I Don’t Care If This Comes Off As Cruel But You Are Not Entitled To Fanfiction. You Are Not Entitled

Happy Day

I’m with you

Get wrecked, morality police.

You asked, “why I think that a great wish!” The genie stares at you and sigh, looking at their hand. They say to you hauntingly, “Because you will regret it like how I regret it….And there no coming back.”

A common rule among Genies is that you may not wish for more wishes. However, thinking you found a loophole, you instead wish that you had the Genie’s power. The genie laughs in your face and blatantly says, “No, you don’t,” and for the first time, you notice the immense pain in their eyes.

Tips from a Beta Reading Writer

This one's for the scenes with multiple characters, and you're not sure how to keep everyone involved.

Writing group scenes is chaos. Someone’s talking, someone’s interrupting, someone’s zoning out thinking about breadsticks. And if you’re not careful, half your cast fades into the background like NPCs in a video game. I used to struggle with this so much—my characters would just exist in the scene without actually affecting it. But here’s what I've learned and have started implementing:

✨ Give everyone a job in the scene ✨

Not their literal job—like, not everyone needs to be solving a crime or casting spells. I mean: Why are they in this moment? What’s their role in the conversation?

My favourite examples are:

The Driver: Moves the convo forward. They have an agenda, they’re pushing the action.

The Instigator: Pokes the bear. Asks the messy questions. Stirring the pot like a chef on a mission.

The Voice of Reason: "Guys, maybe we don’t commit arson today?"

The Distracted One: Completely in their own world. Tuning out, doodling on a napkin, thinking about their ex.

The Observer: Not saying much, but noticing everything. (Quiet characters still have presence!)

The Wild Card: Who knows what they’ll do? Certainly not them. Probably about to make things worse.

If a character has no function, they’ll disappear. Give them something—even if it’s just a side comment, a reaction, or stealing fries off someone’s plate. Keep them interesting, and your readers will stay interested too.

would you like a nice glass of

Preach🙌

why cens*r (fandom) words (and why you might be doing it wr0ng)

what do censored words look like in online fandom context?

this particular type of self-censoring—on a word-level rather than systemic level—occurs when someone uses special characters, spaces, or other substitutions to alter an original word/name/title. this is usually done in a manner that leaves the word legible.

examples:

d*sney

av@tar

m.arvel

n/ickelodeon

gr ishaverse

the most common version you’ll encounter is the first one, in which one or more letters are swapped out for an *.

what self-censoring words does:

removes a word that would otherwise appear in search results (eg “hann!bal” does not show up in searches for “hannibal”)

removes a word that would otherwise be caught by filters set to filter out that word (eg “p*rple” is not caught when filtering out “purple”)

virtue-signals—it gives your followers a hint about what type of content you oppose or do not like (eg if I see someone use “j@ne” or “j.ane/b.ob”, I assume that OP doesn’t like jane or the jane/bob ship)

subcategory of virtue signaling: humorous virtue signaling (eg, “I hate ch*ese”)

In its most basic form, censorship is like a captcha—it exists to fool machines or search algorithms while remaining legible to humans.

But because of its usage in virtue signaling, for better or worse, censoring words now carries connotations of Serious ideological Disagreement. This is why humorous virtue signaling works: “I hate ch*ese” adds Serious Ideological Disagreement to my simple dislike of cheese, and implies that I think cheese is somehow Problematic™.

why censor words?

to keep your anti-X content out of the X tag, so that X Stans do not have to see it (and potentially target or harass you as a result. also, it’s common fandom etiquette to keep your hate of a given thing out of that thing’s tag—more on this later.)

to discuss hate speech without actually using hate speech and potentially attracting hate groups to your blog (eg “n@zi, t*rf”)

a serious drawback to censoring words

when you censor a word, it doesn’t show up in searches and it also doesn’t get caught by filters. people who are triggered by that word and blacklisted it to protect themselves are now going to encounter it in your post.

things to stop doing ASAP

stop censoring trigger words. seriously, stop. this doesn’t mean you have to type out slurs without censoring them, but do include a tag like “f-slur” or “misogynistic slurs” in order to help those who have blacklisted a given word. if you’re going to censor “t*rf,” I’d better see the “transphobia” warning tag on your post. and for the love of god, don’t censor tags like “rac*sm”

consider people with screenreaders, who are going to hear your special characters read aloud, and use them sparingly. “a.lice” is gonna sound confusing, but presumably less confusing than “@l*c#.” (people with screenreaders, feel free to chime in on your preferred methods of self-censorship!)

these days, about 90% of the time I encounter a censored word, especially a word that is specific to fandoms (a title, name, or ship), it seems like OP’s purpose is virtue-signaling. it’s hard to tell who is and isn’t aware that they’re also adhering to basic standards of community etiquette by keeping hate out of a tag, but occasionally someone does something that makes it painfully obvious how unaware they are: they tag the thing they just censored. if I type out “d*sney” but then tag my post “disney,” I defeat the entire point of censoring the word in the first place—unless my purpose begins and ends at virtue signaling.

the solution to this is to use “d*sney” in the body of my post and “anti-disney” in the tags. anti-X tags have a few purposes: to keep hate out of the X tag, to potentially help you find other fans who dislike X, and to ensure anti-X content can still be caught by filters.

in conclusion, 

know why you’re censoring a given word. 

if your intent is to minimize harm, you may not be achieving that simply by swapping in an asterisk. and if your intent is not to look like an idiot, you’ll want to avoid mistake #3 above.

further reading:

what is a grawlix?

voldemorting

Bombastic Side Eye👀 Benny Boy needs new parents or parental figures at least

And Descendants (mainly Beast and Belle) are getting the side eye from me again:

There is a Bureau of Isle Affairs?!

Well, they weren't very helpful were they?

And I wonder why that is?

(Stares at Ben's parents).

ao3 turns 15 today

reblog if youre older than ao3