#there's almost nothing to the worldbuilding holy crap

[battlestar-royco]

masterpost of fix-it headcanons for AC0TAR

the only day you can add onto this is  e v e r y  day

this blew up into a huge thing and it’s no longer just headcanons but more a reworked outline/embellishment of the first three books. feel free to add or change what you want if you make it through the whole thing :D

n/esta--a gray ace icon!--is the main character. the first book is told in n/esta and l/ucien’s alternating POVs.

some worldbuilding and character background for human lands because sj/m provides fuckity nothing: mama and papa arch raised their children on scary stories about the fae. the first story every human child hears is the one about the human-fae treaty and the ominously growing rip in the wall between human and fae lands. (as a young woman, n/esta remembers a time when a fae attack would happen once every few years, but now she hears of five to ten a year.) because humans are atheist, the arch sisters also learned many stories about secular historical figures and events such as j/urian and his legendary murder of c/lythia during the human-fae war, and f/eyre took an interest in famous painters from a young age.

mama arch died and papa arch’s leg was irreparably damaged while protecting their daughters from a fae creature attack. the girls developed growing resentment toward fae as they got older.

after their family’s fall into poverty, n/esta and e/lain grew up helping f/eyre learn to read. she'll never be at their level, but she knows enough to get by. n/esta always budgets and goes shopping. the harvest from e/lain’s little garden has saved them a few autumns, just like f/eyre’s hunting. their father loves them and wishes he could do more, but they're happy to care for him.

actual ac0tar timeline: (because the humans deserved a plotline and i’ll die mad that they never got one:) the human lands are deeply unsettled by the hole in the wall, and a few attacks have ravaged the northernmost villages. f/eyre is taken to p/rythian. n/esta and e/lain find the mercenary who helped f/eyre. the mercenary is an important mentor for them and she helps n/esta leave tomas. e/lain’s fiance g/raysen who is completely justified in his wariness against fae fiGHT ME sj/m is an advocate for human rights, and all his family’s resources are helping mend the wall, but they just can’t do it without magic. e/lain stays at home to take care of papa arch while n/esta heads north with the mercenary to save f/eyre and possibly find a magical solution to the wall. unsuccessful, n/esta returns home to find that her family has suddenly come upon fortune again, and she funnels some of that money into the human effort.

meanwhile in the sp/ring court, l/ucien watches as tom lane brings home a human girl, f/eyre, who may just be the key to defeating a/marantha’s curse. the curse forbids him from warning her about tom’s true nature, and his feelings toward tom are difficult because tom has provided him shelter from his family but has also been another source of abuse. l/ucien also resents f/eyre for murdering andras. both trapped and opposed to each other for different reasons, f/eyre and l/ucien begrudgingly become friends. they look out for each other and a/lis.

throughout book 1, l/ucien mourns andras and carries out his duties as tom’s emissary. he visits utm multiple times, discreetly conversing with all the imprisoned high lords and their spies (maybe a/zriel and/or n/uala and c/erridwen makes a cameo here) and spreading the news that the curse may soon end. every time he returns, the high lords inform him on their movements/preparations for a/marantha’s death and h/ybern’s rise.

f/eyre completes her third task, but her stab to tom’s heart is fatal. tom dies honorably, for the greater good of all the fae, but l/ucien and f/eyre will never forget the darker parts of him. because a/marantha deserved better as a villain, a/marantha disappears in a diversion created by the king of h/ybern (hereon known as “koh”). rice is a straight-up antagonist and kidnaps f/eyre into the night court. l/ucien is left to rule the s/pring court alone.

ac0maf timeline: the second book continues l/ucien and n/esta’s POVs but also introduces t/arquin, m/or, and a h/ybernian’s POVs.

the h/ybernian pov (perhaps a commoner, soldier, or advisor to the koh) gives us insight on the koh and a/marantha’s plans. both the koh and a/marantha are given thorough backstories that make them sympathetic and/or interesting villains. the latter is one of many lethal commanders in the h/ybern army, alongside d/agdan and b/rannagh. her bitterness against humans has been renewed upon her defeat by f/eyre. the h/ybernian perspective also allows us to see h/ybernian culture, history, and pro/anti-war factions so that h/ybern is no longer a monolith. at some point, we see the cauldron come together. its power is immense.

now, let’s add some semblance of conflict and flaws to the inner circle. (i tried to stick as close to the canon as possible here, but again, mess provided FUCKITY NOTHING.) they each have differing motives, but at the end of the day they all just want prythian to be safe. they’re actually morally ambiguous anti-heroes/villains as heroes instead of this “it was all an act” nonsense. i/llyrians are explicitly poc. rice kidnapped f/eyre not because they’re mates, but because he wants to use her newfound powers as an asset against h/ybern. a/zriel’s torture victims never recover, but he only ever resorts to such measures when he believes necessary. a/mren (agender; ace) hunts for their blood, and they have an insurmountable body count. m/or (power lesbian) is incredibly kind, but everyone in court knows not to get on her bad side or they’ll face her justice. c/assian is the most ruthless commander i/llyria has ever seen.

additionally, the inner circle is complicated. m0riel was never a thing. c/assian and m/or also never hooked up, but they are besties. a/zriel is the intuitive, emotional core of the group; everyone goes to him for advice on friends, relationships, and hard decisions. a/zriel (pan) and c/assian (bi) have been steadily falling in love since their time in the camps as boys but neither of the idiots will admit it to themselves or anyone else. a/mren is still known as “tiny ancient one” because they’re like millennia older than everyone else. they impart cryptic wisdom and brutally honest advice on their edgy^TM kids. the night court also know their time with a/mren is limited because they are searching for a way out of their fae form, so their company is cherished. the four of them have stood beside rice over the centuries, and they love him, but they’ve also watched him steadily become more corrupt and merciless. can he be saved or is it time for a change in leadership? this is a conversation everyone wants to have, but no one is brave enough to begin. everyone skirts around it throughout the book, tension slowly building to an inevitable confrontation.

moving on to the plot: in the night court, we follow m/or ruling v/elaris (she fucking  f i n e s s e s  k/eir in the process). she’s in a simmering, slow burn romance with an i/llyrian woman: an activist against wing-cutting and a mutual friend of a/zriel’s (he set them up). m/or’s strength in court is her kind nature. she has many loyalists in the court of ni/ghtmares who know of her past with e/ris and k/eir. meanwhile, a/mren and f/eyre's subplot takes them to the human lands to get in touch with the arch sisters.

after his time utm, t/arquin returns to the summer court to play his part in preparing for the war against h/ybern: translating his half of the book of breathings and gathering powerful allies (br/yaxis, the b/one carver, and the w/eaver) for the war. his emotional arc is all about his recovery from the trauma he underwent utm. meanwhile, c/resseida hears word that some night court members are headed to the human lands, so she initiates an alliance with them and tags along in hopes that she can retrieve the mortal queens’ half of the book.

in the spring court, i/anthe is introduced. l/ucien soon realizes she is a double agent for h/ybern. she feeds him info on recruitment and battle strategies. koh and a/marantha are depending on i/anthe’s priestess order to spread pro-war rhetoric across h/ybern (??? this is the best i could do with what sj/m gave). the human lands are the most at risk because koh plans on cutting his army directly through spring court to crush the laughably weak human resistance before taking over the south. (sources report the effort is headed by the cursebreaker’s older sisters....)

in the human lands, n/esta and el/ain are pleasantly surprised by a visit from their sister, and more than a little alarmed by the two fae who accompany her. f/eyre just missed papa arch, who recently set sail with some of g/raysen’s soldiers to recruit southern soldiers. human efforts to seal the wall have been mostly fruitless, and every victory pyrrhic. although neither sister is a fighter, n/esta and e/lain have both seen enough horrors to last a lifetime. n/esta has worked her way to the position of treasurer of g/raysen’s army, and it seems that the proximity of the wall has activated some magic in elain so she is now a seer (this is some bs but so is sj/m’s magic system smh i tried). therefore, both of them (plus the mercenary) always sit in on war councils, and they receive a formal invitation from the mortal queens to discuss their next movements. a/mren and c/resseida come along, and the queens agree to give their half of the book in exchange for some fae magic to mend the wall. only m/or is powerful enough to do such a thing (also bs but sj/m never explained her power!!), so they must go back to the night court. amidst all the suffering, one good thing boosts human morale: e/lain and g/raysen's marriage.

in the n/ight court, a/mren, c/resseida, and f/eyre return to merge the book and tell m/or of the deal with the queens. tensions have risen between m/or and rice’s ruling styles. the court of nig/htmares is also split between m/or and k/eir. too much is mounting for mor to even think of going to the human lands. she and a/zriel also recently received a request for help from l/ucien: one of the spring sentries reported that amarantha’s legion is on the move. meanwhile, the h/ybernian pov chronicles the legion traveling to spring. the best the n/ight court can do is send c/assian. l/ucien and c/assian do all they can, but a/marantha’s too powerful and she rips right through the hole in the wall. c/assian’s wings get fuCKING SHREDDED in the process.

acowar: we’re gonna pretend v/assa, m/iryam, and d/rakon don’t exist bc they did very little for the plot. pr/ythian is in all out fucking bloody-ass war. when war crimes are committed, characters are held accountable. spring fae are scattering, seeking refuge in other courts. we see true horrors and battles and loss throughout the book. it’s high time that the lords all convened to lay out a plan of action, but everyone’s had pretty big fish to fry in the post-curse era. the n/ight court is fracturing, t/arquin and l/ucien are adjusting to being high lords, the a/utumn court has always been infighting, etc. so now an effort is being made to call everyone to a council in dawn.

