#do i tag characters... question that haunts me for these kinda posts

[dizzybizz]

how long since the last magma dump

[medakakurokami]

I finished over 100 visual novels, here’s a long post with some recommendations

Last month I hit 100 Finished VN’s over on the VNDB and I thought I’d shoot out some recommendations while the Steam Summer Sale is going on (even though some of these aren’t going to be on Steam)

I already have finished up some stragglers and caught some shorter titles so it’s up to 104 Finished, but all the better. I have been reading some VN’s since 2015, but it really became a hobby and a genre I was invested in during Covid lockdown in 2020. I had trouble getting into some of the popular titles, but a couple of games that were lesser known at that time really blew me away that year and I started digging more into the medium. I still have a lot to try out and other classics I’m still interested in trying, but here’s a top 10 I’m confident in recommending to most people, at least the kinda people that would follow this blog. A few of these recommendations are actually multi-part series, but hopefully accessible all around.

Planetarian ($10 on Steam and Switch, ~$5 on sale)

This is a very late entry onto this list but I think it’s an easy recommendation. This is a very short 2-4 hour visual novel that got a well received 2 hour movie adaptation in 2016, but it was strong enough that even while knowing the plot everything still hit hard. It is a story set 30 years after an apocalyptic event destroys most of the world, as a human junk-trader comes across a planetarium with a somehow-still-functional robot named Hoshino still performing her daily duties after 30 years without customers or coworkers. It can come across as a bit saccharine, but it is a quick, well made, and effective tearjerker.

Narcissu 1st & 2nd (Free on Steam)

Narcissu’s first two parts are pretty compelling stories to do with suicidal ideation within the scope of the terminally ill. Which is to say they’re also real tear jerkers, and pretty open about some harsh self-reflective emotions. They both have stellar endings, and can be quite immersive despite the very limited artwork (if the screencap looks weird, the game’s art exists within a narrow strip on the screen, with a sentence or two reading out the story underneath it). Maybe the least accessible on this list, but a $0 price tag makes it easier in some sense to get into.

Umineko no Naku Koro ni / When The Seagulls Cry (~$50 on Steam, $30 on sale)

Umineko you’ve probably already heard of, and here’s me recommending it. Umineko comes in two parts, on Steam referred to as the Questions Arc and the Answers Arc. Despite the split, the overall story follows the events of a certain day on Rokkenjima Island in 1986 as a family meets to discuss their inheritance and their family’s mysteries. Unbeknownst to them they are soon haunted, over and over again, by the revenant of the Golden Witch said to live in the woods of their family’s island.

I’m in the minority of preferring the Questions Arc, where well written and deeply human characters find themselves in deeply inhumane and nonsensical scenarios. The Answers Arc back seats some of that to start delving into an esoteric explosion of clues and backstories, and was still very entertaining even if I was more invested in the episodic stories than the overarching mystery. This may also be seen as inaccessible, $30-50 for a slightly older title and over 140 hours long on average playthroughs, but it is deeply absorbing.

Witch on the Holy Night a.k.a. Mahoyo ($40 on PS4 and Switch)

Mahoyo is me and Nasu’s marriage counselor, it really made me see the good in him. It follows a young witch co-habitating with her magic colleague and the puppy-like boy that unwittingly steps into their world at risk to his own life, just as unexplained apparent murders are witnessed in their town.

This could possibly be a higher level recommendation, though it was apparently intended to have sequels and you can somewhat feel that in the isolated feeling of its main conflict. Despite this, the game is definitely worth experiencing for its classy charm and extremely well made action sequences that at times make you forget you’re not watching a full anime film. It’s also a showcase of Nasu’s strengths in writing character interactions and comedy, and he finally lets Show take over and stops Telling you piles of mage society worldbuilding quite so often. It is also has some of the highest quality production value I’ve ever seen, second maybe to...

Marco and the Galaxy Dragon ($20 on Steam/Switch, less than $10 on sale)

Marco and the Galaxy Dragon is an explosive opera of art, energy, color, and of course music. It follows the orphaned Marco and her dragon compatriot Arco as they hunt for treasure across the cosmos, finding their way to Earth on the hunt for Marco’s mother.

If Umineko’s 140 hours seems steep, Marco has you covered with a quick 6 hour rundown of a rebellious orphan fighting back against her space alien menace to find her own sense of place and identity in the universe, along with ALL the friends she made along the way. If Mahoyo feels like an anime film sometimes, Marco actually just has fully animated FMV cutscenes that are fun as hell and have their own unique artstyle to the VN itself. Thousands of pieces of artwork and a 52-track OST fill the game’s short runtime with no cut corners and and overflow of passion from the devs. Honestly even if you don’t want to read it go buy it, it’s cheap and they earned it.

White Album 2 (You’ll have to be creative to find this one)

This is the only recommendation that’s currently only available in an adults only 18+ Rating for the English translation. That being said, it’s one of the few erotic VN’s that felt justified in its pornographic scenes. The story is split into two releases: Opening Chapter and Closing Chapter.

Opening is a short and powerfully delivered love triangle narrative following Haruki, Setsuna, and Touma as their hastily formed 3-man light music band falls into itself with feelings. It’s charming but gut wrenching and sweeps you into its drama very effectively before kicking you on your ass in the end.

Closing Chapter is a long and drawn out disassembling of their lives as they fail to heal from the wounds of the relationships seen in Opening. It, to great effect, takes the readers own experience with how fun and passionate the Opening Chapter was, and shows how trying to cling to halcyon days can make us so dispassionate about our present lives. Painful stuff! Good music, too.

The Princess, The Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart 1 & 2

a.k.a. Noratoto ($40 on Steam for both, ~$15 for both on sale)

This is a very personal recommendation, and maybe one more easy to make on this blog where many of my followers might be receptive to sincere but slapstick ecchi comedy as art. Every route is highly different however and to me, some are pretty average for galge, while others stand out as amazing. The comedy writing as well feels like it was written by someone with actual comic writing experience, and not just regurgitating the usual ecchi manga jokes.

The general premise of Noratoto is the protagonist Nora, being transformed into a cat by Patricia the princess of the Netherworld, and he must reverse this curse via a kiss before it becomes permanent. A benign fairy tale premise, but one that somehow gives way to underlying stories about existence and finding purpose in families and where that leaves those without families or with abusive or divided families (it is from the same developers as Marco and the Galaxy Dragon, and the themes of finding identity without family match up very closely). Uniquely it is a visual novel written somewhat in 3rd person, narrated by a motherly voice as if the VN was being read to you as a bedtime story.

Like I said, it is dependent on route and some come across as your usual ecchi gal-game schtick, but some stick out, and if every route was as high quality as Nobuchina’s in the 2nd game, it would probably be my favorite visual novel.

The Original Ace Attorney Trilogy ($30 on most platforms, $10 on sale)

You’ve almost certainly heard of Ace Attorney already and have most likely played it. This is me telling any Ace Attorney fans reading that the original trilogy still reigns supreme (regardless of Turnabout Big Top). This is also me telling anyone who has held out on trying Ace Attorney to try it, and to start with the original trilogy.

Obviously this trilogy follows the Meme Man Himself, Phoenix Wright, as he defends the innocent and brings the guilty to justice acting as both lawyer and his own main investigator. While each case presents a unique mystery, the original trilogy has an underlying arc that reaches from beginning to end with a massive conspiracy that Phoenix has to breach to bring justice to the perpetrators and resolve the memory and regrets of his beloved mentor.

These games have some speedbumps as you may be banging your head against the wall trying to find the right evidence, but the experience that breaks through does so with gusto, succeeding on what it sets out to be: games that make you feel like you’ve brought justice to the world.

Utawarerumono Trilogy ($40/60 each on Steam, trilogy bundle $62 on sale)

Utawarerumono was my first proper visual novel, and it set the standards pretty high. I’ve posted about it several times in the last few years, and it remains one of my favorites. It is a labor of love on the part of the developers (the same developers as White Album 2), who developed the latter two games over the course of several years and have made this the spearhead of their company for the time being. Which makes sense, since it is about war.

The first game follows a masked man who is given the name Hakuoro waking up in a rural village with amnesia, confused about the strange population of beast-men living there. Despite not understanding his situation, his ingenuity brings the village prosperity. When the local lords try to put the village under their thumb, Hakuoro and the villagers are able to turn the tides against them. Their village grows into a kingdom as Hakuoro seeks the mysteries of himself and the world around him.

The latter two games pick up some twenty years after the conclusion of the first, and follow a man who is given the name Haku, waking up in the woods with amnesia confused about the... you get it. He is met by Kuon, a young girl on her way traveling to the capital of their nation of Yamato. Haku graciously accepts her help getting out of the cold woods, and decides to join her to the capital. As events play out, Haku finds himself under the direct command of the nation’s leader the Mikado, and carries out missions on his behalf as the nation continues to drag itself into war and conflict and Haku also seeks the truth of his identity.

These games are expansive in scope while still putting a large focus on the day-to-day lives of its characters. Around 100 hours across all three games it is impressive how much story it manages to fit in, but the pacing does bounce around between sweeping conflict and sleepy conversations. It is also in part, a strategy RPG game with the battles in the war being controlled by the player. These are decently made, especially well in the third game, but don’t ask too much of the player and the story remains the main focus and biggest portion of the runtime.

The House In Fata Morgana a.k.a. Fatamoru

($40 complete version on PS4/Switch, ~$40 main game + expansion on Steam)

I’ve gushed about this enough on this tumblr, I’ll keep it brief.

You are a formless soul who is led by the hand of a mysterious maid through the doors of a mansion on an unknown plane of existence. Through each door lies a story of the house in a different era, all following people bound together in ways that leave them cruelly and violently undone by the end of their stories. The connection between these stories, the mystery of the house and the supposed witch that resides within, and the mystery of You the wandering soul all slowly unravel in a bloody show of catharsis and soul. The game is dripping with traumatic poetic text, grating beautiful music, and all of its atmosphere geared toward being oppressive yet enticing. One of the best things I’ve read.

Honorable mentions:

Va-11 Hall-A and Endless Mondays get shout outs as some of the best Original English Language VN’s I’ve read, with cool artstyles and a mature cast they manage to be fun and relatable. Va-11 Hall-A delivers a great arc for its protagonist and Endless Mondays has great dialogue on the threat of automation of creative industries.

Grisaia Trilogy and Hatsumira are both absolutely raucous trilogies that are a lot of fun. Not wholly recommendable to all, Grisaia has some strong moments and a hilarious unique cast but is a mess overall (but we love Michiru). Hatsumira is a bit more consistent, a more stable and fantasy-oriented Grisaia.

A.I. The Somnium Files duology are detective games with highly divisive endings, but great comedy and characters that make them very easy to get through and enjoy the whole way to the end. It’s just a toss-up whether you’ll like that ending.

Sakura Wars games are finally being translated, and they are a great showing for anyone who wants to try some classic dating sim stuff but with some pizazz thrown in with the setting and mecha combat.

