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lettrespromises · 4 years

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╰┄───➤ LettresPromises informs you : you have one notification. ❜

╰──➤ Kuroo Tetsurou and you share a correspondence, would you like to read it? ❜

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 :

❝Can you keep a secret? Secret Letters, a inter-high program which delivers anonymous love letters to designated people, has recently gained quite the popular status until becoming the number one reference for confessions. But is it really possible to remain objective when you see that the person you set your eyes on wishes to send a letter to someone who isn’t you?❞

➤ 𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐇 𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 : 𝐈 𝐇𝐎𝐏𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐋𝐄𝐓 𝐌𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐀𝐆𝐀𝐈𝐍.

And there you were, standing amongst the deafening silence and the agonizing solitude which had already infected the air. Stating that your body housed an uncontrollable amount of tension was an euphemism, truthfully, you were still wondering how you hadn’t succumbed to the pain created by your subconscious.

A bag of snack and diverse kinds of drinks were at your feet, and upon glancing at them, they seemed like they were the beholders of all the secrets in the world, all the hushed secrets you wished you once knew. They seemed worthy of holding your attention, or rather, you were unworthy of giving your attention to anything else but an animated object.

You hadn’t dared to touch your phone or even throw a glance at it ever since Kuroo replied to you, it was a short answer, you were convinced that it was quite acerbic, too. You feared that touching your phone would actually make your skin burn and redden due to the imaginary heat radiating off your phone, what caused the heat? Probably fear, you assumed.

You were so lost in the torments of your thoughts and pseudo hypothesis that you hadn’t heard the crashing footsteps belonging to the Scheming Captain, Kuroo Tetsurou, you only noticed his presence once the light emanating from the Sun died under his height, once the gleam in your orbs created by the rays of sunshine died at the same time.

Kuroo had already crossed his forelimbs to his chest whilst his facial structure gave you no clue whatsoever as to what he was thinking about, and for the first time in your life, you felt like his opponent, you felt like the prey of the Scheming Captain.

“I came earli-”

“You didn’t come this morning. Why?” He cut you off, his orbs bore into yours to anticipate whether or not you would choose to lie to his face.

“I didn’t wake up on time, and I totally forgot about morning practice. Kuroo, I’m so, so sorry, I swear it’s the last time this happens.” You stated in your defense, looking at him with pleading eyes through your lashes.

“It’s funny, you also said it was going to be the last time the time before, you know, where you also happened to be late. So, tell me, don’t you think it’s funny too?” Kuroo half-asked through a rhetorical question, acerbity dripping like a toxic nectar from his words as his facial expression remained unchanged.

“Kuroo, I promise you that this is the last time. It’s my fault, and I already apologized for it. Just-... What do you expect from me? I’ll make up to you and the team.” You pleaded in return as you played with your fingers to exude your stress (a detail he didn’t miss), the words leaving your lips like a plea trying to reach to his chained heart.

“I know you apologized and all, but I’m just wondering if you’re also going to apologize for feeding me this bullshit?” Kuroo continued, and you cursed yourself for even thinking that lying to the epitome of a human lie detector was worth the risk.

An angel passed. The movements of your fingers became more an more frenetic, as if they were trying to follow the frenzied rhythm of the fear coursing through your entire body. Another detail he didn’t miss. You kept on trying to exude the anguish consuming you, so you quit looking at him, thinking that laying your glance elsewhere could ease your nerves if Kuroo’s face wasn’t in your vision field anymore. You opened your mouth and robotically closed it as soon you noticed no sound was coming out of it, and your cheeks adopted a shameful rosy tone under the embarrassment of not being able to express yourself properly. Kuroo never missed each detail about you, truthfully, he made a mental note and mental associations of your gestures and linked them to your emotions.

You were looking elsewhere, your fingers were becoming martyrs, you couldn’t find anything to say— he concluded without any difficulty that you were tortured by your very own emotions. He couldn’t help but frown at the sight of your trembling form before his eyes, not because you couldn’t reply to him, but rather because he knew it was his fault. He knew that the toxins dripping down his words had poisoned you.