first, m/or can no longer ignore the call to the human lands. l/ucien joins her because of his lands’ proximity to the wall, leaving i/anthe in charge (they’ve become quite good companions and she’s cut off her ties to hybern). c/assian also comes because l/ucien has been harboring him in spring and providing the best possible (but insufficient) healers for his wings. finally, our human and fae plots come together. m/or and c/assian’s reunion is touching. c/assian’s banter with abrasive n/esta takes his mind off his damaged wings. they both enjoy each other’s pragmatism, sarcasm, and emotional empathy. (in another life, they might’ve made a good match ;).) m/or patches the wall because even though a/marantha is already through, it’ll stop reinforcements from joining her. in a historic event, humans (the queens, the arch sisters, and g/raysen) are invited to the council of high lords.

all our big players are at the council: all h/igh lords + partners and courts, plus terrified but dignified human squad. m/or is reunited with her old friend v/iviane, (they were DEFINITELY a thing once). k/eir, e/ris, and b/eron were invited by none other than rice, who also plans to use feyre’s powers to win multiple battles. the n/ight court can no longer deny that it’s time to talk about rice. all the rising tensions come to the surface here. rice wants to employ the [insert better name for keir’s soldiers than fucking d/arkbringers], but m/or’s i/llyrian gf has been raising an army and she thinks that’s the safer bet. in the end, all the high lords decide they need both, and no one is quite happy. no one knows wtf is in the future for n/ight court leadership.

human squad and fae recap each other. humans hope papa arch can come through with some southern support. amarantha is razing her way through human lands while a/driata and v/elaris have suffered attacks from koh. n/esta, e/lain, and f/eyre all share stolen conversations between meetings over the days. f/eyre misses her home and family, but she knows she’ll never belong there again. humans are given the d/arkbringers (yikes) and b/ryaxis.

as human squad + lucien make their way home, their caravan is attacked by a h/ybern commander--maybe d/agdan or b/rannagh. e/lain is kidnapped to the koh’s camp; she’ll be a good hostage to draw in the pr/ythian asset f/eyre and crush human spirit. the h/ybernian notes that the cauldron has amassed much more power than we last saw. however, koh’s power over the cauldron and his soldiers has been spiraling out of control ever since a/marantha left to attack humans. though she’s been successful against them so far, her obsessive desire to slaughter humans wastes a lot of soldiers & resources on lands that are of little use to h/ybern. the h/ybernian gradually becomes acquainted with e/lain and frees her from the camp. humans return home shaken, but without further incident. the diversion has given a/marantha enough time to secure g/raysen’s lands before they arrive.

in the night court, they realize that without b/ryaxis they’ll need to free a/mren from their body for once and for all to defeat koh. they all share one last night of drinking, games, and being silly and sad. a/zriel and c/assian ruminate on the possibility of losing other inner circle members, and realize their feelings for each other. when h/ybernian and p/rythian forces assemble for the final battle, rice dies an anti-hero’s death on the battlefield. c/assian commands i/llyrian infantry nobly and courageously while m/or’s gf commands from the skies. f/eyre uses her powers to the best of her ability, and with significant help from a/mren in their true form, wins the day for p/rythian. a/mren disappears into their original desired dimension, and f/eyre dies knowing that she neither belongs with humans nor fae. c/resseida, t/arquin, and some p/rythian court members survive, but not without suffering scars, limb loss, and casualties etc.

in the human lands, papa arch has returned from the south with a few thousand men, but not enough to face a/marantha. the d/arkbringers and b/ryaxis hold their own against her soldiers, but she herself still lives. echoing how f/eyre outsmarted a/marantha in book 1, the humans must utilize a/marantha’s own hubris to defeat her. a major human character dies: perhaps g/raysen, the mercenary, or a queen.

finally, the enemies are defeated. arch family and high lords are invited to a funeral for f/eyre cursebreaker in the night court. n/esta and e/lain mourn their sister, but the funeral as a whole serves as a commemoration of all the losses of the war. additionally, m/or and i/llyrian gf have a beautiful private wedding. in rice’s absence, the courtiers of dreams and nightmares flock to m/or. now that their power is secure, she and l/ucien hold long overdue but fair trials against e/ris, b/eron, and k/eir for what they did to m/or and j/esminda (l/ucien’s lover who was killed before his eyes). they are found guilty, and a/zriel uses his sword truthteller in the execution. after, everyone settles terms and plans for war reparations. all the courts vow to donate what they can to the human lands because they all bear the responsibility. the humans go home one last time. human and fae alike are deeply traumatized by the war, but there is hope of happiness and recovery in the future.

#anti acotar #anti acomaf #anti acowar #anti sjm #this was SOOOOO much harder than the t0g one because the ac0tar plot/world/characters are so much weaker than the t0g ones #and that's really saying something #there's almost nothing to the worldbuilding holy crap

[seyaryminamoto]

Re: my ask on The Great Divide and Avatar Day... Holy crap, I wasn't expecting you to write a whole essay! Thank you! (It's also interesting that you bring up The Fortuneteller as the series' other big filler episode - I was always under the impression that The Painted Lady was what rounded out the trifecta, but then, fandom opinion on it has never seemed as extreme.)

Hahaha, sorry not sorry xD I don’t know how to be brief, it’s a problem xD but I’m glad you seem to have enjoyed it!

I brought up the Fortuneteller because it’s from Book 1 too, same as the Great Divide, and Book 1 is the one where a first-time viewer largely might feel like what they’re watching isn’t really going anywhere. I mean, I remember asking my sister if they’d ever get to the North Pole back when I was first watching it x’D I guess if the show offered the occasional glimpse of where they are on the map you’d at least feel like they’re making some progress (as the old Turbonick site allowed). But until the Northern Air Temple, there’s not much in the way of revealing how far north they’ve traveled so far within the story itself.

Anyways, the other reason I brought it up was because the Fortuneteller is a generally loved episode, despite objectively it doesn’t do much for the plot at all. It’s a handy way to compare it to Avatar Day and The Great Divide, because the question would naturally be why is it better than these two? What would make that one, as plot irrelevant as it was, more cherished than these two?

As for the Painted Lady, though... conceptually, I like that episode a lot. Not because of the Painted Lady herself, honestly I’m not as stoked about spirits in general as a lot of fans might be, and I’ve never felt too passionately about Katara’s plotlines: what I loved was the Fire Nation village of Jang Hui. It’s by far the lousiest of Fire Nation villages we see, even if Yon Rha’s isn’t the greatest, but this one is basically being killed by the Fire Nation’s warfare policies. The message conveyed is one of the most important ones I felt the show should have put forward, and it’s that the lack of balance in their world is damaging EVERYONE. The Fire Nation’s militaristic approach to... well, everything, would have consequences not only for the rest of the world, but for the Fire Nation itself.

That’s why I’ve even taken advantage of that particular situation in my main fic, because confronting a Fire Nation character with the reality that the war is harming their nation is just a great development and growth resource that the show squandered... and I will never understand why it did xD

But beyond that particular element of conceptual brilliance... the Painted Lady leaves much to be desired for me too. I don’t lump it in with the others as “filler” because of what I said, it really does add something of far more important value to the war and worldbuilding than Avatar Day did (despite that one features Kyoshi’s story, which, sure, expands the history of the Avatarverse but not exactly your understanding of their world as a whole...?), and obviously, much more important than what The Great Divide features. Still, I really don’t enjoy Katara and Sokka’s conflict here. Sokka’s position to not help people, to do nothing and just push forward with their plans, when he had taken the exact opposite stance in earlier episodes (namely Jet, where he saves Fire Nation soldiers from the dam’s destruction, no less, or even the Northern Air Temple, where he could have easily said “well okay this is too much drama let’s go to the north pole now, Aang”) felt like the writers were just hellbent on turning them against each other just for the sake of drama. Yes, Sokka and Katara often clash because of how different they are, but it’s different here than it would be in Books 1 and 2: you’d expect they’d have learned a few things from their frequent conflicts, such as the one they have in The Great Divide, but it flat-out doesn’t look like they did. After this, they still clash over Hama and later yet over Yon Rha. Meaning... they didn’t learn much from this conflict either. So, there’s not much in the way of growing and changing as far as their sibling relationship is concerned? It’s kind of... disappointing. At least, it is to me.

It was also really strange for Sokka to be so hellbent on sticking to a schedule that looks like an Excel spreadsheet graphic when 

They have several days to spare when they reach the Black Cliffs in Nightmares and Daydreams.

He and the others wasted time in varying ways during the episodes leading to the Invasion (both before and after the Painted Lady) and he never used the schedule again as an argument to keep moving.

It’s not out of character entirely for him to act this way, but it makes no sense that they’d arrive at the Black Cliffs with time to spare if they devoted that much time to cleaning a river, getting Sokka a few swordsmanship lessons, lounging around lazily in a hot spring cove, visiting Roku’s old house for a while, running scams with Toph, dealing with Hama and her creepiness/saving all those villagers... I mean. Really. Time WAS wasted. A lot of it. And somehow they got there several days early?

For me, the conflict between Sokka and Katara in this episode feels less genuine than whenever they had conflicts before, partly because it was an old, tried and tired situation that presented Sokka as the cold-bloodeed and Katara as the emotional one (where Katara of course is framed as righteous and fair, while Sokka looks like a self-involved jerk up until he defends his sister). But it feels even worse after you progress in the show and find out that Sokka’s big concern over arriving on time was actually completely unnecessary? It’s an artificial conflict, really. It doesn’t feel genuine, it feels like it’s there just to create emotional stakes that don’t really pay off because we’ve seen these two for almost three seasons and we know their conflicts don’t last and always are resolved for the better (only for them to jump into a new one a few episodes later). No real difference here. You don’t learn a single new thing about these characters. It’s more of the same situations they’re always in. 

