#come on man what happened to unique and interesting characters…what happened to complexity ..

[cetoddle]

i’m not an expert on literally anything in the world but as a media consumer i can confidently say that if the main selling point/only interesting thing you have to say about your character is that they’re queer then they are just not a very good character

[mrs-stans]

INTERVIEW: Sebastian Stan on Curiosity, Confrontation, and His Oscar Contenders

Sebastian Stan has had a wild twelve months that I strangely found myself a small part of.

Stan received critical acclaim and awards attention for two films: A Different Man, where he played an actor with a facial disfigurement, and The Apprentice, where he played a young Donald Trump. Both performances are intricately detailed and precise, evading stereotypes and caricatures amidst shifting themes and tones. They also encapsulate a common theme in his work that I first noticed in Fresh: exploring characters’ darker impulses that others either miss or deliberately ignore. Despite their acclaim, both films struggled with distribution and promotion, with The Apprentice facing lawsuit threats and industry hesitance to engage with the film. He went viral after revealing that he couldn’t participate in Variety’s Actors on Actors series because other actors’ publicists didn’t want them discussing the newly-elected president. (My tweet describing the situation as reprehensible went viral, too.) Despite the blowback, Stan remained upfront and outspoken, fashioning himself as a fearless, principled artist during a fraught political and cultural moment.

Stan’s unique position and detailed approach to his work were reinforced in my interview with him for AwardsWatch, conducted days after he won the Golden Globe for A Different Man and before his Oscar nomination for The Apprentice. It was a full circle moment of sorts for me, after advocating for A Different Man since seeing it in April, interviewing Matia Bakalova for The Apprentice, and meeting director Aaron Schimberg following a screening in New York. During our conversation, I sensed that he wanted to meet his moment in time responsibly, emphasizing how important curiosity and empathy were to the human condition. Given his challenges in releasing and promoting his films, I also sensed, through our few interactions, how genuinely moved he was by the support and recognition he’s received. (Case in point: he was incredibly generous with his time when he didn’t have to be.) It’s near-impossible not to be thrilled for him and the acknowledgment of his talent and thoughtfulness.

My goal in publishing this interview in full is for others to sense what I have about Sebastian Stan over these past twelve months by giving him the space to share his journey, in this awards season and in the larger context of his complex career.

[NOTE: This interview has been slightly edited for clarity.]

It’s an embarrassment of riches to say you are in two awards-contending films, The Apprentice and A Different Man. What has the experience been like for you this season?

It’s been very surreal. You never really know the outcomes of any film when you go and make them. You’re always just hoping they turn out well, especially if they’re shot under crazy circumstances, which both of these films were. A Different Man was 24 days, still in COVID, in New York, and it was just running and gunning to try and make the day, every day. And [Aaron] was trying to shoot it on film, and he had these beautiful one-take shots, which required everybody in the crew to be on the same page. And then The Apprentice, I’ve been trying to get going since 2019, and every time we got close, it fell apart. [So] you hope people will watch it. And when you get into this wild time that is the fall, where you’ve got so many films coming out and major studios contending like Netflix, Amazon, and Apple, and everyone’s got their horses in the race, so to speak, you don’t know if your movie will cut through.

A Different Man had an interesting journey. It’s amazing because Aaron and I kept saying, “Look, somehow we’re at the Gothams, and then the Gotham thing happened.” Or, “Wow, we’re at the Globes,” or, “Wow, we got to Berlin.” There were all these signs that this film was connecting with people, but it felt like we always had to be the cheerleaders to A24 about it [and say], “Let’s keep going.”

With The Apprentice, it had no marketing. When we finally got the movie from, basically, not being almost censored, we had two and a half months of trying to get the film out with any marketing, like billboards on Sunset Boulevard or anything like that. So when you get to the Globes, and I’m sitting there, and I’m going, “Wow, this actually happened with both of these films,” you can’t help but feel grateful because this is the win. This is probably as good as it’s going to get. And then, obviously, anything that happens after that is an amazing moment, but in terms of getting both films seen, it helps to have those moments.

How do you feel after winning the Globe? I’m sure there’s probably some vindication or celebration of the fact that this film you championed was recognized in the first major event of the season.

It was incredibly gratifying for many reasons. One, for the film and getting more attention to it. Two, for the film’s subject matter. It’s not an easy, simple film. It’s beautiful, complex, funny, and tragic and speaks to such big questions and themes. When you look at films like that, there aren’t a lot out there. You want to encourage people like Aaron Schimberg to keep working and making them, for people to keep looking at Adam Pearson as an actor first and not as somebody with a disfigurement, and to envision him in [other] ways. I think that’s what this movie does so brilliantly; for that purpose, it’s amazing.

For me, at 42 years old, having been around and doing this for 20-somewhat years, you’re always hoping that you’re going to be up there someday and thank some of these people. I could’ve been up there for an hour, you know? So many people have contributed to my life, and you just want to highlight everybody. But it was a nice moment for my mom and the close people in my life.

But then it was scary because…we woke up the next day, and 24 hours later, these fires were happening, and suddenly, we were in a different world, and we’ve been in a different world since. It’s been hard to look back at that because it’s been crazy watching so many people lose their homes, people that I know.

Hopefully, everything’s been okay for you.

Yeah, everything’s okay. Fortunately, everyone’s okay, but there are friends and people we know who have lost their homes and everything…or just the entire neighborhood, especially in the Palisades area. It’s really difficult to wrap your mind around it. Mother Nature…I don’t know if there’s anything more humbling than that, right? We all end up being put in the backseat, and none of it really matters at that point. We’re all in the same boat, you know? But hopefully, we’ll get a little bit better today.

I really hope so. Now, getting into your career and these films, do you see any similarities between the two roles of Edward/Guy and Donald Trump?

I do because, to me, I feel like they are two different forms of narcissism, two different forms of extreme narcissism. When I think of narcissism, I think of denying and suppressing who we really are and inventing another person. If you want to look at psychological terms, you call it the super-ego. When the distance between your true self and this other invented version you’re putting forward continues to grow because you’re constantly suppressing and lying about yourself, you have to create a bigger and bigger lie. It starts to have consequences that affect you and the people around you.

Edward is a singular person in his own world, [while Trump] happens to be a political figure who is meant to be a leader and an authoritative figure, meant to be an example to other people. His reach and how he inspires certain people goes much, much further. I’ve always seen both films as a denial of reality and a loss of humanity. That’s what the Trump story is to me. It’s what happens when you completely abandon empathy and morals and are only trying to fuel and feed this one particular need, and you have no regard for consequences that affect other people. Everything’s transactional as long as he can keep his lie alive.

What I see in Trump is a very broken, pained, paranoid, insecure little boy. I don’t say that to simply go, “Yes, he’s human, and you should feel bad for him.” I also say that to highlight the flaws that might get in the way of this person having power, moral authority, and so on. I don’t know if that’s the person I would necessarily trust, you know? Even in these horrific fires, instead of offering solutions, he’s sitting there and using what’s happening in California to serve his story and narrative, point fingers, and assign blame. It’s horrific to me.

With Edward, he feels that he’s made a mistake denying or suppressing himself, but he’s not connecting with that, and, as a result, he ends up becoming kind of a monster himself. Everything revolves around what has been taken from him, but he never assumes responsibility for the fact that he surrendered rather than someone having taken it from him. There are these complex themes that I think are relatable and interesting, and I don’t know if people connect that with those two movies, but I was able to speak about them for the last few months.

What I find fascinating about your career, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that I think you’ve selected characters who have some form of inner darkness beneath the “Sebastian Stan of it all.” I think you’ve done a great job communicating that darkness and how it manifests and festers in different ways. Sometimes it’s loud and funny and exciting, like in Pam and Tommy, and sometimes it can be dark and insidious, like in The Apprentice, Sharper and Destroyer. Is that something you’ve been actively seeking?

I think I have been curious about gravitating towards things that feel complex or I don’t quite understand right away because I find that’s how people are. I think sometimes, when we have discomfort with certain films, the pity of that discomfort can translate into ignoring something altogether because “I don’t want to go there.” Sometimes, it’s something we haven’t confronted yet or don’t want to confront. To me, one of those is that we are not perfect people. People are flawed and are all susceptible to going in very different ways.

I think we all walk around with some version of an angel and a devil on each shoulder. Every day is a decision we make to go out in the world and either hurt or try to help somebody, even in a small way. Like, you go and get a cup of coffee, and maybe you smile at the person, or you don’t even look at them. We’re conscious of things; we’re not conscious of things.

I’m always trying to learn more about myself. I don’t think of any roles as particularly reflective of me, necessarily, but I like surprising myself. I think that’s what I’m supposed to do as an actor: keep exploring humanity and its diversity. I love when there are these roles that feel closer to the truth, that it’s not always black and white, that it’s not always just a good guy and a bad guy. It’s complex. Unfortunately, there are very good people in the world who don’t have the tools and sometimes end up hurting others. There are also sometimes psychopaths that can reflect one good quality, and you wonder if somebody in their life had supported that quality more, would it have been different? I think that’s what’s interesting to me: just how big the scope is in terms of being a human.

Digging into the films themselves, we can start with The Apprentice; I spoke with Maria Bakalova last month, and she told me — and I was blown away by this — that the scene where Donald breaks down after Fred Junior’s death was largely improvised. I’d love to know how you conceived that moment.

I think that was an experience that’s so reflective of my process and how I approach this work. You can go home at night and do all this preparation. You prepare for months before and hope you get there, and you surrender to the director, the other actors, the moment, the scene. You envision things sometimes going a certain way, but almost nine out of 10 times, they don’t go that way. There’s something else happening, and it’s always about staying open to that.

In the script, there was always this moment with Donald being alone in the bathroom and breaking down, and then Ivana walks in and finds him and he quickly cleans himself up and says, “Nothing happened.” We shot it a couple of times, and there were takes where that happened. Then there was another take where, in the moment, I froze, and that was the truth of the scene. Maria walked in, and I knew we weren’t shooting the scene we were supposed to. But we still stayed in it and explored what happened. Fortunately, as was the process with the whole movie, Ali kept rolling, and thankfully, it carried us into the bedroom. We got into bed, and she put her hand on my hand. And then suddenly, all that [emotion] started to happen in that moment. Then I jumped and punched the wall, which didn’t make it into the film, but you had this moment before, which did.

