chaoticbasementpeach-blog

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Years later she finds the same face

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Redemption Arcs

It keeps beind said that people don't understand villains, or redemption arcs, or the desire to see villains change. But when it comes to villains changing, people want to see abusers repent not focus on being forgiven. Forgiveness may not happen. A villain wanting to change should come from their desire to do right.

People say that we're not understanding that but we're living that. People who hurt us are forgiven but haven't truly changed. Yes it appears they aren't doing bad things currently but that is not enough. They have to make amends to the damage that they have done.

I personally love villains, but I understand the weight of the damage they do. And the more they destroy and hurt people the more complicated and difficult the path to true change is and I haven't truly seen that reflected.

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My executive dysfunction feels like a cage. When people see me they see someone addicted to their phone. Meanwhile I'm stuck inside desperate to work and do something productive. The best I can do is put on a podcast and go fix myself something to eat at 5pm.

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Why can’t I make a living by procrastinating and writing down incoherent story ideas at 3 am?

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I’m so sick of people saying writers aren’t true writers if part of the reason they’re doing it is for feedback or money.

Would you tell an accountant that they’re not an accountant if they’re doing it for money? No. You know why? Because it’s work. It takes time. It’s hard.

Yes. It is hard to make a living as a writer. No. That does not mean we shouldn’t want feedback after spending 10 hours working on our writing.

Stop telling writers that they aren’t writers if they want feedback or money for their work. We don’t have to choose between writing for ourselves or writing for feedback. We can both enjoy writing AND want feedback. This does not make us any less of a writer.

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I like eating food. Please support me in my endeavor. I write poetry for your entertainment.

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I am become villain, destroyer of homes

Where is my home

Once upon a time I would scream at the top of my lungs

Did I notice how the kids ran and hid

Where is my home

When I hear the kids enjoy themselves I'm spurred to action

I climb out, stomp heavy, breathe fire from my mouth, point and point

Where is my home

I shake the ground under the kids feet

They answer my riddle to earn their peace

But the next day brings one new riddle

Where is my home

It was always here

Is this what I wanted

This home is ravaged, broken, ashes

The children are hollow corpses, fragmented

I will not stop, no

My price is not paid

Where is my home

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live fast, yee haw

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You, a regular comic book artist have been living a quiet life. It wasn’t until the aliens arrived and the government decided communication would have to be done through means that extraterrestrials could understand, as translating language proved impossible. Suddenly there is a hunt for those most adept at communicating a story through images. That’s when you hear a knock on your door.

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Quick And Dirty Tips For Creating Subplots

– Not everyone should love the hero.

– The more antagonists you have the more conflicts you create.

– Real life should happen to the characters, even if they are saving the world they have jobs and responsibilities.

– Give the character interests and friends outside of work.

– Multiple point of views aren’t a bad thing if you know how to juggle them.

– It all needs to come together at the end.

– Not every antagonist needs to be vanquished at the end.

– – Give us more than one character to love– (from Diantha)

— Make each and every character count — (from Diantha)

Stories need subplots. Make sure yours has one.

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My brain: New story idea!! Must write now!

Me: okay… what’s the plot..?

My brain: Hmm, plot? No, no, no, none of that here, my good friend, my good sir, my good ma’am, but may I offer you an overall general Vibe, an aesthetic if you will, a vague feeling to convey, a-

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Forearmed

INTP

Forewarned is forearmed. My depression started in middle school but I wasn’t diagnosed till 12th grade. In middle school it started being said by others and by me that I was just lazy. I took that to heart. My school work suffered. I stopped being as active as I used to be. That was just the choice I was making. Things wouldn’t be this way if I just made a change.

I took the Meyer Briggs test in 10th grade. It was one step in what was supposed to be a career planning process. I went into it with the doubt and disbelief that I had seen in others. When I finished I was amazed to see so many things about my personality that I couldn’t quantify, put into words.

It was amazing to see that I was not the only one who was the way I was. That my way of thinking was just one of many and there was nothing wrong with it. I could of course see some things that didn’t apply to me but it wasn’t really the point. I didn’t expect the test to predict every aspect of my life. It was giving me structures and terminology to change my worldview. To understand myself. Why I was the way I was and how to work with it. What I was wasn’t called lazy (I learned even more about that later on in my life), and I wasn’t alone.

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Jude and Cardan

I Just finished The Wicked King and I have so many scattered thoughts that I’d like to get out. My previous post  was about the ending but now I want to focus more on Jude and Cardan.

spoilers below

I’ve read many YA novels in my time and Jude Duarte is probably the most unique. Holly black succeeded in writing a truly complex and flawed female protagonist. When people say flawed, I only ever see a heroine who is always righteous while everything immoral happens to her. Then here comes Jude with her grit, ambition and unabashed thirst for power.  It is so refreshing to see because it actually makes her far more compelling than any other heroine I read about.

The Wicked King gave me a better understanding Jude. In a way,  We saw that her need to hold onto power made her slip many times, make rash decisions, and keep trying to manipulate Cardan. Although,  Her bargain with Cardan, and crowning oak afterwards was never a good plan in the long run. it was fragile as a house of cards which finally collapsed in the end. That is the difference between Jude and Cardan, one plays the long game while the other one does not. if you really think about it, Jude married Cardan to hold onto power which then lead to her exile. it is really just momentary thrill that does not even benefit her.  In The Queen of Nothing, I hope to see Jude  become a Queen, she needs to learn what it means to have power, that is not about satisfaction or thrill, that is is actually about leading. In Wicked King, we only saw Jude love power because one, it gives her something over the others, and two, it gives her the sense of belonging she always desired. Both are the wrong reasons for wanting power.  Jude needs to learn what is the true meaning of being a powerful ruler. Just like in The Wicked king, Cardan proved himself to be a formidable king, I Would like to see the same for Jude in the third book. 

Keep reading

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The pursuit of power makes us weak

The things that hold us back

While reading the Wicked King, one thing seemed stuck in my mind. (I think it is in huge part a representation of how I think and work. But I guess that is the point a little. I read so many books and I have always wanted to see someone with my personality as a main character. Majority of main characters have one main sort of personality and method to handling problems.)

The thought in my head was that Jude’s pursuit of power was making her weak. I think others may read it differently but to me she was not being the best she could be. Part of that is of course the point; Her inability to trust others lead her to try to handle everything alone and so in turn there wasn’t much she handled well.

I get that part of that is the point. (And now that I am putting it into words it also seems a key to understanding the ending and what may happen in book 3.) But I felt that overall it wasn’t that she suffered only some weaknesses. I struggled to find her strengths. Of course she is a very adept fighter but she didn’t have many occasions to put that to use. The one main occasion for fighting was overshadowed by her unwise decision to always be alone.

Of course Jude was not alone. Many of the characters were examples of the pursuit of power making people weak. Everyone pursued power in different ways and had different views of what power was. In almost all cases it opened them up to vulnerabilities. A common occurrence was that people’s pride made them underestimate others. Or their selfishness in their pursuit brought them unwanted consequences.

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I get the impression that a lot of people are nervous about first drafts because they think that they’re committed to whatever they end up writing.

That ain’t how it works – like, at all. A first draft isn’t something you edit into a finished product. A first draft is something you set aside and use as inspirational source material for the second draft, which is where the real process of working toward a finished product begins.

You’re not actually beholden to anything you came up with on your first go-around. Basically, the first draft is the low budget 1980s toy commercial that the second draft’s 2010s Netflix reboot is based on. Substantial changes aren’t merely permissible, they’re practically mandatory: if your second draft ends up sharing nothing with its predecessor but a broad premise and the names of some of the major characters, that’s not a sign of creative weakness – it’s a sign that the process is working!