i wish romance wasn't so hard to understand. how the fuck do i even tell these things apart

Hii! Important question:

How did you start your AU in the first place? Im having some trouble with mine so if its not a bother and if you dont mind, do you have any tips or anything for starting and developoing a AU?

HMMM, that's a tough question!

In my personal experience, I started off small. I had a handful of characters I liked and who's personalities and relationship dynamics I had the basic grasp of and just started posting about them. I didn't start out with a storyline or character arcs in mind, just the characters themselves and how they interacted with one another. All of the rest came after, and even still I don't have that much planned out in the grand scheme of things! I just let ideas take me wherever my brain wants to go, and I add or rework characters as I see fit

For making your own AU, I'd say one of the first things you want to think about (besides a few characters you know you want to include and their dynamics) is whether you want to tell a more linear story or not. If your AU follows a linear story (say the kind you'd find in comics), then think about your characters as devices within the plotline. You might want each of them to fulfill a role to progress the story, so how can you change them up to serve the purpose of the narrative? Of course this doesn't mean characters all need to be a plot device, you can have characters outside of the story you talk about, but the main ones should lead from point A to point B!

If you're going for a "whatever goes" kind of AU like I and a lot of other people do, then honestly, it's up to you how you want to do it! I had no idea where I wanted to go when I first started out, I just knew I wanted to talk about characters I liked and the trials and tribulations they went through. And you never have to stick with the things you first come up with - I CONSTANTLY add new characters, new dynamics, new plotlines, and new elements to backstories. I leave a lot of my AU open to changes like that

For developing characters themselves, I'd look at their canon backstories/abilities/characterization/events as well as fan interpretations of them. A lot of the time you can get good inspiration from what other people are doing - I know I did! But there's no stopping you from completely changing a character all together. In that case I'd say just do whatever interests you that you think you can apply to them. You can take elements of their common characterization and flip it on it's head; give it new meaning. You can make them fulfill themes and character tropes you think would be interesting for them. It's really up to you! All I'd say is have a basic knowledge of what the character is in canon before you do something completely different - it'll give you elements to work with!

But honestly, the main thing is to have fun. You have the freedom to develop the story and the characters within it however you'd like, and I don't think any two people will do it quite the same. Don't overthink the beginning, either! All beginnings are messy and complicated, and your best bet is to just go for it; you'll never properly develop it unless you dig your hands around in there and start playing

I hope that all helped! My DMS and inbox are ALWAYS open to anyone who wants to infodump or bounce ideas off of me. I love seeing the creativity people can have :]

Why do you not like neuvifuri? I'm just curious :0

crack open a cold one with me anon this is gonna be a bit of reading...

first off if you ship it (anyone who reads this) im so happy for you just tag it and we'll be fine i'm not going to hunt people down or whatever anyways if you love it DONT CLICK THE READ MORE!!!!!!

ok so like. i just think their dynamic isnt as wholesome/lovely as a lot of shippers make them out to be especially on furina's side. i believe they both care for each other BUT they don't understand each other.

neuvillette wishes her well and respects her BUT until focalors explained her master plan to him he didn't fully understand the depths of her stress and trauma. remember how in 4.1 furina was nervous about meeting arlecchino by herself and at first neuvillette thought she was just being dramatic? yeah. also he respects her and knows she's more than her public dramatic persona but he also doesn't like being seen as The Same as her (him telling traveler and paimon he doesn't agree with her on everything when they didn't even mention her) and publicly he even praises nahida more than her praises her, since he usually plays the "role" of being the Actual Responsible Man vs. furina.

and while furina does respect neuvillette and tries to rely on him (as like the aforementioned arlecchino meeting) she also finds it incredibly hard to open up to him and thinks he might hold some anger towards her post-4.2 AQ. and im not just talking about furina not being able to tell neuvillette about her whole masquerade. she doesn't even tell him about arlecchino's assault, leaving him to at first assume she just didn't want to go to the meeting by herself, and then eventually coming up with his own conclusion after the meeting. and after seeing furina's whole deal i think it's safe to assume she didn't tell him because she didn't want to be seen as weak or have any doubts cast on her which is like. really fucking sad.

it's like... frustrating as both a neuvillette AND furina fan (but especially as a furina fan) to see people gloss over the complexity of their relationship and just shove them into a feel-good "archon and her loyal dragon!" dynamic when canon pretty much beats us over the head with "yeah these two work together and trust each other but they don't really KNOW each other." maybe if they had more of the actual dynamic in the ship i wouldn't dislike it so much but anyways.

there's... a lot more stuff i could complain about re: most shippers talking points (conflating focalors with furina, saying she's the only/main one who helped him understand humanity) BUT that's on them and not the canon dynamic itself lol. and also we would be here All Day.

in summary i really don't like it when complex, close relationships are just grossly oversimplified or straight up ignored for an easier time with shipping to the point where they become a common or at least noticeably significant fanon interpretation. especially since a lot of it in this ship (imo) ignores a lot of furina's feelings and her own insecurities and view of neuvillette and how she thinks he feels about her.

