#of course you'd write them differently! yr life is different! yr different from who you were then

[sweatermuppet]

i think what has helped keep me motivated + curious abt all matters of the world is to acknowledge when smthng is not for me. it's too broad, advanced, unrelatable, or just unlikable, & instead of being discouraged or frustrated in my inability to understand or enjoy, i say "this not for me, but i can recognize it may be for someone else." OR, & this helps me the most, i say "this is not for me right now. months or years from now, this may suit me better."

[bluedalahorse]

Here's a random YR ask for you:

As a writer, what would you say are some of Sara, August and Felice's core characteristics/essential building blocks? (Feel free to do Wilhelm and Simon's as well if you'd like!) From a canon perspective, but also from the perspective of a fic writer?

What a wonderful ask! Thank you for sending it. This made me think a lot about what I do to develop characters in a story more generally. Then I had to put those techniques into distinct categories. So what I’m going to do is explain the categories first, then move on to how I think about these categories for each character.

I just did Felice, Sara, and August, but I could do additional characters upon request if other people wanted. My askbox is still open!

On to answering the ask. Here’s some things I try to keep in mind more generally when writing any character in a fic…

Desire lines: a story is driven by what a character wants. This want often comes into conflict with what a character fears, or what they believe to be true about themself that isn’t quite true. What a character wants will determine what they do over the course of the story and the different scenes that will transpire as they try to get it. One of the trickiest things about desire lines is that you have to think about them on both the abstract and the concrete level, which determines how those desires show up internally and externally.

Bodily and sensory experiences: every character has a different body and a different experience in that body. Part of these experiences are going to be external—how other people respond to them because of their race, gender expression, perceived ability, etc. These experiences will also be internal. An important part of making a story gripping is sitting close to your viewpoint character’s perspective, and you can bring a reader closer to a character by bringing them into that character’s body. It’s also a good way to reinforce how a character is feeling their emotions.

Contradictions, rationalizations, and sources of cognitive dissonance: This is a fun one! I think sometimes we fall into the trap of trying to make characters too logical, because we hear that characters should be consistent. The reality is though that people tend to run on their own internal logic, and that sometimes internal logic is inconsistent or hypocritical or complicated, and we spend a lot of life trying to process all that. Leaning into the weirdest parts of a character’s internal logic, instead of trying resolve everything or smooth it over right away, is part of how you make a character unique. You can also deepen your understanding of a character’s internal conflict by doing this.

Mentor texts: My writing life changed dramatically when my writing teachers encouraged me to start looking at stories I liked and studying their craft techniques so I can experiment with using them in my own work. In fanfiction, this will mean studying the source text you’re making fanfiction about, but I don’t think you *only* have to study the source text. Like if a book you read reminds you of a particular character in YR and you love that book, you can study that book’s pacing or voice or POV or whatever to get an idea of how you’d tell their story.

On to each of the three characters…

Felice

Desire lines: Canon tends to be somewhat vague about Felice’s desire lines, but if I had to pick, I’d say her desires line up with living an authentic life that is true to herself, and secondarily, achieving justice through discovery of the truth. Felice concretely goes after these desires by pursuing a friendship with Sara, trying to figure out who releases the video, changing how she wears her hair, telling the school inspectors what really happens at Hillerska, etc. I don’t think she has to stick with these desires in a fanfic, but they can inform a new desire I might assign her. For instance, if I was writing a fic where Felice wants to fall in love and get into a long-term romantic relationship, I think I’d build upon her canon journey by having her grapple with who she becomes in dating situations, and what kind of relationship feels authentic to her. Her interest in justice and the truth might also lend itself to a storyline where she learns to advocate for herself in a partnership.

Bodily and sensory experiences: Felice knows she is going to stand out in most situations and be noticed for things that others aren’t. Whenever we’ve seen her in canon, she’s one of the few brown faces in a room full of white ones. (Side thought: I’d love to read a fic where Felice is in a predominantly Black environment, so we can see how her thought patterns would shift.) She’s also rich, and has been raised by her mother to pay attention to physical appearance and brands of clothing and so on. As such, Felice is probably going to be constantly monitoring her body language and how she occupies space. She’s going to be thinking about how her clothes fit and her makeup and the messages they send. Because of the comments her mother makes about her weight, she’ll probably be self-conscious about her figure. We can also consider how Felice takes in information through her senses. Because she’s interested in cooking, she’ll probably be fairly attuned to the taste, smell, and texture of food, and pick up subtleties that others might not.

