#[ it'd be good for figuring out their characterizations... but hmm... ]

[sonorous-eisfyl]

// i need to formally apologise to everyone in advanced. i got back into Wynncraft (its just one of our permanent interests at this rate, we started 9 years ago but we're still interested even though its been on/off) and thus my interest in my old ocs popped up again

im Extremely Tempted to create a dedicated rp blog for them, but im not sure if i should haha

[aristocratic-otter]

Ten Questions for Writers

Thank you @artsyunderstudy, @facewithoutheart and @nausikaaa for the tag! So, it's that time again, huh? Well, some things have changed since I last did one of these, so here goes.

How many works do you have on AO3? 35 but one was a group fic (Birthday Man). So technically 34.

What’s your total AO3 word count? 957,040 - 39,132 for birthday man (not going to try to figure out how many words my chapter in that fic was) = 917,908. So close to that million words!

What fandoms do you write for? Carry On only.

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Always. I can't say my responses are always inspired because, just like in real life, sometimes I just don't know what to say. But I always reply, because I know for myself how hard it can be to write a comment, so I want to honor that. That, and I'm really truly grateful for everyone who takes the time to tell me what they liked about my work!

Have you ever had a fic stolen? No...my fics are pretty long and specific, it'd be really hard to pass something of mine off as someone else's. I know it hasn't happened on AO3, though I can't speak to Tumblr or other platforms, since I don't spend much time there.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes, Birthday man, of course. And the Star Trek Redemption series is a lovely collab with many talented people. But also, I consider all of the many artists I've worked with co-authors, because so much of what I write comes from bouncing ideas off of them and being inspired by their art. So I'm considering @krisrix, @ivelovedhimthroughworse, @frjsti, @moments-au-crayon22, @artsyunderstudy, @alexalexinii,

@steppjes, @letraspal and @cutestkilla as cowriters

7. What’s your all-time favourite ship? The one and only OTP, Simon and Baz

8. What are your writing strengths? Hmm...I think I'm good with blocking, because I visualize my stories in my head before I write them down, so I'm good about knowing where characters are in space at all times. I'm also pretty good at characterization? And while my fics aren't usually laugh-out-loud funny, lots of comments point out things that are amusing, so I guess I write humor fairly well. Definitely good at scientific background stuff, of course. I don't know, other than that.

What are your writing weaknesses? Plot, plot, plot...not that I don't write decent plots. I think I do. But it can take me hours of dwelling on how to get characters from one plot point to the next. I tend to plan a fic in broad outlines and leave out minor details, and then I get bogged down in the details later. Other than that? I have trouble with witty banter. I can do dialogue, but I struggle with, for example, coming up with amusing insults for Baz to use on Simon. It just doesn't come naturally, because in RL, I'm the type who thinks of the witty response hours after the conversation ended!

Oh, also I suck at continuity. I constantly have to go back and read earlier chapters because I can't remember what I already had a character do or say.

First fandom you wrote for? CSI is the one I'll admit to.

I have no idea who's done this, so I'll tag: @cutestkilla, @carryonsimoncarryonbaz, @angelsfalling16, @palimpsessed, @bookish-bogwitch,

@best--dress, @emeryhall, @hushed-chorus, @prettygoododds, @larkral

[hellbubu]

Right!? Or like, after staging the suicide, wait for them to start picking fights with one another and then kill them all and stage a fatal fight between them. (Cause nothing sows discord better than being suspects in a murder investigation, pretty little liars style lmao). Idk, give two of them guns and shot at the others, something like that.

Forensics were kinda there? I mean, this *ïs* the time period where Sherlock Holmes came to be. But even then! The Queen would have shut this all up! (Imagine if she had sent Ciel to shut up the scandal instead of figuring out what happened; so when he found out he just let it be? Kinda difficult to believe, but if the loophole is there...)

For real!!!! Like, he is dumb, but not THAT dumb. So he has to have malice in him to suggest this (also, why were you telling your underage nephew about these experiments to bring the death back to life in the first place????). I'd completely forgotten that UT saved his sorry ass in the Campania, and was toying with the theory of Druitt being another secret identity for UT. Theory crumbled, but it was fun to play with for a lil while.

Even if Sebastian wanted to, he couldn't possibly recommend someone (except for Agni, who would NEVER leave Soma *cries in spoiler*) half as good as him, unless it's another demon. It'd be hilarious if someone lost his soul cause he wanted an eye candy butler that spoke fluent latin xDDD

Lol, yeah, Ciel totally gives "i'm carrying a weapon for self protection reasons" vibes when he's not busy keeping that smile on his face.

