#because i know where the story is going i just have to figure out how

[elmushterri]

2K followers on tumblr and 30K subscribers on YouTube! In celebration, here’s my story. Not a rewrite. This is all a work in progress and subject to change.

Being a HEMA fencer, I’ve wanted a story semi-based on actual swordsmanship and actual fencing techniques.. but fantasy.

It’s a story like… Spiderverse meets Steven Universe meets Owl House meets She-Ra.

It’s called

The Knight’s Handbook

——————

It’s modern Earth but there are supernatural people who protect it like guardian angels called Knights: Humans who’ve died via sacrificing themselves for someone else, and have been revived (not by choice). They protect humans from things as small as tripping over to protecting them from demons, dragons and other dangerous entities.

A Knight can pull their weapon from a magical, glowing scar called their Mortal Wound, the injury they acquired and a sign of the end of their mortality, like how SU Gems can pull their weapons from their gems. A Knight’s weapon can be anything including guns and crossbows, but these shoot magic/energy bullets or arrows.

Knights have their own realm to go to just for each other, (Gallantia) but can live on Earth hiding as normal humans if they wish (so long as they hide the magic scar!)

They function a bit like bees in that there is a Queen, chosen instantly when someone dies by sacrifice according to ‘qualifications of their soul’ (So not completely random like other Knights). Of course, this only happens when the former Queen is killed. Never have there been two Queen Knights at once, so written history goes. Like bees, that would create a huge issue!

Here is the main character and the main antagonist. For the first time apparently ever, there are Two Queen Knights. A mistake of nature, perhaps?

Sidra Saiffudeen

Our main enby is Sidra, she/they. A normal teen turned Queen Knight chosen right after her death, impaled through the chest (where you can see her Mortal Wound symbol) by saving her father. Her design is based on a bee! Not all Knights’ designs are, but I thought I’d lean into Queen Bee stuff.

She’s the ‘Acknowledged’ Queen. Most Knights, ones in support of the past Queen who just died (it’s a mournful period), back Sidra, but think she’s a bit immature. Sidra adores her new people though and vows to be a good Queen. Knight Queens don’t just sit back like Earth Royalty, they’re the most powerful and therefore in battle a lot. The past Queens tended to be adults (The Captain of the Royal Guard was in love with the past Queen (sapphics >:) ) and so having Sidra around is painful but they do their best to teach her.

Then there’s Juliana Fontana, always called Jules. She… is also a Queen Knight. You can tell this because a Queen’s mortal wound symbol is always the same as the Knight Symbol, a sword. Some Knights went traitor to back Jules rather than Sidra. Jules is a very very tired and sneaky girl, but more academically intelligent than Sidra. She’d be a very different Queen, and that’s why the Knights that took her side did so! She hasn’t figured out how to access her weapon or knight form.

The twist? They haven’t seen each other for a long long time… but Sidra and Jules know each other.

Info on Weapons, Mortal Wounds and Knight Forms.

Lastly, The Title’s “The Knight’s Handbook”… what are Knight Handbooks?

Well, for Knights, along with a weapon you can pull from your Mortal Wound, you also have your Handbook! Every Knight has a Handbook with their symbol on it. Like I said, Queen Knights don’t get their own unique personalised symbol, rather they get the default symbol representing all Knights as a species (unfortunate!).

Every Handbook is personalised except for the first couple pages and chapters. The first few pages *always* contain The Rules of Knighthood. One of which is that there Cannot Be Two Queens. But… have these Handbooks with their strict rules on who your friends and enemies are and what you can or cannot do always been a part of the Knights? Or did someone *write* these books for their own purposes? Control?

Handbooks also contain info on how to fight/fence, how to defeat certain entities, anatomy, etc (I’ll figure out more). But, Handbooks also serve as phones! You write something in your handbook for someone else and your writings will appear in *their* handbook! Not sure, but I imagine handbooks can also be used as little sketch hologram projectors (you sketch a map for example or a plan and project it into the air using your book.)

Sidra and Jules may have this giant plot going on around them because they happen to be Queens, but that doesn’t mean they’re not teenagers who want to have fun. A lot of Knights are kids and teenagers and still have their senses of fun, much to the dismay of the serious adult Knights. But they’re all immortal so they’ve got plenty of time to grow up before they hit an age to stop. Being a Knight is tough and scary cause you *could* die at any time in a fight, so adult Knights tend to protect the teens from going out before they’ve trained properly. Queens are not afforded such a luxury and besides, a lot of teen Knights are totally reckless regardless of what the adults say!

So yeah!

That’s an intro to The Knight’s Handbook. I’d love for people to join in like they did with GunnTech and make their own Knights for this, if you feel inspired. It’s kinda like a DTIYS but instead of Draw This In Your Style, it’s… Draw Your Sona for this concept? Working title… /j If you wanna do something, I suppose tag it with “The Knight’s Handbook” with the apostrophe and whatnot, but I do not expect anything, you guys already do so so much 🧡.

Any art or ocs of The Knight’s Handbook will definitely be featured on my next YT vid and I’ll be reblogging (Plus I would love to draw you guys’ ocs, and basically consider them canon since there’s an infinite number of Knights in TKH!)

Thank you for all your support, guys!

[writeriguess]

Can you do part 2 for that story where Bakugo is in denial for his feelings for reader and reader confesses her feelings. How it progresses from that???

The silence stretched between you, thick and heavy with everything unsaid. You stayed patient, your soft gaze unwavering, waiting for him to process what you’d just laid bare. It wasn’t the confession you expected—he wasn’t the type to take things like this lightly—but that was okay. You weren’t rushing him. If anything, you knew Bakugo needed time to wrap his head around the idea of someone genuinely liking him.

His throat bobbed as he swallowed, eyes still wide in shock, as though his brain couldn’t quite catch up with his heart. You watched him carefully, every flicker of emotion playing out across his face—a rare sight, considering how tightly he kept his emotions under lock and key.

The clatter of a dish being cleaned in the back of the restaurant broke the quiet. The once-bustling atmosphere had dwindled, leaving only the two of you at the table. The dim lighting cast long shadows across the room, making the space feel smaller, more intimate.

You shifted slightly in your seat, resisting the urge to fill the silence with nervous chatter. Instead, you waited. Bakugo had never been one to rush into things he didn’t understand, and this—whatever was happening between you two—was something that went against everything he’d tried so hard to avoid.

You’d always known he was stubborn, but the way he was struggling with this was… endearing.

“Why…” His voice cracked, breaking the tension, though he still refused to look at you. “Why me?”

The vulnerability in his question caught you off guard. This was Bakugo Katsuki—the brash, arrogant, self-assured future number one hero—yet here he was, genuinely questioning why someone could care about him.

You leaned forward, resting your arms on the table as you met his gaze with a soft smile. “Why not you?”

He scowled, the familiar fire flaring behind his eyes. “That’s not an answer, dumbass.”

You bit your lip to suppress a chuckle. It was a fair point, and you figured you owed him more than that. “Because… you’re more than just some loud, angry guy who yells all the time.” You paused, your voice softening. “I’ve seen the way you care about your friends, even if you don’t show it in the usual way. I’ve seen how hard you push yourself, how much you want to be the best. You’re strong, but you’re also loyal, and you never give up, no matter how tough things get.”

Bakugo flinched at your words, his hands tightening into fists on his lap. You continued, letting the truth pour out with ease. “You may not realize it, but you’ve got this drive, this fire, that draws people in. That draws me in.”

He stared at you, eyes intense, searching for any hint of deceit. But there was none. Your words were genuine, and you weren’t trying to manipulate him or pull some prank. No, this was real—something raw and honest.

He shifted uncomfortably, still fighting the battle in his head. You could see it—his instinct to shut down, to push you away before you got too close. But you weren’t going anywhere. Not this time.

Bakugo finally let out a harsh breath, his voice low and strained. “I don’t know how to do this shit.”

“Do what?” you asked gently, tilting your head.

“This… this feelings crap,” he muttered, glaring at the table like it had somehow wronged him. “I don’t have time for distractions. I gotta be number one.”

Your chest tightened at his words, but you didn’t back down. “I’m not asking you to give that up. I know how important it is to you. But… it’s okay to want more than just that. It’s okay to feel things.”

He clenched his jaw, clearly wrestling with himself, but your words seemed to be sinking in. Slowly, ever so slowly, he was letting his guard down.

Finally, he raised his eyes to meet yours, and for the first time, you saw something other than anger or frustration. There was fear there. Uncertainty. Like he didn’t know how to navigate this new territory.

“You… you make it hard to focus,” he admitted, the words tumbling out as if they’d been ripped from him against his will. His hand twitched, almost reaching for something—someone—but stopping halfway. “I hate it.”

You smiled, warmth flooding your chest. “That’s kind of the point, isn’t it? Feelings aren’t supposed to make sense.”

His scowl deepened, but there was no heat behind it. Instead, it felt like he was trying to protect himself, even now. “Tch. It’s stupid.”

“Maybe,” you agreed, leaning in a little closer. “But that doesn’t make them any less real.”

The weight of your words hung between you, the air thick with the tension that had been building for weeks. You could see it in his eyes—the war he was waging with himself, the battle between his relentless drive for success and this unfamiliar, uncharted territory of emotions.

Bakugo’s hands finally unclenched, resting on the table as his shoulders slumped slightly. He looked… tired. Like he was exhausted from constantly fighting against something he couldn’t control.

You waited, giving him the space he needed to process, to come to his own conclusion. You didn’t need him to confess right then and there. All you wanted was for him to realize that it was okay to feel. To want something more.

Seconds passed like minutes. Bakugo’s gaze flickered between you and the table, his breath uneven as if he were bracing himself for something he wasn’t sure he could handle. Then, almost imperceptibly, he whispered, “I don’t know how to do this.”

Your heart softened at the quiet admission, understanding washing over you. “You don’t have to know,” you said gently. “We’ll figure it out.”

For a moment, the tension between you eased, replaced by something far more fragile. Something real. Bakugo’s shoulders relaxed, just barely, as though the weight of his inner turmoil had lessened, if only slightly.

But then, he spoke again, his voice gruff but raw with honesty. “You’re… important. And I don’t know how to deal with that. But… I don’t want you to stop.”

The words were simple, but for him, they carried more weight than any declaration of affection ever could. He wasn’t good at this—at admitting he cared—but this was as close to a confession as you could expect from Bakugo Katsuki. And it was enough.

Your lips curved into a small, understanding smile. “I’m not going anywhere, you know.”

Bakugo grunted, his eyes narrowing slightly as though he didn’t quite believe you, but the tension in his jaw eased. He still wasn’t looking directly at you, but his hand twitched again, this time moving just a bit closer to yours on the table.

