#original fiction meta

[crimeronan]

oh. i've been thinking about your oc quartet recently. mainly. devin. tells us about devin.

:D :D :D!!!!

god i'm trying to think of things about devin that i haven't already said. she's an exhausted chronically ill mess who's filled with undying rage, she's a predestined martyr who keeps delaying sainthood by Stubbornly Staying Alive, she's a snarly cunt and somehow also much kinder than anyone expects her to be....

rafi spent a good chunk of time earlier today laying in bed with me and doing analysis of the quartet, which is Amazing. everyone get yourself a rafi who will analyze a story you haven't even written yet with you. we talked a Lot about devin's relationships to the other three quartet members, so that's what's on the brain right now.

bc like. devin's relationship with nova is godawful, obviously. fated soulmates, arranged marriage, forced family siblings, whatever you want to call it, they are Not Good For Each Other. devin is so fucking angry at nova for everything that's happened between them, nova is so fucking desperate to make devin be Good, and the two of them are the only ones who can understand their own specific illnesses, so they remain codependently tangled up in each other.... it would be a lot easier if their relationship was an uncomplicated, loveless political marriage. that they both have complex feelings for each other is what's killing them.

devin's relationship with sol is a lot less complicated on the surface, but not exactly healthy, either. the two of them have suffered similar trauma at the hands of similar (sometimes the exact same) people, they both have an undying rage toward The System (TM), they both like killing people and having weird sex about it, etc. sol is out here like "i'm evilly manipulating you" and devin is like "it's not evilly manipulating me if i fully want to do this and know you're trying to manipulate me" while sol is like "Let Me Have This,"

but devin and RUBY.

rafi and i talked So Much about devin and ruby.

bc on the surface, sol is everything that nova isn't. ie: she's a mean bitch with no friends, who sucks. and ruby, on the other hand, is Nice. and patient. and sweet.

and devin finds that..... Fucking Terrifying.

bc they recognize that demeanor from nova. and nova is only nice and patient and sweet in service of an agenda. and ruby doesn't seem to have an agenda.

so what...... what Does she want.

there are Several Key Events that influence how devin's perception of ruby changes, i won't get deep into them here because i should save at least Some scenes for the actual book. but there's something about like... devin's inability to believe that ruby genuinely respects people's autonomy, because of their relationship with nova. and how ruby's overtures of friendship make devin want to climb out of his skin.

and there's also something to ruby being a mixed Black woman with a noticeable 'foreign' accent, and devin being a dark-skinned transfem person who doesn't know her birth parents & was raised in nova's Deeply Colonialist culture. the two of them sharing experiences with regards to gender and sexuality and race and ethnicity that nova and sol don't.

sol is from the same country as ruby and shares her native language -- but she has also done So Much to assimilate and get rid of her accent and culture and even parts of her name. ruby and devin have similar experiences with being visibly part of a diaspora, feeling out-of-place, navigating where they stand in tachni and in the broader world. devin and ruby also share a desire to protect and help people that sol and nova typically do not.... what with nova desperately wanting to preserve the status quo, and sol wanting to burn everything down without caring what the consequences are.

there's A Lot happening with them. their relationship probably has the most potential to be Functional, but that doesn't mean it's boring or conflict-free. devin and ruby have so much conflict it is Fucking Unbelievable. but they both genuinely want what's best for the other, which is.... something that neither of them are used to having in a partner.

#replies #long post #original fiction #original fiction quartet #original fiction meta #devin #devin and ruby #devin and sol #devin and nova #with this i am about to go out with rafi for ice cream :) they r such a good partner 2 bounce stuff off creatively.

[mjulmjul]

Katya / Goncharov

#yeah ik ive posted them before sorry but i REALLY like how these look together #martin scorsese #goncharov #artists on tumblr #illustration #unreality #<— posters for a ‘movie’ that doesn’t actually exist but is a tumblr meme in which everyone pretends it does&makes content for it #fascinating how we’re immediately personable w katya by knowing her first name while only knowing goncharov’s surname keeps us at a distanc #combined with him being the only major character to go by a moniker it emphasizes just how much he's been consumed by the role he plays #who is goncharov? does he know and keep it secret? or has he too lost his sense of identity? #it's reflected in these posters as we SEE katya but goncharov remains elusive - yet clearly time is running out for them both #lakjdklf ok im done now i never post meta on here so im having fun with the fictional movie #btw I updated both of the illustrations compared to the original posts but will leave those as they were #woudl be cool if my post showed up. u can do it tumblr

[anghraine]

Okay, breaking my principles hiatus again for another fanfic rant despite my profound frustration w/ Tumblr currently:

I have another post and conversation on DW about this, but while pretty much my entire dash has zero patience with the overtly contemptuous Hot Fanfic Takes, I do pretty often see takes on Fanfiction's Limitations As A Form that are phrased more gently and/or academically but which rely on the same assumptions and make the same mistakes.

IMO even the gentlest, and/or most earnest, and/or most eruditely theorized takes on fanfiction as a form still suffer from one basic problem: the formal argument does not work.

I have never once seen a take on fanfiction as a form that could provide a coherent formal definition of what fanfiction is and what it is not (formal as in "related to its form" not as in "proper" or "stuffy"). Every argument I have ever seen on the strengths/weaknesses of fanfiction as a form vs original fiction relies to some extent on this lack of clarity.