(Also, how did i *just* realized that each prefect has their colour house in their name? Like, I was 'its so lame that violet is the violet house prefect lol' but it never clicked that: Blue-wer, Green-hill, Red-mond. I'm sure Yana thought it was funny and also probably easier for the readers to remember which guy belonged to which house, but still. Really? REALLY?)

Btw, that each prefect and prefect's drudge has their colour house IN THEIR EYES is wilddddd- especially redmond and joanne! Sebastian should be the only one with maroon/red eyes ¬¬ (the eye colour was, to me, another hint that Cole wasn't the 'meant-to-be' prefect of the red house, since his eyes are green)

I doubt we'll get any more characterization for Cole, but it's cool to think about it. How trauma can go in such different directions and people choose to deal with it or deal *it* to others, to get over it.

Hmm. Estoy conciente de que me crié en un pueblo chico en una provincia del interior; y pase de una escuela pública a una semi-privada que tambien era religiosa y eramos poquiiitos por grado (de 20 a 30 alumnos por año, no mas) asi que probablemente sea eso lo que coloree mi opinion. En mi escuela si hubieron algunos casos graves (todavía me siento culpable por no intervenir por mi compañerito, pero mi cerebro de 13-14 no lo veia como gran cosa sino como 'ugh, cosas de chicos' y si los profes no hacian nada...); pero no se, al punto de matar a alguien? Creo que no. Igual, the "hazing" of US sororities (and of course, high school bullying), at least in media, has no equal. It'd be interesting to know if this kinda thing keeps happening on the UK and their universities, tho! I dont even know if they keep the house system at uni level...

The P4 are just idiots. They couldn't stop and think for one fucking second. Like, I can think of various ways to deal with the situation. But, you know, like Shane said, "It’s very easy to condemn from our vantage point in history. And so we do condemn! Wholeheartedly!" We live in a time where I can open YouTube and listen to how a serial killer hides the bodies or some mysterious death that hasn't been solved, so we have a better idea than some Victorian-era rich kids who probably don't even know how to do most basic tasks.

I just googled it and forensics at the time were... something. Like autopsies were done but according to this article it was mostly just approximating the time of death. This one says that they'd examine "the body’s exterior first, then internal organs, and then areas of interest in greater detail, like with a microscope." But I'm still unsure whether or not they'd be able to tell if Greenhill beat the dude up and then threw him off the roof. I'm willing to bet they wouldn't be able to tell because doing the Jack the Ripper investigations (allegedly) "He [Inspector Walter Dew] claimed that this [several photographs of the eyes were taken by expert photographers with the latest type cameras]was done in the ‘forlorn hope’ that the final image seen by Mary Kelly – i.e. the face of her murderer - had been preserved on her retina."

The boys could've gotten away with it easily. And if anyone suspects shit, get Druitt to pay off Scotland Yard. I know that's how he was let go from auctioning Ciel for some cultists or whatever. So he should help instead of fucking over his nephew.

It did click to me when they were introduced but I forget their name. I was calling them other things most of the time. I still forget Redmond and Greenhill's name. I have to think about it for a bit before I remember. 🙈🙈🙈

Yo me crié en la segunda ciudad más grande e importante de mi país. Mi escuela era religiosa pero realmente pocos eran religiosos o, por decirlo así, a casi nadie le importaba la religión durante las horas de escuela. Unos hablaban en la iglesia. Yo me quedaba dormida, parada, mientras orabamos. No es mi culpa q a esos pendejos se les ocurriera tener misa/hora de oración a las 7:40. Antes de las 9 no presto atención, sigo medio dormida. Bueno, ese no es el punto. Había este niño bien religioso que si se tomaba todo eso (las misas, la clase de religión, etc.) enserió y le hacían bullying por eso. Y todos los días los perdonaba y le seguían haciendo bullying. Pero el todo tranqui. Y se seguía juntando con ellos... a mi me hicieron bullying (de chiquita) unos majes mayores. Me salí del equipo de fut por un año pq me tocaba entrenar con ellos (solo habíamos como 3 niñas en fut ese año). Ya cuando se iban a graduar iban a los partidos y me hablaban como si nos lleváramos bien, pero whatever.

Creo que no paso nada peor pq éramos relativamente pocos por grado. Mi grado eramos apenas como 44 en total y en la escuela rica son como 60 mínimo y tienen un año extra pq muchos de esos güirros se van a estudiar a los Estados. La escuela tiene muchas maestras estadounidenses. Creo que por tener tantos estudiantes y un campus tan grande (es como del tamaño de una colonia) cuesta controlar a los niños. Y cuando digo q es un campus grande, me refiero a que tenían por lo menos dos canchas donde la U18 nacional ha jugado, un gimnasio, una como pista de carreras, una biblioteca de dos pisos, etc. Un campus tan grande + niños ricos con grandes egos a los q nadie les dice no = más oportunidades de bullying.

