#meta and character babbling

[soltiana]

i know what tumblr likes and it's obviously 20 slide powerpoints about william conrad. i researched this.

[anghraine]

Speaking of the social context of P&P and Austen in general, and also just literature of that era, I'm always interested in how things like precisely formulated hierarchies of precedence and tables of ranked social classes interact with the more complex and nuanced details of class-based status and consequence on a pragmatic day-to-day level. I remembered reading a social historian discussing the pragmatics of class wrt eighteenth-century English life many years ago and finally tracked down the source:

"In spite of the number of people who got their living from manufacture or trade, fundamentally it was a society in which the ownership of land alone conveyed social prestige and full political rights. ... The apex of this society was the nobility. In the eyes of the Law only members of the House of Lords, the peerage in the strictest use of the word, were a class apart, enjoying special privileges and composing one of the estates of the realm. Their families were commoners: even the eldest sons of peers could sit in the House of Commons. It was therefore in the social rather than in the legal sense of the word that English society was a class society. Before the law all English people except the peers were in theory equal. Legal concept and social practice were, however, very different. When men spoke of the nobility, they meant the sons and daughters, the brothers and sisters, the uncles and aunts and cousins of the peers. They were an extremely influential and wealthy group.

"The peers and their near relations almost monopolized high political office. From these great families came the wealthiest Church dignitaries, the higher ranks in the army and navy. Many of them found a career in law; some even did not disdain the money to be made in trade. What gave this class its particular importance in the political life of the day was the way in which it was organized on a basis of family and connection ... in eighteenth-century politics men rarely acted as isolated individuals. A man came into Parliament supported by his friends and relations who expected, in return for this support, that he would further their interests to the extent of his parliamentary influence.

"Next in both political and social importance came the gentry. Again it is not easy to define exactly who were covered by this term. The Law knew nothing of gentle birth but Society recognized it. Like the nobility this group too was as a class closely connected with land. Indeed, the border line between the two classes is at times almost impossible to define ... Often these men are described as the squirearchy, this term being used to cover the major landowning families in every county who were not connected by birth with the aristocracy. Between them and the local nobility there was often considerable jealousy. The country gentleman considered himself well qualified to manage the affairs of his county without aristocratic interference.

"...The next great layer in society is perhaps best described the contemporary term 'the Middling Sort'. As with all eighteenth-century groups it is difficult to draw a clear line of demarcation between them and their social superiors and inferiors. No economic line is possible, for a man with no pretensions to gentility might well be more prosperous than many a small squire. There was even on the fringe between the two classes some overlapping of activities ... The ambitious upstart who bought an estate and spent his income as a gentleman, might be either cold-shouldered by his better-born neighbours or treated by them with a certain contemptuous politeness. If however his daughters were presentable and well dowered, and if his sons received the education considered suitable for gentlemen, the next generation would see the obliteration of whatever distinction still remained. The solid mass of the middling sort had however no such aspirations, or considered them beyond their reach.

"...This term [the poor] was widely used to designate the great mass of the manual workers. Within their ranks differences of income and of outlook were as varied as those that characterized the middle class. Once again the line of demarcation is hard to draw..."

—Dorothy Marshall, Eighteenth Century England (29-34)

(There's plenty more interesting information in the full chapter, especially regarding "the poor," and the chapter itself is contracted from a lengthier version published earlier.)

[cinnamonanddean]

One of the things I just love so much about the Smallville fandom is that we've all just agreed that regardless of who you're pairing him with, Lex Luthor is a fucking Sex God.

It's particularly interesting because the show barely gives us ANYTHING to support this. We have one (1) Lex sex scene, plus one deleted scene, and while they're both hot, they're not at all spectacular. Zero characters, including Lex himself, discuss his sexual prowess (or lack thereof). And yet somehow, every single fic I've read (and written!) paints him as absolute dynamite in the sack.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not disagreeing or complaining about this! I fully support Sex God Lex Luthor (as evidenced by my inclusion of my own writing). I just find it SO interesting that we've collectively decided it. I feel like it's a competency kink sort of thing: Lex is shown to be someone who is generally very successful at everything he puts his mind to, so it does track that he'd be good at sex too. I don't know what, if anything, the comics have to say about his skills, so I can't draw any conclusions from that side of things.