Hence the inevitable "what about Shakespeare/Ovid/Wide Sargasso Sea/modern takes on ancient religious narratives/retold fairy tales/adaptation/expanded universes/etc" responses. The assumptions and assertions about fanfiction as a form in these arguments pretty much always should apply to other things based on the defining formal qualities of fanfic in these arguments ("fanfiction is fundamentally X because it re-purposes pre-existing characters and stories rather than inventing new ones" "fanfiction is fundamentally Y because it's often serialized" etc).

Yet the framing of the argument virtually always makes it clear that the generalizations about fanfic are not being applied to Real Literature. Nor can this argument account for original fics produced within a fandom context such as AO3 that are basically indistinguishable from fanfic in every way apart from lacking a canon source.

At the end of the day, I do not think fanfic is "the way it is" because of any fundamental formal qualities—after all, it shares these qualities with vast swaths of other human literature and art over thousands of years that most people would never consider fanfic. My view is that an argument about fanfic based purely on form must also apply to "non-fanfic" works that share the formal qualities brought up in the argument (these arguments never actually apply their theories to anything other than fanfic, though).

Alternately, the formal argument could provide a definition of fanfic (a formal one, not one based on judgment of merit or morality) that excludes these other kinds of works and genres. In that case, the argument would actually apply only to fanfic (as defined). But I have never seen this happen, either.

So ultimately, I think the whole formal argument about fanfic is unsalvageably flawed in practice.

Realistically, fanfiction is not the way it is because of something fundamentally derived from writing characters/settings etc you didn't originate (or serialization as some new-fangled form, lmao). Fanfiction as a category is an intrinsically modern concept resulting largely from similarly modern concepts of intellectual property and auteurship (legally and culturally) that have been so extremely normalized in many English-language media spaces (at the least) that many people do not realize these concepts are context-dependent and not universal truths.

Fanfic does not look like it does (or exist as a discrete category at all) without specifically modern legal practices (and assumptions about law that may or may not be true, like with many authorial & corporate attempts to use the possibility of legal threats to dictate terms of engagement w/ media to fandom, the Marion Zimmer Bradley myth, etc).

Fanfic does not look like it does without the broader fandom cultures and trends around it. It does not look like it does without the massive popularity of various romance genres and some very popular SF/F. It does not look like it does without any number of other social and cultural forces that are also extremely modern in the grand scheme of things.

The formal argument is just so completely ahistorical and obliviously presentist in its assumptions about art and generally incoherent that, sure, it's nicer when people present it politely, but it's still wrong.

#this is probably my most pretentious fanfiction defense squad post but it's difficult to express in other terms #like. people talking about ao3 house style (not always by name but clearly referring to it) as a result of fanfic as a form #and not the social/cultural effect of ao3 as a fandom space #you don't get ao3 house style without ao3 itself and you don't get ao3 without strikethrough and livejournal etc #and you don't get those without authors and corporations trying to exercise control over fic based on law (often us law) & myths about law #and you don't get those without distinctly modern concepts of intellectual property and copyright #none of those things have fuck all to do with form! #anghraine rants #fanfiction #general fanwank #long post #thinking about this partly because the softer & gentler versions of fanfic discourse keep crossing my dash #and partly because i've written like 30 pages about a playwright i adore who was just not very good at 'original fiction' as we'd define it #both his major works are ... glorified rpf in our context but splendid tragedies in his #and the idea of categorizing /anything/ in that era by originality of conception rather than comedy/tragedy/etc would be buckwild #ivory tower blogging #anghraine's meta

[bbcphile]

Mysterious Lotus Casebook and Complex PTSD Representations: Part I

One of my favorite things about Mysterious Lotus Casebook is how surprisingly nuanced and unusual its portrayal of complex PTSD is. So many shows either introduce character trauma to make the character Sad and Brooding, Angry and Violent (if they’re a villain) or Hesitant to Start a Relationship (if it’s a romance), and that’s usually as in-depth as it gets. If they address the unique after effects of child abuse that lead to complex PTSD at all, it’s usually either explain why a character is a homicidal monster (which is all sorts of problematic) or it’s limited to a single phobia, which can be overcome by the Power of Love, or it’s just something that crops up occasionally for Plot and then forgotten about the rest of the time. 

Mysterious Lotus Casebook gives us two deeply traumatized characters–Li Lianhua and Di Feisheng–who each have clear symptoms of complex PTSD, and yet, their cPTSD manifests completely differently because of the types of traumas that caused it and their relationships to the people causing the traumas. And their manifestations of cPTSD affect just about every level of their being, including their sense of self, their decision-making, and their relationships with others, and it includes some of the incredibly important manifestations of cPTSD that are almost never shown in media while avoiding the most insulting stereotypes! 

PTSD vs cPTSD

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is an anxiety disorder caused by experiencing a single (or short lived) traumatic event (an accident, assault, medical emergency, fighting in a war, etc), where the symptoms last for longer than a month. Symptoms include things like reexperiencing the event (flashbacks), avoidance (of things related to the event), changes in mood (depression, anger, fear, etc), and issues with emotional regulation (hypervigilance–being constantly on the lookout for threats–irritability/angry outbursts, etc.).

