#sometimes our brains can just switch up on us bc they’re developing
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Hey! Aspiring fanfic writer here; I was wondering if you could talk a bit about your writing/editing process and how long it all takes.
Thanks!
Welp, roughly the same extremely long amount of time it takes to actually answer an ask, tbh 🙃
So...I only know how my brain works, and I can only tell you what works for me might not work for you, and that's OK. I'm breaking into two separate bits, because I almost never do writing and editing at the same time.
And as far as a timeline, honestly it just depends. On life factors, what my hormones are doing at the time (jfc like the week before my period, I have zero creativity, motivation, or attention span), if I'm having trouble with a particular scene, if I'm getting consistent positive feedback (yes, I can totally admit that I write faster when I know a particular reviewer is following along with every update), etc.
WRITING:
First, you gotta just...be fixated, I guess. Particularly if it's an AU, I sit with it for a long time before I ever write a word. I go over scenes, think about how the world changes, what stays the same, what *has* to stay the same to keep the characters true to their canon personalities. I sit with the characters for a long time, too--not just the main characters, but the supporting cast, too. In order to predict someone's future, you have to know their past. Most of our present actions are actually reactions to past events, when you think about it. The better you know your version of the character, the easier every other aspect of writing will be. I don't know how it is for other people, but I don't ever "feel" like I'm writing. I feel like I'm "witnessing", and the characters are simply doing whatever they wish. (***this is gonna be a thing during the editing process, too, so hang on to that)
Then once I have a general idea, I choose a title. Generally, I do not even start a word document until I have a proper title to put on it. The title is part of the theme and aesthetic to me, and it grounds me in the overall arc.
Once that's done, it's time for outlining. I generally wait until I feel this weird almost tingling in my left arm (weirder still bc I'm right handed) and I'm practically vibrating with a need to WRITE THIS STORY NOW. Then I put on some Bear McCreary (honestly, any videogame soundtrack will do, as they are literally designed to help you maintain focus and keep pace) and fucking go to town. For me, it helps to do this with pen and paper, so that I can go back up and squiggle little notes in the margin, rearrange the order, etc, far faster than I could on a computer.
Important note: the outline is not the end-all be-all. Some things don't make it to the final print. Some minor storylines get tossed or characters simply...take a different path than I expect. I will continue re-writing and updating the outline as I go along. On average, I usually have 5-8 outlines per story, and they're often 3-10 pages long. I also have a posted outline, which is a log of all the scenes that did make it to the final product.
Then, it's the actual writing, at long last. I have found that I write best at the start of my day, before the noise and static of daily life comes in. So I wake up around 5am and spend 90minutes writing before beginning my workday routine. I have the Word app on my phone and may continue adding bits in throughout the day at work, if I get a moment. However, after 5pm my brain is usually fried and no more creativity happens. On weekends, I try to have one morning where I "sleep in" til 6am, and then write until at least 10am, sometimes 2pm, if I can get away with it.
The hardest part still is knowing when to transition and when to skip to the next chapter/scene/whatever. This is like...zero percent helpful, but I liken it to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's definition of pornography: "I know it when I see it." It may seem like a scene is circling, and sometimes it means you gotta leave the room a bit earlier bc the scene has already served its purpose. Other times, it means ya gotta stay with it a bit longer, because there's something the character is trying to say. Give them patience, and give yourself patience, too. Explore the scene and its dynamics. You won't know til you know and even then, sometimes you won't be entirely sure. That's ok, too. Part of the process. Remember editing will happen and you can decide then (hell, you can literally re-edit after it's been published, I've done that before too and added a note on the next chapter for any readers who might have read the first version 🤷🏻♀️ not ideal but still functional).
EDITING:
I do simple edits (spelling, grammar, etc) just about every morning as I reread what I wrote the day before, which is a refresher course for the day's writing session. But big "real" editing generally doesn't happen until right before posting.
Now, here's the ***issue from writing: sometimes, something just "doesn't work" in a scene. Again, you'll know it when you see it. The words a character is saying feels clunky. The pacing feels off. Something just...ain't right. More often than not, it means either I haven't truly sat with a character long enough to know their true motivations/backstory, or I am not giving characters the proper time/space/impediment to make the actions or say the things they're currently making/saying. I'm trying to force the flow, rather than letting it ebb and breathe when it needs to.
Absolute ProTip: You spent HOURS writing this scene. It's got some REALLY GOOD moments and lines in it. It doesn't work but you can't just delete it. It's your LIFE. I struggle with this A LOT, and I have found a solution: create a second "outtakes" document to cut and paste those scenes into. Sometimes I still keep moments or bits of dialog. Sometimes I later use bits in a later scene. Sometimes I never look at it again but I still feel secure in knowing that if I wanted to go back and use the original scene instead, I totally can. I don't think I've actually ever gone back to the original, tbh, but it reduced my anxiety about deleting the scene and starting over.
So back to the scene that doesn't work. I take it apart, figure out *at what exact point* it stops working, then work back up a few lines to see where the shift actually begins. More often than not, it's because I'm having characters express their feelings in ways they actually wouldn't. (people very very very rarely actually say what they're thinking/feeling, and you have to relay it in other ways). So I have to keep the internal monologue of what they're actually feeling/thinking, while figuring out how that actually translates via tone, body language, and what they do and don't say.
The "something ain't working stage" can take LITERAL WEEKS. I sometimes have to walk away for awhile, or tackle it only on days when I know I have hours upon hours to truly work on it. I keep circling back around, and eventually, the knot works itself out. Persistence, and insistence that "good enough" isn't actually good enough, are key. (this is why you have to fixated on the story you want to tell--because some days, it's going to take every ounce of that obsession to keep you going and keep you on the track of telling the story you wanted to tell, rather than settling or switching to an easier tack)
Sometimes, editing is a breeze. I don't change much, I may go a little more into the character's inner world here or there. Once you've been doing this for awhile, you'll just know when a story hits all its marks--and you'll also know when it's not, when it could be more or do more, and you can figure out how to get it there. There isn't a precise formula for it, it's more like cooking without an actual recipe to follow--a dash here, a bit there, you'll know it when you taste it.
And I'll leave you with this unsolicited bit: just write. Write often, write about everything, write what makes YOU passionate and happy, and absolutely write for yourself. Edit the fuck out of it, if you need to. Get a beta reader, if you need to. Get someone to just bounce ideas off, if you need to. And don't post it until you're truly ready and it's something you genuinely want to share. If someone gives constructive criticism, take in on the chin and move on (keep the notes, if you think they're valid, and toss em if you don't--you'll never be everyone's style of writer, so know that sometimes, people just won't be the target audience). Know that you'll grow and you'll learn and you'll find your own voice and like any skill, you'll develop a second nature about it--all those parts where I say "you'll know it when you see it" or "you'll feel it" absolutely come from spending a literal lifetime (28 years) writing stories, and thirteen years of writing fanfic in particular. It's ok if you don't see it or feel it right away. It takes practice. And you will have an audience at every skill level, no matter what (finding that audience? different story altogether...).
All totaled, this process can take anywhere from 3months to over a year. Stories are like children, I've found: they each develop at their own pace, and some may need more time and assistance than others. But they're still pretty wonderful. (except the bratty stories. they're the worst 🙄)
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I hope the rmd mc for kasumi is a bit different cuz she rly be hittin on my last nerve and I don’t think she would rly v✨i✨b✨e with kasumi in her current given state
i’ve decided i need to play matsunaga and cc before getting a better sense of the eicu guys but honestly some of these recent asks feel like my own brain jumped out of my head and started sending me anon asks lmao bc i totally agree. anyway i know it’s a controversial opinion to not like the rmd mc and i’m TRYING to be fair and put aside my bias against her and try to analyse what exactly it is that i don’t like, but yeah i just don’t really find that she has romantic chemistry with the characters (that i’ve read, i.e. takado and hosho). not that anyone ever asked for this, buuuuuut this ask has basically triggered yet another mc rant so stop reading here or get ready and settle down with some popcorn lmao.
DISCLAIMER: this is all just my personal opinion! and i’m sure many of you will disagree with me. please place a “i think/believe/feel” before every claim i make as everything i say here is just my own feeling towards her. i also need to disclaim that i have only properly read takado and hosho’s routes (bc i’m still...mad at sen’s route, and i’ve only made it through one chapter of matsunaga so far) and i understand (and fully subscribe to) the idea that mcs read differently depending on the route as well. and as always, please don’t let my opinions affect your own enjoyment of any characters or titles that you love!
