Give me something to sing about

The thing is, there’s no way to know where these people are coming from. In the before, when fandom was more in the corners we all knew about, you could search LJ or a message board or whatever social bookmarking site we were using. You could join the community and participate.

You could get a little dopamine hit by seeing someone tell their friends why they loved your story.

Anymore, those recs are hidden in discords, or in tiktoks or instagram slideshows that you can’t search for. They’re inaccessible, not discoverable unless you’re already there. You may never know why 27 people left kudos on an old story of yours, what they liked and found in your writing. You just get the thumbs up and a kinda lonely feeling, cause these could be your people. You could like them, maybe. You could be friends.

But you’ll never find out why they stopped by, or what people are saying about you behind your back, and that’s sad.

So last year @/jingyismom commissioned this piece:

everything is just about the same but they're all fairies... wwx coming back after being dead, and seeing lwj for the first time with his huge beautiful iridescent wings dragging mangled and useless behind him

and then I dithered, intimidated by the concept, for about six months before starting, then dithered for about another six months before pulling myself together and finishing it.

"The High Court on Wednesday [Kenya, 05/20/2026] ruled that refusing to amend gender markers in official identification documents of transgender persons breaches the constitutional rights. ...The judgement capped years of legal battles by Ms. Mbugua, a transgender rights activist, whose fight with State institutions dates back more than 10 years."

Starting off with the disclaimer here that I by no means think I'm the first person to tackle this concept: I'm spitballing based on my own lifetime of experience 1) storytelling and 2) interacting with readers and audiences.

So what kicked this off was that I've seen a lot of posts talking about the 'right' way to write villains -- recently, but also over the years -- and they always strike me as frustratingly incomplete. The recent ones especially tend to come with a strong dose of "you need to make sure that your villain is utterly detestable, with no redeeming or sympathetic qualities, and that they embody all the worst traits present in your work," etc, that sort of thing. And my immediate reaction to that is to say "well, maybe that's true for some villains, but it's not universal by any means."

So, if there's not just one way to write a villain character, how many ways are there? Lots, obviously, but based on my observations, the really affecting/iconic/impactful villains tend to fall into a few categories.

Villain Category 1: The Hate Sink

This is the sort of villain that the above advice is useful to: the guy whose role in the story is to be someone that everybody, both in and out of universe, hates. This guy needs to do horrible things, and just be horrible as a person and as an instigator of action, in order to build up a very satisfying catharsis when the hero defeats him. This is the guy (or girl) with the ultimate punchable face.

The primary emotion this type of villain inspires is anger. (Secondarily, contempt.)

Examples of this type of villain: Jin Guangshan, Trent Ikithon (tabletop,) any Leverage villain

Villain Category 2: The Power Fantasy

This is a big big broad category and a lot of subcategories are going to fall under it. This villain is one who is operating without rules or restrictions and at a high level of effectiveness. They are usually The Unfettered. It seems like there's nothing they can't do, if they feel like it; and while that makes them dangerous, it can also be very appealing. In terms of audience engagement this is the dinosaur: a toddler stomping around roaring pretending to be a T-Rex, because T-Rex doesn't have rules or bedtimes and can have whatever snacks they want! This type of villain is scary, dangerous and needs to be stopped, but they're also cool.

(They can also be a Power Fantasy to members of the audience that they share characteristics with: a queer-coded villain who doesn't give a fuck about societal mores can be very appealing to queer audience members who are closeted in real life, or a disabled villain who manages to crush the galaxy under their heel regardless of their disability is naturally going to be very appealing to audience members who share that disability, or a villain who goes on an unstoppable revenge rampage following an assault or some other trauma can feel very cathartic to an abuse survivor.)

The primary emotion this type of villain inspires is fear. (Secondarily, awe.)

Examples of this type of villain: Darth Vader

Villain Category 3: The Pain Mirror

This is the sort of guy I was talking about in my recent post about villain fans, villains whose role in the story is to take a trauma or tragedy and say to the world 'this pain matters.' This is almost always a Tragic Backstory villain, though it's possible to arrive there over the course of the story. This villain is usually someone going on a rampage in response to some awful event, but whose reaction to it threatens to destroy more than it can save and needs to be stopped thereby. This type of villain can be very impactful, but also very controversial depending on the handling.

Examples of this type of villain: Magneto

The primary emotion this type of villain inspires is grief. (Secondarily, pity.)

I'm sure there are more categories of villains, at least five; these three were just the ones I could come up with on a quick survey. And obviously (well, obvious to me anyway) there's going to be some amount of crossover; a Pain Mirror can also cover Power Fantasy territory, though there's not complete overlap, and a Power Fantasy that does enough despicable things can take on aspect of Hate Sink.

