#I'm working on the character intros for this AU and going wild thinking about them...

[hum--hallelujah]

the thing is that Sandman is the most at ease out of everyone in the group with the monster that he is but he's also the one who will tolerate it the least in others. Benze's hunger makes him wary. he'd never do anything but trust Donnie, but the boundaries they make and break and bend weigh on him more when he watches someone else do the bending. even in the everyday, the mundane, he's got the harshest sense of justice out of all of them, even too-logical, too-City-bred Benzedrine. Sandman is allowed to bend the rules, but heaven help the person who does so themselves when he's around.

[encrucijada]

PÍA RAMBLES #8

you might have seen this post or this wip intro. i'm here to talk about this book because i think it's really cool @teddywriting and i wrote almost 40k words by simply playing dolls with our ocs.

(yes i will be using screencaps of before sunrise, 1995 for any and all subsequent updates regarding this project thank you very much)

what's weird about this book in particular is that, despite maripaz and theo taking up way too much space in my brain, it's also incredibly hard to talk about them?? i know every single detail about them down to what they might order to eat at a mcdonald's, and yet i feel no one outside from teddy and i really knows these characters. their lore is weird and a bit convoluted and explaining it feels like i'm trying to explain the plot of a television show with like 18 seasons of character development you just had to be there to witness to understand even a fraction of it.

but first some basics about the actual book

title: babylon boy (book 1 of the home habitat duology)

genre: literary fiction

category: i say adult because there will be no censoring of topics but in this first installment our protagonists are around eighteen years old. you might consider that ya but i wouldn't

a small summary: having independently run away from home for their own reasons, theo and maripaz meet while homeless on the streets and form an alliance of convenience to survive. while theo vehemently denies the drug addiction he’s nursing, maripaz tries to deal with the way both want and revulsion seem to exist in her at the same time. falling in love is probably the easiest thing they do.

teddy and i are co-authoring, as in we both write the words. they will be primarily working on theo's chapters and i will be primarily working on maripaz's chapters but we'll both be involved in fully crafting this story.

talking about your book is hard when all that happens in it is character work so even whether someone gets sick at one point feels like a spoiler you want people to be surprised by.

we created mari and theo in 2020 on a whim. i can't even remember what prompted it exactly. we wanted a new pair of characters to play with and we decided to make two assholes to bicker and be mean to each other. this iteration saw three reincarnations before we put the characters on the shelf and almost resigned ourselves to them being a miss... if not for one important detail... i really, really believed they should have kissed. this first version of them would eventually be known as the homeless au.

looking back it's Wild thinking about how different mari and theo used to be. we moved onto new aus to play around with, landing on a superhero-type beat that became their new canon for a while. we had fantasy and sci-fi and musicians and hadestown and the raven cycle (that last one did so much for us it's insane). every new thing we tried shaped them more and more until they were unrecognisable from their original versions. one day i really want to go through their threads from start to finish and look at that change in real time.

there was a new thesis to their characters and it was no longer "what if two awful guys with issues were forced together and tried to bite each other's heads off". instead we were looking at two characters that through every new incarnation became more sincere and gentle. they had meta-narrative character development.

(every new au also gave us more characters to populate the world including but not limited to theo's twin sister, maripaz's seven siblings, alex, philip, a whole lot of parental figures, a quirky cast of friends... but i'll talk about them some other time)

then i did it again. in the 2.0 version of the homeless au there was one scene i loved beyond words where an argument between our two protagonists resulted in maripaz punching theo right on the mouth. when she tried to swing a second time he stopped her hand and warned her that if she wanted to hit him he would hit back. they fought and the scene ended. i said to teddy: they should have kissed. we laughed and imagined how homeless au would go now that their characters had changed so much. we started thinking about it more and more until we were moving the pieces of their cinematic universe around to fit this new idea... and suddenly we had plot for a book that would revamp that original homeless au... and a sequel too! (but more on that second one another time)

teddy started a rp thread of what came right after the opening scene of babylon boy, where theo and maripaz would shoplift and he would steal the angel necklace she wore (<- this is important)... and we just kept going... and going. we'd already had a few keys scenes to work towards, one those being that punching scene that started it all, as well as the ending. teddy added two new scenes we began calling the halo scene and the church scene, and we moved something we called the pool scene into this book from another au. we just had to fill in the blanks... fill in the blanks we did.

these right here are the names i gave each individual thread of the roleplay-ification of babylon boy. their purpose is not so much to be chapter titles but to make specific scenes easy to find for future reference. though obviously i had to be a bit artistic about it.

