#look she's not my ABSOLUTE favorite character (she's up there though) but I've drawn her the most out of anyone

[enigmatic-enigmas]

i don't know about you guys, but i don't think i believe him

[pretzlforpresident]

What are your thoughts on the sonic manga?(I know you’ve made and reblogged art for it so you like it to some degree) but I’d still like to hear what you have to say on it. Is there anything that interests you in particular about it? Do you have any headcanons or ideas around it?

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THANK YOU FOR ASKING!!!

I really like the sonic mangas and think they are a corner of the sonic canon that needs to be discussed more. I think I find myself drawn to them partly because of their obscurity and that there are some interesting ideas in them that you don't see much of anywhere else in the franchise.

I've got some ideas spinning around in my brain for general ideas, things I've noticed, and headcanons, so here are a few!

I think that Nicky would be fun to fit into Sonic's arc growing up and becoming a hero! I have an idea I am currently working on that I need to organize my thoughts for, but Nicky being unaware that he is a hero, eventually realizing that he is, and growing because of it is something I want to explore possibly in a future au of sorts. From what I understand by reading as much of the manga as I could find around, Sonic has been around for a while, sort of as a literal force of good. When Nicky turns into him, I think it's interesting how even though he's doing good and being a hero, he still is basically possessing the body of some kid who is unaware of these actions. The main character of a superhero story being unaware that they are a hero is a concept that I don't think is very common(at least not that I've seen), so there's a tricky balance of morality at play here that could be interesting to see!

Tania/Anita is one of my favorite characters probably in the whole franchise. Remember, it’s Tania’s world. You’re just living in it. Tania or die.

Paulie, being a pilot, taught Nicky about planes when he was young and how to care for them as a bonding thing. I think it would be cute if Sonic eventually passed on this information to Tails as a Parallel. I’ve been seeing a lot of people recently drawing sonic older, and one thing that I absolutely love is when they give him some scruff on his chin because I think subconsciously “omg he looks like Paulie…"

I think Shadow and Tania should be friends. Like, Tania trying to keep up to shadow in his air shoes while she roller blades, then Shadow giving her skating lessons. Making fun of Sonic together(playfully). Maybe that’s just me though

Sonic was classically trained on violin and now plays the guitar? Hilarious. I need him to have gifted kid burnout.

That's all I can think of right now! once again thank you for asking :D

[milgramfessing]

I've sent two negative confessions and one positive one, I need to balance that out lmao Uh, this is very obvious from my profile picture, but I love Kotoko. She is one of my favorite fictional characters ever. I'm like, kind of surprised a character like her even exists, a character that is so unbelievably fucked up in terms of their morality and beliefs but is not only treated humanely by the narrative, but has people actively sympathizing with her and wishing she would become better. Like that's something that can exist?? Besides that, I love her shamelessly corny-ass 2010s edgy-ass design and all of her funny little outfits, I love how Aimi voice acts her (especially in Yonah, she was crazy for that shit), I love how she is presented in general in terms of how she's drawn because she either looks badass or a wet cat on the street and I love it I love how when you pull back all the curtains, Kotoko Yuzuriha is just a regular ass girl who felt dissatisfied with the state of the world and wanted to fix it, but ended up getting sucked into fascist-adjacent ideologies in the process. I love how relatable she is in her desire to fix a broken world because it makes her actions in the story so much more compelling and leaves you questioning if you too are capable of Doing That (spoiler alert: you are). A question that echoes through every character in Milgram, but especially Kotoko I love her relationships with the other characters, my favorite to think about being her relationship with Fuuta. I could write a whole other confession on how I view their relationship but it would require four different trigger warnings and I'm not quite sure the rules of this place so for now I'll just say I fucking love how they both clearly know that they're the same person in a different font but neither will ever fully admit it. I also love her dynamic with Es and how she projects her dream of a world where wrongdoers are served justice onto them and forces her values onto them, how she clearly loves them, but also has no problem targeting them where it hurts and manipulating them if it means getting what she wants. That also applies to her relationships with the rest of the prisoners by the way, she straight-up admits that she is fond of the other prisoners, yet she will still abuse them in pursuit of her goals, which is fucking TASTY I eat that shit up so bad I love how Kotoko's family-life mimics the standard nuclear family structure, with a breadwinner father, a housewife mother, and two kids, because it not only hints to Kotoko's generally traditional beliefs, but by her grandma also being included in her family structure, which (though depends on the culture) isn't typical for nuclear families, it goes to show how these dynamics can still be present even if the mold is not filled exactly. Also as a younger sibling, I like that Kotoko is canonically the youngest in her family, I think its cute I love her role in the narrative as a parallel to the prison itself and the ideologies it as a facility is built upon, and how all of it contributes into how Milgram critiques punitive justice and its unhelpful-ness when it comes to actually serving justice to criminals which I fucking looove, and I especially love how in that aspect, just like Es is the stand-in protagonist, you could call Kotoko the stand-in antagonist. She represents all of the ideals of the prison, it's black-and-white mentality, it's bigotry (ableism), the dichotomy of a good person versus a bad person, and how all of it is the main obstacle standing in the way of the prisoners achieving actual redemption, understanding, and clarity, or as we call it: The Therapy Option. I love how I have met so many people who think exactly like her, showing that Yamanaka was absolutely successful in his goal of making the characters feel like real people with 2-dimensional physical appearances. And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head !! In general, I just love her. Look at her, she is so silly

literally the silliest woman ever !! look at her !! No matter how her character climaxes in trial 3, whether she gets worse (please let her get worse its entertaining) or she gets better, I will love her all the same Thank you, Yamanaka, for making this incredibly silly woman lmao I am so sorry for when you get this in your inbox

there are no rules about confessions; I'll post anything. && no worries I love reading longer confessions !!

[murmew]

i wonder if you read carved in ivory by minroll (tk14 main ship and in a normie AU)

if you don't ehe provided both title and author, let me hear your thoughts soon!

Haha, I'm actually quite a big fan of minroll 🤤 (been following his progress since his first work), so naturally I've read all his works thus far. Though I definitely have favorites amongst them.

minroll's strength as a writer lies in his character writing and powerful imagery. There are several excerpts that I find absolutely amazing. Favorites so far being:

Chapter 1:

Then, there’s another joke. Vertin laughs, and her face is like the moon. The room brightens just a little, light falling on Sonetto’s face like a murmur. It sounds like a dream; Sonetto in that dreamscape, sketching on a page, her pencil scratching a wound into the paper. Graphite blood on the side of her hand, trickling down her arm. It feels too warm, too familiar—she’s so scared of looking at what she’s drawn and seeing it gaze back at her, the weight of its stare real yet intangible.

.

Chapter 2:

Everything feels fuzzy, like Vertin’s senses are under a blanket. The evening fog is so thick that it mutes all the colours around her, smudging the sky and horizon into a puddle of grey. It’s raining. She knows this because of how the droplets fall onto her, seeping into her hair and dripping down her collar. Her hat is on the ground. It must have fallen earlier, but she makes no move to pick it up. If she reaches down, the fog will swallow her up. “Do you trust me?” The scent of wood. Someone beside her, warm and comforting. She knows this person. They hold her hand, lightly at first, as if asking for permission. Their hand is trembling. Vertin gives them a reassuring squeeze, turning to look at them. Their face is blurry, but she sees them smile at the gesture; a grateful glimmer in the haziness. They’re holding her hand tightly now, like Vertin is the centre of their entire world, where it ends and begins.

.

Chapter 4:

Here is where it happens, in the basement where people are packed so tightly that everyone becomes one whole body: limbs moving in unison, breaths shared in the same space. The same heart beating through them. Vertin has never been this close to another person before, where the line between them blurs and she can’t tell herself apart from Sonetto. Oh, Vertin thinks. Her face feels like it’s been touched by the sun. Oh, Vertin realizes. Sonetto could become someone she loves.

In terms of the fic so far, with chapter 6, I'm not too captivated, but it could be attributed to "calm before the storm", since the teased major conflicts (besides Vertin's conflict with herself thus far) have yet to be fully explored and fleshed out.

I'm most interested in Sonetto's conflict with her family, and am very curious as to what her parents would think of Vertin 🤔. The warm familial situation Vertin has is clearly meant to serve as a parallel and contrast to Sonetto's, so far described as, cold family. I'd really love to see just how big of a difference there is, and how the meeting goes when the time comes (mostly interested in Vertin's reaction).

The parallel world and soulmate concept is also something I love, but I don't think it's being explored much, at least, it's not a major plot point besides some extra food and reasoning for their attraction to one another.

