#but the struggles of these characters in this podcast is really resonating with me

[littlecactiguy]

I made this post a month ago after the last released episode, and tbh I was a little wary of doing the whole 'Arthur technically should die again here' again thing, but I really really liked how it was handled in this newest episode.

tbf I really like John as a character, so spending a lot of time with him was nice,

but yeah just immensely enjoyed how that went.

[tired-reader-writer]

Thoughts on ferdinand?

Short answer: Don't like that guy.

Beyond this point is the body of the post where I may rail on your favorite character. This post is clearly-labeled and easy to avoid. If you choose to read on despite me making it clear what my opinion is, you do not have to right to vague me in a condescending manner as you may or may not have done with another post of a similar kind. Just avoid this. It's not that hard. I'm making the fandom ecosystem a little more varied, is all. Us Detlinde fans, Sylvester lovers, and Raublut sympathizers have had to sit and bear with it as the fandom paraded our faves and hurled shit at them. If we have had to endure that, surely you can endure One (1) post that criticizes your fave who is widely loved by everyone else and is also put under a cut. Don't start insulting me for criticizing a character when you've gotten mad at me for responding to insults with anger.

Surely a fandom that condescended to us for reading something we disagree with will understand the point I am making here :)

Aight now that that's out of the way, I can finally get to the meat of the post for all the big-brained people who chose to continue.

Reasons why I think Ferdinand sucks have been touched on in these posts (A B) so I don't really have all that much to say about that outside of reiterating what those posts said.

I tried, y'all. I tried so hard to like him. Everyone else loved him and I wanted to see what they were seeing.

But I couldn't.

He's an abusive jackass who doesn't see that the people around him do love him, can't be allowed near children, doesn't bother lifting other people up he just expects them to be already good. His memory trip with Myne changed nothing about how he saw her or other kids “her age”. He doesn't even seem to like most parts of her, he just seems to like that she's on his level and that she'd protect him.

And the problem is that. I wouldn't hate him nearly as much if only the story or the fandom acknowledged his dickishness. It's not that I'm unfamiliar or can't handle heavy topics, either— I am a victim of lifelong abuse in a country that's been on fire for as long as it's existed. I Been Knew, buddy.

Vincent Nightray from Pandora Hearts is a misogynistic little prick who lies and tricks and betrays people to get to his goal. He may or may not also be a transphobic allegory. But I love him! He's one of my favorite characters from the manga! How could this be? Because his flaws matter. Because both the story and the audience understand that he's not just the poorest little man. He kinda is, but I love him because he's a messy character full of flaws. It makes him interesting. Also because his struggles and storyline involving guilt and suicidal ideation resonated deeply with me.

I absolutely fucking adore Sohma Akito from Fruits Basket. She is so fucking abusive to so many characters and… the story knows that! It acknowledges that! She's, like Vincent, a fucking mess! But the way her backstory explains her entire thing but doesn't excuse it, the way she's such a realistic exploration of abuse both as perpetrator and victim, is so interesting! She's so interesting! Fruits Basket as a whole is just. It's good. It's excellent. It even has a counselor and an artist analyzing the symbolism, art direction, and psychology of the characters on YouTube. You should give that podcast a listen. It's by the channel ThoughtBubble. (Ferdinand's “trauma” could become a realistic exploration of the consequences of such a fucked up life, how he passes on the hurt to the younger generation, if only the story let it but… everyone just uses that trauma card to woobify him and excuse him and go “oh poor Ferdinand” on him like a pity party, which I don't like. Again, the potential is there and I could like it, but the way the fandom treated his trauma is so viscerally off-putting to me that my faith in his potential plummeted and I “hate” him by their definition instead)

How about Orochimaru? Irredeemable terrifying bastard villain WHO TRAFFICKS AND EXPERIMENTS ON CHILDREN. There's discussion of how the military state exploited him and he went off the deep end and it was excused when it still benefited the state but became a crime as soon as it became for himself, but largely people agree that he cannot be excused. And he's one of my favorite fucking characters.

Shimura Danzo? Y'all don't need a primer on that fucker everyone hates him he's terrible he's problematic and I love him. One of the characters of all time.

How about Senju Butsuma? Specifically, the rendition of Senju Butsuma in a fic written by my friend. He's still abusive, he literally has a scene of beating the crap out of his sons on-screen in the fic— that scene triggered me by the way but it just goes to show how well-written it is, my friend the author specifically mentioned that he didn't want to trivialize abuse but also didn't want to turn it into a sympathy-bait pity party for the Senju brothers— and? He's my babygirl. He's everything.

Prospera Mercury? Fucking war criminal milf with Issues? She uses both her children as weapons even as she claims she's doing it all for one of them? Massacres people? And? I love her????? She's so messy she's got Problems she's not good for her daughters. And that makes her infinitely delicious. Easily one of my favorites of all time.

So it's not that I hate characters who are jackasses. It's not that I hate flawed, messy characters. I love them! I love them even when canon doesn't. I love them even when the fandom doesn't. I would never try to excuse or absolve them (I mean, I'd like to see any of you try to excuse Danzo??) I try to give these characters the justice they deserve when I'm discussing them with people. But I… can't do that with Ferdinand. Any discussion of his character in a way that doesn't fit their very narrow view of “the biggest victim in the world who is also the strongest most badass man ever” immediately gets clotheslined into “hate”. Even the mildest of criticisms, even the most politely-worded posts get misinterpreted, misconstrued, and ultimately declared as senseless petty hate. Heck, even people who like him a lot get shunned and ostracized from the fandom if their interpretation is too different from the Fandom Majority's! So yes! By the fandom's very definition, I hate him! I hate him most immensely! I hate the parts of him that the narrative and the fandom choose to highlight as opposed to the more interesting bits! I hate that he takes up all the oxygen in the room whenever anyone discusses Veronica's abuse and her victims! He's not the only victim, but everyone acts as though he is!

So yes, tldr: I hate him. If only he could've been written by a better author like Mochizuki Jun or Takaya Natsuki. Fuck, even as much as I gripe about Arakawa Hiromu, even she could've handled him better.

[girl4music]

In celebration of XENA DAY I’m going to leave the link to this podcast episode that the She Nerds Out hosts did with Steven L. Sears right here and transcribe some of it for you that I find the most fascinating and validating in regards to how the TV show and TV ship inform and influence each other in that the story arc/plot/narrative always wraps around the characters of Xena and Gabrielle instead of the other way around.  

The way Steven (yes, a straight white middle aged man) talks about Xena and Gabrielle is remarkable to me. He has such respect and reverence and just absolute sincerity when he talks about them both as individual characters and as a relationship dynamic that is primarily and predominantly romantic in his eyes. He confirms exactly why I will always highly praise the creators/cast/crew for what they did with this TV show and this TV ship and the timelessly magical experience it has on me and I know always will have on me. I can't believe that I actually had a personal conversation with this man for over an hour because I feel like he is a kindred spirit of sorts to me. At least as far as my interest and passion for TV art/entertainment goes. The way I know and understand the characters on a much deeper level than the show itself could ever really represent them to and for me.

You’ve just got to love how Steven automatically and intentionally wrote Gabrielle as a comphet lesbian. And I resonate so strongly with his words about her story arc and her journey in terms of how it applies to Gabrielle’s love for and initial fear of loving Xena the way she thinks - at the time - she’s only supposed to love men. Of course she’s constantly “running home to mama” because that’s where she knows herself best even if she’s always felt too queer to be mama’s little girl. And there is that very quietly played theme with her where she’s constantly struggling with that internally which is so brilliantly communicated in both Steven’s writing and Renee’s nuanced portrayal of Gabrielle’s character. And that is exactly what a “comphet lesbian” is. It’s someone that habitually runs home even when they know they don’t belong there because it’s safer or more familiar for them than stepping into the dangerous unknown even when it feels so much more welcoming than home ever did.

‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ is a queer story from the get go. Episode 1 is very queer storytelling actually in the way that these 2 protagonist female characters meet each other and become family to one another. It’s “I feel like a stranger in my own home but I just met you and you seem to feel the same way as me - let’s just stop being strangers and be a home to each other.”

