I am a gay, American male studying an English Major in my sophomore year of college. I am tall enough to scrape chandeliers in older buildings, mild-mannered, introverted to a fault, and a total geek. I am also a chronic procrastinator who can churn out five thousands words in an hour on good days and five words in two hours on bad days, which are admittedly more frequent. My regular disappearances from the internet don’t mean I’m dead, just that I’m experiencing writer’s block, that my other obligations have taken priority, or possibly both. I know firsthand how frustrating it is when a story I’m invested in reading only updates every few months, so I apologize in advance for that.

My writing style is rather grandiose, with long sentences, detailed descriptions, and dramatic action scenes. I appreciate stories that are faithful to the source material, so I won’t write about a fandom that I haven’t watched/read to death first, and certainly not when the main storyline has not yet ended. My favorites are Harry Potter, Avengers, Star Wars (mostly Legends continuity), Avatar the Last Airbender/The Legend of Korra, and Wheel of Time. I also like DC and Marvel comics, The Dresden Files, the Monsterverse version of Godzilla, various classic Disney films, and The Lord of the Rings, but barring a few exceptions I don’t understand those well enough to write good fanfiction about them. Conversely, I'm not a fan of anime. I have nothing against it or the people who enjoy it; it's just not my cup of tea.

I write characters as realistically as I can while remaining faithful to the canon, though there are times where I will ignore canon. If I do ignore canon, I have my reasons, and I will come clean about it and explain why. My interpretations of fictional characters and the universes they live in are based on actual source material, but they are ultimately just my opinion, and you can disagree all you like. I don’t expect anyone to treat my words as gospel, but I won’t debate with trolls either. Facts are facts, and opinions are opinions; no more, no less.

I really don’t like making characters suffer unnecessarily. If there is a reasonable way to keep a character from becoming traumatized for life, chances are I will use it. That doesn’t mean everything I write will be full of sunshine and rainbows, of course; where’s the fun in that? Also, while I am a sucker for happy endings, I’m more likely to write bittersweet endings, if only because I prefer realistic/believable story-telling. Sometimes, I will outright ignore the source material because it features a plot hole I cannot reconcile purely for the sake of realism (I’m looking at you, Harry Potter). When it comes to power levels, I generally dislike settings where the main characters can casually blow up planets, which is all too common in comics. That kind of power often necessitates a story that pushes my suspension of disbelief too far for me to enjoy it. Antagonists who are significantly more powerful than the heroes get a bit more leeway since they tend to work alone and have to pose a threat, but they cannot be all powerful or omniscient. My personal rule of thumb is to restrict the power levels of recurring characters to a level that can be reasonably portrayed in a movie. That means no FTL speedsters or planet-busting Superman from me.

I’m a sucker for complex characters with believable development arcs, humor that is clever without being excessive (no parodies for or from me), an air of mystery that doesn’t feel contrived, climactic final battles, and logical story progression. Romance isn’t really a priority for me, but I do love it when characters are paired with the right person. Plot holes, poor sentence structure or story-telling, and excessive spelling and grammar errors get on my nerves, but I can forgive apparent plot holes if there is a reasonable explanation, and I can tolerate a few grammar and spelling goofs if the story itself is good enough. No one is perfect.

I’m partial to fix-it fics, even the ones dependent on time travel if they’re done right, and I absolutely love crossovers. I prefer a protagonist who can take care of themselves, so I don’t mind an overpowered hero as long as they’re not a Mary Sue. The reason they are overpowered has to make sense, and they have to have some sort of personal weakness that they must overcome. I don’t like kryptonite factors that effectively turn the hero from a god into a slug, but an internal conflict such as a moral quandary about the just exercise of power makes for great story-telling. I believe in the middle ground and gray morality; not every problem has an obvious solution, and sometimes neither side of a problem is truly right or wrong.