This episode is probably great for Katara fans, and it definitely paints her in much better light than the other Katara-centric episodes of Book 3 (The Puppetmaster and The Southern Raiders), so I’d assume a lot of Katara fans love it to pieces. There’s also the obsession certain areas of the fandom have over spirit alter egos of characters... I don’t need to elaborate much on what I mean, but safe to say I’m far from intrigued by that particular trope (though my bigger qualm isn’t with the Painted Lady but with the Blue Spirit, against whom I have a gazillion reservations and I’ll voice them as many times as I must). So, as far as personal investment in this episode goes... yeah. I really don’t have any other than in the village of Jang Hui because of the implications it holds for the worldbuilding and the Fire Nation as a whole. Beyond that... this episode doesn’t really do anything for me. I often have to rewatch episodes for research purposes with Gladiator... this one I haven’t watched since ages ago and I can’t say I’m interested in doing it again anytime soon.

Still, as far as trifecta of fillers goes, I think it’s difficult to really determine which episodes should be part of it? There’s a lot of filler content in ATLA, but often peppered with stuff that will be useful later on somehow. Yet there’s a lot of it that isn’t? The nuns of the Abbey never come up again. The pirates aren’t relevant past Book 1. The entirety of The Ember Island Players is absolute, unabashed filler content, and some people even feel that way about The Beach too. Soooo... I guess ranking the filler episodes depending on their usefulness can be tricky. Some are more useful, some are less so, most of them don’t feature much in the way of useful, lasting character development and sometimes resort to old problems that could have been resolved already... such as the Runaway’s big Katara-Toph rivalry, which hadn’t reared its ugly head since The Chase, so it looked like a problem long-resolved.

So, would I round out the trifecta of fillers with the Painted Lady...? Yeah, well, I can’t say for sure, but I can say it ranks amongst my least liked episodes just like the other two xD

#anon #threw in a read more #just in case #I do ramble #a lot #oops #someone ought to stop me #but anyways I don't really know for sure what the worst ATLA episodes are #strangely one of my most disliked episodes is the Swamp #I... don't even know why #it makes me sleepy #and it's not like it's not useful as far as worldbuilding is concerned #hell I literally will take advantage of that swamp in a myriad of ways in my story #... but that episode #just doesn't work with me

[lovingnikiforov]

2018 Fic Writing Round-Up

Total year-long word count: 632,603+ words…..that’s about double what I wrote for 2017 omfg

Word count by fandom: ~ Bungou Stray Dogs: 461,813+ ~ Yuri on Ice: 166,925 ~ Kuroshitsuji: 3,865

Fics completed: 33

♥ Drabbles: ~ 5 twitter prompt fills - bsd

♥ Oneshots: ~ All Dolled Up - bsd, soukoku, pwp, wyll companion ~ Workaholic - bsd, ranpoe, canon -compliant ~ Kids Again - bsd, soukoku, bartender au ~ like a moth - bsd, soukoku, mafia boss chuuya ~ Five Steps - bsd, soukoku, royalty au ~ Writer’s Block - bsd, soukoku, sugar daddy Chuuya ~ What About Trust? - bsd, soukoku, dark era ~ On the Clock - bsd, soukoku, secret relationship, au ~ A Warlord’s Conscience - bsd, kousano, feudal era au ~ No-Show - bsd, soukoku, canon-compliant ~ Sorely Missed - bsd, soukoku, hogwarts au ~ what a pair - bsd, soukoku, sugar daddy Chuuya, Writer’s Block sequel ~ Propriety - bsd, soukoku, royalty au, Five Steps sequel ~ Something to Lose - bsd, soukoku, wyll companion ~ Perfectly Pleasant - bsd, soukoku, college au ~ Shattered Glass - kuroshitsuji, gen, canon-compliant ~ A Phone Call Away - bsd, higugin, canon-compliant, manga spoilers ~ hide the truth - bsd, soukoku, amnesiac Chuuya au, canon-compliant ~ Playing Human - bsd, soukoku, pwp, incubus Chuuya, vampire Dazai ~ Unplottable - bsd, soukoku, hogwarts au, Sorely Missed sequel ~ Closer to Home - bsd, soukoku, established relationship, canon-compliant ~ A Stupid Question - bsd, soukoku, dark era (patreon exclusive) ~ Private Lessons - bsd, soukoku, pwp,  like a moth sequel (patreon exclusive) ~ New Normal - bsd, soukoku, secret relationship (patreon early-release/coming soon!)

♥ Chapter Fics: ~ Shared Gravity - bsd, soukoku, college au, joint fic with ZODIACHUUYA ~ Equivalent Exchange - yoi, viktuuri, magic/fantasy au ~ where your loyalties lie - bsd, soukoku, arranged marriage/yakuza au ~ Rent a (boy)Friend - yoi, phichuuri, fake dating au

Works-in-progress: ~ even on the darkest night - bsd, gen/kyouka-centric, dystopia au, dyetyd sequel

This year I wrote and posted: 34 fics in total: 4 completed multi-chapter fics, 1 wip multi-chapter fic, 24 oneshots, 5 drabbles.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted? So, so much more. I almost can’t believe how much I managed to write this year.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? Kuroshitsuji. It’s not a fandom I’ve ever written for and the fic I did write was a gift fic and a prompt fill.

What’s your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest? Ahhh that’s hard, there are a handful of stories I am really happy with. I suppose I’ll have to go with hide the truth it was a beast of a story to write and I had a lot of fun working through soukoku’s dynamic in it.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? Big time! I’ve been using my fic writing to really challenge myself in terms of my stories. My biggest risk was just in terms of quantity, I spent much of the year juggling four wips and a patreon with additional content. Getting through everything month-to-month was hard but it really helped my efficiency and increased my writing speed.

Your best story of this year: Hmm, this is a hard one. Honestly, I’d have to say Equivalent Exchange. It was a massive undertaking with a lot of characters and plot lines to keep track of. As a fantasy piece, the worldbuilding was extremely intensive. 

Your most popular story of this year: By a slim margin with EE, my most popular story this year was where your loyalties lie.

Story of yours most under-appreciated by the universe, in your opinion: Any rare-pair story is going to have a hard time getting views, but I honestly think A Warlord’s Conscience is one of my best stories of the year and it was my third least popular fic. 

Most fun story to write: The Hogwarts AU verse  (Sorely Missed and Unplottable) was a lot of fun! I was a big HP nerd growing up so it was enjoyable to dive back into the universe. 

Story with the single sexiest moment: Playing Human. By a long mile. Easily one of the most explicit stories I’ve written for bsd. Honorable mention goes to All Dolled Up.

Most “Holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you” story: This honor also goes to Playing Human. I grew up really religious and they’re in a church and I did not back away from any form of sacrilege. 

Story that shifted your own perceptions of the characters: Hmmm, I can’t say I had any real shift in character perceptions this year.

Hardest story to write: where your loyalties lie. There was a lot going on in that story and the character development/journeys were really delicate, especially for Chuuya. 

Biggest disappointment: tbh...I don’t think I feel disappointed with any of my stories this year. Progress!

Biggest surprise: Writer’s Block, I wasn’t expecting people to like it as much as they did, much less to the degree of requesting a sequel.

Most unintentionally telling story: where your loyalties lie. Anyone who read the Author’s Commentary of the fic probably has a good grasp of how many of my personal struggles over the course of the year got projected into the fic. There were also a few other personal things from years past that also get referenced. 

Favorite opening line(s): ~ There was something that came alive when the sun went down. - Playing Human ~ Sometimes Dazai finds it hard not to think that the person responsible for making text cursors blink just had a sick sense of humor rather than any practical reasoning for the programming decision. - Writer’s Block

Favorite closing line(s): ~ It felt like a dagger in the gut to know that he’d already made his choice. - What About Trust? ~ And if Viktor is imagining the way the moonlight seems to shine brighter when they pull back from their embrace, well, he can’t quite see a problem with that. - Equivalent Exchange

Favorite 5 line(s) from anywhere: ~ He can trace the features of the figures depicted, all wholly inaccurate but it’s not as if the religious painters would bother to consult a vampire on matters like the faces of the figures they exalted to sainthood. - Playing Human ~ The very idea is absurd but it is the only explanation that explains both his pain and the fact that he is holding a building in his hands, lifting through dense fog to float in mid-air and stare at…at…Is that a fucking dragon? - hide the truth ~ It takes a bigger effort to get to his feet than it ever has, and for a moment Chuuya wonders if his ability is working against him, if gravity has decided to press down on him in retribution for every time Chuuya has ever felt weightless - wyll, ch. 13 ~ A dependency on alcohol is gradually self-destructive, a dependency on a person is instantly debilitating. - wyll, ch. 11 ~ Just as Viktor said, it's nothing like a duel, but Yuri wishes someone had told him that a real battle was as close to hell as a living human could get. - EE, ch. 18

Top 5 scenes from anywhere you would choose to have illustrated: ~ Yuuri showing up on the battlefield - Equivalent Exchange (ch. 18) ~ Chuuya’s tattoo - wyll (ch. 20) ~ Kouyou standing in the garden - A Warlord’s Conscience ~ Drunk Phichit and Yuuri dancing salsa - Rent a (boy)Friend (ch. 8) ~ tbh any bit from All Dolled Up

Fic-writing goals for next year: Hmm, I’ve been toying with trying my hand with a new fandom. It’s been a while since I’ve taken that jump with new characters so I’d like to do that in 2019!

#dessa.txt #fic tag #t: my fic #t: fic review #long posts

[mousieta]

2018 Fic Year In Review

Stolen from  silverdancer on Pillowfort 

Gonna do my best to prod my old-lady memory (™) and review everything I’ve written this year. From the outset it seems like I haven’t done much, but, well. Lets see what this shows.

Wordcount and Statistics

Total Number of stories worked on: 10 (published); 2 (unpublished)

Total Completed stories: 5 (not counted: drabbles collections additions)

Fandoms: 2NE1; Big Bang, DBSK, EXO, James Bond (Craig Movies), KARD, Are You Human, Too?