I just adore the fact that we all looked at Lex Luthor in Smallville canon and went "yup, that guy FUCKS."

[bidokja]

I was joking a while back that the actor they have playing KDJ for the orv movie was too handsome for him and a friend who's read orv was like "KDJ is actually secretly attractive!!" And I just felt my soul leave my body right then

SIGHS...

Okay. Buckle in. I'm gonna finally actually address and explain and theorize about this whole...thing.

I'm not gonna cite any exact chapters cause it's like 11:30 and I've got an 8 hour drive in the morning but I'll at least make an approximate reference to where certain things are mentioned. Also, this post is just my personal interpretation for a good bit of it, but it's an interpretation I feel very solid about, so do with that what you will. Moving on to the meat of things:

There is one (1) instance in the web novel that I know of which describes specific features of Kim Dokja (especially ones other people notice). This takes place when members of KimCom are trying to make Kim Dokja presentable to give his speech at the Industrial Complex (after it's been plopped down on Earth). This is when they start really paying attention and focusing on Kim Dokja's appearance since they're putting makeup on him; I still don't think they can interpret his whole face, but they can accurately pick out and retain more features than usual. If I remember correctly they reference him having long eyelashes, smooth skin, and soft hair. These features can be viewed as (stereotypically) attractive.

Certain parts of the fandom have taken this scene and run with it at a very surface level, without realizing (or without acknowledging at the very least) that this scene is not about how Kim Dokja looks. This is, in part, due to not realizing or acknowledging why Kim Dokja's face is "censored" in the first place, and what that censoring actually means. I think it's also possible that some people are assuming the censorship works like a physical phenomena rather than an altered perception.

I'll address that last point first. The censorship of Kim Dokja's features is not something as simple as a physical phenomena. It's not a bar or scribble or mosaic over his face. If that were true it'd be very obvious to anyone looking at him that his face is hidden. But his face is not hidden to people. They can look at him and see a face. If they concentrate on his eyes, they can see where he's looking. They know when he's frowning or grinning. They see a face loud and clear. But what face are they seeing? Because it's not really his, whatever they're seeing.

No one quite agrees on what he really looks like. And if they try and think about what he looks like, they can't recall. Or if they do, it's vague, or different each time. We notice these little details throughout the series. Basically, Kim Dokja's face is cognitively obscured. Something - likely the Fourth Wall, though I can't recall if this is ever stated outright - is interfering with everyone's ability to perceive him properly. This culminated in him feeling off to others; and since they don't even realize this is happening, they surmise that he is "ugly."

Moving on to the other point about what the censorship means: To be blunt, the censorship of his face is an allegory for his disconnect from the "story" (aka: real life, and the real people at his side). The lifting - however slight - of this censorship represents him becoming more and more a part of the "story" (aka: less disconnected from the life he is living and the people at his side). The censorship's existence and lifting can represent other things - like dissociation or depersonalization or, if you want to get really meta, the fact that he is all of our faces at once - but that's how I'd sum up the main premise of it. (The Fourth Wall is a larger part of the dissociation allegory, but that's for another post).

So you see, them noticing his individual features isn't about the features. It's not about the features! It doesn't matter at all which features got listed. Because they could describe any features whatsoever and it would not change the entire point of the scene. Because the point isn't what he looks like. The point is that they can truly and clearly see these features. For the first time. They are seeing parts of him for the first time. Re-read that sentence multiple times, literally and metaphorically. What does it mean to see someone as they are?

This is an extremely significant turning point dressed up as a dress-up scene.

---

P.S. / Additionally, I'm of the opinion that Kim Dokja is not handsome, and he is not ugly. He is not pretty, and he is not ghastly. Not attractive, nor unattractive. Kim Dokja isn't any of these things. More importantly, Kim Dokja can't be any of these things. The entire point of Kim Dokja is that you cannot pick him out of a crowd; he is the crowd. He's a reader. He's the reader. Why does he need to be handsome? Why must he be pretty? Why is him being attractive necessary or relevant? He doesn't, he doesn't, it's not. He is someone deeply deeply loved and irreplaceable to those around him, and someone who cannot even begin to recognize or accept that unless it's through a love letter masquerading as a story he can read. He is the crowd, a reader, the reader. He's you, he's me. He's every single one of us.

