#and i have zero motivation to rework it

[queen--of--maggots]

What’s your most unpopular DN opinion? (It can be about canon, fanon the fandom)

I don’t even know if you are still around anon, but I promised you an answer, and here it is. Unpopular opinion time! And here’s a really unpopular one: I wish Wammy’s wouldn’t exist and Ohba went in a different direction after L’s death.

I’m probably almost the only one with this opinion. I know many people love the Wammy kids, and I want to make this clear, this is not necessarily about the characters from Wammy’s. I appreciate them, some more, others less. However, you can like a character and still think the story would have been better without them.

First, a few points on why I don’t like the introduction of Wammy’s.

One thing I enjoyed a lot about DN up to L’s death is the lack of overused tropes. For example, DN isn’t L’s story despite him fitting more into the good guy role, L isn’t portrayed as a hero, Light isn’t portrayed as a villain, Misa isn’t the innocent victim who was dragged into this, and neither L nor Light is the chosen one(s), main characters don’t have an extremely outstanding design, and so on. Wammy’s changes this partially. There must be people, qualified ones included, in the entire world that have reasons why they want to stop Kira, but all of Kira’s antagonists originate from the same place – Wammy’s. That’s pretty much the secret-intuition-that-protects-the-world-from-evil trope. It also falls into the chosen one trope because only L’s successors are apparently good enough to put an end to Kira. Also, Near has a rather outstanding design. Having white hair isn’t impossible, but highly unlikely. In addition, he looks like 12 despite being 18 and always wears fucking pajamas instead of normal clothes. Mello has a somewhat outstanding design too, but it’s more the way the dresses. I won’t complain too much about it. Still, compare this to Team Kira’s new additions. Mikami’s and Takada’s designs are way more grounded.

Another trope I find annoying is linking everything to the same two or three people. Every important character that is introduced later in the series has a connection to one of the original main characters (being related, childhood friends, same former mentor, …). In my opinion, that’s just a cheap way to give a new character credit without them doing anything and make them more popular among fans. If the character is well-written enough, things like that are not necessary. Ohba goes hard for this trope with Wammy’s: Near, Mello, and even fucking Matt are all L’s successors, so they have a direct link to him. And, while it’s just a spinoff, and how canon it is is debatable, even the BB murder case goes back to L and Wammy’s. (I know AN wasn’t written by Ohba, but it fits the pattern.) Compare this to Light’s allies. Most Kiras had no previous connection to Light before meeting him. The only exception is Kiyomi after the time skip. In Misa’s case, Kira gave her the revenge she wanted. However, she’s likely still one of many with similar stories. She didn’t know Light before, and Light didn’t know her. Even how Misa got her DN is unrelated to Light and Ryuk. Mikami had to stand entirely on his own feet. He had no direct connection to Light or L whatsoever.

I’m also disappointed that Ohba toned down the realism with Wammy’s. DN wasn’t 100% realistic before either, but there is a drop in it with the introduction of the Wammy’s characters. We go from one rich dude who fights crime mainly for entertainment to an entire training ground for super-intelligent orphans to become the world’s greatest detectives. Then there’s Mello with the missile and ultra-fast healing powers, and Near winning because of magical guessing powers and plot armor. Both are also younger than Light and inexperienced. And while humans aren’t born with special powers in the DN universe and supernatural aspects are limited to the Shinigami and the Shinigami realm, BB has Shinigami eyes for no apparent reason. Technically, these are still connected to the Shinigami within the story, but the explanation given for this is extremely vague and unsatisfying.

The points I’ve listed so far would bother me less if they always would have been a thing or if both sides were treated equally regarding tropes and bullshit. But they are particularly noticeable for Wammy’s characters, while Team Kira is not so much affected.

Also, I liked that before Wammy’s became a thing, L was an extraordinary element. L appeared to be self-made. He even became an important part of law enforcement even though his main motivation wasn’t justice. Before Wammy’s introduction, his death would have had a massive impact on the DN universe because once he is dead, L doesn’t exist anymore and is no longer a secret weapon in difficult cases. Even if Kira is defeated, losing L in the process would be a massive loss. Wammy’s existence reduces L to a replaceable role. If he dies, someone else from the L-factory will take the position. The death of L as a person has almost no impact on the DN universe because L as an entity still exists, and that’s the only thing that counts. No consequences whatsoever. Barely anyone knew how he looked anyway.

I understand why Ohba went with L’s successors as a continuation instead of something else. He was playing the safe card by feeding the consumers something they are already familiar with. Going for different scenarios would be risky and require more effort. However, it could have been more rewarding if executed well. I would have liked a greater variety of enemies for Light and him having to adapt to new dangers. So, here are some scenarios that I would have found more intriguing than the one we got.

The premise of Mello’s arc was interesting; unfortunately, the execution was horrendous. But Light vs a criminal organization that, for example, wants the DN or Kira’s power for themselves isn’t a bad idea. A criminal organization would be a lot more ruthless than L. L needed evidence, while a crime syndicate would immediately shoot Light if he showed up on the list of suspects. And his family would be in danger too.

Or a revenge plot? Something like Kira killed a family member or other loved one (preferably justified, but could also be someone wrongly accused), and a bereaved person wants revenge. Now, this person is on a suicide mission, and Light has to fight against someone who has nothing left to lose. Their own survival is optional, only getting revenge before dying counts.

How about Kira vs a fanatic Kira fan? Someone who thinks Kira isn’t Kira enough anymore and feels they can do better? Maybe this person could make Light’s allies question their loyalty to him. Who are they loyal to, Light or Kira?

