#but is it even characterization if thats not how the authors want u to view his character | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gg-selvish · 1 year

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i saw your post and i realized that i definitely haven't left enough comments on your ao3 works for how much i enjoy them, so here. i wanted to let you know that you are one of my favorite, if not my all-time favorite, dream team writer. i love to read your nsfw works because they're hot and sexy, yes, but also? you have one of the best characterizations of the guys that i've seen, ESPECIALLY in nsfw works. i have had to almost immediately click off of so many fics because they just don't get the characters and their dynamics right imo, but your fics? i read them over and over. every single time i get an email that you've updated or posted a piece, i genuinely get so excited when i see that it's you.

your karl/george series is something that i will love forever and ever. i'm ace and i adore the way you portrayed karl and his sexuality in every one. it's so refreshing to find a good nsfw work that has a well written asexual character!!! i may not like knf as a ship very much, but i love them the way you write them so much.

there's so much i'm probably forgetting to say right now, but just know that i thoroughly love everything i've read from you. your works are amazing with and without the nsfw parts. please know that there are people out there (me) reading your fics for more than the smut. you deserve to know that.

okay wow um this is a lot in a very good way but i'm definitely overwhelmed? normally when i get nice stuff like this i just say thank you but i've been in a chatty mood today so i'm going to turn this into A Thing if u dont mind... i really, really appreciate this. i've had a strange experience in this fandom where the whole time i've been here i've had a pretty even split of 'you're a delusional freak and i hope you die' and 'you're my favourite author please never stop posting' and my brain doesn't really know what to do about the black and white of it so normally i just move on and block it out but that's lead to me being incredibly insecure about myself and my work so i'm going to try really hard to process this and internalize it lol

so again, thank you so much for saying this to me. it really means a lot to me to hear that people like my fic because it takes up so much space in my brain and sometimes i get worried i'm only still getting any positive acknowledgement out of obligation and less so because what i'm doing is actually worth a compliment. i've felt really bad about my writing for a while now and it's nice to hear from someone who isn't my established friend that it's worth reading. and enjoyed too! wow thats crazy to me genuinely. i really do think im shit most days. especially my works of the last stretch.

regarding you (& only you) this is a lot easier for me to hear. i love that series so much and it makes my heart happy to know other ace people appreciate it and view it as positive representation because i'm asexual and always worry it reads as just porn. this comes into play with the comments thing again... me putting a lot of personal experience and deep thought into dynamics with no pay off. obviously i'm not saying every fic in that series is groundbreaking or even worth reading, but idk they each have a piece of importance to them. at least to me. i was just saying the other day that in my lapses of writers block i get anxious about the last thing i've posted being not my best work. in this current hiatus i'm in i'm actually quite content with EASE being the latest work in my recents. sure rules is unfinished but i kind of hate that fic so whatever. EASE is good. i love how that turned out and i'm proud of it and comfortable with that being the first thing people see on my profile

all insecurity and internal pressure aside i love writing for this fandom and hope i can do it for at least a little longer. i'm immeasurably grateful that people are willing to still read what i create, it makes creating it a little easier. i sound like a broken record but really thank you for this. it means more to me than you could know.

#genuinely getting teary over this #<- guy who doesn't take compliments well #ask

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sallysoot · 3 years

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s ally,,,, i want tp wrote fanfic,,, , so bAD but im terrified of fucking up the characters personalities (and i can only wrote horror)

please o writing master what tips do u have fpr things like this

(if you have none thats ok too! i do think of u as a writing master tho, and i aspire to get my writing to the quality yours is at :3 )

fom

AWWW BRO 🥺 WTF THANK YOU,,,,,, but please aim higher than my writing you will almost certainly surpass me in a day, IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY FKDKDMDSFKDN

you will not fuck it up!!!!! you’re gonna do great and have a good time!! as for writing canon personalities... that’s smth that sort of has always been natural to me since i started so young with fanfics, BUT:

when trying to get a feel for the character, ask yourself what you LIKE about them. is it their loyalty and optimistic outlook? is it a reclusive nature to cover up how much they really care? is it just being a plain and simple jerk? just try to think of the REASONS you feel interested in writing about them!

then comes the other side of it: what do you NOT like about them? what do you wish they wouldn’t do? what mistakes have they made, and why do you think they made them?

you can see how they think and engage with the world in their actions and responses to their own choices. when reading a book, we often get to perceive the inner thoughts of a character. even in cartoons and anime, they often let the viewer be privy to these things. when you don’t get to perceive the ongoing internal monologue behind a character’s time with you, you have to try to piece it together yourself.

