#i didn't expect to create a fanfic outline in a tumblr post but there you go

[cringecompanionapologist]

Why Turlough Is Rarely Written Well

Classic companions have a habit of falling into Susan/Ian/Barbara archetypes. You have Men (strong, attractive, brave, good at the physical stunts the often older Doctors can't do), you have Women (okay there's actually some variety with this one since they're the most common. There are the sensible women who have none of the Doctor's shit or the plucky girls who love assisting the Doctor but are often written as stupid for plot reasons.), and you have Children (usually girls, but Adric also fits perfectly into the archetype. They're young and vulnerable but usually made abnormally smart to make up for it, with the exception of Dodo because the writers didn't know what to do with her).

Sometimes things can mix. Leela and Ace basically functions as all three categories at once. It's why they get so much EU material. They can fill basically any companion role depending on what you need. Some are sort of vague in their roles. Victoria switches between Woman and Child, not as a combination, but as if the writers didn't always agree on which one she was. Nyssa probably isn't a child, at least not by Season 20, but she generally plays the Child companion role. And, as I said, the Woman companion role is all over the place.

But, generally, Man doesn't have to be male if you're willing to let a girl fight and Child doesn't have to be a child if they still come across as innocent and/or unfamiliar with the world around them.

Throughout the 60s and 70s, Woman evolved (compare Barbara's role in the show to Jo's. This isn't bashing Jo. The character were just handled very differently) and Child was sort of phased out due to not fitting the UNIT setting. Man was also phased out once the Doctor learned space martial arts. You could also say that UNIT collectively was Man. This led the show to slowly transition from three companion teams (Man/Woman/Child) to two companion teams (Man/Woman or Man/Child depending on the team) to the single Woman companion you see throughout most of the 70s. Harry Sullivan was a brief revival of Man but you once again had a Doctor who could do the action stuff himself, so the writer's weren't sure where to go with him and he was written out after one season. The show stopped having male companions (unless you count K9, but I'd put him the secret fourth category of Robot).

The the 80s happened at the decided to have male companions again, but Tom Baker was still Tom Baker, and Peter Davison was the youngest, most physically capable Doctor yet. So, they took the Child archetype that had previously been exclusively female (Susan, Vicki, Dodo, Victoria sometimes, Zoe) and gender flipped it. Adric is basically a gender flip of Zoe, a teenage mathematical genius that stows away in the TARDIS and basically forces the Doctor to adopt them.

But then Adric blew up, but they still wanted a male companion around, and we got Turlough. And Turlough doesn't really fit any of the archetypes. He's not the brave, physically strong Man and he's too generally familiar with the world to be a Child. He's an alien, an outsider to what the audience thinks of as normal, like Leela and Nyssa, but he's lived on Earth for a while and is familiar with it enough to hate it. He doesn't carry that same sense of innocence.

That leaves Woman and though female companions had covered Man before, they'd never really reversed it. The sort of did at times with Steven, since he was sort of a merge of Ian and Barbara, but that was because the writers were used to having Barbara around and weren't sure how to make the show work without that role.

Turlough doesn't really fit the Woman archetype either. The Sensible Woman variant has to have a certain moral high ground and Turlough's morally ambiguous. The Plucky Girl variant needs to either be enthusiastic about travel, or be either very brave or borderline oblivious to danger. Turlough is very much aware of danger and is not a fan of it.

So Turlough doesn't really fit anywhere. Writers struggled to figure out what to do with him. Too much of the traditional companion role, especially for Men, was defined by courage and selflessness. Turlough had to learn to be that way as a character arc. There had been companions that struggled with being brave before. Susan and Victoria come to mind. But Susan was kind of all over the place and Victoria started off being pretty brave before being in constant peril made her a nervous wreck and she chose to leave the TARDIS to save her sanity.

So, you end up with a companion that didn't really fit any archetype and the previous companions he could most easily be compared to were Susan and Victoria.

So, when writing Turlough, writers end up with two choices: to lean in or back out. They could write Turlough in a way similar to Susan and Victoria, intelligent enough to be reasonable competent, but physically and emotionally fragile. Or, they could try to make the character a bit more like earlier male companions, except he's complaining about it the entire time.

Writers prefer backing out to leaning in. That's because there's a bit of a double standard when it comes to gender stereotypes. You give a woman traits more associated with men, it's usually received positively. Leela stabs people, Ace beats up a Dalek with a baseball bat, everyone loves it. And they should. It's great. But when it's the other way around, giving a man traits more associated with women, it's usually based in negative traits and not received well.

It isn't always that straightforward. A female character who's assertive and tries to take charge but doesn't usually stab or beat people up will be classified as a "bitch". Strangely, a male character who's cowardly might also be called the same word. "Bitch" is apparently an insult specifically connected to gender nonconformity. Women who are too bold and men who aren't bold enough.