You didn’t push him, didn’t force him to make the final leap. Instead, you gently shifted your hand, your fingers brushing against his ever so slightly. His breath hitched, and for a split second, he froze.

But then, slowly, hesitantly, Bakugo turned his hand over, letting your fingers intertwine with his.

It wasn’t much, but it was everything.

You could feel the warmth of his skin, the roughness of his palms from years of training. His grip was firm, but there was a tremor there—something unsure, something vulnerable. It made your heart swell with affection for him.

Neither of you spoke, the moment stretching out between you like a fragile thread. It wasn’t about grand gestures or elaborate confessions. It was about the quiet understanding that, despite everything—despite his walls and his stubbornness and his fears—he was letting you in.

And that was more than enough.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Bakugo spoke again, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’m not good at this… but I’ll try.”

Your chest tightened, and you squeezed his hand gently, offering him a smile that said everything you couldn’t put into words.

“You don’t have to be perfect,” you whispered back. “Just… be you.”

And for the first time, Bakugo didn’t argue. He didn’t push you away. Instead, he squeezed your hand a little tighter, and for that moment, it was enough.

Requests are open. Send as many as you like at once.

[tossawary]

Thinking about a "One Piece" AU, where all of the East Blue Strawhats have actually met each other before Luffy starts sailing. Because Nami and Zoro are both wandering pretty far, easily able to meet anyone, and Sanji is on the Baratie, which is also moving around and may dock at various islands.

So, let's say that the Redhair Pirates briefly dock near Syrup Village on their way back to Foosha Village, and young Usopp stows away so that he can go be a brave adventurer like his father. For a couple weeks, little Usopp and little Luffy are rolling all over town together like frolicking puppies, until the Redhair Pirates are ready to head out again and drop Usopp back home along the way (Yasopp is going to be in SUCH shit with his wife). Little Usopp goes back to tell everyone about this kid he saw eat a devil fruit that turned him into a rubber man, such that Usopp could use the other boy's fingers as a makeshift slingshot to fight off crocodiles! They had great fun trying to figure out Luffy's ridiculous new powers together and coming up with silly attack names.

And no one believes this story from Usopp because it's absurd. After a few years, Usopp starts to wonder if he actually made the whole trip up, if he's just lying to himself too, until Luffy finally shows up again and it's like the Spider-Man meme. "YOU," Usopp says, pointing with a trembling finger, until Luffy makes a noise like a squeaky toy and then tackles Usopp for the tightest and happiest hug anyone has ever seen.

Little Usopp meets little Nami at one point because she's just passing through, picking pockets, waiting for her next ship, and she steals from Usopp what she THOUGHT was money but actually turns out to be exploding paint pellets or something. So, a paint-stained little Nami turns on Usopp like, "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS???" because she's so shocked and angry about her cute new outfit being ruined, and he ends up apologizing (just full on sobbing) to HER for not being a good enough pickpocketing mark.

The Baratie docks at Usopp's island at some point to pick up groceries, maybe they got blown off course by a storm, so young Sanji meets young Usopp at a market stand selling spicy peppers. Usopp spins Sanji long and complicated stories about the flavor and rarity of the peppers, how he labored for many days through terrible dangers to pick them, and then someone else gets back to the stall and says, "Thanks for watching it for me, kid." And Sanji is like, "What?" And Usopp has to admit that he doesn't actually work there. He does know a lot about peppers, though! However, he was also lying a bit... maybe a lot...

Zoro meets Usopp and Luffy because he's hunting bounties through their islands. (Luffy falls in love INSTANTLY. I wrote another post about that.) The little Usopp Pirates become convinced that Zoro is a pirate invading their island, so they get Usopp to come "fight" Zoro, which ends up being Usopp guiding a lost Zoro (the kids set up so many fucking traps, he is NOT having a good time) to the nearest bar. They hang out for a bit. Usopp got a little tipsy. Usopp CLAIMS later though that he fought a ferocious, green-haired pirate who had swords instead of hands.

Young Sanji meeting young Nami is just a classic case of "you let that pretty girl have HOW MUCH in free food???" Zoro probably tracked a bounty to the Baratie at some point and got in a fight with the waiter; Zeff won't just ban the fucker because Zoro did actually pay his bill and Sanji HATES it. Zoro and Nami could have met at any point in their travels; they could have even had a navigator & bodyguard setup for a little while, before Nami ran off with all of some pirate bounty's treasure.

The Baratie usually wouldn't dock somewhere like Foosha Island, but they were in the area and Zeff wasn't such a fan of Goa Kingdom. Little Luffy wasn't even allowed in, but Sanji fed him some food out the back anyway, and Luffy decided then and there that Sanji was going to be his cook. Sanji said, "You are fucking crazy," of course, but no one has ever reacted to his All Blue dream like Luffy did. So when Luffy finally comes looking for him, Sanji still immediately says, "Fuck off, I'm not going!!!" but he's also smiling so wide at seeing this crazy kid again. It fools no one.

Nami probably went treasure hunting in the jungles there. She screamed at the top of her lungs when a 15-year-old boy dropped out of the trees and said, "Hey!!! What are you doing? Ohhh, are you treasure hunting? Can I help?!" (Ace has just set sail. Luffy is bored.) Nami could use the help, so she allows it, figuring that she'll find a way to trick Luffy at the end. But after their wacky adventure together, Luffy is like, "That was fun!!! You can take all of the treasure now, I don't need it," and young Nami doesn't say no but it breaks her brain a little bit. What kind of idiot says that the adventure is the best part and actually MEANS it?

So, they're all screwed by the time that Luffy sets sail. He's coming for them! He'll find them all eventually! ♥️

Alternatively: none of the East Blue Strawhats meet each other beforehand but they do all meet Ace when he sets sail. Has anyone in the world ever talked about their little brother this much??? This Luffy kid doesn't sound like a real person. And then two years later, they all run into Luffy and they're like, "Oh, shit, he's real."

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hi! I'm a big fan of your blog and love reading all of your posts. You always have such interesting perspectives and incredibly thoughtful points to add! I'm not quite sure if you're open to answering questions like this right now, and if not, feel free to ignore! But I was wondering if you have any information about the Island of Woe and what life is like there? Like do they ever have to import or export things, do they have more there than just S.T.Y.X to keep them occupied/entertained, etc.? I was trying to figure it out myself and all that I learned was that most people live on the upper walls in the Oceanus section. Do the Shrouds live there too, or do they live within the S.T.Y.X. headquarters? And do they ever have to travel for their jobs, beyond the little mishap that happened in Book 6?

Anyways, again, totally disregard this if you don't want to answer! Thank you for even reading this. I look forward to seeing more of your posts and enjoying your writing and input!

Aaaah, thank you!! ^^ Glad you enjoy my content, whatever it may be!

The bulk of lore for the Isle/Island of Woe comes to us from 6-40 of the main story. We (comparatively) have more information about Styx and how it is run, so I had to isolate what lore is about the island itself + life on the island and what lore is about the organization.

To begin with, here is a map of the area:

Most of the island residents don’t live in Ancient City at the seabed level. Instead, people tend to live in the residential block of Oceanus, which is the outer wall which covers the island. (This is how Ortho describes it to us in game, but it’s sort of confusing what exactly he’s referring to since we don’t see land above the water; based on Epel’s dialogue, the “outer wall” may refer to the upper levels. This means that technically all of the Island of Woe is underwater.)

Ancient City refers to the seabed level of the Island of Woe: It seems to be the community that surrounds Styx HQ, which lies at the center.

The giant pillar in the middle of the city connects to Oceanus Gate, the entrance at the surface of the water, and ends in Tartarus at the other end.

Trains, elevators, and Styx-made technomantic flying vehicles called Chariots are used for transportation. (I assume that only Styx agents are allowed to use Chariots, but this isn’t made clear.)

There is an artificial sky over the isle. This is because natural light provides mental and physical benefits to humans.

Styx makes efforts to use advanced technologies to emulate life on land. This results in the Island of Woe having seasons, weather, forests, and rivers even at the bottom of the sea.

Idia’s post-OB flashback implies that there may be strong security systems in place not only in Styx HQ, but also around the entire island (since he talks about wanting to leave the island and having to disarm the security in order to achieve that; Styx is also shown to control the Oceanus Gate and therefore controls entry to and from the isle).

Going hand-in-hand with the previous bullet point, Ortho states that it’s dangerous to wander the area.

The architecture is a remainder of the Island of Woe’s olden days as part of the Kingdom of Heroes. The buildings are relics there have been well-preserved.

The entire isle used to be spoken of by the common man as like… some kind of superstition or boogeyman?? Lilia tells us that “People believed the Island of Woe would punish any wizard who abandoned their principles and went mad with power.” This is attributed to the isle’s origins as being the place where the Jupiter family sentenced the Phantoms in the Age of the Gods (a period of time in which mages were feared and the relationship between magic and blot was not yet established). Since Styx is not an organization that the general public knows about, it’s possible that the public assumed residents of the isle themselves were vigilante agents of justice against mad mages.

Idia describes the Island of Woe as "filled with the lamentations of give billion people [...] It's dark and gloomy 365 days a year." He also refers to the island as his hometown.

The Island of Woe has bugs, but different kinds than what you would see in the outside world.

To address your specific questions (and please keep in mind that these points are not directly answered in TWST and instead relies on inferencing):

Do they have to import or export things?

While the island does receive sunlight and have seasons + varied weather, I don’t think they’d be entirely self-sufficient depending on the population size and its needs. Styx seems to run the show, but I’d imagine they need to focus their efforts on research and not food production or something. This could easily be automated with tech, I guess??? But some things they just couldn’t get, even with automation. They may have to import some stuff from the outside, though I imagine there are multiple security measures in place to convolute the supply chain and to keep the location of the Island of Woe hidden.

I’m not sure about exports since the island isn’t noted to produce anything significant (other than Styx tech, which I’d imagine they want to keep confidential).

Do they have more there than just S.T.Y.X to keep them occupied/entertained, etc.?

Being that there’s an entire city down there, yes, I’d have to think that the people don’t just work all day. Idia himself is one huge example; how did he get into anime, games, idols, etc. if no entertainment exists in the isle? We even see him as a child playing his beloved Star Rogue in his post-OB flashback scene—and his childhood bedroom is also littered with other signs of his hobbies and interests. Ortho has also mentioned that their family celebrates birthdays and go on outings to parks and such. This implies to me that there are definitely recreational activities around on the isle.

Do the Shrouds live there too, or do they live within the S.T.Y.X. headquarters?

