#I'd like to think every reader has a different background based on which Link they were with when they joined the Chain

[yandereunsolved]

⋆·˚ ༘ 𓍊𓋼𓍊 Poly Yandere Wild & Sage 𓍊𓋼𓍊 ⋆·˚ ༘

Wild and Sage glaring at each other.

"They belong to me."

Wild signing. "You're in my Hyrule. The safe Hyrule. I've already completed my mission. You haven't. They're mine."

"Oh yes, Mr. I haven't spoken a word since I've woken up and I need them to everything with me, thinks he gets an opinion. I already saved my Hyrule once. Now I have to do it again!"

Wild signing. "You are a danger. They are a god(dess) worth protecting. Hylia gave them to me, not you."

"Hylia didn't give anything to either of us. That's just a delusion you made up in your head. Get your own personality! I am better able to protect them anyway."

Wild signing. "Time had to save the both of you from being killed by Gloom hands in your dimension. You almost lost them. Do you really think you deserve them after that?"

"What— I— It wasn't like that! I didn't need any of you to help me. I was handling it just fine on my own. What would you know about them anyway? They always sleep with me under the stars. They always cuddle me. You have to beg for their attention."

Wild signing. "Well, they kissed me first. I think that's all you need to know." Wild smugly grins.

"What...?" I'm done with this 'sharing' thing.

Wild and Sage start brawling. Wind sits on the top of a tree silently giggling at them. He can't wait to tell the others what the newcomer and Wild have been getting up to.

"Wild! Sage! What are you doing?"

Their thoughts in unison: God(dess)! My love! You look so tempting. Are you okay? Did you get hurt? Have you eaten today? Why were you gone for so long? How are we going to cover this up? They both make eye contact. They are covered in bruises and dirt.

"Sparring."

Wild grins sheepishly towards you.

Sharing isn't easy when it comes to you...

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

taglist: @screaming-until-god-hears-me

[snowstories]

I love your blog and your autistic and aro headcanons! I just wanted to ask: I'm [probably] not an autistic person but sometimes yours and other autistic people's headcanons and writing about experiences inspire my own autistic character headcanons. I worry I should not be making these headcanons (in case I'm misinterpreting your experiences or being unintentionally Terrible) but if you have any advice on this I'd be grateful! No worries if not, as well. Keep being your fantastic self

This is a really sweet message thank you so much! As a general rule, there’s nothing wrong with allistics making autistic headcanons; in fact, I’d personally really like to see that be something that grows more mainstream, because it’d mean normalization of autistic headcanons/characters and show a general growing interest in actually learning about autism. So please, do go ahead and make your headcanons! There’s no problem with them!

That said, it’s also unfortunately true that some allistics (often a lot of them) who make autistic headcanons can fall into some common ableist (or not necessarily ableist but still kind of unfortunate) pitfalls, so in case you’re worried about that (although honestly the fact that you sent this ask in the first place probably means that you’re good anyway), here’s some tips and tricks to avoid common issues with allistic autistic headcanons (there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one):

Please don’t use functioning labels for your autistic characters. Functioning labels are labels like ‘high-functioning’ and ‘low-functioning’, and they’re generally considered to be bad by the autistic community for a variety of reasons (more here (although most of the links are dead), here, here (under ‘We Are One Community’), here). However, I’ve noticed a lot of allistics (and ignorant autistics too) who add these onto their headcanons. Please don’t? 

More of a personal thing, but please don’t separate your autistic headcanons into ‘Aspergers’ and ‘autism’. Aspergers is autism, and with the updated DSM, does not exist anymore and has been merged into the overarching diagnosis of ASD. Classifying specific characters as ‘aspies’ is alienating to autistics who aren’t aspies. If aspies themselves headcanon characters as aspies I don’t mind, but when allistics do it I get Suspicious. 

This also goes for separating your autism diagnosis into ‘PDD-NOS’ and ‘classical autism’, but I pretty much never see that so it has lower priority.

Full disclosure though: I have very negative experiences with the Aspergers diagnosis in general and I hate it so much that I have ‘aspie’, ‘aspergers’, and ‘aspergers syndrome’ just straight up blacklisted. I’m not an unbiased source here. 

While we’re on the topic of correct language usage, please use identity first language for your autistic headcanon, not person first language (identity first: autistic person; person first: person with autism). The majority of the autistic community prefers identity first language because we don’t feel like our autism can be separated from who we are (more here, here). 

Also maybe refrain from using the phrases ‘ASD’, ‘on the spectrum’, ‘somewhere on the autism spectrum’, etc. and just use ‘autistic’ instead. There’s nothing inherently Problematic(TM) about those phrases, but it’s really weird to read an entire autistic headcanon that doesn’t use the word autistic, or seems to want to avoid using it. 