Total Word Count: This is a bit difficult as I reworked one fic so I’m taking it out of consideration (Brojobs and Butterflies)

Published: 53, 900

Unpublished: 20,502 (Until Whenever)

16,756 (WildKARD)

9,648 (Fate’s Fools)

Ok, 100,000 words in one year is respectable.

Posted fics (Solo)

Brojobs and Butterflies (remastered, lol)

Trust Me (BM & Jiwoo ver.)

DJ Panda

Shipping Victory

Sweet Lie

Too Much Alcohol and Not Enough

Like Tinder to Flame

Posted Fics (co-written)

The Five Times Chanyeol Went Down and the One Time He Got Off

Hot Damn

Drabble Collection added to

B’s and Q’s

Overall

☆ Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted?

More than I thought, less than I’d hoped.

☆ What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?

Are You Human, Too? And not just because it is for a show that didn’t exist in January but, because, I usually force myself to NOT write for kdramas as there is so little fic-appreciation in the fandom that it feels like empty effort. But sometimes, stories demand to be told.

☆ What’s your own favorite story of the year?

Sweet Lie - because Top/Ri and also because I did a very good job on it, imo.

☆ Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Not posting the infinte words I’ve written for the KARD fic in order to get that sweet, sweet validation. Which is good and I’m glad I did. Worldbuilding as complex as the story requires means I’m still discovering things as I go. This is a fic that is going to need to finish a draft, and have several betas review before it’s ready for prime time.

☆ Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?

FINISH YOUR LONGFICS GOTTAYUM WOMAN!

☆ My goals from last year were

Please, please, please finish your longfics. I have a feeling future me is going to me as much an asshole to present me as present me is to past me.

☆ From my past year of writing, what was…

My best story of this year Sweet Lie

My most popular story of this year The Five Times Chanyeol Went Down and the One Time He Got Off ….. What can i say, smut sells.

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion Trust Me (BM & Jiwoo ver.) ...just…. The smut….the bdsm…. Little puppy BM...

Most fun story to write Hot Damn  Having an enabling co-author and alcohol is a blast

Story with the single sexiest moment The Five Times Chanyeol Went Down and the One Time He Got Off - the Yunho chapter. My god I almost died writing that, the moment when Yunho realizes he could get yeolie off and then….doesn’t….

Most “Holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you” story My shame meter is broken. Nothing pings it anymore

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters none, really

Hardest story to write man, none of my published works…. My WIPs though *glares*

Biggest disappointment Sweet Lie ok hear me out, I had so much more I wanted to do with this story. There was more character work I wanted to dig in to, and the allusions/ parallels to The Great Gatsby I wanted to bring to the fore. But I ran out of time, and didn’t get to get as navle gazy and self-indulgent as I wanted. It probably made for a better fic but I just….had bigger plans and not getting to do them made me sad.

Biggest surprise The success of my Expanded Outlines series. I always have so many ideas, and more than that full out plots from beginning to end. Which means so many stories whos ending I’ve already worked out. Honestly that is the easiest part to writing - the actual writing creates a backlog. So choosing to just pretty up those outline ideas and slap them into a collection to share 1) creates more content and 2) gets them out of my head where they mope about sadly.

Highlights and Wrap-up

☆ Favourite Opening Lines (3)

The night had breached the cusp, that line that crossed from reality to the embodiment of eternity. (unpublished)

Younghoon poured himself a drink. (Too Much Alcohol and Not Enough)

Seungri usually avoids dating apps, for one thing he doesn’t need them, Big Bang’s name being enough to get him all the play his own face can’t, and for another - (Like Tinder to Flame)

☆ Favourite Closing Lines (3)

Younghoon deserved love. (Too Much Alcohol and Not Enough) T.T

Spent, they collapsed onto the bed, alcohol and exertion doing their work. The food sitting, forgotten, would have to wait ‘til morning. (Hot Damn)

She stayed up a little longer, contemplating all the wonderful things she’d do to him, tomorrow, next week, next month. He was going to become her favorite little boy. (Trust Me)

☆ Favorite 5 Line(s) from Anywhere (ok these are more like passages, sorry and since I’m cheating I’ll just do 4)

The night had breached the cusp, that line that crossed from reality to the embodiment of eternity. Yesterday was a hazy memory and tomorrow seemed a passing flight of fancy. Night felt like it had been stretching on forever and would continue to do so, outside of time and responsibility and enlistment. Here there were only half-dark shadows, soft yellow light, the muted sound of music emerging from somewhere and mumbled conversation.  Day was only a mirage, he thought, but then, Jiyong had long passed tipsy and was swimming in drunk. (Unpublished)

“Only look forward, Kyungwon-ah,” she told herself in a low breath. It was an act of self-assertion. For almost thirty years she had been ‘Youngbae’s halmoni’; the thirty years before that she’d been ‘Yongdo’s Mom’. How long since she’d last been Kyungwon, then? Sixty years. A lifetime. (Until Whenever - Unpublished)

Shin’s eyes - that was what had caught Younghoon. They looked up at him, liquid pools of brown rimmed in black. They were hungry, predatory. Younghoon’s breath choked in his throat and his heart ached.  He tried not to think of the times he’d imagined just this scenario, how many times his mind-melting fantasies had carried this scene to its toe-curling, sated conclusion.  But reality wasn’t fantasy and Shin’s heart-breaking eyes glazed over for a moment and his head lolled back on the pillows. (Too Much Alcohol and Not Enough)

It had been sunset, the pinks and oranges bathing the high-rise room in a soft, iridescent glow. It had been beautiful, Seungri standing in a forest of roses and candles, soft music playing, steam rising from the meal adorning the table around a stand of candles, wine decanting, waiting for them to resolve this confusion.The knock at the door had sent Seungri’s heart fluttering, carrying him to open it, take Seunghyun’s hand and pull him in. (Sweet Lie)

If any of my mutuals see this and want to do it (please please see it and do it) tag me back so I can read it!

#mousie writes #long post

[persephonesnow]

That worldbuilding thing

Below a cut because holy crap this thing is nine pages long. 

The very point of worldbuilding is to create a cohesive arena for your story to take place. Think of it as the background of a painting. You’ve got a subject that’s intended to be the focus of the piece, but that subject isn’t going to stand out if the background makes no sense and distracts the viewer. Worldbuilding is the thing that will make or break a story. That goes for original fic and fanfic both.

The most daunting is by far original fic. The easiest place to start is with, well, the place. The literal landscape of your story can have a huge impact. Is it mountainous? Forested? Rich and fertile? Cold? Hot? Dry? Are there settlements? What kind? Cities? Villages? Have no idea where to start? Start in the real world.

(We’re going to stick with stories centered on human characters, simply because they are the overwhelming majority and where worldbuilding tends to most often fail. And full disclosure: I am one of those writers who has written encyclopedias for the worlds I create. It makes things so much easier.)

I’m serious. If you think you want to write about a desert world, look into what real-world desert life is like. Even if you’re writing something sci-fi and need to account for currently impossible tech, look at the real world. How has the desert shaped the history of the people who live there? What have been the challenges they’ve faced from the environment and how has that changed them?

And pro-tip: if you’re writing a world with lots of direct sunlight, any human character native to this world is highly, highly unlikely to be white or overly fair-skinned. If you’re writing a snow-covered or water-filled world, you’re more than likely talking about a native population with both tanned skin and likely monolid eyes. When I say look at the real world, I don’t just mean the culture and history. I mean look at how people have evolved to survive in the given environment. Y’all may not realize this, but things like (light) skin colours and eye shapes are adaptations that evolved to allow humans to live in places very different than where our species first turned up.

(All bets are mostly off for any aliens. But if your aliens are humanoid and can pass for one of us, that means that they can pass for one of us, and will be bound by any physical adaptations humans in their given region would have.)

Worldbuilding is about 99% research. That’s it. It’s reading lots of random and weird things because the strangest things will have an impact. Environment and climate impact each other. Both impact what edibles are available and if the local population is going to be mostly hunters, fishermen, or farmers. Or even a combination, but given what humanity has been like, once we start trending agrarian we largely stay agrarian. Similarly, if your main settlement has little in the way of agriculture, then it’s not going to be much of a settlement and is more likely a waystation for nomads. Agriculture is the backbone upon which civilization is built. And agriculture doesn’t necessarily mean plants. Ranching is a thing, people, and you can farm fish.

There are other things, of course. If your world has few trees, your buildings won’t be wood, which changes what shapes they can take and their overall appearance. It also changes how the buildings hold heat or if they stay cool year-round.

IS THERE WINTER?

Okay, this point. Is there a winter in your world? Nothing, absolutely nothing will have a bigger impact on your growing world than the existence or nonexistence of winter. Don’t believe me? Go take a look through human history and the various mythos we’ve created. How vital is spring and the growth that come with it? How much is the winter, with the lack of growth and migration of game featured in those stories? How much is the concern of the lean times, of the time when diseases are more common (flu season, anyone?), of when children of all species are less likely to be born and less likely to survive if they do present?

No winter? Guess what, that has an impact too! You know all those plants you love to look at? All the ones you eat? Most of those require a winter to grow. Some plants need their seeds frozen and held at a freezing temperature for a length of time in order to properly germinate. Some need the inverse, of course, and will not grow unless they’ve quite literally been torched.

No winter also changes bug populations. Which can have an impact on the spread of disease. Which very definitely changes any population. Is there a monsoon season in place of the frozen winter that’s often featured? My good dudes, water is dangerous in all forms. Rivers will flood. Hurricanes and monsoons will happen. Floods will happen. No place is perfect. If you’re imagining an idyllic world where nothing is wrong, you’ve done something wrong and you’re missing something.

Worldbuilding requires a lot of really weird details, in order to do it properly. If you’re keeping your story small and focused on something small (a person, a family, something of interpersonal nature) then you can probably stop here and go write your story.

