#// the whole song thing was a little contrived to me in a story stressing communication tho

[ladyofloptyr]

if i wanted to be more cynical (which i'm not) and breakdown the story of given in a less humanizing way, i think it would be interesting to examine the angle that the people akihiko and mafuyu choose to be with respectively after their first loves is nearly their opposite.

haruki who is open and warm and forms connections easily due to his caring nature versus ugetsu who is closed off and drives people away. an "ordinary", everyday person who gets along with others as opposed to a genius alienated from those around him.

given doesn't delve into uenoyama's inner world as much as the rest of the cast, but that could almost be deliberate? i think he's simple and straightfoward and that isn't a bad thing!!! yuki was a complicated person who mafuyu insctively understood until he didn't. it's with uenoyama that he understands the importance of communication.

and i think it's especially touching that uenoyama uses music to communicate with mafuyu too when he chooses to finish yuki's song. love isn't a competition or comparison. it doesn't matter who was "better" for mafuyu. uenoyama understood how deeply yuki loved mafuyu and responded to that. he understood yuki's feelings bc he too loved mafuyu and carried that love foward which is just so romantic y'know? it's a mature way of looking at love. maybe yuki and mafuyu would've figured things out on their own and evolved into a mature love someday too, but it was left unfinished just as the song was.

[by-nina]

fanfic writer interview

tagged by @priscilla-dm on main, thanks priscilla! 💙

Name: nina (@niconiconina on main, by_nina on AO3, by-nina on FFN)

Fandoms: FMA, primarily. long ago, i wrote for fushigi yuugi. i’ve got plans for AOT soon!

Most popular oneshot: i would say for auld lang syne, my dear, the first of a three-part series about royai and new year. but behind that, little bird and dissonance are almost equally popular.

we’ve lived through scars was also a pretty big hit back in royai week 2018, but i haven’t uploaded it to AO3 yet. so that remains to be seen.

two-shot: i’ve never written just a two-shot! but i do have one for royai coming up. 👀

Most popular multichapter: smoke without fire, my pre-canon royai murder mystery thriller. roy comes home from the academy to find berthold dead and riza missing. (it’s my only multichapter right now LOL)

Actual worst part of writing: writing the first draft, because i try to write it like the last draft. i’m trying to break that habit.

How you choose your titles: sometimes, it’s song lyrics (e.g. for auld lang syne, my dear; we’ve lived through scars). sometimes, it’s an idiom (e.g. smoke without fire). sometimes i have the title down before i write a story, sometimes i go through several working titles until i find the right one.

Do you outline: for multichapters/multi-part series, i do. but for one-shots, i just have a key moment in mind, then i figure out how to get there.

Ideas I probably won’t get around to, but wouldn’t it be nice?: the original version of smoke without fire, which is a bit more politically charged as it was inspired by casablanca. roy still finds berthold hawkeye dead after coming home from the military academy, but this one is more set in central and involves a larger cast of characters. my favorite thing about it is rebecca also assuming the elizabeth identity for her safety as well as riza’s. i had to pare it down to what smoke without fire is now because it was getting too complicated and contrived.

Callouts @ me: you are worth something. you don’t have to stress about people not liking or even reading what you write, and at the same time, you have every right to put yourself out there. also, write in drafts. also, don’t drop your endings.

Best writing traits: i’m a visceral, sensory writer. this is thanks in part to my background in film/TV. i also write characters well, which comes out in their expressions of thought and dialogue.

Spicy tangential opinion:

on writing: some writing “rules”, like avoiding adverbs or filter words, really just impede the feeling of the work. so experiment as you wish. also, a work can only offer so much ambiguity before it comes off as uninspired and poorly planned. (this is also a callout to myself, because i do forget to address some implied emotions in my work OTL)

on fandom: fandom can be a circlejerk. it’s true of any fandom, the same way it’s true for any creative industry. it takes putting yourself out there, a supportive community, and a whole ton of luck in order to be noticed, whatever your skill level.

on my fandom, in particular: riza should be allowed to hate and never forgive berthold, even in death. she’s also allowed to genuinely hate roy at certain parts of their lives. lastly, bearded roy is superior.

tagging @firewoodfigs @x-rainflame-x @thepancakepenguin @bauliya @ymir-me @cyanoscarlet and you!

