#rr fanfic ideas

[schrijverr]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, as a fandom we don’t do enough with the fact that Hardison is canonically the forger and he made Old Nate. Like he is skilled. And I feel we can make cute OT3 fics with that.

Like Hardison needing to make a fake in a genre, not a specific painting and having Eliot and/or Parker pose for him.

Or make it sexy (semi-failed) where he’s like “pose naked for me” and his partners are like “sure weirdo (affectionate)” and he thinks it’s going to be sexy, but live nude drawing isn’t really sexy, but it can be very intimate, so it’s still nice and he gets emotional about how much they trust him and how they can be vulnerable with him.

Or Eliot has banned screens and Hardison is pouting about it, but then he finds a notepad, so he settles in on the couch and observes Eliot and Parker being domestic and starts sketching them. (Maybe Eliot later finds the drawing and gets emotional about it, because this is how Hardison sees him, not a murdering monster, but this soft, happy cook).

Or he makes a little drawing of Parker and gives it to her, because he’s sappy. And he doesn’t expect anything of it, because Parker is more of the money as a gift kind of person, but then they need emergency cash, so he goes into one of her safes and it’s in there on pillow in a nice frame surrounded by diamonds, because that little drawing he made her is as precious to her, like im crying that is so soft.

Anyways, Hardison is the forger! The possibilities are endless!!!

[purgaytorysupremacy]

me, writing a heartfelt conversation between two characters in my 120k word and counting fanfic: does this feel familiar bc I’ve been writing this conversation in my head for months, or did they have a shadow of this conversation 60k words ago?

[flamingpudding]

Modern (Fenton) Ghost Hunting Part 1

Ties to: Post from under 'It started with a Ouija Board' found in the Masterpost

A/N: I got a little stuck with this and there is another bigger fanfic project I started working on that has me distracted. But I wanted to post at least part of this before I might end up in radio silence for three weeks cause I am visiting family out of country and have no idea about internet access there yet 😅

Danny was in a good mood as he slurped the ecto-shake his mom had made upon his return from the Zone. It was one of the more harmless and ghost helping food inventions his parents had come up with, once the truth was out of the bag when he was more or less forced to take on his kingly duties. Though his mom's ecto-fudge special (that was also one of the few ectoplasm infused foods not coming back to life) made for only him and Ellie was even better than the shakes. It wasn't better than their special family recipes their Dad loved so much but it came a close second.

He sipped on it more as he fell back into the couch as he flicked through some TV channels. His last trip to Gotham had been a month ago and he mused that he probably would need to visit soon to update Lady Gotham on the status of the Garbage Disposal Leaks. It was a pain to deal with but hey at least he, for once, got to be the mean guy to yell at the observants how they could have left these alone for over a hundred of years.

Seriously? If he could, he would stick Sam and one of her righteous rants onto them too.

So yea Danny was in a good mood he had gotten rid of another leak which only left a couple more to take care of and then put the observants into their place with another petty with hidden insults filled and Sam inspired as well as co-authored lecture.

He would give Lady Gotham a present for giving him such a great opportunity with this problem, even if that wasn't her intention. There was also a rumor in the GZ that Box Ghost and Walker had gotten beat up by Lady Gotham several times while he was busy, he would like to hear what that was about.

In all this Danny completely forgot about his encounter with the vigilantes and that his parents told him about a new business partner that was interested in their Fenton Ghost Tech that wasn't weaponry but focused on co-existence, like the Fenton (blob-)ghost feeder.

So when the doorbell rang and Danny went to open the door, thinking it might be one of his friends. He nearly choked on his ecto-shake as he came face to face with a person he only knew from paparazzi shots or Tucker's endless rants about their technology.

"Hello, I am Tim Drake-Wayne! I believe I have an appointment with the Drs Fentons? I am not too early am I?"

-------

Red Robin was on his wits end. After the first success he had used various more 'modern' summonings in hopes of getting their ghost to show up again. But most of them ended with the same white ghost or only one other ghost claiming their name as Box Ghost to appear. Strangely when they did appear, after about a minute after their appearance an invisible force started to attack them to which these ghosts instantly turned tail and 'unsummoned' themselves. They didn't even give Red Robin the chance to ask anything.

In the end after the third time of summoning that white ghost called Walker, the ghost peeked out from that portal once and the moment they spotted him sunk back into it. Not even bothering to tell him about any rules RR might have broken. Since then none of his summons appeared to work anymore.

Though the vigilante at least concluded that whatever had attacked their teenage ghost most likely was also the driving force behind Walker or any other ghost refusing to answer his summonings. He had suspicions that might have something to do with Lady Gotham, the teenage ghost mentioned and had been unable to summon at all.

Of course Red Robin couldn't leave it like that so he dug deeper into the whole ghost cult thing and came across published research papers. Apparently the ghost cult wasn't just an occult but also a science, that he highly doubted was real. The deeper he dug the more concerned he became, for one that ectoplasm they mentioned looked awfully a lot like Lazarus Water, and second the research from the Drs Fenton he found was awfully a lot biased until a year or so ago when they suddenly invalidated all their previous research and published a nearly completely different thesis.

Though the teenage vigilante had to admit everything they offered on their website looked a whole lot more modern and right out of a SyFy movie than any of the tools he had already purchased, from a ghost Wikipedia (which surprisingly included information about Walker and that Box Ghost), to protective gear, to feeders and ectoplasm infusers.