Complex PTSD happens if someone has experienced long term, chronic/repeated trauma that induces hopelessness and no chance of escape (survivors of extended child abuse, human trafficking, domestic violence, prisoners of war, slavery, etc.). It’s also often interpersonal in ways a car crash or medical emergency is not, and is particularly linked with chronic trauma during childhood: chronic stress hormones introduce literal physical changes in a growing brain, particularly the amygdala (which processes fear), hippocampus (which is responsible for learning/memory), and the prefrontal cortex (which is responsible for executive function), so it can affect every aspect of life and also affect a child’s progression through developmental stages. In addition to these physical changes to the brain, the prolonged trauma–particularly the helplessness–distorts a child’s sense of self, the perpetrator, and the world in ways that alter their decision making, their memory, and their future relationships. 

For instance, whereas a traumatic event that caused PTSD might make you depressed or not trust the person who harmed you (or to fear driving), the trauma from cPTSD might make you suicidal, blame yourself for your victimization, decide to isolate to avoid interpersonal relationships to keep from getting hurt, or become obsessed with never being harmed again.

Basically, cPTSD has the core symptoms from PTSD with some extra challenges, including issues with emotional regulation, self-concept, interruptions in consciousness, difficulties with relationships, perceptions of the perpetrator, and systems of meaning.

DFS and LLH: CPTSD Symptoms

There’s so much more to say about this than I can cover in this superficial introduction, so this will be the first of a series of metas; I’m hoping to go into more depth about some of these categories in future posts (the DFS and emotional regulation/violence one is already drafted, so stay tuned). 

Difficulties with Relationships (problems with trust, communication, missing red flags): Both DFS and LLH have a history of trusting the wrong people and not trusting the right people, both in the past and in the present of the show: in the past, LLH missed the fact that SGD hated him and DFS missed the fact that JLQ was obsessed with him, and as a result, both sects were destroyed, many people died, and the two almost destroyed each other. If they had communicated with each other instead of fighting at the donghai battle, they might have realized they were being set up and could have worked together, but their difficulties with trust after perceived betrayal made that impossible for them. They both have a history of overlooking red flags in the present–DFS in particular, keeping the red-flag-personified-JLQ around despite her history of poisoning people, including himself–and they both tend to struggle with relationships in the present: LLH runs away from and/or drugs the people who care about him, and DFS sends endless mixed messages by not telling Li Lianhua most of his plans to help him. 

Self-Concept (Self-hatred and self-fragmentation): Li Lianhua is basically the poster child for having a negative self concept: he has an overdeveloped sense of self-blame and responsibility, even believing he deserves to die for leading his men to their deaths, and once he learns he was manipulated and SGD was behind it all, he seems to think it’s his own fault that he was manipulated, lied to, and abused. His self-loathing is so extreme that he imagines his earlier self, Li Xiangyi, to have died, and tries as much as possible to be nothing like that earlier persona. His repeated insistence that Li Xiangyi and Li Lianhua are NOT the same person is reminiscent of the fragmentary sense of self that comes with more extreme trauma, like Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) or Other-Specified Dissociative Disorder (OSDD), where traumatic experiences are so painful that people form different alters, or differentiated self-states, that can have different names and skills and memories and identities. 

Di Feisheng doesn’t have the self-hatred or guilt that LLH does, and it seems like he tries to skip over questions of self worth, blame, or hatred by focusing exclusively on staying true to his code of ethics he’s developed for himself and focusing on gaining the strength necessary to fight for his freedom from mind control and the Di Fortress. But even though he’s kept his Di name, kept his goals the same since escaping Di Fortress, and hasn’t tried to separate himself from his trauma the way LLH did with LXY, he’s even more willing than LLH to take on different identities: it’s literally one of his martial arts skills. The Bone Constriction Skill lets him become someone else for a time, whether that’s a child or Shi Hun. It fits well with his willingness to be whoever he needs to be to accomplish his goals: he’s perfectly willing to be seen as a heartless villain if it lets him protect LLH, and he’s willing to flirt with and pretend to be jealous of JLQ to get information from her, and he’s willing to be LLH’s a-Fei, both with and without his memories.

Interruptions in Consciousness (Amnesia and nightmares for Everyone): LLH and DFS both have nightmares and flashbacks/memories of traumatic events, and as mentioned above, both have interesting hints of having fragmented/fluid senses of self. They both also dissociate, or separate themselves from the present when dealing with traumatic things:  LLH spaces out and gets stuck in his past memories about SGD when talking to FDB after burying SGD, and DFS dissociates from physical pain so as not to make noise both after he’s been stabbed and poisoned with Wuxin Huai and again when JLQ is torturing him in her water dungeon.

They both also have dissociative amnesia that takes away trauma memories, although one is from a poisonous incense plus the magic of qi macgyvering:  LLH forgot the existence of his older brother who died in front of him, and DFS as a-Fei had just about all of his memories (except a few of killing as a child) taken away. Amnesia is a huge part of cPTSD, because it’s the brain’s way of trying to protect you from truths that you might not survive. It can manifest as blocking out one single traumatic event, a bunch of thematically or temporally linked traumatic events, a skill set related to the trauma, or, in the case of something like DID or OSDD, just about everything. It’s endlessly fascinating to me that the show gives us one example of definite traumatic amnesia through LLH, and then seems to almost transform the experience of having DID and being a new part and finding yourself with a new name and very little else into an exaggerated fantasy setting (interestingly, people often report experiencing debilitating headaches when they try to regain memories behind the amnesia barrier). I doubt this is what they were actually going for, since DID is almost universally portrayed incorrectly and offensively in media (one of the alters is almost always portrayed as a serial killer, but that’s a rant for another day), but the different names and the presence of amnesia with LLH made it a fascinating enough parallel that I had to mention it.