I doubt that show will touch on this topic, but i d like to see Hunter struggling with his old habits and mentality (kinda like Lilith does/did).

Maybe it could show as him not talking any breaks from the research on how to return to demon realm or human realm to keep everyone extra safe. (Or later post-canon) But in an unhealthy way afraid to dissapoint his friends.

And Amity would pick up on that and either have a talk with him or the rest of kids sharing their adventure in EE "cuz there is nothing worse than dissapointing someone who thinks you are special". (That could also lead to amity talking about her experiences etc)

Obviously that would be just a part of his reason non-existent most of the time only appearing in worst times. Idk im just a big fan of gradual improvment that also shows how big of an impact had past on the character.

I absolutely could see something similar like that happening, given that the show has already touched on characters struggling to break free of their unhealthy mindset even after they've escaped from the environment that enforced it. (Lilith and Amity.)

I could see that kind of mentality being linked to the grimwalker thing. The deep insecurity over his powerless status is imbedded deep in Hunter's core but now its mutated into a different kind of identity crisis. How can he be somebody worth caring about if he doesn't even know what he is? It makes it a lot harder to understand himself and calculate his own worth so he's putting in twice the effort just so prove to himself that he's good for something.

I really believe that this season is gonna heavily focus on the Luz and Hunter dynamic. And like we know Luz is kinda in mental ruins right now so I could honestly see both of them slipping into similar unhealthy behavior, maybe even enabling each other. (Unintentionally obviously. But hmm...)

But ultimately this could be the thing that snaps Hunter out of it is really seeing himself in Luz. He sees her working herself to exhaustion, desperate to make things right so she feels like she has the right to exist and its like. It's fine when he's ruining himself but seeing it from an outside perspective is really what makes him realize how Bad this is. So he's suckered into improving himself because if he's gonna support Luz, he needs to lead by example.

(Episodes like ASIAS and Labyrinth Runners really emphasise that seeing his own insecurity in someone else really helps Hunter to process his feelings and truly see that it's not healthy.)

That being said I'd love some more Hunter and Amity interaction. I don't know if the topic of their similarities in the form of inferiority complexes will ever be revisited after they really emphasised it in Eclipse Lake but it'd be nice if they did.

I think it'd be cool if their common ground in season 3 is their similar relationship with their dad/tentative father figure(?) Like both Amity and Hunter have had a very strained relationship with Alador and Darius respectively until very recently. So their feelings must be conflicted. It's a lot for a kid to really comprehend so maybe they'd have an easier time if they talked it over with each other.

If it isn't to much trouble may I have (male) jjk matchup please. My pronouns are she/her. Im a Capricorn, my Mbti type is infj-a/infj-t. I tend to be shy around new people but I can be somewhat loud with people who im close to. My height is 5'0. Im not very athletic and im not a big fan of sports but I love to go roller and ice skating. I also love to read books and to also cook and bake food. I also like to garden. I've been playing the violin for 7 years. I love animals and im planing on becoming a wildlife veterinarian. I like to Watch nature/animal documentaries. I also like sweets. Somethings I dislike are people who bend or ruin my books and people who speak over me when im trying to talk.I love music, I can listen to any genre and like it but my favorites are indie,bedroom pop and classic rock. My ideal relationship would be with someone who is loyal and supportive. sorry if i spelt anything wrong. Hope im not bothering you:)

I think your Jujutsu kaisen matchup is 

Megumi Fushiguro

You are people who like each other's company. You are calm together, but you can also go crazy a little. Despite the shyness that disturbed your contacts, you found a common language.

Sometimes he's fed up with noisy moments and needs space. In fact, he needs it a lot. 

Maybe relax with a book or music. Or even with physical activity. 

Even though he doesn't care whether he is playing sports or not, he can do it or stop altogether. There are other activities as well. 

