vol 2 is out!!!! publishing.andrewsmcmeel.com/book/unfamiliar-2/

The way I gasped when Lavendertowne started reading "My Immortal" 😭😭😭💀💀💀

The blue orbs are a fanfic classic.

My biggest pet peeve in fanfic is when the author has clearly lost track of where the characters' placements are. "She stood with her back to his chest and placed a hand on his shoulder, her knees softly pushing into his elbows. They locked eyes." HOW am I meant to envision this.

Just came up with the most genius interaction: "How would you describe yourself?" "I have hair."

On the note of "Blue Orbs", one time I was chatting to a my older sister about a problem I was having in my writing in that I have a character who has soft pink eyes (I nowadays use candy-pink) but I was struggling to find the right synonym, and the closest shade the internet was giving me was salmon. My sister then uttered the phrase: *"Her salmon orbs."* I still have not recovered.

I’ve only seen an author pull off the “oh, woe is me I’m so pale” thing in a believable way once before, is was because the main character was a platinum blonde, blue eyed, pale as snow girl, who was traveling through a dessert and was constantly super sunburnt. I wish more authors would acknowledge how sunburnt their characters are while they travel across barren dystopian wastelands without even a hint of sunscreen

Im studying dante's inferno and he keeps on FAINTING, I can't with this man it feels too much like reading a fanfic😭 EDIT: guys I know that it is technically bible fanfic because it doesn't follow the canons of the text, but I meant it feels like present time fanfiction, like Ao3 fanfics

A tip that I’m trying to use for novels that I want to write is “show don’t tell” tip. Instead of saying “She was shy.” Show that she’s shy “She averts her gaze from the others and held her head down. Not wanting to make more noise than her footsteps.” Saying things can makes the story dry when having them do something or saying something can help the readers understand that the character is shy.

the first one gives "her skin was like a cup of coffee, which was mostly milk because she was white" vibes...

The “Hi, my name is Ebony Darkness-“ Immediately made me spit my drink I did not expect My Immortal to suddenly drop in a Lavender Towne video 😭😭😭

i feel like the "author is every character" situation happens a lot when an author is starting to understand their own voice but also lowkey wants to insert themselves into the story. when I write characters im usually always thinking about it like an outsider looking in on the world and I'm just documenting the happenings so I get shocked when a character (I'm writing about) does something interesting or excited when another character defends people they normally never would and stuff like that. separating yourself from the work in this sense is important for creative growth~

Idk if this counts as a fanfic but when I was in elementary school I wrote “lesser known hogwarts tales,” which had no plot, just a bunch of fart and poop jokes about the Harry Potter characters, and then someone got everybody in the ravenclaw common room to start chanting “MALFOY IS SILLY!!!!” which caused Malfoy to get really mad and turn red and smoke come out his ears and then run around punching people and end up banging his head off of a statue and fainting. A great story indeed.

I hate that trope of the girl thinking she’s ugly, but everyone thinks she’s so hot, and it’s written like that to tell the reader “no she’s actually not ugly, thus she’s important!!!” LIKE WE CAN BE UGLY AND STILL MATTER?! And like when they write teenagers, like 14 year olds, they have acne! They have dark circles! They look bad according to society and they still matter!!!!

I don't think I've had as big of a fight or flight reaction as when Haley started reading My Immortal and I literally got hit by a car this week.

nobody: blue eyed main characters in fanfiction: 🧿👄 🧿

Your rant about the "they never talk about how red they get when they blush" sent me back in time and reminded me of one book I read where the girl actually did exactly that. She lamented how she doesn't even just redden, but instead gets uneven red splotches when she blushes, and that it happens so quickly. It really stuck with me back then because I could actually see myself in that. Her love interest was a cute mixed-race nerd who always described his own skin as gravy-colored, which he also didn't like. Of course, she couldn't see any flaw in that. There was a cute scene when she told him that she was jealous of how coolly he took compliments and flirts and he confessed to her that she made him blush all the time, it just didn't show up much on his face. So he could downplay it but secretly was just as jittery as she felt. It was a really cute book, I wish I remembered the title or author.

once I wrote a fan fic between the homophobic guys in my class and they actually ended up dating so you never know when the word orbs will replace the word eyes

Unpopular opinion: a good fanfiction is basically an unofficial spin-off

Ah yes, everyone’s favourite “Very famous fanfic.” - the minute I heard that, I knew it would be My Immortal. She’s just described so unevenly, like, chunks of her character are so distinct and vivid, and then the rest is just kinda left to you.