 Problems with Emotional Regulation (Lashing in vs. lashing out): Li Xiangyi and Di Feisheng are polar opposites when it comes to struggles with emotional regulation: whereas LXY turns his anger inward, directing it all toward self-hate in what’s often called a “toxic shame spiral,” both after the donghai battle and after he finds out about SGD’s role in his shifu’s death, DFS lashes out physically at those who have harmed him, usually via choking people, although he is usually exerting an impressive amount of control over his emotions and strength. To put in perspective just how different their emotional strategies are and how much effort DFS puts into emotional regulation, compare how much more calm he is than LLH during any revelation of past betrayal or painful information, any scene where they confront the people who have abused them, or any scene where they learn they’ve been wrong about something big; LLH is most likely having an emotional flashback (re-experiencing the emotions from the earlier traumas) and DFS is probably compartmentalizing them or dissociating from them to process later/never so he can stay semi-functional and not show a potential opponent a weak spot. 

NOTE: This means that DFS is loooong overdue for a very dramatic breakdown when it eventually all catches up to him and he can’t distract himself from it anymore.

Perceptions of Perpetrators: In this way only, Di Feisheng has one advantage: he knows the head of Di Fortress is a cruel, abusive tyrant. While he clearly still fears him, even as a physically strong adult (he has nightmares, flashbacks, and dedicates his life to being free from him, which means he still to some extent feels young, small, and helpless when he thinks of him), DFS knows that he hates him and wants to be free of him. This is probably part of why he’s spared some of the self-hatred LLH experiences: he knows he didn’t deserve the abuse because seeing it happen to other children means he knows the abuse wasn’t a personal reflection on him. It does, however, motivate him to want to be stronger and invulnerable so as to never be helpless again, and that obsession is what drives him to have a single-minded focus on reaching the pinnacle of the jianghu.  

It’s so much more complicated for Li Lianhua (and for a more detailed analysis, check out this meta): the childhood perpetrators were manifold–a slew of bandits, whichever children and adults on the street would abuse him for existing and being poor–it probably felt like life itself was to blame. It’s no wonder that when his shifu and shiniang took him in, they were the ultimate rescuers whom he hero-worshipped, so when he felt he made a mistake and his life fell apart, he blamed himself: at least there would be someone to blame that way and something he could do about it (try to kill his past self and hate everything about him). It’s also very telling that LLH doesn’t blame JLQ or YBQ all that much when he learns they poisoned him, and that he’s more angry that SGD murdered their shifu than he is that SGD set him up, hated him, and was the real mastermind behind everything he had blamed himself for; he struggles to stay angry at people who harm him, and would rather blame and hate himself for being tricked than hate the person who tricked him. So, whereas DFS tries to destroy the people who abused him, LLH tries to destroy himself.

If you read this far, thanks! I’m probably going to be posting the DFS and emotional regulation/violence against perpetrator meta next, because it’s drafted, but if there are any of these you desperately want me to talk about more sooner rather than later, let me know! :D 

#mysterious lotus casebook #mlc meta #di feisheng #li lianhua #Li Xiangyi #complex PTSD #child abuse #sorry it's so long! This is the short version #The original version was 2700 words #dissociation #trauma #I am so here for non-monolithic representations of mental illnesses #PTSD #In case you can't tell I am very invested in depictions of PTSD and cPTSD #I'm always up for talking about fictional portrayals of trauma #so feel free to message if you have questions about any of this and don't want it to be in the notes for some reason

[villainsposting]

I didn't expect Alastor's dad bit to last past Episodes 5, but malevolent dad Alastor has been growing on me. It seems obvious he only went for the dad angle in his dynamic with Charlie to undermine Lucifer (both get under his skin and make him less of a threat to Alastor's continued involvement with the hotel), but then he continues with it and it starts to even seem... genuine to an extent? In him being some form of mentor figure, at least. He supports her and her dreams, yet can't be bothered with her actual emotional problems, he entrusts her with his microphone staff in a show of confidence in her abilities, but then sings that she is someone you ought to stick to "to be on the winning side", reiterating that he still has a personal agenda in supporting Charlie. And the specific phrasing of Charlie being "filled with potential that [he] could guide" is so interesting.

I don't think he actually sees Charlie as his daughter or anything like that, but I do find it funny how he put up the dad act for a single duet only to be like "hold on, that could be good actually."

#hazbin hotel #alastor #mostly because I just have not seen such a dynamic in fiction #where the father figure isn't biological and wasn't actually involved in bringing the person up #and is using the dad angle for nefarious purposes #original post #hazbin meta

[sketchingstars03]

Ya know, it’s funny. Ink is probably the “sans that doesn’t need to be a sans” that actually makes the MOST sense to be a sans anyway IMO.

But not in an in-narrative way,

It makes sense on a META LEVEL.

Think about it

The UTMV fandom’s main creative outlet has always been through Sans. So it only makes sense for its protector, the embodiment of creativity in this fandom, to be one regardless.

And the best part?

It works so well for him to make sense as a sans on a meta level..

Because Ink is a meta character.

