You Know You're In Deep When You Create An AU For Your Own Fanfic

I've been seeing the drama about how the ninjago fandom thinks that Wu is abusive for raising "child soldiers" and all. But to me, personally, I've always seen it as, like, the equivalent of my 9yo brother going to kickboxing class? Wu didn't shove elemental powers onto them immediatley, he just trained them in general martial arts and probably lots of mental training as well. It wasn't until they were in their teens, probably about 15-16, when he actually revealed about their elemental powers and their fate to fight Garmadon/the green ninja. Some people may look at this as child soldiers, but keep in mind that in Nazi Germany/The Netherlands kids THAT AGE were fighting and killing Nazi soldiers. In the end, it was their choice to stay and fight, just like with the ninja. Besides, Wu was--for the most part--there right beside them until they started to get older. This is talked about in Season 13!

He cares about them like a father would. He knew most of their parents really well and was probably a designated godfather for all of them! He would only do what he thought was best for them, and would not force them into anything. If they wanted to leave, they could leave.

I feel like what they were meant to do was something that they needed to be trained for since they were kids anyways. As many people talked about, elemental powers are apart of them, not just weapon. He probably had to train each ninja differently so that the adjustments to their powers would not hurt them. Without as much training, we don't know what the powers would have done to them, or if they would have been able to reach their true potential.

Is Wu a perfect person? No. But I think he loves his kids like a father and would do absolutely anything for them. They trust him. So I trust him. Thank you for listening to my TED Talk

when u come up with a tiny change for your story that not only makes the writing flow better but also hammers in the character motivations and story theme

Koko: Julian, we need to talk about your adoption problem.

Dr. Julien, with his six kids, two he built, one he semi-legally adopted/saved from a mafia, and three he saved from his bitter ex-coworker: What problem?

Whint: He doesn’t have a problem. These are our kids.

Koko: But you can’t adopt every sad kid you see-

Dr. Julien: Watch me.

Dr Julien: that's a nice looking son you have there

Koko:

Dr Julien: would be a shame if someone were to,,, adopt him

Koko: Julian, we need to talk about your adoption problem.

Dr. Julien, with his six kids, two he built, one he semi-legally adopted/saved from a mafia, and three he saved from his bitter ex-coworker: What problem?

Whint: He doesn’t have a problem. These are our kids.

Koko: But you can’t adopt every sad kid you see-

Dr. Julien: Watch me.

Pls I need ur c!Tommy takes ur the only one I trust to like him without reducing him to someone who has no narrative agency outside of being a victim

THANK YOU <33 this post is probably messy because half of it was copied directly from Fey-posting on twt but here’s a perhaps controversial take about c!tommy + being seventeen !!

because i see a lot of people either de-ageing him (making him seem 12/13) or acting as if he’s older than 17 / as if his age doesn’t matter. i think both are interesting because in my mind ? c!tommy is the EPITOME of a mentally ill / traumatised seventeen year old. his age plays such a huge part in why he acts Like That lol.

just like c!wilbur’s age sort of ,, puts him in the mindset of governance and the naive belief that “others are corrupted by power, not me though, i’m mature / old enough to handle the responsibility well”, and just like c!dream being twenty is so representative of the twenty-year-old belief of “i can change the world MY way, it’s my responsibility, i alone can carry and change the world” — c!tommy’s worldview is SO indicative of his age.

everything about canon c!tommy reminds me of being sixteen/seventeen and struggling with unsavoury truths along with the horror of trauma — that teenager feeling of the whole world being against you, desperately looking for an older figure to look up to but being viciously independent at the same time, being destroyed when said older figure turns out not to be as good as you thought they were ,,, c!tommy idolises c!wilbur to an unhealthy amount, to the point when he realises how bad c!wilbur is for him, he still struggles to abandon him. there’s something about realising your older brother / role model / person you’ve hero-worshipped for years and wanted to be just like is Shitty that reminds me of being sixteen and realising that the older adults in your life aren’t as infallible as you thought.

being seventeen and believing that you can change the whole world while also hating the world for taking your childhood/enjoyment away from you, that black and white morality because anything else makes your life/trauma so much harder to deal with ,, maybe i just knew too many people at seventeen with this kind of trauma but c!tommy reminds me SO much of me when i was a few years younger ? same world view, same struggle between believing you can change everything and the ‘i’m just sixteen, why the fuck should i’ mentality.

