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#and idk overall this fic isn't hitting MY emotions how i want it to hit my emotions so like.... dunno. maybe i'll have to rewrite it
llycaons · 7 months
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got done with that really long cheating fic and here's what I got
like pros
really strong wx dynamic. the emotional scenes HIT and kept me coming back. love how they seamlessly went from 'best friends of 20 years' to 'deeply in love and ready to move in together' in under a weak with nary a dramatic miscommunication. that familiarity translated to well to romantic compatibility and joy in each other's presence. really lovely relationship dynamics and mutual obsession
the barbie princess and the pauper line
"She never tried to see me!" Wei Ying is babbling... "Never saw me, not me me, not, Wei Ying, this is my Wei Ying, no, just, some random husband, a husband she didn’t even try to like, she had to marry me but she —" His voice breaks. "She never liked me for me. Why would she like me for me."
there's another part when he talks like 'she didn't try to love me for me' and this is nearly verbatim the same song as Barbie" Princess and the Pauper "If you Love Me for Me", on the one hand this does kind of make wwx sound like a sulky child but on the other hand he's right and it's not fair and it's an emotional line that fits the story
some of the best cuddling I've ever read. dang. not enough authors dwell on the cuddling. also the naked in-depth conversations were really nice and intimate without always being sexual which I appreciated
that scene towards the end where wwx sees the video of his parents interacting with him and saying they loved him oooohh that went into resolving his abandonment issues so well
I really liked how wwx's relationship to sexuality was written. not his relationship to being into guys so much, but like, his relationship with sex? the demi tag put me off but it actually felt pretty true to his character even tho I see it differently for him in canon. of that makes sense. like I think his canon nonengagement with sex during the majority of the show (in the drama) is more related to trauma and just trying to survive bc in the CR arc he was definitely teasing in sexually aware ways but this also feels true for him? hard to explain
the jumping around in time was really neat, especially when each one has its own plot to be resolved and it all accumulated to the sum of its parts in the end
qs is a lawyer and so is jgy which was neat
otherwise???? very strange!!!
wwx and lwj not being aware of being into men until literally their 30s. lwj literally goes on a date with a woman and kisses her. and talks about wanting to be prepared for a gf. like apparently this setting is even more homophobic than ours but I still think that's really ooc! in the novel lwj did grow up in a hostile social environment and he knew how he felt at like age 15. idk I've grown up in a fairly accepting area and that's not something i've personally struggled with so this isn't a personal judgement on realism or w/e, it's a judgement on character. lwj responding to the suggestion he might be gay and reacting with defensiveness and repression may work for his younger self, but by 30 years old? I don't see it
wwx marrying a woman was less weird than I expected because it was essentially arranged/to repay his debt to the jiangs but the debt part doesn't even seem to matter after the marriage bc when wwx is upset at himself for cheating he's like 'oh shit I feel terrible' and 'I need to divorce her so I can be with lwj' but he doesn't spare a thought as to how that would retroactively fuck up his debt payment??? I liked how he was written in a lot of ways but this was so baffling. does he care abt it or not
lqr is the single kindest and most nonjudgemental adult wwx knows. now I love him. but that is just not accurate to his canon self. judgement and strictness is a huge part of his character
very little interactions with jfm or jyl, and I know jfm sucks but he DOES care about wwx and it was weird to see him entirely missing from wwx's life. and jyl! she's barely in it
overall very weak sibling dynamics, which I don't usually mind bc the romance is so well done, but it felt wrong even to me
jc and wq apparently married with KIDS god help her
the het sex scenes were weird and uncomfortable
NHS IS MARRIED TO A WOMAN actually that's not wild ig he could be bi but he always bickers w his wife while jc is happy w wq and they have kids and that just seems wrong I don't think jc should have domestic bliss im sorry its just not in his character he has a terrible personality and way too much history with the wens in canon obvi. nhs however is clever and strategic and I don't think he'd ever agree to marry someone he doesn't actually like? unless the implication is he's gay and also unhappily het married but even then if anyone could figure out a lavender marriage situation it would be him
qs was not villainized or anything and I liked how her story with wwx ended but there was a really stressful scene of wwx angrily punchnig a wall during one of their arguments and that just never came up again even though he apologized for the cheating so that was weird. like it's hard to ignore the gender dynamics of a younger woman married to a man against her will and I think he was overall very respectful but he at one point is upset that jc got a choice in his wife and wwx himself didn't, which would be fine except again his wife is WEN QING and it's hard to believe she willingly chose to marry him so it just sounds like he doesn't give a shit about women in the same situation even tho I'm sure in this setting it was mutual. somehow. also why are he and wq not besties 🥺
anyway I feel like qs was easy to side against bc wwx was so miserable bc of her so it felt like the reader was primed to dislike her. and I obviously don't want to downplay the homophobia wwx experienced in his unhappy het marriage but it felt very focused on the men in ways I did find misogynistic but since it's a story that focuses so closely on wwx and lwj I think that's hard to avoid? idk. there could have been another female character in it. I guess
also the drunk sex scene...he's not really coordinated but he's thinking pretty clearly so I felt okay about it but also??? why did they do that???