[canayams-art]

Crazy to me that there are people out there who genuinely believe Pei Xiu was/is a social climber cos I’m almost certain any ambitions he had of greatness were ripped to pieces the moment he lost Ban Yue. That man did NOT want to be great anymore and yet he ascended anyway.

Guy whose ascension was built on blood and guilt and shame. Guy who was honestly relieved to be in exile. Guy who only kept up the ruse of being a respectable god to save Pei Ming’s reputation but willingly forfeited that respectability when the vengeful spirits of Banyue Pass had finally been dealt with and the opportunity presented itself on trial.

Pei Ming even brings up the fact that Pei Xiu would rather defend/protect Ban Yue and remain in mortal exile than reach “greatness” again by turning her over to him. It’s a jab at Pei Ming’s pride considering he likely had influence in Pei Xiu’s ascension. Pei Ming is basically saying he stuck his neck out for Pei Xiu and Pei Xiu is throwing it back in his face. Pei Ming saw his own nepotism as a grace bestowed upon a grateful party, but Pei Xiu never forgot the reality of why he was recognized by the heavens.

Pei Xiu ascended as a result of his gruesome actions. He was a god of slaughter and war. His story is one of a man who had the ambition to beat the odds of his estranged heritage (Pei family being in exile), rise in the ranks to become something more than his family’s reputation, and ultimately pay the steepest price, which made all of his efforts no longer worth it when he finally made it to the highest peak.

I think it’s important to remember that his actions are consistently guided by the fact that he has so few choices and every option is bad. I don’t see a social climber—I see a survivalist whose exile was the thing that finally set him free.

[yourhighness6]

A K/A defense against zutara in TSR that I keep coming across is the argument that Zuko "didn't really ask Katara for forgiveness", and although that's clearly bullshit disproved by literally everything canon in that episode, there's often an undertone arguing that the narrative tying Katara's trauma with her mother to her feelings about Zuko discounts everything he did for her in TSR. And although it can be argued that Zuko's clear remorse for his actions discounts this argument, which is a stance that I myself would probably take in any hypothetical debate on the topic, I do think its worth exploring why else this take is shitty.

Katara's trauma is explicitly tied to her mother's death, I don't think that's news to anyone, and she has abandonment issues from both her mother dying suddenly and her father leaving to go fight in the war slightly after. Although this is clearly neither parent's fault, it is worth examining how her trauma and more specifically her abandonment issues later affected her relationships with other characters, and most continuously, Zuko. For me, it seems incredibly obvious that their time in the Ba Sing Se caves together, although formed through an incredibly tenuous connection, undoubtedly excited her feelings of abandonment. This is why those feelings are very clearly examined in the episode just after, when Katara reconnects with her father for the first time in three years (coincidentally at the same time that Zuko does, which is another parallel between the two others have pointed out) and why Zuko's betrayal is shown to have affected her so personally. Not only was she the only one to connect with him, that connection was incredibly personal and therefore left her feeling incredibly betrayed. Katara's character background alone, which also happens to be heavily addressed in this episode, is enough for the narrative to be justified in connecting Zuko's betrayal back to her mother's death. Subconsciously, her mind was probably doing something along the lines of Zuko = Fire Nation + crystal caves = abandonment. Conveniently, this take also chooses, as most K/A takes do, to discount the fact that Katara canonically forgave Zuko.

I hope this makes sense, and this is not in response to anything any particular K/A shipper posted, it's just a trend in the fandom I wanted to try my hand at debunking. That being said, as with most things, I know it's not going to change any K/As minds, so I hope at least my little babble is entertaining to the zutarians out there. (K/A shippers DNI)

[mischievouslittlecreature]

Hope you all are prepared for more Venor/Look Both Ways Lucy meta because I'm just wrapping up outlining her story right now and having lots of thoughts.

