#its just funny because like the game does not have nuance. any moral choices are between Evil and Evil with Bonus Wanton Violence

[preggomancer]

Ive seen a bunch of very cute, fluffy art of cult of the lamb on here for some reason and I just played the game and its very funny to me how people get that out of a guy whose only established personality trait is being an evil cult leader

[dingo-saurus]

i love the political satire and the characters and the hilarious writing and the actual meat of the mystery and the way the story unfolds but the thing that always makes me come back to disco elysium is how messy and real it is. you and your companion are the cops of this world but it does not mean what that does irl -- you’re part of an overworked underfunded citizens militia in a “zone of control” under the power of several foreign nations, the ones who wiped out the communist revolution in the city you live and work in. the militia arose in the chaotic aftermath and is more tolerated than anything. its history is complicated, its current reality is complicated, it hurts and helps the city in different ways and alternatives are just as complicated. yourself (if you play it that way) and your partner are good men, but the game does not shy away from making it clear that that is still *complicated*. as an example, both of you have killed people. the situations around those killings are not elaborated on, you have no idea whether you would personally agree that it was necessary or not. as good a man as your partner is throughout the game he has still killed people and the writers make no attempt to justify that (and neither does he). the union you find yourself dealing with is run by a pair of brothers who took a good organization and twisted it into something meant to deliver them power and money. its full of good and bad people, their monopoly on drug trade is complicated, their enforcers take care of the community (except when they don’t), they have you frighten a “weasel” who turns out to be a cryptofascist and they call themselves a “rainbow coalition” but they have a racial supremacist guarding their front gate. and even though the brothers are corrupt, the union *does* still protect and fight for the rights of its workers, and undeniably made life better for the people in that part of the city. all this isn’t to say they shy away from portraying shitty things as shitty. they just aren’t caricatures, the terrible people and ideologies portrayed are very grounded in real boring evil

this messiness carries over to everything in their world, including the murder case you’re tasked with solving. it’s what makes the satire of your completely ridiculous political dialogue choices hit such a good fucking funny bone imo - you’re in this complicated living world and you don’t get to express nuance no matter how much you want to. the writers know how to do nuance, and taking that opportunity away from you is deliberate. black and white thinking can’t work in the real world, and the extremes of any of the ideologies you can have your character take up are all equally ungainly and ridiculous (though some are obviously more abhorrent than others lmao, they aren’t presented as morally equal). playing the game feels like the writers are kvetching with you about it all, it’s fantastic

i’ve just never seen anything quite like disco elysium in other fiction i’ve consumed (certainly no other games) -- that’s not to say it doesn’t exist, just that it stood out to me and made a home in my heart because of it

[hiriajuu-suffering]

Anime Hot Take: Goblin Slayer is more offensive than Redo of Healer

I totally understand why the anime community is collectively freaking about Redo of Healer not getting cancelled by normies like Shield Hero, Ishuzoku Reviewers, and Uzaki-chan. A lot of anime content creators are saying because anime [social] cancellation is based on clout chasing and it’s because Redo of Healer is a bad anime, and I disagree completely because Uzaki-chan is also a bad anime. As excessively raunchy Redo of Healer is, its offensiveness has more narrative backing than Goblin Slayer does for its world-building.

Elephant in the room: depictions of rape are poor artistic choices when the physical act is shown instead of heavily implied for the narrative. Both Goblin Slayer and Redo of Healer depict rape onscreen to get more attention for being edgy and raunchy, needlessly. People finding Shield Hero more offensive for involving a false rape allegation are missing the forest for the trees and there is no rape in Ishuzoku Reviewers. Goblin Slayer uses its rape scenes to objectify people we’re supposed to see from the perspective of, very clearly. Meaning, Goblin Slayer is asking for a self-objectification in order for you to be invested in the main casts’ goals. The effect of this is Goblin Slayer is really only showing these gratuitous rape scene(s) for shock value. Goblin Slayer is a Fantasy, not specifically an Isekai Revenge Fantasy like Redo of Healer is. Redo of Healer uses its rape scenes to subjectify people we’re supposed to see from the perspective of, making it fundamentally different and more aligned with Game of Thrones depictions of rape than Redo of Healer. In episode 1 of Redo of Healer, the main character is subjectified, not objectified. In episode 1 of Goblin Slayer, the rape scene objectifies the woman. The only other conclusion hyperfeminism could have to this incongruity is media that portrays sexual violence is more acceptable when male sexual violence is on the forefront, which is fucked. In episode 2 of Redo of Healer, the first antagonist is a female and the rape scene itself is sick and cruel, but not gratuitous in the way Goblin Slayer handles its rape scenes. Again, the character is subjectified and not objectified, which makes a lot of difference if media makes the morally abhorrent but logical choice to depict rape for views because it works. Redo of Healer already starts on better footing than Goblin Slayer because a central theme in Goblin Slayer is the objectification of life and experience while Redo of Healer works in that same theme with the subjectification of people’s lives and experiences.