Contradictions, rationalizations, and sources of cognitive dissonance: In canon we see Felice breaking away from the world of Hillerska and its values, and it’s actually a process. Her parents don’t show up much in the show, but one headcanon I have is that they aren’t just doing the things they do to make Felice’s life miserable. I think on some level they believe they’re protecting her and providing her with the best possible life. Felice’s mother thinks Felice can marry Wilhelm not only because she wants her family to be related to royalty, but because she thinks it’s what’s going to make Felice happy and powerful. Similarly, Felice’s girl squad looks up to her and thinks she’s wonderful, and they have fun together, but they also microaggress her. I think a lot of cognitive dissonance Felice will have to push through surrounds these situations. I think she might tell herself “it could be worse” a lot. Like, sure her mom’s being a nightmare, but it could be worse, right? Felice’s friends sometimes say weird stuff about race, but it’d be worse in public school or if she lived elsewhere, right? I think Felice might have to push past this supposed safety of being a rich popular girl at Hillerska, to really articulate what she needs in life.

Mentor texts: My two favorite books that pair with my understanding of Felice are When You Were Everything by Ashley Woodfolk and The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed. Both are focused on Black teen girl protagonists coming to understand their friendships, their families, and their relationship to power structures in the world.

Bonus Felice note: Felice can be a little messy sometimes! I think there’s this pressure to portray her as thoroughly wonderful, but we also know her closet’s a mess and she lies to get out of gym class and had a shoplifting phase. Next time I write her, I’m challenging myself to lean into a moment where she might be selfish or impatient or dishonest or a bad friend, because she can be even more wonderful when we can embrace her flawed moments too.

Sara and August go below the cut, because this is already very long.

Sara

Desire lines: In canon, Sara wants to be seen as independent and capable of handling things without Simon. She also wants to feel connected to other people, having grown up quite lonely and bullied by other children. Sara pursues these desires concretely by pursuing a friendship with Felice and a romance with August, trying to live on campus at Hillerska, etc. Again, we see her achieve these desires in canon, but we can evolve them and use them as a springboard for new stories. Like, we’ve seen what independence looks like at Sara’s current age, but what does it look like in university? Or at a job? What would it mean for Sara to seek out not just friendship but a community of fellow neurodivergent people? It’d be fascinating to take her newfound confidence and put it to the test in new situations.

Bodily and sensory experiences: Sara is small, and we see the way her smallness interacts with her being an observer or witness. Some people might perceive her as younger than she is because of her height. She has to look up at almost all of her other classmates and the people around her. Any romantic interaction between Sara and August is going to start as a negotiation between his tallness and her smallness—you can say a lot in a scene based on whether she stands on tip toes to reach him, or he bends down or picks her up to kiss her. Sara’s autism and ADHD are also going to play a role in how she experiences her body. She’ll need to take meds in the morning, and as her meds wear off over the course of the day, she might feel different stimuli pulling her attention and/or need to move her body more. Her meds might work differently when she’s on her period. She may also struggle with interoception, and not register signals from her body right away. Sensory sensitivities might come up for Sara, especially when she’s distressed. Smell and sound might get to her especially, since we see her using headphones to concentrate in school, and since her dad mentions fragrance-free laundry detergent. Because she’s a high masking autistic, she may have an internal monologue going in high stakes social situations—checking to see if she made the right amount of eye contact, wondering if her tone of voice was right for a situation, wondering why she can never smile the right amount for other people. Based on season 3, shame changes the way Sara carries her body. She’ll be feeling that internally, too.

Contradictions, rationalizations, and sources of cognitive dissonance: Sara’s living so many of them! Everyone else calls her authentic and praises her for being uniquely herself, but like any other teenager, she’s still figuring out who she is. She loves people who let her down and wonders why the love persists anyway. One of the reasons I enjoy Sara’s overall arc so much is she has to come to terms with the way life and one’s emotions are messy, and then she takes action without sweeping the emotions under the rug completely or disavowing them. To me, I think leaning into that beautiful mess instead of trying to make Sara’s emotions neat and tidy and fandom-approved is an important part of doing her justice. I’d say more, but I worry about triggering another round of Sara Discourse, and the sad thing is that there are still people out there who will read anything she does in bad faith. Sigh.

Mentor texts: When I write Sara, I find myself turning to 19th and early 20th century classics. Jane Eyre, the March sisters, and LM Montgomery’s protagonists go well with Sara’s balance of pragmatism and romanticism, as well as her outsider status. I also find Sara in Joy McCullough’s Enter the Body, a verse novel where Shakespeare’s tragic heroines retell their stories, and in the Into the Woods musical soundtrack. All of these mentor texts help me get at what’s going on with Sara internally.

Bonus Sara note: After receiving my AuDHD diagnosis, I created a guide of resources that fanfiction writers can use for approaching Sara. I’m linking it again in case anyone needs it!