Anyway, the story thus far has a lot of room for drama, and I'm all for it. With how minroll handles emotional beats, I can't help but be excited for what's to come down the line.

PS. For the record I've basically read every fic in the Vertin/Sonetto section on AO3, save for a select few that I couldn't get into. So I'm happy to provide my thoughts on them if anyone is curious

[thisliminalspacedaydreams]

For the fanfic writer asks let’s do M A and R for our names lmaooo

Hellouuu

M: What’s the weirdest AU scenario you’ve ever come up with?  Did it turn into a story?

I think TISAYCTM. I've always loooooooveeddd a good soulmate AU. The Star Wars fandom was overflowing with them, there were SO MANY I couldn't even read them all, but god knows I tried. So I really wanted to write my own little version of soulmates AU but I wanted it to be original and not like the other girls.

I've seen the Hanahaki disease trope, the tattoo trope, the sparks fly when you touch trope, the A/B/O trope, and they're all fun and games, but and I wanted it weirder.

I was reading Plato's Symposium at the time, and I love aliens, and it kind of started from there, the idea of having monsters/aliens/humans as soulmates and being separated by Gods because of their power, long ago.

And it just...SNOWBALLED into whatever the hell I'm writing now.

A: Of the fanfic you’ve written, which is your favorite and why?

My fave solo fanfic is Heartless, even though she's full of holes and I'm editing her to all hell as we speak because I see all of her flaws and I want to fix her and make her all pretty.

My non solo fave is currently under works and I hope to god we get to release it at some point because it's been something I've been loving for a year, and we recently started writing it and I think it might become my best duo work, when it's done. I hope so anyway.

R: Which writers (fanfic or otherwise) do you consider the biggest influence on you and your writing?

There are a few fics out there that are written in a way that drive me bananas.

Choices is one. @sophsicle writing was the one to push me into writing fiction again. I think they have such a weird effortless beautiful way with words that cannot be replicated. It's so simple but always somehow packs a punch and I don't know many long stories where all the words are needed and everything matters?

Pledge is another by @ellabesmirched. The writing there is also phenomenal and so different from what I've ever seen. I couldn't believe my eyes as I was reading that fic. I was drawn into the world and the characters and I think there is something about how the intentions are rarely really explained, and it leaves a LOT of room for interpretation for the reader, and I love that stuff. I like not being spoon fed my fics.

Annihilation by had me sobbing because the writing is bonkers???????? and I actually will never recover from this fic. NEVER. The companion fic was just as crazy. This line comes from Apocrypha : The man’s eyes are the sort of incomprehensible color that’s only ever mentioned in descriptions of horrors and God.

I don't know what to say. It's insane writing.

Living in border lines and every work by inthesquare @aboutnavi is so criminally underrated. There's an effortless poetry about her writing that strikes me just the right way.

There are SO. MANY. amazing writers everywhere. In all the fandom spaces I've ever been in, there are at least ten or twenty writers who I think are absolute game-changers. These are just off the top of my mind, but that doesn't diminish other writers' worth.

I think the beauty of fanfic writing is that it's so obviously un-edited and so much less palatable than "mainstream" fiction, which makes finding writers that are original and weird and wonderful much more easy than through mainstream books where books are edited to all hell and (imo) all end up looking the same.

I like the rawness of fanfic.

Yes. Give me your brain movies. That you thought up in your mind. While pretending to care about your 9/5 job.

This ask game

[froggyfriendart]

If you want could you possibly. Tell me about your ocs

:O Hey hey I just saw this!! Thank you for taking an interest in them :)

So, my Sky:Children of The Light OCs

These three are Mercymorn, Arcadias, and Ariadne. They're all three of them rogue actors in whatever world they find themselves in, you can't usually figure out what the hell they're doing or why they're actually there. Do not separate them.

Mercy is a fighter, and one filled with pride at that - they can and they will pick fights to prove a point and they get very petty when they don't win. They're 75% sick moves and 25% gremlin bastard. They'd be the type you see standing in the center of a coliseum or acting all heroic with their cape fluttering in the wind, but they're rather silly actually.

Arcadias is a musician, and a traveler. They play the lute. They're extremely curious at heart and though none of them can actually talk, they love asking questions through mimickry and wide gestures. Behaves like a bird. Actually really sweet, prone to playing pranks, sometimes acts rather childish. The cape they have shapeshifts into wings whenever, they think it looks cool. So do I.

Ariadne is a circus performer. They're the one taking the stage, they're the one spinning the stories and making shadow-puppets against the walls. They will strangle you if you talk slander about their performance. They're also really into fortune telling, but will lie (well, lie through gestures and implication) for shits and giggles.

Now, this is Eurwen, she's really cool, she's not with those three but she knows them and tolerates them. This artwork is actually a bit older than most of them but it's one of my favorites. Deadpan, ruthless, I literally made her so I could be gay over her muscles and overly serious butch charm. She's everything to me. Other than Arcadias she's the only character I've ever drawn more than once, because I was working on her character sheet which is as of yet incomplete (like. a lot of my art)

now THIS GUY. he's my specialest little guy, this guy. His name is Lucien Lyfrassir VI. He's in my brain at all times. Fucking shit up and spray painting the walls neon. He wears a cool jacket absolutely covered in neon graffiti-like designs, he wears a cool LED mask/helmet that hides his face, not pictured here. Does Testosterone injections (like. 60% of my characters are transgender. I do make the rules.), his supply is literally a replicator machine that's been replicating the same stuff from centuries ago because it's a pain to hope every new civilization produces it. He jumped into a black hole for fun. Explosions! Mad cackling! Cinematically standing on lamp posts, leaning against walls with dark and dramatic lighting. Fights with gauntlets he built himself. He is also immortal. Absolute vibing. He's just My Guy. AND he's hot. Him and Eurwen are, anachronistically, best friends. God. I fucking love him. His partner is unfortunately not pictured because I haven't drawn him yet. God i care about him.

This is Dreamer. Their flute is named Lullabye (sic), they were first designed to be a bard in DnD and then they sort of morphed into a different kind of character. They're the man in the moon.

There's a lot more but I haven't got any art for them yet and anyway, you're welcome to ask me about them at any time :) I really appreciate you taking the time to let me talk about these guys. I love talking about these guys. I can do it forever.

[zooone]

hello!! I've just found your blog here and I've been really wanting to try and write for wilbur like you do!! though I'm new to writing, could you give me some tips on when you're new to writing? :DD

hi!!!! im so sorry it took me so long to answer this i was trying to gather up as many tips as i could ^_^ im sooo honored that youre asking for my help it makes me so happy!! here's a ton that ive learned just based off my experience, im no like professional and this is all just tips ive accumulated to my style over time 

–one, and i think this is the most crucial in a fanfic setting, but CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS!!! 

when i write, i try to replicate books as best as i can (more on that later), but this is the one thing that a book author could get away with that a fanfic writer cant. 

because your piece is only something that people will find through scrolling and its (more than likely) not a fully fledged book, people are more inclined to click off if you dont IMMEDIATELY captivate them. 

i often see people begin a fic with a couple paragraphs of context (and again this is absolutely no hate to anyone who does this, its just what ive found to work best) which can be interesting if done right, but chances are that readers wont enjoy it if you hand everything to them on a silver platter. they stay engaged when you keep them guessing or predicting. 

and i get thats difficult to do with just a tiny little blurb!! but when i write- no matter if its 100 words or 10k words, i ALWAYS start off with dialogue. quotation marks are the first thing that people are drawn to and i find it catches people's attention more when there's immediate action. 

the exception i have is with the gr!wilbur fic; i tried to set the scene a little bit without giving too much information, and then i started it with one of my favorite starters:

"he stomped away from her on the rooftop as she followed after him."

i remember researching "how to start a book" cuz i was so unmotivated with a blank space, and then i found a video that talked about a book (i cant find the video nor the book) that began with an intro along the lines of this. 

it seems so simple but it does so much. it introduces the main characters (gr!wilbur and angel), shows the setting (rooftop), and sets up a conflict that can keep readers engaged (why is he stomping away from her? why is she following?)

it was such an actually life changing thing to find and its just so creative. 

–two, make sure that youre making it clear whos talking!!

this is a bit more difficult if youre someone like me who doesnt like the you/your or even the i pronouns in fics (idk it just seems too personal to me, i like to think of the reader as a character in itself), but it is still equally as important to establish whose speaking in the text. 

THIS ALSO INCLUDES MAKING A NEW PARAGRAPH FOR NEW PIECES OF DIALOGUE!!!!! 

look at the difference between;

"hey- i didn't expect a hello from you, but a thank you would at least be nice!" she yelled as he speed-walked away with his grumpy walk and stone shoulders. "i'm talking to you!"

