#they definitely have to be a self-insert. I never think about oc's that aren't (its a problem lol)

[girlscience]

hmmm thinking thoughts. outside of waddles, all my oc's were built world first. either they were made for a world that already existed, like bright and murphy; or I was worldbuilding and came up with someone to live there, like zaz. waddles is probably the oc I draw the most (even if that isn't really very often either), I have written the most with bright and murphy, and I have done the most worldbuilding for the world where zaz lives. I need to find a way to combine all of these into one and I will create the master oc.

[meissashush]

For Ro for the OC ask meme: 2, 6, 11, 18, 21

In which Garbria learns that I will totally answer old ask games whenever XD

2. what sort of music would they like? have you thought about what genres or bands do they lean towards? do they have a favorite song?

Rosea is definitely not the sort to listen to music unless she's studying. She's probably got a bunch of random song that have slowly amassed in a handful of playlists that she chooses randomly, but almost certainly there aren't many Top Charts on them. Probably a fair amount of Dad Rock and Punk, gained through spending too much time with the bros, and some eclectic classical. She can't stand anything with a repetitive chorus, though, as she's prone to earworms and the really repetitive songs make her near murderous.

Naturally, Prompto has some songs he's learned not to sing around her unless he wants to get hit.

6. how do they wear their hair? do they care a lot how their hair looks?

Long and up. In a ponytail, mostly, because that's the easiest, but always pulled back in some way unless she is sleeping. Its a habit born from the combination of always feeling like she needs to be 'ready' in case of an emergency, pure practicality, and the fact that Cor was never very good about remembering to get her hair cut as a kid. She'll get it cut (or cut it herself if she's really tired and desperate for control at 3am), but always keeps it at ponytail-length.

11. what do they have in common with you? how are they different? would you get along with them?

Rosea is, extremely self-admittedly, a self-insert wish-fulfillment. At least, that's how she and a lot of her personality got started. These days she's sort of taken on her own life, as happens when you have a complicated plot with other characters to play off of.

As a rule, the more flippant things (favorite color, preferred foods, allergies, certain mental disorders that I couldn't write around if I tried *cough* ADHD *cough* edit: also dyslexia, since I wrote 'tired' by accident) are all from me.

We do, however, make extremely different life decisions and that's where she's really become her own person. I'm cautious by nature. I don't take extreme leaps because I sit and consider all the possible outcomes until I'm blue in the face. Rosea considers the possible outcomes, but she also has the teenage 'invincibility' syndrome I never had. She fucks around and finds out.

I think we'd get along reasonably well, assuming I could convince her I was a safe person. She'd probably get fed up with me 'parenting' her, though, so I would rank like Nyx in her mind. Okay to be around, but stupid and hover-y. ("I just want what's best for you, you dumb girl!" - I say, being the one causing all her problems)

18. their opinion on lying, stealing, and killing?

If she can justify it, she'll do it. And she's very good at justifying. That said, killing is one of those things that are always against her natural instincts. She can only be convinced to do it if there is either no better option, or she's ordered too. Self defense, for some reason, doesn't count as killing in her mind, however.

21. their favorite place to be?

Depending on the point in her life; either in Noct's apartment or in her own. Somewhere quiet and safe from expectation.

Thanks for the asks <3

[myrfing]

Yeah! In the end WoLs are very personal to the players so I try to remember and not to be too judgey about it! And yeah there are some WoLs I really love as well! And my own was originally just a vague self insert with the name of an old OC and then they took a life of their own so I renamed them .. xD

Regarding wishing there was more freedom in choices in 14: I think that as an MMO there are just some limitations people just have to accept. The msq is linear for sure though I don't know if that's just because 1) it's Final Fantasy first and foremost, 2) it's a jrpg first and foremost (different game design philosophy between JP and US?) You certainly can't have multiple outcomes, I think, especially not with 14's infamous spaghetti coding. And the team already have so many tasks... (reason why I'm just rolling with the gender unlocking of certain glams being slow)

Though, I've never played an MMO prior to this, and most western RPGs don't interest me. So my lack of frame of reference is probably another reason why I can't really fathom choice freedom similar to, say, Dragon Age, in an MMO in general, esp not one as linear as 14 ... poyo.

