(Don’t worry I’m not here to berate anyone for failing to comment that is so not what this is about)
We were talking about comments in the disco this morning and then I got in the car and drove around doing my errands so now I have Thoughts and, especially given the fics I plan to rain down on Weddnesday, I am going to inflict them on you. I’m only speaking for me here and no one else.
And because I’m a Wordy Bitch (tm) and I haven’t bothered to write an organized point-by-point essay in years and I’m not about to start now, I’m going to put this part up front so you can skip the rest if you don’t vibe with it:
I want you to feel safe to come into my comments however you feel comfortable. Your comment doesn’t have to meet any minimum standard of eloquence or analysis or anything like that. As long as your comment engages with the fic in some way and doesn’t offer nothing but unsolicited criticism, it’s a good comment. That’s it. That’s the standard. And if commenting makes you feel bad, I don’t want you to do it! You have my permission not to comment. Go in peace my friend. Don’t make yourself miserable over something that is supposed to be fun.
I love comments. Love them. I don’t care if you’ve commented before or if you are reading the fic for the 30th time and have already left ten comments--or none! “I’m reading this for the 30th time and I just want to tell you how much I love it even though I’ve never said so before!”
Me: :D :D :D :D
Not me: omg 30 times and they’re only telling me now? I feel so used.
“Man, this person has commented on a lot of my fic lately.”
Me: Someone new! Hi new person! I am totally normal and not tempted to reply with to your comments with 50 other fics you should read! I’m so excited to see what you think!
Not me: omg seriously when will this person shut up
“I love this work but I’m afraid my comment won’t be good enough but if I don’t comment I’m killing fandom and the writers will stop and I’m the worst”
Me: OMG, sweetie it’s okay, you do what you can do, it’s not that deep. l will love any comment you make and if all you can stand to do is leave some emojis I will send you some heart emojis right back. I don’t want you to comment if it makes you feel bad, that’s the opposite of what I’m trying to do here!
Not me: You are the worst. You are the reason fandom is dying. I cannot believe people like you would treat me like some tiktok creator throwing things out there for a few paltry likes
Listen. I love comments. Almost all comments. I can’t in truth say all comments because to be honest it does suck a little bit when somebody comes in the comments to complain about the show without actually saying anything about my fic.
Good: “I love the way you did xyz, I wish the show had done things that way, that would have been so interesting”
Disappointing: “Omg can you believe the writers did that I’m so mad this show sucks and the creators are terrible people and I don’t know how anybody can think otherwise.” Me: “...my fic tho?”
But like. 99% of comments are great comments. I love it when somebody engages with the story and gives me paragraph by paragraph reactions and tells me what lines they liked most, those are all great. I love it when somebody leaves something that just boils down to “HOLY SHIT THAT WAS AWESOME” whether in text or emoji or keysmash. Comments from friends are amazing. Comments from longtime readers are amazing. Comments from people I’ve never heard of or anons? Amazing. There are a very few people who comment so consistently I actively look for their comments to come in and eagerly await them. Amazing.
But my favorite comments? “My day sucked/I’m goding through a hard time/I’m trying to keep my mind off a difficult thing and reading this made me really happy/gave me a smile when I needed it/is my comfort fic.”
Because those are the ones that made me feel like I did something really important. I impacted someone in a meaningful way.
Now, I will be honest, I am a super awkward person and I suck at taking compliments, so responding to comments is kind of erratic for me. I try to do it, but sometimes I just have to hide under my blankets and squeal in embarrassment for a while first. 😆 But just because I don’t answer doesn’t mean I don’t see and appreciate. Comments are amazing.
Okay, now I’m going to get a tiny bit preachy and overly optimistic. Again, I’m just speaking for me and my experiences, but this is the way I tend to look at things.
Here’s the other side of comments though and I mean this kind of as a word of caution for writes and artists as well as a reason why ‘if I don’t comment I’m contributing to the death of fandom’ is semi-bullshit--it is so easy to become jaded over time. First you are excited for every comment, and then you start to convince yourself that certain types of comments “don’t matter.” “Oh, I got ten comments but 5 of them are my discord friends, they’re just commenting because they’re friends.” “Oh, I got comments, but they’re from the same people who always comment. I wish somebody knew would comment. It’s depressing that only the same people are reading my work.” “I got comments but look how many hits/likes/kudos I got and so few of them commented.”
