#most of the time when I characterize a ship I find it hard to make it romantic so I research what things are romantic to do

[bitchapalooza]

I was thinking I wanted a queer platonic partner, but thinking about it more I don’t? I don’t want any intimacy whatsoever. I don’t wanna be touched unless it’s simple arm holding/arms linked together or a quick hug or lean on when in troubled times. I don’t want to be called a partner or anything either. I guess I just want a best friend to maybe live with? Just be close to someone with mutual trust and comfort and understanding and respect? I don’t wanna rope someone into a relationship that’s other than friendship because that’s all I want; I wouldn’t ever want to hold someone back if they want to be an intimate or romantic relationship! Having a close friendship sounds so heavenly to me, while having any other kind of relationship makes me feel anxious and uncomfortable to think about. God this book did so much for me ngl..

[citrusses]

January: 2023 Wrapped 🎁🍊

*some* of my favorite 2023 fics, by month they were published (or started to publish, or finished publishing, it's arbitrary bc i make the rules), plus some thoughts on what made these fics so special.

January | February | March | April, May, June | July | August | September | October | November | December

Chicken Shop Date by @sorrybutblog (T, 2K)

Draco and Harry sit down for an interview. Or is it a date?

This is such a fun premise and the Harry/Draco banter just sizzles. The atmosphere is so rich! 2K words of perfection that pack an outsized punch.

Close Behind by @oflights (M, 134K)

To rescue Draco from the Underworld, Harry has to look forward. Unfortunately, Draco has to look back.

A masterpiece that deconstructs every relationship in the HP universe and then rebuilds it, that does mind-boggling things with narrative structure, that stressed me out so badly I felt physically ill, that was so moving it left me bursting into tears for days after I read it, that had the funniest single line I've read in a fic maybe ever. So far reading this is the only time I've ever checked the tags on a fic for "happy ending" because I was so emotionally overwhelmed by it that I needed to know it would be ok in the end. I can't overstate how much I love this one.

For Lack of Wanting by @fluxweeed (E, 8K)

Over the last ten years, I’ve worked hard to become a better person. I hate being reminded of who I used to be. But Harry likes it when I’m mean.

A gorgeous, painful story that explores a kind of Harry/Draco dynamic that's not seen as often in fics (a SAD one), but is done exceptionally well here. It hurts so good!

Nights With You by @the-sinking-ship (E, 58K)

Draco is mortified when moments prior to departing for the most anticipated destination wedding of the year, he is cruelly dumped. But when he learns that Harry Potter has, at long last, split with his horrible boyfriend, Draco is certain his luck has changed. Never a man to squander an opportunity for revenge (and what would probably be a spectacular shag), Draco vows to make Potter his for the weekend. Now all Draco has to do is convince him.

@the-sinking-ship regularly writes: my favorite kind of Draco, my favorite kind of romance/getting together AND my favorite kind of smut. This fic is all of those things.

Polar Night/Midnight Sun by toomuchplor (E, 54K)

Harry travels to arctic Norway on the trail of dragon egg poachers, only to find he's been assigned to work alongside the only NorMagPol Auror north of sixty: one Draco Malfoy. It's been ten years since they crossed paths, and Malfoy isn't exactly what Harry expected or remembered. For one thing, he wears a lot more hand-knits? When a sudden winter storm strands the pair, unable to use magic to rescue themselves, they take shelter in a one-room Norwegian hytte.

The hottest fic in the coldest setting, this one made me absolutely FERAL. The most evocative scenery, incredible characterization, and the perfect pacing building to an explosively sexy and tender relationship. Also I would read like, 100K more words on just the mittens and jumpers and scarves of this fic, which are not items of clothing I have cared much about in the past. It's just that every detail, down to the smallest, is incredible!

When It Returns by @academicdisasterfic (M, 8K)

‘You’re late, layabout,’ Malfoy drawled, pushing the whiskey over to him. ‘I’ll have you know that I am very busy maintaining a whole house and garden by myself now.’ ‘Oooh, the dead husband card. Before any alcohol. Is that a record?’ Harry's husband is dead, and Malfoy is the only one who gets it. Or, the one where they drink at a straight man pub, renovate a house, and learn how to find joy again.

January was a good month for feeling bad. It's another angsty one! This one is full of beautiful healing in the face of a loss that feels very real, Draco annoying Harry out of his grief spiral (but in a loving way?) and Harry being on the right side of almost too stubborn for it to work. I have read and reread this many times already!

[zukkaoru]

could you tell me more about why you dislike femskk?

okay disclaimer before i begin: this is not meant to be a dig on every person who enjoys femskk. the biggest reason i don't like it is honestly because it's just not my cup of tea and honestly it really makes no difference to me if other people like it. but beyond that my biggest issues with it are

1. the phenomenon of fans "yuri-ifying" the most popular m/m ship and then using that to prove they like female characters and f/f ships. this is not a bsd-exclusive thing; it happens with stsg too and i don't like femstsg for the same reason. but there's a big difference between actually liking female characters and just genderbending (or even making transfem) the big m/m ship. i literally went to the f/f category in bsd on ao3 the other day looking for fics and about half of them are skk fics instead of fics about like. the actual female characters in bsd. who i was looking for fics of. similarly, there have been some redraw trends going around twitter - specifically the i prefer girls cover redraw - and i have seen. i don't even know how many femskk redraws of that (along with a couple femfyolais and a femrimlaine) but only one redraw with actual female characters from bsd. same with the scene 14 redraw that was going around, and while that one wasn't originally two female characters, i have still seen significantly more femskk (and femsigzai, femsigchuu, femfyolai, etc) than i have ships with even one character who is female in the source material.

and imo this phenomenon is made even worse in the bsd fandom bc so many fans just see bsd as the skk show. so of course they're writing off the actual female characters; they literally don't care about anything besides skk. and obviously i can't do anything to force anyone to care about other characters but like.... bsd has so many other wonderful characters and dynamics (both romantic and platonic) that a good half of the fanbase won't even glance at because they're not skk. i do like skk, but bsd is about so much more than just them. they are, objectively, only one small part of it. like if you only care about skk, then just be outright about it and don't pretend you're "proving" you like female characters and sapphic ships bc you like femskk too

2. of the fans who only like skk and nothing else about bsd, most of them. don't even characterize dazai and chuuya correctly? i think the some of the best skk characterizations i've seen have been from people who actually like other characters and ships too, and some of the worst skk characterization i've seen has come from people who literally don't care about any other ships or characters. this isn't a hard and fast rule obviously but even with 30k skk fics on ao3, i have struggled to find ones that actually feel true to their characters. and the characterization seems to only get worse when it's femskk. if you're just going to turn femdazai and femchuuya into two completely different people, what's the point in it even being skk? why not write k.ousano or h.igugin or even a ship with one canonically female character? if you have to change the core characteristics of both dazai and chuuya... do you even really like them?