if they grow defensive to any accusation thrown their way, what are they protecting? WHY does it bother them? is it because they need others to believe they’re good, or because THEY need to believe it? if they never take responsibility for their actions, why? fear, selfishness, indifference? just think about whatever interactions they have had in canon and see what you conclude!

which leads TO: artistic liberty and difference in perspective! you may interpret a character completely differently than someone else, and that’s fine. if someone else’s characterization feels odd to you, they probably reached different conclusions about them than you did. you might even interpret them differently than the source’s author/actor/etc.! this is because our biases and how we view things are determined by our unique lives and experiences— it isn’t a bad thing!

i hope this helps a bit and i didn’t just AGGRESSIVELY ramble at you!!! 😭💕

#asks #askspam #max

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gaycinema · 3 years

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hellooo! ive recently discovered u as a fic writer and am making my way thru ur stuff (thank u for what u do!) and i wanted to ask how u do such a good job of getting into the heads of all these characters cause im wanting to start writing my own fics. do the characters just live rent-free in ur brain and u can see them and their actions clearly? how do u write their interactions and stuff in a way thats entertaining but still distinctly that character?

first of all, thank you😭😭😭♥️♥️♥️ second of all, im SO sorry for the super late answer ive been wayyyy too busy lately

i tried to answer this as like. coherently as I could but it did get p long so I’ll put it under a read more !

they DO often live in my head rent-free lmao i’ll be honest i tend to project onto a lot of the characters i write abt (bc unfortunately it’s often hard for me to get into the heads of characters i either don’t care abt or can’t relate to) but i do always try to make sure I get where they’re coming from emotionally before I add like..... “layers”? especially if im setting a story at a certain point in the story/a characters arc, i try to figure out their motivations in canon and then like expand on them; if im having them do smth that strays from canon, i try to find a way to make it Make Sense--like, what circumstances would lead this character to do these things? why would they do them? how would other characters react? or the other way around: if this character was put into this situation, what would they do and why would they do it? (idk what media you found me thru but to use an example, if it’s a character like zuko from atla, whose situation, motivations and world view change a lot over the course of the story, i would try to keep whatever point of his arc im exploring true to that, if that makes sense? like the way he views/interacts with the world at the beginning of his arc is different from the way he does in the middle, or at the end, so if i was setting a fic at the beginning i would try to keep his thoughts/actions accurate to that. or if im changing something intrinsic to that part of the story, i would try to figure out what repercussions would it have on the rest of his arc and character development.) and one reason I enjoy writing for minor characters a lot is that there are a lot of directions you can take things/ways you can interpret them because they often don’t get as much in-canon exploration. if a character only has a few key traits that define them in-canon, i try to figure out what i can add or explore that will stay true to those key traits and give them depth while keeping them recognizable as the characters they are in-canon. you definitely dont Have to adhere to canon at all if you dont want to--at this point i usually just pick and choose plot points that i like and throw away the ones i dont--but i do try to keep the characterization as accurate as i can even if im diverging from canon or interpreting their actions in a different way.

in terms of character interactions:

so dialogue is smth ive always struggled with just bc it’s hard to make it seem realistic sometimes, so a lot of my early fic is mostly introspective character study type stuff that was largely just me Practicing Writing. it’s a little cliche but my biggest piece of advice that has been the most helpful to me is to read it out loud!!

sometimes you don’t realize how awkward smth is phrased until you have to say it yourself and imagine whether or not you could picture yourself and/or the character saying it to someone else. a lot of the time I read All of it (ie the descriptions, the dialogue tags, etc) out loud but it’s helpful the read Just the dialogue to see if it flows like an actual conversation. i also tend to incorporate a lot of filler words if the setting isn’t like. idk a period piece or something, bc that’s how ppl Talk. at the same time, some characters have certain speech patterns/ways that they talk so it can be hard to balance that, and my advice there would be seeing if you could imagine that character saying it.

at the end of the day best thing u can do is just practice! a lot of my oldest stuff is really short little character studies with very minimal plot that i mostly just posted to see how it was received and also to Prove that I cld write and post smth. one time when I was like 15 I wrote a very pretentious 700ish word sentence fic that defied all laws of grammar just to see how long of a sentence I could write and then posted it just bc i could. i dont love a lot of my older works but like. without them i wouldn’t have been able to get feedback and grow and improve. obv im not claiming to be like famous author level good, but im definitely proud of a lot of the things ive written over the years even tho a lot of it isn’t very good or polished (i only recently discovered the helpful process of editing<3 ) bc i know ive come a long way in terms of quality. basically what im saying is definitely start writing your own fic! it can be a great creative outlet and i promise that there’ll be ppl who will be really happy to read it (myself included!)

