ArtPancake

Р isnt P

and not just implied canon either. not just an ambiguous confession that could be twisted to be platonic. not just subtext. not just a relationship confirmed by the creators after the fact. they are 100% undeniably canon.

they refer to each other as boyfriends. they talk openly with other characters about the fact that they're dating. they have an audible kiss. they say I love you in a way that is undeniably romantic. they openly flirt with each other.

and like. yeah canon is made up and whatever we want it to be yadda yadda. but like,, canon queer relationships, especially quality written queer relationships, are just,, RIDICULOUSLY hard to come by for some reason and jmart's relationship is so refreshing to me, especially because you can tell the writers actually care about it

and they're not the only ones! there's a canon lesbian couple! there are canon trans characters! there are literal statements with themes of transness and queerness and how that impacts people's experiences! there are explicitly queer background characters/relationships! jon is canonically asexual! (and jon's asexuality could be a whole other post for me—it feels so monumental as an asexual person to see somebody who is both canonically asexual and still has genuine romantic relationships)

But I just wanted to do a quick shoutout to the writers and artists who devote time to these otps- because often your work won’t get enough attention to feel truly validated. Your work may never get the hits/kudos/reblogs/comments a more popular pairing will, but don’t despair- someone out there is happy because you did the thing, and honestly? If you’re happy you did the thing, then keep doing the thing.

Thank you for the time and effort you put into the ships no one talks about. You’re amazing and don’t forget it.

I have been mulling something over for a while and have decided to share. As part of my job, I read a lot of fiction that's still in development. After a while, you start to see the same errors, misunderstandings and shortcuts crop up repeatedly with different creators and it gets me thinking what is the most elegant way possible I could explain the issues to someone wanting to improve? The one that comes up the most often and is the hardest to explain is: "Why don't people care about my characters and/or story". It's always a thorny problem and I think I have a workable answer that applies in most cases: A story is a series of revelations regarding compounding, unintentional consequences to character decisions. The further you stray from this, the less people care. It translates to: 1) characters have to make decisions otherwise there is no drama 2) Those decisions have to matter otherwise there are no stakes 2) The consequences have to interact with one another. A affects or causes B affects or causes C etc. otherwise there is no progression 3) There must be some unintended consequences otherwise there is no conflict 4) The consequences have to be revealed (even at least implied) otherwise there is no conclusion This works at the micro scale in terms of dialogue: The specific word/tone/movement a character uses affects how another character reacts in an unexpected or interesting way which in turn causes another reaction and these layer onto one another until a decision is reached and a consequence implied thereby completing the scene. It also works at the macro scale in terms of plot: The decisions characters made in a scene prompts/affects the characters and context of the scene that follows (even if we don't know it at first) and by the end those layered interactions have been revealed to us and we see the unexpected or interesting result.