If you’re wanting to write and epic a la Harry Potter or A Song of Fire and Ice? Buckle up, kids, you’ve got a lot more think about.

Worldbuilding isn’t just your landscape. It’s your culture and everything in that. You imagine your characters wearing furs? Okay, then what kind of animals are lurking about for hunters? Go look at real fur, at real game, and think very seriously about what kind of skins your people are likely to have access to. Things like bear and other big carnivores aren’t likely to show up on normal people. Those will be, as they have been in the real world, expensive af. Predators tend to be rare, even places with lots of prey. There is in fact a set ratio for populations of predators to prey that researchers have discovered in the real world. Go look it up. Look up requirements for large predators, because they tend to have insanely large ranges and are often solitary, which makes them rare for hunters.

You have deer? Okay. Look at what a normal deer population looks like and what their behaviors look like in any given environment. Not all deer are as big as the white-tail. Some are bigger. Some are infinitely harder to catch. Some are isolated, some form herds. Some are aggressive. White-tail are what’s lurking where I live, and they’re mostly blind and rely heavily on their hearing. You know the classic deer in headlights look with the ears straight up? Yeah, they can see the light and something big moving towards them, but they can’t identify it so they’re listening.

Think all of this is unnecessary because you’re not writing a hunter? Nope, sorry. This shit impacts not only what your people are eating but also what they are wearing. Not a problem because your people have cattle? Not so fast, sweetheart. Cattle evolved from aurochs, officially in Turkey (I remember coming across a study that thinks aurochs might have evolved into cattle more than once, but don’t remember I found it). Cattle are also not the end-all of bovines. There’s multiple forms and then there’s also things bison and all their forms, oxen and their brethren. All are different. All have different environmental requirements and sometimes very different requirements for farming. Not all can be used for milk and not all are good eating. Same goes for sheep and goats. You’ll have to think about how humans have altered whatever species has been domesticated in your world, because it’s unlikely you’ll be writing at a time when domestication is just starting.

Poultry? Chicken come from a jungle fowl native to southeast Asia. Ducks and geese have different stories. They’re also largely useless for clothing, bar decoration and we’re not to that yet.

(On birds: all females will produce eggs, male present or not. It’s a natural process and just happens. Never seen a pet bird lay an egg? That’s because birds sold in the pet trade are almost exclusively males. If you’ve got egg-laying birds and no male around, you’re not going to get any new birds from those eggs. They’re unfertilized and will never develop because there is no embryo.)

Food is the traditional ground on which the divisions between rich and poor are drawn. Humans are a naturally greedy species, so you need to account for this and where your MC fits into this picture. Food availability and quality can change everything from general population health to culture and how people interact with one another, but also how families interact with each other. If food or other resources are at any time scarce, then whichever child has been designated heir will get preferential treatment because that’s the child that needs to survive to adulthood to carry on the family legacy. If your chosen MC is from a wealthier background where food, clothing, and shelter were never a concern, then where do they fit in? Are they the heir? Guess what. No adventures across the world for them. Your best bet will be an extra child who isn’t in line for anything and is mostly just expected to not cause problems. Determined to have an heir be the MC? Go read up on your history. Research, research, research. That’s going to come with some very unique challenges that will change how your MC interacts with the world around them and how the people in that world interact with them.

Clothing is a thing that divides us, mostly because it is an outward marker of wealth but also because clothing can restrict us. Clothing requires people to make said clothing, and your world will be restricted by materials. Textiles require looms and huge amounts of resources. Leather requires critters and tanning is a whole other can of worms. It’s smelly and can be done different ways. Leatherworking is also very, very different from sewing in any form. You’ll need to think of cobblers and what resources they’ll have. There’s a saying in the vintage community that your shoes will make or break your outfit and that’s true. Shoes have been a revolutionary thing in history. Not only do they protect our feet but we can use them for other things. Heels originally evolved on men’s cavalry shoes, where the heel was used to sort of latch onto the stirrup, allowing the rider more security when trying to stay in the saddle.

Utility matters, but humans will decorate themselves too. Accessorizing isn’t a new thing and it’s taken many forms across the ages and cultures. Hair is a surprisingly complex matter too. Curly hair has very different needs and behaviors than straight hair and colour can dictate what you can and can’t do to your hair (some ingredients will stain/discolour lighter hair). Bleaching is not a new phenomena. Dyes in general are not a new phenomena. Think carefully about beauty standards. No one is immune to them and they can and do change whole societies.

Other things that can change a society are work animals. Like dogs. No, I’m not talking about your cute pet. Go take a good, hard look at the history of dogs. One, as a species they are a hell of a lot older than you probably think they are. Second, precious few of them evolved with the intent to be companions. Most were created for a job and that job was often killing things. Some breeds are also significantly younger than others. The Labrador Retriever, the ultimate utility dog (seriously, it can be trained to do just about anything and it’s perfectly happy being a companion. There’s a reason it’s been the most popular dog in America for as long as it has been), was created only about 150-200 years ago and was meant to be a more manageable form of the Newfoundland. Given the thousands of years that dogs have existed, that’s brand new.

For me, personally, the absence of dogs will destroy any attempt at worldbuilding faster than anything else. Y’all trying to tell me you’ve got wolves, foxes, and other canines but you don’t have dogs? Not how that works. Canines have a notoriously slippery genome, which is how you get everything from wolves and foxes to Chihuahuas and Great Danes. Humans have had dogs for thousands and thousands of years. Their very existence has altered everything from how our ancestors hunted to our fashions (see: how the poodle went from respected retriever to a fashion icon). Take a look at a region similar to your world and look at the dogs found in that region. What purpose have they traditionally served? Were they hunters? What kind? Were they a pack animal? Livestock guardian? Shepherd? Mouser? Because oh, yes, dogs are mousers and rat catchers. They don’t call it a Rat Terrier for nothing.

Terriers in general have been created solely for the purpose of hunting small game and pest control. Cats, in comparison, are only semi-domesticated. Your “ancient” cat breeds? They’re what’s called a landrace in dogs. Humans have only recently started messing with cat breeding. A pet cat will not be a mouser unless they want to be, and chances are they’re going to go for easier prey. A cat’s purpose is solely to be cute. That’s it. That’s all it’s ever been and all it will ever be. Don’t believe me? The first known dog of what we now call the Rat Terrier was a set of remains found on a shipwreck, where it was being used to control pests.

Hounds also change things. Beagles were largely used for hunting hares, though they’ve been used for other small critters. Foxes? My dear, that’s the aptly named Foxhound, a similar looking dog that is quite a bit larger than the Beagle. Foxes are a mid-sized predator, like the coyote. They’re not super small and they are vicious little bastards. Dogs are older than you probably think but trust me when I say the dogs you think of as being the oldest breeds probably aren’t.

Two of the oldest dog breeds in the world are what we today know as the Afghan Hound and the Saluki. The Basenji is also extremely old. Notice a trend there? Some of the oldest depictions of dogs in human art show something that looks like what we today call the sighthounds, the most famous member of which would likely be the Greyhound. The hardy northern dogs (Huskies, Malamutes, etc…) still have that wolfish appearance, yes, but they’re nowhere near as old as things like the Carolina dog and other wild dog-adjacent breeds. Because yes, wild dogs exist. You do know what a dingo is, don’t you? A hyena? The vast majority of modern dogs came from these wild dogs and the wild dog endemic to a given region is going to determine what kind of modern dog you’ve got.

(In other news, the Mabari of Dragon Age gets a hard side eye from me, because it’s modelled on a relatively new modern dog and we’re given no evidence of the many breeds that went into creating that dog. Not to mention, as dog crazy as Ferelden is supposed to be, there’s a surprising lack of canines around. It doesn’t fully destroy the worldbuilding for me; the presence of the Mabari kind of saves it. Mind you, the worldbuilding actually crashes, for me, in the human noblewoman origin of Origins. What it doesn’t recover from, however, is what we’re getting to in this next bit.)

Horses are another major point in societal evolution. Cars? Guess what, they’re not only a hell of a lot older than you think, but they became as popular as they are as fast as they did (in the US, at least) in response to how difficult keeping horses and other large cart-pulling creatures in an urban environment was proving to be.

Horses in history look a wee bit different from what you’re thinking. Those pretty little runners who are so popular these days weren’t super popular in history. Their legs are too weak. I’m serious. If you’re writing something that features people in armor, they’re riding what we now call a draft horse. With the exception of one draft that was bred for farm work from retired war horses, draft horses are traditionally war horses because they’re the only horse with legs that wouldn’t break under the weight of a knight in full armor. They’re also relatively mild-mannered and often easier to train than their smaller cousins. But they’re not the kind of horse you’d want for a long-distance journey. Assuming the horse isn’t pulling anything and you want endurance over speed and strength, then you’re looking at a cutter horse. Just like dogs, different horses have different purposes. Do your research and please for the love of all that is good, do not overlook horses and other modes of transportation.

I mentioned Dragon Age above, and they’re probably going to be the series I talk about the most in this next bit because they not only excel as one of the few fantasy series to address technology in any way, but because they also utterly fail at building infrastructure. It is a video game and it has been restricted by that medium and it has made attempts to address some of the weaknesses I’ll be discussing, so I do trust the writers behind it to have thought of most of this. Witcher 3 had the budget and the engine to account for horses and ships and conveniently was based on a series of books that prominently featured portals in addition to both of these. The Witcher books are also something DA owes a lot to, so expect the odd reference to it (the books. I’ll rarely mention the games).

One of the things both series do well is establish that technology and magic can exist at the same time. Fantasy and sci-fi are not the same genre and do not deserve to be lumped together as they often are. Genres do blend, and these two do have a tendency to blend more than others because they are quite complementary to each other. But y’all have a tendency to not think it through. Fancy sci-fi tech is nice, yeah, but remember how much agriculture can change a society? Industry and tech are the two that follow on that list of variables. Agriculture has in fact been the single largest source of industry and tech in human history.

