#I have the timeline and major plot points and worldbuilding and the way the characters are similar and different all planned out

[betweenthetimeandsound]

WIP Questionnaire (Out There)

Thanks @dontjudgemeimawriter for tagging me here!

1. What’s the first part of your WIP that you created?

Just Caroline being bored, and learning about the realms from her brother. I was inspired by the Fairy Realm books as a starting point (which goes to show you how young I was when I started it, haha), and wanted to include a charm bracelet with it. As the story evolved, I took this part away, and had Jessica become Caroline's guide to the realms.

2. If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

Hmm...I don't have an idea for it yet. What about you?

3. What are your favorite characters that you made? Why?

Caroline stands out the most; I'd like to imagine her as someone who's like me. Insecure, a bit usure about herself, but willing to throw herself into new things. She has a reckless streak about her which mirrors myself, in a way.

4. What other pieces of media do you think your fanbase would share?

Hmm...first impression is that fans of the Tamora Pierce novels would really get a dig out of this! There's interesting heroines, magic, adventure, and all around epic. Will there be darker sides to these characters? Probably. (How about you guys?)

5. What has been your biggest struggle with your WIP?

Trying to incorporate the worldbuilding. I threw Caroline and co into a generic fantasy world, though I do have a rough idea about the magical powers of the characters and the political situation between the two realms. The things I have to fix are the quirks of this world, along with the little details which differ from ours. And deciding about the timeline; the original version only takes place within two days! Plus, how much technology is used here.

6. Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

There are human-animal hybrids in our world, such as with sirens and half-bird/half-human creatures. They inhabit their own territories of other realms and created their own societies, and one of them takes an interest in helping Caroline.

As for animals, there are of course, but aren't a major role in the plot (yet...)

7. How do your characters travel/get around?

To get into the realms, portals from our world are formed with powerful sources of magic, particularly during national disasters (which means if something bad happens, then that magic could be nullified too). A human being can get to the realms either through chanting a spell, or summoning its magic to get where they're going.

Within the realms, they walk, travel by trains (albeit it's more of a western Carinian thing than an eastern thing), horses, or can summon portals too. Sirens can fly where they please (those who have wings). Aerokinetics can accelerate pretty far, but can't crisscross the realm in a day.

8. What part of your WIP are you working on right now?

I'm almost at the end of act I with the rewrite! Seraterina is whisked away to the princess of Vela for important information about the Sea Gardenia, and Caroline meets up with Jessica to make sure she's okay.

9. What aspects (tropes, maybe?) you think will draw your audience in?

The "chosen one" trope for sure with the first book. Portal fantasy is a big one, constantly switching between the responsibilities of the real world and the realms.

10. What are your hopes for your WIP?

Publication for sure--and hopefully, people would write their own stories based on the characters. And just having the will to go on a journey themselves.

What about you? @memento-morri-writes, @writeblrfantasy?

[mediocre-noodle]

mwhahehehhaheha okay. this one is the lore/plot outline. have fun!!

TWs are added so i can keep track in notes and in case i share it,, like rn!! boy, im so smart!

tropes: walled-in city, corrupt gov leader, abusive parent + dead parent combo, dead main character, resistance/revolution, non-human, dystopian setting, floriography (flower language/meaning), royal main character, royalty, coming of age, ascension after death, death of a friend, gods/deities (always a work in progress)

TWs: [major+minor] death, main character death, temporary character deathS (canon. not mentioned in this lore timeline though), revolution/war setting, blood & injury, dystopian setting, abusive parent, child abuse, manipulation, gaslighting, suicidal thought/behaviors, gunshot wounds, implied character death(s), off-screen deaths (NPCs) (always a work in progress)

birth —> realization: royalty arc (aka people-pleaser arc)

dallas lived in a city ruled by evil king who kept them stuck in the city w large, heavily guarded walls. HAHAH evil ruler is HIS FATHER. abusive. think c!schlatt (was inspired by c!schlatt. literally not even a developed character. no name, no appearance—nothin’)

basically, dallas is the prince of the kingdom. hes not seen very well, often befriended/used for power by nobles, manipulated, gaslit, belittled, etc— doormat, people-pleaser, yes-man. yadda yadda.

when turns 13, he starts to realize that the way others are treating him is kinda… weird. begins to research about stuff and learns more. also develops sass + snark (however anxiety is still at peak bc puberty and stuff) and finds inner anger issues. doesnt show true self until he joins the resistance and starts trusting them. (also realized he was trans as used the name Krow as a placeholder bc he couldn’t decide on a name) (to clarify, he uses masculine terms and is transmasc)

age 15: walls arc

the age dallas officially joined resistance. did hang out with kids from resistance (alibi, juno, asmo) when age 13-14, but theres a policy of not joining resistance until 15– even if you werent going into a combative job.

soon seen as a high authority figure after he got peoples trust. how he got their trust? shot a royal officer at a riot. in the timeline, this was months after he joined. (king and army doesnt know bc resistance is undercover using fake names— if wanted, more detail can be provided about the fake names.) this was also when he earned his name Striker, which he then used as his name instead Krow. it was more of a title and not a true name, but there was more pressing things to worry about. (he grew attached.)

resistance communicates via floriography hung up outside the flower shop they turned into a meeting house— dont worry, its not too small because theres a secret base under it.

many members of the resistance also follow The Eyes, a different religion/spirituality from the royalites. it’s not like a godly religion ig,, idk how to explain. its more about acknowledging The Eyes and also appreciating nature. will be explained more in the worldbuilding section.

age 16: wilds arc

government started doing some Fucked Up Shit (tm) and riots n protests n revolts started popping up more n more often. however bc of the guards, they turned violent more often than not! (WHY? WHAT PUSHED THEM TO FINALKY PUSH BACK??) <- haha look plotholes point n laugh

ALIBI dies during a revolt— bleeds out in dallas’ arms.

citizens and resistance group started evacuating the city through underground tunnels— which leads to a few years in the wilderness and the apocalypse setting (WHY? WHAT PUSHED THEM TO FINALLY START EVACUATING? WHAT DID THE KING DO? fix.) <- haha look plotholes point n laugh

while escaping, theyre found out by guards. SKIP gives himself up as bait to lead the guards away from the group.

outside the walls, it’s basically like the mob or gangs. but less dying/fights and more survival— like those packs of humans in an apocalypse sticking together to survive. and the environment isn’t very good either- weather can differ easily. not many forests and its VERY hot bc global warming. however it gets freezing at night. but this doesn’t mean there aren’t forests, you will find some if you go far enough from the Walls.

the main group is the one that dallas leads— called the Copperheads. each member wears a compass as a necklace (like the tommy tubbo necklace compass headcanons- and like the one i have)

they traveled until they found an abandoned city. lived there and eventually rebuilt it. later named kismadoré.

-> more on this (ON TOPIC OF CULTURE): a good amount of people just escaped a walled-in city and are in the wilderness so theyre all homeless and considered nomads now. years later, they make a city and the cultural dances they did while on the run stuck w them. many seperate cultures irl have inspired it like the 1920s flappers, flamenco, street dancing, country swing, line-dancing, and soemthing like the tangled kingdom dance scene. its a lot of cultures bc of the different people mixing while on the run. but especially the 'embrace nature' thing they took on with some form of animism similar to indigenous cultures. (which the nature thing was integrated into the worship of The Eyes. feels weird to call it worship. they really do jist be like “okay cool you guys watch us and guide us thanks!” its connected but not?? it makes sense in my head)

age 18: rebellion arc

came back to the kingdom and the walls later to overthrow gov. yeahhh dallas was getting paranoid at kismadoré and waiting for the other shoe to drop. finally said “ykw? imma drop the other shoe myself” … also to free the citizens and tear down the walls

stayed underground and out if sight. many, many riots and revolts. tensions high in the kingdom, along with casualties.

dallas died when leading a coup d’état against evil dictator (from multiple gunshot wounds to fhe torso by a childhood friend indoctrinated into an enemy)

the only survivors of the cast (aka not NPCs) are asmodae and juno. they hold each other very closely.

after-death & godhood or whatever-the-fuck: death and onwards

bc he died a meaningful death, was taken by a god-species and now protects others like them

(and travels the multiverse but thats not important :3) <- MORE ON THIS LATER. IT IS ACTUALLY IMPORTANT.

and just because he’s dead, doesnt mean his story is over ehe *taps where i had written his age previously*

xi i hope u know that i am utterly obsessed with this story and would consume a 10 book long series about it. by the way

[ravenwingdark]

like fire, ice and explosions was soooooooooooooooooooooooo good. i… like... reading stories where shouto... loses his shit? he "deserves" that, you know what i mean? to go off the rails, either a little or a lot. he should be allowed to not be fucking okay! he should be allowed to have a reaction, and a messy reaction at that. i feel like he isn't actually allowed to do that though, in canon that is. maybe the mangaka thinks it's unnecessary but i don't think so, so i'm really glad for your story, for you letting him go through all of these feelings, for letting him react in a "messy" way. and i like how supportive is bakugou, and how bakugou he still is, like he's probably not the most comforting person ever, but maybe that's exactly why it works, with shouto at least. i wish we had had more characters reacting in "canon" to the part of dabi's speech about shouto instead of people only reacting to him as being related to dabi and all of that. i don't remember if there's even any comment about the quirk marriage thing? but, yeah, it's like people don't really say anything about what happened to shouto, even now that it's in the open and, okay, of course, shouto wouldn't want people to say anything, but like, it's weird that it doesn't happen. but anyway, that became a rant, i'm sorry, that was not what i was meaning to do.

i like pyrrhic victory too. i like the trio's dynamic in there very, very much, and the scenes of the rescue were so perfectly good. what i like the most is... probably how fitting is anamnesis's quirk to, like, shouto's entire life story? like, of fucking course that's the quirk of the person who kidnapped him, it's sort of poetic in the most disturbing way. pyrrich victory kind of makes me really depressed though. it's a whole new fucking trauma for him, and i'm not really seeing any "light at the end of the tunnel" for shouto, not at the moment anyway. it doesn't seem like shouto will ever be moderately okay again! i'm glad he slipped up in the latest published chapter and that bakugou noticed it and confronted him about that quickly and because it's bakugou i'm hoping he won't be fooled by however shouto tries to deflect from that, and then maybe there's hope yet, but i don't know. i'm not feeling that hopeful even with the "angst with a happy ending" tag. do you have the ending in mind already? how do you usually write? do you usually have everythingh planned, or you "go through the motions"?

haha thank you so much! you really touched on all the worldbuilding and inner conflict I wanted to explore in the series. Frankly, Hori just doesn’t have the time to dive so deep into every character that deserves it—mangakas have such strict schedules and a timeline they need to follow (or they may get relegated to Shounen Monthly), so a lot of the inner world of some of the secondary characters has to be implied. thats the joy of fanfic!

