till forever falls apart

Mari | xennial | 18+ / MDNI | she/her | ao3 🫶🏻 | TLOU brain rot | intj-t | ♑️ | ♐️🌙 | ♈️rising

[burntheedges]

hey yall here are some handy things to read on fandom censorship, in case you’d actually like to learn about the history of fandom:

Fanlore page on censorship

Fanlore timeline on fandom purges

The FFnet NC-17 purges (2002 and 2012)

The Three Laws of Fandom discussion, 2016

ao3 and censorship discussion, 2016

Strikethrough (censorship on LJ), 2007

Media imperialism, fan resistance and state censorship: BBC Sherlock Slash fandom in China (academic paper)

Porn bans, purges, and rebirths: the biopolitics of platform death in queer fandoms (academic paper)

The online free speech debate is raging in fan fiction, too (the verge, 2018)

Puritanism took over online fandom — and then came for the rest of the internet (Vox, 2023)

and just a bit more:

The Rise of Digital Authoritarianism, Freedom House 2018

[typewriter83]

You don’t think they’re gonna come for your side of fandom until they do. You think you’re exempt or what you do “isn’t that dark” until someone else claims it is.

Being anti censorship means that even if you don’t read it, even if you think it’s deplorable, or even if you think people who read it are deplorable - you still stand up and fight for them. You still allow them to have a platform for the fictional works they produce.

Being profic doesn’t mean “problematic” it means you’re for fiction, you stand up for it, you fight for it. Don’t like, don’t read - create your safe space, but you have to fight for everyone’s safe space.

🫶🏻

[rorithinking]

Maria : You say “Please” and “Thank you” in front of Ellie all the time, and she never repeats it Maria : But you call Tommy “Ass-faced motherfucker” ONE TIME…

[typewriter83]

This is canon at this point

[mypoorfaves]

If you're a creator and you needed to hear this today:

You have no idea how many people lurk on your work. No idea how many times people go back to revisit your work. How big they smile when they simply think about your work. How fast their heart beats, how excited they get when they see that you posted something.

People are shy with their feedback. Sometimes it’s because they’re simply shy. Other times it’s because they assume you already know how great and talented you are. Could be both.

My point is, even if you barely have any likes or reblogs, don’t get discouraged. You have a lot of silent fans, but they are still your fans. Keep on creating. Because there is always someone out there who will love what you have made.

[typewriter83]

Anon asking about the anti drama surrounding a Joel/daughter incest fic - I see you, but I don’t have enough information yet to process a response. I’m assuming part of the problem with the story is an underage element? Do you have any more information? I’ve been sifting through a few blogs but it appears to be a LOT of drama surrounding this. And somehow it’s slipped under my radar.

Can you send a second anon ask with more info? I’m gonna reply with some insight too! The response blog entry you sent about taboo fiction is really good!

🫶🏻

[a7estrellas]

birthday boy 💜

[typewriter83]

Happy 50th Birthday to the man who helps hold our fandoms together. I hope he has a wonderful day 💜

[typewriter83]

🤡 ✍️ 🍦 💔

🤡 What's a line, scene, or exchange you've written that made you laugh? - chapter 1 of “Why Can’t I Just Tell You” is probably one of the funniest things I’ve written. From Dina and Ellie bickering about the turntable, to Ellie and her friends playing a drinking game to drunk Ellie being a flirt with Joel, I think it’s hilarious. The snippet under the break is one of my favorite things I’ve ever written!

✍ Do you have a beta reader? - I do! The lovely InkBlotsOnMainStreet has been Beta reading for me since I was about halfway through “Why Can’t I Just Tell You” and she’s wonderful. She also has a story up on ao3 in the Joellie tag. Leave her some love 🩷

🍦 What's the sweetest fic you've created so far? - “We Go Together Like Donuts and Coffee” is sweet like a sugary twist donut 🍩☕️

💔 Is there a fic of yours that broke your heart? - “Every Night Has Its Dawn,” and for good reason, I think. It wasn’t enough that those two had come as far as they had, I had to go and throw more awful scenarios at them. I did enjoy writing it, but it took my soul from me, it was rough especially after writing chapter 1. The epilogue is some of my favorite that I’ve written because I believe they deserve a happily ever after

🫶🏻

[typewriter83]

🎢 🎯 👀 ⏳

🎢 Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride? - probably a toss up between “Every Night Has Its Dawn” or “Never Worse but Never Better” (LtW) - there were a LOT of emotions flying around “Every Night” but LtW was taking a canon universe and world building with it; bringing characters to Jackson that weren’t there in the canon universe. Both were wild rides for different reasons.

