#but i have the whole story plotted out and it deviates very little from the orig plan

[silviakundera]

How's duke Su different in the books from the show?

Short answer: perhaps we can consider novel!ML as the person drama!ML has liked to imagine he is

Long answer:

original flavor novel Duke Su is not gonna be caught crying a single perfect poignant tear for NOBODY

the man is cold as a chinese celebrity's career who hasn't paid taxes in 10 years

infamously gave a lukewarm review on novel FL's original self, the city's Most Beautiful (3 1/2 stars: attractive enough but no X factor)

(note: novel!FL was a calamitous beauty in Life 1, not the Most Talented. She was super talented but was conforming to convention and hiding her brilliance to fit the role of a proper official's wife)

(this bland review is not actually a point of resentment for FL, whose POV is, 'yeah fair enough, you could call me overrated')

(the Jiang Li's body is not Shockingly Most Beautiful like in Life 1; she doesn't miss being outrageously hot, as it was mostly a nuisance)

Duke Su is still dramatic af and lives for theatre

Still loves fans & gorgeous clothes (the man wears butterflies on his cloak) (he loves beauty so much he only staffs exceptionally attractive servants and has elite gardeners to ensure THE MOST GLORIOUS FLOWERS IN THE DUKE SU MANSION ONLY THE BEST FOR THIS LORD)

(like I really must emphasize how little chill novel!ML has: at one point FL notes that a new resident rented down the street from the Ye family, with hot ass servants and blaring opera non-stop, it's clearly Duke Su for some godforsaken reason)(and she's right)

Still suspecting FL's identity and amused at her bravado

But has zero inclination to ease her pains or preserve her life

Before FL gets to the mines subplot to come rescue her dad, he has been just sipping tea and enjoying the show (despite her fucking up a couple of his plans - he loves a good public play and tbh he is confident enough not to be pressed about some minor deviations)

he doesn't reach out to lend a hand until she FORCES him to act

By loudly exposing to a group of assassins that Duke Su has obviously been plotting a long game in the shadows for years to destabilize and split the court, raising Wang Chang, the Princess, Li family, Jiang family et al to gain power & fight each other and trouble the throne - so Duke Su becomes the 1 most powerful & trusted councilor to the emperor.

(Yes we have a Story of Kunning Palace situation here, where the drama adaption tweaks the ML's motives and aims so he's going in the same direction but is pro-emperor instead of scheming & manipulating for his own personal interests)

Duke Su was ready to literally watch FL be horribly violated & murdered, but then she spilled the tea and he had to drop bodies to destroy the evidence

He's gonna kill her too but like in a quick & polite manner, he's a gentleman

But she was super understanding about the whole situation and so he ended up hearing her out: how about just let me get my revenge first? Very convenient to you, here's a suicide voucher, could we come back to this at a later date? 2 to 3 good plays included. xoxo

Now he's got a voucher for 1 (one) strange teenage girl

Who doesn't appear to be a teenage girl.

She's also completely won over his sidekicks.

This is gonna take a lot of fans.

[physalian]

Physalian’s Curated Tips on Worldbuilding Megapost

Some of these are *not* mine, they’re from author Randy Ellefson, I’m just interpreting the tips I like in my own words. These specifically come from his book, 185 Tips on World Building. I don’t agree with all of them, because he tends to read as a “you must do this specific thing to be successful,” which is limiting and doesn’t consider when elements work because they’re different, these books are also in the “throw all your eggs in one basket” camp for your one series/mythos, instead of different worlds for different universes.

Ellefson also disagrees with my argument of “everything you build doesn’t have to serve a purpose”. Verbatim, in his book, he says: “There’s no reason to invent something if we don’t have a plan for it.” Which, sorry, no. Easter eggs and details purely for fluff in a one-off sentence make your world feel real.

That said, he does have some useful nuggets I’ll paraphrase below, and some I just went off-book entirely.

1. Pacing your Workflow

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and sitting down to hash out all the elements of your world in one sitting and never deviating from that path greatly limits the scope and variety you could come up with. As I wrote in my “when worldbuilding gets weird” post, the real world wasn’t manufactured by a nitpicky author on a quest to absolve us of plot holes—let your worldbuilding be a little illogical and contradictory and just plain strange and inexplicable.

The best way to do that is to worldbuild when inspiration strikes, or at least leaving your worldbuilding loose enough to add in extra details and spice whenever you come up with something cool. Do a little note here or there, toss it in your “worldbuilding” bin, and you’ll likely end up with something far more unique and organic than following any step-by-step method.

2. Are the Gods Real?

In essence—say you have your fantasy world and your fantasy religions. Decide whether or not those prayers can actually be answered, and to what degree, and how the existence (or just speculation) of your world’s religion impacts scientific thought and endeavors.

You can write a whole-ass religion with all these beliefs and practices, and leave it entirely up to speculation whether there’s anyone listening. Or strike it somewhere in the middle where they do exist but aren’t very hands on, or they do exist, but only for certain groups, or they did exist, etc.

In my WIP sci-fi series, I had a little bit of both. One world where they’re very much real and there’s proof, and one world where everyone sure believes their capital-G god is real, with zero evidence.

3. Species vs Races

Most of the time, in fantasy, they’re different “races” in that they can intermarry and interbreed and create things like half-elves. In sci-fi, they tend to be different species with different lifespans, biological structures, diets, habitats, restrictions, etc. If your world is the latter, something really underexplored in these kinds of settings is how being completely different species can be devastating to romantic relationships that connect on an intellectual level, but just can’t on a long-term scale.

Also an aside—if you’re going to write a racism allegory consider the following: Racism in the real world is a social construct. We are all human and the differences between us are negligible, making all the fearmongering baseless. And yet, in so many stories, fantasy racism is between two legitimately different species or between one group, and one Much Cooler group (mutants, fairies, elves, aliens, supernatural entities). Suddenly the fantasy racists have a leg to stand on because they aren’t all the same species and they are fundamentally different, which… misses the point entirely? Elves vs “Dark Elves” are a whole different ballgame than “Elves vs Humans”.

4. The Planet of Hats

Taken from OSP, and Ellefson. “Gee, I wonder who the bad guys are?”

The bad guys: Blood red eyes, stereotypically ugly features, skulking around in the dark with yellow teeth, claws, a penchant for hissing, and a color pallet of reds and blacks.

The good guys: Conventionally gorgeous, pastels and bold rainbows of color, sunny utopia of a civilization.

Unless the point is to comment on the planet of hats, or be funny, try to inject some variety and nuance in the Bad Guy realm.

5. Determine the Social Hierarchy

Most of us can come up with the lower class and the rich one percenters for our worlds rather easily, I think, because those tend to be emphasized most heavily in fantasy, and your hero/villain will likely fall into either side. But do you have a middle class? What socioeconomic hurdles are in place to keep everyone in their lanes?

What’s the difference between homeless, impoverished, poor, getting by, renting, home-owning, and land-owning? How can you tell, and how does your world’s rich maintain their place, outnumbered by your world’s proletariat? Hunger Games is a fantastic example—some Districts are much more heavily favored and nurtured by the rich than others.

6. Monsters

Similar to whether or not the gods are real—are your monsters real? Does your world have their own in-universe metaphors and allegory for the “monstrous” that are still myths? What does that say about these people? Has that view around those “monsters” and what they allegorically represent in-universe changed?

If the monsters are real, are they actually monsters, or the victims of propaganda? Are the “normal people” the real monsters? Are they all just people creating violent slander against each other?

7. Plants, Animals, and Natural Resources

Stuff like this is, in my opinion, only important to heavily detail and think about if the plot demands it. As in, I don’t need to know about the land’s farming practices if a food shortage or grain disease or fantasy inflation of corn prices isn’t part of the story. A one-off line? Sure. A farmer’s backstory? Sure. Taking a random aside to talk at length about genetic engineering of onions in your book about fantasy spies? No.