I believe the implication is that the Shrouds technically live in Styx HQ. (A researcher remarks that “Idia hasn’t come out of his room for over two years now” while the background shows the Styx interior.) I’m not sure if this is true of the entire Shroud family, but I think it would make sense if they did since it would add to their vibes of isolation and gloom.

Additionally, it’s stated that it benefits the Shrouds to reside in a blot-dense area like Styx HQ so that their hereditary curse burns through blot in their immediate surroundings rather than burning through their own magic (and potentially life force). I don’t think the Shrouds are forced to stay IN Styx HQ all the time though; they clearly leave and explore the seabed city since Ortho says their family used to go on trips like that.

Do they ever have to travel for their jobs, beyond the little mishap that happened in Book 6?

I don’t know how often travel for work occurs, but it does happen. Styx agents are deployed as needed to secure Phantoms, as well as to speak with important figures. Leona, for example, mentions seeing Ferrymen lurking at the palace of the Sunset Savanna.

[thesaart]

Rattenfänger of Belobog

Rattenfänger (rat catcher) is the german word for the pied piper. I loved this fairy tale when I was a kid. Part of me just wanted to draw Sampo as the Pied Piper because I really love both characters but the more I thought about it the more I realized how well Sampo fits into the role as the Pied Piper. The story of the Pied Piper is that there was once a town plagued with never ending amounts of rats and then one day a mysterious figure approaches the gates of the town, proclaiming he could get rid of this plague but of course for a price. The townspeople at first don't believe him making fun of the colorfully dressed man, however after he pulls out his flute and starts playing a melody so beautiful that all the rats crawl out of their hiding spots. The townspeople, struck with awe, quickly step aside letting the man walk out of the town taking all the rats with him, leading them to a river where they all drown. After making his way back he is denied his payment, he walks away proclaiming that they made an enemy of him. The townspeople ignore the angry man and go back to their lifes. Then at night a beautiful tune dances through the streets of the town. The next day the adults discover that all the children are gone.

So how does Sampo fit into this? Just like the Pied Piper, Sampo is an alien where we meet him. His story, history and powers are all completely shrouded in mystery.

He makes deals with others but from what we've seen he's not really clear with the payment itself. (yes, he does stuff for money but I don't remember if it's ever said how much. Also why would he even need the money of the people of Belobog? Shields have no value outside of Jarilo VI and he doesn't seem like a character who if he can't afford something wouldn't just steal it.) Also more often than not his payment can be as simple as to be introduced to other people, so in that respect he's also very nebulous. Anyways aside from that he is also incredibly charismatic and even though people don't trust him they end up still making deals with him because more often than not he's the only one who can help.

One more thing, are either one of these characters good? The Pied Piper helped the town, he got rid of a devastating and dangerous plague and he would have never done what he did if the townspeople would have paid him, however he did go too far. And with Sampo it's also not simple. Yes he helped with the stellaron crisis however we don't actually know why he helped. He seems to be interested in the survival of Belobog but it's never said why. If it was truly only to entertain the tavern then why would he be protective over the planet (keeping Sparkle from going there). Aside from that he is a criminal organizing heists, stealing, smuggling and scamming and maybe even more who knows. My point is that both characters will do things first and foremost for their own benefit and even though both are not opposed to helping people it's just that neither of them are altruists.

[vaguely-concerned]

Eight Little Talons Reread Thoughts

Which, I’ll level with you folks, is mostly just me gushing about Teia and Viago and how much they should kiss because of who I am as a person, but maybe also some actual observations sprinkled in. This is still my favourite story in Tevinter Nights, I think, there’s so much Character Stuff in it. Let’s go!

Viago hated carriages—no amount of plush seating could make up for the inevitable ache of being knocked around like weighted dice. But decorum insisted, and he would not be outclassed by his fellow Talons.

Vs.

“You didn’t take a carriage.” 

“My luggage did. But I couldn’t resist the opportunity for a country jaunt.” She nodded toward the thoroughbred Taslin strider grazing on the top of the hill. “Andoral so rarely gets a chance to let loose in Rialto.” 

“You named your horse after an archdemon?” 

“Don’t worry, Vi. I won’t let him nip you.

You know… Andarateia might gain some illusion of normalcy by standing next to the most paranoid wound-up-tight repressed man around to provide contrast, but I think it’s crucial we keep in mind that she is also nuts. Naming your horse after an archdemon IS an insane thing to do in the world of Thedas huh. I suppose she genuinely seems to think of Caterina Dellamorte as a warm maternal figure and is in love with a tetchy snake of a guy too, it does all start to add up when you look at it like that.

— Beneath the smooth samite, he felt like a sinewy ball of tension. Teia suspected contact of any kind made Viago uncomfortable. It would explain why he swathed himself in indigo from chin to toe and refused to remove his gloves during dinner.

He offers his arm to her and doesn’t pull away when they meet Caterina — only when Dante shows up. Interesting (and possibly part of why Caterina seems to consider the two of them a cleverly stabilizing package deal when they get along lol). I love the mix of playful seduction and genuine fond, intimate knowledge and interest Teia has for him all the way through too — speculating about his childhood, trying to divine his thoughts and intentions, testing to see how he reacts to different things. And it’s so sweet that she seems to regard him with this affectionate amusement and fascination (which he seems to be afraid means that she’s mocking him but is, I think, just another level of appreciation she has for him. Correctly. Because he’s one of the funniest people in Thedas both in concept and in practice. Accountant brained-ass noodle arm Vetinari homage poison specialist. Teia’s neurotic purse dog of a man. Sole royal bastard who willingly chose to have a boring Antivan day job (killing people) and makes spreadsheets about it.) 

— “Not exactly welcoming, are they?” Teia whispered, her breath warm against his ear. 

Viago’s grip tightened on the head of his walking stick.

I swear to god courtney woods is so fucking good at writing romantic and sexual tension. One sentence!!! She drops in a one-sentence detail and it says everything!!!! She has such a knack for consistently adding these details without getting overindulgent or spelling it out too much that I really admire, I tend a bit more towards indulging too much as a writer that way myself so her sense of where to show restraint has me in awe 

— “Don’t ‘Nonna’ me, Andarateia Cantori,” Caterina snapped, although the heat in her voice had lowered to a simmer. “Not even my actual grandchildren call me that.” 

“Well, considering who your grandchildren are,” Teia responded, “I’m not surprised.” 

“How is Master Lucanis?” Viago asked.

Hell yeah Lucanis mention! Can’t wait to see how their dynamics will turn out in-game, we could be in for some truly spectacular and absurd workplace comedy nonsense if we’re lucky

— As always, Viago had with him his leather case of poisons and antidotes for toxins typically hidden in ingredients such as olives, truffles, pasta, lamb, cheese, cream, and alcohol. But he had not expected eggplant.

This is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read, I love Viago so much he’s such a perfect weirdo. Reader, he had not expected eggplant. 

— Taking a deep breath, Viago focused on tying his cravat—an ordinarily simple task except now Teia was running her hands across every surface in his room, and his fingers kept slipping on the final knot. “It would help if you removed the gloves,” Teia remarked. “Surely your own cravats haven’t been tampered with.”

Viago being just… seethingly horrifically despairingly horny every time Teia shows up is so amazing, and Teia clearly paying A Lot of attention to his hands and his reactions at all times… again, courtney woods s tier sexual tension provider. 

— “No,” she said, crossing her arms. “Not until we boil some water.” 

Viago raised a brow. “Eight people were poisoned in this room.” 

“Then run your little tests to make sure it’s safe, but I refuse to look at another dead body until I’ve had my coffee.”

I must take care to repeat: teia is also fucking nuts (affectionate). It’s SO FUNNY that her slightly lighter and softer moral take on being a Crow means she does feel bad about the servants ending up in the crossfire, but she will also demand that viago make her coffee with their horrifically bloated corpses still strewn about the room fhdsjka. 

— Teia had often imagined what it would be like to kiss Viago. She told herself it was only natural. He was handsome, in his own way, and wound up so tight that she likened him to a giant knot. He was a challenge to untie—to twist and pull and loosen until the tension gave way and he unraveled, laying bare all his secrets. But knots were a delicate business. Tug the wrong way and you could end up with a noose.

I know I KNOW they have sex so weird and intimate and no one even takes their clothes off during it I know it in my heart

— “Do you not think you’re attractive?” Viago turned on her, his ears pink. “Ten people are dead.” 

She didn’t back down. “And whoever’s responsible will pay, but that has no bearing on this conversation.” 

“It could be me.” 

Covering her mouth with both hands, Teia doubled over, laughter spilling from her lips. “It’s not you.” 

He looked as if she’d slapped him. “I’m more than capable of killing everyone here.” 

“Don’t tell me you’re offended!” 

“It is offensive,” Viago protested. “Professionally.”

Teia please tell me you love me not only for my body and fashion sense and numerous and fascinating neuroses but also my extensive knowledge of poisons and capacity to cause death

— Again, Viago felt like a lute string. With every challenge, Teia twisted the pegs, tuning him, until she found what she wanted. Which is what, exactly? he asked himself, not daring to listen to the number of answers that bubbled to the surface of his mind.

You know Viago I think we should let her try some scales here at least. See what happens. (There’s no explicit sex in this story but everything that’s going on is nevertheless so kinky fdsjak. I think Teia could convince Viago to show a flash of his naked wrist and have a reaction like a sheltered young Victorian gentleman seeing an exposed ankle and a playful wink for the first time)

— As if she could feel the sudden rush of shame within him, Teia brought her hands up to rest on Viago’s hips, holding him in place. His thumb stilled as he realized her breath was short. Her pupils dilated. Before he could stop himself, Viago nuzzled his forehead against hers, his nose brushing her cheek. Teia’s hands snaked up his chest to run through his hair. She tugged him forward. He braced himself on one arm, while the other curled around the small of her back. 

This whole scene is unspeakably good of course but it’s always the detail of ‘his nose brushing her cheek’ that does me in the most. The longing!!! The yearning, the intimacy, the awkward perfect clumsy physical reality of it!!!! If he kissed her here the magical potion thing on her lips would have been immaterial, the results would have been the same without it!!!!!! The tug of war between longing and fear!