August

Desire lines: Okay this is wild but… what if I told you August’s more abstract desire is a fulfilled sense of belonging and the opportunity to create a sense of belonging for others? August is notoriously bad at understanding his own desires, and even worse at figuring out how to go after them concretely and in ways that don’t bother or harm people, and at the end of the series he is perhaps just realizing he may have miscalculated when he’s in line to be crown prince. But I think one of the things I see as being core to his character is that he’s lonely and traumatized, and he’ll do anything to feel like he belongs with people and is safe somewhere, and part of that shows up in also trying to be a leader within the Hillerska community. Because if you’re running all the traditions, no one’s going to question if you belong, right? Hence his working so hard to be prefect and captain of the rowing team and de facto leader of the Society and planner of all the parties. He knows those things matter to him and to others. At the beginning of the series, August’s idea of how to create a sense of belonging for himself is deeply flawed. It rests more on the exclusion of many so that an elite few can feel included. Over the course of the series, we see him reevaluate that idea, and I would argue that his understanding of belonging is now changing. I think I’ve gone on a tangent here, so let me try to bring this to some sort of satisfying conclusion. I think any portrayal of August that tries to simplify him down to wanting power or status or the ability to make Wilhelm and Simon’s lives miserable… just isn’t going to hit as hard as an August with a deeply buried earnest need for belonging and love and safety at his core. Even when I wrote him as more of a villain with a deeply tragic ending, this was true.

Bodily and sensory experiences: August’s relationship to his body is so fraught! He’s tall and imposing and looks quite grown up, but this is a fairly recent development, and it wasn’t long ago that he likely looked like a sweet little kid and then an awkward gangly boy in his early to mid-teens. This is all happening very fast, and I think there’s a stark contrast between August’s internal little boyishness (and all the fear and earnestness that goes with that) and his apparent adult maturity. August is probably always physically coming up against stuff that reminds him how fast his life changed—it’s not just that his father died, it’s that he can now wear his father’s old clothes, and his mother is now smaller than he is and hugs from her probably feel different. Moreover, August seems to need to move his body to self-regulate. If you’re a writing a fic from his perspective, think about where he’ll feel his restlessness, and whether he’ll be tapping a pen or pulling his hair or trying to for a run to process it all. I think it’s worth considering all this history of August’s body alongside more obvious things like August’s disordered eating and exercising, and whatever he feels after standing naked in front of the third years. As someone carrying a lot of complex trauma, he’s probably hypervigilant, with sensory sensitivities to go with that.

Contradictions, rationalizations, and sources of cognitive dissonance: We could be here all day, couldn’t we? Like Felice, August is supposed to be benefitting from the system he’s in, but he’s not. He tends to assume he’s failing the system instead of the system failing him, and doubles down on trying to meet this elite idea that will only make him miserable. At the same time, August has an impulsive streak, so he sometimes acts first and rationalizes his more impulsive decisions after the fact. He does an initial round of harm when he acts impulsively, but then doles out additional harm through what he does when he’s rationalizing. In addition, August is trapped in a well of traumatic grief for both his father and Erik, both of whom gave him some sense of identity and belonging, but who also harmed him in their own particular ways. He’s sitting in the emotional dissonance of that every minute of the series. While August and Wilhelm have begun to grieve Erik together, August still doesn’t have anyone he can discuss his father with yet.

Mentor texts: Tana French is my go-to for all things August. She’s great with unpleasant but compelling characters, writing about social class, and unearthing buried traumas. Her settings often act as extensions of the characters and themes, and I feel like August-centered fics can develop and lean on emotionally resonant settings (Årnäs, Hillerska, the palace) as an extension of his internal landscape. I also want to mention the soundtrack to Fun Home as another inspiration, because of the way it handles grief and dysfunctional families.

Bonus August note: As fun as it is to write August doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons, he can’t be that way all the time. I also write him doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, the right thing for the wrong reasons, and even the right thing for the right reasons. I also do not write him as a cold master manipulator or as someone with a high opinion of himself—internally August loathes himself to the point of self-destructive behaviors. Any story that acknowledges these things really captures the flavor of August, in my opinion.

[horizon-verizon]

A few counterarguments:

"BIASED IN UNIVERSE HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE DANCE OF THE DRAGONS" = / = all the information is suspect (ages, dates, physical descriptions, who was where when this happened [Daemon being in the Stepstones when Rhea dies vs him traveling on a huge, noticeable dragon to kill her are very two, oppositional, different things], etc.)

