Certified dinkus enjoyer.

Hey, hello, I'm Meiyo! I'm an aspiring author; I'm currently working on my Proxy Agents series, which is a young adult urban fantasy inspired by shoujo anime/manga and the magical girl subgenre. Feel free to ask me questions about writing, literature, and my current WIPS! What if the cruel, arrogant gods of Percy Jackson were in charge of a magical girl team a la Sailor Moon? That's the kind of drama explored in my debut novel, Proxy Agents: False Promises! Get ready to be swept off your feet by a light-hearted magical girl story featuring a reluctant heroine, vivid action scenes, and a slow-burn romance between childhood friends who’ve fallen out of touch! Stay tuned for more details! *** You know how the stories are supposed to go. The knight slays the dragon and saves the princess. The heroes defeat the villain and save the world. The downtrodden maiden overcomes her trials to be reborn as a princess. But what if the dragon eats the knight? What if the heroes fail, and the world is literally—and I mean quite literally—destroyed? What if the maiden is an absolute asshole? These are the questions I ask myself and explore in my stories: fun, action-filled adventures ready to subvert expectations at every turn. So if you’re on the hunt for a fantastical tale with plenty of twists, come take my hand and let’s journey together in breaking convention and exploring how fiction commentates on reality. Rate my takes on literature.

[meiyohakobune]

The Proxy Agents Master Doc

Hey, hello! This will serve as the hub for almost everything related to my YA urban fantasy magical girl novel series, Proxy Agents: book blurbs, character sheets, shop links, etc. This will be a "live" doc, which means it and the posts it links to can be edited or changed at any time.

Preface

Book Blurbs:

Book 1: False Promises

Character Sheets:

Main Characters:

Hiiragi Ayu - the protagonist and heroine of the series, and a reluctant magical girl

Hanazoe Juuzou - the deuteragonist of the series and a brusque delinquent with a bad attitude but a heart of gold

Supporting Characters:

Shirogane Rin - an ice queen with a perfectionist streak who warms up to a friendship with Ayu despite a rocky start

Lively Pacifica - Ifel's Agent of Oceans who fashions herself a hero of justice and has a brusque attitude

Izayoi Shuu - a jovial jokester nonetheless capable of incredibly malicious acts of violence, but a wise-cracking goofball all the same

Kurosaki Yuuto - a stunning prince charming who hides a dark secret: he is obsessed with Ayu and actively stalks her

Sakurai Rei - Yuuto's assistant, and a stoic person who rarely shows emotion and always keeps a cool head

[fiercestpurpose]

There’s a quality that certain books/movies/TV shows have that leads me to say, “Yeah, I can see people making fanfiction of that.” It’s something to do, I think, with how tight the story is, how much feels open-ended or like it could be elaborated on.

Something like Breaking Bad, for example, has low squiggability (that’s what I’m calling this quality). It’s tightly written, the characters are consistent, there’s little left to interpolate or extrapolate. Obviously, people DO write fanfic of Breaking Bad, but it still has a low squiggability score. Whereas something like Supernatural has a high squiggability score. Fantasy and science fiction often have high squiggability scores. This suggests squiggability could also be related to worldbuilding and potential for people to borrow a premise or setting.

And sometimes you’ll read or watch something and you’ll say, “Ah, low squiggability,” and then you’ll open tumblr and find out that everyone else seem to think its squiggability was very high indeed.

[meiyohakobune]

Throwing my two cents into this pile:

Yu-Gi-Oh! has extraordinarily low squiggability for the simple reason that it’s ridiculously hard to write the Duels that drive the show. The actual TCG cannot be used as a reference since what makes that game fun does not make for an entertaining story (Kashtira and Tearlaments can rot in hell). The Yu-Gi-Oh! manga and anime have an entire TEAM in their writing department dedicated to scripting Duels.

Hence, any Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfiction written rarely—if ever—features Duels. The focus of these pieces isn’t the card game—it can’t be because of the inherent difficulty in writing Duels, that’s way too complicated for a one-person team fangirling in their free time. Which is tough because Yu-Gi-Oh! as a show is ABOUT the card game.

[beep-beep-im-asleep]

Tbh I always saw it as more arbitrarily "about" the card game. Duels are a vehicle. Duels are about the stakes and interpersonal drama or development playing out through them first, the actual cards second if that. (This is also why the wonkiness of Duelist Kingdom Rules didn't really hurt The Plot, even though it does drive some people crazy.) And it's not like nothing happens outside gaming, either.

I'd therefore say the squiggability is extremely high, in that it's begging for more of that time between card games to be filled in. It's difficult to engage with the primary plot vehicle, but there are massive gaps to fill and characters to more deeply explore and dynamics to develop.

