#some of there stories are like that because I want to explore a few aspects for it like counting decades. it has more darker elements then | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

daycourtofficial · 5 months

Text

Use Somebody

Summary: you and Lucien have to pretend to be together, causing a fight between you and a certain shadowsinger. You discover too late that you’re a wanted aspect to an evil plot - can Azriel save you in time?

“We could have (y/n) and Lucien do it.” You overheard Rhysand saying as you walked into his study.

“You could have me and Lucien do what?” You ask, biting into your apple.

Rhys turns to you, tutting so you don’t bring your apple too close to his desk, “we need someone to attend a ball in the winter court. Azriel’s picked up some rumblings, and Kallias has asked if we could help. We’ll all be attending, but we need you and Lucien in particular to do some recon.”

You stop mid bite of your apple, still confused on the plan. “But Lucien and I aren’t spies, we’re just court nobility.”

“Which is why you two are perfect - you’re nobility to two different courts, autumn and dawn, so the two of you mingling wouldn’t be too suspicious. Plus the two of you are very good at socializing at these events.”

“So you want to send us to go to a ball to do what exactly?” The idea still making zero sense to you.

It’s Azriel who speaks up, “he wants you and Lucien to pretend to be together and get close to a few targets, see if you can find anything out.”

You look at Azriel, and he looks pissed. You’re not sure if it’s because he just returned from the war camps, at this plan, or if he doesn’t think you and Lucien are capable of spywork. The idea of disappointing Azriel made your stomach drop to your pit.

Rhys interjects, “you and Lucien have been friends for centuries - it’s a believable cover. And you’re talented with glamours - you could even glamour a mating bond scent over the two of you.”

You reply, “We attended tons of events together when we were younger - but anyone from one of those events would know we were lying.”

“It’s been hundreds of years, anything could have happened. Besides, I can provide you with a guest list to look over, ensuring you don’t know any of the guests.”

“I don’t know, Rhys…” you drawl.

Rhys sighs, “it’s one night. Do you think you could do this or not?”

You think it over for a moment and decide that you can, Azriel’s hesitation at your involvement be damned.

The irony wasn’t lost on you. You and Lucien pretending to be a couple when the two of you are pining over Azriel and Elain, who seem to be a couple. Cassian disagrees with your assessment of the situation - he’s convinced that Azriel has feelings for you and that Elain is just a friend, but you’re not so sure.

Lucien’s voice stirs you from your thoughts. “Wouldn’t our lives be so much easier if we were mates instead?”

You laugh, the idea having crossed your mind a time or two. “It certainly would be. We’d also have adorable babes.”

Lucien laughs, “those poor, beautiful babes, shame they’ll never exist.”

You two laugh, trying not to think of the heartache too much. Your own pining aside, all you want is happiness for Lucien. Pushing it aside, you two begin crafting your story: you’ve been married for two years, living in dawn for the time being, but you two want to explore all of the courts before deciding where to settle down permanently.

“You look lovely, dear,” Lucien tells you. If you two were going to pretend to be in love, you wanted the both of you to look incredible. Lucien’s wearing a green jacket with brown pants, and you’re wearing a deep green dress, with exposed boning and a thigh slit practically at your hip, exposing your entire left leg. You had gone a step further, embroidering a tiny fox onto Lucien’s jacket’s lapel and a matching one onto the shoulder strap of your dress.

“Thank you, you look very handsome as well.” And he did. The shade of green you selected for both of you matched both of your complexions and honestly, you two looked hot.

“What should our mating bond smell like?” You ask him.

The two of you think about it, ultimately deciding on a combination of smells: apples, fresh tea, and honey, the scent filling the room.

“Incredible work - I must say, you are a fantastic fake mate, darling,” he says, offering his arm to you. “Likewise, fake mate,” you say, tipping a pretend hat in his direction and placing your hand in the crook of his arm, walking out of your room.

Rhys had given you one main objective: talk, mingle, dance, drink. The hope is that you and Lucien can overhear something or that someone will inadvertently tell you two lovebirds something they don’t mean to.

The two of you take the dance floor, the band playing a slower song, one you and Lucien have danced to thousands of times, the rhythm ingrained into your mind over a centuries worth of balls.

You loved dancing with Lucien, the two of you fell into easy rhythm and garnered a ton of attention whenever you found yourselves on the dance floor. The two of you made a striking couple, and your dress looked incredible as he spun you around the floor.

Through the dips, the turns, and the spins of the song, you made sure to keep eye contact with Lucien as much as possible. You looked into his russet eyes, but all you wanted to find was hazel ones staring back at you. You’re sure Lucien was hoping the same about Elain in your stead.

The song ends and the two of you garnered more attention than you thought you would, and all the attention made you blush. You stepped away from your friend to get some wine, almost crashing into someone.

“Saffron?” You ask, incredulously. Rhys had been able to provide you with a full list of everyone attending, to ensure no one you knew was attending, but you didn’t see Saffron’s name anywhere on that list.

She looks at you, wrapping you in a hug. “It’s been so long! Of all the people to run into at one of these things, I’m not surprised to see you!”

She pulls back, looking you up and down, noticing the fake wedding ring on your hand. “And who’s the lucky male?”

Saffron knew you and Lucien when you were younger, so she knows there’s nothing between you two. You could either lie and try to skirt away from her, or tell her the ‘truth’ of this mission.

“It’s Lucien - we got married a few years ago actually!” You say, not sounding totally convincing.

“Lucien? The red head you were always with?” She asks, almost laughing. “You two always seemed more like siblings than lovers.”

You swallow, worried your entire night is unraveling because of her presence. “It was a surprise for us too! But one day the bond just snapped-“

“Wait, you two are mated?”

“Yes,” you reply curtly.

“I had heard he was mated to another girl and she rejected it.”

Her knowing that has definitely thrown a wrench in the plans. “Um, the rumor mill must have been working overtime. There’s no other girl, it’s just us.”

She looks at you, something odd flashing in her eyes, before she decides to leave it be. “Anyway, it was great running into you - congratulations!”

You thank her before she walks away and you can let out a breath of relief.

After running into Saffron, you spent hours dancing, mingling and drinking. You walk outside onto the balcony, telling Lucien you need a moment of fresh air. The noise level of the room was getting to you, so you thought you’d step out for a moment.

The moment the door shut behind you, Azriel emerged from the shadows. You startled, not expecting him to pop out.

“Hi Azzie,” you say, your nickname making him recoil. “Should I be seen talking to you, since.. ya know?” You ask, unsure of how spywork worked completely.

“So you don’t want to be seen with me, but you have no problem being seen all over Lucien?”

His question catches you off guard, and you look and notice just how angry he looks, anger directed at you.

“That’s not what I said at all, besides you know why I’m all over him tonight,” you reply, looking to make sure no one can hear this conversation.

“Yes, but you sure jumped at the chance to spend the night wrapped in his arms, didn’t you?” He moves closer to you, the two of you less than a foot apart, facing each other.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about - he’s my friend and he’s mated!”

“But she hasn’t accepted it yet,” he states.

“So?” You ask, “to me he’s mated, he’s off limits. Besides, I’m not in love with him, I don’t have feelings for him!”

The four glasses of wine weren’t a problem in the ballroom, but they’re a problem out here, making this conversation even more confusing to you.

“If the two of you want to parade around about how happy you are, why don’t you find another court to go do it in, and stay out of mine,” Azriel practically growls at you.

Your soft, sweet Azriel is growling at you. You’ve never been on the receiving end of his anger, but it terrified you.

He wasn’t getting it, he wasn’t getting that you didn’t want Lucien, you wanted him.

You sighed, trying not to let his words sting too much when you say, “maybe we will.” and storm back into the party.

After your fight with Azriel, you got considerably more drunk. At the end of the night, you and Lucien walked back into the palace together, laughing, him holding you up from the excessive wine you drank. You’re about to tell him something, when someone catches your eye.

“Hi Elain!” You say, pointing out Elain to Lucien.

“Hi,” she says to you, but she won’t stop looking at Lucien, “is it okay if I have a moment alone with Lucien?”

“Yes, absolutely, excuse me,” you say, brushing past Elain. You turn around giving Lucien a thumbs up and a smile, showing him it’ll be okay.

You walk into the kitchen, looking for more wine, when you bump into Cassian. “Owww,” you say, rubbing your arm where you bumped into him.

He laughs at your obviously drunken state, and tells you, “you did good tonight, doll.”

You look up at him, “yeah? Do you think Lucien and I could be spies now? Do you think Azriel was proud of us?”

Cassian’s caught a bit off guard by your question. “Why wouldn’t he be proud of you?”

You sigh and look at your feet, “because when Rhys asked us to do this assignment, he looked so upset, like he didn’t think we could do it.” You’re not sure why this is spilling out of you, but it’s started pouring and it won’t stop. You look Cassian in the eyes and ask, “what’s wrong with me, Cass?”

Cassian can almost hear his heart shatter at your question. “Why would anything be wrong with you?” He asks, grabbing your wine and going to get you a glass of water in replacement.

You slump your head down on the kitchen island and mutter into your hands, “why am I in love with someone who hates me and loves someone else?”

Cassian starts to panic. He’s good at consoling when you’re injured, but you’re heartbroken. This is uncharted territory. Usually you talked about these things with Mor or Feyre, not the giant Ilyrian next to you. “Who?”

You lift your head up, and he can see tear stains running down your face, “your dumb handsome brother.”

If you didn’t look so sad, Cassian would laugh at how you said that. “Wait, what did he tell you? Did he make you think he doesn’t care about you?”

“I thought we were friends, Cassian,” you choke back a sob, “I don’t know what I did, but he hates me now. He wants me to leave the night court… and maybe I should.”

Before he can say anything else, you get up and tell him, “I’m done, Cassian. It was hard, but I could bottle my feelings if we were friends.” You look up at him, and Cassian doesn’t think he’s ever seen such heartbreak on a face before. “He hates me now, and I still love him. Maybe I should leave the night court for a while, leave his precious court like he asked me to.”

Grabbing a bottle of wine as you pass him, you head upstairs for the night.

Cassian was a violent man. He’s been in countless fights, multiple wars, several battles, but seeing you so upset over his idiot brother made him rage in a new way. He stomped up to Azriel’s room, flinging the door open, and pulling the sheet out from under him, causing him to fall to the floor. “What the f-“ Azriel starts to say, but he’s cut off.

“Are you in love with Elain?” Cassian asks.

“You woke me up to grill me about my love life?” Azriel asks, more confused by the second.

“Answer me,” Cassian practically growls at the shadowsinger.

“No, okay! No. I’m not.” Azriel says, still sitting on the ground where Cassian hurled him.

“Are you in love with someone else? Someone who just spent the night pretending to be in love with someone else in the hopes that you would approve of her?”

Azriel blinks in confusion. “You had me. Then you lost me. It doesn’t matter - I saw how she looked at Lucien.”

Cassian did not have time for Azriel to begin wallowing. “Have you ever thought that while she was looking at Lucien, he wasn’t who she was seeing?” He pauses for a moment, then says, “you better talk to her before morning.” He kicks his brother for good measure then storms out.

Azriel got the courage to go to your door half an hour later, but you didn’t respond. At first he thought he had just gone too far, but when his shadows whispered gone, gone, gone to him, he knew something was wrong. The room was empty, and he could smell blood on the duvet covers. He told Rhysand mind to mind what was happening, and decided the best source was the last male he wanted to see: Lucien.

He started banging on the door to Lucien’s room, when the redheaded male finally opened the door. Half-dressed, with Elain hiding under the duvet, Azriel gets to the point, “did anyone tonight give you the impression they wanted to hurt her?” Lucien opens the door a little wider, asking Azriel a question he doesn’t want the answer to.

The shadowsinger sighs. “She’s missing, and her room shows signs of a struggle.”

Lucien begins asking a million questions, when Azriel stops him. “Rhys and I want to talk to you about every person you met with tonight.”

Lucien walked them through your night, including when you had left for a few moments to go on the balcony. Azriel flinched at the memory, his jealousy getting the best of him in the moment.

Rhys was about to ask him to go through a few people again, when something catches Rhys’s eye.

“Lucien,” Rhys says, “your fox is glowing.”

The fox you had embroidered on his jacket was glowing. It glowed for a moment, and then they heard your voice, confused and drunk, and another voice, projecting from the fox.

“Clever girl,” Lucien whispers.

You woke up in a dirty cell, Hybern shackles adorning your wrists. Your head was throbbing, the blow to the head really rattled you, and you’re still drunk. There’s a small window, and the moon is still high in the sky, so you don’t think you’ve been out for too long. You do remember the fox you had embroidered on your clothes, and you hope that, since the magic was sewn into it, it would still work despite the shackles. You place your palm over it for five seconds, and you just hope and pray that your enchantment will actually work.

The door to the cell opens, and in comes Saffron.

“Saffron?” You ask, confusion over your features. “What is happening?”

“Everyone always talked about how smart you were - why don’t you put the pieces together?” She asks, her disdain for you icing every word.

“Okay, I’m still drunk, and someone hit my head, but let’s see.” You pause, thinking about everything you know about Saffron. “We went to school together, you liked… magic classes. You liked knowing what magic could do.” You pause for a moment, something wanting to come to the surface of your thoughts. “You were interested in my powers. You once called Lucien weak. You like oranges - okay I’m getting a bit off track.”

You start thinking again, your head pounding from all the thinking.

“I saw you at the one hundred year reunion, and you worked for Kallias, documenting the magical capabilities of fae….” You trail off, your head still pounding, begging for you to go to sleep.

Your eyes snap up, “you got in trouble in school for using arcane magic on the grounds, but you were only suspended for a while. Then fifty years after the reunion Lucien told me he had run into you and you were with… uh.. that guy..” you start snapping to remember, “Wren! You were with Wren!”

Your mind is whirring, so many thoughts swirling around in your drunken haze. “Wren was that ugly guy who.. you dated him.. and..” there’s something there with Wren, but what is it?

“Wren always wanted to eat at that place on the corner that served soup. Wren wanted to be an arcane magic scholar, but they wouldn’t let him,” you pause, slurring a bit while you point at Saffron, “and you two got in trouble, but he was expelled!”

It didn’t matter that you were drunk, the wheels in your brain were turning. “You once told me after a break up that you don’t want love, you want power. And Wren was obsessed with ancient power rituals. He talked about them all the time.”

The idea hits you as you say it out loud, “it’s a full moon tonight.” Your thoughts have sobered you up instantly. “It’s the summer solstice, the strongest night for arcane magic,” your voice gets really quiet as you say, “and you’re going to do something. But what?”

She looks at you, egging you on to realize what she wants. But what does Saffron want? Power. Power. Power.

“You told me I was the most powerful of our year.” You swallow, realization hitting you to your core. “You’re going to take my powers.”

The silence hangs in the room. If your fox communicator worked, then you imagine the room is dead silent there too.

Saffron slowly claps. “There she is, brightest of our age. Oh how all of our teachers adored you,” she says, crossing the room to you, “it was incredible running into you at the party. Once I heard you were attending, I had to swoop in so I could see you. I slipped some faebane into your drink while we were talking so I could subdue you. My sweet, there’s one thing about the ritual you don’t know.”

She leans in closer to you, when she says, “we won’t just be taking your powers, we’ll be sacrificing you, which is a bit more extensive, but it allows for us to also take your knowledge and your memories.”

Your eyes snap up to hers, “no, no!”

“Your memories will teach us all we need to know about your little night court companions,” she laughs, walking towards the door to leave you alone with the revelation. Right before she’s out the door, she wants to tell you one last thing, “I always thought your powers were wasted on the likes of you. You could have been a queen, you could have given the high lords a run for their money.”

Everyone was dead silent, waiting for more news from the fox, but it seems like your captor left you alone. By this point the entire inner circle was in Lucien’s room, and tears were streaming down Mor’s face. She approached Azriel and said, “you have to find her, don’t you usually keep a few shadows on her at all times?”

Mor talking to him broke his concentration on the fox stitching, embarrassment flooding his senses. “No, I don’t, not tonight.”

“Why the hell not? You don’t even let her go down the street without a few extra shadows, but you let her do mission work unguarded!”