That said, if this is part of your plot, mix together some real-world analogues and when it comes to fundamental methods for survival, like farming, think of what would be the path of least resistance for these people to come up with. A seaside village is probably going to survive mainly on fish, mussels, and crustaceans because it’s right there for the taking, as opposed to trying to farm avocados on starved soil. If they are trying to farm avocados, now that’s a peculiar story I’d love to hear more about.

8. Zombies?

Or the general concept of an afterlife, and reverting back from it. Is there a religion around their dead and where they go when they’re gone? Can they come back? Do the people only think they can come back? Are there whole rituals or beliefs around revival or reincarnation or body-hopping?

What parts of your afterlife really are a myth, and what can you prove within the narrative? Does it even matter to the plot if fantasy heaven is real? Do your characters refuse to believe in it, despite evidence to the contrary?

Are the “undead” bound to religious rules, or supernatural? Meaning: If I write about vampires, am I writing with Christian rules (with the churches and the holy ground and crosses being problematic) or something older? If I write about zombies, are they a natural phenomenon, or a plague from the gods?

9. On Practical Planets (Physalian’s)

I just watched a movie where there was a lock-box with a celestial combination lock, and to unlock it they needed to know the specific future date the last people who touched it would have thought of. The problem: That box predates the modern calendar, and the writers either didn’t know, didn’t care, or didn’t think it was important (it wasn’t, but still).

Same principle applies on creating planets: How “real” do you intend to get? We’re already off the edge of the map when we create multiple humanoid alien races, implying a cosmic degree of convergent evolution. The more “real” you get with your worldbuilding, the more questions you open up, the more it starts to fall apart as you put the audience’s ability to suspend their disbelief under a microscope.

Example: Artificial gravity. We can either make spinning spaceships, or just say the ship has some fancy alien tech that magically makes it happen and not explain in any further detail. And people will buy it because this is sci-fi.

When it comes to planets and concerning elements like tides, seasons, weather patterns, different gravitational pulls, whether the air should even be breathable, it can get very overwhelming very quickly if you yourself don’t allow some room for your own suspension of disbelief. So consider playing with elements on non-Earth worlds like how the night sky would look on an inhabited moon, or a binary star system, but also, this is fantasy. Just roll with it.

If you are intending to write a universe with very realistic and grounded physics, you have a lot of research to do and authors like Ellefson have plenty of guidance to help you.

10. Practical Geography (Physalian’s)

Once again: If it’s important to the plot, go ham on your climates and weather patterns and how the geography and mountains shape rainfall and such. The more bearing the physical environment has on the story, the more detail it deserves. Your fantasy city is going to need a source of freshwater and ample fields for food if they farm, vs import.

But also, get weird. Fill your fantasy geography with crazy natural phenomena. You might have a forest of trees that your fantasy woodpeckers bored a million holes through, and when the wind blows, the entire forest sounds like a godly flute. Or you have a river that runs beet purple in the spring because of a natural mineral deposit upriver, perfectly harmless. Or you have a flower that can walk, creeping around the forest floor on its root ball devouring beetles all night long.

Real world physics are fun to play with and can create some interesting problems: Like your heroes crash land on a jungle world with air they can’t breathe, demanding they address this problem that many sci-fi stories overlook, but it’s also terribly constricting. This is fantasy. Get fantastical.

11. Fantasy Politics and Why They’re in Power

100 years from now, I’d love to know how the textbooks describe the evolution of early 2000s American politics. If you have a fantasy dictator, figure out how they came to power, who they stood on to get where they are, and what parts of the populace were so desperate for a world they don’t live in, that they gave this leader the shirts off their backs.

Figure out the answer to “How did we get here?” Let it be illogical, and let our current political climate serve as example. You can have whatever hill you want to die on for your chosen politicians, for the most arbitrary reasons, and most of us don’t have well-thought-out theses on why we vote the way we do. Our views are filtered through the media we consume, and the media we don’t consume.

Let the system be broken and nonsensical—you can’t get any worse than reality.

12. Romanticizing (Physalian’s)

In other words, does your world have an era, a style of design, a way of living, a philosophy of a bygone time that they romanticize? Do they have idolized fantasy celebrities? A type of home or settlement that’s the Fantasy American Dream? What’s being advertised by the fantasy luxury, leisure, and cosmetic brands?

Was there a previous leader who led like no other? Do you have your own “Make Fantasy Land Great Again” group? Do they have merit? Is there another culture one group strives to live like? Architecture or clothing or cultural items they buy en masse to “be like the idols”.

I have a world with cultural artifacts inspired by Italian Murrine style glassblowing and via magic, they can make some physics-bending art pieces. Those artifacts, from that ancient culture, have been stolen and sold to enemy museums and the elite and have become a status symbol, even though the ancient culture just made plates and bowls out of necessity and would be horrified at their legacy.

13. Fantasy Weaponry and Innovation

Necessity inspires innovation, but what if your world never invented cars or gunpowder? For example: American land travel and urban design was built, with rare exception around our oldest cities, for cars in mind, not trains or horses and wagons and foot traffic, because of where we sit on the industrial revolution timeline. Our cities aren’t retrofitted for cars, our roads are wide enough for that sole purpose. Our settlements can be very widely spread apart because they were built with the knowledge of speedy travel in mind. Very few things, especially in the South (where I live) can be considered in “walking distance,” much less safely. You must own a car, you have no other option. The Powers That Be also hate trains because more trains means less need for cars and car companies like money.

Alternatively, how does warfare change depending on how deadly and plentiful your fantasy weapons evolve to be? Modern soldiers don’t prance around in their national colors and fancy feathered hats anymore, standing across from each other and shooting on command. Was there any practical reason for dressing your soldiers in bright, candy red, Britain? Surely must’ve been easy to spot for an ambush. Surely wasn’t practical, or logical, but it did happen.

14. Timescales

I want to address the alternative to the obvious “create a standard unit of measurement”. Show what happens when there isn’t a standard unit of measurement, and let chaos ensue. You should have one for the sake of not confusing your readers, but in-universe, have different cultures choosing to die on their hill of having 25 months when the rest of the world has 23, with the former based on their local natural phenomena and the latter based on lunar cycles.

“Military time” as we call it in the US, is the standard 24-hour clock that still confuses us and has us counting up on our fingers. A system we refuse to change even though it’s fundamentally the same amount of time, is a broken system that we still use because it's too hard to change (like the imperial measurement system).

15. Famous Places and Significant Architecture

Do you have a fantasy Disneyland? What about a fantasy remnant of a fantasy World's Fair randomly in your city? Or a bidding war between rival artists amounting to crazy monuments and art installations around the region trying to one-up each other? Your own Chicago Bean with a real name that no one uses and most of us aren’t even aware exists?

Or for religious purposes, what do your churches look like? Do they tower skyward as a monument to a celestial creator, or do they bury deep below ground and into the ocean, to reach a land or water god? Are they massive monuments or humble temples? Are they beautiful displays of wealth, or little wooden gazebos built by the locals? What does your architecture say about your culture?

16. Languages and Cultural Barriers (Physalian’s)

Whether you decide to write your own language (of which I made a guide for) or come up with a few words here and there and allude to foreign tongues, how do these languages, and the people who speak them, navigate foreign lands? How is the dominant language taught? Is the foreign language looked down on and discriminated against? Is even speaking it or having a name from it considered a crime? Are signs and advertisements written in multiple languages or just the dominant one?

What foreign traits are seen as unsavory by the dominant one, whether it’s clothing, religion, lifestyle choices, names, social behaviors, food, parenting, etc? How does the dominant culture discriminate–through law or social pressure?

Is your culture striving to protect a dying language and offering free courses and resources to learn it? Is there a dialect specific to one class or group or region? Do you have a pidgin or creole (not Creole) that comes from a blending of cultures, by force or by chance?

