#it's fun how much stuff dovetails with my characters without me knowing ahead of time

[solidandsound]

THIRD LAND: Sacred Mountains

In this land, Trefoil are introduced to Kibagami and the Bushi clan. Some Bushi children are suffering from an illness, supposedly a curse. They are warned that it is unknown how contagious this curse really is, but Clover pays no heed, and rushes to hold the suffering child’s hand.

In order to find a cure, it is decided that the Boiling Lizard must be defeated and the Titan’s Heart must be retrieved. In order to achieve this, and inspired by the techniques of the Bushi, the guild decides to diversify their skill set and seek training from others. While Calyx and Patrick find a talented landsknecht and medic to learn from respectively, Leif seeks training from Wufan, out of admiration for the Vessel’s ability to pacify dangerous foes. Kura declines to train with anyone, seemingly unimpressed by explorers outside her own guild. Clover is wrought with indecision: what skills would best aid her guild? How can she keep her friends safe?

Upon the defeat of the Boiling Lizard, the Titan’s Heart is found, but the tablet that opens the way forward is missing. Nonetheless, the children are cured and there is a great celebration, with much praise heaped upon Trefoil. Patrick and Calyx enjoy this attention the most, with Leif being quite flummoxed. Clover is just happy about the kids. As for Kura, she seems even quieter than usual.

When Whirlwind kidnaps the Medium, everyone is shocked, except for Kura. She got bad vibes from him from their first meeting two lands ago, and knew something was up when he showed up after the Boiling Lizard’s defeat, guessing that he had taken the tablet they needed. When pressed, she says she did not speak up about her suspicions because she knew he would open up the path forward anyway and did not want to risk losing the tablet altogether by confronting him. Even Leif is unnerved by her pragmatism. They end up having a heated argument. Kura questions Leif’s devotion to their goal, and he realizes that she’s right. He can no longer think of their goal as the most important thing to him. If he had to give it up to keep the Medium, or any of his loved ones, safe, he would do it. Kura is rattled by this, and says nothing.

Back in Tharsis, Kibagami pledges his strength in recovering the Medium. Clover, who knows she is not yet strong enough to save the girl, asks to be trained by him. Clover is distraught over the kidnapping; she wants nothing more than for this girl to enjoy the rest of her childhood, in a way that Clover could not.

After I finished Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold, I was craving more of that Etrian Odyssey goodness so much that I went ahead and jumped into Etrian Odyssey IV, even though I'd told myself I'd hold off on starting anything new for a while. One aspect I wasn't sure I'd get much out of, though, was creating my own party rather than experiencing a set story mode. That was, of course, foolish; I am having a blast. I put a lot of thought into the backstory and dynamics of my crew and have come to love them deeply. So, indulge me for a while, as I introduce... Guild Trefoil!

Guild Trefoil, from the Latin ‘trifolium’, meaning three-leaved plant. This is another name for the clover plant, and also refers to various clover-inspired designs, such as those on heraldic crests. At the core of the guild are the three childhood friends Clover, Calyx, and Patrick.

Ship: Oxalis, another clover-like plant, colloquially known as a false shamrock. In EOIV, all airships are imitations of an original that fell to the ground long ago.

Clover, Sniper: Trefoil’s leader from the back. A fairly serious person. Orphaned at a young age when her parents set out to be Yggdrasil explorers in Armoroad and never returned. She was raised in a small village, at an orphanage for children left behind by explorer parents. She does not blame her parents; as world economies centre more and more around these mysterious labyrinths, other opportunities dry up. Her parents were doing all they could. However, she does hold a certain distaste for those who treat Yggdrasil exploration like a fun past-time, and for those who seek to profit from it at a higher level. She now sets out for Yggdrasil herself in the hopes of sending funds back to the orphanage. As someone with a high level of attention for detail, she is also in charge of the map.

Like the plant, Clover is small but resilient. (Portrait: female, pink.)

Calyx, Fortress: Clover’s carefree best friend. She, too, grew up in the orphanage for children whose parents died as explorers. Growing up surrounded by other children with competing needs led her to become patient and reluctant to complain. However, she is also slow to advocate for herself, something which Clover is quick to remedy. Calyx feels deeply indebted to Clover for all of her support throughout their lives.