A female antagonist would also have potential (but not with Ohba as an author). Light tends to underestimate women. Now, Light faces one as a competent opponent, and he has to take one or more critical hits to realize the danger.

Anyway, the successor arc definitely has its moments, but overall, it is a lot weaker. And in my opinion, these weaknesses are primarily connected to Wammy’s. So, removing it could have been beneficial for the story. At least, that’s my opinion. If you have a different opinion, that’s great. But please, I’m not particularly interested in lengthy discussions about this subject.

[comicaurora]

A bit of a strange question, but if there were any of your videos you were to "remake" today for any reason (ex: you feel like you misrepresented the original text or spread misinformation), which would it be and why? None of them is a perfectly valid answer

Again: bit of a strange question, but I've been thinking about my own creations and how I could have done so much better with some of them, but I also know that is a sign of my growth and constantly chasing "what if I did this instead" isn't always healthy for nurturing a creative mindset, and I was wondering what your opinion might be as a Creator of Things with a bit more experience than I

There's been a few trope talks where I've thought later of other angles I could've explored that might warrant sequels or part 2s, but I don't dislike any of the summaries enough to justify a rework.

I always find "I could've done this better if I made it now" to be a bit of a fallacy. I'm only better at making things now because I made all those earlier things. If I knew everything I'd learn from making a project before I started the project, it wouldn't come out the same.

I think when it comes to the "rework remake perfect" instinct, it helps to zero in on what the impulse is really grounded in. In my experience, more often than not, it's not actually about making the art better, except incidentally. It's usually about showing that you are better. It's demonstrating your competence and your higher standards and your skills, and more importantly it's overwriting the proof that you were once less than perfect. If people look at your old work and think that's all you're capable of, they'll be judging you poorly!

If that's the motivator, it's a very unhelpful one. You can't control for being harshly or incorrectly judged. It's a fruitless effort to stave off potentially upsetting outdated criticism, and it's not even going to work. Fear of critique is an unreliable and untrustworthy motivator.

If it really is about making the art itself better, perfecting your magnum opus with your newly leveled-up skills, that's a little more solid. But from where I'm standing, it's always better to use those skills to make something new instead of polishing something old. The older, unpolished work has already acquired its audience that finds it appealing for reasons that might never occur to you. Trying to bury or overwrite it just deprives that audience of the thing they like, and maybe makes them feel bad for having liked it in the first place. Also, usually when you look back on the older work, you'll conclude that the problem is everything and it'll need to be torn down and started from scratch. I know when I revisited the first three chapters of the comic, when I let my critic brain spin up, it wasn't shading or lineart I wanted to fix - it was panel composition, overall pacing, the entire structure of the chapters as a whole. I would've had to make them all over again to be happy with them, and they wouldn't be the same story by the end.

I've been thinking a lot about the Discworld through this lens lately. It ended up over 40 books long, but everyone agrees that the first two are not what you should start with, because they're the worst ones. They're entirely parodic, purely referential of at-the-time major fantasy series, and borderline mean-spirited in places. If you haven't read Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and Dragonriders of Pern, you're not gonna understand like a full 50% of The Colour Of Magic.

It's clear that when he started in on them, Pratchett was entirely focused on taking the piss out of a genre he found mostly shallow and unimpressive. But the Discworld wouldn't leave his head, and everything he made fun of he clearly eventually found himself overthinking. He'd make little one-off jokes in the early books about Dwarves having no women and a hundred words for gold, and then twenty books later he'd have a Dwarf gender revolution make waves across the Disc, and then he'd write Thud!, a book that delves deeper into the nuances of Dwarf societal structure than Tolkien ever did.

If you look for them, there are continuity errors everywhere in Discworld. In his introductory book, Carrot defused a dwarf bar full of rowdy brawlers by guilting them all into writing to their poor lonely mothers back home. Shortly thereafter, Carrot will be outraged at the mere concept of an openly female dwarf. Pratchett even eventually wrote Thief of Time, a book that loosely explains that the Disc makes no sense because history has been broken and put back together incorrectly twice, and therefore any continuity errors are because of that.

He's the writer. He could've gone back and fixed it, edited the reprints to be less disruptively discontinuous with the later books. Instead he continuously moved forward and allowed the world he made to grow without cutting it off from its roots. And because he didn't bury his older, far worse work, we have the privilege of following the Disc's evolution from the very start, and seeing how this shallow, stock fantasy world parody became something incredibly rich and complex without ever pretending like its early installments never happened.

Anyway, that's why I think it's better to move forward. You make more good stuff that way.

[winterandwords]

📖 On editing as you write

I've seen a lot of "don't edit as you write" and "just get it all down on the page as fast as you can and keep going" writing advice online. While this totally works for some people and some projects, especially if you're writing with an outline and/or are very momentum-driven, I'd like to offer a different perspective.

Editing as you go, reworking the same scene or chapter a few times before you move on, and focusing on small details in early drafts can be super helpful for some writers.

I usually discovery write these days, so doing a deep dive into most scenes as I go along is amazing at helping me understand the story as it develops and it gives me a clearer insight into the characters and their motivations. Zooming through a zero draft or first draft wouldn't serve the same function for me.

Yes, there are definitely scenes and chapters that I fly through and just get the words out, knowing those sections are purely functional for now and I'll come back to them later. Those tend to be the more plotty and actiony parts for me, where what I need to make progress is this-happens-then-that-happens information.

But obsessively fiddling with individual words and sentence structure when it feels right enables me to really dig into my story. It doesn't prevent me from moving forward. It helps me move forward in the right direction. It lets me build the foundation I need and it gives me a cleaner draft to work from when it comes time to revise.