I would really recommend listening to the whole podcast episode because the whole thing is just amazingly in-depth and insightful but if you can’t do that please enjoy these transcriptions of what I think are the best parts of it that explain so much about where the creators/cast/crew’s minds were at VS where the network/studio/executive’s mind’s were at because it’s important to be aware that they were not queerbaiting or pandering or exploiting LGBTQ fans which many show’s creative teams and their network/streaming service platforms still do with their lead same-sex characters instead of take them seriously.

As I said - most of the creators/cast/crew agreed with the fans and even viewed the TV show as a love story between the 2 lead characters themselves. Especially the big names. Steven is a great example of that fact. And if they were just “fan-servicing”, then they were serving themselves just as much because they wanted canon Xena and Gabrielle just as much as the fans did. They may never have initially saw them that way but they clearly knew that it was the natural progression for them so they didn’t dispute it. They embraced it.

STEVEN: “One of the things we discussed at the beginning was a flaw that you find in a lot of TV shows that have 2 leads. Generally, 1 is the lead who has the name on the banner and the other one is the ‘sidekick’. And I remember saying - not as an ultimatum, I just casually mentioned it in the meeting - I said ‘I don’t believe in sidekicks. Sidekicks are the props that you kill off at the end of the first season so that people will tune in the next season. They’re kind of useless and they just exist.’ And everybody agreed with that and we did not want to get to the point where Gabrielle was just standing in the background going ‘Get him Xena! Get him Xena! Get him Xena!’ And I remember we angst during the baby tossing episode ‘cause that’s all she did. She participated by grabbing the baby but she literally was acting ‘Get him Xena! Get him Xena!’ And so we decided that Gabrielle had to have a solid progression that was not just a convenience for us. In other words we didn’t want to do this just because ‘well, we don’t want her to be a sidekick so we’re going to pretend like she’s important.’ We felt she had to be. And so obviously the relationship between the 2 characters folded in with that perfectly. So this was one of the episodes (‘The Greater Good’) where I said - I kind of posed the question in my mind - I thought ‘what if Gabrielle was the Xena of this episode?’ Which, obviously, is what came out of it.”

HOST: “Speaking of that episode though,… that’s one of the most iconic episodes of the show. Definitely of that first season if not of the show generally. So when you say that building up [Gabrielle’s] character and making her more important to the story and finding that through the relationship - was their relationship sort of just natural or was that something that you guys were like ‘yeah, no, this has to be a huge part of what the show is now.’”

STEVEN: “There’s no yes and no for any of that so… the thing is that every TV show - unless it’s adapted from a novel or unless you actually chart out 5 seasons right at the beginning - which a lot of TV series now are doing because of the way that we stream. They’re basically novels - at a certain point as you begin to develop it, it takes on its own life. With everybody’s contributions the characters become real and just as all of you are real, I could write stories that you could do, but you will live those stories differently. Even if you do them together, you’re going to live them individually. So when we started out the series we were looking for having a successful series. We wanted to have fun - everybody in this business wants to have fun - and we wanted to get another season. But, in the way that I write - and fortunately in this particular group we all had the same mindset - we don’t believe in doing action for the sake of action. We don’t believe in doing comedy for the sake of comedy. We don’t believe in doing anything that’s not rooted in character first. So when we started the series I had made a comment about their relationship. I actually said ‘we’re going to have a very large gay/lesbian following’ and some of the people in the office were like ‘why would you think that?’ and I said ‘well,… my first show was 3 guys on a boat.’ And back then you didn’t have the internet for fanfiction but there were news magazines that went out that fans would put together. Fanzines. And - of course - I subscribed to 1 4 Riptide and almost all the fanzines dealt with their relationships with how they regarded each other. On every level. Romantic levels and just on brotherly levels or anything like that… but their relationships were a lot closer. So what I realized with all the subsequent series that I was doing - every time there were 2 leads of the same gender, this type of fanfiction was out there. Now as a backstory, I come out of theatre. I’ve been doing theatre since I was 12 years old. So being around the LGBTQ community was just… Tuesday, you know? So, for me, as I kind of explained this, I said ‘any time a dispossessed group of our society finds validation in any of our media - they grab it. Because they’re not given it, they have to grab it.’ And I said ‘so, you know, it’s going to happen.’ And thank god nobody went ‘oh, we have to avoid that’ or ‘we have to stay away from that’. Okay? Nobody in the room … So what we just figured was like we’re just going to let these characters evolve the way they evolve. And anybody looking at these characters and the way they came together and the adventures they were going on - I mean in retrospect,… was it really a surprise that they would have this incredibly close bond as they went forward? I mean however you ship it, it doesn’t matter. That bond had to happen or Gabrielle would have been totally unnecessary. We would have gotten rid of her. She would have been an annoyance. As opposed to us embracing the annoying aspect at the beginning and then allowing the audience to watch this incredible growth that she never would have had without meeting Xena and the incredible growth that Xena had that she would never have had if she hadn’t met Gabrielle. I’ve always said ‘Sins Of The Past’ was a suicide episode. Xena was trying to kill herself. She had nothing left. When she buried her weapons she was saying ‘I’m leaving myself open to the next warlord to kill me’ and then she hears the noise in the distance and she goes over there and she sees this young girl standing up against warlords and there’s a part of her that says ‘I was like that. That was me. What happened?’”

STEVEN: “I will say though that as the show became more popular the studio backed off on a lot of things with us because we were doing well and they trusted us. I want to look at it that way anyway. The President of Universal Television during that time was a guy named Dan Philly and I knew Dan since I started. He was actually one of the studio executives from NBC for Riptide. So I knew him from back then. Really cool guy. Awesome guy. And he was like ‘look, you know if this is working, people are happy, you seem to be walking that line…’ - which I always snickered at - it’s ‘cause ‘yeah, cause we’re NOT walking that line’ - he said ‘just go for it.’ And he was also one of the old style studio executives where if they wanted something they would trust you. They would turn to you and they would say ‘can you have a little more titillation? ‘Cause we like that. That helps. Give us more titillation.’ But they wouldn’t tell us to do it. They wouldn’t say ‘this is how you do it.’ They wouldn’t say ‘redesign their costumes so that their boobs pop out.’ They would just leave it to us. And so we would say ‘oh, this scene where they’re in the tavern talking about these really intense things that are going on in their life - we’ll put it in a hot tub!’ And that actually is how the hot tub tradition began because we thought ‘well, that makes it titillating’ and yet… we used it for the story and… it actually is kind of a bonding thing… ‘so put it in there.’ They’re watching the dailies and you hear [Lucy] say ‘where’s the soap?’ and we go ‘do we leave that in?’ ‘Yeah, we’ll leave that one in.’”

HOST: “As far as from the fan side of it, I don’t remember when the term ‘subtext’ started to become a word that the fans threw around and it obviously has become it’s own thing: the subtext of the show. But it sounds to me like it was just very organic for you guys. But when did you start to hear of the fans - LGBTQ+ specifically - latching on to what we would call ‘the subtext of the show.’ Was there like any kind of feedback you were getting? Were you then more inclined to kind of give us a little more like ‘wink wink, nudge nudge’ moments like the hot tub? Were you receptive to what the fans were asking for?”