#undertale au #utmv #ink sans #utmv meta #textpost #shaymin rambles #I had to get this out there #My brain has connected the dots #THIS SHIT HAS LAYERS #never gonna listen to anyone who thinks undertale AUs are just shallow OP Sanses that do nothing but make the original guy OOC #BECAUSE WE’VE GOT STUFF LIKE THIS #Could go on and on abt how I love the whole meta fiction in relation to its creators lore thing we’ve got going on here #it’s just cool ok #I like this fandom I think it’s cool #This was DEFINITELY unintentional on Comyet’s part but it works out anyway #a stroke of accidental genius

[andreal831]

TVDU and Morality

I've recently said, a few times, that the morality debates in the TVDU fandom are boring, and some people have gotten offended so I thought I would explain.

First, this idea of hypocrisy in the fandom is laughable. The amount of times I've been called a hypocrite because I've called out problematic behavior, while also liking a problematic character. The gut reaction for so many in this fandom when their favorite character is being criticized is to shift the conversation onto a completely different character and even to the commenter themselves. This is boring and even downright offensive at times. Every single character has been a hypocrite at times. It doesn't inherently mean someone is bad. It means they are "human" and life can make hypocrites of all of us at times. Also, just to clarify, I am not a hypocrite for merely liking a problematic character. I promise I have never nor will I ever commit the acts that I criticize these characters for, which would be the definition of hypocrisy. I have also never told anyone they can't like certain characters.

We have these complicated characters and none of them are "good" people because, guess what, people aren't just one or the other. Everyone has the capability to be "bad" or "good." Trying to put a character firmly on one side is a generalization and ignores so much nuance. Some of their actions may be completely bad or completely good, but typically even that is an oversimplification. Are there characters that seem to do more bad things or more good things, definitely. Are their some characters that cross certain, unnecessary lines, absolutely. Are we allowed to criticize and question every character, please do! That's literally what media literacy is about.

Every single one of these characters has had completely selfish moments (except maybe Bonnie) and every single one of them has had moments of selflessness. These acts don't inherently demonize a character or automatically redeem one. This is what it means to have interesting, complex debates about characters. Looking at the characters as a whole and having open discussions of what it means. We can still love the character and acknowledge the good and the bad of the character.

Another annoying point that is always brought up is, "they weren't born evil, they were made that way." Yes, we get it. No one is born evil. Whether it is mental illness or life events that shape a person, they still have to take responsibility for their own actions. Obviously certain mental illnesses didn't have treatments for a very long time, but that doesn't just allow people to be serial killers.

Every single character has dealt with trauma, and how you react says a lot about a person's character. Separating out characters to say well "x" didn't deserve it but when they became "x" they did. No one deserves good or bad things. I know I say it all the time, they deserved better, but when I do, I'm being facetious. I'm saying I wanted better for that character, better writing, better storylines, a better ending, etc. That phrasing implies that some people deserve better lives than others and I just morally don't agree. No one deserves trauma or abuse. That logic only furthers the cycle of abuse. Now, that being said, people are responsible for their own actions. Spend centuries creating enemies, and guess what, a lot of bad things are going to happen to you.

But the real debates I enjoy having, and have been fortunate to find so many people to engage in these debates, is the morality of the decisions in context of the characters. I like to apply similar logic from the Trolley Problem. If you don't know what that is, enjoy this tik tok I made of Cami teaching the Mikaelsons.

Essentially, many of the characters weight their options, like Jeremy killing Kol and thousands of vampires with it in order to find the cure. Kol is a thousand year old serial killer and is attempting to kill Jeremy, but again Kol is attempting to stop Silas from rising. Neither side is inherently right or wrong. There is a debate to be had.

In the majority of situations in the show there is a debate to be had. The only exceptions being any SA. I will never debate the morality of these actions. Even for immoral characters, there is a line to be drawn.

These debates get even more complex in TO because we move into a world where nearly every character has done absolutely horrendous things. It's okay to sit down and say, "This thing that x did was awful, but I can see their reasoning." It is not justifying their actions, but allowing the characters to be the complex morally corrupt characters that they all are.

#just thought I would clarify some things #I just want to debate these characters #without people getting absolutely angry in the comments #like they are all serial killers #but we can still love them cause they're fictional #but I can still hate/dislike other characters for crossing certain lines #that's why so many different characters exist #we all have our own things we work out through fiction #tvdu #the originals #the vampire diaries #the mikaelsons #tvd #tvdu metas #metas

[allieebobo]

What made you decide to make your characters/ros gender selectable? I love them all of course they're amazing, I'm just really curious. 👀👀

Oh wow great question! I think there's been some debate/discussion on this on the COG forums/reddit threads, with lots of people saying they prefer gender-locked ROs because they feel more "real" as characters, and others saying they prefer gender-selectable because it allows for more choice.

For me personally, I go with gender-selectable characters because:

I'm big on writing just 3-4 ROs. I think it makes the most sense to have the most fleshed-out characters be the ones that MC can form a romantic bond with.

Having a smaller number of ROs lets me flesh them out more—their backstories, their fears, desires, personalities, and their evolving relationship with MC (esp. in response to big choices throughout the story).

But it also means that if I were to make them gender-locked (say, 1 male, 1 female, 1 non-binary), some readers might find that they're left with only 1 or 2 RO choices.