There's also other games one can work with! If you take the Toei series and/or manga into account, there's a lot more games and also more plot to work from. But even DM anime alone, you could do stuff with shadow duels that drag players in, the TTRPG style ones, the virtual world, etc. Like most people are more interested in having characters do Anything Else, but if you want to lean into nerds playing games, there are options!

And that's before you consider stuff like writing in Ancient Egypt or creating AUs, of course. Any setting with magic and monsters is ripe for all kinds of AUs, versus very grounded mundane settings that you certainly could change but aren't begging for you to do so, you know?

[meiyohakobune]

This is a great analysis and I applaud and acknowledge your counterpoint. I think you are correct as far as AUs and the Duel Monsters and Toei anime are concerned. But I guess I should have clarified that I was talking about Yu-Gi-Oh! as a multi-generational series, so Yu-Gi-Oh! as a WHOLE.

GX takes place at Duel Academia, which is a school for learning about the card game.

The main draw of 5Ds is card games on motorcycles.

Zexal is the one exception because so much of it is character focused but it's also the most like Duel Monsters so almost all of your points can apply here.

Arc-V is features Action Duels and is about an interdimensional war fought with card games.

VRAINS is also a bit of an oddball since we don't know entirely what happens in the VR but the VR world does seem to be an online vehicle for the card game, since we only ever see Duelists go there (with the exception of Kiku at the end, but she enters Link VRAINS with a Duel Disk).

I don't know enough about SEVENS or GO RUSH to explain those ones. But every single one of the Yu-Gi-Oh! series has a plot throughline of "save the world through card games."

So while I concede that Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters has fairly high squiggability due to the variance in the games it features in different arcs, I don't think the same can be said of the other series when they narrow down on the card game aspect and that becomes such a central part of the narrative.

Sure, you can go on a cute motorcycle ride with Yusei, but why did he build the Yusei-GO? To play card games on it. You can hang around Duel Academia with Judai and Manjoume, but why are you at the school? To learn about card games, which you had to pass an exam for. You can goof off with Yuya, but what is the fundamental reason why he goofs off and has his entertainer personality? His showmanship's vehicle is card games. Everything draws back to this central mechanic and that's where most people are going to struggle in my opinion.

[beep-beep-im-asleep]

I mean. In literally any boarding school setting, you live at the school to attend classes and learn, but you wouldn't be surprised or identify it as a struggle of the writers if fanfics don't often focus on sitting through lectures. Even if you LIVE on campus, you still have time in your dorm. You still hang out at lunch. You still do things after school hours and on weekends that aren't always directly related to your studies. And it's not an all or nothing thing either. Stuff can be indirectly or tangentially related. You can also refer to characters going to class offscreen, or show only the beginning or end of a class.

Obviously this example applies most to GX, but the concept is the same. You can hang out after card game classes. You can have a wacky adventure trying to acquire new booster packs. You can mention some kids having a casual duel across the cafeteria without focusing on it. The card games don't have to be the main point or wholly absent.

You CAN go on a cute motorcycle ride with Yusei. You can have him talk to another character while working on it. You can have characters strategizing about how to approach the interdimensional war. You can explore any characters' trauma after experiencing the horrors of war or having been trapped in an hourglass in their own mindscape or nearly drowning or losing a friend or etc etc.

Also I've only seen like half a season of GX but even that early on there's occasionally shit like "oh by the way vampires are real. You thought this lady was a duel monster spirit? Yeah no she's 100% just an actual vampire who also plays card games. The other week a cyborg monkey escaped the local lab. We taught it to play card games, obviously, but yeah the lab is doing stuff like making cyborg monkeys" Like there's SO much ridiculous stuff to work from. xD Just because the card games are Also There doesn't mean you can't go "hold up can we do more with vampires? What other weird shit is this lab making?" etc, you know?

Versus—

If a story has a small cast, the characters tend to be isolated or ostracized or in hiding, the setting is isolated, the story follows the characters closely enough that there isn't a lot of time unaccounted for (I don't know if this applies to any series or specific arcs of series after DM), stuff like that lowers squiggability more, or at least makes it more necessary to spawn an AU. But yeah.

[meiyohakobune]

That’s a great point I hadn’t thought of: Fanfiction is an excellent environment to explore what the characters do in their downtime, the events that most happen off-screen.

Realistically, the characters aren’t Dueling ALL the time. But as the main focus of the show, Yu-Gi-Oh! demands there most be a focal Dueling every episode. What happens in between that time is almost never seen on-screen.

So to your point, Yu-Gi-Oh! has wonderfully high squiggability in downtime because of the inherent zaniness of its world. I mean, if I’m remembering this correctly (it’s been a while), there’s a bit in GX where Misawa reunites with tiger lady Tania in the Dark World and I don’t think we ever see their reunion or the journey they go on together to reunite with Judai is not shown. The shenanigan potential in that is endless.

So I think the conclusion we can draw here is that Yu-Gi-Oh! has high squiggability in downtime, but low squiggability in plot time.