My opinion on slash is somewhat biased, especially since I usually hate it when characters are written OOC. Put simply, if it’s believable, I don’t mind. If they are canonically straight, a slash pairing between characters of the same gender only works when they already click very well together and have unsatisfying romantic partners in canon. I generally like Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, so I would never write either of them into a slash relationship. I don’t outright dislike Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, but it’s not a strong enough pairing for me to discount it in favor of slash. MCU Steve Rogers never really did well in the romantic department in canon (the time travel shenanigans in Endgame don’t count), and his comic book counterpart is a magnet for homoerotic tension, so slash can work for him if it’s done well. The same can be said for Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent, whose romantic luck is bad enough that I almost want to cry on their behalf. With that said, I don’t interpret every strong friendship between characters of the same gender as homoerotic. For example, I dislike pairing Steve with Bucky Barnes. To me, it cheapens a relationship that is more brotherly than anything else. In the end, there has to be a good in-story reason for me to accept a change in a character’s sexuality and still take the story seriously. Otherwise, I’ll see it as little more than a silly romance.

I Dislike:

Making characters OOC: If you have to change or ignore a major component of a character’s personality to make your story work, then chances are you either don’t understand that character or you’re not writing a good story. This is a big problem with a lot of Harry Potter fics, especially the ones focusing on slash. There is absolutely no way that Harry Potter would be best friends with Draco Malfoy, much less fall in love with him. Draco Malfoy was a bigoted bully who was positively gleeful at the idea of Hermione being killed by the Heir of Slytherin and didn’t start to change until he realized he wasn’t cut out to be a Death Eater, and even though he let go of his bigotry later on he never became a particularly nice person. I hate the Drarry ship, because it just doesn’t work, yet it’s the most popular ship this side of the fandom. Even the authors of the original source material fanfics are based on can be guilty of this. For example, I can believe that Harry would forgive Severus Snape for all the crap Snape put him through, but there’s no believable way he would name one of his kids after the guy, hence why I won’t hold it against you if you ignore the epilogue. For Want of a Nail stories like “What if Harry was raised by Death Eaters,” and a believable slash pairing are possible exceptions to my dislike of OOC, but people’s personalities are a combination of nature and nurture, so there are limits to that as well. And don’t get me started on “Wrong Boy Who Lived.” Harry's greatest desire as a child was to get his parents back, and canon makes it clear they were excellent parents, so the idea that the Potters would neglect or abandon one of their children for any reason truly angers me.

Non-canon character bashing: (AKA 'Ron the Death Eater' from TVTropes) Some fictional characters are intentionally written as Hate Sinks (Dolores Umbridge, anyone?), but even major league villains like Thanos and Azula can be hard to hate at times. Yet, so many people mercilessly bash characters that don’t deserve it: the Weasleys, Dumbledore, Hermione (this one baffles me the most), Steve Rogers, James Potter, Odin, etc. It’s natural for Ron to be jealous of Harry because he grew up the youngest and least unique of seven children in a poor family while Harry is rich, talented, and famous. Dumbledore was a manipulative chessmaster, but he was never evil, and he certainly wasn’t stupid. James Potter had the massive ego one would expect from a spoiled, popular jock who is top of the class at a magical high school with very good reasons for despising the Dark Arts, and Snape was no helpless victim; Snape gave as good as he got, he was well on his way to becoming a Death Eater even before Lily cut ties with him, and James Potter grew up. Steve Rogers wasn’t a selfish liar who would let the world burn to save Bucky Barnes during the events of Civil War. It's confirmed that while Steve did know HYDRA killed Tony Stark’s parents and idiotically kept it to himself, he didn’t know they used the brainwashed Winter Soldier to do it, even if he had his suspicions, and Tony was being completely irrational; Steve and Bucky were well within their rights to fight back, and even after he lost Tony was never in real danger (T’challa was right there with a perfectly functional aircraft, and even if he wasn’t, Tony Stark built a lethal metal battlesuit out of scrap in a cave between frequent torture sessions; there is no way he couldn’t use a failsafe to remove his suit and repair it with parts from the HYDRA bunker). Then again, I hate that movie anyway for how much it polarized the MCU fanbase. No one is perfect, and everyone makes mistakes. Bashing is a problem, and it needs to stop.

Stans and Victimizing Villains: The opposite of bashing a character is to stan them ("fan" plus "stalker" equals "stan"; stanning is what happens when you essentially worship a character and completely ignore their very real flaws while ruthlessly bashing any character who does something remotely bad to them) and just as bad from my perspective. Even the best heroes have flaws, and propping them up to be infallible, almost Jesus-like figures who deserve to control the universe and never make mistakes or cause problems is downright unhealthy. Stanning protagonists is bad enough, but plenty of people do it to antagonistic characters as well (AKA 'Draco in Leather Pants,' also from TVTropes). Zuko and Loki were redeemable; Bellatrix Lestrange was not. I really shouldn't have to explain why, and no, she was not under any sort of mind control.