While this is technically OK, I prefer to torture my readers and make them choose between all 3-4 ROs that I've created (I try to make sure they each have different personalities and routes/arcs that are central to the theme of the IF).

I feel like it's a pity if readers felt like they're not vibing with an RO because the gender + personality doesn't quite match what they (or their imagined MC) want.

Tldr: I go with gender-selectable ROs because I want a small cast (3-4) of well-fleshed out romanceable main characters because to me, quality > quantity. But then to also gender-lock those 3-4 ROs would mean giving most readers only 1-2 options, which is then barely a choice at all.

Counter-argument: Gender-locking allows the writer to explore how gender affects a character in greater detail. But imo, many other dimensions (family background, culture, heritage, experiences, backstory, plain ol' personality) also shape a character. And to me the pros of a gender-locked character do not outweigh the cons of giving only 1-2 RO choices (OR creating a bigger cast of 7-8 ROs—in which case I lose the depth of all the other non-gender related nuances of what makes a character tick, because now I have to write double the no. of ROs.)

#if #asks #ct:os #college tennis: origin story #interactive fiction #merry crisis #meta #writing #thoughts #author

[fierrochase-falafel]

Reasons I love Xie Lian's character

Maybe this is more of a personal post, but I really appreciate Xie Lian's characterisation and his character arc because of his humanity. He's grown up being seen as special and different, and he really was special and different, and yet is shown at his lowest, falling all the way down from his position to rockbottom and he STILL makes it out alive. Not even alive by choice, but he makes it out nonetheless. And everyday he has to make the choice to see the good in humanity, after having been exposed to the worst human responses and knowing the extent of the damage he and others can do under certain circumstances. Even when he seemed perfect, he never was, and when he seemed despicable, he wasn't that either. He's jaded but not inconsiderate, angry but not vengeful or brash, guilty but slowly learning to love himself. He has the potential to be the most fearsome calamity or the most powerful god, but he decides to spend his time in a little shrine he built himself with his ghost king boyfriend. He can be cold, he can be cunning, he can be naive, he can be reckless, he can be clumsy and he can be stubborn. He can have so many flaws that may go under the radar, so many virtues that go unappreciated by the people around him. He can be the kindest or most scary person you would ever meet, and the only thing stopping him from being the latter is his will to choose to be kind. He is complicated, like a walking oxymoron. And he is traumatised, and he is repressed, and he is trying- he is still trying after everything. He is one of the most human characters I have read despite being an immortal, and gives you the hope that in the face of everything in all its complexity, our choices matter and we as people matter too, no matter how awful our position may be. Maybe the compassion of even 1 other person we meet could be the thing that saves us after all, and maybe no matter what, we're never too far gone.

#xie lian #tgcf #tgcf meta #if you can even call it that #just-- the crux of what I love about what Xie Lian represents as a man who's essentially a paradox yet completely makes sense #and don't even get me started on his internal sarcasm I've already got like 10 posts on that #Xie Lian's complexity feels like a genuine insight into a human being...something often hard to get from talking to people in real life #because he's fictional and all #there's something beautiful about getting to see the best and the worst of him because we accept him as having the capacity for both #hope #nighttime thoughts perhaps #in the face of nihilism I'm out here using Xie Lian as a shield- #if he can find something worth trying for at the literal end of book 4 then yk what so can I...I can try #also see: me when I rewatch the eighth sense and then reflect on what I get out tgcf and t8s #shoutout to the eighth sense and jihyun and jaewon and who they are to each other and also ofc shoutout to kiki #posts originating from my brain

[cowboyhorsegirl]

Why do you think the MCU made an ults adaptation instead of a 616 adaptation? I have some theories but lmk know what you think of this conundrum

This is such an interesting question!! I will preface this by saying that I haven't yet read a lot of Ults or 616, and a lot of what I've learned of canon has been gained through osmosis from other, much more knowledgeable people in the fandom (@sineala, I'd love to hear your take on this ask!). That being said though, I think the main reasons why the MCU was adapted primarily from Ults instead of from 616 was because:

Ults had less canon to work with than 616, so it's a bit easier to ascertain a linear narrative that hasn't been rewritten and retconned multiple times. (For example, in 616 Tony had originally helped found SHIELD; this was completely retconned later on.)

Ults isn't as fantastical as 616, or as we all say colloquially, Ults is the grittier, 'more realistic' version of events that happened in 616. This would be particularly beneficial for a live-action remake, where the commonly held industry thinking is that audiences don't have as high a capacity to suspend their disbelief as they might for animation or live theater. The realism of the medium would necessitate a more grounded comics canon to build off of.

Ults origin stories lend themselves to the strategic vision of MCU Phase 1 much better than 616 origins. I think this is most apparent with Steve's origin: in 616 he was discovered only by the Avengers whereas in Ults, Steve was found by SHIELD (though I believe some of the other Ultimates were also there). I imagine this version of events would be much easier to tweak so that each member of the MCU Avengers had their own separate movie establishing background and characterization before throwing them into a very busy ensemble cast.

