Tactical Tales: History || Family Dinner || Card Games || Hairpin || Vagabond || Tattoo || An Unpleasant Conversation || Welcome Home || What’s Behind a Name || Tazuki and Mai
One-Shots (Various AUs, OC):
Under the Mistletoe
Seven Minutes in Heaven
Stuck On You
With All Your Light
Invitation to Exasperation
Love Letters
Partners in Crime (NSFW)
Headcanons:
Ballroom Dance HCs
Warlord Element HCs
Hogwarts Student HCs
Other (xReader):
A Bad Day Made Better
Kitsune Bell (drabble)
Everything can also be found by searching the #taz writes tag on my blog! (Updated 4/19/23)
Writing a novel when you imagine all you stories in film format is hard because there’s really no written equivalent of “lens flare” or “slow motion montage backed by Gregorian choir”
You can get the same effect of a lens flare with close-detail descriptions, combined with breaks to new paragraphs.
Your slow-motion montage backed by a Gregorian choir can be done with a few technques that all involve repetition.
First is epizeuxis, the repeating of a word for emphasis.
Example:
Falling. Falling. Falling. There was nothing to keep Marie from plunging into the rolling river below. She could only hope for a miracle now, that she would come out alive somehow despite a twenty-foot drop into five-foot-deep water.
Then there’s anaphora, where you write a number of phrases with the same words at the beginning.
There were still mages out there living in terror of shining steel armor emblazoned with the Sword of Mercy.
There were still mages out there being forced by desperation into the clutches of demons.
There were mages out there being threatened with Tranquility as punishment for their disobedience, and the threats were being made good upon.
Mages who had attempted to flee, but knew nothing of the outside world and were forced to return to their prison out of need for sustenance and shelter.
Mages who only desired to find the families they were torn from.
Mages who only wanted to see the sun.
This kind of repetition effectively slows the pace of your writing and puts the focus on that small scene. That’s where you get your slow pan. The same repetition also has a subtle musicality to it depending on the words you use. That’s where you get the same vibe as you might get from a Gregorian choir.
For more neat tricks (aka figures of rhetoric) like epizeuxis and anaphora, read THE ELEMENTS OF ELOQUENCE by Mark Forsyth. It’s both educational and delightful, not to mention overflowing with wry wit. Great book.
The most interesting question you can ask about any character is not what do they want. it's what do they believe they deserve. because those two things are almost never the same and the gap between them is where your entire story lives. a person can want love completely and believe they don't deserve it and that belief will destroy every good thing that comes toward them in ways they won't even notice they're doing. write the gap. the gap is the character.
I think one of the Worst Things about wanting to find period clothing from other cultures, is trying to find fucking casual/work clothes. Like no, I do not want to see all these fancy intricate kimonos, I want to see jinbei, and field work outfits so I don't put a damn obi on this poor boy so he has a belt to hang his knife from.
The pants she's wearing are called monpe. I just made a pair yesterday in a day.
You can learn how to make them here, but this video is in Japanese. If you have basic sewing knowledge, you should be able to get it.
There is no pattern, only a cutting guide. 2 meters of fabric is able to do it perfectly with no fabric waste whatsoever.
Perfect for people who always feel like their clothes never fit! If you are concerned about the size, here are the pants on me (5', 90lbs) and my husband (6'1, don't know but he looks like fanart of Laios).
if you think you are bigger than my husband, all you have to do is scale the rectangles up so this measurement is 1/4 of your waist measurement.
But don't worry if it isn't perfect.
You can wear them as regular pants, or over kimono.
I want you to make these pants. Make monpe and experience the joys of adjustable clothing that will stay with you for years. Experience the joy of sewing something you know will fit and be well-made and usable, with no precise measurements besides hemming them to your height. Put on these pants and feel superior because you made something that the store could never give you.
Weight fluctuations? Pregnancy? Really thick kimono? Need to wear a lot of layers? No problem. Monpe will help you. Monpe will always be there for you. You can't get that at the mall with the rest of the slave labor clothes.