Your ideas on the pale trope are interesting! As someone who has always been pale, I've never seen a character actually live it. No one constantly asking if they're sick except for when they are sick, no getting severely burned trying to tan to make people less uncomfortable. No struggles with finding clothes that clash or emphasizing the red undertones of the blood under the skin. The paleness making blemishes and dark circles more visable. The struggle is real, lol😅.

Out of Character characters is simultaneously my favorite things and my biggest pet peeve. Taking liberties is fine, but there's a line imo. Shoto Todoroki somehow being a god of video games? Hilarious, interesting take, I like it. Tenya Iida breaking the rules a ton and being actually chaotic? To far ooc, stretching canon so far its non existent, don't like it.

10:15 That never even crossed my mind. It’s actually crazy how so many physically confident female characters do end up being bullies/pricks/antagonists. Literally every High School Musical or TV series has a confident girl and 2 lackeys that follow her around And even outside of shows, games like Skullgirls unfortunately do the same. Valentine, Dahlia, and Eliza are all physically confident but also antagonists 💀 Edit: As a reply mentioned, Jujutsu Kaisen is good at breaking these tropess

As a new writer, I’m struggling with the different voices of characters. I try to make their personalities as different as possible but it’s hard to see through their perspective sometimes. TwT.

As someone who grew up reading books and fanfics, my most hated trope is definitely the self insert trope because it takes away the interactivity you feel while reading x reader because as someone with pale yellowish brown skin, short black hair and dark brown eyes,its kinda hard to imagine myself as a "blond headed, blue orbed, pale skinned white girl"

Hearing Haley read My Immortal was not something I knew I needed today

The moment you brought up the "I'm so plain but everyone falls for me" trope just screamed divergent in every way

I actually have used the fainting one before. I was writing a character who had narcolepsy. So already you can kind of see why it’s necessary. But I used the frustrations you described with that method so you would put yourself in her place. Going black in times where you were experiencing positive momentum. Missing important moments because the world faded away. Not getting that blissful darkness in times where you desperately wish you would. So I think that we can actually flip that in a really interesting way

Tell me how when she got to the OOC trope my brain went to some South Park fics I've read before AND THEN IT TURNS OUT THAT'S EXACTLY THE 'SUIT' AND CHARACTER CLOTHES SHE WAS DRAWING I FREAKING LAUGHED SO HARD-

the over use of physical descriptions, especially in weird ways, or otherwise finding ways to avoid just using the character's name. "the blue eyed one" "the doctor" "the bluenette" "the taller one" "the older one" grinds my gears

I had a friend who was self-conscious about being stereotypically beautiful because she felt like people saw how pretty she was before they saw anything about who she was as a person, and some people never saw past that. She'd complain about things like that because they isolated her from genuine connections. I've always read characters like that with her in mind, it makes them a lot more sympathetic. They're just lonely and being pretty can be a curse.

As a fanfic writer, I completely forgot how difficult it is to write original works and I’m thankful every day for the fact that I have a very good idea of what my characters are like

The “nice until they’re scary” trope. Like it can be done well if the character is typically gentle and patience but can be physically threatening and has been shown to be capable of standing up for themselves, like a gentle giant that decides they’re going to stop being gentle. But most of the time it’s completely out of character and they pull some insane violence with no repercussions and are rewarded by others for it.

Pro Tip: If you write a reader-insert fic in either 2nd or 1st person, you can omit the use of Y/N and every other abbreviation through the use of a rather underutilized trope called the *All-Concealing “I”*

WHEN SHE STARTED READING THE MY IMMORTAL OMG my biggest ick other than the writing about her description is that there’s NO hot topics in the UK. Not even in London. You’re telling me that she travels to america every time she goes shopping? Oh wait this is a HP fic nvrmind..

