#it's literally just a well written character who needs just a little bit of EMPATHY to be understood

[scionsthings]

This is a Jayce Talis defender blog if you hate Jayce Talis you hate me, if you can't handle a beautifully written character and you lack of empathy you can remove us from your existence.

Jayce Talis is an idiot, but an idiot with a big heart and he's doing his best despite all the awful things that keeps happening in his life, not even giving him the time to metabolize it all. He always need to act quickly, he feel the responsibility to save all, but he's just an human, in those situations, making the perfect decision is literally IMPOSSIBLE.

[saintsenara]

on ghosts

this question was a postscript to an ask i got about some crack ships:

JK Rowling kind of presents ghosts as pathetic. Is this another indication of her lack of empathy and compassion?

and the answer would have been a bit out of place in a post which was otherwise about whether it's plausible to ship hermione and moaning myrtle... so it's here instead, being my least favourite type of meta, because it requires me to do jkr defending...

the presentation of ghosts in canon - as unhappy, unimpressive, petty, cowardly, annoying, and forever in a state of arrested development - is inextricable from the fact that the harry potter series is for children. there's literally no way to think about them without this being front and centre.

children's literature is inherently didactic - that is, it teaches its readers how to understand and conduct themselves within the world. children's literature therefore has a duty of care towards its audiences that literature written for adults doesn't.

[let me be very clear though that this lack of responsibility only applies to the texts, to the stories themselves. authors writing for adults have plenty of responsibilities to their audience when it comes to their personal conduct around their relationship with fame and with fans. a little topical addendum there...]

above all, when they're coming up with plots and discussing characters' motivations, children's authors need to think about what their audience might be going through in their everyday lives. and they are then obliged to approach these things in their writing in a way which helps their audience make sense of their experiences in a way which supports, encourages, and comforts them.

this doesn't mean that children's literature can't or shouldn't approach hard topics, not in the slightest. but responsible children's literature has to do this in a way that doesn't cause a child reading to incur any additional harm.

and one of humanity's defining childhood milestones is coming to understand what it means when somebody dies.

it was jkr's job to assume that any child reading the series might have recently experienced or face imminently experiencing the death of someone they loved. it was also her job to assume that there were children reading the series who were facing the prospect of dying themselves.

it would have been breathtakingly irresponsible for her to present the act of dying as anything other than natural, neutral [not something which only happens to bad people, for example], unavoidable, and irreversible. it would have been similarly irresponsible for her to present accepting one's own death as anything other than the right choice - a reasonable and rational decision - which is made by people who are brave, clever, curious, loving, and adventurous.

and since her story has ghosts - which is an entirely reasonable worldbuilding decision for someone writing children's fantasy to make - it would have been similarly irresponsible for her to portray those ghosts' relationship with their deaths as anything other than pathetic.

let's imagine, for a second, that sirius had chosen to become a ghost at the end of order of the phoenix. it's not implausible from a watsonian characterisation standpoint, we all know that sirius would have done pretty much anything if it meant not abandoning harry...

but it would have been inexcusable from a doylist one. what would it do to a child who'd just lost their own [god]father to be told that someone who really loved them would have stayed behind?

instead, if we keep the child-reader's welfare in mind, the immediate aftermath of sirius' death is handled really well:

harry explicitly states that sirius would have left the veil if that were possible, and the fact that he doesn't isn't because he doesn't want to, but because he's dead and therefore can't.

harry veers between being distraught, angry, confused, and apathetic. he lashes out. he breaks things. he wants to die. he struggles to find enjoyment in things. he doesn't want to be around other people, except for the times when he does. he doesn't want to talk about sirius. he blames himself for his death.

hagrid acknowledges that sirius didn't want to die, but recognises this doesn't change the fact that he still did.

harry tries to talk to sirius through the mirror and is unable to, because he's dead.

harry asks nearly-headless nick if sirius will come back as a ghost. nick says no, and praises sirius for that decision, saying emphatically that he chose to remain behind because he was a coward, that he regrets his decision, and that those who accept death are happier than those who choose a ghost's half-life.

luna tells harry that grief becomes more manageable as it gets older - even though it doesn't vanish, that it doesn't have to be endured alone, that talking about it with other people is comforting, that the dead are never truly gone [whether the reader wishes to interpret that as meaning the dead are never gone if they're remembered, or as meaning the living and the dead will be reunited in the afterlife], and that it's fine to still take pleasure in things even when you're grieving.

the series also emphasises again and again that not progressing in grief - not learning how to integrate it into everyday life, not growing alongside it, letting it consume you and keep you stuck and stop you enjoying things - is dangerous. which is also a really responsible message for children to receive.

from an adult's perspective, i think it's fine for readers to quibble with the way that the series presents accepting death as obvious and rational. it - like every other example of choice in the series - is presented as an individual one between two binary options - one which is good and correct, one which is bad and wrong - in which broader societal or institutional forces are irrelevant.

for example, voldemort's fear of death, which the series is clear is inextricable from his enormous, corrosive grief over his mother, is presented as something he just decides to do, a wrong, bad, and unsympathetic choice he deliberately makes, rather than a choice influenced by the circumstances of his early life.

this is - unsurprisingly - a genre thing again [children's literature villains have to be the embodiment of evil, they're not supposed to be particularly complex] but jkr does seem to be someone who thinks in this individualistic, binary way about quite a lot of things, gender very much included, and i do think that's worth adult readers bearing in mind.

and so we can certainly decide to examine the decisions made by the series' ghosts through these more nuanced lenses, and to consider the decision not to move on as something which - yes - clearly does have an element of cowardice to it [why else would you accept eternity in a liminal state rather than moving on to something definite?], but which is broader and more messy and more complex and contradictory than canon presents it as.

but we can only do this if we acknowledge that the doylist text did its job properly. the child-reader needed to be left in no doubt that it's good there are no ghosts in their life. and they are.

[karan-koron]

This question has been floating around in my brain but do you think gegero’s opinion of humans has changed by the end of the movie or just in general?? I thought it would be nice if mizuki was like a starting point but personally I need to know other people’s opinions,,,

Hi! Yes, I think you're right that Gegero's opinion of humans change throughout the movie. As for the starting point I believe it's a bit more complicated...

The movie is mostly from Mizuki's point of view, so his character development is the most noticeable, but Gegero also grows as a character during the course of the movie. In the past he hated humans, and admired his wife's capability to love them despite everything, but he never says she was able to make him love humans himself. Not that he's hateful either ; I don't want to call him prejudiced given his position (humans actively engaging in genocide against his people and all), but he really shows no interest in socializing with humans beyond what is needed to achieve his goals. The exception being of course children, him showing kindness and empathy to Tokiya and Sayo, showing that Gegero wants to stay hopeful for the future and is not closed to the idea of humans growing for the better. IMO it's important to keep in mind because while Mizuki IS an important influence on Gegero, the overall theme of legacy, with children carrying the future and adults having a responsibility towards them is AS important.

In his initial interactions with Mizuki, Gegero tolerates him in order to get what he wants, but isn't particularly friendly to him. (all he feels is "pity" at this point, in his own words)

This scene illustrates it well I think : at this point their relationship is like, business partners working towards a similar goal but there's no particular affection here. Mizuki has eased up a little bit around Gegero but is still pretty much in corporate mode.

It's in the graveyard scene that they open up and manage to see heart to heart for the first time. Mizuki discloses he has only ever known hurt and oppression in his relationships ; and Gegero offers empathy and advice sharing his own experiences and how love saved him, foreshadowing what will happen to Mizuki. (and Kitaro!)

This line contrasts with Mizuki's earlier "oh your wife ran away? sore loser" remark. It's the first time they truly sympathize with each other, as symbolically shown through Mizuki sharing his last cigarette with Gegero, who shows surprise before accepting it. He wondered just before if he will ever have his own fateful encounter, but this scene seals the moment his fate becomes intertwined with Gegero's. (and as such, Kitaro's...)

And while they had mutual sympathy at this point, trust on Gegero's side came much later, when Mizuki came to save him in the basement.

Anyways, all this to say that while the movie is from Mizuki's point of view, the growth, esteem and affection is not one sided at all. It's because Gegero grew to consider him his equal that he could entrust him with his most important treasures at the end of the movie.