So if you feel like you're Doing It Wrong™ because you prefer to edit as you go, you aren't. You're just doing it differently from how some other people do it, and that's OK. We all have our own processes. Sometimes different projects, or different stages of the same project, call for different approaches.

If it's working for you, it's working. Keep going 💜

[rweoutofthewoods]

Hi Mere I don't want to imply anything but I'm worried that your new relationship stopped helping you be creative and put out updates. Is your fiance not letting you write? I'm concerned about you.

Look, i appreciate your concern and I’m sure you have good intentions but let me set you straight.

I met my fiancé through writing. we used to write together every single night. They’ve been nothing but my biggest fan, my biggest supporter, the person I can turn to for honest and kind feedback. When I was writing Youngblood and I wrote a chapter I absolutely HATED it was them who encouraged me to rework it into something I was proud of and who didn’t let me give up and just hate myself for it.

And when I said I wanted to stop writing for a while let me tell you there was a big silence and they gave me a look of horror and asked if I was okay because YEAH, it’s very unlike me.

But first I want to say, that just because you guys have known about my relationship for a little while doesn’t mean that’s as long as it’s existed. I was happily in this relationship when I was pumping out 3 chaps a week, and I’m happily in it now that I’m posting 0.

The honest truth is I’m burnt the fuck out. I don’t want to write because I have zero interest in it right now. It doesn’t make me happy, I’m not motivated or burning to do it like I used to be. I wrote nonstop through my last two years of college, through graduating, through working a terrible food service job post grad, living in constant dread of what came next. I’m just burnt out. I’ve been pumping out jegulus nonstop since 2022, ofc I was going to lose steam and move away from it eventually.

Im just busy and tired! I’m moving in a few months, I have a full time job now, I go to work at 8am and come home at 5 or 6 and I don’t want to write. I want to spend time with my family or my friends or my fiancé. In December I worked for 17 days straight without a day off, I needed a break! And when I want comfort and happiness I don’t have to turn to writing to find it.

I’m mentally at the best I have been in a very long time, and I don’t need to write like someone has a gun to my head to cope anymore. I had a very unhealthy and obsessive relationship with writing. And I always joked when people asked how I wrote so much that it was mental illness. But it wasn’t really a joke, I was unwell and coping with fanfic. So while I’m sure some of you may be sad to see my writing slow, I hope you’re happy for me because it’s a good thing!! I want to heal my relationship with writing and I want it to be something I simply do for fun, not something to fill some hole inside of me.

So while I’m sure you mean well, I just want to remind you guys that you see a very small piece of my life and my relationship. So I’d appreciate not making assumptions 🩷

[lvnesart]

Have you ever thought about making your own designs for Murata and Tsaritsa? Or do you just wait for the official ones to twist them to fit your style more??? (this is not a request, just a question)

I always wanna do a design before official ones, but I always feel sooo lazy about it

Before Guizhong's design reveal, I wanted to create my own design that was more similar to this kind of look.

But ah, guess I'll just shove my headcanons onto that current design lol

If I get the motivation, I'll try my hand at designing Murata or the Tsaritsa sometime. Otherwise, I'll just rework the designs they do give us

(Trust me. I have zero hopes for Natlan. So expect PLENTY of redesigns)

[joewintergreen]

I just released a video game! It's a fancy-graphics remake of my 2013 marble-rolling puzzle game InFlux, and you can buy it on Steam or Epic right now, and I'd love it if you did, particularly if you left a positive review to reduce the likelihood of Steam never surfacing it to anybody and it not making any money.

Some years back I started making a remaster of InFlux on UE4 in my spare time. I just thought it would be a nice straightforward thing to do to keep InFlux playable and supportable into the future by moving it to a better engine, and I wasn't wrong, but I didn't consider how long it would take me to do it while also working. Now it's on UE5, and it's done, and you can play it. It's the same game, but with way better graphics and way less jank, having been remade basically from scratch in a new engine, sharing zero code with the original.

Initially, I had planned to do a relatively straightforward remaster, where the game would look, feel and perform a lot better just by being in UE4, but the art itself would be the same. Since I was only ever working on Redux in snatches of spare time and had to rewrite and redo everything, this took a couple years.

I had that version of the game ready to ship, with a trailer and everything, but got distracted, and coming back a year later, thought "this isn't remastered enough". I spent another couple years remastering it better, with nicer shaders, a more detailed world, etc, and had that ready to go, but got distracted again. Coming back a year later, I thought "this isn't remastered enough" and reworked most of the assets with higher polycounts, re-lit everything, added new photogrammetry-based assets, and had something really nice looking, and got distracted. By the time I came back to it again, UE5 was solid, so I reworked things again to take advantage of Nanite, Nanite tessellation, Lumen, virtual shadowmaps, and other new tech. So it's a remaster of a remaster of a remaster at this point.

The content is mostly the same, but there are some new things: some streamlined level designs and additional traversal puzzles in the overworld, some added interactions to give you more to do there than roll around, and a number of tweaks to existing puzzles. There's also an entire extra puzzle room that wasn't in InFlux that I think I must have just forgotten to put in, and a lot of minor quality of life improvements to smooth away a lot of the original's jank. Also, there are now hidden fireflies to find that unlock concept you can view in a gallery.

What kept me committed to doing this at the many times when I did not want to was the fans, who are not many, but are lovely and earnest, and also the realisation that a lot of folks played this when they were kids and would be excited to see it again. It's surreal to have an adult tell you that they loved your game when they were 9, but it's a big motivator too. Kids enjoy games on a better, less critical level than adults can; I really like knowing InFlux was that special thing for somebody. Thanks for the support, folks, and I hope you enjoy this thing.