I don't actually think that all of these reasons for choosing Ults as the main canon to base the MCU on ended up working in the MCU's favor though. Like, Iron Man 1 is clearly set within some sort of nebulous Middle Eastern conflict that the US is involved in, for a variety of reasons. This conflict would have been easily recognizable to American audiences in 2008: at the time, the US has been in war in Afghanistan since 2001 and in Iraq since 2003. You don't have to waste precious movie minutes establishing a war for Tony to be making weapons for when American audiences are already primed to fill in the blanks if you give them the implication of a war in the ME. The setup of a vague Middle Eastern war acts as cinematic shorthand to establish Tony Stark's background and character to a broad audience, and to the many who hadn't read any Iron Man or Avengers comics, this was their first introduction to Tony Stark's origin story. Additionally, the setting acts as a plausible 1:1 retelling of Tony's original introduction in 616 (elements such as Yinsen, the life-threatening shrapnel to his chest, and Tony inventing the Iron Man suit instead of building weaponry for the terrorists who had taken him captive are all taken directly from his 1960s origin story), revamped for 21st century moviegoers by changing the indeterminate Southeast Asian war from the 1960s comics to an indeterminate Middle Eastern war for the MCU.

However, you literally never see MCU movies dedicate themselves to this level of realism again, for good reason. Whatever cultural shorthand you draw on by placing Tony Stark's weapons-manufacturing backstory in the context of an actual real-life geopolitical conflict also comes with the baggage of all the Islamophobia, xenophobia, and imperialism that comes with that conflict. In Iron Man 1, the inciting incident that causes Tony to want to halt SI's weapons production is the fact that his weapons are being used by the terrorists to harm American soldiers. But what about all the hundreds of thousands of innocent Middle Eastern people your weapons harmed and killed Tony?? What about them, huh?! What about the instability that America has wrought in the region, Tony, backing up political capital with firepower that YOU provided to them??

Immediately, the MCU backs off of America's actual real-life military operations as a basis for their fictional world. I like to think that they did this because they realized that it's very difficult to make your billionaire weapons-manufacturer superhero sympathetic in a world where both billionaires and the American military are coming under more scrutiny by more people every day. I'll guess that the real reason has to do with the fact that those story elements made it much harder to sell international audiences on the franchise.

It's frustrating too, because to this day I would say that Iron Man 1 is one of the best MCU movies out there, but in my opinion, the reasons for this aren't that IM1 was the most realistic or the most plausible or the most grounded superhero movie. What drew me to the MCU in the first place was the emotional depth of the characters and the stories, a depth that I think is best exemplified in Tony Stark. As the MCU moved forward and began to (but never fully) shed it's commitment to realism, the movies started to lose their ability to tell emotionally-compelling stories with high stakes that actually leave you in suspense of the ending. The fatal flaw of the MCU is in believing that audiences don't have the capacity to accept emotionality in stories that aren't limited to the bounds of our reality, when the whole point of a superhero story is to challenge ourselves to imagine more fantastical worlds than our own.

#yanderefreud #signed sealed delivered #616 #1610 #mcu #meta #avengers #the irony of the WW2 in CA:TFA being more fictional than the vague ME conflict in IM1 #I suppose they did specify that it takes place in Afghanistan so there is that #i hope this at least answered your question! and probably several others that you did not even ask jfkdjsf #also to go back to your original question it is important to note that they do take a lot of inspo from 616! i feel like as the mcu goes on #it moves away from ults & towards 616 #but of course through the veneer of shittier & shittier CGI

[mondsphere]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, Original Work Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Reader, Author - Character, Protagonist - Character, Luo Binghe, Shen Yuan | Shen Qingqiu Additional Tags: Metafiction, Meta, Reader-Interactive, OR IS IT, Existentialism, Literary Theory, Weird Plot Shit, Fourth Wall, this is mainly just… odd?, Absurd, if you will, chair imagery as a reflection of self-worth, POV Multiple, just… so many, but mainly, POV Second Person Summary:

A long-ranging discussion on the nature of analysing "The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System" and elements of storytelling. With normal-sized chairs.

#svsss meta #luo binghe #shen qingqiu #this is original fiction hiding behind svsss meta co opted by my weird little brain monsters #literary theory #used as a plot device #this is like. so many boxes in so many boxes #i am SO tired please #take the internet away from me #is this anything

[crimeronan]

is sol a sociopath, do you think??

ooh, i'm assuming this question is based on my aspd musing these past few days so ! i will see if i can give a quick good faith answer

the short answer is no, simply because her world doesn't do psychology or pathology exactly the same as ours. which is mainly because i... don't like that pathology. when i use 'sociopath' to refer to myself or fictional characters it's always tongue-in-cheek because i reject the notions that 1) lack of empathy makes you smarter than everyone else 2) lack of empathy makes you more dangerous than everyone else and 3) lack of empathy means you're missing out on a fundamental human experience.

however sol Absolutely shares many traditionally 'sociopathic' traits: excellent at social camouflage and manipulation for survival, good at reading people's motives and pushing their buttons, very Ends Justify The Means about things, struggles with feelings that aren't just Mania or Rage, has an incredibly quick temper, has very few qualms about violence, chooses her attachments very carefully based on what they can give her and then tries to emulate whatever they're looking for, lies as easily as breathing, etc.

she also shares several self-regulation and coping mechanisms with me, such as outsourcing morality to ruby and relying on other people to tell her when she's fucked up. however she is less practiced at accepting other people's opinions than i am and has a lot to learn when it comes to Not Treating People Like Fucking Shit, which i... HOPE is not the case for me. 😬

so yes she's absolutely devoid of empathy and makes bad choices and fits the mold of a pretty divisive villain archetype. but 'sociopath' is kinda reductive and makes it hard to view her with the interiority and sympathy that i've been focusing on, and also i don't want to "other" her when she is just... a traumatized human being with normal human feelings. so! 💕

#but i may jokingly/tongue-in-cheek call her a sociopath either as shorthand or when it's funny. #replies #original fiction #original fiction meta #i guess? #sol #imagine if i spent as much time writing the story as i did thinking aboht the story and responding to anons as tho i've written it #what a world that would be

[heretherebedork]

My not-a-theory-more-like-speculation about Hidden Agenda that probably isn't true?