So. Easy. You guys, it is so easy to convince yourself that what you’re getting isn’t enough. So just, watch yourself and stay grateful. Be vigilant against that kind of complacency. And most importantly, write things you love because you love them. At the same time, sometimes you have to be realistic about the size of the potential audience for any given fic. Write it, but remember that not everybody loves what you love, and if you choose to write something that’s a little weird or has a lot of OCs or diverges strongly from accepted canon/fanon, that you’re going to have to find your people, find your audience, before you start seeing those comments come in.
It’s complicated, I get that. We all do want the comments and the validation. We ARE less motivated when no one seems to engage with our work. But I also think that the way to combat that is to a) stay grateful b) build community with other authors/artists/creators who will still be there commenting and cheering us on when the general public seems to have sunk into indifference. Nobody gets it like fellow creatives. Be the change you want to see in the world, and all that. If you feel like commenting is down, it’s probably down for other people too, so maybe go leave a positive comment for someone else.
It seems like there’s a point in the middle of every story where I have a complete crisis of confidence. Everything will be going along fine and then suddenly one day it’s like “What was I thinking? This was the worst idea ever. This is so pointless, why did I ever think this was a good plan? This conflict is so stupid. This emotional arc is unsupported and unjustified. What am I even trying to achieve here? What was the point of taking this direction? This is so embarrassing people are going to be like this was your big buildup? My readers are going to be so disappointed how did I ever get in this situation??”
I know my brain is lying because it happens every. time. I remember clearly it was when I was writing the party chapter in Killer Combo. At this point I know I just have to stomp on the voice, work through it and do the best I can, and try to cling to the goal and the vision and just get there because the only way out is through.
I’m a huge believer that you have to be your own first and most important audience, that you can’t hang your worth on other people’s opinion of your work, and you have to write the story you want to write regardless of whether anyone will read it. I live by it and wholeheartedly believe it. Even if a story serves no purpose other than a thought experiment about how things might end up in a certain situation and how they might be able to recover from it, it’s worth writing for me.
But that mean voice still shows up somewhere in the middle of every big story. 😂
Anyway, if it happens to you too, know that you’re not alone, you just gotta keep going, and tell the mean voice I said to shove it! 😂💜
I haven't been watching season 5 yet, but I have seen and heard things and skimmed the leaked show bible, so I updated my pinned post today:
This blog is not spoiler-free but you can filter #ml season 5 spoilers, #ml show bible spoilers, or #ml spoilers to cover both. I try to be diligent about tagging everything.
I don't know when I'll get to it, to be honest, I still haven't even sat down and watched the rest of season 4 though I know generally what happens. I'll probably care for Luka's episode but otherwise, I'm not invested in the rest of the plot enough to go digging for subtitled episodes at the moment. Imma just keep writing my fic and reading everyone else's and enjoying myself in my little lukanette corner. 😁
I've got a couple of kid-free weeks coming up (and a completely unrealistic to-do list for that time), so hopefully I'll manage a new chapter and some other progress after I sleep for a few days straight.
When you know the kids are going to make you sick but you can't not cuddle them because they feel terrible and they want you and you can't do anything to make it better except snuggle with them 😝
2022 is not endearing itself to me so far I've been hospitalized for a randomly occurring life threatening issue (but easily treated, I'm fine) and immediately afterward had Covid (still fine) and now being absolutely leveled by a preschool bug for over a week--*for spring break on top of it* just feels like insult to injury 😂 (still fine tho just miserable).
Hello! I love your LukaNette fics and content, and I was wondering if you had any tips to staying true to Lukas character? I’ve been wanting to write luka fics for awhile now, and i haven’t been able to not because of lack of inspiration, but worry for not being able to stay true to Luka’s character, along with the other MLB boys. I’d appreciate any tips that you could give, and again, I love and admire your work so much! It never lacks to put a smile on my face.
Hello!! Thank you very much! 😁 I’m flattered that you enjoy my work and that you would want my opinion. I’m sorry this took so long, I thought I’d wait for the weekend so I’d have time to put thought into it, and then Halloween ate the weekend. 😆
So, part of the fun of fanfic is extrapolation, taking what you know about a character from canon and building on it in a way that makes sense to you. Everybody's interpretation is going to be a little bit different and that's totally cool! It gives us a nice variety of stories. It does mean that not everybody will agree with every interpretation, but don't let someone else's preferences (including mine) dictate what you believe to be true to the character. Don’t stress about it too hard; if it seems true to you, if it seems in character for you, that’s good enough. It’s really easy to sabotage yourself worrying about whether your work is “good enough” and I don’t want you to fall into that trap. At some point, you have to let go of “good enough” and just write. Embrace imperfection. You’re allowed to mess up, to grow as a writer, to look back on older works and say ‘hm, I’d do that different now.’ You’re not defined by any one work or by the level of your ability at any one stage in time, so just give yourself some grace and go for it!
