#stellesappho

I'm realizing these questions maybe weren't the best for me to reblog because I'm not sure I know the answers. Other people could probably notice what tropes I use better than I can. I know like a reluctant hero who wants nothing to do with the call to adventure lmao. I also like writing about cultural exchange so language barriers and characters who are fundamentally different creatures or who have wildly different life experiences come to mind. Insert Mermaid AU or whatever. Also..........found family again tee hee. Just put a bunch of weirdos through adversity so they can bond and love each other thanks.

🧶 What's a fluff plot you'd like to write?

I'm not sure what fluff plots I want two write mostly because A Long Way Off keeps providing me opportunities to put in just everything I want. I think a mall date would be fun to write, maybe I’ll put one in. Malls are very of the 90s here and the few malls that didn't go out of business are such a different experience now. When it comes to fluff I find myself writing about mundanity. There’s a real niceness to doing boring things with your favorite people. I wanna write about hugging and cooking together and stuff. People taking care of each other. Talking about nothing important. Also idk maybe the blorbos should kiss more, they deserve it.

🗯 What's an antagonistic plot you'd like to write?

Antagonists and conflicts are an interesting topic. I tend to prefer representing conflict that isn’t black and white. I want characters in conflict to each have an reasonable point of view so it’s easy to understand why they believe what they believe. It’s boring if one side is “just evil” or whatever. People aren’t really like that in my experience. I want both sides of the conflicts in my stories to have a point whenever I can write it that way. I want the reader to have to think about who they align with and why. It's boring if I just tell you what to think. I also think it’s interesting to write about characters who are stuck in conflicts that are larger than themselves and who are tasked with trying to navigate an understanding of the world that doesn't match what they’ve been taught about those conflicts. For example, members of feuding families, young people who have been born into the wars of their fathers, creatures or factions who are framed as natural enemies—inherited conflict where what side you’re on is not only assumed but socially enforced. What is one supposed to do when they stop believing what they were taught or have experiences that go against their prejudices? Romeo is out here like my dad says fuck the Capulets but Juliet is kind of hot tho….

🗨 What's a plot or trope you'd like to write [character] in?

You didn’t mention which character you want me to talk about so I’m going to assume it’s one of the two most likely ones we have in common. Sal. I just want to make Sal a creature so bad. I want him in every monster AU. I want a dumb mermaid AU. I’m gonna make him a rude cat boy. I want to make him the weird ghost haunting your house. I just think Sal is so funny in canon because he has regular guy syndrome no matter what extraordinary things happen to him. He’s so grounded. He’s so well adjusted. His perspective is so measured and humanistic literally no matter what, even when he is ripped from his plane of existence and shot across the multiverse. He's just vibing and having regular guy thoughts about everything. It’s very funny to me, and that makes me want to put him in crazier AUs more often. I would love to explore that dissonance between Sal's absurd fantastic circumstances and his normal guy reactions more.

For Larry I have kind of a cop out answer because I’m already writing it in the background of A Long Way Off. I'm really interested in how Larry forms his personal identity because I think he has a lot of similar ideas as Sal about things like masculinity and growing up and his place in the world but he's kind of fighting against different factors than Sal is. For one, I think it's more difficult for him to express vulnerability or anything feminine as it is for Sal. Sal is already "a freak" so in that sense society expects less of Sal than of Larry. Sal has more room to experiment than Larry does. I think Larry feels a lot more pressure to figure out what the world wants from him and to try to live up to that standard. He needs to be a respectable adult who embodies all the parts of manhood that his dad wasn't there to fulfill. But at the same time Larry is interested in counter culture, and the same masculine ideals that are important to him also make him feel threatening and force him to distance himself from things he used to find fun, like playing "girly" games with Ashley as kids. It's a hard balance to strike, trying to be a strong reliable man and a soft approachable boy at the same time. Also being more of a grown street rat and less of a sweet faced kid than he used to be has also caused him problems in school.