#but are you the writer of slaos?
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So fun fact. I followed you a few months ago and for months I’ve had this nagging itch that I already knew you(r account) and couldn’t place it and it’s been driving me INSANE. But I just saw your post about voltron and I like…blacked out for a second as it all came together.
You used to be an active reader of my old voltron fanfic and came into my asks on my old account to talk about it & aus and stuff! This is so funny—we’ve come full circle. You were a follower of my silly Voltron aus, and now I’m a follower of your D&Dads aus! Small world haha. 💖🌎
THIS IS SO WILD . OHHH MY GOD I LOST MY SHIT WHEN I GOT THIS EIEBEFWUAGAHAHAHA
I haven't been into Voltron for AGES!! so this was definitely a trip I had to think really hard on who this could possibly be.
IT REALLY IS A SMALL WORLD OMG !!!
#ask#STILL REELING FROM GETTING THIS#i think. correct me if im wrong#but are you the writer of slaos?#bc slaos was my FAVORITE voltron fic i ADORED IT its still in my top fics of all time#thats the only one i could think of sending multiple asks abt#and ALSO the slaos aus were soooo fun omg ....#BTW i was into voltron SO long ago that theres a good chance#my url was cookieartcannon instead of llumimoon#my pfp was probaby the same though. LMAO
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I need to stop.... Applying to zines....
#I don't do it often tbh. But two zine rejection/acceptance emails go out today#i already have one rejection in my inbox i'm just waiting on the other#zines are Fun but I think I just need to appreciate the fact that I'm a long-form writer with a style not really suited to zine work#and there's a very large and competitive applicant pool with more suitable candidates#though there's a comedy in being rejected from multiple zines where I know at least one of the mods has recced/read & enjoyed SLAOS#at the same time it should probably signal to me that while I'm not completely unknown in the fandom writing space#i'm also clearly not at the level for these zines#...this isn't even moping tbh and i apologize if it reads that way i'm just. thinking#It can be difficult to confront your own flaws in something you consider yourself Decent At#but given i've seen i'm not on the Radar for these things and zine apps make me nervous anyways#I'd be better off stepping away and focusing my energy on my current fics probably#ramblings
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heya!!!! I'm stuck in quarantine rn and consequently reading a ton of fic. I've just reread SLAOS and I had to message u to say thank u so much. it's probably silly but that fic has gotten me through some hard times and I always turn to it when I need some comfort (especially now!). your other fics are amazing too but SLAOS just sticks with me, even after I've finished it. anyways this is super sappy sorry. hope ur staying safe and having a lovely day, thank u so much! ♥️
aaaaahhhh...thank you. I’ve gotten a couple comments on AO3 too of people turning back to reread SLAOS in quarantine and it’s actually...incredibly touching. It’s so startling but moving to know this fic has such a special place in people’s hearts...even in its currently unfinished state. It really means to much to me to hear that.
SLAOS was always special to me, too, as a writer...sometimes I forget how much. Your ask actually prompted me to go back through its fanart tag a little and I forget what a wonderful little community it had. Sometimes I’m ashamed of myself for letting the pressure-cooker drama and directed-everywhere fury of the greater voltron fandom affect me so much mentally that I stopped writing it, when I had such wonderful readers...
Hopefully I can come back to it and see it finished--either one day soon or one day a little further away. I’ve actually thought about attempting to update it while I’m stuck in quarantine with so much time on my hands...but I’d feel bad tempting readers back after so long with what right now could probably only be one or two chapters and not consistent updates, with all the different projects I have to juggle...
But I want to see that story finished one day, I really do mean that.
And regardless, knowing it still means so much to you makes me feel very special. Thank you.
#no joke Ritzie and Lance's song came on my shuffle earlier and I kind of started sniffling#I loved (and love) those dork kids so much#and the McClains#I wish to this day Voltron hadn't so greatly deteriorated my mental health that i could have continued that fic without a hiatus#because it was never voltron i was in love with. it was the story and the fans who loved that story#thank you for your ask it actually really cheered me up#SLAOS talk#Anonymous#asks#questions for Nik
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4 17 21 23
4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)
I’d love to share original work but I am, as always, notoriously cagey, so:
Let’s go with a classic from Not As Simple-- “Like static,” he admits softly. “Like memory undone. Every time I think I know, I forget.”
