My biggest tip for fanfic writers is this: if you get a character's mannerisms and speech pattern down, you can make them do pretty much whatever you want and it'll feel in character.
Logic: Characters, just like real people, are mallable. There is typically very little that's so truly, heinously out of character that you absolutely cannot make it work under any circumstance. In addition, most fans are also willing to accept characterization stretches if it makes the fic work. Yeah, we all know the villain and the hero wouldn't cuddle for warmth in canon. But if they did do that, how would they do it?
What counts is often not so much 'would the character do this?' and more 'if the character did do this, how would they do it?' If you get 'how' part right, your readers will probably be willing to buy the rest, because it will still feel like their favourite character. But if it doesn't feel like the character anymore, why are they even reading the fic?
Worry less about whether a character would do something, and more about how they'd sound while doing it.
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Do something creative even if it sucks. Do something creative even if it sucks. Do something creative even if it sucks. Do something creative even if it sucks. Do something creative even if it sucks. Do something creative even if it sucks. Do something creative even if it sucks.
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loveeee characters who think they're likable but not lovable. characters who know they have surface-level admirable or alluring traits and so make sure to highlight those traits so that nobody looks closer to see what's underneath. characters who know they're hot or clever or cool and use that as a suit of armor so that no one ever gets close to them, because when they strip bare and show their vulnerability they're not any of those things, which means they have nothing left to make up for who they inherently are
i am a SUCKER for characters who start out as copies of other characters but eventually become their own people, their own identities, completely different from who they once reflected
Stella is such a fun character. Layer 1: nice, helpful, soft-spoken and logical woman who cares about others very much. Layer 2: secretly a ship AI with an identity crisis from acting as a human for so long. Longs to be human and to be acknowledged as a person by others. Propagates plants and otherwise shows a great affinity for the biological rather than the artificial, another sign of her struggles with identity. Layer 3: As Gnosia, shows active contempt for humans. As LeVi, kills Jonas in one loop for disrespecting Stella. Does not actually seem to like Jonas despite being loyal to him. Is surprised when Remnan shows basic courtesy to LeVi. Is stated to put herself into cold sleep after Jonas's death, 'waiting for the kiss that'll wake her'.
Thoughts: Stella shows contradictory views on humans, both having contempt for them and caring for them. As a result, she struggles with her human identity. However, she likewise struggles as the ship's AI. In a way, I think you can read her character as a conversation with the question, "How long before a lie becomes the truth?" Acting as human for so long, she has come to see the world in a human way, and become human in every way that matters. She has also come to experience what it's like to be treated as a person rather than a tool.
Stella longs to be human, and is happy when you insist she can be infected by the Gnosia, because it proves her humanity. But how much of this desire is rooted in the dehumanization she faces as an AI? As Stella, people treat her like a person. As LeVi, they clearly don't. She resents them for this, but simultaneously struggles to view herself as worthy of care and consideration. Stella also dismisses her needs because she's an AI, just as others do. How much of her desire to become human is because she can only respect herself as a human, rather than an AI?
How much of her sense of self is contingent upon others' views of her? As Stella, she could continue living after Jonas dies. Yet she chooses to wait for someone else to come and wake her up. She waits for someone to decide she is worthy of life.
Like most of the cast, Stella's character struggles with humanity and what it means to be human. 'AI who longs to be human' is well-trodden ground, but Stella is nonetheless a good execution of the concept. I think the brief moments where she shows a more disdainful view of humanity add a lot of depth to her character.
raqio is definitely a peacock because they're beautiful and have ornate feather decoration and are extremely fascinating. and then they open their mouth and really annoying and loud sounds come out. which make me love them even more, actually
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My current fic project is a canon divergence AU retelling of Gnosia from Setsu's POV.
Gnosia the game and Gnosia the anime have significant differences. The basic idea for the fic is to combine the aspects I liked from both of them, as well as adding some flourishes of my own. The focus is on Setsu's relationship with Yuri and how Setsu's time on the D.Q.O. changes them.
My plan is to write the full first draft do a developmental editing pass or three, and edit a least half the fic into a publishable state before posting any of it to Ao3. Hopefully that will be done by late this year or early next year. Could be sooner. Could be later. I've never (successfully) written something like this before, so we'll see what happens.
In the meantime, here's a Setsuri snippet. It's from a chapter that is likely to get heavily reworked, so I'm not sure if it will appear in the finished fic.
---
When the two of them arrived in the Viewing Lounge, coffee in hand, Yuri called out, "LeVi, could you bring up pattern E-7?"
LeVi pinged in confirmation. The room became a plaza filled with holographic people, as well as several tables. Setsu stopped to look, and Yuri turned toward them, smiling. "The ship is lonely with just the three of us, especially with Raqio holed up in the lab. This is a little more lively."
Setsu felt a smile creep onto their face as they made their way to one of the tables. "It is. It reminds me of a café in the civilian area of Base 52."