The Tears to Tiara duology by the same developers of Utawarerumono and White Album is also one to keep an eye out for. The first game's definitive version isn't available in English and the second game is stuck on the PS3 and no longer available digitally, but if they ever come out on Steam they are worth your time.

Nanairo Reincarnation and Kinkoi: Golden Loveriche are also two solid ecchi comedy galge. Both have surprisingly deep and genuinely heartbreaking underlying mysteries and conclusions.

I still have a lot I wanna read, Planetarian is the only Key novel I’ve read. On the docket are Labyrinth of Galleria, Little Busters, the 9 -nine- series, and Kara no Shoujo and White Album 1 releasing on Steam this year. Some classics I didn’t mention are Fate/Stay Night, Muv Luv, Steins Gate. Muv Luv I read Extra and enjoyed it, but never pulled the trigger on reading the rest, I may at some point on a whim. Steins;Gate I played through half of on PS3 and now my PS3 is in the closet, the VN is really good and has a unique atmosphere to the anime, buuuuuuut knowing the plot has made it hard to want to restart on PC or another console. Steins;Gate is good, if anyone is reading this far and hasn’t seen the anime or read the VN, do it.

[kybercrystals94]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 75

2. What's your total Ao3 word count? 92,568

3. What fandoms do you write for? Currently, Star Wars (mostly Bad Batch); however, I've written for a lot of TV shows over the years. (I prefer TV shows over movies simply because I can get to know the characters better and have a better feel for them when writing)

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

1. Unconventionally Easy (Star Wars: The Bad Batch) - a pre-Order 66 story about a mission gone awry for the Batch. 2. I Miss You (Star Wars: The Bad Batch) - Echo finds an unexpected message from a brother. 3. Regroup (Star Wars: The Bad Batch) - Tech and Omega have to leave Hunter and Wrecker behind when a job for Cid goes sideways. 4. Just Sit With Me (Star Wars: The Bad Batch) - A Cadet Batch fic featuring young Crosshair and Tech. 5. Resilient (Star Wars: The Bad Batch) - Echo struggles with his PTSD.

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes! It's one of my favorite parts of writing fan fiction!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? This one is really hard since I did Whumptober and Febuwhump and Angstpril 😅 I'd have to say maybe Haunting Failures or Sick Day (although my readers would probably choose different ones).

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Probably the Stardust Conspiracy or Detail Work.

8. Do you get hate on fics? In other fandoms, I have...I have yet to experience hate in this fandom.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I don't read or write or watch it...not my thing.

10. Do you ever write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? I haven't really written any...but I did kinda play with the idea of writing a Psych and Bones crossover 😂 I was gonna call it The Psychic in the Capital.

11. ?? (there was no question for #11...so I'll just say....nothing, I guess)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Not that I am aware of, but that would be so cool!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Kind of! I wrote Where Fears Are Born & When Fears Are Faced as companion pieces of @just-here-with-my-thoughts' fic Phobia. And then @just-here-with-my-thoughts wrote a couple cute companion pieces for The Stardust Conspiracy! (Find the Stardust collection here!)

14. What's your all time favorite ship? Kanan and Hera 🥰😭

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Mmmmm...I don't know. Any WIPs I have chapters posted for I have plans to finish...the ones slowly dying in my folder, however...😅

There's a Fives Survives AU I've been writing where he's actually the one who finds and rescues Omega from Kamino that I would really like to see through.

16. What are your writing strengths? I love character studies, so I feel like that really helps my writing!

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I hate writing action scenes...and I tend to lean heavily on dialogue.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic? The only time I've used "another language" in a fic is when I have clones use Mando'a words...but they don't usually use full sentences.

19. First fandom you wrote for? When I was an early teen I wrote for the Disney show Pair of Kings. 😂 However, I think I deleted the story after a couple of days...the first fandom I stuck to for a bit of time and still have stories floating around out there was Bonanza.

20. Favorite fic you've written? Basically any story I've written with the boys as cadets. They All Fall Down is probably one of my favorites, just because it reminds me so much of growing up with siblings. I also loved writing the Stardust Conspiracy.

Thank you for tagging me, @the-little-moment! This was so fun!!

Is it possible to tag all my moots?? Because I wanna see all your answers...(**cough**cough**if you've read this far, consider yourself TAGGED)

[frankenjoly]

fanfic writer interview!

tagged by @anticidic & @aurorahrt tyy <3

How many works do you have on AO3?

so far it's 123, and the number is going up always lkdjf. to be fair, i've been on ao3 for araoun 7 years, and a lot of stuff is drabbles.

Your top 5 stories by kudos/likes:

Connecting the dots. arcane/lol, genfic + baby timebomb.

people yearn(ed) for fluff after arcane, and so do (and did) i. family shenanigans ft. baby powder's puppy crush.

Between the pages: part 2. bsd, misc of ships.

2nd batch of bsd drabbles (and damn, the collection has grown A LOT).

Misread. genshin, jealuc.

jealuc from barbara's pov, relationship reveal kinda since she gets full confirmation there.

Remnants. arcane/lol, jinx-centric timebomb.

post-s1 bit of a character study vs pinning and regrets. it's not unrequited, we know now more than ever that it's not, but it kiiinda looks like it from her pov.

Por el amor de este presidente... bsd, fukumori & (vs) fukufufku.

the bsd Crack Fic so far, mori and fukuchi team up to crash any dates fukuzawa has with other people (since both want him back) but are also rivaling each other (since both want him back), pm members & hd try to avoid overwork.

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

always! i need to give my thanks lskjdfl.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

remnants maybe? and it's not full-on angst. neither are, tho, i'm a pussy.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

here i cannot choose, most are pretty happy lksjf.

Do you write crossovers?

oh, yeah. i even have a whole-ass series dedicated to that (aka the dnd-ish au, and i'm very proud of it.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

not straight up hate, but i've had someone coming to my fic tagged with 2 ships involving the same character (gojohime and shokohime) to say one is canon and the other are "just friends gal pals etc" lkjsf. my sibling in christ, none are canon.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

i've dabbled in smut in rp (not super explicit tho), but i don't think i could go past suggestive/pre-smut making out on fic lkjf. it's like, more ppl are gonna see it there.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

save from that one page who reposted everyone and their mom's fics some time ago, not really.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no, but if it happens, @rashomune is my #1.

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

this is a terrible question for someone as indecissive as i am lksj. i do tend to have a fav ship tm from all of my favs in each fandom (for example, if i had to choose just one bsd ship it'd be sskk), but choosing just one at all from every fandom? i can't.

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

rather than a started wip, it's a concept that could be sooo good but scares me (but also haunts me). aka: the sskk call of the sea au.

What are your writing strengths?

i'm confident in what i do in general, i can improvise easily (i think rp influences this), and i've been told i'm good at characterization + showing which character it is by their speech.

What are your writing weaknesses?

english nerfs me. like, i don't think i do bad per se, but i'm even better in spanish.

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

i'm used to mixing english and spanish for dialogues in rp, but i don't really do that in fic. i do add some words here and there, and use the honorifics for japanese characters and so on.

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

mhmm... a ton lksjfl. a very specific example is yelan/emilie (genshin), aka very rare rarepair i got into just bcs they have the same jp voices as shokohime.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

again, i can't choose lksjdf.

tagging: @ashenaura @littencloud9(no pressure ofc)

[wesslan]

20 questions for writers

thank you @adelfie for the tag<3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

18! (and one hidden). i did not think it was that many??? thought it was 10 tops, lol

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

272,860

3. What fandoms do you write for?

batman, used to write some dsmp, but now im kinda eeh about it. i also (for some godforsaken reason) have a harry potter WIP thats been sitting in my docs for like two years that i kinda wanna finish, kinda not (jk r*wling suck my dick challenge)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

cards on the table

when in gotham: don’t drink the water

robin radio

o bury me not on the lone prairie

and their dreams they dreamed awake

5. Do you respond to comments?

i try!!!! the number overwhelms me sometimes, but i try to answer when i have the energy! :,)

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

oh god, i mean… i pretty much only write happy/hopeful endings🤠 mayyyybe ‘you have (1) new message’? its not all the way angsty but it’s kind of?? angsty??

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

gee whizz buddy see above and take your pick, really

8. Do you get hate on fics?

i have gotten one (1) hate comment and i treasured it dearly until the person that posted it deleted it😭 other than that, nawt really. some people give unsolicited advice/critique, but thats about it

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

nope. not really my thing

10. Do you write crossovers?

again, not really my thing.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of! sure hope it stays that way

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yesss!!! so cool! they asked permission, and now my fic exists in a whole other language!!!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no, and i think i’d be really awful at it. i cant say no to stuff, i cant keep deadlines, and i dont enjoy people being in the kitchen when i cook, so to speak

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

BAYBEY!! you KNOW i was a klance shipper first and a human second when i was like? 14? now tho? i’m shipping myself with sixteen hours of sleep and financial freedom. but also, deep in my heart,,,, charlie and carlisle from twilight. you could have been so beautiful.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will?

man at this point, who knows what i’ll finish. maybe instant repeater ‘99. i LOVE the concept and the world building. but also i kinda left the fandom,,,

16. What are your writing strengths?

people (including my interactive storytelling teacher) have told me im good at writing distinct characters/realistic dialogue! so i guess that! :,D

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

CONSISTENCY. finishing things. ending up hating what i’ve written like 3 months after it’s done.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

well,,, that’s what i always do. english is another language to me! cop out answer, lmao. but other than that, i guess i could be persuaded to write a few lines in spanish here and there. did study it for 7 years, after all.

overall, i thinks it pretty cool! as long as there is an ez translation somewhere, easy to understand without a translation, or if it’s not done in a way that bi/multilinguals absolutely would not speak B)

19. First fandom you wrote for?

oh god. percy jackson. it’s still out there somewhere. i forgot my username and password so i’ll prolly never find it (thank god) but yeah. it was solangelo bc i was closeted and emo.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

probably ‘mothman is real and he wants to kill me’. i had a lot of fun with it! i also really like ‘*cocks gun* manor’s haunted’ just because i based it off of the haunting of hill house which is like, one of the best books ever.

that was fun!!! thanks again for the tag! <3 i’m tagging whoever wants to do this, and also (no pressure) @quotidian-oblivion

puss å kram, skumbanan!!❤️

[thefirstknife]

To take a break from this week's awfulness, I wanted to tag in on Calus in LF. As you deftly laid out, it's perfect for his character & his relationships with the Witness & Caiatl. It shows him as vain & pathetic. But that's precisely why it fails *as a game villain*. He needs to be scary & powerful for our final battle, but it was just sad to me. A sad little man, unloved & desperate. Compared to Sav, Oryx etc it's a big emotional difference. What do you think from the angle of *game* villain?

Oh that's an interesting question, no worries!

Honestly, it really depends on what type of a villain people expect or prefer. I can see why some would prefer a villain to not be this way or at least if they didn't know all the details. I personally really love villains like this; villains who have put themselves into a path that led them to being just sad, abandoned, lonely and desperate people, despite being given options and a way out, multiple times. But their refusal to accept change is what ultimately led them to their fate.