I can’t really explain why I love this line so much? I mean...it’s obvious I do, it’s my freaking blog header. I guess I just love the wording of it--what is more terrifying, or more beautiful, than memory undone? To know something and then lose it, over, and over, and over. It’s the essence of Not as Simple to me--that horror of loss, and that love despite it. It’s a theme I think pops up a lot in my work in general.
17. Do you think readers perceive your work - or you - differently to you? What do you think would surprise your readers about your writing or your motivations?
As much as I love the concept of just beaming my intentions with my work into people’s brains, I think it’s inevitable people will perceive my work differently than I do. It’s something I seem to struggle with a lot in my original work--though sometimes I honestly wonder how much of that is on me and how much of it is just that my classmates are kind of just...skimming it.
I think my fanfiction readers are much more willing to engage with my work on its level--though maybe it helps that fanfiction largely plays in other people’s worlds that are already fully constructed. I do think I probably come off as a different, perhaps more confident writer than I am, though. I am an incredibly anxious person--I kind of live in a constant paranoia I’ll fuck up something in my work Big Time, either story wise or like...by writing something Problematic, and I’ll let people down and let myself down. This affects me most in my original work, but people would probably be surprised how much it affects my fanfiction as well. Sometimes it’s retroactive--especially since a lot of my older fanfics I wrote without much forethought as a teenager (or, once, as a very drunk teenager)--but I worry about them to this day. I’ve considered deleting or orphaning multiple works--including SLAOS, believe it or not--because I just...worry intensely about them. I’m not very good at going “it’s fanfiction, I wrote this as a teenager, of course it’s imperfect or silly or slightly problematic on accident, it happens. I can own up to that.” I’m terrified of hurting people with my work, even if I know it’s an inevitability because there’s so many people in this world and they’re all so different. And one of my greatest fears in life is that I’ve ruined my life/career already, because I wrote some dumb fanfic as a teenager that one day will come back to haunt me in some way I didn’t foresee.
Man that got stupidly heavy, huh...uhhh. Here’s something more cheerful! My readers would probably be surprised how much my stories can evolve as I write them. Not As Simple, for example, I went in with many ideas, esp concerning the fallen children, but a good 2/3s of Act 2 developed as I wrote it. It wasn’t planned when I started the story at all.
21. What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?)
Honestly I’m a super visual person--and I’ve been told that comes out in my writing a lot. I think if I was a better visual artist than I am, I would have been drawn to comics or animations as a teenager as my Way of Storytelling, rather than prose--which has always come much more naturally to me in terms of vague skill others will acknowledge lol.
In a perfect world, though, god I’d love to see animated series of several of my original story concepts. I’d settle for self-illustrated novels, but unless my art improves a lot in the coming years, that’s never going to happen. Luckily, my girlfriend is an aspiring filmmaker, so I might get film adaptions of some of my work through sheer nepotism.
23. What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?
Hm. Hm. Amongst my original work...I developed a concept for an elementals-based fantasy series in middle school I still think I’ll come back to one day (not remotely related to Avatar so don’t come for my ass). But amongst projects actually near the writing stage? The novel I’m planning to work on after I finish my short story collection. I developed the idea for it when I was around 14--it was inspired by my move to Seattle, the decade-long childhood friendship that fractured upon that move, and my queer Realization in high school.
Amongst my fanfics--Not As Simple, totally. Shit I was...16 when I began developing and writing that? And I’m freaking 21 now. Kill me.
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Hi there! Just wanted to know if you're still working on SLAOS at all? I get it if you're not, y'know, life happens, but I was just wondering. It's *such* a good fic, by the way. I actually have a rule about not starting anything unfinished but I read your fic What Would You Know (About What I've Been Through) and then I reread it and reread it and finally I had to just read SLAOS. Even if you never finish it, I think it's great and I'm glad to have read it!
Aaaa thank you!! I’m glad you enjoy SLAOS (and What Would You Know)!
To answer your question: I do consider myself as still working on it, yes! For others they’d probably consider a break this long between chapters a hiatus but I don’t…really like that word.
As much as I ran from the Voltron fandom when the last few seasons happened and all the Drama became too much, I have a lot of love for SLAOS. It really changed me as a writer, and I both want to finish it and feel I have a responsibility to at least try to.
Since the time I stopped updating SLAOS, I’ve just had…an incredibly hectic 15 months. (I think it’s been that long?) I had to max out my class credits for a couple quarters and do summer classes, I was studying abroad in Italy for a bit, I picked up and later quit a shit job, I applied and then got into grad school…and I’m graduating college in June. It’s been. A Time.