So after a small recon with his siblings and listening to their disagreement and another rant from their youngest about Pit Demons, Red Robin made the decision to check these Drs Fenton out undercover. And who better to do that than Tim Drake-Wayne, CoCEO of Wayne Enterprise who got interested in their ectoplasm-powered gadgets designed for co-existing. After all Gotham might just be as hunted if not more with the crime rate they had.

His siblings were not happy, he knew that but he took the earliest chance he had, to take a private plane to Amity Park and made an appointment with the Fentons on a saturday afternoon.

He made sure to smile pleasantly as the son of the Drs Fentons opened the door and took his time staring. Before finally inviting him in after a shout from the Drs. resounded somewhere behind him in the house. Tim of course eyed the glowing green shake the other teenager was drinking, already forming plans on getting a sample of it the first chance he got.

"Mr. Drake! Such a pleasure to have you here! You have already met my little boy Danny, my husband will join us later he got hold up by my daughters. But we do have a couple of inventions prepared for showcasing, we could also go over some of the theories first if you prefer until my husband can join us.." A woman came up shaking his hand and the teenager, Danny, stepped away from them retreating further away but staying in earshot, Tim noted.

"Dr. Fenton, thank you for having me. I am looking forward to learning about this ecto-energy and your Fenton-inventions, I believe one was called an Ecto-Infuser?" Did he imagine it or did that boy cringe? Also the boy was clearly watching him, he tried to appear nonchalant but the way the other teen's eyes followed Tims every move as well as the guarded look in his eyes was making it obvious.

"The Ecto-Dejecto, originally designed to weaken ghosts but is now one of the many medical tools that can help a ghost survive if they do not have a steady supply of ectoplasm." Dr. Fenton easily explained while leading him over to the seating area.

"Danny be a dear and bring our guest something to drink. Coffee or Tea?"

"Coffee would be fine." Not like he would actually drink it. As much as he and his siblings made fun of Bruce's paranoia, he was not about to drink coffee offered by people who research ghosts. Besides, looking around, he wasn't sure how well they followed OSHA and he wasn't about to potentially drink a coffee infused with Lazarus Water. If that ectoplasm was Lazarus water. But he would take it with him as one of many samples.

"Sure things mom. Should I bring out the fudge too?"

Tim's ear twitched and he turned ever so slightly in the direction of the son. No it couldn't be, could it?

"Oh please be so kind."

"Will be right back."

Now Tim wished he had forced at least one of his siblings along. Because if his ears didn't betray him then this teenager had the same voice like the ghost kid. Though his memory could be slightly impaired because of the time frame since he had last heard it. He would need to get a voice recording now too and play it to his siblings.

[toplines]

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE STOP REPOSTING GIFS.

“bu…bubu- but they’re just wittle pixels and digital images rwight 🥺” no. we spend hours on gifs or even one singular gif to make edits for FREE on tumblr dot com. name a person who asked us to do this. no one!! exactly!! we make gifs bc its enjoyable and fun but people like reposters suck the fun out of it!!! and do NOT go and tell us that “gifs aren’t that hard to make” baby girl what do u think we do? go online and search for a video downloader and download it at like a crappy 720p and go to like literal ezgif dot com and all the gifs just MAGICALLY have their effects, typography, colouring, blending, animation, quality all up and ready? why dont u try and make a gif. hm.

and also, @ all of you “gif collectors” or some fanfic writers. lemme tell u a secret. an itty bitty secret. did u know… theres this really cool thing called PROPERLY CREDITING? im not talking about a stupid “credits to the owners” no. it isn’t that hard to properly source the creators or accounts.

that wasn’t so hard, hm?

also oh my god, do NOT go around saying you made these gifs when it is so obvious you didn’t. no bff, it isn’t a coincidence we have the same sharpening AND colouring settings.

and hey, i’ll stop my angry typing for a minute and just say that if you wanna learn how to make gifs there are plenty of amazing accounts and tutorials that are incredibly detailed. here are a few i recommend:

how to: make high quality gifs by sith-maul

giffing 101 by cillianmurphy

giffing and colouring tutorial by sashafierce

how to fix and avoid orangewashing characters by maxchapman

how to fix and avoid white/pink/yellowwashing by jeonwonwoo

how to: colouring east & southeast asians by blueshelp

pastel gifs: a tutorial by completeresources

how to fix and avoid whitewashing in pastel gifs by fadenet

and for those who don’t want to pay/ t*rr*nt photoshop:

free giffing tutorial by ashleysolsen

photopea gif tutorial by lacebird

and @usergif has a bunch of directories and navigation for tutorials and inspiration!

again, there are so many useful tutorials if you’d just look.

i know this probably won’t stop all reposters (unfortunately) but i hope those reposters that are reading this realise how messed up stealing gifs are. it isn’t funny or cool to see gifs that you’ve spent so much time on only to be reposted here or on other sites without credit or being claimed as someone elses.

we’re just asking for a proper credit on your post or maybe even stop reposting in whole. im sure you had good intentions in making those posts, but you have to understand how much it hurts. at this point, we have to put our watermarks in the middle of our gifs to avoid people cropping them out.

and please, PLEASE reblog edits. you have no idea how diminishing it is to see such a crappy like to reblog ratio. remember this hellsite has such a crappy algorithm so reblogging is essentially one of the only ways to give posts more traction

AGAIN. dont repost gifs. dont steal gifs without credit. dont belittle gifmakers. just stop being so disrespectful and rude and have a brain for once. thank you for reading.

edit: ive noticed ppl asking why i kinda like insulted those who use 720p and ezgif, im really sorry if i made it sound like a bad thing !! i was just very angry writing this aaaadjskdks gifmaking, HQ or not is valid and nobody deserves to get their creations stolen !

