#synnister

I DID!!! THIS IS THE FULL ONE!

@synnister replied to your post: keeperofthelilacs: snurbleberry: this is a...

‘a restricted area’ is actually the name of cae’s room

Can this be real pls

well, the reasons are threefold. 

In the first place, I started this recs list to try to bring some attention to some fics in this extremely prolific fandom that were very well done, but getting lost in the shuffle. AF’s work came onto the scene and was immediately extremely popular, and was well known by everyone. She was good at doing her own promotion and her fics were talked up and passed around by the majority of the fandom, demonstrably not ‘lesser known gems’ like many of the others i tried to publicise here.

Secondly, I made the decision at the get-go that I would only promote fics that didn’t make me feel deeply, solely uncomfortable while reading, no matter how popular they were, and that I wouldn’t promote fics that I hadn’t finished reading all the way through. I genuinely did try to read many of AF’s fics. She was prolific and popular and had big, sweeping ideas. But I just didn’t take to them. Between the strange, extremely punitive and hostile undertones around Liz’s treatment in her fics, and the general grammatical oddities and malapropisms, they really weren’t for me. 

Don’t get me wrong, I like ‘darkfic’ and unsettling and uncomfortable fics, fics that put my faves in unflattering lights, i like ‘we’re going to explore this worst case scenario.’ But for me to enjoy or get involved in those, it needs to have something more than ‘the worst of the worst just because I can’ or ‘this character needs a comeuppance’ fueling the narrative engine. It takes a high degree of technical proficiency to pull off Darkfic so that there is something to them beyond ‘uncomfortable grimdark,’ a higher degree, I think, than writing lighter fics. Darkfic also invariably shows off the bias of the writer in a way that ‘easier’ fic doesn’t, whether they’re approaching the subject matter from a place of affection and curiosity or from a place of wanting to take out all their frustrations with the writers on a specific character. And also whether that writer seems to ascribe an independent and malicious intent to the “bad” choices of the fictional (usually female) character, rather than ascribing them to the showrunners who actually control the characters. 

I mean, it’s all catharsis in it’s way. And it’s all fiction. None of it’s real, and none of it is advocating hurting real people, no matter what. People like what they like, and I have no intention of telling people how to use their recreational internet time. But some of that stuff feels like an echo of certain attitudes I want no part of, so I go out of my way not to interact with it. And that includes not promoting it.

the third reason is probably the most touchy and the most tenuous. While reading AF’s fics, one of them. For Destruction of Ice, it was called. It had an extended scene that was ‘shot for shot’ the same as a lengthy scene in one of my lizzington fics, and up to that point had been a unique view of Red and his scars. Except that Liz had been replaced in the scene by an OC, and it had been used in a way to show how the OC was so much more ‘compassionate’ than Liz. 

I know we all read each other’s fics. I know we all idea-share. I know when you’re reading you absorb some images and forget where they came from and sometimes they show up again later without intent or forethought. I know that it wasn’t straight plagiarism, and to anyone who didn’t write the original scene the similarity is probably passing at best. But it was... startling to say the least, to see such a close parallel to the scene i had spend a long time leading up to/writing, but with the intended meaning reversed. It felt like a copy to me, even if it wasn’t literally one. 

Was I being too touchy? I still honestly can’t say.

CHICKEN NUGGETS omfg i can’t believe y’all remember my chicken phase. and yass purple :’) stank katic im screamin i love this

VISUAL ATTRACTIVENESS:💗💗💗

“If I look past the rising feeling of dread that comes whenever I look at her? I guess she is not ugly or anything.”

FRIENDSHIP LEVEL:💗

“I have had better relationships with dysentery.”

SEXUAL DESIRE:💔"Get. Out.”

ROMANTIC INTENT:💔"Now.”

VISUAL ATTRACTIVENESS: 💗💗💗(purely aesthetic appreciation of looks)

“The huntress in thats part of the Riskbreakers? She is every picture a huntress should be.”

FRIENDSHIP LEVEL: 💔(how close a friend they consider them)

“I have yet to actually meet her but in passing acquaintance. But if she is anything the rumors at the sandsea say, she is a fast friend if your not Ivaan.”

SEXUAL DESIRE: 💗💗💗(wanting to have sex with them)

Haru coughs for a moment. “Perhaps there is some attraction there, yes.”

ROMANTIC INTENT: 💗💗💗💗(hoping for a romantic relationship)

“I cant lie when I have already admitted interest, but I fear that we would clash too much to get along. I have had friends that there similar problems.”