3. about femdazai: i actually don't mind the transfem dazai headcanon in general but most fans get her wrong. i made a post about it here but basically so many times i see femdazais that are just. completely unrecognizable as dazai. you can't strip away core aspects of dazai like idk the fact that dazai doesn't show any skin from neck to toe just because you made her a girl. i have seen some femdazai that's good! but i have seen so much that is just fundamentally wrong for dazai's character as a whole. mostly on twitter.

4. about femchuuya: i really truly just don't get femchuuya. i THINK the hype here is probably bc lesbians seem to get attached to chuuya (which. valid. i am also a lesbian chuuya fan.) and so they want to draw a chuuya they can be attracted to (i.e. femchuuya) which like. cool whatever i'm not here to judge. but looking at it from a "would this character actually identify as female" perspective, i don't actually think i can picture that for chuuya. maybe it's just because i so strongly hc them as nonbinary? idk. this one is honestly just a neutral "i don't see that but you do you"

tl;dr: from what i've seen, femskk is often mischaracterized, and genderbending the big m/m ships in a fandom is often a way fans "prove" they like the female characters and f/f ships while not actually caring about anything other than their main m/m ship

[raayllum]

hi. i always see your analysis and theories in my dash and they're always so well thought and interesting and conecting a lot of things i personally would never think to conect but actually make so much sense when put like that

so hm, not to be weird online, but how does one learn to like interpret and understand what's going on on a piece of midia, yk, cause only consuming doesn't do it? Anyway

your edits are really nice

FIRST OFF this is soo nice omg thank you <333 also never worry about being weird online i'm always more unhinged, this is an unhinged space

which ironically is kind of the best way to get good at literary analysis tbh! I wrote a post about it here but that was more on how to organize thoughts / write meta > finding the things to write meta about (aka the "this feels gratuitous" draft is still in my drafts as we speak — might be time to clean it and some others up and post it).

In a lot of ways there tends to be like.... two main avenues for analysis? Which is an oversimplification but is making sense to me in the moment, and I'd specify the divide is

Treating characters like people (characterization, relationships) vs treating characters like tools (motifs, symbols, plot structure, dynamics).

Ideally, a narrative merges these two things so completely it's hard to separate, and I think TDP does an extaordinarily good job at it. I'll call this marriage Theme since its the main idea(s) of the Story/Narrative and everything should at its best be working together in service of the Theme if you want something cohesive.

I'll use Callum and Rayla as an example just cause I think they exemplify a Lot of how/why this all works and works as well as it does.

If I want to write about Callum and Rayla's internal psyches, i.e. where does Callum's temper or Rayla's gruffness come from? I'm going to look at them as people. They're going to have consistent triggers, responses, contradictory emotions or emotional reactions, etc. This is like the how you wrap a present, the colour and feel of the paper. Any character in a story can technically have any kind of personality, i.e. an assassin can be sweet and snarky (like Rayla) or stoic and rigid (Runaan). That's not all they are, of course, but the characters' personalities often times affect how and why we ship what we do, or have certain favourites, etc.

For example, Callum's primary Narrative Purpose is to be a human mage. He's there to explore the range of possibilities a human who wants/chases magic in the story can have, and we pretty closely follow his magical journey of feeling powerless, struggling and achieving primal magic, and guilt and desperation that drives him to dark magic. But absolutely none of this means that Callum needed to have a temper.

To see the way a character trait can be married to a motif (repeating symbol) let's look at Rayla. Rayla can be secretive — not telling people everything and being closed off about her emotions — and often leaves to try do things on her own, occasionally flat out disappearing. These are her personality traits (characterization), most of these psychological aspects come back to not feeling like she deserves help or not wanting to hurt people, thereby hurting her relationships. She's a person.

At the same time, these traits help us as the audience understand and grasp how the series treats the Moon and its arcanum. The Moon is a symbol, and it's all about changing faces, secrets, and illusions. We don't know whether the ideas for the Moon arcanum (which seem to be loosely taken from Tarot) or Rayla's personality came first, but it's clear that at some point they merged to reflect each other.

If I want to talk about Rayla as a person, I'll talk about how her personality/choices affect her relationships. If I want to talk about how she reflects her primal or how she choices affect the plot, I'll be talking more about structure. If I want to talk about how both of those things say, in a speculative meta about Callum connecting to the Moon arcanum as he understands Rayla (and himself) better, then I'd be talking about both simultaneously (theme).

But those are all like, examples of how you can break stuff down that you see. How do you go looking for stuff / know what to break down?

1) Pick a piece of media, ideally one you already feel very comfortable and familiar with. Book, show, whatever. This familiarity means you can focus less on the processing the plot and more about other elements of the story. Then watch or read the thing but try to pay attention to like, a few pre-chosen ideas or themes. It could be the theme of power, or — I'm thinking for something like ATLA - how the characters reflect their elements (Aang is evasive and avoidant, and air is light and breezy, etc).

For a TV show in particular, it can mean breaking things down scene by scene in an episode to see what the anchoring idea of it, i.e. 1x06 in TDP is all about Soren, Claudia, and Rayla keeping secrets. Soren and Claudia keep their secrets and isolate themselves, because isolationism in the series is usually Bad; Rayla shares her secret, because working through problems and letting people help you (being collaborative) is Good, etc. These messages are pretty consistent throughout the rest of the show as well.

If applicable, I'd recommend starting out with stories where you already know the ending and/or even better, the story itself is aware you know the ending from the beginning (i.e. in Titanic, you always know the ship is going to sink). This can help you pick up on dramatic irony (everyone emphasizing the ship won't sink) as well as setup (the movie making sure we know there's not enough boats, people making the boat go faster, the moment the ship hits the iceberg literally separating Jack and Rose from each other to set up what happens later, etc).

2) If you wanna learn how to analyze, to a certain degree you have to learn to shut down your feelings and biases. This doesn't mean that feelings can't affect how you analyze, or dictate what you want to analyze (I feel very positively towards TDP and therefore I want to deeply analyze it! same with Rayllum) but it does mean leaving "I want this thing so it has to happen" at the door — or vice versa.

The best example I can give is a hypothetical one. For example, it kind of doesn't matter if I — personally — think that Callum and Rayla have known each other that long to know each other well. (I don't, for the record, but bear with me.) In the Text of the Story, they know each other incredibly well, and more to the point, thematically, their senses of self are so incredibly intertwined that them affirming each other's senses of self is like... the only place we could be going. Rayla is "Rayla saves people," so by saving a possessed Callum she's saving herself, and if she goes to kill him, she's likewise metaphorically going to be killing herself (her own sense of identity), etc.

Or for a non-ship example, my real life feelings about monarchy don't matter. I don't like monarchy, I think most western monarchies are crap... and I'd be silly if I brought those feelings into TDP's discussion of monarchy, because they're using monarchy as a vessel to discuss things like power, responsibility, and growing up, particularly for Ezran and Janai (and how often do we see non-white monarchies in media anyway?). And if I want to engage with those themes, then I have to engage with TDP's discussion of monarchy.

It's kind of like how even if something in a story grosses you out or makes you uncomfortable, you have to be really damn sure that wasn't an Intentional writing choice on Purpose or a chance for self reflection before it's launched as a complaint.

