#can we just all forget that gender exists at all and just write CHARACTERS

[orphiclovers]

okay I will eventually write the meta clawing at my brain about the Gourmet Association arc and what it means for kim dokja’s development but this is me rambling incoherently about something else weird in this arc that i can't pin down. bear with me here

we all remember when Yoo Joonghyuk transforms into a girl and wins the martial arts competition by using a special sword technique only women can use, right, classic orv moment, but I feel like we all forget that at the exact same time, maybe 3 minutes earlier, somehwere far away....kim dokja is possesing a female incarnation and ALSO using a special sword that only women can use to win a fight??? how did I forget this??

even if you're in denial about the Gender in orv atp there's CLEARLY something there. a writer just doesn't 'accidentally' do this super niche specific parallel for their main characters LITERALLY at the same time for no reason, this is trying to tell us...something.

I don't know, the whole btsss arc has jang hayoung, who self identifies as a woman but gets doubted by others, ALSO using breaking the sky, at which point yoo joonghyuk mysteriously says its obvious that she is a woman like he didn't doubt it 4 chapters ago. even the damn dog gets misgendered by kdjs assumptions and then turns out to be a girl after all, also uses btss, yjh gets turned into a girl which makes him paradoxically stronger, kim dokja posseses a girl to also get around the gender limitations on skills...

it seems like every time a gender rule exists on a skill we ONLY see how people break the rule/get around it on technicalities etc and not ever actually follow it which is funny but also interesting... AND this all happens in the span of a couple of chapters...it  includes the same variation on a theme in this arc specifically for a REASON I haven't figured out yet but will have to think on

[s-zephyr]

I love this and agree– a lot of this is why I struggle to just blindly support female characters in popular media, because it is so rare to get women who truly feel like real human beings and who also have true agency in the story.

But something that’s coming to mind for me is something I learned in my high school AP Lang class (with one of the coolest teachers I’ve had). He talked about how, actually, a lot of older media had a wider breadth of complicated female characters, as surprising as that may seem, because a lot of early TV and movies regarded those women as still people who had something to contribute to the plot, unlike a lot of more recent media. Now, there are certainly things that don’t age well, and things that have gotten better, but our society is extremely conservative (with many not really realizing it). As time has gone on, in many cases, media HAS gotten less feminist. There have been some recent (performative) attempts, and absolutely some recent successes (for another Wachowski project with a LOT more female agency, PLEASE watch Sense8!! It’s amazing, underrated, and managed to eke out a happy ending through the support of a dedicated fanbase despite the show being dropped/almost dropped 1-2 times), but on the whole many “feminist” movies have been a disappointment to me. The amount of people fawning over the nothing-burger that the Barbie movie was was insane to me– it’s like, BARELY feminist, and honestly I’m hesitating to even give it *that* much credit, because it also managed to belittle the real dangers of fascism and Barbie’s very real past upholding extremely narrow and unrealistic beauty standards… but I digress.

I’m wondering (and by ‘wondering’ I mean I feel that this is likely true) if this is another piece of the conservative backlash that started all the way back with Nixon and Reagan’s “silent majority” that has shaped the rest of our lives in so many ways. I’m thinking about Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986). While Ellen Ripley continues to be cool in Aliens, her character is also flattened considerably in that movie, with a big focus on turning her into a mother figure. In Alien, she was allowed to be her own person, to be an amazing human being who survived through her wits and all of that wonderful stuff previously mentioned. Watching Aliens, it felt to me that her story was controlled more by men, and that the whole motherhood arc took away so much of what made her special by putting her into the only role the men writing her could conceive of her in.

Where Alien is a beautiful commentary on the horrors of birth and pregnancy and the fight for bodily autonomy (even nearly to the death), Aliens takes this outstanding and complex character and puts her neatly into a mothering box. A box with a really cool forklift mech! But still a role that feels limiting, from what she had stood for before– to me, at least. I know a LOT of people love Aliens (me included) and critique of it may be considered sacrilege, but I stand by it.

The difference between those two movies, aside from the switch in directors/crew members/etc, is a matter of a few years, 1979 to 1986, with the script for Aliens being written sometime in/after 1983. Reagan was first elected in 1980.

It is important to me to remember that Ellen Ripley’s role was originally written as a man– and thus she was treated with equal respect and dignity (or rather, disrespect and indignity) as every other member of the crew. It is also important to me to remember that in the wake of the progressive successes in the 60s and 70s, many of the few good things in America were made a lot, lot worse by conservative backlash.

I watched a movie from 1982: The Last Unicorn. In it, the titular unicorn sets out on an adventure of her own making essentially to breathe life into the dying embers of the world she knows. I watched as she met every challenge she faced with poise and dignity. I watched as her drive and inner spirit moved the plot forward. I watched as the power, influence, and selfish desires of bumbling men complicated her journey, reshaped her body, and stamped trauma onto her mind that she would carry forever. I watched as she was bested in every contest of might until the final act, and as the movie laid out in its text that such things were not in her lane. That was what heroes do, it said, and in my head all I could hear was “men’s work.” I watched as the unicorn’s love for a man changed her until she could fight in the way parceled out for men and become something more than she had started, transcending an immortal stagnancy to evolve into something singular and lonely. I saw that her ability to contribute to the narrative hinged on her love and her capacity to persevere, but more fundamentally to suffer. I understood that this was what the movie saw to be women’s power, and that sat ill with me, but the unicorn’s journey remained so inspiring that she and the movie stuck with me for good. The rest rolled off my shoulders, cause… I mean it was an 80s movie based on a book from the late 60s. I applied the phrase “for its time” like a lotion, took what resonated, and moved on…

I watched a movie from 1999: The Matrix. In it, a man (though I would later see the trans allegory) walks through the steps of waking up to the cultural bindings that trap him and in the end transcends them. I watched as every step of his journey was enabled by the support of the character who was, by several orders of magnitude, the coolest woman I’d ever seen: Trinity. I went starry-eyed, not realizing my appreciation extended to wanting to be her. She was everything: cool, witty, strong, tough, determined, stylish, and gorgeous to boot. On first watch I marveled uncritically. By my half dozenth watch it hit me that everything she did amounted to getting the leading man where he needed to be. I realized that as a narrative device she existed not to change a world in need of changing but to back Neo’s play so that he could swan in and finish the fight she’d been fighting all her life. Her love, her strength, her labor: all a great big alley-oop. I cringed, but I told myself that at least she had power and agency. That mattered. So I rewatched it about another thousand times, took what resonated, and moved on.

I watched a movie from 2003: Pirates of the Caribbean - Curse of the Black Pearl. In it, though this isn’t the point by half, a woman as obsessed with pirates as I’ve always been gets to live out her swashbuckling fantasies. I watched as she lived by her wits, eyes rolling at every dunce of a man to get in her way. I watched as she scrapped her way through with resourcefulness and hijinks, but only actually accomplished her goals when leveraging a privileged station based solely on her value to men. All her efforts fell flat: she’d flee swiftly and still get kidnapped, deal shrewdly but right into the bad guy’s hands, recapture the Black Pearl so sneakily and deftly only for her allies to immediately sail away with it. I watched all the men around her win on their own merits: Jack Sparrow through his canny and luck, Will Turner through his swordsmanship, Barbossa through ruthless overwhelming power. The message read all too clear to me: Elizabeth Swann was meant to be fun, I was not only allowed but encouraged to like her, but I could only experience her in a narrative written by men where the world was stacked against her. A world written by men couldn’t let her win outside of borrowing their power. The force of it hit me like a brick across the eyes. I wanted to love the daring and suave Miss Swann even as what she meant left me seething. I watched the sequels and in some ways it appeared to get better, but only on the surface. She got in sword fights and won, but that was never really who she was, was it? She became a pirate queen… but only through the aid of Jack Sparrow and only to suit his plans. She could not win and remain herself, and for everything that she could have accomplished what the narrative chose to focus on was her as Will Turner’s consolation prize for being stuck at the helm of the Dutchman. I gritted my teeth, got called a misogynist every time I wasn’t sufficiently enthusiastic about Elizabeth Swann, resolved to take what resonated from fanfic, and moved on.

I watched a movie from 2015: Mad Max - Fury Road. In it, and this is almost entirely the point, a tough-as-nails road warrior leads a fierce battle for the freedom of women from the clutches of a powerful man. I watched as Mad Max also participated, because it was not his story, and the movie only kind of pretended it was. I watched Furiosa be everything I wanted to see in a strong woman. I watched the story happen on her terms, through her plans, moving forward under her power and through her agency. I watched her be celebrated as the hero of the narrative, both in-world and by the fans. I watched the women she worked to save take an active role, take the movie by storm, and be vindicated time and again. I sat thinking about that movie for days after I watched it, went to see it twice in theaters, got the blu ray as soon as I could find it. The one thing I could never quite shake was why it had to be Mad Max’s name on the title card. But of course it did, right? That’s the industry, for you. An established IP name puts butts in seats. Appealing to men with the plausible deniability that maybe it was Max’s story sidesteps a boycott from the patriarchy. There are pragmatic reasons, ones that make sense. Though I still wished it could have been a story advertised and told without the intrusion of Max, there was still so much good and seeing a blockbuster movie of that magnitude with a narrative driven so completely by women felt like progress. So I took what resonated, and so much did, and moved on.