Something something, Lucy's love for Eva in Venor/Look Both Ways may not have been as all encompassing as her love for Tommy, but I think it caused her to develop a deep admiration for her. And often when Lucy loves people, she can put them on pedestals a little. Not really in the sense that she doesn't think they're completely infallible or can do no wrong, but she just loves so unconditionally that she struggles to acknowledge their flaws sometimes. But this gets twisted as time goes on because she sees Eva as perfect (can we really blame her? 🤭) and it morphs into this crushing fear and insecurity that she can never measure up, and Tommy must be so disappointed that he got stuck with the worst of his two options, and is just settling for her/using her as a bedwarmer. And it's especially compounded because she knows Tommy and Eva are soulmates, and deep down I think a part of her will always feel that they should have ended up together, and that she's ruining everything by even being alive.

For clarification I don't think she feels like this all the time. But a big part of her mental illness is that her progress is not really linear. She can be doing fine for a good stretch of time, and then get knocked back over by a big wave of depression that nearly obliterates her. It's awful and so demoralizing because she often thinks that maybe she is finally getting better, only to feel like all the progress she made got undone the next time she has an episode.

As always, Tommy is very sweet and patient with her, and tries to keep her from feeling that way. But she also has a bad habit of not telling him when she's struggling because she's scared of being a burden. So she will sometimes let herself spiral in silence for a good while until he manages to pull from her what's wrong.

Eva and the Venor/Look Both Ways series belongs to @evita-shelby, who has been so lovely and gracious in letting me play in her sandbox with her 😘

[thepsironyofchokingonalifesaver]

Everything I see reminds me of them… (going shopping and seeing things with my OCs’ aesthetics)

[blueberryfruitbat]

Ideal anime Dedede would have been a "I mean yeah I bully the kid but I don't want him DEAD." And they'd actually keep that trait consistent.

[lunarriviera]

the agent starling theory of fanworks: a meta

Hi hey hello, I am here to yell at you once more about random nonsense. This time I shall babble about something I came up with in my first year of extremely online fandom which has been useful to me as I think on these things. Perhaps it will be amusing/useful to you as well. Here we go: the Agent Starling Theory of Fanworks.

To begin with, let's consider a particularly egregious example: She Who Shall Not Be Named. You know, that super obnoxious person who (allegedly) came up with Draco Malfoy. Well, good job, Person! Thanks for that, I guess. However. Did Person ever understand Draco Malfoy? Has Person ever known what Draco Malfoys are for? Arguably no. Otherwise they would not have cut the scene where Draco throws his wand to Harry. Otherwise we might have seen, I don’t know, say, Draco dancing with Hermione at the Yule Ball, for instance. Otherwise Draco might have, at some point, even if just for a single shot, been shown as something besides a bully and sniveling coward and daddy's boy who would sell his own mother for a chocolate humbug. Of course, Draco was all of those things; but that is not all he was. (And Tom Felton did try. Lord knows he tried.)

The point here is not, how do you feel about Draco Malfoy, or even She Who Must Not Be Named. The point is, how do I know with such certainty that she got Draco so very wrong? Easy: because there are approximately eleventy gabillion fanworks addressing this failure.

Enter, then, Clarice Starling. The version important to our fannish situation is from Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs (1991), in which Starling is played by a luminous young Jodie Foster. Starling is still a Quantico trainee, not even an FBI agent yet, but for reasons known only to her boss Jack Crawford (cough*she's hot*cough) he has decided to involve her in an extremely high-profile case.

In this scene, Starling and an ME need to do an autopsy, but the useless local cops who found the body will not stop hanging uselessly around, talking and drinking coffee and being extremely, as I may have already mentioned, useless. Remember that Starling is still basically a college student, and watch how she handles the situation.

Starling’s speech: Excuse me, gentlemen. You officers and gentlemen, listen here now. There's things we need to do for her. I know that y'all brought her this far and her folks would thank you if they could, for your kindness and your sensitivity. But now please go on now and let us take care of her. Go on now. Thank you.

Part of the whole point of Agent Starling is that she's from a rural working-class southern background, so she knows exactly how to handle these hopeless confused nosy yokels, and shoo them out of the way so the rest of them can get down to work. But in addition to her humble background, and her relative youth and inexperience, she’s also brilliant, and she will in the end be the only law enforcement officer who can crack this case wide open and clear it.

