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thequibblah · 3 years ago

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⭐ honestly there are so many things that I'd likevto ask which is why I want to ask a broaderish question.. How do you approach the characterisation of your "Main cast"? I think you have created some really great complex characters even though they do not exist in canon or even fanon (Germaine in example)

I hope this isn't too broad lol

no, i don't think it's too broad! just let me know if my answer doesn't actually touch on what you were wondering about haha

character creation for me tends to be spontaneous rather than conscious — i.e. i'm just writing my way through a scene and i'm like anyway, these people are new and they're friends or they're dating or they hate each other, and there's rarely a ton of forethought put into it. the vast majority of the ct cast was like that, i would say, except possibly michael, who was the first love interest i invented so there was a little more intention there

(but other than him i was really pulling things out of nowhere for the rest of the students especially — including with emmeline which sometimes surprises me)

the exception is, of course, the main cast. they and sara were very intentional, and i wrote little bio thingies for them before i started even outlining the fic. i mean the non-canon main cast, of course, lol — mary, dorcas (they're both canon but i've invented virtually everything about them, so), and germaine.

i did actually do a lot of hemming and hawing about how many girls there would be in lily's year in gryffindor. as discussed in a previous "my beef with j/k/r" instalment on this blog, the numbers of the hogwarts population really don't make sense at all, so i knew i could be flexible and kind of hand wave any questionable bits away. but the composition of the gryffindor girls was crucial in deciding lily's characterisation, imo — an easy way to convey implied characterisation is to show someone in contrast to the people around them. so: who is lily within the context of her friend group? is she friends with all the girls she rooms with?

separately, i've always liked writing friends in groups of four. in the planning stage of this i was like urghhh it's four girls, the four marauders, is that like too perfect....... and one thing i HATED was that people could then map on each marauder to each girl (lily = james is a bit questionable, though i firmly believe they're much more alike than they seem, but it kind of works.... mary = sirius, dorcas = remus, germaine = peter). and i didn't, and don't, want to make it seem like i've just made vaguely distinct female versions of each marauder!

i've made my peace with that risk, of course, and i think each of the girls is significantly different from "their marauder" (LOL) that it's actually fine — and, better still, if that thought occurs to anyone i hope that their characterisations will go on to provide interesting nuance to the parallels

but, anyway, tangent aside, i love groups of four because i think basically all my life i've had groups-of-four friendships. to absolutely go to bat for us foursomes, it's nice because no single person is the obvious odd one out, and each combination in pairs brings something different to the table — the role that doe plays in the group of four at large, for instance, isn't exactly the same as who she is in her individual friendship with mary, lily, or germaine.

the three main cast members came of some very clinical answers to those initial questions about lily.

one, i have always liked having mary be one of lily's friends, and in my characterisation of her she's obviously a great foil to lily, as a fellow muggle-born student. so, she was a lock.

two, i wanted to write one other canon order character, but i didn't want it to be marlene because in my reading of her canon mention, lily is unlikely to write a letter to sirius with her full name (paraphrasing but "i was so upset when marlene mckinnon died, i cried for ages") or, indeed, write a letter discussing how sad marlene's death made her, if they were besties and schoolmates. i went with dorcas because why the hell not? in developing her i then added all these thoughts

three, i felt the need to make up an oc so i could have absolute freedom over their fate. i had certain preconceived notions about mary and dorcas and what their stories would be, so there were other things (e.g. playing quidditch) that i wanted to have a friend of lily's do that they couldn't. plus, i wanted to write a massive lesbian.

another little sticking point, though, was that i (for a very SHRUG?? reason) didn't want lily to be besties with everyone she's lived with, but i didn't want to insert a catty rival into her dorm either. (now, don't get me wrong, i do love a good rival. i did, after all, write mary and amelia, and i am a known appreciator of carlotta meloni, and i adore TLE's marlene mckinnon. but i wanted the gryffindor girls to be like lily's safe space — a contrast both to her home life and to her recently-strained friendship with snape, where she's spent some time having to second-guess herself a lot. in my mind her friendships with all three of her besties coalesced at various points organically, until she was like wow wait i do actually have a home base here.)

the compromise was someone who was friendly with lily, but there's no strain on that friendship to be more than it is — which, sara and lily respect each other but have also learned they're not so alike that they need to hang out all the time. sara, to lily, is the girl you do things with because you're schoolmates, and then once you're out of school you amicably drift apart and occasionally leave a nice comment on their instagram

so that was how the gryffindors coalesced in my mind as placeholder figures. i will fully confess i start with tropes and then work out ways to deconstruct them or complicate them — as i've talked about in multiple of these questions, i think a lot of my characters are caught between sticking to their perceived label and acting the way they want to, aka the ripest high school drama fodder known to humankind

Wearing a fake smile and watching her sister’s sickening love life had put things in perspective a little. Why should she always do what was expected of her?

(we construct ourselves in contrast to those around us....)

mary started off as boy-crazy, doe started off as idealistic, and germaine started off as struggling to find her place. then i built up from those foundations, adding in tropey bits i enjoyed and wanted to engage with — i wanted doe to be passionately principled, but the gentler counterpart to mary, and even-tempered where lily runs hot. i wanted germaine to be a little bit thoughtless, changeable, someone utterly herself but still uncomfortable in her own skin. knowing, then, that the other two were going to be, how shall i put it, gentler hearts (LOL), i went back to mary and decided she would have this tough-girl, queen-bee persona.

then doe got her family background, which added in her ambitions and hinted at her future, and made it so her foundation would be threatened by events of the story. obviously i was writing mary in the aftermath of the mulciber/avery incident, so i needed to ask how much her take-no-shit vibe was threatened by it — and if not, why? how? unsurprisingly, even to people like amelia...

“At least I’m not overflowing with insecurity,” said Amelia. Mary laughed. The sound echoed through the courtyard. “We both know that’s not true.”

...the persona is put-on, but the "real mary" is so caught up in the invented mary that even she couldn't hope to uncover an authentic self...nor would she necessarily want to, because her affected self is still her...

wait don't get me started

germaine was already a quidditch player, and i wanted her to be a seeker because that's automatic investment in perhaps the single player with the most impact on the game — crucial for what i knew would be many, many quidditch sequences, where james wasn't always the most important pov! some of that seekery vibe leeched into who she is: she's searching, right from the start, for a sense of self that feels just out of reach:

“This year is going to be a year of change,” Germaine said [...] “Henceforth I will be going by... Gemma.” The girls looked at one another for a beat. Then Lily, Doe, and Mary burst into laughter.

she's more anxious and outwardly uncertain than her friends, and i wanted to consciously engage with that — proper teenage awkwardness, the kind that wouldn't really happen to Main Character lily, I Have No Sense of Shame mary, and I Am Overflowing with Good Sense doe. more than the other three, germaine is a normal person in the context of this world — she's not a muggleborn, so the war has a different impact on her; she's not the child of activists; she's not well-off. an absolutely spontaneous invention that i was really quite thrilled by was having her sister be crouch's secretary, because it's such a sudden, shocking realisation for her that she's got such a close connection in the thick of it

Germaine clapped a hand over her mouth. “Big news soon,” she mumbled. “Big news soon, that’s what Abigail said, only she didn’t say what big news…”

so germaine is really just... living her life, an indie coming of age film in which her friends' subplot is a fucking war LOL

i defined germaine in contrast to the other girls a lot when drawing out the characters for myself, mostly for a practical reason — i didn't want her to overlap too strongly with any of them, since she's the only one who's wholly my invention. i think some of that remains in her characterisation, but i decided to make it conscious instead:

Germaine saw herself as a happy medium, flexible enough to stretch sympathetically between her friends. But— What does it mean that I define myself in comparison to them? Nothing. She was only seventeen and she was finding her way.

i knew germaine was going to get the chaotic sporty romance pretty much right off the bat, but, fun fact, i hadn't actually picked out who her love interest would be until after i started spitballing other sixth years' names and had a basic idea of who emmeline was. wild!

i feel like i haven't said all i want to say but let's stop there or i'd go on forever, ha!

#director's cuts #ask me #anon

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funkymbtifiction · 3 years ago

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Hi Charity!

I hope you’re doing well 😊

I’m the INFP who wrote the post about Dean.

I read the post about the different communication styles between feelers, and I found it very interesting and thought-provoking. Your reply really resonated with me. I know the original poster said they weren’t replying to me, but I still felt part of the conversation and wanted to respond to it, but then I got a bit carried away, so I tried to synthesise my thoughts as best as I could (so not that well haha). Here it goes.

Since you said I could edit / shorten it if I wanted, I'm going to, because if I don't, this conversation is just going to keep going in circles with me in the middle. But I'm going to keep what you said about Dean, because I think it's important to discuss.

In my original post I didn’t mean to speak for all Fi users, and didn’t mean to definitely exclude Fi when it comes to Dean, just Fi-dom. I didn’t mean either that if he were an Fi-dom he would behave exactly as I would have in the same situation, and I probably carried on too much about myself but I meant that if he were an Fi-dom, to me he would have enough emotional subtlety to understand that people are different, they react differently to things, and he would have given Rory the space to react in her own way. Maybe she didn’t feel it, but then again maybe she did and it was hard for her to express it, or maybe she needed time to figure things out and wasn’t sure of her feelings, which is fine too, especially at sixteen! Maybe he would have asked questions and been more curious about the reasons why she didn’t say it, instead of assuming that it must mean that she doesn’t feel it if she doesn’t say it back straight away. I just felt a lot of harsh energy coming from him, which I didn’t think matched that of a Fi-dom, but then again maybe I self-inserted too much, maybe it has to do with him being a sensor or unhealthy or his enneagram… It’s just, I look at Jess and Dean and I just don’t see the same type. Dean has that sort of traditional aura about him, like “this is what things are supposed to be like when you have a girlfriend and this is what society tells you needs to happen” and stuff, that Jess completely lacks, and that I don’t think is very Fi. But again, I could be wrong. It could also be that his characterisation is just not that great.

You did raise a good point, and I think you are right. Dean has a lot of expectations about what a relationship should look like, and the gender roles people should play in them. Do you remember that episode where Rory and her mom were scoffing at an old TV show? I think it was Donna Reed? He got a little offended, and said he thinks it's "kind of nice" if a woman wants to take care of her husband, and cook, and clean, and look nice for him, and both of them gave him a dirty look -- but then Rory went and dressed up in a 50's outfit and fixed him dinner to "try it." And Dean kind of liked it. My point is, I could see an ISFJ for Dean now that I think about it more. He takes his role as a boyfriend seriously and he wants to do it "right." He is overall tolerant and good-natured, and sometimes makes selfish decisions (but so does every person on that show :P) but you are right, he expects an immediate verbal response in a way an IFP might not. Compare him to Jess, who told Rory "I love you" and then ran away. Left. "The ball is in her court." He got all hurt that she didn't respond immediately or chase him down and tell him, and left / sulked. (Cue Luke going: you're an idiot. You wait around for an answer! You don't just make a declaration and run away!) Then there's the fact that when his marriage falls apart, Dean goes back to Rory. His old girlfriend. It's "going back" and "not moving forward." So your two cents is appreciated and I think you're right and my initial assessment was wrong.

I admire people who are so confident as the poster, because one of the reasons why I didn’t use to share my feelings with other people was in part because it was hard, in part because I didn’t think they were interested. I didn’t think it mattered, I didn’t think I mattered, in any case that I mattered enough that they would want me to bother them and take away from their precious time to have that conversation. I really don’t want to bother people. I’d rather just go away and lick my wounds in private and analyze it and learn from it and eventually be OK with it. (What makes me and my views and my thoughts more important than others’, why should they want to read about it? Answer: nothing, and they probably don’t, so I don’t say anything or send anything.) I’m working on it and doing better!

This is very 9. And it's true, 9s have trouble "taking up space" and feeling like their voice even matters. I also struggle with this a lot, and I just have a 9 fix. I want to do / say things and then think: but no one cares, so why bother? 9s shrink their space instead of expand to fill it.

To sum things up, as you also tried to convey, I think, Charity, I don’t think we can determine people’s communicative styles “once and for all”. Irrespective of type, people are complex and communication depends on many factors: the level of intimacy of the relationship, the presence or absence of conflict, the actual personality of the person in front of you, your history with that person, how you’re feeling in that particular moment, are you tired, anxious, busy, hungry… Your communication style is also likely to evolve back and forth, in one direction as you grow and mature, or in the other when you go through stressful times. People are complex and I don’t think they fit into neat little boxes.

Agreed, but I think some people are naturally more straightforward than others, and others send mixed messages. I had a relationship end last year and then received a Christmas card from that person over the holidays, followed by them wanting to be included in an ongoing multi-person project I had going on about two months later. They were sending me a lot of mixed messages (why are you here? is this you trying to talk to me?) because we had ended our friendship, so I mustered up the nerve to ask: "Does this mean you want to talk?" and the answer was "No."

This is pure attachment type behavior: I'm not sure what I want. Do I want to be friends again? No? But I need to feel still connected to you in some way? Yes? But it's also painful to be around you, and recall that we are no longer friends? Yes. So why am I here?

About a month later, they pulled out of the project, because... I guess... they realized the above. But that is my point: sometimes attachment types (3, 6, 9) don't know what we want, and we send mixed messages, and other people ask us directly what we're up to, and that forces us to think about it, and THEN we make a decision. So I may not like Rory all the time, but I understand why she does the crap she does and all about having to learn to be assertive in a relationship. That Dean thing really upset her, because one minute it was all fine and they were happy and the next, he was mad at her for not instantly saying "I love you." And she reacted largely how I'd expect a 9w1 to act -- what the hell just happened? He tore himself away from me, because I didn't have an answer for him?!

I'm also considering sx2w1 for Dean. Lots of (unhealthy, cuz no one on the show is healthy) intensity, emotion, and expectation that me doing nice things for you means I love you, and you should know that, and I need to hear it from you in return.

Thank you again Charity for being the catalyst for so much interesting thought and introspection! I don’t think I’ve ever written so much on the topic and I am in awe that you are doing it daily and still running this blog after all these years. Sending many good thoughts!

Thanks for contributing! :)

#submission #question #dean #gilmore girls

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majesticnerdynerd · 4 years ago

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Author Interview Tag

I was tagged by @iris-best-taken-in-small-doses, thank you for tagging me! <3

Name: Vee

Fandoms: Primarily Sherlock BBC, but also RDJ Holmes, Harry Potter, and the Fallout games universe, plus Supernatural and bits of Doctor Who which I’ve seen and liked

Where you post: Ao3, I love this site

Most popular multi-chapter fic: So far it’s my first ever published fic from earlier of this godforsaken year, Harry Potter and the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which has just a few days ago surpassed 2k hits. It’s a crossover between HP/SH, and I must admit I do neglect it a little because I have a second fic I publish, which brings us to....