But no matter how busy things are, I always come back to my fics eventually! My undertale fic is a good example: I didn’t update it for over a year, then showed up with 30 thousand words of new content in two chapters in the same month. Shows how weird my writing progress can be I suppose lol.
Right now, I’m just trying to focus on graduating and on finishing up a Story Arc within said undertale fic (I’m really not in the place right now to be working on two fics at a time), but I definitely want to come back to SLAOS. It may not happen until June/early July but I hope and believe it will happen. Who knows? It may happen sooner. Sometimes things just click into place and I suddenly have the time I need.
In short: I can’t promise you when SLAOS will update. I can’t even promise you it will be soon. But it WILL happen. I love Lance and the McClain sisters, and Mavis, and Hunk, and Ritzie and Yuu and Tommy, and all the rest too much to never give them the ending they deserve.
#SLAOS talk#but yeah hopefully some updates on that over the summer#i may try to re-outline the story to make it slightly more manageable to complete?#bc as of now im not even halfway done yikes#and i honestly dont know...how much fic time ill have in grad school#given ill be expected to knock out a novel for my thesis#so....we’ll see?#asks#anonymous#questions for Nik
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4, 6, 16, 18, 22, 25
send an ask: get to know your author
4) favorite character you’ve written
Uhhhh. Hm. Hard choice.
I’ll scratch out characters from my original work to make it easier lol.
Probably Mavis or Remnant? Though in very different ways. Mavis was a character I spontaneously fell in love with as she evolved as I wrote SLAOS, and slowly became one of my favorite voices in the story. Remnant was one of the most thought out pieces of Not As Simple -- I slaved over their design, their voice...their initial scenes were pretty much the only ones in that story I’ve ever completely rewritten. I wanted so much to get them right.
6) something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated to change now
Hm. I’d probably go back and rework the first few chapters of SLAOS to be more in line with the current direction of the story, and to give Loraine a more active role. She was never intended to be just the “fridged” character of the story at all, and I’d have loved to give her an expanded role while she was still alive to make that clear. She is the heart of SLAOS.
I’d also probably revise certain sections of Act 1 of Not As Simple. Make it a bit longer and more in-depth. The sections talking about Integrity’s abuse in particular I look back on and frown, as they’re rather blunt and crude, and not the more nuanced approach I’d probably try to take with writing about child abuse now. Though I try to give myself a little wiggle room given it was three years ago, and I can definitely see my improvement in the progression of the story.
16) are there any characters who haunt you?
Loraine lol. SLAOS was initially intended to be a much shorter project when I started it, which is a large part of why Loraine dies so early in the story. It wasn’t meant to be that early at all. Now that it’s grown this much, and has that much further to go, I look back on her and go “damn. I really wasted you didn’t I?”
18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?
A Nail Through A Star is a huge one, I won’t lie, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone no matter their familiarity level with the source piece (Warning though. It’s not a nice fic). And this is going back many years, but I can’t deny Que Sera, Sera had a resounding influence on me as a young writer. It very much influenced how I approached Not As Simple several years later in terms of timeline bullshit.
In terms of not fanfic lol...Jurassic Park, definitely, and The Hunger Games, which is what got me interested in writing in present tense back in the day. As a very young child, Percy Jackson and The Companions Quartet very much influenced my early forays into writing.
Right now, though? Definitely Kelly Link’s work. Particularly her “Get In Trouble” short story collection. She gave me the spark for the magical realism short story writing renaissance I was enjoying over the summer.
22) are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?
Uhhh...Abuse doesn’t make me uncomfortable to write about, since I’ve obviously dove into it in several fics, but I am cautious about approaching it. It can be such a sensitive topic, and unless I’m writing based on something related to my own personal experiences (which, for example, is pretty impossible when writing about child abuse for me), I like to think it out and make sure I’m not being overly crude or offensive.
Writing sex scenes is definitely something I haven’t wrapped my head around yet lol. I’ve discussed sex scenes for Three Crowns in brief with Katie, but in terms of actually sitting down and writing one for one of my stories, I kind of start to sweat. Not my area, really.
25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of
Ooooh...I think I’ll have some fun with this one, esp since I was talking about writing chronologically vs. nonchronologically in the last ask.