Doing this kind of awareness and predictive work also means you'll get better at predicting where stories might be going and leaving ahead of time if something is going off the rails / not going your way (in a bad way).

3) Growing a list of common themes and symbols that stories tend to have. Birds = freedom, chains = entrapment and coercion, grief, identity (particularly in coming-of-age stories), etc. If you have a loose idea of what to look for, that means you can also start to look at the specifics of how stories use these themes/symbols. For example, Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet both feature a theme of love amongst forbidden lovers, but the first is a comedy (love conquers all, even if it makes people foolish) and the second is a tragedy (love is not always enough to conquer hate/violence/our worst impulses).

For example in TDP, although it was in the background in s1-s3, light and darkness has now become a very overt motif (repeated symbol) in both dialogue and imagery. Tracking what those things represent or how the show complicates their meaning (light isn't always good, etc) can help indicate where certain characters or plot beats are going.

This can also mean trying to notice consistent metaphors (i.e. dark magic is often consumed by the caster for spells / referenced with cannibalistic language; dark magic corruption is increasingly seen as spreading sickness/illness) and then being on the lookout for the next time(s) they show up. So much of media literacy / critical thinking is just being able to explain/figure out why you think what you think (with evidence) and it's always a skill that can be nurtured and improved

End of Blabbing

Very long winded but hopefully helpful, and always feel free to ask more questions and/or DM if you'd like! I always love talking about stuff like this and it's such a treat tbh <3

[sallysavestheday]

Writing Year Wrapped (2023)

Thank you for the tag, @eilinelsghost!

3 Favorite Fics You've Written This Year

Beloved, Forsaken, Redeemed, my short Celegorm cycle. I am very pleased with each of the little bites that make up the whole, for imagery, characterization, and narrative arc. You love him, you hate him, you pity him, and you root for him in the end, even having seen him at his worst.

The paired fics In This, No Consolation and What Will Console You, in which Maedhros and Maglor find parenting challenging, first at Formenos in Nerdanel's absence, and then in caring for Elrond and Elros. These hurt, but they also comfort.

Examined Lives, in which Erestor and Pengolodh fall in love after Sailing and have to negotiate their respective understandings of history and truth. It's a very odd ship, but it works. I am quite fond of my Loremasters in Love.

And yes, it's cheating to slide in a fourth, but I have to mention my 2023 Tolkien Drabbles series, in which I fell in love with fixed-length stories and the challenge of fitting a whole world into 100 words. So much fun!!

3 Fics That Stretched You the Most

Tender Morsels. This is the first thing I've shared with a rating above T, but if you're going to do it, you may as well do it in style, right? Written for Silm Smut Week, it features Fingon/Maedhros figuring themselves out via cannibalism and sexy mutilation and carries the tag Is it really monsterfucking if it's Maedhros? It's oddly romantic, for all that. Thanks to @polutrope for convincing me to share it.

When All Other Lights Go Out. 5,336 words!! Let me repeat: 5,336 words! I usually hover between 400 and 1,000, so this was a big stretch. Written for TRSB, to accompany @grundyscribbling's gorgeous Feanorian nightlight, it's an epic (for me) look at love through the generations, in all its varieties and with all its consequences.

By Love Annealed. I don't write very many OCs, and this piece was both largely OC-focused AND about some tricky stuff. But I ended up loving my new friend Sorokendë and her relationship with Celebrimbor, in this remix of ultramarine by @welcomingdisaster.

3 Favorite Lines You've Written (loosely interpreting "lines")

For heartbreak, Maedhros and Maglor in Feanorians in Seventeen Kisses.

Maedhros rests his chin on Maglor’s head, watching the ocean, shivering and burning all at once. He murmurs something incomprehensible – it might be I’m sorry – and sighs. The sea surges, hungrily. Maglor doesn’t turn when the heat at his back changes. If he holds very still, he can almost keep feeling the last brush of his brother’s lips on his hair.

For angst, Fingolfin and Maglor in True North.

The banners ripple in the chill breeze off the lake as they stand toe to toe, second son and second son, frowning. They are anchorless, both of them, flung into the spinning skies with no fixed points to reach for, no greater stars to burn behind.

And for romance, the Glorthelion wedding from In Answering, An Answer Find.

Glorfindel cries out the praise he could not muster in the welter of the healing tent. He hears the fierce, bright music of Ecthelion’s reply. The bond sparks as their palms touch. Then they are burning, singing with it, leaping forward together, diving into the light.

3 Characters You Enjoyed Writing (that surprised you)

Turgon. This was my Year of Being Kinder to Turgon, after last year's portrayal of him as a history-whitewashing, Pengolodh-abusing kinslayer (ouch!). But this year I wrote him lovingly with Fingolfin in From the Heights, Such Light and Air, tenderly with Aredhel in None Shall Mark Thy Going, loving and furious with Fingon in A Bond That Shines and Burns, and being consoled by Elenwe in Mandos in Reckoning. Turgon! Multidimensional! Who knew?

Curufin. He was also an unexpected delight to explore, whether having a hard time letting go of Feanor in Borne Away Like Smoke, or having a hard time coming back to life in A Sea Change. I became very fond of the possibilities of him, actually.

Legolas' Mother. She is my first substantive OC, and I have had SUCH fun building her out. I first wrote her in A Mighty Shot in the Darkness, which is partly her love story with Thranduil and partly the story of Legolas drawing on her teaching to kill the Fell Beast. And she popped up again in These Soft Threads That Bind Us, newly home from Dagorlad and adjusting to life with only one arm and a curious child. She has a guest appearance in one of my seasonal exchange fics, too, which will be up at the end of this month (and which explains why I haven't named her).

3 Unexpected Inspirations

The Canadian government's vivid, lyrical description of the varieties of sea ice, which I used as a framing device for Ice Glossary (12 views of the crossing of the Helcaraxe, each linked to a type of ice).

Lawrence Oates' quietly suicidal farewell to his colleagues on the Scott Antarctic expedition, which I used along with the prompt "desperate valor" to drive I May Be Some Time, in which Maedhros departs to parley with Morgoth.

The poignant last line of Vincent Van Gogh's final, unfinished letter to his brother Theo, which along with @z-h-i-e's gorgeous painting Feanor's Art Therapy inspired Half-Foundered, in which Feanor is therapy-resistant, and expressing his inner struggles through art does not help.

3 WIPs You're Excited About in the Upcoming Year

Untitled Anaire/Fingolfin, full of rage and regret and maybe eventually reconciliation. It's almost done; I'll drop it on some dark day as winter lingers for maximum hurt.

The Sifted Light: Evranin smuggles Elwing and the Silmaril out of Doriath. Tolkien women, yay!

The Blue Line Between Sky and Water: a three-chapter Voronwe piece which is giving me fits but will be out there eventually. Spoiler: he drowns, three times.