Redo of Healer is ultimately a power fantasy like most other Isekai are, Goblin Slayer is intended to make you feel powerless. There is some subtlety in the way the author puts forward the narrative of “power makes people bad” in Redo of Healer, while the narrative choices in Goblin Slayer directly portray the message of “no matter how much power you have, you cannot affect the world”. Both are a criticism of power fantasy, but Redo of Healer is actually within its genre doing so, not looking from the outside-in and acting above the genre itself when it has taken over the anime industry. The plot structure in Goblin Slayer reads as if it’s better than the Isekai trend, making itself pretentious and thereby worse than the trend because it’s just mocking something popular because it’s popular. Redo of Healer actually looks into why this popularity exists and if it’s legitimately warranted or just feeding the vanity of its readers. In the first two episodes, the narrative has all this suffering going on written in a way so the reader actively disconnects from the normally self-insert protagonist in an Isekai. Goblin Slayer literally does the opposite with Priestess. The self-insert scenes in Redo of Healer are actually the opposite because they structure themselves in that way but do the opposite, you don’t want to be in any of those situations. When you weigh moral wrongs and aren’t afraid of playing the oppression Olympics for the sake of philosophical conjecture, Keyaru is enacting retribution in a manner reciprocally efficient or less compared to what he endured. You can see that via his intended final act of retribution of Flare being to make her his consensual sex object rather than everyone’s nonconsensual sex object as he originally was. The finger-breaking was his exchange for the deception, involuntary servitude, and general lack of empathy; regrettably, the sexual assault with bodily harmful object was for the forced drug addiction via symbolism analysis. He ends up healing all this anyway and not being overwhelmed by it, meaning everything he did was a small fraction of what had been done to him. It’s still revenge, but it’s nothing nearly as crazy as what was done to him and actually didn’t drag out as much as people say compared to goblin rape scenes in Goblin Slayer (some of them which didn’t need to exist narratively and were only there because author is insulting your intelligence, assuming you forgot it’s a thing because it assumes you’re an Isekai reader). Fair warning about Blade and Bullet though is they represent very real tropes on the social spectrum, Blade representing hyperfeminist ideologies to the point of outright misandry and Bullet representing men who degrade themselves just for being men, so a lot more people will have something to be butthurt about when that narrative realization comes to pass. Part of the way Redo of Healer compartmentalizes its characters into said tropes speaks to a larger picture of what the show intends to do, criticize the Isekai genre and its tropes instead of just mocking them like Goblin Slayer does.

