#podcast lovers

[thepenumbrapodcast]

The moment we've all been waiting for is almost here!

Part one of the season finale of The Penumbra Podcast drops this Sunday for Patreon and Tuesday for the regular feed! Tune in for a thrilling conclusion that will leave you on the edge of your seat. Don't miss out! www.patreon.com/thepenumbrapodcast

[disasterdrow]

people who like podcasts where are you at - I need help!

does anyone have good recommendations for a good science fiction podcast? I'm looking for something along the lines of Juno Steel Penumbra.

I really like - Magnus Archives, Night Vale, space/sci-fi/far future, space opera/space travel, cyberpunk. I like horror/action/adventure more than romance, and I'm really big on world building.

Tried and can't get into at the moment - modern or historical fantasy, cryptid/old gods/faerie etc (I'm on a real sci-fi kick atm and my brain will not be derailed.)

[dorian-is-dead]

And then they fell in love and lived happily ever after and nothing bad happened to them ever

[justsmth2]

please I need more of them

[fixated-dark-king]

Sooo, I had the amazing experience of attending a panel C.S. Pacat was part of during the Sydney Writers’ Festival on 25th May 2024. The panel was called “Creating a Monster” (with two other YA authors).

And finally a week later (because adult-ing is hard), I had time to actually go through my notes and write up some of the fascccccinating things Pacat had to say about: monsterous heroes, and villains, and enemies-to-lovers deliciousness, and queer identity!

I didn’t want to forget some of the interesting things said in this panel and thought others might be interested in hearing about them too? Please indulge the splurge. :)

(Please note that all bold headers are just my thematic summary of each section for people to jump to, not the actual question asked.)

WHAT APPEALS ABOUT ‘THE MONSTROUS’ TO PACAT:

From a technical writing standpoint, the ‘Monstrous’ is appealing because a villain will often do an act and the hero reacts to that. It gives unconscious clues to the reader that when the villain turns up, something exciting is going to happen. In that sense, villainous characters have a special sort of ever-present attention given to them (possibly because human nature is to always keep one eye on the dangerous thing that could harm you).

On a personal level: A) When queer characters are awesome but also ‘Monstrous’, Pacat says it can feel really ‘electric’ and empowering to reclaim/allow yourself to embrace the monster role that you’ve been told you fit into by society. Like in Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles where queer people are allowed to be beautiful/glittering & powerful & witty & have existential conversations about good and evil while fitting under the Monstrous label. Like heck yeh, that’s cool. And B) as an author, you can feel a ‘minority pressure’ to have characters be Good all the time and be the perfect ambassador for that minority, but sometimes you just want to be a vampire and take over the world, you know?

THE EXISTENCE OF ‘PROTAGONIST-CENTRED MORALITY’ WITHIN THE DARK RISE BOOKS:

When pondering whether it is hard as a writer to convince readers that a Monstrous protagonist is a likeable character, Pacat pointed out that the funny thing is that the question ‘How am I going to make readers like this monster?’ never really ends up being an issue because people actually really like monsters! The thing you might not expect is that the struggle is actually: ‘How am I going to make these readers who are barracking for the protagonist feel that this ‘monster’ is actually monstrous?’

Pacat explained that when a protagonist is also a monster, it brings into play something called ‘Protagonist-Centric Morality’ -- where you bond with that protagonist and want the best for them etc, so much that it can obscure when the protagonist is actually doing something bad. Pacat mentioned that he has found the Protag-Centric Morality fairly striking in the case of the Dark Rise books because people have said to him things like: ‘The Dark King Did Nothing Wrong Ever In His Whole Life’ and Pacat questioned whether the moral centre of the story was landing somewhere different than intended. He was curious whether the other authors had experienced that with their ‘monstrous’ protagonists too.

