17. what are some of the signs that your muse shows their care/love without saying they love/care about their partner?
Thank you for the ask~! ( ˶ˆᗜˆ˵ )
For X'vahl, he almost subconsciously physically reaches out to them in some way, like leaning in closer, or even physically touching them, a majority of the time he does it, he's not even aware he's doing it, he just has a desire to be closer to the people he loves.
Consciously, he tries to share their burdens (which works a lot better if they're willing to open up about them). He's very much a "don't worry about how I'm doing, let me help you." type of person and will try to help as best he can, even at his own detriment sometimes.
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Who reaches for the other’s hand first? Rifra and Estinien!
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Rifra for sure!
Rifra is definitely the more PDA-friendly of the two, but also in private situations if she's struggling with her emotions, Estinien gives her space most of the time, allowing her to have control on when she wants intimacy and the like
There definitely are some instances where Estinien would be the one extending his hand to him, especially in private instances where he knows Rifra needs physical contact to be grounded back to reality. He also sometimes reaches for Rifra's right hand because it's the hand with the most scars (lightning attack from Calyx in 7.2)
But yeah overall it's Rifra initiating contact in general the most!
💻 Do you do research for your fics? What’s the deepest dive you’ve done?
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I frequently do, because research is funnnn and what better excuse to fall down some sort of information rabbit hole and learn something new than to add a bit of verisimilitude to a silly little story?
When it comes to fanfic I do tend to distinguish "research" (collecting information outside of the source material) from "canon review" (collecting lore and information from the source material), though I do also do a lot of the latter, for the same reason: it's funnnn.
I would say the deepest dive is probably just how much research I did on military culture when I was writing for Red vs. Blue. It's a space future setting, but whatever I couldn't get from RvB or Halo canon, I pulled from U.S. military culture since both Halo and RvB are American-made properties and that's where they're primarily drawing from. At one point I fell into such a deep rabbit hole investigating specifically MREs ("meals ready to eat") that I discovered the niche community of MRE reviewers on YouTube and subsequently started shitposting an RvB MRE Reviewers AU and @lydia--argent wrote fic for it, how's THAT for a throwback, RvB fans who still follow me (also, read the fic, it's good).
When it comes to FFXIV, my current main fandom, it will surprise no one that the vast, vast majority of the research I've done is brushing up on my Early Modern English for reasons of an elf we all know and love. That has been tremendously fun. I love language and I love distinct character voices.
I have been asked in the past, "Why bother doing research, it's just fanfiction?" and the answer is as I said above, it's fun! I think the question itself assumes that research is a chore, but if I felt that way I just wouldn't do it, and if I got to a point in the research where I wasn't having a good time I would just decide I was good with what I had and move on.
I don't think that the point of research for hobbyist writing is perfect realism either. Like sure we all get the eyetwitch when we read a fic that gets a thing wrong that's Our Thing. That's human and normal, but no one can be an expert on everything, nor should a hobbyist writer be expected to be. (Professional writing/publishing is a different beast, not the subject of this post.)
So why do research at all? What I find fun is not only the opportunity to learn something new, but to be able to sprinkle just that extra level of detail into my writing. The stuff I found the most fun when I was writing Red vs. Blue wasn't necessarily getting all the military ranks correct but learning a bit of common military slang and sprinkling it into characters' speech. Just about any subculture, career, or field of knowledge, whether it's the U.S. Marine Corps or literary academia or youtube MRE reviewers, has in-group language, and knowing a bit of that language can go a long way in lending your writing about it some more verisimilitude. It's not necessarily realism but the feeling of realism, enough to help the reader suspend their disbelief and become immersed.
What is your muse most likely to notice first about a potential partner?
Had the thought of Shunbai noticing how someone might carry themselves? If they are light of step or awkward in movement. How someone carries themselves speaks a lot about how they are and how they feel about themselves. But I think it’s a bit of a primal instinct for him? Like how a predator animal would watch the movements of a prey animal to understand their weaknesses. Or vise versa, how a prey animal would observe a predator animal out of caution.
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Does your OC ever read (or watch) romances? How much has their attitude and approach to relationships been affected by their exposure to romantic literature or other art?
OK, so I have this shared universe with my friends, where we put all our WoLs together, and we headcanon that Ishgard publishes a lot of cheesy romance novels which feature brave and handsome knights (who maaay be inspired by some actual Ishgardian knights) falling in forbidden love with maids or priestesses or whatnot, and our WoLs have a good laugh reading those.
But that's not the end! One of the co-WoLs is a Viera who's only started learning how to read (she didn't have any need for it, having lived in the jungle) and it's easier to her to listen to someone read to her aloud. And we decided that 'someone' should be Arianna, because 1) it's funny, 2) she has a pleasant voice and unlike their other friends she doesn't laugh all the time while reading (might gag a little, though, but tries her best not to, for the sake of pride friendship). This way, Arianna is quite well-read in romance novels, and that only makes her feel more and more confused about her own, uh, feelings, which are nothing like those she has read about, so are the books doing it all wrong? Or is she doing it all wrong? She's so very much not a romantic type and can't even imagine being a romantic type, and that kind of breaks her brain XD
Also, most of the novels she has to read out loud feature grumpy dragoons, so she has a lot of questions for her dragoon bestie afterwards, and the most important one is "IS THAT WHAT YOU DO IRL, ESTINIEN".
Hmmm, I think Aki isn't so much secretive as they are quiet. So like, they don't tend to divulge much about themselves without prompting, but if one of the Scions asks them something specific, Aki will usually be happy to answer.
I like to imagine that the Scions thought Aki was very secretive at the beginning, and only discovered how open Aki is during some like team bonding game of truth or dare. And then for a little while after that, every time one of them is spending time with Aki they're just pestering him with all their unanswered questions. Aki is completely oblivious to how curious everyone has been about him lol.
Would your OC/WoL fake an echo vision for a petty/funny/random reason?
LMAO yes. she wouldn't do it in an effort to fool anyone for real (especially since she's not a good enough actress to fool anyone who's actually seen her have real echo visions), but for petty/funny reasons, yes.
something like being in a friendly argument with Thancred and pretending to have a vision that totally definitely proves her right; you just have to trust her!!!
