That viral post that's going around about how people who write "book quality" mlm fic are too "normal" to publish and have real jobs so only "weird" people publish their "shitty" fanfic is so completely out of touch with reality and I am giving a massive side eye to everyone reblogging it.
Not only is it completely, easily verifiably untrue (you cannot enter any professional writing space without tripping over a dozen grizzled scifi writers who got their start by filing off the serial numbers and publishing their Star Trek fanfic even going back decades ago??? it's a whole thing?? plus how can you look at the mlm category on Amazon right now and say with a straight face that people aren't publishing shitty Spirk and Stucky fanfic??? Oh, honey...) it's also the perfect example of this kind of sneering elitism that true artists would never sully themselves by seeking profit, they do it only for the purity of the thing that always somehow leads back to, "no one should be paid to make art, actually."
The only reason you're seeing more published fanfic right now has nothing to do with the idealistic purity of your hypothetical government employee written smut of the past vs the debased scribbles of those awful straights of today and everything to do with the fact that a) self-publishing has created a voracious readership that wants a ton of content so it's become a viable, flexible income stream for many, especially disabled people b) anyone can publish now with self-publishing tools so there are less gatekeepers and c) lockdown got a lot of people into fandom and therefore writing who never tried it before.
And if you really think there's no "shitty" published mlm and no "book-quality" m/f writing out there that started as fanfic, then you are clearly not a reader so why are you even talking about this?
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One of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to fandom/media interpretation in general is that seemingly whenever something tries to explore the emotion of love in a nuanced or non-straightforward manner everyone and their mother jumps to the conclusion that it’s inherently romantic in nature. I don’t know if this is my aroace brain speaking, but it’s something I’ve never understood when clearly the author doesn’t mean it in a romantic sense. The two examples I’m thinking of are Violet Evergarden and Ancient Magus Bride.
Violet Evergarden is about a child soldier, Violet post-war trying to discover what emotions are, so that she can better understand the major who sacrificed his life for her. She’s specifically fixated on the notion of love, because the major told her once that he loved her and she’s struggled to understand what he meant by that. As the show goes on, she begins to discover just what these emotions mean, both to other people and to herself. Now, it needs to be said again that she was a child soldier, the major was around 30 if I remember correctly. Either way very much an established adult when he found Violet when she was like 8-10. Naturally he meant that he loves her in a familial way, everything the show does supports this interpretation, the only obscurity comes from Violet’s perspective because she doesn’t understand his meaning at first. Take a big fat guess as to half the posts I saw about their relationship framed it. Yep, “oh how gross he was in love with a child,” “this show is gross,” “its so sad how he was in love but now they can never be together T-T.” Like. What the fuck y’all. What the actual fuck. Did we watch the same show????? It’s legitimately baffling that just because the word love is used that is the assumption made in direct contradiction to what canon is saying.
Ancient Magus Bride has it much, much worse unfortunately, because it’s a much more,,, morally suspect look at what love is, or more specifically, the nature of human relationships. Chise and Elias have a bond that cannot be easily summed up in a few words (which is the entire point), and they see a lot of various twists and turns in their dynamic as they learn not only to live with each other but come into their own and grow. Now, a lot of people assume Ancient Magus Bride is a romance because of how it starts out, with Elias stating that he bought Chise to be his bride. However, as you read further, specifically into the 40′s, Elias reveals that he only said the word bride because he understood it to be people who spend their lives together, and wanted to cut corners by making his student and bride the same thing. Elias, as an inhuman creature, does not have the capability for empathy or understanding emotions/concepts as humans do, which is what leads to a lot of the suspect situations in the beginning of the story because he doesn’t get the implications of what he’s doing.The author herself has even mentioned in official interviews that she doesn’t see their relationship as romantic (not that it stopped anyone), along with the entire story rejecting such an interpretation because shoving Chise and Elias into such a box goes against what it’s saying about the messy nature of relationships. Additionally, much like Violet Evergarden but worse, Chise is 16 while Elias is a being 100s of years old (although without the emotional intelligence to match). Either way though, their dynamic for the beginning of the show is very much of Elias trying to control Chise. He withholds information from her, manipulates her into trusting him more easily, does things behind her back that he knows she wouldn’t approve of. And that is important, I appreciate that aspect being there because it’s all completely necessary to show just what kind of person Elias is, and how his standards are vastly different compared to human ones. But a lot of the whole “EliasxChise is soooo good” hype came from anime only watchers- and is that really the dynamic yall wanted? Really? Especially when the anime watered down the resolution to that conflict? More importantly, imagine being braindead and also having no taste at all simultaneously. You take so many interesting aspects of their dynamic by just going “and theyre in love UwU” because you ignore their complexities. On top of being really fucking gross in my opinion.
And these two aren’t the only example of this. In general I think plenty of relationships would be far better off being explored as the nuanced, complex things that they are without slapping an “in love” label on them. (Jayce and Viktor from Arcane come to mind for me, what they have going on as friends and the importance the narrative places on that friendships is so much more valuable to me then any shipping). And again, I’m left wondering if this is an aroace thing, bc talking with a friend who is also aroace about her experiences in researching romance literature and what allo people find rewarding about a romance is like reading about an alien species. Do yall just live like this???? It’s so sad you are missing out on so much
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May I ask if Kaveh is in the Ratiotham uni au or he's nonexistent in this timeline 👀👀👀
I was blind to the potential in Ratiotham at first tbh but I'm a hardcore believer now 🙏🙏🙏 also I'm sorry if this has been asked before!
i was thinking about having him around but i fear that some ppl want me to have him involved or more active even tho hes not the focus or romantically involved w hthm in this so yea. bc of the fear of some ppl being annoying and having all asks revolve around kaveh again, im unsure yet if i even want him to play a role and consider have him just get mentioned when hthm is napping bc of him being too noisy in the nights
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The way Elriel is singlehandedly turning me back onto Friends to Lovers, back onto deep, quiet, enduring love, back onto emotional intimacy and comfortable silence and having someone you know you can depend on. The trope of two people, unseen by others, but seen by each other. The trope of chosen love over preordained love. Taking your life into your own hands and saying, "This. I want this. If they will have me. As much as they will have me. And even if all this ends up being is the memory of the way they laughed when I gave them a present, or the holding onto a bottle of headache tonic just because they saw me and gave it to me, then that is simply enough."
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