I found a couple of articles on bullying in the UK. One from 2023, one from 2020, and this one with no date but I assume it's from 2023 as well based on the "Pupil Bullying and Wellbeing Report 2023". So it does seem to be quite a problem.

[semi-imaginary-place]

started watching p5t consensus seems that's it's on par with other persona sidegames so alright but not good on its own. seems like its taking the worst of p5 aping on the language of revolution while not engaging with any sort of actual rebellion. with its like middleschool understanding of the french rebellion nobles evil rebels good. shame i like grid tactics games guess it'd time to watch a playthrough and see for myself.

lavenza looks older. like in p5 she was like half joker's height. but she also looked like a child because yald was messing with her power so maybe this is closer to her true appearance.

wtf. why does his chibi make him look older. his chibi looks like 45 but his full sprites make him look like he's in his 20s.

wedding ring as slave collar. huh.

...this is all an elaborate capture the flag game.

Toshiro acts like he's 45. but he's the youngest diet member so i think he's between 28-36.

Getting the impression toshiro is the main character of this game. Everything in the collective unconscious related back to him. The thing i cant figure out is how erina relates to him.

I do like how the war general is going around looking like buddha and talking like a love cult thats christianitys deal.

Been wondering the party treats the little hat dudes as normal so I've been wondering if they see them as humans and the generic sprites was for the audience or if they actually are little hat dudes and everyone is cool with that.

Hmm so erina is some version of toshiro's highschool classmate that explains why she's phantom thief age. But why was she in the first world?

Yeah this is all toshiro all the way down. Finished with the school and so far tactica hasn't really impressed me.

What is UP with makoto's characterization in this game. The others are mostly fine but for her the violence anger gag is like half her character here damn tactica writers hate makoto.

Oh eri lived thought she was dead dead for a minute. What with erina's whole deal.

And since eri isnt actually here to affect things this is all from how toshiro sees things. That means he forgot or couldn't accept what eri actually said (rude).

Huh this shadows eyes are white (inverted). Weird because in the first curscene they were yellow but every appearance afterwards has been white.

Oh i like that take for erina. Whats interesting is this is the only example i can think of where the user and persona are different genders. In most instances if the persona user is female the persona is feminine and if the user is male the persona is masculine, with a few more gender neutral persona designs in the mix.

Look im all for fighting gods but this feels a little forced.

P5T is meh. It's mid for persona side games which themselves are not as good as the main games. Tactica has fun interactions if someone already likes the p5 cast but beyond that it doesn't have much. Story is kinda weak i mean it's ok but there's also not really anything really engaging about it. I did like how it was essentially a toshiro vignette instead of trying to juggle multiple characters and stories, nice and focused.

It seems dlc is another entirely separate side story (a side story to a side story) but maingame didn't impress me with it's writing so i probably won't look into this. I kinda want to play tactica because i like tactics games but no way is this game worth $60? 70?, It's worth like 15$ maybe 20.

Hold up you telling me toshiro's persona is THE CHE GUEVARA. and they queered his gender and turned him into a woman.

[erintoknow]

what other media, if any (literally anything; interactive fiction, Bioware- or Bethesda-esque RPGs, etc) do you think Ari would be a good fit for?

what other media? hmmm

well i guess in a way i've already decided the answer to this because i picked out ari and a few other character concepts and are reworking them to fit into an original fiction narrative.

it's been incredibly invigorating to get back into a writing project again after spending the last two years tossing around different ideas and concepts - this one seems to be the one that's sticking so far.

oh dear, i've ended up writing quite a bit more then i originally intended for this, but here we go:

i can't really imagine ari as a character being that good a fit for a video game or even like a tv show or something like (despite having spent a non-small amount of time imagining different such scenarios haha) at the same time though, fiction is fiction - what you consider a good fit is going to depend on what specifically you consider essential to the character, so let's see...

fiction, or i suppose potentially interactive fiction as well, is kind of the one medium that allows the closeness to a character's interior narrative that feels core to making ari stand out in my mind.

i don't think she could support being a lead character without that close lens. dropped into a video game or movie or some other medium, i think you'd get wildly different impressions of her depending on if she was part of the central cast and afforded space (at least in a narrative sense) to drop her guard, or if she was limited to specific section or like 'side quest.' It'd be the difference between seeing a stoic 'action hero' esque figure, a fragile emotional mess underneath that, or a character desperate for love yet utterly afraid of it underneath that.