That’s the beauty of this work, what I love about it. If you stay open, there’s a way it can go where you didn’t see it going that ends up being closer to the truth. And you want it always to be as close to the truth as possible.

What aspect of Donald Trump were you most excited and scared to explore?

It’s a really great question; thank you for asking that. I feel actors have to stay curious. I think the creative language is more powerful than any language we have on this earth. No matter where we come from, what we believe, how we were raised, or what language we speak, it’s the one thing that I feel, human to human, we can get to if we can allow ourselves to stay curious.

For me, I thought, “I really want to let me try and find out who this person is.” Going back in time and looking at some of the early footage [of him], I saw a vulnerability and insecurity there that I didn’t know existed, that seemed to be buried down deep underneath this pile of bravado, this carefully curated, Clint Eastwood-like, Zoolander stare down that we’re getting. There was a real person there at one point. I wanted to know more about that and how he became what he became.

I think what scared me the most was, knowing that he’s so well-known and in our faces everywhere, that I felt it was almost near-impossible to get anyone even to spend two hours trying to figure out who this guy was. He’s been done so many times. There are so many caricatures and impressions of him, and these mannerisms that he has now, the way he speaks, the lips, everything… I had to pick and choose how to filter that out through two hours so that people could connect with and believe in the reality and not be disconnected because of what they know.

What helped was that, when he was younger, he was less. There was a lot less of what you see now, those things that have built over time. His voice didn’t sound like he does now; his mannerisms weren’t as specific. That was the challenge and fear, just knowing that if I do a little too much too soon, I’m going to lose everybody. I’m just going to be thrown in there as just another kind of impression.

You’ve spoken about growing up in Romania during the collapse of the Soviet Union, experiencing political unrest and dissent. Did any of those personal experiences shape your performance of Trump or how you approached the film overall?

Yeah, totally. I think this idea about the American Dream that I, my parents, and everybody else in Romania at the time were dreaming and talking about was what I was trying to explore with [the film]. It’s about Trump and Roy Cohn, but it’s also about this ideology. What does it really do to a person? I think we see this over time. There are plenty of examples… if you look at Elon Musk… he keeps growing stronger and bigger, and there’s this idea of power corrupting absolutely. You can make your own thoughts about what he’s become, but there’s something about this American Dream.

When I came to America, my mom said, “We’re here now, and I’ve sacrificed my life, and you have to make something of yourself because you’re going to have this opportunity that so many kids are not going to have. You’re lucky that we got this far.” This is something that 100% helped me, but it’s complicated. I hear that; it drives me, but I also feel this burden of responsibility and this pressure of, “What if I fail? What if it doesn’t happen? How do I deal with this?”

I find that many people in this business, and Silicon Valley and Wall Street, you see people getting more money, accumulating more things or more awards, or they get there, and it’s never enough. There’s always something else, so they have to get another thing. If you’re nominated once for one Oscar and don’t get nominated for another 10 years, then you’re in the “one-time-only club.”

This is, to me, part of the story of The Apprentice. When is it enough, and what does it do to a person? So I think my journey through Vienna and coming here and trying to understand what it means to be an American, growing up in America, 100% influenced me with that part, and probably also drove me to do it.

Moving to A Different Man, the first thing that struck me was how you retain Edward’s physicality while playing Guy while also performing what Guy imagines being a person who never had a physical disability or disfigurement is like. Could you walk me through that process?

On a technical, scientific level, our muscles hold memory. It’s why, sometimes, people talk about improving posture and how standing up straight and walking into a room can influence mood, and there’s a lot of research into that. So, even though you’re dying your hair, losing weight, going to the gym, or [doing] whatever else to feel like you belong more, it doesn’t necessarily change the muscle memory that you carry. There are certain things and traumas over time that will always be there. You may still react to something the same way years later, depending on how much work you’ve done.

For me, [there was] trauma that came from the prosthetics and walking around the city. When I was walking around, I was so self-conscious. I felt people walk by me. Some would look, some would ignore me, but everything in my body was telling me to go in. All I wanted to do was go into myself, get through that street, and get to my destination as quickly as possible. So, as a result, I was walking a certain way, and I felt powerlessness, and I realized that was not going away for Edward.

Edward changes his physical appearance, but he’s never confronted any of the things he feels most in pain about on an internal level, so those things will continue. He might get better and go, “Oh, wait, people don’t look at me that way anymore, so I can actually be this guy.” But when he’s not conscious of it, he’s just falling right into who he was because there was no growth there for him.

It was also important for me to keep certain things about him that were recognizable from an audience standpoint that they’ll see later. I love what you said because I don’t think many people have picked up on Edward as Guy is Edward’s idea of what he should be like as an “able-bodied person.”

The other piece that helped me was speaking with this amazing woman, Elna Baker, who wrote a book about losing nearly 100 pounds. She lost all this weight, and suddenly, she was walking down the street and noticing men and women looking at her. She was finally the person she envisioned herself to be or felt she was. Over time, she started to miss her old self, to the point where she was missing people gawking at her and how heavy she used to be. I thought it was so interesting that this transformation for her didn’t ultimately pay off as she had hoped, that the inner peace, calm, and self-acceptance were not there. She talked about how there were things that she could do that she had never done before, but they weren’t fulfilling her in any way.

In a similar way, I think Guy ends up going down this path that he thinks will supply him with all these things that he’s watched other people have for years, but it’s actually made his life quite boring.

For me, one of the year’s best scenes is when Guy watches Oswald do karaoke and then watches the audience react to Oswald in a way that Guy doesn’t expect. I’d love to know what you were thinking at that moment because it was gorgeously acted, and you were communicating rank devastation through your eyes.

I appreciate that. I never really thought at that moment about how much that scene would ultimately mean. But I think it’s the first time Edward is confronted with this reality and denial of self in a very real way. A lot is happening there. I think he’s fascinated and curious. I think he’s looking for validation. I think he’s hoping that other people will judge Oswald the way he’s judging Oswald in that moment because judging Oswald helps keep his own lie alive.

At one point, he sees these two girls laughing and feels, “Oh, they’re laughing. Okay, good. I made the right choice. They’re laughing as they should because they would laugh at me.” But actually, you don’t even know if they’re laughing at Oswald. So I think it’s a lot of fear and fascination, and he can no longer run from what he’s been denying, which is, “Oh, this could’ve been me. I could’ve owned myself, and perhaps I would’ve been fine.” I think he’s dealing with that, and from that point on, it starts to grow until the end of the movie, when he murders the physical therapist. It keeps growing because of the desperation of trying to maintain the lie of, “No, no, no, I did the right thing,” and it continues to spiral out of control.

That scene is about somebody who’s in total ownership of themselves, which, by the way, I feel Adam is like in life, which is incredible. And then you have somebody who unfortunately realizes they’ve made the biggest mistake of their life.

I’m glad you brought up Adam because his performance is extraordinary, and I wish it were being recognized more this season. But you did thank Adam in your Golden Globe speech for “his trust.” How do you two work together to establish that trust, and how did it manifest on screen?

I think with anybody you’re about to go into the trenches with, we met before, and kind of sussed each other out a little bit, and I just felt, “This is going to be great. This is going to work out.” We were both on the same page about what we wanted here. With Adam and A Different Man, I really felt that he was going to be this lighthouse for me, in terms of trying to understand how to approach this and how I should, in a way, best represent him. I was really in service to him and Aaron.

There was a lot of conversation around how he grew up, his childhood, and his experiences, what he encounters daily online. When we go back again to what we said at the beginning about the loss of humanity, sensitivity, and empathy that’s transpiring online between people, how we attack other people anonymously. It’s like, where do we get that from? Maybe people in power are giving permission to do that, you know? So, the fact that Adam can go out there every day and outwit any of these people and that he’s had to do that for so much of his life is very inspiring and shows how brave he is.

I wanted to understand how one gets to that point. I knew that [Adam] was very different from Edward, but it was also about creating Edward’s past and background. Unlike Adam, who fortunately had a really strong support system with his mother and his family, all we know is that Edward’s mom had passed, and we don’t really know what else transpired. There are many cases that I found researching online of people with disfigurement or different kinds of disabilities who had been abandoned, orphaned, or never had that support system from their families. So, it was interesting, but I felt that whatever I was going to do would always have to be in step with Adam and, of course, Aaron.

One last question to wrap up: what do you want people to take away from these two films?

I still feel, and I was saying this on Sunday night, that there is discomfort around these subject matters that confront us on a level we’re afraid to go to. I think both films do that, and I hope people don’t turn the other way. I don’t believe it’s always ill-intentioned towards disability and disfigurement. I think sometimes people are curious, but they’re afraid of being curious, and they’d rather just look the other way and not confront anything. I’m saying this as someone who’s learned that from Adam. Curiosity is okay. It’s okay to be interested. That’s why I had a little kid come up to me when I was in the prosthetics and was very okay and engaging because that was pure curiosity. There was no judgment yet.

At the same time…there were times when Adam and I were trying to do press together, and we couldn’t… they’d rather only have me. There were things like that that are still not ill-intentioned, but they didn’t want to go there because they didn’t quite know how to deal with [the situation]. As a result, nothing happens.

With The Apprentice, obviously, there’s fatigue and a lot of emotions, and none of that is wrong, but we have to be conscious of that part that leads to fear and indifference. I’ll hear people go, “I’ll watch this after the election.” Well, the world might be very different by that point. It feels a little bit like kicking the can down the road and not confronting reality.

I think this is a unique situation because… we’re confronting something as it’s happening. We’re not waiting 5-10 years after we’ve digested everything. We can look back at the mistakes we made and [whether] that was the right call, and I think that’s what put people in the hot seat. But as I referred to the creative language, it’s about staying curious and open to keep us informed, human to human.

There’s a lot that both of these films are talking about: narcissism, empathy, the loss of self, and acceptance. You’re not necessarily going to get these things from Wikipedia, your email, a news channel, or somebody else telling you on TikTok. You’re going to get that from experiences with other people. When you’re having kids growing up, especially now, with phones and laptops that they’re basically chaining us to, human-to-human connection and empathy are something we have to keep protecting and nourishing. We can do that through movies, books, and art. Not AI algorithms that feed a certain kind of “selective free speech,” but things that reflect how complex [life] is so that we can have an experience. That’s valuable.