“It’s okay, Y/N, you don’t have to—” “The reason why I’ve been acting weird these past couple of days was because I was scared of losing you.” You cut him off this time, such acerbic poetry, “Ever since we talked about this Secret Letters thing, I felt like you were disappointed in me and even stopped trusting me” You continued, wiping away the pearls of salt gathering at the corner of your eyes, “I know I shouldn’t have lied, I know I messed up so bad but I couldn’t find myself to sleep at night when all I could think about was whether or not you had decided to give up on me because you didn’t trust me anymore.” You eventually concluded, an unwanted sob punctuated the end of your sentence. Kuroo felt trapped at the bottom of a pit without any way to crawl back to the surface and admire the light radiating off your angelic self, and surely, he told himself he deserved to stay at the bottom of this pit. A sentiment of guilt was eating him alive and settled in his stomach where a huge knot had already been taking form and grew wider and wider until knocking the air out of his lungs. It was his fault.

Reflex kicked, his arms encircled your trembling frame and he caged you against his chest whilst the frenetic rhythm of his heart against your eardrums testified of the awakening of his biggest fear— losing you. He held onto you as if you were bound to fade away at any given moment, as if his fear had the power to make you disappear. But your hearts beat in unison, and although you were both consumed by guilt and fear, you both needed each other.

“Y/N, will you look at me? Could you do that for me, please?” This time, the pleas came from him, but you obliged and laid your orbs on him, he couldn’t help but turn his lips into a faded smile at the sight of your face. “Just remember one thing, you will never, and I mean never, lose me. Whether you want it or not, I’ll always be in your life, I’ll always be there, yeah? I’m sorry, too, for everything. I shouldn’t have told you these horrible things and even less tell you what you should do and not do. You don’t have to accept my apolog-” “You’re forgiven, Kuroo.” You replied in a whisper, a sentence which sounded so weak in comparison to its importance. You let out a sigh you didn’t even know you were holding whilst Kuroo’s thumbs brushed away the last remaining tears cascading down your face, you were going to be okay. You stayed in each other’s embrace for a short while, and gave in to your hearts’ desires... Until Yamamoto came around, his eyes widened at the sight before him— how could Kuroo Tetsurou have the audacity, the nerve, the insolence to hold his precious manager in his arms? His mouth was set agape in anticipation for his future yelling session but Kuroo had already caught that and set you free from his embrace.

“I’ll go calm Yamamoto down for a few seconds, oh, and don’t worry about the bags, I’ll cary them inside. You can go change before practice starts, yeah?” He offered a smile as soon as the last words died on in his lips, a smile you reciprocated as a silent form of agreement. And as Kuroo left you to apply the dear rules of performative language and soothe the nerves of Yamamoto, you pulled out your phone from your back pocket and finally replied to a certain text now that you had no reason to back down from doing so.

➤𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 : @amoroushero, @washione, @volexis, @lelebells, @boosyboo9206, @mkkhaikyuu, @bokutosuwus, @cleopatera, @kukkeii

➤𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐍 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑.

bonus :

wanna know what song kuroo was listening to? check it out here and listen well to the lyrics, they might have a correlation with this chapter and the chapters to come.

#kuroo x reader #haikyuu x reader #kuroo smau #haikyuu smau #kuroo #haikyuu #kuroo hc #kuroo one shot #kuroo x oc #kuroo testuro #kuroo imagine #kuroo x you #💌.return to sender

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superscarymonster · 4 years

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A Note To Self

Yes, I know you. You’re the type who experiences a rollercoaster of world-changing and world-ending events every 24-hours. Each piece of new news is a drug – the email about a raise – an upper. That is, until you get that text about your roommate moving out – a total downer. Your emotions are tied to the latest event and somehow also tied to the past and present. If there isn’t a preoccupying thought to ponder from the day, you’ll find one to ruminate on from last month, last year or last decade- it’s all fair game if it’s not from the present.

The problem with this way, is that you never let your nervous system relax. You’re always on high alert and, like an animal being hunted, your vision is narrowed to the width of a cotton thread. All you can see are these peppered problems everywhere – not the sun shining, not the panorama view of the world in front of you, but just these fibered issues that make up your twisted field of view.

This constant stress- it makes you uptight. You never relax and instead, hop from problem to problem. Some would call this chronic anxiety, but such a medical title perhaps can lead one to feel as though soothing is reliant on a prescription. Solutions aside, you indulge in this way of being because you think it will help you succeed. Once you can validate the behavior, it becomes even harder to change.

