#My main version of him is an unfinished version of the canon one

[emile-hides]

Doodling out Robot Mario because I'm obsessed with him.

[blackghostm2o]

Ok… I’ve watched Love Never Dies, the Australian version. Spoilers (if you even care)

The ending is horrible… It feels… Unfinished? Idk if that makes sense and I don’t even know how to explain it. Someone could probably say: “Yeah, That’s how an open ending works.” Ok, but it feels like the play should continue just a lil bit more…

Now… Idk if it’s just me misunderstanding, but at first didn’t Madame Giry say that she and Meg helped MISTER Y (pretty shitty name if you ask me, it would have been a lil better if they used the E to make it sound like Mystery and also allude to the name Erik) to go to the States, like saving him? Later Meg is being: “I’ve come here for him and restarted my own life for him and he doesn’t even care.” (Not really, but you get it).

Madame Giry idolising Mr. Y??? Meg loving Mr. Y (I hate this name, I’ll call him Phantom from now on). Idk… It really feels wrong, really random and out of character. Both of their relationship with the Phantom are strange, don’t like it. Also Meg KILLING CHRISTINE???? They were good friends, but ok… Let’s play the devil’s advocate and say that she went a bit crazy, why tf the Phantom was “Oh! But you are like a rough diamond! The BeAuTy UnDerNeAtH! But btw… Nobody can be like Christine.” DUDE!!! WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU!??! She has a gun and is jealous af rn! Mah… Needless death.

The characters have been butchered, not only the 2 Giry, but also Raoul and Christine.

I’m not a really big Raoul fan (I admit it), but I don’t think he could be a gambler, a raging alcoholic and a shitty father… Nah, that’s not Raoul. His main song is about he being a shitty person and you think “maybe he will get better” WRONG! He takes a bet with the Phantom (he’s a gambler so it checks out). That choke scene??? ,’:)

Christine loving the Phantom… Hmmm, not really in line with ALW poto. Her having sex with the Phantom… Don’t really like it. When would have happened? The ending of PotO wouldn’t make sense if they had sex before.

Another thing that really annoys me is him having a freak show. Even in ALW’s canon he was used as an attraction so why would he open a place like that and inflict to others what happened to him as a kid. I believe that he would burn down a place like that instead of opening one.

Some songs are good and really catchy, others are ok.

LND is basically ALW being the 1st Erikstine fan, that’s it.

[anghraine]

Fic author interview (meme)

I was tagged by @incognitajones! Thank you very much <3

1- How many works do you have on AO3?

222, though some are very closely interconnected.

2- What's your total AO3 word count?

1,193,545, says the AO3 statistics page!

o_O

3- What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

LOL, I had just automatically rearranged my stats graph to rank fics by kudos instead of hits. It's:

Season of Courtship (inevitably), a Darcy/Elizabeth canon-compliant engagement interquel I wrote as a teenager;

But Thou Didst Not Leave His Soul In Hell (always a pleasant surprise), a short AU in which Luke convinces Anakin/Vader to flee the Empire with him;

per ardua ad astra, a Rogue One+ANH Jyn/Cassian AU in which Jyn, Cassian, and Bodhi escape Scarif only to get trapped on the Death Star and forced to pass themselves off as Imperials;

we get dark, only to shine, a longggg yet unfinished AU of The Borgias in which Cesare and Lucrezia begin their affair during S1 instead of S3 (CW for canon sibling incest, murder, etc).

Contradictions and Varieties (baffling), a short Darcy/Elizabeth AU I wrote for a fest in which it takes them slightly longer to get together.

4- Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try, especially with fics I'm actively updating, but I'm always behind on it. I mostly just get distracted and forget.

5- What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Oh, interesting question! I don't write a lot of angsty endings, but there are a few options, and I think it probably would have to be the gift of men, a short (~1k) Fourth Age fic in which Eldarion goes along with a politically convenient marriage to one of Faramir and Éowyn's daughters, and falls in love with her, only for her to die of old age while Aragorn and Faramir are still alive and Eldarion remains young.

Honorable mentions: Set On This Path (Luke and Leia are brought up in the Empire + fusion with the story of the bloodbending brothers in B1 of Legend of Korra, complete with murder-suicide) and the last day (a chirpy epistolary fic that takes an abrupt turn after the genocidal attack that begins the Guild Wars games).

6- What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Um, just considering the ones that have endings, to be fair, and ... hmm, that's harder. A lot of happy endings! Probably the ones that are happiest for me, personally, are First Impressions (m!Elizabeth/f!Darcy re-telling of P&P) and whatever we deny or embrace (f!Cassian/Jyn).

7- Do you write crossovers?

Not often, but sometimes! Like now.

8- Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yes! I've gotten hate more than once wrt Season of Courtship in various versions (even before it become so overwhelmingly the popular favorite of my fics). The rest has been on other fics and mostly on ff.net.

TBH the subtler stuff bothers me more than outright hate (corrections based on adaptations or fanon or expanded universe material I already said I wasn't using, concern that I might switch permanently to a new format I'm trying out, etc).

9- Do you write smut?

Very rarely. I respect people who can write good smut (hi incognita!), but I'm definitely a fade to black sort unless the ship is already so out there that I'm long past feeling self-conscious about it.

10- Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yes. It's happened a couple of times, but the main one was someone who stole a few Austen fics from various people and tried to piece them together into something they could sell on Amazon. One of the fics was The Rich Are Always Respectable (not what I would choose to plagiarize if I were going to, but ... okay).

11- Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, several times. I think it's cool!

12- Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I wrote a short fic with my friend @tulinlina many years ago :)

13- What's your all-time favorite ship?

Darcy/Elizabeth. Truly this ship is the terror of the seas!

14- What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

Oh, man. This probably requires more self-knowledge than I really have. Um ... I hate saying it, but we get dark, only to shine is likely this. I had so many plans for where it was going to go, but I'm just in a very different fannish place these days.

15- What are your writing strengths?

It feels weird to say, but I think I write solid dialogue (it's certainly my favorite thing to write!) and fairly clean prose in general.

16- What are your writing weaknesses?

Description is my truest nemesis—I tend to place scenes in just empty or vaguely described space. Fight scenes and that sort of thing are really difficult (for related reasons). Finishing things—my stuff nearly always grows out of control and it screws up pacing and so on.

17- What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

A little goes a long way, IMO. I did a bit of it in my fic about Leia and Cassian and Alderaanian, in tongues and quiet sighs, so I can't judge it too hard, but it's very much something to handle with care (especially with conlangs—Tolkien fic can be pretty grating this way).

18- What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Tolkien! My first attempt at a fic was a Faramir-goes-to-Rivendell-instead-of-Boromir AU that never got very far.

Well, my first serious attempt at fanfic, that is—I wrote original stuff for years before that, and I guess technically I tried to write Trixie Belden fanfic when I was about 10 ... and the original stuff spun off from a piece that was basically a Secret of Mana fanfic I wrote even before the Trixie Belden stuff. But in terms of something written within a fandom community, the Faramir fic.

19- What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

Hmm. I'm not sure, actually. I mostly just write stuff if I feel like it. Oh—it's cheating, but I've barely written Korra/Kuvira even though I adore the ship. I'd like to write a proper Korvira fic someday.

20- What's your favorite fic you've written?

This changes pretty often, though there are always a few that come up when I'm asked. At this moment in time, probably The Jedi and the Sith Lord, the third (sort of) of my f!Luke Skywalker fics, and the one where the story finally swerves off the canon tracks and becomes its own thing. Maybe (probably?) not my best work, but the Lucyverse is my baby and I think TJATSL is my best work in it.