[the-travelling-witch]

hi hi holly!! ask games are always fun 👀 you can choose which ones to answer akjdjs

💖 What is your primary writing goal for this year?

🫘 Spill the beans. What's a new project you're doing this year?

💥Is there a chapter, scene, or WIP you're most excited to write? Share a snippet or tell us about it!

they sure are!! plus, i just like yapping about my writing ideas jshhs thank you for asking <3

💖 What is your primary writing goal for this year?

very generic, but my main goal is writing more and more consistently. i really want to establish some kind of routine that i can stick to, so it becomes more of a habit.

at the moment i still have to kind of force myself to do my hobby (dumb as it sounds) bc it’s really intimidating for some nonsensical reason, which makes the very idea to start something super exhausting ㅠㅠ

i also really want to work on and complete one of my longer/bigger projects!! there are a lot of cool ideas in my drafts (if i may say so myself) but they need the long format to shine + it’s always been a goal of mine to write a series <3

🫘 Spill the beans. What's a new project you're doing this year?

as i’ve already mentioned in a tag here and there, i’ve found the motivation to revisit a multi-chapter angst idea from last year. i’m currently still reworking the structure and pacing of the notes i made at the time but the core idea is still the same :>

i haven’t written any actual chapter yet, so i can’t show any snippets but i can spoiler some of the main themes that inspired it!! the one that’s really prominent for me atm is the motif that you cannot change your fate and if you try to outrun it, fate will only double down on it~

other projects would include the aventurine fic i’ve told you about, another idea for mermay, the twst pokémon au, my modern au and at least one of the event ideas i wanted to host ^^

💥Is there a chapter, scene, or WIP you're most excited to write? Share a snippet or tell us about it!

i’m sooo excited to write the last chapter of every draft jshsh (big fan of finishing projects, i should do it more often /j); no but fr, i obviously like writing the culmination of all my plotting and scheming as well as the resolution, even if it also puts the most pressure on me to do it well!!

as for things i can share, i’ve talked before about a fic for barbarian! bakugo; it was supposed to be a one-shot and now i somehow ended up with a draft for a 5 chapter fic (how does this always happen?). the first draft for chapter one has actually been done since october but i wasn’t happy with how it came out at the time, so i’ve had zero motivation to edit and/or proofread it ^^;

i really like the prompt/au though, so i would like to finish it one day; here’s a snippet :]

The Fair Folk and the Barbarians of the Dragonrider Clan have never had much common ground, even back in the day when they were still peaceful neighbours. While the events that caused it have been lost to history, the bad blood which has run between the two fronts ever since was undeniable, leading to stubborn isolation on both sides as an ideal breeding ground for nasty rumours.

In case of the fae, who had concealed their presence in the thick forest to the west of the barbarian’s territory, rumours eventually became myths and their very existence was called into question, often being dismissed as a cautionary tale for reckless children.

Bakugo Katsuki, next in line for the position of clan leader, had been one such rash child but even from a young age on, he never seemed to believe in the stories the elders of his tribe would tell. And even if they were true, who would he be to lose to some fragile little pollen ball?

So when the now young adult stepped into a stone circle on a hunt deep in the forest, he thought nothing of it.

You, however, were keenly aware of the people that lived outside the border of your home. So when one of them waltzed into your world at the most opportune moment, who would you be to let this chance pass you by? Especially when you recognised the man for who he was.

sooooo do i have your attention already jshhshs

writer goals ask game

[nymphrasis]

Ok so my art to-do list from, starting from what I will prioritize to work on from top to bottom: - Private large commission - Work on 10 custom art as part of a trade - ^^^ If no full info on what is needed, I will work on the Galarian Ponyta fusion adopts ( I'll just finish up what I have. Will not be a large batch ) - Work on Kuruna's blog art responses - Do a small handful of chibi Eevee fusions - Draw Tedaterra in a Kirby onesie - ^^^ If no drive for that yet, I will work on a few headshots ( Or pixel art ) of the characters for the Tale of the Kingdoms blog. - Do an art piece of Kuruna and my persona together ( Base on the anon ask that has been sitting in my box for a good while now ). - Work on more chibi Eevees - Do a lil fanart of tricks-n-illusions character ( Base on aro-pokeverse ask. I do apologize for me being late on this ) - More Kuruna blog art - Chibi Eevees again - Made in Abyss x Pokemon SV ( More specifically Area Zero ) crossover piece - ^^^ If I don't feel the drive to work on that yet, it would just be me making lil fun art of Kuruna instead. - Work on gift art for a small handful of friends ( It was supposed to be a Christmas gift but, well... Plans have made things get pushed back ^^" ) - Kuruna art for the blog - Work on art responses on ask-the-abomination - Try something I've always wanted to do was to make a very big art piece that includes a lot of my characters ( As it has been a decade since I last included multiple characters in the art piece. Aka, before I dabble my hand on digital art [ I started digital art on 2016 ] ). Have yet to decide on who and what scene it would be. - More chibi Eevee fusions, if I haven't finished yet - Fanart of actual POC characters ( Because I am tired of seeing people pushing aside existing POC characters when doing a fan piece [ Coughs at edits ]. So I want to try. I have yet to decide if it will be a headshot or halfbody. I don't feel up to doing a fullbody art ) - Yet more Kuruna blog stuff - Anatomy practice for larger size beings. More specifically the back ( Not in a sexual way. I really am still not too confident on drawing backs of larger size characters. I am more use to doing those for less heavy sizes and creatures ) - [ Input Sketch colored art raffle. Note that it is clean sketch like this . Have yet to decide if there will be shading involved ] - Kuruna blog art yippee There is a few I have in mind that I don't know where to put in the list. That few being: - Finish up this Kuruna art piece:

Work on random Pokefusion adopts ( This one is a random spur, as ideas do pop here and there. Not frequent )

Work on personal character art ( Of Pokemon ocs )

Random Kuruna art ( When I feel bored, need motivation, or had a random idea that I've wanted to draw out real quick )

Work on Arcy reworked blog ( Newer characters, with the exception of Arcy ).

