#olubusayoo

[oodlyenough]

Ask prompt- numbers 7, 9 and 12!😊

7. What character(s) captured your heart?

Well in 2023 I shifted into writing Ace Attorney fic, and all the published stuff anyway has pivoted around three characters (Phoenix, Edgeworth, Franziska), so speaking generally definitely them, lol, although I like a lot of the AA cast and would like to write more of them in the future.

Ship wise, definitely Phoenix/Edgeworth is reigning supreme right now, and I love them both a lot. They're extremely fun to write together, their relationship has so many different evolutionary stages and they bounce off each other so easily.I find Phoenix a little easier to write, and have written more of him/his POV than anyone else.

In terms of individual characters, probably Franziska, actually. The fics I've written about her so far are but the tip of a large iceberg of sprawling headcanons and Opinions on her characterization. I love her a lot and want to put her in situations. She's a fun challenge to write in a way not totally unlike Fiona Borderlands, in that she is full of feelings and vulnerability and reluctant to own up to any of them, so you kind of have to thread the needle and show those without having her outright own it.

9. What fic meant the most to you to write?

Hmmmm I'm not sure there's a stand out in that sense; writing for a new fandom is always exciting and scary, so I had that, I suppose. I think I'll say Desire Path, with baby Franziska and Edgeworth, just because it was the most "I'm writing this for me" story of the lot; gen about siblings is generally not particularly popular lol. But I really like thinking about what their relationship must've been like in those early years, I have tons of thoughts about it, and I'm glad I was able to translate a bit of that into a story.

12. What fic was the most difficult to write? Did you finish it?

Most trouble of anything I've actually started so far is the Franziska/Maya fic I want to write, set right at the end of AA3. Franmaya in general is a ship that compels me a lot on a meta level but is difficult to translate into a fic, imo. I know the beats I want to hit with it but trying to write them out in a way that felt organic became a bit of a struggle, as was keeping the conversation and dynamic between them interesting and believable and not just two talking heads. I feel like there is so much I want to say about the two of them and how they'd feel towards each other, and towards their families and friends, that I want to convey in a fairly short space, with a narrator (Franziska) who doesn't readily acknowledge things. I like what I have so far but hit a wall with it. Hopefully in the new year after I finish some other things I can loop back to it.

Thank you for the ask! Here were the rest of the questions

[chaelinsbitch]

Hey chaelinsb*tch, I liked reading your Spotifiy Wrapped posts and tags-they all made me smile! Also thank you for being the reason Miniskirt by AOA and Long Flight by TAEYONG are in my top songs of 2022 lol! I always like the music you post whenever I listen to it!

Hope you have a good weekend!😊

Hey!!! Omg I'm so sorry this reply is so late 😭😭😭 but I'm so glad that I had a positive influence!!!! 🫶🏽 the taste on your top songs 😌💅🏽 we love to see it!!! Happy new year! :)

[engazed]

Character Ask Game

At the request of the lovely @olubusayoo, I've decided to participate in one of those character ask games and invite you all to play along! So as I understand it, I post a list of questions (I borrowed them all, with some minor tweaks, from @starryeve88 after conducting a search, so thank you, stranger). Each question is accompanied by a number. Your job, should you wish to play, is to reply to this post or send me an ask with the number and one of my characters (designated as OC), and I'll answer!

I wasn't sure whether to limit your asks to one story, but I decided, nah, just specify from which of my stories you want me to draw (e.g., the John from TSM vs the John from TGR vs the John from AFITU). Any and all characters, no matter how major or minor, are up for play!

Here are the asks:

1. what are your OC’s dietary habits? (favourite foods, how much they eat, etc.)

2. how does your OC handle spice?

3. how does your OC act when angry?

4. what’s something that always cracks your OC up?

5. how does your OC behave around their crush? if they’re in an OTP, what is the dynamic like?

6. what is your OC’s main love language?

7. what does your OC find attractive?

8. how would your OC comfort someone who’s upset?