"What was Base 52 like?" Yuri asked as they sat down.
Setsu took a tentative sip of their coffee to check the temperature, then, finding it just right, took a deeper sip. They weren't sure where to start–especially since Yuri, having no memories, would have no frame of reference.
"It's a lunar base near the core of federation space," they said. "The inner worlds are major commercial hubs, and people from all over the Federation and beyond pass through. Most don't visit the base, though. There isn't much to see there."
"I'd like to see it some day," Yuri said, "just to see where you're from. I wonder if it's like the base I visited."
Setsu stopped stirring their coffee. "When did you visit a military base? Did you remember something from before Liu-An?" Come to think of it, Setsu wasn't sure if this Yuri would ever have the memories of the other Yuri.
For a moment, a look of panic passed over Yuri's face. It faded quickly, and they laughed awkwardly. "Ah, well, there was one time when I didn't loop back until after we got to port. You...were gone by then."
"I see. The central area of the base near the port is fairly standardized, but the surrounding area varies. We're near the edge of Federation space, so I assume the one you saw was less populated and probably less organized."
"Yeah, it definitely didn't have any cute cafes like this." Yuri made a face, as if remembering a particularly unpleasant thing it did have. "Do you miss it? Base 52, I mean."
"Not really," Setsu admitted. "There isn't much for me to go back to."
"Is your family still there?"
"My foster parents still live there, but we were never close."
"Oh. Sorry, I didn't mean to pry."
"It's fine. You need information for the Silver Key, right?"
Yuri stared at Setsu. "Huh? I...that's not..." Yuri sighed and grabbed their bangs.
"Yuri, Setsu, it's almost time for warp. Please return to your rooms," LeVi pinged, earning a scowl from Yuri.
Setsu finished their coffee. "I can take your mug back to the cafeteria for you."
Yuri released their bangs. "Thanks." They hesitated for a moment, then added, "It was nice getting to talk to you for a bit, without having to worry about either of us being Gnosia."
I have been mulling something over for a while and have decided to share.
As part of my job, I read a lot of fiction that's still in development. After a while, you start to see the same errors, misunderstandings and shortcuts crop up repeatedly with different creators and it gets me thinking what is the most elegant way possible I could explain the issues to someone wanting to improve?
The one that comes up the most often and is the hardest to explain is:
"Why don't people care about my characters and/or story".
It's always a thorny problem and I think I have a workable answer that applies in most cases:
A story is a series of revelations regarding compounding, unintentional consequences to character decisions.
The further you stray from this, the less people care.
It translates to:
1) characters have to make decisions otherwise there is no drama
2) Those decisions have to matter otherwise there are no stakes
2) The consequences have to interact with one another. A affects or causes B affects or causes C etc. otherwise there is no progression
3) There must be some unintended consequences otherwise there is no conflict
4) The consequences have to be revealed (even at least implied) otherwise there is no conclusion
This works at the micro scale in terms of dialogue:
The specific word/tone/movement a character uses affects how another character reacts in an unexpected or interesting way which in turn causes another reaction and these layer onto one another until a decision is reached and a consequence implied thereby completing the scene.
It also works at the macro scale in terms of plot:
The decisions characters made in a scene prompts/affects the characters and context of the scene that follows (even if we don't know it at first) and by the end those layered interactions have been revealed to us and we see the unexpected or interesting result.
In my anecdotal experience, most times people don't care about a work of fiction is not because of a technical issue with the execution but because the writer has subtly misunderstood what makes a story a story. Their main character doesn't make any decisions, the decisions don't seem to matter, it feels disjointed because consequences aren't layering, there's no conflict because there are no misunderstandings etc.
There countless technical aspects which affect the quality of a piece of fiction but most times when someone asks me to help them make people care about their story they first need to realise they have misunderstood what actually makes a story at a fundamental level and they need to recognise that before things can improve.
I dunno if this helps anyone. I hope it does. Sorry if it doesn't.
If anyone wants to use this to assess their own work let me know what you discover, I'm genuinely curious.
i do not “delete sentences” when they start “hindering the plot” i COPY PASTE THEM into a SEPARATE DOC made just for keeping all my USELESS LINES that i will also NEVER USE so therefore i should JUST DELETE THEM but i DONT because id FEEL BAD if i did
Questions that probably didn't need to be asked: Say Alice and Bob have found a Silver Key. Each of them wants to start looping, but they only have one. So, to decide who gets the Silver Key, they flip a coin. On heads, Alice gets it, while on tails Bob gets it. So, there are two possible worlds: one in which Alice begins looping, and one where Bob begins looping.
But the thing is, (according to the anime, at least- the game is a bit vaguer on the mechanics), the Silver Key transports its host between "world lines", branching timelines where things went differently. If in one world line, Alice got the Silver Key, and in another, Bob got the Silver Key, are Alice and Bob now both looping? If so, could the two end up meeting?