Lucien looks up at Azriel, realization coating his features, “She was upset about something after she came back in from the balcony, and she got plastered. You got in a fight and called the shadows off, didn’t you?”

Heat creeps up Azriel’s face, at both the mention of your incredibly dumb fight and the fact that his entire family was looking at him, aware of how badly he messed things up.

Rhys is the one to break the silence, “you told me you could behave, Azriel!”

“And I thought I could! I just.. I had a moment. A lapse in judgement.”

“A lapse in judgement!” Cassian cries, “she was crying to me because she thought you hated her! She thought you’d never want to see her again. She told me she might leave because it’s what you want from her!”

Mor gets to Azriel first, swatting him on the chest after every word she says, “what” swat “did” swat “you” swat “do?” swat.

Azriel lets her hit him, he more than deserves it. He can’t believe his stupidity in calling his shadows away from you, something he did out of pure anger at watching them dance around you on the balcony.

He starts to respond, when a shadow comes barreling in through the window, hitting Lucien on the head as it comes to inform Azriel of what it just found out.

You had been hopeful that the fox would be more helpful, but you’re thinking the magic didn’t work. Still in your party dress, you move around the cell a little. The witching hour is getting close, so you know they’ll be coming for you soon.

The cell opens and in comes Saffron and two huge males. “I brought some back up in case you tried to run,” she practically purrs at the idea, likely imagining them beating you half to death.

“Great,” you say. You follow them down the hallway, and the thought does skirt past your mind, but you’re shackled at the wrist and the ankle, you won’t be able to run fast or far, especially without your magic.

They open up two doors to the outside - it’s a nice, cool night. The moon is glowing brighter than you’ve ever seen it, distracting you from seeing the wooden logs surrounding a giant pole. You breathe in deeply, wishing, willing your friends to come rescue you. Now is the time, you think.

One of Saffron’s goons leads you to the pyre, and you take this opportunity to swing your shackles at his face, hitting him right in the cheek. The other one grabs you from behind, allowing the one you hit to face you.

He grabs your face, “such a pretty little thing. Too bad we didn’t have more time, I could have had a lot of fun with you.” His insinuation makes your blood run cold, and he pulls back his fist and punches you squarely on the nose, and you can feel it break, the blood pouring down your face already.

He nods to the goon that’s holding you in place and he lets go, giving you a second of repreive, until the one in front of you grabs you by the neck, and holds you up in the air, cutting your lungs off from the night air. You start clawing at his hands, desperately trying to be able to breathe. Just as your vision starts going a little spotty, he releases you, and you fall to the ground, gasping for air.

The other goon grabs you, lifting you up onto the top of the pyre, tying your hands to the pole. You take one last opportunity and kick him in the knee. He goes down for only a second, when he comes back up he just looks at you and spits on you. You gasp, anger fueling you.

“Enough,” Saffron says, “enough. It is time, call everyone here.”

Within a moment, ten other fae come into the clearing, all staring at you. “We’re here today to take power that we rightfully deserve!” The crowd cheers. “We will take this power and use it for a better tomorrow!”

The crowd erupts in applause, honestly you had no idea a dozen or so people could be so loud. Saffron begins chanting in an ancient language, and despite the shackles, you try sending out an emergency message to Rhys and Feyre, if you’re going to come rescue me, please do it now.

She brings a lit torch to the bottom of the pyre, lighting it. You can feel the heat as more of the pyre catches. The fire is getting closer to your feet, and you start coughing at the smoke.

Their chanting continues, getting louder, and you can feel parts of you draining, even with the shackles around you. You start yelling, trying for any distraction to break the concentration on their chanting. If you’re going down in an ancient ritual, you are not going with grace.

“Hey fucker! That’s right! You, Saffron! Not powerful enough to subdue me on your own, you have to use these stupid shackles from Hybern! You fucking coward - I bet you couldn’t even handle my power! It would consume you and burn you alive!”

Saffron faltered a bit at your taunts, but the rest of the crowd continued, persistent. “Is she supposed to be your new leader? what has she promised you? Power? Money? Land? I have all of those things, and look where I ended up! She’s crazy! She isn’t going to help you, she’ll steal your powers too!”

The flames are skirting up the pyre, getting awfully close to the fabric of your dress. You pull your legs, trying to climb up the pole you’re tied to.

“She’s weak, I’m tied up like a roast pig because she’s nothing!”

The chanting falters for a beat, enough for you to feel some of your power seep back in. You’re still shackled and can’t use them, but that doesn’t mean you want them gone.

You start coughing, excessive smoke inhalation perhaps, but you keep going. “My friends are going to be so pissed when they find out you killed me!”

Saffron allows the group to continue chanting, while she looks at you and says, “The unwanted Vanserra boy? I promise you, dear, he doesn’t scare us.”

A darkness creeps into the clearing, and a voice speaks. “I promise you, I’m much more terrifying than the fox.” Azriel steps out of the shadows, darkness radiating off of him in waves.

You’ve seen Azriel angry before, but never like this. He is almost feral with his emotion, he’d still be terrifying without the mass of shadows rolling off of him.

A few shadows come to you, circling around you, as if assessing you.

Rhys, Feyre, and Cassian step out at other points of the clearing, circling around the fae gathered.

Cassian makes a break for you amidst the chaos, and their arrival momentarily made you forget that you are moments away from being a filet mignon.

“Cas, I’m drugged! No powers!” You yell, as he approaches you. The smoke is growing stronger underneath you, forcing you to cough.

The general had no idea what to do, the fire was growing rapidly by the second, so he did the only thing he thought to do and didn’t allow himself a moment to reconsider: he ran, charging straight at you. Running up the pyre, ducking down so his shoulder makes contact with your hips, his momentum is enough to break the pole you’re secured to, the two of you tumbling off the pyre. Your head hits the grass with a hard thud, but otherwise you’re unharmed.

Cassian pulls himself off of you, checking you for injuries, and stands up and starts stamping out the train of your dress that had caught fire.

Coughing, and still tied to the pole, you thank Cassian. He moves to the top of your head, pulling the pole out from behind you, allowing you to at least stand up, even if you are still shackled.

Your ordeal with Cassian didn’t allow you to see the fight, but the remnants lead you to think it was quick and incredibly painful for the fae that captured you.

Saffron and one other are missing, assumingly already being taken by Rhys or Azriel for interrogation.

Feyre comes over, crouching down next to where you sit. “Are you okay?” She asks, placing both of her hands on the sides of your face.

The weight of the night begins settling, and you look at her, “I almost died. They wanted my powers, my knowledge, my memories.”

“We know,” Feyre says, hugging you. You’re not sure how but as she hugs you she undoes your chains, freeing your hands. You use the freedom to wrap your arms around your high lady’s waist.

“If they had taken my memories and come after you all, it would have been my fault.”

“But you were so so incredibly clever with that charm on your and Lucien’s clothes, we were able to get here just in time.” Your head turns to see Azriel crouched next to your and Feyre’s embrace, having come up without your notice.

Your eyes meet his, the tone of his words working to calm you down. At least, to make you feel less guilty.

“Do you want to return home?” He asks, holding a hand out. You nod, and he scoops you up, the shadows enveloping you as you realize you never specified which home to go to.

You were relieved when Azriel’s room at the House of Wind comes into view, afraid he’d take you straight back to your familial home in dawn after the last words he spoke to you.

“I’m sorry I failed you.”

Azriel wasn’t a man of many words, so he liked getting straight to the point whenever he could. He kept you close to him, still holding your hands from winnowing.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I was dumb, and jealous, and you were looking at Lucien like how you usually look at me, and I got scared.” He sighs, “I shouldn’t have told you to stay away from my court.”

You nod, trying not to think too much about him calling himself jealous, especially saying he’s jealous over Lucien.

“I just,” he sighs, running his hand through his hair, “seeing you with him, it brought up all these feelings of inadequacy. I’m not court nobility, but you are, and I’ve never felt good enough for you for a million reasons, and that’s one of them. Not that I think Lucien deserves you, hell no, but you deserve someone that’s your equal.”

Your mind is still reeling from the wine and the concussion you’re most likely sporting, but you’re hoping you’re gauging Azriel’s words correctly. Otherwise this will be really awkward.

You take one of his hands, “and you are not my equal? I’m the princess of the dawn court, truly no one could be as equal to me as a shadowsinger. Or is it too on the nose for a princess of the sun to be in love with the man in the shadows?”

His grip tightens on your hand and he pauses before asking, “are you saying you’re in love with me?”

“Yes,” you reply, with all the tenderness this moment deserves. “And as for how I looked at Lucien,” you clear your throat, “I was thinking about you, not him. I spent the night pretending I was dancing with you.”

He looks at you, really looking into your eyes, trying to memorize your face, as he raises his hands to cups your jaw.

“Is it terribly cliche for the man in the shadows to fall in love with the woman who radiates sunlight?”

“Maybe a little,” you reply, “but I’ll allow it.”

You’re not sure which of you leaned forward, perhaps it was both of you. The kiss was full of night cool air and the feeling of the sun on your bare skin, his mouth enveloping yours.

#acotar fanfiction #azriel #azriel x reader #azriel x you #azriel fanfic #azriel fluff #azriel angst

733 notes · View notes

etrata · 1 month

Text

New Phyrexia As A Cult

Content Warnings: Heavy discussion of cults and cult recruitment, mentions of sexual coercion, abuse, gore in images (New Phyrexian art so if you’re good with that should be all clear)

I’ve seen many people talking about New Phyrexia with the release of Phyrexia: All Will Be One and March of the Machine. And I’ve seen people talk about the misconceptions of New Phyrexia, like assuming it’s a hivemind. Which leads me into the key point I wanted to discuss with this. New Phyrexia isn’t a hivemind, but there’s a reason it’s assumed to be one by most casual fans. I believe it’s most accurately conveyed as a cult, and that analysing and interpreting the specific ways it is like one has a lot of merit for how it is viewed. I’m also aware that most of what I’m saying isn’t new. Am I the first person to say New Phyrexia is a cult? No. But most of the time, I’ve seen people simply use it as a pejorative term to add on to the list of problematic buzzwords to attach when criticising New Phyrexia or the Praetors. And regardless of whether I agree with those people, I do feel it warrants much deeper exploration into why New Phyrexia is a cult.

I know this post likely will stir up a lot of people saying some not positive things about me and it but I felt it needed to be said. To those people who have a knee jerk reaction towards this and are going to immediately want to send me something criticising this, I don’t anticipate you’ll read all of this. But at the end of the document I did include a list of questions I anticipate a few readers will ask, and I would simply like to politely ask that you read that segment before sending anything to me or replying to this post.

To start talking about cults and the nature of New Phyrexia as one, it’s first necessary to answer a few important background questions. Many people are going to ask if I have personal experience with a cult. To that, yes I have, I was raised in one from birth until around age 17. I would not like to discuss this further, I am simply including this so people know when I speak here I know what I am talking about. Another important thing is the definition of a cult. What differentiates a cult from any other religion? Many people disagree on the exact definition, and every now and again you’ll get someone claiming that all religions are cults. But simplifying it that much loses track of the real harm cults do to a person. I feel a key aspect for what a cult is is Dr. Steve Hassan’s BITE model. BITE stands for Behaviour control, Information control, Thought control, and Emotion control. The key difference between a religion and a cult is one of control. Cults invade every sense of your being, they seek to make it so you don’t have a life outside the cult and what is necessary to maintain it. This is why it’s so difficult for people to leave them. There’s a sense of fear of the unknown. That if you leave there’ll be nothing out there for you. Who knows, maybe they made you do terrible things you can never undo, how will the people who weren’t there forgive you? You can accept the bad parts, because the good parts are there and there’s this giant fear of what will happen if you face the unknown, if you leave. Which brings me to my first major discussion point: Ixhel.

For the unaware, Ixhel is the protagonist of the Phyrexia: All Will Be One side story A Hollow Body, by Aysha U. Farah. It’s a fantastic read, I would highly recommend anyone who finds this essay at all interesting read it. For a brief summary, Ixhel was created by Atraxa- who was herself formerly a Mirrordin angel before every Praetor save Urabrask compleated her- to be used as a soldier/assassin. She feels devoted to Atraxa, but tries to suppress her other feelings- the feeling of love, of want of affection and approval. Throughout the story, she faces challenges to this suppression: a phyrexian named Belaxis who aids her in her mission, the Thane of Contracts himself, Geth, who challenges her on her devotion even as she kills him, and Atraxa herself in the end. She successfully completes her mission to slay Geth, but his words bother her. About her being a faceless drone, replaceable. So she takes Belaxis and Geth, and uses the Dominus of the Dross Pits to combine them into one being, now named Vishgraz.

Atraxa is furious at the idea of their creation. But it’s not necessarily their creation itself that she really has an issue with. It’s that the creation was made without being ordered to. Vishgraz represents a threat to her not in their existence but in showing that Ixhel took an action other than what was ordered, even if she did it in hopes of imitating her superior in the cult. Because if she can take one action away from orders, she can take more. And that is a threat to her loyalty, which must be punished to ensure she stays in line, to ensure she stays another faceless drone. And Ixhel does take another action aside from orders, an even more direct disobedience: she spares Vishgraz’s life when ordered to kill them.

Ixhel represents someone born into a cult. She only ever did what was ordered, because it was all she knew. But cults are not a natural state of mind, they’re a method of control that can be broken free from. And this shows with Ixhel. She obeyed mindlessly, until she was given another option, an idea of what could help her, what could make her fix those feelings she had been taught to ignore and repress. This is a common experience, it’s certainly one I went through. It’s not the only experience with cults though. Because another thing to mention is recruitment, and Phyrexia: All Will Be One provides a great example of this too.

Another aspect of the storyline for this set was the idea of compleated planeswalkers. This is a new thing for Magic, with the idea introduced in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, with Tamiyo. However this was most fully analysed during Phyrexia: All Will Be One’s main story, by Seanan McGuire (who also did a fantastic job with that story, I would highly recommend that one as well). But something I recently came to the realisation of, that I have not seen discussed, is the common factor between every single compleated planeswalker: they’re all the exact types of people who are most vulnerable to recruitment by cults.

If you’re reading this and thinking “most vulnerable” I want you to keep in mind I mean exactly that. Anyone is vulnerable to recruitment by a cult, especially if you think you’re too smart to be recruited. And that’s where our first victim I’ll discuss comes in, Jace Beleren. Jace is a man who prides himself on his intelligence, on his skill with his mind. But in the story, he falls prey to New Phyrexia because he underestimates them, and overestimates his own skills. The love of his life, Vraska, has clearly fallen to compleation. But he thinks he can be smarter; he can use his illusion and mind magic to give her one last day, one last day together with him, where they can pretend like she hasn’t been infected. And that is what makes him be taken in by the cult.

Jace fell for it because he wanted to be clever and thought he was too smart, but also out of love and devotion to someone else who fell. I believe even if he knew what would happen he would do it again out of devotion. And who knows, the story so far seems to imply he had a plan, that he knew what he was doing. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong and he’ll turn out on top of this situation. But even so, he still lost to New Phyrexia due to this.

Next off is Vraska, another key type to fall for cults. Vraska throughout her entire life has been abused by society, a victim of racism and police brutality. All of those are horrific acts done against her. And cults reach out to those people, they tell them they have the answer, that if they simply follow them they will find the ability to help other downtrodden like themselves, or find a sense of community with others who will not judge them, so long as they follow the rules. Lukka is also very similar to this, but slightly different. Lukka is an outcast, rejected by his entire society, like a very extreme example of ostracisation and bullying. Humans are naturally social creatures, and this can easily be turned against us with a want for acceptance leading us to take abuse we should not tolerate. New Phyrexia also promises him strength, the strength with which he can avoid being hurt again, which he can use to carve a new place in this world and hurt everyone who hurt him, but much much worse.

Nahiri also falls under a similar umbrella with Lukka, but slightly less self motivated. Nahiri has a burning desire for revenge, for power against the figure in her life who let her down, Sorin Markov. But also, she believes in her heart of hearts that she is a protector, that everything she’s doing is to protect her homeland and her people, the Kor. And what leads her to being compleated is this sense of protection. She sacrifices her own health and her chance at a cure because she wants to ensure the success of the mission of stopping New Phyrexia. And her self sacrifice to do this may have helped the mission succeed, but it doomed her to fall.