Work on some art examples for my commissions ( As some lack more examples than others )

Do a new YCH that is something simplier and cute, price shouldnt be that high really.

Fanart of games I have been playing, like Eastward, Palworld, FFXIV, or even Digimon ( Speaking of which, I still havent done that Alphamon x Lunala fusion. This idea is a few years old and I just never dabble into it TwT" )

Dabble on doing clean sketch color comms. Price has yet to still be decided.

Work on fanart / gift art of the following blogs: ask-eden, omniandco, ask-the-royal-absol, askcomet, ask-a-silvy, ask-valiant-victory, sphaeramjourney, the-feral-one, ask-aeos-company, and lightofunova. More in the future ofc because I love the ask blog community!

Scenery practices of things I don't often do ( I need to practice more with places like cities and those that are more complex-decorated ).

Fix and finish this art piece of Namithia:

Finish this art piece of Eevrutty

Finish this art piece of a random lil creature ( Probs will sell it? Undecided yet because I do very much like them )

Finish this piece of Nerissa ( A character I have yet to decide whether or not I will remain keeping. I did removed her kingdom to revamp it to be the final sea kingdom to be falled [ Since there are two. One from the North and other from the South ] )

Create a few Pokefusions to be a part of a giveaway

Draw an art piece of my grandmother and have it be printed as a carry on bag design.

I think that is all I had in mind of what I've wanted to get done ;w; It is, uhhh.. A lot to say the least xD

[fangaminghell]

🔥 🌅 ✴️ 🐦‍🔥 for Flynn and Arrow :)

Sorry this took so long!!!

🔥 (fire) - What drives your character in life? Is it a belief? A person? A goal? Whatever it is, what do they want from it and what are they willing to do to get it?

Flynn never really had much motivation for herself, rather than simply trying to appease her parents. It wasn't until the night are school where she wanted to do something for herself for once and ended up rather recklessly deciding that she'll join Imani and everyone else in their efforts to stop Team Xen. Is she over her head? Maybe! But she likes Imani and Arrow a lot and wants to prove that she can be useful, so she's here to stay :)

Arrow used to run on vengeance, when they were apart of Bladestar. But after running away, most of drive came from staying hidden from said team. What drives them now? Well....I think they still want revenge on Team Xen like before. I don't think that ever gone away, just that it isn't all consuming like it was before. They also desire to keep Imani and Flynn safe, not wanting to have them carry anymore burdens on their own anymore.

🌅 (sunrise) - What does your oc look forward to every day? Do they have something to look forward to in the first place? What makes them wake up in the morning? Why do they want to be alive?

Before joining Imani, Flynn would always look forward to her trips to the garden within the city or route 9. Those are her moments where she gets to get away from the city life and simply relax with nature. Post joining Imani, I'm not sure, outside of simply being with her new friends. I think the newfound purpose she feels with her life - finally going something on her own accord and not something that her parents wanted

Arrow, I feel, always liked the smaller things in life. They're the type of person who wakes up early,gets some tasks done and maybe fly around in the sky to watch a sunrise. I think the hope of a better tomorrow pushes them a lot. But also their own anger and desire for revenge. I don't think it ever truly gone away, even after joining Imani n Co. They just got a lot better at managing it. Living another day means spiting those who has caused them great harm so. They keep on going. Plus, now they have the new goal of looking after Imani and Flynnn

✴️ (eight-pointed star) - Is there anyone your oc admires or looks up to? What qualities of this person does your oc admire? Do they want to be like this person one day?

Flynn admires Imani's positive attitude and bravery. She also admires Erin's bluntness and ability to stand up for herself. She ultimately wants to be true to herself one day, but also wishes to as brave and as forward as Imani and Erin!

Arrow admired their mother's optimism and can do attitude, as well as their father's calm demeanor. They're gone now, but they're both people Arrow looks up to and still do.

🐦‍🔥 (phoenix) - What has your oc had to overcome to get to where they are now? Were the challenges emotional or physical? Would you say they had to go through a “rebirth”? How did they change, if at all?

Ooooooo boy. Flynn is kinda in a weird spot right now, but I know for a fact that she had to break free from her own restrictions, as well as what others expected of her. This is shown with her parents, of course, but also her relationship with Risa - even if I'm currently reworking that lol. Flynn had zero confidence in herself once, simply doing what others told her to do. It was very hard to get her out of that mindset. Terajuma was something needed for her, as traumatic as it was, since she was put in a situation outside of her parents, her school, her peers. In a weird way, it was freedom to just be that put her on the path she is now. Again, it was all very terrifying, and definitely scarred her but. Overall, it was a push in the right direction.

Arrow feels kinda self explanatory. They're anger towards Xen led them to Bladestar, only to realize Bladestar is Terrible and had to make a run for their life getting out. On the road they kinda became a shell of themself? Still Arrow, but....more of a coward. Not willing to confront their past, to simply run from it. Terajuma is like. A big breaking point for everyone, huh? Cause being forced to see old faces, interact with them again, etc all ultimately got Arrow rethinking their approach to everything. Realizing how running away isn't going to fix anything. So yeah, I guess you can say they do get "reborn" into a more fiery version of themself,haha.

