#ramblings about what's wilmon and what's edmar and can we even neatly separate

[skibasyndrome]

Not the edmar anon, hope it's ok to say this but, I really would appreciate when people write wilmon as a version of edmar or camouflaged as edmar that it would be tagged properly. I'm not policing anything or telling people not to write what they want 💜 because getting inspired by a photoshoot or a candid picture is normal and it's more about knowing how to insert wilmon into that scenario which is harder but possible.

I guess I just wished there was a tagged specifically for it? I'm actually surprised there isn't one since there's a good amount of fics with it but anyway I hope I said that in a respectful way, it's just a personal preference.

Hey, it's absolutely fine to say this and I do definitely appreciate the way you worded things, but I'm still going to lay out my personal view and some broader thoughts on this, hope that's okay.

(putting this below a tag because I don't wanna put my personal fic preferences out there just like that where they could be discouraging to others)

I don't know if you are saying this to me because you perceive my wilmon, when they're inspired by, say, a photoshoot, as being camouflaged edmar? You're if course totally allowed to feel that way, like you say, personal preference, but I just wanna say how I go about things.

Because to me, they're two very different things. And while I do occasionally take aesthetic or thematic inspiration from photos or photoshoots (just like I take aesthetic or thematic inspiration from some things I read about or hear about or see IRL that also aren't yr canon), I always set out to put wilmon when I label it wilmon. One of the things that's keeping me from writing edmar is that I don't know these men. Like, sure, I have a rough idea of their public persona and I think it's super cool for writers to pick that up and use it as a basis for their rpf, but the way I approach writing these days this just... isn't enough? Idk Omar, idk Edvin, who knows what they are moved by and what they think about. Wille and Simon (and tbh Wille more than Simon) are characters that I feel like I know and, at least in mt subjective reading of them, know enough to put into varying scanerios, even when the scenarios aren't always close to canon.

I mean sure, interpretations vary and everyone sees the characters and what they'd be capable of in different scenarios differently, so there's bound to be some differences, but I can guarantee that when I call and tag something as wilmon I do my very best to make it the wilmon I know in the way I understand them. And that's just me and my stance, but I can obviously only speak from my own standpoint.

This might be where some of the conflict comes from? I don't read nearly as much as I'd like to read, but I do certainly find myself sometimes going "yeah, this isn't selling me them in this particular scenario/with this behavior/these emotions", just because I have my version of the characters and that doesn't always align with other people's reading. Again, idk what fics in particular you are referring to here, but I know that I've definitely also seen ones that were based off edmar things and didn't, again, just to me and my personal preferences, go enough into the thoughts and feelings I'm used to reading for Wille and Simon in order for them to feel like them. But for me this isn't usually a thing that only happens when something is based on IRL happenings, it also happens with all kinds of AUs and canon-compliant stuff, just because I have my preferences and one of them is like... enough internal focalization on the character to make it clear why they are in a scenario, and if that's missing then it just doesn't quite work for me. But, tbh, that doesn't mean that it doesn't work for the author and for plenty of readers. And, I wanna make this very clear here, I really don't think one interpretation is more correct than the others! I think there's a large pool of possible interpretations that are informed by the source material and it's absolutely possible to come to different conclusions based on all kinds of factors. Like, idk, some people might say the characters would have the same base personalities when they're adults, others might say there's still so much for them to learn and discover so that they inevitably change in some (or a lot of) ways.

Like, popstar Simon for example. That's a concept I don't reeeeaaaally have any strong feelings on, but I know people are somewhat divided. And like, on one hand I can see why the Simon who happily posted his song to Instagram and got excited about the feedback could be written into a popstar, but then I also understand that for someone else the breach of privacy he experienced would keep them from comfortably imagining him as a popstar, you know? Both seems plausible to me, jaut based on different characteristics or behaviors or experiences of the characters.

And that's kind of where I'm at with the wilmonification of edmar, I think it can be done in a way that feeds off the characters and makes sense for them. And I can't say who does or doesn't do this "the right way", because I think it's a hugely subjective thing. And I know you said you don't want to police people's writing, which I do very much appreciate 💜 But even with the tag... it feels a bit like... where do you draw the line, you know? Because there are some things that the characters share with the actors who played them (namely their looks, a few select character traits that the actors built off to create the characters, the singing, etc) and I personally would find it difficult to draw a clean line. I think some people are already tagging or noting in the A/N if they base something off a photoshoot, or the duo campaign for example, but idk. Does every buzzcut Wille gets in a fic need to be tagged as inspired by Edvin, just because Wille only lived on our screens for 18 episodes and didn't have a buzzcut at any point because we only got to see a few months of his life, while we're going to see Edvin for however long his career stays a public thing and he's probably going to try out every haircut under the sun in the meantime?

I hope I'm not coming off harshly here, I definitely can see where you're coming from, but I'm just a person with their own worries and thoughts about the things I write, you know. I think part of my reaction to this is informed by the time I got a nasty anon who accused me of being fetishizing after they claimed somewhere else that I had written a wilmon fic that was essentially rpf, and I didn't like that accusation, because, at least in my mind, I had done everything to make those characters the Wille and Simon we (or at least I) know (because I don't think a haircut or outfit alone makes them... not them. I think you just need to explain how they ended up with that outfit or hairstyle). Or, idk, when I see Omar at the beach that's one thing, but when I then get an idea for wilmon at the beach, while maybe initially born out of those pictures, it still comes from a very different place cognitively and creatively for me. I'm not like "I want to write about Omar", what I actually want to do is throw Wille and Simon into a new scenario and see how they behave in it. Because wilmon never had a canon beach vacation, but I think it could be interesting and fun and hopefully entertaining to have them go through that.

So... idk. Maybe I'm not the best person to ask this, maybe there's too much baggage there or maybe I'm too unwavering in seeing my wilmon as wilmon, but I do hope that you can find fics thar work for your preferences and that the search isn't too frustrating. And maybe now that it seems like more and more people are getting comfortable writing actual edmar rpf when they mean to it's going to be less likely that very... hm... typical edmar situations are turned into wilmon fics? But idk. I think many people are very likely genuinely writing wilmon when they say it's wilmon, I know I am, but... yeah... the fact that we all see them slightly differently really makes things difficult.

Anyways, sorry if I took this entirely the wrong way and you meant it differently, no hard feelings, I know it's sometimes difficult to find exactly the version of them you have in your mind. But I do, like I said, really appreciate the way you worded this and I do think it's an interesting conversation to have, even if our opinions on it (maybe?) differ, but yeah. Hope you have a nice day and hope none of this came off the wrong way 💜💜💜