Pretty sure you see exactly where I am going with this. So here we are standing here, the fan creators, and we're basically saying: Thank you. Thank you for bringing the character this far. We appreciate that. But now, you can go. Let us handle it from here. We got this. No, really—we do. Your part is done. You did that. And now this character is safe in our capable hands. Let us take care of them. Y’all go on home, now. Go on.

I’m additionally delighted by the fact that, in the film, they’re about to do a postmortem. Because isn’t that what we need everyone out of the way to do? To anatomize a character; figure out what happened to them, what made them be the way they are, what makes them tick. We have to do a forensic examination and frankly whoever initially had their hands all over this character is not the one for the job. We don’t ask parents to do surgery on their children, and that isn’t even a good analogy (so I will give you a better one).

Because it’s also funny to me when people get mad about their characters being “taken.” I’m sorry, are you new here? Do you understand how art works? Did you actually think it was yours? Because that’s kind of adorable. First of all, there exists a mighty rushing current of culture down into which, if you are very lucky, you get to dip your little bucket. It’s like a torrential stream roaring past at very high speeds, and if you are even luckier, you draw up your bucket and there’s something good in it. Something cold and clear and crystalline and thirst-quenching and life-giving. But it’s not yours. It doesn’t belong to you. You just happened to be the one at that particular moment who was holding the goddamn bucket.

Furthermore, can you imagine the heady joy of having met and introduced to the world a character who is so beloved that other people want to make art about them? Absolutely sick. Literally insane for that. Couldn’t be me. Etc. Show me a person who’s hincty and gripped and neurotic about their character being “taken away from them” and I will show you a person with severe attachment issues. Go write about Gilgamesh or Grendel’s mom or Hikaru Genji or Hamlet, if you’re that worried about “your character” being “taken away from” you. They’re right there for you to use instead.

So! That is the Agent Starling Theory of Fanworks. Now go forth and write eleventy million fanworks about your character. They’re your character, now. You know them better than anyone else alive. And don’t let anyone, not even a copyright holder, ever try to tell you otherwise.

[anghraine]

It's a very little bit funny that I used to be mildly notorious in my corner of Austen fandom for disliking Colonel Fitzwilliam, who at the time was extremely idealized in those fandom spaces, particularly by contrast with Darcy having things like "flaws" and "character growth."

I still don't like Colonel Fitzwilliam as this perfect ideal apart from maybe some extremely minor, defensible faults because he's human after all, someone who would have been exactly suited to Elizabeth really and did love her but truly is too poor to choose her (alas!) and totally is handsome, to boot.

But I do like Colonel Fitzwilliam as a man who is fundamentally decent, good-natured, intelligent, and strong-willed, but with a fundamentally aristocratic perception of himself and the world. I like that he's willing to tease and criticize Darcy as part of flirting with a pretty girl, but leaps to Darcy's and Georgiana's defense when he thinks it's important. I think it's interesting that it would be so easy for him to resent Darcy, and instead they seem to be genuine bffs with healthy respect for each other (likely for a very long time given their blood relationship and close ages) as well as co-guardians and amicable relatives.

Darcy is not a man prone to overstatement, so his description of his relationship with Colonel Fitzwilliam as one of "constant intimacy" is really intriguing to me—far more than Fitzwilliam's casual and rather shallow and self-interested flirtation with Elizabeth, tbh. It's doubly interesting because Fitzwilliam seems to only sort of know the Bingleys, and while he approves of Bingley, my impression is that he knows the whole family through Darcy rather than as general social acquaintances. We never see the Bingleys and Fitzwilliam in the same social settings, even ones where they might credibly interact like Pemberley, and Fitzwilliam makes a point of clarifying to Elizabeth that he only slightly knows Bingley's sisters. There are all these gradations to how Darcy interacts with both social sets, his mentorship-type friendship with Bingley and his intimacy with his cousin, that I don't think a simple consultation of the table of precedence fully explains.