Don’t use infantilizing language! Maybe think twice before calling your autistic headcanon a ‘precious baby’ or a ‘smol child’ or something, especially if they’re a grown adult. I mean, doing this once in the tags of a post when they’re being cute or something is fine, but do NOT do this on posts where you talk about them being autistic, and do NOT do this on a regular basis.

Do NOT compare them to inhuman things like animals, computers, or aliens. Just. Don’t. Ever.

Be careful headcanoning inhuman characters as autistic. It’s generally not inherently problematic, especially not in fantasy/sci-fi shows where the majority of the cast is inhuman, but it gets really tiring to only ever see the robot/alien headcanoned as autistic, and it promotes our dehumanization. Just examine your patterns and maybe try headcanoning a human character as autistic as well in those sci-fi/fantasy shows?

This goes more for robots/aliens than for things like elves. Robots/aliens tend to be autism-coded, which has lead to the negative stereotype that autistics are like robots, and the very literal alienation of autistic people. Elves, on the other and, are not historically autism-coded, and are generally considered super cool and graceful and such, so headcanoning them as autistic is pretty much always okay.

If possible, promote autistics who make content for your autistic headcanon! Read their fics! Reblog their headcanon posts! If you can’t find stuff that’s fine, and you can definitely make your own stuff as well, but if you can, promote autistics!

Related, listen to autistics! Not just when we tell you something is problematic, but if you’re making headcanons, it’s a good idea to have at least a base knowledge of our experiences and the issues we face, so that you don’t accidentally do something problematic. (Anon seems to have this down already, but since this is more of a general list, I’m putting it on anyway). ASAN and the Autism Women’s Network are both fantastic places to start learning about autism, Autism Speaks is the devil and to be avoided at all costs, and there’s plenty of autistic bloggers on this site, so maybe follow some autism blogs!

Don’t put an ‘I’m allistic so tell me if I said something bad!’ disclaimer on your autistic headcanon posts. This is a good habit when writing Serious Posts, but for headcanons, it’s unnecessary and generally kinda weird. It’s not Problematic(TM), and I understand having anxiety and insecurity when making headcanons for something outside of your experience, but it’s. Kinda annoying. Do it in the tags instead; that way people can still be informed about the fact that you’re allistic, without it being obnoxiously on the post no matter what you do.

Don’t write fic specifically about being autistic - you are not autistic and you’re probably gonna get something wrong. Instead, incorporate your autistic headcanon into fics about something else. It’s fine if the autism features heavily, just... no ‘x always knew they were different’ or ‘x has always seen the word in a different light due to the fact that they’re autistic’-centric fics. 

Exception: you can write fics about being autistic provided you have an autistic beta/sensitivity reader. And if you do, mention it somewhere on the fic. Idk about other autistics, but unless an autism-centric fic seems like it was written by an autistic, I scroll right past it, because they tend to be very ableist if they’re written by allistics. So if you have an autistic sensitivity reader, mention it.

Headcanon lists are fine though! Headcanon lists are generally less intensive and require less ability to ‘get into someone’s head’ than fic writing, so if you want to say ‘I headcanon x as autistic because y reasons’ or ‘x is autistic and they stim in the following ways/have meltdowns/script/etc.’ that’s fine and cool!

Fanart and edits are cool too! Again, there’s less need to get into someone’s head, so drawing a character while stimming or editing the autism/neurodiversity rainbow infinity symbol behind them is just fine!

Every once in a while, sit back and examine the patterns in your autistic headcanons. What kind of characters are you headcanoning as autistic? Do you notice any worrying patterns? For example, are all your autistic headcanons white, or are they all male, or are they all robots/aliens, or do you also just so happen to headcanon all of them as aro/ace and/or unavailable for romantic/sexual relationships? That’s not to say that any and all patterns are always bad or ableist (pretty much all of my autistic headcanons are also aspec bc I’m an autistic aspec and I like projecting) (although if your autistic headcanons are always male/white, then yes that’s absolutely bad), but if you find a pattern, examine possible reasons why it exists.

This is a good habit to get into with any kind of minority headcanon, by the way! I’m gonna use LGBT+ headcanons as an example: who are you headcanoning as aspec and why? Do you notice a particular LGBT+ that’s getting left behind in your headcanons? Do you always pick the same character archetype for certain LGBT+ headcanons (for example, cold unapproachable characters as aro or extroverted characters as pan), and if so, why? 

Actually! Examining your patterns in fandom behaviour in general is good. If you notice you usually don’t like female characters, then that’s probably something you should examine. If you notice that all your faves are white and that you are more interested in white background characters than main characters of colour, you should examine that. If you notice that, even though you like this minority character or headcanon, you don’t consume or create any content for them, examine why. 