I watched a movie called Alien. In it, a space trucker struggles to survive an encounter with a horrible monster in space. I watched as men in authority and corporate interests screw her over at every turn. I watched as she made all the right moves against an implacable foe and survived against incalculable odds because she was strong, smart, and capable. I noted that the advertising didn’t even make a big deal out of her, they just told the story they wanted to tell. I read deeper, finding interview material confirming that gender commentary was at the forefront of the creative team’s minds. I looked up the date of release for this post… and found that it was 1979. The earliest of all the movies I wanted to reference, and by my measure the most progressive. A knot forms in my throat as I wonder what that means about progress, and I hopefully chalk it up to a fluke. A movie far ahead of its time. Cinema’s ability and willingness to tell women’s stories mist still be moving forward, I tell myself, and I move on.

(From here on, there be relevant spoilers.)

I watch a movie from 2024: War of the Rohirrim. In it, a princess of Rohan survives an attempted coup and saves the kingdom. I watch the trailer so many times over, and as it centers itself on the lost shieldmaidens of Rohan in all its iterations—even casting Miranda Otto to narrate as Eowyn—my optimism and nervousness increase in equal measure. I watch as the princess is introduced as an adventure-loving free spirit, and hope we will see her shine. Then I watch her barely impact the narrative for nearly half the movie’s runtime. There are good moments. She takes down a rabid oliphaunt by being a fast rider unafraid to put herself in danger. She rescues the common folk of Edoras by going rogue and choosing the right moment to evacuate them. Towards the end of the movie when she’s finally put in charge her ingenuity and prowess lead to her ending the conflict barely losing a single soul under her protection. But for every one of these, I watch the movie cut what inherent feminism there might be off at the knees. I watch it open on an argument over arranged marriage and on the king ignoring the princess’ every word because… of course it does. I watch the princess sob before or after nearly every major plot point. I watch all of her strength and savvy melt into paralyzed uselessness any time a man attacks her in a way reminiscent of sexual assault. I watch her endanger her subjects by showing mercy multiple times over to a man who has spent the movie oathbreaking and betraying. I watch the narrative unravel into near nonsense around her until the hand of the author is so apparent that it’s tough to tell what can be credited to her actions and what just… happens. It reminds me of every flaw that’s ever bothered me in movies featuring strong women throughout my life. I struggle to find anything that resonates because it feels like an echo, like the kind of movie we should be well past by now, and I’m tired of waiting and hoping for this caliber of gender ideology to become dinosaur thinking.

War of the Rohirrim isn’t a bad movie. It’s thoroughly middling by way of a mixed experience: some epic moments, some eye rollers, and a lot of dial tone in between. I could tolerate that more if it didn’t still carry the misogynist baggage of movies 40 years its senior. Part of why I’m upset with it is likely that I dared to hope it would be something more than it was. If you go in with no expectations other than to see pretty anime you might like it. But the audience it advertises to are those who would see a movie centering on a strong woman and those who enjoy Lord of the Rings fiction, and I feel it falls short for both target audiences. Which leaves the question… who is it even for?

Going forward I’m going to hold Amalthea, Trinity, Furiosa, some fanfic version of what Elizabeth Swann might have been, and the incomparable Ellen Ripley close to my heart and in my pantheon of fictional feminine all timers. I’ll treasure every addition that list, and do my best to put out my own media where women can shine like a wish into the world. But more than anything I long for a future where young women can carry around not a list of shining exceptions in a world of mens’ media, but standouts in a world where fiction that really values women is the norm.

[blackcat-star]

Hi, this is the girl who asked about giving you ideas, to say there are many sung jinwoo x readers that have a happy ending or angst for the reader, why are we hurting to us readers? i see a specific post where jinwoo is traumatized angst, so why make him feel our pain with bittersweet ending? i don't hate him it's just that there are many posts that don't give up the vibe and slowly start to be tedious when all readers are in pain except for him.

(it may be ooc and a bit oc because I've seen readers impersonating another character like this that should be the reader, not some insert character. not to mention when having the same power, skill and strength like the character that already exists? might as well put oc!reader or out to stereotype yn/reader/name but i would want to have a reader as their own perspective due to the fact people wanted attention to tagged, i understand the popularity but please to all readers reading this, understand to the perspective point of view that we should put oc! reader instead of 'x reader' if they're having features of the characters you want to impersonate, to copy skills and other ability and powers, ok i ramble too much so I'll stop)

how about this: either you make the longest one shot or make a cliffhanger draft, series and a few chapters. take your time to think us readers are not rushed and i would gladly help you as the requester for specific details and ideas to add to your writing as an author, i have a few more ideas if you write this to continue.

a Isekai reader, similar to your previous post yet let's make a different path? the reader Isekai to solo leveling, let's make it female reader/f(y/n), (sorry to gn or male because I don't understand genders perspective but i want everyone to be fair, it's just that I'm more comfortable with female perspective). ok so back with the topic.. the reader, let's say sure we love the protagonist mc sung jinwoo but we only see him as an inspiration and to admire from afar, when the reader Isekai to jinwoo's world, the reader would remain friends and partners, nothing more and would never reciprocate jinwoo's feelings, the reader would turn a blind eye and 'oblivious' of his feelings, let's say we did help him to the minimum but reader has a limit because of the system.

the system would give powers but there are consequences like jinwoo(when he grew stronger, he would slowly lose his emotions) so i suggest that when the reader looks at the consequences once they grow stronger, she holds a book that contains a lot of information spoilers because the consequences are their memory(only to solo leveling) so to a reminder on what their purpose and plans along with reasons. the reader would continue the Life of helping jinwoo like a devoted follower.

once he slowly forgets and doesn't need the reader due to the FL aka cha hae-in, the reader would step back calmly and walk away. in the background reason.. the reader would help jinwoo big time like they would be anomaly without him realizing about it until it's too late when the reader put the system to forget everyone's memories except for him.

with the reader getting stronger, they'll have to cover their tracks so nobody would find the F!reader. maybe in another country— oh wait he would have a million shadows to search for her.. maybe to another planet like the moon? once she left without saying goodbye or where they go when antares battle ends, the reader would say a few words without him knowing that jinwoo would not see the reader again once he used the reincarnation cup.

(I) would always choose you to be your partner and ally, (L)et's meet again, alright? (Y)ou brought colors to lit up my life on my grayscale monochrome world, (S)o I'll be waiting (J)ust for you.. after all, we're not in a rush because we always have time in the world.

(it's ily sung jinwoo, you can make him a bit yandere or something. but anyways let's make him feel our pain! it's unfair for us to be sad!! sorry if my grammar and typing is complicated to understand, you can ignore or skip it if you want.)

Thanks for sharing this with me 💗

Your idea is really interesting, and it would be great if it were written as a complete story

But maybe with your idea, it would become a new story and it would probably repeat Farewell which I don't want to do a similar story because I know I would just write it quite similar to Farewell (〒▽〒)

So if possible, I would just write part 2 of Farewell, continuing the story, when the MC (reader) decides to leave, erase everyone's memories of them and erase their memories of everyone. The MC in the story has decided to let go and live for themselves, meaning they will not pay attention to Jinwoo anymore and start a new life.

I'm sorry 😭🙏

________________________

If it were written as a story, I think it would go like this

_________________________

The old book still lay in the pocket of the cloak - the soft leather worn, the edges curled as if it had been through many storms. No matter how many battles, how many times you almost lost yourself, the one thing you never let go of was this notebook.

It had no power. It did not open a portal, it did not activate a hidden skill. It was just a normal notebook, but it was the only place where you dared to be honest.

Each thin page, recorded fragments of memory - sometimes hastily scribbled in smudged ink, sometimes neatly written as if in a false peace. Each word written was a reminder, an anchor to keep you from being swept away by the growing wave of power.

The first page, written in shaky handwriting. "Don't love him. Don't stay because of him."

You remember writing that sentence, your hands were so cold that you could barely hold the pen. You cried, you laughed, you whispered 'stupid' to yourself. But you wrote anyway, because you knew that if you didn't write it down, you would forget why you kept your distance.

Turn to the second page.

"He doesn't belong to you. And you don't belong to this world."

Not belong, that sentence became a mantra. You repeated it every night, every time his eyes accidentally passed you, every time you heard his name from someone else like a legend, like a god, like something forever out of reach.

And you knew, even though your heart was slightly moved, you couldn't get any closer.

The next page, the writing was sharper, as if written when you had better controlled your emotions, when you had learned to accept. "Just a partner. Just a companion."

Not a lover. Not a chosen one. Not a kept one.

You were with him out of obligation. Because you can help him. Because you want this world to have a chance to survive. And because, in some corner of your heart, you can't turn your back on him - even if it means pushing yourself into loneliness.

As your strength increases, each piece of memory fades, you forget the face of the mother you once loved, forget your favorite food, forget the reason you were afraid of the dark. But every time you read these lines again, you remember a little, not in images or memories, but in feelings. A silent but passionate feeling.

You turn to the last page.

Just one line, written in soft handwriting, like a light touch on a wound that has never healed:

"If he forgets you…don't be hurt. Let him be happy."

