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[jaywalking-rogue]

VBS World Link event spoilers under the cut!

I'm very much curious about the implications that the SEKAIs can apparently manifest real people now.

Which, to be fair, I think is a one-off scenario; I'm assuming in order to do that someone must hold really, REALLY strong feelings, and I'm always certain the person in question must already be gone (because An almost explicitly calls Nagi a ghost, which kinda do exist in Proseka anyway, but also because Sekai manifesting real people would be freaky as hell). So, all in all, I doubt they'll do that again, if ever; An is a special case for many plot twists Sekai writers feel comfortable employing.

What that does is open a gateway for fanfiction, thought. Even with the strong feelings + having passed away criteria, at least two people qualify: Emu's grandfather and Kanade's mother. The sheer possibilities of them seeing their loved ones again and the pain and hurt it can bring, just like it did to An, except possibly even worse because unlike An those two are at least somewhat at peace with it now...

A lot of angst potential. Someone's gotta write it.

Won't be me though.

[jaywalking-rogue]

Adding this to the post itself because I've been locked out of replies function for over a year now and I can't be bothered to figure out why ;-;

@an-inspired-eternity you're totally right, I forgot about that! Although fragmented sekais do seem to operate differently than main sekais, so I amend my post by saying I do mean main sekais doing that specifically.

VBS World Link event spoilers under the cut!

I'm very much curious about the implications that the SEKAIs can apparently manifest real people now.

Which, to be fair, I think is a one-off scenario; I'm assuming in order to do that someone must hold really, REALLY strong feelings, and I'm always certain the person in question must already be gone (because An almost explicitly calls Nagi a ghost, which kinda do exist in Proseka anyway, but also because Sekai manifesting real people would be freaky as hell). So, all in all, I doubt they'll do that again, if ever; An is a special case for many plot twists Sekai writers feel comfortable employing.

What that does is open a gateway for fanfiction, thought. Even with the strong feelings + having passed away criteria, at least two people qualify: Emu's grandfather and Kanade's mother. The sheer possibilities of them seeing their loved ones again and the pain and hurt it can bring, just like it did to An, except possibly even worse because unlike An those two are at least somewhat at peace with it now...

A lot of angst potential. Someone's gotta write it.

Won't be me though.

[jaywalking-rogue]

VBS World Link event spoilers under the cut!

I'm very much curious about the implications that the SEKAIs can apparently manifest real people now.

Which, to be fair, I think is a one-off scenario; I'm assuming in order to do that someone must hold really, REALLY strong feelings, and I'm always certain the person in question must already be gone (because An almost explicitly calls Nagi a ghost, which kinda do exist in Proseka anyway, but also because Sekai manifesting real people would be freaky as hell). So, all in all, I doubt they'll do that again, if ever; An is a special case for many plot twists Sekai writers feel comfortable employing.

What that does is open a gateway for fanfiction, thought. Even with the strong feelings + having passed away criteria, at least two people qualify: Emu's grandfather and Kanade's mother. The sheer possibilities of them seeing their loved ones again and the pain and hurt it can bring, just like it did to An, except possibly even worse because unlike An those two are at least somewhat at peace with it now...

A lot of angst potential. Someone's gotta write it.

Won't be me though.

[jaywalking-rogue]

No lies detected

Duality of coauthors with me n @jaywalking-rogue

[jaywalking-rogue]

Listen, I know that The Best Film Wrap was ultimately just a little silly mixed event that primarily focused on Nene's character development and Kamiyama chaos, but I've been rotating one particular moment in my head and I need to talk about it.

Event spoilers under the cut!

So I've been wondering, (while I'm very proud of her, look at her go), how and why exactly An jumped from being insecure and not confident in her acting ability literally a couple episodes prior to ad-libbing an entire scene? I know both Akito and An have been getting some lessons from Nene but that's not nearly enough to have that much of a confidence jump, right?

And maybe I'm looking too much into it, especially since we don't even get An's POV in this, but in my opinion it's because her acting partner was Akito.

I mean, they've been singing together for probably something over a year now and during this time An has definitely learned Akito's telling signs, when he stumbles or loses the rhythm or whatever, so you course she's gonna jump in to cover for him! It's almost an instinct at this point, it's what VBS do!