[bitimdrake]

Um, I have a question regarding the Blackest Night arc. In which issue was it revealed that there was something wonky with Bruce's body (I think Hal discovered it and maybe told Dick + revealed that Hal knows Tim's on his Bruce-quest, maybe others do too)?

I'm curious and want to understand, since in certain fanfic, there's a thing about Tim being abandoned / seen as crazy by the hero community, so they didn't reach out to assist Tim (certain fans say it's likely influenced by Dick). I believe that one scene in Blackest Night has something to do with it.

The whole Tim being abandoned and seen as crazy thing is 100% made up fanon and it sucks and I have little more to say on that part. But I got plenty for you on comic recapping:

Bruce's body has a presence throughout the main Blackest Night mini, but the big one is #5 where he's "raised" from the dead.

Hal and Barry are the leading characters of this part of the event, and the ones who have the actual conversations about how Black Lantern "Bruce" was blatantly different from all the actual reanimated dead people, thus indicating that's not his real body (see BN#6 and BN#8 particularly). But the actual "reanimation" happens in a very public setting in front of a whole lot of superheroes, so it's really not a case of any one person discovering the information.

Dick and Damian and the rest of the bats aren't present at the time and I don't think we actually see who/when passes the info on, but they're aware a little later on in Batman and Robin, and start talking about Bruce returning circa B&R#10.

How this actually connects with Tim's story is...kind of awkward and not totally lined up, so I had to line it up myself for my chronological order. Tim returns to Gotham temporarily and is with Dick during the Blackest Night: Gotham tie-in, but then he returns to his brucequest in Red Robin, and later in RR#12 seems to be ready to present his findings as if he's still under the impression he needs to convince Dick--to which Dick is like well actually we have a lot to talk about there.

So I guess the implied order of events is (1) Dick and Tim fight black lanterns while, elsewhere, unknown to them, "Bruce" is "reanimated" and everyone else realizes that ain't his real body, (2) Tim peaces out immediately afterwards and so misses when, (3) someone comes to tell Dick/Damian/Alfred what they all saw with Bruce, making them start to realize things are strange here and be more open to the idea Bruce might be alive. Then (4) Tim returns, and off screen after RR#12 both sides share what they've each learned, and Tim convinces everyone of his specific theory.

A lot of the conversations and logistics and behind-the-scenes workings are missing, but after that RR arc I place B&R#10, and Dick and Damian talking about Bruce coming back. And then we have all the comics surrounding Bruce's actual return (Time Masters: Vanishing Point and Return of Bruce Wayne in particular), by which point everyone is aware of the whole situation, and a team of various heroes has come together to figure out how to get their Batguy unstuck from time.

[elvishdemigod]

So I was somewhat inspired by the AUs @shitty-fallout-art would do, triggered my brain to come up with this backwards au. The Backout AU? Fallwards? Backfall? Outwards? Anyways- Some backwards in their goals, some backwards in their origins. Brain is still swirling with it.

Piper is either a secret informant for the Institute, or she gave up being a reporter after it resulted in the death of her dad.

MacCready is a Mercenary-turned-Gunner. Maybe lost Duncan to ferals and Lucy is sick and dying, their relationship is relationshit after losing Duncan, but he's still trying to find a cure for her and using his Gunner connections. This also kind of makes it make sense why he'd be fine about staying in the Commonwealth after getting the cure and being open for romance. Not completely but still. And it would make the Gunners a joinable faction, maybe

Maybe X6-88 is still a courser, but he's one who actually has his own mind and thoughts. His goal is to kidnap people for the "perfect society".

Curie is a synth who wants to be a Mrs. Nanny because she's tired of thinking so much.

Deacon was a member of the Railroad, until he lost his wife to a malfunctioning synth, and became part of the University Point Deathclaws.

Nick was a detective but sooner or later was oucasted and either left to rot amongst junk, or the Institute took him back in to help him.

Preston leaves the Minutemen to be a simple farmer.

Danse might have found out he was a synth, and joined the BoS in hopes to hide and even forget his identity.

Shaun will still be a child, and believes synths are equal people. And/Or the Institute actually wants synths to have free thought, the goal is to restart society underground and make free-thinking immortal people with the synths, which is their reason to kidnap people. I don't want to take them away from being villains, but I do want to make it so that their delusions of kidnapping and killing people for turning into synths to be more justifiable, I guess.

Cait maybe was a chem-addicted fighter whose parents gave her to Tommy because they couldn't feed her, and she ends up getting clean and finding her parents? Kinda similar to the Pauper in the Barbie Princess & The Pauper, tbh.

Dunno about Strong, Hancock, Sole, or Dogmeat though. Then there's the Railroad, Minutemen, and BoS stuff. Railroad and Minutemen might be more thriving this switch-around? And maybe the RR is for synths who escaped because they have the memories of the families they were taken from and see the situation as so wrong.

This whole idea would need tweaking and more thought, some doesn't feel like it's backwards and more of a switch or opposites thing. But characters having their stories made backwards or flip-flopped would be interesting!

If I weren't working on the fanfic with the vampire idea, I'd work on this instead.

[redwolf17]

So after Weirwood Queen is finished do you have any other fanfic you are planning to write?

Hi there!

