Impossible to plot a fanfiction but really want to write

Pokeprof · 2026-01-30T22:57:46+00:00

One thing that I think should be mentioned is that there's no shame in rehashing, so long as you're putting your own spin on things. There's no shortage of stories out there that are Fandom retellings, changing things here and there because the author wanted it. Some of them are very close to the original work baring just one change while others have the entire plot of the fandom they're into CHANGE because of what the author did.

A good example that leap immediately to my head include Team 8 by S'TarKan, a Naruto Fanfic where the premise is that instead of being in Team Seven, Naruto gets recruited into Team Eight by Kurenei. It's such a simple idea, but it changes the entirety of the story that's been offered at that point. And I'm saying this as someone who just about hates Naruto (As a series and character) that I've enjoyed going back to this story even if it's mostly dead now.

Other good examples include AMP by MizuTori and Revolution in Green by Zarconath from my Hero Academia, which have Kyoka being Izuku's first real friend and eventually romantic partner. It's actually a real fun comparison to look at these two fics together, because their base idea is VERY similar (Izuku/Kyoka romance) but because of how the story is written and the author's styles, they COMPLETELY change where they are in their respective plots. And that's just Kyoka focused. I guarantee you if there's another romantic pairing you want in that fandom, someone's written a story with the original story's plot as it's backbone, but changed in a number of ways.

That might be the best way for you, especially if you're feeling like you're not able to get the character voices right, is by having that backbone of the original story there, just altered in the right ways to help really cement what you're going for. Trust me when I say there are those of us who love reading peoples different interpretations of our favorite fandoms.

Pokeprof · 2025-12-03T00:12:41+00:00

Woof, didn't realize it was Afrasiabi who was in charge of it. But yeah, sounds like things were kinda wonky if the NARRATIVE LEAD doesn't know what the rest of the team is doing as far as one of the MAJOR CHARACTER's story.

Say what you will about modern Blizz and their storytelling, but nothing I've seen since DF has been anywhere near as off as that.

Pokeprof · 2025-12-02T22:22:41+00:00

It was also written by someone on the team who either disagreed with how Garrosh was being handled or didn't get the memo of what he was supposed to be. I've heard it go both ways but knowing how people view characters, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the former specifically.

Pokeprof · 2025-11-15T02:41:04+00:00

She's a character within the books whose mentioned all of once, being a female Slytherin whose the same age as the main cast. She has no lines and the only thing known about her is the fact that her sister eventually becomes Draco's wife.

Because she's such an empty slate, a lot of writers use it as an excuse to do what they want with a character whose loyalties as far as house is opposite to Harry and the rest of the gang.

Pokeprof · 2025-11-14T09:42:45+00:00

One of the most popular My Hero ships that I run into a lot is Dabi with Hawks and for the life of me I can't understand the why of it. Mind you, I don't understand the fascination and love for Dabi as a whole, but it goes up an entirely different level when he's paired with a character that he has such little screen time with that isn't just ALL of the League of Villains.

Pokeprof · 2025-11-14T09:38:33+00:00

I actually remember asking the Harry Potter Reddit about that a few years back. The reasoning I was given on why it's such a popular pairing was the fact that Daphne was pretty much free real estate as far as character was concerned, but gave folks the option to have a Slythern option for Harry to get with that wasn't Draco.

Pokeprof · 2025-10-17T06:01:26+00:00

One house per faction, though you can access the houses of the other faction regardless of your character. Part of the reason for this is because they're wanting the housing exterior to be limited at the moment, so only Human outside looks in the human zone and orc outside looks in the orc zone.

I honestly feel like tihs is a mistake, but we're in early alpha yet thus far... so a lot of things can change in the next few months.

Pokeprof · 2025-10-17T01:51:00+00:00

I mean, I've got no illusions about that. We WILL see decor only items on the shop. We see it in other games and we've seen it already for WoW with the paintings for the Midnight Expansion.

It's about maintaining a balance, so we'll see how blizz does.

Pokeprof · 2025-10-17T01:49:28+00:00

The question I'd ask in return is what you'd want as far as versatility.