"Daemon is an asshole and a sociopath, and yall are shocked he choked Rhaenyra out of frustration?" --- Apart from what I already said abt him being in the Stepstone when Rhea died in the bks and how we could use reason to say Rhea absolutely died of a horse accident bc those happened/happen a lot, Daemon never ever tried to run roughshod over Rhaenyra's authority in the bk, and w/the greens and their supporters def trying to sully Rhaenyra's name, you'd think that if Daemon actually wither cheated on her or disrespected her they'd would spread this info like wildfire....and yet in the 10 yrs [book] or 6 yrs [show] they are married, nothing of the sort comes...yes they had always had a fulfilling marriage where Daemon would have never thought to put a hand on Rhaenyra. the showrunners, however, have bad reading skills or genuinely thought domestic abuse would make Daemon & Rhaenyra more interesting, which should tell us something about them, huh, since they claim they are "adapting" this story

adapting a story means that you are taking the core characterizations and events and recreating them on the screen WITHOUT making changes that redirect the entire plot or severely change characters. "Adaptations" are meant to bring what is already there to life AND in this case, run with what is known and fill in the blanks in lieu of what we know.

also, the idea that Daemon can beat his wife and then claim to be a protector of said wife (which is his literal purpose, GRRM explicitly stated that he created Daemon for Rhaenyra) is seriously detrimental to a feminist narrative and really excuses/invalidates domestic abuse aside form it just being a self-contradiction

"Aemond is all bravado and pent up childhood rage. He has never known real fucking battle. Of course he loses control of his dragon and accidentally kills someone!" --- In nearly all of the instances of young Targs/Targ descents going itno battle and never having gone into battle before, there has abt two isntances: Aerea & Alysanne...the first was a kid under 10, desperate to leave her suppressive mother and the other is magical, not Alysanne making a fumble. Targaryens "90%" of the time have a great "control" (it's more likely a partnership) with their dragons...Dany is an exception bc she is literally learnign w/o any of the context and passed-down knowledge that the rest of her dragonriding fam would have had.

Besides that, if Aemond truly knew that he could have had lost control over his dragon, it makes little sense for him to try to go after Luke and NOT intend to actually kill him, bc if he intended that, he wouldn't really care abt the control of his dragon. And yet, Condal wants us to beleive this was an "accident", that Aemond--after years of riding Vhagar, since it is yrs after episode 7--decided to go after Luke, chase him for what seemed to be at least 5 minutes, knowing full well that his control over the dragon is suspect...and also expected to not casue an accident that he wants to avoid? Contradictory, inconsistent, and illogical writing, even if we remove the part abt Targs usually having control over their dragons in the canon main timeline

"Rhaenyra is weak for not attacking first? EVEN AEGON DIDN'T WANT WAR. NOBODY WANTED THE WAR THAT IS THE BOTTOMLINE. WAR WOULD RUIN EVERYTHING AND THEY ALL KNEW THAT" --- Yes, show!Rhaenyra is weak, but not for attacking first so much as only wanting the throne bc her dad said so instead of wanting the throne for herself and taking said opportunity AND actually believing in Alicent's ineffectual word over Otto's ambition and control of her...we saw how Otto lead the talks with Vaemond, the sidelining they subject Alicent to and the Driftmark claim "audience". We saw how easy it was to manipulate Alicent when Otto said Rhaenyra was the danger instead of the man who pimped her out. Rhaenyra heard Alicent defend Otto's act of having her followed despite her heir status and her being Viserys, not Otto's charge/a princess of the blood. It would be very stupid of Rhaenyra to believe or throw hope into Alicent having the power or will against Otto that ensures safety for her and her kids. If we want to reduce it to "safety for me and kids".

there was always going to be a war because the greens usurped the throne, end of story. A usurpation is never met with both/all sides getting out of it wholly as they were before that usurping and that goes towards life AND resources or reputation. Look through history. Otto would never let go that Rhaenyra--the person explicitly named heir AND having people give their literal oaths to protect her birthright--has a strong claim to the throne...really the one that has the most weight against the candidate he wants and has already used, which is Aegon. What was happening in the green council epi 9 (or what was supposed to happen instead of Alicent looking confused, forlorn, and helpless), when they sent out letters to various lords, was to get ahead of Rhaenyra and ahead of the inevitable war so that they may force Rhaenyra into being the one to start the actual fighting. Otto of the show/Otto and Alicent of the book would have never felt safe or assured of their "win" with Rhaenyra still alive.