IF A HERO IS ALSO MONSTROUS, HOW ON EARTH DO YOU DIFFERENTIATE THAT FROM THE VILLIAN? When pondering over the distinction between a Monstrous Hero and a Villain, Pacat shared some thoughts from his lived experience. He said the times when he has felt most threatened by the ‘Monstrous’ is when that person isn’t clearly identifiable to others around you; where there isn’t a shared understanding between everyone that ‘yes, that person is a monster’. Extending from that, the Truly Monstrous is when that person has some kind of control over you and control over the narrative as well; if the monster is the one telling the story but casting you as the monster. Essentially gaslighting via ‘narrative control’.

ENEMIES TO LOVERS TROPE:

This is Pacat’s absolute favourite romantic trope. And he elaborated that he doesn’t mean that in the sense of ‘these characters sort of don’t like each other’, but rather to the point where two characters really hate each other and for a very good reason. He likes when a path between two characters feels IMPOSSIBLE to overcome.

This trope was first explored in the Captive Prince trilogy and Pacat loved it so much he just had to use it again for the Dark Rise trilogy. The planning behind it for CaPri was brainstorming: ‘What is the worst thing I could think to use?’ (Answer: Killing a character’s brother, which lands the bereaved character into a set of hellish circumstances.) But that meant when Pacat decided to use it again for DR, he had to extend that to: ‘Now I need to think of something EVEN WORSE THAN THAT (CaPri)’ in order to separate the main characters. So Pacat had to spend ages thinking about what could be the absolute worst thing to use this time -- and he hopes that he came up with something that is ‘truly, truly way worse.’ Which essentially had everyone, including the moderator, laughing loudly in fear. XD

WILL KEMPEN: FOUND FAMILY & THE LONELINESS OF INAUTHENTICITY:

Pacat spent a lot of time trying to develop a really meaningful platonic friendship between Will and Violet. It meant a lot to see a friendship like that reflected on page for Pacat because some of the most important friendships of his life were across gender lines. The reception to Will and Violet has been so pleasantly surprising, so Pacat supposed he wasn’t the only one with a hunger for that kind of friendship within the romantasy genre.

Pacat also reflected on Will’s complex relationship with his Found Family -- that having the support of a Found Family can be so essential, but in Will’s case that lifeline is undermined by secrecy, turning that Found Family into a different kind of loneliness. Because the thing is: if something so immense happens to you that you feel you can’t talk about, or you feel some way about yourself but think you can’t share that with others, it means you can’t really be your authentic self. But if you’re not being you’re authentic self, who are your friends friends with? They can’t be friends with the true You; they can only be friends with a facade/with a performance. So as long as Will is scared to show his true self and remains hiding himself away from even his friends, he will be alone. It’s a hard step to take. (Note from me: so heavvvvy but poignant.)

NOT DR-RELATED, BUT PACAT’S FAV MONSTERS FROM POPULAR FICTION: Pacat was so excited to namedrop his favourite monsters from popular fiction, he volunteered to go first LOL. The answers: 'The Brat Prince' Lestat (Lestat has been on his mind a lot recently because the AMC TV portrayal captures Lestat so well & has completely rejuvenated Pacat’s 12 year-old love of vampires. Total mood); serial killers such as in the Ripley series; and simply: American Psycho.

Great panel, right? Now it’s Europe’s turn!

[conglamerata]

[arthur-lesters-right-arm]

I don't CARE if he's a grown man he's babygirl he's a sinner he's a boytoy he's a murderer he's god's favourite he's a father he's a bitch he's a freak he's wanted by the state and he's stupid yet fuckable

[under-lok-n-ki]

the (in Ludwig Ahgren’s voice) BOYS

[catattack08]

Did this art for @starsh0ck ‘s dtiys on Twitter !

[chroncruik]

Whoops my hand slipped.

[embracing-the-ineffable]

Neil Gaiman does a podcast with David Tennant (2020)

The podcast is here, and there's a transcript of parts of it here. It's all really interesting!