9. how does your OC act at a party?

10. how does your OC celebrate holidays?

11. what is your OC’s cultural identity and how does this affect their life?

12. what is your OC’s best memory?

13. what is your OC’s worst memory?

14. what is your OC’s best habit?

15. what is your OC’s worst habit? 

16. how long does your OC take to get ready in the morning?

17. what does your OC do on a friday night? 

18. how much does your OC sleep on average?

19. what does your OC’s room look like?

20. how is your OC coping with the pandemic? 

21. how does your OC deal with stress/pressure?

22. what is your OC’s self-esteem level?

23. what emotion troubles your OC the most?

24. what careers pique your OC’s interest?

25. what is your OC’s biggest dream and how do they feel about achieving it?

Feel free to come up with your own question, adapt a question, or ask as many times as you'd like. This might be fun!

[oodlyenough]

Sorry if you already said this- but is there a reason you like Arcane but haven't played the game it's based on? :)

Hahahaha where to start

The simplest reason is just that it's not the kind of game that appeals to me at all. I don't like online multiplayer stuff (I don't want to play with or against strangers), and I like stuff that has a story more than I like combat. I play virtually every game on easy mode. League is zero story and 100% combat. With strangers. So, not really interested just in general.

The other thing is that what "story"/lore the game does have is mostly spread out across a bunch of different things, including short stories, and in-game lines, and stuff, and aside from being a bit confusing to navigate, it and Arcane are not really canon to each other. Obviously there's a lot of crossover, since Arcane is based on it, but Arcane characters have some fundamental differences. Arcane Jayce and Viktor are quite different to League Jayce and Viktor and I am only invested in the Arcane versions. I find the League ones kinda funny, in a homoerotic Kate Beaton nemesis comic way, but not characters I would spend time reading or writing fic about.

And then the third thing is the playerbase has a reputation for being just awful and toxic lmao, hence joke posts like this. This is kind of a moot point for me, because I'm already disinterested thanks to points 1 and 2, but if I were on the fence it would put me off.

The game studio is also infamous for being horrible but what else is new, you can say basically the same about every game studio, and I'm still watching Arcane, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ not going to claim moral high ground there.

[chaelinsbitch]

Hi chaelinsb*tch, this is so random but something I really enjoy about your blog is that you post media of kpop artists where they actually look Asian and aren't just whitewashed all the time! I used to follow a couple twitter accts that turned into kpop accts, and the colourism was just ridiculous lol!

Hope you're having a good week! :)

Omg you're so sweet thank you 🥺💖💖💖 I know what you mean, sometimes I'll see the pics some ppl post (usually elsewhere but I'll see it on tumblr too) and I'm like ?? Where's their face go??? How do u guys even find that appealing please turn the brightness down 😭 but that is definitely something I am aware of and I'm glad I can be someone to bring you non whitewashed content 🥰 hope you have a wonderful week as well!!!

[oodlyenough]

Hi oodlyenough, I was wondering if it's okay to ask about possible updates to the hilarious and mysterious 'Fixer-Upper'?😊

Hi! You are welcome to ask although unfortunately I don't think my answer will be very satisfying... I don't expect to update that fic again, alas.

I put it on the backburner when I started Anachronism, and then Anachronism was a way longer fic and took way longer to write than I originally planned. Now that it's done, I don't really expect to write more Borderlands fic. After I think 4ish? 5ish? years of writing them, I feel like I've said all I have to say about the Borderlands characters at this point.

Probably not the answer you were hoping for, sorry! I appreciate the interest people had in that fic and I feel sort of bad about how everything shook out there, but such is the nature of fic writing.

Fwiw, I intend to leave it on ao3 as-is. I usually leave up incomplete fics in case people who liked it want to reread what was published, or some people get enjoyment out of reading what was posted and imagining their own ending (I do this as a reader, lol). I did add a "permanent hiatus" tag, although I wish AO3 had an option between "WIP" and "Complete" because neither feels totally accurate.