You pause for a long time on that line. Your eyes close slightly, as if to stop the thoughts from surging.

You know, one day, he won't see you anymore, not because you're not there, but because his heart is full. You know, in the countless things he protects, you're just a faint part - not enough to make him stop.

And you promise yourself, that you won't hold on. You won't cry. You won't ask for anything.

You'll just smile, close the book and walk away.

Because you love him.

But you love him enough not to become a chain.

______________________

The light from the Fragments of Light still hung in the air, like stars that had yet to fall. The battle with Antares was over, but the air still smelled of ashes and sacrifice. Everything had ended - and begun - in an eerie silence.

Jinwoo, still clutching the Reincarnation Cup, looked up at the sky. In that silent light, his eyes shone with a rare peace, as if he could finally rest. He would go back in time, to fix all his mistakes, save those who had fallen, and start over again - this time, without war, without death.

You came in that moment. No one saw you. Not a single footstep, not a single breath. You just came, as you had always come to him in silence, a figure without a name, without a title, just a 'partner'. You don't need to call his name, because he always recognizes you, somehow.

Jinwoo turns around, his eyes softening when he sees you. He doesn't seem surprised. He seems to have always believed that you would be here, by his side, until the very end. "You're here," he says, like a thank you that hasn't been said in all the years of companionship. "Thank you for always staying."

You just smile. No reply, no explanation. You know, if you say more, you won't be able to hold it in. You'll cry. You'll grab his hand and beg him to stay. But you can't.

Because you've decided long ago.

You take a deep breath, as if to stuff all the emotions into your chest, then speak - each word is soft, but falls like a cut.

"I would always choose you to be your partner and ally."

"Let's meet again, alright?"

"You brought colors to lit up my life on my grayscale monochrome world."

"So I'll be waiting…" you stopped, your heart skipped a beat.

"Just for you."

The light rose around everything before Jinwoo could either speak or say your name.

You spoke softly yet uncertainly if he could hear you say " After all, we're not in a rush" while standing there. "Because we always have time in the world."

The cup glowed. The light of rebirth, of a chance to start over, swept through the world like waves. Everything was swept away by it, war, pain, loss, and you.

[thosearentcrimes]

Read Too Like the Lightning, part of the Terra Ignota series, by Ada Palmer. I generally try to be a lot nicer about books written by living authors, on the off chance that they read what I'm saying. For example, I tried not to be very mean about the Baru Cormorant series, which I thought was pretty bad but had some strong points I could highlight, but I was perfectly willing to go in on Madame Bovary. All I can say is, I tried. You see, Too Like the Lightning is straight up terrible, and it is basically impossible to find anything nice to say about it at all.

Too Like the Lightning is an unbelievably stupid book. Now, I don't require total scientific fidelity from my science fiction, not unless the author signals I should. But I do think authors should be at least broadly aware of what laws they are breaking to get what they want, and Palmer very clearly isn't. Basically everyone has the predictive/prescient powers of Dune characters through mathematical oracles, despite this being provably impossible. Everyone travels in cheap supersonic private jets that probably also have VTOL capability, which are powered by Fucking Magic presumably, the author sure as hell doesn't seem to care. This wouldn't be as annoying if the book didn't spend so much time musing on the deep sociological effects of the FM-powered aircars, while entirely forgetting that evidently both Fucking Magic and oracles apparently exist and should probably affect society in some way also. There's also more minor points. At one point, the first of the aircars is analogized to the Nina and Pinta and Apollo XI, all of which were notable exploration vessels, not technical breakthroughs. The appropriate comparisons would be to something like the Kitty Hawk Flyer or Stephenson's Rocket or some of the Trevithick machines. Sure, it's a minor error, but for a novel this pretentious, all errors are serious. There is no appreciable narrative reason for this error either. If the book were edited, perhaps someone would have noticed.

The ideological and historiographical (more on this later) background is also just kind of dumb. The book is trying to make some tedious liberal points and also say that we need to have very serious discussions about like sexism and racism or whatever. What the content of these discussions is supposed to be is extremely unclear, and as far as I can tell simply the existence of them will basically fix things on its own because discussion is magic and leads to Truth and such, except, of course, when the narrative needs for it not to. Also destroying a book is kind of like killing a person, and other trite garbage. Anyway, where the book actually ends up is in my opinion quite far from the apparent intent, but unfortunately not in a very interesting way. Suffice to say, if I wanted to read kinda racist gender-normative rapey fiction with clockwork twists scattered around, where all the characters are secretly serial killers (notably Mycroft and the Saneer-Weeksbooths) because that makes them edgier or something I guess, I suspect I could still do a whole lot better than Too Like the Lightning, for example by reading self-insert Wattpad romance novels about pop stars, or werewolf erotica, or self-insert Wattpad erotica about werewolf pop stars. The incest is boring as hell and cowardly, too. It's a book that's trying to shock you, but the author doesn't know how to actually do that because, again, just not very good at writing at all. It doesn't help that the pacing is so horrible that none of the shocking twists actually land, especially since absolutely nothing keeps actually happening. Sure, Too Like the Lightning is the way it is for a reason, but so is the werewolf erotica, and helping other people jack off is a far more noble pursuit than jacking yourself off.

If the book is so stupid, why do a lot of fairly intelligent people seem to like it so much? Well, a lot of those people are Rationalists it seems (or close enough to it), and Rationalists have insanely bad taste in fiction for some reason. Actually Rationalists have insanely bad taste generally speaking but it's especially marked in fiction. And it's obvious why Rationalists would like the book, it treats intelligence as a comic book superpower the way they do, there's group homes and libertarianism and all sorts of other stuff they like. But there's a more fundamental feature that I think a certain kind of nerd loves about Too Like the Lightning. It's the omnipresent didactic tone, just like with Baru Cormorant, though here it's somehow even more obtrusive. Some people evidently like it when the author has a character read an encyclopedia entry for a paragraph or two for no particular reason, or pointedly make and then exhaustively explain a reference. I suspect it's because if they knew the reference, they feel like very clever students who read ahead, and if they didn't know the reference they feel like they are learning. I think it might be a form of high school nostalgia, the nerd version of student athletes unable to move on. Which is normal I suppose, I still think about doing amateur theater after all, but it does seem kind of embarrassing. To me, at least, the didactic tone always feels insulting regardless of if I knew the reference or not.

This insistence on transforming most of the characters into condescending lecture or encyclopedia entry delivery mechanisms understandably has serious consequences for the readability of the novel itself. It is impossible to believe that any of the supposed 10 billion people in the Hives that we barely ever see any actual traces of are actually persons in the eyes of the author or the narrative. Nor are most of the several dozen very important characters we do meet, to be fair. There is a single character, Eureka, who reaches the dizzying heights of "is an actual character" and she barely shows up. Thisbe is the only other one under consideration, but, eh, nah. Everyone else is functionally just a rhetorical device, because outside of the exposition most of the novel is poorly stylized as philosophical dialogue in Enlightenment style.

According to the Author's Note, Palmer sincerely wants to be participating in the Great Conversation. Now, this is a lost cause from the start. You cannot engage in a conversation by just parroting the words of others, and if you don't have any ideas of your own (and it is quite reasonable not to, there are so many people and so few ideas to be had), then a bare minimum would be the ability to rephrase or synthesize them. Now, maybe Palmer can do this, in lectures to students. Or maybe not, I have known instructors like that too (especially in history, lately). All I know is that Too Like the Lightning is no thoughts, all cliches. But if there were original ideas, the framing device would interfere anyway. You fundamentally cannot participate in a conversation while maintaining plausible deniability for everything by hiding behind your fictional characters, as Palmer does with Mycroft. Whenever I object to, well, more or less any feature of the novel, its fans can always say that actually I just haven't been paying enough attention to the unreliability of the narrator. This objection tends to be either false or irrelevant, but it's a pain in the ass to prove, and the only reason it is possible in the first place is that the author is actively refusing to stake out a position to be held to.

For what it's worth, I don't think it's out of cowardice. Palmer seems to have noticed that the tradition of the conte philosophique and the genres that take off of it includes a lot of different styles and narrative devices, and has ultimately decided to use most of them, invariably quite poorly. I've read conte philosophique, and it does not read like conte philosophique, sorry, the writing is all so painfully 21st century. Ironically, the one major device for philosophical stories I can think of that was not used, the travelogue, is the one I think is clearly most appropriate to the sort of worldbuilding-based speculative fiction Palmer is engaging in here, both from a practical and a historical perspective. The eclectic stylistic muddle makes the novel much longer without giving it any additional depth, the styles do not complement each other, and also the author very obviously does not have the skill required to pull any of it off. Authors, unless exceptionally competent, should pick at most one gimmick per work. Might not have helped here, but it's good practice either way.

One of the techniques that gets talked about with regards to the book is the unreliable narrator, probably because the device is referenced in the book right at the start. In fact, contrary to what people insist, it is not really present in the sense I would understand it, of a narrator styled as deliberately deceiving the audience in order to promote his own agenda. Since the narrator of Too Like the Lightning, like basically every other character in the novel, evidently only actually has an agenda or motive as an informed attribute, there is no way for the reader to reason their way to the implied meta-narrative of what "actually happened", because I'm pretty sure that meta-narrative doesn't actually exist. As far as I can tell, the only actual function of the extremely tedious and obtrusive in-universe narrator is to justify telling the exposition in a particular twist-preserving order, which, again, is not what the unreliable narrator is.

The novel really does consist almost exclusively of dry narration and loredumps. Nothing ever happens in this miserable 460 page slog. I really mean this, nothing actually happens and nobody really does anything except flit around irrelevantly at supersonic speeds. A bunch of characters talk to each other, or talk at each other, or read the encyclopedia at each other. But it turns out none of that actually matters, because enough of the characters are basically omniscient (except for all the stuff they can't know otherwise the story falls apart, even though there's no conceivable way they wouldn't know) that there is no appreciable difference between characters talking at each other and thinking at each other, which they also spend way too much time doing. None of the dialogue serves to develop the characters, because, as discussed earlier, there aren't any. None of the dialogue serves to establish the plot or stakes, because the plot gets retconned every other chapter with yet another tedious twist so there's no real point in following the intrigue, which I'm pretty sure consists mostly of plot holes by the end anyway. Worst of all, a consistent pattern in these retcons is that it becomes clearer and clearer that an alarming number of the conversations in this book are actually functionally just a guy talking to himself.

It kind of makes sense that the novel is more or less entirely people talking to each other (well that and poorly done metatextual horseshit) because it turns out the novel endirses a fundamental theory of historical change consisting entirely of people talking to each other, specifically, a variation on Great Man Theory that says change happens because the most important members of the very real and existing natural aristocracy get into a room together in order to figure out what's going to happen next by finding the smartest bestest boy from among them all and all just doing what he says, and then maybe some other stuff that doesn't matter happens after who cares, all of the actual persons have made their decisions. History of ideas people are basically all wacky, but this seems extreme even for them, so I sure hope Palmer isn't actually teaching anything like this. In addition to being based on a variant of it, Too Like the Lightning references and then explains its own reference to Great Man Theory, and naturally has its own Great Man in the narrative itself, the guy talking to himself from the last paragraph, and boy is he unbearable.

The guy in question, Y.U.D.D. MASON, is genuinely in the running for the most insufferable character ever written. I wouldn't mind him being written like a particularly annoying teenager with delusions of grandeur who has evidently somehow read both far too much and far too little philosophy so much if the novel did not take every single opportunity to make it absolutely unquestionable that this horrid little git is in fact an unparalleled superhuman intellect omniscient oracle capable of outright mind control through speech alone. And no, that's not a unreliable narrator thing. My understanding is that somehow this gets much worse over the course of the rest of the books, which I will not read because frankly 460 pages was an unreasonable test of my patience and commitment to reviewing everything I read and finishing everything I review. Apparently at the end he starts a civil war and becomes God-Emperor of Humanity or whatever, who even cares.

Look, a persistent obsession with Mars, nonsensical car-based revolutionizing of transportation, references to De Sade, excessive confidence in mathematical oracles, these are not the preoccupations of a serious thinker, these are the preoccupations of Elon Musk. Musk really is a convenient example of the sort of Great Man that actually exists by contrast to the ones you get in fiction and in Carlyle. Richest man on the planet, widely acknowledged power behind the throne of the most powerful state out there, owner of what was once (you know, before he bought it) regarded as the online public square, AI magnate, rocketman, surely here we have the Great Man of our time? Except, wait, we know him. We know him from his irrepressible habit of Posting, his now decades of pathetic self-promotion, his desperate need to turn himself into a living meme to get the attention he never got from his father, and which he in turn will not give to his two dozen kids. He is a massive loser whose aesthetic interests consist of the most accessible symbols of coolness and futurism that he can find, up to and including the glyph 'X' and memes that got old over a decade ago. What does it say about Too Like the Lightning that half of its aesthetic language is not only shared with this fucking loser, but is even projected out to the 26th century? Nothing good, that's for sure.

It is my opinion that novels should be edited. Unfortunately publishers do not seem to agree. Editing could never have made this book good, but it might at least have informed the publishers of the scale of mistake they were in the course of making. This novel was a lost cause the moment it was accepted for publication, which happened by a mechanism I am still quite unable to explain. The Author's Note does contain a very helpful list of the extraordinarily many collaborators allegedly responsible, of whom I would pick out for particular discredit the editorial decision-makers and the peers who apparently encouraged the creation of the work. That this book was written was a mistake, that it was published was a travesty, that it got sequels is an absurdity. The existence of Too Like the Lightning is an enormous embarrassment to the entire genre of Science Fiction, whose reputation was frankly already quite bad for very good reasons. Anyway, I'm never going to read Worm that's for damn sure.

This novel made me afraid to write my own intended stories, for fear that they will end up like this. Ordinarily, this is where I mention what kinds of person might enjoy the novel, recommend it to someone even if I did not like it myself. Frankly, I think I have provided enough information for people to figure out whether or not they would like it, but I have to confess that I do not think anyone should read this book, including the ones who would enjoy it. It's not for moral reasons or anything, I just think the book is that bad.

[unicornachos2]

After finishing ROTE I'm trying to sort out my feelings about Robin Hobb as an author and it's sO hard. I've never had such a complicated relationship with an author while reading a series I don't think.

I think it comes down to her being... Kind of erratic and very contradictory in her work?

Like, she often seems to have amnesia about what she's built up in a character and then writes them differently like... Fitz learns and says things and then a book later he's back flipped or forgotten completely (perhaps bc RH herself forgets how he feels or what he's said in previous books? Which leads to inconsistent characterisation?) Some of how Beloved is written at the end of Ass Fate.... Idk if it's just BC it's from Bee's perspective, but there's stuff there narratively that makes no sense... Or maybe it does after all the trauma Beloved experienced? The way she wrote Nettle in tawny man vs how differently she's written in F&F....the way characters are inconsistently written bc the plot needs them to do certain things at certain moments.....

The way she has Beloved seriously question comphet gender stereotyping in ass quest and then.... Proceeds to nonstop write comphet gender stereotyping nonsense everywhere you look throughout the entire fucking series

Her writing of women and the way she pairs up any two cis characters of opposite sex who will stand next to each other just to make them reproduce as if she's Burrich forcing two horses together pisses me the fuck off, and I've already talked about that. P.S. on this. wHY did we need Lant/Spark? Insane.

Ass apprentice and royal assassin were absolute slogs for me, where I wasn't actually enjoying what I was reading and actively did not enjoy most of those books, but felt a very strong need to keep reading just to see what would happen?

Killing Chade offscreen after being with him for 16 entire books, never seeing Mercor again, Wintrow's weird fade-out in the series despite having so much focus in liveships

The way she wrote about ableism and disability with the dragons and rain Wilders was suuuuper flawed and I wish she hadn't gone there bc of how badly it was done. Thick could have literally been called anything else and nothing would have changed in the story

The way the story tries to be realistic in some areas and wildly unrealistic in others and how often it feels like whiplash

The way so many important things just go unfinished or skimmed over at the end of her books BC she seems to run into her word limit or something

And the magic systems just straight up make zero sense if you think about any of it too hard- whatever happens happens bc it serves the plot

And I think finally, this weird idea that I've never come across in any other series, about needing to choose between the people you love that permeates throughout ROTE. The way the author fabricates this false choice, where you have to choose who you love most and stay with them and them only. Burrich's "a horse can't wear two saddles". How Robin Hobb underscores the beauty of the stone wolf scene by needing to have Fitz remark to Bee that she lied well (indicating that he does in fact love Bee more than Beloved). How Molly would have spurned Nighteyes. How Burrich for some reason had to choose between Patience and Chivalry. Fitz, and countless other characters are always made to clarify or choose between who of their loved ones they "love the most". Again, absolute nonsense.

And then like. Somehow she manages to write the most beautiful prose and the most insane fucking queerbait of all time? (With a big No Homo stamped over all of it). And develops such loveable, flawed, interesting characters, and such engaging world building. Patience's entire existence, and the humour in the series and how insanely funny some moments are. Fitz's friendships with Riddle and Thick. Nighteyes. Bee and Fitz coming to know one another. The edge of your seat moments when you have to keep reading despite the horrible hour just so you can find out what happens. How Beloved and Fitz ultimately do change the world for the better. The life lessons given, and some of the clearest insights into trauma I've ever read. The tiny details that keep you fed to allow you to theorise and speculate. The way she's able to thread one theme throughout narrative, character, and dialogue.

I've never been so conflicted tbh. Like. I can understand why people are obsessed with this series (clearly I'm here in this camp), but I can also totally understand why people would never be able to get into this series, too. Like. I don't think I can ever rec it to anyone I know, just purely based on the final 10 chapters of Ship of Destiny. The fucking weird shit Verity did to Fitz and Kettricken. Like I think there are so many valid reasons why this series isn't as popular as other fantasy series, why it's never been turned into some big GOT style tv show (not that that is in any way a marker of quality, I'm just saying), etc. Like I love it, and I will always love it and I'm going to be thinking about it for the rest of my life, but I also. Did not enjoy or like a lot of ROTE, too. Anyway, two things can simultaneously be true and exist!