Tagging: @elwing, @kareenvorbarra, @heckofabecca, @veliseraptor, @rain-sleet-snow

[identityarchitect]

1, 2, 12, and 17 for smeep and the hater!!! :D

What was the original thought that led to the creation of this character?

for smeep … im honestly not sure hold on lemme go find it

ok it was just my general love of sapient ai. that tracks. originally i was thinking about how a person actually becomes an explorer (in an official sense, since exploration is highly regulated) and was trying not to make a sentient ai that helps with all the onboarding and stuff.

icarus (smeeps canon name) isnt too far from that concept, tbh? shes primarily about archiving information and doing research but she does also aid explorers in the field - being a structure herself she notices a lot of stuff that humans wouldnt consider indicative of anything in particular, so she can warn people about danger before it becomes a threat to survival

for the hater, i was brainstorming about what post-rapture human settlements look like - specifically about hangers (general term for settlements in monoliths). violence and raiding and such is somewhat common on surface settlements (oil rigs, floaters, people who primarily live on boats) since electricity is relatively difficult to come by, and thus synthesisers cant be used (whereas in hangers the conditions for farming arent present but effectively infinite energy can be attained, allowing for synthesis of everything required for living), meaning that food and materials are scarce and settlements are in constant competition with each other.

i was thinking about how violence would come about between two hangers, and ended up deciding that it'd be most realistic if the humans were forced into it, most likely by the ai that they relied on for survival (since without an AI your settlement will be accosted by many environmental issues like toxic air, fungal infections, extreme winds, as well as improper nutrition, and also the monolith itself would literally just crush you).

How long was the process before the character reached its final version? (or a version that would be clearly recognizable as the character?)

ohhh man. smeep is kind of the first OC i made for UAO so she's been through a lot!

id say i mostly got her personality down after like ,, a few weeks? but idk maybe i have big revelations down the line.

the hater is SO new so im not fully confident saying that this is like, fully recognisable as him, but i think figuring out that hes from the other side of the civil war and is now double-crossing god was pretty good. oh wait no its the way he interacts with humans. 1000% its the way he interacts with humans. hes genuinely so funny. i also got that after a few weeks of thinking about him so. i guess im just good at characters

Do you have a playlist for the character? What songs do you associate with them and why?

i ,,, do not have playlists for any of them :( i stopped using spotify and that was my main playlist-making-motivation so. no playlist unforch.

wait no i have one very old unfinished smeep playlist. yknow what here

as for songs i associate with them, a lot of rw songs are a good bet just because of how cool they are. big open, vast unlife, random gods… really does evoke the feeling of a being many, many times more powerful than you. which (post-rapture) is what smeep and

i associate a lot of the lorns lure OST with UAO in general since lorns lure is what caused me to create UAO in the first place.

OH YEAH ALICEBAND. home by aliceband is a .. very smeep song.

Are there any motifs or symbols associated with the character? How are they represented, in their design, personality or in some other way?

so smeep is actually on the structural exploration & research departments logo, and i think her team would associate her with eyes, but she otherwise doesnt really have motifs or symbols.

the hater also has a symbol he associates with that he'd plaster everywhere on his structure/s (its kind of weird saying "his structure" because he IS the structure but he also is a hivemind. boy why are you so annoying to describe), which is the symbol of the opposing side in the structures civil war (i.e, the side that god was trying to get rid of). but nobody actually knows what that symbol means except for him. (and other structures that were there but he's not intending to meet any of them until hes guaranteed to win.)

i do think he'd put a bunch of other symbols on himself though, both to make himself feel pretty and to freak out the humans. (it is WEIRD when the unknown, oddly behaved structure that is in charge of your entire life starts decorating itself with skulls)

(ask game here!)

[noonaishere]

Masterlist of Older Works

These are all fics I wrote in 2020 and before.

I have tumblr versions of these on my main blog, symphonyofmars, but something happened with one of them where I fucked up some formatting or something and like half of a chapter repeats itself. I fixed it on AO3 but not here, so I'm only putting the AO3 links and I recommend reading them all there.

The works that are 18+ are clearly marked.

Redemption [Deucalion] (18+)

2016-2018

🌶️🔥Smut🔥🌶️

Fic type: traditional style

Pairing: Deucalion x fem!OC

Genre: Teen Wolf, canon complaint (mostly), AU (that starts after season 4), OCs

Warnings: paranormal violence, SMUT

Status: Finished

Ever since being let go by Scott and Derek, Deucalion has been in hiding. Except for the mercenary Braden, he hasn’t had contact with anyone in months and no one knows where he is.

Meanwhile, Scott and his pack are enjoying one of Beacon Hills’ rare quiet periods, but that is about to change. A grisly corpse is found and the hunt is on to figure out who – or what – the killer is before they can kill again.

House of the Dead [Malachi]

2018

Fic type: traditional style

Pairing: Malachi x fem!OC

Genre: Riverdale, AU, flashback, character past

Warnings: (none really, since it ended before things really got started)

Status: Unfinished but abandoned

This fic takes place after season 2. Malachi seemed like he was spiraling further out of control, but there was a time in his life where he wasn't. What was missing that made him so unhinged? How did the Ghoulies form and who formed it? And anyway, who doesn’t want to be the most powerful woman in the room?

[Sorry, this one is never getting finished. I liked writing this, but it was an experiment to see if I could return to a work every week to update it and the conclusion was: I can't. Writing a fic all at once like a book is the way to go, for me. It was also originally going to have smut, but I was editing Cold Hands Warm Heart at the same time as writing this, and that one ended up winning all my attention in the end. I do want to repurpose some of the OCs for an original book (and maybe even this version of Malachi since he's so OOC per the show), so they at least won't go to waste.]

Cold Hands Warm Heart [Loki] (18+)

2018-2020

🌶️🔥Smut🔥🌶️

Fic type: traditional style

Pairing: Loki x fem!reader

Genre: MCU, Marvel Comic Universe, AU, heroes (and characters I like) never die

Warnings: assault, extraterrestrial violence, copious amounts of fashion descriptions, raging against the machine, existential crises/angst, sass, SMUT, BDSM

Status: Finished

From my AO3 descrip: "This fic takes place in some weird space after Infinity War in which Loki didn’t die and had just faked his death AGAIN, because I refuse to believe he’s dead." So it's canon compliant up until a certain point lol.

Three Weeks [Henry Cavill]

2020

Fic type: traditional style

Pairing: Henry Cavill x fem!reader

Genre: real life AU

Warnings: none, mentions of quarantine and coronavirus

Status: Finished

The Reader is a script writer on The Witcher 2 and begins a budding romance with the lead actor, Henry Cavill. However, coronavirus is going around and no one is prepared. Love in the Time of Corona?

[This is partly inspired by all the footage of people finding ways to deal with the quarantine I saw at the time, and partly by the way the first season of The Witcher was told where; Geralt was in the past and Ciri was in the present (did I get that right? lol) and the two timelines overlapped at a particular point. It left me wanting to try doing that, you can be the judge of if I succeeded lol.]