also later they have the little 'oh hehe you can do whatever you want to me' but besides that first sex scene there was nothing of even dubious consent
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sharkneto · 1 year
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hi! could you perhaps give some writing tips for writing angst or short stories? i want to start writing and since i love tua i wanted to try some short stories about five during the apocalypse. tho i also kinda want to learn how to portray characters correctly <3
So, knowing me, this will probably get long. So Part 1: Short Stories and Angst and Part 2: Writing In-Character
Part 1: Short Stories and Angst
Idk how qualified I am for giving advice on writing short stories. I just, sit down to write and stop when it's done. Sometimes that's 1k words, sometimes that's 40k. A quick google says a short story is under 10k words, so that's what we'll work with. Writing a couple thousand word fic isn't actually all that much of a different process than writing a thirty thousand fic - it's just a question of scale. A short fic is going to have a simple premise, that's straightforward and you can set up in a couple hundred to a thousand words (the Umbrellas found a horse, Five is drunk and cut his finger, Klaus and Five are having a bad day and go to the zoo). Don't get hung up on if your premise is "big enough", is enough of a plot - slice of life is my bread and butter and is popular for a reason. None of the above premises are anything big or have particularly high stakes (come back to this in a second). Simple plot means simple structure which is how short stories stay short. Set up, problem, solution. Honestly, you don't even have to solve the problem as long as you still wrap it up in some way (in Lonely Drunk, Luther solves the problem of Five being Too Drunk by getting him to bed, but doesn't have any solution for the overall problem to stop future drunkness). Tell the scene/story you want to tell and get out (or don't, but then you're not telling a short story anymore, which is also fine and happens to the best of us).
Now, up there I hedged that short story = low stakes, which is not true and is where ~angst~ comes in. How much and which emotions you bring into a story is all about word choice and pacing. Take my Lend a Hand vs... Simple. Both are about 4.5k words. One is a fic in which Five destroys his hand to save Luther from vivisection. The other is Five and Diego walking in a park and talking about how to make friends. Different Vibes in the same number of words.
So, how do you use words and pacing to write angst, as that is what you're specifically asking about. For angst to work, you need your readers to 1) empathize with the character getting whumped and 2) hurt because of it. Fanfic helps with 1 because we already care about the characters coming in as we're looking to read more about them. You can help up the empathy in the Set Up by putting them in danger, giving them a difficult situation, etc. For 2, some of the best writing advice I ever got is from This Post on how to write pain - you don't just say "they hurt", you describe how they hurt. Ye old Show vs Tell. Write around the pain until we can see the shape of it anyway. Save hard-hitting synonyms for peak action/emotion so they hit harder in contrast to more subdued word choice before it. Play with pacing. Short, choppy sentences read faster and are good for fights, shock, and pain. Long, descriptive sentences are good to build tension and making those fast sentences faster by contrast. Alternatively, run-on sentences for effect work similarly to fast choppy ones - no periods and no commas mean readers don't get a chance to take a breath. Paragraph breaks slow your reader down, so use that to pace them. A series of short action sentences go fast in one big paragraph together. Single sentences in paragraphs by themselves slow the reader down for shock or realizations or emphasis on a particular action. Mix all these basics up to craft the exact speed and emotion you want to hit. It's a fun lil puzzle.
Part 2: Characterization
Writing characters is just practice. When we're reading, especially fanfic, we have an idea of when a character would or wouldn't say or do something they're doing in the fic. So, break down why you know that and you can start writing the character in the right shape on your own. When reading or watching the source material, pay attention to how a character talks, what motivates them, when they're nice versus when they're mean, how they interact with other characters, etc. You can't drop a character into a completely new scenario you made up and have them act in-character until you understand why they're going to do what they're going to do in that situation.
This takes practice, and there's not necessarily one correct way to write a character - different people pick up on different things, have different angles of emphasis for their understanding. There's also canon-interpretation of characters vs headcanon and fanon-interpretations. The older a show and the larger the fandom, the more prevalent the headcanons and fanon-interpretation is going to be. Personally, I prefer to stay as close to canon as I can, but I'm definitely not immune to fanon and I definitely have my personal headcanons. And, there isn't anything wrong with accepting fanon, just recognize it's a specific interpretation of the character. If you feel like you're falling more into a fanon-interpretation than you'd like, you can always take a dip back to the source material for a character and characterization refresher.
But, what does this breaking down of a character to understand them look like? Let's do it with Five, my favorite guy. Five is a fifty-eight-year-old man who's stuck looking thirteen. He lived for four decades alone in the apocalypse with his plastic wife and then became the Commission's best assassin. He's trying to stop the apocalypse. These experiences shape how he talks - he uses old-timey phrases, both because he's old and because he's not familiar with the modern world. He's not polite and he's quick to snap because he has little social practice and is under immense pressure to stop the apocalypse. How do they shape how he approaches problems? He resorts to violence relatively quickly, because he was an assassin and (again) has little experience in talking to diffuse situations, but he will choose trying to diffuse over violence when he can. What motivates Five? Stopping the apocalypse is the surface answer. Why does he want to stop the apocalypse? Because he found his whole family dead in it when he was thirteen years old. He is actually motivated by his family. Five is a genius but dumb (because lacking social and real-world experience and his ego). He loves an insane amount (chosen survival mechanism was to create a person to love, survived the apocalypse to save his family). Etc, etc, etc...
You just keep breaking characters down like this until you've hit the level you feel like you understand them. And then it just comes down to practice. It took me a good 15 fics before I was comfortable writing Klaus. Imagine characters saying your dialogue, doing what you're making them do, and see if it feels like they would do that. If it's out of character, it might still be in-character, depending on what pressures you're putting them under. If a character is acting out of character, it could be you have a hole in your plot you need to fix - the plot should be pushing the characters to get to the climax and resolution, they should not be walking there by themselves unprompted. If rewriting happens, rewriting happens. I had to rewrite the alley-dumpster fight in HIT because I forgot to destroy the briefcase in it and I realized if there was a briefcase floating around, Five would immediately break my plot (I have a grudging empathy for TUA writers in how easily Five can break plots - it just means you have to get more creative). It's a fun mental dance that I enjoy quite a bit.
At the end of the day, though, the whole point is to have fun. The best way to get better at writing and figure it out is to just do it.
Happy writing :)
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helennorvilles · 3 years
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this process of me writing yaz shaving the doctor’s head whilst having never shaved a head before is literally just me doing a proverbial ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ while writing
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dazaily · 4 years
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todoroki bringing his s/o to an amusement part
my first bnha work... kinda nervous posting this cuz like bnha(?) idk,, but for my manz, i will pull through!! hope u enjoy ^^
description: you and todoroki have been dating for awhile now, but recently he realised he never initiates dates, and so he planned and invited u to an amusement park for a date. 
warnings: gender neutral! reader. fluff. clichéd. i wrote this at 4-5am.
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my manz is innocent, like lbr, he aint gonna know shiz abt dating..
sooo, the first few weeks into ur relationship(?) he was alr facing his first crisis.
he felt like nothing changed, despite having transitioned from a platonic to romantic relationship.
and so, being the sweet and clueless lil bean he is, he went to seek for advice from his one and only bestie bakugou, midoriya.
“hey, midoriya, what does one do in a relationship” why am i making him talk like someone from the shakespearean era tf
“oh, um todoroki?? are u asking for y/n? if so, i don't think im not the right person u should be asking,, i mean ive never even been in a rela--”
“well, u were my best choice” 
midoriya notices the absolute chaos they are surrounded by in the 1A dorm 
“ok i may be the best choice.” said in tiny.
so after a discussion that dragged for way longer than it had to be 2 days, todoroki settled on the idea of bringing u on a date to the amusement park.
cute idea right? yes. there's no twist, like i said this is a fluff. 
n e ways, he was an awkward lil bby asking u out, cuz he's not used to receiving or giving affection,,,, he's trying his best.
“um, y/n, are u free this sunday..?”
“sunday, hmm i think i alr have smtg planned..”
“oh, um, well then, its fine, its nothing important..”
if u weren't hit by a pang of guilt, idk what type of monster u are.