I was lucky enough to be in two complicated films that I think were confronting people in certain ways. We’ve been seeing that some people got it, and others aren’t ready for that yet, but I’d rather be on that side than the safe side.

[descendant-of-truth]

If I may throw my hat into the ring here, I think the source of a lot of problems in the writing of Miraculous can be boiled down to its confusion over its target demographic.

There are two very clear audiences the show is trying to cater to:

Grade school girls around 5-10

Teens/young adults around 15-20

And this results in some. unique conflicts in the show's internal logic.

Because it's a superhero show for little kids, it's full of fun, bright colors, wacky villain-of-the-week designs, and the characters are all very straightforward with exaggerated personality traits. The cheerful, clumsy, scatterbrained girl protagonist, her utterly charming and goofy (but slightly clueless) love interest, her cool best friend, her mean bully, etc.

This extends to the romance; the show is so comedic that Marinette's nervous crush and Cat Noir's flirting are played up for laughs. Their more "problematic" behaviors read as cartoon shenanigans first and foremost, which I do think was the intention - they're both shown as being more than a little ridiculous for acting this way, so they're not exactly trying to encourage people to emulate them. They're allowed to be genuinely wholesome, too, because it's nice to give the kids something to go "aww!" at, but it's not meant to be more complicated or deep than that.

And of course, it's gotta follow a sweet and simple episodic formula! A conflict in Marinette's civilian life, an inciting incident to get a side character upset enough for Hawk Moth to turn into a villain, Ladybug and Cat Noir show up, there's fun banter, Ladybug uses her Lucky Charm to figure out a wacky solution to the problem, and boom! The day is saved, Marinette and/or someone else learns a moral, and we get a cute little end screen showing all the key players of the episode.

The one aspect of the show's setup that's a little more serious is the fact that Adrien has a super controlling and distant father, but even this is something that doesn't necessarily break the kid-friendly tone for the first season or two. Superhero shows in particular like to put in some stuff that's a little more emotionally challenging for the viewers, even when they're mostly comedic, so it's not totally out of place here.

For example, while they tend to have more grounded tones overall, Spider-Man cartoons are aimed at kids and regularly keep the conflict between Harry Osborn and his father, Norman, intact; often including the plot point of Norman being the Green Goblin, a notorious villain. It's a similar deal with Adrien, and his dad secretly being Hawk Moth.

You can easily anticipate drama coming from this, but the show primes you to expect it to work out fine in the end because every other conflict so far has been wrapped up in a nice little bow once the episode's over. Though I will say, the choice to have Hawk Moth be Gabriel instead of his own, separate character is perhaps the first sign of the tone shift to come.

And, uh. it sure is a shift.

See, Miraculous does not start out with what you'd call a... plot. It vaguely alludes to there being more going on behind the scenes, but the only thing it really tries to get you invested in is the Love Square dynamic. Marinette and Adrien dancing around each other while fighting crime IS the plot, and it's clearly going to end with a cool final confrontation with Hawk Moth.

You expect it to end like... well, like the movie. Identities are revealed, Gabriel realizes the error of his ways when he finds out he's been fighting his son this whole time, and they may or may not make up but he almost definitely gets arrested. Marinette and Adrien kiss, roll credits.

This is not what happens, because the plot the writers actually had in mind is complex in a way that I would argue is meant for the same audience as YA novels. And with that plot comes a lot of darker, weightier traits to these otherwise silly characters.

Marinette isn't just scatterbrained and nervous, she has debilitating anxiety and an increasing need to be in control of everything due to the stress she's under. She has panic attacks on-screen. She's not just great at strategizing, she also knows how to manipulate people, and does so with increasing frequency - and to Cat Noir at times, no less. Her positive traits haven't gone anywhere, she's still loving and creative and sweet and doing her best to help everyone she can, she just. has all of that other stuff going on, now.

Adrien isn't just a charming, goofy, clueless love interest with a gazillion skills and a controlling father, he's like. actively being abused, and in some cases straight-up mind controlled. His tendency to heroically sacrifice himself so that Ladybug can do her Cool Protagonist Thing is gradually but unmistakably reframed as being a sign of suicidal inclinations. He has identity issues out the wazoo and he doesn't even know he's an artificially created human yet, because everyone in his life is keeping secrets from him and/or lying to his face about crucial information.

Information like, uh. how his dad died???

Yeah, so we're at a point in the story now where there was no satisfying conclusion to the Gabriel plot, no team-up, no moment where he realizes he's been fighting his son, none of that. He still has something akin to a change of heart, but he also still kind of gets what he wants - the Miraculous of the Ladybug and Black Cat, which he uses to rewrite the universe with a wish. It's just that instead of reviving his wife, he trades his life for Natalie's. Of course, he was already dying anyway, which was his own fault but he did force Cat Noir's Cataclysm onto himself, so, that's another thing poor Adrien is going to have to deal with at some point.

And because there's all these astronomically messed up things in Adrien's life, and Marinette's the one who got to learn about all of it before him, she decides that maybe it would be better if he just. didn't know about it. Which is understandable, if I was 14 and had all this information about my boyfriend's life that he didn't, I wouldn't know how to begin telling him about it, either.

But. can you see how we've maybe lost the plot, here?

Here's the thing: starting with a simple framework and gradually getting more complex and subverting the audience's expectations for how the main villain is going to be dealt with is not a bad thing. The fact that it gets darker over time is not an issue. I actually think that all these developments are, themselves, pretty cool! I'm a sucker for angst and complex character dynamics and the show is absolutely giving me those things.

The problem is that it didn't just start with a simple framework, it started with the framework for a different demographic entirely, and perhaps just as importantly, it never actually... stopped.

For as much complexity and intensity they're injecting this story with, they're still working under the logic of it being "for young kids." We still get goofy villain-of-the-week designs with equally goofy motivations, and the supporting cast is stuck remaining two-dimensional no matter their circumstances. Chloe is the most blatant example of this - she was made to be a simple bully first, so no matter what else they do with her, she has to remain straightforwardly evil.

This, I think, is the reason that Gabriel is a more nuanced and "sympathetic" antagonist than her, and why so much care goes into Adrien's character as a victim of abuse while Chloe is just a Problem Child despite suffering similar neglect; she wasn't made to be interesting, and so the show is resistant to changing that. Gabriel and Adrien, however, were already made with nuance in mind, and so they're allowed to develop as characters. And at the same time, it's a kid's show! We need to teach the kids what kind of behavior is acceptable, and Chloe's home life isn't an excuse to treat people badly, so--!

...Oh crap we're supposed to be teaching kids about acceptable behavior. Uh. Um. Quick, bring back the ice cream akuma who cares way too much about his ships so that Cat Noir can learn about consent! Uhh, but don't change his character too much afterwards, he's only marketable because of his silly flirting, and we can't lose that.

Yeah, remember when I said that the romance having problematic elements to it used to work well enough because it was clearly just exaggerated cartooniness? It wasn't free from criticism or anything, but you could see how it was intended to be endearing and silly, right? You were supposed to point and laugh at Marinette's convoluted plans to spend time with Adrien, at Cat Noir's dramatic flirting attempts that Ladybug herself fondly rolled her eyes at.

The tonal shift into deep character exploration kinda paints the previous stuff in a worse light, and to an extent, I think the writers know that. It's hard to laugh at Cat Noir being flirty all the time when he's also supposed to be taken completely seriously, and the more Ladybug rejects him, the more it turns into harassment, and it. kinda just stops being funny, even with the comedic framing.

It's also hard to laugh at Marinette's crush being so all-consuming when they try to tell us (in what I can only assume was an attempt to get people to stop complaining) that she's like this because it's fueled by an event in her past, one that made her so scared of loving the wrong person that she now needs to know Everything about them before asking them out. Her cartoon antics aren't funny under that light, it's just concerning, but they're dedicated to keeping it up anyway.

The show runs on straightforward cartoon logic where you're not supposed to think about it too hard just as much as it runs on grounded, closer-to-real-life logic where people are messy and complicated and actions have consequences. It's so divided that you can hand-pick parts of the story that are influenced by one or the other pretty easily, and depending on the episode you can find instances of both in the same 20-minute time span. Maybe even multiple times!

Neither thing they're trying to go for is bad, and neither is a better approach than the other, but forcing them into the same show makes both sides suffer.

It's not just hard to laugh at the parts I mentioned earlier, it's hard to take Gabriel seriously as a villain whenever you rewatch an episode and remember that he has a once-per-episode pun-based speech that he says so self-seriously that you can't help but laugh at. It's hard to take him seriously when you remember that he repeatedly akumatized a Literal Baby and practically threw a tantrum every time it didn't work, or when he randomly steals (and enthusiastically performs) his nephew's musical dance number, or something similar that you would only do for a cartoon villain aimed at five-year-olds.

And I can only imagine this whole show is a marketing nightmare, too. Hey, little girls, here's your cool role model! She's cute and smart and talented and powerful and can fix anything by shouting the title of the show! Hope you're having fun watching her tell her boyfriend that his newly-deceased father (who used deepfakes of him to sell merchandise that's built to enslave the population and then locked him in a solitary confinement chamber in another country) was actually a hero who sacrificed himself to stop the main villain instead of, y'know, being the main villain! Aren't you excited to watch her wrestle with the guilt of this lie for the next season or so? Doesn't it just make you want to buy her merchandise??

Like. what is even happening right now. what am I watching. how did we get here and why did we start where we did if this was what the story was going to be about

[foxconfessorandthewolf]

Okay, so I’m a bit wine drunk but I don’t think I’ve ever really articulated why I love Snarry together and I’m currently trying to finish a fic after taking a three-year-hiatus from writing these two, so this is probably a good exercise!

