Live life with passion

Not “Only my reading of canon is correct” or “Interpretations are subjective and all valid” but a secret third thing, “More than one interpretation can be valid but there’s a reason your English teacher had you cite quotes and examples in your papers, you have to have a strong argument that your interpretation is actually supported by the text or it is just wrong and I’m fine with telling you it’s wrong, actually.”

If the text says the curtains are blue you can argue about what that means; but if you’re going to claim they’re actually yellow you’d better have a really good argument.

i know the curtains better than the author. thank you for coming to my ted talk

Fandom has such unresolved mommy/daddy issues about authors. If you apply a little reading comprehension skills to my original post you’ll see I didn’t say anything at all about the author. You guys always make “interpretation” about your beef with the author. You’re all obsessed with the author. This post is just about deciphering what is there in canon. Figuring out what is being communicated by the canon itself with all the words and images and basic formal elements that are there in canon. That’s all it’s about. It really doesn’t matter if the author intentionally put all those things there in a pattern that might support the idea that this one character’s queer. That’s not what this is about. What matters is if you can compellingly argue there’s a pattern of evidence there. Or not. Everyone is conspiring together to make me go insane still adding shit about authorial intent on my post.

If you're ever worried about whether your writing is too self indulgent, I just want you to remember that Sharknado had 5 sequels. I'm only partway through watching Sharknado 6: It's About Time, but already they've traveled through time and ridden a pteronadon into a Sharknado so they could use the magic teleportation portal inside of it to travel forward in time to King Arthur's time, where they are currently battling a Sharknado full of fire-breathing dragon sharks with Excalibur, which is a chainsaw sword that calls lightning. You're fine. In fact, be a little more self indulgent if anything.

none of that top/bottom discourse. the only valid question to ask is who cries during sex

anyway the thing about fanfic is that it's not essentially bad or good; it's essentially amateur. some people are absolutely out there writing award-worthy prose (some fic writers ARE award-winning writers IRL!), but that's not the point. the point is that we're all telling campfire stories. it's a community, and it's a way to spend some more time in the worlds and stories that we love.

this is BEAUTIFUL.