#fanfic related musings

[bylightofdawn]

I am dealing with some interesting cognitive dissonance in this chapter and the struggle is REAL. Regarding how Rufus exhibits in canon itself some pretty big red flags for possessiveness and unhealthy attachments.

Not to go all armchair psychologists but from what we know of his childhood, it was awful. His father constantly berated him and put him down. We know he had a mother who died at some point but not real information into their relationship. So I think it's safe to assume he faced a lot of isolation, a lack of a caring support system and the only example of adult behavior he had to model after was his father who is a fucking monster.

So yeah, when he gloms onto someone they are his and you are not allowed to take what is his away from him and god help you if you get between him and what he views as his. Note how visibly peeved he was at Hojo getting his claws into Tseng post Tseng getting impaled by Sephiroth in Rebirth.

There's also an argument to be made about how Rufus prolly has some issues with potentially viewing people as individual people.

He straight up tells Cloud he is HIS/Shinra property on like...two occasions I think? I need to replay Remake to be honest. (also bless you delightful Rufus/Cloud shippers taking that and running with it, I <3 you)

So yeah, Rufus Shinra is a whole ass buttload of red flags and an sane person would run screaming into the night.

Which brings me to my dilemma of writing and acknowledging he's a garbage fire of a person and still trying to write a fucking romance pairing.

Example, he just found out Reeve and Tseng used to be closer when they were younger being of relatively the same age, came up in Shinra together and Tseng used to be bb!Reeve's bodyguard back in the day.

And here's Rufus being possessive and jealous of BOTH OF THEM at the same time. Because he views both of them as his in a way and he's being torn in two different directions because they have this hereunto unknown relationship.

Which again, huge red flag territory. And somehow I gotta be true to the character and find a way of pulling this bullshit out of a magic hat and not making myself and the reader want to crawl out of their skin and run away from said garbage fire of a man.

But not everyone has the same viewpoints and experience as myself. I grew up watching my mother go through a series of steadily more terrible boyfriends who were abusive to her and to us in a lesser extent so this sort of thing definitely makes my skin crawl while a different reader might find that jealousy akin to ardent passion and awww he really loves xyz. Because it's fanfiction and it's a safe space where you can indulge yourself without any real-life repercussions.

SO YEAH, suffice it to say I am all over the place emotionally in this chapter.

I'm going to step off my soapbox now, thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Pfffft.

[melanthaeunomia]

Do y’all ever reread an old unpublished fanfic you wrote and then get invested on the storyline but get sad because you never wrote the next part of it, just me?

[sun-spark]

Writer mood - reading your own fics and thinking "Damn. I wish this author would update and post the next part already." Cause, ya know, you wanna know what happens next too.

[aparticularbandit]

Toko: I HAVE A BESTIE RIGHT NOW WHAT IF THAT MAKES ALL MY BOOKS SUCK

me: Having a bestie usually makes your writing better. Especially if your bestie is also a writer. Not that you'll get that with Komaru, but—

Komaru: Hey!

me: You should have made besties with Hifumi instead of being on your high horse about how fanfic can never compare to actual literature.

[darkmatters-ghost]

I've run into a problem...

06 sucks!

Like we knew that, but writing wise, 06 is such a mess, and I don't- I don't know what to do about it, I have fanfic ideas that take place in 06! And it's such a mess that I feel like it'll tank the quality of my fanfic just from its garbage-ness!

And you might be thinking, oh, but 06 isn't that bad, you said yourself, it's one of your favorite games of all time, and other people deal with it just fine so–

No, you don't get it, it is that bad. And you can tell because almost nothing from that game made it out alive. Like, conceptually, there's some really cool stuff in 06. Crisis City's unique environment, Mephiles as a villain, double chaos control time powers (well...), Iblis, Soleanna. All that stuff is good, but because it was in 06. 06's garbage kinda rubbed off on it, and when everyone realized the game was horrible (including SEGA) all that stuff was never attempted again. No one decided to try and make Mephiles work in new games, no mention of Crisis City, or Solanna, or anything. It all just died with the game. Which makes it all the more impressive that Silver made it out alive.

But that's not the point. We all know it's bad.

The point is that idk where to go from here? Do I keep it the way it is? Do I change it? I'm leaning towards change but what should I change? Would people like those changes?

For example, Blaze is a mess. She's "got amnesia" or whatever, and she's here, but she doesn't talk to anyone but Silver (she almost does when she says "blue hedgehog" but that barely makes any sense and it wouldn't surprise me if it was secretly a pun lost in translation), she always seems to know what Silver was up to even if she wasn't there, she doesn't affect the plot other than making Silver doubt his judgement and then leaving, it's-, it's just a mess.

