Perhaps If I Had Written My Brilliant Idea Down When I First Had It, Instead Of Waiting To Do It Later,

Every writer has that one story that they don't even intend to write down anymore, but that is forever stuck in their brain.

"I don't want to read this" is totally valid.

"This is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't want to read this because it is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.

It will never not be frustrating to me that amputees appear in fiction ALL. THE. TIME. and yet they're almost never acknowledged as such. The Cyberpunk genre is especially guilty of this: amputees and prosthetics becoming a normalised part of life are a defining part of the genre/aesthetic and yet no one even consults with any amputees about how we get represented there. Most writers in those genres don't even consider that giving your characters cybernetic arms and legs means they're an amputee.

CW: Ableism, dehumanisation

This makes it REALLY uncomfortable to engage with stories in the genre because another common aspect of cyberpunk is the idea of losing yourself and becoming something distinctly not-human anymore because you have too many cybernetic augmentations/implants. Shadowrun even has mechanics for this, which state if you get too many prosthetics, which is what cybernetics are 9 times out of 10, your character becomes a monster. These mechanics and discussions surrounding "how many robot bits make you not human anymore" are really, really uncomfortable when you remember this isn't something that's unique to a far-off future setting. Those people you're discussing the humanity of already exist. They're called amputees. If you reframe the question as "how many amputations can you have before you stop being a person" I hope you can see why an amputee like myself is not going to feel safe around you or in your fandoms.

And it's a shame, because I REALLY want to like Cyberpunk. I really, honestly do. I love the aesthetics, I love the idea of big corporations being the villains and the anti-capitalism at the heart of the genre, and I love the idea of prosthetics being not only destigmatised, but desirable. When written from a disability-inclusive lense, it honestly has the potential to be an incredibly uplifting and empowering genre. but as the genre stands right now, it's actively hostile to the very folks who are usually the stars of its stories: amputees, all because people just refuse to acknowledge us.

Cyberpunk isn't the only genre guilty of this, it's common all throughout sci-fi as a whole, but Cyberpunk is the only one where it starts becoming a serious issue due to its rampant dehumanisation of a real group of people. In other sci-fi settings, it's just kind of annoying and while it can be a form of erasure, it's not usually harmful, just...frustrating. Fantasy does it on occasion too, think pirates with a hook and a peg leg, but nowhere near as much.

If you, as an author or creator, use any of these words to describe a character or their tech in a sci-fi setting:

cybernetics/cybernetic enhancements

bionics

robot limbs

cyborgs

augmentations

You are probably writing an amputee. Please, at the very least, acknowledge it, and be mindful that those are real people who actually exist, not just a fantasy group you can speculate about.

I don’t know if anyone has ever done this before but, here ya go… The Different Types of Fanfiction! 

I probably left a few out, but these are the most common, compared to their base fiction’s canon plot. Enjoy! XD

Okay but also, it’s okay for stuff to be “ooc” sometimes. I know most of what I read is canon divergence or some type of alternate universe situation. The characters in in a different context, often with different backstories and relationships with each other. So duh, they’re gonna do and say shit they wouldn’t in canon.

Especially because most fanfic is some type of romance or erotica, and a lot of popular fandoms are targeted for younger audiences so any romance is the most minor of plot lines, if it even exists at all. Forget sex.

So it’s okay if someone says something that you can’t picture them saying. There in a different genre and maybe even a different world. Plus, just because you couldn’t picture it doesn’t mean the writer and everyone who enjoyed the fic couldn’t.

'he would not fucking say that' maybe he would if he knew he was starring in his very own porn fic for the sole purpose of delighting some freaks on archive of our own dot org. maybe he'd play it up for the cameras. ever consider that

And, unfortunately, yet again I’m convincing myself a dozen long writing projects is manageable

Fanfiction Taught Me 90% of What I Know About Writing

That’s the gods honest truth. And I’m saying that as someone who has a literal college degree in writing.

I took SO MANY writing classes in college. All genres. Creative. Playwriting. Screenwriting. Editorial. Journalistic. Business. Technical. I’ve been writing since I could hold a pencil correctly, and really started to pursue it in 2nd grade when every teacher following gushed about my writing skills. I can confidently say I’ve been honing my craft for over two decades.

However, I didn’t really git gud at writing until I started really writing fanfiction. Like, joining a fandom and actively writing an ongoing fic for it.

Again, I’d taken years upon years of writing classes. I learned story structure, grammar, theming, POVs, tone, etc. all throughout school. I learned how to receive feedback and edit my work a little more down the road. I learned from professionals in the field. I worked with mentors.

However, none of that helped my skyrocket my skills like writing fanfiction did.

Fanfiction taught me how to actually write deep, nuanced, and compelling characters. I never once filled out a 200-question character sheet for any character I wrote on some silly school assignment. I never knew how to really know my characters until I was writing OCs for a fandom.

Fanfiction taught me the value of being concise. My schooling had drilled the concept of long, purple prose into me over time and in writing for a fandom for a children’s game, I unlearned that real quick.

Fanfiction really taught me the concept of “show, don’t tell.” I never really knew what a penchant I had for info dumping until somebody pointed out to me most of my headcanon’d lore drops happened in exposition and not in action.

Fanfiction taught me how to worldbuild. Eating the canon of my preferred fandom gave me a lot of time to strengthen my chops while I came up with my own answers to canon lore I hated.

Fanfiction taught me consistency. In school, I mostly wrote short stories. I hadn’t really bitten off a longer project until I started writing a longfic, and in doing so, I learned how to keep my characters, plot, and world consistent for a prolonged period of chapters.

Fanfiction gave me a close-knit community to consistently bounce my ideas off of, and give me feedback that actually served me in terms of bettering my skills and the story I was writing. Not just for the sake of meeting the measures of a grade or rubric given by a teacher.

I could go on and on, but tl;dr, I owe my current skillset and understanding of writing to writing fic. I wouldn’t be at the level I am without it. Honestly, I wouldn’t even be writing my current WIP without it.

So, to anyone who might have told you that fanfic is a waste of time, they are just objectively wrong. And if you’re reading this thinking for yourself that fanfic is a waste of time, well, you’re stupid and also objectively wrong :>

Fanfiction is valuable. Don’t underestimate it.

a writing competition i was going to participate in again this year has announced that they now allow AI generated content to be submitted

their reasoning being that "we couldn't ban it even if we wanted to, every writer already uses it anyway"

"Every writer"?

come on

Conflict Isn’t Just Plot, It’s Identity vs. Identity

The biggest battles don’t happen on battlefields. They happen inside people. The best conflict isn’t just good vs. evil…

it’s who I am vs. who I think I should be.

It’s loyalty vs. self-preservation.

It’s love vs. pride.

Every decision a character makes should be a fight between two parts of themselves. If their choices are too easy, you’re writing a puppet, not a person.