ALSO as i was writing this, i went back and read my previous rant about her and i realised that i’m more or less reiterating the same points i made there but in a (hopefully) more structured and slightly more developed manner whoops.
so here’s almost 3000 words and a whole bunch of screenshots under the cut because i don’t want to spam everyone’s dashboards with my unprompted Opinions(tm).
so anyway i’ve been thinking it’s a translation/tone thing. when i have the time/energy, i might sit down and really try to analyse the actual language, but just going off my intuition, i think maybe it’s because:
1. sometimes they choose to express something idiomatically and so that tone doesn’t come across as sincere. this isn’t a real example, but let’s think about the difference in tone between “oh no!” and “yikes”. because of modern day vernacular, we kind of associate “yikes” with a sarcastic and judgmental tone, whereas “oh no!” might connote a more genuinely concerned reaction. so sometimes i think that the use of very contemporary vernacular (which, lbr, trends towards a more sarcastic tone in general bc us gen z kids are mean) results in a lack of sincerity which makes the mc come across as a little more callous and less... actually kind and nice? i did get the feeling that hlitf mc has recently swayed towards this sort of tone as well and suspected that they had the same translator (which was confirmed later in a voltage Q&A). i’m definitely #biased but i can forgive this more because we had a good amount of content with her being adorable before the tone switch so i have a pre-established impression of her in my mind.
by the way, i just want to say that while i do have this critique, i do really admire and respect the voltage translation and localisation team (and am... super indebted to them) and i do think they do fantastic translations generally.
anyway, i believe this linguistic issue is at least partially responsible for my personal perception of the rmd mc’s personality that i expand on in the succeeding points, but my next point has more to do with the writing and characterisation of the most recent wave of mcs.
2. rmd mc has very few visible vulnerabilities. i think this is one of my biggest qualms with the new title mcs like rmd, destind and mk but i think stories are at their best when you get to see the mc fail and be vulnerable and wallow. the reason why i love certain mcs - particularly the ones whose titles and storylines centre around their careers (hlitf, irresistible mistakes, my last first kiss, scandal, celebrity darling, kiss of revenge, sleepless, otbs, arguably msb, etc.) - is because we get to see them fail and then grow. not only that, but you often get to see the relationship between the mc and the love interest deepen in these moments. but if you have a ‘perfect’ mc, then there’s no room for growth, so plotlines are forced to fall back on drama and trauma on the love interest’s side which... is exactly what rmd and mk do.
this is not to say that rmd mc doesn’t make mistakes, because she certainly does, but i don’t find that they’re ever genuinely serious mistakes. for example, think about hlitf mc’s repeated mistake in season 1 of going after small crimes without seeing the bigger picture and thus potentially messing up an entire investigation. they allow her that space to mess up and be completely wrong for public safety. then they give her the time to be self-reflective and run away back to nagano really think about what her mistakes are, and where to go from there. she is confronted with humbling failure, and is forced to address issues about her own pride/ego, and matures into someone who has a more nuanced idea about justice. on the other hand, rmd mc never has to (consistently, afaik) go through a genuinely humbling experience, so she her pride/ego/arrogance never gets seriously called into question. maybe this is because the premise of rmd has to do with life and death and they don’t want to make it seem like she’s directly responsible for someone’s death, but hlitf also deals with life and death issues and the mc learns that if she messes up to save one civilian, she may actually be jeopardising the lives of tens or hundreds or more.
anyway, taking takado’s route as an example, because this was our exposure to her as a character, the most frustrating thing is the way that she tries to lecture takado that he’s wrong about his attitude towards amputations, and never actually has to personally experience the potentially disastrous consequence of putting her ideology into practice. i think i would have enjoyed the route a lot more if she had gone over his head and naively made the decision not to do an amputation and then the person ended up dying or having to have a larger section amputated all because she was like uwu we can’t just cut off people’s limbs without waiting. i think if that situation had happened, we could have seen her actually have to confront her own naiveté and realise that she’s a noob and too idealistic and that reading a lot of medical journals does not translate to having actual field experience and intuition and who is she to question him like that when she knows nothing. she only realises that omg... we may have to consider some things with something called nuance... basically when more of takado’s backstory is revealed.
(maybe this is because i work in academia so it extra-frustrates me, but omg if i had to one-on-one mentor a student like her, i would genuinely go nuts. she reminds me of some students that some colleagues and i have had where they “well, actually” at everything you say bc they read some stuff on reddit or twitter that has absolutely not been proven through practical application of, or research conducted through the lens of, their theory. like imagine i told my advisors “despite being experts in [their respective fields] and having written numerous very important books, you’re wrong because i don’t agree but i have never myself conducted proper research to counter that!!”)
basically i wish they treated takado’s route like kaga’s routes (bc lbr takado and kaga are maybe... the same person?). look at the self-reflection here:
and here:
she does get down on herself at times, but look at the way that she humbly accepts her mistakes. sometimes she wallows on her mistakes, as anyone would, but look at the way she examines her failures and turns that feeling of inadequacy into motivation to work harder and smarter.
by the way, these screenshots are from his ms1 and ms2 - so pretty early on - and we get to see her learn from these mistakes because she’s allowed to make them. we also get to learn more about kaga’s strictness and his kindness because of these mistakes.
i don’t know if the whole refusal to allow rmd mc to make significant errors is a response to readers who are like “omg.... why are voltage mcs so weak, why can’t they be perfect women who never get anything wrong” but ANYWAY i just feel like they never confront or address her hubris properly.
3. following on from point 2, i find her one-dimensional. i’ve mentioned this before in a rant, but i don’t find her to be a very deep character bc to me, she reads as mostly surface level sass. i said: “her dialogue with them often reads as like they put 100 points in “snark” and 0 points in any other personality trait” lmao. so she’s great in one-off screenshots where you can see her bite back with a very screenshottable one-liner, but i find it tiring to have 30 chapters of her just literally running her mouth. because of this constant tone that they keep giving her, i find it really difficult to see any emotional depth in her character. because she’s the perspective character, her internal dialogue is just as, if not more, important as the love interest’s external dialogue in terms of carrying the emotional weight of falling in love, and i just don’t understand how there’s any sense of two people falling in love and getting to know each other when every sentence out of her mouth is just sass. can you imagine you meet someone and you get to know them but never have any genuine conversations bc every line out of your mouth is sarcastic? like your date is opening up and telling you about some difficulties he’s going through (which i’m sure you all know is a very vulnerable and scary thing to do) and instead of being empathetic and kind and understanding, you’re just like “sucks to be you dude”. and instead of saying “you don’t need to carry everything on your shoulders”, you say “you’re STUBBORN and i’m RIGHT”. OF COURSE i’m being kind of hyperbolic here (not even that much tho, see screenshots below) but that’s basically the tone she constantly takes.
so when takado opens up about the rina thing, instead of being like “oh shit i’ve been judging him all this time and i’m genuinely sorry because i didn’t know a thing about you and yet i’ve been running my mouth”, she says “your head is as hard as a rock ya know?” and then KEEPS GOING.
where’s the empathy sis? where is it? i’m looking but i can’t find it.
EVEN TAKADO WAS LIKE “I WAS TRYING TO TALK SERIOUSLY ABOUT IT”
and then the writers just push off her rudeness as like “it’s okay it’s chill!! takado laughed about it afterwards and it made the issue sound insignificant!!” even tho it’s obviously an extremely traumatic thing? WHY does he even fall in love with her??? i don’t UNDERSTAND alsdkfjs she has NO FEELINGS!! i just want genuinely romantic moments... is that too much to ask... it’s called romance md...
once again, let’s compare that to hlitf mc, when she finds out about kaga’s trauma. literally the FIRST reaction she has is to consider his feelings.
without even hearing his side of the story, she defends him because she trusts him and immediately empathises with him and the first thing she does is try to understand him and where he’s coming from.
later on, when she hears him just dismissing things and playing callous, she actually cries on his behalf, which shocks him because he’s not used to people caring about him:
isn’t that a MASSIVE difference in reaction to essentially the same character opening up about their trauma? which do you find more conducive to developing emotional intimacy? in my opinion, it’s so much easier to fall in love with someone who supports you and has your back and trusts and believes in you and tries to understand you and can have a genuinely caring conversation with you when you need it. by the way, it’s not like kaga’s mc doesn’t sass him either! they have great bantery chemistry and she shit-talks him ALL THE TIME (a lot of the time under her breath and he’s like HUH? it’s great).
and yet... we still actively see her caring about him... instead of being like WHOOPS my tongue slipped, i can’t help that i’m naturally insubordinate ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
by the way, i’m not trying to put the onus on female characters/heroines to be caring/empathetic/kind/loving. i’m putting the onus on ALL characters to be caring/empathetic/kind/loving in their own ways if we’re supposed to be convinced that they’re falling in romantic love. sure, kaga’s mc is exceptionally loving but kaga returns that love with his own ALL the time ;~~; anyway i’m gonna stop talking about them for now bc otherwise i would just completely derail and keep going on and on about them.
anyway, back to takado, i actually find him to be more caring and loving than his mc? i actually genuinely like takado as a character and i think that real life me and him would be great together so i’m like extra offended that he’s with her rather than ME??? i would treat him so much better.
i consider this lack of emotional depth to actually be a bigger hindrance on my enjoyment of the game than the lack of flaws thing. voltage’s recent wave of mcs with the love choice titles have been trending towards the ‘perfect woman’ type of mc, but while i have some Thoughts(tm) here and there about the other protagonists, none of them strike me as being as hard to get along with as rmd’s mc. so i’ve mentioned my issue with the masukisu mc’s weird moral boundaries (more an overall voltage issue that manifests the most strongly in her character), but i also do find that they don’t let her make big mistakes and they present her as this perfect superwoman figure with no weaknesses which like... unrelatable. but at least her banter is flirty banter and there’s a lot of chemistry there (even if it’s sometimes lacking emotional depth, as in some of kazuomi’s scenes - and that’s not her fault, that’s 100% on kazuomi lol). you can definitely understand why they’re attracted to each other at least, and you can definitely see real, deep love form between her and yuzuru the most. even though the masukisu mc is a ‘perfect woman’, the premise is designed to spark relationship conflict and the writing really helps us understand the emotional turmoil of falling in love with a target because of how much it lets the mc dwell on it. destind too basically has a perfect mc in terms of work/career, but they let her have her very glaring weaknesses and, once again, the premise forces her to address her shortcomings with regards to her idealistic view on soulmates/destiny and explores the head vs heart thing where she has to really examine her emotions and how they potentially come into conflict with her preconceptions of and preoccupation with numerical compatibility.