I've answered this before, but given how useless tumblr's search function is, I had to use google to find the post xD and feel free to ask any follow up questions.

Some new ideas since that post:

Crack fic oneshot: Home Alone 2: Lost in King's Landing, where Sansa and Arya at the end of AGOT end up defending the tower of the hand

Oneshot: a Ned v Tywin scene set during the RR era

TWQ and canon compliant oneshot: That time Catelyn and Ser Rodrik stayed for 3-4 days at Littlefinger's brothel, because wtf lol

Crack fic oneshot: 50 ways to leave your lover aka kill Daemon Targaryen in increasingly silly/over the top fashion

[aftokrator-official]

Screenshotting because it's not rebloggable anymore (omitting OP's name for that reason) but this post - more specifically the replies to it - have been bothering me since I saw it a day or so ago and I finally decided to come back and engage lmao. (Source link from OP)

OP's totally right. OpenAI is a garbage company with garbage business practices but this is not the way to do this, people. I'm glad y'all have so much faith in the legal system here, but I don't, and if this goes through it's not going to harm the entities you want it to harm. believe me.

(i am not against AI when used ethically but i think that is a moot point here bc i do not believe OpenAI is an ethical developer of AI tech. anyway)

Here's the "rebuttal" that has been irritating me so much I couldn't leave it alone:

THIS IS NOT REMOTELY TRUE.

First of all, unless I've missed something big, OpenAI has never disclosed the contents of the proprietary dataset they use to train their LLMs. We have no idea whether ChatGPT was trained on George RR Martin's books or not. Presumably, neither does George RR Martin. So all we have to go on is that ChatGPT "knows" characters and details from ASOIAF. Okay.

The problem is that ASOIAF is a massively popular series with some massively popular multimedia adaptations and spinoffs, and processing the text of the novels is far from the only way ChatGPT could have learned to produce those details.

Let's try a little experiment.

GPT-2 is an open source model released by OpenAI when they were just starting out. It works more or less the same way as ChatGPT and its ilk, just on a vastly smaller scale. It's much, much more limited, but the underlying algorithms work on the same concepts. So, what would GPT-2 give us if we ask it for a summary of a hypothetical GRRM novel?

I typed up the first paragraph here, and GPT-2 gave me the rest. (GPT-2 isn't a chatbot, but works more like autocomplete, so I didn't prompt it directly.)

Okay, I have a feeling that plot doesn't make much sense as a prequel, but hey, it's AI (and an elderly one at that), it's not going to be particularly good at this left to its own devices. And look, it DID pull out a few details specific to ASOIAF - Jon Snow, the Night Watch, the Wildlings. So case closed, right? GPT-2 must have had ASOIAF novels in its training data too, just like its nasty little great-grandchild.

Except we know what was in GPT-2's dataset - it was trained on a 40GB corpus of data scraped from publicly-available web pages, specifically pages linked from Reddit. We don't have all the exact texts that were used, but we DO have the top 1000 domains contained in the dataset. All of which is a hell of a lot more information than we have on ChatGPT.

What websites are ranked #75 and #160 in the list of 1000 domains? Why, it's Fanfiction.net and AO3. Hmm, I wonder where it learned about the very popular fictional characters from George RR Martin's novels! (Certainly not just from fanfiction, either - sites like IMDB and Wikia were ranked much higher in the list of sources, and entertainment news and fan wiki articles would also contain a lot of text about ASOIAF/GoT.)

You can certainly argue that using these websites as training data is also unethical or should be illegal - but that's not what's being argued in this lawsuit. As far as I know, ChatGPT has never spat out a perfect recreation (or even a vaguely paraphrased recreation) of any of GRRM's writing, so the only evidence for violation of his copyright in this case is the generation of what is essentially a machine-created derivative work. That is really, really worrying, even if you don't think the machine should be allowed to do that. I'm not a lawyer, just a fanfic writer and software developer, so I have no idea how legitimate the legal argument here is... but it's going down a road that is very dangerous for fandom, whether you believe it is or not.

[snrsnrp]

Can you tell me more about the comic? I’m very interested 🤩

1840s AU (10 chapters) centered around Afterdeath (just cause’ haha) Both of them are University professors, Geno being an exchange prof at Reaper’s campus due to <cough cough plot spoilers>

A lot of AUs make a comeo-ish appearance but yea. I’m planning on writing an Errorink (platonic/romantic up to interpretation) one shot after finishing this one as they leave an unfinished story arc in BA&RR. Other than that I suppose the main themes are revolution (monster equality n such) and possssibly and hopefully a good rivals to lovers arc.

Main plot points are the scientific research project both of them are in (anonymously) called the “Greater Good”, in which Reaper was unfortunately chosen to rob graves for human soul essence in hopes of strengthening monster souls. I think the fun part about their secret lives are that the two are paired up quite often in addition to Geno’s implied crush on Reaper, code named ‘Death’. This will then be wrapped up when <COUGH SPOILERS>

(I’m trying to refrain myself from spilling tooooo much but yup)

I think what sparked off this idea was a midnight thought of “what if I wrote a ‘historical’ rivals to lovers Afterdeath fanfic” to which I said yes. I initially planned to update the fic once a week but due to my inconsistent motivation surges I’m leaving it on a bit of a hiatus as of now until I finish my current project.