Here’s a bit from one of my favorite scenes in SLAOS, so much so that I wrote part of it already, despite it being more than a few chapters off:
#ask meme#thank you!!#sorry i took so long as you can see i took my time with this one lol#markedpatches#asks#questions for Nik
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tbh it makes no sense but i get lowkey anxious every time new info comes out about season 2 of Voltron and they talk about getting into character backstories because... On the one hand I really want to see Hunk and Lance’s background, but on the other I want them to leave it the fuck alone.
Not only because I’m personally so subscribed to my own headcanon versions of them that I write, but mostly because I’m so afraid they’ll be the only characters without Deep Backstories. Because, no, you absolutely don’t need some sort of angsty backstory to be a good, well-rounded character, but at this point they could be the outliers on that front and given the way canon treats them I’m worried.
Shiro’s got ptsd and has been through Hell and wants his memories back, Keith’s probably an alien (and at the very least definitely an orphan who’s only emotional tie is probably Shiro?), Pidge has lost her family and went through a nightmare to hide her identity to find info, and Coran and Allura are the last of their species.
All of them have clear and established reasons for being part of Voltron due to what they’ve been through in their pasts (Ok yeah Keith’s is a little murky but we’ve at least got some clue)-- And so far all we know about Lance and Hunk’s motivations are that they’re good, selfless people. Which is fine? But I’m going to be so offended if we get their backstories and it’s basically “Lance and Hunk have never had anything go wrong in their lives, ever, and are just here out of sheer dumb luck”, because it’s too much like the mindset that they’re just the comedy relief. It’s treating them as the dumb, nice, friendly characters who don’t matter in the long scheme of things because they don’t have some Deep Personal Reason for doing this. The problem wouldn’t be them being a part of Voltron because it’s the right thing to do, the problem is that they’d be the outliers.
So yes. Give me Lance and Hunk that want to help others because they’re selfless (because they are fuck you), but also give me Lance and Hunk that have come from something. Give me Lance and Hunk that had shitty childhoods and/or had to work their asses off to get into the Garrison. They don’t have to have ties to the Galra like the others for their motivations to be important. Do not treat them as comedy relief, do not treat them as Nice Guys there by luck to fill up the rest of the team and “learn about themselves!!”. Give me Lance and Hunk that have worked for what they have, know what they want, and choose to sacrifice that because they are needed.
Either that or just leave me to speculate. If Dreamworks won’t give me this version of Lance and Hunk I’ll fucking do it myself.
#Also yeah. This is why I started writing SLAOS#because i wanted a Lance and Hunk who had complex lives and motivations for doing what they do#like everyone else does#do not screw me over on this Dreamworks i swear i will hunt you down and jam my fanfics down the writer's throats#Lance and Hunk are more than comedy relief#they are more than Legs#they are People#...i need to calm down ugh#Voltron#the Clarkster speaks#SLAOS talk#vaguely
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12 and 20 for each McClain sister (including Mavis and Slaos Lance cuz I'm thirsty)
OC Ask Meme: Describe Your OC
You are thirsty damn.
I got into some weird speculative-canon territory with some of these so just bear with me tbh.
Marcie:
12: their romantic life
Marcie is probably the only sister who had an extensive/well-rounded love life at any point in her history, to be honest. She’s a romantic at heart, and very people-oriented, so on some level she definitely values at least the concept of a partner (though in reality she’s probably not prioritized the finding of one extensively, she’s a very passive “if it happens it happens” person).
Especially when she was figuring out her sexuality, Marcie probs had several girlfriends during/after high school. Nothing too serious or long term. Eventually, as she got older and felt she had more responsibilities in life both to her work and her family, she dated less. It’s definitely still a fantasy for her, but Marcie would need someone who’s capable of respecting the duties she sees herself having to her family, and someone who can ingratiate themself too and integrate well with her siblings/cousins. Otherwise it’s a no go.
20: their reaction to a mystery love letter
Oh she’d be over the moon. Marcie is the exact kind of romantic who’d see this as the height of affection, especially if it was lengthy in prose and done on fancy paper or something. Handwritten would appeal to her over a typed letter.
Marcie was definitely an (accidental) heart breaker in high school, so she probably got a few to be honest. Karen probably helped her suss out which ones were men so that they could go in the trash so that she could offer them a polite refusal (while Karen made a murder face at them over her shoulder).