However, once you decide that being a stress ball isn’t serving you, the power to improve your way of being is in your hands. You are always practicing how you are. Your brain is but a spring. It always wants to coil back into the position you morphed it into, but if each day, you spend some time with heat and pliers, coaxing the curls of the spring, it can start to remember a new shape- a less stressed way of being. How can you start to shape your spring? Here is what I would recommend:

1.) TAKE A VERY DEEP BREATH AND CALM YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM

Our brain takes cues from the body. A dancing body tells the brain to feel joyful and expressive. A laying body tells the brain to be calm and a clenched body tells the brain that we are being attached.

Dr. Fred Luskin explained in our LIFE 101 class that we rarely deeply breathe, largely because we hold in our stomachs as though we’re just about to take a punch. This position communicates to our brains that we are in trouble and causes us to be on high alert. To immediately calm the mind, one can simply let out their stomach and breathe deeply.

Give it a try.

All the way in and all the way out.

Tell yourself through your breath that you’re not under attack and start to feel yourself loosen. Once you do this, try a small giggle – a tiny laugh.

Laughter forces repetitive deep breath and releases endorphins, which is why the practice of Laughter Yoga, as introduced In the TEDMED Live Talk by Dr. Madan Kataria , has the word “yoga” included. Whether it’s a laugh or a Lion’s breath, take a moment to settle your mind.

2.) DISTANCE YOURSELF FROM YOUR THOUGHTS

Once you’ve calmed your nervous system, try separating yourself from your thoughts. As you start to do so, you might notice someone rather mean talking to you. In class, we discussed this voice, identifying it as the Buddhist idea of a Mara. It’s an inner “demon” that criticizes. It clogs your mind with negative chatter, wining randomly about this and that. It’s here, it’s there. It’s now, it’s then and being tied up in your thoughts, often painful thoughts, means you are always time-travelling. Distancing yourself from your thoughts allows you to be fully present and gain back the power of your own attention. You can watch the thoughts pass by like a river, associating deeply with only those that serve you. We can understand the power of this distancing when it comes to our well-being through Jennifer Aaker’s talk, “Rethinking Happiness”. In her talk, she highlights how those who are told to be happy or feel like they *should* be happy experience less happiness. She mentions that we “overshoot” in our efforts to find joy and one might assume this is because of the self-talk that comes with expecting happiness. We expect to feel a certain way and criticize ourselves when we don’t, reducing our natural and quiet feeling of happiness. Quieting that self -talk and that inner voice allows us to experience what is, rather than our narration of what is.

3.) PRACTICE SELF COMPASSION

We try and get an A+ in feeling happy so that we can be good. However, like Mary Oliver’s Poem “The Journey” says,

“You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert repenting./ You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves.”

This idea that we don’t need to self-flagellate or push ourselves to be martyrs is the idea behind self-compassion. It’s simply treating ourselves as a friend. In her talk, Jennifer Aaker continues to explain that the good isn’t as good and the bad won’t be as bad as we expect. We just mostly are. We just mostly will be. This unchanging means that no matter how much you punish yourself you will not be happier later as a result of suffering now.

As we also reviewed in class, you are probably quite fine. You might even be lucky and with this said, why punish yourself so deeply for gaining a pound or failing a test? We are human and bad things happen to all of us.

In our lack of self-compassion, we are often being illogical, thinking these bad things mean we are bad people with bad lives. Therefore, to avoid being wholesomely bad, we try and protect ourselves from negative events by always being on high alert. It’s a strange way of being that completely skews our view of the world. We try and avoid suffering later by increasing our suffering every day. However, it simply doesn’t protect us against anything. The poem The Dakini Speaks, speaks frankly to this confused logic.

The Dakini Speaks

My friends, let’s grow up./ Let’s stop pretending we don’t know the deal here./ Or if we truly haven’t noticed, let’s wake up and notice./ Look: Everything that can be lost, will be lost./ It’s simple

…..

let’s give ourselves to it!/ Let’s stop making deals for a safe passage: …

—Jennifer Welwood

This idea that we should stop bargaining for a safe passage allows us to be compassionate with ourselves when something goes wrong and it allows us to compassionate with others when luck isn’t on their side.

After all, something will always go wrong and when it does, you will handle it.

And you will not blame yourself.

So while everything is okay, you can enjoy the day.