[tokkibean]

metaphors are like those invasive species of weed you think you have them under control and then they suddenly gain a consciousness or multiple and fill up the entire page with descriptive nonsense

[meiyohakobune]

I'M A FUCKING GENIUS

[nagisakwrites]

I vibe with this

but also

Do elaborate.

[meiyohakobune]

Okay so this is me in editing/revision mode after beta reader feedback trying to tackle multiple problems with Proxy Agents:

The proxy war feels extremely pointless and therefore takes away from/disengages the narrative

The Agents do not really have an incentive to fight in the proxy war and the lack of personal stakes is disengaging

The setting feels disjointed from the story and unrealistic for an urban fantasy

So the questions I as the author have to answer are:

Why is the proxy war being fought and what are the stakes?

Why are the Agents forced to fight in the proxy war and what are the stakes for them?

How do I craft my setting (specifically my battlegrounds) in such a way to avoid property damage so I don't have to open the in-story media can of worms that is going to complicate things for the entire series?

The first question is easy enough to answer (since I as the author already know it), but isn't revealed in full until book two. What complicates this is that while I can share bits and pieces with the reader, the characters themselves are completely in the dark for narrative reasons relating to the natures of the gods themselves.

But the problem here arises in the pointlessness, which derives from the fact that the Agents on both sides are effectively immortal so they can't be defeated. This is a futile war and because I am purposefully withholding information, it is really disengaging as a result. The Agents don't know why they're fighting. To fix this, I realized that the stakes for the Agents cannot be tied to emerging victorious or losing over one another.

So I changed the goal: The Agents of Ifel are ordered by their god to "bless" people with Ifel's grace. The goal of the Agents of Thade is to stop and reverse this. I can't reveal the personal stakes for the Agents without saying MASSIVE spoilers (because then Shadow Meiyo will get mad at me) but I will say this: All of the Agents are forced into this war against their will and they're being manipulated/gaslit on some level into following orders by their gods. That answers why the Agents are forced into the proxy war: The stakes for them are punishment from their gods, which they're trying to avoid.

Which finally leads to question three: the setting. How do I adjust my setting? This is where I got a brain blast and screamed, "I'M A FUCKING GENIUS."

Instead of blessing people, I decided the Agents of Ifel would bless environments instead. They're already named after such, so it was perfect. Once or twice a day, they'd go into random wilderness areas as ordered by Ifel (so this would change how their Ifel sense works slightly and give them more direct orders) and make it lush as hell. The Agents of Thade would then arrive to undo all their hard work by killing everything. This leads to the two factions squabbling. They fight because they fear the wrath and disappointment of their gods, especially the Agents of Ifel if they don't meet their quota.

This fixes the setting problem (the other issues I can fix by writing more intentionally), since it allows both sides to be as destructive as they want without drawing too much attention because they are no longer in urban areas. Also, if the Agents of Ifel win the quarrel then all the damage covered up by the plant life they're growing. If the Agents of Thade win, the area goes back to how it was before any Agents arrived.

So the stakes become territory rather than victory or loss over the other. The Agents know they're fighting over land, but not necessarily why. They're the foot soldiers in a war fearing the wrath of the chain of command above them. What do you think?

[ceribrennanwrites]

Specified line tag

Find a line that fits the specified parameters given by the person who tagged you then give new lines to the people you tag. This was so fun. Thank you for the tag @sunset-a-story.

A line where someone lies

“Leolin, would I call you were the need not dire?” Wounded Fade sounded hotter than arrogant Fade, even if he talked like an asshole.

“If you were in the mood, you’d call me to lick a single drop of blood off your boot. Fae are all drama queens. Are you just rattling my chain, or do you need me specifically?”

“Leolin…” The silence hung on the line so long that he checked to make sure the fae hadn’t hung up on him. As he put the phone back to his ear, Fade continued in a very different tone, “You’d lick my boots?”

Leo tried to ignore the things that did to his blood circulation and lied, hoping fae superpowers didn’t work over the phone. “Fuck. No. Why don’t you have nats to deal with this shit?”

I was required by law to give this many lines because context makes this lie more terrible also this is required to make it clear why the line later in the chapter is funny to me.

A line you find funny

“I wanted their beating hearts, their cursed tongues.” He took a step toward Leo and it made a wet sucking sound. Fade looked down at his boots. A smirk curved his lips, sharp teeth peeking out, and he said, “Oh dear, I seem to have blood on my boots, Leolin.”

A line about loss

Her eyes fixed on the chain and she reached out to pluck the ring it held from where it had slid to rest in the hollow of his collarbone. “Tell me about this.”

After a moment of blind panic about what story he could give her, he realized he could tell the truth. It was so novel it made him giddy for a moment before the pain of thinking about it hit. Kim had to lean forward to hear him when he said, “I got married when I was a teenager. They died. Overdose.”