I’m a bit on the older side of fandom, having been a fanartist and fervent reader since 2003, so my connection was really sparked during that time between OOTP and HBP when Snape and Harry were at some of their most clashing and deeply vitriolic, forced together into hateful vulnerability by Occulmency lessons. Every scene between them was electric, laced with tension as we truly did not know how things would go, or even where Snape’s true loyalties lay. He was an unknown, tied up with Harry’s own family’s mysterious past, connected to Harry in a myriad of odd ways that few other characters were, and - as a rivals-to-lovers lover - I was fascinated by him. From that first moment when they lock eyes in the Great Hall and that frisson of pain shoots through Harry’s scar, I desperately wanted to know who the hell this man was and his story. I think a lot of Snarry shippers come to the ship with a special appreciation for Severus Snape’s character himself. He’s such an incredibly drawn character, rich with complexity, complicated and pretty fucked up, with clearly-held passions, hatreds, weaknesses, and motivations. He’s emotional in a way a lot of other characters aren’t, though I think he’d loathe to hear that. And his character voice! It’s unique and pitch-perfect. You always know exactly who is speaking with his lines. Honestly, the way he evolved from a spy/traitor stock character to become so multifaceted and enigmatic is a masterpiece of characterization, and it’s an aspect of why I’m drawn to him - there’s still so much about his origins and well, what his damage was, that we don’t know. Because of this, I especially love Snarry fics that delve into character studies of him, trying to explore all the shadows left behind. I also admit I have a preference for interpreting Snape as morally grey. I like him petty, sharp-tongued, ambitious, with an incredibly liquid definition of what is right and wrong. He’s self-interested, dripping with disdain, and really doesn’t see that as a problem. What happens to him when he deeply falls in love?

I love a ship that makes me work for it. There’s no obvious line of how Snape and Harry might wind up together, so each fic is a wealth of possibilities of bringing these two together despite their roadblocks. As I mentioned, I’m big fan of animosity in a ship. Give me rivals, give me enemies, give me the sparking passions, the sharp fury, the way they stoke each others’ emotions and seek to hurt, the racing hearts, the raised hackles, the intense emotional reaction to another person. Just throw it at me. I devour that shit. I love the messy and taboo nature of their relationship, the complications raising from their age difference, temperaments, and largely similar and shared traumas. There’s an interesting element of Snape being a foil to James Potter, and how that relates to Harry and their past. Basically, this shit is really good potting soil for incredible fucking fics, packed with nutrients.

The shared natures of their traumas, like Voldemort and each being forgotten and abused as children and how they might be able to understand each other and bond from it is also something that’s fascinating to explore. I love when a writer pushes on Snape’s bruises, looking to make them hurt, cracking his sardonic brain open and rooting around in there, and I love when they compare and contrast to Harry’s. There’s a seductiveness to how Snape is so obsessed with Harry, fixated on his Boy Who Lived heroic reputation, clearly dripping with envy. What, beyond jealousy, might draw Snape to Harry and what, other than hatred, might draw Harry to Snape?

It’s all this, the passionate, electric, dangerous nature of their relationship; the way their characters contrast each other yet have surprising connections; and the question of finding solace that keeps me here, 21 years later. I’ve had wines less complex than this ship. They’re fascinating. They’re messy. They’re everything.

[crossposted from a reddit comment I just left, and wanted to share with y’all]

[gyarustarrr]

LORE LORE LORE!!!🗣️🗣️🗣️ (This is super long and my English is horrible for a native speaker so bear w me)

ILL BE REAL I DIDNT PUT MUCH THOUGHT INTO A REASONABLE BACK STORY but bcuz shes a self insert i had to make a mention for my bestie who can EASILY be in the pressure universe fr <3

Pre-lockdown: I think itd be unique that if Sebastian was used to give humans gills then Phanny can be used to find immortality cuz who doesnt love when a corrupt corporate entity tries to find the cure for death, happens all the time lol. I say for the important parts shes fused with an immortal jellyfish, my favorite jelly which im extreme jelly of 😼😼😼😼, and i would say that its possible that she could live forever IN THEORY with the dna of that jelly but that would have to be tested lmaooo.

I believe because shes also able bodied (mostly) she would be given similar jobs as Sebastian so shes not depressed, rotting, or lashing out. Not sure if they'd work together but she's observant and being a psychologist, she def psychoanalyzing the hell outta everybody in the facility out of boredom. She seems happy but ofc its a coping mech to make the best out of the absolute horrors around her, still emotional unstable and freaks tf out frequently. Once Sebastian frees everybody, she's free to roam and sees what Sebastian is doing. She asks to assist him in his goal but she only plays a part once Seb handles BIDNESS on land during lockdown. Post lockdown she scavenges for data and whatever here and there but shes mostly left alone or out of most of his operation, yk,,,working with Mr Lopee and all. She really tries to get close with Sebastian (despite emphasizing hes a married man, YEAH SURE BUDDY YOU'RE LIKE 32, WHATEVER MAKES U FEEL BETTER💀) and being the drama fiend i am, i think having a "moment of weakness" would lead to their complex semi romantic possibly toxic dynamic.

Fight: And as i did my research its highly debatable if Sebastian is telling pAInter the truth about getting them both out. Phanny would believe this without question cuz if he can make a plan and has all these skills and resources, he should be able to take everyone (this also includes other peoples inserts and ocs who are experiments because it makes the setting more lively and interesting). I even thought of a cool ass line my homie thought was cold asf for argument dialogue between Phanny and Seb about taking everyone back up to the surface.

Just to summarize: Phanny mentions how noble Seb is after making progress with his escape plan, assuming that he'll take at least as many people as possible including Phanny. Sebastian at this point is already trying to push her away post weakness moment and he know damn well he's just doing this for himself and never accounted to leave w/ a whole damn facility of sentient experiments. He just wanna see his mom again and hes already working in private with Mr Lopee i mean this is a one man escape plan. This ofc shatters Phanny cuz from what hes saying, nobody and he mean NOBODY is getting out of here with him. Hes not a savior and hes not responsible for people he dont even know or fuck with like tf?? And Phannys like OKAY? Nobody's asking you to be JESUS but can you at least be Moses?? Free us so we can all get justice! Explain why you can't take a handful and come back once u take this damn company down?? What about your promise to pAInter? To ME.

Ofc it ends in a big brawl, think Mark getting his shit rocked by his own dad (Omniman from invincible) and they just have this heartbreaking dialogue and they split ways.

Post fight + breakdown: After this, Phanny is basically losing it. I even have a vision for this if it was actually in game and she was an actual character with weight to the gameplay. Like crying and wailing in the vents and pipes, shit breaking, Phanny not being seen for a majority of the game until shes physically stopping u from going through doors and rushing the player. Not to kill them, she loves the expendables and protects them but if she really has to if it means Sebastian can get out/she gets to see another day then...

Plus i drew what that would look like in my last post where shes just standing in the dark in the corner blocking the door. Even if shes not blocking the door she's obviously going through something and can't be interacted with, she just follows the player with her eyes and breathes heavily. If its not that then shes crying by the the water and interacting with her gets the player a DEVIOUS side eye or no response.

Pre-breakdown + if she were actually in the game: I can't really explain why she would help the expendables WITHOUT knowing removing the crystal will indirectly end their lives, i actually havent evaluated that yet but shes friendly to expendables, takes free trade in exchange for shiny objects, and can be seen hanging out with or talking to Sebastian, or passing by in the water/halls. She's capable of killing the player entirely by accident due to her tentacles hanging from the ceiling which she chills in and dying to her makes her scream or apologize (before Sebastian says something snarky) since shes strictly against killing and never willing.

Announcing ur presence helps her know shes in the way. Typical interactive npc shenanigans. Maybe even saving expendables from certain attacks but these are rare interactions in the game. She's overall friendly and if she were real, she'd prolly be a fandom fave (ofc not on Sebastian's level, LETS BE HUMBLE YALL😭) because shes so polite and her tragedy comes near the end where the player isnt even aware of how she became hostile in just a few hours of the run. Her story would hardly happen in game and itd be one of those things a creator would have to mention outside of their game for fans to know abt yk?

Its typical for creators to just drop the craziest lore ever about a character but they're purposefully vague or literally like oh yeah time constraints so we scrapped it lol.

ALRIGHTY CLASS, ANY QUESTIONS? (typing this on my phone was so crazy guys ik its a lot but trust me its DECENT lore </3

[suiana]

✎ yandere! poet headcanons . . .

✎ warnings . . .

― violence, long paragraphs💀, annoying yandere etc.

(gn! reader x male yandere! oc)

✎ yandere! poet who always found inspiration from the new and unique. so of course he would be entranced by you. after all, there is no one else quite as enigmatic as you.

✎ yandere! poet who observes you from afar, analysing you and your actions. of course he also makes the effort to know you better! your character is far too complex for him to only observe from far away.

✎ yandere! poet who likes to talk in funny and confusing language. he likes seeing your puzzled face while trying to figure out what his words mean. oh darling, you're so adorable, trying to overanalyze his words that aren't that deep! just because he's a poet doesn't mean that each and every sentence of his has a deep meaning behind them :)

✎ yandere! poet who is just as strange and weird as you are. I mean, that could be the reason why he took an interest in you in the first place. he never really saw the appeal in conforming to societal standards. he prefers to stand out, just like you do.

✎ yandere! poet who loves annoying you. especially with his sophisticated and confusing sentences. you shouldn't expect a break with this man because you're the first person whom he has taken interest in and he's going to make full use of that. I mean truth be told, he would never find someone as captivating and fascinating as you ever again. you are one of a kind, and that's why he fell for you.

✎ yandere! poet who would actually scare people away with how strange he is. he used to find it a pity that this happened but after he met you...it's actually pretty useful for when he finds someone messing with his dearest muse. like go away! go be mean to someone else. 8 billion people in this world and you had to bother his love? go away before he carves you out. he'll actually murder the bully if they don't leave.

✎ yandere! poet who writes for you whenever you're feeling down. he won't force you to talk but he certainly would try his best to cheer you up :) he loathes seeing his darling upset after all. because when you're sad, he gets negatively affected as well and he won't be able to write for the rest of the day :(

✎ yandere! poet who is a giant romanticist. he's the type of guy who would buy you flowers and write lengthy and detailed love letters as a declaration of his love. he thinks that it's normal and only right for him to do so because he's courting you! he thinks that the new generation is doomed because why wouldn't you treat your love romantically when you want their affection?

✎ yandere! poet who despises cursing. he thinks that it's crude and so ungentlemanly! there are so many ways to describe your emotions and to resort to cursing? that's a big no from him. besides, he thinks they don't roll off his tongue well. why curse when you could say "you uneducated swine, all that is coming out of your mouth is blasphemy and a string of incoherent nonsense!" you'll look so much smarter as well :( but he doesn't mind if you curse, he thinks it's endearing to an extent. just don't curse all the time, it will tick him off.