4.) SETTLE IN TO WHAT THIS IS

In class, we reviewed the quote by Annie Dillard that says

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. ― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

At the moment, my friend, you are spending your life in hysterics. You are spending your life being stressed, and tired and angry and ecstatic. We sometimes think that hysterics mean we care, but this dramatic idea seems to be narrative more than anything else. To be truly present to what is and to be truly engaged in our lives is simply to be alert and observant. As a young person, perhaps you’re worried about your future, but just as we can engage fully in the now, you can engage fully in the future by being present and alert to what’s next rather than trying to control it. This full engagement and readiness – captivation with what is- is awe. Maybe like you, this surprised me. This quiet calm is not the kind of awe I’m used to seeing when a child walks into Disneyland, or when someone proposes and the woman weeps, or when a basketball team wins, and the bar erupts in high-fives. This awe is calm. It’s simply ready to see what’s next and open to seeing it wholly. This is beautifully put in the poem Is My Soul Asleep by Antonio Machado.

“…No, my soul is not asleep./ It is awake, wide awake./ It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches,its eyes wide open/ far-off things, and listens /at the shores of the great silence.

- Antonio Machado , translated by Robert Bly

Next time you hear bad news, or great news, perhaps you can take it in as a wave of life. You can see it as a new hint of your future appearing as you sail your ship instead of seeing it as a threat against which you must protect yourself, or a treat towards which you must run before it disappears. Remember that each day is yours to enjoy. This one day is the only thing that is sure for you, so spend it intentionally and in awe, rather than clenched and with a narrow view of this great big world.

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stevenuniversallyreviews · 5 years

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Episode 103: Bubbled

“If I could begin to be half of what you think of me, I could do about anything.”

In the middle of Act I of Steven Universe, Steven saves the Atlantic Ocean, and in the middle of Act II, he saves Earth. These are large-scale victories that show his growing capabilities as a Crystal Gem in the global sense: he’s a defender of the world and all its inhabitants, and has two major accomplishments to show for it.

The end of Act I is more of a personal fight. The only lives at stake are those of the Crystal Gems as they’re brought into space, and Steven takes a more passive role in the finale, helping here and there but ultimately having the day saved by Garnet (and, arguably, Lapis). And it turns out the pattern of a more extreme sequel in Act II continues: in Bubbled, the only life at stake is his own, and despite being far more competent than he was in Jailbreak, he needs to be saved by others once again, because he’s been shattered.

As with Jailbreak, Steven spends a good part of Bubbled with another ornery ruby who gripes “Great! This is just perfect!” and barely gives him the time of day at first. In both episodes he tries and fails to help this ruby: our Ruby runs off on her own in impatience, and Eyeball tries to shank him and must be ejected from his bubble. But something interesting happens when you compare these rubies further, because beyond their opposing loyalties, there’s one major difference between the two of them: Ruby has such a low opinion of herself that she doesn’t think it matters whether or not she gets hurt, while Eyeball has such a high opinion of herself that she dreams of being the hero who defeats Rose Quartz, complete with glory from the Diamonds (and her own pearl). And really, this is one of the things the show is all about.

The flaws of practically every character in Steven Universe come down to the dichotomy between insecurity and overconfidence. At a glance, we can read our heroes as insecure and our villains as overconfident (Pearl and Amethyst good, Jasper and Kevin bad), but the actual lesson is that everyone has insecurities, and overconfidence is more often than not a reaction to it. As we learn more about our smug villains, we see the shortcomings that drive that smugness, and only then can Steven bridge the gap towards friendship. Heck, Garnet is the only truly confident Crystal Gem, and while I wouldn’t quite call her smug, at her worst she evokes the ice cold certainty of Sapphire more than the exposed nerve of Ruby. Like our villains, she begins as a mysterious figure, and her arc in Act II involves letting her Ruby out to become more balanced: she better understands her insecure family by embracing the uncertainty within, and uses this growth to reach out and help an insecure enemy understand her in Log Date 7 15 2.

Garnet might seem to have her act together compared to the other Crystal Gems, but let’s not forget that the emotionally healthiest character in the series is Greg Universe. He’s overconfident in flashbacks, but in the present is at peace with his shortcomings and happy with what he has without needing to compensate. He mourns Rose, but converts this grief into a celebration of his son’s life. Greg isn’t as dynamic a character as the rest because he’s already figured the important things out; he has his missteps, but his core is consistent and largely unchanging, even when he stumbles upon life-changing wealth. Steven tries to be like Rose throughout the series, but it’s not for nothing that Change Your Mind ties self-acceptance to sitting on the beach with a guitar.

