#you're getting the entire writer package

[jayparked]

the way i’ve started coming to u for help

so i now have three???? stories and i was just doing one??? for fun bc that anon??? HOW did i get here??? where am i going😭

this is how i stare at all my word docs with all my different stories while i have zero motivation to write

welcome to the life of being a writer :')

[manikas-whims]

hi lovely, first of all i wanna wish u a good day and i hope everything is going good!

i was cooking in the background but got to a block here, and i would like to know ur opinion on this:

lets say sylus (pre - relationship) somehow messes up bad with reader, to the point they distance themselves from onychinus. how do you think he would react and make up? I feel like he would observe from afar and then go ahead try to talk to them, but i have no clue what he would say, whats ur perspective?

tysm for ur work and im so proud to see u grow as a writer ❤️ byebye lovely!

Hiii! I've been wanting to respond to this for so long.. I'm just so tired by the time I'm home these days 😭

And I'm glad you think I've grown a little as a writer 🥺 means so much to me ♡ so sorry it took so long..🙏

As for the ask itself..

If Pre-relationship Sylus messes up,

then you'll definitely distance yourself from him and Onychinus itself because you still don't know him that well. He did abduct you from the auction and held you in captivity in his base. So of course it's quite difficult for you to give him the benefit of the doubt.

And Sylus seems to be the kind of person who doesn't easily takes offense to people judging him based on his line of work. But he'll definitely get mad because you aren't just some random person to him. He'll be disappointed because all it took was one mistake for you to judge him so harshly? Instead of treating him like every other person and giving him a chance?! He'd think you're just like the rest of the people who form an assumption of him based on his appearance itself. To think, he even bothered making an effort..

Thus, there's no communication between the two of you for at least 2–3 days..Not even Mephisto cawing and poking his cute, lil mechanical beak at your window 😞

And this leads to you getting even more angry at Sylus cause LOOK AT THE AUDACITY OF THIS MAN!!! He made a mistake and now doesn't even bother explaining himself!? Doesn't even try to fix this mess!? Yeah..you should've known..he truly is like every other person from N109. It's your fault for being foolish enough to believe he might have any humanity behind those glowing crimson eyes.

But after the passage of those 2–3 days, you finally begin to sort through your thoughts and feelings.

You also start seeing some familiar faces around your apartment. Luke and Keiran do drop a bunch of packages full of clothes, accessories and other luxurious items you could barely afford on your Hunter's paycheck. Nevertheless you reject them all, and even yell at them. “Tell your stupid Boss he can't simply buy my forgiveness!”

There are moments when you just consider forgetting everything and make up but you resist the urge because that would only encourage him. He'll think he can get away with anything if you're so lenient. And so you suffer his absence for the entire week, slowly coming to believe that you weren't important to him at all..

But Sylus is a mature guy despite whatever his reputation suggests. He'll be mad for a while and put off but he'll come to terms with the fact that he made a mistake. And now after giving you ample amount of time and space to sort through your own feelings, he'll finally decide to randomly show up one day at your door, completely shocking you when you answer the door.

Before you can yell at him or push him to leave, he mumbles in a gruff tone. “I’m sorry.”

To say that you are shocked would be an understatement for it's not everyday that the dreaded leader of Onichynus utters an apology to someone. Men like him are used to making people bend their knees and grovel. Used to exacting apologies out of others instead.

You blink several times before asking. “What did you just say? I didn't quite catch it.”

His brow narrows and he scrunches his nose in that way he does whenever met with an obstacle. Sighing, he repeats his words. “I said I'm sorry..for what I did. For giving you a wrong impression and ticking off all the boxes of suspicions in your head. For showing you something that I'm not.” He pockets his hands– a sure sign of awkwardness– and cocks his head to the side. “And I vow to make it up to you.”

Out of nowhere, Mephisto comes flying, perches upon his shoulder and croaks loudly in support of his master.

You try your best to hide the smile threatening to burst upon your face. You'd forgiven him on his first apology itself because one glance at him made you realize how much you'd actually been missing him and his stupidly handsome face.

Still, in an effort to tease him a little, you tilt your head and say. “Hmm..I'll consider forgiving you if you repeat your words once more. On your knees.”

There is a brief pause in which you almost believe he will do it. His expression seems as if he is actually considering it. Then, he scoffs at you and flicks your forehead.

“Don't push your luck, sweetie.”

And you laugh in delight, punching his abdomen lightly. “Fine fine, let's start again.”

You smile and offer him a hand. He looks at it, his crimson eyes roving up to gaze at you, then he accepts your hand, and shakes it. “As you say, sweetie.”

hope you liked this lil piece ♡

» MASTERLIST «

[lurking-latinist]

How to Suck Less at Summaries

Probably almost anyone who's ever posted a fic to ao3 or a platform with a similar interface has been hit by that moment of panic, breaking in on the euphoria of having finished and polished a fic--"what do I put for the summary?!"

So much so, that "I suck at summaries" in the summary box has become something of a cliche. It's very understandable! You've already put all that work into writing the fic itself, and now you have to write ANOTHER thing with its own set of conventions and expectations? No way!

And I want to start by saying that that's absolutely fine. Fic writing is your hobby, your creative endeavor; you're not obligated to do anything in it that you don't want to. You can leave the summary box completely blank--ao3 will let you--and there's no reason you shouldn't, if that's what you want to do! If you're happy with your summaries, please don't change them. There's no wrong way to do summaries. This is your invitation to ignore the entire rest of this post!

However. My impression is that an awful lot of people aren't happy with their summaries. They would like to have summaries that catch a reader's attention, that fit common patterns, or that give a good representation of the fic; they're just not sure how to accomplish that, or what readers might be expecting. And the good news is that writing various styles of summaries, like other kinds of writing, is a skill you can improve--and that there are some tips and tricks that can help you write the kinds of summaries you may want to write more quickly.

How do I know? Well, on top of having read I don't know how many fics, I've published 200 of my own, with all different kinds of summaries. (In fact, writing this post is my treat to myself to celebrate publishing 200 fics!) So I have a lot of trial and error experience to draw on. I'll be using my own summaries as examples (plus some hypothetical examples), because I don't want to be nitpicking anyone else's!

I'm going to throw in a cut now because this is gonna get long.

What do you want to accomplish with your summary?

That's the first question you might want to ask yourself. And the answer really is up to you! The name "summary" suggests it's supposed to be a sort of short version of your story. That's one option. But summaries are often used to accomplish various other things, too: some of my favorite summaries don't really tell you anything about the plot of the fic, but instead give you a glimpse of the writer's style or lure you in with a question. It can also fill organizational purposes like commemorating the reason the fic was written (although author notes can also be effective for things like this).