IMO Mizuki and Gegero's relationship is so well written and ties so nicely with the original "birth of Kitaro" story, recontextualizing it while not betraying its key events. And specifically for Mizuki and Gegero, it's shown through promises made to each other and their respective duty to fulfill them.

Literally every element of the movie culminates to, well, the birth of Kitaro, framed as a miracle due to the love and efforts of his parents (Gegero, his wife, and Mizuki) who made it possible. Gegero's driving force is love, something he inherited from his wife and passes on to Mizuki : in the epilogue, Kitaro's fate is different from his Hakaba counterpart because Mizuki is able to (vaguely) remember Gegero.

I mentioned Kitaro multiple times because while not physically present for most of the movie literally everything Mizuki and Gegero do and experience will be inherited in turn by Kitaro. Legacy and cycles are core themes of the movie, with Kitaro's family perpetuating a cycle of nurtured love (Gegero's wife > Gegero > Mizuki > Kitaro) which contrasts with the Ryuga's, all doomed by Tokisada's legacy.

Of course Kitaro's decision to help humans is his own, and it being motivated by Mizuki is something specific to 2018 Kitaro ; but Gegero, or, well, Medama Oyaji, has always supported him. His characterization in Genazo was made with the TV anime in mind, with scenes such as Medama showing affection to Mana and such, and gives these context by showing that his support comes from his own experiences with Mizuki, which could only happen in the first place because of his wife ...

That's kind of a disjointed post sorry I'm thought vomiting at this point lol. But yeah. Mizuki changed Gegero's opinion on humans, but Gegero gave Mizuki a chance in the first place and didn't fall into prejudice because of what is wife had taught him in the past...

[katieskarlette]

Long time, no ramble

I read The Calling, the new short story about Anduin. It was heart wrenching, emotional and poignant...but I couldn't stop thinking about how much I disliked the plot that sent him on this trajectory.

No matter how well Anduin's PTSD and guilt are handled, I can't forget that they stem from the train wreck of Shadowlands. He should never have been put in this position in the first place.

Just as Anduin was literally yoinked into the sky by the Jailer's minions to start the expansion, he was also yoinked out of his plot arc. He was starting to come into his own as a king, moving beyond his father's shadow bit by bit, finding the balance between his own peace-loving tendencies and the grim necessity of some violence in a world such as Azeroth. There were hints that he was struggling with the balance of Light and Shadow, as well. All of that character development came to a screeching halt when he got kidnapped and turned into Zovaal's puppet.

What made pre-Shadowlands Anduin unique was his stubborn insistence on empathy in a world full of bloodthirsty warmongers. The siege of Undercity at the start of BFA was the perfect microcosm of that: he set down Shalamayne and used the Light to heal/rez his soldiers instead. He was finding ways to lead that were effective but which allowed him to be true to his ideals.

There was nothing wrong with the way Varian led his people (or at least nothing that I want to get into right now), but that doesn't mean his style is the right choice for Anduin. I've always had a soft spot for characters who are like, "Yeah, I know the world is a cruel place. I'm not naïve. But that's all the more reason to spread hope and kindness."

I would have been fine with a plot where Anduin struggles to find a happy medium between "We must strive for peace" and "We need to mercilessly obliterate our enemies to protect innocent lives," and errs too much on the side of violence. He could feel the same remorse and lack of trust in himself as he does in the current canon, feel unworthy of the Light, think back on how Varian atoned for some of his misdeeds, and grow as a person. It would mean more if he was actually making choices and working through the consequences.

As it stands, Anduin is beating himself up over something that isn't his fault, even a little bit. I sympathize with him up to a point, but by the end of the short story I was frustrated and even a little annoyed with his stubborn self-hatred. He's not stupid, and it's not like being controlled by evil forces is a new concept for an Azerothian. He comes across as obtuse when he insists that he's indelibly tainted by what happened to him, when he personally knows people who have been in similar situations and did not become pariahs.

(Yes, I know trauma responses aren't logical. Irrational guilt and survivor's guilt exist. But realism doesn't necessarily translate into a satisfying narrative. And yes, characters need to change and face challenges, but when those challenges were born from atrocious writing it leaves a bad taste in the audience's mouth.)

Is there dramatic irony in the kind, altruistic character not being able to extend the same grace to himself? Of course. But is Blizzard's storytelling capable of that level of nuance? Forgive me for being skeptical. I'm sure he will find himself again and heal through the coming expansions, but, again, I'm not optimistic that it will be handled well.

I'm probably judging the story too harshly because my patience for WoW's story ran out during Shadowlands and I'm still bitter. If they had to try to salvage a halfway decent character arc from the bullshit of that expansion, this is probably the best way to go about it.

The new short story was well-written and tugged at the heartstrings. It just didn't win me back. I didn't expect it to, though. Instead I continue to mourn a franchise that captivated me for many years before its trip to the realm of Death meant the demise of my devotion. :(

Disclaimer: I didn't hate everything about Shadowlands. Sire Denathrius can read off a list of my sins anytime. Aww yeah. The rest can be retconned to oblivion, though. ;)

[spaceorphan18]

Finchel, Klaine, and Polin pt. 1

Rachel, Kurt, and Penelope

This... first of all is a reply to this post :: HERE

It's a been an interesting discourse and thought experiment given by @foundfam2754 and it ended up being so long I'm at least splitting it up into two parts, and possibly three...

****

Before digging in, a couple of prefaces -- clearly, these are fictional characters written by very different people, and whose worlds just work in vastly different ways. And I think at the end of the day, this is kind of a thought experiment about how stories and characters can function in similar ways within narratives? At least that's how I'm looking at it.

Also, I'm speaking conversationally more than anything. I don't expect anyone to agree with my interpretation - and as I'm talking about fictional characters, I always like to make the disclaimer that fictional characters are always reflected by the prism of the viewer's experiences, and we all take away from stories something different.

I guess, also, it got me thinking about how similar Finn and Blaine are, and I never really thought about it (all these years later) but it's unsurprising. Ryan Murphy and Co ha(d)ve a tendency to write the same type of characters over and over, and there are a lot of similarities in the Finchel and Klaine storylines (some of it intentional, some of it not). But does make for a fascinating analysis when compared to Polin.

[This first part, though, is really about Rachel, Kurt, and Penelope -- Finn, Blaine, and Colin will be later, as well as exploring some relationship dynamic stuff.]

****

Alright, so I want to start with Penelope and her parallels with Rachel vs Kurt. It's the easier one to compare because I think Rachel and Kurt aren't that far apart from each other. Ryan Murphy and Co really only had a handful of character types -- most characters fall into a few kinds of roles, and literally everyone on the show can be filtered into one of the few.

Rachel and Kurt, are, really, almost the same character. And a lot of the traits that they share, incidentally, they also share with Penelope.

Using some of your examples -- both Rachel and Kurt have been ignored for most of their life. Both have been bullied for being different, and for not fitting into what society deems is worthy. Both have very few people who truly understand them, or even notice them - and their qualities of goodness. Both have had to claw their way to being seen, and at some personal risk.

And I think (show) Penelope shares ALL of that with them.

Kurt and Rachel both, also, have a bit of a dark streak. They can both be divas at times. They can both be sharp and cutting with their words and actions. And, honestly, so can Penelope.

(All of them, also, have an interest and fascination with gossip, which is a funny aside.)

And then there's the point about insecurities. And, I feel like I need more time to think on this. All three of them are socially awkward. All three of them are also self-assured and well grounded within themselves. And all three of them do have insecurities, but I do think it's all in different ways. (But I may need more time to expand on that).

There is one huge, fundamental difference between Rachel and Kurt, though. I don't even mean this in a derogatory way but, Rachel is more selfish, more ambitious, and more willing to sacrifice everything to gain her goals in life. (And thus, often succeeds at being at the top.) Kurt, meanwhile, will always put those he loves first, even at great personal sacrifice. Kurt has an empathy that Rachel often lacks. And while I think that Penelope might land a little in between the two, I do think she does lean on the Kurt side, as she is softer and more caring than Rachel often is.

