#AND THE FANFICS WERE SUPER GOOD?!????

[moeblob]

I love Chris so much you guys.

[pianokantzart]

The brotherly moments are what I’m looking forward to the most for the sequel. I’m hoping we can potentially get a scene that will top the reunion scene. Are there certain kinds of brotherly love moments you’d like to see in the sequel?

Big same. What I'm most looking forward to is all the little subtle shows of affection: headlocks, side hugs, cap tugs, belly pokes, shoulder nudges, jabs, jostles... all the bits of body language that made their relationship feel so close and real in the first movie. And of course, the return of that silly little secret handshake.

Another thing I want to see is more of Mario's protectiveness. I know some are hoping that he gets a little overprotective after being separated from his bro in the first movie, but if we don't get that I want to at least see Mario's pre-adventure protectiveness.

Or the kind of protectiveness he exhibited in the Super Mario Adventures comics, where even though he's focused on the fight he always keeps an eye on his brother, and the moment Luigi calls out for help he immediately becomes first priority.

On the flip side, I want to see more of Luigi being the emotional support/voice of reason. He may be a ball of nerves in moments of peril, but he's proven to be very levelheaded overall. Since I picture the arc of the sequel being Mario slowly coming to embrace the role of a true hero– with all the responsibilities that come with it– it'd be nice if he had a low moment of feeling like a failure that Luigi talks him out of.

Now, if they're going to try and top the reunion scene in the first movie, there is one surefire way to do that: slow down. As good as that hug was, there was so much going on that it was hard to feel the full impact on the first watch. Quiet things down for a moment... pump the breaks... focus in on the facial expressions... let us really feel the hug. Throw in another forehead touch while you're at it.

But you know what I'm really really excited to see? Sword and shield fight dynamic. I desperately want to see them fighting side-by-side without the superstar! Give me Mario spearheading the charge while Luigi watches his blindside! Mario throwing himself mindlessly into a dangerous stunt so long as Luigi is there to catch him, Mario fighting in close combat while Luigi draws the target's attention with long-range attacks, both of them falling into perfect synch when they need to deliver an extra-powerful blow.

I am so aggressively obsessed with the idea of their character traits being fully exhibited and explored through the way they approach a fight, you have no idea.

[thevegetablewhichnoonedaresname]

absolute DEARTH of dungeon meshi fanfics on ao3. in many ways but particularly gen fics that are over 2000 words and focused on adventure, magical shenanigans, fluff/angst, or some combination of those

[the-lark-ascending69]

Lumity is very cute but it seems like the kind of ship that would have a fandom so toxic it'd make you dislike the ship in time and I think that's sad.

[pokimoko]

5, 10, 20, and 25 for fic in review ask thing!!!

5. What ships captured your heart?

I am a gen writer through and through, so it's a very rare thing to see me writing a ship-focused fic. That said, I really enjoyed the pairing of Karlach and Astarion this year, though I wouldn't say I shipped them necessarily in a romantic sense. The fic I wrote that had them together had their relationship tagged '(it's fairly ambigious; is it romantic? queerplatonic? platonic? yes), (the love and devotion is there regardless)' which I think basically sums up how I view them (and also how aromantic I am about shipping 😅).

I also liked Billford, but in a strictly 'oh yeah they're super divorced, they are never getting back together' kind of way. Not sure if that counts as shipping, but hey, it's definitely counts as something.

10. What fic was the most satisfying to write?

I would have to say either 'The Poetics of Space' (Gravity Falls) or 'On Waxen Wings We Soar, In Spite of Inevitable Ends' (Baldur's Gate 3). They were the two fics I was the most happiest with this year, not only regarding the quality of the writing itself and the themes they explored (the constance of change not only in the world but also ourselves, and finding joy in and making peace with the time you have left), but also how they tied everything together in their conclusions. Both of them equally made me feel a 'wow..I did that' feeling of accomplishment when I finished them, so yeah, they both were absolutely the most satisfying to write.

20. Share your funniest line.

Being more of angst-based writer kinda limits my collection of comedic lines (even my more comedic story this year was extremely angsty), but there was one line I wrote this year that got a couple comments about it making the reader laugh, so I'll go with that one (because if two people found it funny, surely it must be, right):

“You try fixing an interdimensional portal for thirty years without learning physics," (Stanley) said. "I know what quarks are now. Do you know how much I hate knowing what quarks are.”

