#Sam: yeah I don’t *want* to rule hell but. idk it is kind of validating that they want me as their king

[quietwingsinthesky]

Trans Boy King Sam is very funny. Demons will do possession, torture, murder, all that jazz, and brag about it, but transphobia? Absolutely not. Not in their Hell.

Sure, Azazel will throw Sam into a demon blood hunger games, but he’ll use the right pronouns for him the whole time. He’s not a monster.

[dottie-wan-kenobi]

Hey! A bit ago I saw that you were wondering if anyone was interested in a tutorial on dialogue?? And I just wanted to say that I would totally love to learn how to write dialogue/banter like you do, if you’re still interested in creating that tutorial of course

Hi yes of course I’m still interested!! But before I jump in, let me say that this is by no means a be-all-end-all, and this is just what works for me. If it works for other people, that’s great! If it doesn’t, that’s totally valid! Maybe this could be a jumping off point for other pieces of advice, idk. But anyway, let’s gooooo

Okay so I’m gonna be pulling out a bad example of my own writing, and a good example for each point, which is extra but will hopefully show the differences, & I’ll be doing it without putting anyone else down so yeet!

SAY IT OUT LOUD, MAKE SURE IT FLOWS, MAKE SURE IT MAKES SENSE

Another point to this one is, can you imagine real life people saying it? If the answer is no, then you gotta rework it. If the answer is yes, then yay!

Otherwise I’m not really sure how to explain this. Making sure it makes sense is easy enough, and saying it out loud is too, but making sure it flows is different. What I do for this is maybe not the best advice, but I use less periods. Commas, dashes, and ellipses keep it from being choppy. Also, adding words/phrases such as ‘well’, ‘like’, ‘I mean’, ‘uh/um/er/etc’ can help connect sentences/thoughts together in a realistic way.

BAD EXAMPLE:

“Bruce shrugged. “I knew, but didn’t realize, I guess. I’ve known he was young since I first learned about him.”

Clint, who was blanching, said, “he looks like a kid. Or an underage father. Think about what he had to go through as a kid, though."” - posted on July 1st, 2014

Why it’s bad: (Ignoring the horrible blocking dskljflksdf)

It doesn’t flow! Bruce’s line here feels just a little off, probably bc I was trying to put information where it shouldn’t have been (more on that later), but even without the second sentence, it’s still off. Time to reword, then; I’d change it to “I learned about it when I was studying him, but I kinda…forgot.” Idk about yall, but I can see Mark Ruffalo saying this, shrugging sheepishly. This flows a lot better and in my experience, it’s more likely someone would say this instead of “I didn’t realize, I guess”.

Clint’s lines should be combined, and there should be some diction added in. “He looks almost like a kid, or like, an underage father. God, think about what he had to go through!” Way less choppy & has some rhythm to it, instead of sounding like a robot is saying it.

GOOD EXAMPLE:

““Stop texting me weird stuff so late at night.”

“It’s not weird,” Sam denies immediately, “You just don’t appreciate it.”

“Why would I appreciate—” Steve reads carefully off his screen, “—Buzzfeed’s ‘Which Possible Illuminati Member Are You?’ quiz?”

“Because everyone thinks you’re in the Illuminati anyway, so why not see if you get yourself, you know?”

“Okay, but at four am? What were you even doing up that early?”” - posted on March 2nd, 2019

Why it’s good:

This is one of those I suggest reading out loud to understand the flow. Banter, at least in this case, is like slapstick comedy, and it’s gotta go back and forth without going way off course (unless that’s the desired effect!). Steve says something, Sam picks something specific to react to & adds a comment that makes it seem like they’ve maybe had this conversation before, and from there, they pass the rhythm to each other. Going from the second-to-last to the last lines is part of the flow; Sam makes a point that Steve doesn’t want to refute, so he continues it in another way. “Okay, but” is like the hinge connecting one flow to another. I’m just talking in circles now but anYWAY THIS IS BACK AND FORTH.

TRY TO FIT THE CHARACTER

Think specifically about the character, and if it sounds like something they would say or not. That’s kinda hard at times, so just make sure you aren’t having them say things you can definitely NOT imagine them saying. I’m gonna go with Batman because we all know him enough to know what he absolutely would never ever say.

BAD EXAMPLE:

Batman says, “And I was like, ‘oh my god, is this serious? You’re just turning yourself in?’ And he said ‘hell yeah I am!’ and I almost died from the shock!”