3 People Tagged to Share Theirs

Tagging with zero pressure: @melestasflight @cuarthol @tathrin

[m1ckeyb3rry]

SitH thoughts under the cut for the roughly two people that have read that story:

- why is Y/N so shippable with EVERY character EXCEPT FOR COLT (literally the main love interest)

- like the conversation with reiner on the bridge??? so romantic and for what…wdym you wished you knew each other in a world where you weren’t both terrible people. wdym you’ll meet each other in another life some time. WDYM YOU’LL FIND HER IN THAT NEXT LIFE HUH REINER 🤨🤨🤨🤨

- her and hadrian have a narrative reason to be shipped so ig i can’t complain about that but i still can’t get over the impact that he has had on everyone reading the story. bro was there for 1.5 chapters max and he’s still on everyone’s minds even now. those pseudo-italian genetics are strong i suppose

- i have actually tried to figure out why it is that friedrich seems like more of a love interest than colt at times though (besides me being the BIGGEST victim of second lead syndrome) and i think i’ve finally got it!!

- the story is essentially Y/N’s life story, and while it was inspired out of a love for colt, the story more so focuses on the effects of things like war on a person (in this case Y/N), and how “cool girl boss beating up and killing people and getting no trauma from it” is a trope that just doesn’t make sense. so Y/N was created first and foremost to be a way to depict these impacts and to be a character that does questionable things and is faced with real consequences for them instead of just being hailed as a hero

- meanwhile colt is a character i’ve borrowed from isayama, so i can’t do much about his base characterization (although i’ve certainly pushed the limits on that), but i was the person to make friedrich, and as his writer, i can say that he was quite literally created just to love Y/N. of course he does other things and has other relationships and (hopefully) seems like a character that has more to him than just ‘being in love with Y/N’, but that doesn’t change the fact that at his core, being in love with Y/N is his narrative purpose, just like showing Y/N the other sides of war is hadrian’s. this is especially hard for me to navigate when writing because i have to show that while also trying to make sure that he doesn’t take over the story (which is after all a colt fic).

- i would say that in the beginning, her and colt were closer due to their more compatible personalities, but her during (and post) war personality is much more in line with friedrich’s just because he’s a lot more cynical and blunt. i’m somewhat limited by the canon in terms of how things like athyae affect colt because he does have a generally kind and almost naive?? personality in the small crumbs we get of him in the show, so i have to balance that with also making sure that everything he goes through does have an effect on who he is as a person the way it does on friedrich and Y/N

- this story is going to be so sad in the end. like it’s already probably my least happy work just because of the grim stuff that it covers, but i would like to reemphasize that Y/N’s life…is not that great. i think she’s my most tragic Y/N because everything that happened to her was brought about by a choice she made — to be a warrior candidate, which is not something she was forced to do. the L/Ns were decently well off, her parents loved her, and she was generally happy if not bored with her life pre-candidacy. but then she made that one fatal mistake and now she’s become what she is and she can never really leave and it leads to a general life of pain anguish and suffering (although i will say that my best friend heard my plans for the ending and said that it was relatively happy compared to what i normally write, so take that as you will)

- i forgot how self-aware the characters are at some points. there’s this one scene where friedrich and colt literally make fun of how many guys like Y/N (because at the end of the day she’s still Y/N duh ofc she’s beautiful everyone likes her) and it’s so unserious…even despite how heavy the fic can get there is some levity here and there which i forgot about tbh. but the story will literally go from Y/N having a crisis about something to friedrich and colt saying some bs like “i really admire [him] for not being one of the many men to instantly fall in love with you” “true seems like he really had remarkable self-restraint” “what a commendable fellow”

- i love marek and i am very sorry for what i put him through but would i do it again?? yes. also he and Y/N are rlly cute together

- at this point i’ve gotten so attached to these characters that i could genuinely write fics about them. like fanfics about a literal fanfic. fanfiception.

- atm i think writing one of those otome isekai stories (they are my guilty pleasure) with Y/N from this fic specifically would be so fucking funny and honestly i might do it just for personal enjoyment but idk if i would ever post it because it would be such a derivative work that anyone going into it expecting an aot fic would be angry and disappointed because the only aot character in it would be colt and idek if Y/N would end up with him in such an au

- okay most of these were about Y/N’s relationships with every character BESIDES colt but her and colt honestly are really sweet together

- he cares about her so much and honestly there are many times where i’ll be writing and i’m like “nah colt deserves better” because he is SO patient with her it’s insane

- on a similar note i think it’s crazy how we’re almost at 150k words and there’s been ONE kiss (which barely even counts because it WASN’T WITH COLT)

- but at the same time the lack of romance is kind of on purpose because Y/N is NOT in a mental state to be in a relationship atm and i hate that whole trope of ‘getting a romantic partner and getting over your trauma immediately’ as that’s just not realistic. colt and friedrich are there to love and support Y/N but all three of them know that the way they are currently is not conducive to being with someone long term. there’s a lot of trauma there that needs to be resolved and spoiler alert it will not be for a very very long time

- there’s so many interesting dynamics that Y/N will have with future characters that i’m excited to write but they’re all like 200k-300k words away which is killinggg me

- ship in the harbor will definitely be my longest story and i’ve changed a lot both as a writer and a person since beginning it, so it’s super special to me. thank you so much to everyone who reads it and comes up with theories about it and falls in love with its characters — i know it’s such a niche fic and it’s been rough at times and i’m so spotty with updating it, but i really do love this little version of the warrior candidacy program and what was going on in marley while the scouts were busy doing their own thing. here’s to many more chapters (but hopefully not too many more years) of me stealing what i want from isayama and filling in the rest as i please, so that this entire mess of a story comes together into something that’s somewhat comprehensible and makes at least one person cry

[cicerenella]

yesss i live for veneziano having more depth to him. he's genuinely a happy, cheerful person to be around but he definitely looks out for his own interests first. he just gets away with being vain because hes also charming and adorable. i mean this guy will ditch his own besties and make new alliances if it benefits him. normally hes a great friend to have, but when he sees the water start coming in, hes jumping ship. i also think something underexplored with his character is how he can be friendly with pretty much everyone. imagine you have a good friend you think might be a bit useless but makes up for it by being so loveable... and then you see him acting the same he does with you but with your sworn enemies. thats germanys pov lol. i think hes someone who can fit in anywhere if he wants to.

anon i love your take on veneziano (or how i call him, felice)!! it is exactly how i like to think of him relating to other nations, especially since he's one of the most influential nations in the EU nowadays.

you see, i don't really like how hima portrayed his personality. the stereotype for northern italians is almost the opposite of his characterization in canon (less passionate and more hardworking), so i tried to find a middle ground in how he acts and behaves around others while not completely erasing his actual personality. and you nailed it!

i think felice is a very hard worker and cares deeply about his country, and that requires that he's also going to be plenty charismatic. you will always see him smile and present himself perfectly in any formal meeting, referring to others with nothing but politeness added with his natural cheerfulness. contrary to romano, felice is very open to change and likes to have as many ties as possible with other "influential" nations of the Union. it benefits him in the end so why not?

but here's the catch. like you said, he's plenty vain and "nation focused", so if he finds another situation he thinks is going to benefit, he's sure as hell going to pursue it. and in the meanwhile, it's seems he cares little of how this decision might affect the people that surround him. it almost seems he puts this super friendly persona just for his own benefit. almost.

this, combined to the fact that romano has issues relating to others cause of trauma a difficult personality as well, makes their relationship tremendously complicated (something that I would love to talk about in another post). there have been instances during history where feli wronged quite harshly his older brother, making his vanity show in full strength.

so I'm happy to know that people don't see him as this dumb baby that doesn't know how to behave lol. north italy can be an extremely interesting character if you look at his history, old and modern alike. he can be both extremely nice and a complete asshole at the same time, so don't underestimate him! he was, one time, the Republic of Venice after all...

