My contribution to the dingoship agenda (finally, someone TR can look up to. Litteraly)

THEY LOOK SO CUTE!!

Sorry for the delay! I had to think for a bit on one of these.

If you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? What's something you don't like?

I loooooove to blur those boundaries between the Judai/Yubel collective entity. Judai speaking through Yubel's body or vice versa, or letting their emotions resonate like waves overlapping to form higher highs and lower lows. Having their thoughts meld until it's obvious that the "and" in "Judai and Yubel" is as flimsy and artificial as a popsicle stick.

What's the point of having your protagonist fuse with his villainous shadow slash reincarnated guardian slash arcane dragon spirit if you don't get weird and intimate with it? I know my personal brand of bullshit and it doesn't benefit from stopping halfway.

Something I don't like...because I write a lot of introspective Judai and/or Yubel character study type stuff, I find it very easy to fall into a habit of writing scenes that are just Judai and Yubel talking for however many words. Of course, leaning into them being a single fused entity means that there are many other ways for them to communicate beyond spoken dialogue so whenever I worry I'm relying too much on dialogue my first solution is to rely on aforementioned personal bullshit even more (if it's something post-S3, at least).

If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to ths character? Something you don't like?

I really like Yubel getting to interact with more people through Judai, because as much as I love to write about their codependent spiral bullshit as a focus on their flaws I think they're at their best balanced by being drawn back into the rest of the world. Yubel - not unlike Johan, actually - is strongly defined by their relationship with Judai and that means getting to interact with people outside of him brings out new aspects of their character you don't usually get to play with. Tag Force shows us a bit of what Johan is like when he's paired up with random guys like Taizan and Saiou, but there's less of that where Yubel is concerned (as far as canon-adjacent material goes at least) so I think it's fun to explore.

Actually part of the reason I originally wrote Curse of Rose is that I started watching 5Ds and had a desperate need to spin Yubel and Aki together. Judai wasn't originally intended to be as involved as he was (aside from being Yubel's other half) but the plot really wrote itself there, LOL.

HERE ARE THINGS I KNOW ABOUT THE FINAL FANTASY VIDEO GAME CINEMATIC UNIVERSE:

well one of them is an mmo. FFXIV?????? the 14 one. it has little story arc seasons i think?? one of the characters is a catboy. catman??? he has red hair i think. i need to be real i have no fucking idea what you actually do in that mmo. i dont even know what the classes are supposed to be in there. every time i see a screenshot of its UI i feel like im trying to pilot a fighter jet

final fantasy has a whole fuckton of games. cloud strife is in at least one of them. he's got a biiiiiiig sword AND SEPHIROTH IS THERE TOO. AND HE'S COOL.

isnt there a girl named aerith. doesnt she die badly. sad.

sometimes the game is an mmo but sometimes it's a hours-long jrpg but sometimes it's final fantasy tactics.

THERE ARE SO MANY FUNNY CREATURES IN THE FINAL FANTASYVERSE. moogles. i know them. with their little head poof things. CARBUNCLES. WE HAVE RUBY CARBUNCLE AT HOME. CHOCOBOS I KNOW THAT ONE TOO. behemoths i think theyre one. theres big shark guys in the mmo i think. ok thats all the final fantasy creatures i know

Asdfghjkl this is so sweet!!

Garland is somewhat of an obsession to me atm lmao, I'm happy someone is interested in my rambling in various tags :D

But seriously, he's such a good character. And Dissidia and Opera Omnia did/do such a good job in fleshing him out, it's just such a delight to see! And his relation to dissidia chaos is just so heartbreakingly beautiful to me - to think that it is CANON that he stayed with him out of sympathy is just-- I COULD SCREAM ABOUT THIS FOR HOURS OKAY

Ahem. Chaos in Opera Omnia would be so cool, too. The dude's been through absolute hell so if anyone deserves a little relief, as you said, it's him. I wanna see iiiiiiiit...

And, at the same time, I think he's scared that warming up to others would be a bit like... Abandonning saiou, betraying him. Letting him be alone, away from people while he enjoys the end of his misanthropy. Edo might have dropped the most of his us vs them mentality, he's still aware that saiou is incredibly alone. That, with mizuchi out of the picture, he's the only one slightly close to him. For him, treating other people as friends before he could do so for saiou... It's like living him alone. Surely saiou would want nothing but this, but Edo can't let that happen.

When he gets to show saiou warmth, love, friendship and care, edo also can say "Saiou is my friend, he's my first friend" and that will be true. And it means he can then let himself develop friendship with others.

I decided to do both! I stayed more classic with saiou and then made sora more on the monster spectrum of voids. let me know what you think!

i’m so happy to hear you enjoyed it! Kino is a cool, down to earth protagonist but i can appreciate that she isn’t rude or unappreciative -- she fears permanence, and thus can be quite distant to the people she meets and the places she sees, but this is also juxtaposed with the freedom of moving on. Hermes is cool too! for a sci-fi and fantasy series, there’s not much “magical-ness” in it, but a talking motorbike makes the series seem just a touch otherwordly. and yes, there are strong Yuusaku and AI vibes -- and good friendships which i’d hoped you’d enjoy seeing as there’s no romance between Kino and any of the other major characters. just a free girl and her beloved bike discovering the world around them.

and ooh, a vrains au where Yuusaku and Ai travel the Cyberse World would be rather fun ^^ or even a grand lands-based idea, Yuusaku and Ai travelling to Cyberse, Link Vrains, Den City, and wherever Takeru and Kiku are from, meeting people along the way and listening to their stories ^^ and of course the more i think about this idea, the more i want to plot it all out, like where they go, who they meet, and what sorts of small stories you could create for each of the characters Yuusaku and Ai meet 

 - like they go to visit Takeru and Kiku and learn that there’s a spirit trying to talk to them, and they think the village is cursed. Takeru has been entrusted to keep the village safe after his grandfather passed away [and his parents died when he was a child too], and both he and Kiku are at wits’ end about what to do. Turns out the spirit is Flame who has been locked away for many years and who wants to be free and do no harm - but Takeru and Kiku were reluctant to let him go for fear that they would bring harm to their town they swore to protect)

and probably many, many more ideas (perhaps Aoi + Akira as siblings living in Den City, and the mysterious woman Ema who occasionally pops into the story and who never seems to live in one city for long either. Kusanagi could be like Shishou in Kino’s Journey, and in this fic Kusanagi drives around the world in his hotdog truck, occasionally stirring up trouble - or he could be like the original Kino who inspired Yuusaku to let go of permanence and travel round the world