STEVEN: “Yes and no. With the internet obviously we had direct access to the fans and we always made it a rule that we were not going to follow where the fans wanted us to go. We hoped that they would follow with us. But at the same time we kind of adapted things. I remember - because of my geeky nature - I was the one who was online first. I was really into that. I was the one who found the first AOL chatroom that Laura, a little 14 year old girl had set up for Xena. So I was listening in. And for those of you who remember back then, I never hid who I was. I wasn’t a lurker. I would go in and I would say ‘this is who I am’ not because I wanted everybody to go ‘ooo’ but I would say ‘talk freely.’ I said ‘I will leave the room if 1 of 2 things happen: if 1. you start talking about episodes you want to see because I can’t ethically listen to that or 2. if I become the centre of conversation ‘cause that’s not the point.’ I said ‘if I do that, don’t take offence, that’s just my own little ethics.’ But I was able to listen in. And so I do remember that at the beginning of this I told Rob this was going on and he said something to the effect of ‘yeah, well, it’s good they’re talking about the show but, you know, we don’t really care what they’re saying there, we’ve got to keep focused.’ I’m like ‘okay.’ And like an episode would come back and he would come out and come into my office and he’d say ‘so umm,… what do the fans think?’ And again, I was kind of looking for this because of my background so I was a little more aware of what was happening. The early discussions among the fans of where this was going was extremely interesting to me and I tried my best not to get involved in it because I wanted everybody to interpret it the way that they wanted to. I’m always amazed by the Xena fandom. I’ve been on other shows that have fandom and certainly a lot of my friends have huge fanbases on their shows, and I’ve said this when I’ve been on podcasts for other shows: the Xena fandom is the most incredible fandom that I’ve ever been involved with for a number of reasons. And one of them is that at the beginning - keeping in mind this was obviously in the middle 90’s - there was still some contentiousness as if people were trying to protect the girls from being lesbian. It’s like ‘we have to protect them, don’t say that!’ ‘Oh, okay, good, you’re going to protect me from what? Being a straight white male. Oh, thank you very much.’ So it was a little bit of that going on and there was some fire that went back and forth. I remember a few of the transcripts that were just so amazing. I kind of kept track of them. And what I started to see though with the Xena fans - which I loved - is that the people who wanted to maintain their shipper stance became friends. They began talking about it with respect to each other as opposed to ‘no, you’re that camp, I’m this camp’ and then the major contention was ‘do we ship Xena with Ares?’ And I’m like ‘okay, so what you’ve done is you’ve defaulted to the idea that she’s already with Gabrielle and now you’re just talking about a jealousy thing.’ And I’m like ‘that’s totally cool. I love that!’”

So the characters evolved. Now had they evolved in a different direction, well, we’d be having a different conversation here. Going back to the studio, one of the things that did come up was the studio did say ‘can you somehow remind people that, you know, Xena still likes guys and Gabrielle still likes guys.’ But they never said that they can’t like each other. And I’m thinking to myself ‘okay, what you’ve described to me is either the ultimate bisexual or what you’ve described to me is’ - and I don’t have a word for this ‘cause, you know, straight white male, how would I know this? - ‘is many of my friends who are a lesbian but denied that identification and fought themselves, and then finally came out - liberated themselves.’ So I said ‘you’re kind of describing that.’ And I remember thinking to myself ‘and that’s going to be Gabrielle.’ That she’s going to fight a lot of this internally. And so, you know, when we got to the Perdicus episode - with the marriage … you know we all get together and we would talk about how we’re going to put it together and some of us would come up with little things that go into somebody else’s script and it’s always the original writer that really is the owner of the script, but we always contribute things. And I remember we got to that thing and I’m like ‘okay, I know where I’m leaning on this’ and I’m going to lean into the curve on this one because what’s happening with Gabrielle is that she’s gone this far with Xena and suddenly this reminder of what her hidden past was - what her past was when she - well… you could say ‘denied’ -  there’s a time where - this is difficult for me because I’m not a gay woman so I can’t speak with authority from this. I can only say I’ve had friends that have gone through this - where their coming out process is so scary that sometimes they - what I call - ‘run home to mama.’ And mama is where they were - at least they could deal with it - it was familiar enough. So when Perdicus comes in,… she’s questioning a lot of things and she thinks ‘okay, and now I’m questioning where I am and why I’m here,… so I’m running home to mama because Perdicus represents my childhood, my past, my village.’ And that scene where Gabrielle and Xena have that discussion before Gabrielle goes off to marry Perdicus - again, I always remind myself I’m NOT that orientation, I’m NOT that gender, I’m NOT that - but that scene still sticks in my mind because it broke my heart because she’s looking right at the woman who is her destiny and she’s saying ‘I’m so scared of you because of what you’re going to reveal about me and so I’m going to run away to something I should never have been apart of.’ And I’ve seen people go through that so that scene still sticks in my mind. It’s literally in my mind. I see the entire image of that scene.”

HOST: “When you say that - obviously you’re not a gay woman but you know humans and you know people and at the end of the day those characters were very human and - I hate to say it, love is love - it’s very cliché, but it is, right? Of course, why wouldn’t you understand what those 2 character’s are feeling … Because you’re a human being who understands the concept of love. But I love what you said. It’s like, yeah, of course, Gabrielle knew what being married to Perdicus living in her old village would be like. Like you said - she could endure that. She’d been there. She understood it. If she stayed with Xena, it’s scary, it’s the unknown and it’s that great inner conflict in her. I hadn’t really thought about it but that scene is very heartbreaking and it’s got to be one of my favourites.”

STEVEN: “When she left the village that little girl was looking at adventure because she was bored. She had no idea what she was getting into on every level. Not just the action level, the adventure level, the danger level - but the emotional level. She had no idea. So then she got to a point where that all scared her. She was more scared of that than she was about the adventure and the danger. Warlords did not scare her the way that this scared her. And, you know, it was a huge turning point. Now whether you ship one way or the other way on this, it still works because she had to find her destiny. And I also make a little distinction in my mind that Gabrielle’s destiny was not to be with Xena. Gabrielle’s destiny was to be with herself and to love who she chose to love. It was to find her happiness and BOOM… it walks into her life. And that is the scariest thing that can happen to a person and it’s hard to admit it. So I’ve often described the relationship at the beginning as: because Xena was much more experienced Xena was much more focused on what she had won and lost in her life and she had a lot of repair work to do in her life. Gabrielle had a lot of growing to do. So when Xena and Gabrielle came together, I made this distinction: I said that Gabrielle loved Xena ‘cause ‘AWESOME! XENA! The legends, the things I’ve heard about you!’

So Gabrielle loved Xena… but Xena was IN LOVE with Gabrielle… from the moment they met.”

[lovelyelbowleech]

(Feel free to post publicly)

I put War Games on my text to speech instead of a podcast or w/e while I'm working around the house or whatever.

I am so obsessed.

I've reread it in its entirety twice, for a total of three times. And I relisten to my favorite chapters... yeah, I don't even know how many times.

I love Shen and Kazuma's dynamic so much.

Shen has a line somewhere, about how his dynamic with men is different from his dynamic with women. He feels as if his sexuality has been fractured, that his preference for commanding  women *feels* like something born of the coercive honey pot experiences of his youth. And he hates it.

I really, really, really relate to that.

--

There are a few other thoughts at the end, if you (or anyone else) wants to skip this bit. Find the "--"

So, to get personal, and CW: (unsuccessful) child abduction, fictional physical child abuse (spanking), and fictional sex trafficking.

I was almost abducted when I was in late elementary school.

I had a hard time understanding how the lingering trauma impacted me because *nothing* happened, and therefore it couldn't actually have been traumatic. Vampire Apologist now WizardArchetypes wrote briefly about going through something similar and it was the first time I've heard someone else talk about it.

I treasure finding something that resonates with this in fanfiction, even if (and probably especially if, and because) the events themselves are only emotionally similar instead of actually similar.

There's a fic where the main character is spanked as a girl. It doesn't escalate to CSA, but her underpants are pulled off her. As an older teenager, years after escaping that situation and in the process of healing, she realizes that while her caregiver never touched her in a sexual manner, he could have, and in hindsight, she has the sense he wanted to.

Yeah, that hit. That hit so hard.

In another one, (Dragon Age), a desire demon is the inquisitor. Memory and being split is part of the plot but also a major part of his internal struggle.

He knows he was imprisoned by a magistrate years ago but managed to escape. In doing so, he somewhat inadvertently laid an incredibly strong curse. On occasion throughout the story, he thinks to himself about how he's lucky to not have been used for the things magistrates summon desire demons for.

Only to find out, he was. He just chose to erase those memories. But he thought he was the kind of person who would never decide to alter himself in such a way. And how can he seek support from other desire demons when he doesn't know what happened to him?

Yeah, that hit. That hit so hard.

There's a folder in my head, and there has been for a long, long time: "Here's everything that could have happened to me".

And your story is a treasured gem to add to that collection.

I never had the chance to grow into a sexual person without the memory of that threat. (It was terrifying at the time but the actual attempted abduction did not involve threatening me).

And you're ask game? You shared about how Kazuma thinks of Shen as safe.

I'm making myself tear up.