[lonslibrary]

best characterization lines from the crows—inej ghafa

“It would have been easy enough to turn away when they called her names or sidled up to ask for a cuddle, but do that and soon it was a hand up your blouse or a try at you against a wall. So she’d let no insult or innuendo slide. She’d always struck first, and struck hard. Sometimes she even cut them up a bit. It was fatiguing, but nothing was sacred to the Kerch except trade, so she’d gone out of her way to make the risk much higher than the reward when it came to disrespecting her.” 

inej girl boss. love that kaz is protective of her but never needs to step in because she can protect herself.  

“The problem was that Inej was no longer certain what she was aiming for. When she’d been little, it had been easy—a smile from her father, the tightrope raised another foot, orange cakes wrapped in white paper. Then it had been getting free of Tante Heleen and the Menagerie, and after that, surviving each day, getting a little stronger with every morning. Now she didn’t know what she wanted.” 

inej’s character development is so perfect ahhh (see next quote) and i like this quote because it shows how cognizant she is of both her problems and her worth. she’s independent like no other fictional female protagonist that i’ve ever seen.

“But even as she gave thanks, she knew that the rain was not enough. She wanted a storm—thunder, wind, a deluge. She wanted it to crash through Ketterdam’s pleasure houses, lifting roofs and tearing doors off their hinges. She wanted it to raise the seas, take hold of every slaving ship, shatter their masts, and smash their hulls against unforgiving shores. I want to call that storm, she thought...She clung to the wall, but it was purpose she grasped at long last, and that carried her upwards.”

and when she finally finds what she wants?? her purpose only makes her stronger. the chapter right after this, she volunteers to enter the ice court with the menagerie, and then the chapter after that she decides to finally let go of kaz because their purposes don’t align. her goals in life come before any guy and i love that for her. 

“She didn’t have her opponent’s training or education or fine white clothes. She would never be as ruthless and she could not wish to be. But she knew this city inside out. It was the source of her suffering and the proving ground for her strength. Like it or not, Ketterdam—brutal, dirty, hopeless Ketterdam—had become her home.” 

everyone mentions the parallel between what kaz says to geels in chapter 1 of soc (“No one that fine should ever have looked twice at Barrel scum like you...”) and his feelings about inej but this parallel here!!! about how inej feels for the people of ketterdam—the dregs, the crows, and most of all kaz—works so well too. 

“She righted herself, her balance returning. Had she really thought the world didn’t change? She was a fool. The world was made of miracles, unexpected earthquakes, storms that came from nowhere and might reshape a continent. The boy beside her. The future before her. Anything was possible...Her heart was a river that carried her to the sea.”

inej’s moments in the duology are made from a hope and faith that i can only aspire to have. she is my fictional reminder that change comes when we most need it, but we can’t spend our whole lives waiting for one specific thing. (and i also just love whenever she refers to kaz as a boy). 

kaz’s version | wylan’s version | jesper’s version | nina’s version | matthias’s version | inej’s version

hey look i’m back on tumblr! went to edit profile today and icb i was 18 when i started this and now im 20 and a junior in college like literally what is going on with time. anyways! matthias version coming soon <3

[glareandgrowl]

you know what?! NO! I WON'T just stop there!

This has really frustrated me as a creator who puts pride and effort into the characters I create. I'm giving myself until the end of this 30 min playlist to put my thoughts together so forgive the mess it will inevitably cause.

I have seen the take many a times about Dangan games and it's characters that fans and enjoyers are upset their special guy didn't get the screentime they deserved due to whatever reason; It's understandable really. You see a character that has such potential in your eyes its a shame its all wasted away. But I have seen the idea thrown around that the lack of care for a majority of characters' deaths and roles in the story is based on the sheer number of bodies and stories to tell. With so many characters there would never be enough room to allow all of them to flourish before they die! That's just the curse of these types of stories.

I am here to tell you that is BULLSHIT! It's bullshit and I refuse to believe it!

I, for the longest time, have hated the writing of the dangan games. It has always seemed sloppy, rushed, and far too drawn out for its own good. And no, that's not because the trials can be a little funky and rough around the edges when it comes to details. Though, that does coorelate to the negativity I have towards them as a whole. No.

I full-heartedly believe what is to blame is the free-time events. In Dangan 1, it was a fun gimick. Theres a large cast of characters, it only makes sense that a select few would stick out to the player as an interesting one, with a desire to learn more about them.

Shoddy writing of THH aside, I do feel it was a bit of a bandaid on the issue of a too-large cast. If there were optional ways to spend more time with certain characters, they didn't need to spend all that valuable plot time giving them exposition and relevance! The players can find the relevance on their own!

Except... Instead of using the plot time they saved for making a better, more cohesive story, all they did was fill it with dead air, bloated trials and a clear favoritism for the few remaining survivors. (IE in THH Byakuya, Kyoko, Makoto (obv hes the mc I can't complain there.)) Instead of focusing on the group as a whole, its dynamics amongst the survivors at the time, the plot instead magnets to favorites in an attempt to make you like them more.

I know its been mentioned a million times, but the game makes it incredibly hard at times to imagine these characters as once being friends.

(I will say from what I have seen of the next two games they do remedy this at least a little bit, with the group dynamic at least being tolerable to borderline good in v3 (yes before you come for me goodbye despair was good too.))(it also does seem, imo, to be a problem specifically with THH, as the next two DO do a better job at characterization, aside from the rogue one or two "mystery" characters that are put WAY too much emphasis on. (cough cough Kokichi, Rantaro, Kyoko, Byakuya to an extent) Most of whom I don't really care for due to that specific emphasis put on them. Not that their characters are bad, the games just reaaaallly want the player to care about these guys. Which makes me not want to.

Back to individuality.

The argument of a too-large cast as the reasoning for characters being left behind in terms of narrative importance, i feel, would be easily remedied by removing free time events entirely. No more backstory exposition dumps and underwear gifts for friendship points. No more mono-mono machine. If the writers were instead FORCED to give each character their time in the limelight, if they were forced to actually give a shit about each individual personification as much as those freetime events lead you to believe, then the plot would grow to accommodate.

Half the shit in the trails is unnecessary. Half the shit in the plot is unnecessary. Half of it is pandering, or shipping bait or funny haha jokes! We're so quirky!

