have most characters be non-minors, around the same age range. this is mostly to minimize underage nonsense.
while family relationships are important, save them as background elements, explored every now and then. focus mainly on the bonds of non-related characters and how their different backgrounds play off each other.
limit the overly edgy tone, where pain and suffering are near-romanticized. try to emphasize wholesomeness, health, and the various ways characters can have good relationships despite their differences. a lot of nintendo franchises are good examples.
avoid creating significant characters who are utterly irredeemable with harmful ethics. (for me personally, i limit elements such as abuse and discrimination for background conflicts while presenting more interesting, morally gray arguments, where either side is right/flawed) if you’re going to have a villain, either make them team rocket goofy or classic disney fun.
just. try not to have characters + relationships rely on racial tropes. if you overly rely on a tough dark-skinned / dainty light-skinned formula, you’re going to see some racist shipping. mix it up. round ‘em out.
same goes for gendered tropes. if a dude is downright violent and irresponsible and a level-headed girl has to put up with his flaws without him facing consequence, that’s a downright unbalanced relationship. and do keep in mind that if two boys utterly despise each other, people will absolutely take that a certain way. again, with #3, try to play off disdain as comedic or with exception rather than constant seething hatred.
obviously these aren’t hard and fast rules, and what/how you create will vary. but it’s how i generally approach my work
I am legitimately amazed that tumblr’s weird obsession with Never Have Anything Unwholesome writing advice has now reached the point of:
– Don’t have children in your work,
– Don’t have families in your work.
– Don’t have any themes or ideas darker than Nintendo, because that’s romanticising suffering.
– Don’t have villains unless they’re in the relatively simplistic, child-friendly mould of Disney or Pokemon, and don’t try to deal with any difficult themes.
– Don’t have characters dislike each other.
The idea that you should build your work – because these are all fundamental aspects of a story – around preventative measures against ‘gross shipping,’ and that coincidentally all those measures boil down to “Have as little nuance, conflict, or difficult and unpleasant things as possible,” is kind of creepy.
i feel like the #1 reason to not rely on racist and sexist tropes in your writing should be that racism and sexism are intrinsically bad things to promote, not primarily… that you might accidentally inspire someone else to write bad fan fiction
OP is fucking magical in the worst possible ways, and the replies could be way more vicious and still be completely warranted. I… How did Tumblr get to this point?
Oh. See, I thought that was the POINT of the post. That if you really want to avoid badwrong shipping, you have to avoid these themes because they are where badwrong shipping comes from. Sort of illustrating why that’s a silly mindset.
I… don’t think so? If they were joking, it didn’t come across well.
EDIT: And nope, blog confirms she was totes serious, and thinks The Loud House was a bad idea from the get-go because it starred children who were family, and we’re never allowed to write kids or families because people might do gross ships. No, really. They actually suggest children’s shows about children and families are bad writing and to be avoided because someone might ship the characters together and that’d be gross. (I mean, they do have a point about Chris Savino being a creep, but still.)
OP as someone with chronic pain and disabilities you’re telling me either that my life can’t be romantic or that it can but I shouldn’t write about that or have stories that reflect it. You’re saying I should pretend that my suffering doesn’t exist, or be totally nonchalant about it and shove it offscreen, just like I generally have to in order to get through a day of work or daily life activities. You’re saying that people who suffer should not have an outlet in fiction any more than we do in life; that when we express ourselves, our fiction is morally tainted.
That attitude is ableist and wrong.
I miss 2012 Tumblr SJ where at least everyone agreed that representation is good.
pnkrathian 