#i can see why people enjoy Davix/Olphix

[not-poignant]

(this might be a bit personal, and by all means please don't feel pressured to answer) but considering how dark some of your stuff can get, have you ever been troubled by some of the characters/their actions in your stories (and semi-related) had to take some time to cope with writing a difficult scene?

This is a tough one so I’m going to put a lot of it under a read more (sorry phone browsers).

I’ve had the occasional moment of struggling with content because of being troubled by it.

But by contrast it’s funny because, I think some of the most difficult scenes for others, are actually some of the easiest for me to write. For example, the chapter where Connor is basically kidnapped by Gabriel and given the highball, was so easy to write it was like swimming (which is the only sports-like skill I’m good at). If everything could be like that, oh my goodness, I can’t even imagine. It was an intense, emotionally fraught, joyful experience of the likes I don’t know how to explain to other people who don’t experience that.

So there’s not always any rhyme or reason to it either. I struggled with significant chunks of Strange Sights. I couldn’t finish The Drawn Bead because it just felt like we were heading towards torture porn but I also knew I couldn’t do justice to the horror of Gwyn’s memory AND it has a tragic ending and I struggle to write those for longer pieces. I tend to struggle with characters being separated from each other. So the beginning of Into Shadows We Fall, when Jack and Pitch are completely separated from each other, that was so difficult for me personally, that I actually ended up massively shortening how long they were meant to be separated for. Even though Pitch and Jack have a really thorny relationship when Pitch is returned, I still preferred that to their being absent from each other.

But I didn’t have as much of a problem with it, when it was Gwyn and Augus.

It’s not predictable, sometimes I enjoy writing the troubling content on a very visceral level. Either because I feel like I’m in my element as a writer. Or I know it’s going to be so satisfying (for me) for the character to recover from it later. Or I know that it’s going to lead to something I’ve been craving writing. I mean I wouldn’t write so much of that kind of content if I didn’t get something really tangible out of it.

There are still things that surprise me, still scenes that become more difficult as I write them, not because of ‘technical writing reasons’ but because of the thematic content. Often, for me, it highlights things I probably won’t enjoy writing again. Strange Sights for me worked as a series of oneshots, but as a long-term abusive and rape-filled relationship, it didn’t actually become comfortable for me until Augus began to be allowed to have boundaries. So I probably won’t write a couple that toxic ever again outside of novellas and PWPs. With the beginning of Into Shadows We Fall, I learned I had to be really careful with character separation, and that three chapters was about my limit (from memory, I think I stuck to this - or just about - in COFT).

But...maybe it would make people feel better if I said I really struggled with writing Gavril taunting Jack. Or Jack being whipped by Bunnymund. Or Augus torturing him in chapter 4 of ISWF. Or Gwyn being tormented by his mother. Or Mosk having flashbacks of Davix and Olphix. I find them intense, sure, but I don’t dislike doing it. Even though I often really feel for the character who is experiencing the torment. Gwyn goes through a fairly graphic description an MRI the next chapter in SOTS, and though I myself actually had an MRI phobia for a few years (it was the reason I developed claustrophobia), I found the scene itself disturbing, but deeply satisfying enough that I wouldn’t call it something where I needed to take time out to cope.

As for me being troubled by how the characters are actually behaving... This is tricky. I mean of course a lot of them are doing stupid, terrible, harmful, cruel, illegal things. I don’t condone it in reality. But thinking of these things happening in fiction is different to thinking about them happening in reality. The fact is, ‘dubcon’ in reality is just rape, and if I applied real world standards to non-real scenarios filled with tropes and the Id, yeah sure, I would be troubled, but I’d also not be writing any of this content.

As an addendum to that, for me their behaviour always makes sense to me from their perspective. Whether it’s Mosk being emotionally abusive with no concept of it. Gwyn raping Augus. Augus killing Efnisien. Pitch in TGATNW being heartless and constantly pushing Jack away with very cruel behaviour. Even Davix and Olphix. Whatever their behaviour is, if I can understand their motives behind it, I tend to struggle with it a lot less.

I don’t like to squick myself with my own writing, as a general rule. So no, I’m not looking to write things where I need to take breaks from my own writing to cope. But I think to be blunt, my life is filled with things more challenging than what I put a lot of my characters through, and my emotional ability to handle disturbing behaviour is broader than I think it would be for some other people. It doesn’t mean I lack empathy or compassion, if anything I hope that through my writing, people can see that I have great compassion for the characters that often suffer the most, through my need to build up a chosen/found family around them, and pour love onto them, even if they don’t know what to do with it.