Calus fits this really well! There's definitely a tragedy to him and his life as a whole. This doesn't really bring the same sort of joy over his defeat as it would be to defeat someone who is villainous in a different way so I can understand why people would feel off for killing him. But personally I believe that Lightfall's whole theme fits this with Calus. He was a sad little man, who rejected everything to overcome his problems and grief and instead chose the simpler path, unlike us; we worked through our grief and took the more difficult way but ultimately more rewarding. It's the primary dichotomy between the way of Light and the way of Darkness. The Witness is also important to consider here because the Witness looks for these types of people in particular for manipulation. A sad little man like Calus was overjoyed to meet the Witness, ages ago. The Witness played with that aspect of him and promised him everything he wanted; most of all, to be important and to be seen.

And in truth, he simply wasn't. He was being used, as all who side with the Witness are. With the whole setup of loss at the end of Lightfall, yeah; his defeat didn't feel as triumphant as it would've been if he'd been different. I believe that was intended. It definitely gave me more of a sense of relief that we put him to rest, rather than triumph. The Witness does that to people. You're kinda glad that you're putting those irreversibly manipulated by it out of their misery. It's also reflected with Caiatl who was basically just tired of it all and just wanted to know if it's done.

I'd even say that Oryx was a similarly tragic figure, though not exactly in the same way. Oryx was also manipulated and he struggled with his doubts all of his life. And when he finally came to attack us, he was literally just a father struck with grief over losing his child. He was more of an imminent threat to the solar system of course, so there was more triumph in defeating him. His story was also much more obscure overall (given how D1 did lore). To a lot of people, Oryx was just a scary monster that arrived to kill everyone. But once you know the background (and especially now with the full scope of it and the role of the Witness in shaping the Hive into who they are), I believe that he is also one of those villains that are ultimately just tragic people. I know Oryx is like that to me.

So yeah, I think this is a really interesting perspective to consider. I still think that this does work for villains, it's just not something that everyone equally enjoys. An expectation for villains is that we should feel good for ending them. But Destiny in general has given us many questions about that over the years; Uldren is a perfect example. He was also painted as a villain, but even back then (and especially now with Crow post-Haunted), I genuinely felt like crap for what we did to him. And that was kinda baked into Forsaken as well; our revenge rampage was never meant to be heroic. There was no real glory or justice in it.

This is definitely something that not everyone will perceive the same way and that not everyone will equally enjoy, especially when considering what the expectations are going into it.

[sucantslay]

Wataru and Eichi's solo song analysis

-How did it connect together and the meaning of their relationship-(Part1: Eichi)

I'm literally crying, and there will be more tears after this...but I must...

If you're questioning why I delivered this analysis so late...uhm, it's long. But in short, I've to re-read some of the stories just to make some needed points and to make sure that the facts are true ( and all kinds of business randomly pop up on my schedule, haunting me for weeks! )

Before that, I need you to read some warnings first!

This is my PERSONAL way of looking at their characteristic, if it is not for you, YOU'RE FREE TO HAVE YOUR OWN IDEAL.

Even if you're an Eichi-P, an Eichi hater, or just someone who simply wants to know more about him, I welcome you all with open arms. No one is being banned here. But pls, if you don't like or enjoy the way I look and think of Eichi, do not send hate or make any big mess. If you don't like it, just stop reading, that's it.

There won't be much of the translated song picture because Tumblr stops me from putting 10pic in a post so...again with the word.

THIS IS GONNA BE GODDAMN LONG! I spit it into 2 parts! And it still LONGGG HELP! ( Part 1 will be Eichi's song and Part two is for Wataru song ) I'll make a tag and put the link so you can get to Wataru's part.

I'll be using these 2 Eichi solo songs to analyze:

Shinning star + Crystal Pleasure

And for Wataru:

Amazing World + Wandering Clown

I'm so sorry if there is not much information about Wataru, as well as a good look into his character. We don't have much information about him so...I need things to base on, a clue to know what up with him, but it is hard to even find one because he rarely talks about himself. So most of this analysis will be talking about it from Eichi's standpoint. It's funny how both rarely talk about their family and other personal stuff but since Wataru is around and always able to pull some lore out of Eichi's mouth, we get to know more about Eichi. Though, it was not the same for Wataru because Eichi have lot of respected for him. There had been multiple occasions when Eichi tried telling Wataru that he could open up to him but after some silence, Eichi just said: "It ok if you don't wanna talk about it." And they continued on with other stuff.

Alright, let's set up a map for this one because it is kinda LOnGGGGG

A small summary of young Eichi and how he came to know Wataru + during the war and after the war ended.

What thoughts do I have on Eichi being so in love with Wataru?

Into the song: About Eichi's solo then we'll get to Wataru's solo later.

1. A little summary!

Since this post is a goddam 4 song-analyzing post, it going to be hard for those who just want to get to the song part, so I made a whole different post for it!

If you're interested, go ahead and read the summary, if not, you can get to other parts. BUT, I STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU TO read it ( if you have the time to ) because it going to help you understand Eichi's character better and enjoyable view of his song and the connection he has with Wataru.

2. Some of my thought on their dynamic ( 0v0/ ✨❤️✨)

I'm crying in happiness to get a chance to talk about them. I really want to do this for a long time ago but never got the time to.

As I've mentioned before in part 1. Eichi is Wataru's biggest fan.

So, it is likely that Eichi loves him but also puts a distance wall in their relationship like how a fan is to their idols.

From the brutal war, Eichi thinks he had hurt too many people to be forgiving PLUS the self-hate and low-esteem, it is just like a knife that was already placed in his chest, after the war ends, it just goes deeper in.

Wataru visited him but it did not make Eichi cry in tear of joy but in pain, because to Eichi, now, no one would like to be with him anymore. It was a good choice to let Tsumugi go, so he can be free. It was a good choice to made that damn contract even if friendship is what needed to help a Unit grow strong.

That "Fine" was never a Unit in Eichi's eyes. It was nothing but a weapon he used to wield. To kill the innocent, carefree being, yet it was necessary.

An action he must took to made the school a better place. And he did, he succeeded but sacrificed himself in the process.

So, if it was not for Wataru, we would never have the Fine today. Heck! Maybe we never get to see Eichi again and he will become nothing but the dust of Yumenosaki's past.

And I was so in tears! Every goddamn time Eichi keeps on with that suspicious look, scare that Wataru wouldn't be with him anymore, that Eichi will be throw away like trash.

Like! Give it a rest buddy! He love you! That it!

And to that depressed little rich guy? Wataru didn't hate him or stay away from him at all!

He was also trying his best, like feeding a kid the food they hate but is healthy so Wataru have to keep trying.

He kept on trying and trying just to let Eichi know: "I'm here for you, and I won't run away, I won't hurt you, I won't betray you. I will be here, with you."

With that came! The shiniest moment of the two!

EP: Link!

When Wataru literally gave Eichi his one and beloved mask that he wear all the time, just to let Eichi know that he'll always be here for Eichi.

I laughed so hard with Eichi just confused at the spot until others showed up.

Like, Eichi, yeh? Rich, smart, good looking. Yet just for a mask now placed on his hand and he getting all wonder in space.

Why? Because he was so sure about everything he thought! To him, his plan was perfect, to the man who wounded many, of course, he would never think that the plan in his head would not become true. He did it before, how can he fail it this time?

It couldn't go wrong, right? He thinks to himself but never did he consider it to be just some random stuff that he made up in his head and reality is different.

When he hear the news that Wataru participated in the actor test, he thought Wataru gave up on being an idols. Then went: "Well...look like he didn't want to be with me anymore. Look like he'll be come an actor."

Like...man, you made that up. You're sad because of your own thoughts then later on get confused when it isn't what actually happened.

This man is such a pathetic guy, I love him.

3. Song analysis:

Well well well, isn't it time *look at my watch*

Even though analysis 1 song would be great, I do, however, want to put 2 solo songs into this analysis then one.

Of course, we'll go slow and analyze one at a time, yet I can't stop but put both songs in one post because, in that way, we can see how both have changed, develop though still full of flaws, they have become something beautiful and will continues to grow.

Let's start with - SHINING STAR:

"A twinkling trace of a dream from beyond the horizon."

"Even though I understand...that it might just be an illusion"

Firstly, the name of this first solo is "SHINING STAR". It both mentions Wataru ( of course! ) and Eichi being the star.

But the two are described differently.

In these lines, mentions the appearance of an unknown shining star from beyond the horizon, a faraway star that shines bright.

But the more Eichi looked, as he thought it was all just a dream, an unreal feeling of this star that shine far in the sky. Because it was so beautiful, but how did he be able to find it here? Was it all way that close or was it all his imagination?

"Today with you, I continue to chasing it."

I said it already but let's say it again!

This man you're looking at is once a suicidal freak!!!

So gained enough confidence to live up to a "Today with you" is one thing, and actually find meaning in life "continue to chasing it" is another.

Because when you're in a state of depression, to once again find the meaning it life is HARD. When everything is already at its limit. When you can't feel anything anymore

Nothing but an empty soul, it hard. That is why depressing people don't do many things or everything at the same time. They try to find a way to continue living or decide to give up on everything.

Losing motive.

Yet Eichi was able to wake up and try to run away from this death of him. He might die from trying too hard, but he made the decision. To continue.

And who gave him the courage for this? Wataru! That is why, it was a "Today with you". Because Eichi still wants to see Wataru's show and witness the beauty of this magician.

I can't die yet! That's why he continues to fight. For everyone, for himself, but right at this moment, when the solo was released, at this moment, to him, Wataru was the first reason for he to continue.

As he's love for idols, pulls him back to life.

"Beautiful things are so fragile and ephemeral" "Permeating through your eyes, I reach out" "Oh, SHINING STAR"

Guys, I'll count from 1 to 3, guess who Eichi was singing about.

1, 2, 3!

Surprise no surprise! It was Wataru.

The shining star he mentions in some of the first lines, as it was far away but Eichi isn't that hopeless of a boy anymore, he shows signs of trying "I reach out".

He wants to be admitted and to be seen in his beloved idol's eyes. He wanted Wataru to see him and caught Wataru's attention.

Even if Wataru is already there for him, Eichi himself thinks otherwise, that he still has a long way to go. He can't just be at the winning spot without paying any price.

And for that, he was scared that he might hurt him. Like the things he did to Wataru friend, the Eccentric and the old Fine.

He was so scared of this beauty now coming so close to him "Beautiful things" he called it, the feeling he had when he was with Wataru, with the things he love yet never had a change to tough it is "fragile", this relationship can be broke if Wataru don't want to be with him anymore.

But, was Wataru's purpose for being here in was because of him or because Wataru wanted something from him.

He feels like the relationship they have is "ephemeral"

( if you are questioning: Ephemeral means lasting for a very short time )

"Underneath this starry sky" "An unknown neverending path continues"

My man is confusing

This depressing guy just recovered from his wound and was still a little confused over the new future he's facing ahead.

