#its such terrible characterization

[yellowocaballero]

At this point you've written at least four different roleswap AUs, so I was wondering if you had any thoughts or takes about how a roleswap AU should be? - someone who's planning on making a roleswap AU

Please don't remind me. I'm embarrassed about this. I know I need to write other things. I don't know why the AU concept is so incredibly fun to write. I can't explain it. Roleswaps are very easy to write and a lot of fun and involve being a freak about everything. Who wouldn't write 10 of those bitches.

But yes, as someone whose roleswap AUs are like 9 out of her 51 fics, I feel qualified to talk about this. These are just my own opinions and takes, and other people might do it differently - if you write roleswaps too, feel free to add in your two cents!!

Before sitting down to write literally anything I always figure out the rules of the story. Writing is little more than a nonstop series of decisions, and if you abide by the rules of your story or characters then your decisions will be coherent and cohesive. By rules I don't mean worldbuilding - I mean the internal logic of the story and the characters. "X character will never explicitly say how he's feeling" or "the leads have to both win and lose every encounter".

I find establishing writing rules for roleswaps especially important - it's figuring out exactly how the roleswap works. Here are the ones that I find important, and kind of the process:

Decide what is swapped. Is it more of a universal swap, personality swap, backstory swap, chronology swap, or alignment swap? No matter which one you choose, all of these things are probably going to change anyway, but there has to be one central point for each character that guides your decisions. Are you actually swapping the narrative role in the story, or are you just changing it? You have to be really precise and have a very good idea of what exactly is swapped, and it has to be consistent throughout the story. It can't just (just) work on what you'd like to see, it has to be exactly the same between characters.

Decide the point of divergence. Sometimes that point is pretty abstract (She's a teenager in the 90s instead of the 20s). Sometimes it's much more specific, just one moment (He developed his superpowers at this moment instead of that). The point doesn't have to be immediately obvious, but you should know it - I did a backstory swap ages ago, and it seemed like a complete change, but like 150k in I dropped that a character dropped out of the police academy instead of completing it and that her entire life changed from there. If the swap is more abstract, then maybe it's just a series of smaller decisions - character A has these seminal points in his story, and I'm swapping him with character B, so here's what character B did during these seminal points instead, and how it changed him and his narrative.

Decide who the character is. This might be more personal, but for me, I think of the character as...there is a central tenet of them, of who they are as a person, that does not change no matter what. That's three or four traits of who they are, that you will not change, and that's what makes their swapped life their own instead of the OG dude's. But there's a lot of traits and behaviors around that core personality that's the result of their environment, backstory, and experiences. That's what should change. It's about figuring out how these essential traits + what is swapped + the point of divergence = an entirely different character and story. The roleswap you'll end up with will be a combination of all of these things: how the essential aspects of a character mix with what's swapped to create an entirely new environment and set of behaviors, which cause a chain reaction to create something new. As a writer, you sit down and say, "I'm keeping these parts of the character, I'm swapping out those parts, this new mix changes these points in their backstory, this results in this new person".

This is more of a guideline, but it's the most important to me: your characters have to be recognizable as the character. The reader shouldn't go, "this OC is making some weird choices". The reader should go, "I don't know how, because he's the exact opposite of his canon self in every possible way, but somehow he still feels like my favorite character". This is why you isolate those basic traits before changing the rest - so long as your character is still who they are deep inside, then they still feel like that character. And that's the fun of the story. You're selling something insane, and the reader is buying it.

It's a lot of really heavy character work. You have to really understand the characters you're writing - the less I get the original character, the more issues I'm perpetually having. I tend to fly fast and loose with characterizations, but when writing roleswaps I have to refer back to canon and the source material a lot ("In canon he did X thing, with his newly different backstory how would that decision change?"). The more you're rooted in canon, then the funkier and more divergent you can get.

Personally, I like to play a fun little game I call: how exactly opposite can I make this character until he stops feeling like this character? I Sometimes my goal in writing is "how deeply can I ruin this story". This is not a good game and people should not play it. I find that the lazier I get about getting in touch with the canon character, about keeping track of the canon decisions, and about following these guidelines, then the more difficult a story is to write. If you structure a story well then it's easy to write, and roleswaps are pretty easy. Thanks for the question!

[mumpsetc]

The Thing About Cabby is None of Her Actions are Out of Line No Matter How Much the Narrative Wants Us to Believe That But Even if They Were Inexcusable Her Files, Which are Repeatedly Pointed At As Synecdoche for "The Problem With Cabby", are Canonically Disability Aids So Actually Everyone Needs to Grow the Fuck Up About Them.

[fragmentofmemories]

while i was drawing characters for [REDACTED] i was thinking "hey i should probably draw a maid with short, purple hair and have her be the innkeeper."

then i remembered eou did that and i've never sulked so hard before...

