🖤or 💜 or 💛!

(Sorry for taking a bit of time to reply!! I wanted to answer all of them hehehe)

🖤 Black: Do you think about your story when you're not physically writing it? Does it help with plotting scenes, character arcs, etc.?

Yes, always... Most of my stories begin with rotating ideas in my head, so concepts and ideas, even dialogue, will usually have to exist as a starting point before I actually write anything down. And for actual plotting - I really like using outlines and outline almost everything I write, so really it is a thing where I will be thinking about a fic and then a random moment will turn into an outlining moment if I go to write new ideas down :D

💜 Purple: Name one song you're listening to while writing your next/current fanfic. How or why does it help the writing process?

Ahh... I wasn't really listening to anything while writing my most recent fic xD Actually, listening to songs with lyrics while writing can be tricky for me, I prefer to listen to music while doing the aforementioned rotating ideas in my head thing 😁 One EXTREMELY fitting todolf song though is Poison by Alice Cooper... everyone listen right now... don't want to touch you but you're under my skin (deep in) etc

💛 Yellow: Do you ever alter, highlight, or de-emphasize certain canonical traits in a character? If so, why and describe how.

Ahh, this is such an interesting thing to think about!!!!

For something like Tod/Death, every writer has to kind of come up with their own interpretation. We never get insight into what he's thinking (kkog doesn't count that's not canon...), we don't have a clear view of his motivations because of the layers and layers of lies by Lucheni (up to the viewer how many layers there are), all we know is that he's There and there is some sort of deep connection to Elisabeth and, to a lesser extent, Rudolf.

However, the more fic I write, the more I write Tod as somewhat of an extension of Rudolf's personality. The idea really is that he's whatever you want him to be, he taps into all your weaknesses and insecurities and approaches them in a way that will be the most effective on you for the purposes of You Know What. Mirrors etc,,,,, Unfortunately for the kind of Rudolf I usually write, this mostly means that tod is pretty b*sm about it AJSJDJJF. So I guess for Tod I tend to emphasize the sexuality aspect which is a side effect of the kinds of fics I write LOL.

Rudolf, on the other hand... I keep saying his canon personality is "sad, queer and rebellious", he is literally on stage for like 10 minutes and most of it is being gay s*x depressed ajsjdjdj. There's a lot of portrayals to pick from... I think one of the main things I do is try to add historical facts into the mix while keeping the canon meow meow personality. Fic Rudolf usually has noble goals but despairs his life away because the environment makes it impossible to fully pursue or reach them - IRL Rudolf was similar but also fanatically obsessed with hunting I'm told (by stephanie xD) and a raging misogynist. I guess, though, that the way I write him is influenced by the fact that when the fics take place (because of what todolf is...) we're seeing him at his most private and emotionally vulnerable.

Ooh the question also asked "why"... For Tod the "why" is that I just don't really care about the paranormal entity interpretation, I mean I tried my hand at it with my todesengel fic but even with that I tried to make it fit together with the force of nature interpretation and not "god" or "demon" or idk "Satan" etc. I don't like the god or paranormal interpretations, or stuff that leans too heavily into Tod as a "creature", because 1) it would shift the genre of what I'm trying to write - idk I try to go more for toxic historical fiction metaphysical romance or whatever and not for dark fantasy or paranormal romance, 2) it's hostile to religious beliefs, like, it precludes the existence/validity of other god-like entities in this universe and more "atheistic" belief systems like Buddhism. I don't want to base my fics on a take where, for example, the Christian tradition is in a worldbuilding sense "more true" than another religious system. I think that's lazy and lets author bias show through too much - though perhaps I have a different kind of author bias, as someone raised culturally as a member of a pretty hands-off organised religion, but with a cynical attitude towards its impacts on society XD Anyway um yeah to me Tod is usually more like gravity or temperature and not like an actual Dark Angel King Of The Underworld...

As for Rudolf - I just write him according to personal preference and the theme of whatever fic I'm working on at the moment. Part of it is my reading of historical events (heavy emphasis on the "troubled hero, huge loss of potential" line of thinking) and part of it is just what sorts of performances I like best and want to incorporate into my belief system ajajsjdj.