Also, the greens very much wanted a war. Canonically, they could have just left well enough alone, no one was after them and Rhaenyra had no actual true threats other than them. Alicent gunned for the throne for herself and her son ever since she married Viserys and birthed Aegon. The texts of Princess and the Queen/F&B both explicitly state that both women wanted to the the "first lady", alicent turned against Rhaenyra as soon as she had Aegon and Viserys dismissed Otto, and she makes remarks about Criston and child-Rhaenyra's closeness. By how often she had remarks or rumored remarks like these, it's not at all far from reason to assume that this is her character. She fully believes that war was worth it for her to rise to power as Rhaenyra did, but she was on the offensive from the get-go. It shows her ambition, which isn't bad, but if the show decides to totally remove this ambition in favor of sexual abuse and illogical behavior, then the show is at fault for writing sexist storylines and characterizations. Why can't a woman be ambitious and want war for her own rise in a patriarchal world? Why the moralization, what is bad about portraying women wanting power? Women are just as capable of destroying people around them for power, it's not a gendered trait. To make a woman an always-victim and then saying that she deserves to hurt other women bc of said abuse, however, is making the argument that women are only sympathetic when they are victims and ambitious.

Let me just get straight to the point since yall are getting on my last nerve:

Fire and Blood is a BIASED IN UNIVERSE HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE DANCE OF THE DRAGONS. COMPARING IT TO THE TV SHOW IS STUPID. "Oh Alicent/Daemon/Rhaenyra/everyone else is supposed to be like this cus in the book—" SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU'RE FUCKING ANNOYING

Daemon is an asshole and a sociopath, and yall are shocked he choked Rhaenyra out of frustration? The guy who mercilessly killed his 1st wife? The guy who lured his young niece to a brothel to ruin her reputation then bailed halfway? I'm sorry but nobody told you to put this guy on any moral high ground. He can love his family AND still be as toxic as a nuclear plant

Aemond is all bravado and pent up childhood rage. He has never known real fucking battle. Of course he loses control of his dragon and accidentally kills someone! That's what happens when you give a teenager a seasoned sentient weapon of mass destruction!!! The way yall paint him as this merciless killer aren't getting the nuance this show wants to present! These kids were not MADE FOR WAR

Rhaenyra is weak for not attacking first? EVEN AEGON DIDN'T WANT WAR. NOBODY WANTED THE WAR THAT IS THE BOTTOMLINE. WAR WOULD RUIN EVERYTHING AND THEY ALL KNEW THAT. Yall are playing into the same damn pattern of misogyny when Daemon and all the other men in the room were so eager to question and negate Rhaenyra's every command

The show has genuine flaws but these are just so annoying to hear over and fucking over. The whole goddamn point of the show is that the Dance was fucking avoidable. If only Rhaenys was crowned instead of Viserys. If only Viserys didn't marry a child. If only he actually loved and cared for his children w/ Alicent. If only he stood firm and faced the internal conflicts brewing in the family head on. If only both sides didn't sow the seeds of animosity between their children. If only Otto didn't poison Alicent's mind with paranoia and a false sense of moral righteousness.

The Dance was avoidable. That's why it's a tragedy. Both sides genuinely believe in the justification of their actions. Everyone's mistakes built on each other until they were too big to fix.

[ilchohand]

Ichidai San vs Seidou: Koshien Aftereffects

@ Anon-san, here's the essay haha!

I've officially watched the Ichidai San vs Seidou match for the fourth time last night. My adrenaline was so high, I couldn't sleep until 3am that I ended up wanting to unleash all these feelings for this show.

Daiya, Act II ep 13

And I kid you not. I'm writing 'bout everyone in Seidou.

Coach Kataoka & Ochiai

Let's start with Boss. I'd like to reiterate that he always had high hopes for Eijun.

Daiya, Act I ep 5

He placed Eijun in the first string even when the boy was still shit with his form, his control, and zero baseball knowledge. Even Osaka Kiryuu's coach implied that it's actually Eijun who is Kataoka's secret weapon.

I remember him even letting Eijun pitch against Raichi during the batter's next at-bat against Eijun. That was cleary a sign that he was starting to trust Eijun. But clearly Eijun wasn't still good enough back then. Kataoka knew of Eijun's potential, it's just that he didn't expect him to grow soooo fast. Eijun was bound to get there someday, but not this soon. However, seeing Furuya's pitching in Koshien, he too was blinded by it since he was desperate for a real ace with an impact. Of course you'd wanna parade your pitcher like that. This is where Ochiai enters the picture. (If you've ever felt personally victimized by Ochiai, please raise your hand! ✋) Kidding. Ochiai was shit during his introduction. It took a long time to warm up to him, but he was an essential addition to the coaching staff. Kataoka, although tough is more of a feeling kind of coach. While Ochiai takes information at face value. Clearly in the Ichidai game, Ochiai was the one who was practical even suggesting that Eijun's pitching is more effective (even though he likes Furuya as a pitcher more). Kataoka was blind, and it was glaring. Why? You see the other teams were watching. And every single coach of the teams Seidou played against with is wary of Sawamura- even Inashiro's Coach Kunitomo. Eijun is the kid who rallied Seidou to one out away into reaching Summer Koshien- during his first freaking year.

This is why I really like it when Ochiai said Kataoka is human afterall. I guess Kataoka also has some growing up to do.

I'd like to add that these two coaches were blinded by the Koshien performance that they didn't even notice that Furuya's form was crumbling. Quoting these reddit posts, the coaching staff was purely after results. If it's not broken, don't try to fix it. We all gotta say thank you to baseball jesus, Chris-senpai, for we won't be having this problem with Eijun.

Furuya

Contrary to people saying Furuya became selfish, I feel like he actually knew what his role is and the expectations from him. He never once lost the goal to win Nationals. It's just that, he didn't know how to actually do it. He was chasing his best performance. He didn't want to be Japan's #1 pitcher for the title you know. He wanted to be the top pitcher to bring his team to the top.

Let's accept it. Despite being a monster rookie, he shouldered the ace number prematurely. Of course the weight of it would one day catch up to him. This is why the phrase 'There are no shortcuts.' keeps being reiterated in the story. I felt bad for Furuya so much. This phase of his baseball life is pretty parallel to Eijun's yips arc.

Eijun

How do I even start with our ball of sunshine? He really puts relief in 'relief pitching'. Such a refreshing player. Woah, like Sanada Shunpei. Yes we know that an ace carries the whole team, we know that an ace saves the team during a pinch, and an ace uplifts the overall mood. Already sounds like Eijun right? We know the role of an ace and how an ace should perform towards the team. What the Ichidai San match highlighted is how a team, in response, acts towards the ace. Trust. It really slapped me in the face the same way it frustrated Eijun. The extreme difference in trust given to an ace versus a relief pitcher.

This was the turning point for Eijun. Probably why I love rewatching it despite the angst. (For a more painful experience, try rewatching the episode before the Ichidai San match 🤭🔪🦝) Anyway, during that scene where Kataoka was dumbstruck with Eijun's top tier pitching I kept remembering that one quote from HQ by the U19 coach--

"We don't look for them, but that doesn't matter. They come to us with solid, undeniable strength and they make us choose them."

Literally screams SAWAMURA EIJUN!!!

Miyuki Kazuya

Where should I stab him? (Ya'll stop taking me seriously when I say stab okay?) I've been saying this all the time but our personality is the same. It's nasty. I love him and hate him at the same time okay?

Anyway, I hope we're all aware and agree that Miyuki also saw Eijun's potential from day 1. Sakuhin shit right there. Miyuki likes interesting people or happenings. This guy played catch with noob Eijun during his day-off! Offered, in fact. (Act 1, ep 5 during that intra squad game of 2nd/3rd yrs vs 1st yrs).

May I also add! Chris didn't like Eijun in the beginning. It was Miyuki who ended up covincing Chris to look at Eijun clearly and say "to a catcher, he's the most interesting kind of pitcher". However, this boy has his first string duties so it was understandable that he focused on Furuya for a while. But what's unacceptable is, during Ichidai's game, he was guilty of prioritizing Furuya over the game. This is 99% on Kataoka but 1% on Miyuki. Bitch you were losing and you couldn't even send distress signals to the coach. He trusted Furuya because of the Koshien performance and the ace number when a whole ass Sawamura Eijun exists. That's why he was quite guilty when Eijun dropped the 'trust' word on him during the switch.

And while I like that Eijun's performance during the Ichidai San match was eye opening to the catcher, I still haven't forgiven Miyuki for the day before the game when he 'ditched' or put Ei on the back burner. No, no. I'm not simply being a bitch about it because we know Miyuki's POV at that point. He needed to figure out what's wrong with Furuya and a match was looming. He didn't throw Eijun away, he just put him off a few hours. What I'm angry about is the way he put it to Eijun.

We all know Eijun is dying for some Miyuki acknowledgement. I'm pretty sure Miyuki is so unaware of this fact. Which brings me to the point. Miyuki is unaware of how his words come across to Eijun. How it impacts the little pitcher. That a simple jab to Eijun like "ace-sama wants to pitch" is a big sore spot. We see this later at night when Eijun keeps repeating, "Since I'm already put at the back burner!". Miyuki was being sarcastic about the ace-sama thing. But you see, Eijun is a big idiot. He takes everything at face value. Miyuki even brushes it off as they practice catch, "You're still angry about that?" he jokes.

And whooosh, everything's okay! Or is it?

