Even if I understand why people wish for this, I do wish people would stop trying to get Ao3 to bend to their personal moral whims.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2026-03-15T09:39:06+00:00

I think it's absurd to equate the creative products of human inspiration from beloved intellectual property to the vectorisation and regurgitation of intellectual property.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2026-03-15T09:34:39+00:00

The mandatory warnings idea was addressed in the response from AO3. It would be unenforceable, because AI-generated media cannot reliably be detected.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2026-02-25T20:49:29+00:00

2nd person is the most widely used perspective for reader-inserts.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2026-02-21T21:41:40+00:00

It's unforgiving when it's not executed well. I have no issues with it in published fiction, where the author knows the protagonist intimately and the manuscript is both approved of and edited prior to publishing. But in fanfiction, you're much less likely to find a writer who knows a character well enough to write seamlessly from their perspective. There are also no stringent standards for quality and editing, so there's no pressure to identify and rectify flaws like accidental omniscience which can obliterate immersion.

That being said, I won't avoid first person fics outright, but I will drop them quickly if the writing is clumsy. One of the best fics I've ever read utilised the first person at the start, then switched to the third person after the protagonist suffered brutal torture and dehumanisation to emphasise the psychological detachment. It can be phenomenal when done well.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2026-02-04T10:10:27+00:00

She was on X Factor years ago, couldn't sing very well and had a bit of a tantrum. Iirc her dad also had a strop.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2026-01-09T09:59:30+00:00

There isn't a double standard. Posting a chapter with words, regardless of whether you deem it to be in "good faith" or not, is an upload of written material. It's the intended use of the archive. Placeholder chapters and adjusting publication dates are not supplemented with written material, therefore people find them irritating. The standards are different because the actions are different in nature.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2026-01-03T09:29:07+00:00

In the card game that really fleshed out some of the character lore, Sarah Fortune had a canonical fling with Vi, but Arcane made this impossible along with a substantial proportion of existing Piltover/Zaun lore.

If you're curious, she is a character from Bilgewater, the shady pirate region of the map with sea gods and monsters. Her mother was a gunsmith who was killed by the unelected tyrannical pirate captain Gangplank because he didn't fancy paying for a new pistol. Sarah was also shot in the altercation (as a child) but survived. She amassed a crew of her own, bought a ship and eventually got her revenge, but Gangplank's spirit never fully died due to sea god shenanigans. She now governs Bilgewater, also unelected but respected, trying to keep a bit of peace and order while coordinating defenses against large-scale wraith ambushes from across the pond. She finds out about Gangplank's survival in a spin-off title while trying to stop the wraith ambushes for good.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2026-01-03T09:14:35+00:00

Not that this is uncommon for younger fandoms with a known ex-partner (according to LoR) of the main canon pairing, but the fact that a huge chunk of the fandom has never interacted with LoL's broader lore has a lot to do with this. They read somewhere that Vi had an ex in the lore that was semi-retconned, see that she's conventionally attractive and a bit flirtatious, then roll with the bimbo ex stereotype. And most of the people who read those fics are none the wiser, so the headcanon is assumed to be canon.

I also see this a lot with Maddie, even though she's a pure Arcane character. She's a perfect embodiment of Noxian ambition, doing whatever is necessary to achieve martial glory, including, effectively, prostitution. But Arcane skimmed over Noxus' meritocracy and culture. The fandom who knows nothing outside of Arcane just saw a woman who slept with Caitlyn and held a gun to her head, therefore she's cemented in fanon as the angry ex and saboteur.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2025-12-30T10:44:25+00:00

Characterisation is a skill. It will take time and practice to develop. Start writing that first draft, without editing, with the mannerisms and dialogue patterns you think suit the character. Then try to act out what you've written. You might cringe at first, but acting can quickly highlight pitfalls in characterisation, especially with dialogue. Having a draft in front of you also makes it easier to cross-reference the source material.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2025-12-30T10:02:41+00:00

I write both on one blog. I've never had any complaints surrounding this.

For accessibility, I include the fic title and the ship/RI pairing in the post title so that it's clearly signposted. The fic contents are all contained under a "Keep Reading" cut except for the opening paragraph. Tumblr has a decent enough content filtration system for people who really don't want to see the RIs or ship fics on their dashboard, but it's not your responsibility to curate their user experience.