Most fundamentally, I tend to think of the summary box as a place to manage your readers' expectations. I want them to have some sense of what the fic they're about to read might be like, and I want to present that in a way that highlights why it might be appealing to them. Of course, what I write won't be appealing to every reader--and an effective summary, plus accurate tags and ratings of course, allows a reader who won't enjoy what I have to offer to quickly keep scrolling and find something that fits their tastes better. But the way I think of them, summaries are really mainly for readers who will enjoy my fic if they decide to open it. A summary for a fic is like a pretty package for a gift: the gift is great in itself, and the nice gift-wrap makes it more eye-catching and more fun to open!

Sidebar: This "managing expectations" thing is, I think, the reason why authors sometimes add notes in the summary like "I'm sorry if this sucks" or "this is my first fic, it's probably terrible." I completely understand where this comes from--you don't want to make your readers expect some kind of genius literature and then only have something to give them that you yourself are still insecure about! But I really do think they're generally counterproductive. On the one hand, that kind of negative self-talk will tend to undermine your own confidence and make you more insecure about your writing, not less; on the other hand, they can subconsciously prime your readers to notice weaknesses and issues that they might otherwise not even have paid attention to! That doesn't mean you have to pretend you think your writing is perfect; very few of us do think what we post on fic archives is perfect. There's nothing wrong, even, with a note like "this is my first fic" or "this one is a bit experimental, I'm not sure how I feel about it" or "this wasn't written in my first language" or even "this is an old fic and I don't think it represents my best work anymore", although I tend to put that kind of commentary on craft in the author's notes rather than the summary, but that's just me; there's no rule. As an example, when I recently published my first fic in the Hornblower fandom, which has a historical setting I wasn't previously very familiar with, I thanked my beta for helping me avoid "historical howlers" and added "any remaining are my own responsibility." That made me feel better about potential mistakes in research by showing that I was aware I might have made some. I put this in an author's note at the end of the story. But, for the sake of you as a writer as well as me as a reader, I'm asking you--please don't start out our reader/writer relationship by telling me it's terrible! Give yourself a chance to shine. Even if there's a lot you're insecure about in your fic, there's something you love--maybe it's the premise, the ship, even one particular line--that makes you want to share it with the world. Use the summary to highlight that. As your reader, that's what I want to know about!

Anyway, now that you've decided what you want your summary to accomplish, there are a couple of very easy ways to fill the summary box that you might want to consider--if they make sense for your fic.

Just quote the prompt

When I write prompt-fic, often very short, I frequently just quote the prompt itself as the summary. An example would be my 3 Sentence Ficathon fic archived on ao3. Since the challenge in this event is to write a complete fic in only three sentences, a summary wouldn't be much shorter than the fic itself! So I just do summaries like

For reeby10's prompt: "Doctor Who, Clara/Twelve, unforgettable."

(Gaps)

This can work outside of prompt memes, too. If you're doing a monthly challenge, for instance, something like

Flufftember day 21, 'breakfast in bed'

might tell your readers all they need to know to be interested in your story and know what to expect.

Set the context

For some fic, the most important thing you want your readers to know going in is something about the fic's context. For instance, with drabbles I sometimes use the summary as a place to sneak in information about setting/what's supposed to be happening that I didn't have room for in the drabble itself. For Susan's Twist, a 100-word drabble, I set the scene in the summary:

Susan is grooving to the latest chart-topper of 1963. But for some reason, the song makes her grandfather uncomfortable.

which meant I didn't have to use any of my 100 words explaining "Susan was listening to the radio, when..." Since Susan's Twist was inspired by someone else's Tumblr post, I could also just have referenced that post in the summary. But in this case, I chose to phrase the premise in my own words in the summary, and cite the Tumblr post in the author's notes (I also tagged the OP when I shared the fic on Tumblr).

Flower Children is an example of a drabble with a not particularly effective summary where I could have used this strategy quite effectively. The summary is just

Neither of them wants to fight.

which is all right, but which doesn't do much to set up the (admittedly cracky) Eighth Doctor/Dalek Oswin pairing that motivates the fic. But then, I've always felt like I didn't have quite as much of an idea as I'd like about what the context for this fic is supposed to be. Maybe I'll write more about them sometime.

Setting the context can also be useful for summaries of AUs. Very often, what draws people into AUs is the AU concept itself.

For instance, the premise of my story te quaerens, Ariadna is that the events of the audio Zagreus go differently and the Doctor remains possessed by/transformed into Zagreus. So that's what I said in the summary:

The Doctor is still Zagreus, but he and Charley find ways to keep going.

In this case, the summary is accomplishing more than one thing; it explains the concept, but it also indicates a bit of the story's tone--it's fairly optimistic given its premise, and it's more about how their relationship evolves than any particular plotty event.

With setting change AUs--especially in familiar AU settings, like a coffeeshop, high school, or fantasy monarchy--often what readers will most want to know is what roles the characters are filling; in other words, how the translation from canon to AU has been made. For instance, my story Warmth is already tagged as a coffeeshop AU with the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan, and Adric, so the summary indicates that it's told from the perspective of Tegan as a new employee:

Unexpectedly stranded in London and looking for work, Tegan finds a place where she just might fit in.

If she had been a longtime employee or a customer, that would have changed the story's dynamics, and I would have wanted the summary to reflect that instead. I could have also added that the Doctor is the shop's manager and Nyssa and Adric are the existing employees, but I decided to let the story itself reveal that in this case.

With someone's planted a bath bomb in the matrix, which is a retail AU inspired by an incorrect quotes tumblr post, I just stuck the whole tumblr post in the summary box:

Romana: When you work at lush and a customer comes in and bites the soap because they think it’s cheese… this happens way more frequently than you think. Leela: If you stopped literally presenting soap as deli food this wouldn't happen. Narvin: Who goes into a bath store and thinks something covered in glitter is cheese? Brax: Who goes to the store and just takes a bite from the cheese? ~incorrectgallifreyquotes.tumblr.com

I might do that a bit differently now--maybe more the way I handled Susan's Twist--maybe something like this in the summary:

An uptight employee and a too-suave customer are making Romana's job managing a bath store way too stressful. Thank goodness--probably--that her best friend works for mall security.

And then I'd have put the tumblr post that inspired it in author's notes.

Thing is, though, that reflects my taste and what I think is effective now, but it doesn't mean I did it wrong the first time. People read and enjoyed the story, and it was fine!

Also I just showed this post to Moki and she said she thinks the first one's more intriguing. So that just goes to show, it's really a matter of taste.

This strategy is also useful for missing scenes and things like that. Something as simple as

While waiting for Z to return from the rendezvous, X and Y have a conversation.

can draw in readers very effectively, especially if X and Y's conversation was kind of obviously a gap in the story that they might already be curious about.

Use a quote

A surprisingly effective and straightforward way to create a summary is just to use a quote from the fic. I've seen tons of great summaries like this that hook me in immediately. I struggle with using it myself, because I want the line I quote to be powerful/impactful/intriguing and give some sense of what the plot is like and make sense out of context, and I don't often seem to be able to find lines like that in my own work. But I did for The Moon by Night:

It could not have been more than a day that we clung to the hull of that station full of troopers.