— oblique Zevran mention! <3 as the ultimate failson of house arainai, granted, but as I believe he might argue here: ‘ah, but you have heard of me, no? :>’. Babe I support you so much go out there and raise hell/kill whoever you want to I got your flower

— Big shoutout to the author for managing to pull off an entirely workable ‘And Then There Were None’ plot in the background here, even though the real meat and potatoes going on is the character and relationship development (and what meat and potatoes they are too)! It’s not an easy thing to do even in an abbreviated, more of a homage sort of form and balancing it with everything else going on is a feat

— Caterina 100% knows Teia is in Viago’s room when he’s supposed to be isolated and just doesn’t care lmao. (They act like such teenagers in that scene where she knocks on the door and they haven’t even kissed yet I’m dying). Caterina seems like a terrible person but it’s impossible to not feel for her a little, trying to keep Talons in line seems a lot like herding (very horny very carrying sharp objects) cats 

— Standing outside her ex-lover’s room, Teia tried to quell the violent drumming within her. Normally, she didn’t need to come down from a physical encounter. Seduction—like any form of manipulation—was about control. She could enjoy herself, but Teia always made sure to hold the upper hand. Viago had shattered that control without so much as a kiss.

I feel like this is a sneaky common trait that actually is part of what makes them so compatible (and the playful negotiation of which must feature prominently in their sex life eventually lmao): they are both HUGE control freaks. (Indeed it might be hard to be a successful Talon without this trait.) Teia and Viago both strive for control of themselves and their surroundings so deeply, she’s just much more extroverted, psychologically minded and soft power focused going about it (not unlike Caterina, whose power is built more on fear than charm but works along the same lines), while he’s more coldly intellectual and uh materialist? I want to call it? about it. Which makes perfect sense considering their backstories! Teia came from nothing in a monetary sense but has found she excels at moving people, hearts and minds style — and she’s very good at it, she is everyone’s favorite — so that’s the source of power for her, and Viago is not very charismatic or interested in people naturally but grew up seeing how status, wealth and power have their own clinical gravity that can be used, and also that people can never be trusted to watch out for you in that system.  

If Thedas has a Machiavelli-equivalent to ask whether it’s better for a ruler to be feared or loved they would both instantly give their answer with their whole chest and then squint at each other like ‘babe how do you live like this’ lol

(Also this line of thought has me wondering what the hell Caterina’s partner/spouse(s) would have been like — she must have at least two children to account for Illario and Lucanis, I wonder if she was ever married and what that looked like.)

— I really like the oppressiveness and claustrophobia you get from the descriptions Teia uses in Dante’s room — it feels so icky and sticky with history and sad and confining, and the way she keeps pushing herself through it anyway is weirdly melancholy to me. 

— I also like how their flaws/traits that drive them apart at the crisis point have follow-up consequences outside of their relationship before they reconcile. Teia’s penchant for manipulation and pushing on people indirectly causes the death of someone she once cared about (I mean, fuck that guy, not crying any tears for Dante or his broken bottle, but like in the overarching principle of the thing lol). When she goes too far with it or gets careless, she renders other people vulnerable and helpless in ways she doesn’t anticipate. (Rightfully or not this seems to be part of what scares Viago so much about it, he has this fear of being dissected for whatever she finds interesting and then abandoned when she’s tired of it, the whole underlying being a footnote in her life when she could clearly be something uh a lot more in his anxiety.) Meanwhile Viago’s insistence on self-reliance and reluctance to engage in human contact leaves him easily isolated and nearly results in his death. (And even when Teia saves him he has a hard time giving her full credit in favour of his many neurotic coping mechanisms lmao disaster man.) But when the two of them work it out to understand each other better and come together as a partnership, they’re such a force to be reckoned with that it brute forces the resolution and return to stability near the end. (Well. A significantly reduced version of stability to be fair but y’know better late than never.)

— Also: delicious detail that she is actually the closest you might get to a self-made woman/Talon, and he is definitely at least not in a position to fully dodge the nepo baby allegations — he wants so bitterly to be entirely independent and self-sufficient and not reliant on anyone, and yet it’s his connections inherent to his birth that have helped him get here, while she wants so desperately to have people to rely on because she comes from nothing and has known what it is to be that alone and unprotected. He knows protection and gifts — and love — can easily be taken away and used to control you/render you helpless in your vulnerability from how his father treated his mother, and she knows you have to try to hold on to something in other people or it’s just you and the dirt and you die. Which is what they’re really talking about in that scene where they argue, and it’s why they’re both right and wrong at the same time and it’s so tasty. It’s really Teia asking ‘Will you ever trust anyone? (will you ever trust me, or will you put up this wall every time no matter what I say or do?)’ and Viago going ‘Will you never take precautions to protect yourself against this hurt? (will I have to be the bearer of bad news about how the world really is every time?)’ and neither of them realize that’s what they’re taling about and it’s why it all explodes so badly. (I mean. Factually both came to the wrong conclusion about who the murderer was for fairly good reasons, so there’s also that haha.) 

— I wonder if we’ll see Bolivar or the heirs to the houses left Talon-less in the game itself. I’m guessing they probably won’t have big roles, at least, but you know just as background flavour, especially since Crow!Rook is already within the de Riva uh household as it were. I think Viago is still sensibly mid-table at Fifth Talon in Veilguard and Teia remains Eight? So at least they’re not messing around with that rank order during the occupation 

— In semi-not teia and viago news (I am a character first writer and reader I canot change this), it’s neat to see it outlined just how much the Talons really are just merchant princes with some more added knives and cultural weight behind them. They are at the end of the day running businesses, no matter the mystique ™ you wrap it in. (Which I think Viago would be the first to tell you and Teia might try to argue against at least a little haha. Being a Talon is what you make of it you live your truth girl kill awful men you’ll never run out of contracts!!)

— Can’t believe the Crows have self-congratulatory ‘top 10 murders in history!’ classes as part of the training. Do you think Zev sat through those. Probably, if Teia did, right. Now there were some entertaining hours around the campfire during the Blight I’m sure

— Viago understanding but not accepting Teia’s offer to help him with an alibi and at first angling it as being out of hesitancy to accept help/rely on someone, and then later unveiling the added element that he knows Teia respects and loves Caterina and doesn’t want her to have to lie to her for him… Viago is nothing so simple as secretly nice deep down but he IS horrifically in love with and desperate to be kind to specifically Teia and it gets to me okay  

— I’d forgotten that DA’s passionate love affair with toxic yuri and some recreational bury your gays extended to Guili and Lera in this fdskjah. Would it really be Thedas without it I suppose (considering the genre of the short story it’s fine with me in this case, though, everyone’s dropping like flies in this even the straight people that’s just equality) 

— Viago was not a typical Antivan. He liked facts—checklists, numbers, precise measurements. Heart palpitations, clammy hands, tight pants—Viago did not like these things. In fact, he would go so far as to say he hated them. Mild curiosity was his favorite mood. What Teia had elicited in him was akin to an internal natural disaster.

I simply love him so so much. Mild curiosity was his favorite mood. He failed to account for the eggplant. He’s so annoyed at being poisoned and dying horribly and it literally never occurs to him that anyone would help him until he wakes up in Teia’s lap. He organizes all his poisons by puns. He uses his potentially last breath to argue with Teia about his precise state of dress or undress. Have we finally found him, the perfect man? 

(Also between Reyes and Viago Courtney Woods does such a good line in guys who’d really rather be emotionless machines of practical violence and monetary gain but find themselves down so horrifically catastrophically bad that it cracks them open to reveal a soul they aren’t all that happy to discover they have lol) 

— When Viago woke, it felt like someone had drained the blood from his body and replaced it with sludge. But it wasn’t all bad—someone who smelled like coffee and cinnamon was playing with his hair. . . . Her fingers resumed stroking his hair. It felt better than the water. It felt better than anything.

Unspeakable. Don’t look at me. 

— Viago reaching out and touching Teia’s cheek with his bare hands without a thought and all his tenderness and reverence for her laid bare in turn is something that can actually be so personal and it only took very nearly dying to get there (also… he’s presumably still half-naked through all of this while cradled in her lap. Amazing.). Can’t believe bare hands to cheek feels like third base with these two. And his fucking THOUGHTS through all of this… Don’t cry, he doesn’t deserve your tears, no one does (I don’t, I don’t want to be something that causes you pain) AOUGH

— Vaguely related: the implication in how that part is built is that he’s reaching out specifically to gently dry away her tears, right. Double AOUGHHHHHH not only does he manage to not be selfish or unfair in asking her not to cry he does that instead… there’s hope for you yet messere de riva  

— Teia with the red-hot poker standing guard over Viago while he ‘looks like a king in judgement’ and does the Poirot in the library exposition is everything and so hot what the fuck. She a snacc she attacc but most importantly… she protecc, she’s so fucking cool lol. they’re both really smart, but she’s clearly the brawn as well as the social skills (hey manipulation is such an ugly word!) and he’s the logistics and realpolitik on two long thin nerdy legs, absolute power couple. She’s the gaslight he’s the girlboss together may they gatekeep this invading army out of antiva  

— You guys… this might come as a surprise I have tried to keep it on the down low but. I really do love the world of Thedas so very much. I love the people and the places and the history and the stupidness and the brilliance so much. We must save the world because everyone I love lives here. Let this be a secret between just you and me we can’t let people know we sit/have emotions etc.  

— A servant approached to take the cage in Viago’s hand. 

“Careful,” Viago warned. “He bites.” 

“I can’t believe you’re keeping that snake,” Teia said, shaking her head. “It almost killed you.” 

“Which is more than any man can say. He deserves my respect. And a good home—with all the mice he can eat.” 

“But did you have to name it Emil?” Teia asked, making a face. 

“An homage. You’re always telling me to recognize my fellow Talons.”

Andarateia ‘names her horse after an archdemon’ Cantori x Viago ‘keeps the deadly adder that nearly killed him as a pet and names it after the last guy who failed to murder him’ de Riva. Freak well and truly matched. Soulmates, no notes, I’ll do borderline anything for these two to make it, goodnight. 

[blakbonnet]

HAPPY FOX DAY TO ALL THOSE WHO CELEBRATE! Today's a special special AOTW because our featured author this week is best beloved @asneakyfox 🦊

Fox, I genuinely think you're one of the greatest fandom philosophers of our times, and what you write is so much more than regular old meta. Because we're all playing in the sandbox here and while a lot of us lose sight of canon sometimes, you have all four feet firmly planted in the lovely source material we've been provided with. And you don't stop there, you try to actively engage with the community, especially making sure you are keeping an eye on all the differing opinions. I feel like this is why your thesis resonates so thoroughly with different people--it's not trying to prove a point, it's very 'holmes saw a dead body and ejaculated'. You are just so smart that you make the rest of us smarter, but it's never intimidating to talk to you, and I love love love that I get to read your stories and your thoughts because of this show and this fandom.