🎯 Have any of your readers accurately guessed major plot points? Care to share which? - I remember having a conversation with an anon ask that started “are you in my drafts” lol but I can’t remember what we were talking about.

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please! - I wish I had something to give you. I’ve been picking apart my Boston AU with the hope of finding my spark there. I’m also plotting another Jackson-canon divergent-fix it-AU which I think will take off once season 2 starts. I am working on chapter 5 of “am i the one,” tentatively titled the diner. The modern AU characters are refusing to speak to me, so it’s taking an absurd amount of time (which leads us to our next inquiry…)

⌛ How long does it take you to write a fic, or a chapter? It depends on my mood! I churned out 6 Donuts & Coffee stories in a month! I wrote the 50k word “Why Can’t I Just Tell You” in 6 weeks. “Never Worse but Never Better” 111k words and took me 8 months. “but since i survived” is 36k words and took me a month. When the characters are speaking to me, I can churn out upwards of 1500-2000 words per day. When my brain isn’t functioning I can go weeks between writing. It just depends!

Thanks for playing! 🫶🏻

[typewriter83]

so how do you in particular feel about mabel x grunkle stan as a ship?

I had to look this up, I had no idea what it was. I don’t know who these characters are, but I’m assuming they’re related - you wouldn’t have asked if it didn’t fall somewhere near the Ellie/Joel category - so I’m guessing underage/incest, yes? It honestly doesn’t matter how I feel about it - it’s how you protect it, and its writer(s).

Listen, my job isn’t to read every single piece of fiction that gets tossed my way. My job isn’t even to like every story that comes my way in my own fandom or on the ship I ship! I have squicks, I have icks, and I have things that I just do not like. I just don’t read them.

Our collective job as readers and writers of fiction are to stand up and say you can’t take it away from other people. You are entitled to not read it, you are entitled to tell your child they may not read it - but you cannot tell me or anyone else that they cannot read it. That is what it means to be profic; that is what it means to be anti censorship.

Questions?

🫶🏻

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

“you can write non-con and dark fics as long as you’re not romanticizing it”

“you can write non-con and dark fics as long as it’s your way of coping with your trauma”

“you can write non-con and dark fics as long as —”

actually, anybody — including you — can write non-con and dark fics, and any other fucked up things, however they want, for whatever reasons.

wanna romanticize the fuck out of your non-con / dead dove do not eat fic? go ahead. don’t let anybody stop you from creating the art you want to create.

wanna write non-con fic even if you were never a victim? go ahead. you don’t have to meet any specific criteria in order to create the art you want to create.

just tag your works properly so that you don’t accidentally expose those who might not want to be exposed to such topics to the topics, and you’re all good.

art does not have to be for everybody.

art has never been strictly about rainbow and sunshine. art can also be about the horror and the macabre.

art can be outright disgusting and messed up, and being disgusting and messed up can be just what makes the art a masterpiece.

write whatever you want to write and say fuck you to censorship.

[typewriter83]

We 👏🏻 Don’t 👏🏻 Do 👏🏻 Censorship

[nottheweirdest]

Fanfic Writer Emoji Ask

😅 What's a story or scene you've created that you're a smidge embarrassed exists?

🥺 Is there a certain type of moment or common interaction between your characters that never fails to put you in your feels?

🤡 What's a line, scene, or exchange you've written that made you laugh?

😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

✍ Do you have a beta reader?

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

🎢 Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

✨ Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉

💋 First kiss fics. Love em or hate em?

🎶 Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

🛠What tools/programs/apps do you use to write?

⛔ Do you have a fic you started, but scrapped?

🙋‍♀️ Do any irl people know you write fanfic?

🍦 What's the sweetest fic you've created so far?

🍷 Do you drink and write?

🍆 Do you write the spicy stuffs? If so, what's your most popular nsfw fic?

🌞 Do you have a preferred time of day to write?

💖 What made you start writing?

💌 How do you feel about comments and feedback?

❌ What's a trope you will never write?

💲 Would you ever open commissions?

🧐 Do you spend much time researching for your stories?

🏆 What's your most popular fic?