Remember textiles? Most of the plants used for that are labor intensive not only to grow and harvest but also to process into something weavers can use, assuming you have a climate that can produce them or have friendly trade going on with someone who does. If I’m not mistaken, the only thing more resource heavy than cotton is silk. Spidersilk is nice, yeah, but spiders don’t actually produce a lot of usable silk. There’s some great research on that and how to make it usable, but we’re not there yet. And holy crap don’t get me started on bamboo and linen. Do you realize how difficult flax can be to produce and how radically different the process for turning it into linen is from cotton? There are reasons why today, cotton is king.

Handwaving and going *~magic~* will only get you so far. And unless everyone can do that magic, you’re going to have some kind of innovation going on for those who can’t. Even then, magic in stories only really works if there’s a price to that magic, so you’re still going to have innovation. Don’t think so? Okay, let’s talk about food again.

One of the things I absolutely loved about DA:I was something found in Orlais that is a logical progression of something the series has established from the start. To recap this, there is a race in Dragon Age that most fantasy fans will recognize. Dwarves, specifically those that live underground, famous for their beards and tempers, and renowned as the best miners and smiths in the world. It’s this last point that I want to draw attention to, because the existence of dwarves is a super popular fantasy trope and DA  is the only one to have done it right so far. Within DA the dwarves have Paragons; dwarves who have made such significant innovations to dwarven society that they are regarded as effectively being living gods. One of them is Branka, who got the distinction for the invention of smokeless coal.

Let that sink in. Smokeless coal. Do you realize how beneficial that would be? You’re talking about a people who still need to breathe, who can succumb to black lung as easily as any other air-breathing being. And the technological innovations of DA’s dwarves doesn’t end there. There’s something that sounds suspiciously like a thresher among the surface dwarves, which in the real world was one of the most significant agricultural innovations in the world. And it has been a while, but I seem to recall Bianca Davri’s machine being described as something akin to a Whitney gin. Not to mention the existence of the crossbow Bianca.

So imagine a fantasy world with magic and dragons and all sorts of amazing things. And you go into the kitchen of an upper class home and there’s an oven. It’s a little thing, but it firmly establishes the coexistence of technology and magic. And it’s believable, because there is this group of people who are widely considered the best smiths in the world, and by extension we are given the means to believe they are also considered the best inventors. And oven makes perfect sense in this context. So do threshers and gins and every other bit of agricultural tech that would 1000% be beneficial to a group of people who canonically are no taller than maybe 4’ and still need to eat.

Cooking over a campfire is restrictive. You’ll mostly be cooking over/under the embers of a dying fire or a good distance away from a healthy fire. You will likely never be putting anything directly on the flame unless you like eating ash. You’ll have next to no temperature control. Which severely limits what you can do. Goodbye, baking, you don’t exist in this world. Except for some quick breads. Some soda breads were traditionally made by being buried in the cooling embers. But fancy cakes and breads are out.

The oven changed the world. It allowed for cooks to be as creative as they wanted and as a result we have a whole host of sweets and baked goods. Modern ranges allow for temperature control and spawned huge industries manufacturing tools to use with them. Pans and whatnot largely evolved after the oven, which is itself a bit older than you’d think. DA:I was just a big deal because it was a thoroughly modern range in a thoroughly old world. Do look at the history of the kitchen, because it doesn’t really mean anything for your characters to have access to certain ingredients if they don’t have the tools to make anything with them. And I trust most of you have heard at least some of the noise made about the links between nutrition and health.

Which brings us around to the thing that completely destroys DA’s worldbuilding: infrastructure. Specifically how people and things move. Few, if any societies are capable of being fully self-sustaining. Even if they are, people always want more and no society will be able to produce everything they want. Enter trade. The odds that you can create a grand epic and not include any other group than the culture you’ve started with is slim to none. Look at any large landmass. You’ll always have variations in people and beliefs because isolation breeds uniqueness. This is where trade comes in and fills in the gaps, bridging the distances between different groups. But how does the trade happen? I’m assuming you’ve thought of horses and ships, and any other mode of transportation that might exist in your world. That’s all well and good, but how long does it take for those things to happen? Looking at you, DA, with your assertion that DA:I took place in about two-three years. They have horses. That’s nice. They also have an official map with an official key to understanding distances. You can probably see where I’m going with this.

Travel times can alter everything. Not only how long your story can take to complete, assuming there is some kind of long physical journey involved, but also trade. How long does it take for goods to move from one place to another? How risky is the journey? How does that change the value of the goods and thus the availability? Your readers may never need to know the details but odds are you will because the weirdest shit will turn out to be necessary for your storytelling. Travel and isolation impact everything from food to medicine, which in turn can limit almost every aspect of life in a region.

Which brings me to a surprisingly oft-overlooked aspect of worldbuilding: continuity. Did a character have a certain job in one part and then are doing something completely different in another with zero explanation (my copies of Harry Potter state that James Potter was a Chaser for Gryffindor, until the later books when suddenly he was a Seeker. Little me was very confused). Consistent internal rules are an important thing. Not only does this apply to things like physics and seasons (do you have seasons? Do you have variations in day and night? Oh boy I can go on about that one and ATLA), but it applies to things like the stuff society needs to keep working. Do yourself a favor and write out a timeline and stick to it. If you have any changes, change it and review everything you have written to bring everything in line with that change. Someone will always notice a mistake and those mistakes can break the illusion that holds a reader in a story. Continuity is everything. If it’ll help, and it probably will, keep a notebook or something that’s exclusively for the notes about any complicated storylines you’ve got. Be it how characters are related to each other or how religion works, even notes about food and clothing (which is important. Everything from the textiles used to the styling can say so much about the manufacturing of the world and about a specific character’s socioeconomic status).

Long story short: research everything and keep copious notes and reference those notes when writing. Please reference your research. I’m not talking about citations in text. Just don’t completely wing it when writing. A story that has been well-plotted and actually thought out with care is going to stand head and shoulders above something written by someone just making it up and not bothering to check to make sure it actually works. You’re welcome to make it up as you go, but please make sure it works and stays cohesive. A story falling apart at the seams is going to distract readers from whatever it is you’re wanting them to pay attention to. Read your own work. Repeatedly. As someone else to read it to make sure it works if you can’t decide.

Above all, just write it. Most of this is just little things that can be fixed in editing. Unless there is a solid story at the heart of it, you’ve got nothing but a bunch of words. Worldbuilding makes no sense without a story to tie it all together. Worldbuilding can be added in after the first draft, and after you know your characters a bit better.

(Think none of this applies to fanfic? Oh boy, you’re wrong. You’re dead wrong. Fanfic is actually harder because you have to do all of this while colouring inside the lines someone else drew.)

#writing #so this is how i write #worldbuilding #hermiowngranger #sara this thing is for you

[sometipsygnostalgic]

JUST FINISHED GRAVITY FALLS

weirdmageddon was amazing! FAR better than most finales tend to be.

i wanted to know what the zodiac thing was all about though... i’d never seen it before but it was obviously important to the fans who had theorised about it.... couldnt we at least see what it would have done???? it didn’t have to be the final conflict!

ANYWAY i dont have as much to say about gravity falls as adventure time for obvious reasons so im going to rank it... Without further ado, it’s time to heavily overthink about cartoons!!!

Animation: 5 out of 5 hats - this is one of the most BRILLIANTLY ANIMATED childrens cartoon shows ive seen. there’s no weird inbetweens, the lighting for each scene is absolutely spot-on, it looks and feels amazing! honestly gravity falls looks like one of the strongest arguments for using script-driven shows instead of storyboard-driven shows, because cartoon network has never in its life produced something that looks this good.  When it used 3D CGI it was implemented smoothly. The characters had no absence of body language and cues either, it was never boring to look at. Disney does it again!!!

Humor: 4 out of 5 hats - While I dont think this show is the literal funniest thing I’ve ever watched, it is consistently entertaining throughout the entire series which is more than I can say for the two cartoons (AT and SU) that i’m unfairly comparing it to. Humor is one of GF’s strongpoints, because the jokes it throws at you out of complete nowhere will always have you on ground. I laughed SO hard during this marathon, and the jokes are obscure enough that I’ll probably do the same thing on a rewatch. The animation helps significantly too. The character designs alone, especially Mabel and her sweaters, allow for plenty of visual humor. Soos is the sort of character that you dont know what hes going to do next. Grunkle Stan conning people got some of the hardest laughs out of me. Wendy is just.... Wendy reminds me so hard of early Marceline, except she will occasionally do something really cool cos shes from a family of lumberjacks. Let’s not forget Waddles, the MVP in the humor department.

Story: 3 out of 5 hats - If I made this post yesterday, I’d have ranked it 2 out of 5 hats. I never felt that there was any “story” to gravity falls, only some kind of ARG that added nothing to the experience because none of the questions were solvable until the answers had been revealed. But the second half of season 2 ups the ante on story by focusing on the Pines family and their relationships to each other, and you can feel tension rise especially when Dipper starts to hang aound Ford a little too much and you sense that poor Mabel is gonna be left in the dust just like Stan before her. Weirdmageddon also was way more entertaining than I expected! And how it ENDED? Oh jesus! The show’s final scenes were heartbreaking, if I’d been following for longer I might have started crying.

Characterisation: 4 out of 5 hats- holy crap, it’s just so much fun seeing the Pines family play off of each other. Each group has an entertaining dynamic, whether it’s playful like Mabel, Soos, and Wendy’s shenanigans, or more serious like Stan and Ford’s conflict. There was barely any time throughout the entire series that I was annoyed by how someone was acting, or thought that it was out of place and agitating. I think I might be giving this point a rather generous score because of how feelgood it was, rather than complex or deep, which in many areas it wasnt. For example earlier in the show the conflicts felt dumb, like the Jurassic Park episode where everyone was acting vaguely out of character to cause a sense of drama? idk. But later on it got more heartfelt, if predictable. Where else do I think it can do better?