—

I want to make it clear that I don’t think Randy Ellefson is objectively wrong. He makes a lot of good points—for grounded worldbuilding. As I said above, the more central any one piece of your worldbuilding is to the plot, the more detail and thought you should put into it so it feels believable and it feels like there’s much more beneath the tip of the iceberg than just what’s on the page.

He points out many facets of how a society is established where it is, when it is, and why a people would come together, stay together, thrive together, and fall apart. Lots of elements you might not think about when you’re staring at a blank canvas.

I just think his tips don’t allow for the creative freedom of the weird and illogical aspects that make a world feel organic, and not manufactured with step-by-step instructions. His tips are for world building, not world discovering.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

If you had to pinpoint the main issue of MLB, the root of all evil if you may (aside from Astruc), what would it be?

If we're going super high level, it would be narrative consistency (I believe this is a synonym for "narrative coherence" or, at least, I've always used them pretty interchangeably and googling one finds you stuff on the other). I wanted to get an official definition of this term and wikipedia gave me this from a larger article on the theory of narrative paradigm:

Narrative coherence is the degree to which a story makes sense. Coherent stories are internally consistent, with sufficient detail, strong characters, and free of significant surprises. The ability to assess coherence is learned and improves with experience. Individuals assess a story's adherence by comparing it with similar stories. The ultimate test of narrative sense is whether the characters act reliably. If figures show continuity throughout their thoughts, motives, and actions, acceptance increases. However, characters behaving uncharacteristically destroy acceptance.

I also found a pretty good overview of the topic on the blog of a random editor. You can follow that link to read the whole thing, but I wanted to highlight this section on characters as I thought it was particularly relevant to the stuff I talk about on this blog:

Your characters will have their own personalities and behaviours that the reader will become familiar with as the story develops, so if you deviate from these patterns, the reader will notice. That’s why it’s important to maintain character consistency – that they would act in a way that is right and in keeping with their personality, rather than making them act out of character to make elements of the story fit.

As you can hopefully see from the above sources, the stuff I've talk about on here, and just generally thinking about the show, most of the issues with Miraculous have to do with the show being narratively incoherent. Characters do whatever the writers want them to do. Plot lines get dropped and picked back up then dropped (Lila) with no rhyme or reason. Big, meaningful setups lead to nothing (Gabriel learning all the temp heroes identities). Twists come out of nowhere (Kagami being a senti). They all indicate that something is majorly wrong here.

I am not involved in the production of this show, so I cannot tell you where all of these issues come from. It may be that the writing staff doesn't know what they're doing or it could be that unknown forces like marketing are driving the writers to do things that they'd rather not or it could be a mix of the two. For example, I'm pretty sure the magical charms we get in season four were only added to sell stuff like this and this, which is why I try to approach this show without pointing fingers at anyone too specific unless there's some hard evidence to back up what I'm saying. All I know is that this show has a massive writing problem and I'll end with a little advice on how I avoid this issue. It may or may not work for you. It all depends on your writing style.

When you sit down to write a story, it's very normal to not have a clear path for how to get from story point A to story point B. You don't need to find that path before you start writing. You just need to keep in mind that B is your goal and start figuring out how to logically get there.

I often describe this process as taking a journey with a known destination, but no planned route. However, just like with a road trip, the further you go, the more limited your options become because of the choices you made. If you skipped stopping at an interesting city or landmark, you can't change that fact and we're not turning the car around just so you can get a picture next to the big ball of string. You had your chance and you missed it. Accept that and move on.

Similarly, as you write your story, you have to own the choices you've already made on your journey. If you choose to let a character in on a massive secret (Alya learning Ladybug's identity), then you have to fully own how that choice would impact all elements of the story (Alya's opinion of Lila) not just the short sighted elements you wanted it to impact (note how Lila's not a thing in season four? Almost like they didn't plan out how to handle her and Alya at the same time?) Own the route you committed to and find a way to tell the next part of the story in a way that feels like it's on the same route and you'll be fine.

Does that mean occasionally having to give up on cool ideas that you really liked? Yep, but that's the nature of story telling. It's part of the reason why people are told to "kill their darlings." That's just a thing you have to learn to do if you want to be a good writer.

[fkinavocado]

DADDY ISSUES ANNOUNCEMENT

ok guys. let's recap. i've been writing on this fic since august 2021. i was gearing up to wrap it up for its 2 year anniversary in august, but my mental health got in the way of writing in general, not just for this fic.

however, there has been another major block in my way.

many of you might remember this if you've been around long enough, but i got a lot of backlash at one point in the story. some felt it wasn't going in the direction they had hoped for (a typical happy ending, picket fence, kids, etc- the whole package).

and ever since, this has been bothering me- but not just because of the obvious reason (which is, that this is my fic and i should get to decide what the storyline is ultimately, and who doesn't resonate can just move on instead of sending me hate for something i share on here for free and for us all to enjoy- me writing it, and you, hopefully, reading it)

no, the real, or should i say, bigger reason is that i was upset with myself.

because, honestly... i wanted to end the fic where part 1 ended!

but... i gave into the pressure. so many ppl were pleading for more, and although the initial plan was to just write extras going forward, little check-ins mainly based on prompts, i felt like i owed it to you all to give you the happy ending everyone was rooting for... when, in reality, i'd meant for it to have an open ending all along.

yes, the check-ins would have had them be together etc, but no major plot developments such as... getting married, babies, etcetc. because i just didn't want to give them a typical story. i wanted this to be based on their dynamic, their relationship, them working on it, but not have it be the traditional story with a happily ever after.

(very many insisted a lot on the baby plotline, and maybe that's why i went with that twist in the story... because i didn't see it for them in the immediate future. and writing it in a linear timeframe without too many timejumps meant that i had to find a workaround... which only infuriated people more!)

so i'be been debating this for months now... should i go on and just wrap it up in a lame way that i didn't feel did the story justice (aka another timejump where they're finally settled, have a kid and another one on the way, and describe their happily ever after) orrrrrrrrrrrrrr backtrack to where i feel i deviated from my original plan, and take off part 2 and 3.

basically, go back to where they were on his front porch and part 1 ended:

Harry looked at you for a long moment, towering over you- you could barely see his facial features in the dark. 

But what you could make out clearly was the glistening in his eyes and the way his lips turned ever so slowly into a smile, his dimples on display. He was so handsome when he smiled, it hurt. 

You slowly smiled in return, your worried expression fading away, and you just stared at eachother like that, smiling after months of nothing but.

You didn’t need to say anything, your eyes had their own secret language. Once more, your bodies were doing the talking for you.

He held out the palm of his hand.

And… you knew.

this... this is how i wanted the main story to end. and then to just write extras, prompts you guys send in, whatever you wanted to see more of- but maybe not them having kids etc because fjdhfksd this is just not that kind of story to me! i just wanted this to be about them, the two of them rekindling their relationship after so much time apart and all they'd been through!

so... i finally took the decision, and as a result, you may have noticed that just the first 25 chapters are still listed in the masterlist (essentially, just part 1)

this was a hard decision, one i've been debating for ages, because, well... i hated having to just erase so many chapters. chapters i worked on, chapters i still see as genuine and true to their story but just... not what i wanted to write for them as a whole. i wanted to just focus on little moments. not have it be a chronological recount of their story, going further.

i had to let go of so many special moments that i loved writing! who knows... maybe i'll save some of them and integrate them into extras

that is, if any of you still want me to keep writing extras for them! i know many will still want to see snippets of them, but i am well aware most have probably given up on this fic and i honestly don't blame them. it's taken me forever to reach this decision, but honestly, i'm taking the advice of so many lovely people who came into my inbox along the years and encouraged me to stay true to what i'd envisioned for them in the first place

so this is me doing that ❤️i love their story, and all the love you guys have for it and it's just so so special to me. i couldn't bear giving it an ending that would just feel like i was wrapping it all up and putting a pretty bow on top when i have so much i wanted to explore with them, otherwise. thank you all for your patience and all your kindness. it means a lot, and i hope this news makes you happy because... it makes me happy knowing i stayed true to myself in the end.

now i can finally move on and write more for them. let's have some fun! if needed, go back and at least give chapter 25 a re-read so you know where things left off. i'm still not doing well mental health wise so please bear with me- i'm trying. i promise i am. i desperately wanna write, i love writing. writing extras is so much easier logistically- little fun check-ins that i don't have to overthink. i'm hopeful that this will prove to be the right decision going further ❤️

[showmey0urfangs]

eagerly awaiting your thoughts on the finale & season as a whole queen, whenever you might be ready to share them! i watched ep 8 and have just been staring at my ceiling lol.