So I'm just. I'm processing. Anyway FitzLoved forever peace out

[a-bright-comet]

Okay I am very happy to see more and more people call out the weirdos, namely the ones villainizing pregnancy and all that, But I wanna talk about the startling amount of people I've been seeing popping up calling Jade and Stalker's romance "cheap, boring, easy" just *because* it's woman-loving-man or "straight" as these people keep calling it.. How wild is that-? to call a romance boring because of the gender of the people involved? they're not calling it boring cause of writing but because of their damn genders? hello?? do you know how insane that would sound if said about a sapphic or achillean (mlm) couple?? imagine if someone said that about Albrecht and Loid they'd get flamed so fucking fast dude. Do these people also forget bi/pan etc. wlm relationships exist? or that straight genderqueer people and relationships exist?? that queer wlm relationships just exist as well in general??? I'm a bi woman in a relationship with a bi trans man, JUMPSCARE! we exist! while I understand being tired of wlm romances cause there's enough out there to get to hell and back, that doesn't mean they should just, not exist? or that they're inherently bad or boring? not only is that just weird period but it also erases the people and relationships mentioned above. (also goes against the whole equality thing we've all been fighting for my guy) also like, the last time we got a wlm relationship between major/important characters in warframe was god damn Ballas and Lotus and that shit was abusive, we needed a healthy one to balance it lmaaoooo. Annd to my knowledge there hasn't been any romance between two warframes before these two yet so it's not like they've done it before to warrant the groaning? you know it's odd how I almost felt this type of attitude coming, I was witnessing a concerning steady rise of hating pregnancy in fiction from one side of the internet and just general hatred of wlm relationships on the other side of the internet, such a shame it all came to a boiling point and targeted this quest that really didn't deserve it. Honestly looking at it without the stained view of people the quest is just as good as all the others before it, short, sweet and impactful. I really enjoy it and have been trigger happy with the block on anyone slightly annoying about it cause at this point it feels like we don't even play the same game lmao. anyways this will likely be the last post about people being weird as I don't wanna bring more negativity to the tag and I'm tired of people pff but posts like these are unfortunately important cause if you let the mold sit it'll contaminate and ruin everything. Jade, Stalker and their beb deserve all the love they can get, I will not tolerate slander. >:[

[gutterclan-after-dark]

‼️‼️I am gay and transgender ‼️‼️ I am not criticizing anyone just mentioning some stuff I've noticed in a literary analysis sort of way I am not trying to start discourse‼️‼️

Anyway. One of my clangen cats just rolled as trans (yay) & it's got me thinking like.

What is it to write cats with gender variance in a world that is essentially post-gender (to the extent that any of us, having been raised from birth saturated in the unconscious stew of gendered thinking, can write something that is 'post-gender').

I've noticed that the vast majority of work in the warrior cats space does seem to strive to have complete equality between the sexes- and not just equality, but complete indistinguishably. I've even seen audiences routinely forget what gender a character even IS (which is kind of delightful). Toms raise litters, mollies become leaders, there is no friction, commentary, noticeable difference.

And that's fine- I'm more or less going that route with Gutterclan- but in a world where this is no social or material difference between the sexes- what does gender variance mean? How does it function? Where does it come from? What does being transgender mean in a world where gender identity does not really exist (or at least is not differentiated- there is One gender, and it is warrior cat*), and physical transition is not possible? Is it just a matter of pronouns?

What need for gender neutral pronouns in a world where essentially all things are already gender neutral? Is it just dysphoria? Do trans tortoiseshell toms hate their orange patches, or do trans mollies feel self conscious about their stud jowls? That's sort of miserable, if the only thing that being trans is, is having a problem with yourself that can't be solved.

And what does sexuality mean, when gender barely exists, and sex essentially doesn't? There is romance in warrior cats, for sure, but sex doesn't really... exist in most warrior cats works, and it definitely doesn't exist in the canon books. Which is absurd to say, because people are always having kittens, and accidental litters are a constant plot tangle, but there is never a sense of how these things occur. Being mates means you sit together at mealtimes and rub cheeks and get sad when the other person dies, and sometimes kittens appear after a timeskip.

This is of course due to the age range of the books, and because the main characters are animals. And I don't think it's a problem in need of changing, but it does make trying to conceive of sexuality strange in this world.

What does being asexual mean when no cats ever really display a sexual desire? What does being a lesbian mean where there functionally is no difference between mollies and toms? (Aros get to stay, the WC conception of romance ports more or less 1:1 from our world).

I do believe that sexuality and gender are to a certain extent innate, but they are also deeply, deeply shaped by our society's conceptions. Which is to say, eg, only desiring relationships with other women is perhaps innate, but the identity of Lesbian is constructed (which is not to say it isn't real- like, currency is a social construct, and we wouldn't say it's fake, or that it lacks power over us, etc). So what does it mean to have those labels in a world that- ostensibly- lacks much of the very human, very 21st century, very western, social baggage that creates them? And the answer is basically one of two things:

you do a lot of baroque gender worldbuilding. For your warrior cats fan work (which! Honestly kind of bangs and I would like to see).

People like to see themselves reflected in fiction, and the reason that we have pansexual cats and grey-ace cats and demi-boy cats is more or less because we have those things in real life, and we say the cats are those things and so they are, even if their history & context of gender and sexuality are completely different from ours, and likely wouldn't have created the same labels.

And there's nothing wrong with either of those approaches! I'm more or less going to go with approach 2 in Gutterclan, which just small switches in terminology, but I find it sort of... unsatisfying, the more I turn it over

*I put this question to my buddy Goose & he posited that the space that gender roles serve for us are, in warrior cats, essentially occupied by narrative roles. Leader, warrior, med cat, even things like villain or loner. I am nodding at this proposal very vigorously. In a world without gender, is the angst of a medicine cat apprentice longing to be a warrior not a sort of transgender longing to fit a different societal role than the one you are coercively assigned?

Anyway. I still don't know how to make my cat trans.

[irisbleufic]

The shade you’re throwing @ intersexist assholes in the tags on the IWTV story you finished today have me crying with laughter and also applauding, but I also feel mad on your behalf that something probably brought that on. Was someone a dick to you? It’s been a bad year for what y’all in the intersex community have had to put up with what with the Olympics, I can imagine :|

Hey, much appreciated, anon 💙 It has been a bad year for that, yeah. I’m not so much bent out of shape as annoyed about something that’s potentially intersexist in tone (see under the cut, where I try to pick it apart a bit) that I saw a while ago when I looked through the notes people have left on series-level Caldera bookmarks.

I sometimes forget that people leave annotations for themselves and others, and one in particular sort of made me blink and wonder who the fuck else might be reading and making themselves miserable by sticking around and reading content they could have so easily avoided and, you know, not bothered to bookmark? IDK, man, why not just bookmark the single story or stories you liked early on rather than bookmark the whole series to bitch about something the writer is examining at the intersection of gender identity and biological sex variations (especially when that’s something the writer reckoned with over time themself, and which plenty of other intersex people reckon with, too). Anyway, the weird AF note in question:

Like, I mean…okay? Thanks? Glad you liked a bunch of it, whatever that means, but gender identity and biological sex variations are running themes for half or more of stories in the series at this point, and not just for Armand (there are three characters for whom this is relevant, one of whom is canonically intersex in the novels, but whose portrayal has never quite sat well with me given the similarities to how intersex athletes are treated in the media—Petronia from Blackwood Farm; any other treatment of her/his/their monstrosity would’ve been brilliant, because, you know, fucking vampires, but it definitely crosses a line that plays into an awful stereotype). Getting back to Armand, though, the last sentence of this note is hilarious to me. In my stories, he doesn’t even change the pronouns he’s using even if, armed with new knowledge about himself, he’s also acknowledging a level of gender fluidity that he might not have been comfortable explicitly articulating and fully exploring before. I have a soft spot for writing about genderfluid/nonbinary characters who use he/him pronouns alongside the other ones I write about who tend to use they/them pronouns. There’s a relative lack of he/him gender-nonconforming characters in fiction, in my experience, so I have a few of those running around in fic across my fandoms. Given the fact that Armand’s pronouns haven’t changed here, this reader could pretty easily have just ignored everything else. I don’t even think Armand as I’m writing him is terribly offended by anyone who still calls him a man on days where he’s more masculine-presenting in the way he dresses, and there are still plenty of those. The bookmark comment feels sillier and sillier the more I dig into it through the lens of close reading my own text, and the discomfort feels a lot more like it’s down to the intersex theme than the gender identity theme even though the two are connected in the narrative.

If you find the existence of intersex people trying to work out their gender identity in fiction triggering, I regret to inform you that this is something that happens all the time in real life. And that you might hear about it, because we do talk about it. So, pro tip: heed the fic tags and consider not bitching about it where the author is going to see that and then just double down on being a thorn in your side, and anyone else’s who thinks like you, by writing even more about it.