I'm asexual, I'm non-binary. When I was in high school, someone dear to me, who knew about the trauma, questioned me, if my identities was born from the trauma I went through, that I was going to extremes to avoid sexual attention.

That's not how that works, of course. But hey, maybe my subconscious doesn't know that. It hurt, it hurt so badly to hear that. Maybe. But it hurts most that I don't think I'll ever fully know how it affected me. Not just my sexuality and gender identity.

I've never felt the way Kazuma does, about Shen being a safe person to be attracted to. But it reflects my relationship with fiction. I love the love of fictional characters. I think that might be the closest to attraction I've ever felt.

I love being able to see the world through their eyes.

I love Shen's almost compulsory sexuality towards Kazuma. I love his care for Zuko and Sokka. I love him using his past hurts to guide and support them. (I wish I could do the same for someone.)

I love the fear and the shame Kazuma has because of his internalized homophobia. I love Itchika telling him the law is stupid. I have the sense she would also tell him she doesn't find sodomy disgusting, but that Kazuma was too overwhelmed by Itchika and Azula both not having a problem with it in oneday to be told that this part of himself he struggles with and represses isn't something she sees as dishonorable. I feel those same emotions, not because I'm disgusted or afraid of my own sexuality, but because I'm disgusted and afraid to think of myself in the context of an intimate relationship.It's a blessing to see characters overcome that.

Stories like you're writing are hugely important to me, I feel like I'll never be able to express how much.

Thank you.

--

Okay, a few final thoughts.

(joking) IT'S BEEN 17 FUCKING DAYS SINCE YOU STARTED THE ASK GAME, WHEN ARE YOU UPDATING?!?!?!?! THE TEASE IS TEARING ME APART.

In seriousness, I've been working on a Kazuma/Shen fanfic. I'm having so much fun with it because I can't imagine posting it at all, despite the fact that I know "works inspired by this" are a thing. I'm over here with a bunch of bullet point notes and so much telling instead of showing, and then in the NSFW parts I'm so explicit and I'm finding beautiful gems and I'm like, "I strung those words together???? ME? HOW?"

It's also amusing, that I'm speed running to the sex but the setup is turning out to be surprisingly tricky! I know the events I've thought up aren't AT ALL going in the direction you are, on account of my goal is KISS ASAP, but I'm surprised by just how much it's tripped me up. The emotional / mental place the two of them are in is incredibly important and even if I don't explain it in the fic itself I need to know!

I mean, otherwise, it's not much more than bodies coming together. I love Shen and Kazuma as character, and like all characters, who they are and how they act is based on what they've been through and what they are going through (also known as: plot!)

Finally: I'm dyslexic too. :)

You're incredible, thank you for enriching my life.

I’m so sorry its taken so long to respond >.< I was sick for a week, and things have been a bit full on since.

Thank you for writing such a thoughtful ask, it’s amazing to see how much this fic means to you.

The impact of trauma and how it manifests can be so different person to person, but it feels like there are often beats that are the same, and people’s accounts (real or fictional) can resonate hard, and people can often really relate to them even when the circumstances are so different. I think that’s why it’s so important for people to be able to write about these things. It’s so helpful to share those experiences safely through fiction or people’s own stories.

You talk about the impact an attempted abduction had on you, I had a very similar experience that caused me lasting issues. I developed ptsd and ocd as a kid as a result. A lot of what you describe rings true for me also, including the questioning of my asexual identity. Its interesting how fiction can resonate so strongly with people and show them they are perhaps not alone in the experiences they carry with them.

I am very excited to hear you are writing fic of the fic! Seriously, that just blows my mind and makes me very happy! I would love to read it if you ever post it (although that is entirety up to you of course, just knowing someone is writing it is really awesome!) And it sounds like you are having fun writing it – although as you say, some times the set up to a scene ends up being surprisingly tricky, and then you have written 500k by accident 😂 I hope you continue to enjoy writing about them - It’s great to know someone is enjoying these characters as much as I am!

(also dyslexic writers! 💪)

Thank you again for this ask, I am really glad this story, and the characters I am writing have given something to you, and thank you very much for sharing it with me.

[songofthesibyl]

I think there is a misconception when speaking of mental illness in regards to Tamlin and Nesta, that is reflective of the discourse in mental health in general. When there is compassion for their struggles, it is received in one of two ways—that it is at the expense of those they hurt because of it, whether the character intended that hurt or not; and that the characters are victims of an affliction and can’t be blamed for anything they do.

In other words, it is a way to play the victim and to not have to take responsibility. The thing to remember is that having a disorder/disability/disease etc. does not make someone a good or bad person: it does not strip them of the consequences of their actions. But it does go towards explaining why they behave and act as they do. SJM from episode 447 of the Smart Bitches Trashy Books podcast:

“…it’s not that I sat down and I was like, I want to write a book about mental health. It’s just, Nesta was that character who, she had gone through stuff, and she wasn’t a perfect person, and I have zero interest in writing about sweet little perfect people and their problems…”

“I mean, and there are some characters in this book [ACOSF] that, I don’t want to spoil things, but, like, you can kind of tell, like, how I’m setting them up for future books? But I just think I’m so curious all the time about, like, why—like, even if someone’s an asshole, like, why? Like what makes them tick? [Note that she said this specifically about Tamlin in an interview I posted earlier.] Like, even before I went into therapy I wanted to know, like, why are these characters like that? Like, you know, what’s their secret backstory that led them to act this way? And, you know, sometimes it’s, you know, they’re just an asshole, but then sometimes they actually do have, like, you know, reasons why. And Nesta, in this book, I didn’t want to excuse her past behavior, and I deliberately…wrote her in the previous books in such a way where, like, I kind of…knew…what she had gone through, but I, like, I didn’t want to make her this, like, nice sweet sister. Like, that wasn’t interesting to me. There wasn’t conflict, and, you know, it didn’t drive the plot anywhere. But I, I wanted Nesta to be able to own up to her mistakes in the past, but also start reflecting on where, where some of that destructive behavior comes—like, self-destructive and then also, like, hurtful towards other people. Where does that…where does that come from? And I, I didn’t sit down, like, intentionally thinking like, you know, I can mess with people’s minds and make them love Nesta! It was just, she’s the kind of character that I’m drawn to, where she acts a certain way—like she, it’s like the tip of the iceberg.”

So people who are drawn to Nesta, and even Tamlin, are recognizing these things. Like the author, they might identify—to an extent, of course—with their mental health struggles. SJM, in this same interview, about Nesta:

“It seems like, you know, Nesta’s mental health journey has resonated with a lot of people, and that means the world to me, ‘cause I—so even though I began writing this years ago, I wound up deciding that I was just kind of like [going to] go back to page one and rewrite nearly everything, and a big part of that decision was that during those years that the story kind of sat in my mind, I went through, like, my own mental health journey and struggle…”

In the real world, if someone hurts you, mistreats you, you aren’t really going to care all that much why—I certainly didn’t when I was in those situations. But with fiction, you can explore these ideas, and spend time with these characters the way the author did and does. And identify, or again simply feel compassion, with certain aspects of their journey, as is described above. I’ve seen people identify Nesta and Tamlin’s destructive tendencies, both outward and inward, their depressive tendencies, but be confused why they don’t just act, when they know the right thing to do, and often even want to do it. In the real world, I’ve heard many times—I get depressed, but I don’t let it get to me; if you’re depressed/anxious/etc just stop being that way. The point is that these people struggle with just turning it off—it’s not an excuse, but an honest assessment of their mental state. People with mental health disorders are often difficult to deal with and be around. They can be self-focused, they can be hurtful. Not always—but they can be. It’s understandable that if someone was around someone like that they wouldn’t particularly care about their struggles. But for those that are, or have been in the midst of a mental health disorder, they can understand the difficulty in getting out of that headspace and doing the work to heal, to be able to cope. That journey, whether in the middle of it (Nesta) or the start of it (Tamlin, if SJM isn’t going the route of “he’s just an asshole,” which is still up in the air at this point)—is what is identified with. Even if they haven’t hurt someone—having unhealthy coping mechanisms, screwing up their lives and feeling like it’s hopeless it will ever get better—people identity with these things as well. It’s very personal, of course. But it isn’t about being innocent, and it isn’t about being justified in being hurtful.