I do find Colonel Fitzwilliam deeply boring when he's reduced to Darcy's rival for Elizabeth's affection despite never having any serious interest in Elizabeth—the kind of "so there, Darcy" vibe that underpins Fitzwilliam-as-rival is meh given their own relationship. But for such a minor character, there is genuinely quite a bit going on, I think.

[internetgiraffekid1673]

And we come out swinging! Fascinating first option. While I did read all of Dragonwatch, I am a sacrilegious goblin of a reader who only finished the first book of Fablehaven and got through half of the second. . .a.k.a, the parts where Warren was catatonic.

Fortunately for you, I happen to live with an expert! I have commandeered J-Dog's opinion for this (this required an interesting conversation where I only partially explained how tumblr mutuals work). Here's what he had to say:

"Warren is a very responsible person. Maybe one of the most responsible people in the series. Buuuuuuuut you have to remember that he's part of the magical world, and their perception of consequences are. . . skewed."

He went on to explain that Warren can be trusted with a lot of really dangerous and delicate stuff because, like you said, he isn't stupid. He wins brownie points for being one of the most long-term members of the Knights of the Dawn and literally working there his whole life, which is a level of job stability we both strive to achieve. He's competent enough to actually keep Seth and Kendra safe when faced with a problem. He also is good at keeping the kids out of the most dangerous situations, but still explaining things to them in a way that means they might listen. He also is able to recognize when the kids can actually help and when they're useful.

One of Warren's more grey features is how immersed he wants the kids to be in the magical world. Because while it is very responsible of him to want them to know how to use their abilities and understand what they're up against. . .well, maybe we shouldn't let the demonstrably reckless and impulsive middle schooler talk to the wraiths, Warren. He treats kids with a level of respect and maturity. Not as full adults, but certainly trusting them to make their own decisions. And while that's great in almost any other situation, Seth. . . lacks a lot of the maturity needed to have that trust. It's okay though, cuz Warren's still pretty good at explaining things to Seth in a way that gets the gravity of the situation through his thick skull.

J-Dog also explained that, like most adults in the series, living in the magical world for so long has made him forget that even less extreme consequences are still bad. Warren believes that if nobody's dead and if demons aren't taking over the world, then we're doing a pretty dang good job. Which, he says, enables Kendra and Seth to get into some pretty dangerous chaos they wouldn't otherwise be capable of. His example was that Warren and the other adults fully believe that it's fine if the house literally falls apart on top of them as long as nobody got hurt, because the brownies will just fix it anyway. No Warren. That's not actually okay. Maybe let's make it so we don't do the dangerous thing that causes the house to collapse in the first place.

Overall, J-Dog rates Warren as the second most responsible adult in the series (the first being Tanu, who tends to teach them about the magical world in a much safer and more controlled environment than Warren) and the best Seth handler in the series, which is high praise because Seth is something else and most adults are actually REALLY BAD at dealing with him.

We've put his responsibility rating at a 6.5/10. This is the second highest of all Fablehaven characters (Tanu gets a 7) and in general pretty high for middle grade fiction mentors. Warren is the first entry here, so ya'll don't have a frame of reference, but scoring over 5 is quite the honor.

Thanks for playing! You also gave me an excuse to make J-Dog talk about Fablehaven, that's always fun! Bring on the next character (ya'll can give me multiple characters, I don't mind)!

I'm Bored. Let's Play a Game:

If you've been around here for a bit, you'll know that I am an exteme enjoyer of middle grade/children's media. 11-16 year old's saving the world and going on fun adventures is my bread and butter. You'll also know that I discuss this media with my family rather copiously. And I'm going to let you in on one of our longest running discussions ever.

As discussed in this post, there is a genre convention of children's media that removes all responsible adult figures from the story so that the child protagonists get to go on fun but HIGHLY dangerous adventures. This has led to us making a game of spotting the rare responsible adults and debating about how responsible they actually are (and then loosely ranking them).

I'd like to let you all in on this game. Reply, reblog, or tag me with a character from some of your favorite children's media that you think counts as a responsible adult. If you'd like, you can prepare a defense for them, and I'll prep a rebuttal, but I can also argue both sides for them. If I don't know the piece of media, I'll do some spelunking the wiki, and you'll have to be alright with it not being entirely accurate.