[daystarvoyage]

I often see fans demonize some characters like Belos,The Blights, Camila, into far worse versions of themselves like fans portraying Camila as abusive since she wants Luz go to Reality Check Camp to correct her behavior and certain people interpret that of her sending her to a conversation therapy camp or the Blights while they are bad parents for sure they are sometimes depicted as physically abusive or homophobic despite that sort of thing not existing in the boiling isles and Finally Belos gets made into a bigot who is sexist,racist, homophobic because he a white Christian male despite not making any insults for Luz being a woman or POC while his stance of sexual orientation or gender identity is unknown the fact he didn’t insult Luz for being a woman or POC is remarkable progressive for a Man who is born in the 1600’s also He FICTIONAL and we already have enough of those people in real life what do you think?

I do say this, people need to start separating the art from the artist and fantasy from reality,

this type of writing and fictional perspective, a lot of viewers and fans sit through, its been done throughout animation, Even in real life affecting how we see our adult figures.

hope i say this, the best way i can cause the show did the adults and supporting characters dirty with its ill pacing in storytelling and character exposure

The Fans Of their favorite media love to exaggerate disliked characters (be it villains or unpopular ones) cause of how there perceived physically or in writing in the creator's eyes. We get this at the start of the first episode introducing Camila (whos a great mother who I relate to cause, I also was on the spectrum being raised by a single mom) I feel I look at her as a character who carries a burden with her being a single mother) yet relatable cause she does her best to take care of her daughter on earth cause she to is a single mother protecting her daughter from the harsh reality cause its not all huckydorey (like the ending of the show),when she wants luz to conform. the way fans see luz assomeone needing protecting, might villanize camila firsthand(DEMONIZING ADULT MOMENT BY FANDOM) as a cheerful person luz is, fans forget that she's also impressionable, impulsive, don't think far on consequneces and needy, might gloss over the fact she needs proper mannerisms (to get by in the world at times), cause shes young & fits the viewers mold of perception, that no one should be punished cause of sexuality, it might show she doesn't need help. Let's be clear the fans are gonna gloss the fact shes a troublemaker who brings harmful items to school WHICH fans should be concerned, i mean neurodivergent character doesn't mean good personality,

2. The blight situation I swear they did Odalia dirty with this GRRR & how talented and amazing Rachel MacFarlane is (Her VA voicing hayley from American Dad.) thanks for moring mark giving her proper depth in her character on how odalia acts.

She’s also over exaggerated for being ( DEMONIZED BY FANDOM cause SHE's an ADULT) to being just an abusive mother, but however others will see it is a character who was a dark and humorous character at least & she has great writing tools to be & alador was just a plot device to make amity look good even the twins, & get rid of odalia even though her had his hand in amity's abuse, which I feel no one in the blight fam is not innocent (neither was amity, also which the twins didn't get fleshed out more & used as plot device for lumity, Which fans at times gloss over. Fans will over-exaggerate that Odalia was physically abusive to the kids but NEVER WAS! cause that's a negative perception on the fandom that (We have a adult hater situation nowadays of how this new age of Gen Z & alpha kids are raised,

i also wrote a post on the matter btw

The Belos Treatment (we al know how the creator treated him, such good potential DOwn the Drain.)

Bruh or GiIIIRRRRLL, I commend the Belos fans for being on their own ship supporting and adding more to his BG in fanfic & art

Belos was an intriguing villain who rivaled not only Frollo, the horned king, & Prof. Screweyes. This man also has a perception amongst the fans who followed the creator's way of how he was written (basically the new Chloe bourgeois treatment from miraculous.) He was only a character who was hell-bent on piping witches out and saving his humankind NOT BEING Racist Homophobic, or BIgoted, However, Chloe made racist & prejudiced remarks To Marinette in the cooking episode,(BUT BELOS DIDNT!) So he's an equal villain Who is all about equal rights means equal fights (falls under the neutral evil cause of how he was depicted into a person of tragedy upbringing to now a one-sided character (getting tired of how creators write villains in a one-sided manner.) oh and some people need proper knowledge of the 1600s cause belos was born in that era and I heard someone saying he was born in 1700s which I feel the show does suffer from anachronisms.

And don't get me started of how the fans look over poc in animation, (Darius) cause that has angry black man written all over it, along Manny being ONLY relevant in Luz's dire moment not being explored more,

hope i put down a lot of tea & crumpets for everyone hope you also can look at my video essay on my YouTube.

hope you enjoy comment and subscribe for more.

[pclarcld]

──   (  nick robinson. twenty4. cis man. he/him.  ) thank god you’re here, man - have you seen SEBASTIAN "BASH" STARR anywhere? i totally lost them after their rendition of come on eileen by dexys midnight runners last night. no? they’re like, aye - high and go to LANGSTON - i think they’re a GRADUATE level studying CHEMISTRY? but who knows, these days. all i know is that they’re ASTUTE & ABRASIVE and a SCORPIO . last night they kept going on and on about how they won MOST LIKELY TO END UP IN JAIL last year, which is cool and whatever, but i just wouldn’t expect it out of them, considering they’re so, like, DAUNTLESS & STOIC, you know? anyways - i’m going to check down by book stew, i think that’s where they like to hang. text me if you see them, okay? bye! / as penned by parker.  twenty7.  est. 

BIO PINTREST MUSINGS VISUALS WC INSPO THREADS

STATS

full name: sebastian "bash" samuel starr

birthdate: october 31st, 2001

parents: daniel starr (estranged) & elizabeth morrow (estranged)

siblings: cameron starr (deceased) & ______ _____

gender: cis man

pronouns: he/him/his

sexuality: pansexual

languages: english, asl

height: 6'1

hair color: brown

eye color: brown

tattoos: multiple scattered stick n poke

PERSONALITY

+traits: astute, dauntless, inquisitive, creative, loyal

- traits: cataclysmic, abrasive, impulsive, stoic, overwrought

labels: the crimson, the hellion, the bibliophile

aesthetics: bruised knuckles, making a “fuck you” gesture at authorities, glossy & reddened eyes, cigarette smoke, the smell of old books, writing obscene messages in the bathroom stalls, doc martins, black coffee, picking locks

character inspo: john bender (breakfast club), jess mariano (gilmore girls), lip gallagher (shameless)

fears: claustrophobia, the unknown, dying alone

hobbies: writing, reading, photography, gaming

likes: cats, winter, solitude, sex, drinking, drugs

dislikes: hypocrites, loud eaters, mushrooms, the heat

myers-briggs: intp-t

hogwarts house: ravenclaw

temperment: choleric

moral alignment: chaotic neutral

HEADCANNONS

bash is your local dirtbag asshole who thinks he's 2 cool to get close to people. catch him pushing everyone and anyone away !!

but he's kinda just an asshole as a defense mechanism. he has a heart sometimes :(

once he cares/loves u he probably won't ever stop even if he acts like it . like end of the day even if it was the worst falling out over he'd still probably drop everything. he's loyal as fRICK

def spends wayyy too much time partying. is he ever really sober ? idk. he def has some problems he doesn't wanna admit

he’s a scholarship kid baybeeee

catch him with a bpd diagnosis but never doing anything to healthily cope ever . very on/off on treatment plans

he hates authority and he hates being told what to do

he just wanna be cozied up reading a book and forgetting the world

hes estranged from both his parents and likes to pretend they don’t exist ! his mother walked out when he was fairly young and his dad liked to numb his feelings with alcohol which made him quite !!! unpleasant to be around

he's the smartest idiot you'd ever meet. iq says he has braincells but he's so stubborn on thinking he's always right it can get the best of him

his undergrad was in chemistry and minored in journalism and he kinda battled like does he wanna do a smart big kid job or like.. have a job he actually enjoys

he has a older brother that passed and due to all of that he kinda spiraled and thinks he needs to do something bigger than himself, so he thinks the way HE can make a difference is getting into forensic scientists and being able to collect allll the facts. he likes it but also ... there's kinda this creative gap and void

prolly always carries a lil pocket notebook to write ideas, poems, and doodle

WANTED CONNECTIONS

SIBLING ; the only one who knows how and why they're both so fucked up. "siblings are like branches of a tree. we grow in different directions, yet our roots remain as one". open to backstory changes, or half sibling? maybe even step siblings could work. i love me some complicated family dynamics.

RIDE OR DIE ; no matter the hardships, they always have each others back. maybe they knew each other before college or grew close more recently. "even though we're goin' through it. and it makes you feel alone. just know that I would die for you"

FIRST LOVE ; someone that finally made him let his guard down and open up his heart. "but if the world was ending you'd come over, right?"

PARTNER IN CRIME ; perhaps they're a bad influence on each other, but they know how to have a good time. "they'll call our crimes a work of art. you'll never take us alive."

ENEMIES ; these two hate each other. always have and probably always will. whether it's just personalities clashing or a drama-filled falling out. "your words up on the wall as you're praying for my fall."

other ideas, but always up for some brainstorming: tutored, old bully/bullied, childhood friends, exes (good terms/bad terms, i only imagine him having a serious relationship or two tho), fwbs, one night stand, ex friends, frenemies, unlikely friends, unrequited love/crush, drug dealer, friends that typically only hang for partying/drinking/drugs, someone he's gotten into fights with, the "other" person.

[misc-obeyme]

CC'S COZY COMFORTS EVENT

I said I was gonna do a lil event, so here I am! Also I swear I only just realized there are a lot of Cs in that title, but I'm not changing it now.