The plot needs to care about your characters as much as the writers do. Which should be as much as your audience does. And if it doesn't. if the plot only cares about giving the audience a reaction, or if it only cares about its surface level motivations and schemes, then all you're going to get is surface level, unmotivated, wasted potential characters.

Now. I've ragged on about dangan for a bit. Does that mean I hate the games, the stories and the characters? Hell no. Of course not. If I did, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't spend my time making fanart and writing fanfiction. I like the games. They're interesting, funny at times. The writing has its moments of sincerity. It's made me cry once or twice. I LOVE the ending to goodbye despair. I think its the best in the series by far.

I guess what I mean to say in the ending of all this, the TLDR if you will, is that the dangan games COULD have made the characters work. It could have made you believe each one was special and important to the story. If it cared enough to. It's no excuse, though.

(Also yes this is about Taka and how he was robbed. You could say the same about a fair few characters. I just spend hours a day thinking about his character anways so this is it's natural conclusion.

[zombu7]

I like drarry... it just sucks I got into it so late. (rant)

I've been looking away and avoiding getting into them for the looongggest time but finally started appreciating them more as a serious couple. I realized what kept me away is because sooo much of drarry fanwork is mischaracterized to hell and back. Also, I've been learning about personality/behavior recently so it's just opened my eyes to characterization more.

Most people like bttm DM more so they want HP to chase after him, make HP the one that's bothering draco, etc. When in canon it's the exact opposite... Draco was always the one looking for opportunities to bully and go after Harry.

They always turn HP into an extroverted Jock too, which, Harry definitely isn't HAHA. Harry's introverted, he's a lovable brat with authority issues, his personality type is ISFP. Draco’s the extroverted one (ESTJ) he’s just flustered easily and picky about people because of his status. Look up an ESTJ male personality and that’s him.

I realize they essentially just have James Potter but give him HP's name... which is funny because James' personality is closer to Draco's (ESTP). So, they actually give HP more of draco's qualities alksdfjksd. Literally just making HP have all the traits draco canonically has?? What's with the personality switches?

One of the topics in canon was about how HP kept being seen as a carbon copy of his father when he rlly... isn't. There was so much of this, I didn't like it, I avoided it like the plague. I'm here to read about Harry, not his dad.

In the end, I think it's because people actually just like the idea and "look", rather than the actual characters. Which, when you're trying to find good characterization because you actually like the characters and the ship, sucks.

It's funny because I actually think the only one's who characterize Draco properly are dramiones, and it's probably bc Hermione and Draco both have the same personality type. Meanwhile in drarry it's hard because they either woobify DM too much, or make him too much like Tom Riddle.

Talking about this bc I got rude anons on twitter shitting on my characterization because I drew HP not liking draco and referred to Draco as a tsundere simp, canon btw, LOL. (bully pulling on crush's pigtails)

You can like whatever but if you’re going to complain abt my portrayal in my inbox, when you swap their personalities and turn HP into some jock cut-out that wants to get his dick wet after shy tsundere “actually nice” DM, then maybe think twice. Just mind your own business.

Anyway, If Harry not immediately liking Draco & Draco actually being the one who's after Harry pisses you off (again, canon) then maybe these aren’t the character cut-outs you have of them in your head :) wake up call <3

I draw HP disliking DM and suddenly it’s “Ur ruining Harry’s character” I’m about to ruin his tight little hole stfu

[sabellart]

3, 6, and 13

3) screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

i don’t have a screenshot but i saw someone try to say that thrawn in the ahsoka show was a better character than thrawn in the novels. i had to physically put my phone down for a couple minutes to recover from seeing that.

6) which ship fans are the most annoying?

not including ships that i find gross (master/padawan ships, rexoka, any clone/clone ship, stuff like that), i cannot stand a lot of obitine shippers. i’m sorry but imsome of y’all are so annoying satine is such a bland character but y’all worship the ground she walks on. and they characterize obi wan in such a fairytale, pride and prejudice way that i do not care for. i’m sure it’s not the case for everyone but it comes across as self insert trying desperately hard not to seem like self insert. if you want to fuck obi wan just say it don’t hide behind the duchess

13) worst blorboficiation

i am directly addressing jon favreau and dave filoni when i say this. din djarin. don’t get me wrong i like him, enjoy him even. but stop making him the fucking center of the galaxy i swear to god i am sick of his chrome ass. he started somewhat unique and charming but as time went on he just lost more and more of his personality and is just a glorified teddy bear for grogu to hang onto

[oohnotvery]

Twenty Questions for Fanfic Writers

Tagged by the wonderfully kind and incredibly prolific author @baronessblixen. Thank you!

I am the_eternal_optimist on AO3. I know that confuses people!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

23, my favorite number

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

351,187. Wordy girl.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The X-Files exclusively.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Throwing Good After Bad (my baby, my love)

In These Silent Days

Loving Me Takes Patience (this is a surprise to me)

Next To You

Right on Time (really?!? I love all my stories ofc, but this might be my least favorite haha)

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try to. I really love engaging with the people who write kind things on my stories.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oof. All of my stories are incredibly angsty, but all of them have sugar-sweet endings. Maybe Distraction, only because it might be my only fic that doesn't end with sex??

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

All of them have happy endings. Perhaps Throwing Good After Bad has the happiest ending, just because it's is the angstiest, most violent, most difficult of my stories.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Oh yes. A lot, actually. When I was writing On Marriage about revival MSR, I received death threats for characterizing Mulder as depressed. Someone went to my personal social media accounts and started making fun of my child (a BABY) over this. It's why I got off of Twitter. I very nearly quit the fandom over it and some very kind people rallied to keep me going.

Other than that big one, I get the occasional rude comment. Honestly, they bother me a lot. I go back and forth about continuing to write fanfic because of it. We all write for free and for the love of the characters--why is someone being critical?? (That's where I'm currently at now, and why Edges of the Night is on hiatus. I just cannot with the negativity in my ask box all the time because people are mad the story isn't progressing the way they want it to).

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do. I don't love writing smut and I find it the hardest part of writing. But I LOVE reading it and I love what it adds to a story.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

No.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

God I hope not.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I'm not sure. I don't think so.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, but I'd love to work with someone else :)

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Mulder and Scully

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Right now, maybe Edges of the Night? I will probably finish it because I have it fully outlined, but I dread having to deal with my ask box/messages if I keep writing it.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'm a pretty empathetic person. It's easy for me to get in peoples' heads and figure out their feelings. Writing and resolving angst is probably my biggest strength.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Phew. I find humor really, really hard. I'm not a funny person and I have a hard time making my characters funny. Mulder requires the occasional dose of humor, and that's always super tricky for me. Also smut.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Maybe!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

X-Files. Cold is the Night was my first fic ever, and I was 3 months postpartum then. It was such a nice experience getting out of the baby mindset for a while to write that.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

My loves, my babies. Probably Throwing Good After Bad, Cold is the Night (because it was my first), and Yours and Mine (This Is Our Time). The latter is a fave because it has two of my original characters in it, Gemma and Emry. I've written an original novel about them. They are my true babies.