After looking at the evidence from both sides, I'll rate them on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being "so irresponsible that they should be in jail multiple times over and shouldn't be allowed to interact with kids" and 10 being "get this person an actual a+ parent/mentor/whatever of the century award."

Also remember that this is all in good fun! I like debating, and I'm not dissing the characters or the story just for rating an adult low!

I'm going to tag some folks to start just so ya'll know I've opened this game, but you are in no way obligated to join! You are also welcome to play even if I didn't tag you and even if we've never interacted!

@ace-of-hats @kerpwow @givemethesleep @mzmuskratism @valid-name @mewuniverse @ellazimmermansblog

[egrets-highish-hunt-loth]

Name: Charlie R. Hopper

Nicknames/Aliases: various randomly generated Internet aliases, often having numbers or codes within them.

Creed/Virtue: Hermit / Vision

Drive: Curiosity

You don’t like to think about the past; you were in law enforcement, briefly, before a car accident smeared as a drunk driving incident rendered you functionally brain dead for six months and your higher-ranked sisters face on every MISSING poster across the UK. You fell into a hole of drinking and passing out on streets when the fallout hit too hard — and you thought you found solace with a drinking buddy until one night you wake up with his teeth around your neck and promises of an eternity of peace babbling from his throat.

It’s not that that does it, though. You wriggled hard enough to escape, and you hid in your house with blood pouring down your neck — and nothing happens. You never see your drinking buddy again, even if you’re sure sometimes you feel his eyes on the back of your neck. You don’t report it to the people that had already shunned you. You don’t have friends to tell; they were all your sisters’, and she’s not turned up either. You’re just the leftovers, the chewed up gristle that would do better to be ground against the pavement and discarded.

So, instead of taking action, you move — far, far away — in the hopes that nothing but the scar tissue would follow you. Like you could swallow down that rage and escape with just a few physical reminders that, in time, would fade.

You didn’t know just how loud the whispers would get.

Merits:

Tolerance (1pt) ; Most hermits can’t be in populated spaces without completely losing it. Charlie has a *slight* tolerance that has allowed him to squat in an abandoned apartment complex, though it still means the endless barrage of garbled messages makes it difficult for him to focus; he finds himself unable to leave despite the urge to get away from it all, his Curiosity driving him to put up with the Babble. || This merit only extends to the presence of 1 Imbued or Supernatural being, if more than that are within a 30 metre radius (patron bg 3) Charlie is rendered unable to focus on anything other than the Messages.||

Patron Background (3pt); Charlie is fed a constant barrage of messages and warnings that come; when in the presence of another Imbued or supernatural being (within a 30 metre radius with current points), Charlie is overwhelmed by the noise and suffers a -2 penalty to any rolls involving focus or concentration; unless it’s to release the messages unto others. I’ll be writing the messages as quite incoherent, as I don’t want to step on or reveal anyones’ meta character information without permission; feel free to dm if you want some details revealed!

Flaws:

— Demophobe (derangement); Charlie is deathly afraid of crowds, and doesn’t even like the idea of fellow squatters in the apartment complex he squats in lest they become too numerous; he regularly installs self made security and ‘’traps’’ to deter any from being too close for fear of a crowd gathering.

— Weak-Willed ; Even when Charlie is aware some-one is trying to sway him, he cannot roll resistance against manipulation attempts.

— Stalker ; Charlie briefly was the target of a planned embrace, but narrowly escaped. His wanna-be sire still lurks, somewhere, keeping an eye on its’ lost quarry; it contributes to his demophobia, as he’s afraid he might not be able to recognise the lurking face in a large crowd.

[[ Hunter PC in the Blood On The Bay campaign set in San Francisco. <3]]

[astracora]

❝ imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality ❞

wonder || 29 || they/them || aroace || audhd

writer || gamer || coder

always playing: touken ranbu + love and deepspace

currently playing: bloomtown, the outer worlds (replay), virche epic lycoris

waiting on: the outer worlds 2

resources

character site writing masterlist love and deepspace progress tracker touken ranbu progress tracker sylus playlist caleb playlist

main tags

wonder writes wonder plays wonder babbles (includes meta) love and deepspace touken ranbu

❝ Stories are important…They can be more important than anything. If they carry the truth. ❞

Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

[thepsironyofchokingonalifesaver]

The fun thing about having OCs that are kinda half-baked is that you can be like, “It’s unclear and mysterious what her life was like before she met so-and-so…” (I haven’t thought that far back)

[furymint]

2023 Creator Reflection

ffxiv.