Favourite story you’ve written till date: Definitely Reichenbach Falls. I speed-wrote the first 8-and-a-bit episodes over the course of 2 months while also studying for transfer exams, and I keep my pace up and it is my main focus at the moment. It’s also the most ambitious crossover I’m attempting, because it is the Holy Trinity of SuperWhoLock, and a Gravity Falls AU, so it offers a lot of lore I am proud that I came up with. It has its own challenges I like to tackle, especially when it comes to intertwining characters from numerous TV shows to coherently worked together, plus their character arcs and character developments that are to come. I hide easter eggs here and there and put some of my soul into it, so it is very dear to me. I think I am doing the job adequately so far, but time will tell. :) I do love HPatAoSH, because it is my first fic ever and I am still excited about it, but I put it on the backburner and procrastinate on the chapters I post usually

Fic you were nervous to post: Both my big series, really. One never knows what reception they’re going to get, and we all hope to get the characters to interact just right. The HP crossover because it has two timelines that later intertwine in 1997 when the Golden Trio asks the Baker Street Dumbass Detective Duo for help and I need to make certain corrections in some earlier chapters. Reichenbach Falls because it is SuperWhoLock and as I said, it’s huge, 3 parts in 1 work, so 300 chapters give or take in total, and I hope to do my best with everyone’s characterisation.

How you choose your titles: Depends. HP/SH was a bit self-explanatory, and I think it fits well into the AU and foretells what’s up in a sense that you know who is involved and if you know both fandoms, you get a whiff of a couple shenanigans. Reichenbach Falls was a bit difficult to name and I stalled on it, but then on one hot summer day that I spent cowering inside the house like the pale gremlin I am, I thought hm,,,,, the show is called Gravity Falls, but I can’t use that of course. And then I remembered that Reichenbach is a thing, the waterfall is in canon as well and BAM - Reichenbach Falls. It’s all more about a sudden epiphany than hard thinking, it comes by itself.

Do you outline: Yes, but do I stick to it? Nah. I do write steps for each episode for RF, but those serve only as a mild reminder of what the end goal is, and I wing the rest to my standard. It works well so far. With HP/SH, I just wing it and rely on the past chapters because as I mentioned, I’m a sorrowful procrastinator on this one for now. My outlines are general which gives me space to improvise and improve on the run, which I like, it doesn’t restrict me in any self-induced way, so I prevent mental blocks nicely.

Complete: Living Musical, which is a one-shot I wrote for Steph from inevitably-johnlocked. Fluffy, too! And it needs revision because I wrote it in 4 hours until it was 1am and I have no recollection of that evening anymore. And... god, I need to fix the typos. *facepalms*

In Progress: HP/SH crossover and Reichenbach Falls I linked above already. They’re plenty to take care of :D

Coming soon/not yet started: this is what I am excited about! I have a new AU in mind, either some postapocalyptic wasteland AU, but most probably also an AU of the game Fallout: New Vegas at the same time (it’s basically the same concept). I have the basic plot in mind and down, and ohhhhh guysssss I really like it. I’d also like to make it an interactive fic where the readers may choose which factions John and Sherlock could join, which would affect the ending of the fic, much like what happens in the game, but I’m not decided on this. But there is great potential, I think, though I need to make a big mindmap and brainstorm all that would need to be involved, so there’s lots of lore to consider (which I already got started on). It would be another huge fic, and I plan to write at least half of all that could be published before sending it to ao3, possibly. We will see, but you can see how my mind is overworking itself already... >:) it looks quite badass (but that’s just me so far), and its working name is Fallout: New London. Actually, there’s a prologue and first two chapters that are constant (meaning that it is firmly locked to the AU and can’t be influenced by choices) and in progress already and semi-drafted because I am a psycho like that, but no details yet! I have no self-control.. but yeah, this is the biggest one I’m excited about out of all the fics my mind invents.

Do you accept prompts: ehhhh, maybehaps? I don’t know. Probably not at the moment, maybe in a year or so. I like the idea of doing Christmas prompts, so maybe in 300 days approximately, who knows?

Upcoming story you are most excited to write: Currently, it stays on Reichenbach Falls and its 2 later seasons, because that’s when things get real >:)) also Fallout: New London. so much johnlock in sight.

Upcoming story you are most excited about: Due to my lack of time at the present moment, I nowadays mostly revisit some comfort fics if I feel like shit, but I do keep my eye out on @iris-best-taken-in-small-doses‘ The Corvus That Calls at Night. I am subscribed to the ao3 profile so once it an email popped up and I saw ‘medieval’ and all the other priceless tags (pls check them out I love them) I went oo >:D I am merely waiting for my holiday spirit to kick in fully so I can put my feet up and catch up to my reading; there’s also @simplyclockwork‘s Hired Gun I keep my eyes on, and I patiently wait for @jbaillier‘s Messages From Deep Waters -- I remember that back in August(?) she posted a post about doing research on sea fish and how to gut them? Not sure on the English word or if I’m correct at all right now, but hmmm Scotland staged AU, I like that. Also her You Go To My Head stories that are coming, I love them dearly, and I am so excited there’s going to be more Medical Husbands content :’)

#sherlock fanfic #fanfic #ao3 #johnlock #superwholock #supernatural #doctor who #Reichenbach Falls #my fics #Sherlock

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philologer-mosaic · 4 years ago

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Hey! Fellow writer here! I was curious as to how you learn to write characters and /keep/ them in character without it being overly stereotypical or stiff? I've read your work and I'd love to learn from you ;^;

Hi! Glad to meet you, and wow, I am so flattered to be asked this. Happy to help out a fellow writer, and I’m always down for rambling about writing-related stuff! I’m not sure how helpful some of this will turn out to be, but here goes.

I’m not sure if you’re asking about characterisation in general including crafting OCs or specifically about writing canon characters, and a lot of this advice will be relevant to both, but I will say this straight off: I’ve seen a fair amount of quibbling about how fanfiction won’t teach you how to worldbuild and maybe that’s true, but there is nothing like writing fanfiction for teaching yourself how to craft character voices. Especially when your source material is a movie/ TV show/ whatever definition RWBY falls under. So: rewatch! Pay attention to all the little details. What turns of phrase do they use? How do they stand, how do they move? What’s their usual emotional range? Pick a line they speak, think about what descriptors you’d use to get across their tone of voice or their emotional state if you were writing the scene in a fic. When you’re writing new dialogue for them, try to hear it in the actor’s voice (if that’s a way your imagination works; some people don’t have great auditory imaginations. Mine can be kind of hit and miss!).

Rest of this advice is going under a cut, because this got looong!

With canon characters: start from what you know, then extrapolate. Especially with characters we don’t see all that much of, boil them down to a handful of personality traits/ ways-they-present-themself first, then consider what might underly them. And in reverse: take the things we know about their status and backstory, consider what that implies about them as a person.

So, Clover: I think I boiled him down to ‘confident, friendly, professional’, and what’s underlying ‘confidence’ is really obviously his semblance: he’s never had to hesitate about anything, he always knows he can rely on himself. So in his internal monologue, he’s not going to second-guess his decisions. He calls Qrow out on deflecting compliments, so he’s good at reading people and also wants to help them; I assume that applies more broadly than just to Qrow. He’s leader of Ironwood’s flagship team of Specialists, and semblance or not I made the assumption he didn’t get there without working for it [that is an assumption, though! People less inclined to think well of Clover will make a different assumption, in-universe as well as out, and how he responds to that is also something to consider], so he’s got to be smart, dedicated, a good tactician, a good leader. And building from that: he’s smart and perceptive but we know he’s also loyal to the bitter end (very bitter); what sort of personality can we project that reconciles those two, what sort of person would respond like that? What I went with is that he trusts the system because he understands enough pieces of how/why it works that he trusts the bits he doesn’t understand are also created with the best interests of the people at heart. (Even when that’s really not true.) So then that’s a consistent philosophy-like thing that underlies a lot of how I write him: he understands the reasons for a lot of why things are how they are and then assumes the best of all the rest.

– This looks like a lot, now I’ve written it out. I thought all this out while working on the early chapters but I never put it some of it into words really. In coming up with the plot or story idea you’ll have made plenty of these assumptions and extrapolations already. Take a second look at them; take them further, find places to link them together or pit them against each other.

And remember, these are your interpretations. There’s not a right or wrong way to flesh these out. Work with semi-canon stuff like the mangas or discard it as you wish; follow fanon or argue with it or throw it out entirely. I interpreted Yang as ‘normal outgoing teenage girl in a non-homophobic world’ and wrote her as having dated people from Signal before she got to Beacon; the other day I came across a tumblr post interpreting her as “a rural lesbian”, by which standard she definitely didn’t have any romantic experience before canon; they’re both entirely plausible takes! Where we don’t know stuff for sure, slot in whatever your story needs, or whatever you think seems interesting. I settled on Clover’s backstory for Soldier, Spy mostly by going ‘ok, what’s an interesting way to contrast him with Qrow?’ And in some of my other fic ideas, he’s different.

Limited third person perspective (or first person, if you can pull if off) is the best for dropping in characterisation smoothly. Though I’m probably biased because I love it so much. Omniscient third person POV is when the narration’s impartial and uninvolved, and skips between person A’s thoughts and person B’s thoughts and pure description of what’s happening, objectively speaking; limited third person is – when the camera’s always over one person’s shoulder in a given scene. It’s less close in than first person, but we get the POV character’s thoughts and no others, we only see/notice what they notice and pay attention to, descriptions are coloured by the way the POV character thinks about the world. I don’t want to be setting you homework, but, a neat writing exercise, if you want it: pick an object, place or person, and consider how two different characters would see it differently. Write those two descriptions. For fun, pick something that at least one of the characters is going to really look down on or dislike parts of! (Qrow’s snark is so much fun.)

This is cynical, but: people lie to themselves a lot. When you put yourself into a character’s head, they’re going to be telling themself a narrative in which what they’re doing is the best thing to do and makes them a good person. (With a few exceptions, the big ones being depression- and anxiety-brain, which instead do their best to convince you you’re the worst.) Get your characters to justify themselves to you.

Goals, motivations, priorities. It feels like a massive oversight to write about how to characters and leave that one out, but honestly I can’t think of anything I can say here that hasn’t been covered better by tons of other writing advice. [Incidentally: https://www.writersdigest.com/ . Subscribe to their email newsletter, it’s free, they will try to get you to buy their how-to courses but there’s no need to, the website has all kinds of articles about the craft and details of writing and the newsletter will send you all the new ones plus curated picks of what’s already there. And also: https://springhole.net/writing/index.html . There’s some stuff specific to fanfic in there, and also general writing advice.] Just: keep it in mind.

Related to that, but a separate thing and one that I haven’t seen other writing advice talk about so much: how does the character try to achieve their goals? What are their skills and resources? And more than that, what’s their preferred approach? In the simplest terms. It’s a matter of mindset, and what options they see as available to them. So the things I would keep in mind for this are: Who’s got social skills/ is good at thinking in social terms, and who isn’t/doesn’t? (Not just interpersonally speaking. James “not really concerned about my reputation” Ironwood is a good example of a character who always thinks in terms of hard power over soft power; even when public opinion is an important strategic consideration he only thinks about it in the broadest and most simplified strokes.) Who would rather work within the system, and who prefers to do an end-run around it? (That doesn’t have to correlate with who’s actually got power, though obviously there are trends. I’m writing Clover as tending to take charge even when he officially shouldn’t because he’s more concerned with solving the problem than with rank, and that’s a case of circumventing the system, it’s one of the things he’s got in common with Qrow.) Who’s more analytical about their approach and what they’re trying to do (which means their failure mode is overthinking and decision paralysis) and who reacts with their gut instinct (which means their failure mode is getting in over their head)?

… I could talk about this one at length. There’s a whole framework I use to categorise characters in this way (I came across it in, of all things, the flavourtext of a supplement to an RPG no one’s ever heard of and it just stuck with me, and I’ve made it my own in the years since) and I could go into all sorts of detail about how it works/ what it means. But I think this is enough to be getting on with, on that topic. If you want to know more, send me another ask? But no one else talks about this thing in writing advice, it might be completely orthogonal to the writing process of anyone but me.

So! Related to the topic of characters’ skillsets, a really great tip I can’t remember where I picked up: how do you write someone who’s smarter/wittier/better at tactics than you? Spend minutes or hours turning something over in your head that the character is going to come up with in seconds. The great advantage of writing: it’s so much easier to be eloquent when you’ve got time to think. [If you had asked me this question in person you would have got ‘i don’t know?’ and then half an hour later I would have thought of half of this stuff and kicked myself. A week and change later, you’re getting the other half too :p ]

And lastly: you said you were worried about your writing getting “overly stereotypical”. And my immediate response to that was stereotypes bad, yes, but archetypes great. The difference being: stereotypes are lazy and offensive writing that let ‘membership of a social category’ stand in for ‘actual characterisation’ and if you’re asking for advice on characterisation you’re obviously too thoughtful to commit them; archetypes are pre-made sketched-out personalities that you can take as your own and flesh out into your own thing. Tropes are tools. No one ever said ‘They were roommates? Ugh, how unoriginal’. By the same token, ‘lone wolf who pretends he’s fine and doesn’t dare trust anyone no matter how much he secretly wants to’ is a fantastic trope that exists for good reason, the CRWBY used it for good reason, and when we found out Qrow’s semblance I went yes please I will have some of all that angst and then laughed at myself because when it comes to fictional characters I have A Type. I’m pretty sure I’ve never written the exact scenario ‘pushes themself way too hard and passes out, wakes up in unexpected safety and immediately condemns themself for not sticking it out longer’ before the opening of Soldier, Spy, but I know I’ve come up with plenty of things that were like it, and if they’d made it to a state of publication you’d be able to see that.

It’s like artists using references. Just because they looked up how to draw that hand and that pose doesn’t mean the final product’s not their own. There’s no reason not to start with your ideas of the character (no matter how ‘stereotypical’ they feel) or a collection of traits you’ve grabbed from other characters that seem like they’d fit – or, for OCs, an MBTI type or a roleplaying class/background combo or one of these or some other personality type you feel like you can find your way around the basics of – and just take it from there. When you start writing/outlining/daydreaming-about-ideas you’ll run into scenarios/setups you can’t copy across from but you can see what responses might come up, and that’s how the template becomes your own unique iteration of it.

… Because really all writing advice does come down to: just write. In your head or on the page, try things out, see what works, see how it goes. I’ve been doing this a long time; most of it never made it to words on a page, let alone to the internet at large. Read across genres, read things people write about themselves and how they live and think and feel, and just – go for it.

I hope this helps! Once again, I was really glad to be asked; feel free to ask me to elaborate on any of this, or about anything else you want advice about. I wish you all the best in your future writing!

#writing #my thoughts #posting into a void

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alternativewinxcontinuity · 5 years ago

Text

Don't mind me, just losing my mental sh*t

Has anyone else ever noticed it always seems to be the people who’ve never written/posted anything that leave the most unnecessary (and often meanest) comments?

Or the people who themselves write like they haven’t hit puberty yet but feel like they can comment like a professional editor by giving advice that is exactly the opposite of what they were just saying needs to be fixed?!

Not Winx Related, I just really needed to vent. I got a shit review on a non-Winx Story and as I bitch a little about that I'm finally taking the time to address a review I got on my GOT fic, which turned nasty that I want to pick apart, but not to his face because he is not the kind of reviewer who should be interacted with, so I'mma dump it here. (Rant un-beta'd.)

Like? You really want to leave a comment on chapter 2 of a part 30 chapter fic that you haven’t read saying shit like:

“I don’t see the point its basically a rewrite”

When, had you read even one chapter on, you would have begun to see the divergence that is about to slowly snowball out of control while the universe does its best to stay on track. (yes the 'its' typo is review accurate.)

Like buddy, I get it, you've never written anything in your life and you think this is okay to say to someone because, and this may surprise you: you're an asshole.

"The point" was that it was a fun idea, "the point" was that I was enjoying the crossover and figuring out how everything could go wrong by replacing a single major part, "the point" was many, many other people found it hilarious and so did I. Not "the point" but it was also a version of Harry Potter not written by a fcking TERF.

Or:

'This Character is just really out of character, you're doing a bad job of writing him.'

Okay *goes to check their fics to see how they wrote him to see if she can figure out where reviewer is coming from. they have no fics in the fandom.* 'hey reviewer, you say he's out of character, how would you go about fix him so he's more in character?'

'Oh well, he's just not very *season 1 characterisation despite the fact he's explicitly stated to be season 3 end of his character growth story arc*, you should have him do *a thing that is something he would never have done even in season 1*'

Or shit like (and this is a long one from 'Richard' who hid behind the Anon function):

"This is a great fic. It's surprisingly difficult for me to optimize the protagonist. So first,"

Like? excuse you? why would you need to optimize my character?

"I really hope Sansa chooses to mine the metric tonnes of valuable honey and wax from that beehive once she gets her inventory."

So I hate to admit that the honey and wax would be a good idea, and she will be getting a boon of that, but it will be because she'll be getting Bee Hives later, not because she'll think to strip mine a people in dire straights.

"Also, she has valyrian steel claws, which she now knows can dig into the rock very easily. Those crumbling ledges? She can dig new ones, she can dig a staircase. She can widen the entrance so that her soldiers come in to help mine the liquid gold. Especially since she appreciates the difference between currency and goods. Of course, maybe she'll establish diplomatic relations instead."

So I am going to look so fcking petty when I finally get the next chapter out, because I actually addressed this idea with reality. Trust me, I did some research, and while there's almost nothing easily found on how long it would take to do this sort of work by hand, what I found supported the idea that it's stupid. It takes (and I shit you not) literal days with a team of men using hand tools to carve through even a few metres of rock (the exact time depends on how hard the rock is and how large they make the opening/area).

Sansa would be literally clawing at the walls with her nails which, while yes they are Valyrian steel, are still attached to very human fingers and arms. and here's where my first hand knowledge kicks back in: I went on a mock archaeological dig when I was in high school, I spent several hours scrapping layers of compact sand to uncover artefacts, resistance levels aside, the repeated action is hell on your muscles, Sansa would spend as much time recovering as she would digging. to get all the way to the entrance would take her literal years with Richard's suggested method.

PLUS: the point of the adventures is for SANSA (and Arya) to have the spot light, to be forced to think and find ways to use the new Abilities they've been given, or to come up with new ones. It's part of my whole "Power is Earned, or it is Corrupted" mentality, if you don't work for it, you will sooner rather than later abuse it.

AND: of course she's going to use diplomatic solutions, she's Sansa, and that's what the clue of foreshadowing was saying! Literally everything you need to know to solve the Dungeons is in their individual clues!!!

"Secondly, medieval people already had long-lasting torches which burned for hours and hours instead of 5-10 minutes. Each torch looked like a pillar or stupidly elongated torch that was carried with the tip lit and burning down like a candle. They also didn't use candles as those were too expensive. They used rushes soaked in fat which could be made by the dozens to hundreds with a few hours' work. There's a youtube video on this subject entitled medieval misconceptions: torches and candles."

Oh. My. God. Such. Valuable. Information. If . Only. I had. Known. This. When. I wrote. about. reed candles. in this. very fic.

Literally of the four times I used the word candle, twice it was explicitly 'reed candles' (and guess what other name rushes go by?) and once it was a metaphor specifically about the smoke and not the candle.

As for the pillar candles, the ones that burn for hours are too heavy for someone of Sansa's size and arm strength and the hour candles, (if you've ever seen Avatar Last Airbender, the candles they used in the Secret Tunnel) are unwieldy and aren't so good for putting down in a way that doesn't risk them going out. (Putting them far enough into a wall sconce that it won't topple back out makes it very tricky to remove it.)

Which, why even bother with torches that are more effort to obtain when Sansa's powers make the 'advantage' obsolete anyway!? Not to mention: Displayed Content! If a show uses something even in the background, it exists in that world. Wax candles aren't that rare. (Also side note, because I do my fcking research: the majority of hives which supply the honey and wax to Westeros are owned by the Maesters of old town.)

"I don't really care about those things though. The latter is a mistake literally everyone makes and I didn't know was a mistake until a month ago. Which goes into my third point, how Sansa could optimize things."

Then why bring it up, especially since I didn't technically make said mistake??

"At this point she knows she needs people and she's already given her powers to someone trustworthy. She also knows that healing is a power she can give. And she knows they're going to need this at least as much as medics. And there are indeed people she trusts whom she hasn't approached with an offer of power. Ned Stark, Catelyn Stark, Lyra Mormont of Bear Island, and Tyrion Lannister. Tyrion Lannister can wait but not forever. Lyra should be approached as soon as possible."

NO. Arya was the exception, not the rule, Sansa isn't going to just go off and give her god-blessed powers to anyone else. I was hesitant to give it to Arya as it was, and only let myself because I could use the 'Arya's God is Death, there's more stakes than you thought' to fully justify it.

Tyrion as he is can't be trusted, and future Tyrion chose Dany over Sansa, neither Sansa nor Arya know how his story ended, so as far as they are concerned he's a good ally, but not actually trust worthy enough for this.

For those of you confused, Lyra Mormont is one of the daughters of the Lady Maege Mormont, and one of Lyanna's sisters. Lyra got maybe two mentions in the books and nothing in the tv series so I can only assume Richard meant Lyanna, who is currently 2 years old! But we'll come back to this, because Richard sure did!!!

As for the medic thing, I really hope Richard meant he was fcking off for good in his final word, because if he comes back, I really don't want him to think he's responsible for the medic corps that I've been planning and attempting to foreshadow with Sansa approaching Luwin, and Beth and Jeyne following Sansa's lead with archery.

Like, oh hey, guess which unfortunate field medic bride of a Stark might find her way to Winterfell if she hears about young women being trained in some basic healing to help Maester Luwin deal with any cases of over flow of patients. That's right, I'm planning for triage nurses! No magical powers required.

"I assume she's going to get glass from Lys through the Tapestry of Doors. For that she's going to need tokens. She's going to need tokens for everything, and she already knows it. So collecting and hoarding tokens should be a big priority for her. And that means going places where there are tokens to be got. Places she hasn't gone to yet, like The Wall and Bear Island. Just to get tokens."

No. Again, just NO! Sansa already stated that Tokens and relying on them were a thing that would come back to bite her, she'll horde them as she finds them, but she's not going out of her way to find them because she has things to do! Also: the Tapestry of Doors was a piece of Flavour text for way late in the fic if it ever came back, and like a Stargate, requires one at each end, so someone would have to travel to Lys anyway, which is dumb when Sansa now has a Loom which can copy any 'raw' material, and the ability to convert that 'raw' material' into any object she has the blueprint for, which she can get by 'scanning' with her console.

She just has to put 2 and 2 together!!

"She also knows there are dungeons in each place, and that she needs to get to them. And that it's better if she gets in with people. Like people Lyra trusts to whatever dungeon is in Bear Island."

The thing about the Dungeons is that the whole thing is for Sansa, some of them will have special requirements, but very few of them are crucial, they're just there so Sansa has a place and a trial to obtain Unique Items of game breaking power or ability.

"The last way to optimise her powers is one I don't think she'll take even though it has a lot of benefits. Going with a squad of soldiers into the Dreadfort's dungeon in order to confront the walking dead, with hit and run tactics slowly draining the population there. The main benefit and reason to do this is to harden and blood the soldiers to prepare them for the Long Night, so she should have the soldiers on rotation in order to expose as many as possible to the horrors to come."

Problem is the undead in the Dreadfort Dungeon aren't the same as the Wights and White Walkers, they can just be killed in the same ways. The idea of these kinds of fics is that by the time the Long Night Comes, Sansa and Arya can do most if the heavy lifting. You are right that Sansa wouldn't risk her people for some EXP though.

Sansa will be going back though, there's a pair of Shears and Needle in there.

"Also, the loot should be great. Perhaps another loom. But I would do it even for more bobbins. Or nothing at all."

Literally the Loom is a one off item. It is super powerful with what it can do in the context, so having more than one would ruin the power balance I've been trying to keep between Power Fantasy and OP Bullshit.

Someone of course pointed out that (Richard said Lyra, but responder said Lynna) Lyanna was currently literally 2 or 3 years old, she can't do shit. (they also brought up that 2 (actually 3) characters had already declined the super powers, because it included bad timeline memory downloads.) Guess how Richard took that?!

If you guessed "not well" you get a cookie!

Seriously, I was kind of annoyed at his review because^^^ reasons he was wrong about stuff, but also the arrogance of 'telling me how to optimize my character' was just, icky, so I was just going to ignore him.

But then he went (in response to the other reviewer):

"(snort) I think you need to recall what Lyanna Mormont is like at 10 years of age. She is a force and she is in charge. And what exactly is your objection, that Sansa needs consent or is preserving innocence?"

No moron, the objection is that she's literally 2 or 3 years old, what the fck is she going to do in her tiny little body? But yes, now that you mention it, Sansa (was assaulted and lost her bodily autonomy, she) would place a huge amount of importance on consent, it's one of the reasons she was so upset by Arya taking advantage of her sleepy state to get her to agree.

"Lyanna Mormont wouldn't care. Jon and Robb care, that's why their sister cares. Lyanna would never thank Sansa for trying to preserve her innocence, keep her ignorant, or keep her weak. She would be insulted."

Lyanna is literally 2 or 3 years old, she doesn't know enough to care or be insulted by not being told that she's lost the chance to remember several years of horrific shit before being violently murdered.

Also I notice you didn't say anything about the name correction. Got it wrong the first time did you?

"Which leaves only respecting Lyanna's will. Or her mother's will maybe. Or at least informing them of what she's decided to do before she does it so they can prepare. But Sansa gains nothing by not asking."

And what would she gain by asking? also nothing. Lyanna is 2 or 3 years old. Also the fic isn't about her. Why would Sansa even trust her? The child who thought she could judge Sansa for being unable to stab her way out of some horrible places? who scorned Sansa because she was femme? Because Sansa's strength isn't the same as hers so Lynna decided Sansa didn't have any?

Lynna chose Jon to lead the North over Sansa who had a better claim to the throne, Jon, who spent the entire 8th season saying how much he doesn't want to be king, Jon who legit just tried to walk away from the Command of the Nights Watch.

"And this brings up another issue, the fact Sansa never decided FOR Jon and Robb cuts both ways. She informed them of their choice and she let them make it."

"Sansa didn't keep them in the dark without informing them of the decision she was making for them, as you seem to want to do, since that definitely isn't the right thing to do. Mushroom management is a shit heap."

The boys were already aware that something was up, Sansa had nothing to gain by lying, and she made the offer before she realised the memories were a thing.

"The question to ask a toddler is "do you want to grow up?" it's not a difficult question to ask and it does have a meaningful answer. And that's the problem you have, because you already know Lyanna Mormont would say yes and you want her to say no. That's why you want the question never asked."

"You want to pretend that Lyanna Mormont, DEFINITELY in charge of bear island at 10 years of age, is a gormless wimp like 25 year old Jon Snow who refused to be king and refused to even THINK whether or not Daenerys would be a good queen by constantly uttering the refrain "she is my queen"."

Laynna was in charge because she was the last of her family, everyone else was lost fighting someone else's war. More importantly: she's not even part of the equation? Why would Sansa travel to Bear Island to ask a 2 or 3 year old if she wants to become an angry and traumatised 10 year old in a 2 or 3 year old body which will feel like a prison because she's not as tall or fast as she used to be, because she can't lift or climb or jump or ride or fight like she used to.

And for what? a few super powers she has to ask Sansa for? For mental trauma her family and friends cannot comprehend?

But no, have a look at the part where Richard really started to cross the line:

"No, Lyanna Mormont wants power, wants to grow up, that is obvious. And you're an obstacle in her way. She would hurt you for standing in her way, probably smashing a mace in your knees. And you're so weak that yes you would in fact be hurt by a 2 or 3 year old toddler. She killed a giant and she would have no problem killing you for daring to think you're a giant."

"Stand aside little man and let Lyanna Mormont have her glory."

Now I don't know what this guy's obsession is with Lyanna, but that sounded like a threat to me. Like, who tells people that a fiction character would physically maim or murder a real person just for pointing out said fictional character is 2 or 3 years old?

Lyanna doesn't want power? She's not that kind of person, even if she is fictional? More importantly:

Neither I nor the reviewer were 'standing in her way' because she's a fictional character who's not even in this fic!!!

But his behaviour was pretty shit, so I told him to knock it off or I was going to turn the review filters on.

That went about as well as you might expect.

So I was All:

[I don't know what you think you mean by 'optimize the character' but half of your assumptions are wrong, the rest run counter to my pre-existing plans and I don't care for your overall demeanour. I was prepared to leave your post be, but your recent reply is inappropriate and uses language which runs VERY close to sounding like a death threat, which I DO NOT APPRECIATE. I don't want to be 'that bitch', but I am going to ask you to please be respectful, or I will be turning on the comment filters.]

Because I don't Know if you know this but AO3 has three filters in the privacy tab of every story posted:

1] “Only show your work to registered users”

this means that you MUST be logged in to an AO3 account to even find it let alone read it

2] Disable Anonymous Comments

you Must be logged in to leave a comment

3] Enable Comment Moderation

doesn't matter what you say, with out Author OK, your review will not be showing up in the comment section.

(… tumblr just did that thing again where it refreshes in the middle of my thousands of words of text and loses all my stuff, it is literally making me want to kill myself. Because I have to retype all the responses from the next fcking section. It's my own fault for not just using a word document, but also: fck tumblr? For being stupid?)

So, from here Richard had three options:

1- Apologise and move one

2- say nothing and pretend it hadn't happened and move on

3- He went with this:

“Your Sansa Stark is weaker than canon Sansa Stark. It's true your Sansa Stark has a strictly higher level of ambition than Sansa Stark. But what she uses in order to achieve her goals, her resources, is weaker.”

“She uses actions, capabilities and skills. She uses embroidery, archery, learning (archery), she uses the people she already knows but not strangers. She uses and manipulates the people she can interact with, learn from, act upon. The level of people that is directly equal to skills.”“

She doesn't use language, nor does she use strangers. Strangers are the level of people that don't require interaction but DO require language to deal with. And your Sansa Stark's language is too weak. When she manipulates the maid in the Dreadfort, it's entirely accidentally and unintentionally.”

Sansa has seen what power does to people, she's seen what lies ahead for the manipulators of the world, she's been taught at the side of Cersei and Petyr, and she does not want to become them. For all the horrific things she's gone through, Sansa came out the other side with her compassion intact, possibly even stronger than before.

“She talks to Domeric only because she's already interacted with him, she's been healing him for days by that point. She fakes Green Dreaming to her father because she knows her language is inadequate and will achieve nothing. The way her father and mother treat her, they know mere words would be inadequate. And they would dismiss any words she said. "Haven't we told our children dreams can't hurt you?"”

She doesn't want to interact with Domeric, he looks like the man who violated her repeatedly, killed her brother and sacked her home. She wants to be as far away from him as possible. When she does end up interacting with him, despite being so sleep deprived it's a wonder she hadn't started hallucinating, she manages to win him over pretty easily.

She fakes Green Dreaming because “a god made me time travel” is not only a ridiculous concept but a foreign one as well. Why would Sansa tell her parents that when it would mean admitting to going through some horrific shit, to letting her family down and being let down by her family when Green Dreams are a known thing which explains her knowledge. It's not inadequacy, it's efficiency and an attempt to hide horrible things.

I need to point out that “Haven't we told our children that dreams can't hurt you?” is said by Catelyn in self-recrimination afterwards, and is said specifically to reference the reason Sansa might not have felt she could go to them with her problem was because it was based on dreams. Because what parent would take dreams as a serious threat unless they were a Nightmare on Elm Street survivor, especially since Green Seers have become so rare they've been relegated back to myths and stories by the time Jojen and Bran show up.

“Language requires actions such as mouthing, shouting, tonguing, but actions will never add up to language. Actions are necessary but NOT SUFFICIENT for language. This is why you can't write a single damned sentence with only actions. Try it, you won't be able to.”

I can't take this paragraph seriously if only because of the use of the word 'tonguing'. FFS, he sounds like a small child trying to convince people he's got a PhD. 'If I throw out some big words and phrase them right they'll sound 'academic' and I'll look smarter!

'I know this probably isn't what Richard meant but: Sign Language? Is literally all actions?

(Obviously real language requires thoughts and concepts to be communicated to be a language, but even the most primitive of body movements can express something: I'm hot, I'm hungry, I'm angry, etc. It might not be true language, but it is communication, which is the basis of language, the reason we made language in the first place.)

“Canon Sansa Stark had dreams, plans, and designs on what others have. She wanted to wed a prince, she had designs on the princess position. She wanted out of King's Landing. She wanted Winterfell. She wanted the Knights of the Vale to fight ... FOR HER.”

“People who had never met canon Sansa Stark in their entire lives fought and died for canon Sansa Stark's benefit. For the designs of a (her words) stupid girl. And sure, her initial designs were stupid. And they only rose up to being pathetic. But they were designs, they were dreams, they were plans.”

I need to talk about my interpretation of Sansa for a minute, because that's what I've been writing: my interpretation of Sansa.

Sansa was raised with an idea of how the world should be, not how it was. She was raised loved and protected and surrounded by men of honour. Fed stories of heroes, brave knights and valiant princes, where good always triumphed, or was romantically defeated and beautifully tragic.

She wasn't raised to expect dishonourable men and hidden motives, she wasn't raised expecting a (metaphorical) dagger in her back.

She didn't want the crown, she didn't want the throne, she wanted “the prince” from her stories, who would cherish her and care for her and give her a family filled with love. And yes the pretty dresses and the shiny jewels and the adoration and praise. But she never wanted power, that came later.

Later after she'd seen the cracks in the world and the grime beneath the gilding, when she'd learned friend and foe were often the same, that people with power would hurt her, use her, that she was nothing but a trophy to them.

Sansa wanted power because “if I'm the one with the power, then they can't hurt me any more, if I have the power I'll be safe, if I have the power then I can protect people, if I have the power I can stop people like that.”

But Sansa has never had power, it was always borrowed, an illusion that could vanish at one misstep. She had no money of her own, her blood made her valuable to others as a trade commodity, but gave her no personal power.

When people fought for her, it was never really about her.

Petyr gave her armies so he could win favour so he could use her as a proxy for her dead mother. Brienne fought to fulfil an oath to Sansa's dead mother.

The Men of the North fought for Winterfell, to get revenge on the Boltons. The Wildings followed Jon Snow. And when it was over, it was Jon who was crowned king, not Sansa the one who had to talk him into getting back their home in the first place.

Her parents and Robb fought for her, but their armies fought for House Stark, for the insult Sansa and Arya's capture and Ned's death presented.

“Your Sansa Stark has no plans, has no dreams, and certainly has no designs. She doesn't use language, because her language is too weak and has no power. She doesn't use her emotions or feelings because they are brittle and far too weak to be used. Weaker even than the emotions and feelings of a stupid girl. She doesn't use her mind or intellect because she doesn't cogitate. She uses skills and ONLY skills. To try to fake everything else.”

It's odd that he says this when he started off this response by saying my Sansa was more ambitious than canon Sansa.

First of all: I thought I was making it fairly clear that her goals were: save her family, save the North, stop the White Walkers.

Her dreams are to never be beholden to another man ever again.

Sansa wants her family alive, she wants to be safe and she wants to be free of all the political manipulations she had to sit through in the first timeline.

Second of all: Richard has clearly never been assaulted in his life in any way and I am so fcking happy for him. Really.

Look, people who suffer long term trauma, (or short term, it doesn't matter how long really) are not magically okay afterwards. The idea that sexual assault makes femme women strong is disgusting and so toxically prevalent in movies and shows and books these days its... horrific. You'll notice butch women like Arya aren't typically assaulted to be strong, because they're already so 'manly'. It was a genuine surprise when they tried to have Brienne assaulted, but that was more about showing how much of a 'good guy' Jaime was than Brienne.

You can really tell in several places that the tv series had non-con fetishists on staff.

Sansa is so brittle now, because she feels safe enough to let herself feel the fear she wasn't able to earlier, to work through the panic and the anger and all the emotions she couldn't before.

“Your Sansa Stark plans to use skills in order to change the world. And since it's obvious the world isn't run by woodcutters or farmers or archers or anyone else defined by their SKILLS, she will fail. She will fail abysmally, totally and catastrophically. She hasn't got the slightest sliver of a chance.”

Quick tally: Sansa has managed to convince her parents she had knowledge of the future, put them on track to realising Petyr Baelish was stealing from the Crown, got Stannis curious in Dragonstone, came up with a plan to gain favour for the North by helping to pay of part of the Crown's debt and has begun working on a plan to ensure more food is available for the Northerners when Winter arrives.

Not to mention, (and you'd easily miss this): Sansa has begun influencing a shift in the young women of the North who had previously been influenced by the South.

The thing is, Richard seems convinced its about the looting and the grinding, 'kill enough stuff and you become a God!' but it's not.

“So you stacked the deck in her favor. You put a high tier deity on her side. Now Sansa has a slim chance to squeak out a win, using the power she's borrowing. But here's the thing, it will never be HER win because it isn't HER power, it isn't HER plans. Your Sansa Stark has no plans, but her deity does, even if they're stupid plans of puerile amusement-seeking. So IF there is a victory at the end, it will never be Sansa Stark's victory, it will be her deity's. Because she is only a pawn, a tool, a peon, a minion.”

Richard doesn't seem to understand what the introduction of Arya's God means for the lore. The amount of death from the wars is causing Bad Things in the back ground of the original timeline.

Sansa isn't the Being's pawn, she's their start player, the Being is a sponsor who's giving Sansa the chance and resources to be greater than she was. It's not about 'puerile amusement-seeking', but how do you tell a young woman who's gone through what Sansa's gone through that the fate of the entire human race is in her hands, that if she fails it won't just be her family that falls.

If Sansa thinks the Being just wants amusement, then Sansa will act as she pleases and hope it's good enough, which puts her closer in line with saving the world than if she's actually trying to save the world, because that is a much bigger task than 'stop the issues that got my family killed'.

The Being is only victorious if Sansa is, it's their shared victory.

Now up until this point Richard has been an arrogant tool, but it might almost seem like he's being reasonable. This is where he loses the plot and just starts back on his favourite fall back: threatening people with violence.

“Now generally, when an author writes a protagonist who is a pawn, a tool, a peon and a minion of a higher power, when they write a protagonist who is WEAK, it's because they themselves are weak. Generally doesn't mean universally however, so I had to know. And now I do. You are weak Jasper.”

“You want to convince me of something Jasper. You want to convince me that I'm wrong, that my opinion is wrong, that my position is wrong, you want me to change my mind, you want me to know my plans and judgment are wrong. Because they're in conflict with yours. But how do you achieve this? By threatening me with your borrowed power. Exactly like your Sansa Stark.”

Did he have to google the list of synonyms there?

I don't know what it is about being referred to by name, but it bugs me that he chose to use only a portion of my pen-name like we were somehow familiar, rather than not using my name or referring to me as OP or something along those lines.

Also I really have to disagree that only weak people write about people being weak, but I don't think his opinions of weak and strong match with mine either.

He is wrong, but more importantly: he threatened someone with violence for daring to correct him.

I wasn't threatening him, I was warning him to stop being an asshole or I would disable anonymous commenting.

“You do this because you're weak. And what do we call weak people who complain about strong people's actions when they are the bitches of higher powers? We call them exactly what you "don't want to be", we call them bitches. You are a bitch to higher powers and you bitch about higher powers like me. You bitch about people who can use their intellects. And for a good reason too.”

“You fear my attitude because I am the bitch slapper. I slap little bitches like you all fucking day long every single day. It doesn't matter to me who it is, whether it's my own friends who are bitching, I slap them for it. And you will never ever convince me that you're right. Because you're weak. And because I don't respect bitches.”

Look, I've seen enough therapists of different varieties to pull off some impressive psych 101 bullshit so I can tell you right now: Richard is a man who has never held any real authority in his life, he has mediocre skills at best and often feels talked down to because he feels more entitled than he is and no one treats him like a god for breathing. He refuses to back down when wrong even in the face of evidence and then he pouts because the world didn't shift to match his delusions.

The worst part is I know this, and I know I shouldn't let this bother me. But it does. But it shouldn't and I can tell him to his 'face' via review reply why he's wrong, or he'll know it bothers me, then he'll feel validated, even though he's wrong. And he'll probably threaten someone with more violence and then I really will have to disable anon comments and effectively punish some readers who did nothing wrong.

“So what are you going to do to me that I care about? Stop me from reading your fic? You don't have that power. Stop writing it so that I can no longer learn how your mind works, my ulterior motive? That would be cutting your nose to spite your face. You would suffer far out of proportion to me. I would just move on to some other author. Report me? Go ahead, I don't care. Really, we're done here, so have a nice life.”

Yes I do, literally the first of the privacy filters would stop you from reading, but that would hurt my other readers who don't have an account.

'Ulterior motive'? Buddy, you apparently don't understand how any mind works.

Again: if you don't care why bring it up?

Are you really leaving though? Do you promise?!

“The only thing you could ever do to me is surprise me by ceasing to be a weak little bitch. Or even resolving to not be one. This would invalidate all of my predictions by rising to my implied challenge. That's what I like, win-win. (lol) I'm not holding my breath though.”

I don't have anything to prove to this douche tool and it bothers me that this is bothering me so much!!!! The worst part is, this review came at a time when my attention for the fic was flagging, so I'll never know if it was really this review or not that made me stop writing for the past few months?

Those of you with an AO3 account who drop by my profile to see if I wrote anything interesting may have noticed my recent 'for archive users only' locked fic. I can confirm that yes: to mental detox this review I went and watched a Chinese Xianxia drama that has become my new hyper-focus. Almost 100 plot bunnies are being posted into the locked fic in an effort to purge it rom my brain so I can get back to what I was doing. It seems to be working. I wrote about 1000 words for Episode: Sisterhood this week, so the chapter is almost done. At last!

#just blog stuff #i’m just bitching now #absolute aggro #swearing #op would like to die #not winx or alt con related #i'm just really angry about it even though I know I should know better #eleven pages of op being an angry incoherent mess

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peppersandcats · 7 years ago

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In reply to my comment on 'Bad Wisdom' you said: "Am always happy to try and discuss where my characterization comes from... or why I wrote him as acting as he does, and completely understand that there's room for other people to read him differently." And this does fascinate me, because you take a very minor character (at least, in the TV show) and really bring him to life. Does your characterisation of Axel mainly come from his comics version? Or is it mainly improvised, or a combo of both?

It’s nearly entirely prompted by the TV show, but I tend to go off in funny directions when given prompts.

(Something I feel I should make clear: the TV show brought me to the comics, not the other way around. I did not know who the Flash was before the TV show, beyond “fast guy in a red suit I remembered from one comic book panel”. I had never heard of Captain Cold. I didn’t know Barry Allen and Iris West were a thing, let alone a One True Thing. I didn’t even recognize who Barry Allen was when he showed up on Arrow.)

(I had somehow picked up that there was a thing called the Speed Force and that it made liquids float, and when the light of my life showed me the trailer that was actually what made me realize that I was watching a trailer for The Flash. The guy named Barry, the lines about a good heart and fast legs, the guy in the lightning? Vague nagging sense of familiarity. Floating liquids in a vaguely lablike setting? That tipped me off.)

(The LOML despairs of my awareness of pop culture.)

I have done some reading since; I generally characterize my knowledge as patchy, although I remember what I have read fairly well. I’m sure I’ve put in a couple of nods to the comics as I’ve read them (e.g. I know that his hair being blond when he was younger was a direct nod to that), and there are obviously parallels (Axel in the comics I’ve seen is almost always portrayed as a kid trying to live up to and get to be a part of something, and that’s blatantly in the show), but most of my headcanon for TV!Axel is either based off the TV episode, or at least checked to make sure it doesn’t contradict it.

From the TV show, boiled down to something coherent and stripping out the extra paragraphs of justification because they meandered, here’s what I got about Axel:

He is incredibly devoted to TV!James Jesse, who I feel comfortable summarizing to people who don’t watch the show as “basically the Joker.” (Let me tell you, when I started looking into the comics, I had so much to unlearn about James Jesse. So. Much. Thanks, Mark Hamill.)

Between Axel’s devotion and his desire to be like Jesse, Jesse’s master-manipulator schtick (talking a criminal psychologist into killing himself based on weekly visits), and the fact that this has been going on for ten years, we can assume that the interaction was deeply affecting pretty early on. A lot of things people do when they’re fourteen or fifteen get dropped pretty fast, in the grand scheme of things; a fifteen-year-old who kept up a relationship for ten years, especially one where exchanges were conducted at the relatively glacial pace of postal mail (as opposed to, say, texting), was one who was really into it.

(A lot of this, by the way, is me trying to articulate the gut reactions I went with. I am doing that thing humans do where they make a decision and then explain it; I think I am managing to give you a fairly accurate explanation of how my thoughts ran, but I can only do so well.)

This means that the fifteen-year-old teenager who was getting obsessed with a serial killer managed to successfully hide it from everyone who should have been keeping an eye on him; either he’s really good at hiding things or he didn’t have a lot of close adult supervision. I figured the latter was a bit easier to swallow and easier to swallow was easier to write (I am still trying to settle entirely comfortably on how the hell Jesse found Axel in the first place; I’ve got a couple of semi-solid ideas, but nothing set, so I tend towards keeping the rest of it simple), and there are already enough actively terrible parents in the Rogues, so I went with Axel not having parents present (biological or foster) and figured he grew up in state care.

Kids who age out of foster care are not often given a lot of support.

Incidentally: I (largely - I have one counter-example head-canon that I want to write up) do not believe that Jesse is Axel’s biological father; I ramble about why here, but it boils down to “that is a perfect example of a cold read and given everything you have shown me about the Trickster this episode like hell I am believing him thank you”.

Furthermore, I get the appeal of true crime geekery, but I would not write to an actual serial killer, and would expect that the general reaction would be shock and disquiet if I did. From this I’m figuring that Axel not only didn’t have much attentive supervision, but he did not grow up with a lot of close/concerned friends; either he scared people off, or he kept up a normal facade but kept the really important thing in his life a secret from everyone. (I went with both. Both is good.) This isolation also meshes with the kind of distance from other people that I feel would be necessary to bring yourself to drop bombs on small children, even if the most important person in your life was asking you to do it. (Would you do it for the most important person in your life? Like, not to save their life but as part of a plan to rob people? No? Yeah, me either.)

So far, what you’ve got is a kid who cares about Jesse, only cares about Jesse, and has not particularly bonded with social norms of behaviour.

But in a counterpoint to this… well, I can’t really imagine Axel sitting still much; he cackles, he preens, he slinks, he threatens, he giggles, he moves. So he gets a letter, he reads it, he writes a response, and then… he waits for two or three days? Five, if there’s a weekend in there? Longer, if whoever’s sneaking letters out from Jesse needs a little extra time? Axel doesn’t seem like someone who’d just sit around; I feel like he must have been doing something during the between times, and recreating a 2010s version of Jesse’s costume would only take so much time. Plus he was twenty-five; since I’ve already written off the idea that he was living with parents, he has to have been able to function well enough with people to earn money, pay rent, buy food, and avoid leaving any police records worth mentioning. Admittedly everyone on the CW is TV-pretty, but Axel does look like he’s putting resources and time into maintaining himself. He doesn’t look like a guy who over the last ten years was regularly forgetting to eat or brush his teeth or get out of bed because he’s been spending the last two days rereading this week’s letter, you know?

So: only cares about Jesse, no real attachment to social norms, but is capable of interacting with others in a sustainable way. He seems to enjoy getting reactions out of people (I think it was @notsolittlegirlevenmorelost who first made the observation to me that no-one becomes the Trickster because they’re shy), but I’ve got no reason to think he’s stupid, he was a kid without the full and active attention of a guardian, and he doesn’t have any police records worthy of mention when the cops identify him. It seems reasonable to conclude that he learned early that there are times you need to limit how much you annoy people who have more power than you - no-one else was guaranteed to be looking out for him, and yet we’ve got no indication that he ever faced significant social or societal consequences for his (probably unacceptable) behaviour. I get that this last is fully into “not contradicted by the show” rather than “actively based on it”, but hey, it works for me.

(He reads as younger than twenty-five to me, honestly; and the kind of guy who has access to a “Felicity-caliber scrambler” might also have a plausible way to change records of his legal age (or, re my earlier point, have erased arrest records). But I still read him as an adult; that’s partly the actor’s age, partly that none of the cops looking at the Trickster II react as if he’s a kid. He’s childish, but you can get childish adults.)

Another thing I got from the show (cheers to Devon Graye’s acting; really, I think he did a great job with very little screentime) was that he doesn’t seem like he’s planned out a lot of what he’s doing. He’s got a kind of “oh come on now, you suck” reaction to getting arrested, which might be not wanting to look weak or might suggest that he isn’t exactly focussed a lot on consequences. Look at his expression when he blows a hole in Iron Heights - it’s very “I need to turn this corner, and then move forward ten feet, and okay now I press the button, and– oh 💥holy💥shit!💥”; I don’t read it as smug, I read it as thrilled. He’s going into the plan without fully understanding it (e.g., Henry Allen’s kidnapping) and he’s okay with this. I ran with this as someone who can be extremely comfortable with living in the moment. He’ll play the long game for Jesse - he’ll do anything for Jesse - but left to himself he doesn’t seem especially driven. He comes across as someone who’d be happy with a kind of kid-in-a-candy-store live-in-the-moment life (and that would be convenient because it wouldn’t result in any attachments that conflicted with what Jesse wanted of him, either).

Finally - and this is not due to the episode, but there’s room for it in the episode because James Jesse is presented as such a powerful influence - I write him as not trying to hurt people unless they’ve hurt him first. I think he’s an extremely dangerous person to be around, and someone who doesn’t really care about people in the abstract. But between the kind of laissez-faire attitude to not-Jesse things and the fact that he can function to some degree around other people, I figured he was capable of being at least casually or superficially social, and he doesn’t actively dislike people, he just reads himself as being nicer or smarter than most of them. (This is a comfort-based decision; there is a limit to the amount of fun I have writing people who are actively malicious and sadistic, and I didn’t feel like doing it. Also I kind of love unreliable narrators, and Axel Walker genuinely believing that he’s a nice person in any kind of objective sense makes me giggle gleefully.)

I think that’s most of it, or at least most of it for the moment. Hope it was kind of interesting?

#axel walker #my headcanons #my commentary #s1e17 #the flash #dc tv #flash rogues #commentary #headcanon

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history-rover · 7 years ago

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Fic Writers Week (Day One): Words of Validation

Day 1: Words Of Validation - Fic Readers, take some time to leave new comments / Fic Writers, share some of the comments that stuck with you the most.

First and foremost, every single comment that has ever been left behind on any one of my fics means a great deal to me, and I can’t even describe how happy they all make me! Seriously, you all make my day! I’d like to put every single one of them into this post, but I don’t want to clog up peoples’ dashes, so even if you don’t see your comment here, just know that it is in this post in spirit.

One Available Copy

aaaaaaAAAAAAAA this is amazing??? i love this so so much asdfghjkl. Your characterization was on point and I literally laughed out loud a bunch of times. Thank you so much for sharing with us!!

This was so lovely, sweet, funny and i can't really cope right now :D Your characterisation was spot on and this au in general was so good! And the thought of Kirishima and Bakugou sharing their assigned reading is doing funny things to my heart!

This is so so so so cute!! I just love the progression of their relationship from emailed library notifications to post its to face to face talking and texts.... it's just so so adorable. Plus the idea itself is genius! And I've never seen a college AY that talks about library stuff like this and it's just a really cool concept and a really good idea...!Also, all the tiny details you wove into this really made it as good as it was: the inclusion of so many characters, Tsuyu's livestreams, Endeavor and Monoma's humiliation, the humour, the tododeku making out between the shelves and literally not giving a single fuck.... everything was funny and cute and the ENDING!! The ending was super well executed and wonderful and cute and I absolutely loved it. All of it. Thank you so much for writing this because it's seriously hecking amazing <3 Oh my gosh this is my favorite college AU fic! I really love everything about it. Your characterization of Bakugou especially was on point, very good, A+ LOVED IT

Oh my goodness this was so freaking cute? Bakugou's attempts at flirting going right over kirishima's head is so in line with these two boys I'm yellinggggg thank u sm for writing this fic!!! u really made their college feel like a real living breathing place especially with the addition of all the meme pages!!

I wrote One Available Copy (OAC) with the goal of making people laugh and smile, and to hear that I had done that made more happy than I could have imagined! I’m always second-guessing myself on characterisation as well, so these comments meant a lot to me, and I can’t thank people enough for them! Also, to hear that I had made the world feel alive and real...thank you all so much!

Wedlock

WHAT. A. FIRST. CHAPTER!!!

I am so excited for this AU omg?? I love that they're in an established relationship already and omg the playfulness? Flirting?? YES, MY BOYS, GO OFF AND START A SCANDAL. I AM ROOTING FOR YOU!

And magic!! Oh my gosh I love the incorporation of magic in this era and the fighting--the fighting. It's amazing. Intense. I love it.

Thank you as well for the superb attention to detail. I can tell a lot of research went into representing the era accurately and it makes your world all the more vivid and fascinating! (the sweets, i am remembering the sweets hahahaha)

I'm definitely looking forward to more of this AU! Great job!!!

Special shoutout first of all to @todorokishouts for this giant comment, after having to deal with my sobbing of research woes for this fic, and cheering me on through it, and consistently being the first person to comment on every new update along with @dystopiansushi! And yes, never forget #sweetgate2k17

I really loved how many cool elements of the time you included, it shows such an amazing deal of research!

Holy shit I'm loving this fic already!! Their established relationship is so playful and sweet, I'm really looking forward to seeing what comes next in their schemes!Also, your attention to detail in the setting while still managing to seamlessly infuse magical elements is really impressive! You've got me wanting to learn more about this world :DI hope to see more soon!! Thank you so much for this great fic :DD

Wow this is great so far! :D. I thinks it's really cool how much research you've done too, the accuracy of everything is awesome :0. Can't wait for the next chapter

I already love this and I can't wait to read more! I love how much research and knowledge you put into this au because it just shows how much you care about writing and the characters. A truly incredible first chapter with all the romance, humour and action any good story has. I loved it!

Did I mention that Wedlock is the most research-intensive fic that I’ve ever done? I swear I did the same amount of research (and still am doing research) for this story, as I did for my thesis, and to know that it wasn’t for nothing, and that people appreciated it, made me weep with joy.

So this is fantastic. Like, excellent start. Established Tododeku? Awesome magical period romance? Actual Magic Frog Tsuyu? Appearances from numerous lovable minor characters? You are on a roll, my good sir. So I've noticed this trend in most fantasy and royalty AUs that feature Tododeku, and that is the trend of Commoner/Servant!Izuku being shipped with Royalty!Shouto. In light of that, can i just say that it is SO refreshing to see a story where they don't have to get around a weird societal imbalance of power in order to properly fall in love? It's beautiful and wonderfully uncomplicated, while still having the court politics that make stories like these so delightfully intriguing.But yeah, you've started really strong and I went back through your stuff to realize that I also read and loved your college AU, so needless to say, I'm super excited for this fic! Izuku and Shouto's dynamic is so wonderful in this, and I can't wait to see where it goes!

THIS IS BEAUTIFUL OML THIS IS ONLY CHAPTER 1 AND I CAN'T STOP SCREAMING ALREADY!!! THIS IS SO REFRESHING IN SO MANY WAYS LIKE: TODODEKU (all of it) FANTASY AU (it is always refreshing in a way) DAD MIGHT (ADOPTED IZUKU) CLASS 1-A & EVERYONES COMMENTS (they are easily the best) URARAKA AND TSU FIGHTS!!!AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST: THE WAY YOU WRITE EVERYTHING FROM THE CHARACTERS TO THE ENVIRONMENT IS BEAUTIFUL. I'M HYPED!!!

PitViperofDoom messaged me yesterday with a link and one word- "READ"And boy howdy am I glad I did! This was fantastic! I love the historical aspect of it mixed with magic and quirks and the romance was just. So good. I died with the cord thing very nice 11/10, perfection! I think you really stayed true to characters while giving them interesting influence from the setting and your writing skills are just amazing. I could really see every moment playing out. And the plot! Scheming boys and scandals, oh my! Great job. I can't wait to read more!

These three comment made me collectively die of happiness on the spot, to the point where my mother actually ran into my room asking me what I was screaming about. I think that pretty much sums up why these comment stood out to me.

Path of the Wind

I love this. I'm so happy I got to be the first to read through it; I love the premise, I love your Izuku, I love your Inko and your cryptid All Might, I think the whole thing is a fantastic and original idea and I absolutely can't wait to see how you continue it <3

None of this would have been possible without my beta reader @dystopiansushi, so thank you so much!

All aboard the hype train - whoop whoop! I'm an absolute sucker for fantasy/mystery/supernatural-esque AU content, with a side serving of Tododeku, so here I am! I'm excited to see how this plays out!

I’ve never written anything in the realm of the supernatural/fantast type before PotW, so to hear this was a big boost in confidence for me!

Whoah, I love your attention to detail here. The potholes especially caught my attention. It's something people think about, but most wouldn't think to describe distance like that. I'm excited for this!

I’ve always been a sucker for big detailed scenes, and I was so happy to find out that people enjoyed them as well, and that they didn’t take away from the story like I had been worried about.

Todo sure left an impression, poor boy Also I'm SO ON for how supportative and cute momma Inko is? Fuck, I love everything about your writring and I don't know how to describe what I like more and susbsusbsjs You're amazing

holy shit i cannot get enough of this story. it’s so well written, and extremely intriguing.i love how amazing the characters are?? just their mannerisms, midoriya’s mumbling, kirishima’s touchiness, and todoroki’s bluntness are so on-spot. also your Iida is perfect i love him!!im hardcore relating to midoriya right now, just itching to know the town’s secrets haha (as well as todoroki’s cause damn that kid is mysterious)

This is such a good update! You have such a soft way to write, I like it so, so much

*crying emoji* thank you so much for complimenting my writing, and my writing style, and for validating me!

My Neighbour Totoro? I think you mean My Neighbour Todoroki (I'll walk myself out). Hums loudly at the mention of glinting eyes watching Midoriya enter Yuuei Academy. Who could that have been? All Might isn't really size appropriate to be slinking around there after all. And just what is Todoroki up to? Midoriya has a lot of interesting questions, thats for sure. I hope he gets the answers to all of them, because they're making me wonder too. Having the Todoroki's as the fire department will certainly link Shouto to finding the necessary evidence Midoriya's searching for in regards to the old Yuuei fires where All might was spotted, and I bet Endeavour has a huge role to play in that too. I wouldn't be surprised if the fire was instigated in an attempt to successfully lure All might out, although I may be stretching the theory bar a little on that one. I just hope Endeavour hasn't forced Todoroki the impossible task for trying to track All Might down once and for all. But, he seems genuinely scared of Midoriya's "haunted" place, or maybe he's just scared of Midoriya? What's going on Todoroki, communicate with us here. I hope Midoriya doesn't get lost trying to track shouto home. Good luck boys! Until next time!

'Somewhere in the distance, there's the sharp trill of birdsong, followed closely by the frantic flapping of wings, the sounds a concert accompanied by the occasional whisper of a breeze rattling the leaves and branches of the forest, and his own discrete pants for air.' Okay just gotta say that line is absolutely gorgeous and I can picture it perfectly in my head. There are so many descriptions throughout this chapter that are just SO PRETTY!!! FIRST CONTACT WITH THE CRYPTID AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!! This was adorable?!?! All Might is a sweetheart through and through! And Izuku fanboying? Oh my dear boy. (Izuku concerned for Shouto? oh my aching heart. BUT IZUKU THINKING ABOUT HOW PRETTY SHOUTO IS IS THE BEST THING EVER OKAY) Inko! Please take care;;;;;; don't worry your mother too much Izuku!Now, onto Aizawa. He cares a lot about his students, yeah........ but is that all? Hmmm? Do you know more than you let on, Aizawa? *eyes emoji* Could there be more teachers behind the scenes, helping All Might out? The plot thickens.

That would require finding said clearing, Shouto, and all things considered that sounds like quite the challenge. People often don’t remember directions well when rushing around.I wonder why Shouto wants to meet All Might so badly. Is his home life anywhere near as bad as it is in canon? Perhaps hopes All Might will help rescue his mom from wherever Enji stashed her.

AND TOTORO MAKES HIS APPEARANCE - i mean All Might. He's like the local friendly bigfoot. Bless him and his accident-selfie. Midoriya had such a rough tumble - it sounded both super painful and really dangerous - I'm glad he got saved in time. Todoroki ironically lead Midoriya to the clearing by running away from him to begin with - I see you trying to benefit yourself and your goals in this invitation. I worry Midoriya won't be able to find the clearing since he woke up there and was carried away from there - without a definitive route. Todoroki might not be as patient when he realises Midoriya can't find it for him. Aizawa's behaviour concerns me. Is he in contact/affiliation with All might? I feel like he knows. Until next time!

I honestly did not expect to get this initial comment, much less speculation about PotW, so I was absolutely floored, when the speculation began to come in with later chapters, and I must say that it gave me so so much motivation to keep on writing!

Man so much of this is so Ghibli; Izuku leaning out of the window, the tiny house on the edge of a giant forest, Shouto appearing in the dusk to give an ominous message, only to retreat to his mansion home across the moor (okay the moor is Gothic lit but STILL WHAT A MOOD). He has the biggest combo of San & Haku going on and I dig it so hard.

You write EXACTLY as a Ghibli movie is animated and just Wow It’s gorgeous

This is absolutely gorgeous. You capture the atmosphere so well. I’ve always wanted a regular high school au for these kids and while it isn’t the main focus, I really enjoy that aspect of the story. The plot so far is amazing, just the right combination of Ghibli and BNHA that it creates a new story entirely its own. I love every moment of this and am excited to see how Todoroki and Midoriya’s relationship evolves.

Studio Ghibli is one of the biggest influences in my life in terms of media, and I desperately wanted to do justice to it through PotW, so these comments literally made me cry from happiness.

Wow, this got really really long, and I wholeheartedly apologise to anyone reading this on mobile, and I just wanted to say once again, to everyone who has ever read my fics, to everyone who has ever read my fics and commented, thank you so so much! Your comments, reblogs, and supports give me so much motivation, and sometimes they’re the only things that get me through a tough time!

#ficwritersweek #tododeku #kiribaku #my hero academia #bnha #fanfic #my writing #anime #potw #scandal au #oac #day one

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pollydoodles · 7 years ago

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Hello! I've got two simple (yet hard) questions to ask you: -What is your Top 5 favorite fanfics you've wrote and why? -What is your Top 5 favorite fanfics from other writers and why? You can do more than 5 recs if you want to.

aHoly McWow. Okay ...

1/ You & Me (We Gotta Whole Lotta History)

Because it’s my big fic and it’s still rattling around in my head and I haven’t forgotten it ! I love history and I love the time travel element so it just is the fic I’d like to read for myself as much as anything else.

2/ Justice is Blonde

I’m still just amazed by the reaction to this one. I had a period of two weeks or so where I could barely use my phone because of the re-blogs, comments and AO3 comments blowing it up - it amazed me then and the thought of it amazes me now. Every so often it goes through a period of activity again and it’s just incredible to me the scale of the reaction.

3/ These Endless Days (Are Finally Ending in a Blaze)

Now this - this is my magnum opus. I know it’s barely started on AO3 but I’ve got around 10k or so of chapter synopses and notes on this already just as it is. It literally pulls in pretty much every character in the MCU, plus the Buffyverse; ties all the MCU films together with stuff from the Buffyverse plus an original plot, flips across different centuries and multiple locations ... I am so excited for this to come together. Truly.

4/ 0800-DRCY-LWS

I’m still amazed at how much people loved this fic! I had such encouragement and great feedback from this one, and though I enjoyed writing it and I liked the story, what lingers is the feeling of what fantastic cheerleading I had from people which meant so much.

5/ Back in Black

A collaboration with @latessitrice and, a little like the above, although I fully love the story and love writing it, a huge amount of affection I have for the fic is the friendship it’s brought me. From a funny little back and forth about an Austrialian soap about a year ago, I have a wicked friendship with someone I would never have met otherwise, and I’m so grateful for that.

Fic Recs !

(this is hard. super hard).

1/ Kiss Kiss Fall in Love by @cinnaatheart

Love this, it’s Shakespearean in it’s construction. Lovers, mistaken identities, crossed wires, uniforms ... Read it.

2/ Black Holes & Revelations by @amidtheflowers

Space slugs. I mean, it’s not entirely about space slugs, but anything else is just an awesome addition.

3/ Rule Number One by @leftennant

Okay, so I typically don’t read as many AU fics as I might do, because I just love the universe they’re in anyway but (and I love all Lefty’s fic, let’s be real); this is effing amazing. Funny, sweet, tugs at the heartstrings, there’s a little mystery running through it - it has everything

4/ Snowkissed by @latessitrice

I love this; it has all the right things for a snuggly winter fic that warms you up from the inside out with just the right amount of snark and sass amidst the love.

5/ Making a Point by @becisvolatile

This was one of the first fics I ever read and just ... wow. Characterisation, build up, tension, smut, it’s just all there.

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cortegiania · 8 years ago

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Hi, love your blog! Do you like the white princess? Both the book and the tv show I mean.

Hi anon, thanks a lot! Brace yourself, because this is going to be a very long answer written both by Mary’s perspective and my own (they’re similar but we have a lot of feelings, so….):

LAURA

Book: Hated it. If I could just get past Gregory’s glaring, ludicrous bias or if I’d lived on the moon until the other day and known nothing about history I could maybe enjoy it as a work of fiction pure as simple, but even so its tiresome reiterations sold as psychological introspection and its singularly uninspired prose are so bad I just can’t get into it. I think PG probably had shot herself in the foot by describing HVII as a creepy villain in The Constant Princess, so she had no choice but stick to that characterisation in her other books or else it would hardly have looked like the same universe. I personally believe this is almost downright offensive to the historical Henry Tudor, not because it has any actual influence on any intelligent person’s idea of him but because it really cheapens him both as a sovreign and a person. Whatever PG might think of him, he was a remarkable figure she either doesn’t quite grasp or actively means to undermine. No middle ground here.

But you know, it’s always the same problem with PG: it’s okay to write fiction with your own theory, although I find most of hers hilarious, just maybe don’t claim to be a historian?? Like, that’s not your phd?? Just because you read about something it doesn’t mean you get any authority on it - I read a lot about the Borgias, it doesn’t mean I’m a Borgia historian. I’m not even close. Tbh, I also blame the UK’s cultural industry here. Just don’t interview the woman in your documentaries. Don’t give her the same space as David frigging Starkey. She’s good for Harlequin books at best, or rather was. Sorry this rant got OT quite quickly, but it’s really hard to separate the book’s quality from its historicity or lack thereof and that’s chiefly PG’s own fault.

TV Show: I do and I don’t like it. Obectively it’s laughably bad. It lacks everything that made TWQ decent, stylish entertainment: great performances, gorgeous locations, beautiful cinematography, evocative directing. But even the best intentions can’t make much out of a weak script and TWP’s is a ridiculous mess that makes me want to send Reign’s writers a sorry note for all those times I’ve laughed at them. The amount of exposition in every single dialogue is embarassing, except when it comes to mentioning that RIII was “Lizzie”’s uncle. At that point they’re no longer exposing anything, in fact they’re crossing her fingers people will forget about it. Then, when they’re not busy explaining us who the characters (minus Richard) are, they keep themselves occupied making them contradict themselves or do things that make no sense whatsoever:

In one episode Margaret offers peace in the name of the child and Elizabeth is like perhaps, lol, mic drop, Elizabeth out; the next one it’s Elizabeth who bids peace (a peace she doesn’t mean because she’s still scheming behind their backs) and Margaret shuts her up. If they didn’t hate each others’ guts I’d say they’re sparring lovers.

Both Elizabeths know Margaret killed the princes so they know they cursed Henry’s future son but they go through with the wedding and the pregnancy anyway, in fact they claim they’ll raise a healthy baby. Curse? What curse? Did they ever make one? But wait, maybe the curse isn’t a thing on TWP!

But then “Lizzie” finally gives birth and wants her mother to discuss the curse. So it is a thing on the show! Why didn’t they bring it up before? Did “Lizzie” just endure 9 months of pregnancy with a child she distined to an untimely death? She’ll probably discuss this with her mom now, right? Better late than never! But no, when she’s finally brought to her she doesn’t even bring it up for a second.

Oh, and let’s not forget that time “Lizzie”’s pregnancy was announced in a room full of people but then they had to fake the loss of her virginity on their wedding night! So smart! This will not make you guys look suspicious at all!

I could go on but I’m exhausted.

And then there are assorted stupidities such as having Margaret of York talk of “her spies” knowing Henry had a son when Henry has just held the equivalent of a press conference to have the world know about it. Some spies, Margaret!

In general, the whole thing looks like it was written and shot in a rush and with a 100$ budget. The women’s costumes are absolutely terrible and look cheap, poorly assembled with pieces that just don’t belong together nor to this era (I’d say born from an incestous relationship between Magnificent Century and Kosem). The best ones apart from the men’s are those recycled from other shows (Burgundy is full of them). Plus, Margaret Beaufort (whose character is deprived of all the humanity, vulnerability and even humour she used to have on TWQ) is wearing a synthetic Minnie Mouse hat half of the time.

But every show has its saving grace and TWP’s is Jacob Collins Levy. The guy even read bios, he can mention data even I couldn’t remember. I swear he’s possessed by Henry VII. He can be sweet, mean, dorky, kingly, authoritative, paranoid, you say it. He’s a miracle and I thank whomever picked him every day. He even looks the part, for heaven’s sake, you can totally picture him as a 20-something Henry Tudor. Poor Jodie Comer can’t do much with her Gregory-based script but the show took most liberties with Henry’s character and as a result he’s way better thanhis book counterpart. Their nice blossoming chemistry (1x01? What’s 1x01?) is single-handedly making this mess of a show worth a shot.

I guess at the end of the day it doesn’t have the ambition of TWQ? I don’t know. It’s a Reign-like show, except they sold it as accurate!!! and feminist!!!! and… it’s not quite working as either of those things. It’s silly entertainment at best.

MARY

Book: I really don’t like the book, I feel it’s not only terrible in terms of plot and historical accuracy but also badly written and kinda repetitive (the characters are always saying the same things over and over again, Philippa Gregory doesn’t know synonyms are a thing probably). I stated my feelings pretty clearly here and my opinion hasn’t changed one bit; just to give you a vague idea of how much I truly hate this book I’ll say this: I never dnf books, never, but with this I couldn’t bring myself to keep going and I gave up at ~75% (I read the ending though and it sucked). What bothers me the most is the fact that PG thinks that what she wrote is an accurate depiction of the truth (minus the witchy part of curse, or at least I hope so); on her website she wrote this:

Historical research??? Where?! There in nothing in this book you couldn’t find on wikipedia; actually, now that I think about it, wikipedia is probably more accurate and less biased towards Henry and Margaret than she is.

The characters, let’s not talk about them; Elizabeth is annoying and she keeps repeating she loved Richard, she loves Richard, she will always love Richard (no synonyms remember?) and blah blah blah: just shut up already, we got it, you can move on now. She knows nothing (about 50% percent of her lines consist in “I don’t know” or something like that) and she’s stupid, there’s no other word for that, no polite way of saying she’s unintelligent. Henry is an idiot and he RAPES Elizabeth before their wedding???!?!?! WHAT??! And he’s in love with Katherine Huntly?!? WHAT? He’s volatile, weak, completely unable to govern (spoiler alert: the real Henry was NOT LIKE THAT AT ALL) and he’s a pawn in his mother’s hands. Oh, have I mentioned Elizabeth and Henry keep falling in and out of love with each other for no reason? Plus she falls for him after he raped her, what kind of message is PG trying to send here? Because I don’t like it.

I cannot really talk about the plot because there is no plot, it’s always the same thing repeated ad infinitum: Henry fears a York boy will steal his throne, he questions Elizabeth about it, she asks her mother (who says she knows nothing but we know better) and she tells Henry she’s clueless. Then the whole thing starts again, interspersed with some random fighting and pregnancies. It’s dull as dirt.

I’ll be glad to further elaborate my thoughts if you want but I think my rant is already too long so I’ll stop now.

TV Show: I have mixed feelings about this. Let’s be honest for a second here: the show is bad and the fact that the writers and producers are women is not enough to say the approach to things is feminist. If something is bad it’s just bad, whether it was a man or a woman who made it. The writing is lazy (actors spend half of their time explaining the viewers what they’re seeing) and boring and despite there being some great actors (Michelle Fairley for instance) they often have nothing to work with; the original material wasn’t good in the first place but they did nothing to improve it.

One thing I do like are the main actors: Jacob Collins-Levy is a gem, WE’VE BEEN BLESSED. He understands Henry, he studied him and one can truly see it in his nuanced performance: he brings the character to life with subtlety, he is Henry. Give this man all the emmys please because he does all this with a poor script and I feel like he knows more about Henry than the people who wrote this show. I like Jodie Comer as well, she works well with the shitty script she’s been given. Plus Jacob and Jodie have the best chemistry and that helps a lot: just imagine what masterpiece we would have had if the writing had been decent. I guess I’m warming to Lizzie as a character (I absolutely hate her in TWQ) but her constant obsession with Teddy gets on my nerves (it seems she has dropped the issue now though, thankfully). Michelle Fairley is good but she’s no Amanda Hale unfortunately and Margaret herself is not the one we all saw and loved in TWQ. Elizabeth (Woodville) is the usual and I can’t stand her as usual.

The plot is pretty unexciting: the whole Burgundy business is awfully monotonous and Elizabeth scheming is repetitive and tedious.

I just wanted to briefly say something about the “rape” scene in the first episode. Whatever Emma Frost says about it, it was not the great showing of strenght on Elizabeth’s part they’re trying to sell: Lizzie giving her “consent” didn’t make it okay and it did not make her a feminist, it did not make her powerful, it did not put her in control. I’ve elected to ignore that shit and enjoy the romance from a historical point of view but I find kinda disturbing that the writers are set on building a romance that started with that.

As for more frivolous stuff, the costumes are horrendous and the sets look cheap, I expected more.

I hope this answers your question :)

#the white princess #ask #anon

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adhd-ahamilton · 8 years ago

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Joy To The World, 1, 4 and 5!

Hoo boy, so many questions!!! I hope you’re prepared for the deluge that’s gonna result...~ I’ll answer these tonight and finish the ones in the other messages tomorrow morning!

1. What inspired you to write the fic this way?

So. Over the last five or so years I’ve been writing fic, in all but the second year, I’ve written a special Christmas-related fic for Christmas. (And I did two the first year, so.) Christmas is a really important holiday to me and I really love Christmas-related stuff (the cheesier and sillier the better), so it became kind of a tradition. But this year, I was at a little bit of a loss. I knew I wanted to write Lams, because that’s my big thing right now. But how would I write Christmas Lams? Did they even properly ‘celebrate’ Christmas during that time period?? Or should I just go for an AU?

I researched it, and thankfully it turns out that the 18th century is around when people did start to celebrate Christmas in the modern sense (and it’s also when carols really started to come about, which is great because per tradition all my Christmas fic are titled after a carol), but that was just the beginning of the issue. When exactly would it be set? Valley Forge? But, uh... I highly doubted they would be really doing all that much at that point. But I couldn’t really think of any time outside of Lams AU that they’d be together. (And then I found out afterwards that Ham wasn’t even there for Christmas 1777, so, welp.) And I really couldn’t think of any kind of actual plot. I could have done a kind of meditation on their relationships to religion, but I didn’t know that much about which specific form of Christianity they belonged to, and I thought it was something that could be and HAD been done much better by other people. (Plus that’s not really my fave kind of fic to write to begin with.)

So, it wasn’t really working out that well. But still, I really kept trying. Through November, my working plan became almost set in stone: I’d do a combined historical and modern AU fic, switching back and forth between scenes, comparing themes (supply lists in VF compared with finding money for food over Christmas break in modern AU), sorta casually looking at the differences. When I gave it up, it was partly out of lack of interest in the themes, but my conscious reason was ‘I just don’t really care about modern AU Lams.’

...which came to the crux of the problem all along: I’m not really an AU person. Or rather, I’m very not an AU person. I’ve written very few AUs in my time, and almost all of them were historical AUs - certainly not modern day ones, and definitely not school AUs. I don’t have any, like, moral opposition - I can fully appreciate the transformative potential of full-setting AUs and find very interesting the interdependent communities that develop around AU-heavy fandoms as they essentially create their own accepted canons - but I just...don’t tend to like them. I’m very analytical!! The idea of just...MAKING UP not just one character or setting but basically a whole story just always seemed simultaneously too easy and too hard to me!!! Plus, I like to write really interesting and unusual things and try new styles, and one of the most basic points of interests for me in writing is asking what makes these characters and relationships unique, based on their precise personalities and backstories and combinations of traits. None of that lends well to full-setting AUs.

But. As I was mulling this terrible problem over, as usual, I was also running over in my head all kinds of various different characterisation ideas. This time, I was thinking about how it was interesting that Hamilton always seemed to be written in opposition to Henry Laurens, when IRL it seems they had a pretty decent acquaintanceship. And I was thinking about it, and I really started to think that, actually, someone in Hamilton’s point of view - who was constantly abandoned by his father, and desperate for his attention, and incredibly ambitious despite the circumstances of his birth - would be one of the WORST people to understand that an overly-controlling, overly-interested father who expects extremely highly of his son could be a negative influence. Which also added to another thought I’d been having. I always liked one quote from Chernow, that Laurens must have seen in Hamilton what a man who makes himself can do, and it always made me think that Hamilton must have been the same way - that he must have seen in Laurens the man he had always aimed to be. So, Laurens grew up in a good family, acknowledged and promoted by said family, with plenty of money and a great deal of opportunity. To Hamilton... yeah, it’d definitely be hard for him to see the problems with that. (And, you know, there IS a lot of privilege there!! It’s just, y’know, that mental illness doesn’t always listen to that.) But, those thoughts were kinda moot, because I really couldn’t think of any way to contrast these different experiences with fathers in historical verse.

And that’s when it came to me. What if I did a modern AU where Hamilton came down to visit the Laurens family for Christmas?

I didn’t have the time (or, really, the interest) to develop a full-on world for everyone, and a uni AU just seemed to be the most appropriate for this one, anyway. And it also did have a bit of appeal: it always kinda bugged me that in the AUs I read, Hamilton and Laurens never seemed to be studying law, even though that’s historically what they did do. As a law grad, I figured I might as well be the one to write it. (Though law in Australia is p different from in the US - there’s no separate law school, we just study it straight out of high school like anything else - but whatever.) And once I was doing THAT, it was hard for me to escape the fact that, in the real world, studying law hadn’t...exactly always been the best experience for me. Given that Laurens didn’t really want to study it either, it seemed appropriate to lean on those experiences a bit.

Aaand that’s where we really get to the meat of the inspiration behind it, heh. Which is to say: this is possibly the most autobiographical thing I’ve ever written...? I’ll say outright that a lot of it WAS entirely invented - my relationship with my family is nothing like John’s was in this, at all. But my anxieties over studying, and my worries about the future and what a career in law would lead to... yeah, that came from me haha. Because, to get kind of personal about it... well, I graduated July 2015. And in the time since then, I have been employed for about 2.5? months, total. The job scene here, in general and especially for law grads, is just that bad. (And, uh, there was a fair bit of personal fault in my lack of preparation for after I’d graduate? But, seriously, I was really anxious already...) And ever since then - particularly 2016 to the present - I’ve also had a lot of anxiety and depression and stuff going on. At the time I wrote the fic, it was in a position of leaning worse rather than better. So...I honestly don’t know if there was ever, like, a dispassionate fic in there safely cordoned off from my own projections, but if there was, it didn’t last long.

So, I got the idea, and wrote it all up pretty quickly in early December, just kinda ridin’ that catharsis of getting all that stuff out. (And it turned out to be even more relevant than I thought, as ‘trying to enjoy Christmas like you usually do when you’re really not happy’ also ended up a very autobiographical theme.) And that’s how it happened!

As for one or two other things:

I really really didn’t wanna get too into politics in the fic lmao. I don’t feel comfortable with more than the broadest strokes of Hamilton’s beliefs (I’m gonna GET THERE but Im still well rev-verse in Chernow) and I always feel uncomfortable about portraying historical figure in any better light than they deserve when it comes to specific matters. But I also wanted to have Laurens and Hamilton at least as POC because I also think it’s important to increase racial diversity in fanfic in the rare cases that we really get a clear choice. So, I tried to kinda portray that without really getting detailed about any activist stuff or whatever. Which is why in Ham’s argument with Henry he’s really not siding with anyone, he’s just an economics wonk who gets mad when people on both sides of the political aisle don’t make sure their numbers add up, lol. That was my best compromise. (And Philly kinda nudged me when I still got too far off-course;; haha!)

Hamilton has ADHD because: again, I wanted to actually officially write up neurodivergent characters into fic when I had the option of being specific (my Ham is always neurodivergent but obv I can’t explicitly write that into the text of historical verse), and it’s ADHD because......well, I could write a really long thing about that alone lmfao. And I feel like I kind of should in some ways because I know that a lot of people aren’t rly familiar with how ADHD tends to actually, like, feel, for real-life people, and if you aren’t then I KNOW this must sound like a really arbitrary or misguided HC. And I’d really love to write it up and expand education and all, but. It’s also something that hits really close and personal for me and, as someone who can be anxious for days straight over opening entirely innocuous tumblr messages... I just DK I could do it, atm;;;;; Someday I will though, I hope!!! (Tho I will say that I’m totally for all neurodivergent Ham HCs and that honestly my Classic Ham is also influenced by BD and BPD things so I’m p flexible about it.) (Actually I guess I CAN say that my HCs for Ham all involve disorders with extreme moods and mood swings and stuff and ADHD in its lesser known symptoms can absolutely include that, esp with Rejection-Sensitive Dysphoria, so yeah. That’s basically the large part of my reason for that headcanon right there lol.)

4. What's your favorite line of dialogue?

HM OH MAN, I’m not sure!!! Lemme skim it again real quick.

In terms of sheer characterisation efficiency, I always liked the idea of Henry Laurens’ introductory sentence being to complain about John not calling often enough. It’s just such a perfect combination of a) genuinely cares about his son and wants to hear from him, and b) is an asshole who has no idea whatsoever of the pressure he’s putting on his son without offering any concurrent praise or reassurance.

...so yeah I think I’ll leave it at that actually, since this thing is long enough already lol.

5. What part was hardest to write?

I was sitting here trying hard to remember if I really had trouble writing any part of the draft because there was one bit where I stalled briefly but it wasn’t really that bad and I couldn’t even really remember it and apart from that it was super smooth...until I remembered that editing counts as writing. And hoo fucking boy.

I was lucky enough to be able to have my fic beta-ed by Philly! Which I’m super grateful for and the fic is undoubtedly better for it! But it was a really difficult process for me because of my anxiety. And I needed to do it rather quickly, because of course I had to have it finished before Christmas, and my family actually was going away for Christmas where we wouldn’t have internet access.

So I get through almost all of the fic. It’s finally almost done. And then right at the end there’s a bit where Alex and John quickly exchange gifts on Christmas morning. Super short scene. And Philly pointed out that, actually, wouldn’t the rest of the family be taken-aback at them exchanging gifts without them?

And I kind of read that and sat back and. that was right. That was 100% correct. So like. What do I do??? Do I involve the other characters? But the original scene was like, three lines. and I don’t wanna have to write a whole new scene lmao. Do I take it out? But in a earlier scene, I’d had John express a worry that the present he’d gotten for Alex was awful and he really regretted it, and I kinda liked that in this final scene we see that actually he’d just forgotten WHY he’d bought it (he’d remembered Alex saying something about it), and I thought that was a nice thing about how anxiety can really fuck with even your memory and stuff bc in the end there genuinely was no reason to worry. It wasn’t necessary to the fic, but it only came about in the writing - I’m pretty sure the outline was just like ‘and then they exchange gifts or somethign??? IDK’ - and I didn’t want to get rid of it again. But then how do I justify them exchanging gifts alone???

And so that’s how I ended up just sitting there mournfully or pacing back and forth like p LEASE just SAVE ME, just GIVE ME AN OPTION, I have a HOLIDAY TO PACK FOR and THINGS TO DO and I just want this damn fic to be EDITED and DONE ALREADY. I came up with soo many possibilities, none of which satisfied me,lmao. and eventually after wayyyyyy too long of trying to figure it out I settled on something that seemed mostly plausible and then just. wrote it in and skimmed the rest of the fic and posted it lmao.

Which, honestly, is pretty typical proceedings. I tend to have the general ideas come pretty easily to me, and the actual writing is normally pretty smooth - it’s usually the editing where I start rocking back and forth and cursing myself for ever trying to write :’) (Luckily, at that point I’m close enough to the end that I can usually force it through...!!)

#elysianmars #long post #my fanfiction #I...think about things... a lot..............#I got a lot to say okay................................

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flamboyantommo · 8 years ago

Text

Annual Writing Self-Evaluation

Thank you @a-writerwrites for tagging me in this! It took me a while, but I did it!

1. List of works published this year:

Like to Keep You Laughing

Shut It Down When the Time Comes

Get My Good Side

So Long I've Been Waiting

Bye Bye's Are Not For Legends (I'm Forever Young)

Wednesday Edits (the only one not for an exchange of some sort)

Day 10: Scrub a Dub Dub (from the 30 Days of Smut Challenge)

Plus, one fic in the Girl!Direction Exchange, and one in the HL Exchange. I can’t say which ones yet, since authors haven’t been revealed. =)

2. Work you are most proud of (and why):

Probably Like to Keep You Laughing. It’s the only fic I’ve written with ace or aro characters. I researched asexuality so much before attempting to write anything with that fic because I really wanted to avoid offending anybody. It took a lot of putting myself in the character’s shoes to really figure out how they would act. Well, more than usual, anyway. And it turned out really well. I’ve gotten so much good feedback on it and I’m definitely proud of that.

This is totally cheating, but just want to say that I’m also super proud of Wednesday Edits, because it took me a year and a half to finish that, and I wanted to give up so many times, but I didn’t. And I’m so happy I finished because I think it wound up being great. So I’m proud of that, too!

3. Work you are least proud of (and why):

I wouldn’t say that I’m least proud of it, but I wish that I had more time to work on Get My Good Side, which was the fic I submitted for the Winter Exchange. But I was a pinch hitter, so I only had like, three weeks, I think? I wound up going in an entirely different direction, no pun intended, with it than what I planned on, just because I ran out of time. But I’m still happy with the story!

4. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

This is from Bye Bye's Are Not For Legends (I'm Forever Young).

“Leaving so soon?”

Harry glanced over his shoulder, only to see a third man; Louis, he guessed.

This man was far more beautiful than the others, with bright blue eyes, a button nose and light brown shaggy hair that had a single strand that curled down the side of his face.

He stood with a wide stance, and his arms crossed in front of his chest. He was staring Harry down, daring him to make a move.

Harry turned to face him and said, “I guess you’re Louis?”

“Maybe. Where do you think you’re going?”

“Home, fucker. I don’t know you and there’s no reason for me to stay.”

“How about this reason? I know what you did to Bennett.”

Harry stilled. There was no way he knew about the money.

“What was it? Ten thousand dollars? No, a hundred thou- No! It was four hundred and seventy thousand dollars that you stole. That’s impressive.”

“Shut up.”

“What’d you do with the money?” Louis wanted to know. “I mean, we saw your apartment. You definitely didn’t do any remodeling with it.”

“Fuck you.”

“No, thanks. So how’d you do it?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Of course I would,” Louis grinned. “And so do Liam and Niall.”

At the mention of their names, the other two men appeared from another room, flanking Louis on either side.

“I mean, we already know it’s some kind of mind control. But I get the sense that it’s more complex than that.”

“Why would I tell you?” Harry asked.

“Because we want you to join us,” Louis answered.

“Excuse me?”

Niall nodded happily. “See, we’ve been working together for nearly ninety years now. It’d be nice to have someone else join the ranks. And your power is very interesting.”

“And what exactly is it that you do?”

“Save the world,” Liam answered simply. “Save people from destroying themselves and those around them. Prevent the fall of mankind, that sort of thing.”

“How?”

“Well, like you, young Harry,” Louis replied, “we’re immortal. See, we did some research on you. You stopped aging in 1951, and have been traveling the world ever since. You mainly lived in London up until last year, when you moved here, to this fine city of New York. And last week, you robbed Adam Bennett of almost half a million dollars, which, like I said before, is very impressive.”

5. Share or describe a favorite review you received:

I love every single comment that I get on my stories, but the ones that meant the most and that made me want to cry the most were the ones on Like to Keep You Laughing. Most of them were from people who identify as ace or aro, and hearing from them that my representation was accurate was incredible.

Like these ones: “Wow, thank you thank you for writing this! There's definitely not enough ace/aro-centric fiction in this fandom (or most fandoms, really) and you did such an excellent job repping those communities here--at least, I thought so, based solely on my own personal experience being ace and talking to some other ace people. And of course it was very well written and thoroughly enjoyable to read, and I loved your characterization. No pressure, obviously, to keep working on something you feel in your heart is finished, but if you write anything else in this 'verse I'd definitely love to read it. Thanks again for taking the time to write this and posting it! Pleasure to read <3��

“No offense but this was perhaps some of the best characterisation I have ever had the pleasure of reading, like honestly the dialogue was so good and natural and so /them/ it felt like I could hear those words coming out of their mouths, like I wasn't just reading them saying something because it was necessary for the story. And the way you depicted being ace and aro, it was just so good and so well-written and well-thought, I've seen some fics either over do it or just fall completely flat I truly adore this as someone on the ace/aro spectrum and just as someone who loves great writing. If I could leave even more kudos I would!!”

6. A time when writing was really, really hard:

I already mentioned that it was tough during Wednesday Edits, but it was also really hard when I was writing my fic for the HL Exchange. This was the most recent, and there’s just been so much shit going on in the fandom that there were so many days when I felt like I wanted to just leave for good because I stopped caring and just couldn’t handle it. So writing these characters based on Harry and Louis was really difficult. But I did it! I had support from a bunch of people and I continued reading fics and I just kept reminding myself why I love them so much.

7. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you

Definitely Ace Harry/Aro Niall in 'Laughing,’ because I’m just so happy with how I described them and how I had them act in the fic. But also, OT4 in Bye Bye's Are Not For Legends (I'm Forever Young), because in that fic, the boys all have super abilities. They’re immortal and have been working to ‘save the world’ for a long time, so it was interesting to write them as characters who change over a long period of time. Plus, I got to write them in fight scenes, and I’m surprised that I managed to make those somewhat believable.

8. How did you grow as a writer this year:

I’m not sure, really. I’ve definitely tried a lot of new things in writing - this year I wrote mpreg, superheroes, ace characters, kid fics and girl!direction - in addition to writing my standard pining and fluff. So maybe that’s it?

9. How do you hope to grow next year:

DESCRIBING THINGS. I’m honestly surprised I haven’t been called out on this more, but I’m horrible at describing setting and appearances. If a character walks into the living room, for example, I almost never tell the reader what the room looks like, what kind of furniture there is, how the character looks, etc. That’s just never been my strong suit, probably because I usually skim over a lot of that stuff when I read fics. So maybe I’ll try to work on that, haha.

10. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

First and foremost, I have to thank Michelle @temporaryfixlouis for being the best beta in the world. You’ve helped me through so many fics, probably more than I have the right to ask for! And you translated some awesome German for ‘Bye Bye’s,’ which made sure I didn’t sound like an idiot writing subpar German. Also, Jen @evenasyoungastheyare for working with me and drawing amazing art for Day 10. Your drawings made me so much more excited to post the chapter! And of course, every author who’s written an amazing fic this year that kept me motivated to keep working on my own stories.

11. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

Uhh, most things, haha. Wednesday Edits (and the first part, Monday Meetings) are largely based on my years as a newspaper editor and my time in college, as well. So much in those fics are actual things that I experienced, which helped me write them. Also, my fic for the HL Exchange is based on a lot of things I’ve done in my hometown, and even my job. Let me stop before I tell you which fic is mine.

12. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

1) Don’t give up. You’re going to get so frustrated some times, but it’s all worth it when you have a fic that’s done and ready to be posted. 2) PROOFREAD. Don’t rely on a beta to catch every mistake for you. Proofread while you’re writing, after you write a scene, after you write a few scenes and at the end. And then read the whole story all the way through again. (I’m a little obsessive over proofreading, if you couldn’t tell.) 3) Don’t write in order. I’ve lost inspiration so many times because I couldn’t figure out how to start a story. Usually, one specific scene in a fic stands out for me, and it’s most likely a scene that happens in the middle or toward the end. So just write down everything that you’re thinking of, and then go back and fill in the rest. I usually outline the fic around whatever I have written, and put little notes in if I have an idea of something I want to happen before or after what I already have.

13. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

Not right away. I’m taking a much needed break from writing because it’s been overwhelming lately. But I have the third and final part in The Taylor Times series, which I’m excited to work on. I already have a title, so I’m hoping that helps with writing it. I also want to go back over the 5.5K words I had originally written for the Winter Exchange and see if there’s something there that I can salvage. Plus, for at least a year, I’ve been wanting to write a fic based on my day care job, because I think it would be adorable. There would be a lot of cute three-year-olds saying funny things and it would definitely be genderswap, because that’s what I’m experiencing, so... Finally, there are a bunch of my fics that I’ve always wanted to write sequels for, so maybe I’ll finally get around to doing any one of those.

14. Tag three writers whose answers you’d like to read. ;)

I know it says three, but I never follow the rules for these things, so let’s go with @jaerie, @100percentsassy, @suddenclarityharry and @louehvolution.

And anyone else who’d like to participate!

*All answers should be about works published in 2016. Also, you can skip any questions you hate or don’t want to answer, but please leave them on the list so that others can do them if they want. :)

#woo i'm tired #back to reading fics for me haha #get to know #flamboyantommo

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100wordanime · 6 years ago

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This is a re-post. All reviews from the 2nd of July until the 7th of July will be reruns. New episode and series reviews will resume on the 8th of July.

Overview:

Yuri Katsuki is a Japanese figure skater who kind of feels his not-so-glorious career is over when Victor (his idol from Russia) shows up to become his coach.

Product Link:

Yuri!!! On Ice Complete Works Book

Review:

Let’s be honest, this is not going to be an overly objective view. I’m going to try, but I’m going to fail, because just saying the name Yuri on Ice still makes me smile like a bit of an idiot. I’m actually going to take this as a plus/minus review because that is going to help maintain some objectivity and it will also mean I’m not just reiterating stuff I’ve already said in my over posts on this series (or at least there will be less reiteration – I’ve written a lot about Yuri on Ice already).

Plus +

The characters in this story feel real. That was kind of the main point of the feature I wrote back while this was airing. Are they the most well rounded characters in all history? Not really. Do they contain infinite levels of depth? Definitely not. But they feel real. In real life people aren’t always well rounded and depth is something that even if someone has it they don’t always show and these characters have enough depth to keep from being boring. Even the minor characters who get very little screen time feel like real people. One of the criticisms I’ve read of the show is that the support cast exist only to lose and from a narrative point of view that is kind of true. However, someone has to lose the competition (or at least not win) and given our main characters (Yuri, Victor, and Yurio) kind of only interact with their family sparingly and then other ice-skaters and their coaches, it kind of makes sense that most of the support cast are competition and that at some point they are going to lose events. I don’t actually see that as an issue with the characters and more an inevitability of watching a sports anime. I love the cast of Yuri on Ice (even JJ who is really an obnoxious braggart but is never actually cruel to the other skaters which is an important point for when they switch things around in the final competition and make you see him through a different lens). They just feel like this could be a real group of people for at least 80% of the run-time of the show.

Minus –

While it is fantastic that we got to see a romance between two male characters that didn’t involve either one declaring they weren’t gay, acts of violence, or acts that are borderline if not totally predatory, Yuri on Ice didn’t really delve into this. Rather, it feels like they wanted to just ignore the fact that this was a male on male relationship and just tell a story of a relationship which is fine and it would be lovely to see more shows just tell the story they want to tell (so not really a minus). But while it was lovely to see the main characters just accept their attraction and relationship the fact that every other character in the story just accepts it as well and not one person ever raises the issue that they are gay or both guys or anything else, really shatters the realism that is built up almost everywhere else in this story. It is great that this relationship is accepted in the world of Yuri on Ice. It is great that they didn’t need to spend half the run-time justifying themselves. But when you have a Thai character announce to an international group of competitors and a restaurant full of customers from Barcelona that his two male friends just got married and no-one says anything except congratulations (admittedly, he did make the announcement in Japanese) you just have to wonder about the reality being presented. Certainly it would be great if this is how such announcements were greeted but for the most part I think most of us know that this isn’t how such an announcement would be taken. So, no, I’m not criticising Yuri on Ice for not being a political piece on gay rights but I am criticising it for this one critical break from constructing a believable reality in terms of the main relationship.

Plus +

This is so pretty. Okay, people who know a lot about animation and people who are more critical in general of animation than me, will point out the terrible facial expressions some of the characters have if you pause at points during their routines. They will also point to reused sequences of animation for the routines. There’s a few other parts they’ll hold up to show you that this anime doesn’t have amazing animation. Sorry, but I disagree with them whole-heartedly. This is beautiful to watch. The colours, the movement, most of the expressions, everything is just gorgeous and if a certain action sequence gets reused multiple times I’m fine with that. Outside of the skating I loved how each of the venues was shown and I love the small details are included throughout. Yuri on Ice is beautiful and for something that seems pretty simple on the surface there is an incredible amount of detail that you can find when you start looking (and my rewatch of this series only convinced me that I’ll have to rewatch it again, soon, to pull out yet more details).

Minus –

I kind of touched on this when I talked about the characters but the story is really simple. While this isn’t really a problem in a character driven show there really isn’t much going on from a story point of view. Even the other competitors aren’t really constructed as antagonists because they aren’t. Yuri is facing himself and his own self-doubts. Yurio is trying to transition into the senior competition and prove he is better than what he has shown the world so far. JJ is trying to fan his own ego. The characters are all facing some inner-demon rather than an actual antagonist or conflict. The competition is more or less just a way to show us who is winning their psychological battle at any given moment. Yurio winning overall was predictable early on and Yuri not winning gold was also nearly a foregone conclusion after Victor said they’d get married if he did. In light of wanting another season this ending was definitely needed. However, Yuri did need to show how much he’d improved and overcome through Victor’s presence so a silver medal and a world record will just have to do. Still, a lack of antagonist or real conflict won’t detract from the overall viewing experience so while from a narrative point of view this might be a minus, from an enjoyment point of view it probably won’t interere with the fun of watching.

Plus +

Can we talk about the music for a moment? Because after you get past one of the most memorable opening themes of the year what you have is a show that just throws amazing music at you. Admittedly, given each skater has two separate songs and we’re introduced to a lot of different skaters over the course of the show, it was kind of easy for this anime to hit us hard with brilliant music. However, what really sold the music was the solid link to characterisation. These skaters are revealing who they are through their music (part of that ongoing inner battle) and each piece has been perfectly mapped to the character. Some of these links are obvious with Yuri naming his original piece ‘Yuri on Ice’ and JJ naming his ‘Theme of King JJ’ but others are far more subtle and yet equally powerful. I am going to have to get the soundtrack to this anime at some point because the music is exceptionally well done.

Product Link:

Yuri!!! On Ice (Yutora!!!) Original Soundtrack

Minus –

This is a criticism I raised early on in the series when reviewing week to week and it is of some of the dialogue. Between being cheesy, obvious, or incredibly lame there are some terrible lines of dialogue early on (though admittedly some of this may be because things got lost in translation). The instances of lame dialogue thinned out as the series progressed but there were definitely a few face palm worthy moments early in the show. Actually, some of the interactions between Victor and Yuri later in the series border on brilliant, not because there is a stand out line that makes you go ‘yes’ but because they really develop a natural pattern of conversation (or arguments) as they spend more time together.

Plus +

This is a truly emotional experience. Okay, that is beyond subjective but if the characters have drawn you in to their romance and their desire to win then you will find yourself incredibly caught up in the final episodes. I know I was. There were tears. Both first and second time through. They were mostly happy tears.

Plus +

Yeah, that’s two in a row, I’m cheating. While the story is pretty basic I loved how early events impact upon later ones and flash backs are used with real purpose and make you reconsider both the story and the characters. I’m not going too much into this because it is something that is better to experience but information you gain as you go will continue to change how you view the early events and this definitely helps give the basic storyline a little bit more of a wow factor.

I’m going to leave this on the positive because even though I thought I’d said everything I wanted to about Yuri on Ice before this review still just spiralled a little out of control even after multiple rewrites and edits.

Product Link:

Nendoroid No. 865 Yuri!!! on Ice: Victor Nikiforov Coach Ver.

Final thought, if you are one of the very few people who haven’t already watched Yuri on Ice (or haven’t already totally written it off because of all the crazy fans) then you should definitely give it a go. Maybe it won’t rock your world but its definitely got a solid (if simple) story with characters that moved me (and clearly thousands of other crazy fans).

Please tell me why you loved Yuri on Ice below… or tell me why it wasn’t your thing.

Thanks for reading.

Karandi James

Consider supporting the blog by:

Re-post: Yuri On Ice Series Review This is a re-post. All reviews from the 2nd of July until the 7th of July will be reruns.

#anime #ice skating #JJ #review #series #Victor #Yuri #Yuri on Ice #Yurio

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100wordanime · 8 years ago

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Wait, did I just schedule a Yuri on Ice review for Valentine’s Day? Oh, that’s right. I definitely did.

Overview:

Yuri Katsuki is a Japanese figure skater who kind of feels his not-so-glorious career is over when Victor (his idol from Russia) shows up to become his coach. I reviewed this week to week, it took out my best of the season and the year (and was the reader’s choice as well), and after episode 10 I wrote a feature on the appeal of Yuri on Ice to me (all of which can be found here) so now I have to try to review it as a series.

Given everything already out about this series, I’m not even trying to avoid spoilers and my review will outright tell you who wins the final competition so if that is an issue, please go check out some of my other posts on Yuri on Ice instead.

Review:

Plus +

Minus –

Plus +

Minus –

Plus +

Minus –

This is a criticism I raised early on in the series when reviewing week to week and it is of some of the dialgoue. Between being cheesy, obvious, or incredibly lame there are some terrible lines of dialogue early on (though admittedly some of this may be because things got lost in translation). The instances of lame dialogue thinned out as the series progressed but there were definitely a few face palm worthy moments early in the show. Actually, some of the interactions between Victor and Yuri later in the series border on brilliant, not because there is a stand out line that makes you go ‘yes’ but because they really develop a natural pattern of conversation (or arguments) as they spend more time together.

Plus +

Please tell me why you loved Yuri on Ice below… or tell me why it wasn’t your thing.

Are you a fan of 100WordAnime.blog?

If you like this site and you like what I do, please consider becoming a patron.

Thanks,

Karandi James.

Yuri on Ice - finally the series review. #anime Wait, did I just schedule a Yuri on Ice review for Valentine's Day? Oh, that's right. I definitely did.

#anime #ice skating #JJ #review #series #Victor #Yuri #Yuri on Ice #Yurio

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