Nissa is very similar to her here actually, as she also fell due to helping someone. She trusted Lukka, and tried to help him to the end, and this led her right into New Phyrexia’s trap. Others who fell this way too include Ajani and Tamiyo. They all trusted someone or sought to protect someone, and that trust was used against them. This shows the type of people who fall for cults because they are selfless. Those who fall because they don’t see a value in their own worth as an individual, but do see it as a collective. This is one of the major flaws of white mana: it’s bad at putting yourself first. It’s so easy to simply fall in line with a cult when you’re used to falling in line and obeying to help the greater good, because with the right words it’s easy to convince anyone that anything is the greater good. It feels safe to take some sacrifice, because after all, we’re taught to admire martyrs. We’re taught to emulate, and share. And those are good instincts don’t get me wrong, one of the most beautiful things about humanity is our capacity for love for our fellow man, the ability for strangers to care for strangers so readily just because they need help. But cults take advantage of that, and New Phyrexia is no different.

This is also touched on in the story Cinders, by Cassandra Khaw. This story is unique because it showcases an aspect of New Phyrexia we haven’t touched on here, the Quiet Furnace. While most aspects of New Phyrexia are definitely considered bad, the Quiet Furnace is the one I’ve seen the most arguments for about it being ethical and good. And while it has the most potential for good with this freedom, it also shows more of how cults prey on the most vulnerable. In the story, a Mirran woman, Reyana, is tempted towards compleation by Slobad. Reyana lost everything. She’s fighting a war she never asked to fight, constantly on the run, constantly in fear for her life. And they show her her mother. At peace with the cult, happy, caring. A lot of people join cults simply to follow loved ones. And this is the exact way Reyana joined. A key thing to showcase that this was not genuine freedom, that despite this promise of peace this was a corruption of herself, is the consequences after. Does Slobad and his group allow the Mirrans to freely mingle with the compleat, to simply talk among them knowing they chose differently? No. While he claims this is a free choice, he also artificially holds back interaction between the cultists and their Mirran family, all interaction unless it is for the purpose of recruitment. This shows the real reason for all of this. It’s a show, a show that things can be good, a promise that life will be better if you join and obey, because those you care about made that choice too. If they really believed in this freedom of choice, the Quiet Furnace would not shun contact with Mirrans, simply tolerating their presence without compleating them, it would embrace contact with them, embrace the diversity of perspective those who did not choose the same as the compleat bring to the table. There are good people among the phyrexians, people who believe what they are doing is right and towards peace, towards helping everyone come to a common understanding. Most criticisms of New Phyrexia I’ve seen make the mistake of calling them all monsters, not thinking for a moment that they aren’t monsters, but people, people who made a bad choice for good reasons. But those people don’t realise that they themselves are a victim, a lure in a trap to make others take a choice they never would’ve made otherwise, with the threat of losing contact with their loved ones if they don’t make that leap.

Another point to consider is what cults offer you, and what New Phyrexia offers you. People join cults because they promise something they lack. Most often that is a sense of community, of welcoming, of becoming, and of love. The price to pay is simply your individuality. When you think about New Phyrexia, that fits perfectly in theme. The oil takes away your worries, it makes you unconcerned with what troubled you prior to your compleation. It doesn’t feel like something wrong, something infecting you, it feels like…. completion. Like something you’ve always been missing has been found. And that’s alluring. That’s genuinely a tempting proposition. Think to yourself, what price would you be willing to pay to not have to think for yourself anymore, to be able to feel safe and just live day to day. That’s the promise of cults. And that’s the promise of New Phyrexia. But it’s not a healthy promise. Following charismatic leaders blindly simply leads to suffering, whether it’s for you or those outside the cult, or others inside of it. This is even shown in the text, in the story for March of the Machine by K. Arsenault Rivera.

When Elspeth faces off against Elesh Norn, she has been changed. She gave up her life in a moment of turmoil, sacrificed her being to save the multiverse. And she was ascended because of it, having her sense of self altered and her physical form transmuted, when her only choice otherwise was death. Sound familiar? So when Elspeth threatens Norn's rule of power, what does Norn promise her? Friends among the phyrexians, lovers among them. She points out their similarities, how Elspeth is transformed as well, simply in a way deemed prettier by society, how her form is irrevocably altered, how she has a creed she is following just as much as Norn. And Elspeth does think of this offer, she does look around and think of how happy everyone looks, how content they seem to be to be cogs in a great machine forged with glorious purpose. But Elesh Norn doesn’t even think to talk about the consent of those people in the cult for whether they’d even want to be Elspeth’s friend or lover. Many cult members do end up coerced into relationships they do not want, and this is a showing that Norn is no different from any base cult leader. She knows that people deserve freedom of choice, and freedom of thought. The moment Elspeth realises Norn is wrong, the moment she realises she is nothing like Norn, despite the similarities between her religion and Norn’s cult, is seeing how Norn treats Jin-Gitaxias. Jin raises a simple objection, a logical one, that Norn is spending time discussing and talking while their soldiers, their people, are dying. And Norn tells him to be silent. Chief among all things, cults silence dissent against the leader. One could say that’s the cardinal sin in a cult. And that is what makes Elspeth realise she could never be like Norn. And hopefully, eventually, it is what will help Elspeth keep in touch with her humanity after her transformation. Because no matter what, the key lesson is, even the strongest of us is still vulnerable to temptation, to the urge to lose ourselves in obedience of another. And it's more important now than ever to remember to fight that urge.

Anticipated Questions (FAQ I Suppose But Ahead Of Time)

But I don’t see New Phyrexia this way, I think it’s (Insert X Narrative): That’s your view. You’re entirely entitled to it. This wouldn’t be very much of a good essay talking about cults and the importance of the freedom of choice if I insisted everyone else follow my point of view and agree entirely with everything I’ve said.

Are you saying I’m wrong for liking New Phyrexia?: Not at all. Again with the point before, this is my interpretation I am posting for literary merit in hopes it may interest others and perhaps aid their understanding of New Phyrexia. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with liking villains. It’s simply an understanding I came to through a lot of thinking about New Phyrexia I felt others may enjoy. The last thing I want is to start some sort of flame war over this. In fact if you use this essay to start such a flame war and try and make others conform to your beliefs, you have missed the point entirely.

Tell me about your personal experience with cults: Respectfully no. I will talk about that to people I am comfortable talking about it with. People who friend me on Discord may ask me, I may answer but I will not mind them asking. Otherwise I prefer not to share.

If you don’t want people to change their views, why did you post this essay?: I was thinking about my personal experience with cults and I thought others may want to see them and it may interest others, and it helped me type out my own personal feelings.

Isn’t it meritorious to discuss how New Phyrexia also has Christofascist elements with the Machine Orthodoxy and the specifics of the religion and how Norn demands they conquer?: For this specific essay, I actually believe no. A key thing a lot of people don’t think about is not all cults are the same belief systems. They don’t all approach with end of the world rhetoric, or some crazy theory, or hatred of others. Sometimes they’re a group preaching love and acceptance and tolerance, and claiming that you will feel much better with the cult. Sometimes they’re groups trying to take in the underserved of society and use their righteous indignation to serve their own ends. It doesn’t matter that New Phyrexia is Christofascist for why it is a cult, for all we care it could be about refusing violence entirely and spreading tolerance and goodwill to non phyrexians and preaching for coexistence. The key common factor is a manipulation of the members and control of their lives.

Despite all this I’m going to send you an ask or DM saying you’re horrible for this post in some moralistic way: Ok.

#magic the gathering #new phyrexia #MTG essay #Phyrexia: all will be one #march of the machine

292 notes · View notes

sanctus-ingenium · 6 months

Note

Just wanted to ask, please forgive me if you've already answred this, what program do you use? Your art fucks HARD and like. I was looking at your art of the two moths over the city they die in and I was hit with the wave of "oh that looks really fucking fun actually." Like i know my art program can't do some of those effects and like, I'd love to try fucking about with them.

hi there, thank you! all my art is done in procreate and paint tool sai

because you mentioned that drawing in particular i thought it would be fun to break it down and show ppl what exactly went into each part of it so check this out

sketch & lineart - the brushes come from georgbrush.club and the urban sketcher is my most commonly used lineart brush, it has a nice irregular shape. the square brush is nice for big blocky sketches.

the cityscape was REALLY hard but basically I got a photo of the skyline of florence, traced some basic building shapes, then bullshitted the rest using the vertical symmetry/mirror tool to cut down on the amount of work (so i only had to sketch one half of the city). then for lineart I turned off vertical symmetry, turned on the two-point perspective tool, and got this:

the rose windows were made using the radial symmetry tool.

I didn't like it being so flat, so I used the liquify tool to make a kind of fish-eye effect (limited success tbh). I liked how it looked but the buildings in front needed something to cover them up to make the liquification less obvious...

first pass colours. I felt they were very washed out, aside from the sun which i loved. I use the spectra brush (default procreate) for skyscapes a lot, I love the texture. Although the clouds were filled in using the lasso selection tool, I softened the edges using the square pencil again and added texture using true grit sampler grainy brushes. The translucency effect comes from my setting the brush as an eraser. The sun rays come from the radial symmetry tool.

Blocking in the moths' colours was done with the urban sketcher again.

Something people may not have noticed is the labyrinth hidden in the sky! yeah I had a bunch of versions where it was more obvious but I found that it clashed a bit and was too busy, so I made it subtle. But yes. I searched for "royalty free labyrinth" and picked one.

The toner grit brush is one you've seen before if you've looked at any art on tumblr lately (this is such a popular brush) and it's from the true grit fast grit set. The pointillism brush is from the true grit free sampler pack, like my grain brushes.

I added shadows to the moths, increased saturation overall, and changed the clouds to a translucent blue (you can even see in the sun where I forgot to block in the sun itself because the clouds over it used to be opaque lol). Moon rays were drawn using the radial symmetry tool but this time with rotational symmetry off. I also moved the moon down closer to the moths because I felt that it was a bit far away, and this served to visually divide the drawing into three equal parts, so I chose to lean into that and divide the sky colours too, to show passing time, or an endless moment - morning, evening, night, etc.

And then the oroborous, I tried a few different effects on it because I wanted it to be very clearly separate from the main scene - I settled on a dot matrix newsprint texture, using procreate's onboard tool, and some heavy chromatic aberration. This is because the oroborous isn't real, it's purely symbolic and the moths' demise started when they became photographers so I liked the print media aspect there as well. The story itself is about grief without closure, cyclical violence, and sunk cost fallacy, while everyone explores an endless labyrinth, so an oroborous fits I think

what makes art fun to me is thinking up ways I can tell a story using just a single image. and sure a lot of it will be lost to an audience who isn't familiar with the characters or backstory but i want to leave enough in there that even complete strangers to my work will be able to construct a narrative about what's happening here, rather than it just being a cool image. that's my goal.

Finally I exported it to sai on my pc to give it a once-over. this is really important because the retina display on an ipad is oversaturated on purpose, to make everything look amazing and vibrant. but what this means is that on other screens, your work might look washed out. it's especially bad at displaying yellows! so i look at it in sai on my pc and i make minor adjustments, in this case I actually added another multiply layer on the moths and an overlay on their non-shadowed parts to increase the contrast there.

finally if you've read this far, I played a little trick with the caption of the drawing. yeah, THEY die... but only one of those moths is a theythem pronoun haver... the other has to survive. he isn't given a choice in the matter.

#fr you will never catch me trying to mystify my process i will explain literally everything #brushes

454 notes · View notes

copperbadge · 30 days

Note

I guess you probably get asked why you’re converting a lot but I still want to ask,

I dunno, I don't think I really get asked all that much, to be honest. Usually when I do it's like -- I mention I'm converting to a Jewish person and they'll be like "Getting married?" and I'll explain I'm not, which does necessitate an additional explanation.

It's difficult to vocalize, which is interesting because it has really very little to do with faith, and that's usually the most difficult part of discussing any conversion, I think. Often I'll just say, "I heard a call". Which is actually a rather Christian way of putting it, but I think it's probably the easiest way to explain, especially in a heavily Christian culture.

I had...I don't want to call it religious trauma exactly because compared to most people I know who exited Christianity, it wasn't traumatic -- I was just raised in Christianity and had trouble buying the faith in the various ways it was presented to me, and there's a certain type of ardent Christian who comes at you hard if you're in their church asking awkward questions. A few encounters with some egregious megachurches in my youth left a bad taste in my mouth, so in my twenties I really wanted nothing to do with religion and didn't have the time or energy anyway -- I wasn't actively anti-religion, just disinterested.

But in my thirties I had to ask myself, do I wish to be part of a faith community? And once I'd decided that despite being pretty heavily agnostic I did want that in my life, I had to decide what I wanted it to look like. There are churches within many branches of Christianity that are fine, and there are whole branches that are fine too, but I kept tripping over my disinterest in Jesus. I did almost become a Quaker but although I really like a lot of the Friends' attitudes towards social justice and I enjoyed silent Meeting, it eventually didn't feel quite right for me (the Quakers in my life refer to me as "Friend-ly"). I looked into Zen Buddhism but didn't click with it in quite the way I'd hoped.

Judaism didn't feel perfect, but unlike other faiths, after several years of study I have yet to reach a point where it feels "not for me" in the way the others did after a few months; even when I struggle with some aspects, instead of saying "I don't think this is it" I dig deeper, and Judaism is a place where you can just...keep digging. I like the sense of history, I like the idea that you can argue not only with other Jews but with the divine itself and maybe even win; I don't like arguing but I like that the option is there, which it never was in my Christian confirmation classes. I like the way Judaism frames community and family, I like the emphasis on scholarship and exploration. I've had to unlearn a lot of weird Christian and atheist attitudes about the Torah, but that's been educational too. Ancient cultures have always interested me and Judaism is sometimes the practice of actively conversing with ancient history that has been incredibly preserved but not calcified. I like that I can be an agnostic Jew if I so choose, once I finish conversion.

(Sometimes I joke, "Eh, I'm not really a huge fan of pork, either, so it's an excuse not to eat pork chops," but that's a joke for very specific company. I don't keep kosher or plan to, but I like that there is an option to show one's devotion through acts of nourishment, and that food is always such a huge part of Jewish ritual. And I like Jewish food.)

There is something in me that reacts to Jewish storytelling -- the fear and fasting of Esther, discourse on the sacrifice of Isaac, grumpy Rabban Gamliel from the Talmud, even the history of the Piazza Alla Cinque Schole when I stumbled into it in Rome. I didn't care particularly about the story of Moses when I learned it as a child, but I sniffle at the parting of the Red Sea in Prince of Egypt every damn time. Not even because of the miracle! I'm simply moved by the vision of a people going to freedom, scared but going, protecting each other and singing as they go.

Anyway. I'm in a conversation with Judaism that isn't over yet, and either eventually I'll reach a point where it ends, or I'll convert and be in this conversation the rest of my life. Kind of fun not to know yet which it will be.

#judaism #conversion

271 notes · View notes

drabblesbyjubs · 7 months

Text

Caress

Astarion x gn! Reader; your boundaries on where Astarion can touch you and where you can touch him have always been a little fuzzy, but he struggles to word what he means when attempting to simply tell you where he doesn’t want to be touched. He tosses out an idea, and the two of you explore your comfort zones. This could be seen at a pt 2 to Just Need Time, its very soft and fluffy, sort of building on that healing aspect.

Fluff, hurt/comfort, non-sexual nudity, some minor sexual content but no actual smut, trauma, Astarion’s backstory stuff, minor spoilers for Astarion’s story in act 3, minors go bye bye pls

I wrote this on my first day at my new job. This fic was born in the kitchens of a nursing home

Intimacy was always daunting to Astarion.

Emotional intimacy was close, it was vulnerable, it was a means to exploit. And it was terrifying. Physical intimacy was a task, something Astarion struggled to enjoy.

More than a few times he had feared you leaving him because he couldn’t provide the intimacy you deserved. He wasn’t always emotionally available, sometimes we was so apathetic he feared you would be disgusted with him, but there were some things he just couldn’t care about. Even if he wanted to, caring was vulnerable, and it wasn’t allowed. Survival of the fittest.