Then there's how they love. And it's interesting where you write that Rachel wants to be wanted while Penelope wants to be loved. And I do agree with you - but it's interesting that I think how they want to be wanted and/or loved is different. (Because I think Penelope and Kurt love similarly over Rachel)

Rachel and Kurt both crave feeling loved, because both think that they're undeserving of it for various reasons. (And, weirdly, I don't think Penelope believes she's undeserving of it - I think she believes she just won't get it from the source of where she wants it from, which is similar to both Rachel and Kurt but yeah nuance differences there.)

and... It's kind of funny that both Rachel and Kurt both fall for Finn (!!) for similar reasons -- it's a hero worship. It's this belief that Finn is going to give them the love they want and desire but feel is ultimately out of their reach. And yeah, I can see Penelope starting her crush in the same way -- that Colin is someone who was kind to her, who was nice in a world that isn't nice, that seems to look past the weirdness and oddity and the taboo and is like - I like you.

And that's such a powerful thing!

(As an aside, Kurt is going to do this same thing with Blaine.)

The thing that I really want to get into, though, and I'm going to just tease here because I'll probably get into it in a future part -- I think while Klaine, Finchel, and Polin may start out in similar places I think Klaine and Polin have something Finchel doesn't necessarily have -- a foundation of a very solid friendship.

And, again, I'll get into this with a later portion, but I realize this might where we really start to disagree. Because I think Finchel is a relationship that is meaningful for Finn and Rachel while in high school, while they're young and figuring themselves out, but it never progresses to an adult relationship. But, I mean, I also think that Jesse and Rachel are the better match. I think they like and understand each other on a more fundamental level, and they make more sense to me as a couple than Finn and Rachel.

(So while I think Jesse is nothing like Colin (omg that thought is making me laugh) I do think (for me) St. Berry's relationship dynamics are more align with Klaine and Polin -- but again, I'll get way more into that later.)

Anyway, a few more Rachel, Kurt, and Penelope things...

I think all three of them love and feel very deeply. Rachel wears her emotions on her sleeve. Kurt buries them deep and keeps them very protected. Again, I think Penelope ends up a little inbetween -- she exclaims you should declare how you feel fervently and loudly. But she also protects her heart, and keeps her feelings buried, and she's very protective over those she loves.

I think Kurt and Penelope are more so old school romantics. Rachel enjoys romance but is much flashier and gaudier about it.

One of the big things, though, that Rachel and Penelope have in common that Kurt just doesn't --- Rachel and Penelope are women. And there are struggles there Kurt's just not going to get.

Okay, so a quick note about Book Penelope who is... different. She's older -- and perhaps wiser and calmer. She's also softer and kinder. Despite being Whistledown for all those years, she doesn't have the darker edges that show Penelope has (which is more akin to Kurt and Rachel). If anyone, she's a lot more like Mercedes -- but Mercedes wouldn't bother with wasting her time being in love with anyone for fifteen years.

So yeah, I'm going to stop here for now. :)

[amynchan]

You know, I'm really glad that I wrote fanfiction when I was younger.

I have a lot of thoughts that strike me, and at the time, they seem really profound and important. This one feels like it too, though I may look back later and just cringe at my sense of arrogance, as one does. Honestly, the future me who's cringing just makes me chuckle a little bit. Some things don't change.

And yet, some of them do. I started publicly posting my fanfiction when I was 14 years old. There's another one, one that I wrote with my brother and boyfriend of the time, that came before that. Actually, did you know that my older brother got me into fanfiction in the first place? It's funny, thinking about it. And, just like he doesn't write anymore, I got my sibling into art. Theirs is amazing, and I just don't draw as often as I used to, and I'm okay with that. I get so proud when I see what they draw, and I suppose my brother might be proud of what I write. At least, if he reads it and doesn't cringe himself. Haha!

Back to fanfiction, I guess. I wrote it when I was 14 and ever since. I've penned some things that I'm embarrassed of, I've proudly displayed the most cliched of story lines, I've written down what made me the saddest and the happiest only to look back and feel guilty that I might have accidentally caused offense due to the fact that I didn't know what I was doing. But also, I've learned from it.

In the 2010s, "gay" was a word that was ambiguous to me. I used it, and it wasn't flattering. I'll always feel a bit of shame over it, but I keep it up to keep myself humble. I'm not perfect. It's a misstep, but it's mine, and I keep it because it teaches me not to do that again.

But also, during my Ghost Hunt phase, I wrote a few stories that resonate with me. A lot of them are because I feel seen while reading them. The constant care I gave Naru, the daughter I gave him that was him but louder and more stubborn. I love going back and hearing my younger self say "someone like you is worth loving." Then, there's one scene that hits me because I've since done a complete 180 on the attitude that supports it.

In this case, the main character is constantly in danger and needs to protect herself. The more experienced medium attempts to gently but firmly teacher her how to ignore more calls for help than you can heed. It's a lesson on how to protect yourself so you can protect others. The bursting "triumph" of this scene is when the main character pushes past her boundaries and extends an empathetic hand to the ghost, determined to save her to the last. Her empathy is rewarded, and her life is saved. When I was younger, that was my attitude. Help others, even and perhaps especially at the cost of yourself. It's a snapshot into who I was and what I valued most dearly.

Now, when I reread that story, I side with the more experienced medium. I can't imagine her being more gentle or more firm with what I see as the truth. The moment of triumph now leads me to despair, because I see someone who is capable of helping more people if only she learned how to take care of herself first.

And I think it's fun. And I think that my fanfiction over the years has taught me not only why people write stories but why we preserve them as well.

No human is the same throughout the entirety of their lives. "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, for time is soon a-flying. These same flowers that live today, tomorrow will be dying." It's not just a literal life. It's phases of life, too. We change, we morph, we transform, and literally going back isn't an option. However, stories remain. Of our follies, of our triumphs, of our attitudes, of literally anything. And, to me, they're a reminder of who I was, and it makes it a little easier to at least understand those who are coming after me.

Maybe they'll be in a different phase than me. Maybe they'll stay there longer, or even forever. There are so many stories, and they relate to so many people, because humanity, while it always changes, stays the same. And, if nothing else, timeless stories passed through generations and new stories that take the world by storm can continually teach us that.

But the real thought at the heart of this? Stories are timeless, and everyone has a different interpretation at different points of their lives. I just thought that I'm sick of people who say "you'll understand it when you're older." That's starting to feel like a cheap shot. "You'll understand my interpretation when you're older," sure, but there's understanding to be had in the here and now. Regardless of your age, your placement in life, or your experiences, you can make meaning out of any story.

So, go off, I guess. Find a story, read it, relate to it or don't, make meaning out of the strange jumble of words you find. Write what's important to you now, and a string of understanding may extend from you to someone different in the future, whether that be someone new or someone you turn into. Let fiction, nonfiction, drama, stories, poetry link us together. Not because we all have the same understanding of it, but the opposite. Let's all find our own meaning in what we see, and if we share it with others, then maybe we can find understanding with each other.

And that, my friends, is what I'll most likely cringe very hard at later. I can already feel it coming, haha, so I'll just post this now. XD I'll tag as 'long post' just in case some people have that blocked, because wow, did I not expect it to get this long. XD

See ya!

[raccoonfallsharder]

tiny lil violet anon here!! hh second guessing is really common w creatives (i would know.. i'm a digital artist) but i want you to know that you're probably one of my favourite fic writers and you actually inspired me to start working on a rocket x reader fic of my own a while back!!! (would you mind if i sent you my fic if i ever finished it?)

honestly, i dont think you have to worry about how well you capture rocket's voice bc honestly you're one of, if not the best i've read— your triptych day 17 fic was genuinely mindblowing for example?? your understanding of how different people write rocket is so in depth and the way you made all three renditions of rocket different but so clearly still rocket got me awestruck (do you have any tips on writing the 3 different rockets btw? i'd love to understand more about how you differentiate them! ><)

i remember reading the boring adventures of space pilot and sweatshirt girl for the first time after reading the rocket comics and thinking that helping rocket out on that ferry was exactly what i was hoping someone would write?? it was the fic i needed and didn't deserve LMAO literally every thing you've written has always filled a gap that i didn't know was there & didn't know i needed ♡♡

sorry for the ridiculously long ask ^^; your work genuinely means so much to me and im totally in love with how you write rocket— while ik every artist doubts themselves, i want you to know that the work you create is so much better than you give yourself credit for!