The narrative structure of Redo of Healer reads like a hate letter to Isekai power fantasy writing, the narrative structure of Goblin Slayer reads like a roast to Isekai power fantasy writing. Hate letters are generally more honest and genuine than roasts, which sacrifice truth for the sake of being comedic. Goblin Slayer itself wasn’t even that funny though, it had moments but its humor was so self-contained, it only existed if you already were self-involved enough in the tropes, in which you were the one being roasted. Effectively, Goblin Slayer seeks to roast you with no audience, making the roast itself kind of pointless and belittling. Redo of Healer though criticizes Isekai writing on two fronts: the morality of the world (which Shield Hero already did pretty masterfully) and the reasonable scope of a self-insert protagonist. Living in a morally dark Isekai world that’s full of hell and suffering is something Rising of the Shield Hero did so well, it would be difficult to see it done better, but Redo of Healer follows the exact narrative thread Shield Hero does only in a far more sinister way. The difference is Redo of Healer takes the grinding element from Cautious Hero and totally removes the opportunity for it to be had and the end result is said self-insert Isekai protagonist being abused in the party instead of valued, it actually makes sense on a power scaling level if you place it in a world where the characterization of all humanity is made out to be shitty from the start (slave trading demi-humans, raping other people for mana, rulers with no actual empathy or morality, etc.). Redo of Healer’s setting emulates humanity from Chapter Black in Yu Yu Hakusho. In simpler terms, if any of these dudes popularizing Isekai self-inserts into Keyaru, they’re not overpowered for no reason like in other Isekais, they’re overpowered because they were already humbled to the extent where nothing could ever feel like redemption. Most of these people self-inserting probably aren’t as great as they think they are, but especially on the moral scale. Keyaru represents a broken version of that self-insert: a human that is fallible, can feel real negative emotions and act abhorrently on them, and isn’t overly resilient for plot convenience’s sake. Keyaru’s immensely busted skill comes at a heavy toll, meaning it was balanced but he broke it (like Maple did in Bofuri) because he was driven to madness. If you break the “overpowered for no reason” trope in both harem and Isekai, you ARE a criticism of both. Are there good anime that use this trope well? Slime is an example. But Kadokawa specifically has been tending to favor titles that are criticisms of Isekai rather than straight-up Isekais themselves, making this something they were willing to push to the forefront even though it borrows a little too much from hentai plots. If anything, Redo of Healer shows how frustrated the industry, from writer to publisher, has been with the Japanese otaku community when poorly written, power fantasy, self-insert shows like Sword Art Online become the face of otaku culture and starts a predatory profit-seeking trend of everything has to be Isekai for it to make money. Redo of Healer reaches for a larger criticism of why anime storytelling has gotten less substantive in the past decade and plunges its hands into the depths of the filth and degeneracy that’s being promoted. It’s a meta-criticism to make what you’re putting out there so horrific it becomes nearly impossible to connect with.

Do I like Redo of Healer? No, absolutely not. Do I think it sends a loud and clear message to viewers who know how to analyze a piece of fiction with good depth and nuance? Yes. Goblin Slayer does not do that, Goblin Slayer itself is just an amusement park ride you’re supposed to enjoy, but they jolt you with shock value to get you invested, making its plot threads and themes gimmicky at best. Redo of Healer actually does what Goblin Slayer was going for in shock value and makes you so numb to it you actually realize how devolved Isekai storytelling is, adding its attention grabbing mechanism as short hentai clips like Ishuzoku Reviewers did. As for why Shield Hero was mentioned so much, it’s because the characterization of Blade specifically goes after those who were trying to get Shield Hero cancelled for its narrative thread. Blade is the worst representation of that, worship and veneration of femininity in a patriarchal context which ultimately results in the worship of power and existing power structures which promote said power to the point where queerness (in love of femininity) somehow excuses deplorability since postmodern queerness never actively promotes masculinity as something that can function as socially just. Flare, Blade, and Bullet all show more toxic masculinity individually in the first 3 chapters/episodes than Keyaru, and that was a deliberate writing choice. The reason why Redo of Healer isn’t actively being socially cancelled is because its biggest statement is “people are shit” and that’s an okay statement for normies.

Normies are coming after Nagatoro because it normalizes and almost makes light of real bullying. I think us weeaboos need to understand that bullying is a higher impact problem than rape being depicted in media if we’re fighting on the hill of “violent video games don’t encourage violence”. I find Nagatoro more difficult to understand the narrative intent of than Redo of Healer, the fact the weeaboo community is disconnected from that means we’re only looking at things on the surface level and are too within ourselves to know what real world problems actually have ripple effects on human behavior. The reason why we accept Nagatoro is because we know the two main characters eventually become involved and Hachioji could handle it to the point he consented to it. In pretty much all scenarios you have a mean girl bullying someone, regardless of gender, that’s not what happens: the person is left scarred, changed, and with significant platonic trust issues into adulthood. Rape is an issue that’s handled with so little care because of patriarchy and power struggles, people are generally far more numb to it than seeing actual mental and verbal abuse just being glossed over because “he’s a guy, he’s less of one if he can’t handle it”. Anime generally is going the way of Scum’s Wish where there’s more morally abhorrent characterizations of humanity than morally neutral ones, and all of these anime that stir controversy is a reflection of said fact. Having said that, Redo of Healer is willing to go way farther down into the abyss instead of just looking at it from the edge of the hole like Goblin Slayer does, then seeing scenes for shock value when you use telescope to look. For the reason Goblin Slayer thinks it’s above an Isekai while commodifying abhorrence to draw attention, I actually find Redo of Healer to be less offensive.