Those that are here in the pit of ‘enjoying Pia’s writing’ are probably here because the comfort when it comes is - I hope - tangible and visceral, the loneliness when it’s comforted away reaches past the screen and means something. And holding onto that thread myself is why I enjoy the hurt part of the hurt/comfort as much as the comfort part, but also why I don’t like to write one without the other.

And finally, most of my POV characters, by the time we get to them, have been through their darkest moments in their pasts. The only way we often access their worst moments is through flashbacks, memories, dialogue or their aversions. That might feel very extreme to some, but for me, it means by the time we get to them, they’re already starting to recover something for themselves. The worst has happened.

Even if they go through something during the story, say - Connor in Eversion with Gabriel - I just think ‘it’s okay, they’re already in the story, their support is there, they’re going to be okay.’ It’s...extremely rare for me to write stories where the character goes through their worst trauma within the story. Science of Fear is an exception to that, but as most people know if they’ve read it - Nathan blacks out early on, and then once more, we only find out the details of his worst trauma in the form of nightmares, flashbacks and dialogue.

That’s partly because I feel personally that I write trauma recovery stories, and not trauma stories (it doesn’t sound like a huge difference, but to me it’s a huge difference). And then secondly because there is a buffer through the trauma itself being in the form of a memory. That...makes it a lot easier for me to cope with. I’ve spent my entire life learning how to cope with flashbacks, after all. But also, even if the character is clearly destroyed by a flashback, the fact is, they survived it. The flashback is living proof they survived it.

But anyway, I’d say me taking breaks from my own writing because of disturbing content specifically doesn’t really happen anymore and I can’t remember the last time it did. I take breaks because I’m struggling with a chapter - i.e. how to write it mechanically, or because I feel like it doesn’t have the emotional strength I want it to have yet. I am actually very comfortable with many of the themes I write, I’d have a far squickier, grosser, harder time writing pregnancy, or a story filled with only fluff, which is y’know, why...I don’t really write those things, lol. I’m too much of a hedonist to want to write content that scared me away from my own content? Like, you do you, folks, but I’m going to be over here actually enjoying what I write, disturbing matter and all.

That doesn’t mean other people can’t have a hard time with it. It’s totally okay for people to take breaks from whatever they read, for whatever reason. And since a lot of the characters I write do engage in troubling behaviour, it wouldn’t be great if people said ‘that behaviour is okay to do in real life’ because it isn’t. But if someone said ‘god I love that villain because he’s awful’ then yeah, I’m right there with pom poms, because that’s my jam too. And if someone else said ‘I can’t stand that villain because he’s awful’ then yeah, that’s awesome as well.

And if people need to take breaks while reading what I’m writing because they’re engaging in self-care, then good! I’ve needed to do the same with other people’s writing. Because the journey of the reader is different to the journey of the writer (this is for me, truest when writing porn, lmao, I’m not turning myself on when I write those scenes, but I sure as hell hope I’m turning on at least some readers --> so if I’m not walking away from the disturbing content in my own writing, that doesn’t mean I’m not hoping people won’t be disturbed when reading it).

[not-poignant]

Now that you know Eran and Mosk a bit more, what are your favorite things about writing them? I'm really enjoying how they're evolving.

I’m so glad you’re enjoying them anon! I’m enjoying them too. :D

Hmm, favourite things I like writing about them. I might just do it in point format:

Mosk:

* I like that it’s becoming easier to see the difference between ‘I’m mean to everyone and everything because I hate everyone and everything’ and his actual mean streak which does exist. I mean it’s probably more obvious to me at the moment, since I’m up to date with the latest chapters. But I feel like we’re starting to see his actual Unseelie personality glimpse through the damage.

* The fact that a lot of his damage comes from his family and not from Olphix and Davix. I actually really enjoy writing that, so that he has this acute trauma, but also this deeper systemic trauma that he’s completely unaware of.

* His dark sense of humour, and also his evident appreciation for gallow’s humour. It’s growing, but it’s there. Mosk is quite a bleak and pessimistic character, since that’s a safe zone for him, and humour that is bleak can actually crack through his shell a little. The moments where Eran has that figured out and makes a joke dark enough that Mosk laughs feel really bright to me.

* Mosk in scenes. You’ll see.

* Mosk’s general just...overall sense of ‘I don’t know why I’m here or what I’m doing here but whatever I guess’ because normally I’m writing pretty driven characters.