Gender Swapping/Genderbending for its own sake: I really don’t understand why this is so popular. If the whole point of the story was to see what would change if Character A was a woman instead of a man and vice versa, I would understand. What I do not understand is why someone would genderswap a character just for the sake of it when gender swapping isn't the focus of the story. Changing a character's gender doesn’t add anything special to them or to your story. All it does is change a fundamental aspect of who they are; you might as well be turning a main character into an OC. If the goal of the author of a story with genderswapped characters is to promote gender equality, I have a message for them: there are better ways. I’d rather read slash between Clark Kent and Harry Potter, even badly written slash with a cliché or two thrown in, than a crossover featuring a female Tony Stark and a male Hermione Granger (though oddly enough, nearly every instance of genderbending I have encountered involves turning a male character into a woman, yet I've only seen exactly one story that turned a female character into a man).

Changing a character’s race/ethnicity: Angelina Johnson is black. The Patil twins are Indian. Cho Chang is east Asian. Kingsley Shacklebolt is black. Harry Potter is white, as in British. There is no indication or even implication in the books that Hermione is black; JK Rowling did not endorse this idea until long after Book 7 was published, as if it were a pipe dream. Much like genderbending, this adds absolutely nothing to a character, and in a way is outright disrespectful to them and to real people of all races, regardless of how racial discrimination has affected them. Making Harry Potter Indian or Hermione black is no different than making Kingsley Shacklebolt white. If you’re looking for an allegory on racial discrimination, the Potterverse already has its own contribution on that front in the form of blood status. If you want to write a story that focuses on racism, that’s fine, but please use characters and/or situations where it is already an issue instead of shoe-horning it in where it doesn’t exist. Otherwise, please respect the canon races of fictional characters.

Harems: Not a fan, and I never will be. I would never consent to being a member of a harem, and I will never consent to having one for myself, so why would I read or write about them? Harems may be acceptable in some cultures, but the idea just doesn’t sit right with me. Don't be the author who writes a great story and then ruins it by giving the protagonist a harem. If you sincerely believe that giving someone a harem makes them more badass, cool, lucky, or whatever, here's a news flash; it really doesn't.

Mpreg: As a guy, I am physically uncomfortable with this trend, especially since I'm actually gay. Some settings make Mpreg and the questions/issues that accompany it the whole point of the story. In others, the characters have powers or abilities that allow them to have unprotected sex without consequence. Fine. That’s not the same as magically giving Harry Potter or Clark Kent the ability to carry children “because magic/alien biology.” They're not sea horses. If you want your gay couple to have kids, they can adopt (or use a surrogate if it’s a fantasy/sci-fi setting). Bonds of family are not dependent on blood. Believe me, I know.

Character Fusion: Some fics take two characters from different fandoms and make them into the same person. To me, that’s a waste of both characters and creates a ridiculous amount of inexplicable plot holes, so no. Just, no. The only exception to my opinion on this is Nimbus Llewelyn’s Child of the Storm, but all things considered it’s an outlier and shouldn’t count.

Crack and Parody: With rare exceptions, I avoid these. If I need a story whose sole purpose is to make me smile, I'll read a fluff piece. Parody? Not so much. That’s all.

My Favorite Fictional Characters:

Harry Potter: Despite all the crap he goes through (and boy, he endures a lot of horrible things, especially for a teenager) he is still one of the most kind and loving characters in all of fiction. He is also brave and selfless almost to the point of stupidity, and yet that makes you love him all the more. That takes a strength of character very few people possess, and it is nothing short of inspiring. If I ever met him in real life, I’d probably be a total fanboy, but since he hates his fame I’d keep it under wraps for his sake. Really, of all the fictional characters you’d want to be friends with, he’s at the top of my list. More than that, he’s probably my favorite protagonist to write about.