And yes, I do have everything in place for the ending, and almost all of it is written :) I know this ask is a bit older so maybe out of date, but at the 75% point of a story is usually the “Darkest Moment” where everything looks the worst.

In some ways, Shoto’s worse (suffering from new trauma, not trusting his own head) and in other ways he’s become more resilient—he’s got a very strong support system system, and he’s learning how to ask for help. He’s learned a lot from LFIE and the aftermath, learned to forgive Endeavor (as much as he can) and is trying to move past his trauma, though he’s 18 years old, and only a few years removed from that abuse, and def doesn’t have his life figured out

When I decided to write the sequel I did a bullet point list with each major development being numbered, then subsections. I believe it had 51 major plot moments. Since it’s a plotty casefic, I’ve pretty much adhered to The Plan with only adding extra details here and there. (Meanwhile, LFIE was seat of the pants)

And if you’re worried about a happy ending, just take a look at the title! Pyrrhic Victory—well, we’ve already gotten quite a bit of suffering, what’s left?

TYSM for such a kind, thoughtful comment, hope you enjoy the final stretch :)

[tbookblurbs]

The Atlas Paradox - Olivie Blake

2/5 - better than I remember, no real character arcs to speak of, odd character decisions, weak worldbuilding, major second book syndrome

If I had been reviewing this after I read it the first time, this review would have been more harshly critical than this one is about to be. With that in mind, let's begin!

This book feels like it exists to fill time between the first and the third books of the trilogy. And while, in one sense, that's what all second books do, this is by no means a Catching Fire of second books if you catch my drift. A year goes by over the course of this book with an extremely questionable timeline and essentially nothing of note happening. It's not that there isn't plot happening, it's just that the plot is minimal in comparison to the amount of writing.

Some of this problem is due to the way the characters act. It feels as though every character is making decisions out of left field and none of them undergo any significant character arc, with the exception maybe of Reina, who begins to believe in her own divinity. Each character makes choices with no apparent justification or an incredibly overwrought emotional reaction. Reina storms out of a room or scene at least once every time she has a POV chapter. I also did not appreciate Nico and Parisa's hook-up, which appeared to happen just for the sake of something happening between them.

Each of the characters is in their own heads and not really interacting with each other, despite living in the same house, and, frankly, it makes it seems like six small novellas are taking place, rather than one cohesive plot. Characters are cryptic for the sake of being cryptic and wildly dismissive of everyone's abilities as though the entire first book hadn't been spent establishing that each of them are exceptional.

The biggest point of confusion for me was the worldbuilding. I was under the impression this was a magical realism story - a magic world within and alongside an ignorant mortal world. This idea is disproven in this book, with the knowledge of government contracts, but at no point is this every expanded upon. The sudden presence of characters and institutions beyond the Society also throws into sharp relief how little we actually know about the characters. We know them in a setting that places each of them under duress, emotional or physical, and as anyone who has ever functioned under extreme stress can tell you, that is not an accurate depiction of people's actual personalities and behaviors.

Overall, the novel is just lacking. The one character I did want to see more of was Libby, and we only got the barebones of her self-confidence arc. They also basically sacrificed Belen at the altar of ?? something, which to me was a disservice to her character,

[papytonpropaganda]

So it looks like Walls is going to be undergoing some big changes in terms of structure.

I’ll reiterate this as we closer to our planned release date, but it is very likely going to be a series of fics instead of one singular fic, due to the size of the cast and the complexity of the themes we’re working with. What we’re looking at doing now is having one fic solely from Papyrus’s POV, one solely from Mettaton’s POV, and one from both POVs for the final arc. The 1-POV fics would likely be written concurrently and have some of the same scenes written from each POV.

This does make some things a little more difficult--I definitely appreciated how easy it was to switch POVs in a single chapter in the original version. I originally didn’t want to do this because I felt like both POVs were needed to get the full scope of the story. But I think as long as I update both fics at the same time (or at least when I need to, depending on where different events fall in the timeline), I think it’ll be possible to get the full scope still. I just want to make sure the different plots in Walls are easy enough to follow, and I think due to the size of the cast and the number of important relationships, this is the best way to do it.

Due to this change in structure, @asgore-agenda and I have revised our preparation plans for the WCU. These are the new stages at this time:

1. I really want to incorporate more of the culture of Aotearoa (the Māori name for New Zealand, which is what I will be using from now on) in the story, so we will be doing significantly more research on the country and the Māori people. We will also be doing our own worldbuilding with respect to magic and those who use it.

2. After that, we’ll get back to working on character profiles and refs, including backstories and relationships.

3. Once we have good ideas of all the characters and their relationships, we’ll modify the main plots and develop subplots as needed.

4. We’ll then list out the biggest plot points and figure out where they fit in a general timeline.

5. Then we’ll go over important, recurring details about different characters so nothing is forgotten.

6. At this point we will develop 3 different sets of outlines and timelines, one set for each of the 3 main Walls fics.

7. From the outlines, we will glean what the biggest possible triggers and the themes of the story are. I don’t really expect this to change too much from the original, but you never know.

8. We will develop new synopses (summaries) for each fic as well as new titles (the series will most likely keep the name “The Walls Around Our Hearts,” but each fic will need its own name).

9. At this point the writing will begin!

As we go along, we will also be developing new stories for different characters of the WCU as well as prequels and sequels for the main story.

At this time, the planned release date for the first chapters of the Walls series is going to be May 25, 2024. I know that’s a long wait and I’m really sorry about that, but I want to give myself and Pixie time to really prepare and make an incredible story for all of you. Believe me when I say I am having so much fun working with Pixie and I am so excited to provide you all with updates as we move through the stages of planning.

Please feel free to ask me about updates any time. If you’re really interested in keeping up with Walls development, there is a Discord server. It’s fairly quiet in there, but there are plenty of opportunities to ask questions and make comments, and special roles for if you want major spoilers or to hear about explicit content. This is an 18+ server due to the content of Walls. Let me know if you want the invite!

I also plan to release updates on development on the blog I created for Walls, @thewallsaroundourhearts, so you can follow that for much of our future content.

Much love to all of you! Thanks for your support!

[wondereads]

Weekly Reading Update (01/22/24)

Reviews and thoughts under the cut

Wolf-Speaker by Tamora Pierce (8/10)

When I first read The Immortals Quartet back in middle school, I wasn't a huge fan of this book, and I also didn't remember much about it. Even now rereading it, it's probably my least favorite of the series, but I do have a new appreciation for it. I really like how Daine is meant to bring the animals, humans, and immortals together and the message of environmentalism. Also, I listened to this as an audiobook, which has a full cast and is amazingly executed. Daine doesn't exactly have a ton of character development, but she is forced to work past some prejudices, which is particularly interesting considering the reader has not been prompted to look deeper into this matter before.

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation Vol. 4 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (10/10)

This volume of MDZS was gut-wrenching in the best way. The emotion is palpable, and I found myself tearing up at multiple points. The culmination of Wei Wuxian's backstory is perfectly tragic, but there are some more lighthearted elements thrown in there. I think the character work is the strongest in this volume out of the five. Not only concerning Wei Wuxian, but Jiang Cheng as well, as the reader finally gets the answer to why he hates him so much. In the present (and in a moment or two in the past), the romance continues to develop very sweetly at a pace I greatly enjoy.

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation Vol. 5 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (9/10)

I really like the ending to MDZS; it pulls together all the plot strings very nicely but leaves some character ones dangling in a way that feels realistic but not unsatisfying. After the intensely traumatic events of the main plot, it makes sense that there would still be conflict and lasting effects from all the various deaths and betrayals and whatnot. Still, it is largely a happy ending, especially for the main character. I will say that except for the first few, the extras bored me a little. In my opinion, there's an undue amount of focus on characters that are really just boring or unlikable to me; I would have much rather preferred to see more about the main couple and major side characters, such as Jiang Cheng or the younger disciples.