Since this is a space AU for a historical fiction novel, this line gives some sense of how the events of the story have been translated into space, and also shows the voice I'm writing in (I tried to follow the style of the original, which is first-person, which is unusual for me). If you can find a line like that in your work, it can be a great summary. You can even just put the first couple of lines of the fic, especially if you've already worked to make them an effective hook!

You can also use a quote from another source. Was there a line or moment from canon that inspired the fic? A poem or song that fits its mood? You can use the summary as a sort of epigraph. (I often use author's notes for this as well.) If your readers vibe with the quote that inspired the story, they're likely to vibe with the story as well.

I did something like this with Absent thee from felicity awhile. The title is a quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet, and all I put in the summary box was another quote from a couple of lines later:

…to tell my story.

This is so short and contextless, though, that I'm not sure how effective it was. It maybe only works if you recognize the specific Hamlet scene that it's taken from and have thought about that scene in the context of a specific episode of Hornblower. (I promise that, if you do, it's heartbreakingly ironic!) This could have been a good opportunity for me to do a double summary (see below), especially since the story is epistolary and I could've established its context. Although I did kind of like revealing who was reading the letter and when slowly over the course of the story.

Okay, but I do want to explain the plot

Right, so we've established that effective summaries don't have to be in that "back of the book blurb" format. But sometimes you want them to be. Sometimes the thing you're most excited about is the story's plot or events, and you want to communicate that to the reader. But you already wrote the story in order to communicate the plot to the reader; how do you condense it into a sentence or two? Here are some tips that may help.

Are you using familiar tropes? If so, just mentioning them will likely tell your reader not only what the plot is, but that (if they like that trope) they're likely to enjoy it. For instance:

A and B are trapped in a snow cave/ice planet/walk-in freezer and must huddle for warmth.

That particular one will also explain a bit about the setting, if you want.

Relationship status/development is also something that many readers want to know, whether it's a romantic or a gen relationship (e.g. characters becoming friends or realizing they see each other as family). For instance, if A and B admit their romantic feelings for the first time in that huddling for warmth story, you might add:

They get a lot closer than either of them expects...

I rather like ellipses at the end of a summary; I think they imply, sort of, "read the fic to find out the rest." I sometimes use them to soften a summary that feels a bit abrupt. I feel like this might be just me, though? So if you don't like ellipses, nothing wrong with ending that same summary with a period.

If you have a fic where the entire content is some emotional development between characters, the entire summary can easily be that too!

I don't really write smut so I don't have good advice for summarizing it, but I get the feeling this might be a relevant strategy for it?

What changes in the story? This could be a change in characters' attitudes towards each other, in the information they have, in their physical situation, or anything else. A story doesn't have to be about one single major change, but there's almost always at least one. (Or a change fails to happen, but in an interesting way: "five times Lois Lane didn't realize Clark was Superman" would be a perfectly intriguing summary!)

What demands are made of the characters? Many stories involve a character overcoming some kind of challenge or meeting some kind of test. A summary can indicate what that challenge is--and you don't have to indicate whether or how the characters meet it! This can contribute to a feeling of suspense, so that the reader feels they need to read the story to find out how the characters react. For instance, I summarized my story Journey as:

The Doctor and Ace need to stop a dimensional leakage to put a life-sucking entity back where it belongs. But to do so, they'll each need to protect the other in their own way.

What are their own ways? Do they succeed? The reader can probably guess that they do--but how? Their attention is caught, and they'll have to read to find out!

Some notes on format and style

Summary style is as personal as the rest of your writing style, so this is only intended as a mention of a couple of trends I've noticed.

Sometimes summaries are 'in-universe'--i.e. they describe the characters and what they do, without reference to the existence of the fic itself as a textual entity--and sometimes, like the "five times" example I gave above, they refer to the fic's format, characteristics, relationship to canon, etc. in direct terms. (For instance, the example I gave for a missing scene was 'in-universe,' but I could just as well have said "While waiting for Z to return during Episode 3..."). Either of these approaches are fine, although I personally tend to incline more towards the in-universe style unless I have a particular reason to use the other, such as in Differences of Opinion, which took a lot of metatextual explaining:

When I read enough easily-crossed-over stories, such as for instance the Age of Sail books that I have been reading lately and also spaceship stories inspired thereby, what inevitably happens is I end up with a nebulous meta crossover setting where they can all hang out outside of their respective canons. Here's one conversation from that setting.

I keep wondering if something more terse might have been more effective, and I could have put all that in the author's notes. But I really think that for anyone who would enjoy this fic, the metatextual complication is a big part of the appeal. So I put it in the summary.

It's pretty standard to write in-universe-style summaries in the present tense, even if the fic is in the past tense. "The characters do this and that," not "the characters did this and that." You don't have to, but it's what your reader is most likely to be expecting.

It seems to be quite common to have a double summary: one that maybe reflects the style and tone of the fic, and another, more matter-of-fact one that explains the plot. They're frequently joined by "or." I don't typically use it--maybe because I rarely have the problem of having too much summary--but if you do, this could be a great solution.

Spellcheck and proofread your summary extra. Whatever strategies you normally use to make sure the words in your story are the words you actually meant to write, it's a good idea to turn those strategies on the summary with special intensity. After all, this is your first impression on your reader, so you probably want to look as polished as possible!

These are just a few things I've noticed that I tend to think about when staring at that blinking cursor in the summary box. I hope they may help you, too, to feel like you have something to say in that moment!

[crappymixtape]

crappymixtape's holiday celebration

⋇⋆✦⋆⋇ . A V E R Y M E R R Y M I X T A P E . ⋇⋆✦⋆⋇

you've arrived on tumblr today to find a neatly wrapped package waiting for you – all golds and reds and greens with a glittery bow on top – and when you open it up you find a mixtape. the writing on top loops and scrawls across the label, stickers of snoopy in a santa hat covering some of the letters, and when you pop it into the player you hear your favorite songs come to life.

it sounds like sitting by the fire with warm cup of hot cocoa, steve in the kitchen singing along with burl ives, silver and gold decorations, on every christmas tree – it sounds like eddie settled in next to you on the sofa, pressing kisses to your forehead and whispering in your ear, merry christmas, baby.

this is for you, my loves! a little celebration for us and our boys and this wonderful time of year. i'll be posting once a week – on fridays – throughout all of december with requests i've gotten and a few of my own ideas. you can find the playlist below!