again ty so much and i hope this was at least a little bit helpful lmao

#replies #anonymous #sorry again im so bad at responding to things😭😭 i hope i answered ur questions in a way that made sense lol

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karelysse · 6 years

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Well... I can't take the trend that's been taken in the fandom of writing ooc porn fics not bc I'm qce, but bc it brings really bad memories from when I was in the fandom of the Anime of Hetalia. There was this character that represented spain and was a sweet guy overall and what the fandom did? Bc he was good with kids they decided to make him a pedophile. The character of France was made a rapist bc he was very flirty with everyone, and that happened with tons of my fave characters. (1/2)

So, if that alredy made me sick and get away from the fandom, imagine it now how it is for some of us. I can’t stand ppl mking Javier a douchebag when he’s a sweet nice guy, how painful is to see yuzuru being portrayed as a nymphomaniac bc he acts sexy in some of his programs. I can’t stand extreme personality twisting and seeing the direction this fandom is taking makes me wanna stop following fs altogether and abandon my works and orphan them. At least for me this is plain awful

hey there!you know, i’m not rly the kind to speak publicly about issues bc truly, i hate drama in general,, but i decided to answer this still bc i feel it affects me directly– not bc i feel attacked by this message or anything, but bc this is about writing fics, and i write fics, and mostly i read them, so somehow, i guess, my opinion sorta matters.

this issue is valid & i understand your feelings– seeing a trend that is not your taste becoming proeminent in a fandom u love is frustrating. you’re obviously not the only one who feels like this bc i’ve seen lots of cc/tweets/even tumblr asks about this lately. but mostly– i’ve seen comments on fics. and i guess thats the thing that bugs me the most.

the two problematic things seem to be 1. characterization 2. twisted sexuality/nsfw incorporation into it.

Characterization because readers feel the version of the “character” they read is way too far off reality to be acceptable. often they are deeply flawed– they are mean, violent, sadistic, manipulative– name it. That, and u add “twisted” porn scenes, where those flaws come in full display. if this is revolting to you, i think it’s perfectly fine and normal! but there comes the trick– there is no such thing as “too far off” bc hey. this is fiction. this is the F in RPF. nobody– even the ones considered the best writers in the fandom –has a damn clue of reality. u can try and be as faithful to it as u want, everybody can argue about it.

The thing is that the fics you consider acceptable bc they are “the closest to canon” are JUST as far off reality as those weird ones. you consider them acceptable bc they are the closest to YOUR vision of reality, bc they fit your standards, your point of view and your fantasies the best.

Feel like only reading the TRUTH about javi and yuzu? read news articles. There is no such thing as “true”, nor “wrong” characterization. (then u can argue– in this fic, there is no character development, or no dept or no that– that’s valid critic, as long as its done in the context and setting of the story. because that’s what it is. a story.)

Then comes porn– i’ve read so many comments on fics being like “please, please lock this” or something. well– i get you’re trying to preserve the virtue u guess your idols have– or maybe protect the kids? but you CAN’T, and i will repeat you CAN’T police the internet. something you don’t wanna read? don’t read it. if javi or yuzu stumbles on a fic where javi or yuzu rapes the other– its because they CLICKED on the fic, and somewhat, were looking for it. just like you, reader. What you CAN argue on and ask nicely is to tag stuff. that is very, very valid. i recognize not enough stuff is tagged appropriately out there, and i understand that you don’t have to read rape if that is something you don’t want to read. nobody deserves that. but remember– the author is a person, if they don’t tag something, it might be just inattention or that they thought it didnt matter. be kind.

telling people that they should stop writing fics, or writing altogether bc they write something that doesn’t fit your taste is not only immature and dumb, but also very mean. remember those very bad fics you read are often written by very young people. probably younger than all of you. just. be kind, please.

Let’s not fight, as fandom, over this. let’s not shame writers bc they write things you don’t approve of in general or bc for once, they tried something different that u didn’t like. let’s not try and install this culture of “black” and “white”, “good fics” and “bad fics” w no grey zone.

and mostly, let’s remember– a cute hanahaki disease fic, a circus au or a very long, detailed, very realistic fic of RPF is JUST as creepy as any other dark!ish fic. Damn, as a celebrity, i’d be even more creeped out by very realistic and faithful to the truth fic than by a damn vampire mary-sue self-insert au a twelve year old wrote.