He was next to never physically available for intimacy; either he completely zoned out before you even got his pants off, the thought of a hug lingering too long sent shivers down his spine, or a hand on his hip pulled a fear response from him, making his whip around to face you, ready to push you away.

You were so understanding that it hurt.

Never once did you judge, never once were you angry or upset. That was almost worse than you being angry; just not knowing what you were thinking. The uncertainty was horrible.

Uncertainty over how you thought of him, uncertainty of where he even liked you touching. Sometimes your soft, romantic touches made his heart soar; they were safe, there was no fear, no ulterior motive, only you, at face value. He loved those times. He wished he knew them more. There were so many little places he was and wasn’t okay with you touching him, he couldn’t even keep track of them.

Maybe it was worth finding out.

“Darling?” Astarion approached your tent, and you looked up from the book you had been reading, smiling when you saw that handsome face you’d come to love.

“Astarion,” you greeted, setting down your book and standing to meet him. He hugged you, and you held him close. It seemed he was feeling a little touchy today, and you didn’t mind one bit.

“I wanted to talk. Is… now a good time?” Astarion questioned. You felt a pit of nervousness in your stomach; he looked serious.

“Of course, come with me.” You said, leading him in to your tent and shutting it behind you. “What’s wrong?” You asked.

Astarion grabbed your hands tenderly, and you felt nerves twist in your belly.

“I know I haven’t been the best to you.” He began, immediately filling you with doubt and confusion.

“Darling, of course you-“

“Please.. let me get this out.” He gently kissed the back of your hand, and you shuffled nervously.

“I haven’t been the best to you. I’ve been reclusive, and I know you deserve better. The.. the thought of losing you is terrifying. I want to be more open, give you what you deserve, I just… dont know how. I… have a favor to ask of you.”

You gulped nervously. This didn’t seem like he was trying to break up with you… but the way he spoke in such a self deprecating manner, it was so concerning to you.

“What is it, hun?” You asked.

“I.. want you to help me learn where I can and cant touch you. Where you can and cant touch me. I suppose I… just want to admire you. You tell me when and where it’s too much, and you do the same to me. Is… is that okay?” He looked up at you with those beautiful red eyes.

“Like… like what do you mean?” You asked. “Whatever it is, im alright with it, but.. you may have to take the lead, show me what you’d like. Is that alright?”

“I… want to touch you. And want you to touch me.” He hesitantly explained, a shadow of doubt cast over him now. “I dont want it to be… sexual. I… suppose I want to find where im alright with you touching me. And where youre alright with me touching you.”

“Oh,” you said, realization dawning on you. “Oh hun, of course we can do that. That sounds like a great idea.” You kissed the tip of his nose and you smiled seeing the way the tips of his pointed ears flushed.

He smiled, that slight uptick to the corner of his lip, and the way his smile lines showed and his ryes warmed just looking at you. He was so, so beautiful.

You gently cupped his cheeks in your hands, thumbing over the corner of his mouth.

“You’re beautiful,” you muttered, and Astarion rolled his eyes, though his smile didn’t fade for a moment.

“I know. And wonderful, don’t forget.”

You laughed. “And wonderful.” You pulled him in for a kiss, soft and tender. Astarion melted in your touch, his hands lifting to let one wrap around your chest under your arms and the other card through the hair at the back of your head and gently hold you close to him. His lips moved over yours and both of your relaxed in to the kiss.

You pulled away after a moment, saying, “How do you want to do this?”

“Maybe… here, come with me.” He took your hand and lead you to the bedroll in your tent, the two of you sitting on it facing one another. He gave an awkward pause, clearing his throat and saying, “Could… I take the lead, then you take over?”

“Of course,” you say. “Do you want me to take anything off, or keep this all over our clothes?”

“Maybe.. leave our undergarments on, but take off everything else?”

“That sounds alright,” you said. “I have a blanket right there if you need to cover up.” You motioned to the blanket next to the two of you. Astarion nodded in confirmation, and as you began reaching for the hem of your shirt, he asked you, “May I?” He reached your your shirt, pausing before reaching your hands and waiting before moving on.

You smiled, the care and focus in his expression warming your heart. “Of course,” you said. His fingers hooked under the hem of your bed shirt, pulling it up and over your head. The focus in his gaze was wonderful, so careful as if he would shatter you with one wrong move.

He let out a little sigh when he had your shirt off and tossed to the side, as of he had been holding his breath.

“Beautiful as ever,” he whispered, so soft you hardly heard it. You nudged his shoulder with a little laugh. “Gods, Astarion,” you laughed, and he joined you. His hands cupped your cheeks, and he gazed lovingly into your eyes. You had never seen him so… soft. So vulnerable. It was almost like you were looking at an entirely different man to the one you had found in the woods after the illithid ship crashed, the one who had held a knife to your throat and threatened your life. And maybe he really was a different man, after all you had went through.

But he would always be Astarion, forever your little star.

Calloused hands softly traveled down your neck, closely watching you for any reaction. Down your neck, over your shoulders, across your chest. Over your hips and up your stomach, then to your back, scooting close to feel down the line of your spine, to your shoulders, and down your arms, until his fingers tangled in yours.

“Was that alright?” He asked. You nodded, giving him an assuring smile.

“Of course,” you said. You leaned up to kiss him, a gentle peck to his lips before pulling away. Your fingers danced feather light at the hem of his bedshirt.

“May I?” You asked, to which he nodded.

You pulled his shirt up over his head, watching his gaze fall to the ground. It had always made him a little nervous to feel so bare in such an intimate way, but you didn’t let your gaze linger on his body, instead starting how he did, cupping his cheeks.

You moved to trace over the points of his ears, and he laughed softly, relaxing in to your touch as your fingers carded through his hair.

You hands moved to his jawline, before slowly moving to his neck. You watched his smile fade and a more focused expression return. You tilted your head, and he looked to you.

“I’m not sure.” He said, almost as if having read your mind. You nodded; he’d always been iffy about any touch on the side of his neck that Cazador bit him on. You moved on without another word, to his shoulders and his chest. Neither of which he had any complaint over, you noted.

Your fingers ghosted over the muscles of his abdomen, and you noted how Astarion watched your hand with an intent gaze. You thumbed over the top of his pants before gently resting your hands on the small of his back. You looked at him, waiting for him to return your gaze before you asked, “Your back. Is that a no overall?”

He pursed his lips and looked away.

“That… may be situational. I dont mind sometimes, but others…”

You nodded and said, “Don’t worry, my love. I’ll ask you before I ever touch you there, alright?” He nodded, visibly relaxing.

You moved to hook your fingers under the waistband of his pants, once again looking at him for approval before continuing. He nodded, hut you said to him, “Use your words, hun.”

“You can,” he said. He knew you always preferred he be vocal about his consent, instead of implying it. It made it easier for you to judge when he really wanted it.

Sometimes it was hard for him to know when he really wanted it.

Nodding, you gently pulled his pants down, him lifting his hips to help you out. You hummed, seeing him in nothing but his underwear. He truly was beautiful.

Starting with his hips, you pressed your thumbs against his hip bones, before moving to his outer thighs. You felt him grimace a bit, looking up to him.

“It’s alright,” he quickly assured. “Maybe move a little slower, if thats okay?”

“Of course, I’m sorry.” You responded.

Making a note to move more carefully, you moved down to his knees, then his calves. You ran your hands up the insides of his legs, stopping at his inner thighs. He shuffled a little, saying, “I think this is fine.. just let me know before you touch me here, please?”

“Aye aye, captain,” you said with a light hearted smile, moving in to kiss him.

It was slow and sweet, and you felt him squirming a little under you with you leaned over him and your hands on his thighs.

When you pulled away, his hands went up to the waistband of your pants.

When you nodded your approval, he removed the clothing, mimicking your motions with care and attentiveness. He was so gentle.

When he sat back on his knees, you noticed something you handn’t noticed before; Astarion was hard. You looked away quickly, not meaning to be rude, but he noticed your gaze and pulled back, sitting on his bottom and pulling his knees up to his chest to hide himself. Hurriedly, he said, his words coming out in one long string, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, I think I just enjoyed seeing you like this but I dont want this to be sexual and I dont think I can handle being touched like that right now, but if you want me to touch you I can, I just-“

You hushed him, moving up to place a hand on his shoulder and gently thumb at the skin there.

“Darling, hush now. It’s alright. Its perfectly normal. I dont want anything like that right now either.” You assured him, the nearly scared way he looked up at you breaking your heart.

“You… you’re sure? Im still sorry I got… excited, I guess, I promise it wont happen again.” He seemed almost desperate to convince you he was truly sorry, and you gently cupped his cheeks, tilting up his head to look at you.

“My love,” you spoke, voice nearly a whisper. “I promise, it’s alright. We wont be doing anything sexual tonight, and I’ll pretend this didn’t even happen. Okay? There’s no need to be afraid.”

He nodded, his eyes shining almost as if he was on the brink of tears.

“Okay,” he breathed.

You kissed him softly, which he returned after a moment of hesitation.

You leaned back in the bed roll, saying, “Would you like to continue?” He took a breath and nodded, that signature smile returning to his face, even if it was a little forced. His hands crossed your thighs, calves, giving you a cheeky grin as he squeezed your butt, you swatting at him and rolling your eyes.

“You’re sure you’re alright with this all? You haven’t mentioned anything to me about anywhere you dont like…” he trailed, settling next to you.

“I’m sure. If its you, im alright with anything.”

“What?” He said, looking at you. His expressing was one of confusion. “Why?” He propped himself on up his elbows, looking down at you next to him. “What makes me so special?”

You stared back at him for a moment, equally as baffled as him. “What makes you so- Astarion, love, everything. You’re the brightest light in my life, the reason I keep fighting, you’re my everything. I’ve seen the best and worst sides of you, and you’ve seen the best and worst sides of me. You’re the one constant in my life, and you’re absolutely wonderful. I-“ you trailed off a little, noticing the way Astarion stared at you with an unreadable expression; shock, maybe?

His bottom lip started to tremble, and he said in a shaky voice, “You… you mean that?” Before breaking down in to tears.

You stayed still for a moment as he cried, completely caught off guard, watching him shrink down in to the bedroll, but quickly moved to action and pulled him close, gently hushing him. “Shhh, shshsh,” you cooed, burying your nose in his soft hair and combing through the white strands. “It’s alright, hun, don’t worry. It’s okay.”

The way his shoulders heaved with every fresh round of sobs wrenched your heart, and you felt guilt swirl deep within you. “I’m so sorry, I-“

“Don’t,” he managed to breathe between sobs. “You mean it?” He sniffed, looking up to you with a tear stricken gaze.

“Of course,” you cooed. “I mean it all. You’re my everything.” You kissed his forehead, and he was wrecked by a fresh round of sobs, burying his face in your chest. You pulled him close and held him, rocking him softly as he cried. Your poor, sweet boy.

It may have been ten minutes, it may have been an hour. Eventually, Astarion’s breathing slowly began to even out, and his sobs became few and far between. Is a shaky, hoarse voice, he started to speak.

“Two hundred years. For two hundred years I was locked in that crypt.” Your fingers combed through his hair and his memories came back to him. “Cazador put so many horrible thoughts in my head. About myself, about the people around me. I never trusted anyone again until I met you. I never even trusted myself. A monster, I am, just a creature meant to feed off of the innocent. I haven’t been mine in so long.”

You started to speak, started to assure him that he wasn’t a monster, this wasn’t his choice, but you second guessed. Astarion being this vulnerable was… rare. So you gave him his moment.

“You’ve always been so trusting. I thought you were just stupid at first,” he laughed softly, and you rolled your eyes with a little smile. “But I realized that you are the only person whos ever put faith in me. Ever. At least within my memories. You’re… the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time. So careful. So understanding. I dont understand why you care so much, but… thank you. And… I love you.”

Your heart was in your throat, choking you from the inside. You hugged him tighter, kissing the top of his head. “I love you too,” you breathed.

You placed your fingers under his chin to tilt his head up, giving him a warm smile when his eyes met yours. You leaned down to kiss him, pressing your lips against his and closing your eyes, feeling the way he relaxed in to your touch. Your lips moved together, in time as if this were practiced. You pulled away, and he gave you a little smile.

“You’re such a romantic,” you laughed. “It’s adorable. I love it.”

He clicked his tongue and looked away, though the little upwards tick in the corner of his lip gave away his stifled smile.

The rest of the night was filled with stolen kisses, little laughs, and sharing one another’s embrace. Astarion truly was something else, and he saw the same in you. You were the kind of dream he’d always held, a perfect lover who was kind and sweet. You were that. You had been next to him as he gained his freedom, encouraged him and trusted him even when you shouldn’t have. And he was so happy that you had made that choice, now.

Taglist

@adequate-superstar

@be-a-fish

#astarion headcanons #astarion #bg3 astarion #bg3 #bg3 headcanons #astarion fluff #fluff #hurt/comfort #soft

228 notes · View notes

leezlelatch · 3 months

Text

There seems to be some discourse lately about content, the kind of content, and the community as a whole. Now, the last thing I want to do is stir up anything, but I had some thoughts that I'd like to type out, and I appreciate whomever decides to read it.

The purpose of this band is to make us happy. You've heard it time and time again, as long as we go home at the end of that show feeling just a little better, then TF is satisfied. And it seems like lately that happiness is hard to achieve here, on twitter, or wherever else one is active.

On Headcanon

Were you sitting at work today? Home? And suddenly that thought popped into your head, a little scene playing out about Copia, or Terzo, or Secondo, or Primo. A thought that filled you with excitement, butterflies dancing in your belly, which had you smiling because yes, in the world that makes you happy, that is what they are like. That is what they do. That is what they say. It's an amazing thing and it's good and okay, and you should be excited about it. Because you just added another chapter to the amazing story in your head. And you decide to post about it, but...someone left you an anon. Someone left you a comment. Someone vague posted. And it hurt.

This is happening far too often across tumblr, and it needs to come to a close. I understand that we all have vastly different ideas of who the Papas are and how the Ministry works, but that does not give a single one of you an excuse to say anything untoward or foul to anyone else on this platform. And this isn't talking about any particular group because more often than not, posts like this are used to justify the actions of others. You do not have permission to use this to further your agenda. Be kind. Choose to ignore that fic. Choose to stay off that person's blog. Stop making posts at the expense of others just because you don't like a particular aspect of their world.

I promise you'll still be able to sleep at night.

On F! Reader and x Reader Fic

I have seen many posts since I joined tumblr to write for the Ghost fandom that express a dislike toward reader fics, and in particular f! reader fics. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'd like to just reflect on my own thoughts on the matter, and once again, I appreciate the time taken to read and perhaps understand where I'm coming from, and know that it is a place of care.

I am a woman. When I write fic, I am writing it to satisfy my own little world in my head. So naturally, I am going to make the reader female, because the universal you is not only the friends I share it with or those kind enough to read, but the you is me. Every sweet word whispered, or gentle touch from a Papa is something I wish would happen to me.

I do not have the right to invade someone else's perspective. I do not understand what it is to be a gay man. I do not understand what a trans person experiences every day, and therefore, I do not feel like it is my place to write these perspectives in an x reader fic, or more so than that, in smut. And otherwise, I'm just not comfortable in doing so. I know my experience, and isn't the first step of writing, writing what you know?

I want there to be inclusivity in writing, but that doesn't start with attacking other authors for writing from their own perspective. It doesn't start with making hostile posts about reader fics, because what's the outcome? You just end up with some people very hurt and unwilling to post their stories because they think it's unwanted.

If you feel comfortable exploring these topics, talk to your mutuals. Say hey, what can I do to gain a better understanding of the content that I'm writing? What can I do to ensure that I'm not fetishizing due to my lack of knowledge? Be a community, and help each other out.

On Notes and Reblogs

A note is not the value of your writing. Whether you receive just a few or hundreds, you have impacted someone. Someone loved your story. Someone is thinking about your story all day. Someone was able to make it through because that one thing line you wrote spoke volumes to them.

We put so much of our energy into worrying about notes that the reason we started writing in the first place is lost. It becomes a chore. There are a hundred WIPs sitting in our folders because it becomes so goddamn painful just to work on one.