Here's what really resonates for me. While talking about the opening flashbacks of s1e3 (emphasis is mine):

"Neil: It was utterly budget-busting and I also knew that it would make everything else work. And also it would make the scene I knew I was going to write in episode 3… it would turn that from a scene that was a bit sniffly into one that would break people’s hearts [yep, the bandstand scene], because you’d actually spent 28 minutes watching the ups and downs of these two on Earth for 6000 years becoming the only important thing in each other’s lives and here is this moment where there are actually… they have two utterly disparate philosophies of existing and Aziraphale cannot go off with Crowley and Crowley cannot leave without him but he has to, and you wind up with a ‘Have a nice doomsday’ line. But the excitement that I had of writing that stuff and the joy I had knowing that we’re going to watch the relationship open like a flower to us, ending in the 1960 with the hand-over of the holy water and there wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house - and I knew that because it did that for me - them watching what you and Michael brought to it and it became the most most glorious tentative friendship over thousands of years, that then becomes sort of peculiar and flirty and weird and prickly and funny and glorious, and, you know, it was the one that won me the Nebula Award."

This absolutely frames season 2 for me, and in particular the final fifteen minutes, which are season 2's heartbreaking bandstand scene. During season 2, we watched their relationship once again open like a glorious, flirty flower, still the only important thing in each other's lives, until their utterly disparate philosophies of existing separated them and broke all of our hearts.

But they came back together after the bandstand, and they will again after season 2 🤞❤️

[samglyph]

Delusional: here’s how Parker can still win

Bonus messy Parkthur under the cut cause I had an idea for this but it wasn’t going anywhere lol

[bunnis-monsters]

Can y’all give me some monster/creepy podcast recommendations? Could be monster fuckers/lovers or just cool monster lore/stories.

Wouldn’t mind some good creepypasta podcasts recs or even some ARGs. Just want some creepy/monster things to listen to so I can get into the Halloween mood. I already follow the more popular creepypasta creators.

[kikkomansoymilk]

Secret 6th Love Language: getting divorced

[hydrus101]

Thinking again about how John and his counterparts are just fully and completely in love with art.

The awed and breathless way he says “You’re a composer!” when Arthur tells him what he used to do. The way he lingers almost unnecessarily, lovingly, on descriptions of the things he sees, the beauty of colors and lights in the dreamlands. The way he focuses his attention on the sculptures and carvings and paintings they pass, like the woman’s portrait and the fine things in Larson’s home. His insistence on going to the cinema, to see the moving pictures humans make, another facet of their creativity. His interest in Arthur’s dreams in the pit, which are arguably the art of the unconscious mind. The way he lingers on the snippets of poetry Arthur gives to him, mulling on them and dwelling on their deeper meanings for hours and days.

Yellow does the same with Larson, from even the few fragile minutes we had with them. He takes an interest in Larson’s poetry of revenge. Yellow, who at his root is cut from the same cloth as John, even with his limited time exposed to Arthur, found some sort of appreciation for the dances performed at the Red Right Hand.

The way the cities of the King all have amphitheaters, places for plays and productions. The one in the Sleeping city, the one in the city Kayne slaughtered, there is a place for art even there. It’s so subtle but it’s there.

In Chambers’ book, the book of poetry that drives men mad is attracted to sculptors and artists and writers and in that way it is a form of love. The King is drawn to them, to the art they create, and he is fascinated in the way you would be fascinated with a mouse that suddenly stands and speaks and sings and dances. Humans are ants beneath his feet, yes, but when ants construct patterns that seem thoughtful and orchestrated, it becomes a novelty.

And novelties are fragile.

And the King is destructive by nature. He destroys them with the force his of attention, that fleeting moment of love, and their minds scatter. Lost to love and madness.

But John has no powers. He doesn’t inspire madness, he can’t destroy the art he loves in that way, and the longer he lingers with Arthur, the harder it is to remember why the thing that he was wanted to destroy it in the first place.