Heart, Haunt, Havoc by Freydis Moon (6/10)

This one is a novella that is a blend between horror, urban fantasy, and paranormal romance, which sounds very interesting, but I ultimately found it lacking. In terms of what I liked, the romance is quite cute. Even for a novella it progresses way too quickly for my tastes, but they're sweet together. There's also some very interesting magic. Unfortunately, there's a lack of tension concerning the main plot; nothing is introduced to put the characters on a timeline. And then, despite the potential of the various kinds of magic, there is virtually no worldbuilding. It is not established whether magic, despite it being very common, is widely known or just easily identifiable to those in magical communities, and the rules of the three different kinds of magic introduced (ambitious for a novella) are hardly addressed. This was a mildly interesting, quick read, but I cannot think harder about it or I will get very frustrated.

Emperor Mage by Tamora Pierce (10/10)

This was just a joy to reread, being my long-time favorite of the Immortals Quartet. This book marks a turning point as Daine becomes much more independent, exercising her powers for her own gain and ends, and the overarching plot of the series comes to a significant head. This is also the point at which the romance starts to be more heavily hinted at, and I don't care about the age gap, I think they're adorable and it's fiction. The worldbuilding is quite well done, introducing a whole new neighbor to Tortall. Carthak is very obviously based on Egypt, and I loved that Tamora Pierce made it very clear that although the current ruler is rather awful, Carthak is a hub of culture and learning, and even more advanced than Tortall in some ways, even if there are drawbacks to their society.

Year of Reaper by Makiia Lucier (CR, 10%)

I am only a little ways into this novel, but I am hesitant so far. I am personally not a huge fan of plague plotlines, and it seems that will be a major factor in this book; everything will lie on the execution. I don't often read male protagonists in YA novels, so I am interested to see what I think of Cas. (It's a little awkward that his name gives me flashbacks to my Supernatural days.)

The Past Is Red by Catherynne M. Valente (CR, 13%)

After my last novella was a bit of a disappointment, this one seems incredibly promising. The premise is unique and grabs my attention, the last of humanity on a small nation built on the Pacific Garbage Patch, especially considering the situation of the main character, Tetley. Tetley also has a great voice so far; I hope her extremely unreliable narration lasts throughout the story.

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood (CR, 15%)

I am not particularly enjoying this book so far, but I hope that will change because it has nothing to do with the book itself and everything to do with the absolutely insufferable audiobook narration. I could hardly focus on the story with how exaggerated and childish the narrator sounded, so I will be switching to a typical book and will hopefully like it much more.

The Realms of the Gods by Tamora Pierce (CR, 72%)

Finishing up my Immortals Quartet reread, this audiobook is the opposite and lovely to listen to. I think I underestimated how much of a grip Daine and Numair have on me because they truly have invaded my brain. Plotwise, Tamora Pierce does a great job with the rules concerning her gods and working them into the story in present but not overpowered ways. Even though I don't really have many chances to listen to an audiobook right now, I hope to finish this one within the next week.

[bottlehawk]

hello, stranger! don't know if you were expecting a response but i am extremely nerdy and love any excuse to write long posts on the internet about media i enjoy. so here is my informal-style thesis defense that i am also doubling as a general defense for other "recontextualization" style analyses of homestuck on this site.

1. "the early parts of homestuck are meant to be taken less seriously, so analyzing it seriously is kind of silly."

yes. fan interaction was a major driving factor for homestuck early on, and that fan interaction was encouraged to be silly! but part of how homestuck is written (due to its very nature as a serially published webcomic, and also the shift over from fan submission to complete authorial control) is that earlier events or elements in the comic are recontextualized in the story to later expand into what is often more serious worldbuilding or interpretation. that's kind of the fun of making any serially published work, in my opinion - starting with some random bullshit, basically, and then seeing what you can make out of it. so even something that wasn't "meant" by the author at the time can evolve into something that is "meant" in later parts of the story. this also includes things the author didn't wish to intend: i.e. why we have things like the retcon arc and the game over timeline.

2. "yes, but does homestuck expect and/or encourage this recontextualization to apply to bro strider and dave?"

i'd say the discussion between dave and dirk on top of the tower is a pretty good example. but also, the development of alpha!dirk's character and his grapples with his "splinter" selves, as well as the reveal of "lil cal" as some demonic superentity sent back through paradox time-space support this interpretation of bro strider being an abusive parent by making it canonically part of a larger plot and some intensive character exploration. and obviously in post-canon there's the return of ultimate!dirk's controlling/manipulative tendencies in the epilogues, and also both dave and dirk's routes in pesterquest, but some people may dispute those as being "canonic" enough. but i would say that current homestuck encourages this interpretation.

3. "even if recontextualizing is valid, there was absolutely no basis for bro strider to be abusive when he was written at the time."

i'd say there was some pretty solid evidence, even as early on as act 3. even if it is just being played off as silly and goofy, john and rose do note that bro acts in an unnatural way for a guardian figure, and expresses that to dave. dave dismisses this when they bring it up, but it is juxtaposed with the further revealing of the strider apartment. for example, there IS no food kept in the kitchen, and any there is dave has to hide in his room. not to mention the saw puppet traps. the puppet porn. etc everything i mentioned above. and you see dave reacting to these things, almost wanting to admit that it's kind of weird, but also not wanting to think about it too hard. it's basically treated in dark humor - "oh boy well we're so glad this is just a silly webcomic otherwise we'd probably have to start getting worried at some point!" so i think it was at least AWARE of that angle, and it's pretty valid for some people to say, "hey wait."

4. "if we're going to be taking the bro strider abuse allegations seriously, then why aren't rose and john taken seriously either? why don't you talk about rose and john's unhealthy relationship with their parents since they also enter strifes with them?"

i already do (at least with rose, because i like analyzing the strilondes especially). but i suspect this was a question directed at the larger fandom in particular.

first, i'd say that the striders are more talked about as there is more canonic discussion of their unhealthy relationship near the end of homestuck (so recency bias). rose and roxy seem to be glad to meet each other, and john reacts with joy upon seeing jane's dad, who he initially interprets as his father. meanwhile dave and dirk are *very* awkward in their initial greeting, and then the tower discussion happens (which is the LAST conversation either of those two characters partake in, mind you).

the striders are admittedly also extremely popular characters in homestuck (yes, and that's in comparison to rose and john) so you're going to see more indepth fan discussion of them that will be reblogged by a lot more people sometimes. that's not really anybody's fault.

additionally, john and rose's strifes compared to dave's strife, doesn't have their guardians physically hurting them. john's dad throws a pie at him. one of those whipped cream pies. the type you use for a prank. rose's mom offers her some random gifts like a pony, and tries to drunkenly pass off a vodka martini to her, which yes is obviously pretty bad and a different form of child neglect which i again, do also talk about in other posts (and also comes up later in homestuck as a Real thing rose has to struggle with). but they come out of it unharmed, if not just annoyed. in dave's, we see his bro actually hurting him, and when he comes out of the battle, he's literally lying on the ground paralyzed because he just got thrown down a flight of stairs. so i think it's fair to say there's a pretty clear distinction here.

IN CONCLUSION: Reinterpreting homestuck in ways the author might not have originally intended is part of the fun of fandom. This specific recontextualization is considered and taken seriously by the text both early-on and late game, which gives me some canonic basis. People should talk more about Rose and her relationship with her mom. I love talking about Homestuck and I should probably touch grass.

i think that when rose figured out dave's brother is actually his father she would've been TORMENTED with wanting to know why he raised dave as a brother and not a son. that had to itch at her brain every day she was on that meteor. rose lalonde lying wide awake at night thinking "why did he do that. what was the reason specifically" can you imagine the first chance she gets to speak with dirk when they're not all high on the adrenaline of creating the universe she'd corner him like "I have some questions. pertaining to your views on fatherhood 👁️ 👁️"

[enthusiasticallyobessed]

Okay. I have way too many AUs sketched out, to the point it’s overwhelming, thus I don’t write any of them. I also have a ridiculous amount of free time on my hands at the moment. So. Here are my top three AUs (...out of 15+) that I’m currently interested in writing. All sit around 20 chapters, maybe longer. Which, if any, are people most interested in?

Naberrie AU: Padme dies in early childbirth. So does Leia. Order 66 happens while Anakin is getting Luke safely off-planet, and Anakin (after having the mental breakdown you can literally watch building up throughout ROTS) takes the two of them wandering the outskirts of the Outer Rim, well away from the war and politics that Anakin is extremely tired of. Once ANH-era rolls around, they join the Rebellion. This may have an actual, chronological plot, or it may jump around in the timeline exploring loosely connected scenes. Not sure yet.

Skysailor AU: Essentially Star Wars characters within the Moana world, but only vaguely following anything resembling the plot of either one. It alternates between Luke’s story, set in the present as he joins this ‘verse’s version of the Rebellion and tries to restore the heart of Te Fiti, and Anakin’s story, set 30 years earlier as he and Obi Wan race to stop the impending demon uprising. Featuring quite a lot of mythology.

Separatist AU: The Jedi never came for Anakin. Ten years later, he joins the Separatist cause as a representative of the Outer Rim freedom fighters and rapidly begins changing the system from the inside. Featuring droid shenanigans, quite a lot of exploring the Separatists as a legitimate political cause with deep ties to the OT Rebellion, Ahsoka being as awesome as ever, and a snark war basically every time Generals Skywalker and Kenobi face off. (This Anakin is not the same as, but heavily informed by, Fialleril’s interpretation of Anakin and Tatooine.)

Thoughts?

[transformers-fan-continuities]

Spotlight: Ties That Bind

This one’s a doozy folks! If you missed the last spotlight you can go read it here, but strap in for The Ties That Bind, an absolutely brilliant take on humanformers. It’s hosted here at @tiesthatbind-tf​ created by @artsy-hobbitses​!