Fox, brilliant as ever, agreed to answer a few questions for me:

What's your meta writing process like? Do you think in disparate strings about scenes and then write them down as they come to you OR is it usually a conversation or a thought that eats at you until you sit down and untangle it?

generally i'll be thinking about something, usually because i saw another post (or had a conversation about the show on discord; special shoutout to the crew on @figmentof and @scarrletmoon's servers, and especially to @glamaphonic, anything i've ever said you thought was really insightful probably came out of a dm conversation with glam) and some part of a post about it will start writing itself in my head, and unfortunately once that process starts the only way to stop it is to write it down.

even more unfortunately i never know whether it's all going to flow out easily into a coherent essay right away, or if it'll be one of those things where i write two really good paragraphs that ought to go in the middle section of a post that takes a while to figure out how to structure; i just have to start and see where it goes. some meta i've written that got lots of notes was written all at once the moment the thought struck me and posted as soon as it was done, but there's also a few that have been sitting in drafts for months as i keep rewriting the same section without being sure where it goes next.

Favourite themes or characterisations you like to explore while meta writing? (things like Ed's fisherman era and what led to it, etc)

i guess if there's a big theme i keep coming back to it's ed's character arc over the course of the show, his relationship with violence and how it affects his perception of himself and how he has to grow through that to be ready to commit to his relationship with stede. one of the very first things i ever said about the show on tumblr, way back in summer 2022, was that ed's absolute deepest fear was that he is fundamentally unlovable, so it was really a delight to see s2 dive so hard into addressing the exact issues i'd been looking at so explicitly. and of course there's also a lot of fandom racism that plays into some takes that go around about ed, and i think it's really important to call that out and push back against those takes.

i feel like it would be kind of silly to not call out izzy here too. izzy plays an absolutely crucial role in highlighting those exact issues in ed's arc, and i honestly just think the way their whole relationship develops in canon is deliciously meaty and a lot of fandom takes seem determined to flatten it out into something much more boring. so it's important to me to try to highlight the ways you don't have to pretend izzy was a secret good guy all along to appreciate the role he plays in the story.

finally i guess this has only developed over the last several months but i guess one of my trademarks now is speculation about what got deleted from s2. i've always been good at the game of watching a movie and guessing at scenes that were cut or changed, and my spider-sense for that was going off like crazy as i watched s2, and i didn't want to get too speculative at first, but as information has actually come out from samba and vico and other sources, a lot of it's lined up with what i thought. and i'm really interested in how the ofmd writers' room approached storybreaking, so it's worth it to me to try to understand this.

Whose head is it easier to get into - Ed or Stede? Why?

i guess i already answered this! i love them both a lot, and i'd been writing meta for a good while before i consciously realized i'd written a LOT more about ed than about stede, and the ed posts tend to be individually longer than the stede ones too. i think some of this is because ed's arc reads super clearly to me while stede, despite being the main character, gets an arc that's a lot more subtle and internal in some ways (and also i do think suffered significantly from the cuts to the second half of s2). and some of it's because people can be Wrong On The Internet about ed in ways i feel the need to push back against more than about stede. but some of it's just, you know, vibe.

it's always interesting to me that nearly all prolific fic authors in this fandom have a clear very strong preference for which POV they prefer - i don't think all fandoms are like that - but i guess my own alignment is obvious.

Your personal favourite thing you've written that you'd like more people to read

the obvious answer here is the one actual fic i have written for this fandom, "Nothing Could Touch It" which came out of thinking about how there's some post-s2 fic about ed reckoning with this relationship with izzy that i really like but none of it quite got at how i feel like canon's framing it. (don't worry it's not all about izzy! stede's there and there's a bunch of cuddling!)

as far as meta goes though i would call out this as the one i'm probably proudest of, this is the one where i most completely tried to lay out how i saw the show framing ed's relationship with violence during the s1 hiatus, and i think after s2 it holds up pretty well. but also since i was just talking about how i don't say enough about stede, this is the post where i tried to lay out the stuff i really admire in stede as a character.

What is the one word that you think you use a lot?

i've got a bunch of verbal tics i overuse but the one i'm self-conscious about in meta lately is "reading against the text," which sounds so pretentious and lit-crit i really wish there were another good phrase for it. but i think it's really useful as a way to clarify that sometimes i'm saying a particular take is clearly not how the narrative of ofmd is framing something but that doesn't mean you need to stop interpreting it that way. reading against the text is really fun and i recommend it sometimes! but you'll have more fun if you're aware that's what you're doing!

If you were writing his arc, keeping in mind that he stays largely antagonistic in line with the show, how would you have resolved the Izzy problem: would you have made the same decisions the writers made and written a redemption by death OR do you think that the spirit of the show specifically demands Izzy get a good guy (or not as bad a guy) ending where we see his muppetification

one of the predictions i was most confident of before s2 was that if izzy were redeemed, he wouldn't be able to remain in the cast as a good-guy crew muppet afterward. (for this reason i thought the likeliest possibility was a slower redemption arc that wouldn't fully complete till the end of s3.) several times i tried to game out what role a fully redeemed izzy could possibly continue to play within this story, or what personality traits that he showed in s1 he could even hang onto after a full redemption, and i couldn't come up with anything that felt plausible. not "loyalty to your captain," because his devotion to blackbeard was clearly toxic at the root and would need to be purged entirely before it could be replaced by anything healthier; not yelling at people to stop having so much fun and work harder, because that could work in a different story but would run directly counter to the core themes of ofmd - so what's left? i went looking at popular izzy redemption fic that tried to address that question, and some of it came up with answers that worked in the context of a fic focused mostly on izzy, but it was never anything that could possibly work in a tv show that already had established themes and would continue to focus primarily on other characters. and izzy wouldn't be able to just fade into the background with the other muppets after all the focus on him a believable redemption arc would require. so i knew once he was redeemed he'd be done as a character one way or another.

and s2 i think bore that out, honestly in a much more obvious way than i expected - over the course of izzy's s2 arc he's basically divested of all his s1 personality traits until all that's really left by the end is saying twat all the time, and Guy Who Says Twat is not a role the story's going to particularly need going forward. to keep him around after that you'd need to give him enough new traits that he'd be for all practical purposes a new character anyway.

i do sometimes wonder about a world where izzy's s2 arc saw him be offered a clear chance at redemption and choose to reject it and get worse instead. i kind of missed antagonist izzy by the end, and i wonder if a lot of people who'd originally wanted a redemption for him wouldn't have been happier with that even if they didn't realize it - a descent into full villainy would have kept izzy and his relationships with both ed and stede more central to the plot right up till the end, and in particular the sexual aspect of his feelings for ed could have stayed very directly relevant, where the redemption arc necessitated resolving that very firmly to clear it out of the way as early as possible in s2. i never agreed that ofmd's themes necessarily meant redemption for izzy was inevitable - ted lasso was much more overtly a show about redemption than ofmd right from the start, and even ted lasso let at least one of its antagonists make it all the way to the end as an unrepentant scumbag. if there's anything that meant izzy really had to be redeemed imo it wasn't the overall spirit of the show so much as izzy's role in ed's arc - before anything else izzy's narrative role was always to be a walking symbol of the part of ed that fears vulnerability and holds him back from committing himself to love, and for ed and stede to be happily together by the end of s2, ed had to get to a place where he could see that part of himself as something he no longer needs in his life but also doesn't hate anymore. nothing could have symbolized that like having ed embrace izzy as he dies granting ed permission to just be himself.

Why OFMD 🥹

you know, i could say a lot here about how i think ofmd is genuinely incredibly well-written in some ways that are really unusual on american tv. season 1 in particular is just incredibly tight and elegantly plotted, and s2 is messier but that just makes it all the more interesting to look at the constraints they were under that led to that. my day job's in narrative and i really do professionally admire ofmd a lot, which is one of the reasons i tend to think about creator intent more than some people do when i'm writing meta - death of the author is a super valid perspective but personally i'm really interested in trying to figure out why the writers made the choices they made and what i can learn from that for when i'm in their position.

so all of that's true. but also we all know it's kind of beside the point here, this is a hyperfixation, it's not rational. i can tell you i watched the first nine episodes of our flag means death and liked it a lot but in what i would describe as a basically normal kind of way, and then i watched the tenth and at some point during that episode a rat inside my brain hit the dopamine spigot with a wrench and now it won't turn off so here we are.

aaaand if you've made it to this point, please join us in evil ganging up on fox with love by sending a lovely letter to them over on @ofmdlovelyletters who was also kind enough to make this header <3

[aenor-llelo]

Orphan’s Path is one of the most beautiful pieces of fanfiction I’ve ever read- it just /perfectly/ encapsulates the boundless creativity that was my favorite thing about the MCYT fandom. Beyond just the storytelling though- the WORLDBUILDING just astounded me. From the more story-based beats like Sky and Moon’s Landing, Lagos’s splintering, and the Manifold, to the more general MC worldbuilding like totems of undying being created via ritual, pearleye, and ofc all the new months and the longer years and the server mechanics!

There are so many worldbuilding aspects I look at and go “i don’t know how they came up with this idea but i am going to aspire to reach for this level of creativity every time I try and tackle Minecraft as a setting.” I’m sure having multiple heads to put together for ever-fresh concepts really helped too!

I was wondering- did you have any sort of..personal guidelines or jumping-off-points as to how to approach integrating things into the Orp universe? Questions you’d ask yourselves or a theme to keep in mind with each new feature you figured out? Because I’d be delighted to be able to create with the same spirit y’all did. It’s inspired me ever since I first read Orp, and I think I’ll always look to it as an example of how much you can do when you’re handed a few pieces of lore and are determined to carry it all the way home.

a lot of what you're describing for how i approach worldbuilding boils down to "yes, and?" like taking even the most innocuous offhand stuff and deciding to find ways it does work. accepting it as true in some form and figuring out how this affects other things.

and the most important thing is you have to be willing to do this even with ridiculous shit. because all jokes come from something real, and you gotta not be embarrassed about writing a story or thinking about something stupid. be willing to look at something ridiculous and go "why ISN'T this stupid" first, "why IS this stupid" second. sometimes, it really can't be anything but stupid! but if you let a silly element breathe, that's where you can find a certain meat to a story that sometimes doesn't exist anywhere else.

fear is the mind killer. cringe is also the mind killer. you gotta shank any sense of shame or embarrassment that can come with engaging the premise YOU decided to create and explore, and a huge part of that is acknowledging the implications of seemingly (or genuinely) unserious elements of something at face value. writing off a character's silly name, goofy theme song, or meme humor is easier on yourself, sure, but it's so much more interesting in the long run if you don't. the absurdity of a setting is part of the setting! don't pretend it isn't!

you CANNOT get "piglin family units dictate the societal structure of the nether" in orp without first accepting "orphans killed my parents".