"and i'm not," he grumbled, fiddling to put his hood back onto his head as a way of closing himself off. 

"just-" she flapped her wings, trying to be alongside him. "just have some gummy worms, please?" 

and 

"hey- i didn't expect a hello from you, but a thank you would at least be nice!" she yelled as he speed-walked away with his grumpy walk and stone shoulders. "i'm talking to you!" "and i'm not," he grumbled, fiddling to put his hood back onto his head as a way of closing himself off. "just-" she flapped her wings, trying to be alongside him. "just have some gummy worms, please?" 

its the same words and the same text and the same dialogue but the second is just SO compressed and confusing to read "especially if you have a character talk like this" "and then another piece of dialogue with nothing in between" 

another thing i like to do to establish this is have alternating dialogue. this was difficult to do since gr wilbur isnt exactly the talkative type, but i wouldnt make angel speak in one paragraph, and then the next speak again. if that makes sense. 

like this;

"i want you to have them right now," she enunciated her words, crossing her arms and trying to copy his expression. she was fighting her usual bright smile under her pursed lips. "in front of me." 

"you look like you haven't been taking care of yourself," as she spoke through a pout, he could feel his face warming up, like tiny little punching bags beneath his skin. "i wanna make sure you're eating." 

its reallyyyy obvious that when there's a conversation, its two people speaking. and from just a reader's standpoint, i began to read the second pragraph as if it was wilbur speaking. which of course didn't make sense. 

so even if character 2 (wilbur in this case) doesnt speak, i try to add either a description (what are they doing? even if character 2 isnt responding, how are they reacting to character 1? whats their body language? facial language?) or a small tinyyyy bit of dialogue. 

–three, sometimes less is more!!! 

a lot of the times when i try to paint a picture, i end up over explaining things and the meaning of the words get lost when i use too many of them. 

you could have the most profound description thatll make readers wanna tug their hearts out, but if its too overused then it kinda loses its meaning. its like the dynamics of a song in the sense that the loud parts are only loud because there are super soft parts. 

heres an example i have from one of my older fics;

"Your teeth bit on the inside of your cheek as you sat down, more closer to the stage this time. Your knee rose and fell quickly as your leg bounced with nerve."

it may not seem like a lot, but chances are that people already understood the fact that the reader was nervous, so showing that she bit her lip AND was bouncing her leg was just counterintuitive. 

there are so many more examples of me doing this in the past but umm i dont wanna unearth those anymore

dont get me wrong; you should still add descriptors, but just dont overdo it. and sometimes i see people who have the opposite, in the sense that they dont have enough descriptors and its equally as confusing. so find a happy medium!! 

example of not enough;

"hi wilbur!" she spoke. 

"hi, angel," he responded. 

"how are you?" she smiled with a giggle. 

he sighed happily at her laughter. "i'm good."

im so guilty of this honestly and im so rusty cuz a huge factor of it is practice!!! 

–four, this kind of links to the last one, but Little Details. 

this might just be a personal preference, but i love little details When theyre done right!! 

one of my favorite people who does this is the infamous writer . u know her . u love her. @harbingerofheartbreak my very good friend 

i first noticed this in her fic, "archangel," soot;

"i know he's a prick. do you think i want him to teleport to me everytime i have a fucking mental breakdown?" you slammed the sponge down and turned to him, pointing a soapy finger.

reading the words "soapy finger" like actually changed my life in a way i didnt know was possible. just the adding of small details that arent just "she shrugged" or "he sighed", but instead adding to the setting and scene and adding special little details Without Overdoing It!!!

it just . ugh . i dont know if its just a writer noticing these small things, but i find it really cool how it adds so much and makes you really feel like the author put work into making those tiny little things. 

also another huge personal preference but i really love alliteration and play on words type stuff. i will always sneak in a little alliteration just to keep my work interesting with a certain flow to it. also (if your reader is anyone like me), putting a little alliteration adds emphasis and attention to certain things. 

its really really nice, but the accumulation of all these little details takes SO much attention and so much practice, so dont be frustrated if its difficult to think of on your first couple tries!! 

–five, dialogue!! 

i spoke about trying to replicate books as best as i can, and dialogue is one of the most important things in that sense. i often see fics who show expression through dialogue, and i used to do it too, but it just looks generally unprofessional (imo!!)

for example;

"WILBUR!!" she screamed. "WILBUR GIVE IT BACK!!!- I'LL KILL YOUUU!!"

wilbur laughed. "i-i dont... know what y-you're talking about..-! haha..."

"wilbur!" she yelped, suffocated through her laughter. her lungs betrayed her as she playfully slapped him. "wilbur give it back- ill kill you!" 

wilbur frantically looked around, his hands behind his back and his eyes wandering. "i dont- i dont know what youre talking about." he spoke, in a sing-song tone.

kinda an exaggeration but ive seen so many fics write dialogue like the first one and idk if its another personal preference, but it just doesnt seem really professional. and usually when you put all the emotion into dialogue like that, it takes away from the emotion you could incorporate into a character's actions or body language or even their thoughts. 

i try to avoid writing dialogue in all caps or with too much punctuation or stuttering, because again, less is more. but also dont do too little;

“see wilbur it wasn’t so difficult was it?” she giggled, and the noise stabbed wilbur a thousand times in the stomach.

“actually it was,” he bit the inside of his cheek, rocking back and forth on his heels with nervousness. “my bed is a literal stone i wish it were made out of feathers."

“see, wilbur? it wasn’t so difficult, was it?” she giggled, and the noise stabbed wilbur a thousand times in the stomach.

“actually, it was,” he bit the inside of his cheek, rocking back and forth on his heels with nervousness. “my bed is a literal stone. i wish it were made out of feathers."

it may seem minuscule, but things like this can ruin the flow of your work. what keeps me engaged as a reader is the plot or the writing style or the characters, not the fact that i have to slow down to remind myself whos talking or where they were supposed to pause when they spoke. that kinda stuff just unmotivates me to read it, if that makes sense. 

–six, FORESHADOWING AND CONNECTING

one of the most powerful things ever is foreshadowing and as above so below has a TON of it. idk if i can share examples cuz a lot of it is foreshadowing for the sequel, but i like to picture foreshadowing as a sort of inside joke. its special cuz it feels like a little secret between you and the author that only you know. it also shows that you have a coherent plan and youre not just writing on the fly. its professional and its personal. 

another huge thing is connecting. wrap the story up the same way you began it or make small nods to it as you go. 

in the beginning;

she had a lot of questions about wilbur. 

not the type of, "what's your favorite color?" or "what's your favorite band?" questions. more like, "on a scale of one to ten, how much does being a murderer really affect your mood?" 

all of these questions would go unanswered. including "what's your favorite band?" no matter what, she just could not crack the code of wilbur soot. 

to say he was intricate would be an understatement, and her ongoing curiosity would surely be the death of her. 

unless he had something to do about it. 

at a turning point;

“so, what’s your favorite color?” she asked in a light tone, licking at her ice cream.

a wave of dismay washed over his face. he couldn’t think. “t-teal?”

“really? i wouldn’t have guessed that,” she swung her legs beneath the bench, clearly unbothered by wilbur’s confusion. “you don’t really dress like a teal-lover. do you think the moon is real?" 

what? 

"no, bad question. hmm. what’s your favorite band?”

his heart fell into the pit of his stomach, thorns poking at his sides creating a terrible sting on his abdomen. he opened his mouth to speak- maybe cry and release his feelings; but nothing came up. not even an answer to her stupid question. it was nauseating. 

she began talking about the sort of music she liked, but none of it struck his brain. he felt sick. he wanted to scream and sob and punch something. but he sat still like he was posing for a renaissance painting.

at the end;

she still had a lot of questions for wilbur. 

not the type of, "what's your favorite color?" or "what's your favorite band?" questions. more like, "wilbur? hello? please help- this hurts- are you still there?" 

and she was starting to lose hope in the fact that those questions might be answered. 

one things for sure; her curiosity will be the death of her. 

unless he's got the courage to do something about it

even just the slight nod to the beginning gives your readers a reminder of everything, and drawing back to your beginning is like wrapping everythint up with a nice little bow ^_^

–seven, characterization and descriptors 

this could also connect to one of the previous tips, but Stop Describing Characters So Much when theyre introduced!! 

if you're introducing a character, dont give an entire paragraph to describing their height, eye color, hair color, clothes, etc. its boring and doesn't engage people and it messes up the flow. 

dont get me wrong, you can mention those things in quick passing so that your reader isnt confused (ie "his brown hair stood up, still clinging to the static electricity from his hat." or "her white dress went along with the patterns of the wind") but having just one big long paragraph like;

"wilbur was tall. very tall compared to everyone else. he had brown eyes and bushy eyebrows that carried his emotions. he wore a gray hood that sometimes covered his face. he wore a bag that slung across his torso. his brown hair was usually uncombed and messy. he had bags under his eyes."

its just generallt not interesting enough!! tell me about his body language; whats his posture look like? does he hold his head up high with confidence? is he slouched over in careless sadness? 