(I could do with more fiddling around with GW2 tho, I do enjoy it whenever I boot it up for fun)

HAHAHA YOU AND I BOTH if it's. not obvious that "gourd appraiser" wasnt meant to be. well. youre so right suddenly theyre alive what can we do but give them the reins.

and for sure. I'm really mostly okay with xiv's linearity and rigidity; I think they wanted to tell a certain story and told it. I actually dunno if that's a western/eastern design philosophy and don't think choice/branching narratives is necessarily not a jrpg element but the concept of it with games like for sure DA or UT or even older text rpgs whatever have really popularized it here yeah. in xiv theres obviously some parts where im like He would naht do/say that. or some parts I wish weren't in the msq at all. but for the most part I'm glad things turned out the way they did and I've never struggled too hard to work with it. i think it'd sit wrong with me if the story went another way, if the wol like, just said I don't owe anyone anything and everyone shouldnt ask a thing of me and ran forever.

but that's mostly because I fell hook line and sinker for the world so when anyone in the story is like do you want to keep going and keep this world alive I'm like of fucking course AND it's going to be fun you don't even need to ASK bro. while for others I do understand the sort of disappointment that comes with thinking this could have gone another way that they would have liked better, but the devs chose this way, so they feel like they were robbed of that different outcome. and to me they chose this one because they wanted to tell a story about caring about others and finding hope in others and struggling together towards a better future in a world that is largely hostile to that, that constantly gravitates towards its doom, and I really like that. I like how it reflects in their own dev experience having to reboot the game too! but some people feels like it rings hollow, or they don't really care for that sort of thing, or this spirit just doesnt reach them, and well...wat can you do.

and you're definitely right in that mmos simply cant handle diversity of choice in a game meant to support..well..massively multiplayer online play. at most you get factions which are notoriously clunky and seem to only function in games without a strong central narrative. if 50% of the playerbase said fuck off to minfilia, fuck off hydaelyn, you can't tell me what to do, and went to live a low-stakes life then. that's 50% of the playerbase that needs something other than all the dungeons, trials, deliveries, sidequests, raids, pretty much fucking everything to do, that aren't gonna be a part of the roulette. and they wouldn't have been able to pull off the concept of azem's magic either, the weird living idea that as players of the same character you all walk the same path and thus are always at each other's side. or the funnier route would be well everyone who wanted to play gets the kino ass "shepherd to the stars in the dark" shit and everyone who didnt to play can just sit on their hands I guess.

but i dont think people actually expect it to have branching paths, they just wanted the devs to choose a different one. but there's so many good and fun things throughout the entirety of the game that it'd honestly feel pretty lonely to lose all of this over a nebulous refusal to owe anyone anything and be owed anything, because the wol does go through some painful stuff and has some high expectations placed on them...AS IFFFF everyone in the story doesnt suffer and struggle against the same things while the wol has the privilege of controlling more of their luck, AS IFFFFFFFFFF choosing a path where you say fuck everyone else wouldn't have been empty and boring. as if the antagonists that apparently care about us more don't have wishes and goals and duties and lives of their own and are only made to love you in some made up but easier, purer, assured way.

and oh hee hee gw2...I saw a golden chicken in that game and logged off forever I was like this is it. but I'm playing gw1 (slowly) with friends and while it's still campaigns it definitely does excel in that look at this big ass world go do what you want thing. and yeah mmos are fucking...expensive and terribly difficult to make and keep alive. there's a reason they're just dying out

[tothemeadow]

I kind of don't miss the past tbh. I know people never mean it in this way but the past was arguably worse. I think people shouldn't get on others for dumb fictional nonsense but in terms of the internet environment the past was more lawless than now. Hundreds of blogs dedicated to bullying self inserts, some fandoms you couldn't even write your oc near the main cast, if there was a ship there was a hateblog for it, forum post call outs, gangups in chatrooms. It was hell. You could get put on encyclopedia dramatica just for being vaguely cringe. On top of that there were SO MANY groomers it was crazy. Looking back on it adults would knowlingly talk about sex to minors all the time in fandom all the time. I guess these experiences aren't universal and my parents definitely should of watched me better but I've seen the trenches of the internet since I was 8 and personally think we got it a lot better now. Sure its irritating having to fend off 14 year olds that "can't" read the 18+ warning but I'll take it over any of the drama that happened on live journal back in the days.

