namvinoi

[namvinoi]

YHS Characters as MLP ponies? It's more likely than you think

Experimented with the colors a bit here

[namvinoi]

If Your Character Doesn’t Want Anything, The Plot Can’t Start

so. here’s the thing. if your main character is just kinda floating through the story like a passive sad bean™️ with no real goal or drive, then the plot? is not plotting.

this isn’t a ✨you suck✨ thing. it’s a common first draft curse. but if you’re 30k words deep and your protagonist is still just reacting to stuff with vague concern and inner monologues about The Past™… we need to talk.

📍what even is a character “want”?

your character’s want is their external goal. the thing they’re trying to get, do, or change.

avenge someone

win a trial

run away from their cursed bloodline

steal the crown

get through one (1) normal semester without summoning a demon by accident

it’s tangible. it’s active. it’s visible. other characters should be able to argue with it, get in the way of it, or try to stop it.

💥without a want, your character is just:

wandering

reacting

monologuing about their feelings

getting dragged into scenes by external forces

waiting for the plot to happen to them

and honestly? same. but also: no.

readers need to feel like your character is making the story happen, not being passively pushed along by fate and side characters with better motivations.

⚠️ want vs need (aka: the emotional trauma part)

quick breakdown:

the want = the external goal (win the throne, survive the week, kiss the hot villain)

the need = the internal arc (heal the grief, learn to trust, accept their identity, realize kissing the hot villain is a bad idea)

your character should want something that will eventually lead them to what they need. but the want comes first. the want is the engine. the need is the crash landing.

plot starts with the want.

character arc ends with the need.

🎯 signs your character doesn’t want anything (yet):

you keep skipping scenes because “nothing is happening”

you’re relying on vibes or worldbuilding to carry the tension

side characters are doing all the heavy lifting

your protagonist spends more time reacting than deciding

your outline says “stuff happens” for 8 chapters

🛠️ how to fix it:

Make them want something that’s wrong. they don’t have to want the right thing. they just have to want something strongly. wrong goals lead to better tension. and failure. and chaos. (yay!)

Put something between them and that goal. wanting something isn’t enough. they need to pursue it, and get blocked. by enemies. allies. their own self-sabotage. this is where conflict comes from.

Tie the want to survival or obsession. if it’s not urgent, it’s background noise. raise the stakes. why now? why does this matter? why can’t they walk away?

Let them choose. at some point in Act 1, they need to make a conscious decision to pursue the goal. even if they get manipulated into it. even if it’s a bad idea. it needs to feel like a choice.

📦 examples:

✨bad✨: “she’s just trying to get by and see what happens”

✅better: “she’s trying to disappear, but someone recognizes her from the war and now she has to fake a new identity while hunting them down before they ruin her life”

see the difference? one is vibes. one is a whole plot engine.

the story doesn’t start until your character wants something badly enough to make a move, and risk breaking something.

give them a goal. a plan. a terrible idea. and then go ruin their life.

P.S. I made a free mini eBook about the 5 biggest mistakes writers make in the first 10 pages 👀 you can grab it here for FREE:

🕯️ download the pack & write something cursed:

[namvinoi]

"Why can't the freaks on AO3 just go and make a site for all the gross stuff and leave AO3 alone."

Because AO3 is that site. Because AO3 was that site long before you decided AO3 was better than the sites you bullied us off of before, and I can promise you if someone somehow comes up with a fanfic site you like better specifically for the 'gross stuff' you'll try to bully us off that too so you can benefit from it.

AO3's specific core purpose is to preserve fanfiction, yes, but it was also instigated as a host site for the fanfiction that kept getting yeeted off other platforms like Wattpad. Its designed to preserve all fanfiction, not just the fanfiction you, personally, think is 'allowed' to be written.

AO3 is the site for all the gross stuff the freaks make. We've been there just as long as you. We've been funding it just as long as you have. AO3 has specifically said you have a place here. The timeline was literally:

Wattpad/FF.net/LiveJournal purge fanfics > AO3 is born > The people who's fics got purged moved over to AO3 > AO3 gains popularity as the best functioning site > The people who pushed for the fics to be purged off Wattpad move to AO3 > The same people try to push for AO3 to purge fics.