He would be able to go for a walk with you or skate in the park without any problems. He would not despise a foray on an ice rink either. It is a quiet activity that does not need to be strained. He just rides being relaxed. And to that, add some music or a nice conversation, you will be in heaven. It could be something he will really like as his favorite pastime. There will not be many people talking to him and disturbing the peace, and if you go alone, no one will interrupt you. He will listen to you ;). 

Seeing how you like what he can take is very good for him.

He can listen to you play the violin knowing you can. He relaxes at the same time. It's music, after all. Plus the peace that is there then. Likes it. It doesn't matter if it's a more dynamic melody or a calm one. 

What he loves about you is your love of animals. Even if his shikigami aren't animals but curses, they're still pet. You love each of them. Even knowing they are made of shadow. Dogs, rabbits, frogs... Elephant... bird... who cares. They are still animals that are docile. 

You were a kind person to him. He supported your dreams of becoming a vet. He knew you were nice. Especially to animals who sometimes behaved more human than humans themselves. 

Headcanon:

• He wasn't entirely a fan of cooking for himself. It was taking his time, but at least he knew he was doing it the way he liked it. 

He began to cook more often. He made any dish with you. He did what he would, of course, like without any particular exaggeration. 

• However, he was doing well. He cooked, fried, baked. Even the cakes. 

• Your time with the others was limited to just the two of you. He was not very bored with your instrument lessons or your own playing. He knew how you do it with passion. 

• He admired your desires and passions.

• He gave you care for dogs and rabbits. You could take a closer look at them and hug them. 

• It's okay for him to hide somewhere in his room and read books. Talk about them. He is also not against exits. Park, ice rink, shop. It doesn't matter. Even in the woods, he might be pleased. 

• He would not like to have another person with him. He would like to protect you and support you as much as he can. All the time so that you just feel comfortable with him.

"I don't want you to be sad. Do you want a rabbit? Or a dog? Look, people are ignorant. Do not worry. Come here. Do you feel better when I hug you? You're right... I'm a bit touchy now. I fully support what you want. I can help you. Together we will make your dreams come true. Pets love you. Or maybe not only them..."

I've started the process of writing my own love story. Its not a fanfic, but an original novel that I plan on completing someday. However, even though I already have the main story planned out, Im having a hard time with dialogue and coming up with ways for my characters to interact with each other(if that makes sense) I was just wondering if u have any tips 4 me. I know this doesn't have anything to do with gladiator, but im a huge fan of your writing style and would love to hear your advice.

Hmmm… well, dialogue is a little tricky. From what I’ve been taught in school, there are three different kinds of texts that can comprise a narrative text: action (the actual narration), description and dialogue. Action moves things forward, description somewhat stops time, and dialogue can achieve either thing, depending on how it’s used.

But dialogue also helps a lot when it comes to characterization. Dialogue is meant to convey information between characters, and characters, like real people, have different points of view, disagreements, points in common, and so forth. Each of your characters has had different experiences, and often dialogues are the best way to bring up those experiences (having a character talk about something that happened to them is often more dynamic than simply explaining it in descriptive or narrative text).

So, with that in mind, how to write dialogue? First things first: imagine yourself in the shoes of a character. Dialogue is the best empathy exercise I’ve ever done, because it really forces you to forget yourself and to picture yourself in someone else’s shoes for a moment (kind of like what an actor does). Two characters are unlikely to respond in the exact same way to the same events. Say that there are two characters in a sports game and one team scores: one of the characters cheers and the other grumbles in frustration.  You can know, just through dialogue, that one character supports the winning team and the other supports the losing one.

Dialogue can be difficult, but it’s a really good tool for characterization, too often better than description or narration. Yes, actions speak very loudly, but a character can be incredibly elegant in actions and appearance, only to swear like a sailor once their dialogue begins (then you’d get a pretty funny contradiction between appearance and behavior that makes for an amusing character). In short, dialogue is how a character interacts with the world around them, with their friends and enemies, with their family and strangers (characters also interact differently with each kind of relationship I mentioned here, the same way real people do). So when you write dialogue you give your character a voice, and as in real life, everyone has different voices.

You’ve said you’re writing a love story… dialogue, to me, is essential for romance. I don’t know what kind of story it is for sure, but whether your characters are instantly attracted to each other or absolutely can’t stand each other at first…? You need to bring up situations for dialogue to produce genuine bonding. Physical attraction alone isn’t enough to establish actual love, most fiction these days makes a deliberate effort to go beyond that, so dialogue is a must in your line of work. Dialogue is how you show chemistry between your characters, how you prove to your readers that these two characters have plenty to offer each other and can have a very special bond.