Anyway, that's them. If you decide to read them, please comment 😊 I know they're old, but I still like hearing what people have to say, it gives me motivation 😊

Enjoy! 🥰🥰🥰

[emotionally-charged-arson]

A Very, Very Unfinished Pile of Theory of Everything Headcanons (Ayreon)

Last semester, my English final was a presentation relating the overall theme of the Forever saga to that of the more popular works of H.G. Wells. Details of that argument aside, the thesis was that Ayreon’s emotional core was the presence of small-scale acts of love juxtaposed against large-scale existential tragedy, balanced in their individual power. That we are messy and self-destructive, and in the grand scheme of things we mean very little in the universe, but we are resilient and alive and human and that has to be worth something.

I really like this aspect of the main story, and it got me a perfect score on that assignment. It had a ten minute time limit and I was fighting for my life to stay under it. While I was downsizing the script, I couldn’t help but think of an earlier idea I had drafted about how The Theory of Everything on its own was a really incredible example of the mad scientist archetype turned completely on its head (it was a science-fiction analysis class). Specifically how that script was almost three times longer than the original H.G. Wells one, that took me a solid twenty minutes to read aloud. 

I literally wrote an hour long lecture about The Theory of Everything. No headcanons. No extra theories. Literally just picking apart its canon plot. 

I think this is why I have so little extra writing for it. The story as its given is airtight and just…fucking incredible. Arjen wrote it with a very clear theme in mind like he did with Transitus, but TToE isn’t missing half of its story because he couldn’t pull in the cash to make a movie out of it. You can feel the intention behind every single character, they feel like real people, it has so many layers to it and it is literally, objectively, the greatest prog album ever made. Fight me. 

But anyways: For lack of better phrasing, there isn’t much to “fix” in that sense. Almost all the headcanons I have for The Source or Transitus boil down to a few things:

I was being self-indulgent with a favorite character and it snowballed into a genuinely informative trait/subplot that informs the main story (a certain hc I have where Henry just fucking shoots Daniel in the back by mistake sometime between Two Worlds and Talk of the Town, turning into this weirdly effective commentary of how Daniel is conditioned to his brother’s shitty behavior and Abby hauling ass to get him out of that headspace)

I am curious about aspects of an album’s worldbuilding and get a little excited while filling in the blanks that were perfectly fine being left alone (doing mental gymnastics trying to build a version of The Source where these five academics, three politicians, two religious figures, one robot and one random spaceman viably know each other)

The rarer option that I am genuinely disappointed by how a part of the story was handled and completely ignore this small part of canon to make the overall story be more effective. Or attempt it, at least (Lavinia’s entire character undermining Transitus’ themes and her contradicting her own motivations, and me, in turn, just writing her character from scratch while keeping with the basic story beats [her seeing ghosts, doing shady shit with Henry, etc.])

But with TToE I’ve felt very little need to do any of these. If I were to really dive into it with intention I think I would start building off of the whole bank robbery plot in Phase III (just a slightly weirdly framed plot point for me), but I haven’t thought about it. It’s not that glaring of an issue and there’s few other places in the story where I think adding anything would make it more effective. 

This isn’t to say that Transitus and The Source are objectively worse in any sense, but they leave a lot more up to interpretation, allowing me to write so many add ons that they become structured and essential to each other’s function. 

It’s fun with those two albums. With TToE I really have to look for cracks to fill and it’s kind of useless. 

Not entirely, though. I’ve got a few hcs, and maybe they’ll warrant dozens of google doc pages of context one day like the other two albums: 

Two central things sparked curiosity. Setting, and how the parent characters came to hate each other that much. Naturally. 

This started four-ish years ago when I was pacing around my parents’ house with TToE on the mind (as it often is), and my brother put on this show called His Dark Materials. I watched the intro to it all of one time and just…knew this was the aesthetic TToE should have.🔗 At least combined with dark academia. It’s an album about physics and ghosts, that seems reasonable enough. 

…funnily enough, as I later found out, His Dark Materials itself has a very dark-academia-esque vibe, and the plot is entirely based upon the intersectionality between science and mysticism and trivial human attempts to make sense of it. 

So. Pretty fitting. 

This really stuck with me, and a handful of the characteristics of the show and books became the basis for the way I picture The Theory of Everything. Mainly the visual aesthetic, like I said, but also the fact that the story starts at a parallel version of Oxford University. I don’t have some giant case study for this like with Transitus/New England. I just think it’d be a cool and vibey setting. Maybe it’s the American in me but there’s something about a thousand-year-old college with a campus made of literal goddamn castles that borders on the fantastic. 

From there, you have a decent excuse for The Prodigy to run off to Ireland, where you can choose from one of like 200 different pretty little isolated lighthouses for him to lose his mind in, far enough away for him not to be found as long as he did. Not to mention it lowkey matches with the overt Celtic influence of the music. Or Scotland, if you want some weather symbolism from the North Sea. 

Solid setting, if I say so myself, and it actually influenced the family’s whole situation. Here, The Father (Mike) is a physics professor at Oxford, and The Mother (Cristina) is the director of the Bodleian Library. It’s how and where they meet in 1991 (though the mother is in an attendant position at the time), as shown by the only part of this I have drawn out:

They hit it off, and marry in 1993. Their first and only child is born two years later and they love him half to death. Everything is more or less nice and normal. 

In 1996, Mike stumbles into “proof,” more or less, of the theory of everything being a singular, solvable equation through his work, practically by accident, and begins focused work on it with enthusiastic support from his wife. Life is going great, Cristina is promoted and the two are balancing things well enough. 

The boy shows little to no social development into his toddler years, but his parents don’t think much of it. His father was similar at his age; they’re not worried. They even go as far to say he’ll turn out just as ambitious and smart as his dad and relatives, coworkers and family friends go along with it, setting insanely high expectations for this literal three year old. Mike keeps working on his theory. 

The boy enters preschool at age four; still no improvement. Just isolates himself and draws indiscernible patterns on everything you put in front of him. His parents finally try to intervene to some degree, hiring private instructors and talking with some other psych/child development people they know through the university, to no avail. Nothing changes. He just stares off into space, doesn’t interact with any of them and supposedly doesn’t pay attention to lessons. He still isn’t speaking. Cristina is finally concerned

Around the same time, Mike makes a significant breakthrough in his work, gaining worldwide attention. He receives massive grants from in and outside of Oxford to continue his work, and quits his teaching job to make more time for the endeavor. Cristina is left as the family’s sole provider. She understands and is in agreement on that decision, that’s not the problem yet. The problem is that Mike is becoming more or less indifferent to their son hits five, not seeing any previously projected greatness he was supposed to have in his father’s footsteps. Cristina, much more conscious of balance in her life and how having kids works, isn’t sure what to make of that. Their relationship starts to strain. 

From there, as Mike keeps working, Cristina takes the kid to all sorts of specialists around England but none of them can pinpoint what’s “wrong” with him. She tries much more actively to connect with him like they’re telling her to (though she still enrolls him in the university’s affiliated primary school program, against their suggestions), bringing him everywhere. Buys him little memory games since that’s all that seems to hold his attention. She’s past any belief of him being some secret genius like his dad, not that her opinion of her husband is super positive at this point anyway. She’s just dead-set on her son having some sense of normal in his life. 

By 2002, Mike has completely secluded himself and works nearly constantly. He has made no progress on his theory since 1999 and the fame garnered from his breakthrough has faded. The family is running out of money and Cristina is exhausted. The boy is ostracized at school and still (almost) totally nonverbal. Her coworkers keep suggesting these weird holistic remedies that she refuses. She knows better than to fall for all that new age, pyramid scheme bullshit. 

