#mad that this isn't a canon romance route :(((

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

i've seen zks be like "if we were self inserting we would've been doing so with mai since she's such a blank slate character" but the thing is mai *does* have a personality, it's just an unconventional type of personality they can't personally relate to as much as they can with katara or jin

Katara also has a personality - one zutarians constantly disregard for the sake of self-inserting. Hence them constantly going on and on about how "No 14-year-old girl would go for a bald 12-year-old instead of the hot, older guy with a cool scar."

I wouldn't even say Mai's personality is unconventional, it's just personality that sexism says girls should not have. Being all nurturing and soft and vulnerable with someone else doesn't come easy to her, she doesn't react with too much emotion to most things, yet she will speak her mind when something isn't to her liking - and most things are not to her liking because, despite her apathy, she's not exactly someone people would discribe as "easy going". If Mai was a guy, especially a conventionally attractive one, she would be super popular, much like her boyfriend who could be a real bastard sometimes.

You just have to look at all the zutara fics, fanart and meta that constantly make Mai out to be an uncaring, cruel, and downright abusive person for doing things like not pretending to like something just because her boyfriend was the one to get it for her, or getting cranky, or asking Zuko to get her food, or simply getting mad at him when he unfairly accuses her of liking someone else... and then act like Katara is the "better woman" for supposedly being super easy going and "only wanting love"

Zutarians want a doormat girl that they can use to not only ship themselves with Zuko, but also to CONSTANTLY suck up to him. Katara just happened to be the one that was there from the start and, more importantly, didn't actually interact with Zuko that much, so she doesn't ruin their fantasy of "ideal girlfriend for precious boy Zuko" (extra ironic considering that, if Katara really was that passive instead of stubborn and strong-willed, Zuko would fucking hate her).

Because Zuko and Katara are rarely seen truly talking to each other and having to deal with their clashing personalities/goals, zutarians just pretend the negative scenes were "repressed sexual tension" to ignore the simple fact that these two characters genuinely hated each other - Zuko hated her for being a foreigner that dared to put up a fight against his nation's imperialism, and Katara hated him because imperialism killed nearly everyone in her tribe, including her mom - and then hyper focus on the few positive scenes, taking them out of context to make it romantic.

More importantly, they can pretend that they were TOTALLY thinking about each other during all those scenes in which they're dealing with literally any problem, as if Zuko and Katara were each other's "saviors", even though their arcs have nothing to do with each other -and since these are the overwhelming majority of the "scenes with zutara subtext" they are PERFECT for people who like self-inserting because they are completely blank slates.

But Mai? There are entire episodes in which her romance with Zuko is a super important part of the plot - and she speaks her mind regardless of whether Zuko likes what she has to say. She can be bossy, she can be cranky, and she is her own damn self (which Zuko canonically likes). More importantly, the show doesn't take the easy route of "every problem in their relationship is caused by something outside of their control, like the war or an obviously evil romantic rival that is totally coercing one of them into a relationship" - aka the lazy excuses Zutarians use to justify why their ship was never canon, let alone endgame.

Mai's personality is not easy to erase because she has an actual dynamic with Zuko, something Katara didn't have until the very end of the show and thus it naturally didn't get fleshed out enough to threaten the idealized version of it zutarians came up with in their heads. If Mai had been a one-off character like Jin, with only enough time to be charmed by Zuko's cluelessness, they would LOVE her.

[wanhohenheim]

What they did to Pricefield is inexcusable, but what they did to their friendship is even more inexcusable and here's why

Okay, I can understand if Max and Chloe's romance didn't work out. It happens even to best friends. But...

...but D9 did something much worse. They ruined their friendship. A friendship that had been the foundation of their relationship since they were kids.

The thing that made them love each other.

The thing that made them some of the most important people in each other's lives.

The friendship that made them so quickly renew their relationship in LIS 1.

They killed even that. It was when they were friends in the first place that Chloe wanted to be with Max.

It was when they were friends that Chloe missed the hell out of Max and was very upset that she broke contact with her.

It was when they were friends that Chloe took her back and forgave her.

Now there isn't even that, they have turned Chloe who never wanted to leave Max AS A FRIEND, into someone who destroyed what had bonded them since childhood.