thinking about it objectively, i feel like takado’s mc and mlfk ayato’s mc have a couple of similarities in the way that they don’t realise they’re in love for the longest time (although obviously childhood friends to lovers provides a better context for not realising that love - same with my boi natsume), but there’s just something lovable about mlfk’s mc that i don’t see in rmd. without going too deeply into it bc (1) i’m tired and (2) i’ve been going on about this for WAY too long now, i think that comes back to tone or writing (and possibly translation) style. i think at some point, i might actually go and compare the language in the “omg am i in love...?” scenes between takado’s mc, ayato’s mc and natsume’s mc but uh... not tonight haha.
actually, at some point, i genuinely wondered if rmd mc was aromantic. i really just thought she did not experience romantic attraction because i literally got no sense of it through her internal monologue bc they kept pushing the whole like “i only relate to people’s ~aesthetics~” thing. and then i wondered how they were going to make an aromantic mc fall in romantic love...? because... it’s an otome game? (btw i’m not saying that aro people can’t enjoy otoge, i definitely know people who do! but there’s a big diff between someone playing an otoge vs someone being a character falling in romantic love in an otoge. but please call me out if i’m misunderstanding aromanticism!). anyway, long story short, rmd mc (takado’s especially) falling in love is absolutely unconvincing to me because i find her dialogue - both internal and external - rather unfeeling.
these three points (1. translation that favours colloquialism over communicating emotional tone; 2. characterisation of a hubristic mc who doesn’t need to overcome significant challenges; 3. lack of emotional depth and empathy/understanding) are basically why i don’t think that she has good romantic chemistry with the love interests in romance md that i’ve read so far. i also have some very petty personal gripes (sekai...........) but they’re not relevant to this particular topic and frankly just... really petty so i don’t want to get into them here.
so anyway, long story short: i agree that i don’t think she would really vibe with kasumi in her current given state. like, they could be friends, maybe.
#romance md: always on call#rmdaoc#munechika takado#i'm... afraid to tag this#but i must do it to keep my blog organised so i can come back and find this#her love in the force#hlitf#hyogo kaga#voltage inc#otome romance#love 365#love choice#snow writes#meta#snow rants#that should be a new tag#voltage mc
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super long rambling and a fair bit of whining abt my relationship with dance AUs bc this is what my brain chose to fixate on for my whole extremely sloggish run
Because I love dance and because I love writing and because I do rather a lot of both, I pretty consistently struggle with my complete and utter block on writing dance AUs and I’ve basically realized that it comes down to a three-prong barricade that gets progressively harder to overcome as you move through it
Because part of it is just technical. Writing about dance is hard from a dancer’s perspective. I know dance, I know the mechanics of it and the sensations of it. I can walk you through the technical details of a 3-minute variation and I can tell you how my heart lifts and body fills with light the moment I step onto the stage. I can give you the nitty gritty and I can give you the grand metaphors—and I cannot for the life of me balance the lens on the middle ground.
I got asked on bumble what my favorite dance step is and immediately answered tour jete (or entrelace, depending on your school). And then, because the person wasn’t a dancer, I followed up with, “it’s a big fun jump that makes you feel like you’re flying.”
Yeah. That clears everything up.
A story cannot be made by a Big Jump That Feels Like Flying. Do you know how many steps that could cover?? Hell, how many disciplines?? A barrel leap is a big jump that can feel like flying. So is an Italian pas de chat. All three of these are w i l d l y different steps.
So there’s the words but—how to translate a language of precise motion and sweeping emotion into plain language accessible to people who haven’t grown up in this pidgin tongue of bad French and weird metaphors. Tombe pas de bourre glissade pas de chat contre temps—this is my language of dance. This is not only clear instruction on what steps to take but also the rhythm of it conveyed in the syllables and accents. I read this and not only see the dance across stage but feel the sway of my torso as I mark along, the flick of my wrist as I shape the steps before they’re taken, physical reminders of 17 years of training and study.
A reader reads this and their eyes glaze over and roll back in their heads.
To go the opposite way, to lay it all out in the actual physical motions is, if possible, even worse. Fall (gracefully) onto your right leg while extending your left with pointed foot to cross your left behind your right to step your right to the side to— *gasp for breath* Yeah, no.
The solution to this, in theory, is the kind of checklist I go through while performing: emotion, motion, technique. (Incidentally, this is the opposite of my checklist while rehearsing or taking class) Draw the reader in with the feel of it, move them with familiar steps, punctuate with the details. In theory. I’ve yet to make it work.
And then there’s the fact that I have had a very weird education and career in dance. I grew up dancing in the rural Midwest US—not exactly a hub of performing arts (and if you mention Joffrey, I will kindly invite you to look up “rural” and then look at Chicago).
The vast majority of dancers in the rural midwest (...RMWUS??) go to competition schools. Think Dance Moms, high kicks and tricks on Instagram, trophies and tiaras.
I.....went to a university.
We learned more about kinesiology than kicks. My teachers were fascinated by the way I could “jump like a boy” and didn’t once mention my waist circumference. It would be a lie to say it was all daisies and sweetcakes. We were competitive. Sometimes we were brats. We learned to push through severe physical pain and turned perfectionism to a weapon. Teachers had favorites and older girls could be downright mean.
But, having now danced at a competition studio, it was wildly different. When there were tears in the dressing room, it was because we were graduating and going far across the country from each other—not because a teacher had come in and yelled at the entire cast for 15 minutes right before the show. When auditions came around, we discussed each other’s strengths and weaknesses and together determined what we thought the best casting would be (tbc we did not have a say in casting, it was all just a thought exercise).
We learned about dance not as an isolated thing we do but as a part of life—dance as an expression of culture, dance as a remarkable maximization of the human body—and are still always welcomed home.
I do, if I’m totally honest, think I got a better education than people at competition schools. But when it comes to writing fanfic...this is not a model of dance that is super easily accessible. Competition dance is on TV, Instagram, it’s all over. A rigorous academic approach to modern ballet...is not.
Lastly and ultimately the biggest stumbling block is: dance has always been a very gendered experience for me. My weird university education was surprisingly queer and unsurprisingly liberal, but I am a ballerina—not a danseur, not a ballet dancer. I grew up huddling under the edge of the grand piano with my friends hastily sewing pointe shoes and tingling with anticipation when we were finally old enough to wear platter tutus. I grew up pulling my hair back in tight buns and only being allowed to wear small earrings in class when I was in high school.
There’s some crossover of course. I’ve got (as Colorado Ballet says) Mad Hops so my teacher would make me do men’s tempo jumps while the rest of the girls stood on the side and caught their breath. My partner for a pas de deux fell sick one tech week so my best friend, female, partnered me instead.
Men can (and increasingly do) train in pointe shoes and wear tutus. Look at James B. Whiteside and Harper Watters for some of the most obvious examples. It is wonderful and remarkable to see gender roles changing in ballet and dance and that should be expressed in fiction as well. Men dance. Men do ballet and not just to hold up the women or to do big jumps. They can point their feet too, y’all.
(Here is where the whining really begins. Just so you’re warned.)
But when I sit down to write, the stories I want to tell are the stories I know—queer women growing up and training and learning together and challenging and supporting each other. The way you are taught ballet is very dependent on your gender. Men can train in pointe shoes, but that’s not the classical or traditional route.
While my friends and I were taping our toes and grimacing about dead shanks, the guys in our cohort were in a separate class learning how to perform big jumps and turns in second. While I was cinching tight my friend’s corset-back bodice, the guys were in tights and a shirt. Again with the jumps—it wasn’t that I was a good jumper or that I was a strong jumper, it was that I jumped like a man. It was a compliment, but it was also an exception.
Meanwhile, most of my fandoms are very heavily male. The one time I attempted to write a dance AU was for VLD and I immediately ran into the baffling problem of “There are too many boys.” As someone who’s danced my whole life...this is not (usually) a problem in the real world of dance. If I write AUs about the main characters, I am writing about male dancers. Again, great! We need more positive and varied depictions of men dancing—but it’s not what I want to write.
I wrote out an entire paragraph here only to realize that the crux of the problem is actually the usual crux of my problem with gender in fanfiction and it is, quite simply: I want more well-developed female characters. Because I can write a story about side characters, but there’s so much less to go on — and sometimes, that’s where the fun comes in. Getting to play with and create a wealth of history and character for a written-off member of the cast can be really fun. But, for me at least, the delight of AUs is slipping in and twisting around canon in a new context.
If I write a wangxian ballet AU, Wei Wuxian’s demonic cultivation can be traded for his switching abruptly to a new studio—one that uses harsh methods, demands too much from him, cuts him off from the people he used to dance with—all so that the money from his tuition can be turned to help Jiang Cheng continue at his chosen academy and pursue dance professionally. It’s a stretch, it’s a twist, but it’s within a frame readers recognize.