25. How did you recharge between fics?

Usually I'd spend the first few days after finishing a fic trying to figure out the what the heck to do with the spare time I had previously allocated to writing said fic, and then once I figured that out (and had yet to be overcome with the urge to write something else), I'd probably watch a TV show, read a book, play video games, and do some art. I'm boring like that.

Send me a number!

[volfoss]

as a guy that loves getting into obscure media that like. maybe 5 people talk about now. it is interesting the difference between consuming media that is SUPER popular and everyone loves your fave (a curse i would never wish upon anyone. the posts will never be good) and a media that like. there is NO ONE actively posting about. it has barely any fan presence online. and honestly its kind of peaceful

[6mayhem]

anyway i need to hang out with my brother again he is the one person who i am pretty sure knows literally everything about me so he's the only person i trust that i can absolutely not disappoint. nothing i can do could be worse than the sum of everything i've been doing to that poor man (and him to me) the past 19 years

[sing-me-under]

*stands at the top of a stage with a megaphone *

LET BATMAN HAVE FRIENDS.

[yujeong]

Hello there! So, I've been trying to evolve as a writer this year (debatable), which means I've started writing smut. Trying to write it, anyway. It's been... difficult, but very fun and I do hope I'll get to share some of my ideas on Ao3 soon. (Love how I'm saying this as if I've not talked about and shared snippets of my VP somno fic multiple times lol.) In the meantime, I'd like to ask anyone who might be interested to send me smut prompts about VegasPete in particular, because these are the two babies I'd love to experiment on when it comes to smut. My followers have probably seen what my likes and dislikes are in regards to my smut preferences, but don't think about it too much. You can send me anything you would like to read, and if it's something I feel uncomfortable tackling, I'll just say so. Thank you ❤️

[mintedaisies]

been desperately craving to go back to my bookworm days and, this time, delve into the world of monster romance novels

[frobby]

the people who write mario hurt/comfort fanfics are the strongest people on the planet

[blackidyll]

4, 8, 13, and 32 for the writing meme pls! :DD

this is from the weird questions for writers list!

4. What’s a word that makes you go absolutely feral? i like words that are kind of oddly spelled - hymn, myriad, idyll (hence my username). For a verb, coalesce.

but as for feral in a negative way? it's souvenir. i can never for my life spell it correctly, i always put in extra vowels. Spell check has to save me (as it just did!).

8. If you had to write an entire story without either action or dialogue, which would you choose and how would it go? oooooo story without dialogue is probably easier because i already write so. much. exposition as it is. it'll be interesting to go without putting in any dialogue, but there are ways for characters to communicate or express themselves without active dialogue, so i can probably figure it out.

i write dialogue-only snippets when i'm outlining fics and I always get the urge to fill in the blanks with descriptions of actions and so on. a dialogue-only fic for me will not want to stay dialogue-only upon edits haha.

13. What is a subject matter that is incredibly difficult for you write about? What is easy? haha! explicit sexual content! i can read it and plot it just fine, but when it comes to writing the minutiae of it i will combust. It's just easier for me to cut off/fade to black and leave the fic at a mature rating.

not necessarily easy, but i guess pining/longing/nostalgia? i've moved countries a lot when i was younger and it always feels like i'm missing someone or longing for something, and so when I write that kind of content it's easy for me to access my own feelings and channel that into my characters. It's a sort of bittersweetness where the sweetness is your feelings for the person/place/time but bitter because you're apart from whatever it is you're missing, and I like exploring that dichotomy.

32. What is a line from a poem/novel/fanfic etc that you return to from time and time again? How did you find it? What does it mean to you? @derpinathebrave asked the same question so i'll tackle a poem/novel example here and a fanfic one for them!

the last two lines of Clementine von Radics' poem, "Mouthful of Forevers" really stuck with me. I encountered this poem through a Sam/Lucifer SPN fic, How To Fall; the author included poems/excerpts from songs/prose at the beginning of every chapter. The fic has such a visceral depiction of Lucifer's motivations and this poem was just incredibly apt for that point of the fic, as well as being a beautiful work in its own right. Here is the last stanza of the poem:

I know sometimes It's still hard to let me see you In all your cracked perfection, But please know: Whether it's the days you burn More brilliant than the sun Or the nights you collapse into my lap Your body broken into a thousand questions. You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I will love you when you are a still day. I will love you when you are a hurricane.

