five past midnight

Last night I was going through the Laviyuu tag on AO3 after not having read anything from there in almost half a year. I was just going to tweet about one thing, but that one thing turned into a whole thread about fandom, motivation, and feedback culture. I'm a bit mortified that I actually wrote all of this and posted it on Twitter, since I'm usually much more careful with what I tweet, but anyway. I'm posting it here now, since this is probably the most rational I've been re: fandom in a long time. Some salt, but mostly just me... trying to vent.

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That got very long. I'll update this if I get more questions overnight!

I'm coming up with a new post series on Elly and my collab rarepair tumblr: why I ship (rarepair). obviously, my first post is on Kuroyaku. Elly's doing Yakunoya, so my next one is either Noyaken or Kyousaku.

who: Kuroo Tetsurou/Yaku Morisuke

warnings: spoilers for post-season 3 manga chapters

I ship Kuroyaku because:

• they are rivals-turned-friends
  [if you’re not up-to-date with the manga, please skip this point]
  • chapter 200 showed us that Kuroo and Yaku started off on the wrong foot, and gave us an insight into their past: they, like Kagehina, first met each other on opposite sides of the court in middle school.
  • Kuroo took note of Yaku - they met in the first year of middle school, and three years later, in the first year of high school, he still remembered and recognised Yaku. Yaku must have done something to make him remember him so clearly!
  • for the first part of their high school lives, they were always at odds with each other, and could never see eye-to-eye. the only thing they agreed on was Nationals!
  • but with chapter 200 we’ve seen how much trust they have in each other - Kuroo tells Yaku the team will be okay, and Yaku trusts Kuroo and the team enough, knows that they will be fine even without him. Kuroo even says afterwards, that the team has to win if they don’t want Yaku to come after their asses.
  • this all happens canonically. their relationship has grown to a point where they are now on the same page. people have said that Kuroyaku are the third-year equivalents of Kagehina, and it’s true - Kagehina are still sorting out a lot of things in their relationship; Kuroyaku have worked past all of them to get to where they are now.
  • in chapter 196, Kuroo tells a disappointed Lev: “the moment when you feel yourself clicking with the rest of the team, will put you into a state of euphoria that words can’t even describe.” imagine how it must have felt when Kuroo and Yaku finally managed to work together like that.
• they fit almost every ship trope known to fandom
  • Height difference? Check. (it’s 22.5cm, for the record)
  • Colour contrast? Check.
  • Endless argument? Check.
  • Mutual respect? Check.
• they work together very well as a unit
  • they are equals both on and off the court
  • there’s no holding back between the two of them - they’re brutally honest with each other when they need to. after all, what’s political correctness when you were at each other’s throats from the first time you met?
  • good on both of them that they’re both very blunt people who aren’t afraid to say what’s on their minds - so there’s no beating around the bush.
  • both of them keep Tora the team in line (look here) and in turn, Kai keeps them in line (cough cough)
• they hang out together, outside of school.
  • maybe this one’s a bit of a stretch, since it’s the light novel, but that makes it semi-canon at the very least.
• they’re classmates, so they most likely hang out together in school too.
• their personalities clash and complement each other
  • Kuroo is playful and easygoing, Yaku is realistic and down-to-earth.
  • Kuroo reminds Yaku to not take life so seriously all the time; Yaku keeps Kuroo’s antics in line.
  • Kuroo makes sure Yaku doesn’t push himself too far, Yaku makes sure Kuroo can’t slack off.
  • Yaku doesn’t like showing his weaknesses, but Kuroo is perceptive. which means he’ll know when something’s bothering Yaku but Yaku’s not saying anything.
  • this also means Kuroo calls Yaku out all the time, lol
• they are close friends
  • I can’t imagine anyone besides Kuroo would get away with calling Yaku ‘Yakkun’, although a case can also be made for Yaku just giving up on trying to stop Kuroo
  • Also, Bokuto picked up the same nickname! And he definitely did so after hearing Kuroo do it.
  • Not only that: Kuroo calls him paisen and demon senpai.
• between Kuroo and Yaku is a relationship that was built initially on rivalry, but which has evolved into one of mutual respect
  • the possibilities for growth for them are endless. we’ve witnessed their growth from first year to third year of high school, just imagine how much more they can grow together after high school

so last night I couldn't write anything at all - I was really distracted by the Kuroyaku art that I'd discovered plus Futakuchi wasn't cooperating so I got a total of three lines in, which was frustrating because Futakuchi is actually one of the few characters I can write without much hassle orz

my current goal's to write lighter stories (with nothing in our hands-esque) (which I am very disappointed few people are reading because!!! that fic was so fun to write!!! and reading it also makes me smile stupidly!!! but I digress!!! I do understand why people didn't read/kudo it but anyway!!!) because every single one of my recent ones have been heavy, both in angst, plot and world-building. I need something... cheerier. maybe not so much giving up the mindless fluff and plots, but moreso in adopting a lighter tone.

WNIOH was an experimental fic for me and I was really pleased with how it turned out. it was surprisingly easy to write - too easy, actually, to the point where I had to take a one month break before I went back to my usual writing voice for the little bits and pieces (heck, even in bits and pieces you can tell that I'm not at 100% serious voice yet). 

I would have liked to continue writing in that style, but I was worried I would grow too used to writing that kind of tone, which would leave me with consistency problems when I went back to writing Timeless (a damn valid concern, and I'm glad I did it because I seriously struggled with writing Sunrise after that).

the dumbest part of last night came after I was already in bed.

( the dumb part )

speaking of, I track all mentions of Kuroyaku on Tweetdeck and recently there's been an influx of Kuroyaku-related tweets lol but it's all because of the light novel sketch. 

me: "Yeah y'all love Kuroyaku but do y'all read the Kuroyaku."

yes, me being petty.

in other news, I've been playing with the idea of organising a Kuroyaku week............ but time, muse and... well, time and muse. but I'm starved for content and since everyone loves Kuroyaku--

as ritzfics says, "there can never be too much kuroyaku, in fact, there's NOT ENOUGH KUROYAKU". 

I shall. um. keep playing with it first. and get more opinions.

how do you write unrequited love for your OTP? I was telling Elly today while on the way to work that I feel like I've been falling out of Yakunoya fandom, in favour of Kuroyaku - and not six hours later promptly got struck by an awful Yakunoya angst idea that's been bugging me ever since.

and I showed my idea to Mel and they suggested: what if Kuroo has feelings for Yaku? 

that spiralled off into a discussion about unrequited love, and the epitome of unrequited - hanahaki. Hanahaki's a trope I've been on and off about, I've read a few really good ones and others just made me damn unhappy... and I thought about it, and I came to the conclusion that if I ever do write hanahaki for Kuroyaku, it'll definitely have to end up requited - it'll be less of the one-sided and more of the Yaku-is-denser-than-water side of things, really. 

I just... can't picture them as being in an unrequited thing tbh, even with the popularity of Kuroken? I've considered Kuroyaku as exes before, tbh I love Kuroyaku as exes even more than Yakunoya/Kuroshou as exes - but never Kuroyaku as unrequited??? I. *facepalms* I don't know why.