I’ve been thinking about this for a while and after a conversation or two on discord about it I should really write something about it here. This is gonna be mostly focused on intra-fandom representation of trans women just based on my personal experiences and observations, but really can apply to a lot of issues of representation in other areas.

So! Honestly I think it’s fucking weird that 99.9% of wlw writers have zero trans women in their work, sfw OR nsfw! Clearly, esp for nsfw this isn’t something I can bandy about willy nilly and apply to everyone, but if I can probably write a halfway decent smut scene while never having been in a sexual situation in my life just from reading experience and asking people, I think cis women can write a trans character fucking too.  And yea, it won’t always be good, but most smut isn’t anyway and I’d rather have people actually give a shit and try than not, esp since it’s actually REALLY hard to fuck up if you know anything at all and give a shit. A lot of good healthy porn fiction focuses on people and emotions, and it’s obviously no different here.

As for sfw work, there’s even less of an excuse! You can literally include wink wink nudge nudge little moments like a character taking estradiol pills, or patches, or what have you, and change nothing else about the character. In fact, one of my favorite comics does exactly this. Now, obviously doing research and asking friends and trying to have more effective trans rep in a way that people can really resonate with is going to be the best way about it, but you gotta take that initial step of trying first.

Like, often I see a lot of cis wlw say that they’re worried about representing trans women badly, and this is a valid fucking concern! I know that seeing awful trans smut everywhere and hearing your trans friends complain about there only being smut, and disgusting fetishy smut at that, can be like, a little intimidating. But what I think a lot of people miss is that by letting that reasoning prevent them from trying to write trans women, those works remain all there is, and lemme tell you, it is not a fun feeling seeing the only mention of trans women while scrolling through fan works be in the tags of something so disgusting you don’t even want to look at it!

Another thing I want to note is that for a lot of cis wlw (and cis people in general!) so much of support for trans women is focused on calling out hatred and “sticking it to the TERFs”. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, of course, we need cis allies to do this to a certain degree in these kinds of spaces, but if you make all your activism focused around fighting hate but not paying enough attention to making people feel loved, you don’t really help.

If you feel uncomfortable about writing women with different anatomy than you have in sexual situations, or even just MENTIONING that a character that plays a big role in your story is trans….you might want to ask yourself why that is. You’ve literally been socialized to think of gender a set way your entire life, same as pretty much everyone else - exploring your own relationship to gender and your relationship to others who themselves have complicated relationships with gender through writing can be a healthy way to work through some of those internal gendered assumptions and start to break them down.

Send me a word, any word, and if it’s in my WIP document I’ll answer your ask with the sentence or line it appears in.

Something I think is neat and really cute about fanfic is that there’s a personal version of each character in it? Like, each writer focuses on different traits and qualities and even though there can be a hundred fics with the same character, they’re really not exactly the same.

So even if you and I are writing a fic with the same characters, they can still be uniquely different despite having the same core and they’re each dear to us personally as our take on the person.

I don’t know, I just think it’s cute that each writer cherishes these characters in personal and unique ways.

This may be a bit self-serving, but this would be an excellent time for fanfic readers who don’t normally do so to get in the habit of leaving comments on fics.

If someone’s fic is helping you get through a tough time, tell them. Chances are, the author is going through a tough time too. Knowing that your hard work is helping someone, even if it’s years after you wrote the piece, can be a bigger bright spot in someone’s day than you might realize.

Furthermore, many authors now have more time on their hands, but like everyone else, may be battling through the mental haze of fear and uncertainty. Writing can help the writer as much as the finished product helps the reader.

A bit of positive encouragement may be just what your favorite writer needs to overcome the anxiety haze and instead rekindle their joy in telling stories, at the time when they too need it most.

Fic authors deserve more credit.

Story time: I started a book about 23 hours ago and just finished it. Also in that time I slept for 10 hours, spent time with family, was at work, etc. Anyway, I enjoyed the book (Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda). But it felt like it flew by, so after I finished I looked up the word count because what are pages? Pages are meaningless. I only function in word counts anymore.

The estimate I found was 58,580. My immediate reaction was “oh, that’s why. That’s nothing!” But what a shitty response. Because no. That’s not nothing. That’s a whole. Damn. Book. An entire novel! And Fic authors regularly bust out 30k, 50k, 100k, 150k words. AND THEY DO IT FOR FREE. WHILE WORKING AND LIVING THEIR LIVES.

So anyway, thank your favorite fic author today because they deserve it. Because they’re amazing. They’re the MVPs.

It makes me really sad when people delete their old stories or accounts for fan fiction that I was super into and stupidly never thought of saving.  That’s why I have kept most of my work up, even though the old ones are really really bad, because maybe just maybe there is one person out there who secretly loved it and would be sad if one day it was no longer there.

This just sorta happened in my insomnia. Might make more. One word of warning: graphic violence and lots of angst ahead. A dark take on Volume 7 from a Bumbleby standpoint. 

…………………..

“Blake!” Yang called as soon as she entered the house. There was no response. She tried a couple of more times before she finally got an answer.

“She’s not here” Ruby replied, appearing from the kitchen.

“What?” Yang asked, worried, her eyes wide open.

“Wasn’t she with you?” Weiss asked from the living room as she lowered her book.