1. dance me to the end of love

this one was fun! i always like merging a character's outfit with the bg so i liked doing that again. picking the colors for elliots outfit was also enjoyable. ive wanted to make smth w that cover for a while

2. shame was still the tyrant of his life

i only wrote two nol and eli things this year and neither of them are finished. the first was a continuation of a scene where nol kisses elliot against the blue stained glass in his room--i once posted it but then i deleted it bc it made me feel woozy for its allusions to sex. i wanted to rebuild it and take a shot at it now that im comfortable writing n reading sex, but i never got very far. theres actually lots of nice parts! i just like nols dumb angsting the best!

3. valentine

i really wanted to focus on nol's eye here, but also not make it too obvious lol. i used a ps filter like a schmuck but i wanted it to be darker without making it even more difficult to see, so i took away their bodies and limited the colors to make it what it is.

4. amateur cracksmen

the second nol n eli wip, which doesnt have many interesting lines rn, was a raffles-inspired story where eli drags nol as his valet to a rival artist's house and tries to steal back the brooch that he bought from an underground dealer feat. much babbling abt the state of societal responsibility that war is supposed to bring

ffxvi.

1. herz an herz dir

i wrote some reflections about this one already here. i honestly was very (distressed voice) cant believe im writing pure fanfic for the first time in over ten years and lacked a lot of direction when i started bc uhhhhh terence has 8 and a half mins of screen time. i tried to convince myself that it's not much different than me stealing brucemont for my own evil devices, but the unique perspective of seeing quite so much fan content def influenced my interpretation. i wanted their relationship to be much more imbalanced from the get-go initially--dion using his power unintentionally and terence barely passing a thought abt it until later bc he's just so accustomed to obeying--but i ended up giving terence a lot more sway & ammunition in their argument. the breakfast bed thing is also smth im rly fond of.

2. mund an mund

there's also additional meta for this one here. i made a silly doodle abt it also. dion kept picking fights here! it honestly turned out how i expected. when i first started this fic, i was gonna have dion start out right in oriflamme and meet ter and kihel there, but i booted them to northreach so i could have this stretch of conflict. i think it's like. Bad Pacing. technically. if i still believe the conflict introduced in the next chapter is the core one, that is. which i sorrrrta do. but i dont care bc i rly like the visual of kihel laying in dion's lap and getting to put a gun on the wall w ahmed.

3. eines atems

its been two months since the last chapter and this chapter is humiliatingly not written. i have all my scrambled notes and scenes that i jotted down in between the first two chapters, so i have a full direction, but it's been really difficult to write lately. ive been devoting all my time to trying to recoup my mental health and work on my teredio secret santa. ill start next year with this wip as a priority, so for now i only have the photoshop edit for it. kihel is holding terence's hand--it's his pov turn.

overall i didnt like this year very much. i didn't read, create, research or do a lot even though i tried to. i became really disconnected from all of my friends bc im too tired to stay for rp or hold online conversations. at this point, i dont play ffxiv at all except the few times i managed to rp a little. i moved into nanny's house and have my own space, but don't have the presence of mind to do anything about my pc, books, and so on, although i did make a lot of progress rewrapping my books w fresh wraps and some other things. my plans for next year are to reach out to a couple of my friends, build my pc, relearn + rebuild + relaunch my queer lit blog on open source code, survive school, and rediscover the productivity ive lost the past few years.

teredio has helped me a LOT to find community, inspiration, and art in my loneliest year yet. im very proud of my fic and grateful every day to the ppl who have reached out to me about liking it. even if im sorry about my productivity rate in comparison to how many extraordinary writers there are in the ship's fandom, i know i have to be easy on myself to relearn how to write, create a writing schedule that works for me, and stop punishing myself when i cant get the words out.

past reflections:  2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022