It's an unknown path, may be perilous, may be terrifying but he made his decision, he'll go on, he'll continue.

He knows that it will be uneasy. For he who thought that the next thing he'll be on is his deathbed, never knew someone would have the time and strength to take his hand and pull him out of that destiny deathbed.

His future was switched, and now he had to face a new unknown path that he knew nothing about.

"And for your sake" "I'll keep on shining"

"I'll be "SHINING STAR"."

And for the clown who needs a villain to lead his way, Eichi will continue to live until Wataru no longer wants him.

He wants to, no, he is a star, an unknown star that yet to be discovered. And after Wataru point it out for him, he understand that he is also some where far yet close to Wataru spot.

So, to catch that shining star attention, he'll have to be shining too!

Thought Eichi didn't seen to realize what it takes to become a real idol. His love for idols is endless and so does he's wish for a brighter future with Wataru.

And with that, for Wataru's sake, he keeps on living, shining bright as a star.

"Hiding your sorrow behind a smile" "You understand the pain of resistance" "A lifeless flower is blooming in the plains" "Such things make this world beautiful"

I will kill just to legally continue calling out these lyrics that Eichi sings about, all pointing to Wataru.

If you thought, yeh, Wataru can't be sad, he always looks happy. Then, my dear reader, you are wrong. Wataru can be blue sometimes, but it's hard to know since he just kept on smiling.

You can rarely find a moment where he puts down his mask, but it doesn't mean zero.

In Phantom Thieves and Detectives, after Knight and Ra*bit show, Wataru appears in the dark. But he seems...tired and doesn't really care to put on the face of a clown anymore.

This is not often, but there is also the time when Wataru points out other characters about the fact that they're wearing a mask too.

The reason Eichi can sing these lines is because he notices, he watches Wataru closely, for a long time, to the point he starts to realize that his beloved idols also have their flaws.

Since 2 lines are already about Wataru, so is the third!

The flower is Wataru, but instead of blooming anywhere else, he blooms "in the plains".

A primarily treeless place. In that way, it was easy to spot the flowers.

Standing on the bright stage, all along. The soulless flower bloom. It was beautiful, but the more you look, you'll find out, that this beauty is an empty one, it was a host but without a soul.

"Without hurting anyone, no dream can come true" "Without getting hurt, there's no way forward either"

"Oh, SHINING STAR"

Oh, I don't know, maybe in his household, he was being taught that you'll have to fight to win things over. Since he's a heir of a big rich household, of course, he gets the education to become one.

In this brutal world of humanity, to Eichi, the way he can win is through competition, fighting and sometimes you'll have to be tricky and stop playing nice when it doesn't seem to work.

He could have found a better way to make the school turn from bad to good, but it is not possible to win over such things without bloodshed.

With that in mind, turning the table by starting a war, and such education had already eaten into his brain from youth.

So in his way of seeing things, there are no dream if you don't stand up for a fight. If not pulling people down to get the first place in line, how can you do it? Nicely ask them to? Will they simply say yes or kick you down to the ground.

If you don't get hurt, you can't learn from it. And at the end of the day, you'll achieve nothing.

"As unbalanced as we are" "If we have different strides, let's join hands"

This part, this dam part *cry*

Wataru is a different star, and Eichi is a different star, yet Eichi is trying to reach out to him.

Silly science time! Did you know that two stars are really really far away from each other? Yes, the Sun is a star, but Earth, Mars, and others are planets, not stars.

Two stars can't be too close together.

The average distance between two stars in the Milky Way is around 5 light-years, or 29 trillion miles (47 trillion kilometers)

And even though all those constellations seem to a "standing close with other stars" and got connected into a line, they're in fact not, one might be far away from the other, yet they're all too far for our human eyes to know the difference.

Also, if you're wondering about the fact that two stars stand next to each other, they can but...they simply will pull themself close to the other and then go boom like a two-side car crash ( with both drivers being drunk a*s f*ck since they just get out from their daily local bar )

( it feels like that one time when I analyzed a Valkyrie song then ended up putting an whole a*s poem in it )

Yet, Eichi wants to get to Wataru, "Let's join hands", so we don't lose each other, so you would go too far away from me.

"The path ahead of you" "I shall light it up" "I'm your "SHINING STAR"."

Guy, no word needs to be said, you simply read and understand...

AAAAA, fine! I will *continue to cry my eyes out*, Eichi wants to light Wataru road ahead.

To Wataru, the little actor, the little clown. Eichi is out there, writing the script for him. Wataru want Eichi too, as at first he was unsure, but now? He wants to lead the way, he wants a future with Wataru.

So he'll light the way, he'll become Wataru's "Shining star".

"If you were to lose your way, I would certainly guide you back"

Like a lost ship in the sea, Eichi will be his lighthouse, leading Wataru back to land.

"You just need to believe me, and take a step forward"

I love you as my beloved idol, I love to show you're talent to the world out there, and let them know how beautiful you are. So please put your trust in me.

"Oh, SHINING STAR" "Our world is such a cold, yet kind place, continuing to revolve" "So in oder to arrive at a new tomorrow"

Eichi is still insecure about life, he had been taught that he'll have to stand up for himself. He had been taught that this place was cold and lonely.

Yet he was able to find love. Eichi was not so sure if that love would stay for long, but it did change him.

The world that he thought was a cold and terrible place was actually warm and full of joy.

He's not so sure to accept this love, despite that, he wants it to stay for as long as it can. Because of it, he was able to continue to live on, and arrive at the moment when he thought he was already dead by that time.

The lyrics repeat themselves, showing Eichi's determent to become a shining star, as bright as Wataru, so he can stay next to him.

"Oh, SHINING STAR" "Underneath this starry sky" "An unknown, neverending path continues" "And for your sake" "I'll keep on shining" "I'll be "SHINING STAR"."

AND NOW, Welcome our next Eichi's solo:

Crystal Pleasure !!!

Before we get into the analysis, I just want you to know. SHINING STAR had a soft and chill beat, it was slow and calm but also sad and a little misery once you read through the lyrics.

BUT HIS SECOND SOLO? Crystal Pleasure?

It had a jazz-like 90s vibe and such a happy beat! It shows his change, that he is no longer fighting for his life but actually filled with joy with the new and warm future where the path is now clear to him.

"Crystal Pleasure, let's burn some Crystal Pleasure into those eyes" "Crystal Pleasure, there's so many Crystal Pleasure, over and over again."

The beginning was POP!

Anyway, the first song was about shining stars, and this time, it Crystal.

Both are kira kira but one is up in the sky and one is down to the ground.

I got a little confused but I guess I'll use both meanings. Crystal doesn't just mean a type of gem or quartz, it too means glass, depending on the way you use it.

It is a "crystal quartz" but it can also be a "crystal clear glass".

If we're talking about the crystal gems that is, then the meaning is quite clean, since crystal is being used in decorating important places and objects.

To make something beautiful is to decorate it with shining gems.

The meaning/symbolization of those shining crystals is "transcendence and the light of the heaven". Yes, all over Eichi and Fine theme isn't it.

Now, I won't let you wait any longer, let's get into the song, shall we:

"The world is flooding with entertainment (competing for stardom)" "And as they compete, they become more and more extreme, wanting to be chosen" "Even so, those pure eyes remain as they seek" And all the white and black that I emit to be stared at dazzlingly"

It was not just about the idol industry, Eichi was trying to tell a story here.

That "they" was someone. Guess who? Wataru Hibiki!

The lines: "As they compete, they become more and more extreme" really stick out to me.

A silly jester, a genius, who wanted to learn from trick to trick and he was able to learn them quickly given that he was a kind of genius. An Eccentric member.

He is an actor, standing on stage, waiting for a director to choose him, to write him a script.

Eichi could feel the eyes of Wataru, which seek for a screenwriter, to write Wataru a brand new story, a brand new world.

Eichi then accepted Wataru's invitation and decided to be the one to give him his new plays. A new role, a new life, a new love.

"Let's take my hand because it's a miracle that I was able to meet you in the brightness" "And I hope to repose to that miracle of meeting you with my whole life ahead of me"

After all that time, after a suicide state of him, being saved by Wataru was like a gift from god. He knew that he had such a love for idols, that love almost died down, being forgotten but then Wataru came, reminding Eichi about why he was here in the first place.

"Meet you in the brightness" is like an angel, visiting Eichi by the window. The light from the window makes Wataru look bright, like the angel he is to Eichi.

Moreover, this line has some resemblance to the symbolization of crystal, remember it? It's "Transcendence and the light of the heaven" .

( What's that? Sound like the tiled of this song is already about Wataru? The whole song is! What can I say more than the homies are at it again!!!)

Wataru was his savior, and Eichi hoped that he could repay this gratefulness to him.

Here, it may be minor but it was a welcoming change! Knowing Eichi, he would likely try to repay Wataru with lots of stuff. His ways of love are to buy people things and make a big event just for something so small yet it was precious to him, so it was worth it.

Did I mention the fact that Eichi bought a WHOLD AS* pyramid for him just because Wataru joke? Yeh...I'm not lying.

But in this line: "hope to repose - with my whole life ahead of me"

It changes, somethings change. Staying with Wataru for long enough, his view of looking changes. Now, instead of buying him something, Eichi uses his life and quality time as a gift to Wataru.

Eichi "Buying things for you is want I want to, but then again, maybe, spending some time with you is the real meaningful gift" Tenshouin.

Also, a small detail but the "Let's take my hand" part, did you know that in Tempest, this adorable little detail takes place:

"I want to connect all the sparkling moments and make you happy" "Ah, as long as I am allowed to live, let me give you happy dreams"

The first line is when Eichi wants to give Wataru happiness, but the second? A little happy mix with sad.

"As long as I am allowed to live"

Eichi mentions his sickness, will the sickness kill him first or will he overcome it. He doesn't know, but as long as he's healthy, when he's still here, he'll do everything to make Wataru happy.

The times may run out, but before I die, giving you happiness is the thing that will satisfy my near-death soul.

To fulfill Wataru's dream is the first thing to do on his little bucket list.

"I think I know how to charm you ( this unyielding stardom )" "So if there's something I can do here, I vow to protect it"

Bit confused, but I read it ten times over and understood that Eichi finally accepted Wataru's love, he vowed to protect it, the love and hope that bloomed from this new relationship.

"Now, I want you to look forward to it, and determine the value with your eyes" "This dream, love, and freedom that I draw now became strong and full of color"

I would like to have a call back to another line in this song, it was "all the white and black that I emit" given that these lyrics are talking about the freedom of Eichi's soul.

From a soulless human with just black and white, now his world is "full of color", filled with love and hope, this dream that seems to be lost has come back to life.

"Let's visit you into the brilliance, towards the tomorrow you desire" "Let's be a little greedy, there's no need to hold back"

Eichi will give Wataru the stage to shine, into the world of light that Wataru wants.

This dream was never about Eichi, and that's what makes it about him.

Since the day Wataru saved him, his love of idols has once again come back to life. Being able to make Wataru's dream come true was Eichi's desire all along.