[my-hyperfixation-hell]

assigning MDSZ characters TCGF gods (and one calamity) they'd worship

I think the BIGGEST disclaimer I need to put out before this post is that the MDSZ characters would not know these gods personally. Thus, the perspectives I am giving them on the gods are what I think someone unacquainted would think if they heard the myths and legends about the gods, not what they're actually like.

I gave most sects a major martial god to worship, because I think they would. Note that I was going purely off of vibes, but am aware that in canon martial gods are worshipped based off geographic location.

Some characters may get more than one god.

Wei Wuxian: Worships martial gods (Mu Qing in this case) alongside Lotus Pier once adopted into it but never really resonates. As the Yiling Laozu, he worships Crimson Rain Sought Flower, as some mortals canonically do, but never asks for anything from him. The worship is moreso a form of following comforting rituals he once did as a child, and he's well aware he has nothing good to offer a rich ghost king while running the Burial Mounds. He sees Crimson Rain as an outcast much like himself, considering Crimson Rain's relations with the Heavens. I think if he had to pick a martial god, he'd pick Quan Yizhen, because he respects Quan Yizhen's refusal of the status quo.

I get more into Lotus Pier as a whole worshipping Shi Wudu for Jiang Cheng's answer, but I do think Wei Wuxian once got in a lot of trouble for questioning what kind of god uses his own domain to extort mortals into worshipping him. He does not worship Shi Wudu on his own.

Jiang Cheng: Mu Qing is the obvious answer, and while I do agree, I also think if he ever learned of Xie Lian's story he would resonate a lot with it. Having his home destroyed and having to start over from scratch, I think he'd relate to the god of misfortune who lost his entire kingdom and re ascended multiple times, but he may keep that worship private because he's in far too vulnerable a place when he engages in it. I don't think Xie Lian would mind, I think Xie Lian would appreciate a quieter style of worship.

Additionally, Lotus Pier being on the water, they worship Shi Wudu out of necessity to not get their shit wrecked (part 2), but I think Jiang Cheng quietly resents the Water Master in his own heart because he was aware of how easy it would have been for the Water Master to intervene when Lotus Pier was first destroyed, and he simply did not.

Jin Zixuan: Pei Ming, and this represents his off-screen character growth. As a teenager he focused on Pei Ming as a flashy and well-liked martial god he wanted to emulate. As he grew older, and began to love Jiang Yanli very genuinely, he often prayed to Pei Ming for confidence and to help him woo her.

The Jin clan as a whole worships Pei Ming.

Jin Guangyao: Because the rest of the Jin clan does, Jin Guangyao worships Pei Ming for show. In private, he worships Ling Wen, because I view him both as someone who values education and the way she had to claw herself up in a society that did not respect her because she was a woman.

Being educated was part of what gave Jin Guangyao the social mobility he had, even when Jin Guangshan initially rejected him. He had to be well-spoken and persuasive as well as a physically powerful cultivator.

Nie Huaisang: Ling Wen, 100%. He is not aware of her crimes, as mortals wouldn't know all that, but if he did know he'd only support her even harder. To him, a literature god represents everything he wants to do with his life, but can't because he has vengeance to get and his attempts at dodging clan leader status have failed miserably.

I also think he looks up to her as a powerful figure who didn't need to rely on physical force and might to get to where she is. To him, she represents proof that intelligence and the arts are valuable, too.

As a whole, the Nie clan worships Quan Yizhen, because he shares their obsession with combat and their "no thoughts just fists" attitude towards it.

Nie Mingjue: Quan Yizhen, alongside the rest of the Nie clan, 100%. Mistakenly sees parallels in Yin Yu and Jin Guangyao, because he is not aware of the actual story behind the Brocade Immortal situation. All he knows is that there are a ton of stories about how Quan Yizhen's jealous fake martial brother secretly went behind his back and betrayed him.

I also think there are parallels to Quan Yizhen being controlled by the Brocade Immortal and Nie Mingjue by Jin Guangyao's music, even if the actual contexts are entirely different.

Lan Xichen: Alongside the rest of the Cloud Recesses, Lan Xichen would worship Mu Qing as a martial god who ascended out of cultivation above pure might.

I think a part of Lan Xichen would feel drawn towards the Windmaster, too. I think he admires and to some extent envies her free nature, but he doesn't want to abandon his duties like his father did.

Lan Wangji: Of course also Mu Qing, but he would join Wei Wuxian in his worship as well. I think for Lan Wangji, worship of the gods is heavily about routine. He's the kind of person to thrive off consistency, and worship of the gods is one of many parts of cultivation he's been raised with.

[icedroppedinparasolcider]

to the mizuki5 doomposters, i have to ask: are we reading the same 25ji story? in what reality does this storyline lead you to conclude that mizuki5 will be some sort of breakup event for mizuena or niigo as a whole given every event since the conclusion of Say Goodbye to Masked Me has been a process of confronting their internal conflicts and finally finding ways to heal from their pain? it would be entirely counteractive to the point of 25ji if they were to write niigo, any of them, not accepting mizuki for who they are. yes, they are scared of this possibility, but they're also traumatised and paranoid, as evident by the rooftop scene of My Footprints, Your Destination. that very event makes it clear that mizuki was caught up in her own fears and acting irrationally as a result; we have several events since then where mizuki openly contemplates telling ena The Secret, and we see in multiple events mizuki concluding that they're no longer going to run away from this problem. the cliffhanger at the end of Reeling in the Lights shows exactly that: mizuki telling herself that she's not going to run away and that it's time to confront this fear. which, again, is the entire point of the arc this story has been on since third anni.

you people are far too obsessed with the idea of divorce arcs and breakup events. i know the wxs second arc teased that possibility for several events, but it was also the entire point of that story to have a "don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened" message. the other four units don't even approach those ideas?? ichisaki divorce in Parallel Harmonies was basically the exact same concept as shihonami divorce in Unwavering Feelings, Now Put Into Words: two characters struggling to get on the same page about something they're both very passionate about. the difference between the two events being that ichisaki have literally never argued before and had no idea how to navigate the problem without the interference of the virtual singers, while shihonami managed to figure it out on their own, and thus dwelled on the problem for less time. anhane divorce in Whip the Wimp Girl!! was the direct conclusion of a massive underlying conflict in an's story progression that was first made clear in Bout for Beside You, with an finally expressing the feelings and fears she'd kept hidden from kohane, and not once did kohane even begin to get upset. you can see it in kohane's untrained for the set; she's effectively fallen in love with this girl who completely shook her to her core all over again because of an finally letting loose her raw emotion in an unfiltered way. Whip the Wimp Girl!! wasn't a divorce arc, it was an event that only made more powerful the bond between the vivids, it amplified the aibou magic that's existed between them since the main story. and that event, alongside concluding an's story arc, provided the motivation and drive to kohane to achieve what she does in OVER RAD SQUAD.

will there be conflict in mizuki5? yes, because it's an entire event and they always have some form of central conflict for the characters to confront. mizuki's fears are the conflict, and her finding a way to face them will be the entire point of the event. from the pieces before me, i personally think this will happen through mizuki being forced into a position where they have no choice but to face this, but it's not like they're completely unprepared; Searching for a Reflection Beneath the Waters had mizuki tell themselves they need to face their problems so they'll know how to help mafuyu do just that, Next to the Unchanging Warmth was a reminder of how far they've come and that hiding who they are for the sake of being accepted will only make them more miserable, and then the end of Reeling in the Lights was the decision to confront it. it might not happen in the way they want, but it's not like mizuki doesn't want this to happen at all. they've had an entire story arc since My Footprints, Your Destination; hell, they wanted to tell ena during that event! they just didn't because they were scared, and finding the strength to stop running away has been the point of mizuki's story since Our Escape For Survival. pairing that with her being rejected would be completely counter to everything project sekai's story represents.

[james-farrow-did-nothing-wrong]

I need to go through every little detail of Wymacks POV in the extra story of The Foxhole Court because that man is the most caring and loving human being the foxes could have encountered.

In the next quote Wymack is really trying to be neutral be he only can see the life he could have had with Kayleigh:

Now Kevin was a devastated wreck on David's couch. David had to be neutral and unyielding, but Kevin would always be different.

This man thinks Kayleigh left him for another man and that Kevin is not his son. Kevin is a condtant reminder of Kayleigh loss but he wants to keep him close because of this. And then he throws this to a drunk panicked Kevin:

"You're not just a Fox," David said, before he could think to stop himself. "You're Kayleigh's son"

How doesn't Kevin tell him right there that he is his father? Nobody knows my man was too occupied spiralling about the Moriyamas and Riko.

But the thing that brokes Wymack's heart is seeing a pure reflection of Kayleigh's be so washed out. He wants Kevin to be the best version of himself, he wants for Kevin to be as passionate as his mother. Wymack is the only person who can tell Kevin about how Kayleigh was while she was alive, adding memories to a child who lost a mother at 9.

Jesus, Kevin looked so much like her, except Kayleigh had never looked so defeated and afraid. She'd been fierce and vibrant and fearless.

Wymack knew Kayleigh didn't want ties or commitments with him so he run away before putting her in a situation where she had to choose.

He'd promised to keep it casual, but it hadn't stopped him from falling for her. When he started thinking about rings he put himself on a plane home.

Should have, could have, what-if.

We don't know wether if Kayleigh trurly would have had a relationship with Wymack if he stayed what we know is that she is probably one of Wymack's biggest regrets/question. Maybe if he stayed they'd have raised Kevin, maybe not. We don't know even if she would have told him Kevin was his in that scenario. We know nothing about her besides what Wymack says.

"Coaches have no honor, your word is enough. Just yours."

Then Kevin drop this and Wymack is startled because it implies so much. Kevin was not just abused by Riko but also by his coach so trusting a similar figure should be hard. Kevin doesn't trust Wymack because he's his father either. He trusts him because he sees how much he cares for the foxes, he sees how much he tries to protect him without knowing who he trurly is that is why Kevin is capable of handing Wymack his life.

David wasn't a praying man, and he'd never quite decided whether he believed in an afterlife, but for a second he glanced up at the sky in search of Kayleigh's disapproving glower.

"I'm sorry,"

Even though Wymack is doing his best he still feels like he is not what Kayleigh would have wanted he feels he has no redemption regarding her. He is taking care of Kevin yes, but he feels like Kevin shouldn't be in that position to start with. If he cared enough before she died maybe her son wouldn't have ended up tortured. Maybe if he weren't angry/disappointed when Kayleigh was pregnant he could have been around and prevent everything from happening. These are some of the what-ifs that keep David awake and that would never have an answer. He could never regret enough the time he lost with her.