And that note to Max at the end-- “Fuck you, Chloe, i want to be on my own too.” That's from the friendship route

Max would never say that. She didn't even say it when Chloe was mad at her in the first game.

The fact that they ruined even their friendship convinces me that D9 and SE really hate Chloe and that relationship. P.S And also, “You never went to the cities Rachel wanted to go.” Seriously? Max and Chloe went to New York in LIS2. In BTS, we also find out that Rachel wanted to go to New York. D9 not only disrespect canon from Dontnod, but they forget their own canon too. Yet another reason to consider this game non-canonical

[the-unconquered-queen]

Yet another missed opportunity from writing Aerin out of Blades 2 is the ability to have a slow burn enemies-to-lovers route with him. I previously touched briefly on the fact that he has no route if you didn't romance him in book 1, and he is essentially entirely paywalled; every scene to develop his relationship is one you have to pay for: the lake, having him a bit longer in b2, the kiss, and the two hookups.

But because he's barely in the story, you don't get a chance for MC to be truly angry and hurt over what he did. Pretty much every time there is a chance to be angry, you have to choose between that or a romantic choice, and, again, since he's barely in the story, you can't really afford to be rejecting the romance choices if you want to have a route with him (and in my opinion, the very sparse canon dialogue of MC being mad at him just comes off as needlessly rude, not heartbroken or betrayed).

I just want my MC to go off, to not sweep stuff under the rug, to expect to be betrayed again, but to ultimately choose to take the risk of trusting him again. Instead, I have to play her as a bit of a pushover just to develop their relationship. The ch 8 dialogue if MC was wary of trusting him was really good, and I think we should have been able to explore that dynamic more. And this isn't even going into how well their stories could have mirrored each other's and helped each other's development... just overall a missed opportunity.

[markantonys]

oh purely political arranged marriage could be interesting to see because yeah, of all the characters rj could've chosen, he picked the one guy that was pretty much enslaved and sexual assaulted and yet was willing to sacrifice his own escape to free collared woman. Like sure, that guy would fall in love with a slaver and then even worse, sort of defend the Seanchann. Respectfully, fuck that.

So that marriage could be interesting, especially if it ends with Tuon breaking it off for whatever reason.

Personally, I think the show (and the books) should end with either Mat in the polycule (which ofc is not gonna happen) or single. We don't need to have all our heroes paired off (side-eyeing Moiraine/Thom).

yeah, i think the route the show needs to go is setting mat up as someone who is entering this marriage with the intention of fixing (or destroying) the seanchan empire from the inside. because it's not his character to go in with any other mindset. now, whether that includes genuine love for a changed tuon who will help him fix/destroy things or whether he's working as a solo operator with no feelings for her will depend on how many seasons they end up getting.

(and like, in the books we can headcanon that this is what he would've done post-canon, we can say "oh this is probably the route rj would've gone if he'd been able to write outriggers", but the idea that mat has serious intentions of trying to change stuff in seanchan and use his new position as prince of ravens for good is BARELY there in the actual text, if at all. the show needs to make it explicit. we don't need to witness the destruction of the empire within the show, it's fine to leave that as a post-canon loose end, but we need to feel confident that mat Has Plans and isn't just going to sit around being a slaver empress's yes-man for the rest of his life, because that's not his character.)

anyway, back to the show! i'm sure their 8-season plan includes a proper mat/tuon romance arc, but i think of all the PRIMARY romances (so not counting moiraine/thom & siuan/bryne which totally are not happening regardless) this one's the most likely to get cut if they DON'T get the full 8 seasons. perrin/faile and rand/aviendha will definitely be happening in s3, and the show already announced its rand/elayne intentions with that romantic meet-cute shot. i could see rand/min being cut and the polycule only being avirandlayne if the show only goes to 5 seasons (which may be why the show's withholding the polycule viewing for now, to play it safe in case they can't get to it all), but any more than that and i think rand/min will make it in (not that i would be mad if it didn't............just saying!). egwene/gawyn is also at risk for the chopping block in a less-than-8-seasons scenario since they get together so late in the story, but it IS plot-crucial that they're at least warder-bonded and emotionally connected in SOME way by the last battle.

