Hello, and welcome to Helen Wang’s profile. Yes, that is my actual name. No, I do not have a middle name. No, I am not telling you my age or my location, although the former may occasionally show up in my writing, or the sleuths that figured out R.A.B. was Regulus may manage to piece it together from the random hints I drop. Moving on.

I write for a variety of fandom and genres. The fandom I am currently most interested are Digimon - particularly Adventure, Adventure 02, and Frontier - J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, W.i.t.c.h., Power Rangers, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes’s In the Forests of the Night, Axis Powers Hetalia, Merlin, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s, and - to an extent - random books and book series, like Guardians of Ga’Hoole and Children of the Red King, but also television shows formerly shown on Jetix, like Pucca and American Dragon: Jake Long. I read and enjoy in-character fanfiction, particularly Alternate Universes or Alternate Timelines, and I always try my best to keep the characters of a particular fandom in-character at all times. I don’t always succeed, but it’s not for me to judge. The reason for this is because characters, more than anything else, are what seal the story for me. If I love a character, I will do everything I can to get a good grasp on them so that I can write them.

That being said, I will never bash a character. I don’t believe that my personal bias should, in any way, shape, or form, affect my writing. I am an avid Anzu-defender of the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom, as well as a defender of Jessica Allodola/Raiza/Shade (Amelia Atwater-Rhodes’s In the Forests of the Night), Matthew Olsen (W.i.t.c.h.), Tenjouin Asuka (Yu-Gi-Oh! GX), Misawa Daichi (Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, again), Izayoi Aki (Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s), Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel), and Trent (Power Rangers). Even if a character is portrayed in a negative light in the fandom s/he belongs to, I believe that - at the very least - s/he should have a chance to tell his or her story. Hence, many of my stories explore the concepts of injustice, and I tend to touch upon characters that others may not think of or even remember. I will not use a character as a mouthpiece for my political, personal, or philosophical views. I am not my characters.

Stories:
Completed stories, unless stated otherwise, will not have sequels or follow-ups. Completed stories are just that: completed. Most of the time, I do not adhere to one headcanon (for example, the exact nature of Liam’s relationship with Kathy - Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel - how Yuusei met Crow - Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s - what happened on Percy’s seventh birthday - Percy Jackson and the Olympians - et cetera). In other words, if, in one story, I write that Tenjouin Fubuki and Marufuji Ryou were childhood friends (Yu-Gi-Oh! GX), I might well write in the next story that Fubuki and Ryou did not meet until the Duel Academia entrance exams, or even until they moved into the elite Obelisk dormitories. In one story, the two of them could have neighboring rooms in aforementioned elite dorms; in the next story, they could live on opposite ends of the mansion. Everything that the creator of a fandom does not specifically state is up in the air, and I will not attempt to fix down these loose ends and, in the process, stifle my creativity.

In-progress stories are updated regularly, if chaptered stories. While oneshots, drabbles, and introspective occur at a fairly steady pace, the creation and writing of chaptered stories is irregular at best and far-spaced at worst. If I have just completed a chaptered story, it is likely that my next chaptered story will not be posted for at least a month, but the time varies from a month to possibly years.

Pairings:
The pairings I support are wide and varied. However, please note that the only shonen-ai or shoujo-ai couples I support are those that make sense with the characters. I support Proshipping (Marufuji Ryou/Edo Phoenix) but not Pervertshipping (Mutou Sugoroku/Mazaki Anzu, or Saiou Takuma/Yuuki Juudai), if the name did not tip you off. I support canon pairings, and only canon pairings or pairings that make sense with canon. If it was explicitly averted in canon, it should be enough of a tip-off for fans to understand that it will never happen. There are some people who, I understand, simply do not have the brain capacity to understand this. I am not trying to be rude, or even imposing - I am not addressing those who like to play with fanon (and here is the key word: fanon) pairings because it’s fun and they like to experiment. I am addressing those rabid Harry/Hermione (from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, if you didn’t already know that) and Will/Caleb (W.i.t.c.h.) shippers who, despite Word of God from the creators themselves, constantly insist that the proof for their pairings is there, that any other pairing is stupid, and that bashing/ridiculing/killing off/et cetera the other characters to “prove” your point is okay. You are being immature and childish, and mature writers will not take your seriously.