[tacitcantos]

The Biggest Difference Between The Wolf Among Us and Fable Comic

More than just seeing how clever the writer can be in fitting the jigsaw pieces of fairy tale and modern day together, The Wolf Among Us is interested in the deeper thematic resonance to be mined in looking at the consequences of the original fairy tales: in what happens when you strip fairytales of their gravitas, in the complexities and nuances of how the Big Bad Wolf would deal with his past in the modern day.

The Wolf Among Us is a prequel videogame to the long running Fables comic series. The premise of both is simple: all of the fables of brother’s Grimm fame are refugees in our world after having to flee their own, and now live in hiding in an enclave in New York called Fabletown. The main character of both comic and game is Bigby Wolf, the big bad wolf of legend now reformed as the sheriff of Fabletown.

The Wolf Among Us has a dynamic storyline that shifts and reacts to the dialog choices you make for Bigby, and the game is easily one of the smartest takes on fairy tales you’ll find in any medium. One of the themes inherent in any modern day take on fairy tales is postmodernism, the fun in the premise seeing how fairytale characters slot into a modern world, of juxtaposing the mythos of the original stories with the mundane of everyday life. The Fables aren’t mythical characters anymore, no longer princes and damsels and monsters, they’re all just people now trying to get by.

But more than just seeing how clever the writer can be in fitting the jigsaw pieces of fairy tale modern day together, The Wolf Among Us is interested in the deeper thematic resonance to be mined in looking at the consequences of the original fairy tales: in what happens when you strip fairytales of their gravitas, in the complexities and nuances of how the Big Bad Wolf would deal with his past in the modern day.

Though the comic series was started back in 2002, twelve years before The Wolf Among Us was released, my introduction to the Fables universe came first through the game, and after finishing it I went on to read the comics… and was almost immediately disappointed.

The thing is, while The Wolf Among Us is a nuanced and complicated take on fairy tales, the Fables comics... aren’t. They’re not badly written, but they’re only interested in that fun surface level of draping fairy tales over the modern day without any real engagement with how that changes or complicates them. Every way The Wolf Among Us engages with the specifics of the original fairy tales, the comics don’t.

Now, the comic series does actually at first do some smart things: so Fabletown isn’t ripped apart from internal conflict all inhabitants are granted blanket immunity for past crimes in their old world. To protect from the outside mundane world they’re also forbidden from revealing their magical identities. While for the human fables this is easy enough, for inhuman fables like trolls or talking frogs it requires purchasing expensive spells, called glamours, to disguise themselves, or risk being shipped off to a farm outside the city.

These are a great example of taking advantage of the Fabletown premise: they’re logical extrapolations, and they set the stage for interesting conflicts. Both comic and game explore those conflicts, but do so in fundamentally different ways.

A few issues into the comics those inhuman fables on the farm rebel and try to take the reins of power for themselves. This is actually one of the few places the comics really engage with the original fairy tales and make full creative use of them: there’s an especially funny reference to Goldilocks having gone native with the three bears from her story and now works as a terrorist and freedom fighter for inhuman fables, but there’s very little long term value to the storyline. The rebellion is put down after a few chapters, but there’s no change to the Fabletown status quo, no growth for any of the characters involved, no examination or deconstruction of the themes of the story or original fairy tales.

Instead of being a fun little side story, the tension between human and non-human fables makes up the core of The Wolf Among Us. A deep trench of bitterness separates the have’s from the have-nots, with inhuman fables ignored by the Fabletown government and treated like second class citizens.

It’s actually remarkably similar to real life ethnic enclaves at the turn of the century. In trying to solve the first murder of a fable in years, Bigby has to navigate a Fabletown where Beauty and Beast, like a lot of refugees, were wealthy in their home country but now find themselves resorting to less than savory ways to pay for a lifestyle they can no longer afford; where racial resentment between those who can pass as the native population and those who can’t is high; where the weak institutions of the fabletown government have allowed an organized crime element to rise to power and take advantage of the vacuum in fabletown just as the mafia did in Italian ethnic enclaves in New York.

Bigby himself operates in a really interesting liminal space between the two classes of fables: viewed as a traitor and Uncle Tom by one side while also never fully accepted by the other. Despite the clemency granted to all fables for their crimes in the old world, no one’s forgotten just how many people Bigby ate in the homelands.