i don't know if babylon boy will have chapter titles, and if they will have some sort of theme going on (usually i like just putting two words together to create some imagery). "angel face" is probably what i would title chapter 1, but i also hesitate on that decision because i think i would like to save angel for later.

these threads are less of a draft and more the skeleton of a draft, that's why i called it a draft 0. its purpose is to give teddy and i direction and reading through them i already know how i want to shift the timeline and how i'd rewrite some of the scenes to make them a lot better, but it did give us a great cause and effect look of things. the way teddy and i approach our roleplay threads is more loose than what i do with @on-the-river-lethe (with whom i'm currently roleplaying draft 1 of our book lupine trail and also a giant hunger games au). fluffy and i write responses between 1k-4k words, they are basically chapters. teddy and i instead do a quick call and response, mostly focused on dialogue, we build on top of each other and neither of us really knows where a thread will go when we start.

there are no actual non-roleplay words written for babylon boy thus far. teddy is in charge of chapter 1 as we open with theo's pov but we are both busy or focused on other things. right now we're enjoying the playing around stage of the process (which i don't see going away even once we start seriously writing, i know for a fact we'll probably do various roleplay-type passes to babylon boy).

you've probably noticed the christian imagery is rampant here. it happened kind of by accident and the already mentioned halo scene is entirely to blame for it. like i said, teddy and i have this very "yes, and," approach to storytelling together where we kinda build on top of what the other puts down. teddy gave me the description of one (1) scene where theo sees a halo of light around maripaz's head and i decided "well, this is now i thing that is here to stay". church scene really brought it all together and there is a scene in book 2 adeptly nicknamed the angel scene that is kind of the culmination of this.

the imagery is almost exclusive to theo's pov as mari is more the subject of the imagery than the one pushing it forward. teddy and i will be doing our most to fill this book with visuals: characters lined with stained glass windows, lights shaped like hearts, signs and graffiti that say meaningful stuff.

babylon boy, as the title suggests, is more theo's book. both he and maripaz have meaningful arcs but theo's is really at the core of it, mari takes centre stage in book 2 (titled gossamer girl). i think i talked about this somewhere before but the titles just kind of... happened. gossamer was relevant for that superhero au and it's just a word i really adore so i wanted to use it on the title. you can't go wrong with alliteration so gossamer girl it is. and because i love when books in a series match i had to do something with boy. like gossamer i adore babylon for some reason, and so we got babylon boy. i wasn't sure about that one because while gossamer girl made sense with the theme, what did "babylon boy" even mean, exactly? teddy came in clutch and analysed the title for me. they connected it to theo's drug addiction and now i can't think of any two titles that are more perfect for this series.

like i said, there are no actual words written for this book so sadly i cannot share any excerpts. but i will share

Festival was very much the result of teddy and i having just watched before sunrise, 1995

we watched before sunrise, 1995 because the mannerisms of the two leads reek of maripaz and theo

"until a miracle happens" became a recurring thing said in the draft and it wrecked me

Our Fears is probably my favourite thread both thematically and visually. followed closely by Church Angels, though that one is mostly visually

The Pool is the longest thread with about 90 responses and all of it is beautiful. i would probably consider it the companion to Our Fears

"mutual pining they're both just idiots"

the closing image is probably my favourite one of the book

the core themes are very much trust, love, and communal help. we've got such an array of npcs who simply... help. i love the human race.

i'll probably do another update before we start properly writing talking about maripaz and theo as characters specifically. a bit of a crash course on who they are, really.

anyway. i'm giving you a golden star if you read all of that ⭐ do ask me or teddy about this story!! we'd be happy to talk about it. or even just about the characters.

cheers, pía

[spacerockwriting]

Gallavich intro

Thank you so much @callivich for making a gallavich intro meme thing!

Name: Comet

Age: 32

What made you fall in love with Gallavich? Their story. I love angsty plots and shit, and Idk. I just really fell hard for them. Like really hard. And having shitty dads is something I relate to, sooo that might be an added thing.

How long have you been a fan? Since like May? I was binging the show 3-4 times a day to get through all 11 seasons. I'm rebinging it again, so there's that.

Favourite Gallavich moment/scene? I'm rewatching season 1, so I do love the Mandy/Ian/Mickey moments we see. But I think Mickey taking care of Ian with his bipolar is one of my favorite moments. We're seeing just how much Mickey cares. As someone with mental illness, I really love seeing that. Ngl, I also love Groomzilla Mick and the wild ride of season 11.

Favourite Shameless character apart from Ian and Mickey? So it's probably Lip and Carl. I love Ian and Lip's closeness, and I love how chaotic and unhinged Carl is. Just shit like where do the gay weiners go? makes me crack up.