He views that his wish is a bit too greedy, knowing that it will take a tedious process, but he won't stop, he has been in the darkness for too long. Now he wishes to see the light and get used to it so it won't blind him.

The wish to see Wataru shining like a star with his own two eyes. So Wataru, please don't hesitate, though I'm quite the greedy, I hope you'll be happy to see me, staying here with you, your happiness is my light.

"Connecting the precious time, we are the protagonists on this stage" "While blessed by countless stars, let us sing our never-ending dreams"

So some of you may not know about this but, interesting information: Both Eichi and Wataru, one ( or 99 times more ) admit that they're the villain of the stage.

Yes! BOTH.

Eichi was in pain and after the war, he admitted all the faults he had and told himself that he was the evil villain of the show, even long after the war ended, he still thought it that way.

Wataru is a bit different, the exact time was never mentioned, but clues are all over the place. Wataru admitted to Tomoya that he usually plays the role of villain. And, it made sense since Wataru passed constraint to him being asked to play tricks, he likes to do tricks and magic, but the people, they always ask for more.

Wataru was scared, but he continued anyway, he continued to learn new tricks, but that was not enough

He didn't go mad and start taking the role of a villain though, it was never clarified. But I don't think that was the case, not at all.

Wataru was more likely to take the role of villain because he wanted to step back and out of the light of the stage. Of course, he is still there, but not in a heroic way anymore. He didn't mean to but he wished people to look away from him more often than before, though, in the end, it was quite the opposite, he made friends and lots of people admitted him.

Even Wataru never expect this to happen. In the "Phantom Thieves VS Detectives" story, Epilogue 3, he said this: "But believe it or not, the amount of friends and acquaintances I've made since entering Yumenosaki Academy have surprisingly increased in size."

They're both villain in their own story, but later on, after many hardships and challenges, they learn and understand.

The two are no longer the villains but the protagonist, the protagonist of a story where they get to stand together on the stage.

And with the Fine now, they'll stand together, with Tori and Yuzuru, sing the never-ending symphony of their dreams.

Here comes, my favorite:

"Determination alone is futile, but you are there, the one who saved me is you" "Because your passionate gaze gives me the meaning of life"

Eichi literally went: "Only by trying is not enough, if not for you who had saved me from the darkness, I would've been gone." to Wataru.

Also about how Wataru gives him the biggest motivation to keep living and doesn't "kick the bucket" due to sickness or several suicidal attempts.

And, it ends with other lines got repeated:

"Let's take my hand because it's a miracle that I was able to meet you in the brightness" "And I hope to repose to that miracle of meeting you with my whole life ahead of me" "I want to connect all the sparkling moments and make you happy" "Ah, as long as I am allowed to live, let me give you happy dreams forever"

"Crystal Pleasure, let's burn some Crystal Pleasure into those eyes" "Crystal Pleasure, there's so many Crystal Pleasure, over and over again."

Alright, this is the end of part 1, Eichi's solo song. We'll now move to part 2, which I'll make in another post.

So I want you to know that I wrote this with all my heart that I pulled out of my chest. I love them from the bottom heart of my.

I don't need you to forgive Eichi or forget what he did in the past, this whole analysis was not made for that purpose, I just need you to understand that he did, in fact, lots of bad things in the past and he got his punish, it a punish to live on, to learn and suffer with the future. But Wataru was there, helping him out, so he's not that scare anymore.

If anyone ask me to tell them they're homo but without telling them they're homo, I'll show them this long a*s paragraph ( I'm so proud of myself for writing this but also asking myself that I should be out there making money instead...but I'm feeling great after written this so...maybe it not that bad )

THANK YOU FOR READING!

Part 2 will be coming out soon? I mean, I'll put the link in if I finish it...hopefully...

[marashi96art]

Questions for the fanfic writers about Leon S. Kennedy's lack of background story: How do you deal with it?

I've been haunted by this problem for MONTHS and I needed to spit it out. I feel like Tumblr is a better place for long text and reasoned discussion, and most importantly: fanfic writers.

It's long and I sincerely look forward to your opinions. Even though I only draw Cleon, I didn't mention any ship in this post so I won't add ship-related tags here; if you're gonna list examples based on your ship, please respect each other.

So hear me out:

The best part and the worst part about Leon S. Kennedy is that HE DOESN'T HAVE A BACKGROUND STORY and a CONSISTENT characteristic development...and it's driving me insane.

The benefit of it is that I can shape his past into whoever I want to fit my stories. But it brings out a bigger problem: the development is solely depending on my understanding & knowledge of character design. He's pretty much a blank sheet of paper, except he's extremely famous, and I don't want to stray too far away from the canon info that we've got on him(and get "canceled" for OOC).

(I don't actually write stories into fics, but I DO write short scripts for my art when they are intended to be a series. I guess the prep work to start anything is the same: write it down in words, then expand the idea.)

I love AUs and I'm more interested in sci-fi/fantasy than modern/zombie-apocalypse kinda thing. But when I wanted to dig deep into their backgrounds, to start world-building, there's NOTHING for me. It's so frustrating.

For example, I'm currently working on a Monster Hunter AU based on the RE4R DLC Hero Outfit, which basically is the whole RE gang running around in the woods hunting supernatural creatures. (Not just CAPCOM's MH series but with the general mythical creatures, werewolves .etc)

And they have a Hunter's Guild, different tribes and clans, you know the drill. Since the setting was in a fantasy world, their surnames have caused me great pain from the start.

The easiest one is Redfield. It can be interpreted as "fertile land" or "battleground", and from these I immediately have quite a few visual ideas of how they'd look like, and what they'd do for a living. Chambers, Valentine, and Oliveira are "OK", but the surname Kennedy doesn't fit in ANYWHERE.

(Yes, I googled. It's Irish; but let's be honest, our first impression was a certain American political family.)

Then I read this article that shares a similar concern: Is Resident Evil 4’s Leon S. Kennedy Italian? An investigation

It pretty much sums up the most common FANDOM theories of Leon's background info. But all of them are still just, headcanons.

The more I try to dig in, the lack of this crucial element--a character's canon background story--is really blocking me to create things I enjoy. Even though I've been drawing him for almost 50 pieces of fan art, I still don't know what he's actually like. I can only imagine his personality by referencing other fictional characters/actors whom I think share a resemblance. (I have a soft spot for Keanu Reeves, Faramir from TLOR, and Sanji from One Piece. But that's another story for another time.)

Of course, I'm aware of the fact that, instead of spending this huge amount of time to rewrite a fictional character I don't own, I can create my own OCs and build everything from scratch. But that's not the point. I only started playing video games in 2019 when I bought a Nintendo Switch; and my first-ever, modern game experience was Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

The whole game-wise fandom and RE series are pretty new to me. But I've been in fandoms of books/movies/TV shows for over a decade. It shocked me that Resident Evil, this world-popular series has almost 30 years of history but non of the main characters have a consistent background that follows through the in-game timeline. There're huge gaps between the games even if we add all of the movies in it. How did that work? How do you get to know them? How do you get attached enough to write your own fan story?

In conclusion, I don't think I like Leon S. Kennedy, cuz he remains a mystery. Instead, I just combine all of the good qualities of other characters I like, create my version of Leon Kennedy, and hopefully pray that when he reappears in a new RE work, I didn't do him wrong.

[housewarningparty]

20 questions for fic writers

Tagged by @coraniaid and @isagrimorie. thanks!

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

45 stories

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

361,583 words

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Actively? Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Life is Strange, Mass Effect, Avatar the Last Airbender, Warrior Nun. But i'd be down for other stuff!

Formerly: MTV Scream, She-Ra, Oxenfree

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

You Got Cool (She-Ra, 6,990 kudos)

Everybody Needs a Fence to Lean On (Life is Strange, 2,140 kudos)

Tear You Apart (Life is Strange, 1,918 kudos)

Every Other Freckle (Life is Strange, 1,579 kudos)

Dream Blue Haze (Life is Strange, 1,535 kudos)

5. Do you respond to comments?

I've been trying to more recently! But I'm not always great at it. At the very least when someone comments something detailed and thoughtful I try to reply - those comments always mean a lot to me.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Not fully intentionally but the place @holdsteady and I left our collaborative fic How to Live Here was basically right after a massive fight/breakup between characters that we fully planned to resolve and then just.... never did. Oops. Surprisingly, people are very rarely mean to us about this.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably Body Language? Very much intended to have that one wrapped up with a bow.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not in a long time. Last time I really did was on some of my Life is Strange fics (either homophobic hate or bc i was writing a ship people didn't like).

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yeah! Femslash only.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I sometimes joke about/hc elaborate crossovers when I'm watching stuff with my friends, but I don't really have any interest in writing any. Or reading any, really, for that matter.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yeah! Had one of my LiS fics translated to Vietnamese. That was cool.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yeah! I co-wrote How to Live Here with my best friend @holdsteady! That's the only one that's been published, at least. @nataliving adn @jewishsuperfam and i have worked on some stuff together too and that's been fun :)

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

I don't know if I actually can pick one but honest Buffy/Faith are all-timers and absolutely formative. Second to that would be Rachel/Max/Chloe from Life is Strange.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

God, How to Live Here absolutely haunts me. There's a few Mass Effect ones (Shepard/Liara arranged marriage AU and my Jack/Miranda series) that I would love to finish but probably never will. Those are the ones that probably have the most written for them that I just haven't wrapped up.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm good at a lot of it! I write pretty good smut, I'm good at character voice, I think my writing is pretty readable

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Actually writing lmao. I struggle with coming up with workable ideas. I intimidate myself out of projects a lot. I fall off stuff kinda easy too tbh. And I'm TERRIBLE at writing alone - for anything bigger than a oneshot I need someone to hype me up and hold my hand through it or else I get bored or lose confidence :?

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Generally in favor of skipping the google translate stuff. It's usually pretty whack

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Technically digimon when i was a little kid and before I even knew what fanfic was. First i posted was Danny Phantom

20. Favorite fic you've written?

I think Body Language is probably my best fic but for sentimental reasons I really love How to Live Here, since i wrote it with my best friend.

tagging @nataliving, @holdsteady, @shittinggold, @earthenterran, @lafgl, @aliceinwondrbra,, @strangesmallbard, @areweunderscoreweare, @jewishsuperfam, @morningsound15

[nixie-deangel]

(laughs nervously as I answer this months late)

Was tagged by @fishnamedsushi <333

Tagging (for those that want to do this!): @asexual-fandom-queen, @sophiainspace, @ragnarlothcat, @digitalmagus, @rinn-e, @bluewonderer and whoever else would like to do this!!

This got long, so putting it under a read more:

1, How many works do you have on ao3?

Currently have 285.

2, What's your Ao3 word count?

Roughly about 380k (thought since my writing muses are back, I'm hoping to bump this number up a lot this year!! fingers crossed it happens, but more importantly I don't lose the muses!)

3, What fandoms do you write for?

I've written for Marvel, Star Wars, DC Arrowverse and a few others. Though this year I'm hoping to add Top Gun, more Star Wars, more Marvel and maybe a few new others.