The only reason this event exists is because I said so. Sure, I could claim some follower milestones and what not, but listen. I just want to get back into doing requests again. I finally finished my OC story rough draft, so now it's time for some short & sweet comfort writing while I edit that beast. Which means mostly fluff, a lil hurt/comfort, and just a hint of spice.

RULES

Please read all the rules before making a request! If you don't follow the rules, I may be unable to fulfill your request. I'm pretty chill, but honestly the rules exist for my own mental health lol.

You can request two different things in this event!

DRABBLES

This is a piece of writing around 500 words or less. I might go over because this is me we're talking about, but the goal is 500 or less. See these examples! There are 10 prompts available for this type of request.

To request a drabble, leave the following in my ask box:

Choose an Obey Me character

Choose a prompt from the list below

Optional: choose a second character in place of MC

PROMPT LIST

Please choose a prompt from the list that doesn't have a character's name by it already. I will update the list as quickly as I can as I receive requests. (I have a backup list should I decide to extend the event.)

forgetful - Satan ~complete~

sparkle - Asmodeus ~complete~

blanket - Mammon ~complete~

wind - Simeon ~complete~

illuminate - Leviathan ~complete~

flame - Diavolo ~complete~

tome - Solomon ~complete~

ink - Arsenios (my OC thank you for requesting him Silver 😭) ~complete~

apron - Solomon ~complete~

cloudy - Barbatos ~complete~

HEADCANONS

These are going to be a short list of headcanons for a single character, which will be around 700 words or less. See this example! There are 10 slots available for this type of request.

To request a headcanon, leave the following in my ask box:

Choose an Obey Me character

Choose a genre from the list below

Optional: give me an idea to base the headcanon on (examples: on a date with MC, how they are in class, etc.)

GENRE LIST

fluff: just as it sounds, all the sweet fluff... some might say this is my specialty (it's me, I'm the only one who says that)

hurt/comfort: another fave, this is where we start out sad, but have a happy ending

spicy: suggestive, might not necessarily include smut

author's choice: let me choose for you!

HEADCANON SLOTS: 0 available (this section will be updated with the requests as I receive them)

Lucifer x MC: author's choice ~complete~

Solomon sightseeing in Devildom/human world: fluff ~complete~

Simeon being human: hurt/comfort ~complete~

Asmodeus: hurt/comfort ~comfort~

Solomon with depressed MC: hurt/comfort ~complete~

Mammon: fluff ~complete~

Satan x MC: author’s choice ~complete~

Mammon: hurt/comfort ~complete~

Barbatos x MC: hurt/comfort ~complete~

Mephistopheles first time with MC: fluff and/or spicy ~complete~

ADDITIONAL RULES

Any Obey Me character is acceptable for either type of request! You can choose one of the undateables or even characters we haven't seen yet, but keep in mind that I will use my creative license for some of their characterization! I will also accept requests for my OC if that's something anyone is interested in.

You can send more than one request, but please send them separately!

You can specify MC's gender if you would like to! I generally default to gender neutral.

You can also specify if you would like romantic or platonic! I default to romantic in most cases.

I will be working on them sporadically until all of them are complete. Since they're all going to be pretty short, I'm not sure how long it will take. But if I finish them quickly, I might extend the event.

Thank you for being here and for participating!

masterlist | Thank you for reading!

[storkmuffin]

*crashes through your ceiling* I have another question. Ok I forget which of your previous writings made me thinkg of this, probably something about Seongwha's potential queerness. Ok so part of male idol fanservice is being touchy feely with fellow group members, maybe presenting yourself as more approachable, creating a gay little fantasy scene with your buddies, etc etc. It makes me wonder if, in a way, idols are less restricted by the confines of traditional masculinity? Because there's sort of this layer of plausible deniability, so you can always say "well I'm just acting this way for my job", but at the same time you DO get to act in a way that might be frowned upon in regular society. Then again I'm wondering about it mainly because over here arts like dance, fashion, musicals, have a reputation of attracting All The Queers and of being "more free", so that's the context I'm speaking from. What do you think?

*comes running out of the kitchen with coffee and cake bc OMG here you are!!*

OK so this is another amazing question that I've been thinking about since you asked it absolutely ages ago.

Yes, absolutely. I think this is exactly right. I bet that there are a lot of queer and otherwise non conforming people who are in the performing arts in Korea for the exact reasons you outline. There are many many many more movies about queer Korean people than actually are visible in day to day Korean society, for this same reason, I think. There are many musicals about gayness or have gay characters and themes that get imported, translated and performed in Seoul, when again, I've never met nor heard of an out Korean person in my normie middle class life. It makes sense that queer Koreans would be attracted to the arts if for no other reason than the fact that their existence is not silenced.

In some ways, human cultures are really the same, I think. The lives of performing arts people being free, outside of rigid social norms, and that in a way they are supposed to be freer, wilder, more experimental than 'normies' with their boring stiff respectability, and that's what the normies pay them money for - this seems universal. The normie middle classes still do this the world over, I think. They- well I'm part of them, so, we - are turned on by the wildness and freedom, but don't want things to get too wild, too out of control or too disruptive, so we also have a slight disdain for those that pursue certain of the performing arts. It may be cool but it's not stable, it's not respectable etc.

Queerness when it pertains to individual Koreans is still kind of unspeakable, is what I've learned from my deep dive into Kpop. Even feminist scholars who discourse about "gender queering" will not discuss actual Korean humans being actually queer.

And actually I just looked it up - I did legal research in service of my kpop fandom blogging! - and found that in 2007 there was a ruling that said that repeatedly saying someone was gay, in writing, on the internet, when it isn't true, is defamation under Korean law. The logic of the ruling seems very circular to me, but it goes like this: Homosexuality in and of itself, and the homosexual person, in and of themselves, are value neutral. Being homosexual is not dishonorable in and of itself. But because in Korean society (in 2007) outing yourself can lead to an excessive and invasive amount of scrutiny, and because in the case of this particular precedent apparently the evidence showed that the posting was done with the intention of harming the person repeatedly named as gay, the defendant was guilty of defamation. The defendant had to pay a fine (around $2,000) and appealed, but lost the appeal too. I am now wondering how the plaintiff proved they were straight, or if they even had to?

Well in any case, this explains A WHOLE LOT actually. The chilling effect of this ruling goes a long way to explain the very strange silence and avoidance of speculation as to whether Korean queerness influences, or shapes, or maybe even just invents, Kpop aesthetics and appeal.

And it allows for entertainers to play Are they or aren't they? under the cover of the fact that unless their personal relationship is outed, or they are accused of a sexual crime, nobody in S. Korea can write the kind of tabloid articles that used to be written about closeted stars or stars speculated to be gay in the Western press.

This sort of ruling may protect the individual person from outright homophobic personal attacks, but it also just erases the possibility of open discussion about gayness in the culture at large, doesn't it?

[ffcrazy15]

Man I cannot be the only one who feels that it will be Extremely Uncomfy if the LD writers don't subvert the whole "sexy crime lady planet" vibes with the Orions next season by showing how it's not cool and progressive, actually, to be part of a culture built on massive wealth inequality, sexism, crime, and literal slavery, just because the women are in charge and wear leather and whatever.

Like the whole 'monehead club thing? Fantastic worldbuilding, loved it—provided that next season it's shown that it's actually really uncomfy and frankly scary that those places exist.

Aaaand no, it actually doesn't make all that okay just because Orion is a matriarchal society instead of a patriarchal society. I think that, handled well, next season's Orion arc could be a really fascinating study of a world where the gender roles are indeed truly reversed by means of a physical advantage that women on Orion have over men, and how leveraging that physical advantage to oppress the other gender creates a whole new kind of fucked-up, which humans just don't recognize as bad because we come from the other end of the spectrum. Having Tendi, the Starfleet scientist, use her position in the Syndicate to undermine that system is the only way I can see her character willingly take up the mantle of Mistress of the Winter Constellations again and still be a good person. Also, slavery? I think it's not a good idea for us to forget that Orion has (or at least had) a massive slavery problem.

I trust the LD writers to write a smart and introspective story about this culture. I trust them to take a critical look at this culture and planet and show how it's fucked up and in need of serious reform. But if they don't, I have to admit that I will be...uncomfortable at best, and extremely disappointed at worst.