This is an aspect of Bigby that isn’t explored in the comics, and his reasons for taking on the office of sheriff aren’t either. It’s suggested at one point that he came to Fabletown and reformed from his old ways because of his interest in Snow White. And it’s not a bad motivation per se, it’s just that it isn’t explored more than that. There’s no character growth, no struggle in trying to refrain from violence despite his enjoyment and affinity for it, no conflict between his old ways and the new person he’s trying to be, no emotional toll in the suspicion the other fables view him with, no personal cost in what he’s doing.

The best example of this is the introduction of Red Riding Hood a dozen issues or so into the comics. With the Big Bad Wolf as a main character you might think one of his former victims showing up to be a complicated and thorny issue… but you’d be wrong.

There’s a single page where Red Riding Hood is upset by Bigby being the sheriff and forgiven for his crimes in the old world, but it’s quickly discovered that she’s not actually Red Riding Hood, and instead an evil witch in disguise. Narratively, her appearance is simply a ploy by the villains that once discovered isn’t commented on again. There’s no emotional or thematic conflict in it, no examination of the complicated relationship between former abuser and victim, of how to reconcile past wrongs, of the bitterness Red Riding Hood should feel over how the other fables have accepted the monster that once terrorized them all. The real Red Riding Hood does eventually show up later, but she has even less to do with Bigby than the fake one.

While Red Riding Hood doesn’t appear in The Wolf Among Us, the game does confront Bigby with an element from his original fairytale: the Woodsman.

And his relationship with Bigby is nuanced. Instead of the hero of the story as he was in the Homelands, in Fabletown he’s a drunk and abuser of women, and resents Bigby: he’s the hero of the story, not Bigby, so why is he a suspect in a murder case? Doesn’t anyone remember what Bigby is? What he’s done? These are interesting questions that spring from the original fairytale, and ones that go unasked in the comics. They’re also used for character growth: depending on your choices in the game there can be a distinct arc with Bigby and the Woodsman finally burying the hatchet and reaching an understanding with each other.

Bigby’s motivation in becoming sheriff in The Wolf Among Us is positioned as less about Snow, and more about reforming his image and identity as a whole. This motivation informs all his actions in the game: the constant friction between lapsing back into his old Big Bad Wolf persona to speed the investigation along, and the new order abiding and non-violent one he’s trying to forge. And despite his best efforts there’s a real undertone throughout the game that he may be needed because of his ability to inflict violence, but because of exactly that he’ll never be trusted.

It’s a really nuanced way of engaging with the consequences of the original fairytale and using it to inform character growth and theme.

Part of the reason the game is so much better at exploring these themes is down to both a difference in the medium and genre. The main game mechanic of The Wolf Among Us is decision making and dialog choices, and the more complex and multifaceted the characters and conflicts, the more interesting it is to play. And the noir detective genre is simply a better vehicle for exploring those small, personal tensions and conflicts than the superhero war story of the comics.

Moral relativism is a hallmark of noir which makes creating nuanced characters easier, and a murder mystery by its nature requires the detective to move through the different stratas of society and puzzle out the motivations and nuances of suspects and witnesses. There’s also just a hundred small ways the presentation of The Wolf Among Us reinforces the unglamorous nature of Fabletown: the neon lights that drench the world, the constant graffiti in the background, the thick atmosphere of the music, Bigby’s weariness in quiet moments, the way his fridge is empty.

Even the titles of the comics and game set them apart: Fables is a generic and vague title, The Wolf Among Us specific, intriguing, and hints at the liminal space Bigby occupies, the themes of fear and belonging.

None of this is to say that the original Fable comics are bad. They’re not: they’re well written and well drawn. But they’re not everything they could be, not as brilliant as their premise promises. The fairytale elements in them are just draped over a conventional plot, the connections only skin deep.

Found this interesting? Exciting? Sexy? Check out my other writing on my tumblr here, or check out my youtube video essay channel here.

[hydrospanners]

A-Z on the writing meme because I need to know absolutely everything immediately.

WELP okay but just remember you asked for what’s about to happen. meme is here. most of this is under a cut cause i’m longwinded as hell.

A. If you could rec a piece of music to accompany one of your fics, what would you pick? Why?

Um I absolutely was vibing to Lips by The xx when I wrote a wish your heart makes and you should too.