Problematic fandom behaviour very rarely manifests itself in something that happens once. It’s not inherently wrong to dislike this female character or not to like that ace headcanon, but if you notice that you consistently don’t like or aren’t interested in a particular character or headcanon, or if you notice that you consistently give particular characters particular headcanons, that might be an issue. Like I said, patterns are not always bad, but it’s good to be aware of them in case they are.

I’ll elaborate a bit on autistic aspec headcanons bc that’s such a hot button issue in fandom (bc people are asshats), but the tl;dr is that autistic aspec headcanons are not inherently bad and in fact, as an autistic aspec myself, I rather like them. However, headcanoning the one autistic-coded character as the one aroace in the group unfortunately does happen pretty often (Entrapta from She-Ra comes to mind - I’ve seen SO MANY posts about how everyone is a lesbian in She-Ra except for Entrapta, who is aroace of course, and it’s... pretty suspicious). But that’s not to say that you cannot headcanon autistic-coded/headcanoned characters as aspec; I elaborate more on this topic here (featuring a GREAT addition by @aroworlds!). Just examine your patterns and why they exist.

So this is not something that Inherently Problematic(TM), but it’s very annoying to me, so here goes: maybe diversify your autistic headcanons. I’m not saying ‘make sure your autistic headcanons are also poc/lgbt/etc.’ (although that’s very cool too), but just... diversify the autism itself. Often, it’s the exact same character archetype that gets headcanoned as autistic, and as an autistic whose autism tends to manifest in less typical ways, it gets... annoying. 

Examples of typical autism tropes: the eccentric (computer/science) genius, the robot/alien, the socially awkward.traumatized loner, etc.

Examples of characters frequently headcanoned as autistic: Tony Stark (eccentric computer genius), Bruce Banner (socially awkward science genius), Pidge from Voltron (eccentric computer/science genius), Keith from Voltron (socially awkward loner alien), Entrapta (eccentric computer/science genius), Sherlock Holmes (eccentric genius), etc.

Also note how 90% of these characters are skinny white guys.

Seriously it’s 100% more likely for a skinny white guy to get headcanoned as autistic than it is for any character of colour and/or female character to get headcanoned as autistic, PLEASE examine your biases.

Examples of character archetypes that damn near never get headcanoned as autistic: team leaders, extroverted/loud characters, team heart (aka the ‘team mediator’, the glue that keeps people together), etc.

Examples of autistic headcanons I have that are non-conventional/less common: Allura from Voltron (team heart, leader), Hunk from Voltron (team heart), Arthur from BBC Merlin (leader), Kaldur’ahm from Young Justice (leader).

All of these characters are pretty damn autism-coded, and while it’s not... impossible to find content for some of these, there’s generally a lot less for them. 

What I’m getting at is that, because the stereotypical autism-coded character of the eccentric computer nerd/socially awkward loner/robot/alien looms larger in the public consciousness, there’s a confirmation bias when it comes to these kind of characters. This often gets coupled with the stereotype that all autistic people are white boys, which results in a whole lot of the same white guys being headcanoned as autistic, even when other characters are just as if not more autism-coded. 

It’s not Problematic(TM) to headcanon more stereoypically autism-coded characters as autistic, and it’s honestly not even Problmatic(TM) to only headcanon those characters as autistic, especially not if an autistic person who does present like that relates to those characters or if an allistic isn’t sure about their headcanons and wants to play it safe. But it does lead to a very monotone depiction of autism, and leads autistic people who don’t fit the stereotypical mold (me!) to feel left out. So, if possible, try researching lesser known autism traits or just generally thinking a bit out of the box when making autism headcanons.

It’s definitely bad to only headcanon skinny white guys as autistic though. Like I know I’ve said this 50 times now, but seriously, fandom racism and sexism (or a neat combination of the two in case of female character of colour) is SUPER noticeable in autistic headcanons. 

And lastly: when in doubt, ask an autistic! Asking questions isn’t illegal, and if you’re not sure about whether x thing you want to do is okay, just shoot an autistic (who is okay with questions) an ask! I’m always open for questions about autism and such (and I love talking about it so that’s a bonus), so don’t be afraid to hit me up for further info!

[radiantseraphina]

Hello. I noticed that you seem happy to give out writing advice to people who ask for it, so I though I'd take a chance. I hope I'm not bothering you with this, but do you have any tips on writing a b-plot into a story?

The first thing you must do is make sure the climax of your story involves Meta Knight’s estranged brother torching Dreamland to the ground on a giant, mechanical dragon, who Meta Knight then fights in a hot air balloon. Meanwhile, Kirby races to Dreamland’s castle in order to stop an android waddle dee from blowing up Dedede. (It’s a joke). I’ll certainly offer what I know, although admittedly, there are many ways to do b-plots. Again, if you want any clarification or don’t understand my examples I just sort of assume people asking me for writing advice have also read my fanfics?, do feel free to ask. It’s not bothering me in the slightest.

