#ik most people refer to her as she/her which is cool!! (so long as you're not also trying to tell me shes a woman lmfao)

[applesandbannas747]

does pacat rlly not care about fence anymore 😭 i feel like it’s much better than dark rise and could be better than captive prince too…it’s been a year since i last consumed anything fence-related and i really don’t understand what’s going on with the series?? but anyways i like ur fics a lot & agree with ur reviews of srb’s novels, which also could have had so much potential but ended up kind of sucking in a lot of ways.

Pacat is a mystery to me. Personally, I believe Dark Rise is his best work--it shows much better pacing than Captive Prince and gets the same impact and feel without going to such extreme and explicit horrors, which shows a lot of skill (I know CP is his most beloved series but he's improved a lot since writing it haha). What gets me is that Fence STARTED really strong and I counted it as his best work for sure. There were fun tropes and dynamics, interesting characters with a central relationship promising contention, fighting, and tension, and some fun elements in the mystery of Jesse and potential in the reveal of Nick's lineage. And you could tell there was passion in the project...but even by the later issues of the original 12-issue run, Pacat's social media reflected a large disinterest in Fence, and that disinterest has shown in the story as Fence continues to progress.

I try to logic and rationalize and analyze everything Fence related and literally every time I do I get met with 'it's not that deep' from the actual canon lmfao but I'm going to offer my rationalization anyway lmao the only reason I can think to justify Pacat's lack of interaction with Fence on Twitter besides not caring about it much is that it doesn't fit his brand. Which is only defined by two other series, but it's very much a high fantasy/historical fantasy dark romance with stomach-churning undertones and much darker themes than Fence. So I gave him that excuse for a long time. Fence doesn't fit within that brand at all, so from a marketing standpoint, it makes some amount of sense to focus more on the other franchises. However, I think this strategic thinking is giving too much credit--Fence has always had really shit marketing so either Pacat has no mind for marketing or he doesn't care to market Fence, which both get us back to the only real reason being he just doesn't care about it as much as his other things.

Do I expect Pacat to be hanging out in the Twitter FENCEtag? No. But I do think it's strange that he'll post tweets saying happy birthday to other people's books the day they come out, but literally didn't ever make a Fence Redemption announcement or say anything on the release day. The most he's done is retweet a couple things from BOOM! and 2 other outside sources. And this is regular behavior--he didn't do announcements for RIVALS or RISE either and didn't promote them at all. Yet Dark Rise gets announcements all the way along--title announcement, release date announcement, cover reveal, etc etc etc. He also posts and retweets fanart for his other 2 books really regularly, yet he didn't even retweet all of Jo's (the co-creator and illustrator of Fence) pieces for the Fence event Jo hosted in April, let alone bother with much fanart of it. There's just no reason for the vast gap in involvement and enthusiasm other than him very strongly preferring his other projects and not bothering with the effort of interacting with Fence. He'll occasionally ask culture questions (like if Americans say 'coz' for cousin or how to say something in French) but that's legitimately the best argument there is for his interest or care in the project.

And lastly, his lack of interest shows in the story. He handed his story off to someone else to write novels for and simply let her go wild without regard for how it impacted the comics or the fans. Further, Pacat lost track of his own story and characters between Volume 3 & 4 in a way that I cannot excuse as anything other than inconsistent characterization. And I know I'm biased there, but I make so many people in real life read Fence that I don't jabber at about it/pull into the fandom (so they have no knowledge of my takes), and all of them have commented on the 180 the characters made between the volumes. And, listen, if I wouldn't accept that kind of inconsistency in characterization when grading my 12-year-olds' narrative writing projects, why am I still sitting here trying to excuse the lazy/poor writing in a published and successful author? The pacing is also telling--a lot of conflict was skipped over 'off screen' between the volumes (which, say it with me folks, is lazy writing). Nick's resentment toward Seiji turned into full admiration sans any ill feelings or acknowledgment that even if he IS hot shit, he was still a major asshole in his initial conception, and Seiji apparently agreed to drop his thing about Jesse (you know, the thing that had them in a fist fight approximately 40 pages of comic before). There was no build-up to their relationship or resolution of the conflict that made it unhealthy (expect to have Nick 'admit' Seiji was right to treat him like shit...) These things push the story along a lot faster; rivals to lovers moves really fast if you skip all the tedious development of the characters getting to know, respect, tolerate, and then like each other. Pacat loves rivals/enemies to lovers and (to be blunt) mean/cold bottoms, so it is so fucking bizarre to me that he'd speedrun the relationship and change the characterization so much when it's directly moving away from his preferences (see: Captive Prince, Dark Rise). I don’t know how it happened from anything other than sheer laziness or from not caring about Fence so deeply that he let SRB overwrite the characters and romance he'd originally created.