B. Who’s your favorite side-character from something you wrote?

I feel like the answer here is supposed to be Doc because he is not The Main Character in the game but also I have written about him and from his POV so much it feels unfair to call him a side character at this point. So instead I’m going to say this random woman named Cherita who was just trying to make a midnight snack for her pregnant wife from a little eggstra. I thought she had a lot of character for someone I pulled out of my ass for the sake of an outside perspective.

C. Get any good comments on your stuff this year?

I am thirsty for praise and I feel every single comment is a good comment but I think the one that sticks out to me is when I wrote a wish your heart makes someone said something like “if you like doc at all you have to read this” and I don’t remember who it was or where they said it but it really stuck with me!!! If that was you, thank you!!!!

D. Any drawings or pictures that had a big influence on your writing?

No!!! I feel guilty about this answer somehow but it’s true. I think it would be a fun challenge to try to write a piece of fic inspired by someone’s art so I may play with that idea next year (Editor’s Note: it was still 2k18 when I wrote the answer for this one) but for 2k18 the answer is no. :(

E.  Who’s your favorite main character you’ve written?

I feel like this answer is obvious but it’s my girl Rea. I’ve reincarnated her as an Inquisitor and a Pathfinder but the OG Jedi Knight is still my fave.

F. What stories are you planning for the future?

I won’t pretend that a lot of planning goes in to my fic. I normally only write short bits so it kind of goes like this: I have a concept, I write the bit I fixate on, and then it sits in my WIPs for five years until I get motivated during some Fictober or something to finally finish it.

I will say I do have serious designs to finally finish the second chapter of the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one as that one is a little more complex than stuff I usually write. I have plans to do some kinda flashback-y thing that finally lays out The Velaran Backstory in clear and obvious terms after years of hints and tidbits I’ve been peppering through my fic. I also have a thing planned and kinda partly written about the first instance of horrific violence in the lives of all the Knight’s companions. Also I have a long series of AU vignettes that glimpses into universes where Rea is a Sith or Kira never made it off Korriban or Rusk remained a pacifist or where Rea never joined the Jedi after losing her family the second time. Stuff like that.

G. Where do you think you grew the most this year?

Structure? I’ve been really working on trusting my reader to bridge some gaps and not letting myself get caught up in details that are important for me to know to write the next part but that don’t necessarily need to be in the story. I think I’ve really tightened up my game where trimming the fat and staying focused are concerned.

H.  How do you write? Paper, pen, computer? Music, no music?

My fic writing process is very different from when I am trying to write original stuff and is even kind of different depending on the mood I’m going for? I always write fic in Google Drive cause I write fic from a lot of different machines and need the easy cloud saving.

My ideal condition for fic writing is listening to instrumental music or ambient sounds playing through headphones either in a coffeehouse or the library or when I am at home completely alone. Angst and smut are best written at night with the lights low and warm. Comedy and fluff are best written in the late afternoon/early evening after one single alcoholic beverage (any more than and one I am drunk and no longer capable of writing).

Realistically though, I usually write in whatever time I have. Mostly at work. My job requires me to sit at a desk and wait for things to happen. Since I start work at 5am, things usually aren’t happening. Even with me going out of my way to create new work for myself and excel at what work I do have, I have a lot of downtime. I spend it writing fic. I get interrupted too much to have the focus I need for original writing, but fic writing is much easier so mostly I write my fic at this bland little desk under the terrible fluorescent lights with lots of noise and interruptions, occasionally playing a thematic playlist very quietly in the background.

I.  What’s your favorite work you did this year? Why?

This is a very tough question. Surprisingly, I published a lot of things that I really liked? ([not pictured: me high fiving me for finally allowing myself to state that I like my own writing]) I think I’ll go with when the wicked play if I have to pick just one. Relative to my other work I think it’s very structurally sound and thematically focused and pretty efficient with its characterization and imagery without ever getting too sparse. Also I’m a slut for examining the commonplace nature of violence and brutality in the Star Wars universe.

J.  What are the best jokes you told this year? Any jokes you thought were funny that people didn’t catch? Vice-versa?

I’m gonna say the pun I used as the title for bars and stripes. Honestly the whole fic is a joke and I like it and I don’t care if anyone catches it or not because I know that I am hilarious and no one will ever convince me otherwise.