[oodlyenough]

How do you think of ideas for stories? Do you purposefully sit down and think 'what could I write about this universe?' or something?😊

This is an interesting question, I guess I've never really thought about it before, haha. No, it's not really that I sit down and try to come up with a list... I'm also not very good at writing to prompts, or writing anything really that didn't originate from my own interest. Usually what happens is I end up liking a media/set of characters enough that I think about them, uh, a LOT and that "lot" turns into imagining scenes/conversations/scenarios that never happened in the show. For me it usually starts with missing scenes that are implied to have happened but which didn't take place on screen. Those are good entry points for fic because I don't need to do a lot/any setting up, I just run with whatever canon did and flesh it out a bit more.

Once I'm more comfortable with characters it usually just turns into... like... "I want them to talk about X", or "I wonder what A would do if B did this", or sometimes I just have a few lines of dialogue I like and I'll reverse engineer an entire story scenario to get them to a place where they'll say that dialogue. Sometimes writing one fic leads to a different fic idea. Sometimes I notice a trend in fanfiction or fic characterizations that doesn't sit right with me and I wind up thinking about how I'd do it differently and that turns into a fic idea.

For any given fandom I write for there winds up being a lot of story ideas I have and think/daydream about that I never wind up writing down at all. I still have a Google doc somewhere with rough outlines of Borderlands fics I wanted to write, for eg... I just pulled it up, there are 12 fics outlined in there and I wrote 1.5 of them lmao. Yet I still wrote 40-something other Borderlands fics!

[oodlyenough]

Your AO3 icon is too cute for words!

Aw thank you! he is by the lovely @nowwheresmynut

I'm losing my cross-platform icon consistency ... my brand...! Having a hard time fully letting go of Sasha though. Look at her. Shes beautiful.

[chaelinsbitch]

Hi, I just wanted to say I have seriously been enjoying all your blogging about CL and Coachella recently! I know nothing about her/her old group(?)/managerial troubles(?)/kpop in general but it has been so entertaining (and a little bit emotional, ngl) reading through your tags and seeing her struggles/performances now!😊

Hey! Omg please that's so sweet 🥺❤️ (yes to all of the above - her and her group 2NE1s previous company YG gave them all inumerable amounts of problems and forced them to disband in 2015 so it's really incredible that they're all still close and that CL managed to pull off their surprise appearance!) I really love that you're enjoying all of the posts, I'm also still enjoying it all too 😂 I can't stress enough how meaningful and inspirational it all was, and the fact that you're feeling it too when without the background knowledge of it all speaks volumes :) CL is really a queen of all queens 💗

[oodlyenough]

(No need to respond if you don't want) I am very curious to know why your stories always have Felix having a favourite daughter? Is there a reason you think he favours Fiona over Sasha, instead of him just treating them differently as Fiona is the oldest?😊

Hello! This response got very long! Lol So I write Fiona as the favourite (and that generally as a source of tension amongst the three of them) because it's what canon told me, lol. It's been a while since I replayed, so I can't remember the exact lines or scenes anymore, especially since I think some of them are determinant so I might not have seen them in a LONG time.

But I know for sure there's a (determinant) scene where Vallory will say she sees why Fiona is the favourite. I think Felix himself might have a line about it in ep 1, as well... or at least a line that suggests it. He seems a little bit dismissive of Sasha in the betrayal scene and she definitely seems to be a bit of an afterthought in the $10m scene, since she's not present and he's apparently not going to reach out to her himself. I actually can't remember anymore if Sasha has a line about it directly or just her general bitterness towards Felix after his betrayal. In the hideout, if you look at the picture of the two of them as kids at a shooting range, Sasha will remark that Fiona was always a better shot and it used to make her jealous. So I think there's just enough there overall to make the case that Felix played favourites a little -- and that Sasha knew it.