that sort of struggle when everything is falling apart around you, and you want to be the one holding yourself together so you do stupid, childish things (grief, steal, just like you used to when you were happy / free to be a kid) but you also sort of resent people for making you want to be the strong one.

everything about c!tommy screams ‘seventeen’ — a young adult, becoming disillusioned to the world around him, desperately trying to avoid realising black-and-white morality isn’t so black-and-white at all, trying to shoulder the world but wishing you could rewind time to be unburdened by the changing people / world around you.

he’s definitely not a ‘kid’ (12/13), and i still wouldn’t class exile as child abuse, because the dynamic there was different, but it also doesn’t feel right to completely disregard the fact that c!tommy is still ,, seventeen. sixteen, at the time when most of his major arcs were happening. his relationship with c!wilbur, his obsession over the disks, his trauma, the way he views morality + evil, his selflessness vs self centred view of conflict ,, all of it screams ‘teenager’.

he’s just a teenager who was thrust very suddenly into a game of war + politics that escalated way out of his understanding, and he’s still trying to make sense of it all. he doesn’t have all the puzzle pieces and for the first time he’s really aware of that fact, and he’s realised the people he looks up to don’t have all the pieces either. c!tommy is loud mouthed and crude because teenagers often are — but in the same way, teenagers are often just beginning to understand how fucked-up the world can be, and i think c!tommy’s arcs with the revival + las nevadas + wilbur’s short story show him on this journey.

You know what’s more fun than worldbuilding that makes some fantasy races EEEEVIIIIIIILLLLL!!!!? Worldbuilding that gives the different races cultural differences that help explain why there’s a lot of conflict between them:

Goblin culture doesn’t have a concept of “Property”. A stick on the ground and a tool in a locked shed are equally up for grabs if a thing needs doing. They casually take and leave things all over their communities, eat from communal pots, and genuinely Do Not Understand why the Core Races are so Angry and prone to Violence all the time.

Consequently Goblins who live near Core communities develop a reputation as “Thieves” despite not even having a *word* for that. (The closest word they have is more like “Greedy” and it means a person that hides things so nobody else can use them, and it’s a surefire fight-starter to call a Goblin that)

Common Orc Spiritual beliefs hold that a Soul can only grow stronger by overcoming Challenges in life, and see intruding on another person’s Challenge unasked for as not just Rude, but Deeply Harmful. You’re Stealing their chance to Grow. Asking for help is deeply personal and doing so can be both a way to grow closer with them or a too-personal intrusion, depending on your existing relationship with them. An exception is Children, as far as most Orcs are concerned, all Children are fundamentally the responsibility of the Whole Community, regardless of whose child they are, or even if said child is an Orc at *all*.

This means that Orcs who live near Core neighbors often seem Rude and Standoffish if not outright hostile, because they neither ask for nor offer aid even in times of trouble, and respond to unasked for aid themselves with Anger. There are even rumors that they Steal Children, because if an Orc finds a child lost in the woods they’re pretty much immediately going to start feeding it, and if they can’t find where to bring it back to, or it doesn’t seem to be well cared for, they’re just gonna keep it. 

What's happening to AO3 right now?

As you may have noticed already, Archive of Our Own is currently down. This is temporary, but unfortunately.. we now know that this is much deeper than we thought.

AO3 is currently the victim of a DDOS attack orchestrated by "Anonymous Sudan"

Why? Because AO3 is home to thousands of LGBTQIA+ content and lots of NSFW content. They're doing this as an Anti-LGBTQ+ attack. If they're doing this for or from America specifically, we're not sure. But this is what AO3 is facing at this time.

What can we do?

Spread the word. Spread the fucking word. I'll be providing updates to my Tumblr page directly from the r/AO3 subreddit. I know that not everyone here is comfortable using Reddit, so I'm taking the blow for you. I cannot access Twitter though.

And please, whatever you do...

Stop using the Archive of Our Own website at this time.

The moderators, showrunners, and service providers all need to repair the damage done by this group. The amount of data flooding in from people trying to log in will cause more problems. Keep yourselves off of the website.

You ever read one of your own fics and just go “damn im good” and then you read another and its a steaming pile of horseshit

DM, out of nowhere: Just out of curiosity, do you trust [NPC]?

Me:

Me: I DID UNTIL NOW?!

DM: *laughs* interesting

dreamXD !!