AND ALWAYSSSS OVEREXAGGERATE INTRODUCTIONS I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGHHH 

pick a signature trait for your character and make it THE most noticeable thing when theyre first introduced. 

angel is naive and optimistic? shes gonna sound stuck up and unrealistic to such an extent that its almost annoying. 

wilbur is grumpy? the first thing hes gonna do is be super duper mean and hurt everyones feelings 

quackitys a jokester? first thing he does is tell wilbur to literally take his shirt off 

there's such a power in establishing a character into a certain category and playing with that. think about their characterization; is this category gonna change? will it change positively or negatively? will it change quickly? what makes it change? why? theres SO much to he said about character arcs in itself. 

another huge thing about characterization is just being realistic. it doesnt really apply to au fics like gr!wilbur, but if youre writing a blurb about wilbur at a concert- im so sorry but there is barely a chance that hes gonna go up to one of his Fans and instantly fall in love with them. 

and everyone has a preference of course!! if thats your kind of jam, go ahead im not judging. but as a personal preference, i don't really enjoy it when the characters dont seem realistic or wilbur's dialogue is definitely not something that he would say. 

but again, at the end of the day, everyone has their preferences and by all means tweak your writing to YOUR standards!! write whatever makes you happy!! dont let some writer named zone let you dictate how to write and what you should or shouldnt write. it should all be with your own preference (and also respecting other peoples boundaries ofc) 

one of the biggest mistakes ive made as a writer was robotically writing, or in other words only writing so that i could Produce something and get a couple notes on tumblr and thats it. doing that is what made me fall out of love and with writing. 

aasb was the first fic i finished on my own accord, and of course i had friends like flore and carrie to push me on to continue, but i wrote it because it was an idea i loved. not because i wanted to post it for the people of tumblr. thats one of the beautiful things that flore taught me, whether it was unintentional or not, but its helped me so much. 

and a ton of these tips takes Time and Practice as everything unfortunately does. ive certainly improved my writing game since like 4 years ago from both reading and writing to pick up certain little traits that ive loved from other peoples works and incorporated it into my own style. 

i think the person whose had the most influence on my writing is. in fact. florence harbingerofheartbreak. and im not even saying that cuz shes my friend im genuinely so amazed by her work and her stuff is severely underrated 

and also this is only a fragment of tips, there are a plethora of actual professionals that could give out their tips but again at the end of the day its all what You Do. 

and by all means id loooove to read any of your works (not just this anon, any of your guys' works) so please please please dont be afraid to send em to me!! i hope these tips help ^_^

[cobragardens]

Things I love about this:

*Aziraphale's flushed cheek. I've never seen a proper John Everett Millais-style Victorian flush on a cheek done with pencil before. I didn't know it could be done with pencil. Heavily flushed cheeks are my favorite feature of Victorian cosmetic style and 18th- and 19th-century paintings of women, as well as being iconographic for Aziraphale, so this is thrilling my nerdy little heart.

*The jawlines are just, hnnngh, so good. The softness under Aziraphale's chin, the perfect realism of the lines of his neck, the way Crowley's jaw is done in shadow instead of line.

*The thinness and precision of line in the faces.

*The way the pencil strokes on Crowley's feathers graduate to scribbles the farther out from the centre of the picture they are, and how well the 'scribbles' work to convey the impression of barbs

*I think it is fucking brilliant how the linework and the shading both become finer and more precise the closer you get to the centre of the picture, and how that's not really noticeable right away except as that incredibly sharp focus on their faces. @selene-yoshi-chan puts our eyes exactly where they want them first.

*Aziraphale's body. This is the first time I've seen a drawing of Aziraphale that depicts the way he looks in my head and the way show!Aziraphale is soft as distinct from fat or chubby or plump. When I saw this I felt very

about Aziraphale. I can say the same about Crowley's body--I love that @selene-yoshi-chan has drawn him as actually thin, in the sense of narrow and not just in the sense of low body fat; but Aziraphale is my sticking point: I'm pickier in my tastes about how he's depicted. This absolutely nails it for me, this may be my ne plus ultra Aziraphale body and profile. Every feature of it lines up so perfectly with how I picture him in my mind.

*The hair. Of course. Of course I love the hair, how can you not love the hair. I love that it is doing that idealized floating-in-the-wind shit and I love how well it's doing that, i.e., how satisfyingly. I love the translucency of Crowley's hair. I love Aziraphale's curls. I like how well @selene-yoshi-chan conveys the color of it with pencil shading: I'm tickled that I can tell Crowley's hair is supposed to be red and not brown even though there's no red or brown or any color at all in the picture.

*Crowley's 1930s style lipstick and lip liner and the way it emphasizes that distinctly English male feature of a vanishingly thin upper lip. This is such a wonderfully in-character touch for Crowley, because even though he doesn't wear dark lipstick in the show, his whole style is about emphasizing his already most dramatic features.

I had this friend once who was pear-shaped, in that she had a thick ass and thighs and plump upper arms but was small everywhere else, and instead of dressing to disguise this she dressed in a way that emphasized it, with the result that she was almost comically irresistible to her target audience. I've read that in France this style is called 'pretty-ugly': calling attention to features that do not meet the beauty ideal rather than hiding or distracting from them, with the intended result of surpassing the beauty ideal by defying it. That's Crowley all over.

*This picture does what I've seen done more often in Good Omens fanfic rather than fanart: it's simultaneously passionate and sweet, erotic and innocent. I love those combinations, and I think they're difficult to achieve in visual art in a way that comes off as genuine and not winking and lecherous--or, if not difficult, then just rare.

What's bending my mind about this is how many details there are that are achingly beautiful to me. Not just pleasing but actually lovely. Is that mastery in the execution, or is it personal taste? No idea.

Ineffable mess with pencils.

[griseldabanks]

OC Mundane Tag Game

Tagged by @rainintheevening

Rules: Pick an oc you'd like to talk about and answer the questions for them! Then tag ten people, or as many as you can. 'Underdeveloped character I adopted' is fine, too! Absolutely no pressure to play, though.

Also, if some of it can't apply to your ocs, just answer what would be the answer - like if they're in a historical setting, they likely can't watch movies, but what is a movie they'd like?

(Also, most people have many ocs, so feel free to retag people and answer as many times as you get tagged! Or get really wild and just answer for as many ocs as you'd like! :D)

For this one, I think I'll do Leyla Tailor from my Captain America WIP Take Me In.

1. What is their favorite movie?

I think her guilty pleasure movie would be some kind of high school movie like Mean Girls or Freaky Friday or even The Princess Diaries. Something silly with lots of highly quotable lines (which she quotes all the time in everyday conversation).

2. What is their favorite season?

Summer. She likes swimming and being able to walk around in shorts and flip-flops, and she likes to say that summer is when her bones finally thaw out.

3. What do they find annoying?

People who can't take a joke, people keeping secrets from her, the faintest whiff of entitlement, someone not apologizing as soon as they're confronted with what they did wrong.

4. How would they like to spend their Christmas or equivalent holiday?

Leyla usually spends Christmas with her mom and her various extended family. She's too embarrassed to admit it out loud, but she's always wanted to do all the cheesy, romantic things couples do at Christmas in the movies, like go on a horse-drawn carriage ride or go ice skating at the Rockefeller Center. Also, she never got to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what she wanted for Christmas, and she kind of still wants to do it, if it wouldn't be far too weird since she's an adult now.

5. Do they play an instrument? If so, what? How good are they at it?

Leyla has picked up multiple instruments, learned how to play a few tunes on them, and then dropped them again when she got distracted by something else. The longest she stuck with an instrument was when she played the trumpet in marching band for all four years at her high school.

6. What's their favorite meal to eat?

Nothing can beat her grandma's fried chicken and potatoes. Her mom also makes really good sweet potato pie. Leyla isn't a bad cook; she's just too impatient to give her food the time it needs (or she forgets about it and burns it), so anytime she can go back home, she looks forward to the food most of all.