Do you write or draw or make edits? Yes!!! Been posting my writing here! And I'll link the full fic on A03 when I'm finished! Haven't done any edits or anything, but maybe I'll start. Good excuse to get out my tablet.

Favourite type of Gallavich fics? I'm pretty open. I like angst, substance, slow burn. I do a lot of fic reading at work, so please send me recommedations for stuff! I prefer long completed fics for those instances. AU's work, slow burn, canon divergence. The only thing I'm not really into is the A/B/O stuff. I also like fluffy onshots! I'll read those before bed, usually.

Favourite Gallavich quote? "Don't." "IAN GALLAGHERRRRR!!" Mickey's soft I love you. The unhinged S11: "That's Gay. We're Gay. Not that Gay." "Man I hate the fucking gays with all their meh and their bleh." Also not gallavich but I say Not cool, Jimmy-Steve like once a day at least.

Anything else you’d like to share about yourself? I'm really glad to be in this fandom as Shameless as been my hyperfixation for a while now. I'm so glad to be in such a welcoming fandom! Also @galladrabbles has been what I look forward to every week so there's that!

[postwarlevi]

Masterlist + about me

Hi there! I'm Eliza! This is my first about me and I'll probably update at some point! I'm in my 30s, use pronouns she/her, was born 8/15 making me a Leo (pretty sure that's wrong though haha) and am ISFP-T. English speaking and I'm learning ASL. I joined tumblr to connect with other AOT fans and to share some of my work which I've never done before. I'm generally a bit shy but like interactions. This is a SFW page and though I may read some NFSW stories I don't interact with them much. No offense, just personal reasons. I write mainly for Levi, with some Jean and sometimes others thrown in. There's lots of fluff around here with the occasional angsty piece. A lot is modern AU. While I take suggestions I don't really do requests, mainly because I don't want to disappoint and make sure I feel motivated to give something worthy of the ask. Sometimes I get burned out so I can't promise that. I like other things like classic movies/Disney movies, music from the 50s to today, baking and healthy eating, going to outdoor markets, game shows like Jeopardy, tv shows like The 100, Glee and The Nanny, animal planet, reading, family, napping and staying cool in the heat. I was diagnosed with PCOS at age 16 and though it affects me sometimes I think I'm doing pretty good. If anyone wants to talk about any of those things, I don't have another personal blog at this time so right here if hopefully okay with everyone :)

----------

WIP LIST

Help me decide what to write next

==========

Masterlist updated 06/23/22

in order of date written, everything SFW (some slightly suggestive), mainly fluff (will mention if other) mainly Levi, sometimes Jean or friendship centered (will mention if other characters prominent).

Headcanon like format & short scenes

short fic under 1200 words

medium fic 1200 to 3000 words

long fic 3000 to 5000 words

longer fic 5000+ words

series/mini series

===================

Series/Mini Series

Morning Aura post it note series

The Captains Kids scenarios

...always ongoing...

Just Call Me Dad story collection - Complete!

------------------

Precursor to Silence (deaf OC) (fluff, angst, hurt comfort)

Part one

Part two

Part three

Part four

Part five

Prologue draft

Ballroom draft

...entire series to come...

------------------

Iris (fluff, angst, hurt comfort)

in order of timeline

Untouchable

Iris

...3 more planned parts to come...

===================

Aura (short)

Afternoon tea

Later, Levi

Wingman (f. Jean)

Farmers Market

Chaise

Star Seeker

Apple a Day

Milkshakes (texting f Jean and friends)

Summer Squash and Slipper Socks

Scary Movie

Happy Halloween (f JCS group and dad Levi)

Fall Festival (f cadets/vets)

Fall Festival II (f cadets/vets)

With You (angsty?)

Misunderdancing (f Jean)

Happy Thanksgiving

Pretty Beautiful (f Jean)

Snowfall

Saturday Skates (f cadets/vets)

Tabby

Secret Santa

Mistletoe (f Jean, Eren, other cadets)

Santa Levi (f cadets/vets, Gabi and Falco)

Happy Christmas/Merry Birthday (f JCS group and dad Levi)

One Night Only intro (f Jean)

One Night Only/Happy New Year pt 1 (f Jean, Mikasa, others)

The Morning After/Happy New Year pt 2 (f Jean)

PCOS (slight hurt/comfort)

Beach Sunrise

Weary (slight angst/hurt/comfort)

Rest (short)

Happy Valentines Day (f surprise character)

Wild Kingdom

Haircut (short)

Grocery Shopping

Happy Easter (f dad Levi)

Mother's Day (f Kuchel)

I Hope You Dance

Arise

Safe Travels

------------------

24 Hours (Eren x reader f other 104th cadets)

Starting Now (Jean x reader f Connie and Sasha)

===================

Levi Short Scenes shorts that don't quite go on masterlist

Inspired By asks or answers added to with other writers (most Levi x reader)

Unassigned Character Shorts unnamed character shorts

------------------

Multiple Character Headcanons

Vacation Spots

Reality Shows

Olive Garden order

Kids Electric Cars

Kids Disney movies

Hockey Players/Awards

===================

Self-ship tag game (ongoing- come join!)

