#mailjeevasredemption

[morphinejunkie]

Hi morph! I've been following you since i read crush the first time, I admire your talent and your way of working, so accurate and almost scientific! I will always thank you for that and I hope to read new writings from you soon.

I noted someone asked you for advice on writing mello, and now I would like to ask you for advice on writing matt, if you would like to answer! Writing matt is freer (as there is little canon information), but it is also more difficult, because of that. Did you use a different process? Did you create a spectrum for him too? Thanks for all you do ❤️

thank you so much, and sorry for the late response to this one.

here's my post about writing mello.

now writing matt is different as you mentioned because he is such an open character. you could interpret him however you'd like, based on the little information that canon has given you. there are a lot of possible interpretations to matt that will make sense - i think, contrary to mello where you constantly have to assess/compare your characterization with his motivations and goals in death note, with matt, the most important question is: does he feel real?

i found that because matt is so open, people tend to write him based on fantasy. this makes him so incredibly two-dimensional as a result, because he ends up becoming just a blank character for people to fill their desires, wishes, and projections on. i find that very often in fanfic he ends up basically just being a bland sum of the author's romantic/sexual interests, a direct reflection of the author's identity, or a blank canvas on which mello can extricate influence.

i'm not saying that's bad or not a good way to write him, but for me, i wanted matt to be a fully rendered, realized individual, independent of myself. you really have to treat matt as an OC, so a lot of this could double up as "how to create a realistic fictional character" advice.

this is what worked for me:

backstory

obviously the most important thing about how to write a character is knowing where they come from and how they became who they ended up becoming. so ask yourself the following questions:

where does matt come from? -> this answers his baseline cultural identity and temperament

what was his family life like? -> the dynamics of his family life before he was orphaned is really important in determining how you write his attachment styles and his relationships. things like his relationship with his mother, his father, siblings, wealth, stability, etc. all factor into who he is as a person

when was he orphaned? -> this answers how much of that cultural identity influences him vs. the UK

why is he the way he is now? -> aka why is he so lazy, chill, a chainsmoker, an avid video game player? with mello, canon answered this question for us: mello has a deep-rooted inferiority complex stemming from the competitive conditions of the orphanage. so why is matt so different from him?

2. get to know him OUTSIDE of mello

here's one thing that i find a lot of m2 fans forget while writing matt: he is his own person. a big mistake that i see is a lot of writers write him as a "satellite character" where his motivations, dreams, goals, thoughts, and intentions all exist in a vacuum that is all for the sake of mello. because even if he is somebody who has decided that his entire life is made to please mello (which wouldn't be ooc, though improbable given his personality canonically), he still would have had events in his life that would make him rely on mello so wholeheartedly.

i encourage writing out a character profile for matt that does not mention or reference mello at all. completely extricate mello from his personality and figure him out from there.

lastly, ask yourself: what drew him to mello in the first place? this isn't a given - mello is really not an easy person to be around, so why does matt seemingly have no problems with being with him? i think it's totally fine for matt not to know the answer to this question, and for there to be multiple answers to this question, but my point is, there should be some answers. it should make sense for matt, given the backstory that you've given him, to want to be around mello. matt was not born to love mello, despite what fanfics tend to want to believe.

3. consistently check your own biases

obviously we as writers want to write what we want to see, and again this is fine if you don't mind being indulgent as a writer, but for me personally, i wanted to keep it as objective as i could. i didn't want to create a matt that was a manifestation of myself or some sort of sexual fantasy. i found that the best way to do this was make sure there were times where i disagreed with matt or even found him a little bit personally dislikeable/repulsive - whether it be from his thoughts, emotional reactions, interests, or habits. this is of course not needed but i found it was an easy shorthand to make sure that i wasn't just creating somebody perfect.

4. find real life matts

this one's a little unorthodox, but i felt it was really useful for me in making sure my biases were checked.

when i was writing crush, i would often find users on twitter that reminded me of matt, or gave me a feeling of matt - whether it be through their typing style, their voice, their humour, or their posts - and follow them. seeing the way they interact with the world gave me a better understanding of how someone like matt would also interact with the world, especially in ways that i could never envision. i think for me, i had to come to terms with the fact that matt was not somebody i could create out of scratch based on my life experiences and the place i grew up. so the only way i could better understand him, was to find people who lived like him and acted like him and see what had made them this way.

of course this extends to even basing matt off of your family members, friends, or acquaintances: pulling inspiration from real people is often the best and most authentic way to build a realistic character.

[morphinejunkie]

Hello!!! I've collected so many crushstions, but I'm going to contain myself and so I'll only ask two:

In chapter 14, matt is willing to prostitute himself to Mello for some heroin. Is he just desperate or he has also an awareness? Did Matt already realise that Mello was attracted to him? Was he ever aware of this?

On the premise that crush is the universal manifesto for anti-romanticism, and on the premise that matt and mello will never have a functional relationship. In your view though, is there even a glimmer of ''exclusivity'' in the relationship they have? Do they notice differences in this with other lovers? Do they ever miss each other in the years they are apart, or are they just flat and passing like everyone else?

thank you for continuing your activity and sharing your ideas.

cool questions! thank you always!

1. this is up to interpretation really since mello believes matt “knows,” but i personally think that matt was willing to do anything at that moment and mello’s expression towards him was that of dominance and desire, so matt acted and delivered what was asked of him directly.

matt knew mello was attracted to him on a subconscious level since meeting again, and that became a conscious bit of knowledge after the explosion, but his self esteem never let him really see it as mello finding him attractive for his own sake - just thought it was mello being gay or horny or maybe some sort of power play. it didn’t bother matt and he didn’t think much about it. but, i think matt had a hard time coming to terms with the idea that mello actually liked him, and was interested in him not because he’s a warm body or sort of cute but because he’s matt. i think matt spent most of crush coming to terms with the realization that mello was deeply caring about him and had a romantic interest in him, but he didn’t care much about the fact that mello was sexually interested in him.

2. this is a really difficult question to answer and one i do try to grapple with in evidence. anyhow, matt and mello are indescribable in their connection to each other. they’re codependent and they always will need one another. they aren’t something as simple as lovers - they’re best friends, they’re colleagues, they’re brothers, they’re family. so they are different to one another because no one can even come close to understanding the broken pieces that wammy’s left them both with. they speak a language that no one else in the world could ever speak. and i think that helps one part with closeness and affection, but also breeds resentment, especially with someone like mello, who craves freedom and hates being predicted or understood. i don’t believe they’re ever exclusive because of that exact reason too, because matt already has parts of mello that no one can ever have, so mello will never let matt have him exclusively.

but, they miss one another undoubtedly because no one will ever be mello’s matt or matt’s mello. something will always feel missing even if they don’t want to admit it.