A line from a novel - definitely this one from Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings series: the Fool's "And I set no limits on that love." It's a recurring line in the series (iirc) as the Fool tries to explain his love to Fitz, and Fitz constantly struggles with understanding/coming to terms with it. I think us fans tend to have mixed feelings about how the Fool and Fitz's relationship is depicted in the series, but that passage where Fitz skill-links with the Fool and experiences the Fool's love for him is just so profound. The Fool's love defies boundaries - it is not romantic or sexual or even platonic, it just is. He loves Fitz, and his love is limitless. I remember reading this book in high school and finding out a friend read it too, and the first thing we both said to each other? "I set no limits on that love." Even though there were (at the time) nine whole books in the series, out of thousands of other lines this one resonated with us the most.

That entire passage is just incredible so I'm gonna stick it under this read more.

"Would you have more than this?" The Fool's voice was less than a whisper. I discerned a challenge in his words, but could not understand it.

"Yes, please. Try," I bade him.

Beside me at the table, I was aware of the Fool making some small movement but my vision was unfocused on the room and I had no warning of his intentions until his hand settled on my wrist. His fingertips unerringly found their own faded gray fingerprints, left on my flesh so many years ago. His touch was gentle, but the sensation was an arrow in my heart. I physically spasmed, a speared fish, and then froze. The Fool ran through my veins, hot as liquor, cold as ice. For a flashing instant, we shared physical awareness. The intensity of it went beyond any joining I'd ever experienced. It was more intimate than a kiss and deeper than a knife thrust, beyond a Skill-link and beyond sexual coupling, even beyond my Wit-bond with Nighteyes. It was not a sharing, it was a becoming. Neither pain nor pleasure could encompass it. Worse, I felt myself turning and opening to it, as if it were my lover's mouth upon mine, yet I did not know if I would devour or be devoured. In another heartbeat, we would be one another, know one another more perfectly than two separate beings ever should.

[…]

Just as I opened my eyes, the Fool's thought uncurled in my mind like a leaf opening to sunlight.

And I set no limits on that love.

[emeryleewho]

I've noticed more published original fiction authors doing this in their books too. I've already informed my team that I plan on putting author's notes in my books, and I've also spoken to my agent about including notes in my submissions even to editors. Unfortunately, the default mindset of readers has become "do I like this?" rather than "what is this attempting to accomplish?" or "does this accomplish something of value even if it isn't what I would set out to do?" so there's this pressure on authors to literally tell the reader what to look for or be held to completely nonsensical standards based on projects of completely different genres with entirely different goals and values.

I used to work for a trade book reviewer where I got payed to review people's books, and one of the rules of that review company is one that I think is just super useful to media analysis as a whole, and that is, we were told never to critique media for what it didn't do but only for what it did.

So, for instance, I couldn't say "this book didn't give its characters strong agency or goals". I instead had to say, "the characters in this book acted in ways that often felt misaligned with their characterization as if they were being pulled by the plot."

I think this is really important because a lot of "critiques" people give, if subverted to address what the book does instead of what it doesn't do, actually read pretty nonsensical. For instance, "none of the characters were unique" becomes "all of the characters read like other characters that exist in other media", which like... okay? That's not really a critique. It's just how fiction works. Or "none of the characters were likeable" becomes "all of the characters, at some point or another, did things that I found disagreeable or annoying" which is literally how every book works?

It also keeps you from holding a book to a standard it never sought to meet. "The world building in this book simply wasn't complex enough" becomes "The world building in this book was very simple", which, yes, good, that can actually be a good thing. Many books aspire to this. It's not actually a negative critique. Or "The stakes weren't very high and the climax didn't really offer any major plot twists or turns" becomes "The stakes were low and and the ending was quite predictable", which, if this is a cute romcom is exactly what I'm looking for.

Not to mention, I think this really helps to deconstruct a lot of the biases we carry into fiction. Characters not having strong agency isn't inherently bad. Characters who react to their surroundings can make a good story, so saying "the characters didn't have enough agency" is kind of weak, but when you flip it to say "the characters acted misaligned from their characterization" we can now see that the *real* problem here isn't that they lacked agency but that this lack of agency is inconsistent with the type of character that they are. a character this strong-willed *should* have more agency even if a weak-willed character might not.

So it's just a really simple way of framing the way I critique books that I think has really helped to show the difference between "this book is bad" and "this book didn't meet my personal preferences", but also, as someone talking about books, I think it helps give other people a clearer idea of what the book actually looks like so they can decide for themselves if it's worth their time.

[i-like-books-and-women]

You ever just come across the spruce material for a fandom you were in ages ago and just have such a fond nostalgia for it? Like "omg I remember losing my fucking shit over that when that episode/chapter/book/season/update came out". And then going to see if the fandom is still alive cause said source material is old, you left the fandom like four years ago, and the source material hasn't received an update in ages and it's still active and you're like "Yo people still live here?"

[allylikethecat]

Hi hi. So I take the term equestrian quite loosely for myself because I live in a town and am not rich I’ve never had the chance to actually have my own horse. But I’ve been riding horses since I was like 4. My cousin owns a stables that is a couple of hours away from me so that was my introduction to riding.

I don’t compete due to the lack of my own horse but I practice English style riding with show and cross country jumping styles. I’ve also dabbled a little in western riding.

Even though none of them are actually mine bc I rode and helped out at one stables for such a long time it definitely felt like some of them were. Especially there’s this one mare Daisy who is a proper little asshole. She will bite and kick and buck and barely even moves for the lesson kids. But I hopped up on her when I was a kid and we just connected. She was like a different horse altogether.

Anyway I am very much so rambling and I had one other thing to say to you which is and the medicine vinyl. Ik you said it reminds you of the colour of US pill bottles and I find that so interesting bc originally it was made to be the colour of h.

Anyway yeah btw also I am LOVING the daily prompts! Hope ur having a nice day :)

-♥️

Hey! Doesn't matter if you own a horse, or how often you ride! If you've taken lessons you're an equestrian in my book! That's so cool that your cousin owns a stable!

But damn you are much braver than me! I do NOT have the nerve to ever go cross country schooling omg I love watching it but the jumps are so solid? I also prefer English style riding (show jumpers unite!) but Pop is a jack of all trades (re: I get an idea and he is forced to go along with it lol) and we've done a little bit of everything - jumping is what we both like best though. He's a little peanut of a QH that I never had any intentions of buying but is the absolute love of my life, and as a QH I'm so lucky he is so versatile and is game to do a little bit of everything, English and Western, as long as he doesn't have to go through any kind of water including puddles 😂

It's always so special when you meet a horse that you just ~vibe~ with and it's like oh you're my guy/gal. Daisy sounds like such a mare lol was she chestnut as well by chance? I know that they say once you become a mares person they will literally do anything for you.

I also used to have a chestnut Oldenburg mare that I did more upper level show jumping with but that ended in absolute flames and I sold her about a year ago (I'm not sure if I hated her more, or she hated me more by the end lol) 💀 I hope I can one day get another upper level horse especially with Pop getting older but currently I am still terrified to get on any horse that isn't him 😂 Also I am so sorry for rambling on about this I get so excited talking about horses 😬

Oooo you're so right! I'm not a vinyl person (I literally only bought the neon orange Medicine vinyl because i have a weird attachment to the song now after the A&E fic and wanted to frame the sleeve and hang it with all my other 1975 stuff) and completely forgot that was a thing... I feel like that makes it even more poetic that it's the color of medicine/pill bottles in the US now? Even though it probably wasn't on purpose? I have decided that I am going to read into the symbolism and pretend it was on purpose even though I fully made it up (Hey DH - you can steal my idea though and pretend it was on purpose if you want though!)

Thank you so much for following along with the daily prompts! It's been such a fun little exercise and I've really enjoyed working on them! I didn't expect anyone to even read them, and was only posting to hold myself accountable so to find out that other people are enjoying them as well is so special and cool!

Thank you so much for reading, your support and sending in these asks! I apologize for writing little rambling novels in response, just like horses man! They're the BEST!

❤️Ally

[presidentofclaudeloving2024]

I JUST HAVE TO SAY ON HERE THAT IF YOU THINK THIS WONT CONVINCE YOU, I JUST TALKED TO CHARON ON ONE OF MY TRIPS DOWN.

THIS IS WHEN I FINALLY GOT IN CONTACT WITH MOROS AT THE CROSSROADS MY SWEET BELOVED

MELINOËS LIKE "Oh now we have 3 of Nyxs sons in the crossroads! Except ones sleeping more then the rest oops"

And CHARON BUDDY OMFG

Melinoë is like "Huh??? What do you mean that fits Hermes more??"

...... Correct me if I'm wrong BUT DOESNT HE MEAN BY EXTENSION THAT HERMES would FIT the role of SON *coughs* in law *COUGHS* BETTER??? WITH SAID FAMILY???? Jfc SUPERGAINT YOU ARE NOT BEATING THE ALLIGATIONS WITH THOSE TWO THAT WELL LMAO

Hermes design in Hades 2 looks… interesting 👀💍