THE PLAYLIST ( fic release dates noted below )

GOLD & GLITTER // 12.2 with steve for @superblysubpar 🎶 the nutcracker suite, tchaikovsky steve goes to the nutcracker ballet downtown every year, even has his own balcony seats – this year he brings you along as his date, but somehow you both miss the entire second act ( rich!steve harrington x reader • smut with a sprinkle of fluff ) BABY, ITS COLD OUTSIDE // 12.9 with steve for @sattlersquarry 🎶 baby it's cold outside, frank sinatra & dorothy kirsten it's been snowing all day, enough to snap the power lines and make the lights go out, and when steve comes over to build you a fire you can't think of a more perfect time to exchange gifts ( steve harrington x reader • pure fluff ) I WANT YOU THE MOST // 12.16 with steve for @palmtreesx3 🎶 rockin’ around the christmas tree, brenda lee steve's never been kissed under the mistletoe, what kind of girlfriend would you be if you didn't make it memorable? ( established relationship, tiny bit of fluff, lots of snark, sprinkle of smut, steve x reader ) HOME TO ME // 12.23 with eddie from me, xoxo 🎶 christmas time ( don't let the bells end ), the darkness eddie has to work on christmas eve, so you climb into his bed and fall asleep, waiting for him until he gets home christmas morning to give him his present ( eddie munson x reader • fluff, smut, est. relationship ) CHRISTMAS MAKES ME CRY // 12.30 with steve from me, xoxo 🎶 christmas, leona naess you go home with steve over christmas to finally meet his family and when it doesn't go as planned he feels like he's ruined everything, but you're there for him when he needs it most ( modern!steve harrington x reader • angst, hurt / comfort a little fluff, est. relationship )

LOVES FOR MY FAVORITE WRITERS you babes mean THE WORLD to me, oh my god, thank you so much for being here and for nerding out about this shit as much as i do! omg and for the enabling LOL. go follow all of these handles right now! ( and if i forgot anyone, i'm sorry ily too! )

☀ @inkluvs ☀ @fiveraccoonsinatrenchcoat ☀ @carolmunson ☀ @abibliophobiaa ☀ @dukesmebby ☀ @finalgirleddiemunson ☀ @curseofaphrodite ☀ @softharrington ☀ @starrystevie ☀ @acourtofsnakes ☀ @theshireisburning-so-mordoritis ☀ @a-dealwith-god ☀ @keeryshousee ☀ @lofaewrites ☀ @wroteclassicaly ☀ @katyswrites ☀ @schoopsahoy ☀ @andvys ☀ @chestylarouxx ☀ @supernovafics ☀ @superblysubpar ☀ @sswwmmpptthhnngg ☀ @harrywavycurly ☀ @thyme-in-a-bubble ☀ @lovebugism ☀ @sailor-steve-blog ☀ @sattlersquarry ☀ @plainemmanem ☀ @skullrock ☀

@curiositydooropened ☀ @luveline ☀ @stvharrngton ☀ @loveshotzz ☀ @forever-rogue ☀ @forevermoreharrington ☀ @livingintheupsidedown ☀ @annab-nana ☀ @familyvideostevie ☀ @theemporium ☀ @1986harrington ☀ @lucasnclair ☀ @roanniom ☀ @upsidedownwithsteve ☀ @stevebabey ☀ @starryeyedstories ☀ @kimmyiewrites ☀ @softharrington ☀ @hollandweather ☀ @palmtreesx3 ☀ @stevesbabysittingservice ☀ @princessdave ☀ @sweetsweetjellybean ☀ @fettuccin-e ☀ @usedtobecooler ☀ @aloneinthehellfire ☀ @poguemunson ☀ @myobmaya ☀ @reputationmunson ☀ @sincerelyyoursg ☀ @harringtons-cupid ☀ @spinmewriteround

AND HUGS TO YOU! YES, YOU! XOXO, 💿 KATE i absolutely cannot believe it's almost been a year since i've come back to this place and i have loved every single moment of it. making friends ( ily moots! ) seeing new faces ( nonnies you're my fav! ) and putting words to all of these characters we love so much. so just thank you, for everything, you're wonderful and i'm so glad you're here with me ♥️

✨ divider love to @saradika

[rauzagel]

I want to rant a bit about how the sexual aspect of Act 3 Raphael is handled, so be warned, you know what this is about. Just me whining for a bit.

First of all, it was very clear to me that the game would give us some sexy Raph scenes the moment they let us engage with Mizora because it had been pretty equal up until that point. If the game lets you do the lady devil, they'll undoubtedly let us have some fun with the handsome male one, right? They even gave us some Squid boy action after all. So the moment I got that Mizora scene my main motivation in the game shifted to finish Raphaels quest line as soon as possible to get to that point.

Then we get to the House of Hope and it's just... some random shapeshifting fiend and he's just grinding on my gals stomach, riding air. So from an anatomical standpoint the animation itself only works for male player models to begin with and uh... it was just really awkward, not enjoyable at all and the actual Raphael is just reduced to a joke and then that's it.

To me, a Raphael simp, this was the equivalent of dating Astarion/Shadowheart for three Acts and just when you're about to finalize the romance with some sexy scenes, Dribbles the (shapeshifter) Clown swoops in and takes that romantic interests place instead.

What's the purpose of replacing the actual Raphael with a guy whos sole alure lies within the fact that he copies the voice and looks of Raphael? It's literally him but without any of the charme. It would've been fine if that's all it was, but why ruin the characters sexual appeal on top of it? There were so many other things in the house of hope that could've been used to make fun of him, why not at least leave us the fantasy? I don't accept the "Oh, he's a villain and all villains are secretly pathetic" angle because as others have already mentioned, that is not how Mizora is handled, who is Raphaels female equivalent for those who're attracted to women. I'm not the only one who feels this way considering how many fans interpret the available information so that we can still get something out of it. Which I mean works just fine, but in the end it's all speculation. It's also the only way he'll still keep his appeal for many, myself included.

With the way he conducted himself, controlling and dominant, I don't find it unreasonable to expect any romantic scenes involving him to play out a certain way, it's very much the implication of writing him this way and it's exactly those qualities that people would be drawn to for the first 2 and a half acts in the first place. Raphael had such an intimate and prominent role by directly interacting with the player throughout the game, especially if you sign the contract and was, with his flirting, pretty much perfectly set up for some romance content. Even the locations we meet him at, such as the brothel are teasing the player and pointing towards it. The writers are aware that it was anticipated by many too, you can literally tell Haarlep sleeping with Raphael is what you wanted all along, but then that line is just treated as a joke once again. Raph is the only alternative to the emperor, in the end it's literally him or squid and even the squid gets a scene for those who are into him. Raphaels appeal isn't just the visual, but his charme and personality, the entire package, so to say. A shapeshifter that copies his visuals is just that, a hollow copy with none of those qualities, none of the charme and in the end none of the appeal. I'm still pretty disappointed by it. As it stands I would have preferred no intimate scenes involving him or his clones and keep the fantasy over what we got.

Needed to scream this into the void.

[just-animaxiz]

I got bored and decided to go through my old Potionomics save and check out all of Boss Finn's hang outs PRE-MAX cuz there's no guide for it, so here are some of it that I scavenged! Send me more if you managed to find anything else before the max relationship!