[notquitedeadpod]

Hello just wanted to say love everything going on in this podcast, just, on every level. The vampire lore is everything to me, love the way the monstrous and the alluring intertwine (and are also the same thing). Neige in particular is. Very important to me. The way he's (from what I've gathered so far) legitimately not tired of life after having so much of it? How even if he's having trouble staying in the moment he still cherishes the new, enjoys and dislikes things with his entire heart? As someone who struggles with letting itself enjoy life seeing this guy who's been around for thousands of years and is like "zis entire life thing is great and my capacity for joy in infinite" just. Warms my heart? And of course vampires are very much about queerness in here, but the way Neige refuses to let himself wallow in self pity, to not enjoy his life despite the difficulties of it (or to deny the fact that he's alive) is also Doing Things for me from a chronic illness perspective. And yeah, the queerness perspective of course. Fun aside fact I am very, very asexual and I think your funky vampires helped me conceptualize desire better? I don't get attraction but I do get hunger and they're basically the same thing maybe. When a guy gives you that garlic bread sort of feeling. Fascinating. Anyways thank you for making Neige a guy that exists! Really appreciate all the creatures happening in your head and that you elected to share them with the world <3

<3 <3 <3

This was such a wonderful message to receive, thank you so much for taking the time to share all of this with me. It's such an incredible thing to have made something that resonates with other people, and it's so powerful to hear about the place my little creation has in your life!

One thing I want to reflect on here, specifically, is what you said about Neige. For very different reasons, this aspect of him, where he continues to choose to live, is deeply important to me in a very similar way. Neige's life has not been easy. He's been around for so long and the world has not been kind to him during all of those many years, but he continues to choose to live, and most importantly, to me, he's living NOT because he thinks that the bad times are over, but because he knows that the GOOD times aren't over, either.

There is something very cathartic for me to write a character who isn't wildly optimistic, isn't filled with spite about it, but who looks at life and all it has to offer, and all of what it has offered already, and says yes. All of that, good and bad? More of it, please.

Yeah, idk. It means a lot to me to write about it, that I'm able to, that it's resonating with other people when I do.

Also YES the sexual desire vs hunger thing is fascinating because this show is VERY about exploring that connection, about love and consumption and dependency and like. Idk. Vampires overall just represent something powerful to me about desire and yearning and hunger.

I will speak at some point (which is why the second part of the Q&A STILL isn't out, btw, it began to CONSUME me) about vampires as alienated bodies, how that relates to the vampire x human and vampire x vampire dynamics I explore in the show, and like. More broadly about connections between monstrousness and carnal desire and consumption. These connections fascinate me are very much things I'm super alive to when I'm writing the show so!! Very fun to think about!!

--- Eira xxx

[commod5]

Book Review: "Hoe Overleef Ik Alles Wat Ik Niemand Vertel?"

Title: Hoe overleef ik alles wat ik niemand vertel

Author: Francine Oomen

Rating: ★★★☆☆ "Very nostalgic, but a lot of room for growth"

Summary:

In "Hoe overleef ik alles wat ik niemand vertel" by Francine Oomen, Rosa finds herself in the midst of a quarter-life crisis, unsure of how to navigate adulthood. Along with her friends Esther and Jonas, she decides it's time for a change and embarks on a holiday to reconnect. As they catch up on the past five years, they confront their insecurities, aspirations, and the struggles of growing up.

Thoughts:

I was very excited for this book to come out, and I wouldn't say that I didn't enjoy reading it. It was very nostalgic and had the same style as the old books; that being said, it was kind of an acid trip. Every modern problem (climate crisis, student debt, abortion, spirituality, ChatGPT, online dating, anti-vaxxers, drugs, etc.) someone could possibly think of was mentioned in this book and crammed into the four main characters. This made it feel like it was almost three books but in the same amount of pages as one. I saw a review saying: "How to survive: 280 frustrating pages about four people you would never want to meet in real life," and I can very easily imagine someone could feel like that. The language that was used also just didn't really connect with me and sounded very childish. I feel like Francine Oomen, the author, misjudged the target audience of this book: it was supposed to be for the people who read the "Hoe overleef ik" series while growing up as teenagers, but her writing style didn't grow with them.

But even though this all sounds very negative, I am 100% sure I would pick up the next book she brings out in this series. I remain hopeful that it will resonate more with readers who have matured alongside her earlier books in the series.

Survival tips for those reading this book:

Survival tip #1: Create a Character Survival Kit! You might not love all the characters, so imagine you're their life coach. What would you put in each of their survival kits? Maybe Jonas needs a self-help podcast, Esther could use a yoga retreat, and Rosa? Probably a good therapist.

Survival tip #2: Grab a cup of tea and take a sip every time a modern-day issue pops up. Climate crisis? Sip. Student debt? Sip. Anti-vaxxers? Sip. You’ll be very hydrated by the end!

[meet-you-at-the-north-star]

2, 5 and 10 for the HBO War Game! 👁️👄👁️

2. Which series of the four is your favorite? Why?

My favorite is still definitely Band of Brothers, I just think it’s perfect all around: the concept, the writing, the directing, the actors. Plus it’s the one I resonated the most on the whole on an emotional level. But somewhat surprisingly, when I eventually checked out Generation Kill it became a close second for me. I need a rewatch to solidify that, but I think the reason I love it so much is it sets out to do the exact opposite of what Band of Brothers does, so much so that in many ways it feels like a mirror to it (the “dark” side of the coin, if you will), but does it just as well. While TP and MoTA, while I love so much about them, both have their faults and are not as cohesive in their themes and intentions.

5. Favorite/least favorite The Pacific characters? Why?

Favorite is obv Leckie. I think I unconsciously fell in love with him from the very first scene. He’s such a fascinating, multi-faceted character and one I relate to on so many levels. The intellectualism, the artistic inclination, his struggles with authority. The result of being subtly neglected and deprived of real connection all your life which makes you feel like no one will ever see you, let alone love you, for who you really are. His questioning of faith and becoming more and more cynical when he’s confronted with the horror mankind is capable of, with the senselessness of it all. He’s just so human and vulnerable, and his arc really conveys the enormity of the war experience so wonderfully.

Least favorite, might be a bit of a hot take but I have to say John Basilone. Obviously there are other minor characters I like less, but for being one of our big 3 I think his characterization and entire narrative arc over the course of the series to be extremely lacking. It always remains pretty surface level, we never really get a clear sense of who he was beyond the role of “hero” he was unwillingly forced into. The only episode where he feels like a real person to me is also his last, so I think it’s also an issue with the pacing of the show, but either way I think he’s the weak link compared to the beautiful portrayals of Leckie and Sledge.

10. Which Band of Brothers scene broke your heart the most?

So many heartbreaking moments in the show, but the only one that actually made me tear up was the ending. Especially when the narration got to “My friend Lew died in 1998” and then it cuts to the real Dick Winters and the famous last quote. Oh man. I think Damian said in the podcast that it’s impossible not to be moved by that and he was so right.

[phoenixremix69]

MHA Real Talk

So, recently, I was watching an anime podcast, and they mentioned their problem with MHA was that it felt so nothing emotionally to them. Like, objectively, when you write down the stuff in a blank format, it sounds really solid, but with stuff like Shiggy's backstory, it just doesn't resonate once it hits the page. Versus stuff like One piece or even silly stuff like Jojo, you feel it, so I thought it over a bit, and I wanted to share my thoughts on why I think that is.

MHA is a story that never stops reminding you that it is a story about superheroes. it is wholly written through the filter of "This is a story about superheroes in a superhero themed world. this will inform you of character motivations, settings, plot, everything." And you might think, well yeah, isn't that every story ever? But think about the prior examples I gave. One Piece is not about the devil fruits or the haki, it is about the characters and the adventures they go on. If you removed both DF and haki, would there still be a story? LUffy isn't motivated by his devil fruit, he just wants to be free. The world Govt doesn't care about his fruit, they just want to control people out of greed. They would still have those motivations regardless of if one could poop lasers or not. Jojo's isn't really about the stands, it's a story about good and evil and the never ending struggle to win that fight. The stands are just a backdop to make things more interesting. if part 4 was just about a couple of high school delinquents trying to stop a serial killer, that's still a really compelling story. Even Baki, a story about nothing but wacky fighting techniques like shoving your fist into poison sand and frozen cavemen, is about the never ending struggle to improve yourself.