Akito losing his timing was supposed to be a minor enough thing that Nene, the director who's paying the closest attention to the scene, only notices something is "off" a moment before An cuts in. Neither Nene nor the other actors have a clear sign that something's gone wrong, but An's somehow paying enough attention to notice Akito acting off at the same time as Nene does, and at the moment's notice makes a correct decision to jump in and save the day. And Akito catches on immediately, too.

Neither Akito nor An have any prior acting experience but what they do have experience with is being on stage together. I don't think this episode would have gone in the direction it did if An wasn't absolutely confident she interpreted the situation correctly.

VBS bounce off each other so nicely and the way they're almost always ready to cover for each other (remember Akito dragging An into a wedding and her just rolling with it? Basically same thing), and I think in-universe this dynamic between An and Akito is exactly what made the movie work and why they've been able to act their best. These two are physically incapable of letting their teammates down in any possible way.

Idk, I just think they're neat.

[jaywalking-rogue]

fic writer asks

What’s something new that you tried in a fic this year? How did it turn out and would you do it again?

How many fics did you work on this year? (They don’t have to be finished or published!)

What’s something you learned about yourself as a writer?

What piece of media inspired you the most?

What fandom(s) did you write for this year?

What ship(s) captured your heart?

What character(s) captured your heart?

Did you write for a new fandom or ship this year?

What fic meant the most to you to write?

What fic made you feel the happiest to work on?

What fic was the most satisfying to finish writing?

What fic was the most difficult to write? Did you finish it?

What fic was the easiest to write?

What were your shortest and longest fics this year?

Rec a fic you wrote or posted in 2023

What were you go-to writing songs?

What were your go-to writing snacks?

What was the hardest fic to title?

Share your favorite opening line

Share your favorite ending line

Share your favorite piece of dialogue

Share an excerpt from your favorite scene

Share the final version of a sentence or paragraph you struggled with. What about it was challenging? Are you happy with how it turned out?

What's something that surprised you while you were working on a fic? Did it change the story?

What did you use to write? (e.g. writing programs, paper & pen, etc.)

If you had to choose one, what was THE most satisfying writing moment of your year?

Did you do anything special to celebrate finishing a fic?

How did you recharge between fics?

If this were an awards show, who would you thank?

What’s something that you want to write in 2024?

[jaywalking-rogue]

Parts I enjoy about writing Proseka Shuffle Aus:

- putting two characters who have not or have barely interacted in canon and seeing how they click;

- coming up with alternative backstories for characters or slight canon deviations that ultimately snowball into much bigger difference and the reason these characters ended up in different life situations;

- making new designs and new potential Sekai symbolisms as well as VS mannerisms;

- "hey wouldn't it be funny if-"

- rarepairs

Parts I don't enjoy about writing Proseka Shuffle Aus:

- having to fit into the "4 characters per unit no more no less" formula (spoiler: you don't have to!)

- naming the units

[jaywalking-rogue]

I don't even have enough for a tenpull but if I get this Mafuyu limited I will give her short hair in Make Them Bloom as a treat for you guys

[jaywalking-rogue]

You guys seemed to like these so I made some more

Part one:

[jaywalking-rogue]

things I wish I’d known when I started writing fic on ao3

use & for friendships, colleagues, familial relationships and use / for romantic or sexual relationships (or encounters)

not everyone reads fic. Lots of people use screen readers, and screen readers can’t see what’s on images. use descriptive text to help them out.

lots of people download fic to read on other devices, not all downloads capture images too.

there’s a big difference between No Archive Warnings Apply (NAWA) and Author Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings (CNTW). NAWA means that there’s nothing in the fic that needs to be warned for using the official Archive Warning system. CNTW means there might be something that requires a warning and the author is either avoiding giving out spoilers or they are unsure how to interpret their plot point with respect to the official Warnings. (in both cases, additional tags are where it’s at - you can explain yourself there) 

the reason why the number of bookmarks in the fic is different from the number of bookmarks on your stats page is because your stats page number includes bookmarks that are hidden

there’s a preference setting where you can receive emails with your own comments/replies.

there’s a site skin that hides stats so you don’t have to see them

writing in rich text format makes my life easier

knowing html allows me to do fun things in the comments section like comment/reply with reaction gifs

knowing html also allows me to do interesting formatting in my fics that I can’t do with rich text alone

those little blue bubbles with the question marks in them will answer my questions a lot of the time - and also teach me something new

the FAQ is linked under the word About in the header

if you write your fic in the draft window, you might end up losing it so make sure you copy the text before you hit Post, just in case

they aren’t kidding when they say drafts are deleted after 30 days

[jaywalking-rogue]

"Nice to see you again too," she choked out.