Why it’s bad: 

Batman is a character who doesn’t ramble and wouldn’t retell an event like this (by paraphrasing it & recounting exact exchanges). He’s a very stoic person, and this whole thing is more emotionally open and telling than he would be comfortable with. And while this flows, I can’t picture him saying it unless it’s a heavily AU’d version, which is generally not what you want.

GOOD EXAMPLE:

Batman says, “The Joker turned himself in last night. I assume he’s planning something, something big if he’s willing to go to Arkham for it.”

Why it’s good: 

This is a lot more subtle with the emotions, and a lot more monotonous, which is what Batman would probably want to sound like when recounting an event like this. He WANTS to sound like a textbook or police report, which are serious and straight to the point. But he can still add his thoughts into the mix, e.g. “something big…”, which shows how he’s kind of surprised and is thinking about what it means.

YA CAN’T ALWAYS INPUT INFORMATION INTO THE DIALOGUE

Sometimes you really want or need to share some information with the readers, and an easy way to do that is with dialogue, right? Sometimes! This, like everything else, hinges on flow & the realisticness of the words. Some pieces of info need to be conveyed through thoughts or actions, and some of it just shouldn’t be shared, no matter how much you might want to include it.

BAD EXAMPLE:

“Bonnie asked, “so…Original vampire? What does that mean, exactly? If you don’t mind my asking, I mean.”

“It means that my siblings and I were turned into the very first vampires after the death of my youngest brother. Also turned were my father, sister-in-law, and nephew. All vampires in existence come from us.”” - posted on March 6th, 2017

Why it’s bad: 

The OG vampire in question here is Elijah, and while it makes sense for the character to quickly summarize it, it doesn’t flow. He would probably react firstly to Bonnie’s last sentence, then answer more concisely, “It means that my family and I are the first vampires in existence.” Maybe with an additional comment about them being the source of all other vampires, but not much more. Being so specific chops up the rhythm and makes it harder to understand, almost, ‘cause that’s a lot of people to keep in consideration.

GOOD EXAMPLE:

““What are you talking about, Kev?” Cheryl sets her phone down, the picture of fully-invested. “Schools don’t just shut down in one day.”

Kevin flops into the other chair, breathing calmed for the most part. “Apparently they do. Dad told me they arrested a teacher there for selling Jingle Jangle to students, and when they were going through his office they found meth. The basement was being used as a meth lab. The whole thing’s being quarantined and shut down until further notice.”” - posted on August 2nd, 2018

Why it’s good: 

It flows!!! For being secondhand information, it’s clear enough to understand without bombarding readers with extremely specific details. It reads almost like an online article, with enough feeling to make it interesting, while still explaining exactly what’s happened.

DIFFERENT MOODS/DYNAMICS

Something to think about when writing dialogue is what mood your characters are in, and what kind of relationship they have with the character(s) they’re talking to. If person A is in a bad mood and talking to someone they like, they might try to tamp down on the mood in order to be nice. If person B is in a great mood and talking to a stranger, they might be pretty exuberant and friendly. Etc etc. Gonna use Superman as an example (this is extremely cheesy but it shows the difference).

BAD EXAMPLE: (Mood)

Extremely annoyed, Superman tells Lex Luthor, “Lex, you’re crazy! Trying to take over Metropolis with a hair growing scheme is just stupid! I’m leaving!”

He goes on to his date with Lois, now as Clark Kent, and says with a smile, “Sorry I’m fifty-seven minutes late, Lex kept me at work! Anyway, how was your day?”

Why it’s bad: 

Okay I know this is cheesy I’m sorry I wrote this at 2 am last night lkdjflksjdfhskjdfhjashf ANYWAY. Superman goes from talking to Lex, who he doesn’t like and is quite annoyed with, to talking to Lois, who he does like and presumably isn’t annoyed with at all. The problem here is that you usually can’t turn moods off like a switch. Even though Superman likes Lois, he wouldn’t walk into the date perfectly happy. The annoyance from dealing with Lex would stay with him (though it would probably fade the longer the date went on). I think instead of smiling, he would be rolling his eyes a little and complaining like, “I swear, he’s so inconsiderate….”, instead of immediately jumping into “how was your day?”

GOOD EXAMPLE: (Dynamic)

Superman laughs as Robin does a flip off his shoulder. “Good job! Maybe next time we could try it from a little higher up,” he winks.

Robin cheers, “Yes! Thanks, Uncle Clark!”

Superman nods and leaves, finding Batman in the hallway. Seriously, he says, “Batman.”

“Superman.”

“Did you get your report done? They’re due by this afternoon.”