No one owes you a reblog. No one owes you a like. And even though it's nice, and it's gratifying to see nice comments on something you worked hard on, notes cannot be used as a currency between followers or mutuals. It just becomes a poison. Your entire tumblr experience is going to be marred by the constant worry that you aren't good enough just based on a number.

Learn to appreciate the ones who do read. Allow your story to make you feel good because there it is! That thing you've been thinking about. It's written down. You brought it to life. That is far more valuable than a tumblr note.

If you've reached this point, thank you. Everything you're feeling is good, and okay, and we're gonna get through. Because even now? When it feels like things are more hostile than happy? You still have Ghost. And you still have everything.

#the band ghost #the band ghost community discourse #discourse #x reader fic #f reader fic #ghost headcanons #notes and reblogs #thoughts

98 notes · View notes

redbuddi · 4 months

Text

Do NOT Read "Lady Crystal is a Man"

People who know me know that I'm a little bit of a webtoon addict. I'm basically always reading a million different fantasy romances, even as someone who is not personally interested in romance in real life. Because of this, I am well aware of the more problematic elements of a lot of webtoons, to the point where it's easier to list webtoons that aren't problematic than to name ones that are. It's unfortunate, but it's a common aspect of webtoon consumption that most people get used to. (Note: When I say webtoons, I am talking about the genre of phone-optimized romance webcomics as a whole, not just things from the WEBTOON app. The series in question is on Tapas.)

Because of that, I will admit it is partially on me for assuming this comic was going to be more progressive than it actually was. People new to webtoons may be fooled, but I should have known better. On top of that, I am well aware that female-oriented romance stories can sometimes be a little toxic, and while this is a problem that needs to be worked on, I also know about what can happen when something meant for teenage girls is criticized. Even when the criticism is in good faith, it can start a trend of bashing anything teenage girls like and shaming them for wanting to explore media that is anything but flawless. I don't want to add to that.

But this series isn't just a little problematic. It doesn't just have some questionable elements or common plot failings. This is a series that has the potential to seriously hurt anyone who is trans, gnc, or gender questioning, and could give anyone who isn't any of those things the wrong idea about what is and isn't appropriate when it comes to trans/gnc/gender questioning individuals.

If you would like the td;dr, then in a nutshell this comic portrays material that could make an individual feel shame, discomfort, or even body dysmorphia. And on top of that the protagonist is cruelly gaslit and manipulated in ways that the series presents as if it were just light teasing, and that is all only in the 19 chapters that I was able to stomach before dropping the series entirely.

If you would like a more detailed description of this series' flaws, then I will continue below the cut.

cw: transphobia, body dysmorphia, gaslighting

Lady Crystal is a Man follows the story of a man raised as a woman attempting to escape a forced marriage by going to the mysterious and dangerous duke Illian, unaware that Illian is secretly a woman. The story is essentially a combination of two tropes, the Crossdressing Romance trope, where the main character and/or their love interest is secretly not the gender they present themselves as, a trope which has been around for as long as female-oriented comics has existed, and something a little more specific to webtoons (to my knowlege,) the Contract Marriage trope, wherin the protagonist escapes a bad situation by entering a temporary marriage with someone else, only for true romance to bloom between them. I have read many webtoons about Contractual Marriages, but not very many about crossdressing. As a nonbinary person, I tend to be uncomfortable with the highly traditional way many webtoons portray gender roles, and so I try to steer clear of series that tackle gender directly, but that is not to say no webtoon as ever handled it well. In particular one of my favorite webtoons, Alien Idol, tackles gender in an extremely understanding and informative fashion, even taking the time to acknowledge places where it's knowledge is lacking, which I've never seen a comic do so honestly before. Most webtoons are not like this, unfortunately, but that is only to my knowledge, and recently I've been wanting to expand my horizons a little bit. How can I be sure so many comics handle it poorly if I don't even read them for myself, after all? That is what convinced me to check out Lady Crystal is a Man.

In the first few chapters I was hooked. The series has extremely good artwork, and it first appeared to me that they might be trying to do a metaphor for t4t couples. Crystal is constantly coached on how to act and behave as a woman, because if he lives as a man he will be killed by his cruel and uncaring family. He takes a drug to halt his growth, and this drug is actively harming him, he is literally being torn up from the inside having to live as something he is not. He envies masculine traits he observes in others, and dreams of running away to live with the people who truly love him, cutting his hair short, and living as himself. It's because of this that I made the mistake of buying multiple chapters in advance instead of just waiting for them to unlock, and that's why I read so far into this series when normally I would have dropped it the moment it started to go downhill. Anyway, Crystal meets duke Illian, and already a connection is established by the narrative in how the two have had to live in fear of being who they really are. And at this point I was ready for them to start relating to each other and forming a bond.

This does not happen. Not really, anyway.

Illian tricks Crystal into thinking that the marriage paperwork went through extremely fast, and that they are now husband and wife. This is a red flag, but in the same chapter Illian reveals that she's just teasing Crystal as payback for trying to trick her, and that she will fully support Crystal's escape to be with her family as soon as the snow clears up. But then she doesn't. Even when Crystal admits the truth to her, and the snow clears up, Illian maintains the facade that they are married and that Crystal will have to keep staying with them until the annulment paperwork can go through. This happens because Crystal, under the impression that they are really married and that he has tricked Illian into falling in love with him only to have her heart broken, decides to take responsibility for his actions instead of running away like he originally planned. And Illian, hearing this, continues to lie to Crystal about their being married. This establishes a pattern that will continue from here: Crystal will show genuine care and consideration for others, and will be rewarded for it by being continuously manipulated by the people around him.

It's at this point that Illian finds out that Crystal is not a cis male. Not because Crystal told her, mind you, but because Crystal faints due to side effects from the drug he is taking, and Illian, who has taken the same drug, recognizes them. At first this is fine to me. I like that Illian does not get angry or upset, or even wants to confront Crystal on this, and at first I thought it was because Illian respected Crystal's boundaries and would only acknowledge it if Crystal decided to tell her. She even continues to refer to Crystal with female pronouns, even when she deduces that Crystal might be living as a woman just to not be killed in the battle for succession. But then, Illian decides to "make sure" that Crystal isn't cis. And while we aren't directly shown, it is heavily implied that Illian looked under Crystal's nightgown to see his genitals.

There had been one or two red flags up to this point. In particular, focus on the size of Crystal's hands. This was off putting to me, as this is something that could hurt people. Even people who aren't transfeminine could be hurt by this, the fact that having bigger hands than what is considered "normal" for a woman and how this is treated like a clue to Crystal's gender identity is something that would hurt anyone who identifies as a woman but doesn't fit what is considered a normal body standard. Focus on hands is even something that can be a big dogwhistle for TERFs, although I don't suspect the author is a TERF since I'm fairly certain this is a Korean comic, and I don't know what the discourse on gender in Korea is like.

Regardless, even with my growing suspicions, this was a massive shock. Crystal was unconscious at the time, unable to consent. This is unambiguously a massive violation, but the comic portrayed it as just a silly, over-the-top bit of shenanigans by our female lead. I know for a fact that this wouldn't have happened if the genders were swapped, in every webtoon I've read people who try to look under women's skirts are treated as disgusting perverts. But because Crystal is a man, suddenly it's cute and funny when his privacy is undermined. And this is the turning point where the series goes from a seemingly flawed but earnest attempt at a trans metaphor to a showcase of the most disgusting abuse I have ever seen in a story, all written as though it were just silly antics by people who are ultimately in the right.

Soon Illian and the doctor she had look at Crystal begin internally referring to him with masculine pronouns, all without asking if it's what Crystal wants to be seen as. As the doctor mulls over Crystal's potential circumstances, she thinks "Few people pretend to be the other gender, even fewer do so against their will," the series acknowledging the existence of trans people, but only as "petenders." And again, this is before they even know for sure if Crystal is doing this against his will. All the while, Crystal is portrayed in more and more infantalizing ways. He plays with snow like a child. He doesn't understand basic social cues, or even that people might be lying when they speak to him. He accepts everything Illian tells him without checking, even when he knew going into this that he would need to be careful. Illian secretly alters Crystal's communication devices so that she can see everything that Crystal says when he sends out messages to his friends in the east, who are waiting to take him in, unaware that he has been manipulated into staying against his wishes. Illian is drawn in by the way Crystal wears his heart on his sleeve, and doesn't want to let him go, even though she knows that Crystal has a home somewhere else. Crystal is prevented from escaping, and isn't even giving the courtesy of knowing that he is a prisoner.

There is another character in the comic, a cook who is portrayed as being large and strong, completely unfeminine despite being female. For one thing she's a show of hypocrisy, a cis female is a female, without question even if they don't fit eurocentric standards of femininity, but a trans female has to pass these standards with flying colors, and even then they don't really count. But there is another thing about this character. She is regularly referred to as a "monster" for her immense strength, size, and endurance. She owns it, seeming to be perfectly content with it, but not all real people who look like this would enjoy being called that. I feel that this is another acknowledgement of the other, that yes there are cis people who also don't perfectly fit their expected appearances, but they're not normal. They are exceptions. Monsters.

And then came the chapter that made me drop this series for good, completely overwriting my buyers remorse with disgust. Illian has to leave for a mission, and had instructed the Doctor to take away the drug that Crystal is using to maintain a feminine body. The doctor confronts Crystal, telling him that she "knows" he's a man, and blackmails him, threatening to tell Illian if Crystal doesn't hand over the drug. In exchange, the doctor gives Crystal a magic ring that she says will make other people perceive him as female. This is already bad for a few reasons, namely that even during this confrontation, the doctor never asks Crystal if he truly identifies as a woman or not. If Crystal did identify as a woman, then the ring would be a terrible trade. A person who wants to look at themselves as feminine does not do so in the hopes that other people will see them the same way. While the perception of others is certainly a concern, the main consideration is if the person sees themselves as feminine. A ring that only allows other people to see them as feminine would certainly be useful for people who don't want to be misgendered or seen in a way they don't want to be seen, but it wouldn't be an adequate replacement if it wouldn't help the wearer get a body that makes them comfortable. At best it would just be a supplement to something else.

But worst of all, it's all a lie. The ring doesn't actually work. It's all a trick to get Crystal to give up the drug. Yes the drug is harmful to Crystal, and Crystal himself doesn't want to take it, but as far as the Doctor knows Crystal could be trying to appear feminine for his own reasons. But without even consulting him, Illian and the doctor assume they know what's best for Crystal and trick him into giving up what could very well be the thing making him happy and comfortable in his own skin. Imagine how horrific things would be for Crystal if that was the case. Seeing his body change in ways he does not want, entirely against his will, and since the ring doesn't actually work his transformation would be fully visible to everyone around him. But instead of asking what if he wants this, Illian and the doctors decide to play the odds, and this is written as though they're being helpful by doing this. To add insult to injury, the doctor internally criticizes Crystal for accepting the trade without questioning it, seemingly forgetting that Crystal was essentially forced into it.

For obvious reasons, this was the point where I had had enough. This was abuse, plain and simple. Yes characters are not real people, and there is a place for stories that tackle things like abuse and manipulation, but this series never acknowledges the horror of what it's characters are doing, treating these things as though they're just cute and quirky romcom gags, maybe not normal but ultimately harmless. Meanwhile in the real world, these things are deeply harmful and hurtful to the readers of this series, especially those who, like the characters of the story, are forced to live in identities that are not themselves.

It's pretty common for webtoons to tackle things like this without really knowing what they're doing, and usually I'm able to shrug it off and keep reading, even if still criticizing it, as long as it seems the writers have the best of intentions. Making mistakes is how we learn, after all, and a lot of webtoons are written by young adults living in conservative societies who just need the chance to see other people's experiences. But there is a point where I draw the line, and that is when there is no perceivable compassion whatsoever for the types of people they are portraying. As I mentioned, the comic clearly shows an understanding that there are people who do not live as the gender that they are assigned at birth. But it does not see them as people. Even beyond the "pretend" line, gender is portrayed as concrete, inescapable, with terrible consequences for trying to change it. It portrays transfeminine people as clueless, weak, and unable to decide for themselves what's good for them, and illustrates anyone who doesn't fit typical standards of appearance as a strange and terrifying other that shouldn't be considered on the same level as everyone else. In general webtoons already have a massive issue with beauty standards, (don't even get me started on the way fat people are usually written,) but this is a whole other level of cruelty. While this comic was probably not specifically made to harm people, it takes careful steps to put people it doesn't like "in their place." It wants you to feel bad about yourself. This comic and comics like it should never be supported, not just for political reasons, but because, like it's characters, this comic is trying to enforce ideals that it feels for best for you, regardless of if it's what you actually want. And no one deserves to be hurt like that.

So if you see this comic or a comic like it, I encourage you to turn away. If they won't portray us as human, then we don't have any obligation to give them our support.

#webtoon #tapas #lady crystal is a man #long reads

128 notes · View notes

tgammsideblog · 1 month

Text

Missed potential for June Chen

So, because June had very few episodes exploring her character in Season 2 and Season 3 got cancelled, she didn't get much screentime to develop as a character like Ollie did.

Here are some things i think that could have been explored with her character in the series (or for fanfics ideas if you wish)

Starting with one that the show was setting up, June could have had episodes of her trying to learn more about ghost nature and culture to see how they work. ¨The Grand Gesture¨ explored this idea somewhat and i think it could have taken an interesting direction for the show, what is more it would have been a different journey from the one Ollie had in Season 2 and later in Season 3 as Chairman.

It could have been a great way to learn more about Ghost World lore too, like wraiths, for instance. The idea of June studying ghosts could opened some fun and interesting plot episodes for the show.

Another thing is that her relationship with Scratch would have been a cool thing to see. Unlike with other characters, Scratch seemed to take a liking in June very quickly. It could have been funny seeing June asking ghost things to Scratch and him answering wrong. They both share similar personalities like being introverted and honest. I believe Scratch, Darryl and June could have made a fun dynamic overall.

Another thing is that we didn't get to see much of June's relationship with Ollie and her parents. I would have appreciated see how Ruben and Esther act around Ollie vs around June. What differences are there. Is June closer to Ruben or to Esther? Do Ollie and June often have some sibling fights? How does their relationship contrasts to Molly and Darryl's?

June being autistic could have been another interesting aspect to explore on a deeper level. Maybe she could have had moments she feels like Ruben and Esther misunderstand her but at the end of the day they want to be supportive of her the best way they can. How they try helping June with school is something that had some conflict potential. Does June struggle with her notes at school? Do Ruben and Esther start to believe that Darryl sometimes can be a bad influence to June? Does June struggle in making friends at school? It is weird that we never get to see scenes of her going to school, unlike Ollie. Some have pointed out that it would have been nice to see some of them.

Another character that June could have had a fun dynamic is with Libby. Out of the recurrent characters, Libby is the one that has the most things in common with June. They are both logical, intelligent and like to learn about the world around them. Libby has a more artist mind while June has more of scientific mind. I believe they could have had moments where they teamed up or changed information they have found about ghosts. Maybe they could have disagreements on how they view things. Libby could have gotten June invested in reading some of the books she is fan of and have scenes of them talking about said books together. I imagine it could have been fun seeing them coming up with a story on their own together.

Well, here are some ideas that i think the series could have done with June if she have had more episodes about her and it hadn't been cancelled so early. I believe that she is a character that has cool things that could be worked with if executed properly.

#the ghost and molly mcgee #tgamm #june chen #libby stein torres #ollie chen #Tgamm chens #Tgamm season 2 #tgamm analysis

65 notes · View notes

trumpkinhotboy · 3 months

Text

Chronic protective brother syndrome

Pairing: big brother!nick nelson x little sister!reader

Type: Request (thank you so much!!)

Warnings: Mention of fainting, having a chronic illness, but nothing too intense

Word count: 1900

Requests: Open! For Heartstopper, twilight wolfpack, chronicles of narnia and harry potter

A/n: honestly… i dont have much to say except that i love writing for requests and that big brother nick makes me weak in the knees. Hope you enjoy angels xxx

*gif is not mine

Summary: The reader has been living with diabetes her whole life. She's grown quite accustomed to it and manages it well with the help of her supportive family. Although sometimes, support can feel a little suffocating...

Through your 14 years of existence, you have grown quite accustomed to life with type 1 diabetes. As you grew up and became more conscious of what it meant to live with a chronic disease, you learned to accept and care for yourself quite well.