tiny little violet nonnie!! (⸝⸝o̴̶̷᷄‸o̴̶̷̥᷅⸝⸝) you precious sweet little flower. please don’t apologize for long asks - i love them (they just take a while for me to respond to). this was also so, so sweet, and the idea that any of my writing means a lot to you kinda makes me teary ♡

i would love to read your fanfic! even if you don’t finish it! you can always send it my way via dms or share via ask if you wanna stay on anon. or post it and tag me ♡ the fact that i was able to inspire you a little bit is honestly one of the most lovely compliments i could receive and it is truly an honor

(｡•́︿•̀｡)

i’m also so grateful that you enjoyed sweatshirt girl ♡ one of my favorite things about fanfiction is that it can give us the stories we need and deserve (or give us the opportunity to write them!). honestly reading grounded all i wanted to do was pick up that raccoon and take him home and feed him warm food and that’s how sweatshirt girl happened ♡o(╥﹏╥)o♡

so part of the reason i took a long time to respond is because i was trying to really think about how i write the different rockets. and i decided i only have one “tip” for you (or rather, one thing that worked for me and which i hope might also work for you.

but you know im gonna take ten paragraphs to get there!

tbh even though i refer to them by their respective authors, i don’t think “i need to write rocket like skottie young” or “i need to write rocket like james gunn.” i think “i need to know rocket, and understand him, and figure out how he would react & interact in skottie young’s galaxy” or “in the mcu.”

my short tip for writing any character is understand what makes them tick. what drives them? what do they long for? how do they hurt? what do they fear? in what ways do their insecurities and survival mechanisms weave together and impact the way they see the world, interact with friends, protect themselves from enemies?

your best tool as a writer of characters is your ability to empathize with them.

know and love your characters the same way you do your best friends. as authors we are playing god with their world and their lives and it’s a little bit of a sacred responsibility to at least make sure we understand them as well as we can ♡

so for rocket specifically…

fundamentally, my personal interpretation of rocket in any universe is someone with profound empathy, who feels pain very deeply. and since he hasn’t had the opportunity to like, see & practice healthy coping mechanisms lol, he has learned to survive by trying to hide that empathy and that pain under layers of calcification and sarcasm and spikes and blades. and it like, kinda works?? but sometimes it ends up hurting people who don’t deserve to be hurt and when he realizes that, the hidden empathy kicks in and he hates himself all over again.

and like many people, rocket also doesn’t really want to give up his pain. people tend to fight to keep their most hurtful memories or vulnerabilities locked inside. they build so much of their identities around them.

so the real question comes down to, what is each rocket’s source of pain? how does that impact how he interacts and thinks? what is his support system at the point in time that i’m like, crashing his party? how does that impact his interactions and thoughts?

skottie young’s rocket gets laid, so he’s not going to be worried about seducing anyone tbh. he’s probably got the most confidence out of all the rockets, at least on the surface. geez, the 2014 run? it’s like. all about his copious ex-girlfriends and about he’s the only one of his kind in the whole universe. if i were gonna write a full fic based on skottie young’s rocket, i’d base my foundation on the idea that the reason rocket has so many exes is because he’s constantly searching for something that he doesn’t believe exists (basically, someone who can make him feel not-alone) and he probably ends up sabotaging his chances every fuckin time he gets close.

ewing’s or rosenberg’s rocket? still canonically gets laid but has gotten treated like dirt enough times — including being betrayed by people he trusts at various points — that he’s always waiting for that to happen. and mcu rocket? that boy is so insecure about his worth on every level that if he has any pleasant interaction with anyone, he’s probably baffled about why the fuck it’s happening.

all this to say: how do you see (each) rocket? how does he move through the galaxy his authors creates for him? and how does that change when you step in and make something different for him?

it’s late here and my brain is foggy so i’m sorry if i didn’t fully and properly answer your question, sweet little violet .｡༅:*ﾟ*:✼✿ all this to say that if i am successful at all in effectively communicating rocket, it’s more about studying (my interpretation of) who he is in each setting than studying a writer’s style, if that makes sense.

ahhh good night, little love. i am an old baba yaga and i must sleep

[eyesontheskyline]

Love your work, you’re an incredible writer and it’s always a good day when you post 🫶🏼 I’m intrigued on a couple of things. Firstly, who do you find the hardest to write in character? Your characterisation is brilliant so I’m curious as to what you found the hardest?

Also what is your process during writing in general. I appreciate that with no such thing you had the episodes to flip, but when you’re scripting AU how would you go about doing so? I know some word vomit (I mean this nicely) and then mould away whereas others go with a rigid structure.

You’re exactly the kind of writer that inspires me to write myself… but also the kind of writer I’m forever envious of because of your effortless writing style haha!!

Aaahhh this is so kind, thank you! (Sorry in advance, this got long.)

So who do I find hardest to write in character... Out of everyone, JJ, definitely. The rest of them, I feel like the rhythm of their speech is distinct and I know when I've got it. (Obviously someone else might disagree with that and think I'm doing a terrible job of someone else lol, but I feel like I know when it feels right to me, when I can hear it in their voice in my head.) And I'm like, reasonably confident about how they'd react to a situation or etc - although that's obv very open to interpretation, and I'm aware I'm sometimes leaning into a fantasy a bit. But JJ... I don't know if I know her well. I don't know if the writers know her well, honestly. So I always struggle a bit with her.

Process is... mixed? With no such thing I figured out the relationships that were most important to me to 'fix' or develop and then what beats I wanted to hit to get there. For example, I hate that Emily spends S7 trying to win Morgan's trust back without ever finding out about the shitty things he said about her in Lauren. So I wanted her to hear about it, confront him, and give her the chance to forgive him and for them to choose to move forward together even though things aren't quite the same. I hate that Reid just acts out like a little kid about Emily's death / return and then that's that, but then when Emily comes back in S12 it feels like they're on a much more equal footing - so I wanted to give him the chance to be an equal adult in their friendship, because he absolutely has the capacity for that level of empathy, and that depth of love for Emily, and the writers just defaulted to babying him a lot. So I started with those ideas and literally rewatched all of S7 while taking notes then figured out the beats I needed and where to fit them in. (Stupid amount of detail, sorry, but doing it this way meant I didn't get caught up in trying to write around every 'missing scene' or feel pressure to address every single episode equally, which is the mistake I've made trying to write alongside canon before.)

My current WIP reckless (just enough) started out as 'I haven't written pregnancy / birth since doing it, maybe it would be good to try that', and then I also had a vague 'what if Emily was pregnant when Doyle was arrested' thought, and then thinking about how that would change the choices she made when he escaped made me think of doing it as a three part thing... From there, I started trying to write a detailed outline but I kept getting myself lost in the weeds, so I started just writing. There was a lot more trial and error this way - like writing entire scenes and then realising they were completely useless and scrapping them, which I did some amount of with no such thing (and also someone else's solid ground), but definitely less.

The ending of the final part is still unfinished and kind of in the air - it's out of my comfort zone tonally, and I just can't really figure out the transition from where I am to where I'm trying to be. (The solution to that problem is nearly always reworking the thing before the part I'm stuck at but I've tried that about 10 times so far, so... we'll see. Help lol.)

So yeah, I'm word vomiting this time, and I word vomited someone else's solid ground pretty much entirely - that started from like two lines of dialogue and a vague idea of how I felt their characters had grown since we last saw them together and 'I haven't written smut in a while, I wonder if that's a thing I can still do'. If I need a plot-shaped plot, I need to outline.

Write!! Do it!! And please know that effortless is not the word for my writing loool, I put a ridiculous amount of effort into this. And I edit a lot. I write terrible sentences, terrible scenes, I spend half an hour trying to get a character to move from one place to another or describe some specific action before it occurs to me (like it's brand new information every time) that I can just change it so they don't need to do the thing I'm struggling to describe... But once I'm in the rhythm of doing it, it becomes the thing my brain wants to do when I get a little bit of free time, and that's a fun place for me to be, and much healthier than all the 'how to be a perfect parent' facebook groups I squandered several years crying over. I spent a few years without access to the writing part of my brain, and I'm just... grateful to be back here. I still feel rusty - I was getting to a point pre-pregnancy/pre-covid (unfortunately these are the same event for me lol) where I could be a lot more expressive with language than I am right now. I honestly feel like I'm struggling just with communicating ideas at this point - if I can make myself understood, it's a win, at the moment. But I'm so so glad to be working on it and to have people interested in reading my things.

So yeah please write if any part of you wants to write, and you'll get better as you go! And if you ever want to bounce ideas or scenes or whatever off anyone, I'm always open to talking with more people about writing and Hotchniss and Emily Prentiss loool.