This is a really good point! I agree, people are taking more precautions now, but problems still exist. It’s just... the idea of literally trying to make a person’s life hell for liking a certain character/ship is kind of beyond me? Like, why? I get it that people are assholes, but that kind of behavior is unacceptable. I just think it’s cowardly that whole entire posts, blog, tags, etc. could be dedicated to such hate, but it happens all the time, even outside of fandoms.

People just really, really suck, especially when it comes to the internet 🤷‍♀️

[benperorsolo]

Luke wasn't a Mary Sue because for a Mary Sue to exist you need a preestablished story with setting and characters. There was no Star Wars before Luke whereas Rey was written as a fanfiction self insert in literally someone else's story. Rey is probably the only real case of Mary Sue ever because flawless characters aren't inherently Mary Sues. The term was born to mock all those OCs in fanfictions that due to being authors' self inserts they were perfect holy beings loved by everybody.

I think yes but no. Yes, originally Mary Sue was a term invented for fanfiction where the OC is a perfect self-insert. But as other people have pointed out, it’s really about how a new character is treated by the narrative and by pre-existing characters. The meaning has expanded since it was used exclusively for fanfiction, which by its very nature has to involve using a pre-existing story.

No, “Star Wars” the franchise didn’t exist before Luke showed up in the first movie, but as with any story, in-story people existed before Luke and the world was very much going about its business before Luke came onto the scene. Luke stumbles upon a rebellion that is already established and has been for some time, one that Leia has been involved with for years. So it is still possible for Luke to be a Mary Sue in how the rebellion receive him, except they don’t receive him in a particularly fawning way or treat him like much more than a weird pilot with a glow sword. Even knowing that Luke is the son of a great Jedi (people during ANH definitely knew who Anakin Skywalker was, and Luke knows he’s that guys son), he’s not treated as special because of that and even Leia, our established rebellion princess, doesn’t take an immediate shining to him. When he starts talking about the Force Han thinks he’s nuts. 

There are elements to Luke that border on Sue-y, as with Anakin, as when he shoots down the Death Star despite having never seen combat before, his only practice being shooting down womp-rats on Tattooine-- but I excuse this, because a) it’s the Force which makes people magically good at things and b) since the Force is the representative of enlightened morality in the GFFA, Luke’s victory on the Death Star using the Force represents his own psychological climax, as he starts coming to terms with this mystical power inside of him. And before this, Luke doesn’t grasp the Force right away, and he continues struggling after on Dagobah-- it’s more like Luke has a moment of clarity on peace at the climax of ANH that let him hit the mark on the Death Star, and then he has to go back and train to find out how to actually do that consistently. Same with Rey finding Luke to get training even after she defeats Ben.

Rey has this too, when she fights against Ben and wins-- only there, Rey is fighting against our supposed Big Bad(?), the Vader equivalent, and Luke does not manage to do that to Vader until the last film, where it makes sense because he’s grown and is entering his final stage of development. Luke defeats the Death Star in his first film, not the Big Bad (or secondary big bad). Rey defeating Ben is more of a move that benefits Ben as a character, because his loss dethrones him from the “Big Bad” role and forces him to grow and develop, since now there’s no more tension over if Rey can beat him. I still think it was a bad move for writing Rey-- unless Ben and Rey’s stories were connected as they were in TLJ.

Anyways. This is a rambly way of saying that, while I think Rey displayed shades of Sue-ness in TFA (that I overlooked a little as correctable), I think it’s really TROS and the way the universe bends over to make her right with no struggle or consequence as she inherits everything that was cursed for Ben but suddenly a gift to her that paints her the worst. I don’t think it’s a requisite that something be a continuation of an old work for someone to be a Sue. It’s more about how a character fits in with a group of pre-established characters; the pre-establishment can be in-story only.

