#im retroactively naming these posts that btw

[rayar32]

Guess who just spent 4 hours struggling to give Black Gungnir Hibiki a "final" design? Below are some design thoughts/processes over this whole ordeal:

Thank god for Elekleid for giving Another!Hibiki purple/blue motifs because purple is a sick ass color and I went all into it for this design.

For this version of the Black Gungnir, I thought it would be fun if Hibiki can shape her burning scarf into her fists and release it in whips of dark flame to take down multiple Noise at a time, or use it as a cloak in the same vein that Canon Maria does. This is an expansion of an idea I had for Hibiki's spring claws idea, where when she pulls on her gauntlets instead of releasing energy it instead launches her claws like wires. Since they're smaller in this design, I figured the burning scarf's grapple whips would be a good stand in for that feature.

Where does the burning scarf come from? Probably as a symbol of overcoming her Berserk form? Still working on how that rationale works!

Since Hibiki is still a bit wary of people, she still has claws instead of fists as a part of her Symphogear, but they're significantly smaller than they were when she first unlocked it (see: older posts for that). Also, while her heel-claw can fold up, Hibiki's grown to use it a lot to ground herself for punches/scarf strikes or to stab Noise, so it mostly stays in heel shape even in the middle of combat.

I also really wanted to put in a bit of gold/orange on her design, but it clashed too much with the blacks and purples, so let's assume Saint-Germain decided to spare Hibiki from having a fashion flashbang Symphogear in this AU.

[gainingfiction]

hi, this is the same anon from before (my favorite was big moments), i really enjoyed hot weather! joey as a character was really enjoyable, and i loved seeing him fall for ian. i'm always a sucker for genuine romance tropes applied to wg fiction. plus, big sweet charismatic but sort of ditzy jocks whose appetites dont slow down when they do and end up growing out of all their clothes and doubling their weight in the process... 🤤 BIG fan. this is likely antithetical to your writing process, but i'm almost curious what his weight was by the end. it didn't seem like he grew as much as an average character in your stories (not a complaint), but that might be because the narrative was so focused on making him likable and handsome that it didnt describe the exact specifics of his size. not a complaint though, i definitely had a crush on him that was stronger than just "he is a man getting very fat in my fetish erotica", so it worked a HUNDRED percent

side note, aside from the obvious (ie raul and enrique), do your characters have ethnicities? i only ask because i imagined joey as like, a more boyish winston duke, which i definitely enjoyed imagining and 3/4 of the way through reading i realized that his skin tone was never described. not an accusation of anything btw, im just curious about the less-described parts of characters in these kinds of things

(... yes i AM the kind of person who cares about ethnic diversity in amateur fetish erotica lmaooooo 💀if im gonna get off to men getting so fat they need several new wardrobes im gonna do it morally, god damn it!)

looking forward to whatever you post next!

Thanks for this awesome message, Anon! So glad you enjoyed!!

Sounds like we like the same tropes!! I’m a sucker for the “nerdy guy winning the (ex) jock’s heart”—maybe a bit of wish fulfilment on my end!

I did notice that "Hot Weather" ended up being a bit less descriptive and a little more plot-driven than some of my other work. I have a bit of a numbers kink (as you’ve probably noticed), I like scales and waist measurements and all of that fun stuff. But for this story I wanted to leave more to the imagination, and let the reader fill in as much as they wanted. So I left Joey’s weight ambiguous: we know he’s a strapping guy at 6’3”, so his starting weight could easily be close to 200 pounds. And we know that by January, he’d gained 50 pounds since starting his job sometime in the summer. The shorter timeline of this story also means that even though he gained quickly, he didn’t get to the size of someone like Daniel or Jason or Connor (at least not during the story). Other than the fact that he started gaining even more weight once he moved in with Ian, I thought I would leave his total weight gain an open question, as a sort of indication that Joey just stopped caring altogether.

As for diversity, I totally agree! It’s something that I’m conscious of and I’m trying to incorporate more of going forward. Lately I’ve been a little more vague with some of my descriptions, to leave readers more room to play out their own fantasies. So I’m thrilled that you imagined Joey as being Black! I’m not gonna pull a JK Rowling and start retroactively claiming diversity points, but I’m always delighted when readers draw their own conclusions: that’s one of the things I like best about gainer stories, you can imagine whatever type of guy you find the dreamiest!

As for characters of colour, I can’t speak for my co-author, but in writing “Lifeguard of Duty” I wrote Peter as being Korean (straight dark hair, his grandmother’s bibimbap recipe). And an upcoming story delves a little bit into the family life of a feeder named Ali, who’s Middle Eastern.

Thanks for reading! 😊 My next story, “All In a Day’s Work” is a little more experimental than some of the other stuff I’ve posted, but hopefully just as satisfying! Ideally I’ll have it online sometime in early-May.