Hi Anon! Actually, I got to see the finale a few weeks back but I couldn't discuss it until it aired for obvious reasons. I was very curious to see how the rest of the fandom would react to it. As you've probably guessed, I'm not crazy about it, though there are some moments that I really enjoyed.

My main gripe with this episode is that by changing the book plot point and making Lestat the one who saves Louis while Armand was apparently intent on both he and Claudia dying, it creates a massive plot hole where Armand's motivations make even less sense than they did at the end of ep 6 (I talked about this in more details in another ask). Now Armand doesn't kill Claudia because he wants Louis more than anything in the world and he sees Claudia as competition (which she never even was in this version but okay). Now he wants to kill both of them, and he does this because...he's a villain who does villainous things muahaha! Who the fuck knows, tune in next season to find out...maybe

It points to the same sloppy writing that is recurrent throughout this entire season. The writers introduce major deviations from the books—which, great we love that, imo the show does best when it creates its own fresh new storylines, as evidenced by ep 5 and most of present-day Dubai—but then they turn around and still try to shoehorn in the same story beats from the book and it just doesn't work anymore, so the whole thing ends up feeling incoherent and contradictory.

Do I think Armand would have any qualms about killing Louis under different circumstances, absolutely not! My pookie hunts down and dismembers rogue fledglings as a pastime. In fact, the only reason he doesn't obliterate Louis and Claudia to ashes the minute they set foot in Paris is precisely because he falls for Louis and becomes so obsessed with Louis that he would do anything to have him.

If they were gonna change that plot point by removing Loumand's love story entirely then commit all the way and at least give us another plausible motivation for Armand putting on a whole ass fake trial and pretending he could not prevent it™ when his intent was to kill Louis anyway. What was the pretence for if not for Louis' benefit? What was the aim of his big machiavellic plan if it was not to get rid of Claudia and the coven in one fell swoop so that he and Louis could be together? Who the fuck knows, tune in next season to find out...maybe.

I also have a problem with the final twist/reveal. The way the show frames it, it doesn't come down to Louis finding out that Armand had a hand in Claudia's death. He already knew that, though not the full extent of it—because he's a dumb dumb who believed that Armand was oh so helpless next to the fierce vampire Sam. No, what pisses Louis off the most is the reveal that Armand didn't save him at the trial (although Armand still does free him from the coffin even though he's the one who wanted him killed in the first place, go figure).

But you see, Lestat loves Louis the mostest because at least HE saved Louis from the revenge trial...that he planned and rehearsed for months. So ShackLestat, as we're calling him, gets a bit of a rushed impromptu redemption arc with a tender hug and a kiss while Armand is thrown into a concrete wall and sent packing.

The final reveal is not about Claudia, it was never about [her]. The reason Louis resents Lestat in 1949 and pulls his little CW teen drama stunt in Magnus's tower hasn't changed; Lestat still crossed an ocean to rehearse a play that would burn his daughter alive and still stood by as said daughter was burnt to death. Armand is still the POS who sold them out. That hasn't changed much either. The decision of who Louis forgives comes down to who rescued him—which of his two toxic husbands was the better knight in dusty armour that chose him over Claudia. But who tf cares right? Loustat reunion everybody, yay! 🎉

I have so many other discrepancies and inconsistencies I could talk about, but at this point, I've made peace with the choices the show made. It's clear that the strikes had a huge impact on the writing and the overall quality the show might have had in a more ideal scenario. Hopefully, s3 will fare better, especially since RoJo—just like he keeps reminding us in every interview—will be writing about a character that he actually gives a fuck about for a change. 🙃

[darealsaltysam]

hiya!! welcome to my blog!! im sam (she/her) and i like to write :3

since you're stopping by anyway, why not take a little look at my fics? i write on ao3 and have done work in many, many different fandoms! currently, you can find fics from the following;

ace attorney

fnaf

wynncraft

faith

the walking dead

star wars

paladins

the x-men movies

dsmp (mainly older, discontinued works)

below the cut i'm going to put more detailed descriptions of all of the fics i'm proudest of, so if any of the above fandoms interest you, take a little peek!!

ACE ATTORNEY

spiky twink rebooted

a very silly highschool au chatfic. crack with minimal angst here and there to carry some plot along, but it's very low-stakes. really just something i write for fun to wind down. perfect if ur looking for some good ol crack to turn your brain off to!

waiting for godot

a three-part fic exploring mia and diego's story in ace attorney - before, during, and after his coma. it goes into the background of their relationship and dives into godot's mentality after waking up and finding out about what happened to mia. angst with a somewhat bittersweet ending, canon compliant.

SOME OLDER FICS

Object Class: Fey - completed. an ace attorney scp au, very miego focused with some light background narumitsu. does not represent my current quality or style of writing, but i still enjoy the story a lot and am proud of the fic as a whole!

Time Paradox at The Turnabout - discontinued. a time travel fic of sorts. various different versions of various different characters travel to one time period, hijinks ensue. not that well-written and was never completed, but you might enjoy the concept!

the adventures of spiky twink and the burger queen - discontinued. older version of spiky twink rebooted - read that one instead!

spiky twink extras - discontinued. companion piece to the above. short stories within the universe, essentially!

FNAF

THE SCRIPTVERSE

the scriptverse is a trilogy of scripts + a prose prequel which seeks to retell fnaf lore completely. it sticks to canon in some parts but deviates in others, so it will surprise you even if you know the lore inside out! i made my own changes to the timeline, mixed and matched stuff from the movie, books and games... overall, just a big revamp of the whole thing, all told through movie scripts!

the series is made up of:

MR AFTON, a william-focused first part retelling the missing children incident

MR SCHMIDT [act 1], a michael-focused sequel retelling william's trial shortly after

MR SCHMIDT [act 2], a massive third part to the series which deals with the fallout of the murder and the trial, michael meeting jeremy, ghosts showing up in the pizzeria, and michael finding out he has a sister he didn't know about! crazy stuff!

mr emily & ms schmidt, a prose prequel to the series which focuses on how henry, william and his wife clara met

WYNNCRAFT

warm hands, cold hearts, gentle smiles (also holy shit is that bak'al over there?)

a fic which focuses on exploring the dynamics between the four twain brothers as kids + includes an appearance from wynncraft's favorite bitch boy. also, i made theorick less of a bitch by explaining WHY canon theo is such a bitch!

my legacy in death, your legacy in ice, our legacy in blood

a follow-up of sorts to the above fic, focusing on mael having to help nesaak post-theorick freezing it. the second half of the fic looks at the time mael spent training bob. all around lots of angst, some hurt/comfort in the second part, and a very, very bittersweet ending.

requiem

currently ongoing!!! an x reader fic that has you, the player, take on the role of the villain. you team up with bak'al to take revenge on someone who has wronged you. the fic, and even its description, contains BIG spoilers for wynncraft's late-game quests, most notably a journey further and a hunter's calling. it also explores some dark and uncomfortable themes, please refer to all relevant warnings!! read at your own risk!

OTHER FICS

closer, then you're close enough to lose - completed. a short, slykaar/bob one-shot based in an au i came up with together with @meefys !!