I am also addressing the writers who allow romance to dictate their characters, in particular the more rabid Harry/Ginny shippers. Harry loves Ginny. He does not, however, allow it to dictate his life. At the close of book seven - not including the epilogue - it can be concluded that although he prizes Ginny and considers her to be a major part of his life, his friendships with Ron and Hermione are just as important to him, if not more so. Romantic love is a large part of life and when it brings out a hidden facet of a character’s personality, it could well be one of the best things in the world. However, friendship is equally important (see: eros, philia, amore, and agape) and often overlooked. When a character is out of character in the name of love, it ceases to be love and begins to be a plot device. It, therefore, loses all meaning, warmth, and significance. If you truly love a pairing - don’t do this. For both the readers and the characters.

On Criticism:
I write because I love to do it. Take a look at my avatar; it’s true. I write for the same reason I breathe; because if I didn’t, I would die. I read for the same reason, as well. That being said, although I try my best to be polite and courteous at all times, I sometimes fail when someone is a complete and utter offense to the thing I love. I will never insult a writer personally, unless s/he is my best friend. I believe that what constitutes a flame is not harsh criticism, which you should be able to withstand if you’re willing to post fanfiction on this website, but a insult to a person the flamer knows nothing about. I know how this feels, and I will not do it.

However, this doesn’t mean that I am going to be lenient in the way I view people’s stories. If you ask me to be lenient, it’s more likely that I’ll view your story even more critically. This is one of my pet peeves, and it irks me to no end. Other pet peeves - that I will comment on if discovered in your story - include spelling and grammar worse than a three-year-old’s (I understand the occasional typo and the odd just-plain-misspelling, but if you have a computer you should have spell check, at the very least); italicization, bolding, and overexaggeration of every single WORD; begging for reviews or insisting that no flames or constructive criticism be posted, which may be my second-largest peeve, as that is the entire point of Fanfiction.net and begging for no flames will simple make a cynical, sarcastic person like me want to flame you more; violation of the Terms of Service; having an Author’s Note longer than the story or chapters shorter than, on my computer, a page, excepting drabbles; changing the Point of View every second, which is also quite high up there; text language, which is the largest peeve; not bothering to press the enter key or using quotations, periods, or other punctuation, or the story simply not making sense.

The same applies to my own writing. Although hearing that I am a fantastic writer and that people like my story is certainly gratifying (which would occur even if my story was utter crap, given the nature of this site), it does not help me improve and grow as an author. Something pitiable about FanFiction.Net is the fact that most reviewers are either unable to give actual criticism or are able but unwilling to give criticism for fear of being called a flamer by immature thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds. This is not their fault; it is the fault of those aforementioned thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds who blow up at the slightest suggestion that they are not the next J.D. Salinger and dismiss all who attempt to help them. These people are not here because they actually believe in improving themselves as the nature of this site; they are here because FanFiction.Net is an easy place to be told that they are amazing writers and have their egos stroked. I hold people who care enough about my story to review and tell me what they liked in high respect; I hold people who care enough about my story to review and tell me what they didn’t like in the highest respect.

I want you to know that calling me names or calling me a hypocrite will not do anything to hurt me. If I insult your opinion and you insult me back on principle, that will not hurt me, either.

I am not perfect, nor did I ever pretend to be. I understand that not everyone is as willing to take criticism as I am. However, I also understand that not everyone can be a fantastic writer. That’s why I do this; to make you better. If I like a story, I could just add it to my favorites. If I don’t, I could just ignore it, throw up privately, and move on. But I believe that if you are on this site, you want to improve, and the two best ways to do that are continuing to write and receiving criticism. I can only help you with the latter, and I will do so. If you don’t like it . . . tough luck.

My View on Characters:
Things happen because of the characters, not to the characters. Everything that happens in this world occurs because of someone - whether I trip on my older sister’s notebook or an airplane carrying a North Carolinian hotel manager crashes in Scotland, it is the indirect result of someone’s actions, no matter who they are. Characters are not simply victims who never learn from, deal with, or fight against the circumstances around them. Characters are changing, like people; and a writer must learn to find the happy medium between a change so abrupt the name for it is being ‘out of character’ and a complete lack of change, which makes the characters appear to be stuck in a vacuum for all eternity. Characters are dynamic, containing different and sometimes contradictory qualities that make them human.