I know I’m talking big picture here in terms of the characters and the series, but there’s not much to discuss about Bubbled at the surface level: it’s the misadventure of two enemies that sours to a breaking point, followed by a rescue. It’s actually a pretty slow bottle episode, consisting of a few long conversations broken up by two action sequences, and ending with another conversation. It’s similar in structure to Open Book and Gem Hunt, but far starker than either.

So the big picture is what matters when discussing Bubbled, because it’s a story about how Steven’s inner demons manifest, and will continue to manifest for the rest of the series. After all, Steven himself began as an overconfident kid, rushing into situations he wasn’t ready for and annoyed with not being considered a peer. He becomes far more tolerable after Steven and the Stevens, when he takes this attitude down a few notches and starts trying in earnest to catch up instead of looking for shortcuts or assuming he’s already there whenever anything goes right. But his insecurity is also clear, and now we get to really dig into the unique way this affects his character after examining how other insecurities affect other characters.

Amethyst’s insecurity raises her defenses like a pufferfish. Pearl’s insecurity makes her insensitive to the needs of others. Ruby’s insecurity compels her to verbalize her own worthlessness (while Sapphire radiates confidence and is only insecure when her signature ability to be secure in the future is disrupted). Connie’s insecurity drives her to prove her worth to others. Peridot’s insecurity causes her to belittle others to make herself seem bigger. Lapis’s insecurity magnifies her suffering and minimizes the good. Bismuth’s insecurity inspires her to overcommit to a righteous cause. Sadie’s insecurity lets people walk all over her until she snaps. Lars’s insecurity makes him a huge jerk. And Steven’s insecurity fuels a martyr complex that’s cranked up to life-threatening heights in Act III.

The most important choice Steven makes in Bubbled is a mind-numbingly stupid one: to tell Eyeball that he’s Rose Quartz, and to then do everything in his power to convince her. Eyeball is the reason he learned Rose shattered Pink Diamond, and she has given every indication that she despises Rose for this, and she’s an especially aggressive member of an aggressive team made of Gems designed to be aggressive. Steven’s reveal comes after Eyeball has made it explicit that her lingering hatred of Rose is the reason she even came to Earth. He’s alone in space with someone who will try to hurt him if she thought he was Rose (and who already wants to hurt him), and he has proven throughout Act II that he’s neither dumb nor naive enough to not understand the likely outcome here. But he says he’s Rose anyway, because he’s so obsessed with helping people that he's willing to put his own safety at risk just to cheer up an enemy.

There are other reasons I think it makes sense for him to make such an obvious mistake. He’s definitely in shock, but he’s also grumpy and takes Eyeball’s disbelief as a challenge. This is an irrational decision made by someone who isn’t in a rational state of mind. But this only makes it more compelling that his gut instinct, the essence of Steven that emerges from this emotional turmoil, is to help someone else. We’ve already had a whole episode about balancing the needs of others with the needs of yourself in Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service, but remember, that episode ends with Steven falling asleep standing up, because he ignored his own health to help Kiki learn that lesson.

Steven’s greatest strength creates his greatest weakness. He’s empathetic and sensitive, and can do amazing things because of it, but he needs to value himself as much as he values everyone around him. Act III sees him stumble and scramble through more trying times than ever, and until Connie finally calls him out on it, he compounds his troubles with his self-sacrificial mindset. He’s not suicidal by any stretch, but he decides his own needs are irrelevant when others need help, which ironically makes him more selfish than ever as he determines that he and he alone can save the day and stop his friends from getting hurt. And even when the cosmic scale fades away, his obsession with helping others to distract from himself becomes the driving conflict of Steven Universe Future.

Eyeball works wonders as a foil: she opposes Steven, but isn’t savvy enough to manipulate him on purpose, so his error is both obvious and unforced. Telling her that he’s Rose Quartz needs to say more about him than about the person he’s telling, and Eyeball is just flat enough of a character that she doesn’t steal his spotlight.