✎ yandere! poet who is just so dedicated to his craft that it's so attractive to you. you will never meet someone as dedicated to something as he is. because not only does he believe in giving your all into whatever you're passionate about, he's also a super motivated person. that's actually super hot, like imagine seeing him being super focused while writing a love poem dedicated to you 🤤

✎ yandere! poet who never expects you to return his feelings. yet, he still writes you love poems, sends you flowers and is always there for you when you need a shoulder to cry on. he's a gentleman and he will act like one even if you don't like him back. don't worry, he won't kidnap or kill you, but that doesn't mean you can like someone else. no, it's either him or no one. don't be picky darling.

✎ "but my love, for you, I would dye the grasslands red, in the blood of those that wronged you. I would drown the world in endless essays about my desire that burns so brightly for you. I would even wage war with the heavens above if it meant being away from you... all while never expecting you to reciprocate my never ending passion and love, that yearns ever so earnestly for you."

[asexual-fandom-queen]

Look, am I probably going to get myself in trouble making this post? Sure, but I accept that, because I actually do have to say it. Tommy breaking up with Buck is not homophobic what the fuck are you guys talking about??? You know part of asking for queer representation and queer storylines is that you get representation and storylines right??? Queer characters have as much right to be complex and flawed as straight characters. Not to mention that this energy is nowhere to be found for the female love interests of Buck's who haven't worked out. Tommy Kinard is getting fucked over by a prejudiced narrative but Taylor Kelly wasn't? But Abby Clark wasn't????

Tommy broke up with Buck when things got serious for reasons that are beautifully in character, especially when you consider that we don't actually know Tommy that well. He is not a main character. He's not even a supporting character. Still, what we do get to know about him completely supports the behavior we see. We know that his relationship with his father was strained growing up, that he spent his young adult years as a closeted (maybe even to himself) gay man in a homophobic work environment, that all these formative experiences were traumatic enough to push him into a relationship with a woman that was serious enough to lead to getting engaged. Which means it's only been what, seven or eight years, since Tommy's come into himself enough to live his truth? That's just not enough time to be over it.

Tommy Kinard, and the broader purpose his character serves, is to be a mirror to Abby and for his and Buck's relationship to mirror Abby and Buck's relationship, and the 9-1-1 writers are executing that perfectly. Because let's not forget, Tommy is not a real person. Every week, the writers have 43 minutes to tell their stories, and that just does not allow for every character to be at the center of their own narrative. Tommy's character is a tool to explore Buck's character. This is not a unique phenomenon. Karen is a tool to explore Hen's character. Michael was a tool to explore Athena's character.

And it happens to straight characters, too. You think Marisol No Last Name was a character that existed outside of her relationship with Eddie? Did Doug exist outside Maddie? Does Sue exist outside the walls of 9-1-1 dispatch? I mean, in fandom they can. The thing about the transformative power of fandom is that we take the underdeveloped and we expand on it. We pull at threads the writers, in 43 minutes, just can't. And because they can't, they also don't always - or even often - intend to.

We are making more of this than it is. It's in our heads. And that's not wrong. But my god, we cannot be holding the narrative responsible for a thing it's just not doing. Your attachment to this fanon version of Tommy you've created, and to the fanon version of Buck and Tommy's relationship, is on you. And you're allowed to be sad that canon isn't playing out the way you would have chosen if you were the one telling the story. What you don't get to do is call it homophobic because it's just not.

And the thing is, I know this is the trauma talking. To borrow Josh's analogy, this is a question of pre-Glee fans watching a post-Glee story. We remember Sterek, and we remember Destiel, and we remember McDanno, and we remember Rizzisles.

But the reality is, for every queerbaited ship that didn't go canon, the trauma runs deeper. Because we also remember Caroline Forbes' gay father deciding he'd rather die than "be a vampire." We remember Mulan walking away from Aurora and letting her have her prince. We remember Tara dying in Willow's arms, and we remember Lexa dying in Clarke's. So it's hard to watch a queer romance, especially one involving a character that we've spent seven seasons headcanoning as queer before his coming out, end.

The thing is, this is a queer relationship ending on a beautifully queer show. They aren't shoving their gay under the rug. This isn't a brief queer chapter in the book they opened purely to pander and that is now slamming shut. Hen and Karen are right there. Buck is still there. Michael may no longer be on our screens, but while he was, he and David were also treated with care and grace.

Just because we remember how it used to be doesn't mean that's what's happening now. Tommy is a plot device exploring Buck's first queer relationship, but not because it's a queer relationship. Tommy is a character whose purpose is to move Buck's arc forward because sometimes that's all a character has the capacity to be in the confines of a story that gets to be told for 43 minutes 18 times a television season.

And having Tommy be Abby's ex, as a narrative device, is brilliant. Having him walk away from Buck the same way Abby did is brilliant. Seeing those parallels and highlighting them, from a writing standpoint, is brilliant.

Buck's relationship with Abby allowed him to become Buck 2.0. She was a partner who shaped him and helped him grow in a deeply profound way. And just because she left him in a way that was hurtful and driven by her own trauma doesn't negate that. It also doesn't make her a cartoon villain.

For the same reason, Tommy walking away from Buck in a way that's hurtful and driven by his own trauma doesn't make him a cartoon villain. But it is clever writing. It bookends Buck's transformation into Ready For A Relationship Buck with his transformation into Bringing His Whole Self Into A Relationship Buck. And linking Abby and Tommy with a history of their own affirms for the audience that that's what this narrative arc was always about.

And who knows, maybe Buck and Tommy will get their romcom arc. Maybe Tommy does come back. Maybe he grows past his trauma and the defenses he's put up to survive in a world that raised him to hate himself. If he does, I won't be unhappy about it. But I also won't consider it the righting of some profound wrong. Because nothing about Tommy's arc, or the arc of the Bucktommy relationship, has been wrong.

[gamer2002]

Project Eden's Garden Chapter 1 review

Like I’ve said in the demo review, it is very professionally done. Expect the shmup minigame. Fuck the shmup minigame.

I could live with the random attack patterns causing the attack that forces me to move away being used alongside the freaking all-around barrage that forces me to stay in a very tight area. I could live with the final attack of pursuing missiles happening on a pure chance and then, once used, being reused over and over again constantly.

But I cannot live with my focus gauge being used and drained ever so sometimes when I did not intend to use it. This bs must be fixed. Until then, I cannot recommend trying the highest difficulty.

I think gachapon was also bugged with it duplicate rate, though this time for my benefit. I got 50-80% rate and I was able to still get unique presents pretty constantly.

Anyway, the murder mystery was surprisingly complex and twisted for the first case. Though, around the body discovery I was close to figure it out. More in spoiler section. But, during the Class Trial, I was surprised that Tozu was completely silent through it. Monokuma constantly throws the cast off balance and delivers black comedy, but Tozu just was sitting on his throne. And that was seriously disappointing. He's the character that is supposed to OWN every scene he is in. He did that before the Class Trial, but during it he just... stays silent all the time.

The main draw of the fangame is that we're essentially playing Byakuya type of character. Still, my criticism towards Damon stands from previous review. An anti-hero like him requires a backstory that explains his way of thinking. Why does he think highly of his talent? Why is he jaded and cynical? Why he stops being jaded and cynical during the trial? Why he returns to being jaded and cynical afterwards?

It is interesting to have a protag who, after Tozu reveals there’s a chance to find an advantageous secret, wants to be the one who finds it first. But he doesn’t and doesn’t change much the way of his thinking, so he is a static protagonist. And I begin to feel apathy about him. And I feel apathy about the game.

What I’m afraid the writers do not understand is that DR works as a roller-coaster of emotions, not just by bashing the player with despair. The chapter 1 ends on a negative note with no positives, and Damon also has no development into a better man. How was it in official games?

Further explanation in a spoiler section. But, 7/10. It is a very well done and professional fangame with a very well done opening mystery. But it clear work of amateurs who had neat ideas to do something different and something unexpected here and there. And, because they are amateurs, the didn’t think things through, because they don’t grasp the DR formula to its core. Not when it comes to handling the characters and cast.

Now, I’ll explain why in the spoiler section.

Some thoughts on Eva first…

First of all, Eva had such a lackluster motive and was generally pathetic. The back and forth between being intriguing and pitiful was great, sure. But this all fall apart because it is just so stupid and immature to be ashamed of being a mathematician. And so were stupid and immature those who were making fun of her for being a mathematician. I mean, I can understand mocking somebody who lied about being an Ultimate Liar to add themselves a mystique, but it was such a dumb thing that I hoped that it was going to turn out that Tozu screwed with her by lying about her not being an Ultimate Liar.

Rally, an Ultimate Liar who wanted to be honest about herself but got screwed over by the host lying about her talent would make Eva and Tozu much better characters. Not to mention, she managed to fool the Ultimate Gamer about being a fan of a niche game, so it’s inconsistent that she goes back and forth between being and not being an Ultimate Liar.

I was able figure out early that it was either her or Diana because of that out of place game fan thing being obviously there to get trusted into the room with access to the crime scene. And then Eva giving it away when she pointed out that everyone in the room had alibi. And then Eva cementing it by downplaying the importance of the cord. But Diana did a good job at being a red herring. And, comparing to DR1, 2, and V3, this honestly was a harder first case to guess, despite not using Nagito type of character. So, I have no complaints against her as a killer.

But for a person intelligent enough to come up with such a complex crime, it really was stupid she couldn’t shrug off kids making fun of her for being a nerd and get herself a job at NASA or something. And then she was dumb enough to lie about being an Ultimate Liar. Back when they still could believe there was a reasonable chance of escaping and the other students finding out the truth about her anyway.

Sure, the direction her character took was surprising. Her crime was good. But her character makes no point beyond complaining about everyone being awful. Well, they are, but so were you.

No hope, no despair, just apathy

I consider Makoto and DR1 the weakest protag and game in the series, but they had a good start. Makoto gets manipulated by childhood friend turned star and becomes thorn about her ultimate feelings towards him. But he also gains the respect of Kirigiri. Hajime gets screwed hard by Nagito. But he gains Chiaki and others. Shuichi loses Kaede. But he becomes a man and gains respect of Kaito. Bad shit happens to them but also does the good stuff to balance it out, which is why we are interested in seeing their stories further. Because the players aren’t masochists interested in just watching bad stuff happening to characters. Which is why Kodaka was throwing us some silver lining after the opening case.