7. Do they have a favorite video game or board game?

Leyla's best friend is Sharon Carter, and they bonded over (among other things) an arcade game called Extreme Gunslinger: Zombie Apocalypse. Leyla prefers card games to board games, particularly fast-paced games where everyone's playing at the same time - like Dutch Blitz, Pit, or Spoons.

8. Do they celebrate their birthday?

The older Leyla gets, the less she does to celebrate her birthday, but she still likes to treat herself on the day. If friends or family are available, she'll drag them out to some kind of activity - whatever whim strikes her at the time, especially if it's something she hasn't tried before.

9. What's their bedtime routine?

Because Leyla works from home, she tends to stay up till all hours of the night, so her bedtime routine usually consists of little more than changing into pajamas, washing her face and brushing her teeth, and then collapsing into bed once she can hardly keep her eyes open anymore.

10. What's an oc (or canon character) that they like to spend time around? What do they tend to do together?

Well, I've already mentioned that she's Sharon Carter's best friend! They met when they first joined S.H.I.E.L.D., and have gone on missions together as well as worked alongside each other in the office. In their free time, they spend endless hours talking about anything and everything. They're the kind of friends who are complete opposites in almost every way, but that ends up complementing each other rather than getting on each other's nerves. Leyla is dramatic and lively, always coming up with something new and off the wall, while Sharon is steady and calm. They balance each other out very well, I think ^_^

Tagging anyone with an OC you'd want to be friends with in real life.

[lokishivaze]

My DeviantArt days were full of learning from negative and positive events.

I wish to clear the air for some of the negatives.

I saw a few fox artists, foxes are one of my favorite animals and I decided to join fox loving groups so I can share my love for foxes with others who are in the same boat. Drama then started and I was accused of a lot of things which were unintentional on my part. I didn't realize what I was doing wasn't the right thing. I also tried to fit into the furry fandom. Heck, I made a fursona. Her name was Raika and she has not been drawn in forever. I've been told my stuff was sub-par, I was accused of tracing and being an art thief which I never was. Like every fandom, there were trolls in it as well. I was even called one which I am not. I am an art appreciator. I was then told I can't favorite things that some have favorited, I can't be in the same groups they're in. I have more than one favorite animal. My number 1 favorite animal is the horse. It has always been that way since I was little. Were some of my reactions and actions not the best, absolutely. No doubt in my mind. Some were unintentional, some were not, but I learned and moved along. Heck, some have been still accusing me and reporting me constantly trying to get me permanently banned.

Then there's the Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler fandom. Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler has gotten me through something. I had a stomach virus and I honestly was having a really bad time since I rarely get sick. Even though I was throwing up and confined to my residence, Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler was RIGHT THERE, ready for me to watch, which I did and hearing J. Michael Tatum's Sebastian Michaelis just really helped ease me in terms of not focusing on this stomach virus I had. A bit later on down the road, I created a Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler OC. She was different from other OCs in the fandom due to the timeline, what happened to her and she isn't shipped with ANY Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler characters, not even Sebastian, the Black Butler himself, because I knew that tons of people have done that already and I didn’t want to go down that path. Despite some people assuming and/or thinking she was shipped with Sebastian, I kept to my rules and made the relationship between my OC and Sebastian Butler to Master, Teacher to Student and Fatherly Figure and Daughter. Like every fandom, drama was there, I tried to avoid confrontation, but alas, I was accused of sucking up to artists, trying to get free art, etc. I was even accused of one-upping someone else's OC due to me submitting my OC after their's was posted in groups of the fandom. I am in so many groups, it's hard for me to keep track if certain pieces were in there or not. And for someone to say that one constantly throws up every time they saw my OC, that's exaggerating. Also, people in that fandom wanted to be in their own little isolated cliques especially around a certain ship and to me, that is really isolating and hurtful to those who make the effort of trying to say hello despite them not feeling comfortable doing it or being shy. I know I am for a fact. I may not look it on the outside, but I keep it all in. I'm neutral when it comes to Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler ship pairings. There was even a time where someone stated on a piece I traded something for that they wouldn't be drawing any Black ButlerxOC pieces for anyone anymore, which I can respect, but then they said in a replied comment on my piece that stated, "Oh, I'll still draw this for you, them, them and them" and that's what honestly hurts. If you want to only do that for certain people, note them instead of making a public comment reply on someone's piece because someone is just bound to see it. That's what saddened me. Not to mention someone else said on a different piece, "Ooooh since your OC, isn't impressed with their OC, I wonder what they think of mah OC," That's just a little not nice. When I posted a forum stating that I was looking for commissions, but was looking for specific things, a Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler example was one of the specific requirements. Because that series helped me so much that an example from the series represented trust. I didn't wish to make a gamble on one who didn't have the specific examples I was looking for and it isn't something to take personally. I still LOVE Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler to this day, but I have also moved on to other interests.

The forums on DeviantArt were both good and bad in some ways. I listed specific requirements like a specific budget I would prefer to be in that range as well as due to being taken from in the past. The commission I wish to get involved a series that has helped me through a difficult time and I didn't want to gamble on someone not having examples from that certain series. Hence why I also asked for examples from that specific series. Some people didn't really read what I was looking for carefully and just posted whatever they wanted and say "I can do this." I even said that an example from a certain series could be a sketch or a doodle. I have also stated that it was written on my post clearly that I am looking for certain things. Yes, I have looked at forum posts and commented on them without reading everything carefully. That's my bad. Now, I have been criticized of wanting to see specific examples from a certain series and one user did this and then listed their commission sheet which had no examples from said series, not to mention that the commissions were out of my budget range. My forum post was then posted on an artist commission group journal and I would get comments from users who are in that group and get criticized even more. A senior on DA who was also a member of that group blocked me. My forum post was removed from the group journal thank goodness, but the person who put my post there in the first place also blocked me which I never asked to happen. Someone tried to rope me into signing a contract when they didn't provide me one specific example that I put down as a requirement. An artist who labeled themselves as a professional came on to my forum and replied to one of my replies and called me profanity names and used profanity on me which to me, is FAR from professional in my eyes. That honestly hurt. If the company, Riot can ask for specific art examples from candidates, why can't an individual do that when they're looking to commission something? Someone who I used to follow on DA said to me that I don't appreciate the time and effort artists do on every piece. They said this because I had a set budget and I wouldn't be able to purchase what I'd like to get done. This would have to do with additional characters costing extra. I respect that more than one character would cost more, but that doesn't mean I have to commission them despite my budget requirement. I clearly state my budget requirement on my forum posts.

There are still fandoms that I am well-connected in today and I wouldn't trade any of those for the digital realm!

The Anime and Video Game fandoms where I know people in real life from as well as on DA, Instagram and such.

The Fantasy fandom that has my friends, Grimmi, Geekgirl8, Maria, Pumkinkiller777, Jack, Kita, Sleepy, Iruka, TheNobles, onenerdtwonagas, Bellawella, Taylor, Konnichibot (BFF IRL), CrystalHannah (BFF IRL), NuclearZombie, AnimeMangaBerserker, Nessa and many other friends and artists who draw Nagas, Hypnosis, OCs, Fantasy, etc.

The Is It Love? fandom is the fandom where I met a bestie of mine, Victoria. It was via the IIL RP. I love and care about her to pieces.

The RP/Motionless In White fandom where I kept up with Victoria as well as made some new friends like Cass and an admin behind a Magnus Bane RP account and in all honesty, I'm very grateful for being in that clique.

The Marvel Loki fandom is another that I feel I'm starting to fit into. The majority of who I've been talking to have been kind and understanding to me. This wretched wretched pandemic was a spark to what got me to re-awaken my love for Loki. I loved Loki when I watched Thor The Dark World back in 2014. Tom Hiddleston and the Loki Series helped me through this fricked up pandemic. It was ready for me to watch and it helped me to keep my sanity up. It was also an aid to help me take the smiley face mask off and finally say, "No, I'm not okay. I'm not okay at all." My love for Tom and Loki connected me to fans and artists who love to draw the characters. I even met a couple at a convention or two when it was okay for conventions to happen again. My love for Loki is up so much, that whenever I post about looking for commissions on Instagram (Which didn't get a lot of bites), Tumblr (also didn't get a lot of bites) and Twitter (Twitter, I will honestly never do again), I list the same requirements as I did when looking for Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler commissions on DeviantArt. That's how much I love Loki and I am not willing to commission someone who doesn't have the specific examples I'm looking for. A Loki example done by the artist who is offering a service to me represents trust. When I did a search on Twitter, the majority of what I got were those who didn't read, tried to push to get money out of me and sent me Loki examples that were AI or done by another artist and not by them. That to me is honestly disgusting and it just backs me away from doing anything else with said person, especially if I'm looking for a specific style and all they show me are examples of a different style that I'm not interested in.