Worldbuilding: 2 out of 5 hats - Yep, the area where I think Gravity Falls does the worst is worldbuilding. For 2 big reasons: The wasted potential of Gravity Falls itself, and the way its inhabitants were used. Maybe I’m just spoilt by the AMAZING job Adventure Time and Steven Universe do with this, but the land of Gravity Falls fails to be as interesting as Ooo or as realistic as Beach City. Idk, i think it’s more ENTERTAINING than Beach City but more because I get more laughs out of the show than recent SU. The issue with Gravity Falls’ civilians is that unless you’re a Pines, youre a straight up Cartoon Character. That rules your characterisation and your purpose for existence. This is fine and yes there are some memorable characters but they never have those hilarious moments of humanity, like the episode Root Beer Guy where the title character gets into conflict with his wife cos she thinks hes too involved with his actual realistic mystery novels, or the Graybles ep where Starchy ran away from the candy kingdom to get rid of a tracker in his tooth cos he knows  PB was spying on him, and he runs a little club conspiring against her like some kind of real life political group. His club and Kim Kil Whan having King of Ooo memorabilia lmao. I’m getting too into this but its moments like that which make Adventure Time feel great. 

As for GRAVITY FALLS ITSELF, yeah because the world doesn’t feel as real as it could be I never wanted to see what it had to offer next, and there’s never explanation for all of this. The journals play a much smaller role in the series than Dipper’s reactions over them would have you think. The closest thing to an explanation is the pondering over whether a spaceship caused the weirdness in GF or was drawn to the area because of this weirdness. But is it magic? Is it science? Is it different dimensions? Fuck knows! Is there any hint about the truth? I’m not sure! Yeah, not all things need to have answers, but it helps fire off the thinkpan. In Adventure Time the Land of Ooo’s weirdness is linked to an apocalypse that helped bring magic back to the land. The hint is that the magic potential was always there, because there were magical societies around millenia before humanity. Did magic disappear because of a comet hitting the planet? Is magic actually based on scientific principles? Like GF, not all these questions have direct answers, but unlike GF, you have enough incentive and evidence to construct your own theories. It lets you get absorbed in the lore of Ooo, of the characters inhibiting it. This is my own perspective anyway. 

I think the most amazing mysteries I ever saw unwravel were Simon and Marcy’s adventures, and more relevant to my own experiences, PB’s age. Like there was puzzle pieces and hints around indicating Peebles had been around way longer than 18 years or whatever but we finally got confirmation in Season 5.2 where we saw consecutive episodes showing her in the past. The theory was that she was younger than 1000, but could be any age older than about 50. The Vault was a shock origin story for not just Finn having had a past life as a girl without an arm (THE ARM BEING ANOTHER ADVENTURE TIME THING THAT EVENTUALLY GOT some really back and forth PAYOFF), it was an origin story for peebles and the candy kingdom! but why would she make it?? ? yeah this was all stuff we were able to construct theories for, and accurate theories, because the evidence was there and more significantly the Writers were putting it together at the same time. It almost felt like we were having an INPUT in the story because of this natural way it evolved over time. That’s why AT’s mysteries are far more engaging than those of Gravity Falls, at least for me.... but maybe the same thing happened to GF fans????? Because I wasn’t there to put the pieces together, to study the Pines family or the Bill Zodiac which.... was almost as much a copout as Finn’s arm but its ok cos the stan deleting his memories shit was a decent end anyway. I just dont know why theyd  put a mystery like that IN there if it was always going to be a red herring???

To conclude this description which..... ended up being another reason to talk about Adventure Time again, I want you to know that I REALLY enjoyed Gravity Falls. It reminded me of Over the Garden Wall in how it’s told, the characters it has, but much larger and grander than OtgW ever was. 

My favourite characters were Stan and Mabel. Yeah, Dipper and Ford were very interesting characters too, but while they’re among the top of their trope, they still feel like an overdone trope to me.... especially dipper and his Issues,,, Stan meanwhile I liked that he was a runaway fuckup nobody as a child who became a professional conman after his parents kicked him out. That was an interesting backstory.  

Gravity Falls, all in All, gets 3.5 out of 5 hats. To keep it real. Spend them wisely.

#gravity falls

[daffodilon]

Hey!! So I just hit a really exciting follower milestone and since this blog is pretty new I’m extra excited about it. @jikooktemple​ tagged me in this “game of tag” get-to-know-me meme and now that there are a few of you here, it seems like a good time to do it! 

don’t come for me for doing this when i could be working on my wips ahahahaha

Rules:

tag the person who tagged you

answer the 30 questions

tag 10 people

Questions under the cut:

How tall are you? 177cm! and before you ask, yes it is breezy up here

What color and style is your hair? it’s red/orange and i grew it out from a really short pixie, and now it falls past my collarbones. it’s pretty straight and manageable other than a little damage to the ends from me bleaching it :)

What color are your eyes? blue!

Do you wear glasses? i do! could you tell from the plot of cafune pt 2 centering around being nearsighted af 🙄

Do you wear braces? i wore braces for like five years and thankfully i have had them off for many years now

What’s your fashion sense? Today I’m wearing a cute denim romper. I wear a lot of big sweaters and skinny jeans, or shorts over tights with a graphic tee tucked in and a flannel over, or random pieces i find online or in thrift stores. cute socks are my favorite accents and accessories, and i like to pair them with pretty shoes. i wear whatever i think is cute and flatters my body type! sometimes people tell me i dress like i’m “not ‘from here,’” whatever that means, but they tell me that wherever i go, so hmm. lol

Full Name: for the purposes of this blog you can call me Dilon! :)

When were you born? 950920

Where are you from and where do you live now? I am from the east coast (US) and now i live on the west coast (US) 

What school do you go to? I’m not currently a student

What kind of student are you? I’m the worst bc I’m the kind of kid who rarely does homework except like sitting on the floor in the hallway right outside the class five minutes beforehand. but I’m good at test taking so my grades were always good except in classes where homework is weighted more than quizzes. I raise my hand a lot and i don’t cause trouble, so teachers tend to like me, and i used get away with a lot of crap because of it. that’s what i mean by the worst lmao 

Do you like school?  I like school and learning in general a lot! i do a lot of self-study, especially languages

Favorite Subject: Oops i kind of answered it above, but I really like languages, any language. I was always pretty good in english, and for most other subjects my experience depends entirely on the kind of teacher i have. I have never been good at science, i’m not really good at math either but i’ve enjoyed a lot of math classes taught by great teachers. Oh, art. I love art and I’m good at it. Music as well. 

Favorite TV shows. Right now I don’t have cable or any streaming subscriptions so I’m watching very little TV but I just finished watching Guren Lagann today and I cried. Come talk to me about it if you’ve seen it lol. I’m also almost all the way through Sky Castle. holy shit bro that show

Favorite Movie? Not to be a fucking basic bitch but I love a ghibli movie man. I watch those when I’m having a shit day. I like the princess bride and certain avengers movies, but, like, don’t talk to me about the new ones bc yikes. what else. uhh i’ll rewatch harry potter any damn day call me i’m there. how the grinch stole christmas w jim carrey: a masterpiece. *seokjin voice* it’s a 명작 you know 명작? don’t ever watch it with me, i will be so insufferable the whole time. i’ll quote every line and in between dialogue i’ll monologue at you about rick baker and sfx makeup until you shove a sock in my mouth and throttle me

Favorite Books? my recent favorite is brandon sanderson’s stormlight archive series. I’ve loved all his books that i’ve read, i’m a fantasy fan and his affinity for worldbuilding is spectacular. i’m also obsessed with nora sakavic’s all for the game series. she’s everything i aspire to be as a writer, fuck

Favorite Past time? I like writing! I also like singing, listening to music, pretending I can play piano... 

Do you have any regrets? like a million hahaaaa 

Dream Job I’d love to do music, I’d love to do writing, I’d love to be involved in translating/interpreting/diplomacy, idk i have a lot of varied interests

Would ever like to be married? lets just say it is very low on my list of life goals n priorities. 

Would you like to have kids? someday? who knows, man. am i currently in any way equipped to be tasked with raising a real live human and do it without fucking them up for life? fuck no bro

How many? bruh i have no plans in this area whatsoever

Do you like shopping? sure, when i can afford to. otherwise the experience is stressful and nothing else 

What countries have you visited? just canada unfortunately. not that canada isn’t nice, i just mean i’d like to go to more places

Scariest nightmare you’ve ever had? probably one of the ones where i’m having a bad dream and i’m trying to wake up and i, like, kind of wake up? like, my eyes open but i don’t wake up all the way, so now i think i’m awake but the dream is still going on? my dream just changes so i’m in my own room and i’m “up” but whatever i was scared of before is still there like it followed me into the real world. sometimes this happens like twice or three times and i keep trying to wake up and i can’t until over and over until i’m not sure if i’m awake or not and i’m just terrified. like inception and it’s awful. it’s like almost-sleep paralysis but not quite

Any enemies? idk who has actual enemies in real life but i definitely have people i don’t have good relationships with anymore because i fucked up with them and don’t know how to fix it

Any significant other?  no ma’am

Do you get along with your family? some yes, some no

Do you believe in miracles? i believe that things with a shockingly low statistical chance of happening, happen, all the time 

How are you? I’m warm, I’m sitting in bed, it’s a really nice day. The windows are open, I can smell the ocean, and my guitar and dogs are within reach. There’s always anxiety in the back of my mind but right now in the front there is peace :)

#dilon.txt #about tag

[mikkeneko]

2016 writing retrospective

Thanks to all the people that tagged me :) I did this last year, so I might as well do it again! I put the full list of fics at the bottom, so people don't have to scroll past it.