The OOC is also a pet peeve of mine. I love the characters for their personalities, so when a writer completely destroys what makes the character themselves, it is no longer that character. It’s a OC with the face of an already existing character.

when i heard "hi, my name is ebony darkness-" i full on burst out laughing cause i lowkey forgot about my immortal 😭😭😭😭

I once read a fanfic that was incredibly written, had a beautiful story, and an amazing plot, but exclusively referred to the characters eyes as orbs

"She blinked her pearls" "She blinked her marbles" My least favorite is ooc, the "He would not fricking say that" mentality is real Also the worst offender for me personally is dragging other characters down for a ship especially if I like this ship. Down backspace. Gone. Quit. Those are pretty correlated tho

I LOVED “THE AUTHOR IS EVERY CHARACTER” ART WAS BASED BY SOUTH PARKKK IT MADE ME SO HAPPY (since I’m a big South Park fan)

for me, when i change a scene i have a breif explanation for why the characters are somewhere else, i.e. "the two men get in the car and drive to somewhere safer"

My biggest fanfic pet peeve is the Ron the Death Eater Trope, where the canon love interest needs to be written as a terrible person in order for the author's ship to come true in the fic. For example, instead of having Ron and Hermione not date in the first place or have a break up that makes sense to both characters, Ron gets rewritten as an abusive monster towards Hermione so the author has an excuse to have Hermione break up with Ron and start dating either Harry or Draco, bonus if author decides to have Ron try to break the couple up just for drama points. It just feels lazy and even disrespectful at times. Like, why do you needs to make the canon love interest awful? Even if the author hates them, it still feels lazy. Also, it feels disrespectful to both canon character and irl abuse victims, cuz the abuse just feels like a lazy plot device instead of a subject matter that needs to be written carefully. It doesnt help that the canon character ends up getting written as a damsel in distress whose only personality traits are sad, helpless and Rebound, especially if the character is nothing like that in canon.

i love how the drawing depicting how the author is every character was basically just a person doing south park cosplays

14:12 I totally agree with this. I think it especially shows up in "chatfics", or fanfics written in the form of texts or chats. I think it's a lot easier for the author to parrot themselves or their friends, and these types of fanfics get a lot more chaotic. The characters end up falling under flanderized archetypes or tropes, rather than their true personality.

9:59 Or when the character is good looking, has the worst trashy personality and still the mc cries over them. When the second lead is obviously the better option, a literal angel. 😅

y/n is either like an angel on earth or a super edgy vampire-werewolf hybrid. there is never any in-between

i hate the "ooh i'm so plain and ugly because i'm pale and skinny" trope too because i am actually insecure about those aspects of myself and they make it impossible to take seriously, like yeah i'm super pale but i don't like it because you can see all the veins around my eyes and it makes me look permanently exhausted, and yeah being skinny is supposed to be desirable but i'm cold as hell and you can see my ribs that's not pretty it's unhealthy and weird!! but it's always like "yes i am so slender and healthy and angelic and my face glows like the moon" i know damn well your face goes bright pink when it's hot y/n, stop lying to yourself

I'm dead at the south park drawing for the 'the author is every character' trope lmaoo. The things i've seen people try to get Cartman to support when he would NEVER

I don’t really have a disliked fanfic trope, if anything I honestly encourage them. It’s harmless fun. My favorite is when the characters are so far out of character they’re basically ocs or self inserts(which I also really love) because that’s when you KNOW the author was having fun! It’s also often hilarious! I often write chat fics where the characters are just in a chatroom together being silly. I take the liberty to sometimes go ooc, to have fun with it, but also keep it contained so I can still bring it back around and make them in character. I do these chat fics for fun, especially when writers block hits and I need something low effort to get those creative juices flowing again to finish my fic, comic, or whatever other writing related project I’m doing at the time. If it’s just a hobby, go ham with it, I say!

The fainting trope does annoy me, but I’m also a sucker for characters who have magic that physically drains them when they use it lol. My personal solution when writing is that if a character faints because they used too much magic (or really just for any reason at all) I switch to another character’s perspective and have them do something unrelated to the fainting episode so the pacing doesn’t get interrupted, it just continues from another angle. Then when the first character is ready to come to again, I either switch back or have the other character come check on them and continue from there. Either way, there’s still something happening and it’s not just a random interruption.

“And the interaction having thus ended, I was in shock, and the impending irrelevance of the next moments to the plot was too much to handle. I fainted.”

Your point about fanfic-y writing focusing on picturing the characters exactly is so true most of the time, from someone who reads too much. Then again in my favourite fic ever, the writer straight up forgot to describe one of the most important characters. And this was not a canon character, they just straight up made an extremely well written original character then forgot to describe her.

THANK YOU for mentioning the POV thing, mostly because yes, it can be super difficult to like a fic if everyone sounds the same and stuff. Definitely a pet peeve of mine.