I am still alive and on DeviantArt. I'm more active on other platforms. It has been quite the learning experience for me.

[pens-swords-stuff]

Hi there! For your AMA asks; what are the kinds of asian characters that you would personally like to see in the media that you consume?

I personally don't have a certain kind, archetype, trope, or anything specific type of Asian characters I want to see.

I just want to see more of them. In every possible iteration and archetype possible. As long as they're well-rounded, have a lot of depth, are treated with the same love and care that white characters are given, and aren't just caricatures or stereotypes, I'm here for it.

Seriously, any sort of Asian character will do. It doesn't matter what they are, as long as they're well-developed!

I had a bit of a shock and a minor identity crisis a few years ago when I looked back on some of the characters I really loved in American media and realized... Oh man, they were really my favorites just because they were Asian. In Harry Potter, I've always cited Cho Chang as my favorite character even though objectively, she's not written to be that great of a character. I didn't even realize that Numbuh Three in Codename: Kids Next Door was Japanese until I was doing a deep dive into the lore of the show when I was an adult, but she was my favorite character anyway because I related to her; she looked like me.

Every single Asian character (especially if they were a female character) that I grew up watching in American shows and reading in American books, I gravitated towards as a child. It didn't matter if they were well written or badly written; they were my favorite.

My point is: Representation matters. Even if I didn't realize it at the time, it apparently meant a lot to me; It's not a coincidence that I gravitated towards Asian and Asian-coded characters, what few that I had. Think of how much powerful that could've been for me if they'd been written really well? If there were a lot for me to choose from? But instead, I was left with a startling realization that wow, I really wanted that representation as a child, and I clung to the few that I was allowed to have — even if they weren't even that good.

And I also personally never found the question of "what kind of Asian character do you want to see more of" very helpful or enlightening. To me, it seems like there's no real answer and risks further stereotyping or swinging too hard the other way. (For me! Personally! It's a valid question, just one that never really worked for me). I want to see every kind of Asian character, just as many as white characters. I want every single background, heroes and villains, love interests and main characters, best friends and enemies... Everything. Absolutely everything.

I don't want to be drawn to an Asian character just because they're an Asian anymore, just because they're the only ones I had in American media, just because they're the only ones that look like me. I want to have so many Asian characters to be drawn to so that I can pick and choose which ones are my favorites and which ones that I identify the most with. I want to have the chance to be choosey and picky about which ones are my favorites.

As long as they're well-written and developed and have depth, that's valuable representation. And it matters so much. It definitely mattered to me when I was a young child.

AAPI AMA 2022: Ask me anything about being Japanese!

Remember that these are just my personal experiences and opinions! My thoughts and experiences are not necessarily representative of every Japanese person, and should not be taken as such.

[moe-broey]

@hulloitsdani WAIT YOU'RE SO RIGHT.... this is ABSOLUTELY the missing piece here. I got too caught up in the details.... I gotta get caught up in. Different Details....

THE HEIGHTS.... BEING PART OF THE CHARACTERIZATION/STORYTELLING....... and ESPPPPP I never even considered!!!! How much a character takes up the screen, that gives you that sense of scale..... why Alfonse being "5'11"' WAS so shocking, is because he just Does Not take up that much space. AND!!! AND!!!! Sometimes, if not often, he's portrayed as shorter than other charas anyway!!! Kiran ofc BUT ALSO!!!! This one instance with Corrin!!!!!

I feel like if you were to dig through the FEH comics more you'd find more examples, but Corrin sticks out in my mind! But since you brought up Henriette, I wanted to revisit this one too...

They're about the same height... maybe....... but tbh even here, even accounting for how each of them are positioned (Alfonse more in the forefront, Henriette standing a bit behind him) Henriette still feels like she's taller. Even if by an inch.

But I kinda wanna shift gears and bring up my absolute FAVORITE example of visual storytelling/characterization, which is in base Veronica.

LOOK at those HEELS..... girl is practically on her tippy-toes!!!!! It's such a shame we don't get to see this art too much if at all, because it just adds So Much to her. And of course, that Giant Fucking Headpiece, which makes her look "bigger" and imposing.... and yet.

She is still so painfully small. If you focus on her, and her alone. The way she's drawn too, even though you're looking at her head-on, it looks like she's looking up at you.

I'm soooo all over the place tbh bc I've had to go on several fetch quests BUT. EVEN WITH VERO'S NEW LOOK. SHE'S STILL SMALL IN STATURE. (And, still wearing heels I'm pretty sure. You will have to take my word for this. But you can see it slightly in some art under her big dress, and you can see it in her figurine I'm p sure)

Wish I could tell you where I was going with this. I have entirely lost my focus. I'm so sorry. HOWEVER. SSOMETHING NOBODY ASKED FOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But but but I ALSO. Had the Epiphany. Of why Moe being any taller than it's "supposed" to be feels So Wrong. It's SUPPOSED to be small!!!!!!! Like, as part of its character!!!

Moe is short, has rounder features, and big ol' eyes. It has a lot of traits that lend themselves to cuteness, if you squint beneath the scruffiness of it. AND that's Also a FOCAL part of it... its gap moe..... the way it is Trying to Escape This SOOO BADLY. But even then. Often, the way it Tries To. It tends to come off as temperamental at best, or just straight up bratty. Does it have a youthful spirit, playful and full of attitude, or is it just being immature about this? Finally something something, no matter how much it tries to make itself sharper, scarier, less palatable, more monstrous, Stronger in a sense, ect ect. It's still.... painfully. Small.

Every day I get dangerously closer to doing Heel Math. Which not only hurts my brain, but also makes me feel like I'm betraying myself........ there's NO WAY Moe stands at 5'6" in the hooves. No fucking way. Is Sharena 5'4" with or without the heels? She HAS to be One Inch Taller than Moe. Because Moe is 5'3". Don't even get me fucking STARTED on Alfonse allegedly being 5'11", something I've been taking as gospel from the art book, but there's no way. He has to be 5'11" WITH the heels. He Has To. There's NO WAY he's a whole ass 5'11" AND cunting it up on the battlefield to hit past 6 feet. That's fucking ridiculous. Do I do whatever I want forever, using the official heights as guidelines? Do I finally succumb to Heel Math. To try and capture the general height differences ACCURATELY even when everyone is wearing their shoes. LIKE if Moe is wearing 3 inch hooves and Alfonse is also wearing 3 inch heels the balance of the universe is maintained. The worst part of this is referencing my own shoes, from flat but thick soles to heel-heels, and I feel like Moe's hooves have got to be closer to 3 and a half if not 4. I pulled out a measuring tape and everything. But there is NO WAY. NO WAY. THAT THANG IS STANDING AT 5'7". ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE??????????????

[insecateur]

Ok I heard you say somewhere you also like professor birch so i'm very curious to ask your opinion on the mainline pokemon profs

Also damn you, you are lowkey making me want to practice my french again

yes!! birch is my favorite pokémon prof actually :^) i haven't drawn him in so long i would like to draw him again at some point... and maybe write something about him also...

i'm so sorry that i'm inspiring you to get back into the cursed hell language that is french. i'm (somehow) picking up writing in french again and remembering all of our nightmare tenses is filling me with dread

opinions on mainline pokémon profs (chronological order)

putting it under a cut just so it's not too annoying LMAO

oak: i like him a lot!! i love that he has such a stocky build... he's so THICK in pokémas it's so funny. he's the OG obviously so you gotta respect that but i do just like him in general.

elm: he was actually my favorite pokémon prof as a kid... i loved him in the anime, there was something about him being so tsundere about oak lmao. i like that he is a nerd and i like that his area of expertise is pokémon eggs, i think it's cute!

birch: MY BELOVED... i think birch needs more love... he is My Type. (beard. kind of a mess.) i find the way he seems to get attacked by wild pokémons a lot very moe. my headcanon is that he was apprentice pokémon prof alongside sycamore and maybe... they had a thing together... (i would like to write about it someday perhaps...)

rowan: oji-san... i like his mustache... obviously he's augustine's mentor so i like him. if i were learning to become a pokémon prof under prof rowan i would simply have a crush on him... it's inevitable... also i like that he's very outwardly stern and serious which contrasts with the previous profs who are more chill.