Your mother, Sarah, was a real trooper and never let you down, always carrying you when you felt exhausted and done with your condition, which did happen more often than you care to admit. Luckily, you also had someone else in your corner: your older brother.

Nick is known to be quite protective. Especially with the people he cares for. However, that aspect of his personality gained a new high when you were born, and your mother explained why you could never do everything just as he did. Of course, you would still be able to do most of them. You would simply need to be a little more careful.

Sarah remembers very clearly the look in little Nick’s eyes when she explained why you were always sick. You were resting in bed after a substantial flare-up when his eyes welled up with tears. That's when he finally understood that there was something in your own body that would always try to fight and hurt itself. That’s also when he promised himself he would do everything to protect you. Your mum still tells that story with a few tears welling up in her eyes.

Nick knew you could have a lot of complications from your disease. To avoid them, he always made sure you had everything you needed at all times. You usually didn't mind, seeing how your ADHD sometimes made it a little harder for you to remember to pack your stuff. Plus, the fatigue diabetes often fogged you with did not help in that department.

The thing is you were now 14 years old, finally starting to make new friends and explore the jungle that is social life in high school. So when your 16-year-old brother comes over, and all your lady friends swoon over him, or worse, when he comes over to baby you, it gets a little irritating. Luckily, Nick was quite stubborn about that stuff and was not about to let you get hurt just because of the image you wanted to project.

That was until you made quite a scene in front of everyone.

You had been feeling particularly irritated and moody that day. So when you saw your brother walk over to you with a backup diabetes kit, which was his creation, you felt anger boil in your blood.

It did not help to hear some nasty year 10 make jokes from a picnic table near your friends and you. "Oh, would you look at that? Diabetes Nelson still needs her big brother to bring her her little drugs. I don't understand how someone like him could be related to her."

It was stupid. It wasn't even a good insult. Plus, the people who kept making comments were not something to be impressed with. Still, you couldn't help the shame from creeping on your cheeks.

So this time, when your big brother came to check on you and offered you your safety pouch, you refused.

"I already have the normal one. I don't need this one."

"I know, but I don't think you've put the new insulin shots in. I brought you the safety one just in case."

The snickers you heard from the people behind had you gritting your teeth. You couldn't understand their exact words, but you knew it wasn't positive.

"Don't you have anything better to do than watch over me all day?" you hissed. "I'm not stupid Nick."

Your diabetes also made you prone to mood swings, mostly when your blood sugar levels were too high or low. That's why Nick usually did not make a big deal out of these outbursts, but this time felt different. Hurt flashed in his eyes, and briefly, you regretted the words.

"I never said that. I just want to make sure you have everything you need. You know the risks." His tone was soft, his gaze focused on you. He tried as much as he could not to make a big deal out of this, but your reaction had the exact opposite effect. He knew how the fear of being judged could make a person act in such a terrible way.

"I don't need you to remind me how weak and useless my body is, okay? I'm the one living with diabetes, Nick. Not you." You whispered angrily.

You grabbed your bag and left him planted there without looking back. Nick and you were usually like two peas in a pod, and to leave him there hurt much more than you would care to admit.

You got back in class, trying to act normal, but after an hour in, you felt queasy and feeble. You had indulged in some sweets some friends offered after your altercation with Nick, brushing off the risk with your ongoing anger. Subtly, you pricked your finger and couldn't help your eyes from growing two sizes when you saw the little numbers your tracker presented. You were in hyperglycemia and urgently needed to get a shot of insulin. Swiftly, you asked to be excused from the class and headed for the bathroom. The walls seemed to shake around you, and your vision kept warping up. Cursing yourself for being this dumb, you opened your bag with shaking hands, searching for your shots.

"Shit."

There was only one thing worse than fighting with Nick, and it was when you realized he had been right. You mumbled under your breath, trying to stay calm and figure out a quick solution because this was becoming urgent, and you needed the care right now. Calling Nick would do no good since he was at Truham anyway. You decided to head back to class to ask for your teacher's help, but once you tried climbing the stairs, a thousand little dots started dancing around. You were able to mutter an 'I feel kinda dizzy' before everything turned black.

You awoke to a commotion. Distorted sounds and everything around you moved too fast to register. Someone was holding your hand while you felt a pinch in your arm.

"It's okay, it's okay Y/n. You're going to be okay. I'm here."

You knew that voice. You lifted your gaze with an effort and only saw a flash of red hair before darkness swallowed you once more.

This time, when you woke up, everything was silent and peaceful. You were lying in a bed, a hospital bed, with an IV drip set up in your arm. Nick was resting in the chair next to you, his worried eyes set on his phone as he quickly typed.

"Hey," you croaked.

His head whipped up in surprise when he heard your voice. He immediately dropped his phone to come by your side. His hand flew to your forehead. The coolness of it felt incredibly refreshing as you leaned into the touch.

"Hey, kid," he whispered. He tried putting a smile on his face, but it couldn't hide the worry he was truly feeling.

"So, I'm guessing I fainted? And someone found me? And they panicked ?"

"Panicked is an understatement."

He explained that Imogen found you at the bottom of the stairs. She didn't know whether you had fallen from them or just fainted at the bottom, so she immediately called for help and texted him.

"I ran to Higgs faster than Charlie ever could," he added with a smirk, his joke stealing a chuckle from your chest.

"I'm sorry for causing such a commotion. I should wear a bracelet that says fainting is normal for me so people won't worry."

His gaze hardened at your comment. "Fainting is not normal for you. It's a bad sign, and you know it."

You sheepishly dropped your gaze. Okay, he wasn't ready to make jokes about it yet. Charlie would have laughed, you secretly thought.

"I don't understand why you pulled that crap. I just wanted to help you."

You lay back in bed with a sigh and covered your eyes with your forearm. You did know Nick only wanted to help, but still. His kind gestures irritated you so much sometimes.

"It's already hard enough to be the sick kid. That was my only thing when I was in middle school. I thought now I could step away from it, that I could be someone else. Be known for other things than my messed up immune system."

You noticed Nick's expression softened once you uncovered your eyes.

"And I know you want to help and trust me, I appreciate it. It's just that sometimes it feels like you don't believe in me. Like you don't think I'm capable of doing stuff. Instead of helping me become stronger, you keep worrying me with your horror scenarios."

It was now Nick's turn to look all sheepish and guilty. You might have been right in saying he tended to get a little paranoid when you wanted to try new things. He only thought about protecting you. He never realized the effect it would have on your self-esteem.

"I'm tired of being afraid. I've looked it up, and there are so many people with diabetes who are doing amazing things. I can stay healthy and still be a badass kid who tries new stuff."

He looked up, his eyes holding so much uncertainty and fear. Though through it all, love was the strongest thing in his gaze. He grabbed your hand once again with a tight smile.

"I hear you, I'm sorry. I never thought it would make you feel like this, or else I wouldn't have done it."

"Nick." You gave him a knowing look.

"Okay, okay. I might have still done it, but only because you're my baby sister, and I want you to be healthy and have a long, long life, okay?"

You nodded while tightening your grip on his hand.

"I promise I will be less overbearing, and I will support you in whatever new thing you want to try."

"Thanks, Nick, and for school, could you maybe not come and do your big brother number in front of all my friends? I appreciate the gesture, but I'm over dealing with the dumbasses."

He sighed heavily but still agreed to your request. "About that, just a piece of advice. I've learned that sometimes the thing we are afraid will show our weakness or vulnerability only does when we allow it to. Once you reclaim your power and own it, it all switches around. Anyone who has something to say about it will suddenly disappear, or you won't care what they have to say anymore."

You nodded sheepishly. You honestly didn't care about your diabetes. I mean, it could be a gigantic pain, and you would have to be careful for the rest of your life. But all in all, you were pretty lucky. You had your condition mostly under control when you weren't a sassy dumbass, and you had the best support system someone could wish for.

"Look at me. You're going to be okay kiddo." Your brother squeezed your hand tighter in a reassuring motion.

You lifted your head to meet his supportive gaze and smiled in return. Yes, you would be okay.

#ilya writes #nick nelson #nick nelson x little sister!reader #nick nelson x sibling!reader #heartstopper #heartstopper fic #nick nelson fic #nick and charlie #alice oseman #kit connor #anon request

69 notes · View notes

deripmaver · 7 months

Text

Which is worse, rape or murder? - Or, should Casca have died during the Eclipse?

Unlike most of my meta posts, this is one I'm making as a direct critique of a specific take I've seen. It's similar to my meta about apostle Casca in that regard, where I want to look at a specific idea and why I dislike it, as opposed to wanting to explore my thoughts on an aspect of canon. To be clear, this is only something I do if I've seen a take a bunch of times, enough so I know it's not a one-off. It's also not something I do because I want to engage in discussion with the people who've said whatever the take is, it's something I do in case other people who agree with me might be interested in a meta post that's more in line with their viewpoint.

I provide this disclaimer because, as I've said a few times now, the idea that it's the better choice to have Casca die during the eclipse is one that I just really dislike, and I make that preeeeetty fuckin clear. I can't control who sees this or who comments, but I did think I should make my stance explicit.

Berserk fandom is an absolute treasure trove of bad takes about rape and sexual assault. Considering the seriousness with which the manga takes rape, despite it's sometimes quite dodgy framing and portrayal, the fact that the fandom is Like That is fully a testament to cishet men's inability to consume media without turning into a brainless amoeba of toxicity.

I have to say, though, what shocked me the most was that this particular take, that Casca should have just died during the eclipse, was not from the dudebro side of fandom ('cause if she had they couldn't make their silly little "casca enjoyed it" jokes).

I'm coming right out of the gate with my opinion, which is a firm no, Casca should not have died during the eclipse, and the story would be weaker if she had. I'm going to presume during this analysis that the people who say this assume that her death would be instead of her rape, as opposed to her being raped and then dying, which would be... Horrific. Even more horrific than canon, lol.

I do have sympathy for some of the people who wish she had died, and in a way I understand, though I vehemently disagree. Some of the posts with this POV sound almost traumatized as they proclaim I wish she would have died, it would have been better. As this is something I've only noticed in the tumblr fandom side of things, where most people are women, I think this comes from women readers feeling furious and sick about one of the most vile rape scenes out there. In some ways its intentionally vile, in others - ie how grotesquely sexualized it is - it's unintentional. Then, of course, she continues to suffer in her disabled, infantilized trauma state. I hear these readers wanting to shout at Miura that he should have just killed her off rather than force her, and us, through reading that. It would have been kinder.

I have... Far less sympathy for others. There's a side of fandom that simply does not care about Casca (in a different way than the dudebros who don't care about her despite gushing about how she's peak tomboy waifu). It's amazing the veneer of progressivism these people put on as they say that Casca should have died, because she did not contribute to the narrative before the eclipse, and she certainly hasn't after. Going to get even spicier for a second and point out fandom's long history of wanting female characters dead because they get in the way of mlm ships, and how I think this is SOMETIMES simply another manifestation of it.

To be fully fucking clear, I do NOT think that being a grffgts shipper (censored so this doesn't show up in the tag LOLLLLL) precludes being shitty about Casca. I think tumblr's demographics, and those demographics' typical shipping preferences, mean that grffgts is naturally going to dominate. By simple statistics, most of the people whose opinions I hate are going to be grffgts shippers. Same with most of the people's opinions I like on tumblr tbh. I do, however, think it's prudent to point out old school fandom misogyny, and how I personally feel it's showing up in the fandom, and also point out that it pisses me off that Casca dying during the eclipse is at all presented as the least misogynistic outcome.

I'm also going to say now that this is firmly being kept in the realm of fiction. In real life, there are horrific discussions about how being a victim of rape defiles you for life, and that it's better to die without the "shame" of being raped than live with it. While I have to be blunt it's difficult for me to separate some of the discussion of Casca dying during the eclipse from that anti-survivor bias I see in real life just because ~we live in a society~, I in general think this sentiment is coming from a place of simply analyzing, narratively, which outcome is less misogynistic given how the rape in canon is portrayed.

Would it narratively have been better for Casca to have died? What about the impact of her death versus her current storyline?

First, I think I need to outline my interpretation of the eclipse rape. I don't think that the decision to have Griffith rape Casca was Miura simply being a misogynistic cishet dude who threw in rape for the hell of it. I also don't think it's OOC. Again, there's much to critique in how it's drawn, but not in the fact that it happened. Griffith, in his moments of feeling out of control and powerless, uses sexual advances to reassert his control over the situation - see Charlotte, or the wagon scene with Casca. A distaste for sexual violence committed by his enemies doesn't mean Griffith is incapable of wielding sexual violence as a weapon himself. In real life, there's a paradox where rape committed by political or social enemies is seen as the worst crime one could ever commit, while the mundane rape committed as a consequence of patriarchy is excusable and the victims should be blamed and shamed. Did Miura have the gender studies acumen to think about that when writing? I dunno, but neither does anyone who thinks he didn't.

I also think it's supposed to establish his actions during the eclipse as fully over the moral event horizon. Without it, it's easy to ask if ultimately, Griffith's decision to sacrifice his followers to a cruel death is justified to create a perfect utopia. With it, it establishes Griffith as acting fully on cruel, malicious impulse in moments of emotional turmoil, which puts his future utopia in jeopardy. I can't be the only one who sees Falconia as a ticking time bomb. Of course, this doesn't mean he needed to rape Casca, but simply that I think it was necessary to his character to do something that crossed that moral line. He could have raped Guts I suppose. Killerbambi has entered the chat.

While I think this might sound strange, I actually think it's immensely validating to have a character who is a victim not just of rape, but of rape committed by someone she already knew. That's genuinely unique in media on the whole, which plays into that paradox I mentioned earlier - in real life, the vast majority of assaults are committed by someone the victim knew. Having the story surround the continual, horrific trauma of betrayal, of having to watch the person who hurt you move on while trauma keeps you in horrible stasis is almost so realistic it's... uncomfortable. Painful. Hard to read.

There's no greater purpose to what happened to Casca. She didn't grow from it, instead she regressed.

Her general lack of agency post-eclipse is much critiqued in the fandom and like. Fucking yeah fair LOLLLLLL BUT ALSO... But also. Fandom on the whole can be so cruel about traumatized female characters, like there's no way they can do trauma "right." In Casca's case, her lack of agency is turned into a reason she should simply have been killed off instead, as though there aren't so many survivors who, while not as literally as she does, retreat into a shell of themselves and are frozen with trauma as the world begins to pass them by. Of course, the critique would be that she's not a real person, she's a female character written in a misogynistic way by a man, but I personally think this overstates Miura's issues with his portrayal of rape. To me, it presents what they think are his biases as justification for their own biases.

Time and time again, I see survivors discuss feeling validated by Casca's trauma response after being assaulted. Even the parts of the rape scene that I vehemently dislike, such as the hyper-focus on Casca's body and the physical reactions she's having, I've seen more than one person say they felt validated because they too had an unwanted arousal response during an assault. I'll still critique the scene, but regardless of if this was Miura's intention, its impact is clear.

I'll again plug this article by Jackson P. Brown, How Berserk’s Casca challenges the myth of the “Strong Black Woman.” Just to show a quote from it:

All of the action of the story after Conviction Arc is in service of restoring Casca's mind. During Conviction Arc and after, Casca has groups of women who love and protect her, with women as her source of safety. Guts is single mindedly focused on bringing her back, putting his body on the line again and again to protect her and restore her. I wondered about including Guts here because I'm sure I'll get some anon about the Beast of Darkness, which again fair LOL. I have complicated feelings on that, but mostly I think the importance the narrative puts on her mind and her protection is touching, and I think this outweighs how the negative things apparently mean that she should have died.

Her story and trauma, despite its flaws, is shockingly realistic and validating to so many people. She's also a key narrative component post-eclipse, and not just ~for Guts' manpain~ or as a helpless plot device, her story is her own. I've written about Elaine as a character and what she represents, but in brief, Casca doesn't disappear after the eclipse. Miura wrote Elaine with these moments where Casca comes to the surface, and while I wish we had more of her POV I think you can look at how she's coping from how Elaine reacts to the world around her.