For anyone who hasn't seen them before, Hidden Search Operators are handy tricks you can use when you're either searching or filtering AO3.
summary: string is a generic way of explaining that you can search AO3 for a specific word that appears in a summary. You can do this from the search bar in the header, from the Any Field box at the top of the Advanced Search form, or from the Search Within Results box at the bottom of the filter menu.
Examples:
summary: Bruce
summary: "Bruce Banner"
summary: Bruce OR summary: Banner OR summary: Hulk
You need to put quotation marks around your search term if it is more than one word. The quotes make sure that the site searches for those two words together.
The other two operators listed work best in the Search Within Results box.
expected_number_of_chapters: 1 will return results where every fic has only 1 chapter currently posted.
You can use expected_number_of_chapters: -1 if you want results where every fic has more than 1 chapter currently posted.
otp:true will return results where there is only 1 relationship tag on the fic. If you want results where there are 2+ relationship tags (and no fics with only 1 relationship tag) then you can use otp:false
This page is so beautiful and honestly I hope it reaches and helps any new people that are just starting out on Ao3 because it's helping me and I’ve been using the site for 5+ years now
Hello! Any tips for writing "second love"? Two characters loving again after losing someone they loved deeply?
I don't want to undermine their first love
Hi :)
How to write a second love
To write a couple where one or both of them lost a previous partner, it is important to convey that their relationships and loves don't compete, they coexist.
Let the former love be a part of their lives
It can't be erased and it shouldn't be hidden. It shaped who they are and made them into the person the later lover fell in love with.
Ways to incorporate the former relationships:
Casually mentioning a song that has a meaning for the former relationship
Having a picture of the deceased partner present
Both new partners holding contact with the deceased partner's family and getting accepted by them
The new partner thinking of the deceased partner when it comes to anniversaries
Listening to their partner sharing about their life with the deceased partner.
Still holding onto their wedding band - now around the neck as a necklace or at a specific place in the shared home
Both partners being interested in the former partner's life, keeping their memory alive and honoring and accepting them in little ways.
You can also show how both relationships are different. Not better or less than, just different.
Grief can exist next to love
Grief does not suddenly disappear when someone new comes into their life. It's important to portray that there is the possibility of loving someone new while still grieving for the love they have lost. The new partner can listen to their partner's grief, validate it and built them up again.
okay but there is something disquieting about this urge to cast fan writers as altruists. they give us all this for free!! well, no.
they’re sharing
it’s a key difference in perception. fic isn’t given. it’s shared. it’s part of a fandom community— in which readers are also an integral part.
it’s probably inevitable mission creep from the increasingly transactional nature of the internet and fandom-as-consumerism, which was always gonna happen after corps worked out how much bank there is to make from those weirdo fan people
but like. fandom is sharing. i think we’ve lost that somewhere.
Sometimes I get the "I can fix him" urge for a fictional character but like not in a sexy way. I can fix him with the power of friendship. I look at him the way a 12 yr old horse girl looks at an abused stallion that has injured its last 3 riders but she knows that it will sense her good vibes and she'll be the first person to show it kindness. That man is a skittish horse to me.
i love u characters who are victims who don't show things in a way that's appealing i love u characters whos trauma leaves them with anger issues, with violence issues, with issues with connection and trust and being truthful i love you characters who don't get "better" in a way that's palatable, who don't find growth and meaning in their trauma
Unhealed Wounds Your Character Pretends Are Just “Personality Traits”
These are the things your character claims are just “how they are” but really, they’re bleeding all over everyone and calling it a vibe.
╰ They say they're "independent."
Translation: They don’t trust anyone to stay.
They learned early that needing people = disappointment. So now they call it “being self-sufficient” like it’s some shiny badge of honor. (Mostly to cover up how lonely they are.)
╰ They say they're "laid-back."
Translation: They stopped believing their wants mattered.
They'll eat anywhere. Do anything. Agree with everyone. Not because they're chill, but because the fight got beaten out of them a long time ago.
╰ They say they're "a perfectionist."
Translation: They believe mistakes make them unlovable.
Every typo. Every bad hair day. Every misstep feels like proof that they’re worthless. So they polish and polish and polish... until there’s nothing real left.
╰ They say they're "private."
Translation: They’re terrified of being judged—or worse, pitied.