I've written before about how this affects fandom (and a good number writers) attitude towards Tegan. She's assertive, but not in a beat-up-daleks-with-a-baseball-bat sort of way.

This makes the TARDIS team of Tegan and Turlough interesting. They both play gender in a way that's usually seen as negative. Writers, if they want the characters to be likable, have to tone it down. Or, they play it as annoying and something for the audience to make fun of. They can't just accept it. Which would be the most interesting thing to do.

In my previous Tegan rant, I said there should be a story where the Doctor has to overcome his pride and listen to Tegan in order to save the day. She might not be a STEM genius, but she can be right about something. I also have another vague idea, a conflict between Tegan and Turlough, that would focus on Turlough saving the day by being non-confrontational.

The premise is that Tegan and Turlough get captured and locked up in a prison. Tegan fights with the guards and tries to escape, while Turlough tells her not to bother because the Doctor will show up and rescue them. Time goes by, the Doctor gets stuck in another plotline, and Tegan and Turlough are at risk of being executed. They can't just wait this out. Tegan gets more frantic in her escape attempts and more annoyed with Turlough, who is intimidated by the guards and doesn't really seem to be trying.

Then, there's a brief period where Tegan and Turlough are outside their cells, quite close to the keys to their cell. The guards are keeping a close eye on Tegan in case she tries anything, but they're not watching Turlough as closely. They don't think he's going to try anything. He basically uses Tegan's usual quarrel with the guards as a diversion so he can grab the key. Tegan catches on to the plan.

They're returned to their cell but Turlough doesn't actually have the key. Tegan gets pissed that he wimped out and this was all for nothing, only for Turlough to reveal that the cell is unlocked. He didn't take the key. There were keys to multiple cells around and he swapped their cell's key with another key, so the guards used the wrong key on their cell, leaving it unlocked. No one expected anything of him and there wasn't a missing key to attract attention. He found a way out to get around the guards without confronting them.

Then, to avoid making Tegan look bad for being defiant, she frees the other prisoners and rallies them to overpower the guards and escape, because sometimes the direct approach works too. Then they both have to rescue the Doctor.

I should probably just write this fanfic, but I don't have enough specific details yet.

Anyway, writers who try to make Turlough more "masculine" are cowards and boring.

[plumblossom37]

ToApril 2023!

heya everyone, April is once again looming over us, and so I'm announcing the return of toapril in 2023! whoop whoop :D

bet you didn't expect me to be the host. me neither, man. as the host, though, I do want to outline the rules of toapril:

please keep it toa-related! you can use characters from other series or even one of your own, but the prompts (see below) were made with apollo and/or meg in mind. I don't limit you to just them, though, and you can create with other toa characters, too.

no nsfw, please. mature topics can be referenced, but any graphic content is not allowed.

note: ships aren't the main focus of toapril, but you can definitely make ship content!

(no I didn't just copy and paraphrase the post from last year about toapril wdym this is a totally original post ahahahahaha..,,,)

if you're writing a fanfic on ao3, please put it in the toapril 2023 collection. if you're not sure how to do that, I'll give you some instructions:

step 1: there's a button on the top right saying "post to collection".

the rest is just as usual, just fill in everything as you would usually.

alternatively, make a new work as usual, but in this section, add it to a collection:

and please put it into toapril 2023 lol. toapril 2022 is closed I believe, but toapril 2023'll be open for more than just for April if you didn't get to finish something during April :>

btw if you wanna post content onto Tumblr, please tag it with #toapril ; additionally, please tag it with #toapril 2023 for an easier search between the 2 different toaprils lol

as well, you can tag this blog (plumblossom37). I'll try to look at all the cool works in toapril 2023!

have fun creating, everyone :D

[callmearcturus]

Do you have any advice for finding people to write fanfic with? You talk all the time abt your collabs with punct and it sounds like in addition to providing a second opinion, the two of you really help motivate each other to keep working on stuff :)

UUUUUUh I am uniquely not the person to ask this I think, lmao. Instead of "coauthor" lets say "collaborators," because that's much more common for me.

Because for the PT Benji AU, that one is pretty unique. Punct had the initial idea and I think we haggled a bit over "well SOMEONE has to write this, the idea is so fucking good" and I started turning the brainstorming sessions into an outline. Then because I know Punct and their skill level, I jsut started.... Poking them to hop in and directly help? And that submission scene two(?) chapters ago, I just fully asked them to take a swing at writing it and I'd revise, which worked fabulously. Hell, just last night, Punct reworked the outline for the last 2 chapters of act one, and it's amazing.

For me, cowriting is difficult because, uh, my speed and intensity. As you may surmise, I write Very Fucking Fast and I have a lot of ideas about the Process, so I often feel like... Roping someone in to work with me is a huge ask.