[nattyontherun]

actually i like this rather a lot so i'm reposting for Me purposes,,,,, plus some fun facts about hearthfire cos why nawt? :]

it was supposed to be literally a oneshot... every new chapter was supposed to be the last but it kept chugging along... sigh... it was supposed to be 15k max and now i don't even know how long the "heartfire-verse" as it were, will be before i decide everything is done though, to be very frank, the main storyline is complete!

i wrote it without an outline in essentially five weeks between a. graduating, b. moving to a new city across the country, and c. job-hunting

funnily enough, i edited and wrote some parts of "the two-body problem" WHILE waiting for an interview as well as the results of said interview (i passed btw! i am an employed girly!), namely the scene where kkss are walking through the streets of kiri!

the coda of HF was initially supposed to just comprise of the scene in the wildflower field. the scene with sasuke at the graveyard was supposed to be in ch3........ but the ending of kakashi's scene was SUCH a good conclusion to the fic i moved it over and i like it better that way

at least half the fic was written while cocomelon was played in the bg so if it's extra angsty, it's probably cos i was extra suffering lmfaooooo

sakura and naruto weren't supposed to play as prominent a role in HF--it was supposed to be way more pared down. i kinda don't regret it though, they make for such interesting outside perspectives into the plot--especially sakura.

more on that, my favorite scene of the first chapter of HF *is* the sakura-pov scene because it's so intrinsically selfish, it calls to that lil shit in me who LOVES the drama

there was supposed to be more itachi in HF but i just couldn't bring myself to write him more into the plot even if just in flashbacks--i cannot describe to yall how DONE i am with him sksjnssbs i tried to correct that with "like stars shine through the pyre" but ig in doing that, i basically confirmed for both the readers and myself that itachi, from this point of the future, is almost purely shisui's problem? ish. sasuke's moved on enough not to be thinking about him every damn day anyways, and i like that for his character. he deserves a life without the shadow of itachi looking over him

speaking of, more about like stars: it was supposed to be 3k (if that) and focus solely on why shisui decided to take sasuke's eyes......... then i wrote the first scene and decided past-me was a small minded idiot and rewrote my entire outline

part of the reason i wrote like stars is because i think HF-sasuke is very pure--which canonically, ik that's how kishi describes him and it's certainly how he approaches the world, but i generally subscribe to the notion that victims don't need to represent a certain level of sanctity to be worthy of affection, sorrow or empathy yk? so while i don't really put him on blast as i do itachi or even sakura to some extent,,, i wanted to paint him out to be more human, abrupt and awkward and just a little bit self centered

i was actually struggling to find the writing juice for ch3 of HF because i thought the interlude was so damn pretty how would i bridge over to normal segment??? yk. i almost scrapped the entire first scene which is basically the same as what you see just without the abscess analogy or the ending conversation with sakura--but then i found out via twitter that itachi put 12yo sasuke in a 2-month long coma and decided only god would keep me from writing and further lambasting him peripherally. nothing says hatred like obvious disdain without visible recognition

my lovely friend @sugarbunbie who looked over some of the scenes--half of ch2 and all the more intimate kkss scenes AND the entirety of the two-body problem--DOESN'T EVEN GO HERE. never watched naruto, barely knows the plot--she loves me vv much guys djshsjshshsbsbs i adore her, pls if u like mdzs, yoi or kinnporsche go read everything she ever wrote mwa mwa

and that's basically all of it for now mwahahahahahaha, i just needed a reason to repost and i remembered all the bullshit i was doing behind the scenes while writing HF and decided i might as well share,,,, aren't i so resourceful? lmaooooo

these two assholes in that one bathroom scene in hearthfire

[scandalsavagefanfic]

Batman: Urban Legends, Cheer

I’ve talked a little bit about why Batman: Urban Legends is a bad story already, but I just saw a post talking about this panel and how well Bruce has been written in this story. And while the post didn’t really say anything about Jason, OP’s comments in the notes talked about how this seemed to be a direct response to people trashing Bruce for beating on the poor and disenfranchised, talking about how he’s finally “in character”, how he has a lighter touch and tends to think things through and how the story is teaching Jason a lesson about his “tendency” to brute his way through things without thinking about them, and how Jason wasn’t OOC.

My first post about UL touches on why that last bit is nonsense, but the stuff about Bruce reminded me of something else in UL that really, really bothered me. 

It’s the above panel and these, not just in the context that this story rewrites Jason as ALWAYS having been prone to violence and willing to wail on the weak, but also in the sense that Bruce, of all people, is the one chosen to teach this lesson to Jason. 

[that sentence ends in the next panel with “...stealing the Batmobile’s tires?”]

It’s just one more way DC keeps chipping away at what makes Jason (the Robin raised in poverty, the one who grew up with a first-hand insight into the way Gotham’s systemic corruption and crimes do the most harm to the poorest and least powerful people, and the only one to be personally affected by addiction) special and interesting. It’s just the most recent way they’ve bastardized his roots to villainize him (the poor homeless kid who was brutally murdered) so that Bruce (the billionaire) looks better, so that Bruce is absolved of all his responsibility in how Jason came to be the Red Hood.

Because in actuality, Jason taught Bruce that criminals can change.

Bruce didn’t listen. He stalked Penguin and when he found him, Bruce had to eat his words.

Penguin had actually tried to change. Bruce realized his mistake and tried to defend him after he was arrested, but the damage was done.

By the way, this is from when Penguin was just a jewel thief. Let that sink in for a sec. Go back up to the panel from Urban Legends with Batman and Robin in the alley and reread it.

And this, this story with the Penguin, is how it should be. Not that crap from UL. 

I don’t know why people have to keep saying this but Jason isn’t stupid. He’s incredibly smart and his actions, even his violence, are rooted in empathy and indignation on behalf of the innocent who are harmed, not rage. The above panels in UL are basically like saying that Cassandra Cain has suddenly changed her mind that everyone can be saved and decided to join Jason in killing super villains. This is the core of the character we’re talking about. It’s not the dumb little details like whether he likes coffee or eats cereal or whatever. It’s the heart of the character. It’d be like taking the circus out of Dick’s story, or the love of Robin from Tim’s, or making someone other than Talia Damian’s mother. 

Jason is very aware that petty crime is often motivated by desperation. He literally lived that life. That’s why he’s never targeted people like that the way this book shows him to.

Even when he returned, he was never an indiscriminate killer and he was never violent for the sake of it. He didn’t beat the shit out of addicts because he was an impatient little bitch. He was methodical and calculative and he only killed people who preyed on the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless. 

Like the mob’s drug lieutenants who dealt to kids:

Like these bastards, who were deep in denial and broke Jason’s golden rule, no dealing to children. 

Because drug dealers purposefully target kids, relying on addiction to make them repeat customers for life.

Rapists and the scum who prey on people at their most vulnerable:

And nazis.

The fact is, Jason certainly has his faults, but he would never, ever, do this to an addict:

Writing him like he would is out of character. Drastically. 

Jason doesn’t go off half-cocked. He doesn’t jump in blind. These aren’t lessons he needs to learn in anything except this story which specifically wrote him as idiotic and mean as possible to squeeze him into the box the writer needed him to fit into.

Jason has never been written quite this bad before, but even if you take the few random instances over the last 15 years, where he’s been written as meaner and dumber than usual as his core character, how can you stand there and say that Bruce’s style is a calmer, more rational approach and say how he’s been written for the last 30 years is ooc????

For the kind of story Batman: Urban Legends seems to be telling, Bruce is literally the last character this message should be funneled through. Bruce is a billionaire (or... multi-millionaire, for now in the main continuity but who knows what’s canon for this). It’s so fucking tone-deaf to keep writing this kind of interaction between Bruce and Jason. 

Do I agree that Bruce should be written as more understanding and empathetic and less vicious than he sometimes is since the 80′s, by the way, this isn’t new? Absolutely.

Do I think this was a good example of that or a reasonable template going forward? Absolutely not. 

DC needs to stop sacrificing what makes Jason Todd interesting, what makes the character an excellent tool to tell meaningful, topical stories, for today’s audiences, just to prop up Bruce. 

For starters, Bruce doesn’t need that?