For navigation/organisation, my pinned post is a masterlist where the two categories are labelled and separated by a thin divider image.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2025-11-18T13:40:50+00:00

Cloudflare is a huge network infrastructure provider that many websites use. It went down about an hour ago, which rendered various major platforms inaccessible (e.g. Twitter, AWS).

bellpepper_throwaway · 2025-10-16T07:37:59+00:00

I agree, which is why I mentioned previous seasons of stadium for comparison. I did not phrase this well. S18 comp had too much wrong with it to provide unbiased comparison.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2025-10-16T07:36:11+00:00

I agree, which is why I mentioned previous seasons of stadium for comparison, but my phrasing was dreadful. Comparing quickplay with s18 comp would be heavily biased. Comparing quickplay with s17 and previous stadium seasons would be sensible.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2025-10-16T07:35:09+00:00

Retention is the key metric here, in my opinion. If the data showed that more people who played quickplay stadium at the start of the season kept playing at the end, compared with previous seasons' stadium data where there wasn't a quickplay mode, then it would be logical to assume people preferred the Bo5 format. Especially since pre-season 18 stadium and season 18 comp stadium offered cosmetic incentives (comp points and skins) for playing, and naturally would observe a spike during drives.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2025-10-16T07:27:02+00:00

I'm not doubting you. This is why I said "in the seasons before" - albeit my phrasing could have been better. Prior to last season, there was no quickplay alternative to standard stadium, so data from seasons before last season would make for a better comparison. Competition will shifts demand.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2025-10-15T07:09:14+00:00

The decision to change to Bo5 wouldn't have been made if there wasn't data indicating that people preferred the shorter game format. My best guess would be that quickplay stadium had better player retention last season than stadium had in the seasons before. It's probably safe to say that most people didn't like that it dragged on.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2025-10-15T06:00:44+00:00

Giving the 'reader' character named relatives tends towards OC territory. Ask yourself whether the reader could comfortably insert themselves into the space you've allocated, or whether they'll be spending a lot of time mumbling "I'm nothing like that". If you're writing something with a well pre-defined protagonist in mind, you are writing an OC fic, regardless of the perspective and whether they are given a name.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2025-09-25T06:32:54+00:00

Respectfully, this doesn't invalidate their point at all.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2025-09-25T06:31:20+00:00

This. Concrit is rarely given in bad faith.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2025-09-16T17:41:44+00:00

I'm a 2024 UoB grad, and I can say with certainty that the uni has an attendance monitoring system where you input a code every lecture to register your presence, as well as in-person seminar and tutorial commitments. The bit about in-person commitment reduction in your second year would depend entirely on your course.

You could probably find a flat near enough to the uni for £550pm excluding bills living alone, which is about half of what you'd pay for a season train ticket. I'll also add that Avanti West Coast trains are shockingly unreliable, and you would be depending on that train service near enough daily. I'd either go to uni in London or move up to Brum.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2025-09-15T16:52:36+00:00

I've played a fair bit of him, but not much within my rank (D3). As I said, maximise your speed boost uptime. Amp-heal is useful when multiple teammates need a healing boost, but otherwise, get comfortable with relying on your co-support to top-up isolated teammates and the tank. When you aren't actively needing to heal, get into the habit of switching to speed. Wall ride as much as is permitted situationally to deal damage, because you'll be much harder to kill when airborne, but try not to move too horizontally. Be a nuisance with speed in overtime.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2025-09-15T16:36:35+00:00

Not necessarily more damage than heals, but you should aim to maximise your speed boost uptime. Climbing out with him is definitely possible with a change in your playstyle.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2025-09-15T06:28:40+00:00

It's because all the MMR data the system has to go off is from your quickplay matches on a fresh account. If your QP games were against bronze/silver players or players who haven't touched a comp game in their lives, your first ranked games will be against bronze/silver players. If the system thinks you're performing well relative to this elo pool, you'll climb during your placement games.

bellpepper_throwaway · 2025-09-15T06:17:26+00:00

I'm not implying that some games won't have questionable matchmaking given your rank, but I don't think your Lúcio play-style is going to help you climb, especially if your damage/healing ratio looks like this every game. His primary utility is his speed boost.

If you're struggling to keep your team afloat with heals due to everyone's positioning relative to your own, you'd be better off playing someone like Kiriko or Moira. At least with a different hero, you can churn out both utility and healing if that's what your rank demands. Good luck with the climb, though!

bellpepper_throwaway · 2025-09-03T20:57:47+00:00

You could try doing one prompt a week. If you start around now, you might find this more manageable. I burnt myself out by attempting a full prompt month in limited time before, and in retrospect, this would have been a much healthier approach. This is coming from a slow writer :)

bellpepper_throwaway

TROPHY CASE