January 31st

February 6th casual date

February 14th Valentines

March 27th spring date

April 4th domestic acts

May 1st mornings

[ageless-soul-au]

I've read and gone through the blog so many times lol ( I'm absolutely in love with the au) and I was wondering, has the course of the story changed at all since you guys have wrote confidential? Or since the start of the blog? Also how many more characters will we get to meet in Confidential ( if that isn't too much of a spoiler)?

we'd say that the overarching story hasn't changed. like the same general plot points are gonna happen, but the way they happen and the fine details have DEFINITELY changed. *STARES at the big rewrite we have planned for grace period and the edits we plan on both eye for an eye and love & trust*

....yeah. i don't think we'll make whole new works on ao3 for the latter two stories but they will be receiving HEAVY edits and i'll probably make a post on the blog to tell yall when i'm done and everything is up bc a reread will be VERY necessary bnklbndskl

just... the characters have evolved so much over the course of con and so it feels like a disservice to them to leave the works as they were when we wrote before out of impatience to get to the plot... nnnnot realizing that people wouldn't have much of a reason to read it if they didnt know anything about the characters (or know what the hell is going on). confidential's format of picking up characters and introducing them one at a time is lengthy but i think it's worked out so y'all know who they ARE, y'know?? and it's helped develop the group dynamic as a whole. cuz you can SAY two characters interact in x way before everything but when writing it, sometimes it turns out different.

lol we're... figuring it out vndklvnldks

NOW like main cast new characters??? wild should be the last main person to be introduced. mizu has a love of ocs tho so we'll see how it goes vndklvndsl. we're saving odyssey's intro for the grace period rewrite bc we had a whole au for him by itself and like... we love him. also he's the last to join vbdlvnlsd we can spend some more time on him and his world as we transition to the battle in gp (and actually DETAIL that battle!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!)

-Kio

[themarginalartist]

Gotta agree with the fact of every character being OC. I doubt there is difference between chars with studios behind them and chars made by one peep. Most interesting is the creativity with most of all, I think. Could read anything as far as it is creative. But how do you set good vibes to reader to make him stay and be excited for next chapter? I can see it happening on me when reading something, but I don't seem to find the key of doings to do so while I'm really interested on how

(I am so sorry this got really, really, really long so I’m putting it under a readmore, I am not kidding, this is ridiculously long. I checked before posting and it’s 1576 words (not including this bit here), which is like my normal chapter length so read at your own risk I guess???)

I mean a character is usually created by one person, or at least the initial concept of them is, then expanded on either by that person or the writers in order to weave them into the story. 

As far as getting a reader interested… I am not really sure why a lot of people are interested in my things…

But usually the way that gets me interested in reading something, and I am basing this off my response to different novels I’ve read (I’ll get to fan fics in a sec), is a combo of the synopsis and the first chapter being the hook. Now not every synopsis makes me want to read a novel, I have read many books where the synopsis made me go “huh” which is like mild interest, and then I start the first chapter if I have time, if by the time I am done with the first 2-3 pages and I haven’t found anything interesting the book gets put back. 

There was one time at a scholastics book fair that I read like the first 3 chapters of a book, it was while I was in high school and my brother was still in elementary school, but like I was hooked the moment I read it… The title escapes me though… 

As far as fanfics go, I used to be the most avid reader of them in my friend group, admittedly at the time I was looking for a very specific fandom and such, but my preference for fanfics is a longer story or longer chapters. My friends were not that way… Which made getting recommendations and giving them hard. 

But as far as what I like to see when I am browsing for a new fic is if the fic is hosted on FF.net or Ao3 a synopsis that doesn’t give the main plot away, but gives a quick intro to the idea, so for example on Think Ink (which I should update that synopsis I think) the bad version would be “Henry’s also been turned into an Ink Demon and now he has to figure himself out. Fighting different studio members and searchers in his journey to understanding himself.” where as “Henry woke up covered in ink, a spike of fear rushing through him, his life forever changed from that moment on.” is a bit better (not the best but yeah). 