Calyx is the collective term for sepals, a part of a plant that functions to protect the flower in bloom. (Portrait: female, redhead.)

Patrick, Dancer: childhood friend to both Clover and Calyx, also an orphan. Gay, maybe a little slutty. Definitely likes to have fun. Developed in a different way from Calyx in response to their environment; because he lacked discipline growing up, he isn’t too responsible and doesn’t tend to take things seriously. To everyone’s surprise, it was his idea to head for Tharsis and seek Yggdrasil. Although he pitched it to Clover as a way to help the increasingly poverty-stricken orphanage where they grew up, his real reason is tied to the boy he likes, Leif.

Patrick is named for Saint Patrick, who is strongly associated with the shamrock, a type of clover. The shamrock may have also been associated with the regenerative powers of nature; as a Dancer, Patrick is the party’s only healer. (Portrait: male, purple hair.)

Leif, Nightseeker: with a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other, Leif is Trefoil’s deadliest member. He seems to have had some training in combat before the beginning of the journey. However, his background is shrouded in mystery. He came to Clover’s village badly injured, barely kept alive by his sister, Kura. As he was tended to by Clover, Calyx, and Patrick, he became especially close with Patrick, and disclosed that he and his sister were on their way to Tharsis to seek out Yggdrasil. However, he would not explain why. He shared that he intended to head out again once he was healthy; Patrick did not see this ending well and offered to accompany him, soon roping his friends into it as well. Leif is a stoic figure, but occasionally lets his guard down and shows his true tenderness and sensitivity. He grows closer with Patrick by the day, but is nonetheless still guarded with him.

The name Leif is most closely associated with Leif Erikson, a Norse explorer who sought new lands. It also recalls a leaf, in keeping with our plant theme. (Portrait: male, red coat.)

Kura, Runemaster: Leif’s sister, who is even more taciturn than he is. Her greatest show of emotion seen by the party thus far was in the moments they first met, when she begged them to save Leif’s life. Since then, she has shown nary a smile. That said, she is very perceptive. This aids her in combat, as she is talented in reading the enemy, but she can also glean a lot about a person’s nature just by watching them. Like Leif, she comes to the group with prior training, showing great prowess with elemental magic. Also like Leif, she refuses to share anything deeper about herself. She shares her brother’s goals, but will not reveal them.

Named for the kura clover, or Trifolium ambiguum, a type of clover that is mostly white with red underneath, a similar colour scheme to her portrait art. (Portrait: female, short blue hair.)

(EOIV portraits can be viewed here, for reference.)

[reconditarmonia]

Dear Yuletide Writer

Hello, lovely writer!

I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3 (and have been since LJ days, but my LJ is locked down and I only have a DW to see locked things).

General likes:

-- Relationships that aren’t built on romance or attraction. They can be romantic or sexual as well, but my favorite ships are all ones where it would still be interesting or compelling if the romantic component never materialized.

-- Loyalty kink, whether commander-subordinate or comrades-in-arms, and the trust associated with it. Sometimes-but-not-always relatedly, idealism. I guess the two combined might be, in general, the idea of nobility of character and what that means.

-- Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.

-- Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff.

-- Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.

-- Uniforms/costumes/clothing.

-- Stories, history, and performance. What gets told and how, what doesn’t get told or written down, behavior in a society where everyone’s consuming media and aware of its tropes, how people create their personas and script their own lines.

-- Eucatastrophe.

General DNW: rape/dubcon, torture, other creative gore; Christmas/Christian themes; unrequested AUs, including “same setting, different rules” AUs such as soulmates/soulbonds; PWP; food sex.

Fandom: Dòu Máah Dáan | Peking Opera Blues (1986) 

Characters: Tsao Wan

This film is so much MORE than I ever dreamed. More hilarious, more shippy, more dramatic. I think what I want most from this fandom is something on a similar emotional scale - not necessarily something where the plot itself has a national or international scope, but something that has room for opera slapstick, corpse puppetry, and torture; material concerns, and high aspirations; saving each other’s lives, and having sleepovers. Thematically, I’m really interested in the way the film shows friendship and familial love sometimes dovetailing with ethics and ideological goals and sometimes conflicting with them, and in the various ways women can find, or seek, their own independence.