And remember the most important part: don’t like, don’t read. I haven’t clicked on any of these /problematic fics b4 today, to see what all the drama was about. Hell, i was barely even aware of their existence. Please don’t generalize a whole fandom bc of 5-6 very productive writers.

#i'm sorry for stirring shit up-- this is the first and probably will be the last time i speak about it #i stand my ground very firm on this #let's NOT bully writers into writing what you want #because what you'll get is only-- no more writers at all #i've received comments about my /wrong characterization b4 and i can tell you #this shit makes you want to stop writing altogether #so i get very defensive when i see writers receiving many rude and mean comments shaming them and asking them to lock their stories #geez fellas. these writers are kids-- or teenagers.#but i agree-- the whole locking/not locking rpf ff is...... a real debate #i often wonder if i should just lock my fics too #but then i rmbr i got into rpf when i didnt have an ao3 account at all #and fell for it bc of all those great unlocked fics #so yeah #anyways #sorry bout all this #ask #asks

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jonghyyn · 7 years

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iyo when you write non-straight characters should you specify their sexuality/gender? I mean I'm personally a very 'not into labels at all' person for my own sexuality but support ppl who do find comfort in labels. but when I write I also tend to go toward the 'he just loves who he loves !!!' that sounded stupid but idk how to explain it.. so... like I was wondering why you feel strongly about explicitly stating someone's queerness instead of it being implied (at least u come off as that sorta)

i do definitely feel like that so!! i happen to have a lot of feelings about this so get ready for a Long Ramble. this is a precaution before ive even started typing i just know im gonna write a lot

i think before we start saying anything, we’ve got to acknowledge the difference between people who say that they dont like labels, and writing characters who Don’t Like Labels™. pointing out the problems of the latter is not a condemnation of the former. if someone rly doesnt feel like labeling their sexuality or gender, thats totally alright. the difference between these two is the person is a nuanced, multifaceted human being who may have lots of personal reasons for feeling that way, while the second is a fictional character that is Created and informed by cultural views of the creator. a person is not “created” by one single author and characters arent like…real living agents that have their Own Free Will, they are what their creators make of them. anyway i just feel like this is a rly important distinction that gets lost often!! i’m also more willing to look favorably on someone who self describes that way writing characters based on their own experiences, bc this perspective is inherently different from a straight person writing these sorts of characters. but moving on.

whats also important to understand, beyond writing characters, is how being openly not straight is shunned. queer people are not allowed to Exist as openly queer and they have not been allowed historically. even these days among people who consider themselves progressive, you’ll often hear that “its alright if someone is gay but do they have to shove it in my face all the time.” this attitude isnt somehow formed in vacuum, but created in a society that treats been openly queer as a taboo. we aren’t allowed to be open about our sexualities the way straight people are. we can’t acknowledge that we’re queer lest someone tells us to Stop Shoving It In Their Face (not missing the irony as we’re surrounded by 400 billboards of hetero couples everywhere). i dont wan’t to delve into other aspects of discrimination and get too off track here, i just want to focus on how being Openly queer is treated as a taboo, particularly among people who still want to call themselves ‘accepting.’ the only way society allows queer people to exist is if they never remind anyone, Ever that they are not straight.

this is Integral to understanding why the i Don’t Like Labels characters are so frustrating. the unwillingness to Explicitly talk about queer people carries over quite handily to media. the same faux progressive people that demand queer people never talk about being queer bc its Too Much Information, will praise queer coded characters that hint at their sexuality but never confirm it. the reason these characters are written is not to genuinely explore why someone might feel uncomfortable with applying labels to themselves, but to appease people who will accept queerness as long as they never have to acknowledge it. this way, u can court queer people interested in representation And people who might like the story but will be uncomfortable with explicit queerness. its an attempt for writers to cash in on peoples desires for interesting queer characters without ever actually fully committing to representing them. you dont get to claim to support queer people if ur also out there providing comfort for peoples homophobia. you cant have a foot in both doors.

describing queer experiences without calling them queer means that youre okay with this story as long as u dont acknowledge it as something Explicitly not straight and like…why?? why is it suddenly not okay when u take that bundle of experiences and use the word that theyre defining?? theres Weight behind using words like bi, gay, lesbian and if u reject them are u Really okay with lgbtq people? or are you okay with them Despite the fact that theyre lgbtq and not because you take into account theyre lgbtq. acceptance is not tolerating people Despite something, its acknowledging it and validating it as an okay thing to be. especially when it is something that historically Not been validated as okay. dismantling structural systems of queerphobia does not go about by ignoring queerphobia…shit this doesnt just fade away by chance, it takes active work. and part of this active work is Acknowledging Peoples Queerness As Something that is okay Out In The Open. the You in this isnt directed at you anon, just people who have these sentiments.