juniper: my gen5 knowledge is lacking bc it's the region that interests me the least but i do like her! her area is interesting and i like that her dad is also a pokémon prof. i remember liking her when i played bw (did not play b2w2 sadly)

sycamore: nasty man. never seen this guy in my life. would not trust him ever. j/k I WAS VERY NEGATIVE ABOUT HIM AT FIRST... he kind of checks all the cliché french guy boxes which annoyed me at the time LOL but obviously i have Come Around. i like the subtleties of his personality! i wish he had played a bigger role in the games tbh

kukui: my second favorite... i drew SO MUCH art of him when sumo was first announced. i like that he is basically the chillest guy but also very dedicated to what he's passionate about, which funnily enough is opposite to what sycamore is into (i.e. battling) HIM LIKE... letting pokémons use their moves on him to study them. absolute chad. also he's hot

magnolia: i'm so sad she's basically a non-entity in the games lol we finally got a new female prof and... well. i know it's because she's basically About To Let Sonia Take Over The Mantle but it makes me sad... i feel like pokémon has a bunch of older ladies and i wish they could get bigger roles!

sonia: idk if she counts??? she's listed as a mainline prof on the bulbapedia page so i'll say she counts. i like her! i actually really liked the whole storyline where hop realizes he wants to become a pokémon prof and he starts studying under her etc... it was very sweet. also i like her design. her 6* EX in pokémas looks gooood

laventon: I LOVE LAVENTON SO MUCHHHH HE'S SOOO CUTE i love his bobble hat... i love his fashion sense... legitimately one of my favorite PLA characters i've been meaning to draw him for ages and still haven't because my brain is too busy rotating the two same french men over and over

cannot really say much about the new profs for the next gen because we don't know anything about them LOL i love the past/future theming though. they are both hot and i appreciate that. i like that turo is wearing a futuristic skin-tight suit—

[saturdaysky]

hello! i hope you don't mind a message, but i am just excited to see someone else who liked AMCE and would love to know if you have recs for books that are similar, because i've been thinking about it for like a month straight since i finished reading it and would love something else to occupy my brain the way that it did. no pressure to answer ofc, just happy to share good vibes over a book :)

I do not mind it at all! <3

I do have some books that scratched a similar itch as A Memory Called Empire! I looooved the thoughtful focus on culture and language and identity within an intricate setting, so these recs follow that pattern somewhat.

Under a cut because this got kind of long.

The Imperial Radch trilogy by Ann Leckie

Liked the exploration of culture, identity, and imperialism in AMCE? You will probably like these books, since they also grapple with those themes. Also present is the exploration of personhood, who has it, and who does not -- because our main character is a person who used to be a starship. Or well, sort of. Wikipedia has a decent blurb:

The novel follows Breq—who is both the sole survivor of a starship destroyed by treachery, and the vessel of that ship's artificial consciousness—as she seeks revenge against the ruler of her civilization.

These books are honestly some of my favorite books ever. They combine a really thoughtful and deliberate focus on all the stuff mentioned above, fascinating plots and world-building, and characters who absolutely made me Feel Things. Highly recommended if you like, say, emotionally closed-off and damaged characters learning to care and be cared for while also skillfully navigating an intricate web of power to pursue their goals and reckon with the harm they've caused. But with bonus smart thoughts about robots.

The Foreigner series by C.J. Cherryh

I haven't fully made my way through this series, but it's rewarding every time I sit down to read another book. The books follow Bren Cameron, diplomat to an alien court, as he negotiates the intricate web of politics and intrigue involved in making sure the crash-landed colony ship he represents doesn't get obliterated or obliterate anyone else, despite humans making some monumental fuck-ups in the recent past.

And when you live and work and eat among one people, how much do you really belong to the people you came from? Of course, neither side really trusts someone who straddles both worlds, and to cap it off, the atevi people he lives among are different from humans in a fundamental way: they have no word for friend or love because those are alien concepts to the atevi. They do not feel such things. Instead, they live by an intricate web of obligation and favors. Trust is something a little more practical and a lot more deadly, for the atevi.

But these are not heartless novels -- part of the joy is watching the main characters grow meaningful relationships, even though the form is fraught and strange and never quite means the same thing to the people on either side.

If you like slow and thorough explanations of culture where meeting with your friend's grandmother is a potentially perilous activity (because the tea might be poisoned, because she might take you on a hunting trip you won't come back from, because she's a formidable political power and might be trying to assassinate your friend, because your friend might know all of this and have sent you anyway, also your friend is the king) these are books you might like.

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

If you like deep dives of culture, language, identity, and loyalty within the deadly intrigue of a fantasy court, I hiiiiighly recommend this book. The book follows Maia, the youngest and least-favored heir to the throne who gets unexpectedly crowned when everyone else in line dies and must quickly learn to survive the cutthroat politics. But Maia isn't cutthroat by nature; he is kind and must negotiate how to keep that kindness in the face of pressures that would be easy to solve with cruelty, as well as people keen to take advantage of what they think of as a weakness.

This book'll hit you with a lot of fantasy language at first (it's a focus of the book), but if you stick with it you'll be fine. You're learning all this intricate court language at the same time as our protag; he too is a little out of his depth at the start.

Steerswoman series by Rosemary Kirstein

I dearly want to go back and read these -- it's been a few years, but they absolutely sucked me in. The books follow Rowan, a steerswoman, as she tracks down the mystery of a strange and incongruous gemstone. In-universe steerswomen are basically traveling scientists and naturalists who have taken an oath of truth.

The books start out in what seems like your fairly typical Standard Fantasy Setting with wizards and dragons, but as Rowan learns more about the strange gem, it's clear that this Standard Fantasy Setting is...not as it seems. There are three things that I loved about these books: the sense of wonder and discovery as our fantasy scientist protag reasons through problems and begins to discover she lives in a sci fi world, the interesting relationship between the main characters, and the excitement you as a reader have when YOU realize exactly what mysterious object Rowan is describing and what the implications of that are for the setting.

The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin

Riveting series -- brutal and beautiful. Straddles the line in some respects between sci fi and fantasy. Follows characters who live on a far, far-future Earth plagued by catastrophic climate events called "Seasons" that last generations. There are some people born who have power drawn from the earth; these people are alternately hated and ruthlessly trained to hone their powers to attempt to prevent another Season. (This sort of sounds like the setup to a YA coming-of-age novel, but it is really really not.)

The world and fantastical aspects are fascinating (cyclical post apocalyptic societies! geology magic!), and the books themselves explore family bonds, racism in both a personal and systemic sense, and broken systems and the wounds they leave upon the people within them even as those people wound others. The series is not a light read, but it is a good one.

Literally anything by Ursula K. Leguin

All of her work could be recommended if you liked AMCE. Her writing spans fantasy and science fiction, and includes thoughtful and moving explorations of some similar ideas: culture and cultural exchange, gender, different societal setups, you name it.

If you're looking for a good novel, The Left Hand of Darkness is a classic for a reason. If you'd like a sample platter of interesting short stories, The Birthday of the World and Other Stories is wonderful.

[olderthannetfic]

@marzipanandminutiae mentioned at least one canon that totally was catnip for fanworks fandom.

Wynonna Earp's big ship starts with Waverly getting beer all over herself and getting caught in her shirt. Deputy Hotass Haught helps her with it and Waverly is all "Ahaha. This would be super awkward if you were a man..." as Nicole oggles her.

I absolutely shipped it. I just didn't get back into the show after first season and so never talked about it much on here. I made a pimp vid of all the different things I shipped on that show after S1 to try to get other fans into it, but that was about the extent of my participation. Dolls was my favorite though, so that soured the show for me later.

I'm not usually into canon pairings, which is tricky because a lot of the really good stuff for female characters is canon f/f ships, often ones with a very different vibe from the m/m that gets big in fandom and that I tend to prefer.

What I appreciated about the setup at the beginning of Wynonna Earp is that one of them was all "I'm straight! OH NO!" in a more comedic than self-hating way. (Catnip!) The other one leered at her and gave off horny vibes. (Catnip!) Both actresses were super hot to me, which is just about never true on TV. And it's an urban fantasy trash show full of stupid monster of the week shit and other things I like, not a prestige drama that I'll never care about fanfic of because the canon writing is what I'm drawn to.

Would I have written f/f fic for it if I'd stuck around? Hard to say. My output is pretty minimal at the best of times. I might have been satisfied with canon. I'd probably have read some fic and made a couple more vids.

(At 6k+, that ship is in the top 250 or so on AO3 if you go by tag search. It's just not top for new works in 2023. Only half of them are otp:true, but that's still more fic for this ship than most fandoms have total.)