Damon gets screwed by Eva and decides to be disgusted at the character he could bond with over the case. There’s no silver lining. Everybody mocks Diana for wanting to become the silver lining.

And it is especially irritating after Damon stood up for her when nobody else did. He was moved by seeing her crying, this is what his narration told us. He displayed a sign of empathy and this made him reconsider the situation. But Damon doesn’t develop from this and he’s just pissed at Diana for still idolizing the man who died in front of her eyes.

At the end of the day, Damon goes though the Chapter 1 of his game and his character makes no development. Unlike all DR protags, he is the exact same character he was in the prologue. It’d fine if he ended up shocking the players with being more heartless than we thought, but he was sympathetic for Eva, then did stand up for Diana, and then was crying at the end of Eva’s execution. So, he displays emotions contradicting with his jaded and cynical character. But those are just moments that seem more like inconsistent writing than proper development towards anything.

Same goes for the cast. They are just as selfish as DR1 cast, pretty much. What I give them is that they aren’t just as stupid. There’s a fine amount of intelligent people among them. But Mark-Jett is the only memorable side relationship here. Grace should have a one with Wolfgang, but they don’t share enough of screen time to establish them properly. Cassidy and Wenona also should be more at odds, due their contrasting believes. I’m honestly surprised they didn’t talk with each other at all, they have infinite potential for conflict.

I like their attempts at organizing themselves and prevent killings, but Kodaka knew what he was doing when he wrote heroic speeches at the end of first case in 2 and V3. Yeah, Wolfgang was full of shit, but you can be both sympathetic and sensible. Desmond, Ingrid and Jean are that, but even they couldn’t back up Diana at the end.

So, everybody is awful. I feel no hope for them. I feel no despair for them. Just apathy.

[hourafterhour]

hmmm actually i'd be so interested in hearing about why you hated tsc? i personally didn't hate it but thought it was very flawed and would love to hear your critiques <3

very long below!

starting more generally, i thought the structure of it was bizarre, especially the choice to start it where she did. rehashing the end of TKM in very minute detail from a new pov did nothing for me, and i don't think it's where this part of jean's story "starts" if that makes sense. i found a lot of parts really ham-fisted and poorly written, esp very sloppy/lazy/straight up bad characterization (jeremy giving the homeless man a gift card, lmao); and her reliance on very high drama plot points (surprise secret sister - that was when i could not believe what i was forcing myself to keep reading; also reacher showing up, other parts i've forgotten). i think this approach works so well in aftg, where the melodrama is crucial, but it fails here, and i got the impression that she didn't feel like she was telling (what should have been) a fundamentally different type of story in content and structure than aftg. using any of the very compelling interpersonal dynamics wrt jean in her original trilogy to build drama in a subtler way would have been so much more rewarding imo. "can jean make a life outside the nest” is the built in stakes of the story. can he survive what has happened and what comes next. no need to make it any more dramatic than that - those are pretty high dramatic stakes to me. to give a more specific example, i thought the scene abt jean having to relearn how to check because the way the ravens do it is dangerous was excellent, especially when jeremy explicitly tells him “you’re hurting me” and it’s still unclear if that will be enough to make jean resort to a style of gameplay that’s less effective. this is more along the lines of what i’d hope we’d get from this book — subtle moments that arise from this being a sports narrative and a recovery narrative, and the unique situation of jean being forced into intimacy with a new team (again, a situation that is already so dramatically rich!) 

but my main issue is that I think aftg is a pretty exceptional (and exceptionally unique) trauma narrative, and i think jean’s trauma was poorly written here from start to finish, and pretty unimaginative/cliche. my overwhelming thought while reading it is that it was a really poorly researched book. writing the perspective of a character IMMEDIATELY after release from years of captivity is an extraordinarily difficult task, and the way she tried to account for what his patterns of thinking would have adapted to under those conditions was paltry to me: “I am Jean Moreau. My place is at Evermore. I will endure.” — i was literally rolling my eyes. just a really depressing lack of depth of interiority wrt an experience that was already so rich and subtle in canon. the single line in tkm when abby says he's already tried to escape back to the nest twice was more complex and worth more to me than all of tsc

to give another specific example bc this is one part i remember well, i was so annoyed at the scene when jean offers his racquet to rhemann for punishment. like it's so lazy!!! it's so lazy. jean is not stupid, and i could have believed it if it was written as jean being confused/getting where he was and who he was with mixed up, but a crucial part of the ideology of the nest was that this was not like other teams, and their lifestyle is not ordinary, and this is necessary to make them better than everyone else. jean would be well aware that other people on most other teams do not get physically abused by their coaches, in front of the rest of their teammates, as a matter of course. like maybe that seems nitpicky, but this actually seems so essential to me. and there were so many other moments where it just didn't seem like any meaningful or interesting thought had been paid to how jean would have interpreted his own life, and i hated how she had to make him do things like this to make certain things about his past visible because she couldn't do it in more skillful ways

i was kind of withholding judgement through the first little bit, but the first scene with kevin really solidified that i would not enjoy this book. jean is, what, a few days removed from the nest? i just do not believe (or want to be asked to believe) that he and kevin would be able to articulate any of that by that point, or have the words to discuss these things openly like that already. this was baffling to me because, once again, this is handled really well and compellingly in the original trilogy!!! hence my 40k two months of madness!!!! jean and kevin literally cannot even speak to each other when they see each other at the banquet, to the point where andrew intervenes just to get them to stop watching each other. iirc there was a part in the EC where nora said they don’t have a real conversation till a year (or multiple years?) out of the nest which felt extremely true to me. laila, cat, and jeremy constantly pressing him to express what happened, as if being able to narrativize a traumatic experience is not actively one of the hardest things about recovery, again just felt like lazy writing. everything has to be spoken out loud for it to work here, because she didn’t build conflict in any other way. i actively disliked laila and cat by the end of the book because she had to use them in such annoying and blunt ways to drive the story forward.  

OKAY there is my quota of "joyless hater" for the day... i appreciate you wanting to hear my thoughts!! if you have any thoughts on any of this i'd love to hear them as well. and if you're interested, i'll take the opportunity to rec an academic text on some of these dynamics, Alexandra Stein’s book “Terror, Love, and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems"

[rise-my-angel]

Hello! I hope you're doing well. I just wanted to say that your takes on the Targaryens are so refreshing to find when this fandom is almost completely made up of people who think they're the supreme, divine saviours of humanity and the greatest thing since sliced bread. It feels nice and validating to see someone who thinks like me for once. <3

Nothing bothers me more then propping them up as divine or special, when their entire story is about how they think they are special in contrast to the devastating effects of who they are on the people.

I don't think it's a coincidence that in Westeros we get so many different pov's to showcase all sides of how the war effects everyone everywhere, no matter how justified you may think one side or the other is. We see its devestating and it reminds us that their wars arent actually worth the cost. But in Essos, we do not see that. We only ever get Dany's pov and her view of her own actions, and we never see those minute details from every walk of life showcasing how no matter how justified she thinks she is, she has damaged more then shes saved. And I think it's a clever trap so that when she comes to Westeros, you finally see her from someone elses eyes and its a wakeup call that you've been tricked by her pov into thinking that shes better then she is. It's fascinating the way hes structured her story.

But people miss that, and subsequently, they miss that about all the Targaryeans. So they see them, as Dany sees herself. More superior then they really are. Which is not at all.

The Targaryeans aren't special. Their Valyrian blood is not what makes them dragonriders, they just have a monopoly on it because by the doom they were the only family who owned them or had any information about dragons. Its not a stretch to say when your family comes from a culture that is surrounded by dragons, you probably are just better equipped to ride one then someone whose never even seen one before. (Unless your Nettles then you are the literal example of why Targaryeans are not special and I love how grrm uses her to contrast that so strongly).

They alone are not holding the Kingdom together, as they caused many civil wars and rebellions, and their dynasty ended in a rebellion, which was followed by decades of peace. Say what you will about Robert, but he wasn't so stupid as to blatantly start a war from his bloodlust all over again. He wasn't a good man, but he took the throne by conquest during rebellion times, and no violence ever happened until after he was dead, and that wasnt caused by his fault, it was started by Cersei via having a bastard with Jaime and not Robert. So the war that followed wasn't his wrongdoing. He held peace and the realm together, so clearly the Targaryeans weren't needed for that specifically.

They don't even look unique. In Essos, tons of places still have mixes of Valyrian blood and thus have their silver hair. House Dayne is known to have purple eyes just like them, but they aren't Valyrian, their ancestry is from The First Men.

The biggest tragedy is House of the Dragon, because Fire and Blood is such a good deconstruction of the myth around House Targaryeans supermecy. Writing it in character as an Archmaester during Robert Baratheons reign is so interesting. It gives us such a unique look into how the world actually remembers them.

And its a book full of atrocities and horrible action after horrible action. War after war after war. People remember the Targaryeans as the initally conquested Westerosi did, as nothing more then uncaring, power hungry colonizers. But people don't look at them that way out of universe, and they should. Theres no reason to discount the negatives about them.

But House of the Dragon didn't adapt that book, so general audiences are getting a very different story that bolsters that supremacist view of the Targaryeans and it really does not paint them in the complex light they should be.

Not every Targaryean was a bad person, but House Targaryean was a house full of bad people. Bad people who raised and married each other into a system of brutal generational incest and abuse, and neglected the very Kingdom they routinely torn apart in order to fight for who gets to sit on the Iron Throne and ignore it more.

I like discussing the flaws of the Targaryeans because I find their toxic, destructive nature to be interesting. Especially in comparison to the such a stable family like the Starks.

They are a cautionary tale as to why the Starks reign lasted 8000 years, and the Targaryeans lasted only 300.