Another pet peeve: When the writer tries to make you support the "main ship" of the fanfiction but you end up realizing the main character has more chemistry with the antagonist or side character then the actual relationship the author wants you to care about and takes as far as to shove it down your throat even though if they even have chemistry, it's not enough to show these two can realistically be together.

It bugs me most when the fainting trope is used in books and stuff (...Twilight) and made out to be romantic. I've fainted once, and it was far from alluring or romantic. I stood up too fast while taking a medication that made me dizzy, I grabbed my mom to hold onto her because my vision was blacking out (normal for me at that time, I expected the dizziness to go away in a few seconds), and then I woke up on the floor with my head hurting from hitting the coffee table. After that I cried for a bit because that just happens after suddenly losing consciousness. Absolutely nothing romantic about someone falling like a sack of stones, waking up, and ugly-crying on the couch for a while. Also bugs me when characters act calm after passing out- it's quite disorienting. Clearly these authors utilizing the trope have never fainted.

6:28 Lavender : It makes your character seems like, weak Me : But the character from this fanfic I’m writing about _is_ weak ! In canon, he faints like, every 5 chapter and he’s travelling with a 12 years olds who’s also his overlord, despite the fact he was a former god

3:05 One point that I think is really excellently illustrated in this comparison is the idea of intrapersonal versus interpersonal descriptions. In the My Immortal passage, we actually do get some idea of Ebony’s character- since the story is in first person POV, we know that this physical description is how she sees herself. And I actually think that it would be pretty simple to turn this into a good description, if the author were to lean into that, and also give us an idea of what parts of this self-image carry over to how other people see her. In contrast, Atwood introduces us to Tony first with her work, then with the way people view her work, and then with the ways that she treats herself. This gives us a very good idea of her place in the world, and how other people see her, as well as how she treats herself. Physical descriptions are far less important to understanding a character that understanding who these characters are. In general, I like to keep character descriptions to a minimum- if the audience really needs to know something, that can come out in revisions.

1:27 You left out the most iconic part! "Author's note: If you don't know who that is, get the hell out of here."

As a girl who grew up on books, the whole thing about being a beautiful girl that hates themselves has been a real issue for me. To this day I'm not able to admit that I like the way I look without part of me hating myself for it. Honestly its so tired and I'm glad media is moving away from that nasty stuff.

On the note of "you don't know you're beautiful and that's what makes you beautiful", it just makes me think of Tsukishima and Yamaguchi from Haikyuu. Yamaguchi is canonically insecure about his freckles, as he was bullied for them as a kid, and so Tsukishima (a very salty and blunt character) calling him cute makes my heart melt.

I absolutely love your drawing of Fainting to Change Scenes, I did not know what was happening with the floor at first and putting her on a little cart just sent me LMAO I'm totally with you on the characters acting out of character. It totally throws me out of the story. I always think 'why am I reading a fanfic then?'. Obviously, fanfic is written for fun most of the time. So these authors are not obligated to anything, but for me as a reader I'm leaving XD

Starting with mentioning my immortal was the best choice LMFAO

To add onto the passing out one, it can also take away from the importance of when a character passes out in an intense scene. Instead of, “Oh no! This character we as the audience are attached to has passed out and they need help!” it turns into “oh, time for this again,” which can really kill a tone.

"Hi, my name is Ebony Darkness D'mentia Raven Way" the way I burst out laughing immediately

BE HONEST: Who else knew exactly which fic it would be at 1:06

I‘m going to listen to this intently, to make sure I dont accidentally make these mistakes in the fanfics I will never show anyone anyway🙌

Man I did not expect to get my immortal jumpscared today

drawing someone w south park stuff for the "writes every character as a self insert" is so real. It's wayy to common in sp fanfiction that people write all the characters the same, when they all have really distinct ways of talking/addressing different people in general. They'll just make all of them curse a lot and use "dude" "bro" "man" all the time when different characters prefer different swears at different levels. Especially when they write them extremely ooc, like making Craig really optimistic or Kyle/Stan a jerk just because-

4:41 I like when characters are described in detail, but not instantly. Like for example, in my immortal, someone could have mentioned that she kinda looks like [insert celebrity] in a passing comment. Or her hair colour could have been mentioned with “I passed my hand through my [hair colour] hair.”

i LOVE fainting in literature. i think it’s just bc i have a concerning obsession with injuries/illness bringing a typically strong character down to their knees, but it’s just. so good. i can’t get enough of it. obviously though, if they’re fainting constantly, that would get old real quick. but i read a LOT of super short fics and i swear at least half of them are “strong character is no longer very strong due to injury/illness and must be taken care of by a loved one”

Biggest pet peeves: "You had (E/C) eyes and (H/C) (Hair Length)" always pissed me off. I know what I damn well look like, knock it off. It always just ripped me out of whatever I was reading when that would happen. Even worse was putting extra specific characteristics that weren't listed in tags or the description. Like, "uh oh! BTW, you don't have legs and you wear glasses! This does nothing for the plot, but whatevs". That's not a reader fic, that's just an oc fic with extra, annoying steps. And then when I want to read a gender neutral or gender ambitious reader fic, for some unknown reason, they still slap them in dresses and skirts when it's completely unnecessary.

im writing a book that has mutliple povs, and something im doing is describing the characters through the pov characters' eyes. for example, one of my characters is an artist so he sees the world in paint colors and such ("the scene looked straight out of a painting", "the sunset was made of the swirling colors of watercolor on a page", etc.), and his love interest is a gardener who sees the world through plants ("the moon was the color of white lilies", "his eyes were a deep red that reminded [character] of pomagranite seeds"). its kinda subtle in the actual writing, but i think its a cool little thing. edit: i posted this before i finished the video, so its kinda redundant with the last point lmao. good video, loved it! :)

I have used fainting regularly in one of my stories, on purpose. He was a physically weak character that was in an apocalyptic setting with little food. But the twist was that he was on his own, and the scene change part was a moment of confusion and delirium after waking up due to dehydration and malnutrition. When he did come across other people, it was still a dog eat dog world so little help was offered. Not a fanfic, but an example of fainting to change scenes. The difference is that it was tied into his character and also opened up opportunities for flashbacks, glimpses of how it got to this point.

is it just me, because I LOVE SELF INCERTS, or OC's in fanfics, its just so fun idk why

For some reason this makes me more inspired to write fanfiction than ever. Maybe because it starts making me think about what I could do to avoid each annoying trope when hypothetically writing about my own headfiction.

You always hear about those stereotypical blonde hair, blue orbs, short (Y/N)s people write as their character but i've personally never read a fanfic like that. (Y/N) is always a blank enough 'character' than you can have them look like whoever you want. I am someone who has used the fainting thing to change a scene once of twice but it was only when a normal person would seriously end up fainting (She was bleeding and wounded, and possibly about to die.) not just she was in shock of fainting in every other chapter.

On the subject of the “woe is me, I am average/ugly” I’ve seen that a few times but I though for a moment at first that it was just in general, which made me think of one of my favorite children’s book series cause the main character is characterised as being extremely ordinary and average in looks to the point of having the most forgettable face you’ve ever seen, the one thing about him that wasn’t forgettable was his bright shock of red hair, except that didn’t matter because it was always hidden by his helmet, but then when you mentioned that people would be falling heads over heels for the character despite that I realised that this was the exception to the rule XD. Every character except for his best friend (hated by everyone), his dad and his mom who is often absent, absolutely hates him and he’s constantly bullied when not simply forgotten. And when his dad introduces his son they always think it’s his cousin (a tall burly muscular boy growing the start of a moustache) and then his dad going; “what? No! This is my beautiful hope and heir; I love him so much” just gesturing to the character screaming for his life or having his face slammed into the ground by another character or just standing there in his skinny little awkwardness wondering when he can leave. XD I think thats a fun way to go with it, especially since it ended up as a running gag, where nobody, not even his dad, was able to recognise him despite the only changes to his appearance being a fake name, being slightly taller, a fake wart and an eyepatch XD He felt very disrespected and hurt, on the bright side, it saved him from death, barely.

My biggest pet peeve is when there are OC's, self inserts, ext, but other than that absolutely nothing changes. The story stays the exact same and after a while I didn't enjoy it anymore because nothing new was happening. The end can stay the same, yes, but putting a new character in while change things, even just a little bit

"i swear if uts gonna be my immortal-" "my name us ebony dar-" "I KNEW IT"

14:41 having multiple personalities is helpful when writing. I would know 👀

"Hi, my name is E-" The way I immediately knew what she was reading

Your takes on young girls not being able to not look attractive without being assumed to be undesirable and not being able to accept they look attractive without also being assumed to be cruel and narcissistic is actually super based and i think your spot on in that being why the trope exists

The ironic thing about My Immortal is that it’s at least technically better than Velma! It also became a book on Amazon along with that one Jeff the Killer fanfiction. 😂😂😂

Big agree on so much of this, you put all of this into words so eloquently! Now, get ready for a rambling comment about my thoughts on the whole 'fainting thing.' I write characters passing out or fainting a lot. Not usually in terms of the same character, unless it's an established and relevant plot point, but more across many various characters and stories. But I one. hundred. percent. agree on it not being used to transition a scene. I write fainting a lot for two reasons, one less relevant than the other- the less relevant being that I have an iron deficiency and high susceptibility to heat stroke so I very frequently get close calls for fainting spells, so it's something I can strongly relate to and enjoy being able to put into words through my characters. The more relevant reason being that I think it's such an exhilarating way to bring a scene or plot to a climax. For characters who have been struggling with something, maybe overworking themselves or being unable to sleep due to severe nightmares or maybe an illness or a mental snapping and faltering sense of reality, or quite simply maybe due to some grave injury, it can be such a forceful way to bring these issues to a head and force the characters to address it. I especially focus on how other characters react to the character in question fainting, hence my agreeing that it shouldn't be used as a scene transition. Fainting is clearly a big deal, and it is such a powerful device that shouldn't be reduced to a fade to black. Show me how this character's friends or enemies react to this sudden culmination of a greater issue. Show me what actions they take. Does someone who has been an enemy all this time suddenly falter in their hatred seeing this key figure in their life (whether they like it or not) suddenly collapse? Does their dearest friend or love find themselves frozen in shock, or do they run to their side, calling for help? Fainting should be the turning point in a scene, not the end of it. It can also be fun to use it as a way to forcefully and unwillingly show weakness in a character that has long refused to allow weakness, or emphasize a character's weakness to a degree in which other characters can no longer brush it aside. I just think fainting is a literary device with so much potential, hence my own love of using it, and it's sad to see it reduced to a minor inconvenience or scene transition. Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk, please feel free to ask questions or give your own thoughts :)

Honestly, fanfic writers are so underrated since most people still have skewed view of fanfiction when good fanfic outnumber bad ones. Like even technically "bad" ones are ooc or cringy ones are valid. They're writing volumes worth of self-indulgent shit for free on their own time bc a piece of media inspired them so much. It's basic etiquette to "Don't Like, Don't Read" unless they ask for feedback.

I do actually like the fainting trope in a whump context. It’s the difference between “I don’t know how to change the scene so I’ll just knock out the main character”, and the fainting/injury/poison/whatever being the main appeal. And it often leads to good hurt/comfort which, I think a lot of us want someone to take care of us when we’re vulnerable so I appreciate the wish-fulfillment aspect. I’m more critical of this trope outside of a fanfic concept, where it isn’t being advertised as “alright everyone come get your blorbo torture!” Hope that makes sense lol.

why is nobody talking about how haley drew the person at 16:32 in Eric Cartman's outfit lmaooo love it so much

On the brief mention of orbs, another place where that shows up (and other strangely specific appearance description) is regency romance, especially Pride and Prejudice variations. I feel like people read them because they want to see the main characters falling for each other, and these small appearance details are used to "hype up" the romance and show the person (usually Mr. Darcy) essentially simping over the other's appearance. Though I have seen it used for other characters to emphasize certain parts of their appearance (Caroline Bingley having bright blue orbs, Elizabeth's being hazel with flecks of gold, etc) anyway the orbs get me every time oh golly...

My favorite spin on the "eurgh I'm so uglyyyy" trope is "Yes, I know I'm pretty, but that doesn't mean I'm above you. I may be pretty, but you're pretty too." for example, I have a character who's a princess and is in love with a non-royal philosopher. He goes "oh princess you're so gorgeous! you grace me with your presence, please let me know if there's anything I can provide you!" and she was like "hey, you're not...like, a peasant to me. I don't really like being treated like this, it makes me feel weird. I'm not above you. please just be yourself."

I already knew when she said “describing a fanfic character” she was gonna start describing our queen Enoby

girl, i would unironically listen to you doing a full reading of my immortal, you have the perfect reading voice LOL

I love your opinion on things, and also admire the advice. I often listen to your vids while I animate, you're amazing!

Thanks for making this video! I love to write Fanfiction. So seeing one of my favorite art KZfaqrs doing a video about Fanfiction makes me really happy! :) I bet I’m gonna love this video.

I don't judge stories with self-inserts. Because it IS possible to write them WELL. And for "they think they're ugly, but they're actually attractive" characters, I actually have a character like this, but there's a real REASON! His name's Elance, he's from a race of vain flower people who has a hierachy based on how beautiful their petals are. He and his dad were born at the very bottom, so pretty much all other flower people except his mom treated them badly their whole lives. After his dad sacrifices himself to protect him, Elance eventually sets out and then travels with the main cast to find something/someone that can make him permanently beautiful. I intend to have him slowly and eventually realize he's fine the way he is. Edit: Thanks for the likes and comments! Somehow, I didn't get any notifications for these! This isn't a fanfic exactly, but it'll be a webcomic instead! (Tho, to be fair, it's very One Piece-like)

I've found myself using the 'character fall's asleep to transition scenes more than usual' BUT it's because he's literally being starved, tortured and forced to run around and do stuff all the time and so it makes sense to why he'd be constantly exhausted to the point of passing out

Ooh, I have a different perspective on that last one! I wanna share it :) So, basically, I did a English project a few years ago on fanfiction. I got really into it and was so interested in the world of fanfic and how it improved the majority of fanbases and writing skill. I did research and went to places like ao3 or Discord servers that were dedicated fully to fanfiction. During this research, I found and article about how English teachers should use fanfiction as a way to help improve students' ability to write better plots, focus on describing or using rhetoric better (which I clearly cannot, lol), and, more relavent to the point I'm trying to make, fully fleshing out how their characters act. I am into fanfiction, now, and I can say for sure that fanfic is an *excellent* way of getting to understand the motivations of the characters ppl love and read and listen to and whatever other method they use to participate in the media or characters they like. Writing, as said in that article and personally confirmed by my own adventure of getting into writing, found fam fanfic, which is a way to improve your writing skills. That is, of course, only if the writer is actually interested in learning or understanding their character more (appreciation claps for 15k character studies I've read!), but the fact that the people actually dedicated to fanfic and the heart of what it is - what I discussed in my project - isn't nullified by the few who choose to write OG work with a published character's name on it. So basically my point is: fanfic's whole IDEA is based around the concept of fully understanding a character and being able to expand on a published world someone loves (as well as making a community of people excited about the same topics or ideas already published), and most people - the GOOD writers of fanfic, who actually understand the idea of expanding the relationships or ideas or worlds of published media and represent quality content in the fanfic community - understand that and achieve that. If you see those kinds of things where authors don't really get "in character," so to speak, then it can be assumed they're new writers OR that they still haven't really gotten to a point where they can identify what makes that character's style THEIR style. Which you said. I think. I could be wrong? It's been a few minutes since I watched the video and I'm worried all my comment-writing progress will be gone if I click away (i'm on mobile and rarely comment so I have no clue XD ). I don't write this to say your point is wrong, nor to say that you didn't bring up any of these points yourself! There is always nuance to these kind of things, and honestly I might even miss a bitto nuance myself due to my own biases. But! If you find good fanfic - which, imo, is quite easy on ao3 if you use the tagging system efficiently and can sus out the quality of the fanfic based on the summary. it does vary a lot based on fandom, though - those issues of knowing what character it is should be no problemo because the authors are actually invested in answering those "what if" questions fanfic was made for. Woof, this was long! Some of these sentences are definitely run-ons... ehhh, idrc. This is not something I fully intend on making it the best it can be; it's just a lil (massive, long) comment :) I just wanted to put my perspective put there :D Hopefully this kind of jumbled mess of words is helpful or comprehensible to SOME person out there o7 (Also, I love seeing all this content abt fanfic! I love all the perspectives on fanfic that don't absolutely write it off as smth childish and dumb. Those people have clearly never heard of Dante's self-and-celebrity-insert fanfic Dante's Inferno among Shakespeare's works and Star Trek's fanzines way back when. Like. Bruh. Anyway why do i always make my comments so long when I do them ahhh byeee )

About the fainting thing: I am guilty! I wrote a story with the main character similar to myself. I have low iron, and so does my character. To emphasize this, I have her faint a few times😭

1:39 Why does the outfit actually sound so fire tho ☠☠

I just started watching your vids, and youre voice is so quiet and calm i love it

The fainting to change scenes is so Dante Alighieri’s, Divina Commedia’s Inferno, coded