of course, this is true for all characters in fiction isn't it? the amount of space the narrative affords them determines how well they can be examined or well, characterized, within the core text. different character concepts are better suited for different roles, and which roles those may be can also be dependent on the medium at hand

so then, i'd say - if you want to lean into ariadne's interior psyche drama you want the close perspective only really possible in written fiction imo; if you want more emphasis on action, on ari's outside world relationship, a more visual-based medium like a tv show might be suitable.

hmm actually, a graphic novel in particular would be very hit or miss i think, a traditional approach i think would be pretty boring, but if you had someone willing to get really experimental with page layout and visuals to convey experience through nonverbal means... that could be interesting?

jumping back to video games for a second because now i'm in full on 8am ramble mode and i am going to make 0 effort to edit or clean this up – video games are pretty unique in our forms of media in their ability to use audience interaction to further draw them into the fantasy of the story being told - i mean, really this the whole appeal that otherwise extremely weak narrative series like bioware rpgs right? they manage to have such a profound emotional effect on us as player/audience because we allow ourselves to be drawn into the fantasy that we aren't just watching or reading events unfold but are actively participating in them ourselves. there's absolutely ways you could work with that for ariadne's character concept, i think? i still think she'd be better utilized as not a main character in such a conceit, but a character you have to choose to work to get to know, maybe? probably in some way that ideally comes back later in the game to have repercussions either in revealed information or character actions to represent / respect the work that was or wasn't put into befriending the character.

so uh, to summarize, i think you could take this character and jam her into just about anything with a bit of work and she'd still be mostly recognizable - but it's really only with the close pov of written narrative that she stands out (with the visual element of graphic fiction making it a potential runner up here if you got someone willing to go nuts with it)

an interactive fiction story feels a little too close to her origin as a FHR fanfic character for me to feel comfortable going that route - but objectively i suppose that could work pretty well too? it's just not an angle i'm interested in exploring with the character - if i were to write an interactive fiction story, i already know which concept i'd want to roll with for that. the Grey Painter by William Loman (which is a fantastic piece of horror fiction imo and deserves more love) is a great example of the kind of direction i was already thinking of going with: a character with several preset characteristics in a preexisting relationship with another character, navigating a situation --- i'm digressing now though

considering i am a writer and prefer written narrative (books are so good!!! please check out Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White or The Girls I've Been by Tessa Sharpe), am actively writing one rn, and developed the original version of the character as part of a written narrative fan fiction, i can't say i'm surprised at my own conclusion haha

[weareallstardustfallen]

1 21 27 !!!

1 - favorite fic you wrote this year?

oooh, tough one. to be honest, this year has been the best year i've ever had for writing fic; it's the first time i've ever been vaguely consistent with it, and i really feel like i've hit a place where i think i'm a good writer, and it's not so much a fluke or arrogance to think that i consistently produce writing that is good, and that i'm satisfied with, even if there's little flaws with it.

because of that, it's really hard to pick a favorite! there's tons of options- death of beauty, because to this day i'm still really satisfied with it and the response to it has just been amazing, or any number of my prophet pixl fics because i love that headcanon and how much it's been embraced, or mccrodak because it's my first proper multichapter fic ever and i love the way it came out, or really pretty much any of the others, i don't think i have a single fic posted this year that i think is bad. in the end, though, i'd probably have to say hello, everybody, my name is- simply because i captured something with that fic i'm not sure i'll ever manage again but really want to try at.

21 - most memorable comment/review?

hmm that's also really hard to say! i have a Less Than Fantastic memory, so i tend to think of types of comment rather than specifics, and even then it's hard to pick something that really stands out. i've gotten really detailed comments, i've got comments saying i made people cry, i've gotten comments saying my fic meant something to someone, i've gotten comments from people that i really admire, and all of that isn't even counting the feedback i've gotten on tumblr or through discord which feels just as awesome. i've gotten So much support and it's really amazing!!

i guess the kind of comment that sticks out most is when people comment me as a writer, as much as the fic- things that they really like about my style or my characterization or my imagery or what have you that show up again and again in my fics. feels a bit less like i'm a one hit wonder, y'know?

27 - favorite fanfic author of the year?

harv you Sure know how to pick the hard ones lol. i think it'd have to go to @/betweenlands, @/theminecraftbee, and @/redwinterroses, in no particular order. if y'all haven't read their stuff and you're a fan of hermitcraft/empires/third life/last life, i'd definitely recommend it, those three just never miss!

also, honorable mention to my dearly beloved @/bananasofthorns as well; he is just as fantastic but i figured everyone already knows i love him, lol. and of course there's tons of amazing authors whose stuff i've loved this year- those four are just some of the ones who stick out the most!