“She was but…” the blonde lowered her gaze. She wasn’t proud of what had happened but she couldn’t stay calm while those guys insulted Blake. Maybe scaring them away with her semblance was a bit too much. It was the first time in a long time that her anger had gotten the better of her. They had to give her that. Blake was mad. She had asked her not to make a scene several times before since their arrival at Atlas. Yang had tried her best but when someone yells “fucking faunus trash” at someone you care about so much it can get on your nerves and make you lose your temper. Yang said she needed to take a walk to calm down. Blake said she was going back to the house.

“Guys?” Jaune asked as he, Nora and Ren came into the room having heard the commotion “Everything alright?”

“It seems Blake is missing” Weiss replied, visibly worried.

“We argued” Yang finally said “She said she was coming back. She should be here” there was a tense silence.

“Have you tried her scroll?” Ruby suggested.

“No answer… I thought maybe she was still mad and…” Yang was starting to worry. Why did they separate? Atlas was dangerous for faunus. Had something bad happened to Blake? This was all her fault.

“I’ll call her” Jaune offered. Once again there was no answer.

“We’ll go out and look for her. Maybe she got distracted on her way here…” Ruby said. They all went out, even Qrow and Maria. No one had seen Blake in the neighborhood. They went back to where Yang and her had split that afternoon and tried to make do of her steps which was specially hard when most of the people they interrogated had a disgusting comment to say when they heard they were looking for a faunus girl.

“We should probably call Ironwood in the morning. Maybe get some security footage” Qrow suggested.

“In the morning?” Jaune said “It’s already 3am”

“We should get some rest and make a plan” Weiss proposed. They were all absolutely tired after walking the streets all night. Turns out the police in Atlas are not much help when you are looking for a faunus. They said they look for her. They weren’t so sure they would.

“I’m gonna be the one to say it” Nora intervened out of the blue “Maybe Blake…”

“No, she hasn’t” Yang said in a firm voice, interrupting the redhead “Something has happened to her”. There was no way Blake had left. Absolutely no way.

The team returned to the house to rest. They were staying at one of the Schnee’s many houses in the city. Weiss’s father had, of course, absolutely no idea they were there and she was pretty sure it would take him a while to realize someone was using the house. It was one of their smallest properties. Yang hoped Blake would be at the house like that time Oscar had gone missing in Argus. She wasn’t.

……….

“Yang?” Ruby asked as she walked into the living room. Her sister was sitting on the couch, looking through the window.

“Yeah?” she said, her voice somehow broken.

“Have you gotten any sleep?”

“No” the blonde replied “I can’t sleep while she’s out there. I just…”

“I know” Ruby whispered as she sat next to her. “But you need your strength if we are going to find her”

“It’s my fault” Yang’s voice cracked. “I should have walked back with her”

“We don’t know what happened” Ruby tried to calm her, placing a hand on her back. “But we will find her”

“You don’t think…” Yang turned around to look at her sister with tears on her eyes. She was trying so hard not to go there but there was that little voice in the back of her head. “She promised, Ruby. She’d promise she’d never leave again”

“And I am sure she hasn’t” the leader or team RWBY replied with a stern voice. “I’ve seen how she looks at you”

“What do you mean?”

“I know, sis” she smiled into her own words “I think you are really cute together” somehow, over all of her sadness and worry, Yang smiled the tiniest smile.

“I’ve never felt like this about anyone” the blonde said after a while. “I just need to know she’s okay”

“Hey” Ruby hugged her tightly out of the blue. Yang melted into the gesture. “We are going to find her”

……………….

It was dark and she couldn’t move. Her hands were tied and so were her feet. There was something on her neck, like a metal necklace, and she could feel a small wound underneath the collar. No, it wasn’t dark, her eyes were closed. They were so heavy. Blake took a deep breath before focusing all of her available strength in trying to remember what had happened. She remembered arguing with Yang. She remembered that she started her way back to the house. That was it. Now she was here. She worried Yang would be in a similar predicament. Suddenly there was noise. A door. Somebody came into whatever place she was in and walked towards her.

“Hey there, kitty” a male voice said. It was raspy and creepy. She didn’t move. “I know you are awake, bitch” he laughed. “Open your eyes” she didn’t. He snickered. “This is your last chance to do as I say. Open your fucking eyes” this time she sincerely tried to do so but found herself to weak to even move. The man laughed. There was a clicking sound and then the world exploded in pain. She could feel it in every part of her body and she tried to scream but she couldn’t. It was like electricity coming out of the collar. After what seemed like an eternity the pain stopped. Blake’s eyes were now wide open and she sat up, terrified.

She was in some kind of dark shed. Her hands and feet were chained together with enough room to stand up and walk but pretty restrictive nonetheless. She tried to speak but no words left her mouth. Only a raspy groan, like she had the worst case of laryngitis of her entire life. The wound in her throat burned. The man laughed. He was tall and bald. His skin was very white and he was dressed like a bandit. Blake wanted to kill him.

“Don’t try to speak, kitten” he spat at her “We made sure no one would hear you scream with a little procedure” Blake’s eyes shot open. This couldn’t be happening. “We cut your vocal chords”

She tried to scream. She tried to say anything. It burned. It hurt. This couldn’t be true. How was she going to get out this place. Where even was this place? She thought of Yang. She wanted to see her. She wanted to be found but she couldn’t even scream for help. She looked at the man. Maybe she could wrestle him into the ground, get the key in his belt and free herself maybe.

“I really don’t like how you are looking at me” he said and then she heard that fucking click.

The world exploded in pain once more and Blake screamed in absolute silence.