Tsao Wan is the only character I’ve put in my request. I was fully expecting to come out of the film with femslash ships, and instead I have a big OT5 and a huge crush on Brigitte Lin (okay, that part I could see coming), so I’d be happy with any combination of the main five, including the two men, who were not nominated, as long as Tsao Wan is there. Some combination possibilities: how do any of them meet up again after the events of the film, whether by chance - do Bai Niu and/or Sheung Hung happen to be making a tour stop somewhere Tsao Wan has a mission? does Tsao Wan and Ling’s work take them near Tung’s village farm? - or intentionally - how would a new opera about Tsao Wan and Ling’s exciting adventures be created by Bai Niu and/or Sheung Hung, in terms of research and role creation? Or maybe Tsao Wan needs Bai Niu’s skills for a mission. In fact, maybe she needs everyone’s skills for a mission. Recruitment road trip! Some solo possibilities: what was Tsao Wan’s time in Europe like? Was she involved in any political activity there? What does she do post-film as History continues? In anything set post-film, I’d like to know that all five characters are important to each other, even if they’re not actually in the fic and/or sexually involved.

If you want to get really plotty, I love heist and con stuff like Leverage, Ocean’s Eleven (remake), and The Italian Job (original), where there’s a Plan with steps and roles, and then it plays out. If straight-up casefic isn’t your style, it could be fun to throw some shippy tropes at this canon (fake marriage where Tsao Wan is pretending to be the husband? hurt/comfort or sickfic? hell, I’d read accidental baby acquisition), but tropey stuff is not necessary - I’m just trying to throw out some ideas to get things moving. Ideally there’d be at least a figleaf of plot in the background, even if it’s not casefic.

Fandom-specific DNW: Explicit references to torture are still a hard DNW (I covered my eyes during the scene in question when watching the film), but I recognize it’s part of canon and consequently might be part of the world of the fic. If someone is tortured or creatively executed in your story, it’s fine to mention it but I do not want to know how.

---

Fandom: Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

Characters: Bathsheba Everdene

I didn’t nominate this and it didn’t occur to me that it would be in the tagset, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it! One thing that always sticks in my mind about this novel is the way Hardy calls Bathsheba “the young farmer” just as he refers to the men as farmers - which, just saying, is more than most people writing about this story can do - and so, that being the case, what I’m most interested in is something about Bathsheba as farmer. One day in the life or four seasons in the life or five plantings/harvests in the life, or pseudo-academic fic about a case study of a woman farmer in the Victorian era, or a conflict between the farm and nature that Bathsheba has to decide how to solve.

Feel free to bring in the other nominated characters or other major characters if it suits what you’re trying to do, but what I’m really looking for is a focus on Bathsheba’s work, determination, and process of learning. I’d also love to read something like a merchant ship AU (as the first alternate setting that came to mind where it would be not exactly the done thing for her to captain her inherited ship and make commercial decisions herself - although I do have to point out that contrary to popular belief, there were a lot of women on shipboard in the age of sail, may this be useful - but also where nature and luck/fate are as influential as they are in the original setting), or something in which the land, superstition, and ritual were more overtly magical.

---

Fandom: 月刊少女野崎くん | Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

Characters: Kashima Yuu, Nozaki Umetarou

Pick a trope. Have them fuck it up.

That’s one of the things that makes me love this canon - the simultaneous send-up of and indulgence in tropes, in a very good-natured way. (Another way I’ve described its genre: “nothing happens, but very dramatically.” Everything is shocking or devastating or the pinnacle of bliss.) Kashima and Nozaki are two of the characters whose propensity to do this is most likely to set a story in motion, due to Nozaki’s experimentation/observation for his manga and Kashima’s princely self-fashioning and going 120% on everything; I also love Kashima’s bifauxnen-ness, acting talent, and earnest failboating, and the way that Nozaki could have been written as a tall-dark-handsome-stoic cipher guy and instead is just as quirky as anyone else. That said, this is an OR request, not an AND, and I’d also be happy to read stories about pretty much anyone from the nominated tagset (except Mikoshiba or Mayu; I don’t know Mayu very well because I originally got into this through the anime, and Mikoshiba just isn’t my fave, although I have no objection to his appearing in the story).