A line with an insult

Triumph, when the corner of those perfect lips twitched upward. The tone never softened. “You smell like an animal. If you show your face again, I’ll sear it off.”

Tagging zero pressure tags for @ryns-ramblings @revenantlore @doinglinesakawriting and open tags! That means YOU. Do ittttttt (if you want).

Your lines are ~drumroll~:

A deeply emotional line

A line that makes you cringe, but it's good too

A most unhinged line

A line that's beautiful to you

[doinglinesakawriting]

Oh good gods, a tag game where I'm not allowed to be self-deprecating. I only have three chapters so there's nothing that deep to work from XD

A deeply emotional line:

"You cannot make me leave you here!"

"Your mother would never forgive me if I…"

"If you made me stay with you?" The admiral nodded, solemnity creasing his brow. Jacqueline's eyes became bleary with tears, her vision shimmering and a vice seemed to clamp about her throat, squeezing until her words were barely above a whisper. "Then come with me."

"This is a journey you must make alone-"

"And if I cannot survive it? My odds would surely be improved with you there to guide me!"

"Jacqueline, I cannot leave my men. I must stay until there is no resolution, no shade of a doubt surrounding our fates-"

"Is your daughter not of more significance than an outdated code?"

A line that makes you cringe, but it's good too

"Bread and fish might have satisfied five thousand followers of the Lord, but there is nothing amiss about a well-rounded meal."

(Insert loud gagging sounds. I hate using religious imagery - very ironic, given what I'm writing - and it's such a poor attempt at humour. Unfortunately, it is actually in-character for Agatha.)

A most unhinged line

"Are you still seeing the woman on the cliffside?"

"No, no she has taken to standing at the end of my bed."

A line that's beautiful to you

“Oh, no, no. Let us not “miss” one another, you are not the maid, nor I your master."

(It's not the line itself that is beautiful, it's the boundary. The dynamic is laid out early on. Whether that is true or not, is to be discovered later. There's another one like it in chapter 3:)

"You are not a prisoner, nor should you behave as one."

(Early on, it's introducing the illusion of freedom. The commanding tone Livanna speaks with counteracts the words she is saying. I find that beautiful.)

Zero pressure tags here for @fee-eef @rarrrrhhhhhhh @sleepingpearlescent and @melancholiadreams. You can also take part if you are seeing this and have not been tagged (please do).

Your line scavenger hunt line up is:

Your favourite line of description

A line which was difficult to write

A line which reveals a character's personality

A line which sets the tone for the story

[fee-eef]

thanks for the tag!!!!!!!

Your favourite line of description

"Shade grabs a wine bottle, and he throws it to the ground. The red wine splatters through the already large puddle of liquid, painting its blood across the floor."

mmmm wine

i like the way it sounds like watercolor idk

A line which was difficult to write

"I know people like you, Greyburn, and all they do is run away. So go on, run off."

This was from when Nat was picking a fight with Shade, and I didn't like writing them angry at each other. I had such a hard time coming up with attacks that Nat would use against Shade.

Also, Shade (Greyburn) was only picking a fight because he wanted Nat to yell at him and make him feel worse.

A line which reveals a character's personality

(pointing to a bruise) "This. You’ve given me every reason under the beautiful sun why you’re here, except for the actual one."

I had a hard time finding a line that fits, but I think this one works. This shows Nat's concerned nature, her stubbornness to not let something go, the curiousness that fuels the investigation (that all the characters have)

A line which sets the tone for the story

"You’re a smart kid. You have so much potential-"

"Bull. Absolute bullshit."

or

"God, can I not have five fucking minutes to myself?"

First one is between Shade and the sheriff, the second one is said by Shade. Both are the first time those specific curse words are used. I never curse in my stories, so I think these lines showcase the more mature, gritty nature of the story.

once again, thanks for the tag!

i hereby tag @flarefloofer and @meiyohakobune , feel free to particpate if this interests you

+ anyone else who sees this and wants to join (and please do bc if i see you participate ill remember you for the next tag game!!!!!!)

your prompts are

A simple, short, yet impactful line.

A line with a twist.

A line that has stuck with you.

A silly goofy line.

[meiyohakobune]

I almost forgot about this BUT I HAVE ENERGY NOW AND HERE I AM BAYBEE.

A simple, short, yet impactful line.

"Lively Arctic and Pacifica had left—with no goodbye."

A line with a twist.

"'Just like me, you also love Hiiragi Ayu.'”

A line that has stuck with you.

"Good thing he was looking to be shattered today."

A silly goofy line.

“'Okay… That’s not concerning or mysterious or shounen protagonist-y whatsoever.'”

I shall tag @wbhudson and @nagisakwrites! Here are your prompts:

A line showing interiority.