4, What are your top five fics by kudos?

If You Want Love (Obikin, Star Wars.)

Uncovering the Meaning (Coldflash, Arrowverse.)

Coming Clean (Coldflashwave, Arrowverse.)

Confusion for The Heart, Table One (Stuckony, MC.U)

Snuggles and Cuddles (Coldflashwave, Arrowverse.)

5, Do you respond to comments?

Yes! Though if the comment is just demanding for an update or for more, then I no longer do.

6, What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don't know?? I don't write angsty endings. I'm a happy ending or hopeful ending kinda gal.

7, What's the fic your write with the happiest ending?

lol pretty much all of them. It's the only kind of ending I write.

8, Do you get hate on fics?

I have in the past. But if it's a comment, I usually immediately delete it because I don't need that in my life. I haven't really gotten either other kind of hate for the fic's I write. Or if I have, I honestly just don't remember it. It's not something I try to dwell on anymore.

9, Do you write smut? What kind?

I have! Though not in a while lol but hoping this year I get back into the swing of it.

10, Do you write cross-overs?

Not really. Generally I'll write an AU and mash up the ship I'm writing(or making a board) for into the universe that sparked the idea.

11, Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge!

12, Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have! It was an absolute delight to get asked to do so!

13, Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

I have not! I've talked about it in the past with old friends but nothing ever came of it.

14, What's your all time favourite ship?

This is literally the hardest question ever lmao like, honestly once I decide a ship is "the ship" for the fandom I've fallen into, I love it forever. so like, my fave ship is a constantly routing list lol but currently right now it's: obikin, stony, coldflash, hangster, sterek, superbat.

When a ship sinks it's claws into like these have, they never really go away and the love for it never truly dies.

15, What's your WIP you like to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Ideally all of them! lol but truly, I'd really love to finish the ones I've already posted on Ao3, because they haunt me and I want to be rid of those ghosts.

16, What are your writing strength?

I don't know? Like, there are things about my writing I love but I don't know what I would consider my strength. Maybe dialogue? Making you feel emotions? How do people answer this!!

17, What are your writing weaknesses?

All of them??? lol I really don't know. I don't tend to write long fic's any more, like, my longest put on Ao3 is like around 16k and everything else is below that. So I genuinely don't know what I'm strongest at or weakest at because what I usually do is get a little blurb of a scene in my head, write it out and post it. Like it amazes me how I do any world building, character building, anything building in the 500 to 2k little moments I do write and post. (Though this year I am hoping to bang out a few long fic's, so maybe I'll find out what I'm strong at and what I'm weak at then!)

18, Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

If I do, I do it in like italics or bold, something like that because I can no longer trust translator sites I find (if someone has a reputable one they can share?!!!?!!!?! let me know!!) but I got politely corrected a few too many times and realized since I don't speak another language, I cannot trust what I find.

So for me, I found it to just be like, 'he says this in his native tongue', because that way I'm not butchering something that means a lot to a group of people and nor am I making be guess what I'm trying to say. It's just a personal preference for myself!!!

More power to the people who do it differently!

19, First fandom you wrote for?

Posted for Ao3 was The Flash, for fanfic.net I think it was for NCIS??? before that I don't know???? Babygirl (gender neutral) THAT WAS MORE THAN 20 YEARS AGO for me!!! I have trouble remember last month lol

20, Favourite fic you've ever written?

Think Before You Act, Except Just This Once (Stony, MCU). It's just so short and funny and I loved writing it.

[wendingways]

20 Questions For Writers

Thank you, @sinvulkt! I saw someone else post one of these a while ago, and it looked fun, so thanks so much for the tag! 💛💛💛

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Seven. Technically eight, but one of them is part of another and just separated for logistical reasons, so it doesn't really count.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

190,105 words

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Star Wars

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Fortune's Rule, 536 kudos

Missing Pieces No More, 142

Whispers From Tomorrow, 126

Petrichor, 42

Threadbare, 30

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Most of the time! Sometimes it takes a while because busy + tired, but I enjoy it when other authors respond to my comments, so I want to respond other people's comments. :)

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably Threadbare. Wouldn't say it's a full-on angsty ending, because I tend to go for angsty beginnings/middles and happy endings, but it's the closest I've got.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Whispers From Tomorrow, by virtue of it being a pre-Order-66 fix-it.

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

I've gotten a little. You know how FFN can be. There was this one kinda funny one instance where somebody was silent for like 20 chapters, and then absolutely flipped their lid in a comment after I killed off a character. Not even a main character! Oops....

9. Do you write smut?

Nope.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Not as a rule, but I did start scribbling down this weird idea for Anne Shirley, from Anne of Green Gables, ending up in the GFFA during the Clone Wars via some witchery in the Haunted Wood. What gets me is how I told my brother about it, and he promptly started nagging me to write it because he wants to read it XD

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but feel free to do so if you're interested!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

No.

14. What‘s your all-time favourite ship?

Meh, not really a big shipper.

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

WIP I will never finish? What are you talking about?

There are no unfinished WIPS in Ba Sing Se.

Seriously, though, probably my Padmé ROTS time loop fic. I had this idea for Padmé to keep looping back to some point in ROTS after she dies. I love the idea, it's roughly outlined and I've written some snippets, and there's this one scene that I'd really like to include, but I'm just not sure how to make the time loop AU work in this scenario.

16. What’s your writing strengths?

Grammar, usage, and mechanics. And maybe angst, oddly enough. Never figured myself for an angst writer, but then I started writing Fortune's Rule, and here we are.

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

Speed. I write slowly. I also tend to end up going down research rabbit holes that suck up my time and energy. And I have a really hard time saying no to adding more characters, which adds to the whole writing-takes-a-long-time thing.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Sure! I've enjoyed putting little bits of Mando'a and Huttese into Fortune's Rule.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Calico Captive, by Elizabeth George Speare, when I was in my early teens. Never managed to get a whole fic out of it, and what fragments I did write were terribly underdeveloped, sentimental, and shallow. But we all have to start somewhere!

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

Fortune's Rule, all the way! I know it's not finished yet, but it is my precious and my problem child, and I love it to bits!

In a way, it's a very self-indulgent story, because it's got all the tropes I most adore, and it's like a puzzle, trying to figure out how to put all these different elements together in a way that's believable, and how to have characters develop to where I want them to be.

Plus, it's also given me some fun surprises, like Padmé and Ahsoka being besties, Ventress becoming Obi-Wan's confidant for a certain matter, and Piett becoming a friend/confidant/emotional support admiral for Starkiller.

And there's so much more fun stuff planned, especially as we're getting close the start of an arc I've been planning since before I started posting the fic in 2021! (There will be child hijinks. There will be pirates. There will be sand, and angst and fluff galore. And I am so kriffing excited.)

Tagging (If you're interested! I'm doing like sinvulkt and tagging some authors I've interacted with a bit on AO3; hope this isn't a nuisance to anyone! :) ) @musewrangler, @clawedandcute, @xxiamnotokay666xx

[haldora]

20 questions for fic writers

Got tagged by @inkpot-demigod! Took me a while to get around to it, but it was fun to fill this out, even if I'm not much of a writer anymore.

how many works do you have on Ao3? 13

2. what’s your total Ao3 word count? 122,503

3. what fandoms do you write for?

Most of my fics are Babylon 5, but the latest fandom I wrote more than one fic for was Pathologic.

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

Despite most of my work being for B5, my top 5 fics are mostly for other fandoms, probably because of differences in overall fandom size. 1. Postprandial (Gotham) My sole fic for the fandom and probably the most indulgent thing I've ever written. I'm gonna be real here and say that I have a conflicted relationship with this fandom because I, uh... do not like the show and have little to no interest in DC media otherwise, but it was one of those things where a certain ship grabs me by the balls heart and pulls me into a deeply cringe obsession. But being cringe is the only way to make art, especially the kind of intensely gratuitous, unselfconscious, and joyful art that this turned out to be, and I'm still very fond of this fic and happy with the reception it got. It's my most popular work by far despite being a niche kink, which has contributed to me feeling a lot less self-conscious about my interests in general. 2. Shadowshow (Pathologic) A compilation of fics written for the Pathologic Kink Meme featuring a bunch of different characters and ideas. While I have no way of knowing which fic most of the kudos are in response to, I have a feeling that the fic with the most broad appeal is probably the Burakhovsky sex pollen twyre fic, which was a lot of fun to write. With porn tropes like this, I have a lot of trouble keeping a straight face, so I tried to lean into the silliness while keeping things broadly in character and I still like the result. It ended on a sequel hook, too, which I'm still surprised that nobody on the kink meme grabbed to follow up on. I'm generally very fond of these fics because they're symbolic of a really fun time in my life and the best fandom community I've ever participated in. <3 Patho Blocklist alumni 2020 represent 3. Suffer Your Excess (B5) This was the first B5 fic I'd ever posted and my first serious attempt at fanfiction in a long time. I still have a lot of nostalgia attachment to it and I see why people like it, but ultimately I think I explored similar themes a lot better in subsequent fics. But this was still vital practice in getting my bearings in a new fandom. 4. A Golden Autumn (Pathologic)

Ah, my tragically incomplete Burakhovsky longfic that I still have all outlined and plotted out and just never continued. I always have lots of ideas for long multichapter fics, but almost never allow myself to start them because I almost always burn out or get distracted by other things and then it haunts me for the rest of my life. Maybe one day I'll continue it, but I've come around to feeling like it was a product of the early Patho fandom and a lot of the themes and ideas in it have since been thoroughly explored by much better writers than me, which puts a damper on my enthusiasm, alas.

5. Every Shining Thing (B5)

Always happy to see this one breaking the top 5 because although it's one of my older fics, it still holds up for me. The fandom being as small as it is means that I can keep up with the tag pretty easily and while there's amazing stuff still happening, I can't say I've seen another fic with similar themes crop up in the fandom and while I of course would love to see other people exploring these ideas, it's kinda cool to be the person who wrote the definitive fic on this topic. When I'm feeling down on myself and wondering whether I'll ever manage to write substantively again, this is one of the fics I look to to remind myself of what I'm capable of.

5. do you respond to comments?

Yes! I love getting comments and try to respond to all of them.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I tend not to go for unambiguously happy or sad endings. I prefer something more bittersweet. A speck of light in the darkness or a note of unease in an otherwise harmonious resolution. But I think Open Wound, a Londo centered character study during one of the darkest periods in canon, has a pretty bleak ending.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

False Dawn, probably. A Londo/G'Kar fic that takes place in a happier fix-it AU. The closest I ever get to writing fluff. An objectively low stakes material problem with somewhat higher emotional stakes that ends on a pretty feel-good high note.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Never directly on my fics, thankfully, but I've been sent a few death threats and attempts at suicide-baiting for writing some of the things I do and supporting others who do so. I take it as a point of pride. <3

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Yes. Most of my work has some erotic undertone even if it's not explicitly sexual. I'm open to a lot of things and while I do have very strong interests in certain kinks, what I'm drawn to when writing tends to be more related to a certain character dynamic and the unique possibilities it offers. So basically, I write the smut I think is the most IC for whatever characters I'm writing and whatever serves as the best vehicle for the ideas I'm trying to get across. Which isn't a very interesting answer, but it's true.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

No. I prefer really diving into the specificities of a certain world and trying to deepen and intensify the ideas that are already there rather than trying to combine it with other things to make new ones. If I ever get to thinking that elements from different canons would be really interesting to see combined, that usually ends up as a launchpad for original worldbuilding rather than contemplating crossover possibilities.