K. Who have you killed this year? Why did they have to die?

No one, I think? I don’t think I even mentioned any specific off-screen deaths except for shit from the decades old Tragic Backstories. Not even Valkoriate. I’m not an especially murderful writer, maybe because I haven’t had to deal with a lot of that kind of loss in my own life. Mostly I write about things that are somehow adjacent to my own emotional state/journey. That’s why I fixate a lot on the weight of duty and moral philosophy and the nuances and complications of relationships, of how you can hurt someone and be hurt by them and still love them and how messy yet fulfilling the whole thing is. Thankfully--for me--not a lot of grieving the dead in there yet.

L.  Which character did you most write about this year, and why do you like ‘em?

Pretty sure it’s Rea. Maybe Doc because of the Docember thing I squeezed in at the last second but I’m still pretty sure it’s Rea. Pretty sure it always is.

There’s a particular kind of release I get from writing her because her whole sloppy person is a part of me that doesn’t often see the light of day. I won’t say she’s aspirational because I like who I am and I don’t have any special destiny or Force powers or anything to save me when the consequences of living like she does catch up. But there are pieces of her that I admire, pieces that are still part of me that I have a hard time expressing, and spending time with her gives me a little more strength to unlock those dark musty corners of who I am, I guess? Writing Rea makes me a little more bold, a little less apologetic, a little less prone to overthinking and anxious fretting and a little more prone to doing. She makes me feel strong enough to ask for the things I want and confident enough to feel like I deserve them.

Also she is a damn good time, even when she’s falling apart.

M. Meta! Have any meta about a story you’re dying to throw out there?

Of course I do. I could ramble for hours about the story behind any single one of my stories. Aren’t all of us creative types like that??? Don’t we all love to talk about what we were going for and why we made the choices we did??? What we liked and what we think needs improvement??? Why we wanted to make the thing we made in the first place???

I could ramble about this for hours and honestly the possibilities are overwhelming so I am not going to go into any detail and just say yes. Obviously I am willing to ramble about the story behind every single story I’ve published but there’s 63 of them so if there’s something specific you want to hear about you’ll have to ask about the specific one!!!

N. Anything you were planning to write that never got written?

Nothing will ever be “never got written” until I am dead and unable to write. I am still going back to WIPs from 2014. I am rewriting garbage exercises I wrote in 2013. I like to think everything in my WIP folder will eventually be moved to my Published folder and I am going to keep thinking that until I am physically incapable of writing.

O. Do you believe in outlines? Show us one!

I believe in them very much and yet I do not practice them usually. I rely on them more with my original work which is longer and more involved and doesn’t already have a convenient structure to follow in the form of 300000 hours of video game. Most of my fic is really short, just a single scene or so. I usually start out by writing the moment that inspired me to write the fic and fill in the before and after. I do have an outline for the second half of the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one but I don’t really want to share it for something that isn’t written yet!

P. What are your pet peeves in other people’s work?

This question makes me kinda uncomfortable so here we go with some disclaimers: I write the stories that I want to read or that I really need to tell to satisfy something inside of me and I assume other authors do the same. I don’t want to say anything here that might have a chilling effect on someone exploring some idea they really need to explore, even if it’s tired or cliche or offends my own tastes. Writing is very personal and I think everyone should tell the stories they want to, whether anyone else likes them or not.

That being said, I am always desperately wishing for more media about close, intimate friendships and familial bonds. As someone who isn’t interested in sexual or romantic relationships, it makes me weep basically every time I read a story about characters who are friends or family that give that kind of relationship all of the value and weight and nuance that you see romantic relationships getting. It is a very special kind of feeling to see that it is possible for people to value what I have to offer them as much they might value someone who will romance them and sleep with them. It is very validating to see the possibility of emotional intimacy with people outside of romantic/sexual partners.

But I would never want anyone to feel bad about or stop writing their romances and their smut. That stuff speaks to people and that’s what fic is about. Telling the story that speaks to you. I want everyone to write what they want to write and if that leaves gaps, well that’s why I started writing fic in the first place. There was a story I needed to read and no one had written it yet, so I did it myself.

TL;DR Genfic & friendfic & familyfic is the greatest gift anyone could ever give me, but no one should write to satisfy other people. Always write for yourself first and foremost.

Q. Quote three bits of writing you read his year. Can be your writing, or not.

I keep little quotes everywhere--index cards and sticky notes scattered among all my belongings, snippets on my phone, untitled documents on every cloud service there is, random word docs hidden amongst my many hard drives--but the only ones I can find right now are from @meonlyred‘s Dark Horse so please enjoy three bits from that fic that I loved:

They remained sitting on the floor, Rossa leaned against him, eyes staring into the distance. Her silence might as well have been weeping.