[blackjackkent]

🦷🦖 for writer ask game?

(Writer Goal Ask List for the New Year)

🦷 Is there a chapter, scene, or WIP you're dreading to write (but is necessary to your plot)? Share a snippet or tell us about it!

Hmmmm. I like to think that I really don't have anything I want to write that I'm dreading. Honestly I'm at the point right now where if I don't wanna write something, I'm just not going to. :P

There are definitely parts of Fault Lines that are going to be challenging because I've realized that the conflict of the story is maybe different than I original envisioned, so I need to do a bunch of planning reworking. And I'm a bit anxious that it won't turn out the way I want. 😅 But I really want to have it written before I fully write The Grand Reunion, which is a fic I REALLY want to write, so hopefully that will be a good motivator. XD

🦖 Are there any fandoms you wrote for in the past that you'd like to return to?

Hm. Maybe? The only fandom I really wrote at any length for in the past was Mass Effect, and maybe one day I would like to go back and finish Impenetrable. But also Mass Effect never gripped me with the writing bug to anything like the same extent that Baldur's Gate has, and I still have a LOT of ideas rattling around for BG, so I don't see that happening in the immediate future.

(There's also, I suppose, a non-zero chance that Veilguard will grip me enough to get me writing for Dragon Age beyond the liveblog that I have planned, but I sort of doubt it for similar reasons. XD )

[pale-opal]

Thursday evening/way too early Friday morning, I uploaded the second of the final five chapters of my MMX rewrite. Which means that it is time for the second of the five fun facts. Today, we will be discussing the magic of ✨rewriting your own work✨(mild spoilers beneath the cut).

So, it should go without saying, but it is very rare that a first draft of a "First Impact" chapter gets posted. Usually, all that is needed is a quick grammar check from @crystalclear365, but other times, entire parts of the plot need to be reworked. Let's take the fight scene that takes place between Zero and X in Chapter 10 as an example. Originally, it took place in Chapter 8, and it looked like this:

Hmm... while I don't think this version of the argument is bad, per se, I do see a few issues. Everything escalates too quickly. X and Zero are at one another's throats in about a minute, despite there being no dialogue from either party that would warrant the other's response. Additionally, it is out of character for Zero to act the way he does here (especially when you consider how he behaves this early into the rewrite), and the fight being from X's perspective makes it difficult to see where Zero is coming from. That makes X more sympathetic than intended, which is a problem - while he does have a right to be confused as to why Zero seems to be so fond of Axl, this argument is meant to showcase the possessive tendencies that X struggles with at this point in the plot. Not only that, but Zero cutting contact with X before the battle with Chill Penguin would have severely restricted how I would have been able to write Zero and X's interactions during the mission.

In order to fix these issues, I moved the argument to Chapter 10, specifically after Zero talks to Sigma after the mission and after Axl has chosen to stay at the Hunter Base for the night. This led to this version of the fight:

Okay - this is much better. To begin with, the fight takes more time to build up (making it much less jarring when the yelling starts), and both Zero and X's motives are much clearer. X properly comes off as both possessive and understandably confused, and Zero's refusal to fully explain his actions also has proper reasoning behind it. Furthermore, moving the argument to a different chapter allowed me to create more reasons for the argument's escalation. Now, X is also upset because Zero misled him - and Zero has two additional reasons for why he's angry: X won't leave him alone, despite Zero not having a problem with doing that for him when necessary (in other words, X is being a hypocrite), and X's behavior reminds him of Bass (and not in a good way), causing him to draw the conclusion that people that are supposed to be close to him keep treating him like an object. There are plenty of other times that I have had to rewrite things in "First Impact," but this case is the easiest to talk about. However, if you want to know about the writing process I followed, please let me know! And my inbox is open, so don't hesitate to ask any other questions as well. (Also, if this is your first time hearing of "First Impact" or "Collision Course" and this post somehow piqued your interest, please read the tags on the fic before reading. While the story may be rated T for Teen, that doesn't mean things don't get intense. Stay safe, everybody.)

[binarybitex]

monday, 04/08/2024

below the cut: updates on Heart Hollow, a snippet from today's writing, as well as a little peek into my busy body kind of day :-)

genuinely such a productive day. I slept for like 14 hours, had some wacky dreams, and woke up feeling completely revitalized !!

I wanted to get some writing done this morning but ahhh kinda stressed out. this week I have a lot of responsibilities to tend to. so I decided to just get a bunch of chores done and brainstorm out loud to myself as I tidied up. and wow what a motivation tactic! I have so much fun just spit balling while doing mindless tasks like cleaning that I just... kept cleaning!

I went to the grocery store too, and made chocolate chip cookies for me and my partner. took a shower to wash off all the cleaning chemicals I felt lingering on my skin. yucky. thinking about it, all I had to eat today was a coke zero and a chocolate chip cookies. no wonder my stomach hurts lmao

I wrote down some of the ideas I've had over the weekend. I'm reworking the structures of books 2 and 3. it's hard not to get too ahead of myself... I still have a first book to finish!! ahhh.... I just think book 2 is going to be a lot of fun to write. I just love writing romance so much.

around sundown I decided to actually sit down and open up Heart Hollow. the past week or so I've been aching to rework what I have for chapter 10. like I've been saying, this chapter has been killing me for months. I think I finally got it down though.... I really needed to consider what lewis was feeling after certain events in the upcoming chapter Boss Babysitter. (so hard to talk about it without spoiling !!)