You may say I'm being dramatic about it. But no. Here's why. During the Ichidai match, Eijun flashes back to two things. One, while on the bullpen frustrated that Furuya's messing up, he recalls the day before when Miyuki chose to catch for Furuya even though he promised to Eijun. (The other one, at his at-bat, he remembers when Kataoka didn't let him pitch the last inning.) So what seems to be a simple nasty joke to Miyuki is a sore spot to Eijun. I have observed this time and time again, but Eijun is quick to under value himself, and these jokes Miyuki pulls aren't helping. Recall that crippled Sawamura self deprecating joke he did, and him saying he was put in the back burner.

(Well anyway, Miyuki was praising Eijun in his mind the night before so I'm appeased. This is one of those TJ inconsistencies I hate, but okay, that's another post. ☹️)

Everything got better after the Ichidai game. Because as Eijun made Kataoka look at him properly. He also did the same to Miyuki. Eijun's performance just screamed, "I'm here. I'm ready!" It lit a fire to everyone in Seidou.

Fielders/Batters

I want to end my long ass post with a good one. I wanna highlight the team's performance during the Ichidai game.

While Furuya was pitching, I could go as far as say the fielder's were baby-ing him. They were so soft and encouraging because they knew Furuya when he is at his best and that it was off day during that time. The fielders were playing primarily to relieve Furuya's pressure.

In contrast, when Eijun was playing on the mound do you guys know how the batters felt? Kanemaru? Kuramochi? Utter frustration and hopelessness. And I was giddy as fuck when that happened. Because Eijun was performing his best, but they couldn't get any runs in response to his amazing pitching. It mothafuckin felt so good watching them feel powerless.

Don't you love this whole match? Obviously I do haha! If you guys ended up reading everything, then thank you! I really wrote this for myself because I was overwhelmed while rewatching it. 😅

[sflow-er]

Thanks again for this incredibly insightful and multifaceted response! It's taken me ages to reply (for life reasons), but I still want to reblog your thoughts and wrap up my own for anyone else who may have been lurking and reading along.

Re: WLW and other queer perspectives in printed media

You are absolutely right - there is a lot more variety there in books and comic books. Could this perhaps be related to the sad truth that women and girls are, in general, more avid readers than men and boys? (My apologies for the binary perspective here; I’ve never seen any stats on nonbinary readers.) And I suppose the people who seek out queer books (or indeed queer fanfic) are probably more willing to explore these different perspectives than, say, a random person surfing Netflix or going to the cinema, whom the studio bosses are more likely to consider.

I definitely agree with what you said about how it being easier to share these perspectives if they are adapted into TV shows, for example. Books have been offering both representation and a place of escape for centuries, but with the rise of visual media, they have in many spheres turned into something that you have to specifically seek out. As you said, people have had to buy, borrow, or check them out from the library, while TV and streaming have become readily available. Ebooks and especially audiobooks are a very welcome expansion in that respect, but there’s still a ways to go.

Another angle is that movies and shows are an experience that is easy to share with other people, whereas reading books usually starts out as a lonesome pursuit. It takes more focus and mental energy, and you can only scream about the book with friends who also had the same focus and mental energy to spare and were able to get their hands on the same title... Book clubs or reading circles help, I guess, but that's not everyone's jam. (It certainly isn't mine.)

I also feel like what you said about many of these books being either YA or Romance fiction is probably one reason why we don’t get as many of those adaptations as we’d like. The powers often underestimate the viewers in those segments; for every outstanding show or film, there seem to be a dozen appallingly bad ones out there. I guess this is probably related to the same biases against YA and romance fiction that you mentioned in the context of reading...

(Of course, everything I've written above and in my previous reblog is about mainstream studios. Independent studios are much better at amplifying different voices. It's just a shame that such works aren't as widely distributed or marketed.)

Re: how to improve fandom in this respect

Honestly, I don’t have any good ideas. It's amazing that you've had the opportunity to branch out your writing in more nurturing spaces, but sadly most people don't have that. For most of us, fandom is the main if not the only space where we can explore our creativity and get any sort of feedback on it, so it really is a huge problem if that space feels constrictive.

Engaging with the 'less popular' content is a very good, concrete idea, but I feel like we'd need a bigger shift to sustain that side of fandom in the long term. More canon to inspire fics that aren't mlm romance or at least prominently feature other elements alongside that. More such fics written early in the fandom life cycle to blaze the trail. More readers willing to engage with them. More writers with thick enough skin not to give up when they don't get the validation they hoped for or when they get something wrong and receive negative feedback for it.

Maybe some fandom events too, but those do come with caveats. Will anyone want to participate? Will people really read the resulting works and engage with them? What are the risks of participation, i.e. will there be a 'balance of accountability and grace' (as you so eloquently put it)? I honestly get why you'd be hesitant to host an event; I'd be just as hesitant to participate in it.

