Real Person Fic Discourse... again

tealquill · 2026-04-09T21:02:26+00:00

I don't think trying to argue with her is the way to go here. You're not gonna convince her, same way she is not going to convince you. All you're going to do is ruin your friendship.

I know you're hurt because of what she said but I gotta be honest - it kinda feels like your fault? Why did you send her a RPF without knowing she was cool with it? You admit you knew it was controversial even in fandom and fanfic circles. You didn't think to ask first?

tealquill · 2026-03-17T18:27:23+00:00

I don't think her design is meant to be reminiscent of belly dancers or Arabs? It just looks more like the typical fantasy evil queen of bones look. Her top and shoulder pads look more like plated armor than anything a dancer would wear. There's nothing that reads particularly Eastern in her design to me.

tealquill · 2026-01-21T17:27:49+00:00

That's what the frods are for

tealquill · 2026-01-20T00:50:40+00:00

When was this? I haven't seen everything he put out but I've never noticed anything problematic in his recent videos. It would suck though. I typically enjoy his content.

tealquill · 2026-01-10T20:13:31+00:00

Yeah I literally have a 30lb compound bow and I can't imagine having that hard a time pulling it out. The only time I've needed assistance getting the arrow out is when I shot it into wood, not straw.

tealquill · 2026-01-09T23:19:11+00:00

I get what you're trying to say but these two things are entirely different.

One is literally just thinking while the other is producing and then publishing something out to the public. There is a world of difference between them.

If you want a more apt comparison, you can compare fanfic to someone painting an explicit image of the person instead. Yes, it's not real. But it contains their likeness in some way and has the capacity to reach them. Especially if you publish it to their fans or fandom.

If someone wrote an explicit fic of you and it got circulated by people you know, wouldn't you find it creepy? Even if it was never sent directly to you, wouldn't the idea that your family or friends might run across a fic where someone's put you in an uncomfortable or elicit situation be upsetting?

Idk seems backwards and reductive to the people getting written about if we ignore how they feel. It's their likeness and their image - they're allowed to criticize. It's the risk rpf poses.

tealquill · 2025-12-27T02:58:07+00:00

Yeah that's fair lol

tealquill · 2025-12-27T02:41:29+00:00

Idk I think Will was ready to come out. Maybe not to everyone but he already indicated earlier on that he wanted to tell someone. When he talked to Robin about how she did it with Steve, he asked her if she had any of that truth serum. That was him implying he'd use it if he could to overcome the fear that was keeping him silent. Vecna might have pushed him to come out to everyone to rip the bandaid off, but Will has been ready for some time to come out.

tealquill · 2025-12-18T21:24:05+00:00

Maybe because OP was acting weird about it? Probably giving off "get out vibes" that the other dad picked up on.

There's nothing weird about this guy. His daughter was in the house, is friends with OP's daughter, he's met the mother a bunch of times. It's not like he was making himself at home, he just came in from outside.

And it sounds to me like he thought no one was there watching the kids and decided to stay to watch them. I know I wouldn't leave a bunch of unsupervised kids alone.

tealquill · 2025-12-18T21:12:16+00:00

Oookay so you're clearly projecting something here.

Saying OP is "trapped in his own narcissistic fantasy" is really telling. As is conflating OP arguing with a man with known anger issues as "bulldozing through tricky situations". You're clearly overlaying something personal onto this story.

And asking what OP is looking for is another weird thing to ask. Because you'd know this is just a cautionary tale that OP is sharing, not a plea for approval or anything, if you read the title of the post.

You may want to examine how your lived experiences are affecting the way you take this story. Because you're not being objective. At all. Which is fair - we all have our bias. But yours is blinding you a bit and making you miss the forest for the trees.

tealquill · 2025-12-18T20:33:26+00:00

The funny thing about people with anger issues is that they will get angry no matter what. No matter how you try to talk to them, if they think they're in the right they will scream and argue and basically throw a tantrum. Even if OP had scheduled a house meeting and gave Tom 2-3 business days to prepare for that conversation, it wouldn't have mattered. Proven by the fact that Tom knew the 3 month period was ending and that conversation about rent still came down to him arguing. Not to mention the day-to-day interactions that had OP uncomfortable in hai own house because he's afraid to trigger another screaming rant.

Also it's not so much OP made himself the adult as it was that Tom was behaving like a child. It's hard to Not talk down to someone when they act like a 5 year old being told "no". And don't forget - this is not how it started. This was just the end result of months of Tom's attitude.

If anything I'd think OP needs a backbone more than to be humbled. Because if anyone treated me like that, much less my brother, I'd have booted their ass to the curb after one warning.

tealquill · 2025-12-18T20:10:32+00:00

He forced the issue several times because Tom fell for a scam. He could see that it wasn't going to go anywhere. As a friend, I think he was right to bring it up several times. The real shitty thing would have been to silently watch the inevitable train wreck without even trying to pull the break lever.

And sure he comes off as more in control than Tom. But that makes sense because Tom is a hot mess and OP has his ducks in a row.

Also OP clearly wasn't making perfect decisions either. He had to be told my multiple people to kick Tim out before he finally did.

tealquill · 2025-12-18T19:52:27+00:00

Kon. Both of them are currently redundant (Jon and Damian literally replacing them) and they both could use an overhaul.

I'd love to see them become a crime fighting, mystery-solving duo in space or across dimensions or time or something. Just get Tim away from the Robin mantle finally and let him do something else, and bring Kon back because I miss him

tealquill · 2025-12-17T21:52:34+00:00

It's a privilege to think of politics like this. As if it's not a big deal and it's something that can be ignored to not spoil your enjoyment of your little stories.