[eldritchsurveys]

876.

5k Survey IV

151. What is louder and more annoying: 200 adults talking or one four-year-old screaming? >> I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard 200 adults talking at one time. Regardless, I’m sensory-defensive, so many things register as the same level of “too loud” for me. Both of these things would be simply “too loud”. 152. Do you believe the stories about planes, boats and people mysteriously disappearing into the Bermuda triangle? >> I find them vaguely interesting. I liked the X-Files episode about it, Gillian Anderson’s character (it wasn’t Scully, technically...) was excellent in it lol. 153. Who are you the most jealous of? >> I don’t know, I’ve never thought about it. 154. What is the happiest way you can start your day? >> In an Inworld cuddle pile. 155. Do you ever have moments where you feel like everything is all right in the world? >> Occasionally.

156. Who thinks that you are offensive? >> I don’t know who thinks I’m offensive. It’s not like people go out of their way to tell me that or anything. 157. If you had to teach a class in something, what would you be able to teach people? >> I’d rather not. I greatly prefer being a student, anyway. 158. Have you ever had a spiritual experience (an experience that cannot be explained by science)? >> I’m sure science could contrive a reasonable enough explanation for the things I experience (and if it can’t now, it probably will eventually). Regardless, I prefer my explanations, and I’ll stick to them. 159. Do you believe that this experience was truly mystical or do you think there is some scientific explanation for it, only you don’t know what it is? >> An experience being explained in a scientific fashion doesn’t prevent it from being mystical. There are plenty of mystical experiences that science has an explanation for, after all, but the people involved in those experiences keep their own counsel. I think both a mystical explanation and a scientific explanation can exist comfortably side-by-side in my brain; they’re both useful for different reasons, particularly when it comes to communicating the experience to others (I wouldn’t use a mystical explanation when speaking to a hard materialist, for example, because, like... what would be the point...?). 160. Do you get offended easily? >> I wouldn’t say that, no. But I tend to be automatically distrustful of people who seem to go out of their way to be “offensive”. Just because whatever they’re saying doesn’t directly hurt me doesn’t mean I want to hang out with someone who says the kinds of things they say. 161. Would you still love and stay with your significant other if he or she had to have a breast or testicle removed? >> I can’t imagine being affected by that sort of thing at all. 162. Do you believe in fate or free will? >> I don’t care to choose a side. I think the discourse around it is interesting. 163. Do you believe that only boring people get bored? >> Of course not. That’s a rude (and, of course, entirely inaccurate, but mostly rude) thing to say. 164. Can life change or are we all stuck in vain? >> What does this even mean? 165. What changes are you afraid of? >> The kind that cause me pain. 166. Are you a day person or nocturnal? >> I prefer to be awake in the daylight and asleep at night. 167. What one CD could you listen to for an entire week (no mixed CD’s, it must be an album)? >> Why would I even have to do this anymore? It’s 2020. 168. Which is worse, working in retail, food service, or an office? >> For me, all of them are equally bad. Well, okay, maybe food service is worse because there’s the added layer of having to handle food and be around mucky gross things. 169. What’s the coolest job you ever had? >> Manning merch tables at local shows. 170. What is one central idea that your thoughts seem to come back to? >> There is no central idea...? I’m not sure how one even determines this. 171. Have you ever wanted to be an actor/tress? >> I was one in Inworld’s first iteration, when I was physically a child. But I have never really had interest in being one in this world. 172. If you had the power to control one person and make this person do anything you wanted for a whole day, who would you pick and what would they do? >> Total power exchange is totally not my scene, I’d get bored of it way too easily. I could absolutely see myself snapping, “make a fucking decision for yourself for once” after like an hour or two, lmao. 173. What star sign are you and what is your sign like? >> Gemini. I’m not going to go into an explanation of Gemini’s commonly-recognised traits, Google can take care of that for you. 174. Did the Blair Witch Project scare you? >> I haven’t seen it. The new Blair Witch game looked vaguely interesting. 