I tend to approach it as partial truth, partial misunderstanding. I think Felix cared about both sisters and was generally trying to do right by them; I can't hold it against him for raising these orphans into a life of crime when they live on Pandora where all life is a life of crime lol. I tend to think he got along better with Fiona and saw Fiona as more of a direct protege, because Fiona was older and (I imagine) less emotional and more pragmatic about doing whatever a job needed done. I think he didn't really "get" Sasha in quite the same way. Sasha seems the most dissatisfied with life on Pandora, she's got a temper... I also think Sasha resents the con lifestyle more and earlier than Fiona does, which was probably obvious to Felix and created tension between them. And then I imagine Fiona as the constant mediator trying to peacekeep between the two of them.

Having said that, I also think Sasha's very strong reaction to his betrayal shows she did really care about him, look up to him and want his approval; I don't think she'd have nearly the same amount of anger towards him if she didn't. Sasha would've been quite young when they met Felix, he's probably the only parental figure she's ever known, and I think he must've seemed like a hero to her at first for taking them in off the streets. I always felt like part of the difference between her anger & Fiona's is the pedestal Sasha had him on. You might've already read it, but I wrote a fic about them meeting Felix once called Risk Management that gets into this a little more.

From an out of universe POV, I think part of it is coincidence of Fiona being the player character, and Sasha and Felix being NPCs; it means Felix is going to have more direct interaction with the player than he is with Sasha, and I think that's why you get scenes like Felix talking about what a great con artist Fiona is at the start of ep 1 (even though objectively her job was to fool August for 10 minutes, vs Sasha for weeks/months...), Felix and Fiona being alone for the betrayal scene, Athena is supposedly hired to train both sisters but we really only see her with Fiona and it's Fiona who is treated as the Vault Hunter in Training, Fiona being alone for the $10m scene. (This last one is the clumsiest... but narratively it's because they needed it to happen before the whole team assembles, and they want Sasha to be the dramatic last arrival lol). For the most part I think Sasha just isn't in those scenes to keep those scenes focused on the player, the player's feelings about Felix, and the player's choices as a result. Also, cutting it down to just Fiona and Felix spares them having to write additional dialogue for Sasha to go with every Fiona choice, lol.

[chaelinsbitch]

Oh also this is so random, but you introduced me to the song 'Call me Baby' by EXO via your blog in like, October or something? You were posting about its anniversary? And by the end of 2021 it ended up in the 30s of my Top Songs of 2021 so thanks for that haha!😊

AYYYY the taste you have!!! 😎😎 That's awesome! You honestly cannot go wrong with any of exos discog tbh I don't blame you for getting it up there so quickly! Ima go listen to some exo rn actually 😤 If I remember correctly I think you may have sent me an ask a few months ago telling me that you liked call me baby when I reblogged it? I love the progress since 😂 glad I could help 😁☺️

[oodlyenough]

I'm kinda curious- what does it feel like/what goes through your mind when you read your own stories (especially ones you completed a few years ago)?😊

That's an interesting question! I guess it depends a bit on the fic.

At this point I have written so much fic, and for so long, there are entire fics I don't even remember writing. Lmao. So one of those I could read basically as a new story... and depending just how old it is I might even enjoy it, because it is probably written to my personal tastes. :P

Any work of my own that I reread I'll be noticing bits where I would write it differently now, or rephrase, or in some cases where my understanding of a character or relationship has evolved, or even my understanding of a particular issue I might've touched on. Most of my old HP stuff would be hard to reread, not just because of my feelings about the franchise being tainted by the author, but because I wrote them uh, 15 years ago now, so the writing just feels immature and amateur to me.

With more recent fic what usually happens is I kind of hit a point where I get tired of it, lol, like I've read it so many times while writing, editing and shortly after posting that I can't be objective about its quality and I'll be sort of burnt out on it. Like I can't access any of the emotions from it for a while. I am usually fairly confident in my writing, but if I've tried something new, or written for a new character/fandom, or something like that, I'll feel uncertain.

[chaelinsbitch]

Let me restrain myself to one more ask😅 and say that it's past 2:30 am and I keep coming back to your blog to listen to whatever you reblog! I am having so much FUN lol! I love your taste in music!