A line that sheds a not-so-positive light on one of your characters (not necessarily negative, could be embarrassing or comedic!).

A line that drove you crazy trying to write it.

A line completely devoid of context.

[fiercestpurpose]

There’s a quality that certain books/movies/TV shows have that leads me to say, “Yeah, I can see people making fanfiction of that.” It’s something to do, I think, with how tight the story is, how much feels open-ended or like it could be elaborated on.

Something like Breaking Bad, for example, has low squiggability (that’s what I’m calling this quality). It’s tightly written, the characters are consistent, there’s little left to interpolate or extrapolate. Obviously, people DO write fanfic of Breaking Bad, but it still has a low squiggability score. Whereas something like Supernatural has a high squiggability score. Fantasy and science fiction often have high squiggability scores. This suggests squiggability could also be related to worldbuilding and potential for people to borrow a premise or setting.

And sometimes you’ll read or watch something and you’ll say, “Ah, low squiggability,” and then you’ll open tumblr and find out that everyone else seem to think its squiggability was very high indeed.

[meiyohakobune]

Throwing my two cents into this pile:

Yu-Gi-Oh! has extraordinarily low squiggability for the simple reason that it’s ridiculously hard to write the Duels that drive the show. The actual TCG cannot be used as a reference since what makes that game fun does not make for an entertaining story (Kashtira and Tearlaments can rot in hell). The Yu-Gi-Oh! manga and anime have an entire TEAM in their writing department dedicated to scripting Duels.

Hence, any Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfiction written rarely—if ever—features Duels. The focus of these pieces isn’t the card game—it can’t be because of the inherent difficulty in writing Duels, that’s way too complicated for a one-person team fangirling in their free time. Which is tough because Yu-Gi-Oh! as a show is ABOUT the card game.

[beep-beep-im-asleep]

Tbh I always saw it as more arbitrarily "about" the card game. Duels are a vehicle. Duels are about the stakes and interpersonal drama or development playing out through them first, the actual cards second if that. (This is also why the wonkiness of Duelist Kingdom Rules didn't really hurt The Plot, even though it does drive some people crazy.) And it's not like nothing happens outside gaming, either.

I'd therefore say the squiggability is extremely high, in that it's begging for more of that time between card games to be filled in. It's difficult to engage with the primary plot vehicle, but there are massive gaps to fill and characters to more deeply explore and dynamics to develop.

There's also other games one can work with! If you take the Toei series and/or manga into account, there's a lot more games and also more plot to work from. But even DM anime alone, you could do stuff with shadow duels that drag players in, the TTRPG style ones, the virtual world, etc. Like most people are more interested in having characters do Anything Else, but if you want to lean into nerds playing games, there are options!

And that's before you consider stuff like writing in Ancient Egypt or creating AUs, of course. Any setting with magic and monsters is ripe for all kinds of AUs, versus very grounded mundane settings that you certainly could change but aren't begging for you to do so, you know?

[meiyohakobune]

This is a great analysis and I applaud and acknowledge your counterpoint. I think you are correct as far as AUs and the Duel Monsters and Toei anime are concerned. But I guess I should have clarified that I was talking about Yu-Gi-Oh! as a multi-generational series, so Yu-Gi-Oh! as a WHOLE.

GX takes place at Duel Academia, which is a school for learning about the card game.

The main draw of 5Ds is card games on motorcycles.

Zexal is the one exception because so much of it is character focused but it's also the most like Duel Monsters so almost all of your points can apply here.

Arc-V is features Action Duels and is about an interdimensional war fought with card games.

VRAINS is also a bit of an oddball since we don't know entirely what happens in the VR but the VR world does seem to be an online vehicle for the card game, since we only ever see Duelists go there (with the exception of Kiku at the end, but she enters Link VRAINS with a Duel Disk).

I don't know enough about SEVENS or GO RUSH to explain those ones. But every single one of the Yu-Gi-Oh! series has a plot throughline of "save the world through card games."

So while I concede that Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters has fairly high squiggability due to the variance in the games it features in different arcs, I don't think the same can be said of the other series when they narrow down on the card game aspect and that becomes such a central part of the narrative.

Sure, you can go on a cute motorcycle ride with Yusei, but why did he build the Yusei-GO? To play card games on it. You can hang around Duel Academia with Judai and Manjoume, but why are you at the school? To learn about card games, which you had to pass an exam for. You can goof off with Yuya, but what is the fundamental reason why he goofs off and has his entertainer personality? His showmanship's vehicle is card games. Everything draws back to this central mechanic and that's where most people are going to struggle in my opinion.

[meiyohakobune]

OC PROMPTS -

1, 3 and 7 please

Sorry for taking forever on this because of ArtFight and life BUT:

1. Which one of your ocs would you want to dress like if you could get away with it?

Ayu, without a doubt Ayu. I like putting her in cute skirts, blouses, and dresses. But I've also imagined her in an oversized hoodie, skirt/jean shorts, complete with leggings/over the knee socks. Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal puts its main heroine, Mizuki Kotori, in a bunch of different outfits outside her school uniform and that's pretty much the basis of Ayu's fashion. Another good point of comparison would be the outfits worn by Honda Tohru in Takaya Natsuki's manga illustrations of her (especially this one and this one).

In real life, I'm known as the person who wears the exact same thing every single day: jeans, a long-sleeved undershirt (gray, white, or black), a t-shirt, and a hoodie. I have not changed this attire since high school. I wear the same thing year-round. Why? Where I live averages 70s F weather year-round and I find that to be COLD. Anything 73 degrees Fahrenheit or below is jacket weather aka FREEZING (60s is double jacket weather). While I was dorming, I set my thermostat to 73 degrees WARMING mode and even then I had a blanket over my legs and shoulders while working at my desk. Also, I sleep in a tent designed to trap in warmth, under two blankets, wearing winter pajamas. YEAR. ROUND. Though sometimes I don't zip the tent all the way. For all you UK fellas, I hope I didn't give you heatstroke just reading this.

So while I'd love to wear the same skirts and frilly blouses Ayu wears, I can't for the simple reason that I'd be too cold in them. When I go out, it's a rare treat to see my bare arms.

2. What is a fact about one of your ocs that you've never gotten to share with someone before?

I think someone has asked me this before, so here's a new fact.

In the current iteration of Proxy Agents, Rin identifies as cupioromantic and cupiosexual. This is under the aro-ace spectrum and means she does not experience romantic or sexual attraction but still desires a romantic and/or sexual relationship.

However, Rin was originally conceived as a rebound love interest for a different character (who will debut in book two) after he was rejected by Ayu. Who, at the time, was happily dating another character. Don't ask me what I was thinking back then. Rin's former love interest now identifies firmly as a sex-repulsed asexual and pan grayromantic who is indifferent about romance. They have little to no relationship with each other outside of the people they know overlapping in similar circles. Proxy Agents has changed a lot over the years.

3. Which of your ocs has the most tragic backstory and why?

I've also gotten this one before and I'm afraid I can't answer it for fear of spoilers and Shadow Meiyo dragging me to her shadow realm.

[meiyohakobune]

I'M A FUCKING GENIUS

[orangelizardtattoo]

Today's Hype Post!

It's that time of day my darlings! Tell us some wonderful little details for your original writing project or work in progress my dears! (No fanfiction please- it's a wonderful medium but not the focus of this blog post.)

TODAY'S QUESTION:

Let us now speak of one of my favorite things! Archetypes! First let's do Chess Pieces my loves. Which piece on the board are some of your characters?

[meiyohakobune]

I LOVE ARCHETYPES! If yall haven’t watched Overly Sarcastic Productions’ series Trope Talks yet DO IT DO IT RIGHT NOW.

Anyway, Ayu is emblematic of the “beloved by all” archetype. This can very easily veer into Mary Sue territory if she’s not held accountable or able to do no wrong, so I let her mess up quite a bit. I’ve talked about this before, but her entire character is a double edged sword—that applies to how her character affects others too.

Juuzou starts off annoyed by Ayu but gradually comes around to her, eventually falling in love and becoming fiercely protective of her. Rin is a stereotypical mean girl until Ayu offers compassion at her darkest moment and they become friends (and Rin becomes the number one Ayu and Juuzou shipper). Even Shuu, a character who famously antagonized Ayu pretty bad, grows pretty friendly with her by book two (and is the number two Juuzou and Ayu shipper). Pacifica starts out wary but her relationship with Ayu eventually leans more amicable.

The problem, though, is Yuuto. Like all the other characters, he adores Ayu. But in a possessive, obsessive, manic way. He doesn’t like the fact that Ayu is beloved by all. Yuuto wants it to be just him. Only he is allowed to be loved by and love Ayu. She is his beloved, but he wants the right for this title to be his and his alone. This is the dark side of being beloved by all.

But why is Ayu beloved by all? Oftentimes, whether she’s aware of it or not, she becomes the light illuminating characters struggling through darkness. It’s her compassion, empathy, and selflessness that draw people to her. But pull too far in those directions and Ayu becomes self-destructive for the sake of others. So it’s up to the connections she’s built to help her course-correct, since it pains them to see her doing this to herself. It’s a cycle of mutual care initiated and fostered by Ayu’s kindness.

Ayu is the emotional heart and core of Proxy Agents and this role is further exemplified in book two. I wish I could talk Five Man Band shenanigans but if I do that right now Shadow Meiyo will probably bury me alive.

[nossumusstellae]

Ten Songs to Introduce your OC(s)!

got tagged by @ark-inkweaving right over here

For Jaye (Ink Stained Wolf):

James Blake - Retrograde

Where Did You Sleep Last Night – Sleigh Bells

Teach Me To Fight – Yonaka

New York – The Kills

Such Great Heights – MILCK

For Persephone (Guardian):

6. Ghost - Conjure One ft Kristy Thirsk

7. Trigger - Cyroshell

For Birch (Guardian):

8. Even If It Kills Me - Papa Roach

For X'aryas (Shadowed Depths):

9. Still Holding On - Conjure One

For Enya/Estall (Beyond the Red Sun):

10. Falling Apart - Krigarè

(full Jayelock / Guardian playlists here)

[orangelizardtattoo]

Today's Hype Post!

Hype people up for your original writing project (no fanfiction please- it's a wonderful medium but not the focus of this blog post) or work in progress by giving us some juicy details!

TODAY'S QUESTION:

Was there anything you noticed about the dialogue of certain characters in your narrative?

[nagisakwrites]

(leans into mic)

(whispers) Khloe is the voice of my id.

XD But no, seriously, Khloe's dialogue comes to me so naturally I often mistake her for my own voice. She's the kind of unfiltered I wish would be more accepted if I spoke like that.

Caias is proper, so capturing his voice has been pretty difficult--but I have an ever-increasing realization that it's because he's kinda... masking? He talks in a way he believes is expected of his position, so he sounds and feels stiff, like his collar's too starched or something.

So it's talking to Raphelte that gets Caias into a more natural mode of speaking. Neither of them have to posture when they're having a drink together. Sure, Raph's more playful and garrulous (depending on the situation) in general, but with Caias, it's like they return to their boyhoods when they could get away with roughhousing.

Unless, of course, Caias deems it necessary to keep a stiff upper lip, usually when they have company.

And then there's Nhian. Nhian. I really should talk about him a little more since he's so close to Caias. Nhian's dialogue's more childish and prissy, and definitely not as practiced with formal speech like Caias. He kind of overcompensates?

I've been considering character voice the past couple days as I index my story, so the timing on this was perfect. :))

[nagisakwrites]

I've started the "mark up the draft" editing process with the first time the POV switches away from Caias to the dhei.

It's the first time we see the Scion of Ahsa, as well as the Ahsa Clan as a whole. All of the revisions I wanted to make and/or test have been relentlessly nagging me, because I want THIS chapter to reveal as much about

the status quo of the Ahsa Clan

How the Ahsa Clan must change, according to its Scion

How the Scion is viewed/treated by the rest of the clan

WHY the Scion has decided to get involved with matters NOW.

Plus other worldbuilding elements regarding the Dheir Wastes, where the dhei have been exiled to according to Callendulus mythos.

What I've cut and added are already fleshing out this chapter to a degree that's downright intoxicating. The high will eventually wear off, yes, but I hope the insight this chapter provides is as exciting to readers as it is to me.

By the way, see what else I've been cooking up in regard to my book A Sight of Aur in its tag.

[ursulaklegay]

actually i love growing older and learning how i work as a person like realizing what kinds of fabrics feel best on my skin or what brand of yogurt i like best or how I want to be touched. watching myself change, enjoying brussel sprouts when I used to hate them as a child, understanding why I got angry in that one conversation 10 years ago… there are so many mysteries inside me that i have yet to unravel and there will always be more and sometimes i think maybe its all worth it

[meiyohakobune]

There’s something incredibly ironic about this coming from a person whose profile picture is Espurr. The Restraint Pokemon. Whose Pokédex entries solely focus on the fact that it’s keeping enormous psychic power bottled up that’s extremely taxing on it.

[fee-eef]

gimme a funny line that your characters say I wanna laugh

[fee-eef]

here’s mine btw:

“Fuck no. I just got a get out of jail free card, I am not sacrificing my ice cream for bullshit sentimentality.”

Said by shade

at the suggestion he talk about his issues :)

[tip-top-all-right]

Tbh, not mine character, but my idea of dialogue, but I don't have place for it:

- For the love of God... —

- I'm atheist.

- For the love?...

- I'm aromatic.

- Ugh for fucks sake!—

- I'm asexual.

*punch*

What do you think?

[fee-eef]

oh I would love to see a witty sarcastic aro ace atheist character that would be fun

[meiyohakobune]

“Okay… That’s not concerning or mysterious or shounen protagonist-y whatsoever.” Shuu crossed his arms over his chest and gave Juuzou a look. “So are you gonna tell your definitely not-girlfriend that I’m Death Storm?”

Once again, Izayoi Shuu wins the award for Best One-Liners in All of Proxy Agents. He gets even more zany in book two.

[orangelizardtattoo]

Today's Hype Post!

It's that time of day my darlings! Tell us some wonderful little details for your original writing project or work in progress my dears! (No fanfiction please- it's a wonderful medium but not the focus of this blog post.)

TODAY'S QUESTION:

Let's talk fashion my loves! And now, what are your villains wearing?

[orangelizardtattoo]

The Villains in Destiny: Archetype are wearing white. They have an ability called Dustless, where nothing sticks to them.

The REAL villains are wearing blue robes, in my opinion.

[meiyohakobune]

In some ways, this doesn’t really count because Frost is the deuteragonist and Storm is a guy who Likes to Cause Problems, but on the basis of Ayu being the protagonist magical girl Lively Eden opposed by the Agents of Thade, her “villains” look like this.

My design process for Frost was basically “I want him to look like he’s trying too hard to be cool.” Which basically sums up Juuzou’s thought process towards his fashion and appearance. This isn’t brought up too much in False Promises (though it might “hulk out” in later books when he rubs shoulders with another character, their relationship I would describe as “amicable antagonism”), but Juuzou is quite vain. He spends a lot of time on his appearance and money on products like hair gel, cologne, jewelry, etc. I thought it would be more of a challenge to make Frost villainous when his main color is white but it turns out a mean scowl and black leather pants do wonders in that department. Also, Ifel’s Agents are unified in their “goodness” by gold, so this wasn’t really a problem.

As for Storm, I wanted his outfit to “look cool while he was running.” So it incorporates a lot of elements that would “fly in the wind.” Why is he wearing a crop top? I couldn’t tell you for the life of me. He just decided he wanted to wear a crop top, which I realize isn’t the best protection when you’re prone to getting kicked in the stomach but he’s a magical boy. He can take it. I think his head looks a little plain; in my initial drafts, all the Agents of Thade had horns (to resemble the Devil) but horns are Hard to Draw Consistently When You’re a Trad Artist so I left them out in this piece. They’re noted in the book, so they have that going for them.

[fiercestpurpose]

There’s a quality that certain books/movies/TV shows have that leads me to say, “Yeah, I can see people making fanfiction of that.” It’s something to do, I think, with how tight the story is, how much feels open-ended or like it could be elaborated on.

Something like Breaking Bad, for example, has low squiggability (that’s what I’m calling this quality). It’s tightly written, the characters are consistent, there’s little left to interpolate or extrapolate. Obviously, people DO write fanfic of Breaking Bad, but it still has a low squiggability score. Whereas something like Supernatural has a high squiggability score. Fantasy and science fiction often have high squiggability scores. This suggests squiggability could also be related to worldbuilding and potential for people to borrow a premise or setting.

And sometimes you’ll read or watch something and you’ll say, “Ah, low squiggability,” and then you’ll open tumblr and find out that everyone else seem to think its squiggability was very high indeed.

[meiyohakobune]

Throwing my two cents into this pile:

Yu-Gi-Oh! has extraordinarily low squiggability for the simple reason that it’s ridiculously hard to write the Duels that drive the show. The actual TCG cannot be used as a reference since what makes that game fun does not make for an entertaining story (Kashtira and Tearlaments can rot in hell). The Yu-Gi-Oh! manga and anime have an entire TEAM in their writing department dedicated to scripting Duels.

Hence, any Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfiction written rarely—if ever—features Duels. The focus of these pieces isn’t the card game—it can’t be because of the inherent difficulty in writing Duels, that’s way too complicated for a one-person team fangirling in their free time. Which is tough because Yu-Gi-Oh! as a show is ABOUT the card game.

[nagisakwrites]

Some things I've thought as I finish indexing Draft 2.

A Sight of Aur is 414 pages long, double-spaced and double-sided. Word count is somewhere around 94k, not the 90k I thought before. In-fking-sane.

Brooo I love my dialogue. Yeah I have a bunch of parts I need to tweak esp with regard to Caias and Nhian, but I love love love my dialogue.

There's a confrontation at the end that requires Khloe to set up a bigger spell while Caias does the distracting, and I'm stoked at how the spell preparation happens in parallel to Caias's dialogue.

I really, really, really hope you get the same chills I do when Caias crafts his best spell in the book.

I changed the final chapter from a cliffhanger style that led into Book 2 (Khloe's story, Witch at the Seventh Gate) to something that finishes out Caias's story while hinting at a possible follow-up. And I like both versions of the final chapter. XD

This next round of revisions is going to be rough. Like I might actually cry over this at some point.

But I think I still have a nicely character-driven story. It's not anything earth-shattering or remarkable imo but I think it's at least fun. That was my intention with A Sight of Aur, anyway. I want my readers to have some fun, with a good dose of emotion at the same time.

Oooh I even managed a good short blurb too, here you go!

Caias Seighin is a fastidious lord who must learn the arcane “power of commandment” to repel an imminent beast invasion. His mentor, however, is infamously apathetic, and the leader of the beasts refuses to let Caias’s abilities awaken. Yet awaken them he must, else he loses title, reputation, family and allies—and even himself.