Hello, anyone who cares. A quick introduction:

Age: None of your beeswax.

Gender: Fluid.

Social Life: No.

Personal Motto: I don't know if I know what I'm doing, but I have to do it anyway.

I read a lot of fantasy and SF books. I watch so many cartoons. I am stubbornly keeping up with one manga, I used to watch a lot of anime, and I occasionally read comic books. I am kind of a massive nerd. Oh, and I follow some webcomics. One of my addictions is fanfiction. I am frequently sarcastic.

(I really need to fix this thing up for real at some point.)

My creative writing output is unreliable. I will update at least one story at least once a month; possibly more, but I have no clue what will get posted until I've written it. (5/9/18: ...um. Well. Hopefully I'll start writing again now? Maybe?)

Everyone who reviews my stories, thank you very much!

For the record, my profile picture was made here (remove spaces): www. dolldivine. com/chibi-maker. php

My AO3: Have begun cross-posting from FF.N. There are also a few AO3-exclusive works due to AO3 events.

My tumblr blog: I reblog a lot of stuff. I also write the occasional rant / fic / commentary on my fandoms. There are also some tumblr-exclusives now, more due to time lag in reposting here and/or on AO3 than anything else.

My FictionPress account: This thing is pretty much abandoned. You can still check it out if you want.

My DeviantArt: So far, contains a random creepy quick-sketch. ...WAIT. I've actually made fan art by now. I need to revive this thing.

FFN is still being wonky with the profile links, so I'm just telling anyone who gives a darn that I have the same username on all of the sites linked above.

Announcements:

5/9/18 - It's been how long since I wrote anything? And two years since I touched my profile? What the heck, self.

8/27/16 - ...eh. Minimal progress is still better than no progress, I guess.

On Reviews: If you like something, say so. If you dislike something, please explain why.

P.S. Constructive criticism would be triply appreciated.

P.P.S. Please do not review just to nag the author for updates. You will be ignored.

P.P.P.S If you PM the author to beg for updates / stories, the author will block you and delete your messages. You have been warned.

On Replies: I really do genuinely try my best to reply to all reviews / comments, whenever possible.

P.S. As above, this does not include when one reviews just to nag for updates.

P.P.S. Aside from that, I like reviews! Talk to me. PM me. I am almost always 100% ready to talk fandom.

P.P.P.S. Fanfic writing is something I do to unwind / otherwise deal with my RL problems, and to further develop my writing skills. One of my RL problems is (surprise surprise) that I have problems with talking to people. So if I'm not quite up to communicating, I will postpone replying. That said: if I see that someone has left a nice / constructively nitpicky review, and I haven't yet replied to it, I will try to get to it as soon as I can.

Yes, even online and in plaintext! This happens.

My sources of inspiration are many and varied, but can often be placed into four main categories:
Music;
TVTropes. org, a website about conventions and devices in the arts, which is much more interesting (and time-eating) than I make it sound;
other people's stories, meaning books, short stories, movies, TV shows, anime, comic books, webcomics, tumblr posts, etc.;
and of course, that universal teacher, personal experience. (Wow, I sound like such a tool here.)

Currently reading: a truly redonkulous number of fics.

Currently stuck in my head: Steven Universe OST "That Distant Shore"

Currently reading in fandom: Steven Universe, Homestuck, BNHA, Fullmetal Alchemist and a metric ton of other fandoms.

Favorite quotes:

"YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?" – DEATH, from Hogfather by Terry Pratchett
-- RIP, that mad old genius. The worlds he wrote will live on in our minds.

"The more beautiful and pure a thing is - the more satisfying it is to corrupt it." - Rules of the Internet #43

"'Inside every sane person there's a madman struggling to get out,' said the shopkeeper. 'That's what I've always thought. No one goes mad quicker than a totally sane person.'" - The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett

"You've got to be better'n us, Artie. I mean, what good are bad guys without good guys to show us how not to be?" - Mell, from Narbonic by Shaenon K. Garrity

"Fear is easy. Fear is cheap. Instead of fear, we're going to give the people hope."
"Fear vs. hope. Hardly an even match."
"That's because you think of hope as something light and fragile. My version of hope has calluses and dirt under the fingernails and isn't past bringing brass knuckles to a fight." - Maxwell Post and Sam Starfall from Freefall by Mark Stanley, 10/30/13

"All writers have this vague hope that the elves will come in the night and finish any stories." - Neil Gaiman

"Where questions of style and exposition are concerned I try to follow a simple maxim: if you can't say it clearly you don't understand it yourself." – John Searle

"Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means." - Immanuel Kant

"We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give." - Marian Wright Edelman

Rant warning: Those who have no interest in reading Matsuri's author rant, feel free to skip this section. You have been warned.

My pet peeves:

Out-of-character and character bashing - Changing a character to fit an AU is fine. Changing a character over time is fine. Either powering them up or weakening them to fit an altered setting is fine. I have no problem with stories where good guys in the original work are now villains, or vice versa, as long as it is done in a way consistent with the characters, plot and setting. Again, it's fine. Warping them utterly beyond recognition because a writer is either too immature to show some respect to the creator of the original work or just doesn't care enough to put an effort into characterization is not okay. Ever. I will not read these stories. P.S. Fuck Marvel. Nick Spencer and Tom Brevoort can go burn in hell with all the other Holocaust-erasing dickbags.

Corollary - I have no problem with OOC in crackfic. That's what crackfic is for. I still won't read bashing, though.

Shipping - My problem is not with shipping. My problem is when one or more characters in a love triangle, or worse, established canon relationship are bashed (see above) or randomly killed off. Equally irritating is when a pairing just doesn't make sense. Which brings me to my next point:

Shipping with regards to orientation - If nothing in canon absolutely ironclad-negates your headcanon, and you can make it make sense, then by all means go for it. But you don't have to summarily throw out canon, either. If a character is explicitly uninterested in the same sex, do not ship them with a member of the same sex. Conversely, if a character has no interest in the opposite sex, then do not suddenly author-magic them straight. If a character is confirmed ace/aro-spectrum (or if that's your headcanon, you do you) then plan accordingly. If a character is or can be interpreted as bisexual, don't suddenly make them a slut (unless they're like that in canon). Beyond that - characterization, characterization, characterization. Fit the story to the characters, not the other way around. If the characters don't fit, consider OCs.

Four-years-later caveat: Characters, like people, change. Characterization is fluid. I still won't endorse unjustified OOC, and I will click immediately out of anything that bashes characters for the sake of bashing, but there is no one way to write a character. Make your own - just don't throw out canon completely, 'cause then you're just writing a thinly-veiled OC. (Often not a very good one.)

As a less irritating but no less important peeve: Grammar. Spelling. Punctuation. Word choice. If I listed all the mistakes along these lines I've seen, it would take up several pages and far more time and effort than I'm willing to put into it. May I make a suggestion? If you are on FF.N, then you must have Internet access and a browser. Therefore, you should be able to pull up an online dictionary/thesaurus for definitions and help with word choice. There are tutorials and formatting guides for help with grammar, spelling and punctuation. Just go to the search engine of your choice and search for these. You don't have to do it, but people are more likely to read and critique well-written stories, and style matters just as much as substance.

Four-years-later peeve-among-peeves: Gender. Gender is not sexuality. Gender does not define sexuality, and vice versa. And for the love of not being a jerk, if you want to hide a character's gender or something, and you can't figure out what pronoun to use-
English DOES allow the use of "they" as a third-person-singular pronoun. Do not use "it" in reference to a person. It's dehumanizing and rude.

Updates will most likely be sporadic, but I will post something at least once a month. (Note: Will be going through fics and putting everything dead/on hiatus into a Plotbunny Overflow Unit. Very soon. EDIT: At some point. I despise disorder. EDIT: Who am I kidding.)

General Announcement: All works-in-progress other than Banquet and the various oneshot/drabble collections are dead. I write a fair amount of shortfics that don't fit in the collections, so there will be new stories posted here (and elsewhere) on a semi-regular basis.

Adoption Policy:

I have a number of stories up, some of which are very short ficlets, little more than plotbunnies themselves. If anyone feels like adopting, feel free. No need to ask; just credit me for the original idea in an author's note or something.

For the record, my rough timeline for DP is:

Banquet* - 1984

Shades of Gray – Fall 2004

Fright Night – Halloween 2004

Maternal Instinct – Thanksgiving Break 2004

Life Lessons – January 2005

The Fenton Menace – Summer 2005

The Fright Before Christmas – Christmas 2005

Reality Trip – Summer 2006

Double-Cross My Heart through D-Stabilized – Fall 2006 to Spring 2007

the * means it's one of my fics, so feel free to ignore.