Meanwhile, MHA is solely about superheroes. There is literally nothing without them. Why do the main characters want to be superheroes? because they were all taught from a young age to idolize them. Where is the setting? the top hero school in the country with the strongest hero ever as their teacher. What are the villain motivations? people ignored me because they were waiting for a superhero to save me even though I was a clearly starving toddler covered in blood. My superpower gives me strange cravings that society deems bad even though everything is based on superpowers. Oh, here's something new, racism! Oh, wait, it's because his superpower makes him look weird, Even the main bad guy, who you would assume has at least a barebones decent backstory like his power drove him crazy or smth, doesn't even have that. He read half of a comic book, never even finished it, decided he kinned the villain and dedicated the next century to messing with heroes and creating more villains.

with superheroes, there is maybe a b+ story, without them, there is literally nothing

[mytholinerd]

I’ve been thinking more recently (shocker I know I never use my brain cells) and most of the stuff that has been on my mind is dungeons and daddies

Specifically the character of Normal Oak and why his arc and character resonate with so many listeners.

Disclaimer: I am not will campos nor am I Anthony Burch of the hit podcast dungeons and daddies, I am just a random guy making silly head canons and projecting this also has spoilers so be warned.

As someone who is neurodivergent and also projects onto normal this is the conclusion that I’ve come to

Growing up as neurodivergent I’ve always felt off from my classmates, any attempts I’ve made to try and relate to my classmates,I’d end up getting weird looks from them that I didn’t understand at the time.

It wasn’t until I was an adult that I fully understood why I felt so out of place in my own life among people was because of something in my brain that I was born with and couldn’t control, and even possibly passed down from my own parents.

Now this is where the oaks come in. Now the oaks family arc has sorta been raising my children differently than my own parents raised me.

Which isn’t what I’m really focusing on in this post but it does kind of relate,

Normal grew up under the belief that he was normal and the desire to want to fit in and be loved because he even probably back then didn’t know that’s what he wanted.

(Example the Dante inferno parody of episode )

It isn’t until his own (possible) father sparrow tells him about his own fears about normal not being normal while under the influence of the doodler brain haze.

After that normal is thrown into a panic of trying to be normal but failing.

It gets to the point where he even goes to the doodler in his brain as a reason why he’s like this, and why he hasn’t felt the love and support he desperately needs from his family.

Now I know other neurodivergent people like me can relate to the feeling of being outcasted by the things in their brain that they can’t control, even by the people who they care about closest to them.

And I think the same goes for why Henry and the twins were also such fan favorites due to their own internal struggles with their upbringing and how they are.

And it’s why I believe the character of normal and his arc resonates with so many people who’ve felt the same way as him.

TLDR: I project onto normal oak cause his arc reminds me of my own feelings and life as a neurodivergent person and wanting to be normal, and examine why people like him so much.

[rexaleph]

hxh thots as of ep 51 (it's very good) i liked the hunter exam part well enough but this is truly excellent, the extreme violence and heightened stakes w the bodies piling up is way more my speed. now i'm fully watching it for real because i like it, and not like learning abt the genre and doing podcast homework

1. speaking of the podcast: so apparently Janine's reaction to Kurapika's specialist ability was "oh this is bullshit!" and i agree. however i am not as upset by the bullshit that it is as i thought i might be. him getting explicit OP rage powers made me less🙄 at him being the archetype that he is.

maybe bc it fits so well into the show's previous explanations of how nen works and how it applies to his circumstances (bc like. the guy who wrote the circumstances for him made the nen wheel lmao) also the death pact really works for me bc it is so very literal. like the pointing out and making explicit of him saying "i am a honor-bound rage-powered avenger and i will do a magic spell to supercharge my revenge powers by keeping a solemn vow limiting their use under penalty of death; the chains i use to tie my enemies into hell also bind my life" - i think that moves us away from unreflected cliche into sth deliberate

i got spoiled on Kurapika mastering all forms when i was looking up the nen user types, but i assumed he got there by like training bc he is the discipline guy. and for a minute i was like, aw he just got it by magic :c but like no, it's actually good that he got it by narrative symbolism magic. also i think bc Gon and Killua are the most special little boys in the world, i don't begrudge Kurapika being like an acknowledged in-universe rarity, and i like that he's older than them and a secondary protagonist at that as well.

final Kurapika thought, i don't like his character design unfortunately. the yellow hair grey eyes combo is unattractive and he has the textbook shitty anime haircut. basically everyone on the show looks a little goofy and characterful - in a way that makes Killua (and maybe some others) stand out as angelic btw, but sth abt Kurapika grates, i think bc it's just kinda ugly but very plain. no points of interest, except maybe his gay little earring that is rarely visible.

2. love the balancing and rebalancing of power. the mechanics and layers of what happened with Uvogin, how threatened Gon and Killua were by the troupe, Killua's skinned ankles

3. love the machinations, the interweaving, Killua figuring out who the chain bastard is, the assassins being hired by the mob

4. love the emotional machinations as well. Gon and Killua's puppy love (it's real and gay to me), and especially - as pointed out by Keith on the podcast, Killua doing mild bullying behaviors the way kids will with their friends that Gon is just not susceptible to. Killua's emotional struggles in general, the different types of jealousy (are you better than me? do you like someone else?), the controlling impulse, it's all very real and resonant lmao. Killua is the least interesting when he's freaking out abt being turned into a killer with no internal life by his family, and the best when trying to brush off Gon paying attention to another kid. i'm an adult, so im not negging my crush by drawing a power chart in the sand with a stick but like. i get it lmao.

love the horrible gay clown as well, it is homophobic but i like his sexual menace, him living fully for his violence fetish, faggot death wish and then some

love the glimpses into what's up with the troupe and their relationships in general. Franklin the fucked up big guy has some pretty insightful things to say about people's relationships. there might be something to Chrollo, until now he was just like a generic boss man (though very beautiful, and i was kinda surprised and thrilled to see him get in on the action himself and not just give orders from the lair) but he weeps for Uvogin?

5. Indoor Fish 😻

[thelaurenshippen]

I absolutely love TBS, and I got my uncle to listen to it : from all the podcasts I rec'ed to him, this is the one he prefers! I really appreciate how complex (yet coherent) all of your characters are, and how real their relationships seem. The way you write flaws is really inspiring and incredibly comforting as well. Do you maybe have any advice on how to write believable romantic relationships? I've never had one and thus struggle to write it, especially the process of starting to build one.

ahhh thank you SO much! and omg, I'm so glad your uncle likes it!! uncle approval!!

I also really appreciate the kind words about character flaws - I love writing complex and imperfect characters, so its always nice to know when they resonate!

in terms of romantic relationships....that's SUCH an interesting question. and I absolutely do not think that having a romantic relationship in your real life is a precursor to writing compelling romantic relationships. when I wrote TBS, I'd only had one serious romantic relationship and used exactly....zero of it for inspiration. I'm in a serious partnership now (only my second serious relationship) and I don't think I ever really directly draw on it - it's a relationship that's taught me a lot about myself and helped me grow (as great friendships do too), which of course makes me a better writer (and I hope a better human too), but when I'm writing romance, I feel like I'm building it from an entirely different set of blocks, if that makes sense.

I think a big part of it is that I love romance. I love love love it. and there's so much I love in romance stories that I would never ever want in my real life! which I think gives me the flexibility of (hopefully) being able to write different types of relationships.

okay, so, then, where do I turn for inspiration if not in my real life? well, a few things:

read romance! a few favorites from the last few years - anything by Alexis Hall (Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake and Boyfriend Material are two faves and I'm reading and loving A Lady for a Duke right now), The Charm Offensive, The Ex Talk, One Last Stop, Spoiler Alert

read Romancing the Beat by Gwen Hayes! it's a book all about how to structure romance novels, but I think all the principles apply to all mediums

watch and rewatch your favorite romances in tv/film and take notes on what works for you and what doesn't. I can't tell you the number of times I've watched the 2005 P&P. I've thought seriously about why Rachel/Joey works for me in Friends more than Rachel/Ross. I've watched how they pull off the will-they-won't-they in New Girl and Chuck a million times (both are a masterclass in timing - they get the two people together within the first two seasons (VITAL!!! you can't take too long!) and then maintain tension and conflict while giving you reasons to always keep rooting for them). Hannibal is one of my favorite tv shows of all time specifically for the way it unfolds its central romance - how do you make a story a love story when it is primarily about murder and losing your mind? what does that love story look like when consummated? (bloody, the answer is bloody)

and then I love reading fanfic of these love stories! what does Jonah/Amy from Superstore look like if they get together earlier and other parts of life don't get in the way? what happens if you pair a character with their canon partner versus a non-canon partner? a big thing I've been doing recently is diving into the tag for popular ships on tumblr that I don't personally ship. there's lots of ships in things I watch where I'm like "I get it, but I don't feel it" and I think it's so valuable to read a few beloved fics to try and understand it. even if that understanding is "nope! still don't like it!" that's so valuable too!

which brings me to - keeping notes. I have a running list of themes/tropes/archetypes/romance arcs that I like and dislike (sometimes this is a real list, sometimes its mental). it's just as important to know what you don't like as it is what you do. especially since, if you come across a trope you don't like in something but it doesn't bother you as much in a particular ship, you can learn so much from how that person wrote that trope in a way that didn't bug you! for instance, both cheating and accidental pregnancy are two big turn-offs for me in terms of ships, but, like, Sense8 with Kala/Wolfgang/Rajan tracked over some cheating elements but did it SO elegantly (and then solved the problem of love triangles the way I wish ALL love triangles were solved lol).

let all this stuff stew and marinate and when it comes to building a romance, start with the things you know you like! for instance, with Caleb/Adam and Max/Ross (The Bright Sessions and Maxine Miles respectively) I knew I wanted to start with a kind of enemies-to-lovers, because that usually compels me more than childhood-friends-to-lovers. BUT because they're teenagers and teenagers can be very cruel, I wanted to make sure never to veer into the bully/bullied getting together trope, because that's veryyyyy hard to do well imo. so Caleb and Adam were more slightly estranged/not friendly rather than enemies and Max and Ross had the history of being friends and then just growing up and starting to annoy each other bc deep down they wanted to kiss. that's another thing I love - mutual pining. and with that, it can't just be that each character is pining equally and equally aware of it - Adam knew he was pining for Caleb but Caleb had no idea until all of a sudden he did, and then his ability created a nice complicating factor for the pining. for Max and Ross, it's the same thing - Ross knows he's pining and Max is pining but oblivious about it (for now). for mutual pining in general, there has to be a reason why they can't just get their acts together, and one of them being an idiot is usually a good one lol. or, I'm writing a cowboy romance right now, and both men know they're pining but there's so much baggage in their past (enemies to friends to pining to enemies to reluctant partners to lovers) that they're shoving it down

practice on fanfic! I did this so much last year, and worked out a lot of different strategies - fanfic bingos are great for practice because they can force you to try out tropes you wouldn't ordinarily

okay, gosh, this got so long and I'm not sure it was helpful at all, and also I'm pretty sure I'm several years late on answering this ask, so I hope this is at least somewhat interesting! thank you for the question!

[somethingshifted]

as i wrote, this became longer and longer, so i'm sticking it under a readmore to save your dash, i'm just waffling about the plot

as someone who feels like the band taking their own plot too seriously with plastic beach pushed the writing into a box ever since then, i still find myself wanting to connect each phase to each other. like surely there was an underlying point to be made between murdoc painting the plastic beach pink and the last cult's main color being pink. why is russel struggling again after they've set up shop in LA, his birth country but the other corner, in what i consider tumultuous times that in the end has Del return (even if unacknowledged). but then i kind of shrug my shoulders as canon is still a hodgepodge of 100 things marching in a circle. it's still easily entertainable in my head and i can't help but pick out tidbits i thought have meaning, and re-arrange them in my head like a dollhouse. i may actually dislike it if they did try to connect the two album phases officially and go down a serious route again but PB existing just makes those connections in my head. a fan interpretation is always fine but i think it's best left to the fans. that sounds haughty to say but, for the band to stay a band, i prefer it that way.

so whats the point of this post. the thing is, i'd genuinely be satisfied if gorillaz continued not taking their own plot so seriously, with the disclaimer that i do wish they'd be steadfast with characterization. like it'd be nice if any of them actually held commentary on cults practices considering theyre usually open about their view on world events, but i think enough griping about CI promo material is out there i have nothing new to say other than falling back to CI being a spur of the moment album with a release schedule out of the creators control plus the shitty fact that russel & noodle have been kind of nothing for almost 10 yrs OOPS. they could explore more avenues if they were freed from having to address past events as if they're characters in a storybook and not symbols that change with the times. and maybe if they remembered they can give characters new traits as russel's done things like pick up taxidermy and cooking but only one is referenced for several albums as his sole trait and *zips my lips*

i really feel like a bitch for wanting to harp on the lost chord as it's a beautiful, beautiful song outside of the characters, and additionally i'm a sucker for moments murdoc is faced with how he used to act, but i don't think i'd ever take it as part of a linear plot? which is why i can't fully feel like he's gone back on his word being a cunt to 2D again and falling back into the grandeur lifestyle and all that with the cult stuff.. like, let me wear my pretentious hat for a second but the lockdowns leading people to reminisce about so many things so openly and retreading memories in lieu of making new ones due to being cooped up, resonates more with my feels on the last chord, rather than uh blowing the island up and such and using portals. see, Song Machine can be written around easier bc you can say they're filming the MVs and they're metaphors, even the art reflects this (i didnt listen to the podcasts yet). but then it references the events of PB so openly that you can't just go "well thats the fake MV they shot" and that, incongruence, is hard for me. so was it refreshing to have CI not walk in circles of Murdoc is trying to say sorry guys? yes? i don't know what redemption would do for his character, as the topic of abuse and trauma (when explored with tact) is pretty important to me story wise honestly, but it's kind of... getting repetitive at some points. or maybe too much focus on murdoc 'redeeming' himself at the cost of 2D having traits stripped away and noodle & russ being silent. i don't want the events of plastic beach to be erased from both his and the band's history. having him be the villain of the plot du album is also meh, which is why i can appreciate the less serious canon on him where recent writing is concerned. 2018 is like yesterday to me and they (writers) were still poking fun at murdoc being not only assaulted in prison but also being in the psychiatric ward of prison. like what was that all about, i really really prefer peepaw livestreaming for attention to them taking harrowing events and making them the butt of a joke. i feel like it was handled better in pirate radio even if that itself wasn't meant to be all doom and gloom. it just made more sense. and theresssss my problemmmmm

all that being said i will always adore plastic beach. some of the plot heavy things contain my favorite moments and i'm easily baited with nostalgia so this isn't a bashing post at all... just looking back and wondering if the written material is best when they're dropping tidbits and leave it for fans to imagine up scenarios, rather than adhere to a canon timeline all the time. it's so hard to sum up my feelings on this and stay in perspective of the band because my genuine feeling is that i actually love a lot of the murdoc storylines and i can't reconcile that with feeling put off that it requires believing some MVs and story beats are "real". because i'm shaking the gorillaz dollhouse regardless. and writing angst in my head revolving around how recovery isn't a straight line. and how tbh russel's journey is a direct foil to murdoc's. because all the ingredients are there

like read that and call me a hypocrite, i am! i just have a lot of thoughts. i think if i knew how to write fanfic i'd just shut up and do that but my dialogue writing skills make me uncomfortable due to not being BRITISH.

