20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)
Admin Cinna: folds hands and takes a deep breath You know not what you ask. I have over 20 years of stories I’m sitting on as well as more recent fan fictions (You can find a list of most of my IPs on my art tumblr). All are littered with various things I can’t think of off the top of my head given I’ve written a LOT and it’s been a while. Most of the time if I have to ramble about something, especially if MHA fics, Chaos ends up on the receiving end with words pouring out of her ears while my brain has smoke coming out of it, hah! I love doing references, obvious and hidden, within my works whether of an in story event or something in real life.
I have some clues in Shattered Destiny only a few people have commented on so far that I have to remain tight lipped about until I finish the last two chapters since it is PLOT. For IP (original) stuff I can’t directly clarify my thoughts/clue in readers unlike fanfics on AO3 via author comments and I generally reveal stuff there for people to confirm or realize/learn something new. One major thing atm for symbolism is from Shattered: Tomoko and her barrettes: yellow roses. Yellow roses in general symbolize friendship which is important because of Izuku’s memory on top of another layer of symbolism given that exact memory, (semi-spoiler) how that friendship ended. There is way more but honestly after writing over 170k for ONE FIC you forget stuff and that’s why you have notes!
But MHA canonly is big on symbolism via name meanings, which is typical in manga/anime anyways, but MHA takes it to another level—Batman early villains level (ie: E. Nygma = the Riddler, Victor Fries = Mr Freeze, Pamela Isley = Poison Ivy) I get to play around with that for my MHA OCs, like Tomoko, her mom and even Kakashiro. “Hidden” reference I’ve made in various MHA stuff (posted or not) is Izuku’s connection with ducks, which is connected to some DFO jokes on Tumblr and Discord—my most obvious connection is from my holiday fic “Not This House” where Izuku has a duck statue outside his front door. If you want to talk to me about most symbolic ridden work of mine would have to be an IP project as it deals with the language of flowers—I’ve done a lot of research and I try to weave it in so people can learn too vs “oh so many plants.” THERE IS MEANING. Or, sometimes, you know, I just liked to put that in because I wanted to.
Admin Chaos: (sipping tea this time) Much like Cinna I end up blathering my ideas to her or anyone that knows my stories, whether they are personal IPs or even for my two fics. I think I would say more recently beyond just what Cinna disclosed would be how personal a fic can become after you muse about it for so long, let alone writing it. For me, especially when it comes to Ultimatum in this case, I put in some of my experiences and also my own handlings on situations that Ult!Izuku is going through. Along with attributes of PTSD that I too have to handle, it’s why I might be taking a while writing it. In a lot of my stories I tend to fall back on things I also went through, to make things a lot more relatable, so I guess you can say Izuku is my mouth piece in some shape or form, especially in Ultimatum. There are some things that is sprinkled in If Things Were Different, but that’s mostly to be focused on how I would be able to speak my mind versus avoiding confrontation like I typically do. I also like to bring closer attention on things in the background of the show I’m writing about too, such as the civil unrest and blatant Quirk discrimination, to expand on the world and also showcase that not everything in BnHA is all fine and dandy, as well show it’s not as shallow as some people like to make of it.