[cupkayke]

For the fanfiction questions thing: 1, 3, 6, 11, 17, 21, 25, 27, 36, 40, 41, 46, 50 and 51 (I hope these aren't too many)

 Not too many at all! I like talking about myself lol.

Under a cut because longggggg.

1) What was the first fandom you got involved in?

Oh gosh, definitely Tokyo Mew Mew. I never wrote fanfics for it but I co-owned and then owned an Avidgamers RP site for TMM called MewUSA back in like 2004-2006. Avidgamers was a forum site engine that was pretty damn nice for its time (also FREE, that was a plus) and I spent HOURS creating characters, storylines, and layouts for it. There were TONS of individual in-character boards and I think we may have had up to 100 unique users at one point. The detailed characters/plotlines were BASICALLY fanfiction- I think I did an entire rp with myself between a few of my characters once- and it was a whole lot of fun. Some of the OCs from that site were repurposed into a longrunning rp I have with @liarino on AIM and I am FOREVER grateful that I met them through that site

Fanfic-wise, it was Full Metal Alchemist. I had a horrendous LITERAL self-insert OC fic called ‘Nice of Me to Drop In’ that was based on an RP I did with a different friend. Plot? ‘Fangirl of FMA LITERALLY FALLS INTO HER TELEVISION AND WAKES UP IN THE UNIVERSE AND FALLS IN LOVE WITH ALPHONSE’. The end. I never finished it but holy shitballs it got SO MANY REVIEWS. I’m surprised how many people actually enjoyed it- I did get some criticisms but despite the fact that it was so cringe-worthy that I took it down it still got sooooo much positive feedback. I sometimes wonder if people would still be reading it on ff.net if I hadn’t taken it down the last time I overhauled that account. I still have some Ouran oneshots on there that I wrote TEN FUCKING YEARS AGO that still get reviews. Dayum. 

3) What is the best fandom you’ve ever been involved in?

I have to say it’s a tie between the Tokyo Mew Mew fandom circa 2003-2006 and the Ouran fandom from about 2006-2008. My experience with them was limited to RP boards but I had the MOST FUN running MewUSA and a long-running Gaia RP ‘Hosting the Hosts’ because of the warm response to the concepts. The TMM fandom especially was super creative even back in the day- there were so many fan mew mews because the formula was so easy and that was one series that I didn’t mind OCs because the concept was easily applied. In-universe, the creator could have easily made more Mew Mews. So the possibilities were endless. That’s also the fandom I learned the majority of my writing skills from, even if I did get called out a couple times for shitty RPing. I got better and I was so sad when the engine finally kicked the bucket. Aside from the RP sites the TMM fandom had sooooo many fansites dedicated to the show- my other favorite being Neko Tokyo. I think that site might still be up… 

Ouran was limited to that RP I ran but damn I never had one so fun. That group of writers was hysterical and I actually met one of them in person because by sheer coincidence she lived near me. She moved soon after we figured it out but she came back for a convention and we hung out all weekend. Unfortunately I don’t remember her name and I lost her phone number T_T I wonder where she is sometimes. I wonder where a lot of my fan friends from back then are. The problem with early 2000s internet.

Tho I think Boueibu will be my new modern fave fandom.

6) List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

 Ohhhh dear. I’ll keep it to ones that I actually ship characters in because a lot of my early fandoms were MYSELF AS AN OC X HOT MALE CHARACTER. OTL. I was a weeb. Most of these are fandoms I’ve rped in rather than written fanfiction for, however.

Tokyo Mew Mew- PuddingxTart. I like to read IchigoxKisshu fanfics sometimes but that ship is highly problematic looking back on it lol

Code Lyoko - THROWBACK. JeremiexAelita. Adorable.

Ouran HSHC - I’m fond of HunnyxHaruhi (as evidenced by my mostly abandoned ff.net account) but basically AnyonexHaruhi is super cute. I think I read a fic once where Haruhi was in a relationship with ALL of the guys and it was actually super interesting. I don’t think I can find it again, tho.