There are different kinds of b-plots, so I’m going to link you to an article just in case it turns out you’re looking for a sort of framing device (the grandpa and little kid from the Princess Bride, most Mark Twain stories, etc.)

Have you ever wondered why so many YA novels have love triangles in them? That’s the subplot, usually; sometimes, it usurps the main plot. But usually, especially the dystopian works, that’s the subplot. Romance works well as a subplot because as you’re developing the plot, you’re also developing your characters’ relationships. That being said, a romance doesn’t have to be the subplot; it’s just a pretty common one.

This does depend a little on how you’re writing, but a good way is to pick the main character you’re going to focus on the most. Then, give your other main characters (within reason. If you have a hundred characters, don’t give them all a subplot) something to do; whatever you give them is your subplots.

For example, in DLU Bandanna Dee’s subplot revolves around his relationship with his brother. This has nothing to do with what’s currently going on with Nightmare, but later in the story, Bandanna Dee’s brother is going to--not only realize how wrong he was--but play a pretty important role when I get to covering Robobot. The good thing with this approach is that it also defines what your characters think is important.

Dedede’s subplot revolves around trying to kick off a romance with the most oblivious man in the world.

Kirby’s subplot hasn’t really showed its head much yet, but it’s going to be about trying to untangle his relationship with his parents because Kirby’s mom really hates Nightmare and isn’t exactly fond of Kirby hanging around with Meta Knight.

Now, when I’m doing anything with a subplot that isn’t, say, relationship-based, I plot this stuff out, primarily because I like to connect my subplots to the main plot (which I want to stress you don’t have to do). And you want to unfold them gradually, just as you would any other plot, so if you’re writing a twenty-chapter fic, maybe don’t introduce and resolve a romance in a single chapter. The subplot doesn’t have to tie into the main story, but I think it works better when it does. Otherwise, your reader might feel confused about why they read about Magolor and Meta Knight having a violin duel when it added nothing to the text.

Another helpful way to think about this is by looking at the structure of TV shows. Typically, they have an overarching plot, and the subplots construct the individual episodes. The Kirby anime, for example, does this. 

Subplots are especially helpful, I think at least, for your pacing. This is why, in the middle of that being stuck in another dimension plot of Hey, Gorgeous You Have Something of Mine, anime!Dedede and game!Meta Knight bond over things. Because if Dedede wasn’t teaching Meta Knight to drive and talking to him, the plot would be: Meta Knight is lonely and sad, BAM!, castle attack, Dedede is there! Which...would really make Meta Knight seem like he was overreacting because, from a reader’s standpoint, it would feel like he really hadn’t been there long at all.

So if you feel like things are moving too fast, or you’re in some sort of Epic Fantasy Adventuring lull, that’s when you want to really use your subplots. Just make sure that your main plot is continuing in the background.

Two is most common, but you can have more subplots depending on how long your work is; the primary goal is to make sure that your b, c, or d-plot advances your story in terms of either plot or character. So while having Bruce Wayne convince Clark Kent to front as Batman, so the two can pretend they’re dating for the tabloids is hilarious...Bruce and Clark should be using their fake dates to either a.) establish their bromance or romance or b.) to work on stoppping whatever villain. Possibly both. Someday, I’m going to write that, and it’s going to be great. Along with that an interstellar villain drops Kirby off on Tony Stark plot.

Alternatively, something that’s popular to do is introduce multiple plots set in, like, different times, so reading one gives you insight on the other. You still have a main plot, but the plots are closer in importance here. (I guess a good example would be Alice is trying to solve the murder of Joan, and every other chapter is a day from Joan’s diary, so you have Alice’s story and Joan’s story. And at the end, Joan’s diary would reveal something crucial for Alice.) This would be like if I wrote DLU and had far more chapters about Bikaia interspersed with the...er, college chapters. Technically, I could’ve set them up in parallel (i.e. Kirby meets Meta, Bikaia meets Galacta, Kirby meets Dedede, Bikaia meets Nova, etc.).

If you are writing historical fiction, put the historical events in there and help those shape subplots. (I recently read an infuriating book that shall remain nameless. Book took place during World War II...there was no mention of World War II). I guess if I’m going to make that into more general advice, give your characters subplots that fit their setting and themselves. This is why DLU Delilah has that subplot about her duchy being on a Haltonium mine; she’s a duchess, so she needs to actually run her duchy. If your warrior princess Arwenhilde is fighting the forces of darkness...don’t give her a subplot involving a random apple merchant (unless, of course, the apple merchant is secretly one with the Dark Side and is trying to turn Arwenhilde away from her mission).

Remember that, while genres had certain rules and expectations, the general rule for fiction, especially fanfic, is that you can break all the rules if you can do it well.