BUT SINCE YOU ASKED. 😆 Here's a rambly, probably incoherant discussion of my personal Laws of Luka that I consider the foundation of Luka's character. Again, these are entirely my own opinion, and you’re entitled to disagree, ignore, and alter to suit your own perception.
To be honest, this is usually a really intuitive process for me so it’s a little hard to break it all down coherently, but I’ll try.
First, Luka is the one person in the series who really sees that Marinette--Marinette--is special right off the bat. It’s something I incorporate almost every time I do an AU. I tend to focus on the eyes, because it was a thing I noticed early on in the series, how much her eyes stand out in her face. It doesn’t have to be love at first sight if it’s not your thing, but to me, there’s always something that makes Luka notice Marinette, makes him look twice, makes him keep thinking about her. Almost everyone underestimates and undervalues Marinette and only really takes notice of her when she’s Ladybug or having a Marinette Moment. I love the idea that Luka gets it from the beginning. (To me, it’s a foregone conclusion that Marinette is special, since she’s the central character, the hero in charge, the One On Whom All Hope Rests. So I see this as Luka being the only one to instantly see the truth about her.) Partly it’s that Luka is tuned in to people; whether you choose to make him someone who likes to be around people or someone who’s awkward around people, he’s perceptive and insightful and he can get a good idea of what’s going on around him. I know a lot of people cling on to the heartsong idea as a justification for this, but to me, Luka’s just observant and intuitive, and he sometimes processes that as music, but it’s not really a supernatural talent. If you want to go with more straight up musical empathy, that’s cool too.
Along with that, Luka’s very straightforward. Over and over again, we see him notice that something is off with someone (usually Juleka or Marinette) and confronting them about it, and addressing the issue straight on. I’ll admit right here that I’m already biased against plot lines that can be resolved by the two characters actually talking about the problem, but that’s especially true with Luka because he doesn’t sit on things. If he thinks someone is sad or upset, he says so; if he feels something, he tells them. Usually he does it in an incredibly gentle way that doesn’t actually put the person he’s talking to on the spot. He quietly acknowledges the truth without putting Marinette especially in a position where she's forced to own up to something she’s not ready to admit. We saw this in Frozer, when he tells her to go talk to Adrien without confronting her directly about her feelings, and in Silencer, where he walks away after his confession rather than waiting for an answer, and in Felix, where he doesn't make Marinette reject him outright and instead just says he'll be happy for her and Adrien. He doesn't press her in Truth until he's been ditched multiple times, and even then, he's very gentle about it. He takes her to a place that he finds calming, he sets things up by opening up about himself and why he finds this pattern upsetting, and he even directly addresses the Adrien issue before he finally asks Marinette to give him a straight explanation.
He respects Marinette’s agency. He doesn’t push her into anything, he gently encourages her and gives her the opening to make her own choice. He doesn’t make his feelings her problem, and he doesn’t blame her for being confused and not sure what she wants. Whatever jealousy he feels doesn’t manifest as anger (this is my biggest pet peeve; sure, Luka can be jealous, that would be human but he’s never taken it out on Marinette or Adrien, and it makes me batty when people act like you can’t feel intensely for someone without the kind of jealousy that makes you unnecessarily angry and cruel).
Luka's also tuned into Juleka. He knows when she's upset, he gives her validation and encouragement (Reflekdoll) and he makes sure that she doesn't get pushed to the sidelines (Crocoduel). (I could probably gush for hours about his scenes in Crocoduel, despite the way I feel about some of the dumbass decisions they made in that episode). I wish we got more of the sibling and family interactions, but the snippets we’ve seen really underline it. He’s the one to encourage her, to bring her forward, to give her an opening to speak. Luka's mother is impulsive and emotional, his sister is shy and anxious, and I just get the sense that he’s been the grownup in the house for a long time. He's calm and rolls with whatever's going on; despite the volatility between Jagged and his mom in Crocoduel, he's able to deflect and diffuse the argument.