[mylittleredgirl]

Hi! I'm so excited you're finally watching MASH! I hope you enjoy it and I selfishly hope you grow to like Margaret who starts off as not great and then becomes great and my fav.

i am having a great time!! i started at the beginning of season one and just finished season two. some of the discs in the complete series set i got as a gift last year don't play right or cut out mid-episode, which is driving me a little nuts, but i guess i'm having the classic syndicated tv experience of randomly missing stuff and always having some episode i've never seen floating out there forever.

my long form thoughts so far for those interested:

it's such a great collection of characters for comedy, because they are all pathetic and terrible in their own unique way, but are so charming and funny and easy to watch while they commit their little crimes against common sense.

i really like the mix of episodes -- the We're Having A Caper episodes and then the ones where it's like we're just kind of living here and things happen in some kind of order, but the things aren't necessarily related, which feels very appropriate for the setting.

i'm watching without the laugh track, which highlights one of my favorite things, which is that the main and background characters laugh out loud at what's happening. it gives the show such a lived-in and messy feeling. i just came off of watching the good place 5 times in a row, where the dialogue and plot are especially tightly packed, so this feels especially like it has a lot of just hanging out.

i keep thinking about how i'm watching this show fifty years later, not knowing what is the 70s lampooning itself, what is the 70s lampooning the 50s, and what is actually being played straight but i assume is a joke because of my perspective. some scenes are hard to watch on purpose and some are hard to watch by accident.

i wish i were watching it with my dad so he could keep pausing it to explain things to me, even if they don't need explaining, because i think that would add to the experience.

character feelings after two seasons:

hawkeye: alan alda being so charming and having such great timing really makes this an easy get. of course i'm going to love him equally in both success and failure (mostly failure).

trapper: my bestie!!! there's something about his face that makes me feel like i know him personally. i just love his physical acting choices. it's always funny. my fave i think.

margaret: i definitely enjoy her!!! how can you not?? they introduce her as being both highly capable and The Sexiest American Woman In Korea, who either can have or has had every high ranking officer in the army, and then she's soooo horny for the most pathetic man alive that she can't function.

frank: the narrative requires him to suck sooooo much every minute of every episode, because everyone else also sucks, so he really needs to put his back into it. he's gotta be there and he does it well, idk what more to say.

henry: he fascinated me in season one because i was like... clearly he's supposed to be A Caricature, but i couldn't figure out which one, and then he turned out to be A Character instead. i love his complexity and his serious moments, but i don't tend to find drunk acting that funny, so a lot of his shtick is lost on me. i wonder if he's the only character (and maybe klinger?) where the laugh track would actually serve him.

radar: as a former assistant yeah bro i get it, you keep on keeping on.

father mulcahey: the only one who is not terrible at all so far even once. Protect Him. i am so happy every time he comes on screen.

klinger: i'm still warming up to him as a character since he's mostly a sight gag still.

the parade of nurses: i have decided to take it at face value that 1) they are all here at war because they're super horny, 2) they are playing hard to get for fun, and 3) the pill was somehow invented before 1950, and under those conditions GET IT GIRLSSSSS.

my largest outstanding question: were they all actually functioning people before the war? i assume war did this to them but it's also possible they were like this before and their wives are all like THANK GOD they're overseas cheating on me because imagine how much worse it would be if they were like this but in my house.

on to season three!!!

[theokusgallery]

What do you think about middle aged sunflower ????

Okay I'm going to pretend I'm normal and didn't just have a conversation about it yesterday within which I had to restrict myself because of Discord's stupid character limit

Anyway. Gonna talk about fanfics briefly, because fics tend to get more complex with characterization.

A while ago, I got really into Marvel, and for two months I did nearly nothing except read spideypool fanfic all day and night. If you know anything about these two (that isn't from the MCU) (I hate the MCU, I hate it so so much, this is not who Spidey fundamentally is, he is supposed to be a friendly neighborhood loner loser and you Cannot just give him an Iron Man suit and a mentorship with Stark and intergalactic missions at 16 or however old he is in those movies when the essence of the character is that he is an average struggling teenager who just happens to get superpowers and fucks up a lot at the beginning of his journey and mostly works alone and quit the fucking Avengers himself) (wow I started rambling sorry. Ignore that), you'll know that they are both around... 25-30ish, currently. Something like that. The only other fandom that I read as many fanfics of was Ace Attorney, where depending on the timeline, they can be from 23 to like, 35 with a kid. So I'd say me being so invested in a ship with 16 year-olds is... kind of an anomaly.

I don't usually like the coming-of-age, teenage love stuff, and I honestly have never found a single sunflower schoolfic I liked (except Spiral of course but even then they're in college) because all of them tend to... infantilize both Sunny and Basil at great length. And also tear down anything that makes them interesting characters. I think a lot of OMORI artists (that includes writers) are very afraid of doing anything substantial with teenagers, despite, you know, the actual plot of the game, and as a result, a lot of the time most fics where the characters aren't aged up tend to be... incredibly boring. Of course there are some that are good — exceptional even — but in the end all I can think of is the huge gap in... quality? that sounds wrong to say about a creative thing... interesting-ness, let's say (a very personal and subjective concept), when I stopped reading Marvel and went back to OMORI. I stopped reading fanfics altogether because I just couldn't find one I liked as much as the average Marvel fic that I hadn't already read.

Maybe it's a result of the writers themselves being young? I know OMORI's fanbase is generally a lot younger than Marvel's, so that could affect it. I mentioned schoolfics because there's a lot of them and because they were mentioned in my rant yesterday, but it's not really about the fact that they're schoolfics, it's about the fact that more often than not, the setting is the plot, and since it's just your average highschooler writing their favorite blorbos into their own environment and projecting (which is very cool btw, 99% of my own writing is projecting), the plot is... basically nonexistant. It's boring. It's boring and the characterization is usually dull. But even outside of schoolfics, I think I stopped trying to read fics that start with Sunny getting out of the hospital after the True Ending for the same reason : it's often plain and plotless and boring. And, fuck, my favorite books and mangas and such are slice of life, I'm all for mundane plots! But there's a difference between a mundane plot/realism and just no plot at all.

(This is not, like, an attack of OMORI writers who make schoolfics or fics that start with the above mentioned premise, btw, I want to make that very clear. It's very much a personal preference. I think it's boring because all of the fics I read in Marvel had a very unique plot/premise is my point. And also because the characters were a lot more mature and complex. Different strokes for different folks)

I think that's what I'm kind of sad about. OMORI characters tend to be complex and morally grey in their own way, and people tend to forget about that because they're teenagers and obviously no one can do no wrong before the ripe age of 18. Children are all innocent and therefore cannot be more morally complex than cinnamon roll soft boys/girls (looking pointedly at Sunny, Aubrey and Basil. But mostly Basil). Also, I think people tend to straight-up forget that 16 year-olds aren't, like, 10? Of course they're not going to be as mature as grown adults, especially Sunny OMORI, Dissociative Amnesia World Champion, but like... When I was 16 reading OMORI fanfics, half the time I was like "a 16 year-old would not fucking say that". But also generally more mature characters are inevitably more interesting to explore to me because I prefer more mature themes — I'm simply extremely upset at the fact that people don't explore the complexity that's already there when they're 16, including the very mature themes that are already there.

TL;DR: I love middle aged sunflower, I love middle aged ships in general ! In fact, I will tend to prefer sunflower when it's aged up.

(... I probably should've led with that.)

[the-bloody-sadist]

Me-Centered Narration in Fiction

"For characters' hearts to be open to readers, characters must talk to us quite a bit about what's going on inside. In many manuscripts, the characters don't disclose much. Often they, or rather their authors, simply report what's happening to them--a dry, play-by-play conveyance of the action. Even the witty, ironically detached first-person voices of Young Adult, New Adult, and Para-Everything fiction aren't necessarily open. An ironic, snarky, or perky tone can be used to avoid true intimacy with readers. Literary writing isn't necessarily intimate, either. A life "closely observed" doesn't mean we'll care about it." -Donald Maass, The Emotional Craft of Fiction

Welcome to the new tag, Sadist's fiction advice!! For those of you interested, I'll be taking bits out of books I personally studied all my life to learn how to write--the majority of those being by the fantastic and insightful Donald Maass, whose writing help books I've collected for my shelf! If you want to start anywhere for your own novel, start with him. I'm not fucking kidding. He's THE BEST out there.

Let's start with some discussion on that first quote, alone! Most often, the first thing that turns me off to a story is the main character's voice. I'm an extremely picky reader, nowadays, after growing up reading, and especially after discovering the fanfiction world. But one thing that I actually tend to like more about fanfiction is that a lot of the authors--since their source material is an existing couple of characters that they can research and have a template to add their own details to--are not afraid to explore how that character talks to the reader and sees the world.

In so much of professional fiction I've found only bland, annoying main characters who fail to make me laugh with their sarcastic quips about living on earth. It's just...boring. It's all the same. And don't even get me started on the erotic world, because what are they ON?? I've never found more abrasive or boring main characters than in professional erotica. I've tried and dropped nearly every gay romance I've come across with a pretty cover (meaning NOT a stock image of a hunky, shirtless man because ew, low effort)...and literally none of them except one grabbed me. And that one took CHAPTERS UPON CHAPTERS of dealing with yet another boring main character just to get to the love interest that I was curious about. And if you're curious, that book was the Captive Prince series by C.S. Pacat. I will slander it, I'm sorry. The writing is frustratingly basic and the prose is very weird at times, and Damen is a cardboard cutout in my opinion. Laurent was the saving grace of that series, and if not for him, I would've dropped that book on chapter one.

Captive Prince eventually got much better, so it's still one of the only good ones I've ever read, but--BUT--Damen's inner world? Boring as shit. I wanted to know his complexities and conflicts, the things that directly impacted his worldview and the ways he was a multifaceted person. I really wanted him to win me over. But I mostly skimmed a lot of the "thoughts" that were going on in his head, because he had none that were worth listening to. He wasn't unique. He wasn't particularly conflicted about anything interesting.

In direct contrast to that, probably my favorite romance to ever exist in the LGBT category is Anne Rice's The Vampire Armand. Talk about a fascinating writer with a strong voice. Anne is INSANE, for one. The things she puts together on paper are wild and ravishing and they will fucking sweep you off your feet. And that's what I'm always looking for. We see the world through the vampire Armand's eyes, who has a riveting and thorough perspective--far different from the pessimistic narcissism of most modern tellings of vampire "romances" (Twilight can eat my dick). He feels tangible, terrifying, and so warm at the same time. He displays a full and seasoned view of the world, and it reads as realistic for someone having lived so long. Marius, the boy who is with him who's caught up in sexuality, is a fantastic contrast to Armand, and thus provides a thrilling relationship dynamic of push-and-pull. He is headstrong; Armand is mature and set on rules.