[roxannepolice]

Long asks anon again, here to offer my opinion on the current wank. Rey as a character is rather blatantly breaking sw story rules and nothing is going to get SFF fans hackles up like rule breakage. This is root of both the MarySue accusations and current wank. Rey has a tragic backstory thats doubling as the only failure she can call her own. But its a) damn near entirely offscreen and b) serves as convenient justification for why shes competent at near everything that comes up.

Reys instantly good at the force because of a convenient force download that to the best of my knowledge only occured in the noncanon KOTOR II and quite frankly cant blame most of the general audience for not getting because without prior knowledge or the novelizations why would they? She has darkness in her but as so far used and touched it consequence free and its almost entirely symbolically externalized on the Kylo (and in SW symbolism is Real in a way it isnt in other narratives) Shes strong in the force because Light rises to meet Dark but to quote the current crop of movies ‘thats not how the force works) or at least thats never how it worked before. Shes the first SW protagonist to go behind enemy lines and come out with both hands in the second movie. For ppl wondering how come Luke and Ani never get labeled MarySues, this is why, they got thier asses handed to them, Rey hasnt. There /is/ something /off/ in Reys story, and ppl pick up on it. if you can make a post (w/ over 1k notes!) about how great it is that a character meant to prop up 7hrs worth of movies has little to no character development to go through, somethings off. If multiple ppl can make posts about how its neat Rey can tap into the darkside (still characterized as evil in ST) consequence free (with some quite frankly stupid justifications, 'shes disciplined’ really? jedi lacked a lot of things thats not one of them) somethings off and again, if the only failure your main heroine has is /entirely retroactive something’s off/. If the story were getting with the is the story most ppl think we are, a 'female empowerment’ (i dont feel particularly empowered by being told I have an equal chance at being a deus ex machina but ok) than well, her story is over and theres no need for IX (hell it could have been over in TFA, most ppl assumed she had accepted her place as the future jedi in that one) and no need for reylo The ST was always gonna deconstruct all that came before it purely by virtue of being a sequel. The tragedy of anakin skywalker is now a farce, the happy ot ending now a tragedy, and the mythopoetic structure shot to shit in the name of serialization and perpetual warfare. this stand true for all the sequel characters including rey and ben. the only question is are we going to get anything out of it? I compare it to home renovation. You can knock out a wall and the walls gone, but new opportunities arise. With Benlo, I’m reasonably confident that there will be at least some attempt to take advantage of the new space. With rey and the resistance kids? not so much. it just feels like they knocked down a blue wall to rebuild it as pink one and at the point it just feels like a waste of time because ive seen this before. Ive seen pure cinnamon roll desert orphan reform jedi order If this was all youre going to do that the fuck was the point? which circles around to my problem with team good guy this go around and That Scene. JJ twisted the story into a pretzel to justify the winners of the last round being the underdogs again and then rian twisted so much further the storys head may as well be up its own ass. And then at the very end he shoots it all to shit and rushes to reassure us its all gonna be okay. He removes the entire point of the underdog trope /the tension that comes from the fact that they might lose/. I mean there wasnt a whole lot of that to begin with already but really? So theres no tension that Reys gonna win so her journey feels frictionless, and theres no question where shes gonna end up so full offense why give a shit? Thats where the whole 'can rey lose a fight?’ thing comes from. Ppl want conflict in her arc to justify its existence and give us a reason why this her story to begin with. if the only character going through growth for all three movies is ben, if the only characters whos fate is up in the air is ben, and if all the tension in the reylo relationship comes from ben, then why is this /reys story/? why not just make it about the character actually driving all the drama and thus, the story?   As a final thought, im going to add that having Kylo be aware and insecure that hes never gonna be as Iconic as Vader was a great story choice, regardless of where ends up. Current Rebels, on the other hand, seems to have not gotten the memo that they are never gonna be as iconic as Original Rebels, and the story itself seems to being trying to sell them to me as being better. Rey is Luke but better, Poe/Finn are Han wo the smuggler grit, and id be lying if i said it didnt piss me off.

&

Long asks anon to kick down ur door again, AND ANOTHER THING. SW is a lotta things. Subtle aint one of them, and St hasnt changed in that regard. If you have to debate it chances are either a) ur arguing counter to the text in which case mor power to you but not really helpful for predictions or intended meaning or b) /it aint there. A bunch of ppl didnt like anidala, but nobody doubted we were supposed to think they were in love by the end of AOTC, bunch of ppl didnt like poes arc, but no one doubts he fucked up by not listening to holdo was the intended take away. Which brings to rey and flaws or lack there of. Were told rey has flaws but she has yet to suffer any real consequences from them with the exception of The Damn Parentage Wank, which again, pulls the double duty of making her hyper competent at everything. Because rey has no consequences for her flaws, from a story function pov there aren’t any. If rey did have a flaw to overcome, we would all agree what it was

Now won’t you all just look at this beautiful, spot on rant which has been lagging in my askbox since the last time Rey’s flaws or lack thereof were the discourse’s focus (November, I believe?) and suddenly became a thing again, courtesy of Tweetgate. I think you really summed up the crux of this debate wonderfully, anon.

