after a certain point I just kind of... don't recognize I can do more than read the comment that comes in. Like the idea of replying to it does not cross my mind for reasons I don't fully get? Might be an executive function thing... or maybe I'm just lazy. DX XD

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

He's Gone, without a doubt. It's tagged the way it is for a reason. Technically the extra chapters serve as a little bit of angst ointment but it's originally and intentionally a oneshot (so the extra things are more like deleted scenes, epilogue, sequel vibes). And this oneshot ends in the saddest way possible for all involved. It earned its archive warning.

Branching out of AO3 and over to FFnet for a second, an old Suite Life fic I wrote, Not Worth It (which I'm not linking purely because I'd have a hard time explaining the sort of warnings I'd want to attach if it were on AO3), also ends pretty awful but that's mainly because it was for a "make a strong emotional impact in as few words as possible" contest, and the fastest way to do that is angst, specifically the kind where someone dies and their closest companion feels/sees it coming but is powerless to stop it. (I won the contest by less than one point. ._.)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I... don't know???? I have a lot of oneshots that are pretty happy all the way through (or end happily after a pretty mundane conflict). I'm having a really hard time bringing up any specific one that ends especially happily (other than joking my fake fluff fic, "Steven x A Nice Calm Life Please and Thank You™: A Case for the Realization of a Bold New Ship", ends the "happiest" XD).

I would like to say that out of my current incomplete fics (the ones I still consider myself to have a high likelihood of finishing, that being Intelligent, Educated, and Capable of Earning the Children's Trust (Tears of the Kingdom), You Get Proud By Practicing (Steven Universe), and Realism (SU)), I'm imagining endings that feel happier than prior multichapter endings I've written.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not really. A long time ago, I got one (1) flame on an FFnet story from someone who was clearly a kid, who was mad I'd written angst (I think this was on Not Worth It, but it could have been on a different Suite Life fic shortly after I discovered how to write angst), but I've been delightfully hate-free.

Closest I've gotten on AO3 has been that one time someone actually complimented He's Gone for its archive warning being relevant to a character they hated. It was clear this person was doing this because I was connected to Discord servers and people who they hated--they had tried to troll a specific Discord server I happened to be in, and they'd by happenstance targeted several people I knew in a different closed-invite Discord server who had posted explicit content to AO3 (leaving them flames for daring to write smut at all, that kind of thing).

Oh, and now that I've typed that, I did forget a handful of commenters came to flame one of my Habitica vent fics back in January/February, but that was because some kid on Roblox Twitter or something decided to spread a falsehood about me abusing disabled children because I told them on a different website (Habitica) that something they were doing could come across as ableist. (AKA I was trying to do the opposite of what they were accusing me of. Also it was a little funny after the initial terror because they were all accusing me of being a nondisabled person (no) who was being awful and unknowledgeable about the disability that I have. XD) Guess I didn't initially think about this one because it had almost nothing to do with the fic itself--they were just trying to find a place away from Habitica's site where they could attack me. XP They probably just searched my name and Habitica and happened to either find AO3 first or for some reason think it was better than coming to my Tumblr or something to do the same thing. XP

This is getting long, but for that last one I'd like to shout out the person who initially came and commented on one of my SU fics for that reason (the only comment from that debacle still up) and then after a confused reply from me, they actually chilled out and explained what they knew about the situation and we parted ways amicably, which is why I have a good idea of where that kid posted about me at all. o.o

TL;DR: Not very much, but that means the few notable instances are REALLY vivid and/or complex. XD

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

...I am a sex-repulsed asexual who is not entirely sure whether or not she's heteroromantic because she's not sure she understands romantic attraction at all, doesn't actively ship very much, and needs help from other people to type out curse words. What do you think? (No. The answer is no. XD)

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I have three works on AO3 considered to be crossovers: Changes (Suite Life/Wreck-It Ralph), Your No-Good, Dirty-Rotten, Gem-Shattering, Rebellion-Leading Mother (Steven Universe/Holes), and The Forgotten Quests (Steven Universe/Habitica, which is the draft document I mentioned in #3).