PALADINS

a city of self-fulfilling prophecies [paladins superhero au]

currently ongoing!!! a paladins superhero au that i've been putting together for years, and am now finally writing! most champions will be included as characters, with maeve, ying and lex as the three protagonists and corvus as the lead villain, alongside evie, cassie & kinessa, lian & rei, octavia and many others as major characters!

SOME OLDER FICS

the scholar loved the scion // and the scion loved the scholar, but not in the same way - completed. a short fic exploring a one-sided relationship between lian and rei. hurt, and no comfort!

FAITH

soul of christ (sanctify me)

a short fic which focuses on john and lisa's childhood, with a nice portion of catholic guilt and queer shame on the side (yes i projected onto john. no i am not sorry). very experimental but probably one of my personal fave works ever!!!

X-MEN (movies)

oh, i will ruin you (it's a habit, i can't help it)

a very short cherik one-shot, because they've infected my brain. it's just them flirting and making out tbh. nothing more nothing less. but i'm pretty proud of it!

again and again and again and again

a 5+1 exploring charles' post-first class depression era, from hank's perspective. lots of bitterness, lots of anger, lots of sad feels, and a bitter-sweet comfort ending.

OTHER FICS

below you can find all my other fics - these i'm a little less confident in, because they're either older works or discontinued ones.

tommyinnit - dragonborn! - discontinued. dsmp skyrim au, sbi focused, secondary dream team focus. i really loved this fic and writing it but was forced to discontinue due to... stuff(tm). im still very passionate about the story and happy with what i wrote here, so i recommend it if you're into it.

The Between Dreams and Memories Series - discontinued. a complete retelling of the dsmp storyline. was planned to have 3 parts - same as above, forced to discontinue. contains 2 complete fics (part 1 and a spin off) and one unfinished fic (part 2 of the planned trilogy). one of the biggest fics on my account, a product of several years of work, and a very important work for me, even if its quality doesn't hold up. read if you wish!

a house full of serial killers VS the barbie movie starring margot robbie and ryan gosling - completed. a very very stupid creepypasta chatfic oneshot. i wrote it in one sitting because i was bored. it's nothing special, but it's pretty funny!

dance with the devil - completed. a very short dsmp oneshot, focusing specifically on c!niki and c!schlatt. im still pretty happy with how it turned out!

Deserve Better - completed. a pretty badly written who killed markiplier oneshot. darkstache focused. one of the first fics i ever posted!

laughter [anidala] - completed. a short star wars one-shot i wrote for my girlfriend, focusing on ani and padme!

mutual hatred builds character - completed. a short the walking dead one-shot, focused on maggie and negan. NOT SHIP! i just think they're a fun duo to study like bugs

[kaibutsushidousha]

Since Douman vs Dios Dioscuri part of the anthology was translated, Seimei was mentioned there. Wanted to ask what's the overall Seimei's characterization is it Nasuverse so far and what exactly his nature with Douman is?

The first mention of Seimei is Tamamo's backstory in Fate/EXTRA. Tamamo describes him as a sexy monster of darkness with an underworld-colored soul. Medusa levels of negative bias toward her killer, but it's interesting that Tamamo can't deny that he is hot. There's a lot of speculation to be made based on what Tamamo finds attractive, but that would have been a post of its own and not one I personally want to write.

But right from the bat, Nasu's Seimei shows deviations from the original myths. Traditionally, Tamamo no Mae is outed by Abe no Yasuchika, the descendant that comes 5 generations after Seimei. Because Tamamo's story is set a whole century after Seimei's death. Tsuchimikado Yasuhiro's reveal later was a surprise to me because EXTRA had me assuming Seimei was posing as his own descendant to this day.

Later FGO has Seimei as a character a lot of people mention and the descriptions we get of him get very mixed. Most oni characters have little respect for him. Even the human-aligned mixbloods Raikou/Ushi and Nagiko express respect for him as a professional but dislike him as a person. Meanwhile, the fully human Murasaki respects him as a person but not as a teacher. And Kiichi is laughing too hard to voice their opinion.

But our biggest Seimei commenter is obviously Douman, who unfortunately never gets coherent enough about this subject to give a clear account. Koyanskaya describes Seimei's and Douman's situation as "one is an arrogant bastard who thinks he can domesticate a treacherous friend, while the other is a rotten degenerate who will get rid of said friend through backstabbing". Negative bias befitting of her Tamamo face but it doesn't paint an accurate-looking enough picture. The two summer events featuring Douman had moments of Seimei disciplining him, and Seimei's overall respect for Douman really shows in their last Heian interaction.

Meanwhile, Douman sees Seimei as a generic good guy and projects his image in Fujimaru as early as Shimousa, something even his summoned version continues to do in his Valentine's scene.

Seimei still hasn't appeared in FGO, but without appearing, he's still a major character in two of its stories. Heian and the summer event in Treasure Island. In both situations, we get to see him as confident, competent, and prone to insufferable jokes. He shows off his clairvoyance by having a total view of the plot and using modern slang to communicate with Fujimaru. He also transparently tries to make Kintoki feel better by saying Douman wasn't his Servant, a lie that even the gullible Kintoki doesn't buy.

Interestingly enough, the character Kintoki finds the most similar to Seimei is Holmes. I still don't know what he meant with this one.

And the last story to involve Seimei so far is Fate/Samurai Remnant. Seimei left his playthrough summary of Fate/stay night for his descendant Yasuhiro to make the Waxing Moon with. Yasuhiro was desperate to restore the Tsuchimikado reputation damaged by his father, but with or without Waxing Moon, Takatoshi's son would make the Tsuchimikados the authority on onmyouji again. All Seimei's notes accomplish is to give Yasuhiro a taste of hope that he wouldn't have in Pan-Human History despite the completion of his goals being assured. Yasuhiro's hope comes at the cost of many lives, but I still can't but feel the meaning of Seimei's choice here.

Overall, I can't perfectly summarize Seimei's characterization through comparison with a character from another series, but I have one I feel comes close enough. Muhyou Tooru, protagonist of Muhyo and Rouji's Bureau of Supernatural Investigation. He's arrogant, unmotivated to teach talentless people, trollish, scary, and determined to leash and redeem an evil friend. More a mishmash of the comments we get about Seimei than the stuff we from him directly, but I still can see Muhyo as a great source of inspiration here.

[lennoxlorian]

WRITING: GETTING THROUGH THE DRAFT

It’s been a couple of years since I’ve done NaNoWriMo and I am looking forward to jumping back into it full force this year. And as I start prepping with outlining, last minute research and setting up a special Scrivener file for the project, I remembered a post I wrote of the things I did that helped me smash NaNoWriMo the second time and wished I’d had these tips the first time around.

I found the post I wrote but over the years, (you can read that here) and since then I’ve gathered more practical tips to getting through NaNoWriMo. Remember, these tips are basically, to push through and get that first draft - which seems like the hardest part. How can you revise and edit something before you have something to even revise and edit, right? So, here are my original tips, plus some extras.

Set up a “Notes” file. This may seem like a weird tip. But I promise that it will be worth it at the end. The “Note” file can be a word document, pen and paper or even a Scrivener type program that has a notes section attached to the file. This will be a place where you will be jotting down every comment, note and idea you have as you write your novel. The purpose is to keep yourself from going back and falling into the downward spiral of self-editing/editing as you go. Because we know that it tends to lead to a novel in a perpetual unfinished state. My suggestion is to divide your notes into “Chapters”, “Parts”, “Page Number-Ranges” - depending on how you’re writing your novel and writing subsequent notes and ideas under that particular one. This helps you to find relevant information during the editing process.

Keep moving forward. No matter what. Don’t worry about the details. Don’t worry about changing something, even if the scene seems really long, dialogue heavy or you are describing the heck out of the setting. Don’t waste time thinking about how to change a small detail. Chances are you will probably not end up using it anyway. Just make a note of it in your “Notes” file and keep pushing forward.

