#and a whole list of other characters that I'm too lazy to write out

[thechalkofultimatedestruction]

I never see anybody talk about how hard it is to write a character that wears a mask/etc that covers a part or all of their face

Showing anger? You can't describe how their jaw clenches or their teeth grind or a vein throbs in their temple.

Expressing sadness? You can't see their tears or the pain swimming in their eyes if their eyes are covered.

Describing joy? You can't talk about the way their face lights up if you CAN'T SEE THEIR FACE.

The solution? Body language, I guess, but there's really only so much we can do with that.

[ryo-apologist]

Racer! Link

Racer! Link x Reader

CW: Smut, Minors DNI, I will block your ass, author knows nothing about racing and it shows

AN: Yes, this is about that Link. The one with the elf ears, says "Hyah!". Yeah I'm a Linked Universe Nerd. Sucks to be y'all. Keep ya guessing on which fandom has my balls this week.

~Darling XOXO

☾ So, I hesitated writing this for a number of reasons, but I decided I don't care. Hozier has a new song, April has me face down in the mattress with how hard it's fucked me and I just want to write about a Link near and and dear to my heart.

☾ Mario Kart Link.

☾ He's just a silly lil goober who's always having a good time. Especially when I play as him because what is second place? He'll never know.

☾ I know, canonically, both are Skyward Sword! Link and Breath of the Wild! Link. I do not care.

☾ Because come with me, sinner, as we explore a whole new world. A world where Mario Kart isn't a silly lil game. It's an empire.

☾ Like Fast and the Furious (I think, idk I never watched any of them). OR like sk8 the infinity at S. I do know that one.

☾ There are real things at stake here. It's intense, and it's heavy.

☾ Here, give me a break while I do some worldbuilding here. Mystery blocks are still a thing, they work by magic idk, except getting hit by one of those things is devastating. It's why the newcomers don't last long.

☾ All the main screen players (Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Inkling boy, etc.) are high level racers. They are A-listed and the ones you look out for if you see them in the lineup.

☾ Including Link himself. He drives a motorcycle he named Epona, which he built himself from scratch.

☾ I spent a lot of time (three minutes) trying to figure out a clever nickname for him, and then I saw some of the names other people gave their Linksona's and, while there's nothing wrong with them, I quickly realized I was overthinking things.

☾ It's mostly a stage name, his name is Link and outside of the raceway, he goes by it.

☾ But, for shits and giggles, and point of discerning him from the others, I don't care. Call him ratchet, greaser, racer, cypher, tank, axel, sparks. I'm giving you all the freedom! Me? Personally? I'm going to call him:

☾ Neo- a combining form meaning “new,” “recent,” “revived,” “modified,”

☾ Great I gave you some background, let's get into the fun parts.

☾ Neo, where do we begin with you.

☾ Have y'all read A Court of Mist and Fury? You know Rhysand?

☾ He's Cassian coded.

☾ LMAO You thought.

☾ He's a fun, kind-of guy but when shit gets real, he can shift from zero to a hundred like that.

☾ He'll be laughing with a newbie, patting them on the shoulder, but the second that visor comes down, he's unrecognizable. He's an A-lister for a reason.

☾ He's infamous for taking shortcuts that are insanely dangerous. He's almost always bandaged somewhere, but not his pretty boy, play bunny face.

☾ So Cassian and Lightning McQueen.

☾ He's totally the kind to shoot a wink and a flirty wave, spend the night and then be gone by morning. Or have them escorted out by his Zelda in the morning, Tony Stark style

☾ He's a slut.

☾ Can you tell I like my men slutty?

☾ And he's such a....character in bed.

☾ He's a selfish lover, but make no mistake about it. His partner gets their end. That's right. I said lover. He's fucked bowser.

☾ I'm kidding

☾ No I'm not.

☾ He doesn't care who's in his bed. Man, woman, the funky others who say FUCK YOU to the gender spectrum /pos

☾ He'll bottom, top, switch it up mid-way through. He just like me fr.

☾But he's not lazy. Selfish, yes, but lazy? No. He's the best rider both on and off Epona, yk yk.

☾ And he has such a pretty cock too. A pretty flushed pink, circumcised with such a lovely vein running up the bottom of it. And while pretty, sorry his balls aren't much to write home about.

☾ They are dangerously sensitive though. Suck on them and run your thumb along the head of his dick and he'll whimper.

☾ SPEAKING OF-

☾ He whimpers so nicely. God, when he's in the middle of bouncing up and down on you (artificial or organic both are good), and his own hands are running up his chest, plucking at his own pebbled nipples and playing with the piercings as his head is thrown back in pure bliss-

☾ He's probably sponsored by Monster Energy

☾ Has a sugar daddy FOR SURE. God wish I was HIM.

[fermiomoriblog]

The pitfalls of every Sunny ship

Diving straight into the hot coals with the first post. But it has been on my mind lately.

The setup in Omori is naturally quite mentally (and in some cases physically) taxing on every main cast character, and a shipper can very easily be overenthusiastic about getting a "happy ending" for their preferred pair, glossing over inconvenient problems and dynamics. I think that it really is rather contrary to the game's themes that this occurs, but it is also understandable that not everybody does a full psychoanalysis of every plot point in their story. I'll list some "common" problems I've personally encountered with people making content about sunburn, suntan and sunflower. I'm more familiar with the dynamics common on ao3 than elsewhere, so if you have any other observations or things to add, please feel free to do so.

# OMORI SPOILERS BELOW #

Sunburn

The "canon" ship. The fact that the ship is explicitly mentioned in game means that the ship is viewed as the "default", and it can lead to some lazy dynamics or lack of justification. You have to remember that no matter what headspace says (and headspace says a lot of things that aren't true), the first thing Sunny and Aubrey did after four years is beat the shit out of each other. Sunny knows nothing about the Hooligans, even though we do, and Aubrey thinks Sunny abandoned her (which is a feeling unlikely to abate after the truth). There needs to be basis for the ship as well - they aren't going to just pick up where they left off (presuming they had anything to leave off in the first place) right away. Which leads us to the first common problem:

Basing the relationship entirely on the past

This is the default reaction and requires the least writing creativity, so it is not surprising that it is common. Simply porting the HS dynamic or the swing scene to the future and copy-pasting is fun and cute and all, but it ignores the fact that both Sunny and Aubrey have changed massively. There's a lot of guilt that is going around, both with Sunny for obvious reasons and Aubrey for pushing Basil in the lake, and Aubrey has a bunch of new, closer friends whom depending on your interpretation are either theatre kids or delinquents. This is not really just going to get talked away on the swing set - they involve third parties.

I would venture to argue that this is actually a very problematic pitfall, despite it being generally not a very serious transgression in real life. Omori, as a game, is about moving on from the past. If you write a fic where the characters forget about bad things in the past but hang on like hell to the good things... that's Headspace. You've just put Sunny in a new Headspace.

Getting Basil out of the way

Even among sunburn/suntan shippers, it is pretty generally accepted that Basil was somewhat attached to Sunny even before the accident. So if you don't want to do sunflower, how do you deal with that?

You can write angst, where Aubrey and Basil end up fighting over Sunny. Weirdly, I've never seen this actually happen (probably because it's too heartbreaking). You can have Basil go to therapy, and get rid of an unhealthy attachment. You can also go the seriously angsty route of Basil hating Sunny for abandonment, Sunny hating Basil for his role in the incident, or a less intense version which just puts a barrier between the two. You can also have Sunny reject Basil. Or you can argue that the attachment was platonic, which is entirely fair.

What you cannot do is have Basil be romantically interested in Sunny, but "get out of the way" for Aubrey "so that Sunny can be happy". Or, well, you can do that, but you can't frame it as anything but serious angst from Basil's POV.

Unfortunately, many, many "pure fluff" Sunburn fics do this, because "pure fluff" fics don't want to untangle the whole thing as most methods involve some degree of emotional turnmoil. This is no ordinary infautation - Basil has waited for Sunny for four years. Nursing unrequited love like that is really, really painful. It is certainly not something that someone with Basil's character and history can do with a smile on their face. If you need any further convincing, I point you to Note to Self: Don't Be Gay in Faraway Town by witheredahlia.

A version of this which I think is a lesser sin (because it is at least framed with some nuance), but a sin regardless, is Aubrey getting annoyed at Basil for "stealing" Sunny's attention from her. This gets dangerously close to the reddit comments you see about "the friend group will be better off if Basil never joined".

Suntan

Despite sunburn being the "canon" and sunflower being the natural alternative, I actually think that this is the default. After all, Kel was the one to bring Sunny out, generally saving his life, and is his first friend, etc. Kel is also a clean slate character, with nothing anyone can particularly hold against them, and as a result suntan is the "healthiest", "least questionable" ship. This commits the customary mistake of believing Kel's parents when they say "eh, it's Kel, he'll be fine".

"Kel's fine"

No, he's not. He's spent the better part of four years trying to forget the happiest times of his childhood, and has been going around doing nothing but fixing and saving other people, putting others' needs far above his own, for the entirety of pre-canon and foreseeably for a good part of post canon as well. Suntan, especially with Sunny still in a vulnerable state post-canon, can very easily be written into Kel being Sunny's unpaid, untrained therapist, and his mood/health being Kel's only/majority source of validation. Kel's self-worth independent of his friends needs addressing and development, and without a lot of development, Sunny alone is not really equipped to provide that.

In all fairness, while I would be somewhat confident in saying that the majority of canon-compliant sunburn fics run into the problems above, suntan fics do usually handle it better. That might just be because there aren't that many suntan fics though.

Sunflower

It goes without saying that sunflower has the highest potential to be unhealthy. But precisely because of that fact, people writing sunflower are usually very careful to address it. Either the fic is written as a work exploring codependency/attachment/trauma/other general unhealthiness (which you can make your own judgement on whether it's a legitimate art form or problematic), or there is at minimum an attempt at pacing, therapy and general juggling of the various mental issues the game leaves Sunny and Basil with (for a shining example, see These Days Without You by Smitty1899, my go to answer for when anyone says "but sunflower toxic!!1!").

The issues that can make sunflower unhealthy and problematic are generally pretty obvious - shared crime, codependency and attachment, commitment and abandonment issues, and the whole "getting together before their friends forgive them" thing (which can still be done well, but from the POV of especially Hero can be kind of eh, and unlikely to be conducive to a healthy relationship given that it kind of depends on their friends' pending "approval".) As a result, there aren't a lot of works that don't address them in one manner or another. However, I do think there is one major pitfall that some fics fall into in the other direction:

Having everything in the relationship be dependent on someone else's approval.

In an attempt to make sunflower as healthy as possible, some authors make it so that Sunny and Basil effectively never make decisions on their own. There's always a third party present to psychoanalyse them, tell them what's fine and what's not, etc. and every step they make in their relationship is with the express blessing, support and help of the rest of their friends. The problem is, that's not healthy either.

I feel that the value of sunflower is greatest in the context of the themes of the game of moving on and forgiveness. Making it so that Sunny and Basil hang on to their guilt forever and robbing them of any "right" to decide for themselves what makes them happy is very much contrary to that - they're on crutches for the rest of their lives, and the point of the good ending is the hope that they won't need to be. It also is just not a good thing for any third party to intervene so extensively in a relationship.

Conclusion

Omori is emotionally deep, with many, many themes to explore. Ships in Omori have unique meanings and themes, which in a canon compliant context is quite hard to simply wipe away. Rushing into a ship with insufficient pacing and development, which works in "cute" fandoms, generally leaves lots of outstanding holes in Omori.

This post doesn't necessarily mean that I think less of any particular ship mentioned - to reiterate, every ship has unique meanings and themes which is interesting to explore and form a part of the message of the game. It is however true that some pitfalls in some ships are easier to fall in, and overlooked, than others, and the obvious problems get a lot more bashing than the non-obvious ones. (Yes, sunflower bias. Sue me.)

And of course, in a plotless or AU context, cute art is cute art.

[hawkinasock]

TELL US ABOUT YOUR OTHER AUS (IF ABLE AND WILLING AND YOU WANT TO) ‼️‼️‼️

Tread carefully, Anon... Once I start yapping, I can't stop (jokes on you tho, I love yapping. Let's go)

I assume you mean aus for HSR specifically? I've got a lot more for genshin, but to stop myself from going on massive tangents, I'll just stick to HSR. I'll keep them all as summaries and go into more depth if there's any interest. Ok here we go:

Chimera Yanqing has kinda become my whole thing now, but I've never actually mentioned the other characters that I've also made chimera forms for. Namely Jing Yuan.

He doesn't really have any lore...? Unlike Yanqing, I was too focused on making him look pretty, which is easy because it's Jing Yuan. I'll make an update if I add anything more to his lore, cause I'd hate to just leave him unfinished forever. I do have a chimera Yunli au too, which I'll also save for another time. (Also keep in mind that he has wayyyy more fur than what I've shown. It just would've made his actual form unclear. He is very, very fluffy, canonically)

Mara-struck Yanqing (aka How the general ate the cabbage). Made a whole fic for this one, the plot is in the pudding, and by pudding I mean my ao3 lol. Instead of deflecting Jingliu's ult, Yanqing is instead killed and mara-stricken, and everything falls apart from there. Keeping it vague since it's still in progress. As of writing this, I'm three chapters in, so check it out if you're interested <3

Band au. I actually forgot about this one until I went through my list. Basically, It's a modern au where the high cloud quintet were a huge band back in ye olden days of the mid 1980s until their downfall, where the lead singer (Baiheng) is killed in an accident, triggering a series of unfortunate fates for 3 of the 4 remaining members. Jing Yuan is the only member still working in the industry and adopted Yanqing roughly 20 years after the the HCQ's fallout. One day, though, after years of no contact, Blade comes back into Jing Yuan's life, seeking refuge from law enforcement, and it all tumbles out of control from there after Jing Yuan accepts. The rest of the story would follow a very suspicious Yanqing wondering what the deal is with his dad's weird new boyfriend, and eventually reuniting the 4 remaining members (getting the band back together, as Phineas would say). There is SO much lore for this one, but it would take up this entire post to explain, so I'll probably just make it into its own post (with designs ofc). Tbh I haven't done as much work on this one as the others simply because I just don't know that much about music? Zel does though, so if I ever come back to it, I can go to him as a consultant.

Kind of an odd one, but I'm including it since it sorta counts, and I've become pretty fond of it over time. Mom Lumine au(s) Xiaother being Yanqing's dads is one of my favorite little crack aus. This au is the brainchild of imagining Yanqing as Lumine's child instead, but me as the author not enjoying xiaolumi as much. Thus, this was born. There's not really a story? Just a bunch of loosely put together concepts with multiple potential narratives that I find fun. Most of the time I default Childe as Yanqing's bio dad. In a weird way, it makes sense in my head? Yanqing resembles Lumine and uses a sword, and has that same go-getting, battle-hungry attitude as Childe, with all the knock-outs to boot. I mainly imagine chilumi as this interstellar crime duo; the Bonnie and Clyde of space, if you will. Because, honestly, if Yanqing's parents are ever to be revealed, would it not be the funniest thing for them to turn out to be criminals? I think it's hilarious, because Yanqing himself would be mortified.

Guardian Blade/Stellaron Hunter Yanqing au. These names are kinda lazy cause I usually don't make official titles for them unless their a fic, which this one happens to be. Here, Yanqing is an abomination of abundance, and as my interpretation usually goes, the only person who knows about this is Jing Yuan. Him and one other - blade, who was confided in the secret shortly after Jing Yuan had taken baby Yanqing in. Jing Yuan made Blade promise that, should the truth ever be uncovered and Jing Yuan punished, Blade is to take Yanqing and protect him. And years down the line, when the truth does finally reveal itself, Blade fulfills his promise. Theoretically, Yanqing would then join the stellaron hunters, albeit unenthusiastically. I haven't actually made any plans for that concept outside of a single one-shot. I still need to finish the actual fic first lmao.

Mara-struck Jing Yuan au. Probably the least original one I have to offer, because there's nothing particularly unique about it aside from one little twist I added that I think differentiates it, and that's that Yanqing doesn't actually kill Jing Yuan, or vice versa. Instead, Jing Yuan, in his current state, attacks everyone and everything except for Yanqing, and actually goes out of his way to keep Yanqing away from danger. The way I rationalize this (and this is me stretching the mara lore a LOT) is that Yanqing is so important to Jing Yuan that he creates a sort of blind spot to the mara when present; he is both innately precious and harbors only positive memories in Jing Yuan's mind, so in a way, he retroactively contradicts the way mara-struck!Jing Yuan would normally perceive him, seeing Yanqing as something to protect rather than attack (i hope that made any sense </3). This would probably never actually happen in canon. I just really like the idea of Jing Yuan's love for his son being so strong that it stays with him even after he's gone mad and can no longer remember what Yanqing means to him.

Progenitor au. Saved this one for last because it's been occupying my entire brain for the past few days. It's based on Dillongoo's Progenitor Albedo series, and by based, I mean it's just the same au, same universe and everything, but HSR. I won't go into the details because I'm planning to make it its own dedicated post as well, but I think its safe to say its becoming my favorite au out of all of these. I already have some designs and original lore cooked up, so hopefully I can post about it soon.

I think that's all of them? Debatable if some of these even count as aus, but who cares. I hope you enjoyed my rambles and found my ideas interesting enough to read through. I'm hoping to eventually give them some more life and make actual content with them.

Till next time <3

[jonnymarzetti]

hi !!! this is about ur post on writing advice! do you have any tips for writing dialogue, like making it sound more natural and realistic? or any substitutions for saying "character A said" after any piece of dialogue?

HIIII ok this might be a longer post because writing natural dialogue is sometimessss a little tricky

first of all: think about WHY the characters are having this conversation. does it advance the plot, or reveal something about the characters?-- because usually it should do one of these two*

(*however, it doesn't always have to: if it simply enforces something we already know about the characters, or makes for a funny scene that fits all right in the flow of the story, or whatever, you should keep the scene.)

in short: you SHOULD have a reason for writing what you are. it makes things a whole lot easier

OK i'm going to use my own fic as example (because i'm currently a little too lazy to write a sample dialogue). we'll use chapter 1 of threw you the obvious

in chapter 1, we have charlie and pim, both drunk. WHY are they having this conversation?-- because charlie wants to establish that he's going to ohio

and that leads us to the second point on dialogue. your characters don't always have to WANT something from the conversation, but it's good if at least one of them does.

what they want/feel influences what they say, as well as how they say it-- in chapter 1, charlie wants to ask pim to go to ohio with him, and he feels anxious about asking, which comes through in the way he speaks.

so: charlie wants to ask pim about ohio. pim on the other hand wants to finally have a nice time in the bar with his friend, now that he's off the phone and not flirting with other people.

charlie gets what he wants in this scene; pim, not really.

now that we have function, we need to figure out how the scene is functioning. would it make sense for a character to express how they're feeling/reveal a plot point directly, or do we reveal the information indirectly?

a lot of the times, and this is often true for "realistic" dialogue, it's indirect.

to express information INDIRECTLY: use body language. i.e. show how a character is nervous or avoiding/not reacting well to the conversation or even trying to change the subject.

the point i'm trying to make here is that a good portion of the time, the point of dialogue isn't what the characters are saying, but rather about what they won't say!

not everybody likes miscommunication in stories. but miscommunication is realistic-- it's bound to happen at some point. so you can ABSOLUTELY use miscommunication/lack of communication as a component of your story or your dialogue

another tip is just to imagine the dialogue in your characters' voices. sometimes i'll read a scene and be like "oh i can't imagine that in charlie's voice"

and of course with a show like smiling friends this isn't the most lenient rule of thumb. there are a lot of things that people write about that probably wouldn't come up in the show. so take this tip with a grain of salt lol

OK also. pacing. it's so important

you want a good rhythm to your dialogue, which is not exactly realistic all of the time but readers often perceive it as realistic (or, at the very least, easier to digest).

i'm not all that sure how to explain this, but if you read tom chiarella's writing dialogue book-- i can send you the pdf of it if you like!!-- it helps to explain my point here.

that being said: another thing you can do is simply read. find authors you really like and figure out how THEY write dialogue, how they write a story. and then just take some time to practice emulating what you like about the works you read

as for substitutions for "said", sometimes "said" is your best bet. if you can find a said-synonym that fits and doesn't take away from the mood of your scene, have at it. you can find lists of synonyms for said on Google.

but if a conversation is between two characters, you don't even need to use "said" that much. readers typically understand that a string of dialogue alternates between characters. and NOT using "said" also creates a quick pace that can fit your scene

anyway this got long oops. but i hope it helps!! seriously though, chiarella's writing dialogue REALLY helped me get a dialogue style down. if anybody wants that i can send it thru discord

[hazbinbrainrotimnotokay2]

Kay so crack theory #2

In episode 7, someone (I forget who lmao) mentions "how will we defeat them, just the 7 of us" as in the number seven. 7 years, 7 deadly sins, 7 episodes until that point, 7 rings of hell, 7 of them.

The number 7 clearly holds significance, but I won't get into any of this right now (or ever, i'm too lazy)

But the main point I want to make is, 7 deadly sins, 7 characters in the main/secondary-ish-main cast, and obviously the Seven Deadly Sins are characters in the show/Helluva Boss already but I mean each one probably like REPRESENTS one

Based on this picture I tentatively put together a list of who I think represents which sin and an explanation of why;

Lust: Angel (Pretty self explanatory but to expand on it, the quote for Lust, "Wanting it all, way too soon.", has so much to do with his character it's hard to get into, the whole reason he ended up firstly in hell and secondly with his soul signed away is because he wanted everything he'd never gotten the chance to have, the "way too soon" being his immediate jump to get what he thought would be freedom but turned out being the opposite, not thinking about the consequence of getting it as soon as possible rather than waiting)

Gluttony: Niffty (Her obsessiveness towards cleanliness and "bad boys", her thirsting for these obsessions to be met and fulfilled, she is gluttonous for the result of her compulsions, "Being excessive with your thirst for words." she wants to find the way to express herself and chose this masochistic way of taking orders and enjoying being forced to do things, along with forcing herself or feeling compelled to do things like kill bugs obsessively, like a hunger)

Wrath: Husk (His gambling issues, the attitude he has towards being free of his deal to Alastor, "Wanting to win so bad, you get ruthless in your endeavours." it's why he sold his soul off to Alastor in the first place, his longing to win as an overlord and involved in gambling caused him to find other solutions, to grow ruthless in his pursuit of success. Then, after making the deal, the way he challenges Alastor shows his ruthless attitude towards freeing himself eventually, to get out of their deal at last)

Sloth: Pentious (He doesn't ever try to change any way he does things until he's forced, he was very slow to change his attack strategy, slow to confess to Cherri, slow to actually redeem himself, though he agreed to do so rather quickly, "Being too slow to publish." he is almost lazy and most certainly cowardly in the way he goes about life, he may not be the epitome of Sloth, but still quite similar)

Envy: Vaggie (She tries so hard to be the perfect partner for Charlie, and you can see her getting upset/jealous of Emily when she and Charlie hold hands in episode 6, she's also trying to pretend she's not a fallen angel, "Trying too hard to be like someone else." the someone else being the perfect person that she was supposed to be before she was cast down to hell and for Charlie)

Pride: Charlie (Because her father is king of the pride ring for one, secondly because she puts herself and what she believes is good for her people ahead of rational thinking any consequences her actions may cause towards the safety of hell as a whole, "Focusing on you, when there's a lot more territory to cover.")

Greed: Alastor (He certainly cares more about his own personal gain than for anyone else, his *audience*, as we see in Ep.8 with his piece in Finale, "Caring more about personal gains than your audience." encapsulates his need to be all powerful and discard his attachments in order to do so, to leave his audience behind in the hope of doing so)

This probably made no sense and sounds like me rambling but uhh yeah. @costco-poutine Thanks for cursing me with this idea for a theory and helping me write these out.

[dekarios]

genuinely interested in knowing more about your ocs! I am waiting with interest for that link on your pinned post to go live!

WELL I GOT NEWS FOR YOUUUUUU

afhiri's page already exists on this blog! it's right here. :3c I WOULD LIKE TO EDIT IT A BIT cuz some things have changed a little and been expanded on a little however...

for my other ocs you can hop straight back to my old blog's oc page right here. this one also includes their commissioned lil chibi heads heheheheh not everyone has their own page .. unfortunately. and only afhiri's is finished. and it's the same as the one moved to this blog i think... candor, amity and eden have some parts filled out. cirok too i think. i'm just kind of lazy ok. and my chronic pain puts me off cuz it's in my arms. BUT WE MAKE DO!

here's one/two different pages that are wip for my morrowind ocs. they didn't get on any of the big pages. i don't know. they fit in at weird times i wasn't even on tumblr really when i made them. yes they have tumblr pages that contradict this shhhhhhhh. i actually mentioned dreyla a bit in my morrowind screenshots i posted recently. she's also in the gifset i made uwu

now.. if we wanna go even further........... i have other more filled out oc pages with custom themes with a WHOLE LIST of ocs that i have not touched or developed in a long time, but some of them are my most explored and fleshed out ocs. like afhiri is not my only babie. some are just old now.

so if we go back to my oldest blog (it's not but for all you guys know. it is) and go to the oc page there.... you are gonna see A LOT of characters. there are no pages. unfortunately. it was also not finished. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!

THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!! is a link to an oc page on an even older blog!!!! see i lied. none of yall knew me on this blog. i have never shared it before. i am feeling like sharing it now for some reason. this is my most "complete" oc page ever. i worked on it all the time for months. it's barely a thing for how long i worked on it. the ONLY character here with more info is my darling faire. you can view it by clicking her Box. but even then! it's not much.

i focused way too much on aesthetic over filling out information in these old pages you'll notice. nowadays i like filling out information like it's a wiki page. but i just struggle to write as much as i need... i get tired man.

this got long. if u ever wanna ask about an oc u can. i got. i got guys man. in my head. and idk. thinking about sharing them again is almost difficult. i dunno why. not cuz i'm shy or anything. not cuz i'm scared to be open about it cuz i don't wanna be judged or nothing. i'm just kind of lazy and tired or something idk. it's a lot of effort to make pages and fill them out. i am a busy bitch. i wanna play a video game or read a book or write a fanfic or watch a movie. i am not the same person i was when i could spend WEEKS nonstop doing this stuff. maybe one day i will get a kick and this new oc page will come to life.... but no idea when.

might add control and ghost bird to it and claim them as mine even though they're canon characters in the southern reach. they're mine now actually sorry jeff

[just-prime]

8 : Oh so boring

The horrifying MCU-ification of the Star Wars universe is in horrific display as 8 episodes lead nowhere but setup.

Before I get to everything else, I do want to say, Ray Stevenson's passing is a true tragedy, and I appreciate the love and care he clearly put into his character. He was the only compelling one, and I shudder to think of how Disney will probably heartlessly recast.

Now, on to the episode

Well, all the leaks that said it was zombies were right, to the surprise of no one. This is the MCU now, we need something more than just a fuck ton of stormtroopers to blow through, we need an undead CGI army.

First off : The Jedi, The Witch, and The Warlord...FUCK OFF FILONI. YOU ARE NOT CUTE.

The show opens with the attempt to lull Legends fans back into a Sion reference for no reason. Also, Thrawn's super baggy pants seem unnecessary, especially since the design in Rebels always has him in perfectly tailored clothes. Nothing during his decade abroad that would have cause the pants to change that drastically, so it just feels like an unnecessary change that is not an attractive look :(

Morgan's power ups make no sense, and as soon as she got them she was going to die. Her eyes had me making a half dozen Supernatural jokes for obvious reasons. The whole "Blade of Talzin" thing is also very dumb given the fact that I assume Mother Talzin would have used every weapon in her arsenal to stop Grievous, and I would think a lightsaber proof sword is on that list.

The entire "Ezra makes himself a new lightsaber" scene filled me rage for a few reasons.

A) Ezra literally just turned down Sabine's offer of the lightsaber for the martial arts force powers which we never see him use again.

B) Huyang knowing about Caleb and Kanan being the same person feels kinda weird to me to be perfectly honest.

C) Ezra's new lightsaber is boring. Full stop. This is the kid who built a gun into his first one, it makes no sense that he'd make one that looks this mediocre.

D) All of Sabine's family dying horrible deaths on Mandalore has always struck me as a cop out. It's just lazy writing to isolate Sabine.

The Stakes

Spoiler alert : THERE ARE NONE

We knew this was going to end in a cliffhanger for a while now, which means none of the main cast was going to die. Morgan has always been a means to an end for Thrawn, not that her loyalty was ever explain...But none of our heroes were gonna bite it (regardless of how I hoped for Huyang to explode) so there were no stakes. Thrawn had to escape, despite the fact that he is weirdly shaken, so he does. Ezra had to get home, so he does. Sabine and Ahsoka are now trapped on some stupid Mortis world??? Okay, pause, I'm getting ahead of myself here...because before that...

Sabine has the Force now

My deepest condolences to anyone who is finding this out from me, but Sabine is offically confirmed and shown to be Force sensitive. Yes it is dumb. Yes it makes no sense. Yes this is something we all saw being foreshadowed from day one, unfortunately. Especially with the playing down of her Mandalorian-ness (she's constantly losing her helmet, her gun accuracy has utterly gone, she barely uses her gauntlets, etc etc) it was obvious that Filoni wanted to do with her, what he was too cowardly to do with Grogu.

Other miscellaneous shit

It turns out that Ahsoka's shuttle is Jedi era...which makes no fucking sense.

The nightsisters being totally on board with the Empire feels like their ability to tell what's going on in the main universe might be a bit sketchy do to the fact that they missed that the guy in charge of the Empire is the one who ordered Dathomir razzed.

100% of the problems that the gang run into would have been solved if Sabine had a fucking jetpack

They pull the "Thrawn knew Anakin" card out of nowhere in the dumbest possible way, which really just goes to show how much FIloni hates the new canon Thrawn books.

Chopper recognizes Ezra (which was rather cute) before Hera does, because he decides to show up on a New Republic cruiser in full Thrawn stormtrooper garb. Also we don't even get a hug between Hera and Ezra.

Shin (because she exists, remember?) who is also stranded now, goes and appears to be taking over the bandit camp we saw earlier. Have no idea where they are taking that...but honestly, good for Shin doing something for her, this seems like a selfcare move.

Now, the ending...Fucking Mortis

So, the final shot we get of Baylan, he is standing on a giant statue of The Father (there is a statue of The Son, and a destroyed statue of The Daughter) pointing out towards something on the horizon.

Back at the hermit crab people camp, Ahsoka and Sabine (and fucking Anakin's ghost, because that's right people, instead of hanging out with his son, Anakin has been just hovering over Ahsoka this whole time apparently) here this chirping, and it's a fucking creepy hyper realistic CGI Morai.

So yeah, that's clearly how all of the trapped characters are going to get off this planet...the World between Worlds. Now, this brings up a fuck ton more questions...Chief of all being how did Ezra not use this to escape years ago???

And I get that Mortis is not everybody's favorite Clone Wars arc. Which is fair. I don't hate it, but I never loved it, and Filoni dragging in the dumbest piece of Force lore that he created is infuriating. ESPECIALLY with this being so obviously aimed at those who've not watched Clone Wars or Rebels. I'm curious to see how much he immediately recons about it, given that it's been his go-to move since before even Mando s3...

I fear they're going to do something like "Bayan is The Father, Ahsoka is The Daughter, and Shin and Sabine have to fight over being The Son" or some stupid bullshit like that.

I'm glad this is the last Filoni property we're getting for a while, since I'm pretty sure he's not involved with Skeleton Crew at all writing-wise.

I am just so happy it's over!

In the meantime, if you are as annoyed at Filoni as I am, spite him by reading the new canon Thrawn books!!! They are really fantastic and give Thrawn a lot of facinating depth, along with having an incredible cast of side characters.

For those of you who are new or just finding me because of my Ahsoka rants, please stick around!!! I'm sure I will be having other annoyed Ahsoka thoughts in the weeks to come as I think back about the full series and about just everything that it's fucked up. Feel free to pop into my ask box if you're curious about my other Star Wars related opinions, I'm more than happy to answer, though know that for the majority of the recent shows, I do not look fondly.

But if you are looking for some vindication on not enjoying recent Star Wars things, then this is the blog for you!!!

[butterkofiinthemorning]

I was trying to find Mangas that have similar vibes to Dungeon Meshi because it's really the best media I ever consume for awhile and it checks all the boxes on what I'm looking for in a story.

But then, maybe I'm just trying to find something that is plot consistent or ever growing, character driven and at least have some system within the story. No ass pull whatsoever. Probably why I dislike most of the Isekais so much and the lazy writing of some OP characters (Mob Psycho 100 and One Punch Man might be my only exception for this, because they did handle OP characters very well).

The reason I liked Hunter x Hunter more than any other shonen out there is because of the nen abilities well explained (and it's the basis for Jujutsu Kaiden CTs) and it can potentially grow.

Railgun on the other hand got my curiosity with how abilities could be applied. I don't have the same sentiments with Index as I'm more pulled in by the science sides of things and I kinda dislike some harem sub elements on it, both the mother and the spin off story.

--------

So, from what I gathered these will probably be my to read list;

1. Witch Hat Atelier - I've seen some artworks, and it's one of the best panelling I've ever seen. Plus it's the fantasy closest to Dungeon Meshi. And the author's a fan of Good Omens! I think.

2. Blue Period - The talent vs. hardwork discussion made me wanna read it.

3. Fool Night - Apparently Sui Ishida liked this, and I watched some video regarding this and it pique my interest delving back to this type of genre.

4. The Summer Hikaru Died - Hmm.. I've seen this quite a few times last year when I was scrolling through a raw manga, and honestly the blue background and some ominous looking boy got my attention.

5. March Comes in Like a Lion - I've been dismissive of this for quite a year/s because I thought it was too heavy for me back then. But now that I'm in the mood of ever growing characters, I would like to read it. Though what really made me read about it is because the artist is the same with Oberon's design which I really liked in FGO.

6. Chainsaw Man - I already know what happened. I watched a summary video in YT that explained Part 1 and Part 2. BUT I wanted to give it a proper read. Denji and Asa is something special and yet relatable to me in a sense. Plus I like how clean his panelling is for this.

7. Kaze Hikaru - Man, I looove Shinsengumi. Okita has been my favourite character in FGO and my first 5 star saber. But this Manga, it fleshes out his character more and also the Shinsengumi as a whole up until it's downfall. I already read some of it but I think I just can't find the continuation.

-----

Maybe this post is just a reminder for myself on what I'll be reading because I'm too forgetful in everything. I doubt anybody is reading this though.

[griseldabanks]

1, 2, 7-10, 14, 17, and 23 for the Fic Writer's Ask, please?

1. What fic of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read any of your work? (In other words, what do you think is the best introduction to your fics?)

Probably my Captain America fic Make Me Whole, which is about what would happen if Steve decided to save the Winter Soldier without knowing that he's Bucky. It's the kind of thing where, if you like this fic, there's a good chance you'll find some other fics of mine to your liking; if you don't like this fic, you probably won't care for most of my other writing either. And while it's the first of an ongoing series, it provides a fairly satisfactory ending in itself, if you don't want to read any more.

2. Go to your AO3 “Works” page, to the sidebar with all the filters, and click the drop-down arrow for “Additional Tags.” What are your top 3-5 most used tags? Do you think they accurately represent your writing habits?

"Angst," "Alternate Universe," and "Angst & Hurt/Comfort." Yep, sounds about right! I love me a good AU, and I'm all about that angsty angsty goodness.

7. Any worldbuilding you’re particularly proud of?

I'm pretty pleased with the worldbuilding I did for Creta in my FMA fic of skulls and secrets. I went for "vaguely Italian" for inspiration, and also researched some real-world alchemists to rework into the story I wanted to tell. One of my favorite parts of writing that fic was writing Ed speaking Cretan, which he's good at reading but terrible at speaking, so it's kind of like he's translating each word separately as he hears it rather than understanding the sentence as a whole. For example: "I myself never seeing, never asking about either was. Alchemy—too many brains for this of mine head!"

8. What song would make a great fic (to either write or read)?

From the first time I heard it, "Still Be You" by David Hodges sounded to me like a soulmate AU. I may write it someday myself (since nobody knows David Hodges, alas), but the trick is deciding exactly how the soulmate stuff works, and what characters it would be about.

9. How do you find new fic to read?

I have a backlog of fics I want to read from the past, like, ten years at least, so I'm all set XD (And what puts it on that list is usually either a recommendation from someone I trust or an author that I read one fic and liked, so I decided to go through all their other fics.

10. How do you decide what to write?

What grabs me and won't let go? What plot bunnies gnaw at me in the dark watches of the night as I try to fall asleep? What is such a good idea that it pushes past the insecurity and laziness so I end up writing it despite myself?

14. Are there any tropes you would only read if written by a trusted friend or writer?

You know, the first thing that popped into my head was the fic my friend @dairogo wrote subverting the "there was only one bed" trope. She's probably the only one I'd trust to do that right XD

17. What highly specific AU do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?

Now, that would be telling ;)

Uhh...most of the ideas floating around in my head are AUs, really, and a lot of them are ones with the potential to be popular if I ever get around to writing them, like the FMA/Firefly crossover I've been wanting to do for years. But I think I'll go with a Final Fantasy X fic I actually have all planned out but just too many other things I'd rather write first. It would be called The Path to Sin, and it's based on an FFX RP I did way back in the day that fell apart with no satisfying conclusion, but then I brainstormed the rest of the story with my brother one summer. It was super fun, and basically went from "just another summoner's voyage to defeat Sin" to a really epic alternate story of how Sin could be defeated for good. I don't even remember all the details, but it would make a really epic chapterfic...unfortunately, I feel like very few people would know/care enough about FFX to bother reading it, so the motivation to actually write it is pretty low at this point ^^'

23. What’s a trope, AU, or concept you’ve never written, but would like to?

After thinking about this too much, I'm going with my answer for number 8. I've never written a soulmate AU, but I kinda want to if I can figure out a really good story for it.

Fic Writer Ask Game

[1-up-chump]

Hello, I share your indignation about the new part of MK. Everything was changed too much and strangely. Can you write down the moments you didn't like? For example, I’m not happy with this whole situation with Kuai Liang - Scorpion, Tarkata - a disease, Raiden - Liu Kang 2.0, Fujin - Raiden’s sister, who is Kung Lao’s lover, seriously?

I WILL STATE that i have not bothered to look at everything myself but hear from reliable sources of the basic information of the game so i cannot give a full and fair critique. And i will not give this game anymore attention than i already have given it since it is just NOT a mortal kombat game.

Lets talk about the reasons you listed bc i agree.

Kuai liang as scorpion and in role reversal:

I am not a fan of this even remotely being "canon" Although the idea should be explored by fans WHO UNDERSTAND BOTH KUAI LIANG AND HANZO HASASHI AS CHARACTERS ORIGINALLY. It completely disrespects hanzo as a character and erases his connection to scorpion being a "gimmick thing to slap onto someone" as a title rather than a personal journey of meaning. And kuai deserves more respect as well, originally being an assassin whose clan tried to "modernize" by removing free will of warriors to ensure obedience and make their spirits and talents disposable. Trying to fight against that. It seems ironic in the end his fate is nothing more than to be toyed with by this unoriginal and uninspiring "role swap au lolz"

The tarkatan race being a disease:

I shouldn't even have to clarify how fucked up this is. Right after in mk 11 we saw tarkatans just being another race living in outworld minding their own business, and kotal fucking up (kotal khan is a wasted character but thats for another post) so we got what was once a "bad guy evil race" to something better. AND THEN THEY FUCKED IT UP AGAIN like isnt that, at best, the most tone deaf shit after what happened in real life with a certain disease and people being uber racist??? And dont get me started on how they messed up mileena with that too. (God damn the writers fucking hate her just as much as kung lao)

Raiden role reversal:

Let me tell you as a raiden enjoyer i fucking HATE them making him a basic ass protag like they did with liu kang (i love liu but lately they just removed all personality from him) its so fucking uninspiring and boring as shit AND THEY MAKE HIM CHAMPION INSTEAD OF KUNG LAO???? THE ABSOLUTE DISRESPECT WHAT THE FUCK i love raiden but he doesn't deserve champion title, that belongs to KUNG motherfucking LAO.

Fujin being a sister????:

Listen i havent seen it but this is the dumbest ass shit i have ever seen in my entire life. As if they couldn't show how little they actually care about fujin......

And the shallow fans who care little about fujin other than a "pretty fuck toy to do teh yaois with uwu" which is also what they did to shang tsung now which is like YOU FOOLS! CARY HIROYUKI TAGAWA-SAMA IS RIGHT FUCKING THERE!!! YOU SEXUALIZE HIM WHEN HE'S AN OLD MAN TOO OR YOU'RE A COWARD AND A SHAM!

And then there's the absolute nothing plot that really shows they ran out of ideas and just slap together bullshit. The villains arent really villains and they suck, its just "stop evil shang tsung but hes not actually evil bc theres this other timeline-" ITS FUCKING LAZY AND PATHETIC WRITING it shows that they want to have it all just to appease fans to take their money. Thats it, thats all this story boils down to. A shoddy scam to bullshit a story to take people's money. I mean you cant even get shang tsung or marjory of fan desired characters without dlc and the base game is like 60-70 bucks like the fuck????

As a regular fighting game? Mid but enjoyable i guess. But as a mortal kombat game? No, thats not even mortal kombat thats just some dumbasses wattpad fanfic after they watched avengers endgame in their crusty batman shirt

I'll end this with a small side note: if my opinions offend, I'm sorry im passionate about a series that was a part of my childhood and made me appreciate Japanese and Chinese culture and kung fu cinema in general. Im sorry if the memories of playing a fun game and caring about the characters having strong bonds of friendship in a violent world designed to be a "kill or be killed" system and despite that choosing to do the right thing in their mind.

Sorry if i seem to be playing a different game bc i am.

Its mortal kombat: shaolin monks for the ps2

-gets head ripped off-

[inseasofgreen]

poto update! zemorri and scisoa are going to kill me :,) please send help

To be so real, there's been so much change this past few days with poto all my 15k words are pretty much a whole bunch of nothing. It's a tough pill to swallow but I know it'll be worth it in the end. I'm also going to redo most of my poto centric stuff ie. character intros, possibly a new wip intro because the blurb is now outdated (fuck you zemorri) and make my templates a bit more uniformed. Also still planning on sharing three chapters once the poll finishes. They'll be staggered just depending on which povs win. Seeing as there major rewrites going on and some of the chapters I planned to share are either in the deleted scenes file or are about it to.

That being said - if characters seem to act a differently or things i answer about them seem a bit ooc for them from what's been previously said this is why. I wanted Sciosa to be anxious and not like the limelight but the more i wrote her pov and those she's close with didn't feel like a good fit for her tbh. I've posted excerpts hinting at it but a plot line for book 2 in Zemorri's arc is no longer a secret in book 1. it felt like i was trying to make him both ambitious but also lazy which are literal opposites. I'm all for inner conflict but that seemed a little too complex lol there's a few others as well like my writing style, which didn't feel natural, and some other plot lines and arcs reworked.

idk why I'm sharing all of this but it did help my sort out my mind a bit so there's that I guess.

Reminder I have a tag list for poto, which i'll utilize for all the new poto posts i'll be updating/redoing so if you want to be notified when they go up just let me know to add you to the tag list!

[cryiling]

what do we think about kpop idol au revalink where revali is from a big 3 company (i feel like he gives sm or yg but idk) and link is from a smaller company, but they get into a dating scandal because of dispatch's stupid dating dump at the end of the year or whatever

revali is appalled to have dating rumors with this little runt from a nugu group (he's lying, link is totally his type), meanwhile link is losing his shit bc it's his idol it's THE revali 🫣

im gonna use this ask as an excuse to talk about idols!link and revali bc I HAVE SO MANY IDEAS

first of all revali is def giving agust d vibes, that fuck capitalism and the government sorta songs, and he definitely writes his own music (he thinks that artists who don't write their own music aren't real artists). no wait like genuinely. have u guys seen the lyrics for all the songs on d-day?? and like the mv for amygdala?? totally breaking kpop industry norms and I can totally see revali doing that, like yes babes talk abt your mental health and traumatic experiences, pop off king !

I bet revali prefers doing hip hop style dances, like you're never gonna catch him doing those rlly simple trendy dances. nah he out here doing flips and bboying and stuff 😭 hmm like think back down or halazia level dances (bye not me finding a way to bring halazia into any conversation SJDHSJF)

also he definitely only sings live, no lip syncing for him. one day he gets sick and loses his voice but he still has a performance that day, and his manager is like PLS just lipsync to the track, literally no one will get mad I promise, and he's like bitch no and just has his fans sing the whole song (he goes viral for this, his fans bragging abt how revali would never stoop to the level of lip syncing while his antis are calling him lazy for having his fans do all the singing, then revali's fans clap back at those ppl and pull up the receipts of all the times their faves lip synced)

ok we need stage name and fandom for revali. hm tbh I feel like he would just keep his name as his stage name, like he probably thinks the idea of stage names is cringy 💀 help I need fandom name ideas. like, vale or something BYE. his company probably came up with a whole list of possible fandom names and he said no to all of them, atp his manager just picked one for him 😭

u mentioned revali is from a big 3 company, hmm yeah I'm getting sm vibes from him. how long do u think he trained for? probably a couple years, like 6? so he's very insistent that all his accomplishments are from his hard work

OK let's talk abt link! idk many small companies but ummm let's say like, gf or something (they have kingdom, slay!). do u guys know that one idol from loona I think? and she was a trainee for only one day? yeah that's link 😭 he auditioned for the company and they're like you're great! debut asap pls

link is just here to have a good time honestly, like he's going live at 3am to do drunk karaoke like jungkook fr 😭 he really has a passion for singing and performing, and at the end of the day he's just doing this for funsies, he doesn't let the stress get to his head too much, which, king behavior honestly

ik u said he's from a nugu group but honestly I'm seriously loving the soloist vibe from him, like if he was in a group he'd probably end up as the wonyoung of the group bc he just has that main character energy 😭

I can see link doing more upbeat/poppy songs, but he does the occasional ballad + contemporary dance combo that his fans go FERAL for. or,, omg. imagine him doing criminal by taeyang... 😊

his stage name.. L!NK bc he's quirky and not like other girls 😧 I bet his song titles are either in all caps or all lowercase too, he insists "it's for the aesthetic 🥺"

hm what sort of situation are they in where dispatch makes a dating scandal for them? OUHH MAYBE theyre both mcs for a music show (ignore that it's usually one guy and one girl) and they do one of those performances together and ppl are like 🤨⁉️ like imagine them doing the iconic dolphin dance together ✋ fans go CRAYZEEE the fancams hit like 20m views because their chemistry together really shines, even with such a simple song

their companies see how good they are for each other's publicities, so they really push for more of their schedules to be together.. which ofc comes at the cost of the dating scandal. they're hanging out together at some cafe idk, their managers told them to go hang out in the hopes that they would get some more publicity. what they WEREN'T expecting is for dispatch to declare that they're dating??? (that's a lie, link's manager (zelda) definitely knew smth like that would happen and she's the biggest revalink supporter 🤞)

when revali hears about this, he has a freaking meltdown to his manager teba, like 😭 lying facedown on the couch screaming into a pillow, "they think we're DATING?$:$;&2!;@/@ they really think a senior idol would go out with a rookie!!???!: SHUT UP TEBA HE IS NOT MY TYPE-"

meanwhile link has the BIGGEST celebrity crush on revali, like you know how jungkook is with namjoon? yeah 😭 so when the dating scandal comes out, link is just so flattered that people would think that he's worthy to be with revali- he's going around to anyone who will listen and is like "people think I'm with revali 😦🥰🥰" zelda is like girl calm down you're not actually together

[an-ungraceful-swan]

The sophitz essay tm:

Ok. So I started rereading keeper, and I noticed how hard sophitz (the romantic pairing of Sophie and Fitz) is heavily pushed. On the wiki, there is a list of their “moments.” Throughout all the books there are quite a lot, leaving little room for doubt. But here I am writing an essay about why Sophitz doesn’t work, and why it happened in the first place. Let me get this out of the way now, this essay is biased. Unbiased people don’t write (word count) essays about why a ship doesn’t work. That being said I will try to not bash the ship itself nor the characters.

I believe Sophitz was A) a product of an unfinished idea. I think Shannon intended while writing the first few books, for Sophitz to be canon. I’m not judging her for changing her mind, I'm just saying that’s what I think happened. I also think, B) that sophitz is due to Sophie latching on to the first person nice to her/someone familiar.

Sophie’s side:

I don’t think Sophie ever actually liked Fitz. I think it’s possible but in my interpretation she never actually liked, simply latched on to him due to him being the first person to be nice to her knowing who she really is. Trust me I get it! It’s fucking scary being in a new place, and Fitz was the closest thing to familiar, he was roughly her age and knew the truth about her. He discovered her, and is in a position of power to her.

I also think there was some level of outside pressure, both from Fitz and others, claiming they knew she liked Fitz before she knew she liked Fitz. I’m too lazy to find examples but I swear every third page there is a dig about how Sophie likes Fitz, and in the later books Keefe brings it up every three pages. Like it was team fitzphie this team fitzphie that.

I think the reason Sophitz fell apart from Sophie’s side was honestly just lack of romantic interest. It felt more like an obligation than something she wanted, especially by the end of it

Fitz’s side:

For Fitz, I think it was a mix of confusion between being friends, and “like liking” someone, but also I think Sophie was the logical pick for someone in his position. She was the new girl, the most powerful, someone the Vacker family wanted to be associated with even before they knew who she was. She was the golden girl to his golden boy, and so he “chose” her. Also! Me pushing my aromantic Fitz agenda, he definitely felt pressure to find a good match, and Sophie fit the criteria of powerful, interesting, and noble. Plus, he likes her as a friend and mixed it with romantic feelings, which is a thing that happens. He felt pressure from people to like Sophie, most notably his father.

Another thing is that it explains his anger in Exile. Sophie was supposed to be the savior, the one to fix everything and yet she seems broken. She was responsible for the harm of his father at least through his perspective, based on what he knew. When shit goes sideways, the first thing you want to do is fine someone to blame. For Fitz that was Sophie.He was a scared teenage boy drawing conclusions, and it wasn’t fair to blame Sophie for that but that’s what he saw from his position, and the course of action he took.

An argument for:

I know I know I’ve spent this whole essay kind of hating on sophitz but I still think it’s a fine ship. (To an extent. I wouldn’t write a whole essay on the failings of a ship if I had no opinion on it.)

I feel most of my positive feelings for Sophitz comes from my desire to see them be friends. I want to see them just hanging out and chilling and watching movies and just being a duo. I think their dynamic is super interesting and I just want nice comfy sophitz fluff.

The rest of my positive feelings on sophitz stem from my desire to see them fall apart. I want the messiness, I want the arguments and the falling apart. Like these are two people who I would bring popcorn to their divorce. Like they’ve grown up but it’s so fascinating to me.

An argument against:

While I’m less sure of what happened in the later books, I’m using the wiki as my primary source and a lot of it… they’re just existing? Like not a lot of stuff is solely romantic. I’m picking on Lodestar right now, and this is one of the points.

“When Sophie decides to return to the Neverseen hideout where she was held captive with Dex, Sophie says, "Just... don't freak out if I start bawling, okay?" and Fitz offers to let Sophie cry on his shoulder. After Sophie sees where she was restrained, Fitz holds her steady and says, "I've got you."”

They are friends! Good friends who support each other! They’ve been through so much and this is slowly turning into a rant about me being against shipping for shippings sake. Just because two characters grow close, doesn’t mean they will be in love forever and ever. I feel central story themes are discarded in favor of shipping. Going back to the wiki point, I’d be more concerned if Fitz was like “nah” They’ve been through enough together, and should support each other without having to be in a romantic relationship.

Last point here, look at this from the wiki. “The two joke with each other.” I’m sorry I didn’t realize joking with my friends was inherently romantic. I must be in love with everyone I interact with. This wiki is really grasping at straws here, and while it’s not a bad thing and I am guilty of doing this occasionally.

It’s just exhausting that every interaction has to be seen through heart shaped sunglasses.

Conclusion:

I have spent too much of my life on these thousand or so words, so I’ll leave it here for now. Regardless of if you ship it or not, sophitz is such an interesting ship, and I love thinking about them.

@gay-otlc look look

[writernopal]

This Or That? Tag

Tagged by @outpost51 and @lexiklecksi, thank you both! See their posts here and here, respectively.

I think I may have done this one some time ago but I'm going to do it again because why not and also maybe my answers changed? Who knows, I'm too lazy to find the original post lol

Tagging (gently): @lynnedwardswrites @sam-glade @thewardenofwinter @gummybugg @moonluringfrost @crowandmoonwriting @violets-in-her-arms-writes

historical or futuristic

the drama of a character walking down a darkened corridor, candle in hand, or eagerly awaiting the arrival of a letter because there are no other means of communication only to be met with tragic news, YOU CAN RIP THOSE OUT OF MY COLD, DEAD HANDS

the opening or closing chapter

there are simply so many possibilities! so many unanswered questions! the intrigue! the drama! we love!

light+fluffy or dark+gritty

i like both, to read and to write, but dark and gritty just has me

animal companion or found family

found family but only because keeping track of an animal companion (and also keeping them safe, the dogs will not die!) is so stressful. also i have zero confidence to write reliable, unspoken animal behavior beyond a few lines

horror or romance

HOW DARE YOU MAKE ME CHOOSE but romance wins because as soon as there is a romantic subplot (or main plot, lets be honest, i write primarily romance, of course I'm here for that) in something, I'm hooked. however, there is always room for body horror (my beloved!)

hard magic system or soft magic system

i prefer somewhere in between, but if i had to choose one, it would be soft.

standalone or series

series will always have my heart. you mean i get to spend MORE time with your characters and world? yes please!

one project at a time or always juggling 2+

one at a time, for sure. things tend to absorb my life so pulling myself out of that work to be absorbed by something else enough to write about it, would be very hard

one award winner or one bestseller

having people love your work enough to buy it is one thing, but to be recognized by others for excellence in the craft would be such an honor

fantasy or sci-fi

i have no notes here, i just vibe with it man

character description or setting description

this is a weird one. i prefer writing character description but prefer reading setting description lol. don't ask me why.

first draft or final draft

because there is no better feeling than sitting back and looking at the work as a whole, knowing that you are the one that brought it all together!

love triangle in everything or no romantic arcs

i detest love triangles, so i'd rather no romance at all if love triangles is all I'm going to get

constant sandstorm or rainstorm

its just cozy! (if you're inside, if you're stuck in it then maybe not so much lol)

Blank list below the cut!

historical or futuristic

the opening or closing chapter

light+fluffy or dark+gritty

animal companion or found family

horror or romance

hard magic system or soft magic system

standalone or series

one project at a time or always juggling 2+

one award winner or one bestseller

fantasy or sci-fi

character description or setting description

first draft or final draft

love triangle in everything or no romantic arcs

constant sandstorm or rainstorm

[winterandwords]

Author Ask Tag Game

Thanks for the tag, @tailoroffates!

I did this one for Spin Cylinder recently-ish so I'm going to do it for November Breaks, the first book featuring those characters...

(1) What is the main lesson of your story (e.g. kindness, diversity, anti-war), and why did you choose it?

No matter how profoundly fucked up and morally bankrupt you are, there's probably some other complete asshole out there who'll fall obsessively, toxically in love with you so you can do violence and destroy some lives together.

Brett and Noah are both successful, affluent, attractive, awful people who the world has never said no to. They literally get away with murder. So maybe there's a lesson in there?

I chose it because it was immensely fun to write about. I'm compulsively honest to the point where I annoy myself, so "what if conscience wasn't an issue?" was a real trip to explore in a fictional setting.

(2) What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding (like real-life cultures, animals, famous media, websites, etc.)?

It's present day and real world, but set in an unnamed any-city. Some of the places are based on places I've lived and places I've been. Some aspects of it are inspired by the frivolous luxury nonsense I'd waste money on if I had money to waste. Google is convinced I'm rich because of research for this book.

(3) What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, help readers grow as a person?

The two main characters are both at crisis points in their lives when they meet, so while it's a story about crime and drugs and great coats, it's also a story about walking away from life as you know it and landing in a whole 'nother kind of chaos.

It's very much "they deserve each other (derogatory)" and "I'm bored of trying to fix me, but I could make him worse". The MCs are basically out to make EVERYTHING worse. I was trying to achieve making them fascinating, charismatic and hot while they do it.

No-one is going to grow as a person because of this book. If you read it and feel like you have grown as a person, I don't even want to think about how much of a disaster you were to begin with because seriously, these guys are murderers.

(4) How many chapters is your story going to have?

I'm too lazy to count, but it might've been 32?

(5) Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

It's original content and I've already posted it at @novemberbreaksbywintersimpson. The whole thing is on there in indexed chapters and there's a downloadable PDF as well.

(6) When and why did you start writing?

At all? Ever? I don't remember. I always just did it and then never stopped doing it.

(7) Do you have any words of engagement for fellow writers of Writeblr? What other writers of Tumblr do you follow?

I know it's a massive cliché, but write what you enjoy writing and what you're passionate about. If you love it, someone else will too.

I follow so many amazing people on here and I hate making lists because I always forget someone and then I feel like a dickhead. So look at the people I tag regularly in stuff. They're all great.

Tagging anyone who wants to do it! This seems like a fun one for an open tag, so if you do it, please @ me so I can see your answers 💜

Template is under the cut...

(1) What is the main lesson of your story (e.g. kindness, diversity, anti-war), and why did you choose it?

(2) What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding (like real-life cultures, animals, famous media, websites, etc.)?

(3) What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, help readers grow as a person?

(4) How many chapters is your story going to have?

(5) Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

(6) When and why did you start writing?

(7) Do you have any words of engagement for fellow writers of Writeblr? What other writers of Tumblr do you follow?