PLS we're living our best lives rn 😌😌🎶💃🕺💃🕺🎶🎶 thank you!!! :D and you clearly also have an amazing taste in music so props to you too!!!

[chaelinsbitch]

Omg loving these (older?) kpop songs you keep reblogging! I've said this before but I don't listen to kpop, I just follow you cos you're funny, so it's really fun discovering all these songs! Frigging LOVE lol and her by Block B! It's almost midnight and I'm currently jamming to Her in my bed and having a great time!

Hope you have a good weekend😊

Hi!!!! Omg pls thank you so much I'm really glad you like them 🥺💞💞💞 pls your messages have made my entire day 😭 block b and Her in particular are one of my fave groups/songs so I'm really glad you enjoy them as well!!! I was having a party in my room earlier too LOL we're spending our Friday nights well 😂 I hope you have a great weekend too!!! :D 💖💖💖

[oodlyenough]

If you think it's feasible, what do you think an established romantic relationship between Fiona/Athena would be like?

HELLO I thought about this for a long time hoping I'd come up with a better answer lol

I like Fiona/Athena. I guess first I have to start with Janey/Athena, which is that think... I mean, I think Janey/Athena are sweet, and I tend to write them together in my fics as you might've seen, but in total honesty I felt like Tales introduced, and then failed to resolve, a really major relationship conflict. Athena lying and hiding the stuff about still kind-of vault hunting etc... Fiona having to lie to Janey in order for the two to become engaged... It's a bit strange because I think they could easily have fixed it in ep 5 if by having Janey and Athena both in your team, Janey was like "hey actually this is pretty fun, I can see you enjoy this :)" ...instead of... what you get in the game, which is Janey reminding Athena that she can't do this anymore even though Athena is clearly enjoying herself. It's the WEIRDEST non-resolution to their issues, one of the clunkier bits in Tales' writing for sure.

Anyway, contrasting with those weird choices, you've got Fiona and Athena, and Fiona as this sort of bright-eyed protege amazed by everything Athena does while clearly trying to impress and mimic her. Fiona's interest in Vault Hunting is fairly non-determinant by the end of the game, so I think Fiona and Athena could work together as a vault hunting duo, since (imo) Athena clearly still enjoys the adrenaline of it all. Plus, Athena's good at the mechanics of vault hunting, but Fiona's better with people -- both reading them and manipulating them -- so they'd balance each other's skills well as a team.

I think where they'd have more difficulty as a romantic relationship is that I don't think either of them are super emotionally vulnerable/open, so that might be a hurdle. I tend to imagine Fiona's never had a serious relationship. In a Fiona/Athena AU I guess it depends what you do with Janey... but assuming Janey/Athena still happened in some capacity, Athena would have all of *that* baggage from a deep but ultimately failed relationship AND all the stuff from Atlas and her sister... So, honest communication would probably not be their strong suit, lol. Maybe they'd have like years of vault hunting UST before they finally got it together.

Somewhere there's an AU where I wrote Anachronism a little differently, Athena is single when Fiona gets home 12 years later, and they have a slowburn get together.

[oodlyenough]

If you ever imagined a reverse AU of Anachronism where Vaughn and Sasha disappeared (with Fiona learning about the 9 mill) and reappeared 12 years later, how would you imagine Rhys and Fiona reacting?

Ok for starters I'm sorry this took me so long to answer, lol, I've been contemplating it on and off since you sent it and this got long. But then I guess I had 90k+ words to say about the scenario as it was in the fic, lmao, so.

An early stumbling block for me is that it's pretty hard for me to imagine a scenario where Sasha and Vaughn go into the vault first and by themselves, just doesn't really... seem like something they'd do tbh, they don't have protagonist syndrome like Rhys and Fiona do loool. But I guess for sake of argument let's assume they did for XYZ reason and the same set-up happens.