throwing vague statements like ‘they just love who they love’ Also creates this level of ambiguity. you might say “well why do u need the certainty when ur describing what is at the very least, something obviously very not straight” and to that i say youd be fucking surprised at how goddamn hard straight people will try to erase the queerness out of a character. like i’m going to use a game called life is strange as a example. i’ll give some background: in the game, the main character max can romance both chloe and warren. note that max is not one of those blank state wholly customisable bioware-esque player characters, she has a personality outside of the choices u make. anyway, the conclusion that is Logically drawn from this is that she is most likely bisexual. or at the very least in some way, not straight. and Yet i have seen discussions that say “she doesnt have a set sexuality it just depends on the playthrough so shes not rly a Queer Character.” even more than that, ive seen people that saw “well even in the chloe one shes not necessarily gay or bi maybe shes just Making an Exception for chloe bc their relationship transcends sexuality” and like ??? Why??? why cant she just be bi?? even when given a queer romance, why do u try and interpret it in a way that sets her up as straight?? ive seen people say “its not a romance its just something that Transcends Words” as if this is… mutually exclusive from being a romance. like… Why doesnt this happen when hetero relationships are depicted?? ive literally never seen someone say “u know, maybe hes not attracted to women and just Making an Exception so hes not straight” why dont u see people try to erase the romance aspect out of hetero romances by claiming their relationship is “Beyond Words.” this treatment is 1000% only ever afforded to queer characters. this attempt to play off romance as not rly romantic is only done to queer characters, even if its done subconsciously. people will Refuse to accept a character is queer as fuck if you dodge around it, because heteronormativity is so ingrained in every interaction that even obviously queer characters get filtered through this lens. the problem with this isnt necessarily apparent until u look at it within historical context, where queer people are repeatedly not allowed to be openly queer. these arent isolated incidents, but manifestations of the idea that queer people shouldnt ever be open about their sexuality. youve got to tackle the discomfort that people have with words like gay/lesbian/bi/etc

i think this particular character trope wouldnt bother me so much if it wasnt like… the only narrative ever present. time and time again, i have to see characters proclaim that they dont like labels while never once even hearing people breathe the word bisexual. if it existed alongside characters who were explicitly queer it would be less frustrating But its literally one of the few ways (semi positive attempts at least) queer characters are ever portrayed. this is particularly true for bisexual characters lmao like… yes…theres people who dont like labels…but theres also millions of bi people that just wanna see a fucking bi character Talk about being bi and all we ever get is a vague “i dont like labels” (that is often never explored further than that and treated as a throwaway line anyway). is creating characters who say that a genuine attempt to characterize someones struggles with labels or is it just a way to avoid saying the word Bisexual.

same with queer romance in media. its only ever Okay if u just hint at it- see dumbledore being gay. see- the korrasami thing (though i dont fault the writers for this bc they pushed hard for what they got, its issues with the network). why are queer people relegated to drawn out stares that May imply something while straight characters are allowed to get into explicit relationships. when u create ambiguous characters that May be interpreted as straight (even if youve really gotta stretch) ur prefer to maintain the negative “neutral” of the heteronormative status quo and allow homophobes to live with their views unchallenged more than u care about addressing queerness in characters.

its not a coincidence that we dont do this to straight romance or straight characters. this is particularly important for queer kids!! its good to see queer characters out there being openly queer. while me and u can often pick up on queer themes and narratives, a 8 year old is not going to get that. especially when theyve been conditioned to see straight romance as the only feasible choice. they wont realize the character youre writing is gay or bi or whatever Because they havent been exposed to the connotations we associate w certain phrases. its so important for queer kids to see queer characters Owning that theyre queer. its especially importantly to normalize words like gay or bi or pan. being gay is often Extremely hypersexualized (which is why so many people will tell u they dont care what u do in the bedroom bc they can only picture queerness is a sexual context) so when u Dont treat these words as things only adults can say, u help get rid of the stigma surrounding them. u help remove the idea that being queer is inappropriate for kids to hear about and that the only possible aspect to being queer is sexual.

anyway this has been Quite the Ramble but the point is that yes, we need to write more characters who are absolutely explicit about their sexuality and move away from the expectation that queer people need to create euphemisms to comfort homophobes desires to never hear about queerness.

#LONG POST #VERY LONG POST #man...u rly got me going #theres a lot of reasons why labels are important in the first place but man this is truly long enough as this is #i hope i didnt get too rambly and my point still stands i try to stop myself from going off on tangents #anon #ask

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