Boss Finn's hang Outs

Aquarium Visit

Level 1:

Finn leads the way to a wharfside warehouse that's been converted into a dazzling aquarium

There are colorful fish of every variety, massive crustaceans and thriving coral reefs teeming with life

A shark emerges from the gloom, its eyes fixing briefly upon Finn as it swims past

Finn Says Nothing

"Welp! Ready to head back when you are!"

TCG Collecting

Level 1

Finn beings Sylvia to a local hobby shop that's just received a shipment of Rafta's hottest collectible trading card game, Itsy Bitsy Kaiju

Finn holds each card pack in his palm, one after another, as if trying to sense the slightest variation of weight

He finally resorts to sniffing the card packs. A sharp, crafty smiles spreads across his face

"AH-HA! Their fancy vacuum-sealed packaging can't fool me!"

"This pack's got a rare holofoil chase variant, or my name's not Boss Finn!"

Level 2

The Hobby shop is crowded, but Finn deftly makes his way to the Itsy Bitsy Kaiju Display

He hovers Sylvia, watching impatiently as she opens a pack of cards. Sylvia can tell by the way he breathes that she's got the card he wants

"I'll trade you two Nanosaurs for that Codzilla. That's the best offer you're gonna get!"

Level 3

Finn decides to splurge at the hobby shop, purchasing an entire box of sealed Itsy Bitsy Kaiju card packs

They take turns tearing open the packs and Finn excitedly explains which cards are the most sought after

He practically falls over when Sylvia opens a foil variant of the Minitaur

"If one of us got a rare card today, I'm glad it was you."

Reality TV

Level 1

Sylvia joins Finn for a bit of TV. He selects a program about merfolk behaving badly

Despite being unscripted, the show gives Sylvia the distinct impression of being forced

Finn, however, eats it up. He alternates between shouting encouragement at the screen and covering his eyes as if scandalized

"It's gotta be real. No writer could make this stuff up!"

Level 2

Finn is eager to binge new episodes of a favorite show, which he's been saving to watch with Sylvia

This program follows real estate agents navigating a highly competitive market. Sylvia finds it hard to root for them. They're all a bit.. Shark-ish

"I know, right? Sounds like you get the appeal!"

Making Jewelry

Level 1

Finn pulls out a pair plastic container of beads, shells, polished stones

And shark teeth. Quite a lot of shark teeth.

He asks for Sylvia's input as he assembled an anklet. His large hands are surpisingly gentle as he strings beads and teeth in an alternating pattern

It's only when he's finished that he reveals some of the teeth belonged to his ancestors, including a beloved grandmother. He'd set them aside for a special occasion

"I'd like you to have this, Sylvia."

"But be careful. It's every bit as sharp as my affection for you."

[luckyartdrawer]

TLDR: Deleted scene for ch 29 ANE

Sooo I've been working on the next chapter (29) of ANE, but unfortunately I had to cut stuff and rewrite it because it wasn't playing out how I wanted. Norrrrr did it Segway into the next chapter I have boarded out all that good.

Ultimately i had to slow down and change the events that occured which ment major delete time. (This has happened before unfortunately, but ya gotta kill some darlings to progress. 😔)

But! I really liked this one scene that's getting deleted and thought "It's fun, let them see the fun!" So now you're seeing the behind the scenes fun lololol

Look below the break to see if you're interested! I've removed spoilers for those who haven't read/are caught up with the story. :)

“With the stunt Sundrop pulled, you're lucky if I let you out of this room this weekend. That was highly unusual.”

“...Sunnnnnn was, as was I-iiii, experiencin-g-g-g technical difficultiesssss. Nothing leftttt to worry about.”

“You're staying until I say so.”

“Wait, what about me?” You questioned, hyper aware of your current surroundings. “You don't expect me to stay right here the entire time. Right?”

“You already seem to be a package deal.” Mike said nonchalantly.

Your jaw locked shut with a permanent frown. You heard Moon groan in the background.

“That's not a proper explanation!”

“Doesn't need to be.”

Your wants don't seem very heard right now. You slouch against the wall and furrow your brow, but otherwise you listen to him.

Silence falls upon the room, save for the clacks of Mikes keyboard... That is, until Moon decided to start tapping the chair he sat on.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

You dragged your eyes from the floor to look at him. He stopped the rhythmic tapping when your gazes met.

You settle back into yourself, closing your eyes to try and find some comfort in the situation.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

You held back a groan but opened your eyes with a glare, the tapping noise stopping again when you looked at Moon.

Is he trying to annoy you? This isn't the time for that. He knows that.

You stared for longer this time and Moon tilted his face plate by 45 degrees.

TapTapTap.

The rapid succession of taps made you flinch.

TapTapTap.

Okay maybe you're getting frustrated. That noise isn't the most pleasant to hear and it's obvious Moon is using it to direct your attention.

You simulate a deep breath, remembering you need to keep calm. 

TapTapTap. (TapTapTap)

Now he's rasping with both hands. Wonderful.

“Would you please stop?”

“Hmmm?”

TapTapTap(TapTapTap)

“That! Stop that!”

“Youuu-u didn't say pleaseeee that time.”

TapTapTap(TapTapTap)

“Stop tapping the chair, please.”

“Wellllll, since you asked sooo nicccce-ly.”

TapTapTap

“No.”

(Writer's note: This scene was for Moon to get your attention to silently link up your shared single braincells (not literally lol) to realize that you can work together to leave. I love the idea so much but it's so out of character at this moment of time and unnecessary. 😭 At least this annoying tf out of you part is very much in character! :P )

[ussjellyfish]

Elemental asks: Lightning, spirit and fall

Lightning: What’s the most shocking plot twist you’ve ever come up with?

Once I blew up Earth. It was while I was watching Battlestar Galactica and I felt kind of grim dark, so I did. It happened off screen, but then my characters (from Stargate Atlantis) could never go home again and had to build a new home.

Spirit: What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received on your writing?

I get so many little beautiful compliments. People make me art sometimes. Once someone had me sign a fic I wrote. People name their sims after babies I gave the characters in a fic...It's really lovely how much quiet, mind-blowingly wonderful feedback fanfic writers can get, and I'm so grateful I can experience that connection, because it's so wonderful to have a sense of community.

Fall: Have you ever completely abandoned a WIP?  What led to that decision.

A few times. Once I came back 18 months later and finished it because someone asked nicely on a podcast.

I have two that I'm stalled on right now.

In Small Packages - Michael Burnham/Laira Rillak, Mirror Philippa Georgiou/Katrina Cornwell. It's a little sequel to Firefly where the canon-ish Michael meets a little kid from Firefly and then meets the other Laira, who has lived a very different life. (Laira and Michael are together and really domestic in one universe, not together in the other)

It needs one more chapter and I'm pretty sure what happens and I need to sit down and write it and...I haven't yet. I was going to write two more, one where Michael gets to the other universe but that's a lot of world building and dialogue with many people and that part is intimidating me so...it might get one chapter from Laira's pov where Michael comes back and tells her what she saw, because that sounded nice.