Original characters, although looked down upon in fanfiction, are like garlic to food; fine if done well, horrendous if otherwise. It is important for an writer to keep in mind that we are here to read stories about an already established fandom and already established characters. In fandoms such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Yu-Gi-Oh! original characters are often necessary, as the creators often introduce new characters as well over the course of a season or story. However, in fanfiction, a writer’s original characters are treated rather more critically. The agreed-upon definition of an Mary-Sue is one with flaws, but so adored that the other characters do not care about these flaws. There is, of course, more. The secret to good original characters is to make them more than just a plot device but less than a Mary-Sue, a fine line indeed. If you do not believe you can avoid the more dangerous part of that line . . . don’t try writing original characters.

Pet Peeves (Writing):
1. You can’t spell. If you can post on FanFiction.Net, you have a computer. If you have a computer, you can use spell check. FanFiction.Net provides spell check for you. There is no excuse for misspelling “comfortable” as “cunfertalbe.”

2. You have a complete disregard for grammar. Use quotation marks instead of apostrophes, don’t smash everything together into one paragraph, write as well as I did when I was in the sixth grade. I was absolutely stunned when an eighth grader who loves reading confessed that she never learned that, when writing, one adds a new paragraph when a new speaker begins talking. If you need it, there are plenty of people willing to help you. But if you wish to show your work to others - and do this because you genuinely want more than praise - you should, at least, make an effort to improve your grammar.

3. You italicize, bold, or OVEREXAGGERATE words that truly don’t need it. Italics are encouraged. Bolding is accepted, but not necessary. Typing in a manner that is more reminiscent of a text message in that the caps-lock key looks like it was stuck is simply annoying.

4. You use the word “flashback” to indicate a flashback. There are plenty of ways of indicating a flashback without pointing it out for everyone to see. If you are writing for an audience who has been exposed to enough books that they can recognize a flashback when they see one without having to be told that this is a flashback, there is no need to draw attention to it. If you are writing for a younger audience, this is equally useless - I am fairly certain that there are only a handful of four- or five-year-olds that know what a flashback even is.

5. You beg for reviews or set an ultimatum. If people really care, they will review. If you have to beg or say something like, “I won’t update until I get twelve reviews,” it’s likely because you don’t believe your story can stand on its own without the praise. This does not only annoy me, it also further undermines your own confidence when, finally, the amount of reviews you receive falls short of your ever-growing - or ever-shrinking, as the case may be - ego.

6. You beg for no flames or even constructive criticism. That is the whole point of this website. If you do not want constructive criticism, what you are really saying is that you want the ego gratification felt when told your story is good.

7. You violate the Terms of Service. You did not provide this wonderful place you are currently taking for granted. Xing Li did, and the least you could do to show your appreciation is follow his rules. Pet peeves include, but are not limited to:
7a. You write songfics. No, FanFiction.Net does nothing about these. No, that does not mean that it is right. It simply means that they do not have time to go through the hundreds of thousands of stories that people have written, ninety percent of which are worthless, in accordance to Sturgeon’s Revelation. It’s good that a song inspired you. However, that does not mean you should inject these inspirations into the story, or, even worse rely on the song to tell the story. Why not? Because it’s stupid.
7b. You have Author’s Notes as chapters. This is specifically prohibited in the Terms of Service and, just as I have stated for songfics, just because your story has not been removed does not mean FanFiction.Net does not care. It is both a nuisance and unnecessary. Readers are willing to wait a very, very long time for chapters. If you feel you must appease us, it’s a sign that you are writing for us, not yourself, and there is nothing so dangerous as that.

8. Your Author’s Notes are longer than the actual story, or, alternatively, your chapters are less than a page. As said before, we, as readers, are willing to wait a long time for longer, deeper, stronger chapters. Posting so little at a time is more likely to make us lose interest over the lack of suspense than keep us reading. In a similar vein, we read your stories not to hear you rant about an obscure allusion to Star Trek or Firefly but to see what can be done - what you have done - about characters and plots we love. We do not need each chapter to be the length of an novella, but we do need them to be long enough that they cannot be mistaken as children’s books.