There are all sorts of lists out there of common shoujo(/romcom/fanfic) tropes if you’re not sure where to start. And, because Nozaki is all about subverting gendered characterization and role-boxing, and also about people trying to make their lives conform to narrative, go ahead and apply those tropes to whichever characters you feel would be the most interesting or fun. Feel free to pick non-high-school-setting ones, too, if there's magical/historical/high-society shoujo you want to see them tackle, or to take a play that Kashima (and whoever else) is involved in as a jumping-off point.

As you may have gathered, I love the way the canon plays with romance tropes, but I would prefer no overt Shipfic. If you’d like to include a ship, whether slash/femslash or het, I’d like for it to be handled without much seriousness, and for friendship with characters who aren’t part of the ship to be a significant part of the fic, as per canon. I do really like the show’s variety of friendships between characters of different temperaments, interests, and sexes.

If you’re really getting a “why don’t you just rewatch/reread the canon, reconditarmonia” vibe off this, which I’m kind of giving myself, you could try sex comedy future fic? Give them magical powers? What I’m most interested in, wherever you go with this, is the playing-with-tropes thing.

Fandom-specific DNW: I love Hori and Kashima’s relationship, but I’d strongly prefer that her feelings for him not be written as overtly romantic. High levels of ambiguity/intensity/tropey-ness are fine and great.

---

Fandom: Monstrous Regiment - Terry Pratchett

Characters: Any (Alice “Wazzer” Goom, Jack Jackrum, Magda “Tonker” Halter, Maladict, Polly “Ozzer” Perks, Tilda “Lofty” Tewt)

Give me all the loyalty kink for this fandom. Characters rescuing each other from peril, risking their reputation or position or ethics to defend each other, accomplishing the impossible or sacrificing things without even thinking twice because one trusts the other’s orders or judgment. Or A not going off the leash or into danger to defend B because B said not to, to protect A’s conscience or life or reputation. Can be romantic or platonic - I ship Polly/Mal and Tonker/Lofty, but I would also be delighted with Polly&Jackrum, Wazzer&Polly, or other non-romantic twosomes or moresomes in situations of loyalty and trust. Maybe Polly sends Mal on a dangerous mission, or Tonker is captured after she and Lofty burn down another place where women and girls are being abused, or Polly protects Jackrum’s secret/s from someone who could reveal them, or Wazzer ends up in the field again with the general’s retinue and Polly and Mal rescue her from danger (or vice versa!!). What strengths or sacrifices do they have at their disposal for each other?

Pratchett-esque voices would be great. He’s really, really good at sucker-punching the reader with sincerity in an overall satiric mode, and I think that style lends itself well to this sort of thing.

I’m not going to lie, Polly is my fave. I like that this could have been a generic coming-of-age or women-in-war story, where the protagonist learns that she’s brave or worthwhile and then the crisis is past, but instead Polly learns that she’s a cunning bastard and a hell of a sergeant, and being a one-off hero in a country that’s at peace and making slow social progress isn’t good enough for her. That said, just because I’m better able to articulate what I like about Polly doesn’t mean I’d be less excited for fic about anyone else! I think that’s something I’d want to explore for any of the characters who enlist in the course of the story - what are these women good at? What lets them fulfill their potential? What do they want when their hand isn’t being forced? Or for Jackrum, who’s already gone through that whole process by the time the story begins, any more backstory would be fabulous.

If you’re going the Polly/Mal route, I also love ludicrous levels of sexual tension in a military context (I think it’s the unavoidable proximity + the presence of others making it hard to act on it).

Fandom-specific DNW: vampire romance tropes (such as turning and/or immortality) as focus; non-female pronouns/headcanons.