Q) Give us a run down of your cont! What's it about, what's it called, what's it like?

Ties That Bind is a humanformers-based original continuity which is part Science Fiction and part Alternate History where the invasion of Quintessons and introduction of their technology to Earth in 1920 sets the world and humankind on a completely different trajectory. The active narrative spans a period from 1920 to 2070, covering the First and Second Quintesson Wars, the interplanetary Antillan War (leading to the creation of Unicron on Mars) and the Great War which involves the Autobots, Decepticons and Functionist stalwarts, and how it affects the characters.

The cast is pretty sprawling and the narrative is mostly centred around human drama with bits of humor interspaced and a dash of horror (mostly centred around how the previous government often chose to utilize the technology left behind from the Quintesson Wars to create new systems of oppression, which affected many of the characters, in the name of worldwide rebuilding efforts).

Q) What characters take the lead here? Any personal favorites?

I will admit to this continuity being very much heavy on the relationship between Old Bastards  Optimus Prime and Megatron, which is given considerable weight as they were best friends who had known each other since childhood and were deeply intrinsic to each other’s growths as individuals, which makes it all the worse when guilt and betrayal enter the party. Despite being captains in two corners of this battle, there’s a part of them that just cannot let go of their pasts together and they need to reconcile with how this will affect their agenda (Megatron) and how they lead their team (Optimus) who don’t necessarily share their history.

Other characters with significant development include:

Starscream, a Cold Construct in a toxic working relationship with Megatron with whom he is hiding a dark secret, who struggles to balance the underhanded viciousness he believes he needs to gain power and his innate desire from his Senate days to make the world a better place. 

Windblade, a Camien native who fights her government’s apathy concerning the situation on Earth which they see as unsalvageable compared to their more Utopian society. 

Prowl, a Cold Construct raised from childhood to be a cop in a police state, who finds out that he was brainwashed several times  to ensure his obedience and efficacy as a government asset and is now working to reclaim some semblance of the humanity he was never allowed to feel and figure out how much of him is who he really is and how much is programming.

Hound, a sheltered Beastman who joined the fight to ensure that Beastmen the world over would have the same rights he did in his homeland of Shetland Isle, but is forcefully stripped of his humanity and faced with his animal side during the war and has to relearn what personhood means amid his trauma.

Q) Is there a bigger point to this, like a theme or some catharsis? Or is it just fluffy fun?

God with the amount of time I spent sleepless trying to figure out how the logistics of this or the semantics of that were supposed to work in universe, I cannot for the life of me say it’s fluffy fun, but I can’t exactly say it hasn’t been pretty engaging either!

There’s elements of war being messy for everyone involved where there doesn’t seem to be a clear line between friend and foe at times, but I think for most part it prescribes to  Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s belief that people are inherently good, but are corrupted by the evils of society. Despite its dark themes (Including but not limited to child abuse, torture, illegal experimenation  and brainwashing), love and friendships do prevail, kindness does beget kindness, found families are made, even the smallest actions matter, and things do get better because there are people on both sides who genuinely want to, and strive to make it better.

With Cold Constructs and Beastmen, it also delves heavily into what it means to be human; to have agency and personhood.

There’s also a strong undercurrent of taking responsibility for one’s actions, even if they were made with the best of intentions (Avoidance of this is what eats up Starscream and Megatron from the inside, and what Starscream eventually embraces).

Q) How long have you been working on it?

There’s two answers to this!

I’ve had a Humanformers-related universe going all the way back to 2007 around the time the first Bayformers came out---basically I had a choice between learning to draw cars or draw people (I was an anthro artist back then) and I immediately chose people.

The 2007 draft however had no worldbuilding or connective storylines and was mostly a fun little venture into character design and practice which were actually instrumental to me experimenting and learning how to draw humans properly.

I left the fandom for about a decade and when I came back to it in late 2020 around September via the War for Cybertron series on Netflix, I immediately got hooked on the 2005 IDW comics I missed out on and wanted to get around to updating my old designs as well find a way to translate several of the concepts I wanted to explore in a human sense, so the 2020 update became its own full-fledged original continuity with detailed worldbuilding and history.

You can see the artistic evolution of several characters from their original incarnation below!

Q) It’s incredible to see your artistic improvement too! Give us a behind-the-scenes look! Show us a secret ;))

Say hello to my workspace! I’ve been working exclusively on the Ipad Pro since late 2016, which is fantastic because I can basically whip up concepts and sketches on the go anywhere. Nowhere is too out of bounds to work on TTB!

Also, do enjoy this sneak peek at true!form Rung, whose synthezoid human body took years to perfect.

Q) YESSSSS alright I must admit this is one of my favorite Rungs, and certainly my fave within TTB. Amazing. Phew, anyway. Where did you draw inspiration from? What canons, what other fiction, what parts of real life?

TTB was initially conceived as a faithful retelling of the IDW 2005 narrative before it was transformed into its own continuity and as such, it borrows heavily from concepts and mirrored plot lines introduced in that run! I chose to have the series inspired off it specifically for the amount of history and worldbuilding it introduced to the franchise.

Anime like Gunslinger Girl and Beastars inspired the depictions of Cold Constructs, especially the more harrowing aspects of their upbringing as government assets instead of children, and Beastmen (Beastformers) in TTB.

I haven’t depicted the world itself in my art all too much, but the architecture from Tiger and Bunny, which has sort of a futuristic Art Deco feel to it, is what you’d usually see in major cities. There is an in-universe reason for that---with a Point Of Divergence set in 1920 followed by 25 years (an entire generation) of progress basically being kicked to the curb due to the Quintesson wars, mankind was basically in a time-locked bubble until the end of the wars, and by then their heroes were 1920s-style rebellion leaders, which lead to 1920s fashion (especially among the Manual Working Class---Megatron, Jazz and Optimus all rock 1920s fashion at some point of their lives) and architecture being celebrated and retained as sort of a reminder of how things were before The Invasion. This anime’s background design is also where I adopted the tiered system TTB’s major metropolises are often built on (with each tier being designated to a different working class) from.

The main artistic style itself is a love letter to 90s cartoons, in particular Gargoyles’ deep and drama-driven character narratives and designs as well as The Centurions’ take on body armor logistics.

I also take inspiration, especially armor-wise, from the characters’ given heritage and background. As an example, Hotrod who is depicted as Irish has the flames on his armor done up with Celtic knots. Welsh aristocrat Mirage’s armor bears olden knight-style filigree and has his Autobot logo designed as a coat of arms. Indonesian Soundwave’s armor and Decepticon logo takes cues from Batik and Wayang Kulit while their mask is based off the Barong.

Q) They are absolutely gorgeous! Show off something you're really proud of, a particular favorite part of your cont.

The worldbuilding in general! Most Humanformers I’ve seen tend to treat it like a fun exercise which it is and is definitely valid, but I found myself wanting a full-fledged world to lose myself in and I sought to try and make that world myself by drafting a detailed history and timeline of events which would affect ongoing narratives, having indepth worldbuilding to include almost all societal aspects of the universe and  expanding on the concept of Beastmen and Cold Constructs existing in a human setting.

I’m not so secretly proud of the research and diversity included to make the cast look like the multicultural, globally-based team that they were meant to be instead of being locked to a single region! My original draft from 2007 was, to put it simply, quite culturally monolithic and I wanted to improve on that aspect with TTB.

I’m also proud that I’ve kept to it this far! I’m a notoriously flaky person jumping from one idea/fandom to another and to have kept at this continuity for the better part of ten months is honestly a personal feat.

Art-wise, this scene depicting a young Megatron working alongside Terminus and Impactor (cameo by @weapon-up-wallflower​‘s OC Missit!)  is definitely one of my favorites since it helps build up the world they live in and plays to familial bonds and comfort found in one another despite their less than ideal circumstances.

Q) Everything has come together so beautifully, you absolutely should be proud. What other fan canons do you love and why? Would you like to see them interviewed?

I am dying to hear more from @iscaredspider​’s Sparkpulse continuity! Her designs are MIND-BLOWINGLY GORGEOUS and I want to hear more about what inspired her to work on it!

Also YOU. Yes YOU BLURRITO. LET ME HEAR MORE ABOUT SNAP.

Q) [wails and squirms away in the mortifying ordeal of being known but in a very flattered way] I WILL SOMEDAY I PROMISE aflghsdjg thank you QwQ

Well that was fantastic, Oni, thank you muchly! A magnificent continuity with so much to look forward to! Coming up next is another personal fave of mine, the first inspiration for SNAP, so stick around...

[ellesliterarycorner]

Finding Plot Holes

Ah yes, plot holes. A writer’s favorite thing to find in their work at two in the morning. The things that make us have to delete over 20k words, a major subplot, and three side characters.......not speaking from personal experience or anything. Anyways, if you’ve ever written anything and gone back to edit it, chances are you found one or two plot holes. And if you didn’t find any plot holes then please teach me your ways. But, since I’m pretty sure that almost everyone has to deal with at least one or two plot holes, here are a few tips that I found work for me whenever I unfortunately actually have to go looking for plot holes in my work...... 

Don’t Find Before You Finish 

It is so hard to not do this, but even when you see a plot hole forming right in front of you, it’s normally best not to try and fix it then. If you find a plot hole and try to fix a plot hole before you even finish your story, you’ll probably end up with another plot hole to fix. Plot holes are most certainly on the list of things that you don’t need to worry about until you have a completed draft. We’ll talk a little more about this later, but half of the time plot holes aren’t one tiny little problem, they spread throughout your story, and fixing them requires changing lots of things. Finding and fixing plot holes is editing, and everyone knows the don’t edit as you go rule. I used to not understand that at all. If I could see a plot hole right in front of me, why wouldn’t I go ahead and fix it? But, I kept finding plot holes, and never actually ended up finishing. You’re going to have plot holes. Waiting till the end to finish them will actually save you stress in the end!. 

Take Lots Of Notes

Even though finding and fixing plot holes is editing, I don’t look for plot holes while I edit. I do a separate kind of editing for plot holes. I take out one of my hundreds of moleskins and read over my completed draft just like a reader would. I normally do this about two weeks after I’ve finished a draft, so I’ve had time to breathe for a little bit. But I recommend doing this before editing because this will help you target your editing, and editing is already hard enough when you don’t know what you’re looking for. Take notes over anything and everything that contributes to or even constructs a plot hole. I mean everything guys. Even the smallest thing like a character’s eyes or hair color, or the biggest things like the timeline not adding up, or a certain event taking place that shouldn’t be able to take place because of an earlier event in the book. Taking notes over all of those things will give you a starting point, and it helps you take a step back and look at the book as a whole picture. And, taking a list can also help allay some of your fears. Half of my plot holes were small things that could easily be fixed which made me feel better about the bigger things that took forever to fix. 

Lists Are Your New Best Friends

Y’all know I love lists. Lists make everything easier for me, and these lists will probably make everything for you! It’s almost like you’re making a list outline of all the events that happen in your story. I’m taking plots and subplots. Everything that happens. Taking your plot back to it’s most basic form helps you find issues that you probably didn’t see before. Then is also the time to ask yourself if the plot actually makes sense. Do all the events flow nicely? Do any plots or subplots contradict each other? Questions like that can help you. I would also make lists of all your main and important side characters and important worldbuilding elements. Preventing plot holes is mainly all about keeping consistency in your story, and making lists of your characters and the world of the story will help you keep everything consistent. Once you’ve made all of these lists, you go back to your draft and cross check everything to ensure that every time a character or some worldbuilding aspect is mentioned in the story, the description of it is consistent. We’re like Santa, and you better check that list twice friends. If you triple check your lists and make sure that is is airtight, you reduce the chance that plot holes will ever slip through the crack!

Beta Readers Are Also Your New Best Friends

Unfortunately, we can’t do everything by ourselves, especially when it comes to plot holes. All writers have a tendency to overlook their own plot holes, so it always helps to have another person put eyes on your work. Once you’ve done everything mentioned above, you’ve done almost everything you can on your own. No matter how much we try to distance ourselves from our work in the editing process, getting outside perspective is almost always 100% better. Because beta readers didn’t write your work, they’re much more likely to be able to spot plot holes. And, if you’re struggling to find suggestions on how to actually solve your plot holes, they might be able to offer you some super helpful suggestions. 

[daevabadthoughts]

⚠️ major Daevabad spoilers below ⚠️

Something I love and hate about the Daevabad Trilogy is its attention to detail and then its complete lack thereof.

The series is amazing in its layering of worldbuilding and character dynamics; the author has repeatedly mentioned how she's spent a decade thinking about this world and its characters, and it really shows through in repeated readings. This is a series that rewards careful rereadings and paying attention to small details.... Up to a point. Because after a certain point, it becomes really clear that no one thoroughly fact checked later details.

Muntadhir's mother, Queen Saffiyeh, died during the summer per KoC, and it's a major reference/plot point in that book. And yet (in significant connection to this), RoS has Jamshid being born in early spring, a time of the year where Manizheh could have EASILY returned to Daevabad in time to save the queen's life.

In 2020 Shannon posted a timeline for the trilogy on Instagram, and noted how she removed references to Ali's 25th birthday from EoG's script. And yet in RoS when we see Ali's 25th birthday, she places it a year and a half after Empire of Gold. 🤨 Meaning Ali was either 23 for nearly two years, or they're actually secretly celebrating his birthday 8+ months after the fact.

And this happens in so many smaller instances. There's a five year timeskip between CoB and KoC, but both books have a royal court scene stating the calendar date, revealing that there's been a 200 year timeskip! And don't get me started on the tattoos for the major characters and how their placement on the body constantly shifts. Appearing on the brow, their temple, or their upper cheek is constantly used interchangeably, and in CoB Ghassan's tattoo/Suleiman's Seal appears on one side of his face at the beginning of a chapter, and then moves to the other side of his face at the end of that same chapter! 😩 And this inconsistency continues until the author just gives up entirely on referencing placements in later books, rather than just deciding on a location and sticking with it.

Nahri gets shot with an arrow in EoG, but whether it's located in her chest or her shoulder depends on the paragraph. This feels especially egregious because the author used to work in the medical field, and there's a significant difference in being injured in those locations.

But I find this inconsistency incredibly frustrating because as long as these books are, it is not that time consuming to go back and check the old details. Especially when these scenes can be narrowed down by character pov, or their location in the plot timeline. (or just use the fucking search feature because these scripts are written digitally) It is also not difficult to have a piece of paper or a word doc that lists where the tattoos are located, or which finger the ring appears on, or what color a weapon is. Or what season characters were born or died in, especially if it's plot relevant. These are basic character details.

And it's frustrating for a series that asks its readers--that rewards its readers!--for paying attention to the small, quiet sentences to get the full breadth of the character dynamics or the building plot, or what the author is really trying to express in her insanely subtle way, to then turn around and say, actually, those details don't matter. Don't pay attention to those.

This attitude also plays out in character choices, particularly at the end of the series where it's obvious recent changes were made to those arcs, but that is (a number of) very different posts.

[epicspheal]

You should watch mother’s basement’s video “how a Japanese indie studio kicks bethesda’s butt at world building” its kinda a revelation about video games as a story telling medium and the dev studio in question, nihon falcom, could really teach gamefreak a thing or two (or two hundred) about how to tell stories outside of railroaded cutscenes. You wanted gen7 to give more depth to Hau and Kukui and Burnet, and this immediately popped into my head of how to do that *right*

Hi there anon! First off, thank you for sending me the link to this video (link here for anyone wants to watch it) I had to sit on this ask for a bit because my thoughts on this kept evolving (and I had to rewatch the video a couple of times). Yeah the franchise in the video (The Legend of Heroes: Trails) definitely could teach Gamefreak a lot about worldbuilding and storytelling. Although I have mixed feeling about whether some of the items suggested would fix SM/USUM’s problem (more on that later) But to the first point that the video brings up, I think that Pokemon needs to do way better at establishing a timeline for the games. Like we know some confirmed things such as

Gen 1 and Gen 3 games take place at the same time

Gen 2 and Gen 4 games take place at the same time

Gen 7 takes place at least 10 years after the events of Gen 1 and Gen 3

There is a 2 year gap between BW and BW2 with XY happening concurrently with BW2

However this very rough timeline misses some things such as

Where the let’s go games fit into this (we know they’re in the mega timeline and that these events take place after Red, Blue and Green went on their journeys but no indication as to how long that was)

Where the original BW games fit in the time. We know it had to be after Gen 4 since Caitlin is aged and moves from Sinnoh and Unova, and that there’s Kanto Team Rocket grunt, but there’s not a clear timeline except for “at least 3 years”

We have no idea where the SwSh timeline fits at all

And even then you still have discrepancies of Red and Blue appearing as adults in SM/USUM but Wally (who was a kid around the same time Red and Blue were since the Gen 1 and Gen 3 events are concurrent) is still a child. Or how Grimsley’s appearance is significantly altered but not Colress or Cynthia’s. Little things like that take people out of the immersion and just make things seem more complicated than it has to. So Gamefreak definitely could do better in being more intentional about giving us more concrete clues as to how the game events relate to each other temporally but also being consistent with those portrayals Now onto the meat of the video, which was how the people in the world really make things come alive by having evolving storylines for the NPCs. I think this is something that Gamefreak should implement more. Especially when you consider the popularity of Twilight Wings and Poketoons which shows life in the Pokemon world outside of just battling or villainous plots, I think many in the fandom would be receptive to this type of worldbuilding in the main series game especially for minor NPCs.

Having minor NPCs that you can talk to who have evolving storylines that don’t require the player to be there would make the various regions feel more alive and encourage players to actually interact with the world around, seeing how as many Pokemon players still hold on to the “play the game, skip the story” mantra. Perhaps to incentivize going out your way to talk to these NPCs as the main story progresses maybe you’ll get a small reward or some secret battles post game.

However I’m more mixed personally on the idea of using that for the major NPCs like Hau, Kukui or Burnet. The offscreen storyline is actually the issue. These are characters that are supposed to be important to both the player and Lillie and as actual natives of the region offer valuable insight to the culture which is unlike anything seen in previous or future regions. Yet they’re out of focus save for those long cutscenes where they don’t always offer much in the way of interesting, unique dialogue. Even Lillie, the game’s most thoroughly written character suffers from repetitive dialogue that makes some of the cutscenes she’s in feel like padding rather than moving her own character development along.

I think having optional talk dialogue for the major NPCs would help with fleshing them out in ways that don’t have to do with battling or the main plot. That and cut down on the repetitive dialogue that plagues the series. But as far as their actual growth and contributions to the story I believe that’s best served for on-screen cutscenes. The cutscenes though need a massive rework so that they aren’t constant and when they happen they offer actual new interesting information and not just Kukui going “whoo” or Hau talking about malasadas. Instead, bring up potential pushback Kukui might be facing from Alolan elders who might feel like he’s trying to erase their culture by adopting the league from other regions. Bring up the complicated familial dynamics Hau has which would allow him to relate to Lillie and her complicated familial dynamics. Also spread the cutscenes out some more and not have so many happen so close together.

[demenior]

Dem’s Big Post About The Spn Fics Part 1/2

aka The Wrap Up to celebrate To Exist Again and To Become a Man now being finished!

(This will be a long post. This is your only warning.)

Admittedly this is a bit of a weird thing to be doing, but I wanted to try it out for 3 reasons: 

I love talking about my own work and 

It functions really well as a self-reflective tool for me to improve on, and 

I can answer some big questions people might have because there was a LOT of worldbuilding in these stories. 

We’ll start off with reflective stuff, and move into the juicier world-building focused stuff later into the post. There will be major spoilers for both fics to come!

To begin with a funny anecdote, Why Did I Write These Stories?

I was beginning to write and work out the story that I wanted to write for Spn (what will now be To Destroy a Man. As I was writing the scene, I realized I had a LOT of ideas and while I was trying to avoid as much exposition as I could, it became quickly apparent that I was needing to create my own au (this scene eventually became chapter 34 of To Become a Man). A short prequel seemed like a good idea, to quickly hash out the ‘prior’ events that I needed to go through so all the readers could be on the same page. While plotting out prequel points, I realized Sam and Dean were going to have drastically different experiences during the same time period, and I was trying to figure out who’s pov would be better for which scenes, and how to keep momentum when they’re going through such radically different types of changes. Ultimately I decided to split their povs, which I also thought would be a fun project! And I naively assumed each pov would take about 2 chapters each, rounding out to maybe 15k total.

I had my ending points: Dean n Cas soul-merged and (basically) married, Cas on the lam from heaven and a complete anomaly, and Sam juiced up full of powers and a weird mix of archangel and antichrist but still 100% human and ready to fight God. 

Now I needed to add weight to these changes, so I wrote 200k of build-up.

Am I proud of these fics?

OF COURSE I AM!!! These are the longest fics I’ve ever written AND finished AND in the fastest freakin turnaround ever (both were finished writing, barring edits, in like 6 months holy shit)

I didn’t write a single scene that I “didn’t” want to write. If I had trouble writing it, as in it was fighting me, I scrapped it. Most obviously was the scene in Dean’s pov where he and Sam were intended to meet some other hunters and Dean declines working with them because he’s nervous about being outed as queer. It was meant to be a good scene! I wanted to introduce some new characters! But it just wasn’t working so I said ‘thank you, next!’. 

But it means this story was an absolute joy to write. Because for a while all I was doing was ‘if I wanted to write one scene into supernatural, what would I write?’ and then just DID that!! It’s why there’s a lot of ‘Salmondean do dumb shit or have really dumb heartfelt conversations’ scenes.

Would I change anything?

If I’d been less eager to start sharing, I might have planned out the story beats a little tighter so there were less ‘soft’ chapters and a draw/pull for people to come back and keep reading. I felt Dean’s story specifically lagged at points and could have used some tighter editing (there was a noticeable lull in directed movement between Dean n Cas getting together, until Sam corrupts Amy).

I also probably would have held Sam’s story until I’d finished Dean’s so I could make the two line up better! Probably could have inserted more scenes into Sam’s fic that way, and made sure things were a little more consistent. In an ideal world one concept I had was to release 1 chapter from each pov every week that would correspond to the same time frame so we’d be getting real-time SalmonDean pov narrative. Unfortunately that didn’t work!

The biggest takeaway overall is for me to focus more on what moves the plot, and to make my scenes do more than 1 thing so I can cut down on wordcount and increase my efficiency. 

Of course every writer will find things they want to fix in anything they’ve ever written, so these are minor “mistakes” at best. I’m so dang proud of these fics. 

Onto more interesting things!

How Did I Put These Fics Together (because it’s different than anything I’ve ever done before)

Normally when I write a story, I plan out the beats I need to hit, see where I need to insert any kind of foreshadowing/buildup, and then write from A to B to C and so on and so forth. Hence, this is why I can normally post things as I complete chapters, because it’s all a linear progression. 

For these two stories, rather than linear plot/a normal story structure, I just sat and free-wrote any and every scene that came to mind and then pieced them into a kinda-linear form like putting a quilt together. You’ll note that this is why there’s not a lot of internal callback or a feeling of sense of time flowing within the fic (save for points where I went back and specifically edited it in). How long does the story take place over? Hard to say! Your author has the barest grasp on linear time even on a good day (how many times did I say ‘see you on [wrong day]’ at the end of chapters lmaaoooo)

This also meant EXTENSIVE editing on the back end once I decided in what order I wanted my ‘quilt pieces’ to be. Hard to say if this is a bonus or a negative!

But I did want to try and capture the vibe of the lives they lead, as a bit of a ‘slice of life’-style story, when the slice of life is the profound weirdness of the Winchester roaming life, and how things are status quo- until everyone almost dies oh shit!! And then they have to keep living because no therapy we die/undie like Winchesters. Do I think I captured this effectively? Hmm. Good question. 

Dem where the FUCK did the inspiration for a lot of the magic and creature weirdness even come from?

Honestly? Music, primarily. And completely mishearing lyrics!

Nightwish ‘Ever Dream’: the line is ‘my song can but borrow you grace’ and because my brain is scrambled eggs on a good day, I heard ‘grace’ ‘song’ and ‘borrow’ in that order and have had, for YEARS, the mental image of Cas borrowing Dean’s soul to power himself up for battle.

From there I’ve always been enamored with the ‘wavelength of celestial intent’ descriptor that Cas drops in s6 for “what he is”. 

I also really like ocean metaphors mostly because I’ve been obsessed with the ocean and things in it since I was like… 5??? So really this was me just rolling with what I know lmao. I love using (somewhat) accurate scientific metaphors for very intangible things!

I was also finishing my degree in biology/ecology while writing these fics and I think it shows

Stars ‘The Night Starts Here’ gives us the series title and the fic titles. Except for ‘To Exist Again’. TEA was almost titled ‘The Upwards Fall’ because I wanted all 3 of the Main Stories to have titles from this song, but I couldn’t make anything else work in tandem with the series name ‘The Love It Takes’ while also working for Sam’s personal story. So Sam, as always, is the rebel <3

Stars ‘Up In Our Bedroom, After The War’ is basically the vibes of the whole story. TFW has been, literally, to hell and back!!! There’s a bit of melancholy and sadness, a lingering dark, but the chance of a bright new tomorrow and a soft start.

Let’s Talk About Themes in The Story! What were you looking to accomplish? 

My earliest notes for TFW are, as follows:

Dean’s journey of self-discovery (who am I when I’m not trying to be Dad?)

Dean wants to settle down! He wants a big family! He wants to be domestic!

Basically: Dean doesn’t want to have a short life of hunting. He wants to live!

Dean’s journey of realizing he’s bi, and him accepting that

Dean’s relationship to Sam is both older brother/parent 

And continuing Dean balancing these roles while also letting Sam be an adult 

Dean’s Big Issues/Fears about never being good enough for people to want to stay with him (these are effectively highlighted in that Cas thinks he’s not useful enough to be wanted)

Sub Plot:

Castiel’s autonomy

Cas’ fall from grace, to trying to restore Heaven, to wrecking it further

He’s majorly depressed by the end of s7 (before purgatory)

Wants to stay in Purgatory but doesn’t tell Dean

Remains depressed after leaving, but resolved to keep living on because he’s clearly meant for something

After the seraphim reveal: does he have free will?! How does he grapple with this? How does he live in a way he can be proud of?

And lastly

Sam gets his powers back CAUSE THATS HOT

where tf did they go????

he got them from Lucifer?????

sleeper agent??????

Sam is The Chosen One

Accepts that he is More Than Human and to celebrate all parts of him

Lucifer and Sam friends?? Work together????

Sam needs autonomy in his choices/his life

If you compare these to the overall arc of TFW within the two stories, I think I got a lot of them! But you’ll also note a lot of these things aren’t concrete goals that are easily measurable (ex: Dean wants to learn to bake pie. In chapter 1 he starts a fire in the kitchen. By the end of the story he finally makes A Good Pie.) part of the lack of concrete milestones was why I felt it was important to tell Dean (and Cas’) story by going back to the point they meet, in s4! Dean’s gradual change towards his feelings for Cas, his relationship to Sam (heavily influenced by the s7 events of this fic) and then his own relationship with himself were such slow burns that I felt it would be a disservice to try and cram a change like that into a timeline like “1 year”.

I felt like these subtle changes and adjustments actually felt a lot truer to life-- people often change in very small, gradual ways over time, even without realizing it and often times not consistently! If only we could all gain skills like the sims, where we can easily level up and remain at that high level of performance! 

So the Guy Who Ate Satan, A Celestial Nuke that Developed Sentience, and Dean walk into a bar…

Sam’s story in Spn The Show has always been a ‘chosen one’ kind of narrative. Sam is living with one foot in the realm of the monsters, and I wanted to bring that back full force! It really makes sense for him that he should only continue to grow in power, might, and magic!! As the story progresses.

Cas also got a power up! I do desperately love in the show that he was kind of a grunt/nothing angel, and so even when he defected to TFW he was a huge help for them, but in the scale of things he was an annoying fly to most other angels. It really worked for the underdog story of s4/5. In this I wanted to give him a power up, and originally it was actually going to be close contact with Sam that eventually changed Cas into something unknown (you can still see traces of this in ch34 of TBAM, where Death remarks ‘Castiel could be [Sam’s] first creation’. But for a combo of reasons: how Sam’s magic needed to have intent, the entire concept of free will and consent, and how much I wanted Dean and Cas to have their effect on each other, I decided to go with the route that Cas has actually always been something angel-adjacent rather than becoming something new. TFW/Supernatural has always been about free will and making your own story, so I amplified that with Cas.

Dean has always been A Normal Guy, which is part of the appeal of him and Sam (2 normal dudes!) taking on the Very Not Normal. As explained above, Sam’s story is ‘normal guy finds out he’s the chosen one’ and so, in a story about very large concepts and huge monsters and acts of magic, I felt it was very important to keep Dean as normal as possible. To the point it became a running gag to me, personally, in that ‘no matter what cool shit happens around him, Dean has to stay as Just A Guy’. And it’s a very humanizing role that allows the story to have the scale it does!

What were the most important themes in your story?

Sam’s Autonomy

I wasn’t even going to include the plot about Lucifer’s death in this story— that was going to come up in a later story, actually! And rather than Sam having ate Lucifer, the original idea was that they’d become a SamandLucifer entity (this harkens back to a concept I wanted to write when Swan Song first aired). 

That storyline would have involved a lot of mental ‘Sam and Lucifer discuss what it means to live, which one of them is more worthy of life and if they do deserve to destroy the world for the pain they’ve been forced to go through, just to create the dichotomy of good and evil for everyone else’ discussions. There would be a lot of talk about how Sam hates and fears Lucifer for the pain Lucifer put on Sam, how Lucifer hates Sam because he and Sam are the same but Sam’s brother loves him anyways, etc. 

Ultimately that was scrapped because Sam’s entire story in the show is always about how the world and everyone around him manipulates him and that he never actually gets to make choices about his own life or body that aren’t influenced or part of someone elses’ design. And that always bothered me that Sam was never allowed to be himself without having to be ashamed of it, and I wanted to make sure that Sam’s triumph of being proud of himself/proudly choosing to exist (again) was evident in his story

In the end I needed Sam to have this visceral win over his tormentor. As the story shows, in this case Lucifer was abused and put into a position where he was incapable of empathy and could only express himself in violence. Sam even understands this! But it doesn’t change the fact that Lucifer tortured Sam in unimaginable ways for thousands of years. 

With that in mind I didn’t like the idea of Lucifer and Sam having “co-ownership” of their new identity, so I made the choice that Sam had to be the survivor. This tied in well with Sam’s new crusade to restore free will to the universe, because he’s breaking the narrative of his own story!

While Castiel wasn’t a pov character, his own autonomy and free will was equally as important. You’ll note that many, many paragraphs and conversations revolved around that theme and that in the end Cas followed himself (and love!) which ensured his freedom of self <3

The Brothers are WEIRD PEOPLE!!!! And Codependent to a Worrying Degree, but It’s Also How They Survive

It’s very hard to show “unusual” relationships when you’re writing from the pov of the two people who don’t think there’s anything weird about their relationship. Sure, they say ‘yeah it’s probably weird that we still share a bed’ but that’s kinda more in line with ‘I had a nightmare and I want to be close to the person who makes me feel safe’. Hashtag normalize co-sleeping when you need it!!!

From there I did try to point out how the boys have a weird perception of lifestyle in the little things they did. 

From thrifting everything from clothes to appliances to books (thrifting is a valid lifestyle! It’s incredibly handy when you’re on a budget.) 

To never actually having condiments or knowing how to use a dishwasher cause they’ve lived in a car, a motel room, or squatted in old houses their whole life.

I tried to have them wear each others’ clothes or casually swap things as much as possible. They live out of each others’ pockets!

Also the brothers are just weird people!! It’s hard to show from their pov, cause they don’t know how far off from normal they are, but like…

Everything about Sam and Amelia was NOT right like holy shit those two were wilding in their grief. They are very lucky things worked out for them and that they got to be hashtag Weird Girls together

Dean explicitly, in the story, gets horny after killing stuff!! Violence has done a number on his psyche and he’s gotten some wires crossed that maybe shouldn’t have been, or maybe could be worked out in a safe space but… uh… how likely do we think Dean is gonna go find a safe space to deal with any of his shit???

LOVE!!! Love is truly what this whole story is all about

If you’ve read the stories, you know how much emphasis I put on love. Love is the strongest force in the Spn Universe! It’s what averted the apocalypse and saved the world (Swan Song), it’s what created free will (Cas’ entire arc!) I love love!!!!

I went out of my way to not put any definitions on platonic love vs romantic love because I think love is love is love and how you express that is the difference. Neither is more powerful than the other because LOVE is powerful!! Sam and Cas are the most important people in Dean’s life and he loves them equally! He shows this by giving Cas kisses and stealing Sam’s socks.

It’s a personal pet peeve of mine when I have to hear explanations like ‘I love you, like a brother’ or ‘I love you, but like, as a friend because I’m a lesbian and you’re a man’ etc etc in media. If you have to continuously define how your characters love each other, then I don’t think you’re doing a good job of portraying their relationship. So you’ll see that I never put those parameters in any conversation. Dean DOES muse that he loves Cas differently than he loves Sam or Bobby, specifically because there is a romantic and sexual tone that his feelings for Cas takes, but not because he loves Cas more or less than he loves Sam or Bobby.

Which means, if you haven’t realized it yet, the Series + Fic Titles are meant to be a complete sentence because the power of love IS the thesis of this series:

The Love It Takes To Exist Again (Sam’s journey!)

The Love It Takes To Become a Man (Dean’s journey!)

The Love It Takes To Destroy a Man (TBA)

And now for fun stuff. Behind the scenes!!

What’s Something People Probably Don’t Know?

The demonic fungal/hydrothermal vent growth on Sam’s arm was thrown in literally as I was posting the chapter because I had just finished a 48 hour cram session of writing a report on tube worms for an ecology class (I was chanting my tube worm song as I wrote it) and it ended up being a HUGE hit with both readers and myself. But it was so last minute I had trouble fitting it in more throughout the rest of Sam’s story!

Cas’ orders? That may or may not have bound him to Dean and removed his free will? Were written into Sam’s story and I went ‘oh SHIT that’s compelling’ and then left them there as a ‘guess I’ll figure that out when I get to Dean’s story lol’

Originally Dean and Cas were supposed to get together after having their souls bonded, and have been in a UST limbo the entire time before that. Mostly because I think the entire concept of ‘we just got married of the soul I guess we should try dating?’ is very funny. CLEARLY the two of them were way more eager to fall in love than I anticipated (thank you Cas for your honesty) but you can still see shades of this original idea here and there (especially in ch35 of TBAM)

I never intended Dean and Benny to connect so well!! Benny was going to reunite with Andrea, she was going to live, and they were going to go off into the world and leave the story. And, uh, here we are. I’m still debating if I need to adjust the relationship tag or not haha. Polyamory is fun, especially when I was planning for Sam to be the polyamorous brother...

Speaking of, I can’t believe I forgot about Sam and his sexuality! If I rewrote TEA I would have had Sam contemplate more on his lack of sexual appetite due to trauma, up until he meets Benny and he gets to rediscover how he wants to be a sexual person

Many of Sam and Dean’s absolutely stupid sibling conversations were lifted near-verbatim from conversations I’ve had with my siblings

And lastly...

Dem where’s Kevin????????????? Where is our sweet baby boy????????

He’s SAFE!! He’s in the Hunter pipeline somewhere cause Sam handed him off to Bobby’s people. He and his mom are safe and at some point they probably got rib sigils like SalmonDean did against angels, but for demons. I didn’t have room in this story for him!!! But my baby boy is SAFE and I want to get him back to university because it’s WHAT HE DESERVES!!!!

To that point: god there were/are SO many characters that I just didn’t include in the story so far because I didn’t feel comfortable including them without stalling the story for them. To that point: pretty much everyone who is alive/dead in s8 is that way in this story, except Bobby who gets to live.

[Check Out Part 2 for reader questions!]

[ettawritesnstudies]

18 and 19 for get to know the writer asks!

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?

Sanderson influenced a lot of my worldbuilding for Laoche! I don't know what specifically sparked my style for epic political conflicts but starting Storge as a high school sophomore readying dystopia in 2016 English class probably had something to do with it. Fairy tales, and A Wrinkle in Time are the biggest inspirations for my most recent short stories!

19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

ahahaha you found my favorite topic, all my narratives are complicated :D I apologize in advance this is going to be long haha

For my outlining process, I wrote up this post so I wouldn't have to retype it every time I get this question, but a quick overview goes:

Brain dumping/idea chasing

Throwing everything at a whiteboard/conspiracy board with a copious amount of sticky notes. I try to draw connections to fit the misc. plot points and character/worldbuilding details into some semblance of a narrative

Put whiteboard outline into a word doc so I can carry it with me and fill in the holes as I go. I like using the "document outline" feature to put it into a story structure I think is going to work best for the story so I can quickly navigate between parts. This is mostly just focusing on plot holes at this point, figuring out the beginning, middle, end, and figuring out how subplots fit

alongside this process: create side documents of brain dumps/outlines for my character arcs and worldbuilding and filling in holes as needed

Make a NEW word doc outline with EVERYTHING, color coded, probably 15+ pages long

For editing, I wrote up this post, but I've added an extra step in between the Read Through/Developmental Edits and DE part 2. called Spreadsheet Time! (sorry this is so tiny I wanted people to be able to see the whole thing)

The idea with this is similar to making edit lists but to make it color coded and focus on pacing and balance. The edit lists are for the BIGGEST problems: writing out or adding whole characters or subplots & radically changing major plot points to fit a better narrative. This takes place after you've turned your Hot Mess into Respectable Mess, and then realize that you're leaning really heavily on a certain character or lost a subplot along the way.

you can see here that Luca's pov leads for the first 3 chapters, so I need to change that up and give the girls the spotlight. I can also see how many chapters go between checking up on the villain subplots, and how long the chapters are in terms of words/pages. The goal isn't to make their lengths all equal, but to make sure that I'm spending an appropriate amount of time on each type of chapter.

Transitions can be shorter, major plot points can be longer, but this keeps it in perspective and tells me if I should break up or combine anything. It's a little more objective pacing than just "ehhh it feels right" which I like. There's also a column to keep track of timeline, any skips, what events happen overnight, and how much time is left if there's a countdown or plan or something similar.

Then once all the structural stuff is fixed, I'll start filling in the empty columns and evaluating character arcs and worldbuilding to fine tune the details. Now, every scene is accounted for and in the right spot for the story, but maybe some need to be more emotionally impactful or I missed some details.

Those are things to take care of during the 2nd or 3rd draft depending on how clean the manuscript is to begin with and how much you can handle fixing at once. There are some chapters I completely rewrote (hence why this exists now), but I will need to do a reread of the 2nd draft and make sure that all my changes are consistent.

I hope that makes sense! Thank you for the ask!

[jostenneil]

as much shit as the show naruto gets, which is mostly justified, the show had some gems and interesting points (and it still is a standard even tho some ppl hate to admit it considering Naruto is still being compared to new shows). But I wonder how diff it would be if it was written by a better storyteller like togashi or a shoujo mangaka

I think Naruto is very much a series that over the years has come to garner mass criticism for the wrong things. Like it is without a doubt a terribly flawed series, but not in the way most people tend to posit because their complaints are often driven by misogyny and misery rather than any productive engagement with the text or the ideas it’s trying to posit. The reason that the series has lasted for so long in comparison to so many of its contemporaries is because the framework of the narrative itself is genuinely interesting and something that’s tangibly expanded upon as the plot progresses. The problems in Naruto compound and increase in degree of complexity as the story moves forward because more and more is being revealed about the root of the problems plaguing this war-driven, largely impoverished society. It’s the perfect breeding ground for canon divergence content, because there are so many set-ups and possibilities presented to us either explicitly or implicitly by way of the world naturally expanding.

Where Kishi primarily faltered was in his inability to comprehensively flesh out or resolve almost any of the conflicts or dynamics he created. He was pretty good at establishing the bones of a story (give or take a few worldbuilding errors), but packing on the meat tended to be a big problem for him (and this is also due in part to him sometimes allowing fandom influence to confuse him, so he didn’t fully deliver on ideas he originally had because he thought if people didn’t like them they weren’t worth pursuing). I often joke that Naruto could have turned out better had it been longer, because admittedly, in his defense, I don’t think he had enough time to properly address all of the ideas he created without giving into exhaustion first. That’s something that I think we started to see manifest as he was writing the Fourth War arc, because some of the plot progressions towards the end felt truly contrived and nonsensical, and obviously we’re all aware of how inconclusive the ending itself felt. Naruto as a story itself is a big set-up—if you made a line graph that charted the characters’ emotional well being across the course of the series, I think it’d be reasonable to say they start in the negatives and slowly make their way to the zero line by the end of the war. That should have been a huge turning point for the characters in terms of them feeling more confident in their visions for the future and how they want to work together to tangibly help the villages heal and evolve, but we were robbed of seeing any kind of development along that vein when Kishi decided to just end things with a time-skip chapter. It’s true the Blank Period novels exist, but many of them (not all, I stress, before someone attacks me) are filled with empty meaningless content that did nothing to address the actual problems originally created in Naruto’s world and only dabbled in trivial adventures for the cast as a marketing tactic to keep the franchise thriving. And I get it! Kishi was tired, he still wanted to milk the franchise, and signing off on other authors making up post-canon content was an easy solution. But at the same time, I often wish that the series had just. . . ended at Chapter 699. I firmly believe that a lot of the bad perceptions of the series that exist today are as a result of the lens that content Chapter 700 and onward forces us to look at the series through. The lack of proper closure for certain relationships before they were consummated, the non-existence of any tangible improvement in ninja society, the meaningless adventure arcs (which while very cute for the kids and a great way to keep the franchise alive, still do nothing for the story as a whole)—all of that has contributed to growing skepticism of this series and magnanimity of its faults because the conclusions cast a dark pallor on the potential, which often was not bad at all. Underdeveloped, maybe, but not so unfounded as people often like to claim it is.

And I agree, it would have been really cool to see! I think what’s admirable about a mangaka like Togashi (despite him not being without flaws, either) is that he’s very stubbornly dedicated to his craft and to how he wants to execute it. That’s a kind of grit that I think you absolutely need to have as an author, because sure, being open to criticism is good, but you shouldn’t make yourself so willingly flexible as to allow the story to escape your control. And Togashi obviously also had the advantage of largely being able to publish Hunter x Hunter on his own terms and his own timeline, whereas Naruto was Kishi’s first major series, so he was far more restricted in that aspect. I do wonder how Kishi might have fared had he been published in a monthly magazine, if he’d stuck to his guns about so many of his ideas rather than scrapping them in the face of fandom opinion, or if having a better support system in terms of staff may have allowed him to carry the series on for longer to where he could have properly resolved most of his plot threads. I think a lot of people would agree that while Kishi is certainly a man of many faults, part of what’s also shaped Naruto (and a number of other shounen) for worse is the environment within which WSJ series are produced. It’s not conducive to allowing for the best product to be put out, and at some point I think some authors just resign themselves to that fact rather than try to fight it because they’re tired and they need to make a living. Togashi is really lucky he got to hold the success of Yu Yu Hakusho as leverage so that he could publish Hunter x Hunter as he pleased, and thankfully it turned out to be a really well-fleshed out narrative as a result. (A similar reasoning could apply to many shoujo series as well, obviously, since a majority of the longer series tend to be published in monthly magazines where authors are given ample time to properly develop their plots.)

[valfeathers]

You mentioned a rewrite in the tags, yes? If so, what's some of the chief changes in it concerning DRT? Any shakeups for whose in the main cast? Or character deaths?

Well... First off, forgive me for the unholy wall of text! This is a long post and i go into some writer speak so be warned ig!

I kind of want to clear up any real vagueness and let the story speak for itself, which means removing some of the unnecessary twists (like asa not being a real person in the flashbacks only to actually end up being a real person after all) and giving the plot beats more breathing room so that they can really have an impact. The illustrations would be heavy with symbolism and i'm definitely keeping imagery from the more abstract parts of the books but as a whole i want to tone down the story and focus on the characters and their motivations, that isn't to say that I'm going to neglect the plot, timeline or worldbuilding though! I just want to form a real connection here and really explore this unique situation/setting.

And I do want to mention that this project is entirely for fun and an exercise of my abilities as a writer/artist/character designer, which means I'll be taking several creative liberties. Which means you could call it an AU? Technically.

I want to go into this and leave no stone unturned! Recently I've been working on environment design as well as actually nailing down settings and even writing little drabbles from the perspectives of lesser known characters. Really exploring it, this is a good way to make something productive of my hyperfixation rather than leaving this untouched forever!

And now for some of the key changes that are definitely set in stone:

-For starters, and this may be controversial, but I'm removing the Kudan entirely. To deliver the short and sweet of it, Blue Ink is no longer secretly a prophetic god. I, however, will still be including cow imagery every chance i get, rest assured.

-I'm also scrapping nearly every cameo from other ingame characters, the only exceptions being Junko and the ultimate impostor. the reason that i decided to cut this is because i want it to feel more like a standalone series, and while the cameos from sakura, celeste, hifumi and the remnants were fun, i want to take the time to develop the antagonists that were introduced in the books ie (suzuhiko, kazuya, and the Hardly Mentioned At All assassins who were gunning for byakuya.)

-And this is technically me undoing a character death but whatever, Shinobu ends up surviving the events of the competition flashbacks. I'm giving her a few more years and Then killing her.

-Speaking of shinobu, I'm taking a slightly different approach to the k2k system and its effects. whilst yes, this is still a plot point its function is different. rather than fabricate false memories, it now, because of a malfunction, ends up erasing a portion of her memory for reasons that will be explained later, nerfing her memories of the majority of her time as a student as well as any real close relationships she had. this is a the main point of tension for her character as well as one of the (hopefully) most impactful twists of the AU.

-which means that the names of the main cast will stay the same, ie. Hiroyuki and Yuika Ketouin, potential heirs to the ketouin conglomerate will remain Hiroyuki and Yuika ketouin (i'm aware that they are characters from another series making a cameo but for AU purposes i'll be taking those aforementioned creative liberties). other than the ultimate impostor, you can assume that any name given to a character is the correct one. again, not only did i make this choice for simplicity's sake, but also as an opportunity to connect to these characters and make them feel more tangible and solid.

-this means that the events of the flashbacks happen just as they're shown as well! all of the siblings, their names, talents and the events of the competition are shown as they happened with no interference whatsoever.

-speaking of the siblings, i would also be extending the flashbacks in order to really get to know them as well, like i've mentioned in previous posts i've designed each of them and am working on getting designs for their parents finalised as well, although it's taking a while.

this post is getting long but this is just a fraction of what i have planned! i'll leave off for now

i'll be willing to answer any questions but it may take me a minute to respond!