9. Similarly, you use Author’s Notes much in the same way one would use in-text parenthetical citations. As a writer who highly values the narrative elements of writing and the ability of a writer to pull his or her readers into the story, I do not appreciate being jolted out of the moment by something that could (A/N: These are annoying, aren’t they? Especially when the “A/N:” is lacking and the readers are left confused about whether it’s a part of the story or not) easily wait until the end of the chapter. Moreover, most of these are stupid, pointless, and encompassing topics that no one cares about. I don’t want the flow of a story I am reading interrupted by an author telling me that she had the same type of roast beef the characters are eating two nights ago, or, even worse, interjecting just for the sake of interjecting. There are some things that make me want to press the back button faster. But there aren’t very many.

10. Your story doesn’t make sense. This is a highly subjective but still important topic - how is the reader supposed to honestly comment on your piece if they don’t understand it? There are some things, of course, that have their appeal in their inscrutability - take Neon Genesis Evangelion, for example. Its ending was perhaps the biggest Mind-Screw ever to hit television, and yet it remains loved today because it inspires people to think, to try and work out what just happened despite the fact they know they’ll never figure it out. This is the “subjective” portion of this guideline. I value pieces that make me think to unravel the meaning, and potentially inspire to me to write in the process; I loathe pieces that are so disjointed and randomly put together that they defy the definition of “crack!fic” - even the acceptable kind.

11. You change the perspective every other second. Alternatively, changing the point of view. As I learned it in my eighth grade English class, “perspective” designates the character telling the story; “point of view” designates the relationship of the narrator to the story. Changing the narrator without some indication that we are now looking over the shoulder of a different character is confusing and jarring; changing the point of view without indication is even worse. Aside from just looking unprofessional, it indicates to the readers that you didn’t even care about what you are writing enough to go back and look over it, or - heaven forbid - edit it.

12. You translate your story badly. I do not say this is discrimination for people whose native language is not English. I can understand the desire to put your story out there for the biggest possible audience, which would be the English-language audience on FanFiction.Net. However, there is something all writers who are considering translating their works into English should think about: A well-written story appealing to a smaller audience is far greater in value than a poorly-written story appealing to a larger audience. Please do not reduce the quality of what might be a wonderful piece of fiction by attempting to translate your story by yourself. If you’re really adamant about being able to appeal to an English audience as well, find someone fluent enough in both languages to be able to preserve the original quality instead of attempting it yourself. In doing so, it’s likelier than not you will warp a perfectly good story into an unreadable mess that neither speakers of your native language nor English-readers can understand.

13. You use text language while a character is not texting. My single biggest pet peeve. Even in real life, it is considered immature and annoying to inject conversations with acronyms that no one can bother figuring out (see: “MTFBWY”) or abbreviations that are so overused they’ve gotten annoying because everyone does know them (see: “LOL”). I have never - repeat, never - read, watched, or seen a fandom where any character uses text language regularly in his or her dialogue. I have never even read, watched, or seen a fandom where any character does much more than place a few calls with his or her cell phone. Text language in the dialogue indicates a writer who is not bothering to distinguish his or her real life with the story; text language in the narration indicates a writer who is too lazy to change his or her writing style to a professional acceptable one. One of Ordoñez’s Five Indicators of a Really, Really, Really Bad Writer.

Pet Peeves (Story):
1. Your stories’ characters are so badly out of character that they might as well be original characters. This actually includes a variety of Character Derailment possibilities, from all but replacing the characters with the personalities of you and your friends, again, again turning it into more-or-less original fiction to having a character overreact in a simple situation. I, and a great many others, read fanfiction because we want to see what happens to the characters that we know and love outside the restrictions of canon. And while it is funny seeing Dumbledore get drunk and dance naked on the tables, it’s also quite boring - because we have no connection with this entirely new, separate character, and we have no reason to care that they are acting like a fool.

2. You write revenge stories. Again, these come in two flavors: You either “punish” a character you dislike by making the worst things possible happen to them, or you completely change their character into an completely unsympathetic monster for the same reason. This is one of the most childish, moronic things I can imagine. Another less-seen - but no milder - variation is killing a character or turning him or her into a Yandere (for those of you who do not watch anime, chainsaw crazy) psychopath so that the writer has an excuse to ship together his favorite couple. On TVTropes, it has another name: “Die For Our Ship,” and it generally falls under the category “FanDumb.”

3. You write absolutely ridiculous pairings. This does not refer to pairings with no basis in canon. It’s possible that, yes, under very different circumstances, Person A’s mortal rival could fall in love with him. It’s possible that, yes, two characters who have never met in canon but are seemingly compatible could meet in and fall in love. It’s possible that a person’s sexuality could change, and it’s possible that it could stay the same. This does not refer to well-thought-out, developed romances between characters with little chemistry. This refers to pairings found in stories that supposedly take place in the canon universe, where two completely incompatible characters “fall in love” because the author says so. This also refers to pairings found in stories that take place in an alternate timeline or universe without substantial, credible explanation and backstory to support the pairing. Romance is an incredibly tough subject to properly portray. If you are going to try, at least put some effort in it.

4. You write Mary-Sues. There is no excuse for this. This is fanfiction. We are here to read about characters we actually care about, not the fictional avatars of the writer and all of his or her friends. If you doubt your ability to write an original character well, don’t bother with it at all. Similarly:
4a. You write stories that integrate original characters into the canon team without any explanation. A general rule of thumb: If the summary talks about original characters as if the audience is obliged to know who he or she is, it can be assumed that this original character is a Mary-Sue.
4b. You write American characters in settings where they should not be present. Japan has a very strict immigration policy; an American transfer student at Hogwarts makes no sense whatsoever (because Hogwarts does not have a transfer policy, in any case). This is also seen with characters that are not American but originate from a place that the writer considers sophisticates or even his or her own place of origin.

5. You describe your stories as “fixing” canon. Here, it is implied that the thirteen-year-old amateur writer who very likely doesn’t even know the difference between alliteration and assonance knows better than the author who makes a living by writing. Canon is the “fixed” version of events. An alternate universe, or an alternate series of events that features a different pairing, or a rewritten series of events that features a darker perspective on the characters and premise, is all well and good, but it is simply arrogant to assume that your version is a “fixed,” and therefore “better,” version than the original story. Ask yourself: If your version is better, then why isn’t it the published version?

6. You write a character’s personality based on your own opinion of them. The inverse of revenge stories, in that revenge stories take a grudge toward a character and use it to influence the way the character is portrayed, while this pet peeve focuses on taking admiration toward a character and using it to influence the way a character is portrayed. This is taking an arrogant, egotistical, sociopathic, generally unpleasant individual and making him or her a dark, brooding sex-magnet possessing the ability to make every person (male or female) he or she comes in contact with swoon. This is part of the reason glaringly out-of-character stories are so hated in my mind. Humanizing an unsympathetic character is encouraged. Taking a character from one extreme and sliding it all the way to the other is not. Including, but not limited to:
6a. You overpower a character to ridiculous levels. This is done quite often in canon, actually, but fandom pushes it to a completely new extent. Characters have weaknesses. If they do not, they are not well-balanced characters and may well be called a Canon-Sue. Getting rid of these weaknesses makes for an uninteresting, predictable story, and brings a character to the same level as a Canon-Sue: A God-Sue.
6b. You describe a character’s personality as changing completely as their affiliation between good and evil changes. Morality and personality are two entirely separate concepts. Getting them mixed up is more suited for the writers of Saturday-morning cartoon writers, not people who actually take writing seriously and have an already-existing personality profile besides.

7. You write angst that is overdone or poorly-handled. Angst, sadness, and despair are not bad things; when properly done, it is known that there are many scenarios in fiction where sadness and despair are the natural - and realistic - reactions of characters to an event. On the other hand, there are times when this despair is so exaggerated or overdone that it becomes annoying to the readers, and that is when it is time to stop. On TVTropes, this is called “Wangst” - a portmanteau of “whiny” and “angst.”

8. Your plots are driven by a plot device the characters are unable to articulate - because if they did, the plot would stop. Too many stories build “tension” by introducing a problem that could easily be overcome if a character would say something about it. Unfortunately, this problem is almost never resolved until the end, so the readers are forced to suffer through however many chapters of useless interactions that wouldn’t have to be there at all if the characters ceased to be idiots.

9. Your story has anachronisms. Anachronisms are mistakes in the history of the story pertaining to the time period in which the story is set. Normally, these pass unnoticed; however, for those people aware the Eiffel Tower was built in 1889, the idea that Joan of Arc met her lover underneath the Eiffel Tower is incredibly distracting and ruins the credibility of the entire story.

10. Likewise, your story’s setting is absolutely nothing like how it is in real life. While it is true that weather and climate extremes occur over the majority of the Earth’s surface, it is still as distracting as an anachronism when a writer bases his or her opinions of London on the 1952 Great Smog rather than the green belts currently existing - and uncomfortable and mildly insulting, as well, for people who originate from that area.

11. Your story involves characters whose ages contradict their actions. While I will admit that there are fandoms whose canon fall into this trap, and even real life, to an extent, the purpose of fiction is to be more realistic than life itself, and, of course, we can all estimate the number of nine-year-olds that are a part of torrid, soap opera-esque romances.

12. You gratuitously use a language other than the one in which you are writing. In some fandoms, of course, it makes perfect sense; for example, in Axis Powers Hetalia, the characters are the personifications of nations and states from around the world, and speak a myriad of different languages; when they slip into their own languages in fandom and canon, it makes sense, because it doesn’t seem like a translation from their language to ours has glitched, it seems like the characters have actually slipped back into their own languages. If a character is actually speaking in English and slips back into Japanese, use of Japanese makes sense. However, most of the time, this is found in writers who, despite writing in English, feel the need to include Japanese words at random for the sake of verisimilitude. This is illogical for the following two reasons: First, if you are writing for an anime, it can be assumed that the characters are speaking Japanese and all the writer is doing is faithfully translating the dialogue to English while adding narration describing the characters’ actions and thoughts, and adding a random word in Japanese indicates that this translation suddenly “glitched” and put the original word in for the translated word. If a character is speaking in Japanese, it makes no sense for them to lapse back into Japanese. Second, most readers don’t quite feel like scrolling up or down the page to find the meaning of a single word. This becomes even worse when some writers don’t even bother to put in a translation.
12a. You don’t even make an effort to lessen regional dialect. This goes along with the above, but while the previous pet peeve involved going to great pains to include another language, this one involves not taking any steps at all to sound remotely realistic in reference to the unique speech patterns of the story’s setting. This includes not even bothering to sound British when writing Harry Potter, not even bothering to take out Southwestern United States slang when writing Percy Jackson, et cetera. It destroys the entire illusion that writing is intended to erect.

13. You write sex scenes that are blatantly unrealistic. This applies to sex from the perspective of the other gender as well; I, for example, will likely never write male-on-male sex, because I am female, will never experience it, and will never get it right.

14. You use the wrong name for the character. This is fairly self-explanatory. This also occurs far more often than one should think.

15. You describe every action a character does and every thing a character buys on a shopping trip. Aside from being tedious and pointless, it is almost never read all the way through; most intelligent readers would either skip over the entire ordeal or hit the back button so that they would not even have to do that. This becomes not only pointless for the audience to read, but pointless for the writer to type, as no one would actually read it anyway.
15a. You use excessive descriptions of characters, particularly original characters. Yes, most American English teachers encourage using “descriptive language” to help the reader “visualize the character.” Yes, most American English teachers know how to prepare students for your state’s standardized test of doom. No, most American do not know how to teach you how to write well. They prepare you for the graders of standardized tests. Graders of standardized tests are looking for an informative narrative that indicates the ability to write clear, detailed reports later in life. They are not looking for the next best novel-writer. The one bestselling book I can think of that does this is Twilight. Twilight, which has been referred to as the High School Musical of vampire fiction. I rest my case.

16. You derail the character to a single defining element that is supposed to encompass the whole of a supposedly complex, well-rounded personality. This is also called “Flanderization,” named after Ned Flanders, who went - over The Simpsons’s twenty-one seasons - from a clean, somewhat religious man who liked the quiet life to the meek, über-religious man we know him as today - in other words, the result of the writers allowing what was originally a quirk of the character to become the character, overtaking every definition of “well-rounded” that exists.

17. You subscribe to the school of memetic mutation. This refers to taking something that is referred to in the series once or rarely more than once and placing it as a central part of the characters’ lives. An example is Fred and George, who refer to themselves as “Gred and Forge” once, and exactly once, in all seven books. It is now hard to find a work featuring Fred and George that do not reference the joke, even though by the end of the first year, all parties involved have most likely forgotten about it.