If I write a ballet AU with Jiang Yanli and Wen Qing...well, it’s all free form. We have so little to go on that you can make it work—Cloud Recesses becomes a summer intensive, Wen Ruohan’s conquest becomes the buying out and closing of the Jiang academy for some new development—but there’s less resonance. We’re on new ground and the reader has to offer up a lot more trust and disbelief.
Which I suppose leads us to genderbends?? Good lord. I do not know my own feelings about that enough to go anywhere. b l a r g h
so i guess this is all to say: writing good, dance good, writing dance hard. pouty face pouty face pouty face :<
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this time it’s an ao3 req, for inosaku running into each other after years apart when butch!sakura has grown into herself more! y’know my original plan was like a silly ‘childhood friend moves away but comes back Hot’ bit of fluff, but then Shower Thoughts hit me like a fucking sledgehammer and now there are more emotions than i'm fit to deal with tbqh. canon-verse, except sak left konoha sometime after the chunin exams and she also has wood release bc unlike kishi I’m not a coward
(requests open)
(ao3 mirror)
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Shit, shit, shit!
Ino’s breathing was ragged as she launched herself off the wet, muddy ground and up into the trees. The chakra coating her feet kept her steady on slick bark, but her reserves were dwindling and her concentration was split between tracking her enemy and formulating a plan on the fly.
This was supposed to be a simple mission; she was going to murder Shikamaru when she got back to Konoha.
But thoughts of home could wait, right now she had an S-rank fugitive to lead as far away from her terrified genin team as her battered body would allow. They were safe enough for now – Yui was injured, but she at least remained conscious and she had Haru and Risa with her to care for her, Ino could only pray that they’d followed her orders to head for the nearest village and gotten there safely – but Ino herself was running out of air and energy, her broken arm jolting painfully in its crude sling with every jump she made.
The sound of snapping branches behind her was growing closer. She kept her gaze on the path ahead, but had to bite her lip tightly to keep her head clear.
She could recall most of the vital information from the man’s entry in Konoha’s Bingo Book; a former Kiri-nin, fled his country over twenty years ago, known to use lightning jutsu and experiment with chakra amplifying techniques, something of a lone wolf, suspected of multiple counts of kidnapping and human experimentation.
On any other day, she could easily take this guy, but they’d stumbled into an ambush and she’d had three young, unprepared students to protect. He got off a lucky shot and she had been forced to flee long enough to get her team out of harm’s way, before doubling back to lead him far, far away from them. No way was she letting some filthy low-life get a hold of her kids, nor did she intend to let him get away and hurt anyone else.
Now she just had to make a plan to beat him.
She didn’t get long to plan however, when a bolt of lightning streaked past her and severed the branch she had just been readying to land on before she could get there. Too late to change course, she could only brace herself for a rough landing.
Her broken arm screamed as she hit the ground, even her best attempts to shield it not doing anything to stop the tremor that spread through her entire body when she landed heavily on her back. No time to waste thinking about pain though; she sprang to her feet just in time to dodge his follow-up attack. He landed behind her and threw a jutsu-enhanced punch at the back of her head, she ducked, leg spinning out to cut his out from under him, he jumped, flipping over her to land at her back again, growling, she rolled forward and – with a chakra boost – launched herself forwards, darting between trees and trying to gain some distance.
Maybe she could create a few clones, send him on a chase while she hid and prepared one of her family’s techniques, she didn’t want to take the risk of mind-body switch in this scenario, but maybe mind distur-
She just barely dodged the fist of lighting aimed at her already-injured arm, her breathing ragged as she ducked away from his constant attacks, never giving her the chance to counter.
Her foot caught a root as she backed away and she could feel herself falling. Fuck.
A shrill, ear-splitting screech cut through the air, leaving Ino both jittery and dazed as she tried to work out what the hell he’d just done. But, when her eyes landed on him, he was already leaping away from her, dodging out of the way of the tree crashing down where he had just been standing, his own eyes wide as saucers as he wildly looked around.
Less than a second after he landed, another tree began to scream its descent.
Someone else is after him? She barely had time to act on that thought – instinctually searching out for chakra signatures nearby – when, in a flurry of leaves and petals, her opponent was ensnared in twisting branches of a sapling cherry tree.
Her stomach twisted violently. His vain struggling against the chakra-strengthened branches went completely ignored by her, as the third party finally stepped out of the forest.
Ino didn’t need to see her to know; the painfully familiar touch of her chakra was more than enough.
Pink hair – the same shade as the tiny flowers dotting the wooden prison – was cut close to her head, arms as thick as tree trunks and darkened by sunlight were left bare, as were the well-muscled legs clad only in plain, practical shorts. The years had been good to her, she looked stronger, and not just physically.
She didn’t want to speak, didn’t want to draw the woman’s attention, didn’t want to discover that she had been forgotten.
The word escaped her lips regardless.
“S-Sakura?”
Those eyes, older, a little tired perhaps, but still sparkling in the dappled light filtering through the leaves high above them. “Ino!”
Before she could formulate a single coherent thought, she was lifted in crushing arms and spun wildly around. Under different circumstances, she might’ve found pleasure in being held tightly in warm, sturdy arms, but as it was, she had a broken arm trapped between their bodies.
Her sharp hiss quickly stopped the exuberant greeting and she was carefully dropped.
“Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you, I just got so excited,” Sakura said, hands flapping vaguely near her injured arm as though it might drop off any second, “here, let me-”
Fighting every aching desire within her, Ino jerked away, glancing over her shoulder to check on the criminal still trapped within Sakura’s jutsu – and the bombshell that the girl, no, she was a woman now, had somehow learned Wood Release in the years they’d been apart was something she would just have to unpack later – examining his chakra to ensure he was truly unconscious and not just faking it, before turning her back to her oldest and dearest friend.
“Ino?”
She withheld a shudder, concealing the motion as she stepped forwards. “I can’t exactly stop and catch up; I’ve got to find my students.”
“Oh, I think I met them already,” Sakura said, jogging ahead to cut her off, “three kids, the tall girl had a wounded leg and the boy was wearing a hat? They’re the ones who told me their sensei still needed help.”
Her good hand flew to Sakura’s shirt, gripping tightly. “Where are they, tell me you didn’t just leave them alone-”
The low chuckle simultaneously made her want to punch the woman and swoon.
She settled for glaring.
“Relax, they’re with Tsunade-shishou and she’s already healed their wounds-” the relief must’ve been obvious on her face, because Sakura’s lips quirked up slightly “-it was actually a bit of a struggle getting them to stay behind.”
Sakura once again reached for her arm, Ino shrugged her off and turned away. “I should still go see them, make sure they’re alright.”
“Hey, stop worrying for a second and let me help you.” Placing her hand on Ino’s uninjured shoulder, Sakura slowly pushed her to sit on the spongy moss covering the ground, then, with the gentlest touch Ino had ever known, she pulled her broken arm out of its sling and set to work.
Ino stared at the expression of pure concentration on her old friend, the hard lines of her profile softened by the light green glow emanating from her hands. She had been ignoring the pain fairly well until now, but the sudden relief that flooded through her nerves left her feeling a little light-headed, which was perhaps why she decided to open her mouth.
“Since when can you do that?” She winced at how bitter she sounded. Shit, she really had intended to stay calm and civil, but her idiot brain was ignoring every pleading wail of her fool heart to just accept the gift and dig her fingers through that short, messy hair and kiss the beautiful, wonderful jerk already.
If Sakura noticed her tone, she didn’t say so and her eyes flicked over to meet hers for only a second before returning to her arm. “Not long after I left, I guess.”
“And… that?” she asked, glowering at the man held limp in his prison.
“That... was a more recent development, took me ages to figure it out, but it’s pretty cool though, right?” If she hadn’t been busy with her healing, Ino had the awful suspicion that she would’ve flexed her arms, or waggled her eyebrows as well.
She snapped her arm away from Sakura’s grasp the second the healing was complete, absently twisting her joints to regain some feeling in them. “That’s one word for it,” she muttered, pushing herself to her feet and staring into the forest. If she really stretched her senses, she could pick up the three familiar chakra signatures of her students; she started walking towards them, tossing a glance over her shoulder. “I assume you can take our friend there to the necessary authorities.”
“What?” Once more her path was blocked, this time by a rapidly sprouting sapling. “Ino, we haven’t seen each other in so long, why are you so desperate to get away?”
“Because I’ve got a team to take care of. I don’t have the luxury of shirking my responsibilities.”
Clearly Sakura was done ignoring her not-so-subtle cattiness, judging by the hint of frustration to her voice as she said, “Are you mad at me for something?”
Ino stared at the flowers blooming in front of her nose and hated the little part of her that got excited at seeing tiny purple buds mixed in with the pink. She immediately shut her eyes against the sight and tried desperately to hold on to the ball of anger deep in her chest, threatening to dissolve into shadows and slip through her fingers any second.
She had imagined this day for so long now, played out so many different scenarios and responses – anger, joy, grief, love – but now that Sakura was here, real and close, the potential she’d fallen for as a girl, finally realised, bolder and more beautiful than she ever could have dreamed…
“It’s been over fourteen years Sakura! You can't just show up out of nowhere and act like nothing’s wrong!” Ino was on the verge of tears and even she couldn’t tell whether she was aiming to sound furious or distressed, but she pushed on, refusing to open her eyes, or turn back around, because she just knew that the second she looked Sakura in the face, all would be forgiven. “Where the hell have you been? Why did you leave?”
