moved @thefirewalkercomic

fanfic speedrun: write the scene you want to write and skip the rest of the fic

(same goes on the reader side of things)

I’m seeing people on this post who think that what I’m saying is, “Write out of order, starting with the things you enjoy most.” And while that’s fine advice, it’s not actually what I said.

What I said was, “Only write the thing that’s fun, and don’t write the rest.”

Write one shots. Write drabbles. Write ficlets. If you have 5 interesting scenes but you can’t figure out how to tie them together into a fic, then write 5 separate ficlets, post them in a series, and when you get another idea for that series just plop it right in there and rearrange the works into the right order.

You don’t have to write longfic to write fanfic.

I love one shots. One shots are awesome. One shots don’t fuck around. One shots are a hit of pure, distilled fandom straight into the veins. They know what they’re here to accomplish and by God they accomplish it with as little extraneous bullshit as possible. Sometimes you don’t want a 30 chapter slow-burn epic five course meal; it too much. Sometimes you just want to down a double-expresso one shot of your favorite character and ride that high for the rest of the afternoon.

What about like, oneshots that need context? i.e. how a ship got to be a ship, what events led to X and Y

Write that as your summary, then do the thing. You don’t actually need to explain in detail. For example:

Boom. Done. How they met and fell in love and got married doesn’t matter. How Big Bad found them or what happens next doesn’t matter. You can write those things another time, if you ever want to, but for now you can just do the part that you want.

And if you never want to write more? Okay. You don’t have to.

Just write that scene. Your readers can imagine the rest.

Just realized I can do this o.O Why torment myself with trying to come up with a 4k set-up for one scene that lasts 6, maybe 7 lines, if I can just write the scene as a drabble :O

PSA: Just a friendly reminder that whenever you start a creative project, you will invariably hit a phase where the Thing™️ appears horrendous and you start asking existential questions. But if you keep working, it invariably passes and starts to resemble something less like the devil’s vomit. Doesn’t matter if it’s art, writing, or what–this happens repeatedly. Carry on.

i could fix him but honestly whatever the hell is wrong with him is way funnier

If you use the word “queerbaiting” about characters who are openly queer in the text, just because you’re not sure if some ship will be canon or not, you are never allowed to use words again.

We got this when TMA Jon was confirmed as canon ace and Martin as canon mlm, just because people weren’t sure if they’d actually get together.  THEY’RE STILL QUEER.  We’re getting this with a show full of pansexual vampires and a mlm whose queerness is an important part of his character background because..???  The fave ship isn’t happening fast enough or something??  Hell even as obnoxious as Disney is, it was annoying for Loki when you had two bisexual leads but accusations of queerbaiting were thrown around because, again, a ship didn’t happen (and then ignored the REAL baiting re: genderfluidity).  

shipping was a MISTAKE

Every time I see people do this I think about when Magnus Chase fans called it queerbaiting Blitzstone didn’t happen even though the titular main character/narrator has a canon genderfluid love interest

Calling a character queer but then never integrating that characteristic into story lines baits queers into watching but then never seeing themselves really reflected. Unless of course they manifest queerness in vivid ways without having the character in a relationship. It is possible but I’m not sure how probable.

I’m queer and don’t want a romantic relationship, how tf do you expect me to identify with any queer character if their queerness is solely defined by their romantic relationships? Am I bad queer rep to you? No, because you understand different queer people have different experiences, and in the same way, we need different rep

Holyyyyyyyyy fuck well thank you quakie for being the #1 example of why this attitude is just so shitty and reductive, I guess??  You think that the only way queerness can be integrated into a storyline is through romance??  I’m guessing trans people don’t count as queer, let alone aroace people!!  You’re demonstrating this whole “the only queerness that matters is same-gender romance,” but even THEN it’s not like the only aspect of queerness that matters is romantic relationships.  

“It is possible but I’m not sure how probable” the fact you can’t even THINK of stories that matter aside from shipping–literally any story related to being trans or gender exploration or aro or ace characters or confronting religious trauma or forming communities or self-love or anything??  How about how queerness intersects with other identities and cultures, people discovering their histories??  But no, queerness is just an irrelevant detail until it becomes a canon ship, it’s ““improbable”” that someone could meaningfully integrate it unless characters are making out.

I’m aroace and agender–literally nothing in a romance will connect to me, but I have common ground with other queer people in dozens of other ways–and here you are saying that the ONLY way that queerness can be reflected in a character is the part I can’t relate to.  Even just seeing a LIVING TRANS CHARACTER means the world to me.  How deep into “shipping is all that matters” do you have to be to not even be able to hypothetically imagine that??  Fuck off.

I can think of SO MANY situations where a straight character wouldn’t be in a relationship, too, and it would be regarded as fine. Queer experiences are SO MUCH MORE than who you’re dating.

additionally: tagging this “queer het” because some people mistakenly believe queer people stop being queer while they’re in a relationship that is, or that looks to the uninformed observer like, an f/m relationship

A few ways to show a character being queer without them being in a romantic or sexual relationship:

And yes, the first three things can also be done by straight people, but notably, queer characters will be there as well by design! What a great way to introduce some new queer characters to a story that might not have any, or might not have any that are out yet!

And none of these are queerbaiting.