The son’s condition, whatever it is, worsens until mom, desperate, puts her foot down in 2008 (or “gives up,” if you wanna put it like that) and drags her husband and son to this private practice in Scotland she was told about by a friend, suspicious but ready to put up with anything at this point. 

😐👍

[strayheartless]

I feel like with witch Genesis, they

a) have LEGITIMATE CLAWS they always have to trim to regular nail size/sharpness in order to not shank any of their lovers or ruin any books

and b) are naturally a seduction witch.

(this particular he is pretty much completely based off of a book series I'm reading these are traits of the main character) (cough cough the first book is called Wit Worthy by Juliann Whicker cough cough)

but ANYWAYS. they'd just be naturally a witch who's magic is mainly seduction based (tho he definitely has more) but a lot of it is activated/ used best when they use their voice, aka sings or READS ALOUD

omg that could be why they recite Loveless so much

but they could probably compell people to do things, or transfigure them! (and other objects!)

that situation is also from when this mob of people were chucking things like tomatoes at Wit, and as she sang, she enthralled them while she transformed them all into sheep. to bring them back to being people, she'd kiss their heads an break the spell

^ that's just so Genesis coded to me???

(claw example)

Okay! Sorry I took so long to answer, I have no signal at work otherwise I would have answered in my break!

So! I’ll start by saying this AU is totally up for however you want to interpret it, so however you see Gen, that’s how they are. Skies the limit with this one!

That being said, I’m vibing with these so hard I may change my own law!

1.) Genesis is technically speaking an unfinished Vampire. They were bitten at a party in their early twenties but has never drank blood straight from a live vain so they’re not fully turned. It’s a touchy subject for Genesis because it has still changed a lot about him physically.

For example, this version of Genesis is a vegetarian and has been all their life. Now, however they struggle against blood urges and need to at least have the flavour of blood to satiate the hunger for any extended amount of time.

The idea about him being a seduction witch is amazing. This works so well with the idea that vampires have powers of suggestion! I feel as though this is one of the things Gen has a love hate relationship with because on the one hand, they can use it against people they dislikes or thinks need punished. On the other, they are terrified that they will accidentally use it on one of the boys.

As for the Claws… that going into canon. I think I wrote down somewhere that each of them have a Witch mark.

Seph it was his eyes, obviously

Angeals was moving plant tattoos

Cloud was glowing scars

And I think I wrote Gens was a phoenix wing but I’ve been a fool! Claws it better!

I can absolutely see them staining his fingers when he over works his magic and him being incredibly Vain about them! Maybe Zack was a little frightened at first by the prospect of them in… ahem… certain aspects of their relationship. But Gens had 26 years to know how to take care of them.

I’ll have to look into that book once I’m not swamped with work etc!

Sorry again for missing this! These are awesome ideas!

[the-tmnt-ficfinder]

Ficfinder finds: Built to Kill, Sworn to Protect

Rottmnt Fanfic Summary: Leo always felt a different from his brothers. He was stronger, faster, and more violent than his brothers. Unlike his brothers, he was a natural-born fighter. Thankfully he was good at hiding it. Everything was fine until he did something he'd forever regret and lose the trust of his brothers.

Built to Kill, Sworn to Protect: Appraisal and Ratings

(Don't know what fanfic "Appraisal and Ratings" means? Check out my explanation on my Main Masterpost! Looking for a different fanfic to read? Head on over to my Fanfic List Masterpost!)

Disclaimer: This fanfic is unfinished, and as such, this post will be updated as fanfic updates. This fanfic is written by @arhintess so go show them some love and support!!

The fanfic ratings are not based on quality, favoritism, or how good I think it is, but rather, how intense a subject may be. Like a movie review, or the tags on Ao3, letting the readers know what to expect.

Plot: 💛💛💛🖤🖤

"Plot is three out of five!! The plot for this fic is an interesting one!! The idea of Leo being wildly strong, and having to constantly hold back around his brothers, is an intriguing one!! The plot for this fanfic seems to be following the canon plotline, starting a few years before season 1, then extending into the first episode and so on. Like, a 'what if' version of the classic rottmnt! I'd also have to say, though this is a rottmnt fic, the character traits and personalities are incredibly reminiscent of the 2012 turtles ^^"

Suspense/Mystery: 💛🖤🖤🖤🖤

"Suspense/Mystery is one out of five!! As the plotline follows the canon rottmnt plotline, there isn't a lot of mystery nor suspense. This story is much more of a 'what if' type story.

Angst/Hurt: 💛💛🖤🖤🖤

"Angst/Hurt is two out of five!! While this fic does have a good amount of hurt in it, none of it is wildly overwhelming, nor extremely triggering. It has a good blend of hurt, just enough to make it intriguing!"

Fluff/Comfort: 💛💛🖤🖤🖤

"Fluff/Comfort is two out of five!! This fic has the same amount of comfort that it has of hurt. An even balance of the both!!"

Emotions Conveyed: 💛🖤🖤🖤🖤

"Emotions Conveyed is one out of five!! This fanfic is not on the immersive side, and will not mess with your head horribly. Instead, this fanfic is fun to read, and follow along with!! Less of the type of fanfic you read to feel something intense, but rather the type you read to enjoy a good story plot!!"

Drama/Tension Level: 💛💛💛🖤🖤

"Drama/Tension Level is three out of five!! In this fic, there is a lot of tension, especially between Leo and his brothers. His brothers don't trust him, and Leo doesn't feel welcome around them, making for a very tense atmosphere indeed!!"

Triggers: 💛💛🖤🖤🖤

"Triggers are two out of five!! This fanfic does touch on a few sensitive subjects, like sibling abuse (though it is accidental) and family neglect, along with some injuries. However, nothing so far has been very graphic."

Legibility (Reading): 💛💛💛🖤🖤

"Legibility (Reading) is three out of five!! Quite the enjoyable read!! Each chapter runs slightly on the shorter side, and while it is enjoyable to read, there are a few typos and grammatical issues that may be distracting to some folks. But if you're someone who doesn't mind at all, the plot is highly enjoyable, and very much worth a read!"

Legibility (Audio): 💛💛💛🖤🖤

"Legibility (Audio) is three out of five! Same as for reading, once again, very enjoyable to listen to! Now, also once again, those grammatical errors can be quite distracting in audio book form, but once again, if you're someone who doesn't mind, this fic is a wonderful read!!"

Length: 💛💛🖤🖤🖤

"Length is two out of five!! Currently Built to Kill, Sworn to Protect has a word count of 15.5k words, and about less than 10 chapters, though that will change as the story progresses."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Built to Kill, Sworn to Protect: Chapter List

(Chapters will be added as I rate and appraise them ^^)

(Yet to be added)

[pisscreant]

Oh before I forget: below, I have infodumped about three unfinished semi 'crack treated seriously' post-game canon-noncompliant ideas. I once planned to post them, but prob won't use the ideas here any time soon. They all involve trying to prevent the apocalypse and breaking the story/game while doing so.

They're free for you to do with as you please. Use the whole idea or tiny parts. Go nuts, because I sure did! (& again, pleeeease mention me and link me so that one day I might be able to come read!!) Message this blog or email me at artiesanscheese@proton.me !!!

Fic One: Midnight, the Stars and You v2

I wanted to play with the fact that the UI is a FELD tape computer. In this fic, the player starts editing save files to help Harry navigate The Return, much to his confusion and existential horror.

Fic Two: Volta Brackets (or the Grandpa Piss Saga)

This was my darling batshit incoherent mess. I jumped the shark, and I had fun doing it.

The 'case' part of the casefic wasn't figured out yet. I wanted to explore The Return and alternate timelines/averting or delaying the apocalypse, ect. I have no idea how the fuck I planned to actually accomplish that.

It's written from main Harry's pov. The twist I had fun was with a shady old man character dubbed 'Grandpa Piss' skulking around. Shivers and other Skills mention his activities and he shows up here and there.

It turns out that's a time-travelling older version of Harry trying to prevent the apocalypse. His stats are maxed, his morals have blurred, and despite it all he still just wants to save everyone By All Means Necessary.

A less concrete idea I considered adding to this verse involved old man Harry intentionally getting ZA/UM'ed and psychic judo-ing his moralintern interrogator so their minds switch places. So alternate body-snatching Harry slowly loses his humanity by abandoning his timeline, gta-ing some dude's body and terrifying represent timeline Harry and Kim.

Idk it was a card I had up my sleeve that I loved. Grandpa Piss was some kind of personification of how I was twisting DE into something unrecognisable, but I had too much unironic fun with him. Something something 'organ thief', doppelganger, body snatcher.

Fic Three: From You It Will Spread

Harry's mind-reading powers and Shivers checks bleed over to Kim. Then to more and more of their friends. Steadily, the number grows. Revachol hivemind time! I just had fun with Harry psychically dming Kim during cases, as well as the Skills being able to talk to Kim as well. Writing Kim noticing some things that the Skills say and prompting them to elaborate was also fun. The growing prescence of Revachol being a hivemind was also interesting to try and write. Funnier still was to write it like an eldritch group chat with Revachol as the mod. My main two goals were: 1. Write weird but cute KimHarry psychic connection and maybe nasty af sex. 2: To enable my boys to directly beam their annoying selves into the minds of their friends and coworkers.

Anyway that's it! Have fun!

[vacantgodling]

LOQUACIOUS IS SUCH A GOOD WORD I WANNA SEE THAT ONE PLSSSS

AHHHH YEAH!!

so loquacious is an exploratory piece that i wrote in the hell year (2020) when i was just beginning to think i should shift vdtrt into what it is now. it wasn’t even CLOSE to where it is today BUT i was definitely thinking about softening gabe up—gabe actually used to be much angrier and gruffer in earlier versions of his character but after awhile it just didn’t feel right. so this piece is from his perspective and it’s talking about how darren is, well, loquacious (or very talkative lol) but with a caveat: he only seems talkative around him.

in some ways this is still somewhat canon. darren is a person who prefers to kickback and let others lead social interactions but around people he’s close with (like olice and like, now, gabe) he tends to talk a Lot because he feels comfortable to. actually in a lot of ways darren mirrors Me personally because i’m p chill but if i know you well i will absolutely talk your ear off, my partner can attest to this.

i never finished it tho, but i can show you what i wrote! so without further ado (also don’t mind some of the more specific details; some info is Wrong or has been retconned)

It always struck Gabe— how absolutely, incessantly, unmitigatedly talkative Darren was. Or at least, how talkative he was with him. Gabe was never much someone for breaking the silence unless he absolutely had to, but there was something about his boyfriend that loosened his tongue and eased off his usually closed shell.

When they lay together, limbs curled around one another like two overgrown cats and Gabe looked into his dark eyes and wound his fingers through his coarse hair; it occurred to him often that he’d just tune out whatever nonsense Darren was saying. About the weather, about the time, the timing of the weather and the reason for it; about the class that they shared that they both hated, or the classes they didn’t and he was curious about. He could seemingly ramble on and on about nothing, and Gabe would let him, interjecting in his chatter to murmur his opinion or hum in understanding every now and again. He wasn’t a bad boyfriend— sometimes he tuned the bloodsucker out but he was always listening.

The only reason it occurred to him at all that Darren was so talkative, was that, unless they were alone, he was oddly quiet. Rather than not having anything to say, he just took the back seat and listened.

Granted, the two of them did have very outspoken friends. Their respective best friends in particular (Michaelis for him and Marco for Darren) were two of the most opinionated, talkative people that Gabe knew— and he knew his father. Still, instead of joining in on their chatter, Darren was content to ‘kick his feet back’ and ‘enjoy the view.’

He listened when others talked and listened well, and it wasn’t as though their friends didn’t encourage him to talk— the opposite— they always hounded him to speak up more but he’d laugh it off and say “Well you all already know what I’m going to say!”

They didn’t. Not by a long shot.

Because Darren talked about everything and nothing. About small details people wouldn’t expect he’d notice, about deep philosophies that Gabe wasn’t even aware that he’d known. About inconsequential things about why does pasta taste like that (with his nose wrinkling) […]

##

the end tapers off into an unfinished sentence unfortunately lol. but the main bit of retconned info is michaelis existing bc he doesn’t anymore he kinda got absorbed into estel lol. also the classes bit bc it’s more focused on the roadtrip than the school like the old wip used to be. but i do still like this piece! it’s more recent so the style is much better than my older works LOL

vdtrt taglist (ask to be + / -):

@mjjune / @coven-archives / @henrike-does-writing-sometimes

[hiemaldesirae]

please. I'm begging you for more crumbs about VADD!Shen Jiu and also that Roxana AU you have from that art post you did of the two.

As a VADD AND SVSSS fan, especially as a fan of the original villains— please. I AM FROTHING AT THE MOUTH FOR MORE. I'm actually in the process of outlining a crossover with the original goods of both.

God, the Roxana one as well— please, PLEASE TELL ME SJ IS ROXIE HE'S SO ROXANA-CODED SOMEHOW. GIVE HIM BUTTERFLIES AND POISON AND— *gets knocked out*

by the way, LOVE your artstyle. scratches an itch i did not know existed in my brain. your chibis as well. they're so cute!!

oh you have no idea how long ive waited to talk about them. this mayyy get a bit long so ill leave it under the readmore.

disclaimer: i intend on finishing these fics so what im going to be talking about is inspirations and unfinished / abandoned ideas and other ideas i have for the works instead of anything relating to the plots themselves

for svadd, sj is a lot more complicated than he appears to be on the surface. im not so sure if what i have written currently is what i /want/ exactly because i know i want his character to go a certain way. the relationships between him and his modern-day friends is one meant to parallel the in-game "shen qingqiu" sj compares himself to and in much the same way, mirror the way that sy contrasts himself with sqq in canon: but instead of being condescending and viewing sqq as a one dimensional character, sj is able to appreciate his nuance while still being rightfully angry over his actions

to me, sj is supposed to be an unreliable narrator who constantly enforces his own thoughts. he tells himself over and over that he misses his home and that he wants to go back, that he absolutely needs to- but then, he turns the other way and finds himself being sucked even deeper into this different one.

i also really wanted to explore how sjs dynamic with a lot of the characters would be affected knowing that they were "based off" his real friends, but again im not very confident with how it came off lol

there was a lot of points in the story where i attempted to add in foreshadowing for the ending i want the story to take... in any case, it definitely wont go the same way as vadd, though i did toy with the idea of a "version" of sy being the main villain haha

(it might still happen for shits and giggles)

as for the roxanna au there are a lot of things ive wanted to do with this au and its good that i havent posted because it means i can keep revising til i come up with something good lol

its a liujiu au with some bingyuan / cumplane thrown into the mix (the cumplane is overwhelmingly toxic btw bingyuan is the healthy one out of the two here 😭) where yes sj is xana !!! he really just makes such a good manhwa villainess haha

i had been puzzling over what i wanted his motif to be-- after all, sj is typically associated with the simplicity and calming bamboo so the glittering butterflies wouldnt work with him- but after some deliberation i decided with using moths for him :3c still subject to change ofc but i think im happy with this as is

the story is somewhat similar to how roxanna goes but surprise sj isnt the transmigrator here! (and honestly, roxanna wouldve been sm better if xana hadnt been a transmigrator... or maybe i just think that because it was only used as a convenient plot point for her to know crucial info. sigh.)

my outline of how the roxanna au goes is basically this:

lqg fucks around and finds out

sj who has been seeing dreams of the "book" sy read knows what will happen to his family if lqg dies

etc

at the same time: sy, transmigrator, attempts to make sure his only surviving older brother lives to a long happy life and the only way he can secure this is by fucking up that hack author

also i killed off qi-ge and idk if i want him to come back. he'll be like the stereotypical dead anime mother for this au lmao

hmm and i think thats all i have to say for these aus... thanks for giving me a chance to ramble on haha ~ much appreciated !! and thank you for the compliment, im flattered!! 🥹🥹💕

[branmuffins22]

Moots said they wanna hear about WIPs and I feel like I gotta get this brainrot out anyways so HERE I GO

I've only got three projects I'm actively working on right now, all of which are Owl House fanfics, although I've got ideas here and there for other things (video games I might've made if I weren't so burnt out, ttrpg characters that might need their own goddamn settings and stories to themselves, a Code Lyoko fanfic, music (mostly loads of disconnected song lyrics), 3D avatars, etc).

The Owl House fanfics in question are three(-ish?) fold:

Theseus Who?, a mostly-canon-compliant 5+1 post-titanification headcanon compilation that DOESN'T just let Luz keep her titan form (mostly it's just a bunch of changes along the lines of when Hunter's eyes changed color after Flapjack saved him). - It's actually sort of a tie-in to another, bigger fic I'm writing that's gonna be point 2, so you can assume anything mentioned in this one will happen throughout the timeline of the next one as well. - I've currently already got the 5 written, so now I just need to buckle down and finish the +1, unless I decide to do another sweep of edits (I think the excessive parentheticals might be too excessive). - - I only started it like a week ago, and I've been waiting for motivation to strike again to let me finish it for like half that time.

Masha and the Very Normal Nocedas, a mostly-canon-compliant sorta-multimedia veesha longfic based on the dramatic irony of Masha slowly driving themself nuts trying to piece together what the Deal is with Luz, Vee, and the rest of the Nocedas. - by "sorta-multimedia" i mean its got plaintext segments describing the story, journal segments of Masha recounting events as they remember them and trying to organize their thoughts, chat segments when the characters interact over text, and possibly more if I feel the Need. - I've only outlined the three prologue chapters and the following intermission, only have snippets and vague ideas for scenes for the main bulk of the fic itself, and have only actually written two of the prologue chapters and the intermission. - - won't start posting it until I at least get the third prologue chapter done, so I've got a usable buffer. Hopefully that'll be sooner rather than later.

The Overthinker AU (or "The Artificer AU"? name is also very much a work in progress), a canon rewrite that I think I'll actually split into a bunch of shorter "episodes", so I can appropriately tag each one, rather than tagging one monolithic fic with Everything Under The Sun. The basic premise is "what if The Owl House, but there's more time", both in the meta sense of "not bound by the 20-minute TV episode format" and the diegetic sense of "the broad-strokes plot of the show will happen over a longer in-universe period of time" (though I'm a bit stuck on just how much more time I want to give em). - for the most part, I wanted to put more emphasis on Luz's magical development, and extrapolate a somewhat wider magic system out of what we see in the show, but I also want to go into more detail on how her actions affect those around her, even outside of all the friends she makes (stuff along the lines of the little things the crowd mentioned while protesting Eda's petrification at the end of season 1). - I'm almost (reluctantly) thinking of pulling a Grapes of Wrath with it, structure-wise, by having main plot/character development chapters alternate with shorter intermissions focused on magical exploration, worldbuilding, and so on. - this project is currently just the scribblings of a madwoman in my private discord server and three wildly unfinished fics in my google docs folder - - one of these fics is Something Like a Bible, which is essentially a condensed version of the entire broader project, boiled down to bare plot and occasional commentary. Like a series outline and a plot synopsis rolled into one, though perhaps not quite the series bible it claims to be. - - - honestly I REALLY aughtta work on this one some more, just so I can get most of the Big Ideas out of my head and share them with people. - - the other two fics are currently untitled snippets of scenes from the project, one a sentimental/instructional note from Eda to Luz, and the other sort of a ragefic twist on the ending of Thanks to Them. - this project is gonna include tons of ideas from and allusions to other fics which inspired it/me, such as The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled by IdeaHunter, All that's at Stake by The_Lampman, and Decorative by TheTokenAro, to name a few. - I could make a whole post about this project on its own (and in fact, I have before), talking about all the little changes I'd make, the developments I'd include, the more sweeping changes, the additional themes I'd toss in, and so on, but there are some I REALLY don't think fit well into the "rambling tumblr post" format (and/or just don't want to spoil yet), so I shall Abstain (for now :P).

[fountainpenguin]

Who were you rooting for to win in each finale of Total Drama (including Ridonculous Race)?

?? It has literally never occurred to me to root for someone while I watch. TIL.

[Disclaimer - I do like Total Drama but this post involves me talking about ships and characters I don't like; I don't like putting that kind of stuff in the tags. I'm not disabling reblogs but please only reblog if you like this post and not because you want to fight; I'm just answering an Ask]

R-Race was the only one that left me truly "Aw man" about it. The characters who are my favorites to watch vs. those who I would expect and/or desire the narrative to reward with my author eyes are absolutely different, ha ha.

So for those who don't know, in the first 3 seasons (maybe more?), the two finalists each have an ending, and different endings air in different countries (I believe they were determined by voting on the Total Drama website during the final week).

All my TD 'fics take place in the same universe and the canon winners in my storyline were Owen, Duncan (who felt guilt-ridden about it, which was the plot of my one-shot "Chris Missed"), Heather, Cameron, Zoey, Shawn... I didn't post any R-Race 'fics beyond the opening bits of Lions Under Palm Trees, but I remember being disappointed by the winners. But that's more because I dislike Geoff with a fiery passion than anything else.

The characters I would argue are the narrative's main characters of their season... I would say Gwen for Island, Duncan for Action, Cody for World Tour, Mike for Revenge, Zoey for All-Stars, Jasmine for Pahkitew, and the cops for Race. Those aren't necessarily the people I personally want to be winners; just saying I think that's who the writers liked a lot and it showed.

World Tour was my first season; I was exposed to it by a sibling listening to it in the same room as me (which also means Aleheather came out of NOWHERE for me because it was purely audio exposure and missed all the small visual cues and I thought they just hated each other... I mean, I've rewatched the series several times since then and I still dislike this ship because I feel like it came out of nowhere and I don't feel any love between them, but idk how much of that was influenced by my first non-visual exposure to their relationship. And just because it's a NOTP for me, that doesn't mean I consider it non-canon... but that's how I write all my 'fics when my NOTPs are canon, so).

I was definitely exposed to the World Tour versions of Courtney's, Heather's, Cody's, Ezekiel's, and Noah's personalities before their Island selves, which I think influences my interest in them as characters in the prequels. Hands down TDWT favorite season, absolutely no contest for me. Pahkitew is close second, though.

I think Cody's the only character I would consider myself to be "rooting for" during a season. The concept of a character who got mauled by a bear in his first season, had to sit out the second season, then finally comes back and gets a fangirl who is obsessed with him to the point that he can barely participate in half the challenges because she is In The Way is SO funny. I also feel like Cody suffered more than most characters on the show due to the combo of bear mauling and having his boundaries consistently violated... He deserved a win. I know he's already a rich kid but I don't care.

In no particular order, my favorite characters in the series are Ezekiel, Eva, Noah, Leonard, Topher, Max, Dwayne Junior, and the Adversity Twins, but I wouldn't describe myself as rooting for them... they got as much screen time as they needed to. Leonard and Topher are some of the best characters I've ever seen in media though, I love them so much <3 To this day, I've never loved writing a character as much as I've loved writing Leonard. He's SO funny and he's a goofy little angel. I have so many unfinished Leonard drafts... I'd love to finish those 'fics someday, but I just don't have time to do everything.

I don't know what current fandom opinions on Topher are, but back when Pahkitew was airing, my quip to my siblings was that "Topher is so manipulative, he even fooled the fandom into thinking he's not as bad as he is." That kid played up the manipulative angle to look shallow on purpose... to hide the fact that he legitimately was super manipulative. He's fantastic. I haven't seen Pahkitew in about 7 years so a fresh watch might affect me differently, but... man. Topher, my absolute beloved.

(In my 'verse Topher is the son of Don (the R-Race host) which means he was just chilling around the elimination area in my R-Race elimination 'fic Lions Under Palm Trees, and man... my love for "character who lives in a hotel, doesn't have either of his parents around, who has mostly been left to care for himself, and he looks up to his dad with stars in his eyes despite also being the most manipulative slimeball in the world..." He's horrific, wants you to think he's a cinnamon roll but can and will absolutely destroy you just because he's bored... I love that 'fic draft so much.)

One of my favorite R-Race teams was also the couple who was super mushy at the start and then started fighting all the time (I think their names were Ryan and Stephanie, but it's been years so I might be wrong). I didn't feel attached to them as characters but I loved how they were portrayed, if that makes sense. My family were big fans of Amazing Race for years (used to watch it weekly) and we watched the second half of R-Race together as a family. We were crying laughing about how accurate their fighting was to the couples who actually participate in Amazing Race. Absolutely 10/10 characterization. No notes.

I don't know if any of that answers your original question, but that's kind of all I have to say. I liked characters who did neat things, but if they weren't competitive enough to fight for victory then they did not deserve to and I would have been mad if they ended up in the finals despite not being a good player. If you're weak then you deserve to go home like the weak links you are <3

I root for "being fun to watch" I guess. And Cody in World Tour.

(Zeke deserved better but also I wouldn't change his World Tour arc for a second. Becoming blinded with obsession to the point that you literally become a twisted, feral version of yourself and start hunting the other characters down and that's it, that's your character arc is the best thing I've ever seen. That moment of quietly cold, calculated, absolutely suppressed fury on Zeke's face after he kidnaps Chris in "All Stars" and Chris is monologuing about every horrible thing he's ever done to Zeke is my everything. That moment when you see what a broken human he's become. That moment he realizes Chris doesn't care he's hurting and doesn't want to help him because feral Zeke is "good content." I need everyone to understand.)

[hp-lonesome-actual-art]

Hey hey so uh…this has been collecting dust in the digital photo album for a long while. I made it back in 2020 as a fun little personal project to try and encapsulate the silly story shenanigans within a fictional multi-fandom roleplay thing I did alongside my cousin. Originally it was just for fun and animating the events from the previous year, however I began to work on it as a Christmas gift for her. It was never finished as is VERY obvious given how the beginning is mostly talking without any visuals…I never got around to doing that part lol. Worked on different audio sections spontaneously so most of the actual animating happens somewhere in the middle. However I recall showing snippets of the animation process with my cousin, so she was able to see some of the work regardless of the completion.

I believe I was either 14 or turned 15 at the time of making this (my birthday is very close to the end of the year so it’s hard to gauge). And it was left unfinished when my cousin died early on in 2021 (she was at the age of 16). I don’t expect anyone else to make sense of what I’m talking about, given how it’s very much an inside joke we created between us and never meant to be shared from an outside perspective. However I haven’t had anyone else to reminisce over these events with and it’s saddening knowing this is a chapter of my life which will always be neglected going forward, due to how in depth the narrative was and the difficulty of getting others to understand it. Even the way I recorded this explanation/audio is very janky and not put together concisely despite being a recap. So sort of stuck in a scatterbrained state for the rest of my life lol

The main point of it all is just….absurd crackship fanfiction-esque character interactions and relationship building. But on a personal note, it means a great deal to me. Because unabashedly making up wacky stories was what made my childhood feel so vibrant and what connected me to my cousin for so many years. It encouraged me to follow my passions of storytelling and character building, and to not take life so seriously. Just indulge in what makes you happy and don’t be afraid to share those passions with others. We both shared a strong attachment to My Little Pony growing up as well as other online fandoms, and I’m grateful for the short lived time I spent with her talking about those shared interests

Then of course, there’s this other one I actually posted to my YouTube in 2021 albeit very subtlety to not garner attention. I’ve been purposely obscuring it from online perception because I’m terrified of the judgments others would place on me. I know people aren’t welcoming of seeing a character they recognize being misconstrued into a different world and with a different story then what is canonically accepted. I get that this is more like an original character scenario and not attached to how he (Snatcher) typically is viewed. So please be aware of that. This was a personal project I spent a shit ton of time on through the school year and made it as a way of coping with the loss whilst expressing appreciation for what could have been. Honestly I don’t know how I managed to color so many frames from it. But it’s also a neat time capsule to see how much I’ve improved animating since then, and a lot of the credit goes to the dedication of making this

Another thing to point out is that I had no fucking clue how to color Snatcher and it shows lol. His expressions are a bit hard to see at some points due to not giving him proper lighting to balance the dark color. But hey that’s fine, like I said this was the most ambitious I had ever gotten for a project and I’ve learned a lot from it. But most importantly was that I got it done as a tribute to her life and these characters we loved <3

Although yeah uh….the version I posted on YouTuber prior to this (“Tribute to Quincy”) had some sort of editing issue I was unaware of until the next day. The animation got corrupted and was glitching in footage, and that sent me into an anxiety attack for a couple hours. I was uncontrollably sobbing myself to sleep that night or so, because the building paranoia that my relatives watched the video made me feel overly vulnerable and fearful even more-so then online strangers watching it. So I don’t think I was in a good mental place to have made the animation public back then, even with the various precautions I took. The video glitching was just the final straw. Think I avoided animating a while afterwards too. So uh….just to say that the intended heartfelt meaning behind the animation got distorted from those events and now is a strange mixture of shame and love whenever I watch it again. I think my perfectionism was just eating me alive at the time, and I felt like I’d let my deceased cousin down somehow? Or that people would only have a surface level understanding of the deeper meaning I wanted to portray. Idk I was operating on a lot of faulty logic at the time with my loneliness controlling a lot of my worldview. The only positive is that experience taught me to never force yourself to work hours on end animating on a holiday….because it will make you internally miserable and susceptible to believing falsehoods about yourself and how others perceive you. Also that miserable Christmas was the exact moment I received the epiphany that I’m afraid of judgment. Before that point it was always just an unnamed nagging feeling that I didn’t know how to describe. Anyways point is terrible experience never recommend :P

Hey I’m putting an edit here because it’s occurred to me that there’s this audio I have of my cousins voice discussing the H&Q roleplay story. I’ve kept it close to me for a long while, maybe in the hopes that someday I would animate it like I had for mine. But I think given how my YouTube is around 240+ subs I can’t bring myself to get vulnerable again or release anything more about our roleplay story. Maybe on my secondary channel, but for now I’ve laid it to rest for personal privacy reasons. Anyways this is her voice recording she made in my room when visiting (she’d noticed I was writing down summaries in my sketchbooks and journals about our story and asked if I would let her read it word for word) I gave her the go to use my iPad for it, and I’m grateful I did. Otherwise I’d have no proof that she collaborated with me on these things

Once again, this is all information that was shared only between the two of us. Characters we made up and played around with. It won’t hold much meaning or significance to anyone else, but I still feel the need to share it. Because when else will I ever be allowed to

[juvederm]

this story been a wip since like 2019 maybe even 2018 and i have one version of it completed that i now just call a draft bc it's so incomplete to me even though it's posted on ao3

let me ramble

like if anyone's wondering why josh is such a focal point in my art it's literally bc of this damn story like 😭 i try to draw things that could potentially be a visual or something to be added in the story (ie drawing scenes that may happen or outfits he might wear) in order to keep myself motivated

since he's like the main character of the story, he's all i draw and talk about for the reason i just stated, like i can't allow myself to get unmotivated about this story bc it's been up my ass forever and has about 8 drafts at this point

it's such a hassle mainly bc of the complexities of how josh got the prank to work, the money spent, the routes he took, etc. i'm trying to find all of it to make the story as accurate as possible bc i can't have it not aligned with canon, while also having showing a diff angle of josh that i feel isn't in most ? fics about him ? and if it is, the fic is usually unfinished and untouched or a standalone

i stray away from that common way people used to write josh (or characterize him) as some suave, inappropriate and sometimes flirty dude (which is sooo inaccurate to his character i can't even emphasize that enough). i think he did make sexual jokes simply for the laughs or shock value. i think he does have charisma but not in the Womanizer kind of way that mike has. like josh has charm, but it's not because he's flirty. it's because he has this weird aura to him that makes him interesting, and makes him charming because of how he handles it

and i've said it before, i think it's all a front for him. he's not really like that. he probably dislikes being so fake, but is afraid of judgment and being isolated from others. so he tries to fit in as much as possible. even if it means drinking and partying enough to be called a "party animal" and being described as someone who "outdoes" everyone during drinking contests

i tried painting it as a slow descent for him in the story i'm writing. after he loses his sisters, everything's starting to fall.

best way i can describe josh: a steel tank rolling down a muddy hill that can be derailed by a twig.

i also tried showing his psyche through the clothes he wears. and his two different rooms (his room at his mom's, and his room at his dad's; i think they're divorced so).

his room at his mom's house has a lot more of his interests everywhere. you can definitely tell he's an art kid, movie obsessed introvert if you would walk into his room. he's eccentric when by himself to a degree where it's genuine and not a front. he kinda has an eccentric style as well, but after losing the twins, he loses that spark

when he moves in with his dad however, his room there is incredibly bleak. there's no posters, the spaces are wide, and there's no range in colors. just black, white and sometimes grey, maybe silver. and his clothes devolve to bland white shirts, black pants, black coats, etc. no poppy colors whatsoever. this kinda goes more into the head canon i have about his step mom, who is kind of on the traditional side.

and also when josh moves in with dad, he becomes invested in solitary activities such as painting, gardening or piano. all of which he does when he's completely alone. and painting and piano playing could be a way to vent out his emotions, even then josh tries to suppress it. he's way too used to doing that. but sometimes his artworks show that.

that's another thing. he's always been artistic and obsessed with painting. he had a lot more abstract pieces but as his mental health declined, the paintings became colorless and desaturated, depressing and claustrophobic (and also involved more of his fears like spiders and isolation)

anyways. maybe i should actually write for the story instead of talking about it

[thebroccolination]

Is it okay if you go into greater detail about Win's personality, fears, and insecurities?

OKAY SO.

Win's my favorite character! I love him deeply! And I've been enjoying his character growth in Between Us more than anything.

The interesting thing about following him as a character is that there're different versions of him with similarities and differences: currently unfinished Hemp Rope, his brief appearances in UWMA, the specials, and now the ongoing main series (currently episode four).

His character in Hemp Rope is hard for me to get a read on because we only have unofficial translations and an incomplete story, so a lot of his motivations and emotional interiority are missing nuances.

Here, have the most beautiful image ever drawn of Win, taken from the Twitter account of the official Red Thread mangaka:

Meanwhile, UWMA is tricky as well because as Boun has said, he put a lot of his own personality into the performance because he didn't have a layered character to study. He kind of created his own version of Win out of necessity. He only had about an hour total onscreen, and apart from his stairwell scene giving Dean advice, he didn't have much of an impact on the plot, so he wasn't a central character with a lot of detail.

That said, we got some crucial moments in his scenes with Team that helped us understand what kind of person he is.

So! When I wrote WinTeam fic over the past two and a half years, I used a composite of his characters in Hemp Rope and UWMA. The flirtatious side we see in UWMA, the nurturing side we see in Hemp Rope, etc.

The specials weren't meant to be canon, and honestly someone on here recently called them unofficial workshops, which…yes?! That's a brilliant way to think of them, I think. The feedback they got on the specials (mainly that they were portraying BounPrem more than WinTeam) probably helped them focus their performances in the main series.

So now we're seeing the main series unfold, and since Win has a full development arc to go through now, it's a lot easier for me to see all of these little nuances. He's a full-fledged, multilayered character! One of the leads! YAY FOR MY SON. <3

His core fear seems to be that he's going to be alone forever, and while he seems resigned to it in episode one, he still clearly has some hope by the fact that he's grabbed onto Team with both hands. Even though he also has no idea what to do to keep him, he wants Team.

I think he also has a craving for validation. That "Team helps Win feel wanted" from the synopsis has been an ongoing chant in my head for the past two years, and it's fascinating to see it play out onscreen. I want to see his interactions with his parents before I go too deep into analyzing anything with his family, but it's pretty telling already that no one's actually sat down with View – a sixteen-year-old – and explained what's expected of him. Not until Win did.

Win's mother seems to be the one who nurtures Wan, but then you have scenes where Wan is criticizing both of their parents when he talks to Tul and Win. (Maybe because she doesn't stand up for him strongly enough to his father?) I thought it was fascinating that Wan views Win as the favorite, but he doesn't seem to hold any serious resentment toward him. My guess is it's because of this "rule" Win apparently made up: they're equals to him. Even if their parents have chosen a favorite (unconsciously or not), Win isn't using that leverage over his brothers.

He's even enforced that same equality with food. Maybe it's a conscious or unconscious response to their parents making their favoritism obvious? Or it's just something he thinks is the right thing to do in general. I'm waiting on more scenes with his family, because right now I feel like it could be a number of things.

Basically, my dear Anon, I'm in the middle of a whole new Win Phawin analysis stage. I knew my characterization of him would change with his series, and I'm delighted by what we've gotten so far. :')

I hope this was what you were hoping for!