I also think it's necessary to have Casca at the Hill of Swords. There's Guts, who Griffith torments in the way only a bitter ex can, and Rickert, who doesn't know what happened the day of the eclipse, but I think Casca is the key component in that scene that cuts through all of Griffith's posturing and Guts' anger. She is there, making the real, human cost of what Griffith did during the eclipse unignorable in a way that no other character could. It's one thing for Guts to be furious with him and Rickert ignorant, it's another to have someone who loved him so innocently and dearly trembling just at the sight of him. Let's not pretend that the depth of betrayal in this scene would be the same if you swapped her for, say, Judeau.

It's funny, Miura is quoted as saying that his initial reason for keeping Casca alive was to provide Guts an ever-burning flame of vengeance, an eternal reminder of everything that he lost during the eclipse. What's wound up happening, on a meta level, is that Casca provides the reader a constant reminder of what happened during the eclipse. As more and more focus is given to her PTSD with her revival, the cruelty with which Griffith acted (and continues to act) becomes harder and harder to ignore. It becomes more difficult to push it aside as just bad, misogynistic writing.

And also, quite simply, I like narratives about trauma recovery, and therefore I'll always find Casca's story worth telling despite my frustration with a lot of it. It's absolutely wild to me that for how often I see the fandom complain about her being "fridged" they think it would have been better to see her ACTUALLY fridged, no chance of coming back at all, just dead to fuel Guts' revenge arc. Would it really be better to have her be just another dead girlfriend? Really?

That's really what it comes down to. I like Casca as a character, and I want her to have lived. The people who wish she had died, many of them simply don't like her as a character. Not all, particularly in that first group I mentioned at the start, but many. Everyone has their preferences of course, but I don't think I need to respect when someone thinks a character has so little influence on the narrative that they should have just died, especially if that character is Casca.

If Casca had died during the eclipse, it would not have been a good death. It would not have been brave, or triumphant, or worth anything for her as a character. Judeau died to protect Casca, but even his death was not brave, it was just sad. That's the whole point of the eclipse.

To have Casca die that way would be a disservice to her as a character, far moreso than to have her struggle on as a traumatized victim of sexual violence. That's genuinely what I believe.

#berserk #casca #casca berserk #berserk meta #casca the og victim of yaoi IN CANON

134 notes · View notes

thewriteblrlibrary · 3 months

Text

A Step-by-Step Guide to the Weirdest Mush of Storytelling Techniques Known to Human Beings (that works surprisingly well)

SPOILERS - basically you combine anime/manga storytelling with tumblr character obsessions.

Okie dokie human beings, let me just come out of the gate and say that I've been hyperfixated and doing obsessive researching on storytelling methods since I was ten. You hear it all when you deep dive into this:

'You need conflict to drive your story' (wrong... well, not always true. Conflict isn't required but you can use it for funsies)

'Your characters need to be flawed. Give them flaws so they aren't Mary Sues' (Wrong. Traits in and of themselves have both nice and not-so-nice aspects, depending on the situation.

Take 'loyalty' for example. Loyal people can be apologists for those they are loyal to/not be objective when they think about their friends. But they will also be there for their friends... does that mean they are a people pleaser and won't be as nice to themselves? Mary Sues are only there because they are cardboard cutouts and people aren't having fun with them. *See remakes and pointless cash grabs* When you're self-indulgent and ignore the 'don't make the characters too cool' rules, people can tell. You all will have the time of your lives.)

Then you have... the discourse. As a storyteller, reading those made me so insecure about writing characters because I was worried I would anger someone. This method won't assure avoiding all discourse, but it makes the characters more believable and fun to watch. Everyone else can avoid the story. (It isn't for them anyways)

Anywhosies, after years of researching, I've finally, finally found a storytelling methodology that is structured yet insanely flexible, works for any story you're telling (watching tv will never be the same), and is pretty much the exact opposite of trashy Hollywood blockbusters.

So basically, it's: exploring a facet of existence through complex characters and an easy-to-follow plot.

So yea, I've talked in the land of general for too long. This is my modified method from the resources down below. Have fun!

Step One: Characters Concepts.

This will help you a lot when you make characters. Let's go through an existential crisis!

What concept about "how life works/philosophy/the unknown/viewpoint/question" do you want to explore? This will be the aspect of life that the story attempts to make sense of and give the reader some new understanding or comfort about it. It will be the groundwork and foundation for your story going forward, so feel free to explore as many aspects of this topic as you wish.

Specific memories can help with this. For example, I used the memory of crying over unfinished crafting projects to write my main WIP. (I was supposed to make this doll dress with my mom and we did part of it, had a lot of fun, then never finished it. A few months later, child-me sat beside the bed and waited for my mom to come out of the bathroom so I could ask her something. In the meantime, I looked underneath the bed and found that unfinished crafting project. I started bawling.)

This memory led me to make my concept: Happiness chasing. Those who want that happy ending so bad so they can have their childhood happiness back. Mostly because they are filled with regret over all the happiness they didn't have when they were little (the 'smart and didn't like to play because they wanted to read books' children... anyone else do this? And regret how little time they spent with other people?)

The second aspect of this concept that came up was the 'avoiding being happy right now because you need to earn it for a happy future' also the 'happiness needs to be perfect... but what exactly does happiness feel like?' and the 'happiness is overrated. I'm satisfied as an observer wandering around the world'

So yea, explore a concept and see where it takes you! It's okay if it's abstract, you can refine it in the next step:

Step Two: characters

~Here we go~

Here we are picking a dynamic, an internal conflict, 'the two wolves'.

Aka: desire vs fear.

And these will be in direct opposition. The character will want something, but the fear will stop them from getting it. Because to get what they want, they have to face what they fear. They cannot exist at the same time.

This took me the longest time to figure out... mostly because no one else spelled it out for me. But it works! Very well! Probably the fastest way to create a complex character!

So you'll take an aspect of your concept. Like: 'trying to replicate the happiness you had when you were little because you are full of regret about not being happy'. Then create a duality/ warring desire and fear off of it.

(Feel free to include all the extra character trait funsies here... just don't get too carried away. That becomes overwhelming fast. We'll talk about that more in the next step)

Here's an example from my WIP:

Anuli the dryad wants to have faer happy ending that fae wanted when fae was little. (I get very specific here because I wrote backstory, feel free to write a very specific image about what a 'perfect world' would look like to the character. What will having that perfect situation mean to them?)

Anuli the dryad fears being happy. Fae thinks that by being happy, fae will make a mistake and ruin others' happy endings. Then fae will be left with nothing but regret. It's wrong for faer to be faerself. (There's a misbelief about the world here. Typically, fears are rooted in false worldviews. So, you can write an opposing viewpoint and create a 'worst case scenario' based off of that.)

Ta da! Now you have a dynamic where the character has a conflicted view of the world and themself. Perfect for angst, fluff, whatever your story needs are! (Why does this sound like an old car salesperson?)

Step three: First meeting

My major issue when writing a new character is how to translate their unique prose style and convey their internal conflict, whilst also trying to figure out plotlines.

This step is entirely my own, and has been SO EXTREMELY helpful. (I'm proud of myself.)

What you'll do is some random writing of your character's internal monologue/how they see the world. Go through your writing from the previous steps and try translating that into prose. Play around with it until you are comfortable. It does not have to be perfect, it just has to be comfortable. If you're having trouble, pick a mini-topic to write about (perhaps something that's been on your mind lately) and see how your character would react to that. Or you can change the style of writing (more parenthesis? be ridiculous? stream of coconsciousness? Third person? Poetic? Change it up until you enjoy writing this character.)

Here's an example from my writing (this is my second WIP and it's a biology fanfiction.). I'm including it all because I messed around a bit and tried different things. I ended up setting for an informal semi-stream of consciousness style (partially to offset the complexity of biology and partially because that's who Cassiah wanted to be):

(It is... long. So scroll and skim, this is a messy example.) <3

I ended up going for first person instead of third. And I always go for past tense...plus a poetic style is a bit.. much for a biology fanfiction... and I wanted Cassiah to be a nervous mess on the inside while keeping up a 'full of themself' exterior. Therefore:

Feel free to include notes for yourself! This is a great place to refine and edit the writing you did in the previous steps! You can also do some exploring about worldbuilding (I may make another post for that) and congrats! A lot of what you are writing here becomes the character's behaviors that they've gotten from their internal conflict. These are a lot more specifc (and a lot more helpful) than character traits like 'loyal'.

Okie dokie, you can always come back to this for some writing relaxation, and now we go towards everyone's favorite part:

Step four: the plot the tragic backstory:

Note that this doesn't necessarily have to be tragic. All this has to do is showcase the exact moment where the character got their internal conflict. You can do this with the desire, with the fear, or both! (Although typically you'll see the fear backstory... unless it's a Disney movie or Haikyuu)

'But wait!' You ask. 'Plotting is hard! And I need to have this backstory be perfec-'

So the method I followed had this thing where you would write one backstory scene where the fear came from, then three more backstory scenes where the character chose to follow the fear instead of the want and became more conflicted. You can do that if you wish (I'll give you a resource to help with plotting in a bit.)

What I like doing is... having fun? I rewrote my backstory scenes so much and got so stressed with it. (My main WIP has been my writing project since I was ten and I worked on it nonstop... but it JUST got a full backstory written.)

My method for writing backstory changes for each character I write. For that main WIP, I started trying to write the backstory for the backstory, and tried stopping myself from doing that. Which was a mistake. Nowadays I'll write pre-backstory for fluff, and how the fear complicates things after a twist. (Usually I get this specfic aspect of my concept that I want to explore through storytelling and I'll write a snippet about it), and my MC just gets more ridiculous every time I write faer.

All in all... you can just use the plotting method discussed in the next step for the backstory: kishotenketsu. If you do this, then I recommend that you use ki and sho for the 'want' portion. (some fluffy childhood goals if you will.). Then use ten and ketsu for the fear that complicates things and the aftermath.

But overall I recommend (for all scenes that you write) that you always connect whatever is happening to the character's internal dynamic. This is what gives weight to your story. And you've already practiced writing your character's internal monologue, so now it's time to relax, be ridiculous, write some bad stuff, and find the exact moments where the character's internal conflict came from.

I haven't gotten to this point with my biology fanfiction yet (been executive dysfunctioning until recently... the stars have aligned or smth.) but here's my initial prose-sketch:

From here, I'll write a more specific backstory (I tend to get bored of long scenes though, so I imagine I'll do my 'tiny section prose snippet style') to depict how Cassiah got their fear, then I'll write a bit showcasing how they started envying others and their confidence (the desire). Afterwards it'll be Cassiah being internally conflicted hijinks until they inevitably get themself in a ton of trouble.

Okie dokie everyone... now it's time for the plot present-day character explorations.

Step Something-or-other: Keep doing what you're doing, but technically this is the start of the story.

So there's this whole 'inciting incident' and blah blah blah.

Start your story when it becomes impossible for the character to avoid their fear anymore, which causes them to chase after their desire.

...I'm going to include a video for kishotenketsu because... I've been typing... for hours.... and I'll do an overview but video.

So kishotenketsu is the overall plot structure that anime and manga uses. Very flexible, very nice. I keep it in the back of my mind when I'm writing, making sure to connect everything back to the character's internal conflict (make sure they react to things and make decisions.)

Here's a scene card to help you with 'smaller scale' plotting:

So instead of the plot part I use kishotenketsu. And usually I'll write actual prose for the character's monologue (like we did for the freewriting) for the 'why it matters'. (What is the plot causing them to think and feel like? And what do they want to do to fix things?)

'And So?' is usually a decision that effects the plot moving forward. You can also just have a change in perception. Just something new to give the scene meaning.

Whoopdedoo so I'll do a quick overview of kishotenketsu, and then I'll list my resources if you want to do any further digging. My advice in general is to make up your own methodology for writing, and figure out what works best for you.

Kishotenketsu:

Ki - introduction: introduce the characters, their world, where they are at, what matters to them, and most importantly - their internal conflict/what aspect of your concept they represent.

Sho - development: The plot develops toward the twist later. You can use the scene cards for this part, it should have some cause and effect and it should develop and explore the character's internal world.

Ten - twist: this is where an obstacle occurs. Bonus points if it relates to the fear/desire. The character now has to change their perspective and deal with the aftermath of the twist.

Ketsu: I forget what this stands for - the aftermath. How do they deal with the effects of the twist?

Okie dokie fellow storytellers! Now go forth! And Remember! I SPENT WAY TO LONG WRITING THIS IT"S SO LONG WTFUDSICLE ICEPOPS IS THIS LENGTH IT"S TOO LONG

Resources:

Books: Story Genius (where I got the scene card from.)

Videos on kishotenketsu: First one. Second one.

Someone rewrote twilight and it was so helpful for my writing

And... funny story... my brother got viruses on his computer and now I can't pirate anime see 'restricted videos' on youtube because of ristricted mode.

So the Hannah person that rewrote Twilight? Search for 'physic distance' Very helpful.

Also look up. 'Zoe Bee poetry.' the basics of poetry are extremely helpful.

Things you should watch (the gifs)

Rise of the Teenage mutant ninja turtles

The promised neverland

Your Name

A silent Voice

Hilda

Avatar: the last airbender

Wolfwalkers

Song of the Sea

Amphibia

The Girl from the other side

Haikyuu (how did something get me to like a sport this is insanity)

Good Omens (I can't actually watch it because homophobic parents but I've seen all the clip compilations.)

56 notes · View notes

novaricewrites · 4 months

Text

ACOTAR'S Worldbuilding is a tragedy

I feel there was so much wasted potential in the worldbuilding in ACOTAR and it is saddening because the opportunities were there to make it a decent series. You can have both romance (yes with sex scenes) and fundamental worldbuilding.

And I think a large part of this stems from SJM's failure to expand on Prythian, the other Courts and explore Faerie culture - instead using a modern, human and heteronormative framework to prop up a few of her favorite characters and neglect deeper development for anything else.

I'm aware that this would require her to think critically, and delve into the politics between the Courts, which can get complicated and likely not her strong suit when her series is riddled with plot holes as is. And she is incapable of not giving her favorite characters plot armor and telling the readers of how they should think.

But in that case, she needs to keep her story logical and not have the character be in a position (*cough the High Lady thing) where politics and culture would inevitably be crucial to know unless she wants these glaring contradictions.

Part of my frustrations (which are for a whole other post) are also her careless (and often stereotypical) use of different cultures for shallow worldbuilding and her pattern of harmful mishandling of POC characters for the sake of the narrative.

I picked up the book series because the faerie aspect was intriguing and I adore stories drawing from ancient religions and folklore.

Yet what we got is bland and lacks the fickle, beautiful yet eerie quality that is the essence of faeries. The first book did have some of this atmosphere at least which is why I prefer it the most.

The series has eventually degraded into the author's self-indulgent erotica about hot and shitty people who act mostly like humans, except with pointy ears and wings.

Yes I am petty and bitter.

I don't hate the idea of this series but the execution was brutal and I needed to get this out.

#anti acotar #anti sjm #acotar analysis #sjm critical #anti feysand #we were robbed of a whole world out there #fanfiction writers end up doing sjm's work to write acotar fanfic

58 notes · View notes

pinkeoni · 11 months

Text

Will Byers, Coming of Age, Transformations, Predators, Queerness & Teen Wolf

There’s one part of the “leaks” that sappicjopper put out that really caught my attention—

And as to not look naïve, yes I am highly aware that these “leaks” are likely fake. However, disregarding the legitimacy of this as a “leak,” it is in itself a compelling idea that does have some legs to stand on as a theory.

So awhile ago I made a post about Will’s coming of age story and how that fits into the horror genre, and how exploring coming of age and sexual awakening through the supernatural is a popular trope.

I wanna point out three films I use in my analysis, Ginger Snaps, Jennifer’s Body, and Black Swan. These films have a lot of things in common, but one aspect I want to point out is there use of physical transformation.

These transformations covers an umbrella of different themes depending on the character, but something that all three of them have in common is sexuality. As all of these women become more sexually liberated, and thereby seen as dangerous by those around them, they fall deeper into these physical transformations. (IE Jennifer and Ginger both eating men after they have sex with them)

In my original post I also discuss how this fear of sexuality, or view of sexuality as something monstrous and predatory, is related to queerness. Both Jennifer Check and Nina Sayers are visibly queer characters in both their respective films.

So what? All of this is very speculative, how do I know that Will is going to go through a similar arc, just because I can relate him to a few movies that I like personally? How do I know that the Duffer’s are going to do something similar? Is there reference to a movie within in the show, that features transformation as an allegory for coming of age and queerness?

Actually, there is.

All credits goes to @chirpsythismorning for their deep dive post into the shows use of the film Teen Wolf, which appears in the show as one of Rick Conroy’s recent rentals as well as the poster in the background of a few shots.

(screenshot credits to @chirpsythismorning)

The Freddy Krueger standee, the character who kills people in their dreams whose actor makes a cameo in the show, positioned right over Max’s shoulder should be enough to say that the film references in the background are a lot more than just meaningless references.

Teen Wolf is a 1985 supernatural coming of age movie about a teen named Scott who learns that he is a werewolf.

Within s4 we actually get some parallels between the film and Lucas’ arc— Scott is a basketball player who seeks popularity before embracing who he is and what he really wants. However, I think it’s possible that the film could also be a piece of foreshadowing for Will’s arc in s5.

While Scott is not an explicitly queer character, there is some coding within the film that correlates his lycanthropy with queerness. Remember this is a mainstream teen movie from the 1980’s, if there’s going to be any queerness it’s gonna have to come from subtext, although it is pretty unsubtle.

There’s this very heavy handed scene where Scott confesses to Stiles that he’s a werewolf, and Stiles believes that Scott is coming out to him initially.

There’s also this conversation Scott has with his father that can be read as queer coded.

Or essentially saying, being queer isn’t easy, but it’s not bad either. And then Scott equating his queerness with being a predator, and expects to be hunted as such.

When Scott goes through his first full transformation, it’s right after he played a game of two minutes in heaven with his childhood friend Boof, equating sexuality with his beastlihood.

In s4, there’s a big emphasis on the word predator.

Will’s queerness is an open secret in a town that believed he was “killed by some other queer” and that a group of satanic sodomizers are responsible for murder. I’m willing to bet that that predator label is going to be put onto Will, especially as he begins to come more into his own sexuality.

What would be a literal way to portray this predator title? By having him transform into a predatory creature, just as everyone sees him.

Am I saying Will is going to become a werewolf? Well no, that wouldn’t really make sense with the show. But there is something that may have even been foreshadowed in the show.

How would this transformation even happen? Well, as our “leaker,” or rather, enthusiastic theorist suggests, it has something to do with his connection to the Upside Down, which is progressively leaking more and more into Hawkins. So not a literal zombie, but maybe a zombie like creature that could survive in the Upside Down.

When Vecna was sent through the gate to the UD we saw him go through a physical transformation as he adapted to his environment. This would he a like a speedrun version of that amplified by Will’s own personal connection to the UD (which I believe predates his kidnapping)

It would also serve as a way to highlight the parallels between Vecna and Will, what by having Will physically become similar to him. What better way to show the Vecna/Will mirrors by having Will look in the mirror and see the spitting image of Vecna staring back at him.

Bonus: Scott in Teen Wolf in played by Michael J. Fox, and which character was dressed similarly to a popular Michael J. Fox character in season one?

#will byers #byler #<- target audience #stranger things #will byers has powers #i left out the cannabalism bit because thats more of wishful thinking on my part #…but it does conveniently tie in with the idea of being a predator #and is common with these transformation trope films #maybe he should eat people!!#tw cannibalism #just for those tags lol #also just so i dont get accused #im not trying to steal aspects of lucas’ story just to slap onto will #just saying that the teen wolf parallels can apply to both characters #lucas has more of his overall arc and will has the transformation queer allegory arc #stranger things theory #my theory

161 notes · View notes

glitchadeli · 3 months

Text

Alrighty, I've been meaning to upload this to Tumblr for a WHILE but I knew it was gonna be a lot of texting / explaining so I had to brace myself for all of it LMAO! Get ready for a LONG explanation about all these guys!! ^^

These are the 'main' next gens for my TAWoG AU, which I dubbed a long time ago the "String of Fate" AU (SoF) - if you saw my 'intro' post to my AU you'd know that my AU started differently - that is true!

When I first started my AU I had a whole story planned, I wanted to write it like a full on fanfiction with chapters 'n storylines!! However I.. am not confident in my writing. Over time I got less and less confident in my ability to write the stories - I found the medium of making a timeline to be MUCH more simple so that's what I started doing! It made it easier to say "hey this event happens here" and it just became my preferred way of telling the 'story'.

So eventually I will have a whole post explaining the entire timeline of my AU but that's still in the works if I'm being honest. I still have some storylines that need to be finished. (They're not big elaborate storylines btw, some of them are just mini arcs that some characters go through. My AU isn't super serious, it has its moments, but for the most part I wanted it to be fun!! Ya know?)

For now I at least wanna introduce everyone since my AU has tons of characters. (Lots of next gens lol) so starting off with the Watterson boy's kiddos. (Anais has her own family too but they'll get their own chart / explanation eventually!) I just think it's easier to stick to Gum and Dar's kids first anyway!! Gumball ends up with Rob and they have 6 kids, 1 of them biologically being Penny's but Rob sees Cas as his own. (and Cas see's Rob as more of a parent than Penny (something to be explored later) so yeah!) Lemme introduce everyone properly ~

There's Caspian (Cas), Zipper (Zip), Cosette (Cos/Cozy), Elliot (Eli) and then the twins - Roe and Rem! (Cas and Zip joke that they're twins too because they're 3 days apart in age.)

I explained how Cas came to be in this post - so I won't go over it too much, what I WILL explain is Zip since his existence has confused a few people. "How is he 3 days younger than Cas?" / "How did 2 males have a kid?" / ect.

I won't explain the story aspects juuuust yet so all you need to know is - Rob went all science-y and took some of Gum's DNA. Mixing it with his own to create a kid - which is Zip. Zip was born from an 'artificial womb' / incubator for anyone wondering. I know that's not realistic but this is TAWoG we're talking about.. I could literally say Rob sneezed which caused Zip appeared and it could be canon. It doesn't matter if 'two males can't have kids' - they can in this fictional universe!! So get over it ~

Anyway, Cas was born on November 10th (1992 - yes my AU even has the years figured out LOL) and Zip was born 3 days later on November 13th. Skipping some story stuff; Rob and Gum have their first child together / after marriage, which is Cosette. She's born when Cas/Zip are 7. (Gum is 24 and Rob's 25 for anyone who was wondering.) Then Elliot was born 3 years later and then 2 years after that were the twins! Gum and Rob love their little big family very much <33

Then we get to Darwin's family - he's a single dad and his kids are Pearlene (Pearl), Lilith and Kid.

Pearl was just like him - a sentient pet who grew a connection in order to 'grow legs' (except she already had legs.. being a lotl so.. she grew lungs LOL). Her connection is to both Cas AND Zip! (Unlike Darwin being 2 years younger than Gum, Pearl is only 1 year younger than Cas/Zip.)

Then there's Lilith. She… oh man she's a weird creature. I don't even know how to explain her.. so she'll get her own post eventually!! (Cause Echo was the one who created the idea of her species so I'll try to have Echo's help in explaining them - Echo has one in their AU too!! His name is Kevin. I love Kevin. ANYWAY-) Lilith is just a creature™ and we love her :)

Aaaand finally there's Kid - a puppet come to life - situation. His whole story is still being finalized but let's just say.. certain puppets were involved. A certain purple one. A certain blue/green/yellow one. And a certain clown-based one. If you know you know. Darwin loves his babies very very much! <33

"Glitch, why is Darwin not with anyone / Carrie?" - Honestly that's just because… I don't know who I ship him with..?

Darwin was my first ever true comfort character but when I got into the show literally the Halloween episode (1st indication he ever liked Carrie) was still a NEW episode so I wasn't sure how I felt about the ship. And now as an adult… the age gap really throws me off. I'm sure 'ghost years' might be different or the show was just joking about the 300+ thing but… being 327 and dating a 10 year old… it just… makes me feel uncomfortable. So in my AU - Darwin and Carrie break up at some point in their early teen years. (er well.. Darwin's anyway.) They're still good friends and there's no bad blood whatsoever!!

As for why Darwin doesn't end up with anyone - I just don't have anyone in mind. As a joke I did wanna set him up with Hot Dog Guy but that doesn't really work for reasons I'll explain later. and I know some people ship Dar and Julius but the age gap there made it worse for me too. (In my AU Julius is like.. 6 years older than Darwin. I just always felt he was much older so I could see them being friends, but nothing more. Sorry Julwin shippers.) - but yeah, honestly I think Darwin's fine as a single dad - he's great and having Gum 'n Rob's support they're like a team, it all works out!!

"Glitch, what did you mean you couldn't have Guy and Darwin together?" … There’s a character limit here so I.. have to make a 2nd post about the partners!! I’ll link it here though!! ^^

Link to the explanation about the partners is here <- !!

#the amazing world of gumball #tawog #tawog gumball #tawog rob #gumball watterson #gumrob #my tawog art #rob tawog #tawog fanart #darwin watterson #glitch's next gen tawog #my next gen #my tawog next gen

36 notes · View notes

nkjemisin · 1 year

Text

Things in my ask box

Hi folks. Every so often I get questions from folks that are good, but which I worry might catch them some flak from my other readers or whoever. Sometimes I answer those people privately, but in general I prefer not to do private replies to asks; for one thing, other people might want to know the answer, and for another, I've had a few awkward situations result from doing so (basically just people going parasocial on me), and I think that sort of thing is less likely when it's clear I'm talking to everyone. So, I'm going to handle these awkward asks by just treating them as Q&A questions -- without showing that person's username and where necessary, altering the question in order to protect their identity. I've got a few of these stored up, but just gonna do two this time for length and time reasons. I'll get to the rest later.

Are you a proshipper?

Yep. Feel free to alter your decision re following me on social media now that you've read that answer. But I believe in "don't like, don't read," and that fiction doesn't indicate what an author really believes (because it's fiction), and that there's no subject matter too immoral to explore on its face (everything depends on the execution), so... yep.

2. I love the Broken Earth trilogy, but I have to say, the middle book really didn't go anywhere, literally. Essun stayed in Castrima and Nassun moved around a little more but mostly stayed in the same place too. It killed a lot of the story momentum for me. Why did you decide to do this?

[spoilers for Broken Earth books, though I'll try to minimize them and will put a "read more" before I get there]

Because I felt like it. I'm not saying that defensively, I'm just noting that the answer to pretty much any question you might ask a writer about why they do a particular thing is... because they felt like it. Period full stop. Sorry that wasn't what you wanted to read! It was, however, the story I wanted to tell.

To elaborate... different people have different expectations of trilogies. That's because there are a lot of different ways to handle them, narratively speaking. Sometimes a trilogy is really a group of shared-universe stories taking place in the same world but not necessarily featuring the same characters, and with unrelated plots. Some are telling a single story, but through different POVs and smaller plot arcs that each have their own terminuses; that's what I did with the Inheritance Trilogy, for example. And sometimes, as I did with the Broken Earth books, the author is just telling one big story broken up into three parts. (There are more ways to do a trilogy than this, but let's keep this brief, lol.)

Now, there are a lot of ways to handle this kind of story, but a pattern that most of us are used to is:

Book One: Introduction to the world and important characters and the apparent stakes;

Book Two: Deep dive into the important characters and world, thus giving the audience a reason to care more; and

Book Three: Now we really know the stakes and shit just got real! Now we care what happens to the characters when EVERYTHING! BLOWS!! UP!!!

(I am feeling very silly today, sorry.)

We're familiar with this pattern because we see it all the time, especially in American media. It's a variation on the three-act structure seen in plays and other narratives. It's the basis of our most popular longform stories! The original Star Wars trilogy did it. The Mass Effect trilogy did it. (Andromeda was a separate story, probably meant to be the start of a new trilogy.) The Lord of the Rings did it, prequeled by the Hobbit and mirrored by the Silmarillion. I mentioned those examples because the middle stories of each all exhibit the same traits: a drastic change of pace or location for the protagonists, putting the protagonists through personal character growth arcs, and poking at minutia or seemingly unimportant aspects of the world (which usually end up pretty important before all is said and done).

Now let's answer your question. Spoiler warning again:

In the Broken Earth, we got introduced to the Stillness and Essun in Book One. There was a lot of physical movement in that book as Essun was on the road for most of it (as were other characters), but the plot itself was relatively simple: A bad thing happened to this person and she needs to go somewhere and find someone, to fix it! And then pretty much the entirety of that book's narrative was "Who is this person, why does the bad thing matter, and how close does she get to finding her missing person?" Then in Book Two, we learned a little more about this person, a lot more about her impact on other characters including the one she's been trying to find, and we spent a while learning about orogeny, the Obelisk Gate, and what the stone eaters have been up to. I cheated a little on this; there wasn't room to do a deep dive into the backstory of one pivotal character, but I did finally reveal that this character is the "secret" narrator of the whole trilogy, and made his agenda clearer. I ended up putting his "deep dive" into Book Three instead, where it was particularly relevant to the STUFF! BLOWING!! UP!!!

The reason a lot of readers complain about "Middle Book Syndrome," I suspect, is because of this pattern -- and because of their expectations. A lot of people come at a middle book expecting Book One Redux. That's what you often get in shared-universe trilogies -- Book One over and over again, roughly the same balance of characters vs events each time, in a familiar setting. We're conditioned to want that, I think, from other episodic works. Comic books, for example: When I was working on FAR SECTOR, my editor at the time explained that I needed to try and have a fight or action scene in most of the issues. I hate fight scenes -- sorry! -- so that was hard for me. TV shows -- the ones that aren't themselves telling a single big story over time -- do this, too. I think of it as the "If You Liked X, Then Try... X!" structure. Absolutely nothing wrong with this structure, by the way. I'm just describing it, not throwing shade. I'm a big fan of stories like this myself.

But even for audience members who were expecting the Three-Act Trilogy structure instead, that middle book is going to be jarring. It's supposed to be jarring. The refugees have survived the first book but stopped to dress their wounds and regroup; the adventurers on a quest have reached an impasse and need to find allies and grind to build up their strength; the stalwart hero has just suffered a massive setback and needs to overcome their own doubt or character flaws. A good way to handle this is to take the characters out of their familiar space, and put them somewhere new, or give them a very different kind of challenge. [Mass Effect and LOTR spoilers] Oh, no, Shepard died and their team broke up! What now? Oh, no, Frodo and Sam are on their own trying to get to Mordor! They're just these little guys! How are they gonna make it? If you got overly attached to Shepard team from ME1, or the Fellowship, you're in for a rough ride in these followups. But the jarring nature of this kind of followup is absolutely necessary. An author who does this knows they're going to lose some readers, when they do it. Clearly I almost lost you! But I stand by that choice, because I think it made the whole trilogy better.

Sidebar: I'm old enough to remember the controversy back when "The Empire Strikes Back" came out. Critics haaaaaated that movie! It was too dark, they said; wasted too much time on unimportant stuff. Too much character work, not enough space battles. Then it became clear that audiences loved the second movie even more than the first, precisely because it was darker and because Luke spent so much time futzing around with Yoda and because there were all these girl cooties romantic moments between Leia and Han. A lot of the critics backpedaled at that point, with some of them even acknowledged that they'd been hoping for Star Wars All Over Again and not What Happens Next That Is Not Star Wars. They'd simply brought the wrong expectations to the story.

This is not to say that you have the wrong expectations, Ask-er. Maybe you were expecting exactly that structure, and you just don't like the way I handled it, or you think I did a poor job. Every reader's experience of a story is different, and not everybody's gonna want to pick up everything I throw down. But you asked why did everyone stay in one place, and this is why: to do a deep dive into the character of the Stillness itself. In a story where the setting was as much a "character" as the people in it, I felt it necessary to show enough of that setting for readers to care about it. Would you care, for example, if the town of Brevard (Damaya and Schaffa spend one night there in Book One) got blown off the map in Book Three? Probably not, because I spent no time on any of its citizens or issues. A lot of people cared about Castrima, though, by the end of Book Two.

Whoo, this got long! Hope it answers your question, Ask-er.

#answered asks #the broken earth #spoilers #things in my ask box

236 notes · View notes