#there without feeling like I'm shoehorning them all into one POV

[mbirnsings-71]

Was I planning on making an au for the new fandom I've only been in for like a few weeks at most? No no I wasn't but uhhhhhh this happened and well- yeah- this'll be festive-

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Do you think all the characters are assholes?

Because i think they are despite their tragic backstories and i also don't think they appreciate Yuu enough, except for maybe the first years

I mean, the TWST characters are (mostly) inspired by Disney villains... Plus, they’re immature high schoolers still in the process of emotionally maturing. Of course they're not going to be perfect balls of sunshine. They're all going to be rude or have faults in their own ways, but they also have their strengths and charm points. I do call them assholes (lovingly), but I would hesitate to slap a singular label on any of the characters when they're all very well-rounded and morally ambiguous.

On the topic of Yuu, I think it makes sense that most of the cast doesn't really "appreciate" them. To begin with, most of the characters are not the openly sentimental types; they wouldn’t overtly express that gratitude even if it were present. Then we have to consider that Yuu isn't directly involved in their character growth or arcs in most cases; it's often the other characters who are confronting the OB boys or instigating, physically battling them to snap them out of it, and then comforting them afterwards.

As early as book 1, that pattern holds true. Ace is the one that initially pissed Riddle off. Adeuce are dueling Riddle. Ace decks Riddle and claims his last straw. Trey is the one calling out to Riddle as he's losing it. It's the members of Heartslabyul who gather around Riddle when he reawakens following the OB. (I'm not going to go through and list off what happens in every single book, but I'm sure you can think of many other instances... Lilia insulting Leona, Deuce and Epel having the heart-to-heart on the beach, Octavinelle's plot against Jamil, the twins checking up on Azul post-OB, etc.) To me, it feels like it is the boys and their bonds with one another responsible for the change, not Yuu's involvement. Yuu is usually along for the ride and actually does and says very little despite all the fandom jokes about "being the school's unpaid but overworked therapist" or Crowley's shallow claim that Yuu can help the boys learn to cooperate (which feels more like a vague ruse only shown in the prologue to shoehorn Yuu into the plot). There's actually very little in-game that shows them being active in helping the students change for the better. Much of the time, the boys can resolve their own struggles to get along without Yuu being there (like all those pair-ups in book 6–sure, it may have taken a while, but the fact remains that they did eventually resolve their own issues and cooperate without Yuu having to orchestrate for them; this also happens many times in events like Port Fest, Wish Upon a Star, Ghost Marriage, the Halloween events, etc). A very common complaint (at least among English speaking players) is that Yuu isn’t “involved enough” or that they don’t have a big impact on the events of the story. Therefore, most of the boys not feeling close or indebted to Yuu makes sense from their POV. What has Yuu actually and explicitly done to help them? Not much. It’s mainly in individual fan interpretations where Yuu/a Yuusona/an OC in Yuu’s role is actually able to play a more substantial part in each characters’ life and growth. In general, the standard in-game Yuu is more of a "fly on the wall" character that witnesses events unfold rather than someone who plays a large role in each book. The boys are seemingly the main characters, not Yuu. It's just convenient to have Yuu/a blank slate in the story because they, as an outsider, need TWST concepts explained to them (thus making it easier to give exposition to the players who may also be unfamiliar with the information). The first years, by comparison, are closer to Yuu simply because 1) Yuu is implied to be in the same year level as them (so they're more likely to be exposed to one another) and 2) their preestablished relationships with Grim, Ace, and Deuce opens them up more to first year interactions. "Friends of friends", if you will. It makes more sense than Yuu being appreciated and loved by everyone/most people in the main cast of 22ish. (How many people do you know irl that have 22ish significant friends?) They spend the most time together. Everyone else tends to stick to their own groups (with maybe the exception of Heartslabyul, since Yuu is already close with Adeuce). They’re just... not as intimate with Yuu, and therefore not as inclined to find much appreciation for them.

I want to clarify that this doesn’t mean there are zero instances of the characters outside of the first years expressing gratitude toward Yuu. Like, of the OB boys, it’s only Vil who consistently apologizes for the trouble he caused (note though: it’s not specifically to Yuu, but to everyone in the VDC/SDC squad. Yuu is then given prize money from most of the other boys as thanks for letting them crash at Ramshackle… Of those, only Kalim cites being grateful that he was able to stay and have fun with everyone because of Yuu green lighting the decision. This makes sense, as Kalim’s one of the few who wears his heart on his sleeve and is friendly to most. It just isn’t true for the majority of the cast, and we shouldn’t expect it to be.

As late as book 5, you can see characters like Leona not being so happy to be called out to or for Grim to act all buddy-buddy with him. That indicates to me that the rest of the cast is not that close to Yuu + related parties and doesn't have a real reason to be. (Note: I'm not counting character voice lines here as proof of friendliness with Yuu, as it can be argued that the relationships and events explored in the cards don't run in tandem with the main story and are meant more as fanservice for the players.)

Again, while it's not that fun to read in a narrative, it does leave things open-ended for anyone who wants to self-insert or to expand on those blank relationships for their own characters. I believe this is by design to appeal on an individual level to players. You get out of it what you put into it!

[doodlegirl1998]

Look, I'm sorry, but Class 1-A had no excuse going after Izuku the way they did in the Dark Deku arc.

They knew Shigaraki held Izuku hostage at the mall. They knew (I think?) that Shigaraki directly targeted him during the war. They knew from the letter that the man who took control of Japan 100+ years ago was directly targeting him. So for them to act all surprised and upset that he ran off without telling them is just mind-blowing to me.

Then they let BAKUGOU take the lead in their little rescue mission and DO NOTHING as he bullies Izuku yet again. They see how physically and mentally beaten down Izuku is and don't respect that. If anything, Izuku should have called them out on this and ran off again.

Overall, this arc had so much potential in exploring Izuku's mentality (low to non-existent self esteem, self sacrificing tendancies, Imposter Syndrome regarding his spot at UA), but as always, it wound up being a fucking bust. Only All Might and the OFA users were actually worried about the ramifications of Izuku putting this burden on himself.

Hi @nutzgunray-lvt 👋,

The Dark Deku arc was one of THE BIGGEST personal let downs for me. After so long of feeling Meh about MHA at the beginning this arc (stupidly in retrospect) got my hopes up.

Was AFO going to be an actual threat again? Was he going to go after AM? Inko? Uraraka? (I actually thought Hori was building up to have AFO kill AM with how AM was shown caring for Izu this arc.)

Are we finally going to see more Izuku POV on everything? And shift focus back to him on what he thought of certain key events? I.e Hawks's actions surrounding Twices death, Dabi's reveal, Midnight's death (since this is the first person Izu knew to properly die could this have driven home stronger that more people he knew could easily die.)

Then instead of any of that we got Class 1A vs Izu shoehorned in as a shit finale and Bakugou leading the charge against him.

Anyone with a braincell should see this was a bad idea.

Anyone who cares for Izu should see that beating him down instead of approaching the situation with empathy is a bad idea.

Are we meant to believe Todoroki, Uraraka, Tsuyu or Iida are Ok with this? If they are... Am I meant to still believe they're Izuku's friends? Why are they not pushing back against Bkg's b.s? WTH Hori?!

In this situation, Izuku had every right to go completely apeshit on every member of Class 1A since this essentially mirrors Aldera - with Bakugou leading the charge AGAIN!

In fact I wish he did because Bakugou looked like he was having a swell time! Maybe that would have wiped the shit eating grin off Bakugou's face. Look at those grins and taunts, clearly reliving the glory days at Aldera, how I wanted Izuku to deck this bastard.

Right until his b.s Apology where he pulled out the manipulative fake remorse (without explaining the situation) and topped it off with "this won't change anything between us." With Izuku stood like a literal prop to listening to this silently, for the sole purpose of making Bakubitch look good, until he faints.

Woooooow.

Hori just hates Izuku doesn't he? What a way to fuck up an arc that actually should have focused on the MC for once. Instead of giving Izu any kind of focus or... Anything Hori brings him right back to Bakugou, his lifelong bully and abuser.

I hate this.

[olive-branch-witch-library]

Lightbringer Book 1: The Black Prism by Brent Weeks

Alrighty, this series is a doozy (5 books, each >650 pages) so I'm going to be breaking up these posts and making them as I read. These posts will contain spoilers for their respective books, so please don't read if you don't want to see that.

Before I get into my feelings on this book, I want to get the very lengthy Series Warnings out of the way: SA, non-explicit smut, violence, slavery, sex slavery, classism (the main villain wants to put magic-users above non magic users), assassination attempts, body mutilation (someone loses fingers, the antagonists modify their bodies with magic), drug abuse, large age gaps (19 year old with ~60 ish year old, used as a political scheme), PTSD, identity theft, fratricide, ceremonial killings to prevent insanity, Politics, lots of creepy men, betrayal, cheating, torture, insanity

Book Warnings: SA, non-explicit smut, violence, slavery, sex slavery, classism (the main villain wants to put magic-users above non magic users), assassination attempts, body mutilation (the antagonists modify their bodies with magic), drug abuse, PTSD, identity theft, fratricide, ceremonial killings to prevent insanity, Politics, betrayal, cheating, insanity

I am still in the middle of reading this series, so the Series Warnings isn't comprehensive yet. I will edit this post after the remaining books to make sure all my bases are covered.

This series follows several characters and goes through several different POVs. The main ones for this book are Kip Guile, Gavin Guile, Aliviana 'Liv' Danavis, Dazen Guile, and Karris White Oak.

In this world, there's a kind of magic called Chromaturgy, which allows drafters to turn light into a physical substance called luxin. Each color of luxin has its' own unique properties and influences the drafters personalities in different ways. Right now all we need to know about are the Seven Colors: sub-red, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, superviolet. Sub-red and superviolet are invisible to the naked eye, and I believe are supposed to represent infrared and ultraviolet respectively.

The Prism is able to draft all seven of the main colors without any consequences. When a normal drafter uses magic it eats away at their life source, slowly turning their eyes whatever color they draft. Those who can draft more than one color have different patterns that overtake their irises. Once the drafter 'breaks the halo' (uses up as much magic as they can) they become a wight and typically go insane.

This is a really strong starting point for me. I've never heard of any kind of magic system that focuses on colors before, which is a wild thing to think about. But aside from that, Weeks does an incredible job of actually writing characters that I hate with a burning passion, and making plot twists that seriously come out of left field for me.

For example, the reveal that Dazen stole Gavin's (For simplicity's sake I'm just going to call them Young Gavin and Old Gavin from here on out) identity and imprisoned him in a box of blue luxin? I had no idea that was coming. Same with Liv's betrayal of Kip and her father Corvan.

That being said, I do have some problems with this book. I don't think it was necessary to have Old Gavin be a rapist. Like, at all. In later books he even seems to take some kind of joy in breaking the will of strong women. I don't really see how it adds anything to the plot, and kind of just feels shoehorned in there to make readers hate him more (which definitely worked with me).

The author also does the typical male fantasy author thing where he focuses on how attractive a lot of the women are. In some instances, like Kip for example, it makes sense. Kip's a 15 year old boy who's never had anyone show interest or even really be nice to him, so I get having him be distracted. To me it felt a little heavy handed having almost every single male character point out how attractive different women are, but I like The Dresden Files, so it isn't really a huge issue for me lol.

The cliffhanger was spectacular though. The most powerful magic user in the entire world is losing his ability to do magic? I'm hooked. As of writing this I'm in the middle of the third book and I'm super excited to see how the rest of the series plays out!

[laximpulsion]

Director's Cut Commentary, Ch. 2-6 oh, she's the one i should hate

Since I'm just about at the end of what I had originally planned for this story i thought it might be an appropriate place to pause for some reflection... more under the cut because it got kinda long and i dont want to inflict blog-length posts on your dash without warning lol

So I thought this was going to be just like, some la-di-da high school romcom AU that would never get very feelings-y or anything, and i CERTAINLY did not expect to have actual character development lol. but it got kinda real??? I mean obviously compared to other things i've written it's still pretty la-di-da and im not planning on having any big-time angst, but i've ended up really invested in it and enjoying a lot of the turns it's taken for both fatin and leah.

i think i've said this before but i'll say it any chance i can get... i have loved getting to show this from both of their POVs; i think it's worked out well and it's been such a great, rewarding challenge to weave the story together through both of their eyes. i love that i get to draw parallels between how and what the two of them think about each other, and i like getting to dig into what moments cause shifts for each of them; what do each of them fixate on; how do they interpret the same event differently... it's been really fun.

and just in general i cant overemphasize how much fun this one has been to write. i almost always enjoy writing, whether it's angst or fluff, whether it goes slow or quickly, even when im feeling uninspired/stuck, it's satisfying to just get some words down. but theres a difference between enjoying it/finding it satisfying, and like, literally being entertained by it. and this one i am just...having FUN! and it's awesome. i think it also helps that my frame of mind going into it was that i wasn't going to take it super seriously (vs. my s3 fic which i am arguably taking TOO seriously and need to loosen the fuck up about) so it's easier for me to roll with the punches when things get off track.

speaking of which... things got off track! little miss leah rilke refused to cooperate with me, which is such a bizarre sensation because i know i'm the one writing her, but it really feels like a couple times this fic she has literally just rebelled against me. the first was when fatin presented the revenge scheme; i intended for leah to hop right on board but instead she got worried about it being traced back to her. which i think makes sense because the way she's been this fic is very concerned about what people are saying/thinking about her. the other time just recently happened while i was writing the next chapter and now it's leaving me kind of at a crossroads wondering if I want to stick to my original plan or go with what Leah seems to want me to do lol.

and obviously the first time leah went rogue I adjusted the story so that they don't do a really big revenge scheme, and i dont regret that, i think it makes sense and i have one more revenge plan related plot beat that i think will wrap it up nicely. so honestly im thinking I'll just adjust things again...because it kind of feels like this is what's supposed to happen anyway, like, i'm letting the characters call the shots instead of trying to shoehorn them into my own plotlines. maybe? something like that? ok, this is getting a little pretentious lol sorry...

what else...mmm...i think thats actually all for now! until next time...

EDIT: oh yea actually i have more. i had to "kill my darlings" a couple times for this fic, i.e. get rid of a scene/plotline that i really liked but that i just couldnt justify keeping after i decided to go in a different direction. i'd never had to do that before and it's harder than i expected it to be! the first one was that i changed the party scene, which was not a huge tragedy bc i think it was the right choice but there are a few lines/ideas from that that i was sad to lose. i'm making myself feel better about it by tacking it on as a bonus chapter at the end so at least i didn't write it for nothing lol. the other one i'm even more bummed to let go of because it is so dumb and messy and i love idiots and mess, but if i go in the direction that leah seems to want me to, i don't think it'll make sense to keep it. i am optimistic that i'll be able to work the general idea into another fic, but it won't be quite the same. so maybe i'll offer that one up as another bonus chapter.

[cellsshapedlikestars]

Okay, So. In regards to your Tinder AU story, I may have an unpopular opinion in regards to Aegon. I feel bad for him. Now, hear me out. Also, this is all speculation. I may be reading too much into all of this. From Chapter 3, I get the feeling that he wishes to be closer to Jon but for various reasons he is unable to. The one that I am going ti focus on is the issues he has and needs to overcome before having a proper meaningful relationship with Jon. Namely; inadequacy. TBC

Dearest anon, I am screaming.

(disclaimer, I put little periods in all the names because I don’t know how tumblr searches for things and I don’t want this showing up in either a R.haegar or A.egon search since it’s not kind to them, hopefully that works!)

First of all, your opinion is not unpopular with me.

Second, to clarify: R.haegar didn't technically break the contract, it was only in effect while Jon was a minor and that's why he came to Jon right after he turned 18. As for *why*, I will touch on that at some point (or, it's in the outline, which I tend to ignore, so hopefully it does make it into the story. ALL of what I’m about to say is in the outline, but that doesn’t mean it’ll get into the story, because I’m not just going to shoehorn in A.egon’s feelings if it doesn’t fit into the narrative. It is, after all, from Sansa’s POV and it’s not like A.egon is going to dump all his problems on her when he’s met her once for like 3 minutes, and Jon does not know most of this).

Ok, I'm just gonna put this under a cut cause it got long and it's sort of spoilers for things I may or may not put into the actual text of the story:

.

I will say that you are more right than not. R.haegar is distant with his affections and hard to please and A.egon has spent most of his life trying to be R.haegar 2.0.

Does he want to be closer to Jon? In a way, yes. In a way, he wants a brother, since he and Rhae sort of gravitated to opposite parents in the split. He wants an ally, a confidante. But I think more than that, he also hates & envies Jon. Jon got to grow up without expectations while still benefiting from R.haegar being his father. Jon doesn't (appear to) care about R.haegar's validation. People tend to just *like* Jon. And there's still the lingering dynamic of A.egon as the king & Jon the poor scholarship kid from school. A.egon has both a superiority & inferiority complex at the same time when it comes to Jon.

As for why he's marrying Margaery - again, I don't know how much I'll get to it in the text because it's not from his POV, so I'm not sure how much to say that will end up being spoilers. I was going to say ask me again when the fic is complete, but I suppose I'm already in spoiler mode, so here we go.

Essentially, it's a mixture of: Jon has a nice thing, I want the thing because I'm better than Jon and deserve the thing + the Tyrells may be new money but having them on our side could do wonders for the family and won't that make dad happy? + Margaery pulls the same trick and understands A.egon's sense of inadequacy/superiority and uses that to make him feel good.

I think A.egon truly does think he loves her (as much as he's able to love), but I don't think he's completely aware of his reasoning, though. He also does not trust Margaery, but when his family (the Martells) point out the flaws in his relationship/what she did to Jon, his pride only makes him dig in deeper.

R.haegar only cares that the Tyrells will make him money.

Whew! Did I miss anything??