🎃 Do you write fics for certain holidays? Which is your favorite holiday inspired fic?

🎯 Have any of your readers accurately guessed major plot points? Care to share which?

🎨 How do you feel about fan art of your stories?

📈 How many fics do you have?

🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

🤗 What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?

💞 Who's your comfort character?

🧠 Pick a character, and I'll tell you my favorite headcanon for them.

🤩 Who is your favorite character to write?

🤲 Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

😬 Which of your fics would you be most horrified for friends, family, or coworkers to stumble upon?

🎉 What leads you to consider a fic a success?

✅ What's something that appears in your fics over and over and over again, even if you don't mean to?

📚 Would you ever want to turn writing into a career?

⌛ How long does it take you to write a fic, or a chapter?

🤯 What's a genre you struggle with as a writer (ex. romance, action, etc.)?

💔 Is there a fic of yours that broke your heart?

💥 How do you feel about criticism?

🤭 Do you have a favorite tag to use when posting your works?

🥰 How do you feel about reader interaction? Are you open to receiving questions about your fics?

[yourmum8609]

girls will look at a man and say “he’s just misunderstood” as he murders people

[nopunlntended]

[typewriter83]

Oh, he did all those things, but he still did nothing wrong. 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️

[typewriter83]

The problem with being a writer is that you believe you have all these amazing ideas - but then you have to be the one to sit down and write them!

Sounds like such a chore

🫶🏻

[roboticnebula]

Pros of re-reading your own fic

a good time;

Has exactly the tropes you like and the characterization you want to read;

Gratification: yes you did finish a thing and yes you did do good;

just a very fun time all around.

Cons of re-reading your own fic:

Is that another TYpO

[pedropascal24-7]

[typewriter83]

If I ever were to lose you…

[typewriter83]

I’m tagging this for the Joellie followers here - and we’re gonna work together to keep track of this because I’ve seen this conversation before and now I’m paying attention.

This morning is Monday, January 20. There are 460 stories uploaded in the Ellie/Joel tag on ao3. The highest I’ve ever seen it was 464, but lately the count has been in the low 450s.

The number won’t climb if a chapter is added, only a new story will trigger that. However, there are a number of stories in the tag that should be Ellie&Joel tagged and occasionally get removed when writers realize what the / tag actually indicates.

So, help me keep track of this - because I can’t figure out what’s going on. The ship/fandom is small enough as it is and we don’t want writers taking their stories down. Let’s see what we can see/do.

🫶🏻

[typewriter83]

Shhh, we don’t want to scare anyone away. The count wobbled for a couple days - but it’s at 470 🫣 keep it going, fellow writers

🫶🏻

[typewriter83]

Has anyone taken a look at the count number this week? I have 🤭 as of March 23, the count stands at 476. Writers and readers are coming back or coming out of the woodwork.

I hope they feel welcome in this little corner of the fandom

🫶🏻🫶🏻

[sortof-fandom-positivity]

[typewriter83]

Can you tell us what happened to Dina? Please ❤️

❤️ spoilers for but since i survived under the cut

Short answer - no, I can’t 🥺

When I wrote My World is a Better Place - feels like so long ago - I left the scene between Ellie and Joel on the porch in the rocking chairs up to the reader to interpret. I have always known how I interpreted the scene, and in a way, my interpretation is written in the scene. Is Joel really old, tired, and leaving Ellie to tend to their high-spirited daughter, or is Ellie being visited by the spirit of her husband that has passed on? That’s up to you to decide.

Much like that scene, I can’t interpret the scene in the woods for you, dear reader. Tommy is a broken, distraught, angry, lost man. He rambles, shouts at and blames both Joel and Ellie for the death of Maria and the destruction of Jackson. Is his anger deservedly placed? Joel doesn’t seem to think so, Joel believes that they’ve all made poor choices, especially he and Tommy have, and he’s had to learn to live with his choices.

That being said, Ellie has had to learn to live with her choices as well. She chose to leave Dina and the family she was offered, she chose to leave Jackson and set off on her own. And I think that by the end of the story, even before Joel offers her himself as her home, she’s made peace with her choices and is trying to make peace with what Tommy told them, or rather refused to tell them.

So. Where does that leave your question? What do you believe? I know what I believe and how I would have written it had I decided to flesh it out, but I do believe, dear reader, that some things are better left up to the reader.

🫶🏻