175. Are you in constant fear of death? >> Not constant. I did spend about a year or so like that, recently. It sucked pretty bad. 176. Does fear of death keep you from building a life? >> No. Sometimes I get that bone-deep “what’s the point” feeling, but like... that feeling will just have to exist on its own while I go ahead and keep doing stuff. I can’t give in to that. 177. Do you like all your movies to be in wide-screen? >> I’m not sure what the alternative is, or what the difference is or whatever. 178. Are you a fan of any comic books? >> Sure. 179. At what age did you attend your first funeral? >> I don’t remember. I vaguely recall one happening when I was young, but I have no idea what exact age I was. 180. What do you smell like (lotion, cologne, sweat)? >> Just... like, a person. I showered this morning, but the fragrances from soap and lotion don’t linger very long, and it hasn’t been long enough for me to start smelling like sweat or anything. So I’m somewhere in the middle. 181. What are your greatest sources for wisdom? >> Oh, you know. People. 182. When you were little, where did your parents tell you babies come from? >> My father never had that discussion with me, I figured it out from reading books. 183. What is your favorite band? >> I don’t have one. 184. What’s the best cheesy 80’s song? >> Come On Eileen. /picks one at random 185. What’s the best kind of movie to see on a date? >> I’m not the person to ask. 186. Do you like to sit in the front, middle or back of the Movie Theater? >> Back, absolutely. And woe unto the people who have the same idea and try to sit near me. 187. Have you ever been inside an abandoned building? >> Yeah. 188. Under what circumstances would you agree to work for free? >> The circumstances where I really just want to do whatever-it-is and it isn’t too intensive, I guess. And where I feel like my work is valued in some other way if not financially. 189. Candles or strobe lights? >> Candles. Although sometimes in a dark area, a candle flame dancing around on the wick will have a kind of strobe-y effect, and I hate it. 190. Do you think the Lord of the Rings movies are true to the books or did Hollywood change the story too much? >> I don’t know, I didn’t read the book. 191. When you see a stranger on the street does your first reaction lean towards thinking of this person as a potential friend or as a potential threat? >> I don’t think of them as a potential anything.  192. Is it natural for human beings to fear and distrust each other, or is it cultural? >> Obviously it’s cultural, or every human being in every society on earth would fear and distrust everyone else with or without cause... which... is not the case... 193. What do you really want to buy? >> Nothing. I don’t have the money to buy anything right now, anyway. 194. You have to choose. Would you be happier marrying someone rich for their money or living in the streets and subway tunnels with someone you love? >> God, do I hate this question. First of all, neither money nor love are “everything”, but “love” is work, not some kind of magic bubbly gushy feeling that happens no matter what, and that work starts to take a backseat when all one’s energy is devoted to simply surviving from day to day. How do I know? Take a wild guess. Second of all, the question doesn’t take into account whether you can also love someone you’ve married for the sake of financial security. (Spoiler: remember, love is action and will and intent, not magic, so yeah, you can.) Third of all, can I stress that there’s nothing fucking romantic and movie-like about being homeless? Because sometimes I feel like people imagine “we’ll share a cardboard box and be free of the shackles of modern society <3″ or some shit and meanwhile I’ve seen homeless couples, many homeless couples. I’ve been homeless couples. It sucks. That’s the end of the story. It sucks. (There’s probably similar romantic notions about marrying some tycoon and being a kept lady/boy, or whatever, which do not at all measure up to the reality. I’m sure a lot of people end up abused and neglected and miserable in their gilded-cage master bedrooms, afterwards. But since that’s not my experience, it wasn’t the focus of my fathomless ire with this question, lol.) 195. If someone wanted to understand you what book could they read that would help? >> That’s not going to happen. 196. Do you think it’s odd that Americans have freedom of religion and yet call themselves ‘one nation under god’? >> I don’t think it’s odd because I’m pretty used to how the United States works in that respect. I know it operates under conservative, Christian hegemony while playing the role of secular, progressive Western nation on the outside.

197. In what sense are you a minority? >> I’m Black, disabled/neuro-atypical, socially considered female, trans, and queer. I think that covers it. 198. Are you anti social? >> No. I have a few asocial behaviours and inclinations, but I’m not anti-social. 199. Do you photograph well? >> Sometimes. Not often, in my opinion. 200. Do you think that human beings would survive through a nuclear winter? >> I don’t know. I’m not knowledgeable enough about either human biology (and psychology) or the specifics of nuclear winter to say.