The core external plot, with Helios etc, would all be different obviously... I'm not gonna delve into that because it took me, like, years to come up with the original version LOL. But here is where I think I'd take the various characters and relationships, roughly:

Rhys & Fiona as the left-behind

Obviously, I think Rhys and Fiona would spend a long time searching for them -- to no avail, because like in the fic, because Sasha and Vaughn aren't anywhere to be found. But I think Rhys and Fiona's relationship might fall apart though ... I think Fiona would respond to the stress/worry by looking for someone to blame, and uh Rhys is... there. Lol I mean already canonically in Tales even if you play Rhys as fairly inoffensive in his decision-making, Fiona is furious with him, so I think it's just kind of how she processes things, and the nature of her relationship with Rhys in particular.

So, while in my fic I have Sasha and Vaughn's relationship as strained -- particulary in the off-screen period -- but ultimately friendly, I think I'd have Rhys & Fiona's friendship totally dissolved, their amicable bickering turning more and more to genuine fights, resentment and eventual estrangement years before Sasha & Vaughn come back. I think I'd have Rhys eventually go off and start Atlas and Fiona as a sort of lone wolf slash Vault Hunter character, always keeping an ear out for Sasha. :P Athena 2.0. I guess honestly I kind of see them becoming the worst versions of themselves, both detached from the relationships that kept them grounded.

(Plus, if I were writing this as a fic, I'd want conflict and places for character growth... so... I think this would be the most interesting route, lol.)

Fiona & Sasha

On the other hand I DON'T think Fiona would fall into the same thinking as Sasha wrt the money and Felix, despite the similar evidence on the face of it. I guess this is partly a function of the relationship between Fiona, Felix and Sasha. As the favoured child I don't think Fiona would have that same feeling of insecurity or worry about being left out, etc... so I don't think it would occur to her that Sasha was conspiring against her.

So I think the Sasha-Fiona reunion would be simpler, because Fiona wouldn't be angry with or push Sasha away the way that Sasha reacted to Fiona's return. I think the tension I'd want to explore with that relationship would just be sort of Sasha dealing with guilt over how Fiona has changed in her absence.

Rhys & Vaughn

Meanwhile I think Vaughn missing 12 years and coming back to find Rhys having decent success with Atlas would just underscore every insecurity Vaughn ever had about their relationship, Rhys not needing him, etc.

I guess it would also depend how Rhys develops in this universe... without Sasha or Fiona or Vaughn's influence, I could see him reverting to being more corporate-focused and career-driven again, putting him automatically at odds with the others. So the struggle with their relationship would be how to deal with being two extremely different people now. Actually this is kind of like their Bl3 arc, as I'm describing it, lmao. Except in this story Vaughn still wears pants. :P

Rhys & Sasha

So the shipper in me wants to say, like, meeting Sasha again would remind Rhys of the better person he was growing to be during tftbl and the growth he had since abandoned and help him rediscover that part of himself, etc. And maybe it would.

But from Sasha's POV... I don't know. I think Sasha would feel a deep loss at coming back to discover this guy she was coming around to liking and believing in turned out to be the person she feared he was when they first met. I think she'd feel sad and sort of betrayed and weary. My shipping it is already sort of conditional on Rhys making certain choices/behaving a particular way during Tales.

Realistically if I were writing this fic I would probably want it to be shippy LMAO so I'd be trying to make it work somehow. But it would be an uphill battle, I think, for the two of them to come together romantically.

Fiona & Vaughn / Vaughn & Sasha

....... Honestly I have no idea what I'd do with Fiona and Vaughn, lmao, I can't see them having much of a relationship in this; I don't think Fiona would resent him but I also don't think Fiona would feel much connection. They weren't super close in canon to begin with, and I don't think there'd be much pushing them together in this scenario.

Sasha and Vaughn I think would become closer due to the mutual weirdness of the situation they're in and how different Rhys and Fiona are. Consciously or not I think they'd wind up playing a role trying to peacemake between Rhys and Fiona.