So, what if we cut Blaze out, altogether? Like, she left before Silver runs into Memphis so Silver's on his own. And since silver can't rely on her to tell him whether or not to trust Mephiles, it makes it so Silver believing him shows it off as a character trait of Silver's desperate naivety instead of it feeling like Blaze sitting there watching him get tricked cuz "it'd be funny". That whole scene really feels like Silver and Blaze get tricked by Mephiles because the plot demanded it of them more than anything else.

Plus, if you don't have Blaze here, Silver's heroes journey can be, in part, trying to figure out what to do when no one's around. Lean on other people less, make his own choices. You wouldn't even really need to cut Blaze's dialogue because Silver would be thinking "what would Blaze do/say?"

And I think it'd add to their friendship, the idea that when he comes back to the future and says he knows how to defeat Iblis, she just goes along with it, and is willing to do anything for Silver because they have such a strong relationship, because she trusts him.

But would people like that retcon? What if people hate it cuz there's less Blaze content?

Idk. It's just something I've been thinking about, there's more things I'd like to change, but luckily, a lot of 06 can be improved by adding extra context, or slightly different introductions that barely change the story.

I'd love to hear what other ppl have to say about dealing with 06's writing, tho

[i-read-too-much-fanfic]

voltron fans stop naming soulmate au fics with variations of strong but then have nothing to do woth the red strong of fate challenge impossible

[billowingangel]

🖍♻️🤔?

🖍Post Any sentence from your wip

Matthew yelled which was really just slightly louder than his normal speaking voice but that was very unusual so his brother scampared and as did the priest. 

This is the current fic I'm working on and planning to finish tonight! Got so hyped up writing it that now I can't sleep!

♻️A scrapped idea for your current WIP

Well I'm currently working on some oneshots with Canada for rarepair week. For day 5 I was going to do Ukraine and Canada but I've switched her out. And I switched the ship for day 4 was going to be Germany and Canada but decided someone else.

A while ago I started a couple fics but I may abandon them 🤔 One is an omegaverse and I've never written omegaverse before so i feel a bit silly and out of my depth.

🤔What’s a story you’d love to write but haven’t even started yet?

I have a couple other rarepair ideas floating around my noggin. I want to soon write a GerCan and NedCan. But I think I also want to write some with the Nordics and maybe write SuFin.

I also have this one idea about Matthew going missing (kidnapped) and how people would react. It's similar to another story I've started (Off The Grid) but in that story it's nationverse and he purposefully disappears. I really need to update that!

Also been thinking about maybe doing a fan fiction relating to the Olympics 🤔 Or hockey and Matthew is captain and center of his team and his team is doing absolutely fantastic! They are rocking it! But then because of how awesome Matthew's team is doing the government realizes "oh hey our personification is on a national hockey team 😡 not allowed! what if normal people find out about personifications?!" And so Matthew must choose hockey or being ' ' good ' '

Also been thinking about writing a RoChu fan fiction! A mutual of mine really likes that and I'd like to write it for her. But I haven't written RoChu in years so I'm a bit hesitant, I should probably read some more RoChu fics before I begin that.

Also...i want to write an X Reader....but not for Hetalia! 😯 This character I love literally has ZERO fan fiction ships or x readers with him!! 😳 But I haven't watched the movie he's been in, in a while. So I want to rewatch that and write that then! And maybe I'd also write some Hetalia x readers. That is how I got into Hetalia in the first place 😂

Ok time to stop yapping! Here's the WIP ask game

[sohannabarberaesque]

We'd be curious to know ...

Exactly how old Ding-a-Ling (Hokey Wolf's boon companion), Bon-Bon (Loopy De Loop's nephew), Bubi Bear (the rather excitable one of the Hair Bear Bunch) and Boogie (the CB Bears' troubleshooter) are for the sake of canon and backstory ...

What exactly makes the Skatebirds especially proficient in inline skating and skateboarding ...

How exactly Yogi Bear and Square Bear can manage to eat so much in "tourist-type goodies" on a par with Shaggy and Scooby ...

Exactly what tricks and stunts the Cattanooga Cats manage to use to fend off Chessie the Autograph Hound and her overzealously obnoxious desires for their autographs, while being accepting of more legitimate and "responsible" such ...

How the sheer adaptability of Trolldom to the American South (while still keeping close to trollditional ways) can best be explained without giving stuff away ...

How exactly Captain Caveman and The Slag Brothers could be considered as cousins for reasons going beyond mere gentics, let alone be fond of rather playful displays of caveman-type masculinity ...

[sorrygotthesesacks]

Thinking of this Gundam Wing AU I had in mind, once upon a time, where Heero learned to drive a stick and there was always the same CD in the car, so he started to associate shifting with a specific song from the CD.

Fast forward to when he meets Duo. After a while, Duo realizes that every time Heero drives, this one particular song is playing on the stereo, almost like Heero can't drive without it.

It's not that he can't drive without it; it just seems that way because it's too ingrained now.

I am sure that at the time I thought of this, I probably had a song in mind, too. Maybe something that I heard a lot right after I learned to drive a five-speed. It's gone now, alas.