The long silence that followed her outburst was crushing.
Something silky and soft brushed against her cheek and, if she wasn’t intimately familiar with the texture of petals and leaves from her work, she might’ve leapt out of her skin. Instead she just let the flower wipe away the tear that had slipped free of her eye.
When Sakura finally spoke again, her voice came from just a few inches behind her, low and calming, “It wasn’t a decision I made lightly and I can’t pretend I don’t have some regrets leaving the way I did… but I don’t regret leaving.” Gentle calm, quickly turned to barely restrained excitement and Ino smiled at the enthusiasm in her old friend’s voice despite herself. “There’s so much out in the world, so much I’ve learned, ways I’ve grown, if I’d stayed, I never would’ve had the opportunity to learn healing from Tsunade-shishou, or develop my own kind of Wood Style! Konoha… it held me back, maybe not deliberately, but now that I’ve been outside it for so long, I can see just how much it needs to change.”
Opening her eyes and slowly turning around to face the woman, Ino had to accept that she had lost whatever battle she was fighting with herself.
Really, she’d lost the second Sakura showed up, eyes and soul blazing.
“I guess I can understand that,” she said, rubbing at the damp tracks across her cheeks, “but you didn’t even explain it, when you told me you were going away to train for a while, I thought you meant for a few weeks, but I kept waiting and you never came back and I didn’t even know what was happening, if you were even still safe.”
Sakura at least had the grace to look ashamed. “Yeah, that was pretty shit of me, I probably should’ve at least written to you more, but I just… you were more than a best friend to me, you were my idol, everything I wanted to be. And I needed to become someone you could love.”
She scoffed before she could stop herself, before shaking her head. “You idiot, I always loved you.”
A soft blush settled on her cheeks, but Sakura’s smile held not a spec of embarrassment, just a soft, subtle kind of melancholy. “I know, but…” She looked down at herself, hands fidgeting with the fabric of her shirt before she continued, in a voice that shook, just a little, at the edges, “But, before I could love you – as a person, not an idea – I had to learn how to love myself.”
Ino bit her lip and hesitantly reached out, laying her hand gently over Sakura’s. “So, do you? Love yourself I mean?”
She glanced down at the hand encasing her own, before slowly following the line of her arm back up to her face. Her gaze was tender, but assured. “Yeah,” she said with a short laugh, every trace of sadness lifting from her face in the wake of her bright smile.
It was crooked and a bit too wide, showing off teeth that had probably been knocked loose more than once, and it was the most beautiful Ino had ever seen her.
“Yeah, I really do.”
“And-” she didn’t care that her hand was trembling against Sakura’s as she stepped closer; close enough to count the freckles dusted across her nose and marvel at the myriad shades of green in her eyes “-do you love me?”
Sakura stepped forward herself, tilting her neck slightly to look her in the eye. “You even have to ask?”
Before she could think of an adequate response to that, she was tugged down and warm lips were pressed against hers in a feather-light kiss. Ino pressed closer, sliding her free hand behind Sakura’s neck to hold her in place as they giggled into each other’s skin. They stood like that for what felt like an eternity, kissing chaste but oh-so-sweet, occasionally stopping to just lean their foreheads together and share in their equally wobbly smiles.
Eventually though, they had to wake up from their fantasy come to life, when the long-forgotten prisoner began to stir and immediately started cursing them both.
“C’mon, lets get back to your team before Tsunade starts teaching them gambling tricks,” Sakura said, pulling away to tear the jail from the ground and sling it – trunk, roots, criminal and all – over her shoulder.
Ino was not at all ashamed to admit that she swooned.
“And… maybe I could come back with you? I’ve been away from home for way too long.” The question was a little uncertain, as though Sakura was still worried that she might be rejected.
The hand Ino offered was taken without question and they both began walking toward home.
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#ictoan writes#inosaku#sakuino#sakura haruno#ino yamanaka#naruto#my proofreading on this one was less than 0 jsyk#bc i've got work soon and just didn't want to make this wait for another day#maybe i'll fix errors tomorrow if i remember
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50 questions tag
I got tagged by @yoongs-jeontae ! Thank you💖
What colors is your hairbrush? It’s like a brown-ish shimmery color? Idk o.o
What food would you never eat? I probably would never be able to eat the meat of rabbits or deers, sheep and that kind of stuff
Are you usually hot or cold? I’m always a cozy crispy amount of warmth under my blanket. But when I’m outside I go from both extremes because I’m super sensitive so, spring/summer: always hot, autumn/winter: always cold. There is no inbetween
What did you do 45 minutes ago? I was in an online class and got math tutoring🤠 it was horrible thanks for asking my brain is fried
Favorite chocolate? The really dark kind. It’s the only chocolate I’ll ever really crave. I can bear milk chocolate if I have to
Have you ever been to a professional sports event? I hAve actually omg! It was a handball game and super boring, I didn’t know whats going on ever and only clapped when everyone else did🤡 (I was forced by my ex to tag along I absolutely hate sports)
What was the last thing you said out loud? “Oh my god, that was horrible” right after I ended the call with my teacher skckjs
Favorite ice cream flavor? Brownie fudge? Is that what it’s called? The chocolate ice cream with brownie pieces in it, it’s so fUcking gOOD sorry for cursing it’s necessary
What was the last thing you drank? Some nice crispy wAter
What kind of wallet do you have? A small black one because I didn’t think about practicality when buying it. Currently looking for a bigger one.
What was the last thing you ate? I actually have no clue if that’s the english word for it but kebab? IT’S DÖNER IN GERMAN
Did you buy clothes last weekend? I haven’t bought clothes in months actually omg
What was the last sports event you saw? I watched the soccer game that’s like a really big thing back in 2018 🤠🤠
Who was the last person you texted? My mom cus she’s out buying groceries and asked me what kind of ice cream I want kekdjejd
Do you like camping? I despise camping with my entire being. When I was little my mom always forced me to go on 500 camping trips a year and I feel the biggest rage in me when I think about all the bugs and uncomfortable nights I- will not continue talking about this now.
Do you eat vitamins? No, like not at all. Not one vitamin has entered my body in a few weeks. I used to have these tablets that disappear in water but I stopped drinking that because I only take them bc of my muscles and currently I’m not leaving the house so,,, don’t need them >:)
When was the last time you traveled? The last time I full on traveled like outside of the country was in 2018 when my class went to italy because of our graduation 🤠 trauma
Do you like sunbathing? I can’t really answer that because if I sunbathe I will burn. Like literally I’m getting a sunburn just from walking to the train on a sunny day if I don’t have the strongest suncream on??? My skin is very🤡 so yeah idk if I like it? Never tried
Asian or Italian food? Asian food absolutely. I’m not sure about italian food because I just don’t know anything about italian kitchen but I dO knOw that theres so much variety with asian food? And so far I’ve loved every asian dish I’ve tried so,,
Do you drink soda? Nope. I stopped drinking soda four years ago I think because my skin was sO bad and I gained weight so quickly without eating a lot so I stopped drinking soda and tada! Barely getting pimples now😎 also it’s just tastier like my mouth doesn’t stick anymore and I don’t literally feel the sugar on my teeth?? (Although I do sometimes sip on a bit of coke but only on special occasions)
What color socks are you wearing now? White with a very,, aqua? blue stripe? And the name of the brand in the same color🤠 fashion
When was the last time you were speeding? I don’t drive🤡😔
What are you afraid of? Everything pretty much. Commitment, people leaving me, talking to people, failing, succeeding, should I continue?
What can you see if you turn left? A lot? It’s inside my room (my bed is in the right corner) but first thing would be my switch cus she laying next to me
What kind of housework you like the least? I actually love housework? At least the things that I do. Like I never mow the lawn because that’s not my job yknow? But I like emptying and filling the dish washer, cleaning pans in the sink, doing the laundry, wiping the floor. Maybe I should become a maid?
What is the first thing you think of when you hear someone talking in a language you don’t know? I try to hear what language it is, like I try guessing at least. Of course I don’t know what every language sounds like but it’s a fun little game I have for myself when I’m bored in public transpo
Do you sleep on your back or side? On my right side towards the wall. At least at night, when I take a nap I sleep on my left side towards the room. Idk why pls don’t ask me, I can’t fall asleep otherwise.
You crave fast food, where do you go? So around where I live there aren’t a lot of options? Also in germany in general we don’t have the fast food fest that america has, so I always go for either Mcdonald’s or Subway.
What is your lucky number? 5. I don’t know when it became my favorite/lucky number but somehow at some point in time it’s become the number I always use when someone wants me to guess or answer a question, I use it for picking things and all that🤡🤠 maybe it’s because it sounds rly funny in german
Who was the last person you talked to? In person my mom cus she’s the only one I see nowadays. On the phone would be two of my friends and I also talked to my tutoring teacher through discord so? Pick👁👁
Do you eat meat? I would say no if I wouldn’t sometimes do slip some meat in. It’s very rare and a small amount when I do. Idk how this developed because I used to eat meat multiple times a week but at some point I started only eating chicken and only in smaller amounts and sometimes not even once in two weeks. I eat fish tho? Does that count?
What was the last song you listened to? “Love without tragedy/mother mary” by rihanna because I was feeling the 10’s last night at 5am🤠
Last book? I actually just tried to find the english title of it but I can’t find any sign of it being translated so,, “der Totenzeichner” by Veit Etzold. I read this book twice, once in 9th grade and once just recently and I will not get enough of it. Another one of his books “Final cut” is laying on my bedside table waiting for me to start it. He’s an iconic author.
What is your favourite day of the week? If we were speaking from when it’s a regular routine and I would go to uni, I’d say Monday. I know I sound like a psycho but saying friday or saturday is my favorite day is basic because obviously everyone loves the weekend. Monday is a great day usually because my day starts in third period and does still go 6 classes like regular days but it feels nice to go into uni later in the day so I always appreciate it. (Tho saturday do be hitting different)
Do you know the alphabet song backwards? I don’t even know it forwards 🤡😔
Favorite coffee/tea? I don’t drink coffee but my favorite tea is probably fennel tea, everyone I know hates it, especially without sugar but I love it :(
Favourite shoes? From the ones I personally own I’d say my nike zoom 2ks because they look good and are super comfortable. Shoes that I wish I would have would be Dr. Martens but I’m pOor🤡 I am absolutely a whore for sneakers so I won’t even start listing all the sneakers I love
When do you usually go to sleep? If I’m on schedule around 11-12pm of actually going into the bed physically and falling asleep 30/40 minutes later. While I’m now constantly at home I do still physically get into bed at the same time but I stay up from 2-7am depending on how fun people are, if I play a game, if I read/draw, have a series or movie to watch. I’m insane I am aware🤡
When do you usually wake up? Again, when I’m on schEdule I wake up mondays and tuesdays at 6.30am, from wednesday to friday at 6.10am, on the weekend around 10am. Right now? It’s a surprise everyday. Sometimes I’m up at 4pm, sometimes I’m up at 10am, today I was actually super early with 9.30 so😎
Sunrise or sunset? That’s actually so hard because I do see the sunset a lot more than rise since I have my rOllÄdEn down so I don’t actually remember what a sunrise looks like. Because I have no other choice I say sunset. With doubt.
Do you like your bed soft or hard? I thINK my bed is hard? I once laid on a friend’s bed that was super soft and I’m pretty sure I didn’t like it
Describe the plate you are eating from? They’re from ikea. They’re white with like blue swirls idk my mom bought them I didn’t make the decisions
Your favorite type of alcohol? Currently I don’t really drink alcohol (mainly because of the lack of opportunities) bUt when I do drink I really like sweet sparkling wine (I googled this I’m not sure if that’s the right word idkd)
Do you like board games? Depending on which people I play with. If a person is getting angry that they’re losing it makes the game absolutely suck and since I’m surrounded by those people I haven’t made good memories with board games kcjdjs,,, if the company is fun I like the games too tho
If you had a car, what kind would it be? Unrealisticly I’d love to own a Lamborghini Aventador or Urus because those cars are just mouth-watering to me. Since I most likely won’t ever be able to afford either of those, I’d love to have a Fiat 500. I fell in love with this car like,,, it’s so cute and the inside is pretty too so everything fits for me the way I want it to. I’ll have to settle for a way less nice car tho once I get a license, at least for a while🤡
Do you know how to change car tires? In theory yes
Dream country? Like to live in? Damn idk. I’d love to live in a country with like,, cULTURE you know? Something exciting and cool to look at, less stuck up people almans be really boring 🤡 so maybe something like spain or italy, maybe america if yall vote for a different president. Japan or Korea would be super cool too I- the whole world ma’am? I couldn’t live in countries like idk hawaii or sumn because of the heat so I’ll just mfing stay in germany😔😔
If you could choose from any jobs in the world, what would you like to do? If I would have the chance I’d love to become an actor because that just seems super cool. But like I’m not nearly attractive enough for people to want to look at me on a scEen so nO
What would you like to try to do? I’m pretty set on trying to learn how to dance like that’s probably not as exciting as other things I could do but :/ yeh idk
And what is stopping you? Literally just me being lazy and talking myself into believing I won’t be good without even trying nsncjsks (also yes I seperated these questions because otherwise it wouldn’t be 50)
thIs was sO mUch omg sjjcjs I’m literally exhausted from all these questions😩😩
I’m tagginggg @gallhali @shadowsremedy if u wanna!
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[ SOFIA CARSON, CISFEMALE, SHE/HER, 24 ] // filed under: ( BEVERLY RICHETTI ), student is a ( FOURTH YEAR ) from ( ITALY ) who specializes in ( FIELD OPS ). we believe they will be an asset because they are ( ADAPTIVE & FORMIDABLE ). however, we are monitoring them due to their tendency to be ( WITHDRAWN & MACABRE ). at their basic state, they remind one of ( SILENT FOOTSTEPS ACCOMPANIED WITH PARANOID GLANCES, HANDGUNS STRAPPED UNDER SKIRT COVERED THIGHS, THE WHISTLE OF A KNIFE CUTTING THROUGH AIR, THE METICULOUS KNOT OF A PUSSY BOW SHIRT ). our ( MELINOË ) has promise, but as we all know, brier isn’t for everyone. ✉
hi hey hello !! i’m kaya and this is my child, beverly hillz
TW: DEATH, MURDER
born and raised in abu dhabi for the first few years of her life, her parents died when she was only four. murdered in their own home, a young bev was just hiding in an emergency safe room her parents had established when they first discovered they were expecting
while death wasn’t uncommon in their line of work, getting murdered on their doorstep in a location that was suppose to be undisclosed was a definite red flag for their respective agencies. internal investigations started and in the midst of this, beverly’s godfather, giuseppe richetti, swooped in and adopted her after previously adopting two other children before her
all she has left of her family are a few haunting memories that she’s unsure are real, some photographs, and a couple of trinkets that always seem to serve as a reminder that they were not only agents but also brier alumni
way before bev’s parents died, giueseppe had this conspiracy that all of these international agencies had been infiltrated and in an attempt to remedy that he had decided to train some of the next generation of agents himself in an attempt to keep it corruption free which is why he adopted seven kids in total and named each of them after days of the week with sunday being the first kid adopted and saturday as the last although all of their ages and times of adoption vary
pls brace yourselves for a the umbrella academy and what happened to monday inspired plot lmaooooo
these kids grew up in florence, italy where the city streets was their playground whenever they managed to sneak out of the house. training was pretty intense with them learning how to speak english, italian, spanish, and greek ( not necessarily in that order ) along with basic hand-to-hand combat and different martial arts. by the age of nine, bev knew how to kill someone 16 ways with just a dessert spoon although she has yet to actually put that knowledge to use
hmu for that wc ( x )
growing up in the richetti household with the name tuesday, she was a pretty reticent kid who never really showed what she was thinking or feeling. at first this was bc of the trauma from losing her parents and being thrust into a new country and environment, but eventually giuseppe realized that she was just naturally withdrawn as a person. at first some of her adopted siblings were offended that she wouldn’t play or really speak to them and once they begun their “lessons” there were a few that thought of her as pretentious and snobbish, believing that she wasn’t really talking to them bc she thought she was better than them but that def was not the case
you know that one kid in your class who seemed to know everything and never got less than a perfect score??? yeah, that was bev and a few of her siblings were mcfreaking salty about it but i would have been too??? but like, she only knew so much and was semi-good at things just bc she, sunday, and monday were the first to join the richetti household and so they had a bit of a head start when it came to lessons and training
personality wise she’s very much maternal when it comes to her siblings and anyone else she cares about bc it’s an instinct even tho she’ll deny it. def still struggles to show that she cares for anyone but deep down she really does. all she wants is the best for everyone and to make sure they’re all cared for and tbh she’s loyal to a fault. they could pull a thanos and she would still stand by them and even make excuses for their actions bc blind love
went through a messy phase where she would be unnecessarily violent or aggressive in training and at one point would just leave behind a Mess™ and slowly developed a reputation that inevitably gave her the codename melinoë. but as she got older she learned to be more subtle and actually control her aggression but the north never forgets and neither does anyone who knows of her past. this was probs the time that showed her siblings that she can at least experience anger and unveiled some of her deep rooted anger and vengeance issues from the death of her parents that she had suppressed with the rest of her feelings. she’s p volatile and vindictive although idk how many people would know about that side of her???? it’s probably some rumor that no one believes bc there’s no way the quiet, composed girl did That™
she has a talent for improvising on the spot, always staying quick on her feet despite whatever situation is being thrown at her??? she’s def still withdrawn and keeps to herself as much as possible but she’s learned to “fake it till you make it” and can flip the switch and become a more charming version of herself??? but her natural state is v much a more aloof albeit teasing self so don’t be fooled. she’s also v much present and painfully aware of her surroundings at all times as a force of habit after living in the richetti household
she has training in firearms but her preferred weapons of choice are throwing knives and daggers just bc she finds some sort of satisfaction in throwing them and just using them in general??? she’s analytical and has a good sense of foresight that gives her a knack for reading a situation and predicting the next possible moves/decisions so she usually jumps three steps ahead. this sometimes causes her to be ahead of her team/partner and so she usually goes off-script leaving whoever she’s partnered with to piece together what’s happening and what she’s doing on their own. but this also means she LOVES to play chess in her spare time so if your muse does too pls holla
def more brains than brawns and could probably get squished like a bug tho lbr
but also intelligence wise she’s a little above average??? like her siblings, riku and leonora, are def more intelligent than she is but she’s quick-witted so she just kinda pretends that she’s at their level but she most definitely is not
wants to specialize and go into reconnaissance to go undercover when she graduates which is why she’s a part of field ops
home girl is plagued by dreams. almost every night she has repeating dreams that are as haunting as a nightmare. sometimes they’re memories, sometimes they’re her imagination, and other times they’re just fears but sis wouldn’t know what a good nights sleep is unless she was put in a coma or something. she’s under the illusion that if she gets revenge on the people who murdered her parents then they’ll go away but like.. that ain’t how it works unfortunately sdfghj
would not hesitate to sacrifice herself if it means helping out her siblings or those close to her so, uh, if your character is prone to reckless decisions then expect her to be lurking to shove them out of harms way
she’s a captain of a laser tag team and also a member of ceramics so if your muse is in one of those pls holla for a dolla
here are a few links in case u wanna check them out but pls plot with me i am B E G G I N G
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heya! <3
yes! despite everything bkdk understand each other very well which usually only happens by being around each other for so long and growing up together. not to go back to that ep again but what bakugou is basically saying throughout the episode is that he now sees midoriya as a threat (someone equal). aaah man i really miss that ep now. and that makes sense! todobaku is such a force to be reckoned with shsjsjsj. at the end of the day all those ships are great on their own. and yeah! i’d say kiribaku has been my main from the get go. i just Love their dynamic yk? how bakugou acts around kirishima just ahh.... <3
literally bruh... we have to wait a couple days for that like come on... give us the floating babies man. that sounds so cool?? he’s like towering over us? also why did that give me villain vibes? like corrupted chongyun.. yes please.. DON’T SAY THAT I’LL CRY. PLEASE DON’T SAY THAT I’LL LITERALLY CRY. ilysm just the thought ahh...