I particularly agree with the part about Rey not getting narratively punished for whatever flaws we’d like her to have (great point about returning from behind the enemy lines with both arms still in place), when SW don’t stay away from allowing characters to get “punished” even for otherwise applaudable features - vide Padmé, whose idealism is what Palps manipulates into gaining more power (this is why Padmé will never come off as a Mary Sue or too perfect, btw). But I’ll say even more - Rey doesn’t even get called out on her flaws, except for by Ben, who’s mostly dismissed as a baddie like Palpatine saying Luke was foolish to rely on his friends. Let’s just consider one thing - both Anakin and Luke get called out on their flaws by Yoda (Anakin repeatedly and by lots of other people for that matter) whereas with Rey, the same grumpy-yet-jolly senex pops up from the afterlife to further inform us what a great jedi material she is.

TBH, I have a very cynical theory as to why Rey is being pushed as the main character while it’s difficult to deny that it’s Kylo Ben who does all the plot heavy lifting. I’m pretty sure Ben’s arc was the first one DLF thought out (and the big question is, was it the only one they thought out) and only later on decided to make Rey the main character, which also involved much less spontaneous writing. Mind you, it’s not as if benepemption didn’t have a manufactured subtaste to it, but with Rey’s heroine’s journey stiff structure occasionally substitutes any in-world explanations of her actions (this is why I have to hope renperor has some narrative purpose rather than happening because lovers need to be separated and anti-hero needs to achieve what he wanted in 2nd act). I feel as if whatever potential her character had (and hopefully still has, pending IX) got smothered by layer upon layer of making her likable by everyone, which largely relied on negative characterization: she’s not helpless, she’s not too naive, not cynical, not too emotional, not too emotionless, not morally corruptible, not anything you’ve ever complained about regarding any SW character, not falling for the bad boy, not not not - and in the end it’s kinda difficult to say what Rey is like and while the goal of making her widely likable was achieved, it also made it almost impossible to view her as loveably flawed/annoying like the classic characters. And on top of all this is the matter of making her a nobody just like you!, as DLF appears to say with uncle Sam’s gesture (which also kinda assumes the existence of a Star Wars fan as some uniform entity? because if you identify with her, good for you, I just don’t understand why the franchise assumes I’ll identify with her by the grace of being a SW fan alone), because, as you excellently put it, the message here is that everyone can be chosen by God - which again, it’s not as if the saga ever contradicted this, so why the hell make a case of it? I can’t agree that it’s made into Rey’s flaw, though, imo her low birth only serves to further frame her as an oppressed virtue. And I definitely agree regarding too much of her growth being left off-screen, or before the story ever begins. The problem here isn’t even that it is left off-screen (it’s not as if we had huge insight into any of the pt or ot characters) but rather that her characterizations is left off-screen while being depicted as at least untypical (unique to put it bluntly) for her situation (same goes for Finn). A hopeful, kind person growing up on her on her own in slavery under a nicer name is a rarity and DLF makes a case for it being a rarity - and this sparks up curiosity in her past, as if market pandering to Re/sky wasn’t enough. So from this pov her un-reveal being frustrating isn’t just a case of not wanting to love her or her self only a potentially deeper psychological question getting answered with well, light.

I should add, Ben’s arc feels like the most spontaneous one (though Finn’s may yet be a masterpiece) and he’s the one to admit his fear of not living up to Vader’s legacy, because I think he’s the character serving as the creators’ vessel, more or less like Luke was Lucas’ avatar in ot. In his fear regarding Vader’s legacy one can feel Disney’s fear due to having bought popculture’s holy grail and not being entirely sure what to do with it. On this background, Rey (a literal scavenger of OT’s pieces) and rebels 2.0 repeatedly blessed by Leia come off as what DLF would want to be. And the result is that the character which was supposed to be Vader 2.0 proves the most original and surprising one, whereas “breaths of fresh air” come off as room aromatizers with “fresh” written on them.

And as far as the plot being bended into a pretzel and then disappearing up it’s own ass, well, a part of me is still hoping that taking virtually the same villains as before is a mythological-psychoanalitical metaphor of a nigredo repeating itself until the unconscious gets accepted by the conscious…. but, tbh, as the leaks flow this hope is withering.