Read Hollow Bones I'm begging you

[jaywalking-rogue]

I've been making some proseka textposts because that's all I can make right now because of my declining health but proseka grind can never stop.

[jaywalking-rogue]

Fun fact: Nene and Kanade do, indeed, play Hollow Knight in Hollow Bones! Kudos to those who caught it.

More info under the cut!

When writing, I needed a somewhat combat-based game with a good soundtrack. Initially I wanted to go to with Undertale, but then I thought that... Undertale is a very long, 8bit-graphic game with a fairly complicated plot and a particular ideology behind it that requires the player to take a hyperspecific route to have a good ending, and I simply decided Nene wouldn't risk trying to get Kanade to play something that doesn't seem all too appealing at the first glance while Kanade wasn't in the best shape and barely had interests to begin with (not to say Undertale is a bad game - it isn't, but it's also not for everyone!)

Meanwhile Hollow Knight is a fairly simple concept to explain: "end of the world, but bug" isn't a difficult idea to grasp, while also having some of the most amazing soundtrack out there. It's also more classical-music adjacent than Undertale soundtrack is.

Don't show it to Tsukasa, thought, I have a feeling he won't appreciate the game.

Minecraft was considered briefly but was discarded because of its sandbox nature and the soundtrack being too calm in the background to catch Kanade's attention like it needed to. I'm fairly certain they did play Minecraft at some point, however.

[jaywalking-rogue]

I was allowed to post silly/interesting And make Them Bloom facts on Tumblr and will henceforth use it for the greater good.

Anyway I want to talk about Yakamoz members' levels of English because there's some interesting deviations from canon and also I'm an English major, so enjoy.

Shiraishi An: around C1-C2 levels, fluent, much better than in canon. Taiga encountered a huge issue with language barrier when he first moved to America (although he wasn't half bad himself), and understood immediately that An would need English to survive in musical world going forward, because he definitely had plans for her to go beyond Japan. So he taught her a bit and basically made it so he would only talk to her in English & make her talk with him in English as well. An was initially frustrated, but as he was coming from the place of care, and it was kind of an interesting experience, she got interested in English and went out of her way to learn it even more by herself, at times taking it almost as seriously as she did singing.

She also met a lot of English-speaking people during her opera shenanigans, watched a lot of foreign productions and masterclasses and such. An was kinda interested to learn English at school too but soon got very bored with drills and grammar and in general felt like she's too ahead of the class to enjoy it. She still gets good grades in it though!

She's very good at keeping conversations, knows a lot of idioms and slang terms, but has a considerable accent since she never bothered with correct pronunciation and wouldn't know a grammar rule if it bit her in the face. Her writing is also lacking.

Additionally, An knows a bit (very little!) of German and Italian, because these languages has a lot of operas written in them.

Asahina Mafuyu: around C1-C2 levels, fluent, about the same/better than in canon. She is in very similar situation to An and is learning English because of Suzune's (Mafumom) concerns that she will need it in the future. Which, to be fair, she probably will! She started learning it seriously quite a bit earlier though, around the first year of junior high.

She's about as good at is as she is in canon, and is able to write essays and even poetry quite well. Her accent is also not as noticeable as An's; however, because of her often overthinking her correctness of speech, she struggles with keeping a casual conversation and sounds a bit "like a textbook". She's also not as familiar with slang terms and cultural context as An is.

She and An are known to exchange brief talks in English during practise or breaks, usually initiated by An. Although Touya could probably understand what they're saying, he prefers not to.

Aoyagi Touya: B2-C1 levels, about the same/slightly worse than in canon. Touya's primary source for English knowledge is school, and while he succeeds in it quite brilliantly, he never goes out of his way to learn more of it and couldn't be bothered to. Like Mafuyu, his speech is very proper and refined, and sounds very official. Could probably keep up with a business conversation, and he sometimes reads English books as a hobby, but not much else. He has very little practice with spoken English.

Tsukasa Tenma: A2-B1 levels, worse than in canon. Although canon Tsukasa's English is already... Debatable, Yakamoz!Tsukasa is considerably worse in it because he was never as interested in learning it. He only was invested in musicals briefly, soon focusing on his piano, and haven't watched much, if any, English media/musicals since, which hasn't helped. He keeps up with English at school and is okay-ish at it, on a normal level for a teen his age. That's about it, thought.