your barbara is like: ready for battle! and you’re like sweetie just gimme your bandaids please.. thank you now go back home... <3 i respect that. DILUC IS SO HOT. he’s so confident and cocky like ugrhrh 🥴 if not sexy why red themed? 🥴
no males here! feminist rights! bennett is our little special boy whom we love... <3 now that you put their names next to each other, i feel like xiangling would be such a good sidekick to the boy scouts don’t you agree? like you know how some friend groups have that one person that clicks with their dynamic well? that could be her! sjsjdksj can’t believe we’re making up whole ass headcanons about this game on tumblr asks.
that elements ranking is super legit. i agree with it mostly tbh!! maybe pryo higher though because everything burns and it’s pretty useful. i’d switch it with cryo tbh! otherwise we’d have the same ranking i believe... <3 and the diluc comment!! same!! this is based of the little characters i have and what i’ve seen on youtube tbh shskshdk so that might change when i get more characters.
oh no!! 😭 i’m actually super sad for you aaah you were so excited. hopefully you get him anyway and the gacha gods back you up hehe. honestly these 4 star characters seem so weird though? like noelle and xiangling...? that’s so odd. and no i need to save for venti i only have like 1k primogems rn so even i wanted i couldn’t haha.. i do like xingqiu but nah.
172 is super average here that’s even like... a bit on the smaller size KSKSSJSK (at least the white people ofc it’s different depending on the ethnicity) i’m not that ^ tall but i’m close! 167 cm! and god you’re so tiny holy shit my little pocket sized cluna...... you’re adorable my word 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 btw when’s your bday? just wondering 😏
notes app like the proper gay i am! i just think it’s gay culture to write everything down in the notes app tbh. (i don’t wanna say us bc i don’t know your sexuality but if you relate then change the i am to we’re hskshdskdh)
interesting. how long does your writing sessions last? do you write, write, write or do you have more of a set schedule?
i just listened to control and GOD???...... literally clone shiro tbh? can you find the edit perhaps? i’d love to see it. ok i took a break from writing this response to listen to show & tell and ooooh??? i LOVE this song instantly going to my playlist kshdjdksms. melanie has such dark pastel vibes how eerie. thank you for the recs!
yes ya books!!! i don’t think there is a series i haven’t read of those popular ones. dude i still only read ya books tbh shskdhdkdb. i find it harder to visit a library though so i can’t read as much anymore but i still love them. have you read carry on? simon and kaz has that relationship dynamic we oh so love.
xiao x venti has such a large fan base on twitter it’s so Insane. not complaining tho they look perfect together. idk if you’ve seen but look 🥺 https://twitter.com/bambzart/status/1346115096045441024?s=21 can’t believe we went from not knowing about ships to sharing daily fanart of ships shskjdjdk help
love u xx m.a.
hi hi~~
AHAH honestly talking about it makes me want to rewatch it too idk that i’ve ever done that in full.. yeah I get you! well deserved kiribaku is a good ship 😤 if not canon why so many good moments? lolol
omg wait villain vibes... corrupted chongyun.. YOUR BRAIN??????? FHDSKJFHSDKJ i legit wanna try!!! need to offer something anyway and surely changing the colour from white to black won’t be that difficult... that being said i’m still just playing the game rather than doing literally anything else lollll
LMAOOOOO yeah i really am sorry barbara.... but I really do appreciate being able to heal! since I don’t have a healder on my normal team it’s like wow? I don’t need to eat food or always visit the statues? LMFAO. HFDJFHKS IF NOT SEXY WHY RED THEMED!!!!!!!!!!! you’re so correct and you should say it .
yes!! xiangling would get along so well with them... the boys would probably love guoba too 😩😩 ugh that reminds me I saw someone say xiao’s banner should have had xiao + xingqiu + xiangling + xinyan.... could you imagine 😭😭. FSKFHDSJ look. we’re having fun and that’s all that matters!
everything burns but so do you!! hfkdsjfkhsfd. but nice nice nice you 🤝 me having the same rankings.. I’m just Attached to cryo bc of chongyun and also bc i went around with both him and kaeya in the same team for so long hfskdfjs.
yeahhh not sure LOL but people are saying they rotate the 4 star rate ups and it’s just their turn now.. hm. AHAH yes save for venti!! and then by the time he returns youll have like 200k primogems 🤪🤪
FSHDKSKJF yeah i was gonna say... i feel like people from sweden are probably pretty tall..... bc white people... HFKDSJFHDSFJKSDHFKSD. god that’s a solid 10cm+ compared to me..... wow story of my life........... hfsdkhfkdsjfhsdfks. and my birthday is october 20!! spring babie 🍃 when’s yours!!
(hfkjdshksdh it’s kinda complicated.... LOLOL but i appreciate the effort/offer hfsdkjfhsdkfjsdfhks)
hmm that kinda depends? if i have the time i’ll continue writing until it’s the AM hours and i force myself to go to sleep fhskjfds. but sometimes if i’m not particularly feeling it i’ll just stop and go to something else instead AHAHHA. (actually i do that even when i’m motivated lmfao) but yeah no actual schedule! if i’m writing a fic in response to something (a trailer, a new chapter, a new ep etc) I’ll just drop everything and write until I’m done with it. hbu?
IT IS LITERALLY!! CLONE SHIRO!!!!!!!!!!! i wish i could but i’m pretty sure it got deleted :(((( i had it saved back in the day but could never find it again so :(((((( fdhskfjs she does!! like it’s definitely a different mood for sure.. and no problem! it makes me happy you liked them 🤗
FJSFLJDKS i mean they’re good tho so makes sense 🤪 oooo do you always borrow your books? and no i haven’t!! but i’ve heard so many good things about it....... (have you read the legend series? i don’t think it’s as popular as the other YA novels out there but it’s definitely one of if not the top favourite of mine)
AHAHAH that’s what we call growth and character development! hfdskfs. and yeah i’ve seen that one!!! i remember twt going crazy that day over xiao and his flute.... also look at this https://twitter.com/yilong0416/status/1348383649050324992 <33333 (if you ever want ship arts of a ship - mostly xiaoven lol lmk i have some bookmarked!!)
loveee u 2 <33 c.r.
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TH!FPA_VB – Lord of Lies and Deceiving
Yo, been a while since I posted something on this account, but here we are, back at it again with a casual VB drawing like in good ol’ 2020
…Though, this time things got built on a different road of events as you can see, not to mention this is a spoiler to what’s to come for VB (but tbh I stopped caring at this point so yea)
First and for most however, there are quite a few questions surrounding this fic’s development I have to answer for our sake (mostly mine since I feel like mold spaghetti for not keeping up on things oml-)
Yes, I once said VB was on the way of getting completed and all that, I know
Problem is, the changes I want to do to the ‘lore’ (if you want to call it that way idk) are also retroactive to the events in the present timeline (aka past events that are mentioned but not entirely shown because ugh-), some characters that have some relevancy on the story but only come up at the very end chapters on VB itself, etc. etc. which are things that I personally find bothersome as its writer and the reason why I’d rather not make the ‘sequel-prequel’ of it where things get explained and all that
Instead, I’ll fuse both VB and TAF (the sequel-prequel’s name acronym standing for ‘The ‘ANOMALY’ files’ fyi) so it can focus on one party alone and I don’t waste any more time than what I already have done so (haha funny cuz me late to party amiriteeeimsorry-)
…And about the format for it, I’ve decided I’ll ‘upgrade’ it to a comic instead since y’know, I do art and it’ll also make my writing simpler so yea
Still tho, I’m kinda paranoic on if I should get going with the prologue by the time I finish its script or not since I don’t wanna make the plot a mess or leave things (important* things) unfolded by accident, but we’ll see how it goes (and hopefully I’ll make it out alive-)
Also, keep in mind that by the moment I’m writing this, I’m stuck in the Friday Night Fuc- I mean Funkin’ fandom, and y’all know what happens when the fandom switching happens…
My concept-creation-obssessive-self starts grinding gears like cuckoo -doesn’t mean I’ll abandon everyone else tho, it’s just that my focus splits on multiple parts and all that balloney
So, now that I did my little defense statement up there, let’s get rolling to the mainpoint down here
First, who’s this spider guy?