Harry Potter - Drarry.

Walking Dead - CarolxDaryl FTW. and Richonne. I’ve toyed with the idea of writing fanfics for WD but never quite get up to it.

Mass Effect - Shakarian. Fuck yes. Fun fact I have an unfinished smutfic on the mass effect kinkmeme livejournal that I will EVENTUALLY FINISH ONE DAY AND PUBLISH UNDER MY NAME buuuut for now it will remain an anonymous abandoned fic.

Boueibu - …All of them? OTL I can’t pick one ship… tho if you force me… IoRyuu and BeppuMoto OT3.

YOI - I think everyone’s OTP is Victuuri.

11) Who is your current OTP?

Victuuri.

17)  Who was your first OTP and are they still your favourite?

Since Boueibu is my current fandom- I immediately was drawn to Enatsu since s1 had a relatively large focus on them but I’ve kind of fallen out of actively shipping them. I like them as a couple and I think they’re def boyfriends material but they’re definitely a comfortable ship. Their personalities are just… drama-free, so their relationship to me just seems like a quiet background relationship. IoRyuu is a little more volatile and I really like ships where there is a lot of between-the-lines interpretation and potential for conflict. Also I just really like the Beppus

21) What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. The aformentioned ‘Nice of Me to Drop In’ FMA OC Mary Sue Self insert fic. Definitely the first one I ever published on the interwebs. Although I think TECHNICALLY my very first one was a Pokemon story that I was writing for a little kid neighbor of mine back when I was like… 11. I think I had just gotten a computer in my room and I remember typing it up and drawing some cover art for it… it was basically an expanded version of the episode where Meowth and Pikachu were handcuffed together or something… except there were more Pokemon involved and ALL of the characters were friends. Like Brock and Tracey were both with Ash and Misty and all of the Team Rocket people were friends for some reason. Idk I was a weird child.

Ohhh maybe a tie for the FMA fic was a Code Lyoko one I wrote around the same time called ‘Desert Rose’. I can’t remember now which was published first because I deleted them all. Another Mary Sue OC fic but I actually am still kind of proud of how I expanded the Lyoko universe in my head. I came up with new areas to Lyoko and like a central region and how they all connected. Nevermind the fact that the girl with a CAT THAT COULD OPERATE THE COMPUTER was the main character and obviously I shipped her with Odd because YumiUlrich and JeremieAeilita were OTPs. It was weird.

25) What’s your most popular fanfic?

If the story was still up it might have been ‘Nice of Me to Drop In’ because that fic still haunts me. Buuut it’s either ‘Naptime’ or ‘Desire’, one of my two Hunny x Haruhi fics from my Ouran days that I left up on ff.net for posterity. I have no desire to go read the cringe and find out which one has more hits but I bet it’s the G-rated ‘Naptime’ cuz ‘Desire’ is a) the first M rated Hunny x Haruhi fic on ff.net EVER and b) really really bad porn written by like, 16-year-old me. Oops. It’s a smidgen OOC on the part of Haruhi if I remember right buuut I actually still stand by the idea that Hunny is not as childlike as he seems.

Oh dear maybe that’s why I like Yumoto so much. Similar character type. OTL

27) What do you hate more: Coming up with titles or writing summaries?

I feel like I’m horrendous at both but lately it’s titles that are giving me trouble. 2 of the 3 Boueibu fics I’ve written had different working titles that got changed the second the story went up to be published. I’m having a brain fart and can’t remember them but both ‘All the Pretty Little Horses’ and ‘Completely’ were titled something really stupid. And your giftfic was ‘?’ until I decided on the central theme lol.

36) What’s your favourite genre to write?

I don’t like reading romance novels but I love writing shippy stuff. Tension, build….smut

40)  What do you struggle the most with in your writing?