Charlyne Yi once again kills it, and little moments do personalize Eyeball further, even if it’s nothing groundbreaking. The biggest, in my mind, is commanding Steven to “find cover, soldier!” as asteroids approach, despite their antagonistic relationship: her instinct to act as a team trumps her personal disdain for Steven, and while he assumes later that the two are bonding, this is as close as I think she actually gets to reciprocating. We see her get annoyed at being called Eyeball, which is a nice and reasonable gripe from a character whose gripes we tend to disagree with. And I love that her weapon is less of a knife and more of a shiv, with a squared edge that implies she’s got a really strong stabbing arm.

Like I said, she’s still flat—we may see her quirks here, but she doesn’t change at all over the course of the episode and we already knew she was a proud warrior Gem with a stubborn streak—but it works. It’s weird to use “flat” as a compliment, but I do mean it as such. She isn’t the real villain here, and “defeating” her feels more like failure than victory: Mindful Education hammers home that this is the third enemy Gem in a row that Steven couldn’t help, no matter how hard he tried.

While Bubbled feels pretty slow, it helps that the whole thing is beautiful to look at. The opening shot of Steven tumbling through space from his own point of view gets us right into the game, and the loneliness and sheer terror of his situation is highlighted with gorgeous, silent shots of space. Steven is processing a huge shift in perspective, and the setting reflects the magnitude of his new reality.

And then, to add an auditory counterpart to the visual story, his rescue is punctuated by Rebecca Sugar finally finishing Love Like You.

The song has played over the closing credits since the beginning of the series, using a variety of instruments before the lyrics trickled in. An acoustic version accompanies the end of Ocean Gem, as Steven celebrates with the humans and the Gems discuss what Lapis’s escape means for the future. A haunting reprise, unrecognizable at first while Steven struggles to find himself, joins the end credits for Act III. And wouldn’t you know, it’s a song about insecurity.

When I first heard Love Like You, and for years after, I was convinced that it was sung by Rose. Rebecca Sugar herself said that it wasn’t written with a particular character in mind, but nope, for me it was definitely about Rose. She’s singing to Greg about how she wants to capable of loving the way humans can, and Steven is the result of the conversation. And I still think that reading stands, and that it matters, but songs can be about more than one thing.

This is the third of four songs that encapsulate the two big lessons I take from Steven Universe. Strong in the Real Way reconstructs the notion of what true strength is, and alongside Stronger Than You, we’re told that what matters most is doing the right thing and being a good person, even when it’s hard, and that healthy relationships (romantic, familial, platonic, whatever) help make this possible.

Love Like You and our fourth big song, Change Your Mind, similarly work as a duo: where the Strong Songs are about the importance of relationships to emotional strength, Love Like You and Change Your Mind address how we as individuals can be strong in the real way. It’s important to have healthy relationships, but it’s also important to love yourself, and Love Like You is about that second part: the most loving network in the world can’t fix your insecurity if you’re unable to see yourself the way your loved ones do.

As Love Like You plays in the background, with the first non-diegetic lyrics we’ve heard in the series, Steven is finally told the truth. Garnet is right that Steven’s mother would have done anything for Earth, and while the details of her misdeeds are hazy at this point, the result is the same. Steven can no longer look to his mother as a paragon of virtue, and even though the Crystal Gems love him, they can’t fix this new problem, especially if their secrecy is part of the problem. They think the world of Steven, and now it’s up to him to see that he can do about anything. He could even learn how to love.

Future Vision!

Eyeball knows Rose Quartz not by her shield, but her sword. And we know Eyeball witnessed the “shattering” of Pink Diamond. And we know that Rose’s sword was built to not harm a Gem’s gem. Hints abound.

The chase around the bubble ends because Steven stops and wonders aloud what would happen if his gem was taken. It’s the first time the subject is broached on the show. It isn’t the last.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

Bubbled touches on major themes of the series, but in a bubble on its own, the glacial pace hinders the storytelling. This is a great finale, but it’s not that great of a solitary episode. I like it fine, there are a lot of great things about it (the art in particular), but I don’t rank this one very high by itself.

Top Twenty

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

When It Rains

Catch and Release

Chille Tid

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Bubbled

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

No Thanks!

5. Horror Club 4. Fusion Cuisine 3. House Guest 2. Sadie’s Song 1. Island Adventure

#bubbled #steven universe #su #steven universally #review

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s-coleman · 6 years

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Planning Ensemble Character Development and Purpose Over a Series

Pretty wordy title for someone making their first real planning process post, but it summarises my point. Also, hi. I meant to be posting more about my processes sooner, but when I have an idea I tend to use it first and foremost, then forget to write about it afterwards. A lot of the time it seems egotistical to go on about how I write, but using the process I’m posting about today was so useful I thought I’d put it out there. Even if it’s a lot wordier than I’d intended.