i wrote until a quarter till midnight and now I'm finally laying down in bed ..... had to force myself bc my document was starting to look like a jumbled mess to my tired eyes lmao... oh and I guess bc I have time sensitive responsibilities tomorrow too.... whatever tho 🙄 lol

and, from today's writing burst, a little snippet. the only snippet I could share that doesn't flat out spoil anything aaagghh.......

eeeeek I can't wait for boss babysitters release. I know I keep saying that I JUST want to be prepared before I send it out into the world. id like to have more writing on deck so I don't leave y'all hanging on ANOTHER cliff hanger for months ...... sorry about that btw. I know the mirror break is a fat fucking ball to drop and leave off on..... lmao 💀

[incorrectzodiacquotes]

are you planning on making a zodiac webcomic/comic/whatever? i’m interested because i have zodiac sign characters lol /gen

i wish!!! unfortunately i have zero artistic ability in that regard 🥲

i don't want to go too into it bc 90% of my story ideas never make it past their pinterest boards early development, and i'm just working on worldbuilding/characters rn. but i've been watching how the self publishing industry has totally blown up over the past few years in large part bc of booktok and i've always wanted to try my hand at writing an indie series! must strike while the iron is hot and whatnot

currently reworking/revamping my old life of the zodiacs series that i wrote a few very bad chapters of in the early days of my blog. we'll see if it actually turns into anything. i was also motivated bc i had someone recommend the zodiac academy series to me after i mentioned my astrology obsession and was SEVERELY DISAPPOINTED that it hardly as anything to do with actual astrology (at least the first book). so this may or may not be a spite thing lol

[crossdressingdeath]

A thought: I think the whole traitor subplot in BNHA would've been better if... well, first off if it had been better established and woven throughout the story instead of being briefly established as a possibility and then basically completely dropped until the reveal of the traitor's identity, but also if instead of Aoyama the traitor was Todoroki. Or alternately (and possibly more entertainingly) Aoyama was still All For One's traitor but Todoroki was working with Dabi (although that would obviously require reworking the whole situation between them so that they weren't on the worst terms two brothers can possibly be on).

Like... Aoyama is a very sympathetic traitor. He's a kid put into a horrible situation by circumstances outside of his control, so of course the audience feels bad for him and wants things to work out for him in the end. But that's basically all he's got going for him as the choice for traitor beyond confirming that All For One is The Most Evil, which wasn't really necessary at this point in the story. I guess there is a little bit of a thing about how being quirkless is treated in the setting if you want to read it that way, but nothing that wasn't already covered with Deku. I like how there are things he does in earlier chapters that read very differently when you know he's the traitor (like him drawing attention to the fact that his whereabouts were unaccounted for during the USJ attack), but honestly that's the nicest thing I can say about him being the traitor. He's a very safe choice, for lack of a better way of putting it; the thing that led to him becoming a traitor was his parents' decision rather than his, he has to do it on pain of death, he wanted to help and tried to draw people's attention to him being suspicious so that they'd do something about it. You couldn't come up with a less controversial reason for someone to be a traitor if you tried! And it doesn't require interrogating anything about hero society that we weren't already interrogating.

Todoroki being the traitor would be an entirely different story, though. For one he actually has a motive beyond "I'll be killed if I don't"; honestly I'm a little surprised he's never even utilized as a red herring, because this kid is the only member of Class 1-A with any reason to side with the villains. The number two hero was violently abusive towards him from when he was five years old at the latest and no one ever helped him. Endeavor was physically abusive towards Shoto and neglectful towards his other kids and no one ever helped them. Even when Rei threw boiling water in her son's face, a) it seems likely that this was covered up to at least some extent since otherwise that sort of story would be a huge deal (it's exactly the sort of awful, sordid shit people like learning about celebrities, tabloids would eat that up) and b) no one investigated the household afterwards, or if they did they didn't do a very good job of it. Hell, Endeavor's not particularly subtle about it; he openly refers to Shoto as something he made to take down All Might to All Might's face (and I've read in the original Japanese he refers to Shoto as "it" instead of "him"? But I can't confirm that for myself currently), and Shoto sure as hell isn't hiding the fact that his father treats him terribly. But Endeavor faces zero consequences for the way he treats his family until Touya outs the whole affair to all of Japan! His status as number two—and later number one—hero is absolutely protecting him, and I get the sense Shoto is very aware of that. If anyone in this class was going to say "No, this society is terrible, tear it down and start again"... well, he definitely has the most reason to. He's also a significantly more important character in the rest of the story than Aoyama, which would give the betrayal more weight.

Also, since Horikoshi clearly wants a sympathetic traitor (which I have to say probably is the best way to go unless the traitor was Mineta in which case the class should throw him off the highest roof they can find, he'd deserve it no matter how sympathetic his motivation was)... "I want hero society rebuilt because it let my dad get away with abusing his whole family for a decade" is still really sympathetic! It's honestly just as sympathetic as Aoyama's motivation, it just allows the traitor some actual agency. Or alternately if he's Dabi's spy specifically it could be a situation where the two of them are using the League to get a shot at Endeavor as Dabi does in canon, in at least Shoto's case because all legal courses of action have failed to do anything for him and he's desperate to do something, anything to get out of Endeavor's clutches. Either way that would create an opportunity to actually examine the good points the villains make with a character who isn't... y'know, obviously full of shit. After all, if heroes can do whatever and it'll get covered up for the sake of The System then there will always be people abandoned and allowed to fall through the cracks, and some of those people are going to turn to desperate measures to help themselves because there is no other choice. Plus going back to the point of agency, a setup where Todoroki is willingly working with the League (or at least his brother) because he thinks it's the only way to create a better world (or the only way to deal with Endeavor) would create a situation where he could willingly switch sides because All For One has gone way too far and this is not what he wanted, which a) is a viewpoint from the villains that feels like it should've come up more and b) to me feels more compelling than "I never wanted to help them anyway" as a motivation to change sides.