An outline helps - even if you consider yourself a “Pantser”. Not everyone has an outline. For me, I LOVE outlines and mine tend to get crazy detailed. But what I appreciate about having an outline is that it helps me to keep my story in the direction it needs to go. Mind you, even with an outline, sometimes I do get into a flow that deviates from my original outline (It’s the tiny, rebellious pantser inside of me!). And that’s okay! I do suggest, even as a pantser, that you create a simple action breakdown. You want to have a clear idea where your characters are headed. Even a little.

JUST WRITE. Simple as that. Moreover - and this is important - write as if no one will ever read it. Don’t get caught up with how you think your novel should sound or even how you want it to sound. Just write it because it will create a voice of its own. YOUR voice. And that’s pretty freaking awesome. Putting myself into that mindset took away all of the inhibitions and self-doubt that I had and it created much of my best work. So write those cheesy action scenes or embarrassing love scenes. At the very least, it’s good character/plot development, it will get it out of your system and you’ll realize, later, that those scenes weren’t even needed. No harm, no foul.

Over write. Though many of the tips I'm giving can be applied to writing your first draft, this particular one is mainly for NaNoWriMo. As much as we would like to sit in front of our computers everyday or 30 days and just write, the truth is that we have lives and responsibilities that oftentimes takes us away from writing more than we’d wish. Sometimes for a whole day! (Boo!) But life happens. So over write. Write more than your daily word target. Especially, when you have extra time. That way, you won’t get behind and you’ll probably reach your goal sooner than you thought.

Stick with it. If you get #PlotStuck, don’t give up. What helped me, was to write chronologically. Meaning, I forced myself to get through whatever writer’s block I thought I had. Even if it’s introducing a new character, object or location to get the juices flowing, again. Some may say to skip over it and come back to it later but that’s how I got into a habit of not finishing novels. For me, waiting to get over that barrier - whether it was taking a quick break or a walk or reading - got me through several of those hurdles. What I’ve learned is if you’re serious about writing, you have to get through it because writing is not easy and it won’t be the last time you’re Plot Stuck. Trust me.

These are some things that helped me write and finish my first drafts. They may not work for everyone so take what you can and leave what you can’t. These aren’t the only tips I have but just the ones I have at the moment. I’ll be sharing more of those tips when they come to me. Or if you have a different question about my writing or my process or the blog or even my first draft, just ask me!

[slowthinkingreader]

Swordspoint - Ellen Kushner

What a fun book to start off this blog with. My first review! Wow. I'll try to keep these relatively structured. I will be-- mosty likely-- spoiling things as I write these reviews. I'm not especially interested in trying to convince people to read any of these books more than I want to write down my thoughts and maybe start a conversation. I'll try to keep my reviews limited mostly to personal observations, unless I find something that might be worth bringing up outside of the scope of the book I'm reading. Anyway I won't meander.

(Started April 21, finished May 12th, 2024)

Brief summary: Swordspoint is a book belonging to the 'fantasy of manners' subgenre. It centers around St Vier, a swordsman-- which is a profession similar to a hired assassin, only sicker-- and the nobles of a nameless capital city whose dirty politics he keeps getting pulled into. There's romance and betrayal and basically everything you can possibly expect getting out of the genre. There's also gay sex. A lot of it!

I have to note this, because I think it's very funny: I didn't expect this book to be so gay. I'm usually seeking gay books like this out on purpose; this snuck up on me. I have a habit of browsing bookstores without any real aim, and I picked this one out of the shelves on a random good impression. I hadn't heard of the book before. I read the first page and the blurb on the back and, as you may have seen by looking at the cover pictured above, noted that it was well received-- by George R. R. Martin? I like his tastes enough, and I have a running obsession with 80's fantasy novels, so I bought it. Now I'm deeply curious about how well received it was at the time. I'd love to know what George R. R. Martin liked about this book. Really.

I read through this one pretty quickly; if I hadn't put it down for such a long time in between I'd say I could've finished it in a weekend. The prose was easy and sometimes very sharp. It's fast-paced-- it's a Manners book, so of course there's a lot of dialogue-- and the drama does what it needs to. The romance works, it got to me, I loved the dynamic between St Vier and his rude-ass, scholarly, suicidal paramour. That's a romance that will stick in my brain for some time: Alec siccing his swordsman on people that are rude to him just because he finds it entertaining? That's real gay antics. That was good. I feel sometimes that the characters were a little detached from reality, in the sense that their reactions to things felt very out of place or disproportionate at times, but it manages just fine with the momentum of the rest of the book. I was able to roll with it.

The characters were fun. Aside from that... I have to be honest, the plot was OK. It carried itself forward on the premises that it sets out. I felt like I could see every machination in this book laid out perfectly from beginning to end, it didn't exactly try to deviate from its trajectory, so nothing was particularly surprising, but it worked. It did what it had to. It's far from the primary appeal of this book and I don't really care to get into it. It had nothing especially interesting to say about its own politics because they basically don't exist. I couldn't tell you what Halliday's or Ferris' politics were. In the end, I didn't really feel like I got anything especially interesting out of this book in terms of what it had to say about, for example, literature as a whole, or queerness, or rulership. It's just really good, trashy entertainment. Really good entertainment!

If I were to make one serious critique, it would be that Ellen Kushner decided to leave the short story "the swordsman whose name was not death" as a short story, rather than working it into the novel somehow. I don't care how she'd do it. It just frustrates me that it's a side thing. This is main course business. It brought some real depth to Alec that I would have liked to see in the novel, and some real depth that was honestly lacking in every character-- despair and regret that felt real and believable. And it also stopped pretending that women didn't exist. It was so good. Damn you!!!!

Wait actually one more serious critique. Why is everyone so pale in this book? I get that it's winter, whatever, but ghostly pale? Every single one? And bright-eyed?

I'm very interested in seeing where the second book in the series could possibly go. I really have no idea. I hope it gets nastier. I deeply enjoyed the little noble drama in this, but it could've been a lot nastier. Trying to get someone killed is dramatic, but there needs to be more despair. More stakes!!!!

And finally-- my rating. 6/10. I like Swordspoint. It was a lot of fun. Not enough books out there that commit to their premise like this and do it well. Being trash and worth reading is an art.

[townofcadence]

✨ What was your inspiration in making your muse?

Munday Meme ✨ What was your inspiration in making your muse?

I ended up getting on a roll, apologies, so I put this under a read-more ^^;;;

It depends on the character for sure! I usually end up really vibing with a concept i want to build around, like a personality archetype or a story element. Usually this is a pretty generic concept, and then I build out the rest of the OC, trying to understand their place in the world and how the life they've lived has affected who they are, and make it more personal to me so I get attached.

Caelan for example, is a fae prince who was raised as a weapon by his family during a war, due to his abilities and how intense his magic is-- he was hunting the enemy prince down, had him cornered in a fight, when the ground falls apart beneath them and they're pulled underground-- deep into webbed catacombs, where they're hunted by a monster over and over again. His whole concept was basically born from the desire to play with the idea 'character trapped in a maze being hunted by a creature'. Which--- was initially a concept i started playing with because of a song about the ghosts in pacman being trapped in the game and eaten by pacman xD

I think the main exception to this style of creation for me is Artair, which I'm sure you were asking about! So I apologize ahead of time for the tangent incoming xD

My very first character I ever rped online was Arthur from Mystery Skulls Animated, which was a collection of music videos following a plot revolving around four main characters dealing with the supernatural, set to indie artist Mystery Skulls' songs. But the thing was, MSA only gave us the vaguest details about the characters when the first video came out, which is when I started writing him. The most we knew about Arthur was that he had been possessed and forced to kill a teammate, and that he lost his arm to an animal teammate that seemed to stop the possession. Also that he was kinda like-- a fraidy cat? MSA was basically a parody of Scooby Doo with a twist, so he was a little like a yellow shaggy lol.