Their roles in this story don’t have to be swapped. There are ways to write this kind of stuff that doesn’t fuck up a character. See the above example with Penguin. And that’s from the fucking 80′s. How are Reagan-era comics telling stories about poverty, addiction, and reformed criminals with more nuance and tact and consideration than something in 2021????

I just think it’s fucking sad.

And extremely frustrating. 

[colorlesschristmastree]

Salty ask game: 9 and 21

Salty ask game answers!!!

Number 9: Most disliked character(s)? Why?

Well I'll start off with an easy one, as we all know I really dislike Nesta. I don't think she's an appealing character and I find her writing to be a bit lacking. Her treatment of the people around her and the justification for it irritates me. And just her dialogue and the way she speaks and thinks of herself is also irksome. All of that is amped up by the things her die hard stans say about both her and the other characters.

Hmm.. I also really fucking hate George from Grey's anatomy. He's just an annoying little cry baby bitch and I wanna bash his head in. Or well I did until the bus did it for me lmaooo.

I also really dislike mcu Steve Rodgers, he's so bland and was very clearly rewritten in the mcu to accommodate to nationalistic "good guy" white men.

OH OH OH AND I HATE HATE HATE HATE MAL FROM SHADOW AND BONE FUCK HIM. I apologize for my out burst I just had forgotten him briefly and then when I remembered that little fuckers name I got excited. He's just such an immature piece of shit and I'm made to feel bad for him and that I should like him because he's "written realistically". And ykw imo that's what makes him worse, he is realistically an asshole and those are the worst types to me. He only loved Alina when she was weak and dependent on him and lashed out at her anytime she stood on her own two feet. His anger and brattiness was fucking ridiculous and obnoxious and I am physically incapable of feeling empathy for that man. He should rot. And wanna know how I know I and the anti mals are right and the Mal stans are wrong? They had to completely alter his character in the show and change any scene where he was a pissy little whoreish cunt to Alina and make him some nice soft simp who understands her perfectly. If he was so good and likable they would have kept him the same as he was in the books, but no they needed to do a complete 180 to make anyone think that Malina isn't a garbage ship. Idc if the darkling was allegedly inspired by Leigh Bardugo's abusive ex boyfriend, I don't care if Nikolai wanted her for power, I don't care if you claim Genya and Zoya are straight. Literally anyone else would have been better.

Number 21: I am not against crack ships and don't have any problems with them, I just think you need to be able to be mindful and respectful to the actual characters. Like I've seen people shipping Tamlin with Feysand's future daughter and that's just fucking disgusting. Like I'm ok with characters that dislike each other or have a negative history together but I think there has to be a limit, like it can't be gross. It can't be shipping someone with an abuser or rapist or someone you know shouldn't be shipped with anyone.

[vidalinav]

The one thing I hate about SJM’s POVs in ACOTAR

is that the narrator always seems to be completely biased to their own perspectives in a way that they seem to not understand at all what another character might be going through. Which is just UNREALISTIC. 

Let me point out all the ways and explain: 

None of the IC know that Mor seems to be uncomfortable with Azriel’s unrequited love and that she’s gay, though she frequents a gay bar/restaurant and she’s never shown any feelings towards Azriel and she even actively tries to sleep with other people when he seems to act more on his feelings or show them more fully. Like okay??

In Cassian’s POV, he says that he didn’t know Nesta was aware of how much self-hatred she had and that she didn’t want to exist. Like dude, she spent a year drinking her life away, distancing herself from everyone, and sleeping with randos when she previously had spent most of her adult life not sleeping with anyone and Cassian knew that she was a victim of s*xual a*sa*lt. 

Rhysand who he himself has gone through what Nesta has gone through, didn’t know the extent of Nesta’s trauma??? And even after didn’t really care all that much?? To the point where he was constantly an ass and he threatened to kill her when she told Feyre she might die, even though he should have told her because well feminist rhys over here “you always have choices” didn’t give one to his equal. 

Amren after constantly saying “reach out your hand” didn’t reach out her hand, nor show any empathy to Nesta, going as far as being more aggressive to this person who is literally suffering from PTSD and severe depression, and then sort of blaming her for letting it get that far, and then when Nesta apologized said this well to do speech about living with darkness inside of us but choosing hope, like it was that easy and as if she helped at all or even deserved that apology. 

Mor, wasn’t that bad, comparatively to the rest, because she was barely in the book, but when she was you’re telling me that this girl also doesn’t understand what Nesta could be going through??? That she says that she belongs in the Court of Nightmares, for what reason??? For hurting her friends, which they admit they didn’t help all too much for a whole year because they thought giving her time would have been fine and who also show that they care about Nesta. Because I hate to tell y’all this, but offering to decorate a room is not helping out a person with severe depression. And this is a girl who was raised in the same environment as Mor, who suffered many of the same afflictions of unhappy childhoods and loss of autonomy. Mor who is used to helping women and  s*xual a*sa*lt survivors and then doesn’t see that in Nesta???? 

Rhysand doesn’t seem to understand Azriel’s POV, and then he’s like well he never tells us anything. He’s a tough nut to crack. We know he’s a little bit... ehh how you say--messed up, but well we don’t see a major problem as long as he gets his rage out being our spymaster. But oh no, Elain, you can’t have her. You think you deserve her, even though critical thinking skills might have found him thinking oh hey this guy is probably envious of the happiness we have, he’s probably feeling lonely, rejected from the person he’s loved a long time, both of his brothers have mates now, maybe I should talk to him like a BROTHER and less like a high lord. 

And then in Nesta’s POV, all of her healing comes at the expense of blaming herself. Like I understand taking accountability and she needed to grow and learn that she has definitely ruined a lot of her relationships and she’ll continue to do so if she keeps up this behavior, but you’re telling me that she doesn’t think anyone did her wrong??? You’re telling me that she feels she deserves all of this?? Even after she starts liking who she is, everyone was not at fault, it was only her fault??? Even after Cassian said what he said--being stuck with her??? 

You’re telling me that everyone thinks Elain is fine??? That she’s relatively at peace because she’s calm and gardening and pleasant??? Makes me laugh. 

Like I just don’t understand. It’s to the point where I feel they characters are willfully ignorant OR that SJM thinks that POVs can’t read emotion in other people or connect dots. All POVs are biased, but NOT that biased. A real person talking to someone else will notice how tired a person looks, if they want to talk or not, by the grimaces, by the way they shorten their sentences, their body language, you can reach conclusions based on context. “It’s been a long day at work, I learned that this person has a new baby, this conversation looks to be weighing on them, I should probably cut this convo short, because I feel for them.” That sort of thing. Which is my biggest problem with this series is that I’m like fuck me, why Whhy WHYYY??? They don’t seem to even see each other, let alone understand each other, and if they can’t understand each other or know who they are, they are not considered family!!! The characters in this series make choices like they are blind to the people around them. That they exist only in their own head. Which again is not realistic, but also causes a lot of problems that I don’t feel would be fixable if you were not aware that they were problems. Like I can easily say, “hey maybe SJM did this on purpose because she’s leading up to something, to heal them in some way.” But all characters are like this--so it’s make me wonder if SJM knows that she’s doing it. Like we thought Feyre was a horribly biased character, but damn. Like I understand this imperfect character arc, but at this point are they imperfect or stupid? 

Don’t get me wrong I love this series, but wow... it’s been three years for this next part, she’s written a thousand and one books, it should be better. Every single one of us has pointed out inconsistencies, and they’re not just small things, they’re big overarching writer mechanics and structure and plot and details. So I can hope that eventually it will lead to something, but after four books... I’m losing hope that the issues we’ve pointed out and not just this one are going to be resolved and not just glossed over like they didn’t happen at all. 

It’s an adult book, my word. Make narratives more narratively complicated. (Especially if the plot is not the focus)

[quietwingsinthesky]

the soulless sam arc is probably my favorite part of the whole season tbh!!! (sam bias definitely not showing here) I think it was a really good exploration of Sam's character, not so much revealing new things about him as giving what we already know more time in the spotlight. Soulless Sam is Sam boiled down to the finest hunter he can be, and that makes him scarily relentless and incredibly competent and, yes, sometimes cruel in pursuit of his goals! which have all always been parts of Sam, since s1. And I love love love this, I wish he'd stuck through more of the season.