Joke has depression.

Joke was severely depressed at one point in the past, likely right after moving to the city with his grandmother, and he struggled to find any value in himself or in what he did.

And when Zo tried to help him (remember the first episode?) he pushed all those horrible feelings at Zo because he didn't know how else to handle how horrible he felt about himself and how much he hated himself.

He's felt awful ever since.

He's in treatment now and doing better but he's still struggling and that's one of the reasons he's so scared of losing Zo and so quick to panic and so set on helping Zo find the light in his life. He knows what it's like not to have any light in his life and he doesn't want that for anyone. Especially not for someone he loves.

I just look at Joke and his apologizing, his trying to find a sneaky way but then almost always switching to straightforward, his struggles with opening up to people, his love for Zo and his deep worry, he press to try new things, his panic and fear whenever Zo seems upset with him...

Look, do I think it's gonna be canonical? No. I really don't, though I would love it and fear it in equal measure considering how BL has handled mental illness in the past (spoiler: not well) but I really like the idea.

#hidden agenda meta #hidden agenda #thai bl #it's not really a theory #it's just a vague character idea #i just feel like joke is nd in some way #and honestly him having depression and struggling with it feels accurate #though i did originally peg him as autistic #i could either way #yes this is me diagnosing fictional characters #luckily they are fictional so they don't care

[difeisheng]

trying to beat back the part of my brain currently insisting that my place in fandom is earned through creating things, and if i'm not doing that then i'm ""falling behind"" or some bullshit. objectively yes i KNOW it's not true and that's not how this space works. yes i know that fandom isn't a job. and YET here i am anyway stuck with some kind of internal voice that's a cross between imposter syndrome and a shift manager grumbling at me and i'm begging for it to shut up

#and the thing is my brain is specifically picking at the fact that i'm not writing fic #the meta and analysis and photo edits gifs translations whatever all counts as creation. i know that #i'm genuinely having fun with those things and tbh i've never had a fandom where i got to focus so much on analysis especially #and i also know that fandom is not something you have to be a creator in to have a place. also we all have lives outside of fandom #but i hung too much of my value as a person and in fandom on my fiction writing skill in high school #and apparently we still haven't fully gotten over that yet. do not recommend #ughfjdjsjsk i need. to listen to my podcast. and do some colouring. and nap #ashton originals #is this the real life

[melodymaymoreno]

Sometimes, heroes are not enough to save a word from catastrophe. Sometimes, you need someone else.

When their home threatens to collapse into chaos, a team of unlikely companions is willing to cross worlds to find a solution. A princess, a young hero, an old wizard a sorcerer without magic. They are meant to find a sorceress powerful enough to change the course of their world’s destiny, a creature unbound from the laws of magic and bring her back.

Except Amelia Brown isn’t a sorceress and she doesn’t know about their realms or why they were sent to find her specifically. Indeed, she knows nothing about herself beyond her little work at a telephone station, her only friend and the fact she lives alone, aimless and trapped in a life that doesn’t seem hers.

And because she is trapped, she goes with them, to discover what she forgot and how can she truly get it back. Is she really the hero they have been looking for or there is something else that meets the eye?

Read the ninth chapter in Royal Road

#mbiw #my original fiction #meta fiction #my novel #writeblr #fantasy

[sarahowritesostucky]

Writing Original Characters is just not the same...

The heartache of knowing that nobody cares about your OCs that you crafted and love more than life itself 😭Trust me: NOBODY. CARES.

Nobody cares that Verne is a super big, burly, grumpy, and slightly chauvinistic survivalist alpha werewolf

Nobody cares that Lucas is a creative sweetheart who's taking care of Verne (and trying to convince him to not kill Bo)

Nobody cares that Bo is being held hostage in their cabin until she stops lying that she's not a werewolf

And nobody understands them, goddammit! They don't know how unique and special and perfect and imperfect they are.

They don't know about Verne's trauma growing up on a Louisiana rez,

Or Bo's failed attempts to live that influencer life,

Or the really great and totally original plotline you've thought up,

Or the super hot gay lumberjack werewolf sex Lucas and his husband are always getting up to!

They don't know all the little details and headcanons and meta you've worked out in your head at 3AM on the bedroom ceiling.

They don't get it, that these are the bestest characters ever and the best worldbuilding and the best e-book written that's still not for sale but will totally be for sale in October 2024.

Love them! Please! Love them like I love them! 😩😩😩

*Keeps writing Stucky fanfic to fulfill the urgent and unrelenting need for praise*

#writing fanfiction #stucky #fanfiction #writers on tumblr #aspiring author #my ocs #Nobody cares about your OCs I promise #original fiction #m/f/m romance #romance novels #fanfiction vs original fiction #worldbuilding #character meta #headcanon