My big exception to not liking canon ships is that I like a fair amount of BL, indie "m/m romance", etc. I've pondered why that is, and I think it's a number of specific vibe things that I find regularly there. There's a disconnect where this stuff isn't literal representation by and for the same group. Even when the author is possibly a cis man, there's still that assumed audience. In the ones I like, the ships often have a fucked up element even if the ending is happy. Some of them are goofy comedy and it's comedy that works for me, which is always so subjective. I recently finally got around to Scum Villain, and I loved the meta shit and humor, but it was really LBH being such an obsessed little creep that sold me on it. Clueless senior + stalkertastic junior is my catnip.

When I've tried indie f/f fiction, it has often been extremely serious, featured rather blandly wholesome ships, and put lesbian identity front and center. But checking or not checking those tickyboxes isn't the issue: it's a vibe thing. I was looking forward to Gideon the Ninth since it sounded a lot more interesting and messy, but I ended up getting distracted before it came out. (This happens often. I still haven't seen KinnPorsche on the m/m side of things. If I find out about it too long before release, I often never end up getting the canon.)

The most recent queer female character I can remember making me go "Ooh!" is the protagonist of Knife+Heart. She's a violent creep and a total mess, and the movie is a bloody art film horror nobody saw outside of film festivals. It's about a lesbian director of m/m porno movies in the 70s trying to track down a serial killer who is preying on her actors. There is constant meta in her increasingly artsy porn films and in the narrative overall. There are 57 layers of identity bullshit going on at all times, but none of them are just about orientation qua orientation. They're about the closet and violence and parents and fans and voyeurs and projection. I don't know if I'm really rooting for Anne to get back with her ex. She's so terrible and the ex deserves better. But it's apparently possible to write a lesbian character I am all over... if you're a dude who makes gay art films.

--

Of course, just asking for f/f that is exactly like the m/m I enjoy is silly. I'm always going to have slightly different standards for what bugs me in a sex scene or what hits to close to home and all of that.

What I want is f/f that makes me feel like the m/m I enjoy does.

And I've virtually never found that. I've found canon m/m and f/f Western live action media that I like and that give me similar feelings, and I'll vid those ships but not usually write them. I have not found female buddy or enemy relationships with the subtext I like that would inspire me to write fic. Well... Xena. If it were on now and I were watching it for the first time now, Xena would probably inspire me like this.

--

This started with people finding an older post where I spent months hand-compiling shipping stats for FFN and Wattpad to show how het they are and coming away with the idea that m/m is the problem.

And I'm not saying it was TERFy because it was a stupid response. I'm saying it was radfemmy in that I got reblogs from open radfems who had worse shit to say than "fandom hates women" within one or two reblogs down that chain. There's a certain "It is the duty of all queer women to support the movement by ___" vibe that pops up constantly on posts like these. Whether you agree that the subtext is there, it attracts accounts with blatant radfem stuff in their headers and then a wave of nonsense hits my inbox. That's just the practical reality.

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/746553097204203521/the-fandom-hates-women-response-to-lack-of-ff

The "fandom hates women" part of it comes from the fact that fandom as an entity just doesn't watch the kind of media that draws femslash, even if it ticks all of the boxes of things those very same people say they like. There are so many times I've watched a show that I've seen mega-popular Tumblr posts wishing existed, and then the fandom is so, so small comparatively and often in general. There have been superheroes, vampire/supernatural shows, fantasy shows, movies, books, the list goes on, that feel like they were generated out of Tumblr's desires for ideal fandom media, and everyone knows they're never going to attract anywhere near the same attention for fandom and fanworks because the common denominator just tends to be that if there isn't a full ensemble of attractive men to ship either with each other or with the women, fandom's not interested.

So it's not about prioritizing women in that sense, it's about people witnessing hypocrisy over and over again the second a show doesn't have a mostly-male ensemble. The people who are in these fandoms are frustrated that good faith attempts to get people interested are met with every excuse in the book that all eventually boils down to "I don't like watching stuff with women in it as much as I like watching stuff with men in it." And if that's how people feel about it... sometimes the conclusions are going to turn into the more uncharitable take of "fandom hates women."

--

Maybe, but whenever I see a "fandom hates women" reblog of my stuff, one or two reblogs further down the chain I get an overt TERF. I just had to go block several people today, in fact.

The first person to reblog with a comment like that is usually subtle, but their friends and friends of friends are not. The rhetoric that very quickly starts is the fandom equivalent of that "All the butches are becoming trans men! We're losing lesbians!" stuff.

Here's the thing: I've been in ten billion fandoms that were so awesome and fit fandom's supposed tastes to a T and yet no amount of promoting them could get anyone to try the canon. This goes for canons that are all men or all white men or all majority ethnicity men or whatever else.

The default state of media is to not engender a big fic fandom.

I agree that the rare outliers mostly follow certain patterns, but we extrapolate too far when we say that a lack of those patterns is why a fandom is small.

A fandom is small because that's the near-universal default.

--

Yes, a small slice of fandom consists of guilt-ridden queer fujoshi who say they want more f/f but don't make much of a move to make that happen. I tend to run into that a lot because of my own tastes and having friends who share those tastes.

Far more of fandom is people talking generally about how representation matters without saying they would personally join these fandoms if they existed.

Neither group is large enough to be the real reason some woman-heavy canon fails to take off to HP levels.

The real reason is not hypocrisy but the fact that most things don't take off like that. Most things without massive, massive audiences especially don't take off like that. And the very few things that do are flukes and don't actually predict that another similar thing will take off in the future.

--

Go to AO3's tag search. Search for all canonical fandom tags. Sort by uses and descending order.

Right now, I get 64,390 tags.

The first page, 50 tags, goes from HP with 497,845 works to the Thor movies with 59,266 works. By page 6, we're below 10 thousand works.

By the end of page 10, we're down to Labyrinth with 3,906.

Somewhere in the top 500 AO3 fandom tags (many of which are just franchise metatags for each other), we go all the way from megafandoms to medium size and down to relatively modest ones.

That's not a lot of room for a big f/f-heavy fandom given the trends in mainstream media and that mainstream media is where most really big fandoms come from.

--

I also notice that you're conflating a lack of desire to watch something that's primarily about women with a lack of desire to watch something that includes women.

There are tons of fans who want something more like The Mummy with a leading man and leading woman they love.

Granted, that's not me and that's not a lot of my fujoshi/slasher audience, but it's extraordinarily common. I know plenty of people who don't like canons that are only dudes, but since they also don't like canons that are only ladies and they don't ship f/f, this gets spun into "fandom hates women".

--

Let me be clear:

Conflating "lesbians" and "women" is a radfem position.

[veryvincible]

hello cass ! pls do !💫🎨🐲

Hello, lovely star! I will >:)

💫 Name some artists who influence your style!

In terms of comic artists, most of my suit and metal shading inspiration comes from Bob Layton, because of course it does. I also really adore the design and lining of his Tonys, and the kind of long, rectangular face shape with angles is something that I try to implement with Tony, because he just seems like a long, rectangular kind of guy. I took influence from Marquez and Schiti recently, as well, for the sake of modernizing my art for non-fandom things. I do really want to go back and do some classic-styled fanart for my soul, though.

Also, @ghosthan is my art icon and my most beloved confidante and I want to eat her pencils and gain whatever powers she holds, because holy shit. And @sibmakesart has a really, really beautifully sketchy style that's conducive to not only fully rendered pieces, but also sketches, and my style is... not sketch-friendly, to say the least, so I absolutely adore and covet their skill there.

I could also mention the animes I watched growing up that I was drawing fanart for before I dipped my toes into comic art recreation, but that'd over-complicate things, I think.

🎨 Can I see a page of your sketchbook / WIPs?

My physical sketchbook is currently packed away while I redecorate some, but have these:

🐉 Shout out an under-appreciated artist!

I don't know if I know enough artists by name to be able to find one that doesn't get as much attention as they deserve, buuuut

@bananapiesn, I think, is one of the most talented comic artists I have had the great joy of coming across in my life. Her style looks so effortless, she's mastered using line weight to convey mood and shapes and shadows, she's incredible at putting together expressions that look exaggerated enough to be hyperbolized while still looking realistic and serious, and she has drawn some of my favorite pieces that I've ever seen.

She posts art periodically on her insta stories as well, and she and ghosthan both do something I adore with long-haired female characters; they give them angular shapes for the curls to follow, instead of always being very loose and rounded, to convey the kind of layers of hair building one on top of the other. The hatching, too, is just exquisite. Truly some of the best artists I've met-- better than a good number of official comic artists out there, in my opinion, and I think they deserve to be scooped up by Marvel and swept away to illustrate the next Caps and Iron Mans.