Total number of completed stories?

18-ish (iffy, see 'Word Count')

Total word count?

AO3 gives a word count of 221,975 but I think that's iffy; it's slightly inflated by a few non-story entries, fics that were crossposted to AO3 late that were actually written in 2015, and also does not  count tumblr-only fics. Still, let's take it as a fairly good indicator, maybe add another 15k for the off-site fics.

Fandoms written in?

Almost exclusively Dragon Age, with one exception for the Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle Olympics this year.

Ship/character breakdown?

This year definitely has a lot more Fenris in it than last year, although Anders remains the primary focus. Hawke and Justice have both stepped back a bit. Also a few unusual POV characters, like Cole and Merrill.

Looking back, did you expect to write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected?

Less, I'd have to say. I took a hiatus from my big project around about August in the hopes that I could knock out a big batch of other fics and get back to it, but they're still not done and I'm still not back to it. It didn't help that I got pretty sick in the fall, and that work has been insanely stressful pretty much all year, which combined to rob me of any creative energy in the later part of the year.

What’s your own favorite story of the year?

Personally I really liked 'Once Upon A Time (the Ballad of Ser Pounce-a-lot)' for its unusual format and mixture of cuteness and angst.

Did you take any writing risks this year?

Nothing spectacular; I wrote a few stories in epistolary format, which was new for me, and I tried out Cole's POV, which is very challenging.Plus ‘once upon a time,’ as mentioned above.

Do you have any fanfic or profit goals for the new year?

I really want to get back to One Elegant Solution and I'd really like to finish it; and, as always, I want to get into writing practice screenplays. Whether any of this will actually happen, I can't say for sure.

Most popular story of the year?

'One Elegant Solution' has the most hits by far, but I'm not sure it's fair to count that as a 2016 story when it was started in 2015. 'Subtle Touch' and 'To Hold Back the Sky' are about evenly matched as runner-ups. But I have to say that my biggest dark horse fic is actually 'Love Story,' the Templar/Desire Demon tumblr-only post that went viral.

Most under-appreciated by the universe?

I might have to go with 'Let His Name Be Not Forgotten,' a Cole-centric story that remains my only purely Inquisition-era fic. It got very little attention, probably because I'm not generally a DAI writer and so most DAI fans would have no reason to come to my profile. Still, I was very pleased with it.

Most fun story to write?

'Demensum Kirkwall Defensor,' aka 'Tevinter Has Imax,' aka the 'Ember Island Players for Dragon Age II' story where Anders, Hawke, Isabela and Fenris sit through a terrible cinematic adaptation of their own exploits. There were so many in-jokes and roasts in that fic… It was a blast.

Most sexy story?

Probably 'To Hold Back the Sky' simply because most of the other fics don't have sex scenes in them at all. I do think the 'zero-g threesome sex' scene turned out well, despite my apprehensions about it.

Most sweet story?

I might actually have to go with 'Fruits of Posion, Flowers of Blood,' the Merrill-centric story. Anders comes to help Merrill when she's sick, and though I'm pretty sure I succeeded at keeping everyone in character, I was definitely drawing on the more tender, sweet aspects of those characters.

“Holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you!” story?

Nothing on the main list really fits this category. Hm. Let's look at tumblr exclusives… There was the ‘elves as egg-layers’ fic, but that’s not really all that wild. I think my ‘testing boundaries’ phase of fandom writing is behind me, overall.

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters?

Perhaps 'To Hold Back the Sky' again. It and 'Blood Feathers' were my first attempts at really writing Fenris as a POV character, and that does change your perception of a character somewhat.

Most unintentionally telling story:

I'm not really sure what this means. I think this is the sort of question someone else would have to answer FOR me. The ‘Sit In Judgment’ series probably comes the closest to being my unfiltered fandom meta opinion, wherein I don’t really try that hard to hide my biases, but because of that I’m not sure it’s ‘unintentional.’

Hardest story to write?

'To Hold Back The Sky' has actually been insanely difficult to write, as much fun as it's been. I've struggled with pretty much every chapter, even the ones that ought to have been easy. I'm not entirely sure why it's been so hard. Constructing the worldbuilding and the plot has been easy, it's the actual writing that's hard.

Biggest disappointment?

As much as I hate to say it, it might have to be 'Blood Feathers.' While the end result was fun and people seemed to like it, it was a very truncated version of what the story really ought to have been and I think the finished product suffered for that. It ought to have been a much longer story about Fenris slowly growing into his role as a Warden and his bond with his griffon, but instead jumps over almost all of the character growth to play around with a 'fenris is a warden' for a few scenes before shoehorning in a romance plotline and then ending abruptly. I simply didn't have the time, or perhaps the energy (since this fic was written after I started to get sick) to really give it the space it deserved.  

And as promised, here's the full list of fics!

TIME ENOUGH 

ONE ELEGANT SOLUTION 

TO HOLD BACK THE SKY

BLOOD FEATHERS

DEMENSUM KIRKWALL DEFENSOR

GLASS 

A GOOD DAY 

THE LONG RUN

LET HIS NAME BE NOT FORGOTTEN

LESSONS 

ONCE UPON A TIME (the ballad of ser pounce)

Pride and Prejudice (and Gambling Debts)

Subtle Touch 

One Epistolary Solution 

An Avvar Love Story: THE LAST STRAW

Sit In Judgment: Anders 

fruits of poison, flowers of blood 

Not posted on AO3 for some reason, but still written this year:

RESET (Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle)

And that’s all!

#mikke memes #mikke talks about writing #mikke talks about herself #2016 writing meme #mikke fics

[hermanwatts]

SUPERVERSIVE: Why are Shonen Anime the Best?

Oh yeah. That’s a serious question.

Think about shonen for a moment. We have “Fullmetal Alchemist” and “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood”, two of the greatest shows of all time. The former has deeply complex characters and hauntingly effective direction on every level. The latter is incredibly tightly plotted, covers a massive cast of interesting and well thought-out characters, and is one of the most philosophically deep shows arguably ever made.

Then you have “Death Note”, whose first half, at least, is probably the most carefully plotted show I’ve ever seen, and has spawned a franchise so massive it’s even extended to musicals, of all things

Okay, I started with the best of the best. Let’s go down a peg. “My Hero Academia”, then. THIS show has a massive, sprawling cast of unique and colorful characters and incredibly exciting action set pieces in a constantly evolving world. But more than that, the characters are complex and interesting, with powerful arcs rarely seen outside of the most critically acclaimed TV dramas. I mean, Todoroki’s backstory, and the way it was integrated into his fight with Deku, and how what happened in that fight reverberates throughout the rest of the series, is astonishingly well done.

And holy crap, ENDEAVOR? Is there ANYBODY who is doing anything as ballsy as what Horikoshi is doing with the character of Endeavor? It’s actually kind of amazing.

Hmmm, okay, this is a beloved show, maybe this is still unfair. Let’ go down even further. The show “Magi” had two seasons and has mostly been forgotten, though I adore it. THIS show takes place in a colorful fantasy-Arabian world, has a large cast of unique and interesting characters, and deals with complex socio-political issues with astonishing tact and intelligence.

The character of Ali Baba is one of the best drawn characters I have ever seen, vacillating between cowardice and bravery, crushed by guilt but driven to do right by his people, afraid to lead but ultimately more afraid not to. What shows have characters as interesting or complex as Ali Baba? What shows deal so well with massive geo-political politics, deal with social issues with so much intelligence and humanity without oversimplifying any of the issues? Are there any?

Okay, shonen is really an age range, not a genre. Let’s take a look at another perennial favorite, the sports anime. I am not a big connoisseur of these but I am a big fan of “Kuroko No Basketball”. Once again, this show focuses on a large and colorful cast, has great character arcs for not just its leads but many different characters, and man, the animation and choreography of the games themselves is stunning. What shows outside of shonen put so much effort into making the actions of the characters look so dynamic and interesting?

I can go on. In fact, this is REALLY scratching the surface. I mean, “One Piece”? Holy freaking crap, “One Piece”? What story of any kind has done the sort of worldbuilding that “One Piece” has made its bread and butter?

And then there’s the Chimera Ant arc of “Hunter x Hunter”, a brutal, elegant, and moving commentary on humanity with some of the best characters and character arcs of all time, portrayed in such a unique and powerful way. It is awe-inspiring on sheer ambition alone, but that Togashi cashes all of his checks is nothing short of astonishing Not since “Breaking Bad” has there been either television or cinema that has matched the power and tragedy of the climax of the Chimera Ant arc.

And JoJo’s! What is there even to say about it? Is there anything JoJo’s HASN’T done? The artwork of JoJo’s has actually ended up in the Louvre!

So here is my question:

What happened that made massive, sprawling adventure stories with huge, complex casts and interesting and well-developed characters get stuck as “Kid’s stuff”? Why do we almost never see the sort of grandeur and complexity of shonen in stories designed for adults?

Don’t give me “adults don’t have enough time to get invested”. If there’s anything the streaming era has shown us, it’s that yes, they do.

I don’t have an answer to this. I’m just raising the question.

I will say this. In anime, there is one exception to this rule – only one. That is space opera. For some reason space opera is allowed to be marketed towards adults while still having huge casts, interesting worlds, and grand adventure – see (especially) “Legend of the Galactic Heroes”, “Crest of the Stars”, or even the Gundam franchise, whose robots are marketed towards kids but whose stories, mostly, aren’t.

But – in anime – outside of that?

What the heck happened?I really am not sure. I have no idea how we reached this point, just like I’m not sure why the west has reduced animation to adult comedy and children’s media. But I do know this:

Shonen is the best anime, and until I see the same sort of storytelling become mainstream among shows aimed at older viewers, well, you can pry “My Hero Academia” out of my cold, dead hands.

SUPERVERSIVE: Why are Shonen Anime the Best? published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/