From a meta standpoint, the craziest is probably The Forgotten Quests, which is a draft document that was going to be a series of challenges in Habitica's Crystal Gems guild which would have seen Steven visiting Habitica and traveling its lands, visiting each region and either accomplishing something or neutralizing a bad event (i.e. a monster attack or weather event or something)--at some point Lars or Lion was gonna show up, all sorts of fun stuff. But the story as these challenges progressed wasn't particularly zany; rather, what makes this one strange from a meta standpoint was that I was going to try to figure out the logistics of running a script or bot that made the challenges run more like a party quest rather than a traditional challenge structure. The logistics were so hard I didn't figure them out before I lost motivation, stopped coding for Habitica, and then got banned for publicly criticizing staff behavior, so I just... posted the planning doc to AO3.

From a story standpoint, it's absolutely the Holes one--Steven gets sent to a prison camp for delinquent youth because he accidentally shoplifted from a store Kevin's mom owned (something fell in his bag), and then some police officers not from Beach City noticed he was connected to Lars' disappearance (while Lars was still in space) so they decided to try him for it. The events of the SU movie were due to start happening while Steven was in jail.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not on AO3 but someone stole the first chapter of a fic I now no longer have up on FFnet. Got that shut down real quick.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not to my knowledge.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not truly. I've provided input (I was one of the people the Connie Swap crew consulted with for their episode 16 story, Loud and Clear) and have been credited/listed as a co-author for someone's fic where I suggested exactly one line of the fic but they wrote the rest.

Unless... I guess you could say I co-wrote the exquisite corpse fic(s) I've been part of--that is, I wrote a section in them with little input from another user, and then someone else wrote a following section with little input from me. The only live on AO3 one is The Cluster Halloween Exquisite Corpse 2019, though.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I don't... really ship? But I can vibe with Connverse (Connie/Steven, SU), Zelink (Zelda/Link, TOTK), and Jeff/Peedee (SU)? I guess?

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Probably Rose to the Occasion (I just can't figure out where I want the fic to go), Auto-Injector (I can't get myself to write the ideas I know I have), Lost and Found (I don't know who to focus on), or the Holes one (how do I make the movie happen while Steven's in jail???).

16. What are your writing strengths?

I like to think I'm good at painting a descriptive picture... except when I'm not. XD

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Microsoft Word 2007 says I regularly write "long sentences". I have since found out Word considers a long sentence anything more than 60 words. So that's fun!

Also I struggle with figuring out endings, especially in multi-chapter plots.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I'm not fluent enough in any language with a commonly used written form other than English! So I don't!

I have been known to write in ASL gloss in some drafts, though I don't publish in gloss, because the gloss helps me know how the sentence would be signed by that character if I'd like to describe it in the surrounding prose (I'm reasonably fluent in ASL, though my lack of recent interaction with the deaf community means I'm a bit rusty in practice--but you don't literally live inside a deaf school for a year and complete all your deaf ed classes for your deaf ed + mild intervention major without becoming reasonably fluent).

When I don't do this, it's often because it's less likely that the character in question is signing something mutually intelligible with ASL--for instance, I don't do it in Intelligent, Educated, and Capable of Earning the Children's Trust mostly because while I don't know that I'm comfortable imagining a whole signed conlang from a linguistic standpoint, I know enough in my head about its imaginary origins to be sure it doesn't really look as much like ASL as some other passages of characters signing I've written in the past.

One thing I definitely don't do in any sign language writing I ever do is describe a character's name sign. This isn't because the character in question wouldn't have one or wouldn't assign one to someone else but is instead purely because under US ASL deaf culture rules, it is taboo for me (as a hearing person) to give people name signs. My obedience/observance of this cultural more extends to me writing a character, even if assigning the same rules to that character means that they would be able to assign name signs in-universe. I just can't make myself describe a name sign (either that a character already has or that a character assigns someone else) because it feels like me, the author, creating and assigning a name sign in opposition with that cultural more that says I shouldn't/can't. I feel weird doing it, so I simply don't.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

The Suite Life of Zack and Cody! Way back in 2007 or so! Fic isn't even still up! (It was a crossover with Full House but was more firmly grounded in the TSL side of things, i.e. taking place at the Tipton, focusing on Suite Life characters often, etc.)

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

Hmm... I've really enjoyed the work I've put in on Rose to the Occasion and Intelligent, Educated, and Capable of Earning the Children's Trust. Honorable Mentions to You Get Proud By Practicing (and its soft companion, The Candle Burns Low But Still It Burns), Beach City Zombie Club, Just a Little Something Else Instead, and I'm Supposed to Be Able to Tell.

Tags:

I find I tag people who aren't so interested in doing these things half the time, so I'm including no specific mentions here. Interested in answering these questions? Then do it!

#long post #really long post #SUPER long post

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