Walls on walls on walls. They joke about being “mysterious” while desperately hoping no one gets close enough to see the mess behind the curtain.
╰ They say they're "ambitious."
Translation: They think achieving enough will finally make the emptiness go away.
If they can just get the promotion, the award, the validation—then maybe they’ll finally outrun the feeling that they’re fundamentally broken. (It never works.)
╰ They say they're "good at moving on."
Translation: They’re world-class at repression.
They’ll cut people out. Bury heartbreak. Pretend it never happened. And then wonder why they wake up at 3 a.m. feeling like they're suffocating.
╰ They say they're "logical."
Translation: They’re terrified of their own feelings.
Emotions? Messy. Dangerous. Uncontrollable. So they intellectualize everything to avoid feeling anything real. They call it rationality. (It's fear.)
╰ They say they're "loyal to a fault."
Translation: They mistake abandonment for loyalty.
They stay too long. Forgive too much. Invest in people who treat them like an afterthought, because they think walking away makes them "just as bad."
╰ They say they're "resilient."
Translation: They don't know how to ask for help without feeling like a burden.
They wear every bruise like a trophy. They survive things they should never have had to survive. And they call it strength. (But really? It's exhaustion wearing a cape.)
It just kills me when writers create franchises where like 95% of the speaking roles are male, then get morally offended that all of the popular ships are gay. It’s like, what did they expect?
#friendly reminder that I once put my statistics degree to good use and did some calculations about ship ratios#and yes considering the gender ratios of characters#the prevalence of gay ships is completely predictable (via sarahtonin42)
I feel this is something that does often get overlooked in slash shipping, especially in articles that try to ‘explain’ the phenomena. No matter the show, movie or book, people are going to ship. When everyone is a dude and the well written relationships are all dudes, of course we’re gonna go for romance among the dudes because we have no other options.
A lot of analyses propose that the overwhelming predominance of male/male ships over female/female and female/male ships in fandom reflects an unhealthy fetishisation of male homosexuality and a deep-seated self-hatred on the part of women in fandom. While it’s true that many fandoms certainly have issues gender-wise, that sort of analysis willfully overlooks a rather more obvious culprit.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we have a hypothetical media franchise with twelve recurring speaking roles, nine of which are male and three of which are female.
(Note that this is actually a bit better than average representaton-wise - female representation in popular media franchises is typicaly well below the 25% contemplated here.)
Assuming that any character can be shipped with any other without regard for age, gender, social position or prior relationship - and for simplicity excluding cloning, time travel and other “selfcest”-enabling scenarios - this yields the following (non-polyamorous) possibilities:
Possible F/F ships: 3
Possible F/M ships: 27
Possible M/M ships: 36
TOTAL POSSIBLE SHIPS: 66
Thus, assuming - again, for the sake of simplicity - that every possible ship is about equally likely to appeal to any given fan, we’d reasonably expect about (36/66) = 55% of all shipping-related media to feature M/M pairings. No particular prejudice in favour of male characters and/or against female characters is necessary for us to get there.
The point is this: before we can conclude that representation in shipping is being skewed by fan prejudice, we have to ask how skewed it would be even in the absence of any particular prejudice on the part of the fans. Or, to put it another way, we have to ask ourselves: are we criticising women in fandom - and let’s be honest here, this type of criticism is almost exclusively directed at women - for creating a representation problem, or are we merely criticising them for failing to correct an existing one?
Also food for thought: the obvious correction to a lack of non-male representation in a story is to add more non-males. Female Original Characters are often decried as self-insertion or Mary Sues, particular if romance or sex is a primary focus.
This doesn’t even account for the disparity in the amount of screen time/dialogue male characters to get in comparison to female characters, and how much time other characters spend talking about male characters even when they aren’t onscreen. This all leads to male characters ending up more fully developed, and more nuanced than female characters. The more an audience feels like they know a character, the more likely an audience is to care about a character. More network television writers are men. Male writers tend to understand men better than women, statistically speaking. Female characters are more likely to be written by men who don’t understand women vary well.
But it’s easier to blame the collateral damage than solve the root problem.