I don't know who to tag!! @thursdayinspace if you want!!

[hawkogurl]

i love your corpse harry au (& what i've read of your other spider-man stuff), especially the way you write harry. i'm pretty new to writing and was hoping you'd have some advice on getting a good handle on a character's motivation/voice

idk if you take these kind of questions so if not: favorite trope that gets a lot of hate & least favorite trope that gets a lot of love? thx

Thanks for sending! I love to talk.

As for the first part? That’s hard. I think my writing style leans more introspective, so it can kind of vary based on what you’re going for. Because I tend to think about these movies very specifically, I found how I write about characters on my personal analysis, look deeper than the surface. Hell, take notes on shit. I also recommend the novelizations for learning how characters tic. Especially for characters other than Peter, you get a lot more about how they think because you actually spend more time in their heads and you get more of a look into their thought process and what effects how they act. The novels are good. Read them in general. I have files available on request because they slap.

But honestly? Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to be perfect. Especially if you’re new to it, make sure you’re having fun above everything. I personally tend to obsess over the mechanics of storytelling and character analysis, sure, but that’s what I find enjoyable. If doing the same makes you like something less, don’t! Especially when you’re starting out, I also think it’s more beneficial to work out more of the mechanics of writing itself. At the same time you learn characterization, learn how to vary sentence structure, to write engaging and descriptive prose without it feeling suffocating, find your personal style. And don’t expect it to be fast. The people you admire have been doing this for years. For another thing, read more. Genuinely, it’ll help you write better. I am a better writer when I’ve been engaging with things that have good writing.

As for part two of the ask, I guess there’s a couple things? I’m insistent upon writing with more emphasis on Harry’s mental illness, both because I’m tired of so much focus on Norman’s non existent illness (that’s the most neurotypical man I’ve ever seen) while ignoring the character they probably actually intended to be read as mentally ill. I also insistently defend and focus on MJ’s reasons for doing things because as a lesbian I’m hyper aware of all fandoms favor for white men that’s caused by a lot of subconscious misogyny and racism and fans are always more critical of women than men.

I do hate a lot more things than I like. I love being critical, it’s in my soul to be analytically critical of things. I hate how a lot of sm3 rewrites will effectively make Harry into a psychopathic crazy slasher villain. Ignoring the ableism to making the guy who hallucinates into That, I also think it’s a major case of throwing the baby out with the bath water with sm3. Harry was never going to be that kind of villain. His arc was always going to be about breaking out of the cycle of abuse by defying his father and becoming his own person. I’m also generally annoyed when fics insist on calling Norman “neglectful” or a “bad father” instead of just saying he was emotionally abusive. It feels like they just think it’s a dirty word someone can’t come back from so they mislabel things. Also a sort of cartoonish example of how if someone doesn’t hit you or shout at you, your experiences will be doubted.

I hate it when fans of other mlm peter ships write Harry as an abusive ex. Just make an oc.

This is pettier and I’ll admit it, but I hate it when raimi Harry is just arbitrarily shoved with a woman. I can give MJ a pass, I have my read of it but if you can sell me on it I’ll allow it. But most of the time, it just feels like Obligatory Heterosexual Love Interest. I’ve found fics that can sell me on it, there’s this one on ffnet I dug up where he ended up with Gwen that I thought was fine less for Harrygwen and more because they wrote them both well. If you can sell me on it I’ll let it slide but it’s like, semi obvious to me when throwing his ass with a woman is more part of like… people seeing a love story as an obligatory part of a happy ending or someone not liking it when Harry is read as queer. It’s fine if you don’t read him as queer but if your romance sucks I’m gonna say your romance sucks. Romantic love is not a prerequisite to a happy ending. He can be happy single because he has friends. Give him some cats. Make him adopt a kid.

It’s somewhat connected, but I also hate a lot of like… sloppier Norman redemptions. I maintain my stance that no character is ever irredeemable because it’s about change but even pushing aside my personal belief I don’t think Norman would ever change, the guy is the Greek god of doubling down, people never let him take responsibility for his actions or otherwise narratively excuse him. I can’t walk two feet without finding it excused by the mental illness people headcanon onto him because mcu decided to write offensive tropes against people with DID onto him or finding a way to blame poor Emily/Caroline when we aren’t supposed to take Norman at his word that she was a bitch or completely misunderstanding the narrative purpose of Ambrose Osborn in the comics to use him as an excuse and also minimize the ways he emotionally abuses Harry. I also hate the way people will say anything but that he was abusive. He was abusive. I know it feels like a bad word you can’t come back from, but he was abusive. Just say it. Him being abusive doesn’t mean he can’t stop being abusive if you want to write that. Ambrose exists to create a cycle of abuse. Narratively, it needs to be a cycle. Harry is the one who actually breaks it. It can’t work with Norman because a major aspect of Harry breaking the cycle is that he is softer than Norman, that he has dozens of traits that Norman doesn’t have. There’s significance to that.

I honestly just hate a lot of Norman writing. I don’t think redeeming him is impossible because of my general worldview and I’ve read fics that have done it. (Really it was fic singular and it’s because they didn’t shy away from what a POS he is) but among those is like. Christ, it’s so wild to see fics in which he’s a father figure to MJ as if he didn’t both ogle her, a girl 30-40 years his junior and also threaten to rape her as the goblin. Like. That’s wild. That’s absolutely wild.

I also hate DID Norman headcanons. How am I not supposed to think it’s wildly insulting to write a character as a system when the only reason people started seeing him as one was because of the MCU’s ableist writing decisions in NWH that connected him to negative stereotypes against people with DID and OSDD. Stereotypes that the trilogy itself put actual work into avoiding because even in 2002 those writers understood that the good alter bad alter trope is terrible.

I will say that none of Hollys extended Norman writing hatred is directed at people who are currently in the fandom. That was more like, circa 2021-2022 NWH fandom things that made me want to die.

[goldfishlover73]

4, 5, 10, 13, 14, 15 for the fanfic ask game 💕

4.How do you channel characters' voices and personalities? A lot of self reflection. Lol Writing fanfiction is a double edge sword for this one. The voices and personalities are right there. They already have a voice and personality. It makes it really easy. But at the same time, as a fanfic writer, you have a lot of liberties with that. You get a lot of writers that do not make the characters anything like they are in canon and depending on the writing, it works. Particularly in AUs. Especially in non canon ships. Because, lets be frank, in canon Kakashi wouldn't touch Sakura with a ten foot pole like that. But that's also not why we're here. I do not always write my characters the way the initially were portrayed, but I do my best to at least stay within bubble of realism. Lots of 'What would Kakashi do?' or 'Would Sakura really do that?' This usually comes in the editing process. I would advise you to that while writing. Don't want to get into the revising of a long fic and realize that what you've written does not match Kakashi's personality at all and have to rewrite motivations. *cries in fanfic* 5. What techniques do you use to create believable dialogue? Similar to above, a lot of 'what would Kakashi say' or 'What would Sakura say' I've been writing a lot more Gai recently and creating believable dialogue with him has been challenging, but in a fun way. He's very boisterous and very animated and has a very interesting manner of speaking at times. Finding the right words is important.