Kusanagi Nene: A2-B1 levels, about the same as in canon. Nene still spends a lot of her free time gaming, including online games, and has learned some English from chats with other players and watching reviews and playthroughs. She also keeps in touch with western musical scene, but it isn't much, and she's self-conscious when using English anyway.

Yoisaki Kanade: A1-A2 levels, about the same/worse than in canon. Although Kanade is distantly aware she'll probably need it if she wants to further her career, she doesn't have the time or energy to study English, and dislikes the idea of planning that far ahead anyway. She relies on Mafuyu when she encounters something she needs help with, and it has worked out for her so far.

[jaywalking-rogue]

Hi anon!! Happy to see you here too :D

I, also, have no idea what a fun fact is, but I hope you enjoyed these nonetheless!

I love love love the “and Make Them Bloom” series! Could you give me a fun fact abt each group?

Hi hi hi!!!! So excited to see ppl liking the series omg jkdfjk

I've no idea what a fun fact is!!! So I've consulted our beloved co-author @jaywalking-rogue

Yakamoz: They're the first group that actually came to mind when making a shuffle au! Their name, yakamoz, is a Turkish word that means the reflection of the moonlight on the sea. I named them, as I happen to be the Turkish speaking one ehe.

Another fun fact about Yakamoz is that they all need a disguise when going out because they're fairly famous (as far as having appeared on TV a couple of times) but they're all completely terrible at it: Akito was Touya's entire fashion sense, if An wears "casual clothes" she gets recognised by street musicians around the town instead, Tsukasa always goes overboard with it and ends up looking So Suspicious the rest of them end up having to make him change into normal clothes, Nene and Kanade get recognised because of their hair and Mafuyu's stony expression is always a dead giveaway no matter the outfit. -Jay

Another another fact is that they have too many members and don't fit into 3dmvs to take pictures of them in :')

Re/Born: The first thing ReBorn did when they got together as a band was pick their designated colours, but Ichika and Haruka always mix up which blue is whose. Ichika also has an indigo streak in her hair in this AU for that reason.

Re/Born is such a cool name imo too,,, Jay named them.

Lulla-tale !!: They take an embarassingly long time to actually form the whole group and then an even longer time to discover their sekai, which only makes sense considering how big their group is. I wanted the theatre group to be bigger because canon WxS is simply a very small cast.

Lulla-tale !! was named by yours truly <3

希望—アイデンティティ(Kibou-Identity): They all have a protectiveness over one another, each thinking that the others are too nice for the world. Shizuku's big sister instincts and the things she's seen when in the idol industry, Honami and Mizuki's experience with bullying, and Minori having been pushed down so many times while trying to become an idol, they all think they need to protect the others from experiences like their own.

Another fun fact is that I still can't name them because Jay and I are silly and wanted to name them something in Japanese, but I don't know any so we're struggling. Their current name means Hope Identity and is sort of temporary maybe perhaps?

Backdraft: When Akito first asked Shiho to partner up with him, she was like "oh yeah sure," she liked his singing, his style etc. Only when they actually hung out in vivid street did she realise he's like. really well known there.

Featuring Shiho as main character of a new hit manga: I Accidentally Partnered Up With A Local Celebrity!? -Jay

Backdraft was named by Jay, after a certain song, kudos to anyone who can guess it!

Thank you so so much for the ask, you've no idea how much it brightened both Jay and I's time :)

[jaywalking-rogue]

Hey, hey. Look. I wrote a thing

https://archiveofourown.org/works/51132853

[jaywalking-rogue]

today in "shiki finds something neat and proceeds to obsess over it for weeks or months", I started playing Project Sekai. y'know, the hatsune miku gacha game about lesbians and gays. that's what it's about, I promise.

that is, until I started fucking thinking about it more, and now I... well it's still about lesbians and gays, but also I think it's saying something about music. maybe. or maybe I'm projecting my own ideas about music onto a story, that could be it too. I did that with bandori but it was less comprehensive so I didn't post it.

so like. there's 5 units, each of 4 people, right? and they're like, entirely different groups, both in how they formed, what the dynamic is between them and what kind of music they make. leo/need is a group of childhood friends making a band, more more jump is an up and coming idol group headed by a newbie who re-ignited the passions of three retired/disillusioned veterans, vivid bad squad is a community-focused street group, wonderlandsxshowtime is a theme park musical theatre group, and nightcord at 25:00 is a group of depressed teenagers who met online coming together to make music about how depressed they are. that last one sounds negative but I don't know how else to describe it. they're my favorite though, so y'know. no hate.