--

Fandom: Simoun (Anime)

Characters: Any (Aaeru, Dominuura, Halconf, Mamiina, Neviril, Paraietta, Plumbish Priestesses, Rodoreamon)

Simoun somehow ended up being a really weirdly meaningful show to me. I loved how all these women got to be flawed and fucked-up, noble and loyal. How, in the mold of all my favorite epic shoujo anime, it starts off beautiful and fine and then Shit Gets Very Real and that’s actually one of the themes of the show - we had a little debate a few weeks ago on FFA as to whether or not Simoun was a military canon, and the fact that circumstances have remade a team of priestesses in fancy quarters and magic flying machines who are there to pray to God, put off their choice of sex, use their talents, maintain or claw their way into a social position, into a military force involved in a war - that’s an idea that the characters themselves struggle with in the show. (Neviril’s scene in the hearing is one of my favorites.) How everyone gets character development, in the sense of learning and changing, and even what seem like annoying mandatory straight subplots actually end up serving that thematic or character development, to say nothing of the more focal relationships between the leads (not just Neviril and Aeru, but also Mamiina and Rodoreamon, Neviril and Paraietta...)

I’d really like to read a fic where an individual character’s development or two characters’ relationship is similarly tied in to plot developments; it doesn’t have to be a plotty fic as such, but I was very interested in the way the developments of the war and the pilots/priestesses’ actions in it precipitated changes in their relationships. So how might Neviril and Aeru’s relationship develop in the other world (what are they doing?), or Mamiina and Rodoreamon’s on the Messis when they’re not the narrative focus before Mamiina’s last mission and the braid thing? (Or if this is more your speed, dig into that and see how a character grows or the relationship between characters develops when that’s not being moved along by outside events in the same way, especially if they’re aware of that being an issue. When Neviril and Aeru are outside the normal flow of time, or Paraietta and Rodoreamon are civilians, for example.) I’m also interested in all the permutations of loyalty we see in the show - like loyalty to a position over loyalty to a side (as with the Plumbish priestesses’ siding with our Sibyllae), loyalty that develops before liking or friendship, the devoted loyalty to Neviril. I like the show’s military themes despite its magical-girl visuals. I think this is also a canon where it would make sense for sexual first times to be part of a fic - what does that mean for the characters you choose?

I should also say that due to all the magic and timespace warping in the show, I am more than okay with post-canon fic that gets characters back together who were separated by canon, if that’s what you want. You can resurrect Mamiina, or have Neviril and Aeru visit the main reality/timeline again. Or play with timespace even more - time loop fic? (Edit: This didn’t even occur to me until I found out about the IF post, but this fandom might lend itself to interactive fiction, too.)

[avoresmith]

More writing musing. This is very self indulgent so let’s just put it under a cut.

I feeeel... very good, I think.

I honestly always feel a little weird talking about my own art, since I have a naturally high amount of self confidence. It’s hard to not rate my feelings against other people’s feelings, but my ability to perform (in this case, write) does very little to impact myself worth. So when I don’t write up to my standards for a few months I feel bad, but not as bad as I see others expressing they feel, I guess.

So saying I feel good isn’t really like ‘before, I felt very bad, but now it’s okay again’. I feel good because I’ve been taking a serious look at my work and while I don’t think I’m great by any measure, I’m developing a better eye for my strengths and flaws, I feel more confident and capable in my direction.

I take a lot of peace and pleasure in knowing that small changes accumulate to large improvement, and I am fortunate enough to have the stability in my life that I don’t worry much about sudden harsh impacts undoing my efforts. And three solid months of writing every day (and three more months of not writing a lot but writing some and putting in efforts to read and examine good work by others) has me feeling like I Can Do This.

I can keep writing, keep improving, I can handle the flaws in my older work and enjoy the small gains I make via working on a daily basis. 

I don’t know what it feels like to Achieve, exactly. 150k words of fanfic is nice at all but LBR, anyone who has been writing regularly for more than a year knows that is also sort of nothing. It’s just a starting point, it’s a healthy kick off. One I didn’t even achieve until I was 30, so lol.

But I dunno. I’m a very structured and patterned, plan of attack and execute with respect to my own energy levels sort of person. And now I feel like I have a good idea of what I am capable of and what I can expect from it. 

I did definitely go a little crazy with the possibilities back in November, lol. So I have accepted that All The Other Stuff has to take a bit of a backseat if I want to finish what I have started, and I DO want to finish what I have started. 

I am planning to do some writing for an original thing because I really want to start a web comic this year, but I’ll be surprised if I need to write more than one chapter of that before Truce is done. 

