put it in the rules

These Fails are taking a toll. They're exhausting both for those who choose to participate in the discussion, and those on the sidelines. They not only cause offense, they cause harm.

As far as fanworks challenges go, can we put it in the freaking rules?


DO NOT SPREAD HATE through the perpetuation of oppressive, discriminatory tropes and attitudes.

DO NOT EXPLOIT other people's tragedies or cultures, in order to tell stories of/for the privileged.

DO YOUR RESEARCH before writing about other places and peoples.


I don't think this is setting the bar too high, and I don't think it's needlessly censoring or stifling. Am I off the mark with this, or can we just say, "No thank you. Turn that problematic idea into something that isn't offensive and harmful, or take it elsewhere," right from the start? Formally refuse to accept fail fanworks as acceptable and as normal, and as mods, refuse to have them in our challenges.

It wouldn't stop people from being racist, and it wouldn't stop people from screwing up, but it would make questioning yourself as an artist a requirement of playing in our sandbox.

On Lois Lane

One of my favourite things about Lois is that there's nothing special about her, except for Lois herself - who Lois decided she would be. Sure her dad's a general and her boyfriend's Superman, but that's not what makes Lois awesome. She doesn't need superfriends, superpowers, or a tragic past to make her great: the character is great on her own merits, and the rest of it is just icing on the cake. And incredibly, most writers seem to get this - she's canonically presented as being more than the sum of the men in her life; more than her superfriends, or the strange circumstances she falls into.

Lois starts out as the archetypal plucky girl reporter, but she matures into a goddamn lioness. As a grownup woman, she's a reporter of unparalleled skill and determination. She's fierce in her pursuit of truth and justice. Clark is her spouse and that's undeniably central to her character, but it's not her reason for being. Lois has had - could have again - a comic of her own, and let me tell you, I would read the hell out of a Lois Lane ongoing. I suspect that the same readership that digs Batwoman and the new Question, would dig a Lois ongoing.

Would you guys read a Lois comic?

[Yes yes, I'm mostly talking about modern era Lois.]