but like. that's surface level stuff, obviously. and when you dig a little deeper, I think each of these units has a theme, more specifically a way to "use" music to express certain ideas.

leo/need is music as a way of connecting, and of staying connected, with the people you care about. it's a group of friends who had drifted apart, finding each other again through music. it's using music to take hold of the things that matter to you, the people you love, and keeping them tight against you. it's music as a way to stay grounded and aware of the people around you.

more more jump is music as a way of reaching for your dreams, of shooting for the stars. it's music as a way of igniting passions and inspiring hope. it's music as a goal, it's music as a goalpost to run toward, and it's music as a way to give others a reason to run with you. it's music as something that you give yourself to more and more and more.

vivid bad squad is music as community, as a way of reaching out and meeting new people, making new connections, finding new experiences, chasing new dreams. it's music as something that matters only in the moment it's made, it's music as something that doesn't need to be bought or sold, it's music as a group of people coming together to MAKE something. it's music that defines itself by the people who listen to it, not just the people who make it.

those three are kind of a trifecta of... not quite foils, but something close. they play off each other. leo/need's music as a way of staying connected with what you have vs vivid bad squads' music as a way of reaching out for something new. vivid bad squads' music as something home-grown and home-bound, something that reaches out NEAR to you, something for a community and by a community, for the people you know vs more more jump's music as something for the world, something kind of corporate but more than that something that reaches out FAR, made for the people that DON'T know you for anything except the image you put out. leo/need's passion for music as an end goal and more more jump's passion for music as a means TO an end, where leo/need strives to perform better because they want to have their music hit harder (aka for the sake of making better music) where more more jump strives to perform better because they want to reach more people.

and like. I KNOW what niigo, nightcord at 25:00, is. it's music as a way to heal, it's music as a way to preserve, it's music as a way to face the hardships of the past and keep going. it's music as life, as something that GRANTS life. it's music as a way to say "hey. life sucks. but it won't always." it's music as a way to save, as a way to find the light in a place that feels so so so dark, it's music as something that expresses the darkness, indulges in it, but at the end of the day it gives you a warm hug and says "it's dark and scary and painful, but we'll get out of here together." it's music that provides comfort specifically BY facing the dark head on.

but I struggled to figure out exactly what wonderlandsxshowtime was. there's the surface level answer, of music as a way to make people smile, but that's... like, have you read the lyrics to their commissioned songs? it's dark. the peppy tone and upbeat voices mask it well, but the things they're talking about aren't JUST about making you smile. but it's also not about masking pain WITH a smile, because they're too genuine. tsukasa, emu, rui and nene aren't hiding pain. they're not faking it. even when the stories show that they had troubles in the past or even still have troubles now, they're not a secret that has been uncovered, they're explanations and explorations of WHY they are who they are. tsukasa isn't faking his enthusiasm, his passion for acting and performing. his wish to become a star isn't FAKE, even through the loneliness of the past. emu isn't hiding some dark past, she's genuinely just like this, even during the more serious moments with her family. nene is shy, sure, but it's not like it took digging or even a lot of time for her to start being her true sassy self towards the rest. rui's lonely because him being himself scared people away, but it's not like he's NOT himself because of that. he's completely and fully his genuine self, and if people don't like that then so be it. he's the lonely alchemist, sure, but he never pretended to NOT be the alchemist.

so I struggled a little. until I realized that wxs and niigo are foils, too, in a very unexpected way.

wxs is death. it's endings. it's music as a way to acknowledge the inevitable end, and face that with a smile. it's music as the realization that everything you know, everything you love, will someday stop, and how to keep going despite that. it's music that looks at the hardships of the future and says "but even so, we'll smile". it's seeing the end of the ride coming into view but screaming and cheering even as it starts to reach the final descent. it's the merry-go-round that keeps spinning and spinning and spinning until it can't anymore, until it ALL stops.

niigo is life, the darkness surrounding you and the fire in the distance. wxs is death, fanning the flames with a smile as the dark encroaches.

niigo finds the light in the dark, wxs does its damnedest to keep hold of it.

niigo faces the massive road ahead and whispers "we haven't even started yet."

wxs approaches the end of the road and screams "we haven't even started yet".