Well, he’s a ‘side’ antagonist, more specifically the person DPM is after (but doesn’t realize he is until very later)
His name is Q-Ross Sid, a ‘camel spider’ that lives in the Spider Kingdom as the royal executioner and prison head-guard/-caretaker
He’s what I’d consider to be an ‘anomaly’, since he’s a genetic fusion of graphite (20%), chalk (10%) and correcting fluid (70%), with the graphite being his ‘stabilizer’ component (osseous structure and skin/muscular tissue mostly) and the chalk his ‘cooler’ component (mostly on his defense and assimilation mechanism), not to mention he can only consume either correcting fluid matter derivatives…and/or ink matter derivatives, including living beings (mostly as an energy source and which his body somehow can partially convert into graphite)
…And by that fact alone you can tell that yes, he killed Isea -also known as Dizzy/Izzy Pants Girl (YESss I fINALLY GAVE HER A NICK ASDFGH-) in VB mostly due to her ‘special ability’ and stuff- by Queen Aris’ command. And yes, he can shapeshift, which explains why he got DPM to blame FPM for what happened, this that (but I think you might have figure it out already by the drawing alone so yea-)
However, although at first I thought his ability would be limited to mimick FPM’s appearance only, I now decided to amplify it a little, and instead he can shapeshift into any sketch/graphite-alike/related being, with FPM being his ‘link’ to them most of the time (stalkey tatics are not okey dokey my man but you do you I guess)
Though he can only shapeshift into stickfigs since he doesn’t have that much of ‘color filling’ for a human drawing itself (yeah ik they’re humanized in the story but things will make sense sooner or later I promise, for now just bear with me as we go on on this plz), and he cannot shapeshift into ink/liquid-alike/related beings because they’re not compatible and it’ll only lead him to corrupt his physical form –not meaning he can’t recover from it tho
But he can’t replicate them entirely, as his eyes and the ring are the two main red flags to spot him (but with some contact lenses and a little pocket, it can be fixed y’know-)
As for his robotic arm, it was after a fight that I’ll rather not explain due to not being that relevant; and even thought doctors refused to give him a prosthesis at first since he could simply let it rebuild naturally (yes he can regen too, but in a slower phase bc reasons), he got it anyways due to the fact limbs regen take way longer than physic injuries and/or internal damage (some even assumed that they probably wouldn’t actually regen anyway), which can be a bother on his job most of the time…and maybe out of spite too –he wanna look tough, yo-
Fun fact, during the hype I got from making this bad boi, I ended up attaching him to grandson’s song called ‘Blood/Water’ due to the lyrics kinda resembling his defamatory actions towards FPM (and also his wild and sometimes desperate hunger towards ink beings, yikes)
Second, what’s VB’s main plotline now and why did I expand it?
To resume it in the ‘signature phrase’ I made for the new version (which was also inspired on MARETU’s ‘Magical Doctor’ song –mandoilovethisvocaloidsongcomposerasdfgh)
**THIS WASN’T MEANT TO HAPPEN**
Venomous Bittersweet (which I’ll rename in the future due to the fusion with TAF) started off with a simple plot -FPM going on a mission for himself to get cured from a spider bite he got all of a sudden, but failing in the process (bc plot convenience idk) and CPG is the one who goes to his rescue instead while showing off the things she learned from him, this that, wholesome ending blah blah blah- you know the drill if you read it to end.
But by the moment I began making those little ‘inside stories’ –specially DPM’s backstory explaining why he became so reckless and outgoing- I started to extent myself on how things worked on this AU, even how drawings come to life (ik it’s weird but that’s how I though it to be so ff-), and by such I felt the urge to give almost everything a background story, such as Aris’ reason to kidnap and take control over FPM’s body and mind (and maybe his soul too oops-), the Spider Kingdom’s origin and even the portals and ‘reality deterioration’ in SFPA, passing by DPM’s origins and stuff.
And even if I felt like hitting walls and taking things a little too in-depth most times, I think it did bring some good things for the new plotline I’m going for now
So, in the new story, all the weird, whacky (and disturbing) things that happen after SFPA and during OG VB plotline came by what I’d express as some sort of ‘time-space anomaly’ that made everything slightly unstable on the ‘other side’ of the studio (I won’t explain too much my brain is about to boil rn so take that as you will for now tysm), having a passive (but not unnoticeable) effect on the sketchbooks.
I can’t give much context why, how or where did the anomaly came to be exactly (you can make theories if you like, I’d love to read them 4real <3), but it’s main purpose is to take control over all existing worlds just to corrupt them to its will, to the point there is basically nothing left but despair and desolation to which all entities will be forced to endure and all that edgy jazz.
…And by that, the ‘anomaly’ will create incompatible matter amalgams –ink and graphite being the most coming-to-mind example in the story so far- in order to conquer all the sketchbooks, but as a consequence of this ‘anomaly’s’ arise, new worlds came to be fully developed (in other words, they finally exist as a whole), and with that, new ‘heroes’ are brought into the situation, each representing a type of artistic material alone –watercolor, oil paint, etc-, heroes with which FPM will encounter and interact with, as he’ll also help them in how to use their abilities to fight the baddies and stuff.
And because we need conflict to make things interesting, Q-Ross and DPM indirectly (but kinda) ‘team up’ to fabricate fake evidence and such in order to mess with FPM’s reputation towards the heroes by incriminating him and/or even mislead his actions (confusing wrong by right and vice versa, etc.) (because ink man is salty and corrector ass is a dick by nature –ofc), and even ocassionally with Q-Ross starting the job, just to get DPM to finish it; and sometimes they get the aforesaid characters to hold grudges –if it comes to succeed, or instead making them get more on his side by the same feeling of doubt –if they mess up on something, no matter the size.
As about his sickness, well, it also got a little twist.
We know that new worlds and material compositions come with new squiggle types, and even if ‘dust-related’ types don’t affect him for too long –chalk being the closest example I can bring up-, liquid or clayish matters, such as oil and crayon squiggles respectively, are toxic towards him, so in the way the more he interacts with incompatible squiggles, the more harmed his health condition gets, to the point it grips into the weakest part of his body –his core (I’ll later explain this just…let me get this out first plz), which limits him on doing most things he’s used to do normally.
…And well, the spider bite (which is also an abnormal matter amalgam times two, though I’ll keep it secret for now) was the last nail in the coffin on fucking him up entirely to a new level of corruption (damn is that a stretch I’m seeing-)
Long story short, this was also because I wanted ArPM to have a backstory that’s more than just ‘I’m evil nao bc me get poisond and mindcontrold by spoders out of spite hahahaha-’
Third (and lastly), who’s Ahetzo exactly and what’s his main purpose on the story?
This is a short one
In case you didn’t see my tweet on my Twitter account (here a linkie), this is a side character I made that’s supposed to be some kind of ‘spirit’ or something alike who’s the one in charge of the studio while ya dev boi is gone
In other words, he’s basically like Brad’s subconscious self (IK YIKES- YOU CAN HIT ME WITH THE CHAIR NOW I WON’T MIND-)
…and even though he tried to keep the anomaly thing contained as long as he could while figuring out how to disarm it or at least neutralize it (yes it was there way before, like during fpaw3 events or before so because AU logic lol), the more he tried to condense it, the more it multiplied itself until, well, y’know, shit blew up and everything just sdfghjk’d
And yes, he was the one who released the new worlds to keep the crazy stuff at range, this that
Oml my brain-
And before I finish here, I’d like to make a little ‘self-critic’ regarding my artwork here…and I gotta say, I’m really proud of it on most parts
As I began to retake on digital art lately –mostly due to my slight entering onto the FNF/partially NG communities and other things, I’ve been testing out new techniques and stuffs on GIMP 2 with the ‘routes’ tool and all that (that’s also why it looks almost symmetrical, but don’t fool urself it did took its time-), I even corrected some of the lines to make them sharp and fancy (haha funi joek im so quirkee-)
In here, I wanted to try mixing both solid and blurry shadows as well as replicating a ‘crystalish’ effect –as seen on Q-Ross’ eyes- and some line effects with the ink tool such as the liquid dripping out of Q’s mouth (yes that correcting fluid saliva now stfu-) and the graphite/correctfluid webs coming out of his clawtips/fingertips
And though I haven’t made an official palette for him, I think the colors I picked here suit him well enough in my own idea of such
Overall, I had fun making this, and I love how it came out
Still though, any criticism, opinion and commentary is welcome, both about my art piece and my little showcase over here
That’s all I got for now, see you all later on
K bai-
#The Fancy Pants Adventures franchise (C) belongs to Brad Borne (DrNeroCF) on NewGrounds#FPAVB + Q-Ross Sid| Artwork (C) belong to me
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