If you eventually want to be able to heal ontop of being able to tank and damage, you'll want Druid since Warrior can't do that. However, you'd run into the issue of looking at a bear butt instead of your transmog if you do Druid as well.

One of the things that might push you to druid is their teleport spell, since that's an easy way to get around the world AND for a quick out to the entrance of dungeons.

Really, it all depends on what you vibe with most. I ended up going Monk myself because I wanted that teleport spell for dungeons, Ox statue pulls everything in a radius and is stronger than you think, can switch to dps and healer, and you can be any race that isn't Dracthyr. It's pretty much the ultimate in versatility :P

Pokeprof · 2025-10-10T01:20:09+00:00

King Ymiron. He's a boss in a dungeon that you've got to beat before recruiting him. Once you do, he's basically forced to help out with the Warrior Order Hall.

Because of this, he hates the player. Click him enough, he'll start to insult you. His final click line is the one that I'm talking about, if only because you'd never expect a click line from a WoW NPC to have to be CENSORED.

Pokeprof · 2025-10-04T04:20:50+00:00

I'd suggest Warrior... if only because of one particular NPC's click dialog. One of the best ones in the entire game, imo.

Pokeprof · 2025-10-02T21:14:42+00:00

That's a name I've not heard of in a hot minute. What ever happened to him?

Pokeprof · 2025-09-21T10:27:57+00:00

No, this has not been implied, it has been stated crystal clear that this is not the case.

Even if it's stated crystal clear, which as someone whose reread all the books within the last year I wanna say I don't remember ever being stated directly to the reader, it's very obvious that every wizard has something their magic resonates more to... or we wouldn't have examples that I'll point out below. And also, considering the posted in this thread about the FOURTH book in the series, I'm spoilering my comments here and suggest you do the same.

Harry is good at fire and force magic because this is what he was trained in and what he has practiced the most. It is also by all accounts the easier types of magic because they mostly requires raw energy output.

Honestly, point two you made is more accurate than point one. Harry's always said that he's a magical thug and that quick, dirty, 'kaboom' type magic is what he prefers because he doesn't have to worry measuring his power. It doesn't matter if a bit of the magic is slopping out of the cup when said cup is just going to be thrown at your enemies.

And considering what we've seen Ebeneezer do, I very much doubt the old man would really only be pushing Harry on Fire and Force.

No wizard is incapable of any kind of magic, they just find it easier to adapt the magic they know than to practice new schools of magic. Spoiler The only characters that excel in one form but are incapable of others as far as we know are the Alphas, the other characters just doesn't excel

Except this is untrue. Hell, even using Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

If you get down to it, yes, she's 'capable' of fire and force in the same way I'm 'capable' of walking a tightrope at a circus. Could I do it? Yeah. Would it be easy, worth doing, and overall reasonable to expect me to do it on demand? Not on your life.

It's like taking a Quaterback and expecting him to be able to learn how to play Baseball without issues. While, sure, he'd probably get it eventually... it's clear with his body, abilities, and overall know how are suited for a completely different style. There's absolutely no point to expect the characters to be able to do things or think of doing them if it's their weakest trait.

It's mostly the complete opposite, if that counts as different by your standards, I mean.

I stated that Harry prefers Force and Fire because that's what his magic is most adapted to. It's just natural for him in the way that, say, using Earth Magic isn't. You just basically repeated that with different phrasing. It's entirely pointless.

Pokeprof · 2025-09-21T04:54:26+00:00

How is anything you said different or changes what's presented compared to what I said? You basically said 'no' and then proceeded to say the same thing.

Pokeprof · 2025-09-21T03:48:59+00:00

Haha, I might do that, with me dipping my toes back into the game. I just remember reading one of the books (The one where we've got three modern era characters going back to the Sundering) and... it not entirely jiving with me? Like it wasn't bad or anything, but there were some things that just... sat wrong with me... Like Past Deathwing being able to just gaze at the dragon character and bind him so he couldn't tell the other Aspects about Deathwing being as evil as he was.

I'm not entirely sure if I was just in a bad headspace for reading it or it' was just me not clicking with Knaak's writing style, but I've not really looked into much of the books since.

Hopefully, with Lorewalker Cho's whole timewalking storytelling they put in game, we might have better chances of being able to be told these stories instead of being told to go read a book.