[musecheerios]

May or may not have a kind of.

Fanfic thing. Spike and Cere don't fall in love but it ends with her thinking of him as a friend that she owes a lot to and he's like "...I mean. Nah- you don't have to do anything."

But I just need to write the whole thing, fix some things that don't sound right to me, and then mentally battle with myself whether I should really post it or not. 😂

[laibasreverie]

then why when i cry alone, do i wish for someone to find me?

[bylightofdawn]

So I updated the compiled masterpost for my JasPlo fic and it's a hair shy of 84,000 words. What. The. Actual. Fuck.

This might actually be the longest thing I have ever written in my entire like.

Yo, that's like an actual novel.

WHAT THE FUCK.

And I still have a lot planned.

I think.....I have enough pre-written I would be comfortable maybe committing to a bi-weekly posting schedule. Fucks sake I have 15K up over however many chapters posted so I have PLENTY of buffer space and I could always stop if say tomorrow my muses dry up and I can't write shit.

Of course, that requires me to be disciplined enough to actually proofread and edit. This focused writing thing is awesome but I don't have any of my proofreading plugins installed so my fic is even more mistake-riddled than normally because I just kinda edit as I go whenever Grammarly or prowritingaid point out something is off.

And boy howdy do I hate editing. LOL Professional proofreaders and editors might actually be touched in the head. Like, credit where it is due, they are fucking superheroes of the writing industry but whoever chooses that as their career path, I don't know how you enjoy much less don't suffer through proofreading someone else's semi-polished work.

Hmmm so I was debating maybe going to see the new Dungeons and Dragons movie tonight but I might put that off till Sunday and maybe NOT do the whole editing thing and instead start the next chapter.

I high-key want to involve Tyvokka somehow and drag hi into this mess so he can shamelessly tease poor Plo

[fandomsandfairytales]

I think this is a great lesson in writing what you want to read AND writing for yourself. I love that Tolkien and Lewis had this conversation and decided to write what they did because they wanted to. They didn't see enough of what they enjoyed reading, and they decided to do something about it themselves. They also chose to share it with the world, but the writing was not done with the intention of making it likable to other people.

The most recent example for myself is Mondays In Imladris. The inspiration for it came when I was reading through the prompts for Imladris Week. And although I pushed myself to get it done in time (meaning the creation time wasn't as long as it would've been if I had leisurely written whenever I felt like it), I enjoyed coming up with everything I put in it. I think the deadline actually helped force me to get my ideas together enough to form a solid piece of writing, not just loose thoughts here and there.

Did I expect most people would know Tuesdays at the Castle and understand the parallels I intentionally drew to Castle Glower? Nope. But the idea that Imladris could move rooms like the Castle, that it could be its own character or entity of sorts, that it could play a role in the lives of Elrond, his family, and the other residents of Rivendell in similar ways to the Castle's role in Celie and her family's lives—I just found that delightful and wanted to write about it. I wanted to make it warm and whimsical and interesting, and I achieved that, at least for myself. And I did choose to share it, largely because I wrote it for Imladris Week, but also because I enjoyed writing it and because someone out there might know both Tolkien's works and Tuesdays at the Castle (like me!) and enjoy it.

So all this to say...take a page from Tolkien and Lewis' books (lol) and don't write things based on whether you think other people will like them or not. Your writing is for you to enjoy. And you can decide if you want to share it with the world, or if you'd like to keep that bit of joy to yourself.

"L. said to me one day: 'Tollers, there is too little of what we really like in stories. I am afraid we shall have to try to write some ourselves.' We agreed that he should try 'space travel' and I should try 'time travel'. His result is well-known. My effort, after a few promising chapters, ran dry: it was too long a way round to what I really wanted to make, a new version of the Atlantis legend. The final scene survives as The Downfall of Numenor. [...] We neither of us expected much success as amateurs, and actually Lewis had some difficulty in getting Out of the Silent Planet published. And after all that has happened since, the most lasting pleasure and reward for both of us has been that we provided one another with stories to hear or read that we really liked--in large parts. Naturally neither of us liked all that we found in the other's fiction."

-The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 294, February 8, 1967

[sylviareviar]

She's looking at her Weather Painters deck. It took her a long time to build it, since it's hard to get specific cards aside from ordering them online, but she managed to gather the cards necessary for the build she made. It wasn't a perfect build, but it was pure Weather Painters, and she loved the cards' designs.

"...I wish I could duel someone..."

[aparticularbandit]

i feel like tsumugi is everything i wanted toko and hifumi to be.

the actual character that i probably relate to the most.

like none of the characters in danganronpa are me, but tsumugi probably gets the closest.

but like. mastermind writer tsumugi.

[futurefind]

//if i had a nickel for every time i had rea haunt a loved one’s narrative i would have. so many nickels dsghsdghhdsg (even wrt the specific subsection of ‘dies permanently/indefinitely but still gets better!’)