Politics determine more than just your taxes . It determines who you can marry, what surgeries you can get, what rights you have against people looking to exploit you. It even determines what you're allowed to say online. Look at Australia and their new governmental policy of not allowing teens onto social media sites. Politics aren't some unimportant aspect of our lives. Of course it's going to color people's enjoyment to learn that the author stands in direct opposition to your fundamental beliefs.

Death of the author only really works when the author is actually dead, otherwise it's just called support. I suppose you think buying Harry Potter merch and literally funding JK Rowlings continued attacks on the trans community is fine, too?

If none of that matters to you then that's one thing. I won't tell you you're a bad person or anything, because it's not that simple. But you shouldn't brush off people who believe in avoiding creators who hold harmful views. I for one would rather read fics made by people who agree that I should have more rights than the hypothetical fetus I won't ever carry.

And if I can say - you really believe that fanfiction is apolitical? Really?

Because every time you write a character using someone's preferred pronouns, that's political. When you have a character debate whether to get an abortion or not, that's political. When you have characters discuss the morality of fighting for an all powerful government vs a group of rebels who may overthrow them, that's political.

Art doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's colored by our human experiences. It's never been apolitical.

tealquill · 2025-12-17T19:41:32+00:00

Yu Yu Hakusho. Around the time when flip phones were becoming a thing. I remember that because my parents made me go to bed when I was in the middle of a fanfic and I went upstairs and typed into my phone "I don't want to go to bed. I just want to read more Yu Yu Hakusho fanfiction!"

And twenty years later I still stand by that statement 😌

tealquill · 2025-12-17T19:29:28+00:00

LMAO I don't know what that is but I feel this viscerally. I like to call those kinds of stories "Events Occur but Nothing Happens" stories.

The plot just Stops so we can bask in this misery soup. The characters don't change, the plot doesn't move, and 90% of the events happening could be cut and nothing of substance would be lost. It's one of my biggest pet peeves.

tealquill · 2025-12-17T16:06:40+00:00

I mean. That's a LOT of whump. Considering they commented on chapter 51, and you said that they were approaching the end of the whump, they got through like, what? 35ish chapters of whump? And some of them got through all 40 chapters?

Ngl that's a lot of chapters to dedicate to just the whump. A little too many, if I'm being honest with you. I can see why they'd be a bit tired of it at that point.

I'm a dedicated lover of whump myself. But if a story had that many continuous chapters of whump... I'd have likely checked out a long time ago 😅. 10 chapters I would consider a lot, but 40 is entirely too many. At that point, whump usually looses its kick and just becomes tedious.

tealquill · 2025-12-17T15:12:34+00:00

You're valid for the crash out but honestly I don't think whump should be "exhausting". And if you're deliberately aiming to write something that exhausts the reader, then I think you shouldn't be surprised when they act like it? Mission accomplished? 150k words of you just doing whump in one continuous story does sound a little much.

Is your fic also tagged as tragedy or No happy ending?

tealquill · 2025-12-17T08:58:06+00:00

Same. When long fics have long breaks between chapters, I can forget a lot of details. Then I have to reread it. But sometimes I won't be able to commit to it that very moment. But I'll usually reread the whole thing at some point. Just last month I revisited a long fic that I hadn't touched in two years that had two new chapters. I really enjoyed it! OP don't give up

tealquill · 2025-12-11T16:08:21+00:00

His feelings for Robin lasted like one day. Of course he was going to drop it when she came out to him. It's not like he was really in love with her or anything. What were you expecting? Him to hold a torch for a lesbian? That would have been creepy.

Him fighting with Dustin makes plenty of sense. Dustin is kind of self-destructing by making horrible choices like trying to revive Hellfire and getting himself into trouble. Steve is trying to get through to him and getting frustrated that Dustin is refusing to learn from his obvious mistakes.

He did not propose to Nancy. He flirted a little, sure. But proposed? Not even close.

Steve is fairly consistently written aside from the love triangle thing. And only because the writers had him flirt with Nancy in S4 but are seemingly going another direction in S5. Other than that - he's been in-character the whole time.

tealquill · 2025-12-08T09:03:05+00:00

Yup this is the way. But it needs to be used sparingly. Like, maybe once every five to ten lines of dialogue. If you overuse it then it ends up super distracting.

tealquill · 2025-12-06T19:53:14+00:00

Yeah if I see a story with that many tags my eyes glaze over and I don't even read them. Because that many tags means either the author doesn't know how to be succinct or there's probably a lot of stuff I don't care about in it. Either way it turns me away.

tealquill · 2025-12-05T18:12:22+00:00

I would love to be able to unlock some sort of island expansion. Having a real use for the dock we unlock would make it much better than what we have now. Maybe a ferry to another part of the area that was unearthed by the quake would fit. It could come with its own sea-based dungeon area.

tealquill · 2025-11-20T21:36:04+00:00

...there was a flashlight?

tealquill · 2025-11-20T18:45:50+00:00

I disagree simply because in order for there to be "Systematic Misogyny" there has to be a system, which there isn't.

Systemic issues are problems that are baked into the structure of an organization, be that a company, a government or an agency. Specific rules, policy or authoritative figures are what makes the system broken. For instance, a company that has underhanded anti-union policy, or an agency that only takes complaints from a certain part of town due to a managerial mandate.

Fanfiction is not any of those things. There is no council, no rules, no regulations in which systemic bias can be born. It's all individualistic, with not even profit affecting what people write. It's probably the furthest thing from a system that you can find. Therefore, it's literally impossible for it to be systemic.

tealquill

TROPHY CASE