18. Your story concludes by describing the twenty or so years after “happily ever after” ending for the characters in a matter of paragraphs. Aside from simply feeling rushed, this “epilogue” simply does not take into account the complexities that would inevitably make up the lives of these characters, making the transition feel rushed and one-dimensional.

19. You write male pregnancy. Not only because the basic idea is ridiculous, but also because anyone who writes male pregnancy obviously has not given much thought as to how the entire affair would work out. If a male mysteriously growing a uterus and delivering a child through his anus sounds ridiculous, it is because it’s how the entire thing would probably occur.

20. You use double standards. Although it refers to a host of other things - such as stereotypes applied to women and men breaking gender norms - this specifically refers to female-on-male domestic violence. Domestic violence is domestic violence, regardless of the gender of the perpetrator and victim. When I was nine years old, my older sister’s friend died from injuries inflicted by his wife. It had been going on for two years. My sister suffered from clinical depression for another year afterward because her friend had mentioned to her multiple times that his wife “beat” him, but she had never taken it seriously enough to realize that domestic violence was actually occurring. Her friend explained to both her and another friend of theirs - who was at that time training to be a police officer - over lunch. Both of them laughed. When popular culture turns domestic violence into comedy, it makes victims feel unable to get help, even though female-on-male domestic violence actually occurs more often than male-on-female. No one laughs when a drunk man throws a bottle at his cowering wife; no one should be able to laugh when a drunk woman throws a bottle at her cowering husband, either.

Life, Politics, Opinions, and the Matter of Several Hundred People Being Morons:
I am a Liberal, a Socialist, a Democrat, an idealist, an cynic, and a dreamer. I am American. I am a philosopher, as well as a writer, an aspiring author, an actress, an artist, an athlete, a political activist, a co-founder of Feminists Unite, and an incredibly empathetic person. I am also incredibly sardonic, mean-spirited, blunt, and cold. The left lens of my glasses is colored rose; the right lens, colored jade. I’m a walking contradiction. I suffer from occasional anxiety attacks and mild sociopathy.

I believe that all people are entitled to think whatever they want. However, I also believe that this does not guarantee these opinions the same level of legitimacy. You are allowed to believe whatever you want, but it does not stop you from being wrong if you actually are wrong. Likewise, the fact that you are allowed to believe what you want is not a defense against someone pointing out the fact that what you believe is foolish, illogical, and-or asinine. Your right to believe in a fallacious argument does not change the fact that said argument is fallacious. Similarly, the right to hold a fallacious argument is not a shield against someone pointing out that this argument is fallacious. You have the right to believe whatever you want; I have the right to criticize you for it, and vice versa.

Finally, my manifesto: Writing is everything to me. I believe that the secret to good writing is a variety of things: characters, plot, writing style, and theme, but I believe that if you want to be a good writer, you must want it for you to succeed. There is something that cannot be taught, or learned from example, or practiced, and that is the passionate part of writing. I write because I love to do it. I write because I can’t really imagine a life without it. I write because I have that passion, and, as a consequence, I am growing as a writer. That is why I come to this website, and that is why I do not tolerate fools here. By posting trashy junk with broken grammar on this website, you are not only disgracing yourself but disgracing my fellow writers who take writing more seriously rather than just a cheap attempt at pornography, this website, and me. If you write, write for the love of it. If you do, there is no possible way for you not to succeed.

I write both fiction and fanfiction, although I prefer the former. My FictionPress.com account can be found at http://www.fictionpress.com/~helenw713. If you want to see other examples of my writing, take a look there. Other forms of my work can be found at http://helenw713.deviantart.com/ and http://www.youtube.com/user/helenw713. I also have a LiveJournal, found at http://helenw713.livejournal.com. That is where I store all my updates on my life, my writing, the progress on my novel, and fandom/character/fiction rants. I update regularly. Finally, I'm also found at Dreamwidth (http://helenw713.dreamwidth.org/) and ArchiveOfOurOwn (http://archiveofourown.org/users/helenw713), where I store all of my completed stories, both the ones found here and the more mature ones on my LiveJournal. I reply to all reviews, including anonymous reviews, if the reviewer leaves an email address or other method of contact.

And now (what you have all been waiting for) - the stories.