“nah, that was just jokes, so whats up?”
and that was how y'all ended up in universal studios japan. usj
endeavour’s bout to be big mad when he realises the missing money from his wallet.
“sHOUTOOOOO!!” >:[
n e ways..
so ur date started with u dragging shouto around the entire park, with the goal of riding every single ride 
ofc he was fine with it, he was happy as long as he got to spend time with u. a simp.
but since u guys went on a weekend, there were way more people than u guys originally expected, like wHOA,,, 
the park was basically filled with people from all over the world, even though it wasn't holiday season..
so ur dreams and hopes of riding eery single ride, may be impossible..
hAH, YOU THOUGHT, YOUR MANZ FATHER MAY BE THE WORST PERSON ON EARTH, BUT HES STILL TOP 2 HERO. 
ur manz got u the express pass.
the one time ur grateful for the existence of his father.
so yall spent the first 2-4 hours just riding every single ride u could possibly find. 
shouto’s probably the type that is willing to try anything, i don't think he’ll be scared of any rides in particular. 
in the contrary, i feel like there'll be rides that he's lowkey excited to ride on, since he never had the chance to enjoy these events and places as a child. cuz of his sh*tty father.
he would ofc try to hide his excitement, but after being by his side for awhile, uve learnt how to differentiate his different emotions, despite his general nonchalant self. 
him being excited, makes u happy, cuz its rare that u get to see these sides of him.
omg pls protect him at all costs,, he needs it,,, he's so precious,, shower him with all the love in the world.
so y'all be running all over the place, until hunger slaps u in the face like that isekai truck that ive been waiting for. 
and so its food time!
“hmm, since were in an amusement park, we should get some hot dogs, churros, oMG and cotton candy!!”
“..what? c-ch-churros?? what are those?”
“holy sh-- u don't kNOW WHAT CHURROS ARE!? we’re getting churros right now.”
“but, i want soba... the cold one”
u ended up getting both. cuz it isn't todoroki without cold soba.
and it was back to running around the entire park riding everything.
but instead of running yallz were walking hand in hand, as if u guys were an old couple taking a stroll in the local park
and instead of the entire park, y'all were just in the harry potter section..
don't judge, its cute. and the food did some numbers to ur stomachs, so u were avoiding some rides till u digest ur food. 
while walking around, the sun was setting creating a beautiful scenery. 
wanting this to be a lasting memory, u convinced todoroki to take a photo together. 
u wanted to take an aesthetic couple photo to show off to other people who were trying to steal ur hunk of a man. 
at first u had asked random passerby to help yalls take a photo,, but being the attention-starved lil bby he is, he felt awkward posing in front of random people. 
which led u guys to just set up the camera on a small ledge with a castle in the bg. 
it was then, todoroki had experience a flashback to the conversation that him and midoriya had. 
“hmm, wikihow says that every date has to end in a kiss, for it to be called successful..”
“is this website trustable??”
“it should be.. anyways just do it.”
coming back to reality, todoroki suddenly felt a sense of urgency, the date was coming to an end, and he hasn't kissed u yet,,,,
at that moment, as the timer of the phone camera was reaching 0, with u and ur wide smile posing for the camera
todoroki gently turned ur head to face his, and he had kissed u, for public display.
ur face immediately turned red, but u eventually returned the kiss, after getting over the shock. 
after separating, todoroki was silent, slightly scared and worried of ur reaction(?)
“why didn't u tell me u were going to kiss me~~ u should've told me so i can at least look good in the photo~~”
“..huh? well, um, i just had he sudden urge to do it?” kinda ooc
he was flustered, confused, embarrassed and giddy all at the same time
but the hugest wave of relief came over him, as he began to relax. 
“well we can just take another photo if u don't like it--”
“nO, i like this photo. but im always open for another kiss.” ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
getting over ur prior embarrassment, u tried flirting with him, returning the bold action he had pulled off earlier. 
“well, i wouldn't reject an offer like that would i..”
surprising u by picking up on the offer u suggested, todoroki gave u another kiss, easily taking ur breathe away.
well, ig this just confirms that wikihow is reliable. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
i can't believe i ended a fic with a kiss,, this is the most cop out ending ive written but im way too tired to write properly rn,, 
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a/n: hihi, so im kinda nervous posting this, cuz thus far i have only done haikyuu works so like??? i feel like i have an overall better understanding of haikyuu characters and their dynamics, but i wanted to write something for my precious icyhot <3 if this piece does well, ill try and write more about bnha characters. hope it was good!!
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