There's risk in letting these blend too much, though; a Pain Mirror who has too many aspects of Hate Sink threatens to become unsympathetic to the audience, and a Power Fantasy with too much Pain Mirror starts to look a little pathetic. But the biggest place I think some story villains run into trouble is if their creators haven't picked a category -- or can't or won't commit to one.

The Dark Reflection

This is the guy whose primary story position is to serve as a foil for the protagonist, oftentimes is a friend or colleague or otherwise in their circle -- someone who starts in the same place as the protagonist but whose arc goes in a different direction. Their job throughout the story is to cast question on what the protagonist believes, or throw into the light shady things that their affiliated organization has done -- in some way to force the protagonist(s) to have to reckon with their beliefs and come to a new conclusion. I think you named Killmonger as one of these, @capriceandwhimsy? Some possible crossover with the Power Fantasy (if this character lets loose the restraints that the hero retains) the Pain Mirror (if this character is driven to the dark side by the failures of the Good Organization) and the Hate Sink (if this character full on jumps off the slippery slope) are all possible.

The primary emotion this type of villain inspires is doubt.

Very true! I was also thinking I should add, problems can also arise when the author thinks their villain is in one category, and the audience interprets them as another.

Make DAMN well sure you understand the moral landscape of your story and your good and bad guys before employing one.

Because way too often, what happens is:

Pain Mirror Villain exists/Designated good guys meanwhile not really that good -> Audience goes "uh, hang on, Villain has a point actually, I am not sure the good guys are the ones I'm rooting for" -> writers go "OH SHIT NOT THE CONCLUSION WE WANTED" -> Writers make Villain do More Bad Shit to try to convert them into a Hate Sink so the Audience will root for the Designated Good Guys -> now you have just added Unfortunate Fucking Implications about the real-world people whose pain you were mirroring with the Pain Mirror Villain YOU made -> your Good Guys still suck and now you're kind of an asshole

I would never pay money for a redbox. if you ask politely and are very very persistent (i.e. annoying) they will let you take it away

here's my dad and i taking it away

luckily there are no shortage of freaks like us who will just take them away on our own volition. we did it all "by the book", too: we set up cones and caution tape, disconnected electricity properly, used an angle grinder to grind down the bolts in the concrete so nobody would trip on them, then cleaned everything up afterward and sealed off the electrical panel so the store would know everything is safe and tidy. though they were hesitant when we were first contacting them, they were honestly very relieved and grateful when we finally took it away, especially once they saw that we "knew what we were doing" (we don't) and look like we've "done this before" (we haven't).

the fun part: the reason why this redbox, in particular, was completely full and unraided is because the computer hardware inside had failed some months before the bankruptcy, and a failing company sure as hell wasn't gonna send a tech out to our podunk dipshit city to fix it, so it was impossible to rent movies or take any discs out. plus, for who knows how long, people were returning old redbox discs to this machine and not taking any out, leading to a much higher variety of movies than your average redbox.

there is a thriving community of redbox hackers and modders out there, as well, creating open-source software for repurposing the machines and not letting their very interesting and robust disc-management hardware go to waste. this one belongs to my brother (who was very annoying persistent and did all the legwork of contacting managers and securing permission) who is a programmer by trade and will be hacking it into a family-access movie library, with whatever discs we want. i mean the machine is completely weatherproof and has a built-in AC unit, it would be such a waste to not try to turn it into something cool.

if we get another one, i'm gonna try to mod it into some sort of art or zine vending machine. the disc boxes are just the right size for small print art or stickers. would make a great "little free library" too.

She played bass on 10,000 songs, including the most-played track of the twentieth century. She was paid $55 per session. Her name never appeared on the albums.

Gold Star Studios, Los Angeles, 1964. A woman in a cardigan walks past the receptionist, a Fender Precision bass in her hand like a briefcase. She doesn’t sign autographs. She signs a timesheet.

Her name is Carol Kaye. In three hours, she will record what will become the most-played track of the twentieth century. She’ll pocket fifty-five dollars and head to another studio, on the other side of town, for the next session.

The record label will never put her name on the album.

Between 1957 and 1973, Carol Kaye took part in roughly 10,000 recording sessions. Not as the featured artist, not as a guest, but as a hired hand. She was part of an anonymous collective nicknamed The Wrecking Crew—elite studio musicians who actually played the instruments on your favorite records while the famous bands posed for promotional photos.

The work was relentless. Three albums before the day was over. Stale coffee in paper cups. No rehearsal. The charts arrived minutes before the tape rolled. If you couldn’t read a chart and nail the take in two tries, you didn’t get called for the next session.

Carol could do it on the first try.

She started playing guitar in grimy bars at fourteen because her family couldn’t pay the electric bill. Music wasn’t a romantic dream for her. It was survival. It was a job—factory work with better acoustics and lower pay.