But yeah, it was actually really cool because every version of the same character was so wildly different, because it was so vague that there was so much room for interpretation! We weren't sure how well the group knew each other except that they were on the same team, we were only given blood types to determine personality, we didn't even know if the animal teammate spoke to the team-- even things like how they grew up or where they were or family dynamics were up in the air at the time. When his uncle was revealed soon after the video, I wrote Arthur as growing up with him after his own parents passed, but there were dozens of interpretations-- some where Arthur only came to live with him as an adult, or an older kid, with details ranging from his family was bad news, passed, or just too busy to look after him. One of the characters didn't have a last name for years. It was all kinda just--- free real estate lol.

So over the course of a decade I wrote him, i built out every detail about Arthur, including stuff like his history/backstory, his relationships, his abilities, his personality beyond the fearfulness-- even some details about the events that were canon. Over time as I was writing him, he changed personalities in a lot of major ways too, as storylines from rps and events happened while writing him. He changed, for better and worse, and the things I focused on more were less and less aligned with canon. I started experimenting with ideas and concepts i really liked too, especially ones like him being a medium, which then further deviated into eldritch/celestial/fae stuff, since I always had a deep interest in those kinds of beings. But that only continued to take him further and further from anything resembling MSA lol.

And I guess at some point a few years ago, i realized he was basically an OC, but with a canon coat of paint?

Soooo I basically took him and gave him a redesign and overhaul to make him an OC. I kept some elements i loved of Arthur that drew me to him in the first place, but I tried to get away from his original design as much as I could without making him feel too different to my brain. I kept a version of events similar to the first video, due to how formative they were, but everything else pretty much got chucked out. The rest I kept was heavily altered if it wasn't reliant on my own headcanons already.

The only other thing I kept was kind of keeping his name similar. I kept Arthur as a name he used for a while growing up due to kids being mean about 'weird' names, which he still uses as a safety precaution with people/fae, since so much of his history he was known by it. Then I gave him a scots version as his official legal name, since I had headcanoned Arthur was directly scottish anyways and would likely pick it, with the headcanon that as Artair got older he stopped caring what people thought of his name and started going by the one he chose. It was different enough to feel i was separating him from MSA, but close enough that it didn't feel wrong when I was so attached to 'Arthur' as his name for a decade (part of my initial attachment to him was connection to Arthur as a name and him being the color yellow, whoops)

But yeah! Overall for me, it's just about interesting or fun narrative concepts. And then there's Artair being the one canon guy who got hit with extreme OC-ification beams over time xD

Also, here's an old and silly spider-man meme doodle of Arthur and Artair if you made it this far xD

[dullyn]

I'm interested in your perspective writing the arthurian legends for pre/early teens! It was a huge obsession of mine at that age (and now lol) and I just encountered the incest etc as part of the story - at that age I just wasn't troubled by it. Your experience sounds a lot like mine where those elements were more impactful as an adult but maybe less so as a kid. Could it just be incorporated passingly/not graphically rather than changed? Its such a strange thing to navigate. Good luck on your writing!

Okay so what I’m doing with mine is relying on two things: uninformed narrator and being a little picky&choosy with what I have in my story.

My narrator is Lancelot as a 15 year old boy fresh out of the Lake World except he’s very unaware of everything as I’m making him more of a modern guy sent to Camelot than a boy raised with fairies determined to Be A Knight. So this gives me some leeway as he’s a bit stupid (said with love) and does not entirely understand all customs/happenings around him so that the kids reading can like learn it along with him.

Then with the picking and choosing, I think it’s nice that there is just So Much Source Material for the Arthurian legends cause it means I can write about the knights doing almost anything and it will have happened at some point. (Hence the joke post I made where I said I gave Hellawes a dragon, cause why not). So I can like stay away from the crazier/unethical events that happen in the main plot of my story (Like Bors and Claire cause I hate that so much). Though not entirely deviating from the legends as a whole. I don’t think I’m going to mention the whole incest thing in this book, maybe in the future, and that is entirely because if I ever publish it I would rather not have my story be classified as something Mature and therefore not be shown to the entire intended age group (Cause people are weird about books).

My ultimate goal is for it to be more of a gateway for kids to read it and get into the official legends, then for it to be a 100% recreation of the stories warts and all. Kind of like how PJO is a kid friendly adaptation of Greek myths (ish) and got a lot of people into Greek and Roman mythology. (I am not in any way saying I am similar to Rick Riordan and his skill as a writer, I’m just a college student typing away at my laptop). I just want people to appreciate Arthur and the Knights the same way I did as a kid (and still do).

[tobiasdrake]

First episode of What If? hews a bit too close to the Stations of Canon. Despite some deviations in the timeline, events more or less play out roughly the same as in the First Avenger film - Sometimes in ways that seem outright confusing.

Like, Peggy's costume is explained as a USO tour outfit that was made for her. This is despite her never joining USO, nobody ever suggesting she should join USO (besides Steve as a joke), and it making very little sense to put an Englishwoman decorated in British iconography at the center of an American patriotic display.

The handling of Steve himself is something of an enigma, but more on that later.

My favorite part is when they steal the Tesseract from the Red Skull early on. So he just pivots to a completely different eldritch power. Whoops, can't make Tesseract bombers so I guess I'll summon Cthulhu. Um, okay. Apparently he had Cthulhu in his back pocket this whole time, which sure is convenient because it means the story can continue following the movie beat-for-beat anyway.

I like the idea behind Captain Carter, but I honestly don't think the showrunners knew what to do with her after that initial scene. The rest of this episode just feels like it's filling time and speedrunning the plot of the movie it's based one.

Why does Peggy pressure Howard into going into the field unarmed? That's a weird thing to do; She's very insistent that he should go get shot and die because the writer will need him there later.

The Red Skull can't use the Tesseract bombers because he doesn't have the Tesseract so now he's going to summon Cthulhu. But he needs the Tesseract to summon Cthulhu, so why not just go back to his A-plan once he steals it?

I don't know. This episode didn't click with me. It feels like an early draft that's afraid to seize its own identity and tell its own story. It feels at once like there isn't enough time for it to tell its story so it has to make rushed character choices, while overly cribbing from First Avenger's notes - But the time it does have is spent on doing random shit like Sudden Cthulhu and.

Well.

Steve.

[troutfur]

Out of curiosity, what would y'all want to see as side stories and tangents in to Aaron and his sons? I don't want to deviate from the main plot too much now that I've finally gotten it underway, I have at least two more installments from Jay's PoV to get through, as well as a Hollyleaf perspective piece/interquel that I consider semi main story similar to Blue-blooded. But I'm also interested in exploring the world beyond the ThunderClan-RiverClan marriage alliance arc and its surrounding drama.

I personally am a very big fan of Tawnypelt and Littlecloud's whole thing. I'd love to elaborate in story form on what I've already said of their arranged marriage and how their story shakes out from TigerClan to her reaction upon finding out Flametail and Tigerheart's little secret with the consensual infidelity.

[selfship-shenanigans]

lily, poppy, azalea!

Tysm!! <3

lily ✦ do you try to fit your s/i into canon, or do you just do whatever you'd like with them?

A bit of both tbh. Ray and Ganondorf's story is essentially a "bad ending" of OOT, or at least, it's a bad ending for Link and Zelda (spoiler alert: they both die!). But since we see very little of what's happening on Ganondorf's end throughout the game, and there was a whole 7-year timeskip halfway through, most of Ray's role in the story is fairly canon-compliant. I mean, do we really know for sure that Ganondorf didn't have a tiny Hylian spouse during those 7 years? The only major deviation from the actual plot of OOT is, well, Ganondorf winning. It happens right at the very end, in what would be the final boss battle where Link defeats Ganondorf. But nope! RIP Link 🙏

poppy ✦ do you have lore surrounding your s/i, or is your s/i more or less just there to project on with your f/o(s)?

