#also anon about the princessxtoji fic

[willowser]

hi willow!! 3 and 26 for the writer asks? :>

3. What is your writing ritual and why is it cursed?

my writing ritual always starts out with things that i probably shouldn't be putting so much focus on LOL and it usually starts with creating a pinterest board, or looking at one i've already made. i have to see everything in order to get my creative juices flowing, and so i try to acquire as many visual aids as i can to help with the process. i also spend an absurd amount of time finding the right ambiance and/or white noise to write with. for southern charm, it was a lot of red dead redemption with thunderstorm backgrounds LOL and then for honey, don't feed me it's been a lot of the ghost of tsushima ost, things like that. at some point — and this has to happen, in order for me to get anywhere — i go on like a three hour walk and listen to music, usually from a playlist i've already made for the fic i'm trying to write, and i just daydream what is to come. i really enjoy this part because i can just put my body on autopilot and put all my energy into my brain. this is all cursed bc i'm so sure none of it is necessary LOL but it must happen. it must.

26. How do you get into your character’s head? How do you get out? Do you ever regret going in there in the first place?

well, first of all, i have to have — what i believe to be — a very serious understanding of their character, and even if it's not exactly canon, i have to have a decent grasp on something. i can't half-ass comprehend a character, which is why i'm hesitant to write someone like toji or gojo or hawks for example, because i think they are more complex than they seem. it takes my full focus to dissect a character like that, and it's not something i can do quickly or on command; it takes genuine effort. i also have to find something — anything at all — that is myself in them. it's the best way for me to relate to them and therefore write them, and 99% of the time, it's never the pretty things LOL

writing bakugou, i call a lot on my own issues with insecurity and the struggle i can sometimes have expressing myself correctly in words. dabi is — as you know, mao dearest LOL — a whirlwind of things; i quite literally explore the ugliest sides of myself, and i don't mean that i am "like" him or can actually relate to him, but — that voice in your head that flares up on instinct when you're angry, how deeply things from your past still affect you, that overwhelming, all encompassing fear of rejection and not being enough, all that bad stuff — i dig into that to write with that at the forefront of my mind. i take all these things that naturally occur to me and then put myself in their shoes, if that makes sense, and try to multiply it in a way that is justifiable to their character.

i don't find it too hard to get out of those spaces either, and so i don't regret them ! bc they tend to be dark places and i grow tired of living in them, and actively look forward to writing something else.