11. has any of your work been stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! I've had a few of my B5 fics translated into Russian by some wonderful folks and posted on FicBook! I always love going there and google translating all the comments. <3

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not really? I used to do a lot of RP, which is a similar activity, but not quite the same thing. I guess the closest I've come is some collaborative kink meme stuff where different writers build on each other's work. One of the fics in my Shadowshow Patho compilation is a kink meme fill that's framed as a sequel to a fill that someone else had written (and I'm still super flattered they liked it <3).

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Man, I have a new one like every month. Judging by my fic output, though, I think Londo/G'Kar (B5) is still my ultimate OTP. Love that toxic old man xeno.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

See Question 4 :c Aside from that, I've got a couple half-finished Patho kink meme fills I'd been working on that just never got done and they sit in a folder on my computer taunting me.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Voice. Character voice is often what makes or breaks a fic for me and it's a skill I consider especially vital for fanfic specifically. I care a lot about it and, according to the comments I get, it pays off. Character dialogue is where most of the action happens in my stories and it's something I put a lot of effort into, both in the sense of 'would they say this?' and 'how would they say it?'

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Writing :)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Is there controversy about this? If you're writing a multi-lingual character who speaks multiple languages in canon, then part of writing them IC is going to be replicating that, so yeah, break out your dictionaries and put out calls for fluent beta-readers. AO3 actually has some great tools for implementing this. I used hover-text for translations when doing some conlanging for a B5 fic and it worked really well.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Ooh, tough question. I started writing Sailor Moon fanfiction in paper notebooks in elementary school way back in dinosaur times. Never posted any of it, though.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Ahh, this is hard! I'm gonna be a shameless shill and mention the favourites I think are underappreciated, both B5.

First is The Sayonese Affair, which is the longest fic I've ever completed and am still very pleased with. It's a post-canon fix-it AU political comedy-of-manners. Porn with plot. If you can stomach the tags, I'd highly recommend it.

Next is Accidents of Gesture, a lengthier one-shot that stands as the fic that gets to the heart of what I love about this canon and this ship. It's got some painful conversations, some hurt/comfort, and musings on the nature of forgiveness. I tag... @ibenholt, @emblazonet, @wescravings, @strangestquiet, @gloriousmonsters and whoever else wants to do this!

[teosartcorner]

(Posting this one here, ‘cause it has a few short OC trivia moments, if you're curious)

I was tagged by @eve-to-adam, so here we go! It might get long, so buckle up for the ride. 😂

1. How many works do you have?

I couldn't tell you a number, because I've had multiple stories over the years. Some were short comics for semester projects I had to do back in uni, others were WIPs I started and abandoned, others are ongoing personal storytelling projects I'm working on at the moment.

2. What fandoms do you write for?

I don’t really write for any fandom right now, I prefer to focus on my own, original stories and OCs. But I wouldn’t put that idea past me entirely, with the way my hyperfixations work, you just never know. 😂

3. What are your top 5 stories by kudos?

I don't really want to make a top, but some of my favorites include a few short stories I wrote for Project Paranormal, which is a shared universe I'm co-creating with Andreea (@eve-to-adam) and about which I'll be talking about at Question 9.

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

Absolutely I do! I even went to war with the “promote it on ->” bots on Instagram at one point, by replying with passive-aggressive comments, so. 🤣 Jokes aside, people who take their time to interact with my work and express their support mean the world to me, and I’m incredibly grateful to have them around. And those who even come back regularly? You deserve the world and I love ya 🥹✨

5. What’s the story you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmm… Depends what you'd consider “angsty”. I guess one that could count would be a short, horror graphic novel I've done for uni. One of the main characters dies, while the other ends up in a mental institution, unsure whether the previous events truly happened or not, but haunted by some… otherworldly things that tend to suggest everything has, in fact, happened. I wouldn't necessarily see it as angsty per se, because that was never the aim when I wrote that ending, but it’s the only one I could think of.

6. What’s the story you wrote with the happiest ending?

Do on-going storylines whose development I know, count? Whatever, I’ll pretend they count. 🤣

I would say one of the happiest ones would be Hubert and Dolly's relationship (two of my OCs from Project Paranormal). Even though they didn't start on the best of terms, they ended up progressively discovering they actually... enjoyed each other's company, once they started chatting like, you know, normal people who weren't looking for a silly argument just for the sake of it. Because that's what they were doing in the beginning; their personalities clashed in a way that turned all their encounters into a match of "who annoys who first". To the point where they couldn't even remember what was the precise starting point of that whole thing. 😂 But then, little by little, once they started opening up, they both fell for each other pretty damn hard. Their relationship was obviously not gonna be without any hardship, because they both had their own flaws and things to work through (especially Hubert), but they found a tremendous amount of love and support in each other. They realized they simply… get each other, you know, on a level they couldn’t have anticipated, but which was there to last for a lifetime! So yeah, they’re definitely getting their happy ending. :D

7. Do you get hate on stories?

Not that I’m aware of. And even if I did, I wouldn’t… really care that much? ‘Cause I’m not writing for them haters, lemme tell you. 😂

8. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I like to depict sex and intimacy in my stories, so yeah, my writing kinda covers that stuff too. I usually prefer to go with the flow in those instances and see where the scene is taking me, in terms of description. Whether it’s gonna get more explicit or it’s gonna be a “fade to black” thing, depends entirely on the moment itself. I also like to be as character-centered as possible in my approach (which applies to every aspect of my storytelling, for that matter). I wanna take into consideration each character’s relationship with sex and intimacy, when I’m describing them; slight nuances to convey the moment in the same way each character is experiencing it, you know. What things they like, how they like them, how they communicate with partners etc. Like, take Delicia for example (my OC from Project Paranormal): she’s an experienced gal who likes to be creative in the bedroom (and outside) and is slightly more into the rough side of physical love, so depictions might get more blunt and slightly more explicit in her case. But at the same time, it wasn’t always like that, was it? Because she, like everyone else, had her own starting point, her own journey with intimacy and self discovery. And I want to capture that feeling as I’m writing her character. I want to capture that feeling with all of my OCs; I’m always trying my best to write as naturally as I can, to make the story really feel as if it’s a close look into one’s life and experiences. The spicy scenes are no exception to that! :D Now, whether I’m successful in this approach or not, is a completely different topic, but that’s beside the point. 😂

9. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Not necessarily, but I do have one ongoing storytelling project that could technically count. It's a shared universe I'm co-creating with my friend, Andreea (@eve-to-adam). For the sake of this post I code named it “Project Paranormal” because it pops up for some other questions.

It's basically a story that revolves around two main families (Marlowe, written and created by me, and Elkins, written and created by Andreea) and their lives, as well as extra folks like friends, lovers, their pets etc. It's a romance meets supernatural (there are ghosts, ghouls n’ curses) meets historical fiction (it spans over the entire 20th century and goes until present day) meets drama type of story, with slice of life sprinkled all over. The slice of life aspect is kinda my favourite, because I generally enjoy writing the everyday experiences of my characters, those that don't necessarily tie into a specific plot point; like some sort of a “fly on the wall” approach. The story has a main plot, of course, and a main timeline of events, but under that we're essentially having fun with all sorts of storylines and moments. Right now I would say it's an open format story/universe, meaning we're drawing/writing different out-of-order parts and tidbits, but ultimately they all tie into that main timeline and plot we've set. So, at the end of the day, the story can always be put together chronologically, into a graphic novel type of format.

Ah shit, I almost forgot. The “crazy” bit about it (Andreea mentioned it in her own post as well) is that it all kinda started from a bunch of sims we created in Sims 4 one day. We were simply chatting and having a laugh about it and then we went “🤨…🤔” and bam! here we are today, with a bunch of Marlowe and Elkins generations and their storylines. 😂 ❤️

10. Have you ever had a story stolen?

Either I haven't OR the thief is hiding exceptionally well, I can’t tell. 😂

11. Have you ever had a story translated?

Does self translation count? 😂 If so, then yeah. I usually write in my native language, but I translate into English once I decide to post some of it online. The funny thing is, the English translation actually improves the writing in some cases (specifically the dialogues!), because I have some English, Irish and Scottish peeps amongst my OCs, and in their case I can play with things like slang, accents, cussing etc, which gives a more natural vibe to their conversations (and is kinda fun to work on).

12. Have you ever co-written a story before?

I’m currently doing that with Project Paranormal (see Question 9)! :D

13. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

— Aragorn&Arwen from The Lord of The Rings, always! They're probably one of my oldest ships, too, and they will always hold that special place in my heart. Aaand they’re definitely the reason why, to this day, I have a big thing for elf+human couples in fiction. XD

— Bill&Frank from The Last Of Us (show version), because people finding their lil’ corner of love and happiness in a dying world?? Hell yes, all the yes! 🥺

14. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Hmm… There is this one fantasy story I've been trying to put together for the past 2 years or so, but at the moment I kind of lost my passion for it. I tried to rethink and revive it in 2023 and it worked for a while, but ultimately I put it back on the shelf again, at least for now. In a way I wish I will regain that passion to continue, because I have some characters there whose stories I'd still like to tell, but right now I don't see it happening. Besides, I have other story ideas I want to test (and possibly pursue) right now. But who knows? Maybe one day?

15. What are your writing strengths?

Okay I totally suck at identifying my own strengths, lmao. 😂 But let's give it a try. I would like to think I'm good at allowing my characters to shape the language I'm writing with, instead of me shaping the language for them. I always love when, in literature, dialogues sound like things people would say in real life, or when the writing imitates the manner of speech people use on a daily basis (one of the reasons why I like Stephen King’s writing style, for example). I strike to achieve the same in my stories, so I give my OCs the freedom of talking in their own, individual ways.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

I tend to write too slowly for my own liking. I'm also a bit of a scatterbrained type of writer; let's say I write a certain scene, when suddenly I wanna jump to a totally different one. Nothing wrong with that, of course! But in my case, at the end of the day, I either end up in a writer’s void and I can't write for either scene anymore, OR I constantly switch back and forth between them and I can't concentrate on either one. Sucks to be me sometimes. 😅 But I'm trying to improve this in myself, so let's hope for the best!

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a story?