Karen:
12: their romantic life
If I remember correctly, Karen is the only McClain sister I didn’t expressly label as queer on some level or another (mostly because I never put significant thought into her sexuality tbh), but in truth...? She’s such a goal-focused person she doesn’t really have the time to date. Her first love is her sport of choice and doing things. She’s such an active and energetic person that unless she found someone willing to balance their schedule with hers in that regard, it probably wouldn’t work out.
She probably went on a few dates here and there in high school and college before eventually just...forgetting dating was a thing she was “supposed” to do. She’d rather be bettering herself than wasting time making small talk at coffee shops.
20: their reaction to a mystery love letter
She’d be somewhat touched, but if she found it too florid/poetic it’d probably make her uncomfortable, and if the letter-writer never approached her she’d probably throw it away. She believes if you want something you need to go and get it, and that extends to people. She wouldn’t have much admiration for someone who pines at a distance.
Igraine:
12: their romantic life
I actually straight up had an outline for Igraine to have a love interest in SLAOS -- a translator she met in the military -- and ended up pulling it for time due to a whole host of other shit I needed to cover in Lance’s early teenage years. So there you go I guess.
20: their reaction to a mystery love letter
Extreme disbelief, a period of conviction that this must be for one of her sisters and got left for her by mistake, followed by an extensive manhunt for the letter-writer with a reluctant Lucas roped in to assist.
If she couldn’t find the letter-writer, she’d probably be disappointed to be honest. What good is an admirer if you can’t chase after them?
Evie:
12: their romantic life
You mean Evie? The aro/ace queen lol? I don’t think she’s ever had much of one. She probably went on one date to a school dance or something, recognized how distinctly uncomfortable it made her, did some research, and came to her “ah. am aro” conclusion pretty quickly.
I doubt she experienced much disappointment in that conclusion, honestly. Their mother hardly put pressure on them to find romantic partners, and between the fact that (most of) her sisters didn’t date much, and she mostly hung around Mavis in her early high school years, who considered sexuality and relationships one part a joke and one part a manipulation tactic, she was hardly in a situation where she was the Odd One Out.
20: their reaction to a mystery love letter
She’d be flattered, even if she clearly didn’t/couldn’t reciprocate. She’d probably seek the person out or write them a note in return expressing her appreciation of their compliments, but that she wasn’t interested in a romantic partner, period.
Loraine:
12: their romantic life
Loraine has elements of Marcie’s romantic personality, but given she’s demiromantic and mostly hung around Lance & Hunk, Mavis, or her sisters, she didn’t really have extensive opportunities to meet anyone she might develop an attraction to. I don’t think she ever sought the opportunity out, either. She appreciated the idea but she ultimately was significantly career/goal focused, as well as family-oriented. Romantic partners just weren’t a priority.
20: their reaction to a mystery love letter
A weird mix of flattery and discomfort. Someone saying nice things about her is always Good, but she’d feel awkward and bad about turning them down, while also more uncomfortable about the idea of trying to reciprocate. She’d have probably panicked in the face of one until Mavis contacted the person in question and told them to fuck off.
Lance:
12: their romantic life
Uhhh I can straight up answer this in terms of canon, tbh -- 1. a fleeting affection that couldn’t work out. 2. a relationship with the capability to be incredibly healthy but complicated by the situation surrounding it (namely...Lance’s dealing w/a lot of external shit). And 3. the thing I’ve committed to endgame the story with, for better or for worse.
20: their reaction to a mystery love letter
Much like Loraine, he’d probably be both flattered and slightly uncomfortable, most especially because of his weird situation. As “a boy” he’d probably feel much more obligated to return the sentiment, even if he didn’t necessarily feel the same way and just told himself he should. Lance likes people, he likes the idea of a relationship, and he wouldn’t want to hurt someone else’s feelings if he can help it. Which can make something...awkward, for him.
Mavis:
12: their romantic life
Fucking terrible. Mavis’s natural reaction to romantic interest in her is suspicion/an expectation someone has ulterior motives, which makes things harder for her. It doesn’t help she also doesn’t have a good understanding of what’s healthy for her, or comfortably asserting her boundaries if she feels she owes/needs someone. Hence: Jeff.
20: their reaction to a mystery love letter
Laughter, and then unceremoniously throwing it away. She’d feel a little bit bad about it afterward, but she’d never admit to it.