My advice is… generate situations where dialogue can happen between them. Push the plot so that they have no choice but to interact. Their first dialogues may not go too far in establishing meaningful bonding, but that’s where you’ll have to produce situations where they get to bond. Using Gladiator as an example, in chapter 9, when I brought Sokka to the Barge’s deck and he found Azula training there, they end up training together for the first time in the story. Azula’s warrior training shows, but she’s no expert with the sword. Because of this, the subject of why she never trained with Piandao came up, and this is the first time Sokka hears about her conflicts with her mother. Azula finds herself telling him about this, while obviously holding back a lot of information he didn’t need to know, but she’s still sharing something with him that she hasn’t shared with most people (namely… because nobody else has asked her about any of this before :’D).

That exchange is what I consider the first real bonding scene between them in the story, where they first truly respected one another and their many differences, while finding a little common ground, too. Knowing Azula wasn’t allowed to learn how to use swords gave Sokka the chance to offer to teach her, many chapters later. Teaching her becomes not only another perfect excuse for them to spend time together, but it strengthens their relationship because he’s somehow fulfilling one of her dreams.

And it all started with that dialogue!

So, allow your characters to have important things in their lives aside from their relationship (as it is here with Sokka, Azula, training, bending, swords and such). If they have common interests it becomes easier to weave in a romantic storyline. If they have diametrically different interests, you can weave in the romance anyways because of how they try to conciliate those differences. Give them more substance aside from their relationship (which is realistic, as people in real life tend to have much more going on in life aside from just romance), and soon enough you’ll have two characters who can interact at leisure. From casual talk, like what I explained above with Gladiator as an example, you can get a conversation that will move dynamically and organically through many topics. If it’s a meaningful conversation, it can come back sometime later, once one of the character brings it up like “hey, remember when you told me about *insert topic here*…?”, as it was with Sokka and Azula’s interest in swordsmanship, or when Sokka remembered later that Azula’s relationship with her mother wasn’t that good, knowledge he acquired thanks to this particular exchange.

In any case, this is what I recommend. But for other important things to note with dialogue:

Small talk is a thing: while some people will tell you that you should NEVER have empty, pointless dialogue in a story (because a story should be concise), people in real life can have some really pointless conversations. Yes, your dialogue, ideally, should always convey new information, but don’t be unforgiving with yourself if it doesn’t. Sometimes you need a few lines of empty small talk before you can get to the real meat of the exchange. The main thing to avoid, though, is turning a serious conversation into meaningless small talk, but I’ll expand on that in point 3.

People have different vocabulary: this is something that can cause trouble in some ways. It’s been a little complicated for me in recent times, I used to be better at it. But part of characterization is knowing what kind of words your character would use, and what kind they wouldn’t. You can have characters who are very eloquent with their dialogue (I try to do this with Ozai, because really, it takes some real weirdo to say things like “the universe delivers you to me as an act of providence”, canonically), others who are less so, and some who would just have absolutely no fancy words in their vocabulary altogether.Important thing to note: your characters, unless they’re meant to be you, or are educated exactly like you, probably won’t talk exactly as you do. One particular problem I’ve seen in some writers is that they can’t seem to change the speech pattern of characters, either they aren’t sure how or just don’t know how to do it, and it gives the feeling of mechanical dialogue, because it’s like you’re just reading the narrator’s voice rather than the character’s. Whether you’re making fanfiction or original fiction, your characters should have different speech patterns from yours/the narrator’s, unless there’s a very good reason for them not to have them (example, you can have a character who loves using literary quotes when talking, and you can also have a character who’s never read any high literature: by logic, the second character shouldn’t be able to use any of the quotes the first one uses in common dialogue).

Make dialogue meaningful when it has to be: I am a fan of small talk, of simple conversations between characters that can be pretty easy-going, casual, what have you. I don’t need every exchange between characters to be filled with “I AM YOUR FATHER!”-like revelations. But I recently watched at TV show that had just featured a “character death”, and it provided a perfect opportunity for the character’s best friends to talk about what happened (and to properly talk about how one of them was going to fill the “dead character’s” shoes from there on), and… the dialogue that should have been important was absolutely, entirely, meaningless. It didn’t change anything. It didn’t move either character in any direction. You barely even felt like they were affected by their friend’s “death”, that’s probably the worst part of it all (they shoehorned one of the characters getting tears in her eyes at random, despite the conversation’s emotional charge was equal to zero).In conclusion: when something big has happened, your characters will show emotion, will react emotionally, and if they don’t, there’s a chance they’re just bottling things up (and you should imply the bottling up through dialogue, which can be done). When caught up in awful circumstances, characters cannot simply indulge in small talk, or pointless conversations that lead nowhere. It’s in these cases where strong dialogue is needed. Anticlimactic dialogue is a very unpleasant thing to have in your story, as it can break all suspension of disbelief from your readers.