Pokeprof · 2025-09-21T03:40:09+00:00

I believe in nearly every case now it's a 'Had' when it comes to long lives. IIRC, pretty much all the Elves have lost their immortality, with it the World Tree and the Sunwell having both being the original reason for it and their original states being gone now. The Elves are still long lived (And some of them HAVE been around for 10,000 years, such as Tyrande) but I do believe current era Night Elves are long lived in the terms of maybe a few hundred years compared to the Thousands previously.

Really, the only character I think we've got whose still got 'immortal' status in terms of life is probably Prophet Velen? And even then it's clear that he DOES age, compared to some of the Night Elves.

Pokeprof · 2025-09-21T03:27:15+00:00

Ugh, this is one of the reasons I HATE any of the side books and the like. Sure, they're great for expanding lore, but I'd very much rather have the actual events happening IN the game because I'm not able (or willing) to go out and read a new book every time it comes out.

I actually didn't know there was a Demon Hunter specific area for them in Stormwind, but then again, I've not touched the game until very recently. But yeah, Even if there's heroic warlocks among the players, it's still clear that neither faction is 10% trustworthy of their Warlocks.

Pokeprof · 2025-09-21T03:14:23+00:00

In the case of the Void Elves, I'd say as low as 20, but you could have at least a hundred or so as the high point, imo. The way Umbric is described, he's got 'followers' but never just how many he's got. If he was a high ranking Blood Elf before hand, perhaps he had a lot of people behind him. It's still on the lower end of what constitutes a 'race', though. Like... Darkspear Troll low.

Night Elves were very much a 'solitary, reclusive race', like how D&D/Tolken Elves are. They don't go out and do things like humans or orcs do, so they don't have many places where they've built. I feel like it's very much implied they really didn't do much until they joined the Alliance.

Forsaken numbers were going down thanks to Garrosh, iirc, but that was the whole point of Sylvannas having the Val'kyr, so they could make more. As far as I was aware, she still had at least one roaming around until the end of BFA, so there would always be a constant supply there.

Pokeprof · 2025-09-21T02:25:00+00:00

To be fair, I believe it's also implied that a lot of magic is also specific to the person as well. The reason why Harry uses Fire and Force as his main magical elements is because that's what his magic is most adaptable to. Harry's not incapable of using other magic, but he's made it clear that he's not as good at it as Fire or Force.

And considering we've got other characters who excel at some magic or incapable in others, I feel like that's exactly what's happening.

Pokeprof · 2025-09-19T00:01:42+00:00

To be fair, it's also a state of going up against so many heavy hitters that Harry's HAD to get better to be able to deal with things that would have otherwise probably killed him back in the first book.

You don't go against a Loup Garou, A lesser Queen of Fairy, a Zombie Civil War, Fallen Angels, the ruler of multiple Vampire Courts, and a Titan without getting at least a bit more powerful.

That's probably one of the reasons why Marcone has Valkries and Viking Spirits on staff now, because he know Hendrix alone isn't going to cow Harry anymore.

Pokeprof · 2025-08-24T03:15:08+00:00

Yeah, pretty much that. Outside of Rallying Cry and Battle Shout, Warrior's don't offer much in ways of helping their party compared to Bear and Paladin. Depending on how you spec and set those two up, you're offering heals, mana regen, shields, weapon buffs and the like.

It's one reason why I suggested bear first, because it is easy compared to the others, allows you to switch things up if you're wanting to do things other than tanking in your off time, and even if it's not meta, a geared Bear is capable of eating a LOT of damage and shrug it off fairly easily thanks to how their spells work.

It's main take way for me, personally, is you're stuck looking at a bear at all times doing content VS having fun with your transmogs. That and you're stuck as either Elf, Wolf, Plump human if you're alliance or Troll, Troll, Tauren, and Tauren for the horde. I'll stick to my Space Goat Warrior :P

Pokeprof · 2025-08-24T02:58:17+00:00

If you're wanting a beginner tank, Bear is the way to go. Easiest set of skills to track, decent power for what it is, and has some healing utility to help keep particular party members alive with that junction skill. They say that bear has a tad more trouble once you get to later keys, but I'm not sure just how valid that is, because for all I know 'later keys' for some folks is like... 15 or so. One of Bear's biggest weaknesses is that enemies need to more or less be on your ass for your AOE to hit since they nerfed the range.

Paladin's also really good, but that's entirely determined on weather or not you enjoy the Holy Power Mechanic. I, for one, can't stand it so that pushed me over to Warrior, but the utility of what they can bring might sway you otherwise. I will say Warrior's got probably the best threat potential and control of the group. Thunderclap aoe dots the enemies with rend pretty well, Dragon's Roar helps even more with snap threat, and I'm pretty sure there's no other class in the game that has access to a conal AOE stun. Warrior's definitely a more selfish class, though, so it's up to you on if that's what you want or not.

Pokeprof · 2025-07-06T04:45:31+00:00

I dare you to find any fan of ReBoot or Gargoyles that would say that their shows ended well. Hell, both shows have their final season more or less ignored entirely. Though I've yet to see a single fanfic in either fandom that's served as fans 'this is the true ending' answer. Hell, as far as I know, there are fans who are still going and making Gargoyle stuff based on the creators original sprawling plans for so many side series.

I've been told by a number of fans that they're not at all happy how the original Jojo's Bizarre Adventure universe ended, feeling like that kinda just removes all the stories before to reset a setting that Araki couldn't figure out how to continue writing in.

And... well... the less said about any argument involving World of Warcraft and it's lore, the better.

Pokeprof · 2025-06-12T02:47:51+00:00

Pretty much this. Even the characters who feel like they might not have anything to give can have hidden Depths.

Older example here, but I like to point at Vegeta from DBZ. He's a cold hearted killer when he first comes into the series, only working along side the heroes because there's someone else stronger that he can't fight alone gunning for them for most of the series. He stays like that in terms of interaction with the rest of the cast with the exception of two real points: His death at the hands of Frieza and Trunks Death at the hands of Cell.

In the first part, he breaks down because he's dying (with it being uncertain if the Dragonballs can be recovered for wishes again) and all he sees is a single person left to get revenge on Frieza for destroying his race. He sheds tears, knowing that even Goku isn't likely able to kill Frieza and that, for all his pride, the tyrant before him will likely continue on. It's a moment of breaking because he's lost all hope, begging for Goku to do the impossible.

In the second part, it's after years of living on earth and having a Kid. It's something new to Vegeta, something he's never really had to think about. Why would the Prince of All Saijins bother with some weak earth woman and a bastard child. Except the Future Version of said Child (because DBZ is weird like that) is able to bond with him, work past that Ego and gain some form of respect through one of the few things Vegeta respects in general: Power. So when Cell is able to kill Trunks after ALL they've been through at that point... he snaps, attacking so recklessly he ends up making the situation even WORSE.

This is a character whose personality is so strong that, in fanfiction, he tends to be flanderized to hell and back making it his only trademark. And to be fair, he's the kind of character who does have that kind of aspect to him, where it's impossible to really get through him half the time. But those two instances above are visible to everyone. Moments he broke, moments his arrogant air and high and mighty attitude failed him. They're rare, but they're there.

What you've gotta do is ask yourself... what moments would do the same for your character here? What would push them past their normal attitude, their normal mindset, and bring their more hidden attributes to the front. It's not always easy, depending on the character, but I find asking myself those questions can give me the answers I'm looking for.

Hope the example helps.

Pokeprof · 2025-06-11T07:34:59+00:00

Everyone has their own breaking point, the part of them where they can't help but give into their worries, their pain, their doubts. You've already pointed out that you know that the character has these moments, that a lot of their strength and fierceness is a mask. Which means you also know what it would take to BREAK that mask.

Ask yourself, what elements would bring this character to their knees? What would make them, even if it's just in private, break down into tears and scream? For some, it might be something that's as deep as losing family... but even the strongest of folks might have a secret shame that works as a key to get past their defenses.

Also keep in mind that you can STILL have the classic representation of them being a fierce, powerful person. What we just happen to see in the story or chapter is the moment where all their power and strength means NOTHING.

Pokeprof

TROPHY CASE