I find examining my own work for how it could be improved really fun! It is a little frustrating to know I won’t actually be ‘fixing’ it, because Truce was always meant to be a practice. But it helps immensely with what to expect from when I write again. And I guess, it’s nice? To be like ‘oh, this is where you have made a mistake’, so I have clear guidelines on how to improve.

There was a comic that was running around on Tumblr a while back, where the artist talked about how they knew their comic had a lot of weak points, because they were really just focused on a few very specific things, like on pacing and conveying emotion. And I sort of went into Truce with that in mind, tho I started with even less, haha. “Just write” became “Only write things that further the plot” became “also now try to use slightly more interesting language” and then “now try to pay a bit of attention to chapter structure” and “now try to pay attention to arc structure”. These are all still really basic things I would expect anything I take time out of my life to read to do from the get go, so there is really nothing special about it. But I guess starting with the assumption that I would be less than special was very liberating. And as I feel a bit better about managing the basics I can add new basics! And I can look back and see how ignoring half of the basics at the beginning made the work a lot weaker.

I’m currently up to ‘now plan out scenes before you write them’ which I am going to turn into ‘now plan out the entire arc before you start it’! This is very exciting as I have been struggling with his exact thing for a while. And what I seem to be finding is a mix of Actually Just Write Whatever You Want and then Plan Ahead and then Back Up and Delete All That Unnecessary Shit seems best? It is difficult for me to plan ahead because I don’t always know the character’s minds and they need to be allowed to change. Character’s headspace is basically the top thing people tell me they enjoy about my work, and I don’t want to lose that. But it makes it hard to plan if you Haven’t Written A Lot To Know The Character Really Well and also aren’t willing to let the scene change according to the character’s headspace. But I feel like if I keep writing I have a good chance of finding a balance between staying true to the iterations of characters I create while also being able to work ahead so that ... well. Look. being able to work ahead is real important if you want any sort of plot complexity to come thru, lol. Not to mention nice things like stories with interesting story construction.

(One of the fics I read would advance the plot in two different timelines separated by about 20 years for each chapter, so that you were kind of effectively following two stories but they were also the same story? It dovetailed really beautifully and I can never do anything like that while I can only write what is immediately in front of me.)

Anyway! I am talking myself in circles like I tend to do when I just have a lot of Feelios. But basically. I feel good. I feel like I can do things and be better and potential is within my grasp and this is nice. 

One last thing, that I probably should have said first but lol.

I started writing Truce because my cat was dying. My original work was falling thru and I didn’t have the heart to drag myself back to it but due to how much work I’d put into making writing part of my life, it was easier to write about Whatever than it was to not. I just needed to toss myself into something and get some nice words in return for my efforts.

The start of Truce really isn’t very good. I don’t think I would have read it and recommended it to anyone, haha. It has some Good Qualities but I’m very picky and expect others to be. 

But I don’t think I would’ve kept writing without people’s kind words, without people engaging with me on Tumblr. I don’t feel like I need a lot of attention but I do need some, it hurts to put a lot of work into something and for none one to care. 

I’ve thought a lot about criticism and AO3 over these last few months. When I was GROWING UP ON THE INTERWEBS it was given that you were expected to want and be happy to get criticism, and it was common to hand it out, sometimes pretty blistering stuff! If you weren’t okay with that I guess it looked like you didn’t take your work seriously. I gave out some pretty heavy criticism.

You don’t see that much on AO3, and honestly I get a little bristly when I do see it (and I get frustrated with myself when I find myself doing it to any degree). And I... like this? I dunno.

I am someone who has a lot of self confidence but I still think I wouldn’t have kept writing if people had pointed out the flaws I see in my own work now. I was just writing because I was sad about my dying cat and pleased I could do something that others were supporting even if it was very self indulgent.

And I’m very happy I kept writing, I have having A Lot of Thoughts about Me and Writing and My Future and other such things that I am pretty excited about.

And I’m just really really grateful, I guess, is what I’m trying to get at here. At all of the casually delivered kindness and support I got at just the right time to kick me off toward feeling genuinely empowered in my life in an area I’ve always WANTED to have power but I’ve been struggling to really get a handle on for many years.

I should probably one day try to figure out how to put this to words in a more visible manner, lol, instead of at the end of a lengthy ramble.

But really, really thanks. For all of the encouragement and engagement. It’s meant the world to me.