However, while on the subject of how much I adore Harry, I will say it now: the most popular, or at least most commonly written, romantic pairings in the Harry Potter fanfiction community, after Drarry, put the Boy Who Lived in a romantic relationship with Severus Snape and/or Tom Riddle (AKA Voldemort). I truly wish I was making this up, but I am not, and one look at AO3 will prove it. I despise each and every one of these pairings with every fiber of my soul. They are toxic, if not downright disgusting, for a variety of reasons, and I am truly unnerved by how common they are. I won’t read them, I won’t write them, I won’t give stories that feature them a second glance, and I won't apologize for it. You have been warned.

Rand al’Thor: The messiah-like main protagonist of The Wheel of Time has one of the most complex and heart breaking character arcs I have ever read. He goes from a wide-eyed, naïve farm boy to a skilled politician and phenomenally powerful magic user in the space of a few years, and during that time he suffers so much it’s almost obscene. For most of his series he is in such pain from the never-healing wound in his side that any other man would be on the floor weeping and moaning, yet he powers through it and keeps going like it never even happened. He constantly battles madness from within and very nearly succumbs to it, but in the end he comes back stronger (and kinder). He is the definition of a dynamic character and my favorite example of a “Chosen One” in all of fiction. I’m not as fond of his romantic life, but it’s passable, and it doesn’t detract from the fact that he’s a total badass.

Aang: When it comes to child protagonists, few are more tragic than Avatar Aang. In a world where being the Chosen One effectively means “goodbye social life,” Aang was destined for a difficult life from the beginning. Kind, empathetic, peaceful, fun-loving, and respectful of all lifeforms, Aang is the sort of person who would brighten your day just by being a part of it. At the same time, he is an element-wielding badass who will blast you into the sky if you threaten his friends and bears the responsibility of saving his war-torn world from a hundred-year war he was supposed to prevent (disregarding the fact that he’s twelve). While not quite as big a case of “break the cutie” as Rand al’Thor, there is no denying that the Avatar who strips Fire Lord Ozai of his bending is not the same goofy kid Katara freed from the iceberg, and yet the same time he is.

Wanda Maximoff: Specifically the MCU version. I’m a sucker for characters with tragic backstories, and Wanda is tragic indeed. Losing her parents to a pointless war is bad enough, but being trapped next to a time bomb, complete with the name of it's creator painted on for the two days that follow, convinced that she’s about to die with her brother is nothing short of brutal. Her hatred of Tony Stark throughout Age of Ultron is perfectly understandable; even if he didn’t fire the missile, he did create it and carelessly allowed it to fall into the hands of the people who did end up using it. Then she learns the hard way what happens when you let hatred and revenge consume you, and she loses her brother in the process. She decided to join the Avengers and become a hero, even though she had the opportunity to walk away, because she wanted to atone, and she became a certified badass in the process. Wanda never had enough malice to become truly evil; if she did, Tony would have died when she found him in the HYDRA base. She clearly feels terrible about her mistakes and wants to save lives, despite the way the press vilifies her, and during the Clash of the Avengers she displayed far more restraint than anyone on Team Iron Man. Vision’s naivety is detrimental to his relationship with her from start to finish, but she never holds that against him even when she really should. Then, Thanos forces her to kill him, undoes her efforts, and kills him again right in front of her. That is a Trauma Conga Line if ever there was one, but she still perseveres and tries to be a hero. As sad as her story is, it is also inspiring.

Steve Rogers: Strong morals are so hard to come by these days, yet Steve Rogers has them in abundance, and that is what makes him so special. It didn’t matter to him that he was a 90 pound asthmatic one wrong breeze away from a horrible death because of his numerous health issues; if he saw someone being a bully, he did something about it, even if that frequently got him beaten up. When he actually got the power to make a difference, that moral compass only became stronger. You don’t become a symbol for idealized American patriotism by being a jerk, but that was never his goal. Steve has always tried to do the right thing precisely because it’s the right thing to do. He is the genuine article, the quintessential nice guy, and he paid the price; stranded out of his time, he literally has no one left until the Avengers, and even then his life never really seems to improve. That doesn’t stop him from trying to save whoever he can, of course, but the pain he carries with him is so acute that it’s impossible not to feel for him. He is brave, loyal, and stubborn to a fault, but that only makes me wish I had a friend like him in my life. Captain America is an idol that no one could possibly live up to, but Steve Rogers from Brooklyn? Him, I would follow into hell and beyond.