Note: Luka has never said that he’s bad with words. He says he’s better with his guitar, that music makes things clearer. But he’s actually very good at knowing what to say and deflecting awkwardness and weirdness. Nor does he use his guitar in place of words, but in addition to them; in other words, he uses the guitar to illustrate his point, but he’s still talking in the process. He also doesn’t actually use that many musical metaphors. Some, yes, but don’t feel like you’re messing up his character if you aren’t cramming in every one that you can think of. Use them when they feel natural, but don’t stress about it. It’s better to be simple than to use a tortured metaphor just for the sake of having a musical reference.
Looking at his family, we see that Anarka doesn’t believe in rules or even really organization; she’s a free spirit, a creative, and we can expect that some of that would transfer to her children. Luka and Juleka’s aesthetics tend to support that, at least in my opinion, not that I’m especially up on styles to be honest. Question the cliches when you write him; is Luka really the person who’s going to show up in a suit with red roses and a rented limo? What effect do you think being around such a strong female personality had on him? Luka’s effectively surrounded by women all the time, so I tend to write him with a little more awareness of the way a woman thinks. Some of this is not being squeamish about things like bras and periods and “girl stuff,” and some of it is knowing when a woman might feel uncomfortable. For example, whenever I have Luka lean in on Marinette, he always leaves her a way out. He’ll only lean on the wall with one arm, so she has room to get away if she’s uncomfortable, instead of caging her in so she’s stuck. He doesn’t block her exits even when he’s being intense and trying to command her attention. That’s a really specific example, I know, but it’s the mindset I’m trying for. He’s just a little more attentive to that kind of thing than your average guy. At the same time, he’s very hands on, he’s always touching people, usually on the shoulder or upper arm, so I don’t ignore that either. Sometimes I have him struggle with that tendency.
Despite his tendency to withdraw from crowds Luka’s very comfortable on stage; he doesn’t look weird or awkward when he’s performing, or like he’s not into it. He knows how to perform. I like that this gives his personality a little more verve and vigor than the laid-back person he is on the day-to-day. I like the idea there’s a little bit of showboater in him that can come out.
I could go on and on and on but hopefully that gives you a little bit of a thought process to start with, and get some ideas really bubbling for you!! Good luck in your writing endeavors! 💜💜💜
When someone sends you an ask that makes you wish you were one of those people who could write a logical, concise, and coherent essay 😂 (don't worry dear anon I'm still going to answer it, it'll just be rambly and twice as long as it needs to be, and may or may not actually end up offering anything useful).
I’m reposting this separate from the roundup as that’s not showing up in the tag, so I’m putting it here without the link in the hopes more people will see it.
If you type “endgame Luka” in the additonal tag fields of AO3 you will get an autocomplete option for the tag Endgame Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug. Use it!!
I think people are getting pretty fed up with the number of not-actually-lukanette fics in the tag, so make your work easy to find! I encourage writers to tag their endgames on tumblr as well. I plan to be tagging both lukanette endgame and endgame lukanette in the future just to cover my bases, and I’ll be going back over time to add those tags to the relevant works I’ve already published.
Let’s grow this tag and make it a place where lukanette readers can find what they’re looking for!
I’m coming up on my next follower milestone, and while I’ve still got a ways to go, I want to start thinking about what I can do to celebrate. I’m trying to figure out something that would be fun for you guys but that I can also actually do 😂 considering how much stuff I have still to be finished.
So, I think whatever I do, it’ll have to be short pieces rather than a full size story, similar to my other prompt collections. I’m contemplating maybe 15 short pieces to be done/posted over the course of a month? That feels more doable than a piece every day, but nothing’s solid yet. I’m still mulling things over.
Anyway, I have some time to work out the details, but I wanted to get some feedback from you, my readers, since this is in appreciation for you, so here’s a question for you:
Is there any sort of follow up you’d like to see for one of my Lukanette stories? A scene you would like to see from a different point of view, or one you’d like to see an “X years later” check in on? A scene I didn’t include that you’re interested in? (Keeping in mind that I don’t do smut, so please don’t ask me to detail a scene that was faded to black 😂) If you have any questions about a particular scene or a choice I made, you can send those in too.
Drop your thoughts in my ask, and I’ll save them up for when the time comes. Anon asks are on if you’re shy.