Pacing in longer works, definitely. Also just… keeping up with it. I am a horrible procrastinator and if I don’t actually have a deadline with external consequences then I never get anything done. I can’t set my own deadlines because I can always move them. I can’t get my family or friends to set them for me because I know they’ll forgive me if I fail (how horrible lol). I have tons upon tons of unfinished fics from fandoms past sitting somewhere in the depths of my word documents folder and about as many original short stories. I have so many ideas but because I get easily distracted and also because I am now working full time and suffer from typical adult exhaustion I can only put a fraction of them on paper. 

My inner critic is also a fucking bitch. I can’t get her to shut her face long enough to write a sentence sometimes. Again, I have to have a deadline looming before I can put her on mute most times. If I have infinite time, she doesn’t shut up and makes me rewrite a sentence 100 times because it sounds stupid.

41) List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading:

Ahahahaha… I don’t have 5 simultaneously because I can’t just… not finish reading something before moving onto the next one. I don’t also read things that are unfinished unless they sound REALLY interesting because I’m stupid impatient. But I guess for my current fandom (Boueibu) I’ll link 5 fics I read recently that I liked! 

1) Pink Blood - @magiccatprincess (okay actually this is one I’m going to read soon because it looked interesting… so it fits the question lol)

2) tuesdays - @vagarius (because how can I not love something written for me?

3) Liar - BlackJoker77 (A whoooole lot accomplished here in not a lot of words. Also, Yumoto character study/reading between the lines? Yush.)

4) ….. ok I ran out of ideas. I don’t bookmark anything OTL. I’ll come back to this question at another time with an ACTUAL answer.

46) If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why?

I’m most proud of ‘Completely’ at the moment- I really like how I pulled off Ryuu’s voice and it’s most definitely a scene I wanted to see written… so I’m happy that I was able to provide that scene

50) How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction?

It was basically an extention of RPing for the writing portion of it- ‘Nice of Me to Drop In’ was basically a cleaned up RP and when it wasn’t rping it was fan gratification for the other early fics I did. As a kid I used to (and still sometimes do) make up stories in my head when I was about to go to sleep, and a lot of them were episodes of my favorite shows that I wanted to see. So I’d put some of them on paper. And then it moved into the ~romance~ category; I was a hopeless romantic as a teenager and like a lot of teenage girls I was kind of horny so fanfiction was a way to explore my sexuality in the comfort of my own head, basically. I still like me a good smutfic and bonus points if it’s romantic AND smutty. My bf can definitely tell when I’ve been reading something naughty….

51) Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

Okay, Imma do both! And I have 2 things to rant about because I can’t shut up.

Rant: This is more of a thing that I hate about MYSELF reading fanfics, but I hate that I get turned off of fics so quickly because of writing style. When I can push past beginners writing mistakes or mediocre quality writing I can sometimes find gem fics with plots/characterizations I find adorable, but more often than not I click out of fics after just a few sentences because I can’t stand poor writing. And I feel so elitist about it! Fanfics are free, fan-generated content. A lot of fanfics are written by kids or beginner writers. I have to keep reminding myself that not every fanfic author has gone to school for writing. They may not know the conventions of literature. They may not realize that they’re head-hopping in the middle of paragraphs. They may not know the proper way to punctuate dialogue (and I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW until grad school!!!!). If I let mistakes get in the way of content I may miss out on an up and coming writer. And lord knows I was horrendous when I first started. Everyone starts somewhere. I hate that it takes me so long to get out of teacher/writing student mode and truck through some writing that may not technically be the best but their heart is in the right place. 

Rant2: I don’t like how isolated fanfiction can feel sometimes. It seems like people don’t comment on fics as much as they used to, and I see these posts going around on tumblr about how authors LOOOOOVE comments and want more of them but then comments just… don’t appear. It’s not so hard to post one thing you really liked about the story, and even one thing you didn’t like. Comments help authors grow.I also don’t like how it’s so hard to find a beta reader or three to bounce ideas off of and proofread your work.

Gush: I love communities. I love the events fanfic authors put together. I love how when communities get tight-knit how everyone builds each other up and gives one another ideas. I just love fanfiction in general, really

aaaaaand SHEW. That was a lot. BUT DEF NOT TOO MUCH