If you want to read ahead of the comic, there’s a fic on AO3 that will be updated HOPEFULLY TONIGHT.

thank for for asking aaaaa

[darrowsrising]

Trying to write an RR fanfic that complies with canon is so frustrating. Not for lack of ideas, but for lack of skill. How does Pierce write so surgically without making a choppy mess? 😭

I know he practiced, though. I'll just go back to drafting and hopefully I'll get over myself quickly.

[miss-wanna-draw96]

I know how I'm gonna start my crossover fic!! I have an idea, and I'll keep the prologue relatively short, maybe around 2k-3k words. But for now, all I'm gonna say is that we get a glimpse after the ending of RR (Rotten Roots) aka the letter.

I was struggling to come up with a beginning to the story so that's why I had barely any news, but after being away from writing, I'm ready!

For those unaware, I am making a crossover fanfic between Cut Down the Alter and Rotten Roots (both are written by @/missr3n3) where Isaac decides to send an email to a survivor of a cult and digs up the past.

Go read the two stories and go listen to the podcast Rotten Roots is based off of (Cabin Tales by Thomas Halle)

[schrijverr]

AU where Bakugo didn’t become a dick to Izuku because he didn’t have a quirk, but instead became highly overprotective of him. Like scary dog privilege to the max. But then summer before getting into UA hits and Bakugo goes on vacation with family and from texts Izuku seems totally fine, but then he returns and his friend is jacked??? And has a quirk??? And Bakugo has to deal with Izuku not needing his protection anymore and what will he do with himself now?

[duhragonball]

Do you have a favorite episode of the original continuity (IE OG Dragonball, Z, Kai, any series that was an adaptation of Toriyama's manga instead of a continuation)

I made a top ten list of what I consider the best episodes of Dragon Ball and DBZ. I think that list reflects my tastes pretty well, but I was also trying to be somewhat objective about it, which is why I ranked a Saiyans Saga episode higher than a Cell episode.

It's difficult for me to pick a single favorite, but these are some of the ones that I find myself coming back to over and over again.

DBZ 179: Goku shoots Cell's head and shoulders off with a Warp Kamehameha.

DBZ 248: Goku shows off SSJ3 for Goten and Trunks one last time before he returns to Otherworld. Fucks me up every time.

DBZ 140-195: It's not a gimmick, I really do think Cell makes the show more fun to watch.

DBZ 66: This episode inspired the fanfic that I've been writing for the past eight years, so I think it's fair to say it means a lot to me.

DB 143-148: The Goku/Piccolo Jr. fight was a classic, top to bottom

DB 58-67: The last leg of the Red Ribbon arc, with Tao and Goku attacking the RR base was where I really started to get hooked on OG Dragon Ball.

I'm kind of losing focus and just picking large swaths of episodes now, but hopefully you get the idea.

[noco7]

Do you think RR Noah felt kind of OOC?

I could speak for hours about RR Noah. There's a lot that bothers me about him in that season, that's more than just him being "OOC." And it's more than just n*mma.

But yes, he is OOC. It's stated in canon that Owen finds Noah's actions strange. He sees Noah staring at Emma, and it's so strange that the only explanation he can come up with is "maybe he has rabies." The fact that n*mma is unnatural is not only lampshaded, but honestly the point. Noah is acting strange! Because he's in loooove. And "love makes you do strange things" !!! Which isn't completely untrue, but that means you have to assume Noah was in love with Emma as soon as he saw her. Which uhh, doesn't quite make sense, considering Noah has always been the "unimpressed" one.

N*mma's like a self-insert fic. Noah, stoic cold Noah, took one look at her and suddenly he can't take his eyes off her. Suddenly he's doing everything to help her win, everything to be near her. And well, that works when your Y/N, when it's a fanfic and the people reading already want to believe. So the point isn't to be accurate, but to present the most promising fantasy. And there's nothing wrong with that.

But it's not the writing you do for a TV show, when you're trying to convince people who's never seen this ship that it makes sense. (And especially not the writing you do when you also have to convince the audience that the guy in it isn't gay.)

But Noah's decline in RR is more than just N*mma. There's the fact that they set up a promise in the first episode and broke it. There's the fact that his character arc is a circle. There's the fact that RR as a season doesn't really suit Noah's strengths. And yeah, there's the fact that n*mma was poorly written.

So let's walk our way through this.

1) Noah says in the first episode, that he is going to focus on WINNING. "Every reality show I've been on, I lost. This time, no excuses, no distractions." I am bolding this because it is very important. Noah wants to win. This is a little strange for Noah, but it's good, and its easy to fill in the reasons. He's tired of losing is the obvious one. Maybe he needs the money, maybe it's a New Years resolution. It's be great if the show told us exactly why he's taking the show serioudly, but it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

The important thing is he's finally going to TRY. Right? Right?

Nope. The challenge in the 2nd episode is to pick out five specific spices. Noah says "just give us the five closest to you." 🤦‍♂️ This wasn't even his own plan. He copied Dwaynes. Like... what happened to trying? What happened to wanting to win? And then makes Owen eat the resulting mess, so again. What effort is Noah putting in? Where's the try? BTW - one of the spices he was supposed to identify was cinnamon. CINNAMON. How does he not know what cinnamon is? Like at least try to get one right. (Honestly, this whole challenge sucks? Only white people would think identifying spices is a challenge.)

There's also a challenge where he has to memorize an Icelandic phrase. Just one phrase. Somehow he fucks this up. He's supposedly a smart guy, and he fucks this up.

It's like the writers forgot that his character existed beyond snark. Noah is supposed to be a smart guy. Why can't he memorize one phrase? He's also supposed to be Indian ... like from, you know, India, the place that's known for its spices? Hmm. I'm not saying he has to know every single spice, but it feels fake that he doesn't know one.

Again, what happened to trying? What happened to "focusing on the cheddar?" aka the prize money? What happened to attempting competence?

So when I say they set up a promise in the first episode and broke it, this is what I mean. They set up an idea and completely forgot about it, to the point of making Noah dumber than he rationally should be.

2) So remember Noah in Island? He wasn't really a character till the dodgeball episode, where he refused to help his teammates, made fun of them, and gets eliminated for it.

Now think of Noah's last episode in RR. He refuses to help Owen with the Komodo dragon and gets himself flattened by a pile of rugs. And you think "oh well now he can't help because he's stuck, poor baby." But he can help himself because he does when Emma calls him. But he refuses to on his own, or when Owen calls out to him. And they get eliminated because of it. So once again, Noah refuses to help his teammates and gets eliminated for it.

Which makes it sound like it's not OOC, he's just a really flat character. And that's sorta true, but the RR version is WORSE.

Noah never made a promise to win in Island. And the teammates he was refusing to help - he didn't know them. They were strangers. And above all, he didn't directly cause their loss. Sure, he was deadweight, but the team could have won without him if it weren't for Harold.

But in RR, the person he's refusing to help is Owen. His best friend. The nicest person alive, the guy who did everything for Noah when Emma dumped him. He's refusing to help his best friend win, and making sure they lose. Why? Because he's decided he doesn't care about the game anymore, now that he has Emma. Great, but OWEN'S STILL RIGHT THERE.

Despite the narrative trying to tell us that Noah is a nicer person because of Emma, he's still clearly selfish AF. You could even say he's gotten WORSE now. And that really fucking sucks.

So when I say Noah's character arc is a circle, I mean it. His selfish actions have not changed, despite three years, a girlfriend, and the nicest best friend in the world.

3) RR as a season doesn't suit Noah. What do I mean by that? Well, RR is a season where everyone is divided into pairs that rarely interact with each other. It's not that they never interact - the Icedancers and the Cops rivalry is unmatched, but that they don't do it all that often. It's more coincidental to run into another group than anything else. At least that's the vibe I got.

But Noah is a character who thrives off being mean to a variety of people that he's had time to observe. In WT, Noah got to make fun of Tyler and Izzy and Alejandro and Sierra and Heather and Chris, all people he knew pretty well. Noah doesn't know the people in RR. And the only ones he gets close to are Owen, his girlfriend, and his girlfriend's sister. The latter two are off-limits to insult, so Owen gets stuck with all the mean things.

And this doesn't work, because Noah's best insults are ones that are either make you say a) 'nah, he's got a point though" b) "ayy get them, they deserve it" or c) "why would you say something like that lmao, what's wrong with you?"

A is him dissing Alejandro, B is Chris, and C is the dodgeball episode.

But him being mean to Owen is none of those things. Owen isn't a bad person, and although he makes mistakes, none of them are deserving of harsh criticism. Especially considering Owen is supposed to be, you know, his friend. And Owen is more capable than Noah this season, so it just lands flat. The only thing you can take away from Noah being mean to Owen is that Noah is an asshole. And true... but. Not in an interesting way.

By limiting Noah to just Owen as his main target of snark, it makes him seem like an asshole. Which is actually okay imo. Noah's a shitty person, and I like watching shitty people. But there's nothing gained from it in the show. Owen practically never calls him out on being shitty. In fact, even though Noah lost him the show and made everything more difficult, Owen remarks that "he's just happy to be with his lil buddy." Bruh... can someone save this man? Please? Sweetie, you deserve so much better.

There is ONE moment I'd like to highlight that challenges this. One episode, Noah is required to perform air guitar on stage. He's reluctant because he finds the whole thing embarrassing and his crush is watching and omg does Noah have stage fright? Is he shy? haha it's kinda cute and actually believable. Owen points out that he needs Noah to do it anyway, asking Noah to be his "hero." And Noah... does. He goes out there, he air-guitars away, and it's a really good moment. It shows Noah's flaws, how they affect the people around him. It's great to see Owen stand up for himself and confront him, and it's lovely to see Noah respond and change his stance to help his friend.

And then he refuses to help his friend a few episodes later. So... ehh. Good job, hero.

4)N*mma. I think what's wrong with N*mma is that TD writers are incapable of writing a woman being the romantic initiator unless they're crazy - Izzy, Sierra. Otherwise, the woman should ALWAYS be approached by the man first. The man should always be making the first moves or the first flirtations. After all, to keep tension in a relationship, there needs to be a question of "will they get together." And what man WOULDN'T want a girlfriend? What guy would ever turn down a gf? Whereas a girl can ponder and wonder and think "oh i don't know him that well, oh im not sure." But no one ever extends that waiting period to guys. They're just expected to always be down for women.

But Noah isn't an "average" guy. He's antisocial. He doesn't flirt, he looks down on romance, and he's never expressed concern about getting a girl. And he's never, ever, put in effort to woo someone. Never! Noah is very anti-effort. King.

But hey, TD needs to write him in a romance, and the only romance they write requires the guy to simp for a girlboss. So Noah starts simping for a girlboss. I must admit I don't think the idea of Noah simping is complete trash. But it needs to be worked up to. Or at the very least, denied until Noah can deny it no longer.

(Also when has Noah being into girlbosses? I know TD is into girlbosses, since they've written, like, 50, but Noah? Noah's has shown nothing but disdain for Courtney and Heather. Also there's the fact that Emma tries to cut Noah's hair against his will with a fish? And talks about marriage and family like... 2 days into their relationship? I'm confused why that isn't a turn off to Noah. He's the one who warned Owen about Izzy, right? He's the one who made fun of Sierra for being stalker? So why is he into it now? Answer me Fresh)

Anyway.... it's like Total Drama doesn't know the meaning of "gradual." And tbf, with 32 contestants and a half hour show time, it's hard to write a slow burn. They don't have the time for it.

Still, they could have done better. The easiest way to fix N*mma, imo, is to just rip off Pride and Prejudice plotline. Emma already has a kid sister. Like, imagine Emma and Noah dislike each other had first, mean sarcastic nerds that they are. They dislike each other, Noah has a crush on her but is hiding it, and is pushed to confess by Owen.

Doesn't work out because his confession sucks because Noah has ZERO social skills.

N*mma take some time off, Kitty falls into the ocean or smth, Noah rescues her, and Emma is like "wow ur a good nice person after all" and Noah's like "i just had to save her, i couldn't let her die" and then they kiss or smth. Like come on Fresh, why didn't you go with that? Pride and Prejudice is in the public domain!! Like no one was stopping you.

All in all, if N*mma had to be written, it should have been like I said, or Duncney style. Noah should be allowed to be mean and grow from it.

And that's what's wrong with N*mma. Noah is mean but does not grow from it. He gets Emma regardless of how he treats Owen. They're completely separate things. His struggle to get Emma to like him has LESS to do with Noah, and more to do with Emma's own issues. Like you're telling me Noah's in a relationship, and he's NOT the problem? He should have been the problem. Ughh.

So when I say N*mma was poorly written, I mean that it has insta-love, that Noah does not act like himself in the relationship, and that Emma doesn't make him a substantially better person. (I know he gave Jake the rings, but he doesn't help his own bestie in the end, ... so its rlly hard to say he's grown.)

Tl;dr Noah in RR is forced into a romance plotline he doesn't fit, and ditches the self-improvement plotline that we were all rooting for, ending up in the same place as he started. Noah's romance should have served to highlight his character growth not BE his character growth. It's peak TD writing, honestly. He betrays his team for his girl like Trent did in TDA. He falls for her as fast as Duncan did for Gwen in WT. And the way he treats Owen, his supposed friend, somewhat resembles how Leshawna chose to view Heather in WT. Sad.

[2maegor2cruel]

I don't like to continue on someone else's post so just two things:

1) Victarion does at a certain point believe Hotho to be the heir to Harlaw - obviously its Victarion so there are plenty of explanations as to why he would be mistaken lol but thats why I entertained the idea of a succession uncertainity at all

2) There are NO characters known to be salt sons in asoiaf just bastards (and we know from TWOIAF that salt sons don't have bastard names I think) so a huge amount of freedom is allowed to the reader to make their own headcanons about exactly how that system works and how bad/remarkable it is for one to actually inherit. Last Serving Daughter Is a great example of making one's own headcanons! I love it

All the rest I agree fully and don't expect this to be the Canon supported option and I hadnt even gone to check where house Serrett Is so thanks for that, just wanted to point out why I made the remarks I did. I just like to always consider interpretations that are not the first that comes to mind.

Heyo! Not to be weird but I've actually read a good bit of your asoiaf fanfic it is sooo... *chef's kiss* 🤌 (and I know you from The Discord. kudos to a fellow throbb ponderer 🫡🫡🫡 too bad I'm super shy and never post on there lol.)

Per your first point, I combed Vic's chapters but I honestly couldn't find anything specific about Vic believing Hotho to be the heir to Ten Towers. If there is, feel free to send it my way. That said, there is some general ambiguity to that particular inheritance because of Euron's move of making Harras Lord of Greyshield. My read was that because Harras will already be lord of both Grey Garden and Greyshield, it's somewhat expected that he might 'step back' from Ten Towers, and let that inheritance go to another Harlaw (namely Hotho lol).

Per your second point, it is genuinely strange that there are no characters we really know to be salt sons/daughters. To be honest, I think George just included the whole salt wife/son bit without thinking through all of the wrinkles it might cause, so salt wives/sons are pretty much ignored in feastdance. Consider Balon, as according to Aeron, Balon took his first two salt wives when he was seventeen (implying that he took more in the following years). And Balon never had any salt sons by any of these women? Seems unlikely. But obviously, George knew that adding salt sons to the Greyjoy succession crisis would only complicate things further (Asha would never have been Balon's heir, nor would Euron have ever been able to inherit after Balon's death, and story events would not be able to unfold in the way GRRM wanted).

To me, that indicates that maybeeee George shouldn't have included that bit about Balon's salt wives at all. Maybe. Just maybe. And also, Quellon let Balon do that? It seems like it would really undermine Quellon's attempted reforms to let his son go around taking thralls and salt wives. George. George are you listening to me. George. Hey.

Now, if I were famous American novelist George RR Martin (and thank god I'm not), I'd have it so that salt sons start with the last name 'Salt' (distinct from the bastard name 'Pyke'), but if their father has no other sons, then they gain the house name and are raised up as heir. And I would have written salt wives/sons into my story in a way such that they're actually relevant. But alas.

In that same vein, I'm actually a big fan of a potential Iron Islands civil war, because I love cataclysm! I love it when tenuous cultural/societal trappings splinter and create devastating calamity! The Iron Islands have a strong reputation for being fiercely independent and quarrelsome, and I am SO looking forward to the complete catastrophe TWOW will be for them. Even on a small scale, it would be super interesting if salt sons could challenge rock sons for their inheritance via duel or a mini-kingsmoot (lordsmoot?), and that was a constant point of tension. There's just so much juice there!

As a final note, I hope I didn't come across as a "well ackchyually-" annoying weirdo. I just really enjoy discussing the sparse ironborn lore we're actually given. I have approximately ten thousand of my own ironborn headcanons, some of which roughly align with established canon, some of which directly contradict it lol. That's partially why the Iron Islands are my favorite region in Westeros: we're not given nearly as much world-building about them as, say, the Starks, and the world-building we do get sometimes makes absolutely no sense. So there's so much room to craft your own headcanons/lore!

Anyway, I ❤️ other people's ironborn headcanons. I will try to restrain myself from writing another 50,000 words on the topic, but it's so much fun lol.

[fluffypotatey]

f g p r from the fanfic ask game? please?

Hey bestie 🥰 thanks so much for the ask this one took me awhile lol

G - Do you write your story from start to finish? or out of order?

i like writing things from start to finish. key word: like. my brain, however, likes to jump ahead to specific scenes and events. i used to fight that bit and force myself to forge on along and wait until i finally made it to that part in the story.

lmao that was a horrible idea. those scenes would continue to haunt me and pester me until i finally give up and wrote them. so i just stop fighting it and write out of order. (honestly it was a blessing for me to decide to make my lmk one-shot series not in chronological order bc then i’d never get it done lol

it’s why my writing can get slow sometimes because while writing the chapter for the next event, i’ll be hit with some scene 2 chapters later or 3 scenes after some confrontation i haven’t started yet!!! i have ch7 for the dr geyer fic. it’s in my docs but i haven’t finished it bc someone *looks at brain* wants to write more of s6b bc Theo’s in that one >:(

P - Are you what George RR Martine would call an “architect” or a “gardener”? (How much do you plan in advance vs letting the story unfold as you go?)

you know, i know i read of this before like years ago but i don’t remember it lol. had to look it up to make sure i was understanding this right.

so… i think it depends?

with my merlin multi-chap fic and my medieval fantasy wip i plan those in advance. the merlin fic? i have that 1st arc’s plot down, i know where the story will lead to, i even know which characters i’ll keep alive or keep dead. 

with my one-shots (and my one-shots that chose to say “fuck you”), those are a spur of the moment kind of writing. i had something playing in my head that’s wants to be free, so i write it down and pray that it’s satisfied (it typically is not which is why you see a lot of my one-shots become multi-chapters or one-shot series). these don’t have a solid plan when i begin. i tend to come up with it as the plot comes together. 

tbh this works well with my fics bc i have a base outline: the actual show/book/movie. with my dr geyer fic, i know where s5-6 begin and end. sure, i’m choosing what gets to happen in-between, but i at least have the comfort of that base. the lmk series? it’s literally just me plugging in an oc and forcing a couple characters to air-out their issues. 

R - Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence?

oh definitely. tbh my main one would have to be Lemony Snicket. fell in love with the narration of those stories. the snark, the personality, the vocabulary, the inner dialogue. idk it just did something to 9 year old me lol

another big one i’d have to say is Branden Sanderson. not really his writing, but how complex and beautiful his worlds are. i didn’t know that you could create and capture the essence such beautiful worlds in writing but reading his books and seeing them come to life really influenced my desire to write and design fantastical worlds or even just explore snippets of other worlds like BBC Merlin Albion.

F - Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it

babe, i’m so sorry but it took me forever to choose. i debated on whether i should do lmk or teen wolf or abc merlin or even shit i haven’t posted bc i love too many of these T^T

but dw i did find one (it’ll be under the cut bc this got long jfc). i giggled a lot when writing it just because the back and forth with Liam and Mason interjecting was fun. also i picked this one to prove the dr geyer fic hasn’t been forgotten. i’ve just been….preocupied and going feral over immortal monkeys

*

“I’m not here to start anything,” Mr. Doughlas said to them calmly. “I just want the mountain ash barrier open, mh?”

“Yeah, because this isn’t starting anything,” Liam growled.

Mr. Douglas smiled, sharp teeth in full display. Again, he twisted his claws in the chimera. Theo, again, kept quiet. The only indication he was in any being came from his winces. Liam can’t tell if he should be impressed or horrified that getting stabbed in the spine barely got a reaction out of Theo. 

“This is simply a contingency. I just want the barrier open, then I’ll be out of your hair. I promise. No funny business.”

Theo chuckled (well, more like gurgled) and snorted.

“Says the Nazi.”

Douglas drove his claws further into Theo’s spine, polite smile cracking, in response. The chimera grunted, but Theo just laughed again.

“Sorry, sorry.” Theo’s smirk looked almost deranged with the blood coating his lips. “Nazi was the insult others threw at you, right?”

“He’s a Nazi?!” Mason shrieked. 

Doughlas sighed, all politeness disappearing as he addressed them all.

“Must we obsess over my previous occupation? I don’t see how this is important. I was just a soldier there.”

“Oh yeah, being a part of a genocidal fascist group should totally be overlooked!” Liam exclaimed. “Not like you were involved in and advocated for any of that!”

“Yeah, it adds nothing for us to even slightly trust you,” Mason added.