[themyscirah]

Okay friends a question for you all:

May be unfair of me to put Philippus here because she has like 200+ more appearances than the next most character so she'll probably sweep but I want her here so idc 🤷‍♀️

[collieii]

saw this at a museum today and ik im crazy but.....is it just me or is this so vashwood

[symbioticsimplicity]

The only way the soul lore works for me as a source of guilt is if vampires can choose *not* to be evil. If they're just mindless demons who take over a host's body after they die, it makes no sense to feel guilty about the actions taken after that.

The demon isn't a separate thing, the person is still who they were when they died, demons just don't have inhibitions. So whatever it is they *want*, they do. Whatever it is that is the core of that person wants most is what is exemplified most in their demon form.

So in Angel's case, the guilt comes from not only having wanted those things and having done them, but from *having had the option not to.*

[mekatrio]

well regardless of everything kgpr will always be the best exploration of abuse/trauma in neurodivergent children in media to meee 🧡

[quietbluejay]

you know, I was not expecting it to be DORN who was the "reflection of my worst personality traits dialed up to 11"

Blunt force damage is not enough, I need to use a meat tenderizer on him, the one with little spikes coming out of it.

[llycaons]

this fic I'm reading for bedtime is so fun in how it mirrors canon bc myu and jfm die and it's a modern au but wwx still handles everything, like he does all the paperwork and makes all the arrangements, partially bc he's a mortician so he knows how but also because he feels responsible and jc and jyl really aren't capable of doing it themselves. and that did happen in canon. bc wwx IS the responsible one, the one who's status is entirely dependent on which member of the family you ask

also when it talks about jc sobbing until he's sick when he sees myu's body bc he's a momma's boy...that's so real. this author gets jc really well I think. doesn't woobify or villainize him. he'a careless yet secretly sensitive asshole who ultimately means well. it's perhaps a kinder and less messy portrayal than other authors would give, but it's also a different setting and situation. and under less extreme circumstances where wwx and jc didn't have such monumental and dramatic pressures on them, and their parents' mistreatment of them wasn't so painfully plot-relevant, and they were more free to walk away from each other if they needed to, and they weren't forced into multiple wars at young ages, and they didn't have the bullshit of cultivation society and politics to deal with, maybe their relationship would look this close and positive

[dthclws]

hi ive been offline a hot moment. did i tell you i got the entirety of red robin 2009 in single issues cus uhm well i did. do that. im normal abt that guy

LMAOO... in single issues is the funniest part you are so normal about tim <3 but no red robin 2009 is genuinely very good and tim is great in it i forget sometimes that i do love his canon stuff a lot

[bumblingbabooshka]

Stopping myself from watching more SNW (specifically the Spock meet-the-inlaws ep) until I've finished my work carrot-on-a-stick style but I've been thinking about it so much that one of my dreams last night was about the potential plot.

[desidarling123]

Ever get in ur feels abt that one clearly-deleted SAB S2 scene from the bloopers where Kaz is telling Jesper "Fifth Harbor is our future"

OUR FUTURE *OUR FUTURE*

BITCH IM GOING FERAL

(honorary) brothers and now business partners abt to take over ruling ketterdam TOGETHER!!

SHOW!KAZ HONEY UR DOING SO GOOD MWAH

I could write a 5000 word essay on how much I love Show!Kaz and Show!Jesper's dynamic it's crazy

[wonder-worker]

What are your favorite Plantagenet-related novels, and why do you love them?

Hi! I'm so sorry, I don't read lots of medieval English historical fiction, and the ones I have read are pretty terrible (three guesses which).

Once again: sorry! If anyone else has any recommendations, feel free to share them!

[no-thanks-bro]

RE4 REMAKE IS A MASTERPIECE AHHXJCKVKELCKEOCMEOFNEFOENDNFBWMDSNFKEKCKWKSKWKSKKW

[volunruud]

ladies can we please stop being so obsessed with book accuracy... sometimes a book and the show/movie adaptation are just separate stories... and thats okay :) if u want book accuracy just read the book maybe

also a movie is the collection of many different forms of self expression and interpretation... from the director, the actors, the set designers and costumers etc etc etc

as long as it stays true to its original messages and themes and characterizations then i say its fine...

[play-fellow]

i think there's a persistent phrasing in the wh tags thats buggin me about the answer pages. people tend to say that wally is being excluded from the conversations ongoing, but i cannot stress enough i don't think that's the case. for one, the tapes cut into a snippet from an activity that wally was already part of-- his presence is known and enjoyed by the others there. further, all of the tapes end with someone talking to him (as if waking him up? i would wager that hes dissociating and that's what's allowing us to see through his eyes here). he's not being excluded, and his quietness is never questioned *because* he's not especially talkative to begin with! in the surface level stuff including him with others, he doesn't talk all that much! he participates in activities quietly, and his friends don't expect anything more of him! it's! just! autism! it's autism all the way down!!!