So here’s the situation. Multiple main characters. Intended for one story originally, but wouldn’t you know there was a lot more to say after novel one had been planned and begun. So now there are five stories intended.

This is great in many ways. It means I don’t have to rush to get everything out in book one (though it’s still important to me that the book can stand alone on its own merits independent of the rest). One major downside is the possibility of stagnation, either with plot or - as is the point of this post - with characters. In a single novel we’re more likely to see a fairly unchanging character as just consistent. Over the course of five books, it starts to be a case of ‘for god’s sake Jimmy, you’re so boring. The entire world has been destroyed and you’re still doing the same crap as you were at the start!’ Not to mention as the plot affects your characters it should also affect the way those characters relate to one another. They will have experiences that will form or shake them and their relationships with other people.

I found that as I continue to plot out the books I wanted a clear, quick and simple reference for how those characters were changing and what their role becomes at each point. Of course this meant I had to make said reference. I thought of those word games where you change one word to another entirely by changing one letter at a time to make a new word. And that is the aim with my characters in this plan. One change at a time, one novel at a time.

Now, in my series there are location changes for each book due to plot stuff. This will help to avoid stagnation as characters will be forced to react to new settings, but it isn’t necessary. Downsides can include diluting the theme or tone of your series, or losing readers who were particularly keen on only one of your chosen settings. Still, it’s what I’m doing so my first step was to work out the order of my settings/novels. I numbered them 1 to 5. It’s highly likely you’ll already know the order of your novels/plots/settings, but I’m not that organised. Until now!

So then I’ve got something like that (only point one is actually representative of my novel. No spoilers here!) I’ve had these all noted down for a while in my notepad (I use pencil and paper for planning), but only now have I put them into order. If I’m honest, I had to wiggle them around a bit once I started planning my characters when I realised their development hinged on a slightly different order of events. No shame in changing things as you work out other things!

Now I’ve got my 6 main characters. You may have more, you may have less. The important thing is figuring out what they’re doing in each story and how/why that changes.

So let’s invent a character (to avoid giving away the intentions for my actual characters). Let’s call him Geoffrey. For whatever reason, he gets picked for the development rollercoaster first. Maybe he’s my favourite in the ensemble of characters that I pretend to love equally.

I number one to five under his name, leaving a space between each row. One number for each novel/story. Now, often point one is easy. We all generally get an idea of where our character is at the start and who they are and why we’re talking about them. If you don’t have that, now’s as good a time as any to think about it. Let’s say my Geoffrey has a destiny. Let’s make it one of those novels. And let’s say he’s going to be the dominant viewpoint, the trigger for the events that begin in book one.

Gosh. Look at that, we have a hero on our hands. Now, your character will definitely be more complicated than this in your book. This isn’t even a proper summary of who they are. It’s a reference to remind you of their function in that book. You can then go on and do this for all your characters to get a good view of how they fit niches in the group’s needs and to give yourself ideas for how they might interact.

As I said, I do this on paper but for the purposes of drawing it out here I made a little table on the old word processor...

You already know as the author who they are and what they’re up to in detail. Now’s the time to look at what that does. For example, we’ve got Perry there who is a ‘broken victim’ and ‘obstructor’. This plan/reference doesn’t need full details of what happened to him. As the author, I already know. What’s important is that in this beginning, he is very much in a victim role. He’s scared and hurt and this leads to him obstructing the steps the others are taking towards a very violent and scary end, either directly or indirectly. Again, the characters are much more than this. This is just your reminder of where they start and where they need to go.

Speaking of which, you’ll see Geoffrey has an end in sight for the last book. I mean, Geoffrey personally might not know this is his goal (maybe he does, maybe he’s objective-focused and amoral) but it’s important that we know where he’s headed if we set out to write five books about the magnificent bastard. Geoffrey is going to become a tyrannical dictator in book five. But this can’t happen all at once!