[wokecipher]

p. 1 // p. 2

OKAY- so, awhile back, I made an AU where Bill had kids (twins!), I did this because I thought it'd be funny, and it was supposed to be ironic and stupid.

It's no longer ironic... and I wanna share this silly (incredibly fucked up) AU!

These two are Anthony (they/them) and Tony (he/she/they). I call them the Tony twins. This AU is directly attached to my Family of Shapes AU, but long long after Euclydia is destroyed (mentioning this because Tony is a square, which might confuse some people? Bill's uncle is Tad here, that's why).

The other parent of these two is a shapeshifter named Mendax (it/its), who was preying on Bill at the time to gain information before essentially disappearing from existence before Bill ever finds out.

I have a lot of lore on Mendax, but it's not the focus here right now, so I'll get to it LATER... just know I think about Mendax and Bill's relationship often and they're very fucked up and toxic and not good for each other.

Now the below will be a lot of lore and information about the Tony twins and Bill during all this.

MORE ART AND LORE VVV

So! for anyone familiar with how I perceive Bill's family, they'd know Scalene having a messy, awful pregnancy, and ending up with debilitating postpartum depression is a huge part of it.

Bill is no better than his mother in this regard.

When Bill found out he was going to have kids, he felt angry, miserable, and was mourning Mendax as well (since it up and left before Bill even Knew about all this). Having kids felt like the worst outcome of the relationship and he never even wanted them in the first place.

(hey, it's that drawing I said I'd never reveal the context for!)

Bill doesn't want to be a parent, and having two kids over just one broke him further, mentally speaking.

He wasn't the worst parent, but good God, he wasn't a good one either. Bill was incredibly emotionally abusive towards both children but was dead by the time they were 11, so he hardly had a chance to be there in the first place. (The timeline was my biggest problem to figure out because Mendax left before humans even evolved on earth).

To fix the timeline, I decided he'd have kept the kids in a pocket dimension where time runs so slow that it basically stopped. Millions of years could pass, and it'd be hours at most in that pocket dimension. This is me just coping to make the timeline work, LMAO (but it's in character, Bill doesn't wanna forget about the two somehow and wants to be there when he can. He also wants to keep them both safe and away from anywhere someone could hurt them).

The kids were brought out for Weirdmageddon, though (before Bill was aware there was a barrier and all that).

So long story short, Bill dies, the kids are left alone in the nightmare realm with the rest of the henchmaniacs, and things aren't going well. One of the henchmaniacs (8Ball) turns on the two and tries to kill them (considering how willing he was to turn on Bill, and didn't seem against eating kids, seemed in character enough).

This led to Tony (the square) killing 8Ball in self-defense in front of the rest of the henchmaniacs.

Tony hides Anthony in the pocket dimension and tells them to hide, then leaves to go "handle" things on the outside. She ends up slowly taking over the henchmaniacs group and basically becomes the "New Bill".

Although she's entirely unfocused on humans or anything, and more focused on gaining power to be more like her dad.

Eventually, Anthony leaves the pocket dimension by the time Tony is in his 20s. Anthony was shocked, and still 11, and ends up getting taken care of by some of the henchmaniacs and Tony for awhile.

I have more art on this, but I've hit the tumblr limit of 10, so I'll cut this shorter and make the rest of the plot its own post.

Anthony grows up and becomes a right-hand man for Tony, but after millions of years, they become tired and traumatized from doing all of Tony's dirty work.

Anthony ends up killing Tony.

Tony had slowly become more abusive and cruel over the years, and Anthony just couldn't handle it anymore. They end up taking over Tony's place as the leader of the henchmaniacs... but they don't really do anything. Around this time, they make a deal with the Axolotl (or some related party), to repent for all their crimes. They hated what they had done for Tony and wanted to be and do better.

They end up failing to save or do anything for anyone and ends up in the Theraprism. Unlike their father, they make it through the program and get reincarnated.

I'm still unsure if they would meet with Bill there, if either would know the other was just some many rooms away. I don't even know if they'd learn either was at the Theraprism.

If they did meet again, it would... be awkward for sure!

If you guys would like to hear more about any of these characters let me know, weirdly enough my favorite here is Mendax even tho it's not the focus here.

[lesbehonestsstuff]

Figured I might as well turn the batting cages head canon into a short story 🤷‍♀️

Word count is like 900 words

After a rough case and a not guilty verdict on a case Casey had poured her heart into she doesn’t head home. She can't, the familiar knot of frustration and self-loathing is making it hard to breathe, and before she knows it, she’s driving toward the batting cages.

The sun has long set by the time Alex realizes Casey hasn’t come home. It’s not unusual for Casey to stay late at the office, but tonight, given the verdict she knew her girlfriend had gotten, she knows exactly where Casey must be.

By the time Alex arrives at the batting cages, the place is deserted except for one figure. The only sound is the dull thud of the balls slamming into the back of the net. Casey’s still swinging. Her hair is matted with sweat, her shirt clinging to her skin, her movements sluggish and desperate. Her usual fluid form, graceful and precise, is now just ragged and exhausted. But she keeps going, teeth gritted, hands gripping the bat as tightly as she can.

"Casey?" Alex calls out softly, but the name barely cuts through the hum of the pitching machine. Casey doesn’t stop. She’s too deep in her own head, lost in the her frustration, guilt, and anger.

Alex steps closer, her heart braking as she watches the woman she loves continue to punish herself. Without hesitation, she turns off the machine, the sudden silence deafening.

Casey stumbles mid-swing, her bat falling from her hands as the ball thuds against the wall. Her breath is ragged, uneven, and her hands shake. It’s only then that she notices Alex, standing there with a concerned, heartbroken expression. She tries to speak, but the words get stuck, in her throat.

She collapses, sliding down the cold metal of the batting cage wall, and suddenly, the dam breaks. Tears spill down her face, fast and unstoppable. For a moment, she tries to hold them back, ashamed of her weakness, but she’s too tired. Too exhausted-physically, mentally, emotionally.

Alex moves inside with her, kneeling in front of her, gently removing the helmet that’s been pressed too tightly against Casey’s head. She runs her fingers through damp hair, brushing sweaty strands away from Casey’s face. Her touch is soft, but her words are firm, full of love and concern. "You can’t keep doing this, Casey," Alex whispers, pressing gentle kisses to her forehead, ignoring the sweat and heat radiating from her girlfriend. "You're hurting yourself."

Casey squeezes her eyes shut, her body shaking with sobs she’s tried to suppress for hours. "I thought I could handle it... I just... I just wanted to feel something else. Anything else," she chokes out, her voice breaking.

Alex pulls her closer, wrapping her arms around Casey’s body. She rubs her hands up and down Casey’s sore arms, feeling the tightness in her muscles, the strain she’s put on herself. "You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to punish yourself for every failure, every bad day."

Casey’s sobs grow louder, her face buried in Alex’s shoulder. The sensation of Alex’s arms around her helps the tension in her body ease, even as the exhaustion settles in, heavy and overwhelming.

"I'm sorry," Casey whispers, her voice weak, barely audible. The tears haven’t stopped, and now, she feels just how sore her body really is. Her arms are leaden, her hands throbbing, and every muscle screams in protest at what she’s done to herself.

Alex lifts Casey’s chin, forcing her to look into her, concerned eyes. She gently brushes a thumb over Casey’s tear-streaked cheek, her heart breaking at the sight of how fragile she looks right now. "I know you are," she says softly. "But I don’t like it when you do this. When you hurt yourself like this."

Casey takes a deep shaky breath, "I don’t know how to stop," she admits, because she knows it isn’t healthy but it’s the only way she knows how to cope.

Alex presses a soft kiss to her forehead, her lips lingering for a moment because she also doesn’t have an answer to offer when she knows how much this job takes from them and how much they need ways to cope that aren’t at the bottom of a bottle.

They stay like that until Casey calms down. In Alex’s arms, Casey finally lets herself relax, her body surrendering to the exhaustion she’s been running from.

When Alex finally pulls back, she looks at Casey with so much love it hurts. "Come on," she says, her voice soft. "Let's get you home."

Casey nods weakly, too tired to argue. She lets Alex help her to her feet, wincing at the soreness in her arms and legs. Her entire body protests as she moves, but Alex is there, steady and strong, helping her toward the car.

By the time they get home, Casey can barely stand. She takes a quick shower with Alex’s help and collapses onto the bed, her body sinking into the mattress, Alex is beside her in an instant, pushing painkillers and water into her hand and then pulling the covers over them both. As Alex wraps her arms around her, holding her close, Casey allows herself to drift, her mind finally quieting. Alex’s voice is the last thing she hears before sleep claims her "I love you, Casey."

[lunarubra]

Little update...

First, I want to apologize in advance—this is going to be a bit long, and I’ll be venting about a lot of things. Sorry for that.

So, I realize almost no one noticed this, and that’s partly because I’ve been quiet about it, trying to process everything before doing anything.

I took a few days off from Tumblr to figure out if I was just overreacting or being overly sensitive. I even debated whether I should take down all my stories, delete my blog, or just keep one. To be honest, bullying isn’t new to me; I’ve dealt with it most of my life.

Over the past few days, though, a blog—or possibly a group of blogs—started bullying me and attacking what I’ve published, to the point where they reported my Chapter 7 to Tumblr, which led to it being taken down. That chapter contained smut, and apparently, I didn’t follow the guidelines by not marking it as mature content.

But what really hurts is that these people "discovered" through my stories that I’m Muslim and Arab. Since then, I’ve been bombarded with racist, disgusting messages. Even after blocking them, I kept receiving more, to the point where I had to disable anonymous asks.

I’ve reached out to Tumblr and appealed the removal of Chapter 7. Hopefully, it’ll be restored, but I’ll have to mark it as mature content. Which, let’s be honest, feels a bit ridiculous considering no one else seems to be doing that and they’re getting by just fine—but then again, they’re not being harassed by a group of Zionists.

So, what’s the point of all this? Well, here it is: Are you done? You don’t like that I’m Muslim—what a shocker. You think I’m a terrorist, that the only "good Muslim" is a dead one? Fine. But just ignore me. When I started this blog, I made a rule for myself: stay away from politics. I wanted a space that was mine, where the only thing that mattered was obsessing over our fandom. I needed that. A place where, at least here, I didn’t have to worry about what it’s like to be a Muslim in the Western world.

And yes, I know this situation isn’t the biggest deal in the grand scheme of things. A bunch of insults about why I shouldn’t exist and getting reported for one chapter isn’t earth-shattering. But it’s just another place where I can’t pretend to feel safe. Even here, in my own little corner, playing with my "characters", if my characters aren’t white and Christian, it’s somehow a problem.