(also love him for the selfish reason of that when soulless sam is written real well? when the writers don't just toss in the towel and go 'uhhh sam but evil??', they actually make a lot of what he says and does incredibly relatable to me. i think i've said it before, but specifically that scene where sam tells dean that he knows he should care about lisa and ben but literally just Can't? I have felt that. Hell, I've wanted to say stuff like that before, and there's a little bit of odd catharsis in seeing soulless sam just get to lay it out on the table. i love soulless sam and i love his low empathy vibes.

I forgive him for trying to kill Bobby, he's literally neurodivergent <3)

also gosh there's just something about watching The Man Who Knew Too Much, seeing him circling the other fragment of Sam, the one we're following. There's a line that soulless says that sticks with me from that scene, "Now, nothing personal, but run the numbers. Someone's got to take charge around here, before it's too late."

And what it tells us is that, as cold as this part of sam seems, as much as him being the one to point a gun at the sam we're following frames him as the bad guy here, ultimate, they have the same goal: Fix their mind, get back on their feet, go stop Castiel.

And it's not like that part of Sam went away. To me, I think the soulless bit of him is what dragged him up out of Bobby's panic room when he came to. All of Sam knew he needed to get to his brother, but I think it's what he got from the soulless part of him that actually powered him to walk there, to sneak up on Castiel and put a blade in his friend's back, as futile as that was. The soulless part of Sam is the part of him that's able to put everything else away and Get The Job Done. He needs that part of himself to survive as much as the rest of him.

oh wow lmao sorry for rambling. you awoke the soulless sam fan in me.

the thing is that season 6 is so messy but so good and if they'd just focused on one single plotline it could have been fantastic but at the same time some of its fun does come from them throwing every idea they have at the wall until something sticks and i love it

[catty-words]

I’m not sure if you’ve answered this already but I’m wondering if you could further elaborate what your issue is with how Ben and Devi in season 2

boy howdy. i’ve got wine, i’ve got an intense attachment to these two characters, and i’m ready to rant. but just remember - you literally asked for this.

to really delve into why i find season two d/b a bit of a letdown, i think it’d be helpful to first establish what it is that drew me to the pairing in season one. some of it, of course, is surface-level shit, like the fact that maitreyi and jaren have chemistry that crackles on the screen and that their faces are pretty and they react to each other in really amusing and heart-wrenching ways. but, more to the point, it’s the way the characters are inextricably linked by the way their stories parallel and interact with each other that truly sent me on a spiral last summer.

devi is a snot. she loves being the center of attention. she’s insecure. she cares about being the best at school not just because it’s been ingrained in her that she should, but because she has goals and ambitions that are served by being the best. she’s pop culture and image obsessed. she’s desperate for the acceptance of her peers. and, because of this image obsession and desperation for acceptance, she feels compelled to mask the fact that she’s deeply, deeply sad.

pretty much every single one of these traits also applies to ben - all you have to do is take away the notion that being the best is ingrained by his parents and substitute sadness over a parent’s passing for sadness born out of parental neglect. and the fact that they’re so similar but have a well-cultivated resentment of each other? that’s exactly my shit. that’s literary self-hatred, poetic cinema, etc. they understand each other better than anyone else does or can because they, in essence, are an extension of each other. so there’s a ton of cool character work going on in their every interaction - the deepening empathy for others and a quest for greater self understanding.

you also have the way that, at the show’s young-adult coming-of-age core, is how horny and in need of an outlet for that horniness devi is. so, again, on the surface, d/b gets all the heat of two characters pitted against each other as enemies, which is super fun to watch and completely effective because, again, maitreyi and jaren have incredible on-screen chemistry. but under the surface, ben also gets to be devi’s safe space. because he understands her insecurity and her drive to be more than the weird nerd people perceive her as - he shares those things. which means intimacy between them happens almost by accident. devi’s not trying to manufacture it, it’s just there for her to fall into.

the characters know each other. and with that knowledge comes both the safety of being your true self and the tricky mess that is getting held accountable when you try to shirk who you really are in favor of fantasy.

so. season two. that chemistry between the actors doesn’t go away, of course, but the compelling sameness of the characters does.

what do i mean by that? well, it has a lot to do with the way ben is written as Morally Correct in his every action in season two, where devi’s a bumbling mess. he recognizes that cheating on shira was wrong, and he wants devi to know that he’s emotionally intelligent enough to Get That and mature enough to put an end to his wrongdoing. he hears that devi started the rumor about aneesa and he’s here to urge her down the path of redemption. he was scorned by devi, but he’s still going to show up in the bathroom and tend to her emotional well-being when another dude trods all over her.

i’ve gotten the sense that a lot of people found this characterization romantic and Romantically tragic, but it legitimately angers me. i don’t want the ben that’s so smitten with devi that he’ll cater his every move to helping her grow and realize how she, too, can be as Morally Correct as him. i want the ben that tells her india’s not that different from coachella & that mowgli didn’t run away from home, so stop whining and face what’s really scaring you, dummy! i wanted to see his anger, not wounded acceptance that no one loves him the way he loves them. i wanted to see him be the wretched little asshole i know and love because those traits - that acting out and being loud and not accepting anything less than what he wants from any given situation - are what make him so compatible with devi!! she’s not some swooning damsel who needs her knight ben to swoop in and help her make the right decision and he’s not some enlightened knight who’s just trying to do right by his lady love!! they’re messy!!! they’re angry!!! and they’ve spent pretty much their whole lives striving to prove they’re better than the other!!! a couple weeks of kissing would not negate the lifetime of hostility between them, nor ben’s tendency to fall back on obnoxious showboating to prove his worth to the world!!!

i feel like i keep talking around The Thing instead of being able to name it directly, but my frustration lies in the way devi becomes meeker and less in control of her actions in season two where ben becomes a romanticized ideal for whom devi isn’t good enough but hopes to prove herself worthy of anyway. because that’s somehow a far uglier dynamic than devi getting with a guy who once called her an unfuckable nerd.

[goosefeathercore]

now that we have the backstory in blackfoot’s reckoning a lot of the choices made in those books make a lot more sense. of course the novella was mostly written to explain the fact that blackstar was a war criminal who murdered for tigerstar yet literally no one ever mentioned it and everyone was just like ‘seems legit’, but the little bit of insight helped me to understand him as a character. tbh it’s been a while since i’ve read blackstar era books, but I remember him being a pretty good leader and of course he made it into starclan. first of all, the sol arc seems a lot more reasonable now. blackstar definitely wasn’t stupid, and he did love his clan very much as well as his ancestors, so it didn’t make a lot of sense that he was so easily manipulated by sol. but, now we know that blackstar harbored guilt for most of his life, and he struggled with feelings of inferiority and self loathing because of that. from day 1 of his leadership, blackstar worried that he was too bad of a cat to lead his clan, but at the time he was the only cat in shadowclan who was capable of taking that position. by the time we get to power of three, we have a lot more strong characters in shadowclan who blackstar probably thought would be better leaders than him, but he was the one given 9 lives so he didn’t have the choice to give up his position. blackstar was extremely vulnerable to manipulation, despite his tough exterior. there are a multitude of ways sol could have done it, but my personal guess is that blackstar turned away from starclan because he thought they were wrong to give him 9 lives. I think this because of how quickly he took back the name blackfoot while associating with sol. it definitely wasn’t a villain arc or even an anarchy arc like AVOS, i think he was still just insecure and wanted shadowclan to have better than him, and sol gave him the opportunity to step down as leader by abandoning starclan.

it also makes a lot more sense now that the shadowclan cats accepted him so easily, because even if he was the only option i always thought that his association with tigerstar would’ve made them wary of him becoming leader. but blackfoot basically nursed the whole clan back to health, and he rebuilt shadowclan with tigerstar for purely selfless reasons, so of course his clanmates would trust his compassion and loyalty for his clan, because they saw him behind the scenes where we didn’t. sadly, i think this is also exactly why blackstar was never able to see himself as someone worthy of leading shadowclan. in blackfoot’s reckoning, we see that that he didn’t trust himself even before he got to the moonstone. personally, starclan’s mental trials and seeing how truly guilty he felt convinced me that he was a good cat at the core, and it was the right choice to make him leader, but for blackstar just reliving memories wasn’t enough to make him feel as though he’d redeemed himself. his clanmates loved him just as he loved them, but the fact that they all accepted him as leader without question never allowed blackstar the opportunity to apologize as he thought he should. i think his troubled arc as leader boiled down to his personal need for atonement. he always felt that he needed to atone for the things he had done, and the fact that he was so easily forgiven led him to carry that burden by himself.