AO3's source coding is open-access. You go make a polished, strict, rigid site where nothing 'icky' is allowed. You go make a site where you can control what is hosted. We already have our space.

[namvinoi]

SYI SYI SYI YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW HAPPY I AM SEEING THIS OMFG PREACH BRO THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING

You've given me so much inspiration OMG Funneh being worse than she actually thinks is my favorite take on her and I'm so glad I'm not the only one who sees it (no offense to the people who think differently btw)

She's someone who actively denies negativity and chases thrill, even if it is at the cost of others. And I've always wondered what it'd be like if this side of her's was seen through a different perspective (hence the Divided AU which focuses on multiple POVs).

a little explanation on why i see yhs!funneh as a mirror to yumi/yandere-chan.

ive mentioned before that i see funneh as a mirror or a parallel to yumi, but i never really go in depth about it bc i dont really care enough to explain myself, but i have time before my next class so i might as well 🥀🥀

[ DISCLAIMER: I AM REFERRING TO THE OC "FUNNEH", NOT KAT WHEN MAKING THIS POST. KAT IS A PERSON, AND I AM SPECIFICALLY DISSECTING THE YHS FUNNEH. ]

lets break it down:

characters, roles, and storylines.

funneh's role is to be the main protagonist of the main yhs series—which is storyline 1: funneh's journal logs, with gold being the deuteragonist in her life at yhs.

yumi, meanwhile, takes the role of the main protagonist of the lore of the yhs series—storyline 2: the murders—with alec as her deuteragonist. these roles are important for later.

in terms of character and motivation, we get little to nothing from funneh—yumi is motivated by her "love" for senpai. this may just be a huge hole in the krew's writing of funneh in general, but we don't have a set backstory for gold or funneh in the series—no flashbacks, no mention of parents or siblings, and worst of all, no scenes of them at "home", because they go to a boarding school.

funneh doesn't have emotional motivation, but yumi does. you might think this is a direct contradiction of what I'm trying to say, but it actually just fuels what i have to say more because there's reasonable suspicion that funneh may or may not be running from something she's done.

personality and behaviors.

in terms of personality, yumi and funneh are completely different, yet stay in the same category.

in season 1: yumi is volatile, reckless, and unafraid to use violence and threats to get her way. it's offhandedly mentioned that she's killed someone just for the sake of "she looked too much like me", not only in season 1, but in season 2 with ayano. she's jealous, possessive, and self absorbed. (i do want to clarify that she's not a narcissist because she doesn't crave other people's validation and attention) she's a sinister and well written villain, i applaud the krew for being able to write her so well.

in season 1, funneh is just as self absorbed, reckless, and volatile. she doesn't care if what she does hurts people she doesn't like (re: she wanted to jump on mr. draco in ep 6) or if someone is dying (re: olivia's "suicide"), she only cares about having fun and doing things she deems fun or cool. funneh doesn't care about overstepping other people's boundaries or even respecting them. this is very apparent in season 1 where she's constantly insulting and stomping over kyran while they're staying at his dorm (rewatch s1 of yhs again after kyran is introduced, i promise you, funneh and gold treat him so much worse than you remember)

she's also seen breaking into dorms multiple times just to steal food or even breaking into private areas like the police station to steal evidence or taytay's trailer to steal a hairbrush to sell.

deuteragonists.

kyran is not the only victim of funneh being pushy and mean either. gold is also a huge victim of her whims, but funneh also clearly cares enough for her to yield, kind of treating her like a dog—restricting her from things (like a credit card or millions of dogs), giving her a treat now and then to keep her loyal. notable moments of this is when gold almost dies at yumi's party and funneh brushes her off and calls it a freak accident. (personally, if that happened to my best friend at someone's house, i would crash out and take my bestfriend home.)

multiple times, gold says she doesn't want to do something and funneh keeps pushing and coercing her into dangerous situations. that's not something a good friend would do. a good friend can respect your boundaries, even your hard nos.

cross reference what i mentioned with yumi and alec, and suddenly, you're getting the same dynamic. the only difference being alec is doing it for the money and to live, while gold is doing it because funneh is her best friend. they're both being coerced and victimized by antisocial people, even if funneh has more humanity in her.

theories.

this is section is a LOT more fanon than the earlier sections, so feel free to disagree on this! it's not canon, and most likely just me yapping.

theory 1: anyway, i personally think funneh has a likely chance of being a narcissist while yumi is a sociopath. narcissists (NPD) and sociopaths (ASPD) fall into the same cluster of personality disorders, cluster b. the symptoms of cluster b personalities often overlap with each other, giving leeway into why funneh has more emotions than yumi does. why do i think this and should i probably not be using irl mental diagnoses as headcanons? yes, probably BUT both characters have a lot of symptoms of those diagnoses. (not to say people who have NPD or ASPD will act like funneh or yumi, im js saying they have symptoms of those disorders. not everyone with NPD will be like funneh and not everyone with ASPD will be like yumi, im js pointing out symptoms)

theory 2: funneh has killed someone/was involved with someone's murder. she's seen running away from things a lot, and its not hard to imagine she's done something very bad and has hidden it and is trying to run from it.

anyway, thats about it, thanks for reading this long ass post. love u! i have class ill see yall laterr 🤍

[namvinoi]

Reminders for fanfic writers who think it “doesn’t count”

✦ Your writing counts. like, a lot. If someone felt something because of what you wrote, then it matters. That scene you almost didn’t post? Yeah. Believe me, someone out there bookmarked it for a reason.

✦ Writing existing characters doesn’t make it “less than.” You’re building arcs, crafting dialogue, emotion, pacing. You’re studying character psychology like a scientist. That’s not “just fanfic,” that’s storytelling.

✦ “but it’s just fanfic” ...no. STOP, it’s craft. It’s understanding tone. It’s hitting emotional beats. It’s layering theme and backstory and prose into something people feel. You’re doing the work, you just don’t get graded on it. (Which, honestly is a blessing.)

✦ Writing fanfic means you love stories enough to live inside them. You care, deeply. You care enough to reimagine, to explore, to add something of yourself to a world you didn’t create and somehow still make it feel brand new.

✦ Someone out there rereads your fic like it’s their favorite book. Maybe they’ve saved a line to their notes app,or they quote it to a friend. Maybe they just think about it when they’re having a bad day. That little fic you almost deleted, it’s comfort now.

✦ Your comments section is real. Every “I needed this” and “this made me cry in a good way” is proof, you don’t need a book deal to matter. You don’t need a publisher to have an impact, because you already do.

FANFIC IS WRITING! Fanfic is yours.

You’re not “just” anything. You’re a writer, own it. Be proud of that.

[namvinoi]

i am not immune to the "character's eyes glow when they use their powers" trope

[namvinoi]

Lord of the Mysteries - The Seer Pathway

[namvinoi]

hey uh new type of ao3 spam comment just dropped. (I know it's spam because the fic they left this comment on . doesn't have chapters. lmfao). Report this kinda comment as spam and don't take it personally it is literally recycled bullshit

[namvinoi]

Good news y'all I finally re-stocked on depression meds after 3 months of going without them!

I feel so free rn omg is this how normal people feel

[namvinoi]

If Satomi has been dethroned as the fav, who is now the fav?

sorry girl- But Pan and Viri stole your spot

[namvinoi]

Have a YHS Fanart!!!

This took very long to make, in ibispaint X, (60 hours in total)

Also, P.S. I did not know Valerie was holding a flint and steel, so I couldn't add that (ToT)

[namvinoi]

Forced myself to draw something

Take that depression! (yes, I am diagnosed)

Short haired Funneh, save me short haired Funneh

[namvinoi]

the absolute funniest thing about me is how i write the most disgustingly shallow, painfully average, self-indulgent romcom garbage¹

and yet somehow i’m completely obsessed with gorgeously dark, deeply emotional, sharply tailored prose that rips your heart out and then leaves you bleeding on the floor²

like i dream of writing something plot-driven, something tragic, something political and full of betrayal and silent menace³

but nope. all i do is write “what if they drunkenly married in vegas” and “pls someone stop these idiots before they ruin their lives again” and “why do they keep making terrible decisions around coffee”⁴

i try to get serious, i swear. i try to build tension, to create meaningful conflict. but all i end up with is characters having 15 pages of banter about tacos and whether or not they’re ‘the bad guy’⁵

the darkest i ever get is when someone gets maybe tortured a little (and definitely cries a lot) and then they hold hands and it’s Very Dramatic™ with a side of guilt and 4000 words of awkward silence⁶

i’m sorry to the part of me that wanted to be a Serious Literary Author™. she’s been dead since the first draft. now i just write romcoms starring emotionally stunted idiots and somehow that’s my brand⁷

and honestly? i don’t even hate it. the chaos is my chaos. the mess is my mess. the endless "will they or won’t they" is my religion.

---

¹ aka: the plotless romcom hellscape no one asked for but here we are

² but only if it’s by literally anyone else, tyvm

³ give me cold political intrigue, quiet betrayals, and characters who say “it’s done” and you know someone just got offed offscreen

⁴ also includes but is not limited to: mysterious nosebleeds, accidental pregnancies, and 17 variations on “i hate you but also want to kiss you”

⁵ honestly these conversations are the only things keeping me alive

⁶ bonus points if there’s a fever and a slow-burn guilt spiral that never resolves

⁷ currently surviving on a diet of coffee, bad decisions, and emotional repression

[namvinoi]

fairytale au im nver touchinf ever again after this

[namvinoi]

How to use Em Dash (—) and Semi Colon ( ; )

Since the ai accusations are still being thrown around, here's how i personally like to use these GASP ai telltales. 🦄✨

Em Dashes (—)

To emphasize a shift / action / thought.

They're accusing us—actually accusing us—of using AI.

To add drama.

They dismissed our skills as AI—didn't even think twice, the dimwits—and believed they were onto something.

To insert a sudden thought. Surely they wouldn't do that to us—would they?

To interrupt someone's speech. "Hey, please don't say that. I honed my craft through years of blood and tears—" "Shut up, prompter."

To interrupt someone's thoughts / insert a sudden event.

We're going to get those kudos. We're going to get those reblogs—

A chronically online Steve commented, “it sounds like ai, idk.”

Semi Colons ( ; )

To join two closely related independent sentences / connect ideas.

Not only ChatGPT is capable of correct punctuation; who do you think it learned from in the first place?

Ultimate pro tip: use them whenever the fuck you want. You don't owe anyone your creative process. 🌈

[namvinoi]

Happy belated one day (for me) pride month everyone!! (Ft. My new TikTok PFP)

In case you don't know, the flag in the bg is the Agender flag! I still have absolutely no clue what my sexuality is since it's always changing, whether it's Bisexual or AroAce or some other sexuality I had no idea about, I guess I'll never know

And that's okay

[namvinoi]

No clue how I managed to draw something twice in a row but fuck it we ball

(This outfit isn't the final one btw I'm just using it as a placeholder)

Anyways, incoherent D! Funneh ramble below ↓

Something I've noticed when writing Divided AU Funneh along with how she interacts and views the world, is the stark contrast between her and her canon self.

Whenever I try to imagine D! Funneh doing something Canon Funneh wouldn't, I just can't get my mind to wrap around it. It's so weird. Because C! Funneh would never manipulate someone for her own gain, let alone for her own amusement. Sure, she's lied in the past, like to Gold about her... "Wonderful" cooking. But those were lies meant to protect, not destroy, not to make someone hurt. Done out of the want to care, not need of habit.

Maybe she was always like this.

C! Funneh would never approach someone with the intent of using them or harming them. Maybe it's the weight of all her past guilt that numbs her to the feeling, maybe it was just how she raised even. Maybe it was how she was born.

Except, she wasn't. Far away, in a distant past, in much simpler times, she could feel regret. The regret of making a mistake, the regret of having done damage, the regret of having none. The guilt will stay yet she would never regret anything she ever did. What's done is done.

So it makes it all the more heartbreaking when in another world... She does feel regret, she does question the consequences of her actions. In another world, she's a completely normal girl, with dreams and fears anyone could have, someone who can differentiate between right and wrong. Who can see beauty in a world of various shades of grays, and even darker grays.

In another world, she wasn't as damaged.