This is certainly one large factor in the amount of M/M slash out there, and the first reason that occurred to me when I first got into fandom (I don’t think it’s the sole reason, but I think it’s a bigger one than some people in the Why So Much Slash debate give our credit for). And nice point about adding female OCs.
In some of my shipping-related stats, I found that shows with more major female characters lead to more femslash (also more het). (e.g. femslash in female-heavy media; femslash deep dive) I’ve never actually tried to do an analysis to pin down how much of fandom’s M/M preference is explained by the predominance of male characters in the source media, but I’m periodically tempted to try to do so.
All great points. Another thing I notice is that many shows are built around the idea that the team or the partner is the most important thing in the universe. Watch any buddy cop show, and half of the episodes have a character on a date that is inevitably interrupted because The Job comes first… except “The Job” actually means “My Partner”.
When it’s a male-female buddy show, all of the failed relationships are usually, canonically, because the leads belong together. (Look at early Bones: she dates that guy who is his old friend and clearly a stand-in for him. They break up because *coughcoughhandwave*. That stuff happens constantly.) Male-male buddy shows write the central relationship the exact same way except that they expect us to read it as platonic.
Long before it becomes canon, the potential ship of Mulder/Scully or Booth/Bones or whatever lead male/female couple consumes the fandom. It’s not about the genders involved. Rizzoli/Isles was like this too.
If canon tells us that no other relationship has ever measured up to this one, why should we keep them apart? Don’t like slash of your shows, prissy writers? Then stop writing all of your leads locked in epic One True Love romance novel relationships with their same-sex coworkers. Give them warm, funny, interesting love interests, not cardboard cutouts…
I’m going to bring up (invent?) the concept of subjectification.
As in, people gravitate to the characters given the most depth, complexity, and satisfying interactions for their shipping needs, because those characters are most human, and we want the realest characters to play with.
In a lot of media, the most depth gets handed to male characters.
And, oftentimes, even when the screentime and depth and interactions are granted equally well to female characters, there can be a level of, for lack of a better word, dis-authenticity to those female characters: they are pared down, washed out, or otherwise made slightly less themselves than they could be, in the interest of making them decorative, or likeable, or “good,” or keeping them from upstaging or emasculating their male companions, or just that the writer whose job it is to write them doesn’t know how to write women the way they write men.
And you get the characterization equivalent of that comparison chart where so many animated female characters have the same facial features because the animators and designers are so worried about not letting them be ugly.
When you have a group that’s allowed to be themselves, warts and all, and another group that has to be decorative at all costs, the impression given on some level is that the decorative quality is making up for a shortcoming. That they wouldn’t be enough in their own right.
And sometimes that cost is authenticity. The interesting, striking, awe-inspiring, bold and glorious unapologetic selfhood that draws the viewer most particularly to those characters who are unapologetic in their particular existence, standing clear of the generic and bland and unchallenging “safe” appearances.
It is authenticity, not beauty, which powers subjectification. The love for a character, not because they are perfect, but because they are them.
They can be pretty, sure. They can be sweet. But being pretty and sweet is not a replacement, and too many female characters have been written by writers who think it is, while the interest—in appearance, in personality, in interactions, in plot development—goes to the men.
And when that happens, well. Surprise, surprise, that’s where the shipping goes.
Yeah I don’t really ship but I do write a fair amount of fanfic, and in most franchises working with the female characters is a chore.
You have to do so much of the work yourself, because the canon left them unfinished, with huge gaps or unexplored contradictions that you have to somehow resolve. Every female character you decide to integrate into your fanwork in some major role constitutes an undertaking in her own right as you patch together an understanding of her sufficient to model a consistent set of reactions and priorities &c.
The dudes just get handed to you. Even the ones whose canon is a mess have properly developed character cores.
That you don’t have to unearth and piece together like some sort of volunteer archeologist coming up with theories way more complex than the available artifacts truly support.
KPop Demon Hunters fandom is also led by well-written female characters and… well…
Top ship is polyfemslash. Which is WILD, I think this may be the first fandom I’m in where a poly ship is the biggest ship. And that’s ABOVE the canon M/F ship of Jinu/Rumi. And then the non-romantic relationship between the main girls is above all other romantic ships.