#ask meme#SLAOS talk#Marcie McClain#Karen McClain#Igraine McClain#Evie McClain#Loraine McClain#slaos Lance#Mavis Paloma#Anonymous#asks#questions for Nik
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Happy writer's appreciation day! Or, sometime after that by the time you read this I guess, but, I love all the fics of yours that I've read! SLAOS, King and Reaper, Like Fire, Never Liked The Quiet Before, What Would You Know, and Not As Simple. They're all amazing! Thank you for writing them :D
I love how there’s a list of at least semi-respectable Voltron fics there and then just. Not As Simple lmao.
But wdjfhdfjhfjhg aaaaaaa thank you!! This is super sweet and it was a Delight to find in my inbox after getting back from New Zealand. I can’t believe you’ve read so much of my trash and the fact that you’re still here and supporting me means like... So much more than I can ever competently express.
#ok no thinking about it King and Reaper's kind of Up There in terms of Shitpost-ness but still#thank you!!!#sweet things#sorry for not answering this sooner my inbox has. a very large backlog i'm sorting thru#fractalabomination#asks#questions for Nik
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have you ever considered writing hance fics? you're one of the best Voltron writers out there and i'd personally love to see any kind of hance written by you. it would be undoubtedly amazing
Oh buddy you’re speaking my language. I adore hance. Like. Intensely. (A friend has even accused me of SLAOS being a hance fic in disguise because of my disgustingly obvious hance bias).
So yes, I’ve definitely considered it… It’s just. I haven’t so far because… Ok this is going to sound awful, but I have limited writing time around college and shit, and I often mostly write klance because I know I’ll get more attention for it… I have enough trouble pulling in the kudos without writing rarepairs lol, and even then when doing fics centered on the most popular pairing and one of the most popular characters, aka Lance, I still struggle to hit Good (like all writers I am at my core an attention hoe I suppose).
But yeah I really, really want to do hance fics someday too, honestly. There’s actually an old half-finished short hance one-shot set post season 2 I have buried somewhere I never finished, and lately I’ve been playing around with ideas for something of a vague hance FMA AU.
…Basically what I’m saying is, yeah, I’ve Totally thought about it, and if there’s really an audience there with my readers, I’m absolutely open to writing some hance fics. (If nothing else, I could finish up that one-shot for y’all sometime.)
#hance#ok honestly i actually applied to the hance zine a few months ago and didn't get in and i think that threw me off enough to not finish that#one shot i was working on? maybe? idk.#anonymous#asks#also thank you for the compliment but i'm rlly not#questions for Nik
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okay so this might seem kinda weird and out of nowhere but you're a writer and you also go by they/them (not entirely sure what your identity is so i'm gonna guess nonbinary?) anyways, do you have any advice on how to write nonbinary characters? I want to write an agender character and would like to know some tips from someone who actually is nonbinary. (idk if this is weird for you so feel free not to answer if you don't want to)
Nah, this isn’t too weird a question, it’s nice that you’re taking the time to think about how to properly write a nonbinary character! (For the record, yes, I am nonbinary, probably closer to agender than anything else honestly.)
The important thing to remember about writing nonbinary characters honestly is that there’s no perfect recipe for what “makes” a nonbinary character, just like there’s no concrete definition of how a female or male character should present or behave.
Nonbinary people identify and express their identities in a variety of ways– People can be agender, like you mentioned, genderfluid, genderqueer, bigender, or whatever. People might see themselves as somewhere between male and female, neither male or female, fluctuating between the two depending on the day, or something else entirely.
How nonbinary characters express themselves can fluctuate wildly– For example, take SLAOS’s Lance: he’s almost definitely somewhere on the nonbinary spectrum, behaves femininely and identifies with his sisters in what makes them “girls”, but still is comfortable using male pronouns/forms of address. Alternatively, one of my OCs called River (from Cora and I’s story Good Kids) identifies with they/them pronouns, dresses and acts in a more androgynous fashion, and picks and chooses over the gender terms of their relationships (They’re a sibling, and Gelen’s partner, but they’re also comfortable with Salt and Pepper referring to them as their Mother).
Mmmm… I suppose what I’m trying to say is that there’s no right way to do this? Agender characters are most often more like River, they act pretty gender neutral and often use they/them pronouns, but that’s not always the case. They may want to behave and look as androgynous as possible, or they may not care to change their natural appearance at all (this might depend on whether they experience dysphoria, which might drive an AFAB person to bind or an AMAB person to wear padded bras, for example). A nonbinary person might identify somewhat with whatever gendered appearance/behavior they were raised in, or they might identify somewhat with the opposite.