Don’t be afraid of having multiple characters in one conversation: I’m not a fan of big conversations in real life, but multiple voices in fiction have been ridiculously fun for me to write. Yes, you need to be versatile and switch positions with every new character you write, but for instance, I really enjoyed writing the Gaang talking at the cafeteria table in IHTBY. When you bring together characters from different backgrounds, different experiences, and have them interact with each other, you find yourself with all sorts of different chemistry between all of them: you can have characters who get along well, characters who like to bicker with each other, characters who have entirely different views in life, characters who have crushes on each other… you can have virtually anything. And that provides the opportunity for dynamic dialogue scenes that, for reasons beyond my understanding, a lot of writers seem to avoid like the plague. Granted I’m not saying you should make every single dialogue a multi-character dialogue, but I do recommend that you don’t run away from this, because I’ve seen people who do that and it only seems to hinder their stories in the end.

Your character will behave differently depending on whom they’re talking to: this is something I mentioned earlier, but I’ll mention it again: Azula doesn’t talk with Sokka with the same cautious respect she usually has to muster when talking to her father. When she threw that caution into the wind (as she did in a recent Gladiator chapter), not only was she terrified while doing it, but she took Ozai and everyone else around them by surprise. Likewise, she wouldn’t talk to any strangers the same way she talks to Sokka or her father.Characters will respond differently to other characters, depending on how guarded or how free they feel around the other person. Depending, too, on what sort of relationship they have with the opposite person: Sokka is Azula’s partner and lover, he has seen Azula for who she is, entirely, which means she’s at her most open when she’s with him. Toph, Ty Lee, Mai and others are Azula’s friends, they know she has a her softer side but they haven’t seen it nearly as often as Sokka has, so Azula is more reserved around them than around Sokka. Ozai is her father, due to her relationship with him she endeavors to NEVER show him her soft/weak side, so she’s VERY guarded when talking to him. Likewise, she didn’t show her soft/weak side to Zuko, her brother, until a little while before they parted ways, because she couldn’t let him see she wasn’t absolutely perfect, so she was very reserved with him, too, even if she would lower her guard just enough to torment him whenever she felt like it.An important example, with which I seem to break this rule (despite I kind of don’t…) is Sokka: he’s constantly horrifying people everywhere because of how he talks boldly to Ozai, apparently not holding back at all (truthfully, he holds back a lot more than most my characters seem to realize x’D). He doesn’t get a pass for this: everyone thinks he’s crazy for showing so little respect to the Fire Lord. Ozai thinks it’s amusing, sure, but most other people are horrified. If you have a character who talks to everyone the same way, regardless of authority or different positions in the world, other characters need to respond to it, especially if it’s as far out of place as it is when Sokka does it in Gladiator.

Let the character guide you: once you’ve established your character, dialogue can become a matter of impulse (as it happens to me most times). Only a couple of hours ago I had to backtrack on an exchange between two characters where one of them responded negatively to what the other character said. I couldn’t really write it differently, because the one character could only be offended by the other character’s words. I had to modify the full dialogue so that the response to the first line of dialogue wouldn’t turn a playful conversation into an argument.In short, you can’t force a character to behave or respond to situations in ways they don’t want to. If your character leads you in one direction, you can’t double down on them and make them act differently than they would. Once you feel characters moving by themselves in one direction or another you know for sure that you’ve been able to understand them… but that is a full compromise, so to speak. If you understand them, it means you understand why they respond to things the way they do, and you also understand why they wouldn’t respond any differently than how they do. So, if you’re faced with a problem like the one I described in the previous paragraph... change the situation, or the previous dialogues that can be altered (if changing the previous character’s dialogue disrupts their characterization too, you’ll have to rewrite from further back). Just, don’t force a puzzle piece where it doesn’t fit. That only harms your story further in the end. It takes away the life in your characters, because they feel less consistent and therefore, less believable.

I’m not sure if I can come up with anything else… but if you have any other specific questions about dialogue-writing that I didn’t answer here, just let me know and I’ll give you a hand if I can do so! :D