You know all those posts you see about how writing is a slog and how blank word documents stare back at you and, like, that genre of post? I don't relate to those. When I am entrenched in a project, I often have to STOP writing or I risk literal physical injury. (My worst injury came from writing TSAD, never fucking let ANY human type at that speed, folks.)

I am, frankly, a freak. So as we started collaborating, I told Punct "hey bruh, I know that I am like really intense and i work very fast, please know I DO NOT expect that from you, okay." And reiterated it a few times. /looks over at Punct. So they better keep it in mind!

Anyway, enough conceited clarification, onto the point of your question.

How do you find people to create stuff with.

The number one thing that I will keep saying until I am blue in the fucking face is: post positive stuff you are interested in.

I do not hateread. I try to keep drama to a minimum on Tumblr. When I see opinions and takes I disagree with, I tend to post alternative takes in a hopefully positive manner instead of trying to take down others. I think there is a big habit in fandom for people to go "UGH why are people posting X when they should post Y." And that bitching never actually gets you more Y, it just makes everyone less excited about creating stuff.

When you are looking for collaborative souls, you are looking for people excited about creating stuff. So you need to telegraph that's what you're into in a constructive way. But I think an unfortunate pitfall a lot of people fall into is... Just announcing it.

When I got into Mission Impossible, I didn't do a lot of "hey I'm into MI now, pls come talk to me about it." Instead, I started making posts of why I was into it. Here's some batshit stunt facts, here is a treatise on Ghost Protocol's deep unorthodox streak, look at these pics of Ethan from Fallout.

They're like setting out treats. Sometimes, you lure in people who are willing to say "yes, and." And when you find those people, you keep track of them and see if they continue to be willing to play with you. Then you sidle up and go "so can I pitch you on an AU." And you put them in a cardboard box and carry them away to Discord.

There's more I could say, like how sometimes I try writing towards specific people (like how KTOWL was written at @thedoublepp and I feel like I learned a tremendous amount by doing that) and honing writing based on that, buuuut this post is long.

[raditzxsthighband]

I posted 501 times in 2022

32 posts created (6%)

469 posts reblogged (94%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@raditzxsthighband

@camocat

@la-hannya

@long-cold-winter88

@degenerate-otaku

I tagged 127 of my posts in 2022

#dbz - 50 posts

#dragon ball z - 46 posts

#fanfiction - 38 posts

#raditz - 38 posts

#vegeta - 21 posts

#launchitz - 21 posts

#launch - 20 posts

#anime art - 19 posts

#fanfic - 17 posts

#inuyasha - 16 posts

Longest Tag: 105 characters

#every story gets a different response than i expect it’s bizarre but oddly comforting too when i remember

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Who is your favorite Inuyasha character?

Ooh such a tough question! I love so many of InuYasha's characters. My favorite is...

Kikyo! ❤❤ 🥰

18 notes - Posted May 15, 2022

#4

Headcanon Sheet for my Saiyan form: Saiyä-Zarou

SAIYA-ZAROU - S.S.0.0

The form between Oozaru & Super Saiyan.

-20× The Strength of Oozaru. User must be able to control/master Oozaru first.

Ears are enlarged + pointed to amplify sound.

1. achieved saiya-zarou & stable.

2. (Night) initial reaction to moonlight (black eyes gain a silver/metallic cast)

3. (Day) a. Eyes flash red.

b. white/ no iris + hair growth

c. stable = crimson irises + black outlines

Result of hidden moon - Triton revealed after Neptune's destruction

Exponential growth of canines + fangs. Blunt but bite force is great.

Flame retardant fur protects from cuts, scrapes and blows like light armor.

Tail should be present for transformation. if not, a new one may grow (?)

Claws are hard to break off, very sharp.

Muscles enlarged significantly.

19 notes - Posted July 20, 2022

#3

New Story! "Fiery Elixir"

Bulma and Vegeta may have lived together, but it was the last thing from harmony. When her soul calls to him in a helpless cry, he has no choice but to answer it.

Art + Collaboration with @alphashewolf90

He wanted to deepen their connection, somehow. Perhaps a kiss was the answer, like she had suggested. 

She stared up at him and slowly placed her hands on his chest. It was warm, strong, and solid. She could feel the skin underneath her fingertips practically vibrating. It was so hot that she thought she should draw back but couldn't, instead she gripped tighter. Bulma's mind raced with an answer to his, one she didn't dare speak aloud for fear he would simply laugh at her. Souls that call to each other, to me that sounds like soul mates . But that's not real, is it? And if so… then, what do our souls want? Do they want to… come together?  

23 notes - Posted January 8, 2022

#2

Crying tears of relief, Launch gives Raditz a long overdue embrace to welcome him home after a tough battle. 💞

Commission for @kariwichner - Thank you!

32 notes - Posted May 8, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

33 notes - Posted February 10, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →