I'm a tokusatsu-loving witch from outer space. Wuxia also. She/they, bisexual, married in real life to @rudojudo. Follows/likes/asks come from arcanelibrarian. ギリギリまで ふんばって!
Hello, yes, I’m Commie, short for DangerousCommieSubversive on here and AO3, and if I’m not writing constantly then I begin to wither away. This pinned post exists to provide 1. a standing announcement of whether or not I am currently taking fic prompts and 2. some information on how to send me one.
How prompting works: I generally use prompt lists/memes, which I find provide a helpful degree of structure to the process. If prompts are open, the current list will be linked at the top of this post. To request a fic, check the current list, pick something you like, and send me an ask with your chosen prompts and the character(s) you’d like to see–you may prompt for whatever characters or ships within the listed fandoms, no need to restrict it to things I’ve already eritten. You may send two prompts total for any given period. Anonymous prompts are fine, I try to keep the anon option available. And that’s it! That’s the whole process. Although there is an important caveat: I do not promise to fill every prompt I receive. I’ve tried to do that in the past and risked exhaustion and creative burnout as a result; I’ve only got so much energy.
Fandoms I will write for: I’ve written a lot of fic for a lot of properties, but my interest and focus goes in waves, like the tides of a planet with an extremely irregular system of three moons which are all fighting with each other. Currently the fandoms I write for, or am theoretically interested in writing for, fall into three broad categories: tokusatsu, danmei, and dramas.
(Crossover prompts are totally fine, by the way. I love crossovers. I love to mix, and also to match.)
Hit the read-more for an actual categorized list of Things You Can Prompt For! ^_^
The thing is I haven’t been toku posting, or posting much at all, lately, so I don’t think it’s ever come up how insane Fire Candle makes me feel. He’s attractive to me to a degree that is ludicrous and frankly a little worrying. I need him.
I cancelled my Amazon pre-order of Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs To Die but only so I could instead pre-order it from the independent bookstore in my hometown, because I was sorting through old bookmarks earlier today and found one from the Toad and was hit with such a powerful wave of nostalgia that I nearly passed out.
Ok, so! Realized I’d forgotten to actually respond to this and it’s fun and I’d like to share it, so here’s otome game theory! Which has no academic rigor of any kind, but which is extremely fun to think and talk about.
The basic idea of otome game theory is that a well-constructed and well-written Super Sentai team is one that works just as well if the characters are lifted out of the superhero context and dropped wholesale into an otome game wherein they comprise the available love interests. (We’re assuming a completely gender- and sexuality-neutral otome game here just for, like, time reasons.) This doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with how attractive the actors are; mostly it’s about distribution of enjoyable character archetypes and maintaining a certain level of character development.
The whole concept originated when my partner and I were watching Dekaranger, which is a show with many flaws but a truly excellent team, but since I don’t recall if you’ve seen that show we’ll go with Boonboomger, which apart from needing more girls has great otome game potential. Like, our basic team breakdown, phrased in otome game terms, is:
Taiya - friendly, confident, supportive of his friends, secret tragic motivation that you can unlock after, like, five dates if they go really well
Ishiro - cool, collected, secretive but can be provoked into a nice slow thaw over time, high gap moe potential re: the aquarium
Mira - cute, fun, adventurous, but with that very enjoyable determined streak
Jou - classic boy next door but with the backbone and dedication to stand up when it counts
Genba - charming but cagey, has a dark secret, turns into a fun alien, presents an immediate gift idea in the form of candy
Sakito - loud, brash, slightly childish but quietly a very serious person
Like, you’ve got the simple character archetypes, but these characters also all receive enough development that you can easily imagine a plotline for them in a game. The broader cast slots in just as neatly–Boondorio, Byun-D, Ms. Shirabe, Itasha and Dekotorade, we know enough about all of them that an otome game route is at least conceivable. Gozyuger also has great otome game character balance, because it similarly has a cast of characters with good broad character archetypes held up by entertaining and interesting character writing. (I think Fire Candle would be, like, a secret route, you have to run into him in specific places to trigger the event where you can ask him out. I have a vivid mental picture of, like, an otome game-type still of him playing an arcade game surrounded by people staring and clapping while his opponent looks terribly dismayed.)
On the flip side, an example of a show with really poor otome game potential is Kyoryuger. As fun as the character writing can be, even in episodes that don’t focus on King there’s often the feeling that he should be the most interesting person there, and in the case of Nobu the show seems puzzled by the idea that someone would find him interesting even in the midst of giving him an actual romance arc. This is not good character balance.
Obviously this isn’t the be-all and end-all of Sentai quality, nor is it the only thing we judge a show on, but a show with a good Otome Game Quotient is always going to have something really fun to chew on. You can apply it to non-Sentai shows too–as long as you’ve got at least five* characters work with you’ve got something.
*Liveman has an incredible Otome Game Quotient despite having only three heroes for half of the show, because as a mirror to the three heroes you have the three Volt apostates.