I'm inclined to say that no, they would not both be looping. Silver Key activation appears to transcend world lines.
In the game, one of the Raqio events (Raqio Note 6?), Raqio says this about the protagonist's Silver Key:
You filthy thief. [...] That actually belongs to me. I thought I had lost it during the Gnosia panic, but not only was it stolen, it's apparently being used without permission as well.
This implies that activating the Silver Key in the Setsu's Origins world line caused it to disappear from all other world lines.
I don't remember what exactly Raqio says in the anime; however, I think the situation is similar. Raqio boarded the ship with a Silver Key in the Setsu's Origins world line in episode 18, but the Silver Key Yuri loops with was acquired from the military base in episode 19, implying that Raqio did not have their own Silver Key in the Normal Ending world line.
Oh, that's interesting! I hadn't actually thought of activation in one universe possibly being what removes Raqio's Key from other universes. (My theory had always been that Setsu looping into a universe with Raqio would result in there being two of the same Key, which would cause a dual-existence paradox, since Keys are said to be living beings. To avoid this, Setsu's Key would overwrite the existing Key, in the same sort of way that Setsu would replace the original, non-looping Setsu of that world line).
The one issue that solution doesn't necessarily address is what happens after the Silver Key has been activated. Do world lines continue to branch? If so, wouldn't that also effectively duplicate Silver Keys? The obvious way to avoid that would be to say world lines stop branching if there's an active Silver Key present, but that still leaves some problems. There are, of course, multiple Silver Keys in existence, at least one of which was definitely activated before the attack on Liu-An, Kukrushka's. And, in the anime at least, Silver Keys are widely available enough that there happens to be one for sale in the very first city the D.Q.O. visits. There's got to be plenty more active throughout the vast universe, so how could world lines ever split to begin with?
The simplest explanation I could come up with does require completely ignoring the anime. It would be to say that world lines don't split in the first place: parallel universes are completely parallel, flowing independently from the beginning of time. If so, looping into or out of a specific universe wouldn't need to affect any other universe. But, if there are effectively an infinite number of universes, you could find plenty that are almost identical, aside for tiny difference such as who made it onto the ship, or who is Gnosia. (You could find an infinite number, in fact. Infinity is fun).
so so so much of genshin is about personhood. how it's defined, how it's developed, how an identity is constructed or maintained or shattered or discarded or reformed. so much of it specifically is about the tension between personhood and duty, how people cope, whether they're consumed by the mask, how they keep sight of the 'true' self or if a true self even exists. how all of these things impact their relationships with other people. the loneliness of being surrounded by people but not seen or known. contradictorily the terror of being known even as you long for it. the way that people are dehumanized by both positions of power and positions of powerlessness, as gods and tools and weapons and leaders and so on and so forth. the boundaries between self and other, how memory informs identity, whether the self can be transcended and what one stands to lose or gain by doing so, whether there is worth in one's individual and very temporary experience of the world. whether self-determination is possible and what it means for your personhood if it's not.
this is obviously not the only main theme in genshin, and it exists in conversation with other major themes. however looking at the narrative through this lens this helps us answer questions such as 'why do 4 out of 7 archons so far have some sort of deceased mirrorself' 'why did we have to stop antagonists from assimilating people into a gestalt-consciousness a minimum of 3 times' 'why is wanderer the real true main character of genshin impact' (struck from the record for personal bias) 'why does suicide and suicidal ideation come up so much' 'why does this sometimes deeply frustrating game still scratch my brain after 5 years' (that's themes babey!! that's all the things i like and go crazy for!!)
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Questions that probably didn't need to be asked: Say Alice and Bob have found a Silver Key. Each of them wants to start looping, but they only have one. So, to decide who gets the Silver Key, they flip a coin. On heads, Alice gets it, while on tails Bob gets it. So, there are two possible worlds: one in which Alice begins looping, and one where Bob begins looping.
But the thing is, (according to the anime, at least- the game is a bit vaguer on the mechanics), the Silver Key transports its host between "world lines", branching timelines where things went differently. If in one world line, Alice got the Silver Key, and in another, Bob got the Silver Key, are Alice and Bob now both looping? If so, could the two end up meeting?
I'm inclined to say that no, they would not both be looping. Silver Key activation appears to transcend world lines.
In the game, one of the Raqio events (Raqio Note 6?), Raqio says this about the protagonist's Silver Key:
You filthy thief. [...] That actually belongs to me. I thought I had lost it during the Gnosia panic, but not only was it stolen, it's apparently being used without permission as well.
This implies that activating the Silver Key in the Setsu's Origins world line caused it to disappear from all other world lines.
I don't remember what exactly Raqio says in the anime; however, I think the situation is similar. Raqio boarded the ship with a Silver Key in the Setsu's Origins world line in episode 18, but the Silver Key Yuri loops with was acquired from the military base in episode 19, implying that Raqio did not have their own Silver Key in the Normal Ending world line.