TL;DR, i'd be satisfied if plot being canonically recognized wasn't a drawback on the band because they honestly suffer when they do fall back on addressing the timeline and treating the characters as Vessels who Had Someting Happen To Them rather than whatever symbol for the current topic of the album. i do think the current writing gets repetitive and sanded down. at the same time i will always encourage fan interpretations regardless because i find those very fun. in being non linear it opens their world up to diff. perspectives. and i #support peepaw listening to weyes blood

[burins]

omg hello!!! for the ask game: 3, 5, 29!! :)

hello hello!!! thank you for the ask :)

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

the easy answer here is mission parameters. I've always really really struggled with longer works and particularly longer works that have plot and moving parts and aren't just two characters having a series of conversations. it wasn't until my mdzs locked tomb au that I wrote anything with substantial plot to it at all. so I'm really proud of mission parameters for being both long and cohesive and also not taking me two years to write! I learned a lot and feel a lot more confident with even thinking about plot and outline stuff now.

just purely from a technical writing standpoint I'm also really proud of breath hot, blood red, the horror/creature fic. it's written in a register I don't write in very often and it came out exactly the way I wanted it to!

5. What work of yours got more feedback than you expected?

I got into this a little in a recent ask but the response to from the inside of the wound has been so so lovely. I didn't expect it to resonate with so many people!

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

oooh this is always such a hard question. I think my favorite passage is actually from my Secret Samol for this year, which for the many of you who are here for Batman is the yearly gift exchange for Friends at the Table fans. (do you like podcasts? do you like the inevitability of narrative? do you like bad dads and dubious women and also a great deal of gender? join us.)

anyway! this passage is from the tail end of the fic, and it's actually the first snippet of it that I wrote:

Samothes is a blacksmith. He only knows love as an unmaking. But Samot is a wolf, and he knows that love is a devouring. He knows, with a terrible certainty, that this love will devour him. And he takes his husband into his arms there on the cold stone floor of the dead forge and holds on, for all he is worth.

"Don't make me do this without you," Samot says, like the small and guttering flame he used to be. And Samothes just shudders in his arms.

ao3 wrapped! send me numbers

[hua-fei-hua]

Hi Huaaaaaaa I'm in your askbox :3

10, 19, 23, 45 for the Fanfiction Questions, I simply must know

hiii naviiiiii we are hanging out on my blog :33

totally forgot i rb'd those things hehe but anyway~

10.  Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?

at first glance, my thought was no, bc i don't really fandom-ize every bit of media i absorb, just a few special ones (i can be normal about things!! for real (not clickbait)!!!)

that said, there are a few fandoms i've read fic for that i've never written for! going all the way back to my roots, i read so much mlp fic, n although i technically wanted to write mlp fic back in the day (n have like. two paragraphs of an ancient pitch rotting in my gdocs), i never really committed to it.

nat made me read some pokespe fics too back in the day, so i've read a couple of those too despite never really reading a ton of the manga. one pokespe author also recommended some kingdom hearts fic that i ended up reading, despite having never played kh or knowing anything about it really!

i also used to read a lot of miraculous ladybug fic (once in a blue moon i'll also get update emails for some of them c':), n although i had some ideas for mlb fic, i never wrote any of them.

i think the most recent fandoms i've read but never written for have been the adventure zone (balance), since i'd read taz fic as it crossed my dash after i listened to the podcast, and princess tutu, bc i had a mutual who got into it, so i started w/their fic after i watched the anime, then poked around the archive a bit hehe

19. Is there a ship which you wished you could get behind, but you just don’t feel them?

hmmm i'm honestly kind of a "once a hater, always a hater" kind of person, so it's kind of hard for me to think of a ship that i see around, know the basic appeal of, but don't really Understand in a way that makes me more proactive or picky w/seeing them portrayed.

that said, i would love to read some kokosara meta that elaborates on how a relationship btwn them would further kokomi's character, why sara is the only character who would be able to push her in that particular direction

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it.

oooo that's tough, since i'm very fond of p much all my fics for various different reasons, even if i don't think their writing is particularly up to my standards anymore.

like, even tho jjk was technically a while ago for me now, i'm still obsessed w/the idea of a constellation au (zenith); and the diner at the end of the night is still easily one of the most well-written high-energy comedies i've ever pulled off.

it's also really hard to pick out of my genshin fics which one holds the most specialest place in my heart bc most of them hold niches in my heart!!!

typically, though, i pick disjunct bc during the writing process, it was the first time where i really felt allowed to give a character Mixed Race Struggles(tm) wholesale w/o feeling like i was just making them mixed for the sake of it. i'm also really happy with the way it ended up resonating w/people on a core level, and the experience of artist-viewer connection n just having an Art Moment(tm) that resulted!!

45. What is your all time favourite fanfic?

i used to say A Miscellaneous Tale of Night and Day, which is The 200k word pokespe fic nat made me read when we were in high school that hasn't updated since 2012 that has effectively inoculated me against "abandoned fanfiction sadness", and the plot n premise are still a ton of fun, but i've been rereading it a bit as of late, and you can feel the early 2010s casual transphobia and misogyny in it lol. i'd say that it helped shape my comedic tastes/ability to just write self-indulgently, so for that, i'd categorize it under "influential fics"

honestly my favorite fics tend to be long multichapters, but there are honestly so few that line up with my tastes and have an ending in genshin, n i didn't read enough in jjk to have any longfics to really be fondly subscribed to. thinking about it, i genuinely think my fave fics are just the ones nat n i make up together over discord until five in the morning LMAO

in terms of fics that exist(ed, at least at one point), i'd say the now-deleted snk fic tower of babel would probably qualify as one of my all-time faves, n i can say that's not just the nostalgia glasses bc i do still have a copy on my hard drive lol. the premise is that five girls, each hiding their own secrets from each other or the world, end up renting one apartment together, n they learn to trust each other enough to communicate n rely on one another. there's also a bit of romance happening in the bg, but it's not the biggest aspect of the fic, n i really liked that!!! also the way it dropped the title in the end, basically stating its main theme as "it's a lot easier to fix your problems if you communicate abt it" CHANGED MY LIFE the first time i read it lol

ANYWAY YEAH that's all of them hehe thanks for the ask~

fanfiction questions

[septembersghost]

This is slightly random but I’m listening to a podcast that made me think of you, so I wanted to share.

It’s called the “you are what you love podcast,” which is where a writer will come on and talk about the piece of media that got them into writing. The guest on this episode is one of the riverdale writers, and she’s talking about how scream, dexter, and bates motel (which i haven’t seen but i know you love), are the things that got her into writing for television. It made me think of you, and the way that such dark shows inspire such affection. I also love that she wouldn’t be writing for something as campy and wild as riverdale, without the existence of, of all things, dexter

okay so i can't respond to this without mentioning that @alaynestone and i concocted a riverdale/dexter crossover early this year while processing the revival that we shan't acknowledge, so this makes me feel we are big-brained lol. there are motifs that exist between them! she also recently said to me how it's strange that something so dark (bates motel, in this case) can be somehow comforting. certainly that varies from one person to another, and we all glean different meaning from things, but there can be an unusual solace in the dark, in seeing people navigate their tragedies, even if the outcome is predestined. something about loving them in the awfulness and horrors anyway, and seeing that beauty and humanity still exist there. it's why i particularly loved early spn (it was directly formative for me in this way), it crosses to things like btvs/a:ts and tvd/to, to brba/bcs, to the depth of the feelings around dexter, to bates. i totally get why that would inform some of riverdale, it loves its homages and horror tropes, and even though it's often camp, it likes adding those little layers to characters (betty maybe especially, but that might be bias on my part).

there's an embrace in the dark. perhaps we don't really want to live there, but it makes our own struggling and hurt, our own shadows, easier to understand and bear, and even have sympathy for, and of course because...i am who i am lol...the striving *for* light in the midst of it is so powerful and resonant. (a discussion i just had with @arthurwilde because we were talking about indelible scenes that are so humanistic and affecting, even in grim tales. "the rest is confetti" in the haunting of hill house, a letter my beloved vanessa sends in penny dreadful that i have quoted in my sidebar, dex at the end of nebraska when he says, "i wonder if darkness is defined by light. if so, darkness can't exist on its own. there must, by definition, be light somewhere, waiting to be found." dean. just dean everywhere and in all he is). they do inspire affection because there's a sense of empathy/acceptance there. everything is interconnected! one spark of inspiration can light so many others!

and, of course, "you are what you love" is everything! it's true.

thank you for thinking of me and sending me this. I just think that you are what you love! 💖💖💖