Writing multiple well-written women in a property leads to more F/F shipping.
Prompt: #4- Can you hold me?
Fandom: Ikemen Sengoku
Rating: General
Characters: Mitsuhide Akechi, Reader
Summary: You ask Mitsuhide for a hug. He obliges.
Notes: Just a short, fluffy fic. Might be working through some feels as I haven’t played IkeSen as much as I used to and was missing one of my main guys.
WC: 555
Also on ao3!
My masterlist!
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"…Can you hold me?"
The whispered question hung in the air for only mere moments before you felt strong arms encircle you, squeezing tightly.
"Another long day, Little Mouse?" Mitsuhide's deep voice rumbled against your temple. "You should have called for me sooner."
You didn't want to bother him as he seemed busy with the newest project that Nobunaga was cooking up, so you stood aside to let him work. It felt silly to want a simple hug when Mitsuhide had many other tasks, more important ones, to finish.
"I felt that you needed a recharge. You've been so busy lately, I was getting worried."
Mitsuhide chuckled.
"How considerate of you. I'm certainly a lucky man to have such a doting partner to notice these things." His fingers began to glide through your hair. "Warm tea on these past cold days, and extra blankets on my shoulders for the long nights, your thoughtfulness is always appreciated."
A pause.
"Though, lately, I only see your face out of the corner of my eye. Even your steps are quieter these days. Have you become a ghost without my knowledge?"
"I'm not a ghost, Mitsuhide." You laughed.
"A shame. I was ready to avenge your death and mourn you for the rest of my pitiful existence."
"I could haunt you for eternity, that way you wouldn't miss me?"
A beat passed.
"'Wouldn't miss you?' To never feel you in my arms again, shaking with laughter and tears? To only hear your voice on the wind? You would have me follow you that much faster!"
"No following me into an early grave, Mitsuhide!" you laughed, "Nobunaga and Hideyoshi would pull you back by your ear!"
"Hmm… the idea of haunting Hideyoshi for eternity does sound appealing." he nuzzles into your shoulder. "But it wouldn't that enjoyable, knowing how I got that way in the first place. I fear I'd miss you far too much to be a very troublesome specter. I'd rather spend my eternity with you, basking in your presence as I am now."
"But, the unification… and Nobunaga's ambitions?"
"He knows I would prioritize you should something happen. And he knows I would become useless to him should I lose you prematurely."
"Mitsuhide…"
"Ask him yourself if you don't believe me. He'll tell you much the same. He knows how precious you have become to me. Days without seeing your smile become dimmer, grayer. You're the light to my darkness, after all."
He pulls you in tighter.
"So, never consider yourself a burden, especially to me. I want to see more than just your face at a glance. I want to hear your footsteps as you shuffle around. I want to know when you are in the room with me. I especially want to know when you crave my attentions, just like now. You know I always crave yours, crave you. Don't be afraid to call on me when you need something, even small things like this."
"…Okay."
Mitsuhide smiled.
"Come then. Let's sit together and you can tell me about what you've been up to lately. You're not turning into a ghost while I'm here."
discord's new terms of service DO have a mandatory arbitration clause for the United States and Canada, you have 30 days to opt out by emailing an opt out notice to [email protected]. this has been your standard "for the love of god do not waive your right to a jury trial under any circumstances" notice
Here is a quick link to the new (Sept 29, 2025) arbitration clause and informal dispute resolution info. When they originally began implementing in 2018 Discord clarified your opt-out email doesn't need to follow any kind of template, but there are several options in the notes of this post. One thing I haven't seen anyone add is to make sure you're emailing from the email linked to your discord account. If you've already agreed to the terms of service you can still do this, and you've already opted out you probably should do it again just to err on the side of caution.
using this template as a base, just make sure that you update the 2nd paragraph - specifically dates and the number of the section in question. basically, replace it with this:
Specifically, I am referring to the new Discord terms of service posted at https://discord.com/terms on 2025 August 29th, effective 2025 September 29th. I am opting out of the arbitration clause, and I am stating my disagreement to the class-action waivers, per section 16 "Settling disputes between you and Discord".