mat/tuon, though, in addition to being one of the latest-game ships, there is 0 story reason they need to have a significant emotional connection. the only story necessity from that relationship is mat corralling the seanchan army to fight in the last battle, which can be accomplished just as well by a feelings-free political marriage (and in the books even this was mostly accomplished by rand lmao mat barely did shit in getting the seanchan to TLB). so i could definitely imagine feelings-free political marriage, with maybe the Implication that feelings might develop later, being their "fewer-seasons backup plan" for mat/tuon. it will be very interesting to see whether mat gets his marriage prophecy next season and see whether the show is willing to commit to that marriage as early as s3! i think this MARRIAGE prophecy is less risky to include early than the polycule LOVE prophecy, because you can always last-minute cram a political marriage into whatever ends up being the final season but you can't cram in actual love without enough time to develop it.

[lovebirdgames]

Sorry if this has been asked before but what is your reasoning behind the recommended play order? I know you've explained the Peter-Doug-Clark order, but what about the other lads? Loving the game btw, I'm from the UK so marching band at school and college isn't really a thing so summer camp and marching band stories are always a lot of fun

Major spoilers under the cut! Don't read unless you beat the game!

Also obligatory "You can play the routes in any order you want!" but here was our line of thinking for coming up with a requested route order...

We basically looked at levels of romance, angst, and batshit crazy. -We put Peter's route (which we lovingly refer to as the First World Problems route) first so no one would be thrown straight into the fire (barring the fire on his route). It has the lowest levels of crazy and the highest amount of romance so I feel it's a good one to start with.

-Initially, we had Sam second, but we switched him and Doug. One thing that was on our minds was the big reveal of Mr. Wiley pointing a gun at you and I absolutely love the rain scene from Doug's route as your intro to that, so we put Doug second.

-Clark got moved around a bit too. We just knew he couldn't be right before or after Peter because Clark's route will leave you mad at Peter and vice versa. He has lower romance and higher angst so we thought his lonely route would serve as a good follow-up to Doug.

-After the stress of breaking the pit instruments in Doug's route, and the sadness of being ostracized in Clark's route, Sam's chill demeanor and route is the way to go. Since it's the route where you're able to snap Mr. Wiley out of it, we thought it would be a nice halfway point and a way to mix things up.

-We shifted Garth towards the end. I like extending the mystery of what happened to him for as long as possible.

-In otome, the angstiest route or the yandere route always seems to slide into second to last place on the route order. What do you know, Poptart is both! Easy decision.

-It's been said that Tom's route has "final route" vibes so it made sense to put him last. He also has some of the best action, the most painful bad endings, and every character shines in his route, contributing to that feeling. We don't believe in having a canon true route boy, but Tom fits well as the grand finale...or he would if there wasn't a final route!

Hope you liked this essay and thank you for playing!

[13leaguestories]

Part 1 (Of who knows how many because have a point to this so yeah... sorry in advance) Okay so one thing I've noticed about Ryu, my Mc, is that he and syd are very much rivals. He likes her. Is friends with her but all I seem to do is make the bar go down so I gave up. Well more gave up after I found out that wasn't bad. Ryu and Bradley are.... odd. They have a weird relationship. A love hate kind of one honestly. Basically Ryu is an over protective papa bear. Which isn't always good....

Part 2 *cough* sealed Bradley's memories because he's an idiot *cough* like I said Ryu is very overprotective when it comes to him. Then there's Chris. Ryu has a great relationship with him... Until the second book. Ryu does not approve of him calling him a monster. So he flirted with Rahim to make him jealous because Ryu is mad at Chris. He also flirted with Ziliah without actually meaning to. Well less flirted for he took what Ryu meant wrong. Ryu is very pissed at Chris.

Part 3 He can usually forgive things easily but he is taking the whole thing personally so yeah.... He's not a happy camper at the moment with Chris (Haven't gotten to the ending yet though). Then there Rahim, Ryu and him actually get along fairly well surprisingly. At least on any subject that doesn't involve Syd. Ryu is very protective when it comes to his friends. Which is yet another reason he's pissed at Chris.

Part 4 Then after that is um... the werewolf vampire chick... I just got to here so I don't really know her name all that well yet. It's only a couple episodes in. Ryu and her have a good relationship when it doesn't come to her family. Ryu killed them on accident. Which he is still blaming and hating himself for. Which is another reason he is angry at Chris. He hates himself for what he is. He hates that Chris was right. He hates that he's hurting those he cares for. Ryu is very, very suicidal.

Part 5 (I swear I have a point! Bear with me!) Ryu himself is playful and suicidal and very much a prankster. He actually buries his depression with pranks and by not being serious. Which would actually be kinda cool if you could incoperate that for some chars because it could make sense. But all this is to say that a lot of people have different head canons and I was wondering yours. Before I started gushing about mine... I like to gush about him... it's hard not to...

part 5.5 (More of an add on really) Ryu honestly starts flirting with Rahim as a way to make Chris jealous but it ends up developing real feelings for him so... yeah...

* * *

Lmao, a bunch of “pissed off Chris” parts. But it was great learning about your Roe! It’s always cool to hear what routes people go down and how their characters take to the situations and the companions.

I’ve said it in another ask but can’t find it, but the canon Roe is named Damon and romances Sydero. Chris dies, uncle dies, death is everywhere.

[confetti-cupcake]

1, 7, 15 💙

Aw, thanks so much for the ask! ❤️

1) Who is your favorite character to write for and is this the character you find easiest to write for?

I kind of have a conventional and an unconventional answer for this. I think for OG 9-1-1, my favorite character to write for is Eddie, just because I relate to him so much and I feel like it's pretty easy to get inside his head. I'm not very outwardly emotive and I have a very subtle way of showing that I care, so I find writing him much easier with those things in mind than someone like Buck, who is much more outward about all that.

My unconventional answer is actually Mateo from 9-1-1: Lone Star. It's weird, I don't think Mateo and I are very alike, and I think that's why writing for him can be a little difficult at times, but some of my favorite scenes from my Survivor AU fic are from his POV. A majority of the scenes for that fic that I've written so far are pretty serious, but I intentionally take a comedic route with Mateo, which has been pretty fun to explore. Homeboy had no idea what he was getting himself into applying for Survivor, but he's having fun figuring it out as he goes. I especially love writing him in scenes with Marjan and Paul and having them all playing off of each other the way that they do in canon.

7) How do you edit your fics? What do you look for in your edits?

Haha, you know me — I'm a very fast writer, but a very slow editor. This is because I prioritize scenes that are fresh in my head and write those in full, and then move onto the scenes that aren't quite coming naturally. If a scene isn't coming naturally to me, I write what I call a "skeleton draft" of it, which is mostly just simple dialogue, and some rough description if I can think of it. Very bare-bones. So when I go through and edit (which is usually at least a few days after the fact so I can get enough separation from it), I flesh out the scenes much more. I add descriptions, better words to say what I mean (which includes a lot of googling of "synonym for _____" 😂), the POV character's thoughts and feelings about what's happening, etc. I also prioritize making sure that any dialogue or actions both feel in character and line up with the way the character has been behaving thus far.

This all definitely doesn't happen in one go though, which is why editing one chapter can sometimes take as long as a week or two. I usually skim through the chapter once, making edits to the most "noticeably wrong" things, and then highlighting in red whatever feels off, but I want to come back to later. Then I read through it again, correcting more in red, and leaving the red things that I haven't figured out how to correct yet. I repeat this process however many times it takes to get rid of all the text in red, and once that's done, I consider the chapter "edited" 😅 at which point I send to my helpers for feedback ���

15) If you could only write one type of fic (angst, fluff, etc.) for the rest of your life what would it be?

Oh, this is so tough, mostly because both of my WIPs are so long that there's a little bit of everything in them. Saying "reality TV AU" feels like a cop-out here, so I'm going to say mystery fics, if that counts? I love mystery novels, and one of my favorite things is building up to something that happens by sprinkling tiny hints and foreshadowing along the way until the big reveal. The Perfect Match is basically all of this on both a minor and major scale. Yes, it's a romance, but there's a big mystery element to it, and I feel like such an evil mad scientist every time I drop a little hint about a perfect match pair, or — even better — drop a red herring 😈 Any fic where I can do that is fun for me.

Send me another Fanfic Writer Ask!

[koldsoba]

i'm gonna go ahead and tag my MCs with their (tentative) frontrunning RO combinations

Tag the OCs who are obliviously in love with each other, they both have major crushes on the other but they're both too stupid to realize that the other one loves them