Why it’s good: 

Again with the cheese that’s my bad lmao. This is mostly to show that characters are gonna sound different when speaking to different people. When talking to Robin, who is a child and quite a friendly one at that, Superman is teasing and joking around. Then, when he talks to Batman, who’s a grown man and also his coworker, he’s more serious and to the point. Both situations fit his character but show he’s got different relationships with different people.

IN CONCLUSION, uhhhhh yeah follow these points and hopefully dialogue will come a little easier. Experiment and have fun with it (these aren’t rules, but guidelines!), and if there are any questions I’m happy to clear them up/answer them/whatever lol.

[asiryn]

so hey.......y’all remember when i said that sometimes, just for fun and the hell of it, i make lists of “endgame” ships in my fandoms? bc yeah, that’s a thing that i do sometimes. XD

having now finished kh3, i’ve finally finished my endgame ship list for kh, and i figured that it might be a fun thing to share!

the actual list i’m gonna put behind a cut, bc it’ll be hella long (bc seriously.....i put about 95% of the characters into ships, and this includes all of the humanoid-ish disney characters too (barring most of the villains, bc....well, those characters are dead)), but before that, i’ll give you some....idk, context behind this list. 

keep in mind, this entire affair is just like........gonna involve a fuck-ton of indulgence on my part. and most of this is fairly light-hearted. most importantly of all, this is pretty much a self-challenge: i paired up the majority of the characters just to see if i could, with the additional challenge that i could only pair them with characters that actually, canonically, have appeared in kh (this means that i couldn’t substitute in other final fantasy or disney characters); i did this to see how creative i could get with my ships, really. 

idk if i’ll ever actually get around to writing fanfic for this verse (tho i do have a lot of headcanons, and i’ve actually put (probably far too much) thought into how i think these ships would work/come about, and my long-suffering friend Ip, bless her, has been an incredibly good sport about being a sounding board for all this), but i tend to refer to it as my “Healing Vision”, and it’s basically a post-kh3 AU, that presumes that everyone but xehanort (and also eraqus) got to live happily ever after. and this verse is so named bc, apart from everyone being able to heal and be happy after the traumatic canon, i also wanted to do my absolute best to put them in.....idk, healthy ships, and not ones that i think would be more toxic. everyone had redemption arcs, is what i’m saying (even if they never did or would have gotten them in canon).

y’all don’t understand, at this point i probably have over a hundred pages in various word docs of notes about this verse, so please feel free to ask if you want to hear more about it, i need validation of my madness---

anyway, here we go!

just so that there isn’t just a massive wall of text, i’m gonna break this up into roughly 2 sections: square/original kh characters, and then the rest of the disney characters.

Square/original KH characters:

Olette/Xion/Namine/Sora/Riku [OXN, SoNami, & SoRiku], Shiki/Kairi/Selphie, Axel/Saix, Hayner/Roxas, Terra/Cinderella, Aqua/Larxene/Yuffie, Repliku/Vanitas, Ven/Beat [more friends w/ benefits], Xigbar/Luxord, Aeleus/Even, Ienzo/Demyx, Sora’s Mom/Dilan, (Cinderella’s) Prince Charming/Marluxia, Geppetto/Ansem, Tidus/Wakka, Zack/Cloud/Leon, Aerith/Tifa, Cid/Auron, Fuu/Tinker Bell, Seifer/Rai, Jack Sparrow/Setzer, Boo/Vivi [platonic], Rikku/Paine, Yuna/Elsa, Neku/Joshua, Rhyme/Snow White, Hiro/Pence, & Eraqus/Xehanort [together in death]

i have no idea what’s going on with the khux characters going forward, and atm they don’t really have anything to do this AU, but assuming they’re alive and they’re all their own characters, at least for the time being, those ships would be: Skuld/Strelitzia, Ava/Ephemer, Invi/Ira/Aced, Gula/Brain, and Sephiroth/Master of Masters (but again, these are more tentative, and i don’t actually care about these characters, really)

Disney characters:

(again, keep in mind that these are only the humanoid or really anthropomorphic characters; ones that are straight up animals, like simba for example, were not included)

Mickey/Minnie/Daisy/Donald/Goofy [M/M, D/D, MinDaisy, & qpt Donald/Goofy], Horace Horsecollar/Pete, Clarabelle Cow/Clara Cluck, Hercules/Meg, Tarzan/Jane, Aladdin/Jasmine, Ariel/Eric, Belle/Beast, Lumiere/Cogsworth, Will/Elizabeth, Quasimodo/Phoebus/Esmeralda, Kristoff/Anna/Rapunzel/Eugene, Maleficent/Aurora/Mulan/Shang/Phillip [Malora, Philora, Mulora, Mulan/Shang, Phillip/Shang], Alice/Wendy, Peter/Wendy [qpt], Peter/Tinker Bell [qpt], (BatB) Chip/Pinocchio, Anastasia/Chien Po, Yao/Prince (from Snow White), Ling/Drizella, Merlin/Yen Sid, Hades/Genie, Mrs. Potts/Flora, Merryweather/Triton, Hook/Smee, Doc/Grumpy, Blue Fairy/Dopey, Fairy Godmother/Happy, Fauna/Bashful, Slightly/Cubby [platonic], Calypso/Barbossa, Sam Flynn/Quorra, Queen of Hearts/Agrabah Merchant, (BatB) Wardrobe/Gibbs, Emperor/Sleepy [his cuddle-cubine, if you will], Grand Duke/Sneezy, Mike/Sulley, Woody/Buzz, Honey Lemon/Go Go, Wasabi/Fred, Baymax/Tron/Baymax, & Phil/Zeus

Assorted Notes:

- should probably mention that all the worlds are just vaguely All Connected Now

- ven and hercules dated in bbs (then the Plot happened, ven pretty much vanished, and eventually herc moved on. they’re a bit awkward with each other now, but they agreed it’d be too weird to even attempt to date now, bc herc outgrew ven while he was in a magic coma)

- zack’s alive bc they forced hades to resurrect him like he did with auron (my hc is that the deal he made with cloud in kh1 was to bring zack back to life, but hades reneged on this; when cloud finally shared this info with sora, a Quest was undertaken to get hades to honor the deal)

- repliku’s name in this verse is Kiru (he decided to go along with the Theme, minus the sigil); sora’s mom is named Hikari; and i’m going with henry and florian for the real names of prince charming and snow’s prince, respectively (marluxia will probably still call henry “charming” as a sort of affectionate and kind of joking nickname (bc in this verse, henry is the definition of a Disaster Gay))

- goofy and pete dated in the past, but broke up with goofy came out as aroace; pete’s still kinda bitter about it

- aqua/larxene/yuffie is 100% a thing bc i feel that aqua deserves to be able to have fun and not be the responsible mom friend for once; aqua and cinderella also have some playful flirting, but it’s never really serious

- terra’s getting a staycation with his girlfriend, and aqua’s getting a vacation with her girlfriends 

- olette/xion/namine/sora/riku is Peak indulgence for me; i love namixiolette, sonami, and soriku too much to want to choose between them? fuck it, they’re all smushed together in a poly pile now. this is my indulgence fic, i can do what i want, and none of you can stop me XP (the other sub-ship combos, riku with any of the girls, and sora with the other two girls, are more queerplatonic, ftr)

- there’s like a whole soap opera behind mickey/minnie/daisy/donald/goofy coming to their current arrangement, mostly bc the idea of giving all the Drama to these characters in particular amuses me; same with past goofy/pete

- a recurring Theme in this verse is that compulsory heterosexuality is the true darkness, and pretty much no one is straight (and so, light = gay) (this is how the final confrontation in kh3 truly went down: sora: kingdom hearts, is gay! / xehanort: shit...u right, bro. kk, lemme just fade into the light of gay with my bf then)

- sephiroth in this verse is mostly just a vehicle for me to be able to mildly punish terrible lightside mentors, so this ship with the MoM is kinda a cracky spite ship (before kh3 went all in on xehaqus, this was eraqus’s original fate XD)

- i will admit, gula/brain is mostly just me going, “you both really annoy me, and i don’t care to find you better ships, so you two can deserve each other”; to be fair to myself, this attitude was on the rarer side during this process

- hiro totally builds a robot body for tron to use to visit the outside world, tho he still chooses to live in the computer most of the time; tron’s besties with baymax 1 & 2

- i’ll be honest: scrooge, huey, dewey, louie, chip, dale, and possibly jiminy, by my rules, should have been put into ships. they’re not bc i couldn’t find any that worked for me *shrugs*

- phil is more like zeus’s on and off again boyfriend; he’s really fucking annoyed that he keeps having to train a lot of zeus’s offspring, and that he kinda, in a way, ends up doing more parenting for them than zeus does; currently phil is kinda claiming herc away from zeus (”i’m his dad now, so there”) (so at this point, their relationship is more of a hatemance than anything else) (i guess in my hc, zeus skews more towards being like his myth self than the disney version)

- the total number of ships, if you’re curious, is 75

- i’ve actually got queer headcanons for the square characters (excluding the khux squad), and some of the disney characters, figured out (as an example, namine is a demiromantic asexual)

okay, i think i’ll stop here for now, tho of course i might tweak or add things later XD