Ray has a bit of lore, but not very much. They started out as just the reader in the Ganondorf x reader fics I was writing, so I tried to keep them as blank of a slate as possible so that any potential future readers of those fics would be able to project onto them easily. It was only later on that I decided to make them an actual character, named them and gave them personality. Most of their backstory is just the fact that they were a generic Hylian peasant living in Castle Town, plus a few details about their parents and past love life. I'm sure I'll come up with more in the future though!

azalea ✦ does your s/i's identity (gender, sexuality, etc.) differ from yours in any way?

Yes but not massively. I consider myself a lesbian irl because when it comes to real people, I'm only into women. But with fictional characters, I swing both ways, and therefore so does Ray because, well. Ganondorf is a dude ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In terms of gender, Ray is very much like myself in that they are afab but really couldn't care less about pronouns or how people percieve them. I usually default to they/them for Ray partly because it's easier for me to write about them that way (as opposed to alternating between he/she/they/etc), and also because it's a leftover from their days as the genderless reader of those Ganondorf x reader fics.

[inkblackorchid]

With the next one of Aki’s stories being a long one, is it something you are planning on finishing before you start publishing chapters, or publishing as you go along? Just curious what your approach is for the longer fics

Ok so as I've said on tumblr (and I think maybe also in the author's notes on ao3?? I forget) before, I at the very least want to finish the first portion of this fic before I start uploading anything. (That portion's end being marked by a particular duel.) From the way my outline is looking right now, that means I'd probably write until chapter 5 or more before I might consider publishing a chapter (there are currently a total of 14 chapters planned). And as of right now, I'm about to finish the first draft of chapter 3.

...But. But. See, the thing is, this fic, due to being extremely plot-heavy, needs to be super tightly written. Like, this thing needs to work. And all the duels in it (yes, multiple) really need to hit the mark, or else this story loses some of its emotional impact. In other words, I'll definitely be extra thorough when it comes to editing this one, too. So at least where this particular fic is concerned, I'm kinda shying away from the "publish as I go along"-approach, because there are too many moving parts here and I want this to be as coherent as possible. So it's a bit of a tossup atm. If I feel confident enough in how fast I'm progressing with the story by the time that first portion is written out, I may start publishing before all the chapters are done. But if there's a chance that I might deviate from the outline later in a way that would require me to go back to a previous chapter to add some setup there? I'll hold off and wait until at the very least the first draft of the whole story is done.

As far as longer fics in general go, though, I'm always more the type who likes to write a bit in advance before publishing. Even with To Be of Use, which had little to no plot and was the only work I've genuinely published as the chapters got done so far, I didn't feel entirely happy throwing the chapters out as I had them. I'm a huge fan of setup and payoff, and callbacks, and foreshadowing, etc. and the thing is, even if you're a very practiced writer, as soon as you're writing a plot-heavy story, you'll encounter moments where you come up with an important thing you want to happen a little later in the story than you meant to, and suddenly need to go back to actually set that up, because you didn't in the first draft of an earlier chapter. (At least this is my experience, your mileage may vary, writing styles differ, etc.) So to write the best thing I can, I usually like to give myself the time to write the entire first draft, then revise that first draft, then do the final edit of each chapter just before publishing it. (This was also my modus operandi for basically all my 5Ds fics prior to Fields of Arcadia. Even if I didn't have the entire story edited and polished yet, the first draft was always complete before I ever started publishing. It's only now that my backlog of pre-written first drafts has caught up to me and I'm forced to keep y'all waiting as I prepare the next big thing completely from scratch in real time.)

[moonlight-frittata]

2, 3, 13!

Fic Writer Asks

2.) Do you plan each chapter ahead or write as you go?

I very rarely start writing a story without a planned ending in mind that I'm writing towards. Everything in the middle is a lot more flexible, especially in first drafts. I don't always outline, especially if something is a one shot, I'll just go off stuff in my head but I do spend time mentally sorting it out. If something is more plot heavy, I'll usually plan out certain scenes and story beats I want to hit with a more intentional approach. I don't always stick to this though and have been getting a lot more liberal with "kill your darlings" (aka kill that paragraph or entire scene haha).

I've also been outlining and plotting more in a notebook before writing it on the computer. I feel like it helps it stay less concrete and more flexible I guess? When I type up notes on a computer, it's sometimes harder for me to deviate, but when it's on paper first, it's not "real" yet. For something I'm working on at the moment, I'm experimenting with using index cards, because the story is a mix of specific scenes but also incredibly introspective, I was losing track a bit myself of how to take the ideas and put them down, but the index cards are helping to physically shuffle around the ideas and themes. Embrace the tactile experience when you're stuck!

3.) Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic

It really varies! I think it always starts from some small nugget of an idea, and I think some of my more interesting stories come from really random things I pick up from everyday life. Like, I wrote this one story about grief that was centered around a bowl of porridge reminding the person about their sister, and for me the idea sparked because I was reading a recipe book (while also passively thinking about the characters). I use tons of inspiration for little things that I hear or read or experience in my life.

I'll usually have specific ideas planned, but when I actually get to writing, a lot of things come to me in the moment. You get in the character's head and the scene, and it's like "improvising" i suppose, where you embellish or make something new up on the spot. If you understand the internal consistency of your character, it works and you get a lot of really interesting things. I've mentioned this before with roleplaying, that you can do that like...just one on one with yourself haha.

I think when I'm starting to actually write a scene, there can be hesitancy if I think about it too long and I won't start. If I get too hung up on making the character voice sound a certain way or the scene sound a certain way on a first pass, I often end up either mad at everything coming out or don't start at all. So I've been trying to just jump in initially wherever feels right and not worry about what's coming out. Does it always work? No, but I'm being nicer to myself and I do get a lot more out when I tell myself, "Don't worry, you'll get to polish this up and make it really beautiful when you come back to edit." And I've really started to look forward to it way more!

So for first drafts if I get cool lines down it's great, but I don't sweat it as much. I use it for getting all the "blocking" down, starting to get the vibes and themes teased out, and leave myself tons of comments to come back to, and then when I edit (after doing my best to give a few days to up to a week), then I add a lot more texture, descriptions, character feelings, the more pretty lines. Some of my best stuff has come after a beta read and a quick update. At that point I know the whole thing and all the themes, and it's way easier I think, to zero in on specifically what I want to say because I already know everything! Vs trying to snatch gold out of thin air when I haven't spent the time immersed in the scenes/story.

13.) What’s a common writing tip that you almost always follow?

(lol sorry not sorry I had to list a few)

Give yourself time to edit separate from your first drafts.

It really really does help to change your perspective when you have some distance to come back and look at the scenes, the sentences, the word choices with some space. It's soooo hard sometimes ahaha because you both want to just get stuff out and (hopefully) get feedback and praise, but it really really does help! Also try editing on your phone or changing the screen size (or font? haven't tried this tbh), it can also make you see things in a different way.

Try not to write in the passive voice

I'm not such a stickler for you can never use passive voice or adverbs and I don't care if you have them all over the place in a first draft, but I do think you can take a look when you are editing and find ways to be more direct and make your work sound more intentional. So I do try and if I notice spots that I'm doing these things, I try and take a closer look and figure out if i can make it sound stronger. I usually can just with this one tip.

Show don't tell (I prefer "Describe don't explain")

I think this is one of the most common adages, but also if you can really embrace what this means, it's the step from telling a story to immersing someone in your story. You don't have to describe every tree and every leaf, but focus on the things that are worth describing, aka emotions!! Don't tell me they're sad, make me feel like I just put on a depressing playlist but I'm not listening to music. Happy? Make me feel like I'm soaring through the air, like sunlight and joy have made my bones filled with so much freedom and warmth that I take flight.

I think that's it, make your reader feel something!! It also let's you get more specific. Sad can mean generally blue because someone didn't text you back, you're sad because your dog died, sad because you heard some tragic news. There's more than just "sad", and that's the fun part of writing I think, trying to get to what that sadness is for that moment, and name it in a way that really means something.