Re: YR specifically and focusing on the secondary (and tertiary) characters

I wholeheartedly agree with all your points.

Just as you wrote, Wilmon are the heart of the show, but the secondary characters are all vital organs in the same body. They are a huge part of why the world of YR feels so real and compelling that I've wanted to stay and venture deeper into it - even if I have, ironically enough, mostly done that by focusing on the tertiary characters instead. (I'm sure there are many fans who only love YR for Wilmon, and I'm not criticising them here!! I'm just saying my own feelings on this seem to be quite similar to yours.)

I completely understand what you mean by feeling Wilmon just as intimidating to write as I described feeling about Sara and Felice. I do too. I really enjoyed writing outsider POV of them in my longfic, but I don't feel like I could really do justice to them if I was writing from their POV.

Also, 'finding emotional meaning' is a much better term to use for why we write fanfic than my lame shorthand 'fun', haha. I don't find writing angst fun in the conventional sense, but I do find it 'fun' in the sense that I get something from it, and I think emotional meaning describes that very well!

And finally, yes, I can certainly relate to what you said about the 'loneliness' of focusing on characters other than the main couple. Whether it's through writing or even just posting about them. I guess that feeling might also be amplified by the small size of the YR fandom and the fact that there aren't many new people coming in at the moment.

Well, that was a bit of a depressing end note, sorry! At least we do have those small groups you mentioned, as well as a rich cast of characters to find that emotional meaning in.

Complicated queer media feelings beneath the cut…

Is anyone else feeling… I dunno… complicated about the part where we have Heartstopper, Red White and Royal Blue, and likely more YRS3 promo happening all in the same month?

I find a kind of enjoyment in each of these, so on one hand, I’m happy about it! (YR is my dearest fandom love right now about which I have many deep feelings, Heartstopper brings me joy and is what I’d watch with my middle school kids if I had kids, and RWRB is more on the “fun popcorn media” side of things for me but also has a lot of government humor that I laugh at as a person living in DC who gets subjected to motorcades etc.)

And I also think it’s awesome that queer rep has come a long way since when I was in high school, and there was only kinda Will and Grace and Willow on Buffy and you barely heard about some kids watching Queer as Folk if they were lucky enough to have HBO and parents who weren’t weird about it.

And and at the same time I know I’m going to be looking at my dash like, huh, that is a lot of mlm romance kissing between photogenic cis men.

Which. Again. Is progress? But also I’m a not-skinny aroace homosocial queer who is very interested in the stories of women and nonbinary people as well, and stories about friendship as well as relationships that reject traditional definitions. I want sweet romantic moments in my stories and decent makeout scenes but I also want stories about how queerness can challenge capitalism and hegemony and how we can create new families of choice and so on.

And for some of the texts I’m talking about, the canon definitely delivers? Things feel balanced? YR explores the class system with so much skill, and makes me ask powerful questions about justice and identity and such. It also has incredible female characters, including Sara as B Plot Protagonist driving a significant part of the story. (I wish I could find more fanfic from female characters’ POVs. I wish there were just as many “can’t wait until they get their happy endgame” posts about the Sara-Felice friendship as there were about the Wilmon romance, and I adore the Wilmon romance. I just love everything else about the show alongside it, and sometimes I find myself desperately craving discussion about the other aspects of the show while not knowing how to find ways of engaging about it.)

Heartstopper—I love how a multiqueer friends group is so centered in the story. Nick and Charlie are the main characters but Charlie’s friendship with Tao matters as much in the first season as his romance with Nick. I love how the show chose to have Elle carry a significant subplot in season 1 (although they could do better with that) and I am hopeful that we’ll get an ace discovery story for Isaac in season 2 and I’m looking forward to seeing more Imogen and we get a new disabled character and we’ll also get Tara and Darcy being Tara and Darcy! I don’t really follow people for Heartstopper necessarily, because it’s not really something I analyze or write fic for, but, you know, there’s a lot of it that goes around and I have generally positive feelings about it. I’m curious about what parts of the show and what characters people will choose to focus on.

RWRB… well, it’s been a long time since I’ve read the book, but I’m sort of holding off on comments until I see what’s different between the book and the movie.

Long story short I think I’m going to feel great about these various mlm pairings individually, because they’re all distinct personalities with stories and such, but I’m going to be feeling kind of weird and overwhelmed about the attention and gif visibility and squeeing that mlm romances between photogenic cis men get in aggregate.

But also also. Maybe that’s on me for not being into something like Yellowjackets fandom or not spending more time browsing the tag for XO Kitty. So the problem could also be me. I mean who knowsss?????