Also I do have to admit it: I like me some Todobros. I was very disappointed when it turned out Dabi genuinely hated Todoroki, I wanted them to be close. Really ramp up the angst of them being enemies, y'know? Also (while I haven't got to the summer training camp arc of the anime yet so I don't know how it's animated) in the scene where Dabi first appears to steal Bakugou in the manga the art looked to me like he deliberately avoided hitting Todoroki with his flames so it feels like a real shame that it turns out that either that was incidental or Todoroki just dodged and I misread (mis-saw?) the scene when it could have been Dabi not being able to bring himself to hurt his baby brother. Anyway, having them be close and working together to bring down Endeavor would give me the dynamic between them that I wanted canon to have. It would also humanize Dabi a bit to have a single positive human connection that he genuinely cared about, which I do think he'd benefit from; there are many good bonds that people give him in fics and fanon, but canonically he genuinely doesn't seem to give a shit about anyone or anything other than taking down Endeavor, and at times it kind of feels like he's written that way just to devalue his really good reasons for wanting his dad gone (in ways other than. y'know. all the murder). Also if they were close and pretending they a) weren't related and b) hated each other there would be so many opportunities for them to say and do things that would read very differently on a second read. Also there could be Todoroki agreeing to turn triple agent on the condition that his brother is shown leniency for all that murdering he's been doing, which is just a fun concept to me.

Anyway, though. Main takeaway from this: I just think Todoroki would've been a much more engaging and believable traitor than Aoyama and having him be the traitor would've created more opportunities to engage with the problems of hero society instead of just being another instance of All For One being evil. And honestly the more I think about it the more of a wasted opportunity it feels like that Todoroki is never even used as a red herring for the traitor seeing as he actually has reasons to turn on hero society.

[aralisj]

💘🌈🕯️and 🤲 pls <333

💘Is there any posted fic you want to rework/re-edit/re-write?

I would like to have another look at Holding Tight and make sure the grammar and spelling is just right. And I think I would trim the ghost at the skating rink side-story because now it feels a little dumb.

I would also like to make Then When I Met You a little longer because it was a sweet one shot with a lot of potential.

(I'm not going to do either of those things in the foreseeable future though lol)

🌈is there a fic that you worked *really fucking hard on* that no one would ever know? maybe a scene/theme you struggled with?

Angst is so difficult for me. Just the idea of starting to write something that will make me sad and the character sad... I lose all my motivation. i never said that we would die together  and Chapter 22 of Holding Tight were especially hard for that reason, even though I already had the ending planned out it was so hard to just write it.

🕯️was there a fic that was really hard on you to write, or took you to a place you didn’t think it would take you?

Originally, The Gardener's Son was never supposed to be as smutty as it turned out to be. I had planned on a bit of role play being a catalyst for Dmitry realizing his feelings for Anya but I just didn't know how far it would go lol

It also was supposed to be one chapter only but then I was like, actually Anya has rights too, so

🕯️how do you think engaging with each other through tumblr, twitter, comments, kudos, creates healthy fandom experiences? How do you deal with that if you’re not a social person/experience social anxiety?

For one, it makes it obvious that fan writers and artists are people with lives that do this for the love of it and not like AI machines that feed us content every few days. It takes time and love to do anything.

I've tried to make it a habit to compliment creators as much as possible because it's the nice thing to do and it's free. A little ramble in the tags, a comment, a kudos, etc. truly can make someone's day <3

🤲what do YOU get out of writing?

It's a fun, creative, pure thing that I can do in my downtime (usually in my notes app while I pretend to text someone lol). There's like zero outside pressure for me to be good or even make sense, I can play with my blorbos all I want, and I get to know people within the fandom that I wouldn't have connected with otherwise (like you?!) because I'm very introverted

[werewolfdev]

Preface: I'm not knocking this advice. "Write for yourself" is eternally true. The moment you fall out of love with your story, your readers will have no hope in loving your story either.

I'd like to present another perspective:

If you write out of obligation, then you will suffer.

To be clear: this isn't a moral imperative. Some people write for their job, and they have a job to do whether or not they wanna do it. Nothing to be done about that. Zero shame in that. It is what it is.

...

But it *is* suffering.

Sure, even recreational writing includes periods of frustration, getting stuck, realizing there's a plot hole, realizing there are several more plot holes, and reworking drafts. Those periods of frustration can (and do) lead to periods of hiatus of undetermined (or indefinite) stretches of time. There's no denying that writing is an iterative process, and iterative processes include roadblocks - physical, mental, and emotional roadblocks.

However.

If your drive to write is "I need to write", then you will suffer.

People suffer at their jobs, regardless of how much they enjoy their jobs. An obligation is a job, and a job is a means to an end, and an end is the end. No further enjoyment is derived. No further motivation is found. It's suffering with a purpose, but it's still suffering.

If your drive to write is "I need to please others", then you will suffer.

I refuse to suffer for my writing.

If I cannot overcome a roadblock right now, then I will overcome it later.

If I cannot continue, then I rest.

If my motivation to write were to please others, then I would be writing out of obligation.

I would be suffering for my writing.

I refuse to suffer for my writing.

"Write for yourself." = "Write without concern for obligation to others." = "Write with the intention to not suffer."

Write for yourself first. Write what you like and be in love with what you create. Readers who will love it as well will just follow naturally.