Then comes the spelling and grammar component which I can’t stress enough. If the fics first chapter is extremely bad, and I am talking to the point were the word used is wrong, the spelling is wrong on a number of words, and there isn’t a clear tense being used, then I exit out, it doesn’t matter if I really like the synopsis or something or it’s an AU I liked, if the grammar and spelling makes the fic unreadable then it’s game over. 

Next is characterization, similar to spelling and grammar, if the character you are using is portrayed wrong, it’s also a game over. However there are a few exceptions to this. For example I used to really love Hetalia, the basic gist of the anime is that all the countries have a human representative but is also heavily biased as the Japanese stereotype of those countries. Italy in Hetalia is seen as an airheaded, easily frightened, guy who is a womanizer, eats pasta for literally every meal, surrenders in a second, and takes naps whenever possible, again this is the Japanese stereotype based in WW2. So if he’s characterized as being really serious there needs to be a damned good reason for it. You can’t just change a character to fit what you want if you’re basing it on someone else’s work. 

Next comes plot. Plot is key for any fanfic, I mean yeah every once in a while it’s fun to read a one off or throw away fic of cute activities like baking and stuff, but there’s no action or craziness (unless it’s a fic disguising itself as such which is also fun). The goal of the first chapter is set up. In a novel the first chapter is about introducing the main character(s), the world, and what the problem is. And fanfic is no different, however it has the luxury of us already knowing the character (in a way at least, take Spiderman, there’s the basic concept but there’s also a number of versions of him from different cartoon series and comic series). We might also have the luxury of knowing the world already as well, so that can be sorted out really fast, the rules and nature of the world are defined so we don’t need to explain anything. So then comes the problem, what is the character facing, is there something going on right now or is it coming, do(es) the character(s) have the power to stop it now or are they going to have to travel. The goal of the rest of the story after the first chapter is to show how the character(s) grow and change as a result of the difficulties they face in order to take care of the problem. 

And finally cutoffs. First what I mean by cutoffs is where an author chooses to create a time skip, scene change, or end of chapter point and I’ll talk about each of those in brief. 

For a time skip, the only reason that should happen in a fic is if the task at hand would be meaningless for the reader to know about like them going through all the steps of baking a cake (unless it’s to show the characters relationship with each other then don’t skip) or if there is a large gap of time where nothing important happens and I am talking about years of time, which is what happens in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, there is a 7 year period where Link is “gone” from the world and so when he comes back to it many changes have taken place and so it’s a call to action for him. 

A scene change is similar to a time skip in some cases such as character x and y are driving and now scene change to x and y being at a motel for the night, but in other cases it’s a shift in who’s talking like we were getting told x’s point of view for a long time and now y is saying x is stupid or something. 

And finally the end chapter cutoff, which is honestly a hard one, there has to be a reason for the end of a chapter, a lot of times cliffhangers are the main way to go about it, but also resolution of a current problem is important to consider. For example chapter 4 of Think Ink was a cliff hanger I purposefully put in, one because it was evil and made people want the next chapter, and two because I wasn’t ready to continue on with the story at that point, I can’t tell you the amount of “omg what the heck why did you cut off there” I got from people. Now compare that to chapter 10 of Think Ink, the end of that chapter is Henry and Bendy finally coming to an understanding of each other, what has been going on with each of them separately, and the beginning of repairing the bond. It ties up loose ends that Henry and Bendy had been facing for a long time. 

Good vibes come from the care and dedication to the fic that you have. And every reader is different, they pick up on different things, they read something in different ways. I mean hell I have been asked if I wrote lines on purpose when the reality of the matter was I was just like hey this sounds good and it was by accident. But I think what a lot of people don’t think about is how not all stories have happy beginning, middle, and endings. Sometimes there is loss, there is anger, there is dumb decisions that a character made, there are mistakes and problems and too often I see fics that are just “oh everything is happy and good and light”, and that’s not interesting for a multi-chapter fic, maybe a chapter but not the whole thing. 

So in reality there isn’t a short answer. It just depends on how well you can connect with your readers. And it takes time, there have been plenty of fics that I begin reading after 4-5 chapters are already out or the fic has been completed, so don’t worry if people aren’t reading yet, just keep going and stuff. And not everything I said has to be a part of the fic, time skip and scene jump all over the place, make mistakes and get wild with writing. And the biggest thing, and best way to get better, is to make note of what you like the most, what caused you to like a writer’s style, why did this work, what hints did the author drop in order to lead you to this plot point. And it sounds like school work… but that’s because this is what you have to do for basically every English/Language Arts essay ever. analyze the text…

Congratulations on making it to the end of this monster wall of text btw. 🎉🎉🎉