I understand what real problems are. My aunt is Palestinian, from Haifa. Do you know what that means for my family? It means every day, we hear news about people we know—or people my mom, my uncle, or my aunt knew—being killed or trying to flee for their lives. I get these updates daily. So forgive me if I wanted at least this space to be free from Zionist insults. Just leave me alone, for fuck's sake.

From now on, anyone who thinks Muslims should die, who labels me a terrorist, or who tries to explain how Israel is just "defending itself" will be blocked.

Sorry for the long post, but I needed to get this off my chest.

[writingquestionsanswered]

How do you take a side female character and make them the mc? We all know how female characters get treated in media whether that be films, shows or anime, you can forget any decent writing from a SIDE female character. So what I'm trying to say I really like this one character that I think would have the potential to be written sooo beautifully but I don't know how to go about that. Like I want to add more nuances to her character without totally changing her entire personality because I do like her original self and if I do that I won't be able to recognize her, y'know? But I wanna make her more complex, add more story to her, give her the same treatment like you would to a male character.

Fan-Fiction: Fleshing Out a Secondary Character

When a side character hasn't been explored much in canon, there's really no way you can flesh them out without changing things a little bit... because you're filling in details where none existed before. That's bound to change things a little. The key is to do it thoughtfully so that you're maintaining the integrity of what's already there.

One thing you can do is try to boil down the character's personality to those key elements... the things that really make them who they are... the things you really can't change without significantly altering the character. Those are the elements you want to guard fiercely as you flesh out the nuances of the character. However, other aspects can be played with if you do so thoughtfully. For example, maybe there have been a few moments in canon where this character was shown as being "overly emotional" and that's not who you think they really are. One option would be to establish that those were moments where the character was pushed to their limits, so this is not normal behavior for them. Another option would be to establish that they were going through something at the time that made them more emotional. A third option would be to show that something has changed since then... perhaps now they are more confident and sure of themselves, or maybe they've just learned better coping techniques. Either way, if you explain the change, you're not significantly altering who they are. You're just changing them in a way that makes sense and doing it thoughtfully.

Another great way to flesh out side characters is to look for canon hints at their personal lives, whether it's back story or what they're doing when they're not in the background. For example, maybe there was some hint that this character grew up in an unusual place, or maybe one time another character makes an offhanded comment that this character grew up as a "military brat." These are excellent places where you can flesh things out. Perhaps you can do a flashback story that shows a snippet of this character's childhood living in a military family, and perhaps you can connect whatever happens with something later established in canon. For example, maybe the character in question is detective, and maybe when they're a child, something happens in their neighborhood filled with military families that ends up being investigated, which plays a role in motivating them to become a detective later in life. This takes something already established in canon and builds it out the way it would be for a main character.

Of course, with fan-fiction, you can never know exactly what was the original intention for these kinds of canon backstory snippets. Every fan writer may have a different idea of what is intended or how that plays out, but that's part of what makes it fun. It's not about trying to figure out exactly what the writers had in mind, but rather speculating about possibilities, choosing one, and making it as canon-friendly as possible.

Happy writing!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[rulanarinrush]

ch2 ep 15 spoilers! My general thoughts below the cut. Some opinions are expressed, but I don't believe that my feelings are superior to anyone else's, so please don't take them as fact or offense to them. It is all just fiction after all.

This is probably my favorite (main series) drdt episode, competing only with visiting graves because that episode is so tailor-made to set off my creepy alarm bells. The voice actors all did an amazing job in this episode and really elevated it.

Chekhov's gun did rule that the resistance band had to be used at some point, but I genuinely did not think it would be so soon. This is not a bad thing, just that it's like Min where it was so in your face that I wasn't expecting that to be the actual answer.

Now that the mystery is solved, I don't really have much to speculate, haha. I assumed that Arei's glove could have been used as a gag, and the reason that it's missing is bc it had teeth marks on it, definitely proving that it wasn't a suicide at least, but Charles would yell at me for speculating way too much lol. I do want to know what the scuff mark was for but I suppose that's relatively unimportant. Same for if David actually saw Arei's body first. Personally, I think the reason that he was the first to notice Arei was missing was because he just had a heart to heart with her the night before. Of course he'd feel her absence. Plus she's kinda loud lol...

Strangulation to make her pass out did not occur to me but it probably should have. I just thought that if that was used, there would be very visible marks on her neck, like rope burn or bruises, but I think the broken neck covers all that up huh? haha. I also wonder how Ace cut the rope so perfectly that none of the ends look frayed lol. Please teach me your ways sir.

This whole time I've been operating under the assumption that the killer's logical skills were very strong, but I guess this proves why there were so many weird inconsistencies(imo) with this chapter. I never assumed Ace was dumb(I can't believe this was actually brought up lol) but the fish were always what led me to believe that this incident was spontaneous rather than planned(which was why before the hiatus ended, I believed that Arei and Levi were foils, and to parallel the first canon DR game, it would have been spontaneous, plus the fact that as many people have pointed out, the way Ace knows all the information in the note is kind of strange, but it makes more sense if he only overheard the first part of Eden-Arei-Arturo and just guessed the second half of the note (promised to do anything)). I also just thought it was an attempt to make Arei suffer less because if you just wanted to get out, there are way easier methods of killing her than all this, as Teruko pointed out. Trying to mimic Nico's murder, especially when they didn't give out the details of that murder attempt, is very odd. It means that only a few people could have replicated it, which narrows it down to again, Ace, Teruko, and Eden(and Nico). If he wasn't so impulsive he might've figured that out. Plus, how could he guarantee that Nico wouldn't have an alibi with multiple people at the time of his murder? Evil as this sounds because of the entire message of this episode, all these inconsistencies really make more sense when you realize Ace kind of got lucky with Rose really struggling and David's entire thing, making this harder for everyone. It should have been a much easier case to solve if MonoTV up and said "I immediately closed the room after everyone left" thus making it impossible for anyone to investigate after Eden and Teruko left that night. Since I thought that anyone could've investigated that night, Levi made a lot of sense to me. I also thought that he would be able to make a two story throw. Sorry Levi. I'll fill out that form that keeps going out for Hu and Eden. I will hereby respect Levi Fontana and I will NOT talk down to the Ultimate Personal Stylist. Didn't know you were so cool. I think you are right about having low empathy but you have a bit more compassion than you think you do. Just less of it than people(in the kg besides Vero) want. It seemed to me like you were visibly distressed by Ace's attempt at appealing to your compassion/sympathy versus your logic.

I don't have any negative feelings on how this case was handled. I enjoyed it a lot. Teruko is sort of right and wrong, in that MonoTV's motives were not what was important, but the motive of the murder was pivotal to understanding all the weird inconsistencies in it. Why even have the fish there to begin with when all it does is narrow down the possible killers? Wouldn't the killer want to minimize evidence that could lead to them, especially something as flimsy as this? Now it makes more sense. Ace got his revenge, but on the wrong person. He can't control his life, what he can eat, his body, his friends, the people who he thought he could trust, his emotions, whether he lives or dies, his self-esteem, and in committing a murder he assumes he'd rather take control of his life and end it on his own terms, but he's wrong. All he did was violently take the choice away from another person who has technically never wronged him(being annoying doesn't count). Now he's not even going to die on his own terms. No one will remember him fondly. Also AceNico foils, I figured that Ace was probably Eden's stalker but the fact that they were both planning murders around the same time lmao....

Don't take this the wrong way it's just my opinion, the only thing I kind of side eye is how often J is used to push a moral message. She's good at ending pointless rebuttals before they start and I imagine corruption may be a part of why she's stands so adamantly for her values and gives no room for excuses, but at the same time I... already get it. Like, I understood even before this that murder and murder attempts aren't justifiable, no matter what circumstances were behind it. What greater point are you making to both Nico and Ace? This is a facetious question, I know why, but I don't need to be told it in such a stilted manner. With David, he's set up already as somewhat pretentious so he can get away with dramatically shoving the point of Teruko's character arc in our faces, but with J it feels like wow alright, the girl who has never suffered through poverty(unless she ran away) is telling the characters how unjustifiable some things are no matter what led to it like ok girl. Mariabella gives off the vibes of a narcissistic parent, but Veronika and many other characters tell J that they would kill to be in her position. Choosing J for this is a very interesting choice that will likely be expanded upon later. It doesn't affect my opinion of her character or the writing, it's just something I find fascinating. Not a negative or a positive.

Ace feels like an inevitable tragedy, and I'm glad it was done this way. He points out his foils to Arei very bluntly lol. He has been given so many chances by Levi but pushed them away each time. He's a coward, always targeting the vulnerable(starting with Eden, though this is technically just speculation on Teruko's part). He made them all suffer by drawing out this trial for the sake of his own cowardice too. I'm glad Teruko could truly empathize with him, even for just a moment. It was good to see. As for the inevitable tragedy part, I think Nico's role in this is pretty obvious so I won't reiterate pointless information, but Levi and Hu played their own roles that helped differentiate his relationships with them from Arei and Eden. Levi's patience could really only last so long, and even then, it seems like Levi hasn't had many positive role models in his life, so he didn't understand that what the "right" responses to Ace's anxiety were(like there are any...). As for Hu, she was very kind to Ace in ch1. I imagine it was somewhat of a shock to see her turn heel so quickly in ch2 now that Xander is dead and can no longer defend Nico. I don't mean that the act itself is shocking, but that it proves her to be untrustworthy. If she really had issues with him, she should've spoken up much sooner, bc it's not like Ace wasn't already bullying Nico from the start. This is the difference between niceness and kindness. Hu's actions are a lot more self-serving than Xander's. (At least, in Ace's eyes). So everyone has turned his back on him because he, like Nico and Levi, has trouble conforming. And everyone proved him right in the trial with their low opinion of him. No one had any logical arguments to defend him with in a scrum debate lol. I think it's actually a good thing that there was no scrum debate this chapter, because it usually boils down to statements that can, vastly oversimplified, be written down to statements that have clear negations or opposites. Ace is the killer!(T) or Eden is the killer!(F). Shuuichi is the killer or he isn't the killer! etc etc. That general option was narrowed down already when Teruko narrowed it down to two suspects. If they had a scrum debate about whether Eden or Ace was the killer it would be like ok, alright, but aren't you... already discussing this? You already know those are the two options anyway. Even if it came down to a detail of the crime like could Eden have taken the fish? That is really dragging out the pacing of the trial for a small detail. So I think not having one was a good choice.

I'll put a cap on it here but I enjoyed this episode a lot. I look forward to the finale and execution! :)