Its… More about the individual character than a strict guideline, I guess. Just like it is for each individual person in real life. I’d say your best strategy would to be to just… write a character that feels human, focus on what they like and don’t like, and build how they identify around that. While there should hopefully be some indicator they’re nonbinary, whether through their appearance, their pronouns, of if they explicitly state their identity, but otherwise there’s no “one size fits all” to writing a nonbinary character.
#saljdkhjfbg sorry i'm probably very unhelpful#feel free to shoot me another ask if i've confused you lol#writing tips#writing nonbinary characters#anonymous#asks#questions for Nik
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if you want to ignore canon then why don't you write your own story based off of SLAOS?
tbh that’s always vaguely been my plan? I like reinterpreting canon, that’s why I write backstory fics like SLAOS, and I also like exploring potential situations for my own versions of things beyond what’s established in canon.
However, I always wrote SLAOS to be canon-compliant, if a highly interpretive version of the characters and their behavior. My whole goal was to take canon and go “ok but what about looking at it this way”. SLAOS was always intended to be compliant to season 1, and then do its own thing once I ran out of canon material. (No, I’m not making this up as I go along. Yes I did have a planned ending for this fic from the beginning, as well as a potential sequel from Keith’s view if I ever wanted to go that far).
But honestly where I stand now…? I was happy to relegate SLAOS as “canon divergent” after season 1 and just have fun when, inevitably, something came up in season 2 to contradict the version of “Voltron” I’ve written. But we got so little Hunk and Lance content that, nope, SLAOS is still amazingly canon-compliant if I tweak a couple minor things in future planned chapters concerning Keith’s backstory, and I’m so furious that the writers gave so little airtime to Lance and Hunk I’m sorely tempted to just write SLAOS through season 2 and then go fuck it and do what I like, assuming I can beat the release of season 3.
As a friend joked when I was complaining, just “keep it it’s little bubble of canon-interpretation before season 3 ruins it so you and your fans can live in denial”.
Basically I’m… undecided? And if I decide to write season 2 into SLAOS i need to plan how I’m going to write it in (and also how to get Shiro’s ass back from the void bc Damn where he at). Ultimately, I’ll go in one of two directions– SLAOS will stay canon compliant through the events of the first season and then I’ll just run wild to reach my desired “end”, or I’ll push SLAOS through the events of season 2, tweak a couple things, and then write my “end”.
This fic isn’t some Great Epic to write the end of Zarkon and the freeing of nations, it’s a Lance story where I want to end on a point when he’s starting to confront his demons and trauma and shit. Whether I do that at the end of season one or season two events doesn’t make a huge difference, it just means tweaking a couple things and being willing to write a few more chapters.
And how much people actually want to read of this fic, I guess. I’d just end it “between” season one and two but there’s like. No Space there for what I want/need to do. So it’s one or the other as far as I can tell.
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10, 23, 27, 45
10. how do you do your researches?
Google lol
23. least favorite story you’ve ever written
God… some of my old pony stuff probably, maybe Secret Ingredient? I wrote most of it when I was like… 14 so.
27. best review you ever got
God how do I pick one…? Uh. Oh! There was this one I got for SLAOS a couple months ago that was so sweet I took a photo of it–
45. share the synopsis of a story you work on that you haven’t published yet
!! There’s this lance-centered (of course) Voltron one I’ve done some drafts and outlines for, but haven’t fully written or released yet because it’s gonna be longgggg and I want to finish SLAOS first at least.
I’m a hoe for Altean Lance AUs so it’s a story about Altean Lance kept as a baby in cryosleep in the Blue Lion, which is found by the Galra instead of the Red Lion, and is raised as part of the Galran Empire (bc for purposes of this story Rhian’s still the former Blue Paladin so Zarkon’s like “fuck it this war took my first kid I’ll keep this one”). Naturally, because he’s Lance, he befriends Shiro when he gets captured and ends up being er… “rescued” from the galra by the paladins, rather unwillingly. Basically it’s a story chock-full of pain (what else do u expect from me), Lance being torn between helping the paladins and going home (because he’s a Galra what are they talking about??), Allura freaking the fuck out because her baby brother is alive and apparently thinks he’s with the enemy, Galra with Actual Emotions and Feelings, and klance. probably.
It’s one of those shitty aus that have no reason for existing but I love A Lot.
asks for fanfic writers
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