But she was faster and sharper than almost everyone else. She corrected charts in pencil while the producer was still explaining what he wanted. In one session in 1968, she told a famous producer his arrangement sounded like a dying dog. She chose her own line. They kept her version.

That descending bass line that drives the Beach Boys’ “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”? Carol Kaye. The propulsive groove of “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’”? Carol Kaye. The acoustic-guitar intro to “La Bamba”? Carol Kaye. The iconic theme from Mission: Impossible? Carol Kaye.

She invented techniques on the spot, out of sheer necessity. When the bass sound was too muddy for AM radio, she stuck felt under the strings and used a hard pick instead of her fingers. The tone cut through the static like a blade. It became the sonic signature that defined 1960s pop.

Bassists spent years—decades—trying to crack the secret of the Beach Boys’ gear to get that sound. They were studying the wrong people. They should have been studying Carol.

She received no royalties. No residuals. No gold-record ceremony. No credit on the album sleeves. When “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” hit number one, Carol was already back in a studio cutting a soap jingle.

The biggest bands mimed her bass lines on TV variety shows. New York marketing departments decided a mom in classic clothes didn’t fit the rebellious-youth image they were selling. So they simply left her name off the album credits.

For thirty years, almost no one cared. The truth only began to surface in the late 1990s, when music researchers found the same union contract numbers on thousands of hit records. The very documents meant to preserve studio musicians’ anonymity betrayed them.

Think about it. Every time you heard “Good Vibrations,” “River Deep – Mountain High,” the Righteous Brothers, Nancy Sinatra, or Sonny and Cher, you were hearing Carol Kaye. She composed the soundtrack of an entire generation’s youth.

And yet the records still say nothing. She’s now over eighty. She wrote instructional books. She trained countless bassists. She is finally starting to be recognized by music historians who uncovered the truth about The Wrecking Crew.

But she never got what she deserved: her name on those albums. Credit for the music that defined an era. Recognition that those bass lines everyone associates with the “Beach Boys” were, in fact, Carol Kaye’s.

Fifty-five dollars a session. Ten thousand sessions. The most-played track of the twentieth century.

Hello, I am here with yet another pitch for writers to add a permission statement to their AO3 bio! Posts about permission statements tend to circulate among the podfic community, which is really preaching to the choir, so I would really love it if some writer-types also reblog this. ❤️

(While permission statements can and do address multiple types of transformative work, this post very podfic-centric.)

What is a permission statement?

A permission statement tells people who create works based on fanfics (e.g. podfic, art, remixes) whether or not you're okay with people making stuff based on your writing and in what circumstances.

Even if you're not up for giving everyone permission for everything, having a statement we can read is SO appreciated!

What is blanket permission?

Blanket permission is a term podficcers use for permissions that let us create and post podfic without having to contact the author. We love this!

What other kinds of permission statements are there and why would I still want to use one?

If you don't want to give blanket permission, having a permission statement telling folks what you are and aren't okay with helps a lot!

If an author doesn't want to give blanket permission, a statement encouraging podfic but asking a podficcer to ask first still tells us you're interested and that we can expect to receive a friendly (even if not always a 'yes') response.

If you don't want podfic made of your work at all, then telling us this saves us time and saves you from getting repeated messages from different podficcers!

Do you have an example?

Sure do! Here's the statement I currently have in my AO3 profile (which you should feel free to copy, modify or take any other kind of inspiration from):

I grant blanket permission for podfics, art and translations, and any other transformative work as long as it involves absolutely no monetary profit or monetary exchange of any kind, or contribution to or use of generative AI. Please link back to the original so I can be thrilled you did it!

Why consider blanket permission?

If you do want podfic made of your work, blanket permission makes it a whole lot more likely a podficcer will choose your work! Because:

Especially for events with quick turnaround times and that include recommendations made to other podficcers for projects, it's often the only way we can get permission in time

It means we can start working on a project as soon as we decide to, rather than having to wait to hear back

Some people are less comfortable reaching out to ask and so will be less willing to podfic works without blanket permission

It can also feel awkward to ask for permission and then not do the podfic for a while (or ever), which can be a mental barrier to reaching out

Blanket permission is so helpful that we even have a whole database of people who have blanket permission so we can find them more easily and an extension that highlights their names in green for 'full speed ahead!'

Podfic makes a writer's work more accessible to audiences that aren't always able to engage with written text, and I personally love it when someone cares about my writing to put in the effort to podfic it. So I want to encourage its creation as much as I can!

No matter what kind of permission you end up being comfortable with, I hope you will consider adding a statement to your AO3 profile, and thanks for reading this pitch!

More resources:

Thoughts on this!

First, it definitely still counts as blanket permission if you say "please make sure you email me or comment on the fic afterwards to let me know."