It’s a pretty cool thing and I like seeing it in stories. It's a concept I'd like to play with, too. For example, some of my characters from Project Paranormal have Portuguese ancestry and speak the language: Delicia was taught by her mum, Dolly, and by grandpa Thomas (Dolly's father). I'd like to think Dolly and her lil’ lass would frequently switch to chatting in Portuguese, during Delicia's formative years, which helped her learn the language and become fluent (and later on in life, Delicia will do the same with her own daughter). So, naturally, I'd love to have at least a glimpse of those conversations in the story as well! :D However, I will have to rely on the mighty internet to help me with that, because I don't know any Portuguese. XD

18. First fandom you wrote for?

Ooooh, you’re digging up very old memories with that one. I think the first fandom I ever attempted to write for was InuYasha, an anime I watched and enjoyed back in the day, when I was a bit more into the anime scene. But you can imagine how that went, considering I was like 12 years old or something like that. 😂

19. Favourite story you’ve ever written?

The most recent one I did. It's called “By The Alley” and it's a short story from Project Paranormal that features two of my OCs: Hubert and Paddy. I like the story flow I managed to capture there and I feel like I'm finally finding my writer voice, so to speak. I also had a lot of fun writing their dialogues! Both Hubert and Paddy were born and raised in Leeds, West Yorkshire (although Paddy has Irish heritage) and they are “raised by the streets” kinda guys. The way they speak reflects that pretty well, so I had fun trying to put some of those nuances in their speech. And the cussing, I loved writing the cussing. I discovered this to be a very odd pleasure of mine, writing people who curse. 😂 And Hubert's definitely the right person for that, because the man has no filter whatsoever (with Delicia being a close second – like father, like daughter, am I right?). 😂

—

That's it! If you actually made it this far, have a cookie and a beer: 🍪🍺

…along with my undying gratitude, of course! 😂🫶🏻

I will tag: @theeuropeanidiotverse and whoever else wants to join! No pressure whatsoever, though! <3

[nakimochiku]

that fic meme

How many works do you have on AO3?: 142

What’s your total AO3 word count?: 408,786 (ooh. Not bad?)

What fandoms do you write for?: all. Hell baby i write for fandoms im not even IN. But at the moment, mdzs.

What are your top five fics by kudos: All this time I was just waiting for you (moon knight), These Violent Delights (moon knight), That a Ghost should be so practical (Hamilton), I don’t want anyone else (when i think about you)(moon knight), what we hate in others (we see in ourselves)(attack on titan)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?: i do cause i actually just really really wanna talk to people!

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?: probably I Call The Shots(snk), everyone died. Or Keep Pushing (snk), everyone is GOING to die.

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?: probably Found a Place to Rest my Head (saiyuki), cause no one dies and they adopt kids.

Do you get hate on fics?: on this one particular Hannibal fic

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?: All kinds. Partial to anything with any kinda dirty talk/praise kink. Literally cant write smut without that featured. After that, a lot of D/s tones.

Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?: I’ve actually never written a crossover?! Like at most ive written “ y characters in x universe” like. Typical hogwarts au or some shit. Craziest of those i’ve written was a sentinel/guide au for spn.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?: probably not and im not sure id care even if i did.

Have you ever had a fic translated?: Yep!

 Have you ever co-written a fic before?: Nothing that ever got published. Mostly shooting shit with friends.

 What’s your all-time favorite ship?: Impossible to answer. Changes on every rewatch even of old favs. But i can tell you my ship dynamic! Rivals to friends to lovers. Gimme some rivals to ship ANY day.

What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?: This University Au for moon knight that is sitting half finished in my Docs is fucking haunting me.

 What are your writing strengths?: Putting my whole pussy into whatever it is i’m writing. Also, imagery and extended metaphors.

What are your writing weaknesses?: Cohesion. The ideas are there but smoothing them together is so tough!

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?: I wish i could do it because it adds a flavour of authenticity to the fic but… i also know i hate reading it, and if i can suspend my disbelief and IMAGINE the character is speaking a different language when im told they are, thats enough.

First fandom you wrote for?: Technically Yugioh, but never posted. So Officially, Naruto.

Fave fic you’ve written?: impossible question BUT gun to my head for an answer, i think i did a DAMN GOOD job on Artemis Agrotera (the walking dead). Some A+ imagery and extended metaphors there.

tagging any mutuals who haven’t done this yet. But also specifically @first-renegade

[futureseaempress]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

hi so my sweetheart tagged me in this @hypnostheory so thank u bb

1. How many works do you have in Ao3?

27 (teehee that's my fave number) (i also have like two more on a google drive that are wips,,, some princes don't become kings & first date which is called nastygum in like all my notes)

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? 163,308 which is like longer than twilight i think

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Homestuck, AFTG, SK8 the Infinity, TMA, Stardew Valley, RWRB, and uhhh law and order svu

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

honey, why're you calling me so late? (matchablossom)

about to bloom (matchablossom)

baby kiss it better (first prince)

i only want what i can't have (first prince)

as certain dark things are to be loved (jonmartin)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i would love to but sometimes i just don't have anything to say

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

uhhhhh i don't think any of my fics have super angsty endings-- fanning the flame was supposed to end with a super sad chapter about agnes and jack but i never wrote it lmao maybe i'll get back to her in november

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

ummmm i try to end everything on a loving/happy note bc that's what i like to read most

i think asking you to stay has like the cheesiest last line

8. Do you get hate on fics?

uh not yet thank goodness. i used to back in my wattpad days though and i did have someone say something kinda off color to me in a writing exchange but that worked itself out

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

because it's most of what i read i try to include like a horny scene in most if not all of my stuff but i like anything rlly i sort by ship, explicit, and go from there I think "Coming In Pants" is a frequent flyer.

10. Do you write crossovers? If so, what’s your craziest one?

Nope. Not my cup of tea. OH MY GOD ACTUALLY I'M A LIAR IN 2012 I HAD A ONE DIRECTION RPF TWILIGHT FANFIC? THAT I NEVER POSTED AND SOLELY EXISTED IN MY NOTES APP THAT MY FRIEND AND I WOULD LIKE ROLEPLAY???? seventh grade was wild for me

11. Have you ever had your fic stolen?

YEP! both my current fanfic and my older stuff like i had a terrible homestuck fanfic on wattpad that someone reposted saying mine was too smutty and then on ao3 there is a fic,,, that,,, very heavily seems to draw from baby kiss it better but idk maybe henry wearing alex's white t shirt and a taylor swift cardigan while sick before alex blows him is just reaaally common

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

so other than some garbage i was writing in middle school no, but i do for sure like let my partner beta everything and we run ideas by each other all the time and like work out how to block stuff and what seems interesting they keep me from going to melodramatic and i help them know what sex sounds fun

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

oh god i can't choose. i love davekat, but i love alex and henry a lot. like a lot. like wow i loved the book last year and the movie has given me brain worms and there's other karkat ships i rlly like. hmmm okay i have two hands and i hold my sons Crabapple and Firstprince.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but probably never will?

so many davekat wips

the sweet home alabama fic for sure.

the nanny au. uh the other davekat band au that's just a draft... probably fanning the flame. there's also a coda for more silver paint that haunts me.

16. What are your writing strengths?

uhhhhh i think i'm good at banter? (see echoed through my mind) i think i'm good at like making stuff fit into canon and comply with it in fun ways (see this hope is). i think i'm good at writing characters having break downs (see chapter 3 of silver paint or going with the flow)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I SUCK SO BAD AT FINISHING THINGS AND I GET STUCK ON MY PORN EVERY TIME

also commas

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

bafhehasdk so like it's kinda a pet peeve a lot of the times i feel like spanish especially ends up reading kind of like Law and Order dialogue like "he trabajo'ed here last week" but i eat that shit up in theory. like people would probs do better throwing random french in shit bc my ass would be like SOUNDS RIGHT TO ME. it's also like cultural references get lost and i know just enough spanish to know when something is "off" so i prefer like "This is a line of dialogue," they said in Spanish.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Homestuck! on wattpad! in 2012! it was bad mpreg! i was 13!!

TMA on ao3! in like 2020

but i did once write a one direction rpf with my friend that we posted on instagram in 2011

20. Favorite fic that you’ve written?

oh god i don't know. i think it's gotta be glory just bc i spent so long with it and i'm hoping to finish it during november (i do nanowrimo in a crazy bass ackwards way) but tire trouble is like the one everyone else loves best??? and i have a sequel in the works for it im just super into rwrb rn

I’m tagging @wardenhawke bc i feel like you might like talking about your ocs at least and i like u

[theinsanecrayonbox]

well, since i've seen the page in the tags, i guess i can talk about the reveal of who "GC" is in Sabretooth/Exiles #4 (i’ll throw it under a cut though for spoilers cause i wanna try to be nice; i know not everyone doesn’t care about spoilers like i do)

who was it?

Graydon Creed

am i upset by this because it was sort of obvious? am i upset by this because the last time we saw Graydon, Victor had pulled him out of hell, sacrificing his own life and willpower to do so?

no...no idts. at the time of reading i wasn’t sure, and after sitting on it a few days, i’m still “meh *noncommittal shrug*” but i think i’m not. on the one hand, it’s very clear that Lavalle read Death Hunt as homework for this, what with all the references and Birdy in the first half (which is not surprising since it is the best solo Sabretooth mini series); and since this series has kinda been pointing out Victor’s greatest failures that do haunt him/contrasting what makes the man and the beast, bringing up his son does actually make sense. i was kinda hoping that maybe being pulled from hell would’ve kicked Graydon in the butt enough to be less terrible than he used to be...and eh, i guess kinda? he’s now in league with genetic manipulation, when before he was just all “rah rah purity of humanity” so, slight change?? and Graydon has always been terrible, so since we reset Victor’s character growth by ignoring the second half of Weapon X-Force, it’s par for the course to ignore him rescuing Graydon too i guess. though one would question how a previously long standing dead man had the funds to contract out Orchis....also one wonders where’s Birdy since she was supposedly respawned at the end of the first half

ANYWHOS! it’s revealed as Graydon, and that he’s been hunting multiverse versions of his father. Graydon, the one consistent thing in all incarnations is his daddy issues lol. one wonders how or why really...probably won’t be adequately explained considering there’s only 1 issue left for this story.

but onto the more fun part that i alluded to in my other post; lets play “Who’s that Sabretooth”. here’s a numbered version for easier reference;

even with the wiki up, i’m not really recognizing any of these. 

#7 looks like the good guy/blind and one handed clone from X-Men Forever (it’s the triangle face). 

#9 does resemble Liev Schreiber i admit...but it’s also clearly a black man and the only black Sabretooth i know is Miles’ dad from “What if Miles was Wolverine” and he was not a Victor Creed.

#13 looks to be a child version

#3 also looks child/teen to me, but the pale skin would suggest vampiric?

#14 looks like it might have the usual head guard (or maybe that’s heavy shadowing on the cheek)

i’m no all knowing expert, so feel free to weigh in. but again, the fact that none of them are easily or readily recognizable makes me wonder if they were just made up for this. that’s not necessarily a bad thing, since you know dead and all, but then again it’s eth multiverse just because you killed one alternate version doesn’t mean that was the only one of that specific kind. without the reader recognizing and connecting, it’s just a random display of heads for shock value...which yeah ok, that was the goal i give, but still.