Here’s a messy and slightly obfuscated snippet of a character in my own novel character arc plan from my notebook:

Smudges to avoid spoilers. In book one, they are a Manipulator. This isn’t terribly obvious though I’m still in two minds over how subtle to make it. However, my setting in book two is no good for them. It complicates matters for them, leaves them out of their element. Book three requires a certain level of backstabbing and knowing what I know of this character, they’re the obvious choice. So I had points 1, 2 and 3 filled out based simply on this character’s reaction to the setting and plot of novels 1, 2 and 3, which we laid out simply at the very start. I know why they’re there. And I already know how I want things to end for them. A redemption of sorts. So book 5 sees them become a martyr to save those that they have hurt so far.

If we were to blend this with the made up characters above it would quickly become obvious that this character could be at odds with Geoffrey by the end. That their arcs could in fact be the inverse of each other, this character rising to heroism while Geoffrey falls to villainy. Perhaps it would even be Geoffrey who killed this character. Perhaps that would stop him. Perhaps it wouldn’t. But these are then themes to keep in mind throughout the series, to foreshadow early on with how these characters interact, disagreements they might have, views that might clash, warnings that go unheeded.

You don’t need to do one character at a time. Quite often, putting a character in one role makes you ask questions. One of my more abrasive characters finds love over the course of the series with one of the others. I want them settled in this by the end, making decisions inspired by their feelings for this other character. So their final bulletpoint is ‘lover’. However, there are issues here. I’ll use made-up Perry and Shane to demonstrate:

Imagine the setting returns the characters to Shane’s home in book 4. Through various social developments it has become clear to Perry and Shane that they’re in love or whatever and Perry is down with this in book 4. Shane, however, is not. My setting and plot tell me he would be in an obstructing role and while that could work with a romance too, I don’t want it to. I want Shane being a pain in the butt and distracted by the plot and generally not on the same page as Perry romantically-speaking. Shane has growing to do, growing that will be catalysed by what happens in book 4.

Which brings us to those gaps between the numbered rows. As you saw in my handwritten version above, there are things written between each (and after the end). Once you have two numbered bulletpoints planned, make a note between the two to indicate what caused the change. In my example, the shift to ‘traitor’ in book 3 occurs directly because of book 2, in which the character felt disconnected from the every day. Book 2 traumatises them in a way that galvanises them to push on, to make things happen the way they want them to. As a result I wrote ‘anxious to move plans along’, which is why they turn traitor in book 3, willing to go to desperate measures to make things work. In the Perry and Shane example above, it would likely be Perry’s reaction to Shane’s behaviour in book 4 that causes the shift in their relationship and wakes Shane up to his own feelings in book 5.

Different role types I used in my plan include:

manipulator (a character with their own agenda who seeks to manage the actions of the others to fit with that agenda)

tool (no not like that, I mean like a character who is struggling to find their own autonomy and is acting mostly in a supportive function for one or more other characters),

victim (which sounds kind of rough but it’s to represent the fact that their trauma is still the dominant drive for their actions at that point),

protector (could be due to who they are or perhaps an event has occurred that is making them feel more protective of their friends/family/one other character than before)

threat (could be a flat-out villain, could just be a hero in over their head, either way their actions are going to endanger others)

problem-solver (a character who has the skills to pay the bills in some manner, who’s able to sort out issues the other characters might not)

obstructor (for whatever reason, this character is not aligned with the goals of the rest for the majority of the story and is somehow making things more difficult as a result)

lover (they’re being led by their feelings for another character, which could be a good or bad influence)

activist (they’ve found their own cause separate from the main thrust of the action and it’s diverting their attention)

Now obviously some of these could overlap, and there are so many more you could come up with. You’ll probably want to write more than one word, I definitely do when I’m explaining the shift between books. Also note that when I say ‘shift between books’ I don’t mean that the character changes off-page between the end of one book and the start of the next. It’s gradual, sometimes beginning towards the end of the last book or from the start of the new book, depending on what happened.

At the end, you should have a page of characters with a short list of bulletpoints beneath that map their character growth. I found while doing this I ended up asking myself all sorts of questions about how they could get to one point from the last. Or ‘if they’re doing that, someone’s bound to investigate’, which would lead me to cast another character in that investigative role. It even helped plan out the evolution of a romantic arc by realising at what points a character might be receptive to such emotions and what impact it could have on their actions towards another character.

I hope this has been helpful, as it’s my first post - I think, I haven’t gone back through my blog to check - on the topic. If you like it, let me know or reblog. If you use it and you’re happy sharing the results, I’d love to see!

#writeblr #planning #character design

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