* Um. Mosk in the next chapter. *beats the desk* MOSK IN THE NEXT CHAPTER MOSK IN THE NEXT CHAPTER

Eran:

* Eran is a Good Boy (TM) who Likes Animals (TM) and is a legit Disney Prince with a Good Singing Voice (TM)

* Eran’s willingness to just really like people. Like Oengus and the Gancanagh and (now Gwyn) and Mosk and Ash and Julvia and...possibly Augus honestly I still think he’s unsure about Augus.

* I know what Eran is like as a Dom now. So that.

* When Mosk goes on a rant and Eran is like ‘well all of that may be true but that it isn’t what I believe and you can’t change my mind just by yelling at me’ and Mosk goes: ‘oh’ and Eran is like ‘so there.’

* Sad Eran. Sad Eran makes me want to get every blanket in my house and pile them on top of him so he can (probably) eventually light them on fire.

* Every time Eran shows signs of actually being a really great leader, though at the moment he’s happy not to be, I really enjoy when he shows the good family upbringing he had, but also how sharp his mind can be. He’s very observant.

* Eran liking gossip? Like Eran kind of living for gossip? Eran seeing something and being like ‘I HAVE TO TELL SOMEONE WHAT I SAW.’ Like, who-? I didn’t plan that to be a character trait. It just sort of became.

---

There are other things, but I think that’s a good start.

What are you folks enjoy about Eran and Mosk so far?

[not-poignant]

I just wanted to say that one of things I really admire about your writing is your ability to craft incredible villains-- and make me feel bad for them. like i never liked Crielle in the same way I liked the protags, but still i found my heart hurting for her when i read The Curse and when Gwyn found her journal. and now i feel a little for Olphix. i love how youre able to make me go "i disagree with you and find your actions repugnant, but still i kinda feel for you" esp with crielle and olphix

Hiya anon,

Yeah I honestly don’t know why I do it to myself but by the time I do it to myself I end up having to do it to others too, lol.

Like, I really don’t like Crielle. I mean in a lot of ways I hate her. I enjoy writing her as a villain, for sure, because she’s an effective villain, but I don’t enjoy thinking about her too much, because then a whole lot of complex feelings come, about how people can have bad things happen to them and choose bad paths in life, but how you know, if you still have compassion or idk, the ability to empathise, it’s possible to feel empathy or compassion for a monster even though you also want nothing good for them. The complex feelings still come.

It’s a weird zone. I didn’t intend to do it with Davix and Olphix, but I have. And, to a degree, I think Efnisien in Spoils of the Spoiled too (which people may get a glimpse of in chapter 9). That cognitive dissonance between ‘you are an evil person’ and ‘but bad things happened and I can imagine how great the pain must have been to drive you to this decision even though it doesn’t excuse any of the things you’ve done.’

I really envy people who are so black and white in their thinking, they don’t have this part of them. They’re just: this person is evil, this person is good, or whatever, and I mean, I have that sometimes. I don’t think I feel empathetic towards the Nightingale about a single damned thing. But I don’t have it where other people do, a lot of the time. Crielle is so easy to hate whenever we’re seeing from Gwyn’s POV and she’s torturing him, but when we’re not in that, and we see her side of things more it’s like ‘hang on what.’

And it is a really fine line, you know. Some people hate Augus the way some people hate Crielle. Some people think Augus or Ash are as awful as like Crielle or Lludd are. The black and white thinking gets applied to Augus, Gwyn, a bevy of Fae Tales characters, which is understandable, especially coming from Shadows and Light in the case of Augus.

So I mean I obviously like exploring that line in general, in writing. Like, I loved it even with Cullen (who is one of the most polarising characters in the franchise - often blindly hated, or blindly loved without a great deal of nuance in between). I like taking a character that people hate, and seeing where I can go with that. Are they redeemable? What would it take? How much work is enough work that the sympathy and empathy outweighs the horror and outrage? And then, what makes a character irredeemable? What is it like to feel sympathy but with a million caveats like ‘oh I feel bad for them BUT they are actually just terrible.’

All rhetorical questions of course, but certainly things I think about while writing. Anyway, while I love when people love/hate characters, I also enjoy hearing about the times when it’s like ‘well, it’s confusing, because obviously Crielle’s the worst, but...’ and it’s like yeah, anon, I feel that, it’s a weird place to be, right?

I don’t think it’s a bad thing to recognise that you have the capacity to maintain compassion though, even in circumstances where you can never condone someone’s behaviour.