Ugh, I could go on and on about how good Anne is when it comes to these things. Her characters are top-notch every time, and though there are sometimes exceedingly long rants about topics that neither interest me nor entertain me, somehow the way that she structures it in her characters' voices could convince me otherwise. (I still skip some of the LOOOONG expositions on history and religion but LMAO, I could read it if I had time.)

Let me infuse some more of Donald Maass into this, going on with his advice from The Emotional Craft of Fiction:

"Elsewhere I have advocated building the world of the story not by describing how it looks, sounds, feels, smells, or tastes, but rather by conveying characters' experience of that world. Opening the emotional world of a story is just as important, but doing so involves delving not only into characters' experience of their world but also of themselves.

For some authors this can be uncomfortable. Plot-driven storytellers, for example, may fear that they're slowing the action. Character-driven storytellers can be afraid of getting their characters' inner lives wrong, believing that even a tiny misstep can ruin years of effort. Both fears strangle emotional effect. The truth is that there is nothing wrong with opening up characters' inner lives. The bigger problem is that most authors don't do so enough. That said, letting characters simply gush on the page isn't terribly effective, either."

I always hesitate to talk about my own writing, because it feels egotistical to use my own as an example, but since you're here because you either like my writing or my art, well... 😂 I feel like it's the best way to give you a glimpse of how I think when I create them! Plus I know you want to hear about it, so I'll put my self-deprecation in the closet.

That said, let's talk about Dancing With Death--particularly what Maass mentioned in presenting world building through the eyes of your character and not the physicality of the setting. I am not someone who enjoys the observation of fantasy cultures and elements that we don't have in the real world. I simply do not care. I don't like Avatar for this reason--the entire world of Avatar is the biggest character in the story, and I don't care. Biology and science is boring. There's no interesting person to see the world through, so I find myself lost on why I'm watching it as a story, when it feels like it should be a video game to explore instead.

This being the case, my portal for the world was Emery, whom I consider to be the least interesting character I've ever created LMAO. Probably because he's so normal, and basically everyone else I've created is wildly off-kilter on morality, thought process, and mental health.

BUT!

My workaround for this character concept was having him come from an isle with a directly opposing culture to the one he'd be entering for the story. Now, I'm not much for introductions to characters living their normal life, so I started right off with Emery arriving in Gailda, so that the reader could find out organically how much different Gailda was to Emery's home in Dorne. Pretty much everything he comes into contact with--starting with the isle's ruler, Taushin--is entirely backwards to the way Emery has been raised. It adds interest because it adds inherent conflict. But the complexity here is that Emery came to Gailda of his own accord. Because he was curious about Gailda, and wanted to see if it was really as bad as the rumors he'd heard.

He travels there under the pretense that he's going to go free some Pets (the bed slaves of the world structure). But the readers should suspect right away that this isn't the case. Emery is a reckless, curious little man. He thinks he's an upstanding citizen, but he's naïve and--as we soon find out--pretty easily swayed.

So, seeing the world through Emery's eyes makes the world seem new and horrifying and thrilling to the readers--at least, this is my aim, of course! Going off of the current feedback I've received, most readers saw it this way. And while Emery might still be my least favorite man in my repertoire, he has deeply conflicting views, which constantly create dilemmas he has to resolve.

If you can keep a character on his toes, talking to the reader about the choices he has to make and how his morals might object to those choices, it opens up an intimate connection between us and them. The more specific their problems, the more chance the reader has to relate. What would they do in that situation? Don't make it easy.

For instance, one of Emery's first choices involves Minx, a Pet who's sent to his chambers the first night as a custom of Gaildan hospitality. Emery has come to free the Pets, so seeing Minx in his room instantly creates a dilemma. He thinks he can resolve this by not sexually interacting with Minx. But of course it's not that easy. Minx has to have intercourse with him, as per his master, Taushin (the ruler of the isle whom Emery is "doing business" with), or else he'll be punished. Then it's up to Emery whether he'll protect Minx by fucking him (LMAO), or not fucking him and knowingly submitting the boy to unjust punishment.

Okay, well that's enough rambling for my FIRST FUCKING POST. I hope this helps you, or otherwise lets you know that I'm just as long-winded in discussions as I am in my stories. 🥲 But in stories, that's a good thing! I hope that's what you've learned, today. Get to know your character by writing how he thinks and sees and feels the world around him, and make him INTERESTING, goddamnit! The more intricate and unique, the more we're inclined to listen to his inner world.

I'll leave you with another quote on that same page from Donald Maass's book--and feel free to send me asks about this topic or to let me know if it helped you! If I don't have feedback, I'll likely not continue these posts. It's hard to write and ramble to an audience I can't see. T_T Tumblr makes it tough for comments and likes!

"Creating a world that is emotionally involving for readers means raising questions and concerns about that world. It means both welcoming readers inside that world and making them curious, or uneasy, about where they are. First-person narration, the self-absorbed voice of our age, would seem to do that automatically but that belief is deceptive. True emotional engagement happens when a reader isn't just enjoying a character's patter but when she cannot avoid self-reflection, whether she's aware of it happening or not."

If you're interested in my own work that I talked about, Dancing With Death, and haven't read it, some of it is on Tumblr! Here's a link to the first chapter. It's more polished now than what is posted, but when it's published someday, you can see it in its full glory!

Dancing With Death chapter 1

About Donald Maass' The Emotional Craft of Fiction

[metanarrates]

Ah man i was thinking about the genshin ask you got the other day because it reminded me of my experience playing it for maybe a year? Definitely less + only played regularly for a portion of that duration + never managed to catch up with the main story. Long ask coming up ahead 😭

Anyway this is related because while i haven't played a hoyoverse game since then, i have been somewhat familiar with the lore surrounding their little multiverse and it is insane the disparity in quality between the Honkai titles and Genshin. Better writing, better game design, better art, the whole shebang (i believe honkai impact is centered around the story of a bunch of of tragic subtextual lesbians who in attempting to defy fate beome gods of destruction or whatever. Yippee). Interestingly, or perhaps not so interestingly depending on who you talk to, ive found that genshin's developmemt has an extreme emphasis on commercialism where the Honkai games do not. And of course with that commercial emphasis you end up with what's essentially a glorified vehicle for escapism, as you have to appeal to as broad of an audience as possible and that means advertising to concepts they find palatable and comforting. But even within the genre, hoyoverse is a unique outlier for the narrative precedent of escapism that it sets. There is an overarching theme concerning the nature of destiny and defiance of it, and this clashes with the end of the writing necessarily needing to refuse to challenge audience expectations. If you want to tell a story of how a lone hero transcends the clause of narrative inevitability as a stand-in for self discovery or triumph over inequitabilities, then you sort of. Have to??? Make complex multidimensional characters with their own agency and fleshed out internal conflict. However, the story then must serve itself, prioritize itself, over the quandary of status quo. This clashing of creative goals and economic means results in a product that at its core feels incredibly confused, like it cant decide what it wants to be. Honkai titles, by contrast, arent intended to be a mild fantasy for the player to lose themselves in. It's still ultimately just a chess piece in the corporate game Hoyo is playing, but at the very least, it chooses a direction and sticks with it, framing marketing decisions around an established narrative appeal. Something to chew on, i suppose. Definitely fuel to consider the relationship between capitalism and fiction

that's so interesting! I always find it fascinating when the need for wide audience appeal clashes with the seeming goal of a story. I'm interested in the conditions around the development of a work in general (ive read a LOT of stuff about rgu's development, for example) but in works like this I'm always very curious about what happened in those game studios. was it a case where the writers wanted to do something but the studio shot it down? or was it literally the writers having to deal with those conflicting needs without consciously acknowledging it and created a work that shoots itself in the foot? doesn't matter either way, I guess, but I would like to know.

[novella-writers]

Hello-Hello! Super sorry but this is a long post! So to get the disclaimers out the way super fast. I am searching for a literate partner that loves to roleplay, build complex characters and expand worlds. Dead-Dove/Taboo topics will be included! Let's make something lovely and unique. 18+ partners only:

Have you ever wanted to be king? To own it all and accomplish everything the world has to offer? Perhaps you'd want one thousand wives or to live in bliss. All the wishes of man can be obtained through the Gates.

The man or woman whom can scale the tower of deceit and treachery may become Emperor. The ruler of the realms. The rumor of it all, those whom attain such has their worldview realized.

Though you aren't interested in such are you? Such fantasies mothers tell their children. Who would give up such a peaceful life in Gate 1? Beyond this lies horrific societies and worlds unknown. Species and creatures man should never come across. Only a brave few can survive out there. Only the strongest can crush the horrific biomes.  So what happens when you encounter one of those creatures? When Gate 1 is raided. Streets filled with the defense force and the air strangled by screams. Would that be how you die? In an alley. A crimson-skinned woman with her claws around your neck. Somehow, her beauty eats your fear. With her face so close to yours, it feels like she leaves no oxygen for you.

"Human. Take me to your home."

The gates beyond the first carried horrific creatures, no? Only the most cruel? So why is this beautiful humanoid trembling within your care? Asking for safety~

Like/message if interested!

[dripping-pinky]

Hello-Hello! Super sorry but this is a long post! So to get the disclaimers out the way super fast. I am searching for a literate partner that loves to roleplay, build complex characters and expand worlds. Dead-Dove/Taboo topics will be included! Let's make something lovely and unique:

Have you ever wanted to be king? To own it all and accomplish everything the world has to offer? Perhaps you'd want one thousand wives or to live in bliss. All the wishes of man can be obtained through the Gates.

The man or woman whom can scale the tower of deceit and treachery may become Emperor. The ruler of the realms. The rumor of it all, those whom attain such has their worldview realized.

Though you aren't interested in such are you? Such fantasies mothers tell their children. Who would give up such a peaceful life in Gate 1? Beyond this lies horrific societies and worlds unknown. Species and creatures man should never come across. Only a brave few can survive out there. Only the strongest can crush the horrific biomes. So what happens when you encounter one of those creatures? When Gate 1 is raided. Streets filled with the defense force and the air strangled by screams. Would that be how you die? In an alley. A crimson-skinned woman with her claws around your neck. Somehow, her beauty eats your fear. With her face so close to yours, it feels like she leaves no oxygen for you.

"Human. Take me to your home."

The gates beyond the first carried horrific creatures, no? Only the most cruel? So why is this beautiful humanoid trembling within your care? Asking for safety~