i also think i understand why he killed stonefur without hesitation now. i don’t think blackfoot had a very concrete set of morals, and that’s ok. not everyone has a strong sense of what is right and what is wrong in their eyes and that doesn’t mean they’re bad people. i think blackfoot had more narrow values, like hollyleaf’s blind loyalty to the warrior code. to him, the right thing to do was always just to help shadowclan in any way he could, and he may have had lower empathy in general. (and i cannot stress enough that there is absolutely nothing wrong with having low empathy) so, as long as he believed someone had shadowclan’s best interest in mind, they were on the ‘right’ side of his moral compass. this explains why he supported tigerstar, but later went on to have drastically different values than tigerstar. tigerstar manipulated blackfoot into believing that he also cared deeply about shadowclan, and blackfoot didn’t have any plans for how he could save his clan, so he saw helping tigerstar as the best thing he could possibly do for shadowclan. i’m not saying that killing stonefur was ok, it was still very much awful, but what i’m saying is that blackfoot wasn’t evil, and that it was justified for starclan to make him leader. atm i believe that blackstar did make massive strives to better himself, and the guilt he felt proved that he knew what he did wrong, but lmk if anyone has a different interpretation!!

[rataltouille]

GEOMETRY OF THE HOLY MOON (1 AM): A SHORT STORY

GENRE: surrealism, literary fiction.

POV & TENSE: this little space is not enough for how wild the form is so i talk about this later!!

SETTING: a small desi village, 1924-25.

TONE: dreamy, unsettling, melancholic.

THEMES: faith vs reality, how people perceive others and how they perceive themselves, grief dealt the wrong way.

AESTHETICS: the splash of water on a quiet night, thick clouds obscuring the sky, rippling the moon’s reflection on the water. the intensity of a garden in spring, the emptiness of a dying town, the suffocation from being singled out. hands grazing lightly but never fully held. a lingering sadness behind your laugh. believing in things you shouldn't believe in. putting faith on a starless sky.

STAGE: completed first draft, 4085 words.

LOGLINE: a young boy, surrounded by loss, claims to talk to god. the story follows him and his conversations with this god, all while his village spies on him as he weaves his way around the two most crucial and lonely years of his life.

LITERAL LOGLINE: on today’s news let’s talk about a small backward town that hates sad little boys who worship god, even though the place is lowkey a cult!!

CHARACTERS:

THE SUMMER BOY: he’s around thirteen, and he’s very emotionally attached to his past. he lost his family at a young age to an unstable force, so he spends his time talking to himself. he’s a quiet, demure and sweet person, always willing to help others. he’s outwardly oblivious and sees only the good in people to a point where he doesn't understand when they’re trying to do him wrong. but! considering how the story [like a lot of my others] has themes of perception vs reality, it needs to be said that he isn't all that innocent. he’s rather impulsive and rash, never afraid of hurting himself [and thus accidentally harming others].

A GOD: is he real? do we even know if he’s an actual god? a very elusive figure despite having a lot of screentime. he’s a surprisingly humanised character and arguably the one with the most empathy. he has a soft spot for the boy and the two have a deep bond which is not common for a human and a god to have. you don’t get insight to what the other gods are like, but they’re implied to exist. this story has a very messy and hazy view towards religion and godhood and their nature towards humanity, and this vague figure, a dreamlike character, is proof enough of that.

THE VILLAGE: okay so in general these people suck. the village consists of, well, the village, but they’re very fluid in the way they appear in the story? as in for the most part they appear as a collective, a unit. one character, the summer boy’s “friend”, is somewhat separate considering he’s a pretty important character. it’s very hard describing this unit of a character but essentially they’re the main antagonistic force and they hate the protagonist for seemingly no reason.

WHAT GOES DOWN:

sometime around this time, the boy chances upon meeting his “god”, this being who lives up in the clouds and whom he talks with often, except you don't know if this god is real or not. that’s one of the recurring themes of this story: what’s real and what isn’t. it’s :) a fun time :) for sure :)

essentially Things Happen And It Only Gets Weirder. i cannot even try describing what happens because it’s all very spoilery but let’s just say that this is a very sad story but not even in a “this makes me cry” manner, but rather in a “this is so fucked up wtf why”. the prose of this is very, very hazy and thick, in a manner that’s both smooth and suffocating. there’s also a lot of moon and water imagery which we love. i love the atmosphere + the setting—colonial india— as it’s a subtle but key element to the plot.

FORM:

OKAY YES be prepared for the true colours of how unhinged i am. i apologize for the form brainrot.

POV: so in this story i really said “what if it had all three of the main povs... jk jk... unless 😳😳” and then proceeded to use all three povs. you’re probably wondering, how did i do that? WHY did i do that? and my answer to that is: 🙂

the first-person pov: the summer boy narrates in first person. his pov takes up about 40% of the story, and this is where we unlock family backstory + how he feels about the various forces playing into his life. he’s an extremely unreliable narrator and he knows it; his narration oscillates between very naive and very self-aware, and this effect is pretty disconcerting. the summer boy is kind of a walking contradiction and we love that conflict.

the second-person pov: a god narrates in second person. his pov takes around 20% of the story, and his scenes all involve his conversations with the boy. his pov is extremely detached, and suspends belief because he seems awfully made up. there’s an edge to the prose in his narration, where you know that something's off, but you can’t exactly pinpoint what.

the third-person pov: the villagers narrate, either as a collective, or as an individual figure, in third person. they take up the other 40% of the story, and there are so many different people and differing opinions with this, and every time we read a third person excerpt it’s a different person, and this is mostly used to add onto the different ways in which the boy is perceived. this is also where the structural part of the form gets really wacky.

STRUCTURE: if my story isn't told in vignettes is it my story though /j. gothm is told in vignettes, each one between 50 to 500 words. the first and second person bits are normal-ish vignettes, with straightforward narration. the third person vignettes, on the other hand, are super assorted. we have a lot of epistolaric sections— there’s a letter, a folk song [which was found around the summer boy], and most of the conversation is told as just plain dialogue without tags. there’s also a phone call transcript, and finally some normal chunks of prose. what am i doing wtf.

also to add onto this the story is told non-linearly. 😀 the only thing that keeps me from going insane is the fact that there are chronological tags before most vignettes [also the manner in which they're tagged differs from pov to pov. for example a few of the third person conversations are marked just as “sunday” or “thursday”, while the summer boy’s narration is marked with the full date and year]

in all this clownery i completely forgot to mention what the tense was [the way everything else was so complicated that i forgot tense was a thing lmao] and good news!! it’s the only sane thing about this story!! it’s told fully in present tense. thank everything.

AN EXCERPT:

okay i’m once again not sharing much because this will be submitted to litmags 🧞

[The boy is scrawny as always. He carries an air of diswant— even death had rejected him when the plague killed only his grandmother— but walks like he doesn’t notice. He smiles at them, jitters, and wipes his hand across his knees. Blood comes away in thin, translucent lines. He saves it on the kerchief he keeps tucked in his shirt, careful to dirty the cloth even more. The villagers scrunch their noses in disgust; who knew how old and rotten the kerchief was, or how long it had carried blood like the unwashed sword of a warrior?]

also by the way this excerpt is in square brackets because it is a third-person interjection in a vignette that is otherwise first-person [at this point...]

SPARE THOUGHTS:

this was inspired by a conversation i had with my grandfather, where he was telling me about how people used to sing songs to the skies, as a way of devotion to a specific god. he used the [loose translation of] the english word “yearning” to refer to the emotion the singers would invoke, and that sparked the concept of a disillusioned young boy who talks to the moon as a way to please the god he’s in love with. it’s a very softly disconcerting story and once again deals with the theme of “perception vs reality” which if you know me and my work, is the theme i’m forever obsessed with.

i really like how this turned out? the atmosphere is exactly how i wanted it to be, and there’s so much i have to add on as i edit and i’m really looking forward to that. this is also the only short story i’ve written where i knew which litmag i’d love for it to be published in? like i never write things with publishing in mind, but for some reason while writing this story it occurred to me that it would be a perfect fit for this specific magazine and i love that. anyway if you’ve made it through the post till here,,,, bless you and your braincells. and that’s all for today!!