[boombambaby]

respond to the following prompts out of character, then tag others you'd like to get to know a little bit better.

roleplayer name: Cas!

roleplayer pronouns: she/her -- though I usually go by character's name/gender or don't really care tbh.

muse name(s): Kuzco!

preferred communication: I'm pretty open everywhere. I'm off Weds/Thurs, and I work from 6am - 2pm EST. At work I have access to Tumblr so I can be reached in DM's, and on Discord on breaks. after work I'm usually here for DM's or on Discord all evening until about 10pm EST (though I should try to get to bed earlier tbh). I'm admittedly terrible at communicating, though. You can reply to me, and I'll open it up and read it and be doing something else, and think 'i'll get to it in a few minutes!' and then completely forget that it exists. On that same note, i'm also always worried I'm bothering someone, so I rarely reach out first for messages unless I have a specific question or something. I love to chat though, or discuss our characters or ideas or. . ANYTHING, honestly. I just sometimes need a nudge.

experience: I've been writing/roleplaying since 2005! Started with Myspace and AIM roleplay, moved from there to LiveJournal for a hot minute and then Facebook, Twitter, and eventually Roleplayer.me. Always said I'd NEVER join Tumblr, bc it seemed so confusing, but. Here we are!

preferred roleplay type: I'm a fan of all kinds. I LOVE banter or crack roleplay. It's my all time favorite, and I think it's the best tool for personality building a character you can have. Thinking on your feet in character can be a BLAST and it's just. So fun. Some of the best interactions come from that or prompts. I'm also a fan of sentence multi-para though I have a tendency (if you couldn't tell) to ramble and turn it into a novella pretty easily.

pet peeves & dealbreakers: I honestly don't have any dealbreakers. I've been doing this so long I've learned to roll with the punches, mostly. I'd have to really think about pet peeves, but I don't think I have any. I've had bad situations in the past, I'm sure everyone has. I don't like overly possessive writing partners. If we ship and we're single ship, that's fine. But don't try to dictate who I can and can't speak to or write with. It honestly takes a lot to upset me. Don't include me in drama, don't count me as a number and never interact or straight up ignore me, don't leave me hanging forever (I'm very lenient with replies, I will NEVER pressure you, but if it's been months I might start to question what's going on.) and we'll be cool. EDIT TO ADD; THOUGHT OF A PET PEEVE. RL issues and politics! I understand that the world is a WILD place right now, and there are controversial topics and that everyone has an opinion. That's all fine and good; BUT I ROLEPLAY SPECIFICALLY TO GET AWAY FROM REAL LIFE AND STRESS, and the very LAST thing I want to see on my timeline is a post endorsing a presidential candidate, or posts showing a war zone, or any of the other trending topics right now. Roleplay is a fictional world we create with other writers. It's not that I don't care about those issues, I just don't think they have any place here. and the black outs and things that roleplayers do for 'support' and all that, I just. I don't get it. I don't want to see it. Same with the asks to support x family from x war torn country. Just. please. Don't.

best time to write: Probably in the morning while I'm at work, other than that I can be pretty sporadic. I love to relax and banter and do goofy stuff at night. But honestly, I'm always up for something!

are you like your muse? Ahhhhh, I'm gonna go ahead and say no lol. I can be quick, teasing and sarcastic when I get to know someone, and I'm pretty extroverted like Kuzco with a lot of things; but the cocky arrogance, all about me, flaunting his wealth and tossing people out of windows bit? Total and complete opposite of who I am. Writing him is definitely a TON of fun, and a very welcome relief from the stresses of real life, and I love writing for him so, so much.

tagged by: @wintersovereign

tagging: @smartylina @musemelodies @emeraldofparis @gunslinginnhogtyin @hellsmayflower @keepmovinjunior @lcafman

[olderthannetfic]

The previous convos about sensitivity readers and purity culture in booktwit types definitely feels familiar. I'll never forget when I was querying agents a few years ago with a novel I wrote, and I was told my writing "caused discomfort," was "problematic" and could be seen as racist/anti-black and having a lot of instances of queerphobia and misogynoir. The novel was a horror-fantasy story that actually was based on the transatlantic slave trade but on a different planet (So, yes, I would hope that this kind of story would be disturbing and cause discomfort in the reader. Mission accomplished). The plot covered several generations of the captured aliens who were enslaved (a la A Hundred Years of Solitude), the fallout of their enslavement, and the mistreatment of the enslaved people as a result. Most of the agents who requested the full manuscript said they liked the story, but I was met with many intrusive questions about my identity, race, gender, and sexuality and urges to work with a sensitivity reader should we progress forward as agent and writer. I am a Black, femme nonbinary, bisexual person. This was all fine and dandy with them, so they wanted to make this information about my identity public for consumers to appease the Twitter crowd and dissuade callout posts from the functionally illiterate. I wanted to maintain my dignity and not disclose any personal information. (They assumed it was because I was in the closet or something. I was not then and am not now. My identity just isn't anyone's business if they want to read a book, simple as that. This was also especially because there are mentions of sexual assault of some characters, and that kind of information definitely isn't anyone's business to know about an author. Period.) I also didn't want to hire a sensitivity reader because they were advertised to me as someone who performed outrage at works for a living (It also didn't help that I was linked to a few sensitivity readers who were very vocal on YA book Twitter and SFF Twitter. No thank you.). This was, apparently, a problem. That was when I decided publishing may not be for me, at least traditional publishing.

--

Yeah, sadly, I feel there is an audience for that book, but you're going to have to find it yourself. Anything YA adjacent is too outrage-driven without the necessary nuance, but a lot of more oldschool SFF circles are too full of the kind of sensitive, delicate white guys who wouldn't get this book either. Maybe an indie black press? Somewhere with a more literary bent that thrives on controversial books? Depending on how horror-y it is, maybe there's an avenue to pursue there. Horror fans do include a lot of manbabies too, but those circles can be more open to actually dark stuff.

At least self publishing is easy now, but self publishing and then getting a significant number of people to buy and read the book is hard.

I promise that decent sensitivity readers exist, but the ones that crowd is going to send you to are... not equipped to deal with dark horror fantasy, in my opinion.

And as a writer, I wouldn't work with anyone I didn't know pretty well anyway. How are you supposed to evaluate the feedback of a rando? What if they fundamentally don't get your genre?

If you do decide to press on, I think I'd look for like-minded fellow writers to begin with. Start a club. Serialize your stuff in the same place. IDK. There are plenty of grown-ass adults who buy books and who like nuance. There's got to be some way to find your audience.

It would be a pity to give up just because publishing is full of cowards.

[pluralprompts]

do u have any tips in case a singlet wants to write a system

This went unanswered for a long time because We were going back and forth about answering this with an essay but honestly? The best tip I can give is to not overthink it.

Plenty of singlet (or possibly singlet) writers write plurality very well! I think it's a decently common joke for systems to point out how random characters are basically systems in all but name when that may not have been the author's intention. The thing about plurality in fiction is that it's a trope in the way gender fuckery can be a trope; people can write plurality without knowing about IRL plurality and people can write about gender fuckery without knowing about IRL gender fuckery. Plurality is such a natural concept (and extrapolation of wondering about the self/personhood/one's body/a number of things, really) that people can write it without being aware it's a reality for some folks. It's not that weird for an author to go "what if this person was actually many persons" (whether metaphorically or literally) and add that to their story. It's just a thing that happens.

So, I guess I'm saying that you don't need to put a lot of pressure on yourself on getting everything exact or realistic so much as just letting your story breathe with the plurality you add to it. Especially with how different systems can be; we're a really diverse bunch, so something that makes one system go "That's me!" will inevitably make another go "This isn't like me at all." Don't worry so much about being realistic or resonating with every system out there. And again, don't overthink it – the only thing I'd really recommend you ask around about is how plurality affects different areas of people's lives. You'll probably get a variety of answers, so choose what works best for your character, but the point is that being a system is something that affects a lot more of one's life than one might think (especially when it comes to making decisions; we've got to take each other into account for those), so including that makes your character really pop out to us plurals.

Because the thing is, although a lot of singlet writers are good at writing plurality, they're not always good at keeping it consistent. And by that I mean they seem to forget it exists whenever it's not immediately relevant to a scene, treating the system's plurality as only a plot device, rather than something that affects the character. Plurality can be a plot device, but if it's only ever treated as that and the author conveniently forgets the implications of it (like how it affects everyday life, or how the character might feel about their plurality, or how others might react to it), it becomes rather hollow. It's failed potential, in a sense. Like when a really cool detail of a character's past gets brought up for one paragraph and then never again, or a character detail is casually mentioned but the reader goes, "Wait, shouldn't this be a big deal?" You don't have to make your character's plurality an emotionally big deal, but it should still be an important aspect of their life, and that's the hole most of these authors fall into; they know plurality as a trope, and they know how they want to use that trope, but they limit themselves to how they want to use it, and don't see how they could be using it in other ways – how it might be more logical to use it, even.

It's a double-edged sword, this awareness of plurality only as a concept. Luckily for you, you have plenty of examples to turn to about the wacky, mundane, and upsetting stuff systems get up to in everyday life, and how our plurality affects us (and if you want to ask about specific scenarios, plenty of systems are fine with answering questions like that!). Include bits of that here and there, and you're good to go.

TLDR: if you're adding a system character to your roster, don't work yourself into a tizzy trying to get everything "right", but ask yourself every once in a while if/how their plurality would affect things. The only things we ask are to not rely on the evil alter trope and to not reduce plurality to an unimportant detail or something that doesn't really affect your character, since even if it's something casual to the character, it's still something that's constantly going to be a part of them.

(Oh, but as a final extra tip... since no one way of writing a system is going to resonate with all of us, go ahead and embrace that. Make your character's plurality specific to them, and ask lots of questions about what different aspects of system life are like to them. What's switching like for them? Do they have memory issues? Does their family know? Does anyone? What's their origin(s)? Do those origins still affect them today? Do they have an innerworld? Stuff like that! It's a whole new world of character customization, so go ham and bring your character's system to life.)

Hope this helps!