TLDR: just being mindful of the character's head I'm in.

Also! when I write dialogue, I try my best to have them not just standing in the ether talking to one another with their hands at their sides. No one talks like that. I try to stay away from just saying 'he said/she said' and say 'he rubs the back of his neck' or 'she presses her lips together and looks away' or if they are walking and talking have them looking around and noticing the stuff around them (even if it is the person next to them.) Using the characters quirks and mannerisms helps build out a talky-talky scene.

10.What's your favorite part about the fic writing process? Coming up with the idea and the brain storming in my head. The day dreaming. Then writing, which is the second worst part. Then revising is the bane of my existence.

13.What's the most challenging aspect of writing fanfiction for you? Besides the fact I tend to switch tenses? Which is more of a writing thing than fanfic thing... it's characterization. Hands down. I would like to create a piece of work where there is no time where the person pauses and goes 'that character wouldn't do/say that' (unless it's, you know, a driving force behind the story. Like that's the plot or the relationship). I want Kakashi to be Kakashi. I want Sakura to be Sakura. For better or worse. Flaws and all. Because playing with flaws is very fun. 14.How do you go about researching details or canon information? Naruto Wiki. It's hard because it's been a hot minute since I've read Naruto and to recall what is canon and what is filler is a bit mind reeling. I say that and recognize I do pick and choose what I pull from filler. Like Friend-Killer Kakashi. 15.Do you plan your fics or prefer to let the story unfold as you write? I do both. Usually my first write through is half a story and half outline. The second go through is where I expand on ideas and then start narrowing things down. Then some ideas take hold and I run with it. That's one of the nice things about waiting until you're done writing the whole thing before you post because you can find a great idea at the end of a piece and go back and add layers in at the beginning and no one is the wiser.

Sorry this is really wordy and long, hopefully I answered your questions!

[sindirimba]

🖤💜

❤: Which character do you think is the most egregiously mischaracterized by the fandom?

really hard to say because i think all of them get pretty warped from the canon versions. i guess i'd say it's worse for the main trio because we have so much more characterization for them than, say, j&n. andy's a complicated character who does love her little group but is also incredibly cynical and jaded with the world ("the world can burn for all i care"), and in fandom she becomes flat sarcastic vodka aunt or sometimes people try to do the Most Soft Person In The World, and i find both weird. i've gone on at lengths about nile and booker so for the moment i'll mostly save the space, but obviously they're both drastically mischaracterized constantly. which is worse because i love them and so this is an obvious personal affront to me, the main character of this post.

💜: Which character is way hotter than everyone else seems to think? well OBVIOUSLY it's nile!! but i'll be serious about it here, actually, and talk about how absurd racism and misogyny are that nile is so relatively rarely the object of affection and attraction (outside of the BoN sphere, and people can whine and complain about us all they want but it's true, so) even in fics shipping her with other people. nile will get tongue-tied and shy over how hot andy is, talk about how joe is the most handsome man in the world, even think about hot nicky is and wow what a nice ass he has. but i've seen kiki layne with my own two eyes and it makes zero fucking sense for all this shit not to at least be equal.

just to be annoying though i'll add that every time i see stories where people act like booker's not an attractive man i roll my eyes so hard. especially when he's being compared to j&n. you don't have to like the dude but it's so silly. this whole cast is attractive, shut up. but i'll also say, it's especially egregious if it's nile thinking he's not that attractive, but they're still being paired up in a fic?? why does nile have to get stuck with someone she's not hot for? why are you doing this.

thank you <3

(ask game)

[alister312]

alister… i’ve come to sow trouble…i ask for your spitting hot takes for the character ask game: gregory for 3, 8, 16, 22!! and 25 for funsies <3 (when i first watched the movie i hated him bc i thought he was an asshole. then i discovered gregstophe and he changed my life)

CHAOS INDEED….. but sometimes you gotta keep things real with Hot Takes™!!

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

i have studied Gregory's canon character extensively and it's a huge reason why i love him so much (and why i so despise a certain fanon version that has eclipsed canon) so this is really hard. HOWEVER….. i do hate his canonical reaction to learning Stan failed his mission. i know it's just to make Wendy start to dislike him so she'll get back together with Stan at the end of the movie, but this was such an important mission that Gregory put so much effort into planning! it implies the death of one of his only friends, Christophe! there's no way Gregory in that moment is the same as the Gregory in the rest of the film to me. or i have to believe that's he's just SO upset that he's lashing out and his tone poorly conveys the true depth of his emotions.

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

can i say the entirety of Hell//park lmao. lowkey serious. i've spoken often about how HP was a blight on Gregory's characterization, interpreting him as a generic snobbish evil twink. this (or one of the many HP spinoffs that copy-pasted this personality instead of his canon one) was unfortunately a lot of people's introduction to him as a character, which means that i see many Gregory fans taking him one of two directions: 1) they take him the sexy sadist manipulater route, cold and dismissive, hungry only for power 2) they infantalize this version, making him more like a random xD feral wild card silly guy if you were ever in the Gravity Falls fandom, they do to him what people did to Bill Cipher basically. and don't get me wrong, i'm not saying i dislike people doing that! i love how insane the GF fandom goes with Bill but it makes sense for him bc he's a chaos demon. Gregory is a revolutionary freedom fighter with occasionally poor people skills. i feel like barely any active fans remember that.

16. What's your least favorite ship for this character?

i have one beloved mutual who likes this ship so i hope she understands but….. probably greg/stella. most bc every art i see for it ever is HP-based (designs and personalities) which i am clearly not a fan of lol. also, all the love to the Estella fans out there, but she's just not for me. which makes it hard to care about ships that have her.

22. If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to ths character? Something you don't like?

ok this is a little hard to describe but i love when fics show that Gregory actually cares?? whether it be for Christophe (as most of the fics i read are gregstophe lol) or about his job or a cause or whatever. i find a lot of fics are able to show him as a caregiver, but don't always show him caring. to me, that's such a core part of who he is. he fights bc he cares, he helps bc he cares, he gets angry and sometimes flippant about others bc he cares so much about what he believes in that he puts on blinders to others' (and tbh his own) emotions. something i don't like is when people do the exact opposite of this lol.

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

i do not fully remember what i thought of Gregory specifically, but i have such a vivid memory, right after i watched BLU for the first time, going onto [social media platform redacted bc my account there is cringe af] and saying how i totally shipped Gregory and Christophe and wanted to RP them with someone lmao now... well, i still ship him with Christophe so not much has changed there i guess. but now i like to think about him much more in depth than i did back then. back when i was younger, i don't think the fic i wrote really explored the actual characters so much as it put two guys through a bunch of tropes. nowadays, i want myself and the reader to really understand the depth of those two guys and why exactly i am putting them through certain tropes.

character ask here for reference!