Last, there are just SO many inconsistencies and copyedit-level mistakes. And I get it that typos happen, but it happens so much that it's like,,, are you even rereading the scripts before you throw them at your publisher? And the continuity errors are massive at this point. Seiji's year in France, which was apparently the result of his loss to Jesse, is only possible if time travel exists and also timelines exist simultaneously. How do you fuck up so big when constructing a story you care about? At least by the time it gets published, you should be sure it's READY to be published. It's like he's writing issue-by-issue as he goes with no plan and can't be bothered to skim through the previous issues to check for things.

I just can't come up with a reality where Pacat actually loves Fence when this is all the care he gives it. We are so so so lucky to have Jo--she is literally the most amazing and gives so much love and care to Fence, and it shows...I just wish Pacat's writing didn't affect her contribution to the comic too. But she at least loves Fence even if Pacat doesn't seem to tell her all that much more than he tells the rest of us LMFAO

This turned into a WHOLE messy essay, I just have a lot of thoughts and they've been brewing for years so sorry to go off on my mad ravings and thanks for tuning in XD and also!!! I'm so happy you like my fics TT.TT <33 and also that you see my point about the novels uwu

[wooahaes]

Aahh! Thanks so much for replying to me, it was super helpful! I really appreciate how in-depth it was too. I shall try reblogging something now (v excited hehe). Can I be bold and ask for any writer recs? I've seen you talk about June and Ursa alot, so I'll make sure to check them out! (You prob have it somewhere, but it's 2am and I need sleep haha) I don't mind getting assigned a random emoji (I'm far too indecisive to pick one tbh haha). I hope your tummy feels better! Thanks so much again!!

sorry to everyone im about to @ in this post sfdkhsdf BUT

(also i saw ur first reblog and sdkfhd anon ur SO cute!! i recommend finding a profile pic somewhere and changing it so ppl don't block you while assuming you're a bot!!)

ok so all of these ppl write for svt and i believe also write for other groups? i'm mainly going by svt writers who ik have posted fics before!! i'm so sorry in advance bc i know i'm leave some ppl off btw just bc i don't want this post to get super long :(

even tho you said you've seen me talk about june and ursa, i'll @ them here again so you can find their blogs

although june i don't think has written anything (yet), she tags everything she reblogs/recs over at @junhui-recs so v good source to find writers <3!! i trust a lot of june's taste tbh + she's just a lovely person to interact with in general <3

ursa @thepixelelf is also a lovely person and writer and i fully suggest checking out her social media AUs if that's your thing!! they're super inclusive (gn!reader, no ulzzangs, generally ursa's writing has no reference toward reader's appearance too tbh!!) and honestly ursa is rly funny <3 love u ursa

i also recommend livvie @husbandhannie <3 livvie has very comforting writing that feels like home + she's so good about tagging things so if you need to avoid a certain topic, you most likely will (and if u dont, she absolutely does not bite and will add a trigger warning if you let her know)

(which btw i think every single person on this list is pretty solid about tagging things and open to being corrected if they leave something out!!)

sol @leejungchans also has popped up a few times on my blog i believe! sol is super duper nice and also has super cozy writing <3

aria @joshuas also has some lovely svt fics on her blog!! + aria is a huge sweetie as well (literally everyone i rec here is super nice)

elv @dokyeomblr is also a very very lovely person (mwah) who writes for multiple groups!!! one day i will go back through her masterlist n reblog when i have the brain cell to fully write out the tags she deserves <3

i don't think i've ever interacted with @suhnshinehaos aside from reblogging her renjun smau, but i like her sense of humor a lot <3 (also v inclusive smaus!!)

uhh i also don't think i've interacted with @blossom-hwa often but she seems cool and i also like her writing (i reblogged a hoshi fic from her once that i enjoyed!! + i believe she writes for both skz and golcha and being a golcha fan automatically makes u cool in my book tbh)

i will cap my list there but there are sooo many good writers out there tbh !!! i think almost everyone here i've interacted with (but even if i haven't, maybe one dayyy after i stop being hindered by anxiety lmao) but they're all super nice to people in my experience! :)

i also have a fic rec tag where i've reblogged from writers that are and aren't listed here!!

also goodnight anon <3 btw i hope 🍧 is fine with you? i can absolutely change it if you want! i just think its a cute emoji and ur cute n also sweet like shave ice is (esp on a hot day... i am so tired of summer weather)