I haven't updated that since April.

The other one I've stalled on is Quantum Variations on a Love Theme (Michael Burnham/Laira Rillak), which is really long, and me stalling on that one is entirely me having feelings that aren't helping the fic.

The people I wrote that one with (where we talked about the headcanons and I dedicated chapters to them) don't talk to me anymore. (they're very busy and our relationship is just...changing. We're growing apart, and that's okay. that happens, but opening up that file makes me sad. Sharing it with them really meant so much to me and one of them stopped reading many chapters ago and the other didn't even tell me when she'd read the finale and I am sad about that.

It's a really good birth scene. I killed it and...the people I was most immersed with, that I told everything too, are gone. It doesn't really matter to them. I don't really matter to them, and that's really hard. (this isn't true, of course, people grow away and it doesn't mean they don't love me, it's just not perhaps in the way I'd like to be loved).

So that fic represents...loss and my feelings of abandonment, and it's hard for me to go back to it and say, well, this is mine. It doesn't matter if you're not here and you're not going to bounce ideas off with me and you're not going to read it, I can still tell this story. I still want to tell this story.

It's the 12th longest fic in entire Star Trek Discovery tag and I've been working on it since January 2022. Often I struggle with what happens after the baby arrives in a long fic where someone is pregnant. Babies are great, but they're also exhausting and the characters are exhausted and the falling action is hard for me. The character's arc was getting through that process and she did and now...

So I'm a little lost on that one. I think I could wrap it up ish in a chapter, and I'll probably get there just not as soon as I'd like.

It also wouldn't be terrible if it ended there. The characters are happy, they went on a great journey together and I had fun writing it and it has some of my best work in it, it just feels sad instead of joyful at the moment.

[papabearbobbynash]

Hi there papabearbobbynash, love the name btw 😄 I've been lurking around tumblr and instagram trying to look for good news in the finale and I can't take it anymore so hii.. what do you think will happen to bobby? Is there any news about peter or angela leaving the show? I feel like peter and angela have become a package deal because their story is joined together. It wouldn't work if one of them is leaving without the other. So I worry that what if the cliffhanger is Athena's life is in danger because she was looking for an answer and something happens to her and both peter and angela are leaving the show. 😭😭 but would abc really bought 911 from fox without its 2 biggest stars?

Hi anon,

Hi thank you the name is just stating a fact, Bobby is papa bear, although i could do without the p*** blogs messaging me ashgdfh </3

Now answering your questions.

In my opinion i believe both will survive, ofc the promo has been done really well, because even if you expect them to not kill the character, you're left with the feeling "wouldn't they, right?" I mean, it really had me having second thoughts about Bobby for a second, more like "trust issues" with the way they build up the entire arc and the promos (they've been playing with us).

But i'm holding myself on the thought that it wouldn't make sense for ABC to buy the show and then write out two of their leads, because yes this is a ensemble show, but there are clearly the leads (Angela, PK and Jennifer), and ABC seems to be trying to make sure the new audience knows that (the heaviest storylines this season surrounded them). Plus why change a winning formula? The show is doing very good rn, so it doesn't make sense for them to try change, unless this is a decision of the actors, but even if PK or AB decided to leave the show, they are co-producers, so surely they would be here and there from times to times. So far there is no news of Angela and PK leaving.

Now, talking a bit about Bobby, I believe he will survive, and won't step back or retire. Yes he probably will be on desk dury for a couple of episodes, but not permantetly. I'm really sure about that because I feel like a decision he took in a moment of crisis, when he was feeling unworthy of living, wouldn't be taken by the writers as a valid narrative for him. It doesn't make sense for his journey to have him step back and retire when that was something he only decided because he was spiraling.

About Athena, lord i'm so uncertain. I doubt they will kill her, but the writers are surely making bathena go through it this season and I don't doubt they could pull out some uno reverse card next season and we get a parallel with Bobby sitting in her bedside or something.

I'm really excited for the episode, and very happy tomorrow is a holiday here so i don't need to go work and can go full spiral the whole day aksjdhfghj

[chacegraves]

El Paso, Elsewhere Review

El Paso, Elsewhere is fucking incredible. All I was expecting was a Halloween flavored Max Payne send up and while I definitely got that I think it's unfair for this game to live in that shadow. It takes so much from that series but rearranges and tweaks those things to achieve it's own identity.

I love urban fantasy. Dresden Files, Vampire The Masquerade, Blackwell. A supernatural underworld just below the surface of humanity. Often treating humans like cattle or at least disposable for their own purposes. I find it so interesting and El Paso is no exception. The little bits of worldbuilding we get paint a similar picture but this one is much more abstract.

You play James Savage who is currently in a three-story motel that just got a 46 story expansion all heading down, courtesy of his ex, Draculae. She's taking part in some sort of ritual that will end the world and has plenty of hostages. Whatever this ritual is doing is causing The Void to warp reality with trauma into a nightmarish thrill ride all the way to the bottom where they'll confront everything that made their relationship come to this.

All supernatural chaos aside their abusive relationship manages to feel very real in the little ways they interact and the voice acting helps this exponentially. It's clear to me the writer knows what this kind of relationship feels like. It's not afraid to poke fun at the melodrama of two ex lovers confronting each other either. These two characters the story revolves around are flawed and fleshed out and I really enjoyed them.

James' descent into this hellish motel feels incredible. Diving past ghouls, rolling through their slashes and slow mo blasting them in the head. Saving hostages in between brief bursts of violence and popping enough pain pills to kill himself 50 times over just to tank through The Void's horde of supernatural horrors. If you hold down the dive button you can stay on the floor until you're out of ammo and need to get up to reload. Like I said it's Max Payne. The one main tweak in the gameplay besides enemy variety is an instant kill stake that you get 5 of and break various pieces of furniture to get more. Break shit, kill people. That's the gameplay loop and god is it addicting.

Which brings me to the music. It's pulse pounding and intense in a way that feeds perfectly into the gameplay. Other times moody or relaxing but always experimental and playful. Any time a track with lyrics comes up feels like a treat. It's one of those total package things where the visuals, sound design, gameplay and music are all working together perfectly. The entire OST has me seriously considering getting the vinyl.

El Paso, Elsewhere is a must play. There's so much I didn't mention because I want you to unravel the rest of this one for yourself. I'll definitely be trying to 100% this in the future and it's safe to say I'll be replaying this for many years to come.

[yellowocaballero]

I'd be interested in those writing shortcuts 👀 (don't feel pressured though)

Yeah sure! This is in reference to this and this posts.

These are all pretty 'fic style' stories, because they scaffold off pre-existing canon. It's like you're walking inside of a pre-built house and you're putting up new wallpaper and designing the rooms. Novel style is like if you're building the entire house. So these are really great for fun and if you have writer's block or have problems starting a story. They're also really good if you're practicing your dialogue, scene composition, characterization, etc - they are not good for developing skills on how to build the house, but if you're trying to work on actually making a readable story they're great methods to practice. They're also a lot easier to make good lol.

While writing these out I realized that they're almost entirely AUs. This is because I like AUs. You don't have to do AUs, you can adapt these however you want if you just like writing canon. Loser. Anyway, these are my low-effort stories:

A series of disconnected scenes that take place over a long period of time. If you have an idea in mind (or you just want to use the OG work's timeline), then you can show scenes or moments over a long period in time. For example, ages ago I wrote an AU story following the life of one character. One scene for 2008, one for 2010, one for 2012 etc.

Rewriting canon. If you have an AU idea or have a way in mind to change canon to something you think fucks harder, then you can use pre-existing episodes or season plotlines and just add your own flavor to what already exists. If you write for BNHA you aren't allowed to do this. That's the rule. How is all BNHA fic 600k AUs where one extremely minor detail is changed. God they're boring.

Alternate viewpoint/missing scene of a story you have. Like you can do this for canon too but that sounds super boring. This is actually something I do in order to help the quality of the main story - if I'm finding myself writing a super complicated character, I write another story about him from his POV to help give me a handle on him. Or write her parts of the story from her perspective. It's a writing exercise to help me figure out the character and it is also easy and fun.

"X Meets Y". Do you really like Legally Blonde? Do you think your favorite character being Elle Woods would be really funny? Stuff like that. Would it be really funny if your blorbo was Sharpay Evans? Yes it would be. Yeah I DID write a story many years ago that was "X meets Teen Beach Movie", why?

I don't know how many other people out there have extremely convoluted entire AU ideas, but if you have the whole AU in your mind then it is incredibly easy to write little stories or snippets from the AU. Like, so easy. A stand-out scene in your mind, the life of one supporting character, an alternate POV, whatever. Literally whenever I want to write something absolutely 0 effort whatsoever I go back to one of my 3 bugfuck stupid AUs and write something for them again.

This is actually something I think everybody should do, because it is basically how I learned story structure: find the trashiest, most formulaic genre you can. Watch or read something from that genre, or just collect genre conventions. Use the pre-packaged and pre-written formula to structure your own story and fill in the blanks.

(Also, these aren't very tropey or reliant on shipping/romance beats, which is nice if you want to get away from that stuff)

Nowadays, I find all of that helpful when I feel like doing something 0 effort. When I was a less experienced writer and I deadass did not know how to build a house, then these were really helpful for learning what wallpaper looks good and what arrangement of furniture creates good fung shui and what couches go best with that coffee table. They're also good passing. Seriously, these are like the most popular stories on my AO3. People eat this shit up. Why. They're so lazy.

IDK, these are what I do because they're the kinds of stories I like to write! What you find easy to write will be different. This is all a very personal list. I can see my personal thumbprint (no romance, AU central) really clearly. I'm kind of curious now: what are y'all's favorite low-effort, easy, fun stories to write?

Also as a heads up if your story doesn't have any sort of conflict in it, then it will actually very difficult to write. Trust me. Conflict makes you voom. Do it. Please. Love of god.

[olivieblake]

Hey, Olivie! I'm in need of advice, and a bit of assurance, but mainly advice.

Right now, the traditional publishing industry is - pardon my French - shit, and I'm in a bit of a pickle. I'm on the verge of querying my second manuscript, and for context, it was very well received by my closest circle, my critique partners, and several agents and editors who wanted to see the manuscript on their desks in 2022 during pitch events. However, revisions took a bit longer than anticipated due to school and work on my end. It's 2023 now, and I'm almost ready to submit, but now I'm not so sure of this book, or my career.

Trends come and go, and right now, I'm not sure if my book would do well in the current market. My first book, ironically, was a romantasy I wrote two years prior, and now, it might hypothetically do better. But that isn't the main point - I'm tired of writing projects that fall wayside of what's desired by agents and publishers mainstream, by just a couple of years or a couple inches off the mark. Additionally, right now, there are fewer agents and editors to go around due to several scandals I won't specifically name. It just feels like every single barrier is up against me right now. Publishing is a business, and I don't know if I'm a desired product.

I know my worth. I know I'm qualified, and I'm a writer with a fair bit of experience under my belt, but right now, I just don't know if the traditional industry is right for me or not, and I'm seriously doubting the idea of having a future part-time career - or even a full-time one eventually at all. I really don't want to go through indie publishing, since I don't have the resources nor time to market myself without a team on my side. And to be fair, I'm almost a college graduate (undergrad, senior), so this might be jitters talking, but so is my anxiety. I'm mixed Southeast/East Asian, so given publishing's fascination with slotting Asian voices into neatly packaged, "exotic" hashtag Diverse Voices Packages - I just don't know if my not-neat voice is wanted, or will ever be needed.

It would kill me, but...I don't know if I should just stop and come back in a couple of years, or just stop altogether. I'm not sure I'm strong enough to follow through with my current book and face another set of rejections, then write nine more books and face nine more rejections. TLDR: the pessimist in me is having A Time. any advice gladly appreciated!!!

okay

I'm not going to lie to you

I was nodding along sympathetically and then

I got to your age

and I burst out laughing

I laughed OUT LOUD oh my god my sweet summer child

(for reference: I am 34, I have no formal writing training, I started trying to get published when I was 27, I didn't see any success until I was 31, at your age I had a masters degree and a scholarship to law school and was very sure I was going to be a lawyer. I am. not one)

okay so laughter aside, please allow me to tell you gently, very gently, that at this age, you're not supposed to know what you want, you're not necessarily supposed to see your career, and you're not meant to understand if there is a place for you in the market until you try. look, I won't lie to you, traditional publishing is a life filled with rejection on every floor. there is no level of success where you will no longer hear no. and yeah, it's hard to find your way in—I tried for five years before I got my first publishing contract, and showed no particular success until a completely different self-published book went viral through essentially no doing of my own an entire year after that. everything that happens in publishing is a spectacular accident. and what's very crazy to me about the fact that I'm currently sitting in my third week on the nyt bestseller list is that this book was actually my first self-published book—I wrote it six years ago, when all of publishing was telling me no. I had no reason to believe I had any talent for writing, but I did it anyway, because I loved it and only felt alive while I was doing it. the fact that it is successful now, with nothing having changed along the way except for someone giving me a chance in this industry, is why I am laughing. because everything is an accident and all of this is mess.

so, the choices you make in publishing CANNOT be about external markers of success. it can't be about money (that is, beyond the question of how will you survive while writing—I could because I had a freelance job and my husband's income to help me. you'll need either family money, a partner with an income, or a job). it can't be about marketability. your desire to publish has to come from somewhere innate and you have to be able to take no and keep going. for the question of self/traditional publishing, the main issue is: do you want to run your own business? you can self-publish so long as you don't mind managing your own editorial, sales, PR, production, and marketing. if you have the resources to get started, and if it's a genre/age category that has shown success (adult SFF or romance), it is a totally valid way to make a living. if you, like me, prefer not to handle your own production/marketing etc, then traditional publishing is the way, but you will encounter all of the gatekeepers along the way who might say no. so you have to think how you're willing to deal with that, and how you will pay the rent and buy the groceries over the course of publishing's very lengthy timeline, where you will make your advance in 3rds (so about 1/3 per year through the production process) and likely have to consider supplementing your writing with a full or part time job.

basically, the point is: query the book. you have nothing to lose. do it now before the winter holidays because nobody in publishing reads over the holidays. don't worry about whether your voice is wanted. you already know it is. send it out. the worst you can hear is no. and then try again, or don't! but my advice is always shoot your shot, and your resiliency and adaptability is what will carry you through this process, more so than sweat or skill. getting an agent or a publishing deal is not what will make you believe in your talent. you have to believe in it now, and the love and the work you put into the stories you tell is what will be rewarded in time

[yandere-daydreams]

i... sorta thought associating straight a\b\o with tradwife fantasies was a common opinion, which is why i try to steer clear of them. i think this leaches into queer stuff too, because it's difficult to write something hierarchy-based without having a hierarchy you are basing it on in mind, so you will see weird takes on "femininity" and "female function in sex" even in fiction centered entirely on men. which is okay when it's done with nuance, but since it's usually here just for the smut and to reinforce whatever stereotypes the author finds gratifying... the results can be not that great.

it's a huge reason for why i'm pretty selective in my a\b\o reading. don't wanna get sucked out of my fantasy by some straight\sexist shit. i need that monster to be obsessed with me in a way that's concerning AND catered to me, not in a way that reminds me of a boring date with an average guy (+ tentacles or smth).

(which is also something you can write well. not saying you can't. do fuck sexist scumbags in your writing. it's just that you have to be aware of them as sexists and i don't think those writers usually are.)

i honestly think a lot of straight erotica writers are just in it for the fantasy of having a biological excuse to be horny as shit and fall in love with someone after knowing/smelling them for .3 seconds, and, like, more power to you if you know what you're into and have the drive to make more of it, but it does create this sorta gender dystopia where everything is very,,, impersonal, i guess? in a very cookie-cutter way? there's very limited variety in alpha-omega pairings. the alpha often takes an interest in the omega only because of the fact that they are an omega, all on-screen omegas are either women or much more feminine the on-screen alphas, etc. sometimes there aren't even knots/heat-cycles. it all just feels very stereotypical in a way that makes me feel more guilty about the questionable smut, instead of providing a plausible excuse as to why this secretary is fucking that CEO in a janitor's closet. i get the fantasy, i just don't think it really has to come in this specific packaging maybe.

[eek-a-tron]

3 Reasons to Rarepair

A Mild Yet Enthusiastic List

1. Brainy matchmaker energy. Enjoying a canon or popular fandom pairing is fine. You know what else is enjoyably fine? A challenge! Maybe you love a pairing that your brain has to actively work for. Maybe you love a pairing that makes figuring out their dynamic into a journey of its own. Yes, y’all, you can absolutely ship characters who just vibe together, whose energy and history work interestingly together, and who require Venn diagrams and cork-board analysis to consider! Happy birthday to your brain!

2. Deepest nostalgia vibes. Remember childhood, when you'd play with toys from any and all franchises, plus a random plush or two? (Cough cough yes yes very Lego Movie.) Maybe you'd pair a Barbie with a G.I. Joe. Maybe some G.I. Joes would get together and adopt small toy cats. Maybe your Batgirl wanted to hang out with Hulk at a wooden hippo's ice cream shop. It didn't matter why, back then: they just made sense to you at the time! On some existential level, rarepairs embrace ye olde vibe of imaginative play. And in a world scarred by *gestures to everything* this sense of nostalgia can often be just the thing to spark the happy endorphins. Or relieve writer's block. Or better yet:

3. Burn the system. Do you really need a conglomerate of suits to package two characters together for you? Do you honestly require the corporate marketing of a couple in order to root for them? Of course you don't; you're already engaging in fandom content right here! Rarepairs take it one step further by embracing entirely-reworked content along the canon -> fanon -> headcanon continuum. Like, go on. Let go. Burn down and rewrite the system more.

TL;DR: Rairpairs don't work because they will, they work because they could. Sometimes there’s beauty in could. There's rebellion in could. In could, there is beaubellion.

[houndfaker]

If you haven’t been asked already, can I request 4, 5 & 21 for Kikuno and Mitsuru?

character ask game

4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

ill actually answer this first one with both of them in mind because due to kikuno's character hinging kind of inseparably on mitsuru they have to be a package deal. anyway. you cant tell me they wouldnt work ridiculously well as a weapon/meister duo in soul eater

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

for kikuno: skips merrily into my playlist again and comes back out with overdone by ludo in my hands :]

for mitsuru: i of course now forever have rules by the hoosiers ingrained in me as a mitsuru classic since i did an animatic of it for her last year

21. If you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? What's something you don't like?

for kikuno: her specific brand of teasing/banter is too fun for me and i have had to literally cut entire conversations down by A Lot just because they get away from me when im spinning her dialogue...lol. as for dislike, its not so much that i dont like exploring it but due to having so little to work with in canon i am constantly having to extrapolate things to be able to treat her as a functioning character beyond her servitude to mitsuru (and later others in arena) and it can be a bit difficult because i am always wondering how much of my thoughts are reasonable --;;

for mitsuru: forever obsessed with navigating her constant struggle with her family's guilty that she carries on her shoulders!! i like that it is something that she can't shake, not even due to outside forces so much as her own perception of it. as for dislikes i often struggle to portray the ways in which she is sheltered, even if they are a fun aspect to explore of her.

[thepaininurneck]

Gonna add my two cents to the anti-proship discourse: when antis talk about how dark fiction isn't normal and should be banned, and its writers and people who enjoy it should be ashamed, you're regurgitating the exact same motto that Christians have run against gays for decades. When you say "You're a pedophile for enjoying fanfiction!" its the exact same as a Christian saying "You're a sexual predator for being gay!".

The censorship of 'problematic' media is not new. It just so happens that right now it's being packaged up in a nice, socially-acceptable guise of "protecting victims/children/normal people" from "freaks", but it's always been lile that. Books, sciences, entire cultures have been censored because they were deemed "weird" or morally incorrect. And don't even get me started on the parallels between antis and proshippers harassing each other and just about any fascist government entity in history.

I am ACTUALLY on the verge of just labeling every batshit-crazy keyboard watrior that cries over fiction a fascist. You're acting like one every time you tell someone they can't enjoy fiction or harass them for living their lives. Get a fucking life.