I just love how I can feel the vacant, numb quality of her despair in this line. How it feels more poignant for its lack of drama.

“You're an idiot and I hate your hair,” Jonas said over the rim of his glass.

I mean.... Do I need to explain this?

He had never believed in happily ever afters. Not for him, at least. But the cruelest thing about being with Rossa was that he had begun to believe that maybe, just maybe, it was possible.

Closing his eyes, Theron didn’t expect to open them again.

This little snippet still punches me in the gut no matter how many times I read it. It’s so relateable and so Theron and so painful.

R. If you had to rewrite one of your stories from scratch, which one would it be? What would you do to it?

I don’t think I’d rewrite any of them? At least half of my fic has been completely rewritten once or twice before it ever gets published so I mostly have it out of my system before anyone else sees it.

S. What’s the sexiest thing you wrote this year?

a wish your heart makes. It may also be the saddest thing I wrote this year which I consider an achievement. (I was asked for smut but I literally do not know how to write just smut without anything else going on in the story.)

T. Themes, motherfucker, do you have them? What are they?

The importance and nature of family (it is what you make it and not what you were born with! but sometimes you get lucky and get to choose the one you were born with!)! The cost/impact of violence and war! Failure and coming back from failure! The nature of what is right and what is wrong and how much responsibility any one individual bears for the moral direction of their society!!!!

I don’t think I’ve ever written anything that didn’t include at least one of these concepts and most of my stuff deals heavily in at least two of them.

U. Any stories that took a abrupt u-turn from where you thought they were going?

Yep! I was trying to make a stupid joke about a haircut when I started making take back what the kingdom stole but in working my way backward from the joke I ended up with a heartfelt exploration of my character’s past emotional trauma, her character growth, and the nature of friendship and forgiveness.

V. Which story was the most viscerally pleasing to write? Tell us your narrative kinks.

I don’t know that I would necessarily call the sensation pleasing but, once again, the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one was probably the story that made me feel the most, that I was the most connected to. It hit on every single one of the themes I find compelling and I really got to play with telling the story in the white spaces, which is something I really love. I’ve been working a lot on trusting my readers and not over-explaining and I think this story really saw the impact of that work, stylistically. It’s peak self-indulgence honestly.

W.  Who are your favorite writers?

Does this mean like authors of original published works or fic writers????? How am I supposed to choose???!!!! Either way my reading habits this year have been abominable. I have really been going through some shit, lifewise, (not bad shit but emotionally consuming and time consuming nonetheless) and I had to let the reading go a little bit.

I have been really into NK Jemisin though. Her stories are complex and challenging and there is so much poetry and power in the straightforward way she tells them. I also was obsessed with the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. The characters were so textured and real with such clear voices and the relationships and ideas were so complex and compelling, yet the story never got weighed down by the heft of the subjects. She has a very light touch as a storyteller that makes her work so easily digestible without making her tale any less impactful or profound.

As for fic…. I’ve got about forty million fics bookmarked, waiting for me to get around to reading them and I am the worst kind of person because I have not yet read any of them. I’m behind on reading one of my very favorite fics right now. I think I’ve read a total of like ten fics this year and straight up probably only read that many because I was doing a bit of beta’ing.

I’m gonna do better in 2019 and I’ll get back to you on all the good shit I’ve read then.

X.  What’s your least favorite work of this year?

crapshoot. It was a really old concept that probably would have been better as visual art than a fic but my artistic talents were too limited so I wrote it instead. It could probably stand a little more meat and a lot more polish, but I don’t have the time to try and turn every goofy image in my head into a fictional masterpiece.

Y. Why did you write? For fun, for a friend, for acclaim?

For fame and fortune obviously. It’s why most of my fic is about a super popular ship in an enormous fandom.

Or, y’know… not. I write for fun and because I have to. Because there are stories inside of me I want to tell, ideas I feel compelled to explore, things I need to say. It doesn’t matter if anyone else hears them or likes them; I need to get them out of me. Also it’s a really great way to work through my own emotional turmoil at a safe distance, so I can engage with what vexes me without being consumed by it.

Z. If you could choose one work and immediately finish it, what would it be? How would you end it?

the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one. It’s the most self-indulgent thing I’ve written probably but it means a lot to me and if I knew how it ended I would have finished it months ago. D: