#and just construct their own narrative and get mad at me for it

[idolomantises]

I think I’m gonna discuss this once and hopefully never have to bring it up again. Originally I wanted to talk about it on Twitter but people are very disrespectful when it comes to mental health so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Basically, I haven’t been doing so great, mentally. Nothing bad has happened to me, I’m safe and surrounded by people I care about, and it’s been like that for months. I just, I haven’t been feeling good.

For people who do follow me on accounts like Twitter and Instagram, you may have noticed I haven’t posted anything new since January. I was struggling to feel motivated to make something for my main accounts despite having countless ideas I’d love to work on. I feel better now and do plan on getting something done in March, but that sudden lack of motivation is pretty rare for me. Art is not only my job but a big hobby for me, I just love drawing. I did get some nsfw art done at least.

I don’t know what really prompted my mental health decline, I’ve been getting a few worried messages and fanart because someone insulted my art. But that didn’t hurt me at all, it actually boosted my account and patreon.

I guess I just… got sad?

I have a really bad tendency to suppress and even ignore my trauma and feelings of guilt. And I guess one day I really sat with my thoughts and I just, lost it I guess. I have so much traumatic memories and sudden and intense feelings of self loathing, something I’ve never felt in almost a decade, that it got overwhelming. I couldn’t reassure myself, I couldn’t really talk to anyone about it because how do you confront things that happened years ago? You feel almost irrational. It’s just memories that haunt you, it’s nothing physical or tangible and yet it’s a crushing feeling of anxiety, self hatred and resentment.

I was crying almost every day, and crying so much that my eyes kept hurting long after I was done, and I could barely see my own screen. I’ve had paranoid thoughts about myself and others, thoughts I can’t get into because they’re so deeply irrational. I was feeling suicidal urges and thoughts of self harm. I don’t see myself doing it, but it’s so frequent and overwhelming it’s like I’m already planning my suicide note.

I was talking to my therapist about it, that I was starting to hate being alive. That I hated living. That I could spend the next 50 years of my life with no more conflict or trauma and I’d still be in intense misery and turmoil. They’re feelings I couldn’t really bring myself to tell friends about because what could they say? How do you calm yourself down and reassure yourself. I can’t even talk about my trauma verbally without crying. And it’s funny because sometimes minor irks started to affect me negatively. I was feeling anxious about what to draw because I didn’t want to do deal with homophobic backlash.

I went to a therapist, I talked to friends, Ive been working out more and eating better, I did everything I should do to improve my mental health and all of a sudden a single night just sitting in my room destroyed everything I was slowly building up over the past 5 years.

It’s been really difficult for me. I think also, I just felt so much guilt over not being the best person I could be. I decided to lessen my online usage, not just for my mental health but because I really wanted to work on being a better person. I want to stop hating myself and letting my trauma push me down and I want to do just be better and do better as a person. A lot of people have been very forgiving and kind to me but I don’t feel like it’s enough and I want to do more and I want to feel better about myself. I want to give everything I can to people around me. I’ve been going to therapy a lot more lately and things are getting better for me, but it’s been a very slow process.

I just want to repeat that nothing serious has happened to me. Nobody attacked me in a way that negatively affected my health. A lot of people, friends and strangers have been really nice to me these past few months. I just was doing a lot of self reflecting and unintentionally forced myself to confront a lot of my trauma. I’m saying trauma a lot. I don’t want to get into depth about what I endured because it’s my business but people who do know me know how bad things were for me. I don’t want to feel like that again. I want to feel better, and I want to do better.

Sorry for the long read. That’s just how I feel.

[hopetorun]

matthew asking keith not to talk to the media about him isn't new information (the athletic, 5/10/2023), and as the lede of that story makes clear, keith honored that request:

Matthew Tkachuk put his father in “timeout.” That’s why Keith Tkachuk, an 18-year veteran of the NHL and one of the league’s best American-born players, wasn’t available to talk about his son’s remarkable run that has taken the Panthers from “biggest disappointment” to one win from the Eastern Conference finals. [...] Now, there’s no time for distractions, and Matthew wants to keep a lid on his pops, who informed The Athletic of his “timeout” via text.

that article goes on to quote matthew's mother, sister, family friends, teammates, and coaches and mentors at various levels, so it's safe to say that keith's exclusion is a notable one.

as far as i can recall, the interview last night is the first keith has talked about matthew publicly since, and it wasn't a comment on matthew's performance or his team's play. should keith have said on the broadcast that matthew gave him the silent treatment? hard to say from the outside! i don't think "he didn't talk to me for a bit" gives us any meaningful new information* since we could already infer that he was mad, but i can understand why someone else might want to keep that particular detail private.

i don't bring this up a lot in my fannish posts and comments on tumblr because it's a little bit peeking behind the veil, but the tkachuks have very clearly made being a family the brand. now, that was a low hanging fruit for sure, because the nhl loves father-son narratives and fraternal narratives, but they absolutely lean into it. as a consequence, we know a lot about the family, and can often infer even more. (think brady not quite saying it but boy was it clear that he didn't appreciate matthew interfering with his contract stuff.) they can't just not talk about each other at all, because the story they've woven about themselves requires it. there's no version of this where keith never gets asked about matthew again. i think it's quite impressive how long he's managed to go without commenting on matthew's play. did he even say anything during the conference final?

look, i think there's plenty of things to point to if you want to construct a narrative about matthew and keith not always getting along (especially since no one gets along with each other all the time, perhaps especially not their parents). and there's plenty to dislike or find grating about keith! i also have my own beliefs about where in their relationship there's most likely to be tension, which i'm happy to get into on request but aren't the point of what i'm saying here. and if you're just here to play around with the idea of really contentious father-son relationship and have picked matthew and keith as your paper dolls for this purpose, then who am i to stop you? as one of my dear friends always says, all rpf characterization is fake.

but for me at least, the leap from the information we have to "keith hates and/or disrespects matthew" is a big one.

[night-market-if]

Helloo, while I agree with you that Milo is also a victim, I also think that the other anons are also justified in feeling that way about him. I'm really sorry if I'm wrong, but the way you reply to other people's thoughts, about things that you don't have the same opinion on, feels like you're telling them that they are wrong to feel that way.

Let's unpack this for a minute. Because I think this is a great opportunity.

I am not invalidating that anyone has an opinion. They are allowed to have an opinion. And, if they approached me like you just did, I would most likely respond to that opinion in a constructive way. But someone messaging me and just throwing out a random feeling they have that is negative, and then getting mad at me in return when I don't agree with them, is childish. I will not be apologizing for that because most of the people that are "angry" about something, come at me in a really negative context. And then when I state something differently (without attacking them even) they get irrationally upset. I mean, a prime example is me saying that Milo is also a victim. That there can be more than one victim. I then got a response saying I was the one flying off the handle. Following that was another response telling me that I am a hated author. That my game is terrible. That I am a bad person. I mean, think about that for a minute here. Does the response corelate with what I said? Does it warrant that? No.

People are always valid to have an opinion, but there are two things to say about it. Most of the time, the people coming at me, are internet trolls. Not actual readers. And I'm sorry, we were indoctrinated at a young age to "ignore the bullies" and I just don't think that is the right response. Because now we have a generation that ignored the bullies and they got way worse because no one had a social contract to call them out.

Two, the ones that are not trolls, are lacking a lot of media literacy. That is actually an extreme problem within our society. And, since I am the author, it is my job to offer what I was trying to say within my story. That may not align with someone's opinion. But me having my own opinion, does not warrant someone getting mad at me. I didn't get mad at them so why am I suddenly greeted with toxicity.

I get where you are coming from saying that people are allowed to have their own opinion. And I have stated over and over again that everyone is valid for it. I'm not even saying for someone to change their mind or go away. But, someone else's opinion does not invalidate my own. Just as my own does not invalidate theirs. And if someone feels like it does, and this is going to sound cruel, but it is not my responsibility to regulate that for them. That most likely stems from a personal standpoint. I am not responsible for someone being offended by what I have to say about my own story and my own fictional characters. You don't see me coming on here and crying out that someone on anon made me "feel bad". That's not a thing.

There is a difference between just saying something out loud and engaging in a conversation. Constructive criticism is where you offer a opinion, give why you are offering it, and then explain how it does or does not work for the narrative. Then, I can come back, ask questions, respond with what maybe I was intending, and figure out a better way to get what I was intending across.

Non constructive criticism is just coming to me as an anon, and saying they are angry and want to hurt someone. Or that they don't like something of my story without giving why.

To further some points. Milo is a triggering character. I knew this from the beginning. The things that he did is not for the faint of heart and speaks to betrayal. And a lot of people who have been in a situation where they feel betrayed, are going to respond negatively to that. But, that is on them. That is for them to work through and own. It is not the responsibility of my story to change because of that. And coming on to say that you hate a character and want to harm them. Or coming on to say that I'm a bad writer. Or even coming on to say that I'm hated on reddit (to which I say, isn't everyone?) is providing nothing to this community, world, or our author reader relationship. It is done solely with the intent to try and hurt someone because the reader themselves was hurt.

To end this, I am going to make this statement. Telling me it "feels" like I am telling someone they are wrong is based in a personal feeling towards a situation. It is not based in facts. It is not based in anything that I have said. And while everyone has a right to their opinion, just because I am an author and a content creator, does not mean I don't get to defend my story or my characters. If I was being racists, sexist, transphobic? All things to come at someone for. But because I wrote something that makes people angry and they don't want to continue going on a journey with the characters and would rather just block their minds to character growth? I can't do anything about that. If there is no conversation they want to engage in, if they simply want to come on and troll me, then they need to not be surprised when I treat them the same way they are treating me.

I hope this makes more sense and provides some understanding.

Zinnia

[marzipanandminutiae]

i just reblogged that post about saying nice things abt prev but i wanna send an ask too, so: thank you for being one of the only people to be correct about the winchester mystery house and sarah herself!! so many people spread the stories of her being weird/crazy/whatever when she was just. a woman who suffered some tragedies and liked architecture.

i went on a tour of graceland recently and was intrigued by how they barely talked about elvis as a person, whereas winchester tours are basically a trap where you think you're getting to explore a weird fucked up house but actually you're going to hear about how wonderful sarah winchester was for an hour and if you say anything mean about her design skills one of the tour guides will push you out the door to nowhere.

i go through your winchester tag sometimes when i'm nostalgic and missing the house (i got laid off during quarantine) and it's just nice to see that even people who didn't devote years of their lives to the house can genuinely understand and appreciate it.

I'm so glad it's gotten better! Someone once anonymously told me the guides had to sign a contract saying they would only stick to the story made up by that ridiculous carnie family that bought her house in the 1920s, and even though it was an anon and therefore unverifiable...I believe it, sadly. For Profits often are more about...well, profit. As opposed to history. But it's good to know the guides care about getting the truth out there.

In Sarah Winchester I see a woman whose character assassination for being different(tm) has carried on after death. It's not that she was perfect- far be it from me to lay perfection at the feet of a white 19th-century gun fortune heiress -but she seems like a genuinely caring person in many ways, about her workers and her community. She was an unattached woman of means with an unconventional hobby (architecture), though, and that seems to have made wagging tongues nervous. During her lifetime that meant claiming she thought she'd live forever if construction never ceased (it did, several times), and after- well. The tale of the mad widow fleeing from invisible ghosts has come to prevail.

It feels unfair to me that she should forever be remembered by what her detractors said about her, instead of her own triumphs and setbacks, merits and flaws. And that her beautiful house, where she poured so much love and attention, should be so misrepresented. I'm glad people are trying to fix the narrative.

[kell-eramis]

🔥talk some mad shit on taao

OOOH ok this is gonna take a while and i'm writing this in many places--on campus, after school, on the bus, so forgive me if anything doesn't make sense.

Topics: windblade, starscream, elita, combaticons, combiners, and bumblebee

Windblade:

Disclaimer, I *love* Windblade and I love what she represents (and this could be it’s own mini essay).

However, I don’t think M Scott had those ideas particularly in mind when writing Windblade. Retroactively knowing she intended Windblade and Starscream to have a r*ylo dynamic, paints both of them and their dynamic in a completely different light: Windblade is now no longer her own character, but a tool to redeem Starscream, and becomes a “blank slate or self insert” for this dynamic and purpose. As a result, she’s not really given the opportunity to grow from flaws, and she’s not really punished for mistakes (it’s moreso Starscream paying for her choice to have Optimus Prime reveal himself as the “true Prime” to Caminus, and this is almost always framed as Optimus being in the good and Starscream being in the wrong), it’s moreso that we’re told that Windblade is “tempted by Starscream’s ways/by power, but triumphs over this because she is Good, and is able to redeem Starscream in the process.” We also see others taking the fall for her mistakes, as Chromia takes the fall for the cover up—there is no repercussions on Windblade’s part in terms of trust of Cybertron. (This also serves to take Chromia out of the picture and focus on Windblade and Starscream over any potential chromeblade narratives that could (and did) arise).

I think if I were to fix this, I would look at how the war that affects everyone on Cybertron also affects her, one of the first Camien immigrants. Like… living in this new environment that is *so* traumatized, and you, yourself are traumatized too but in a completely different way. (And this is especially obvious in the first Windblade run, with both her and Chromia’s arcs.) Not the idea that Starscream/Cybertronian politics “corrupts” Windblade, but the idea that living in this environment that has barely started to heal will inevitably rub off on her—in both good and bad ways. And she, being someone on the outside coming in, can see how the factions are flawed and how everyone needs to come together to make Cybertron more of a home than it has ever been. I don’t know if I worded this completely right, but I hope I’m getting my point across.

Starscream:

OOOOH. I could go on and on for days on end. I think the way M Scott handled Starscream’s dysphoria is very transphobic and concluded in a way that’s like “if I were not dysphoric, I would not be evil.” That’s… not what dysphoria does. Starscream would be Starscream no matter if he were cold constructed or forged—maybe just with different problems. Nurture over nature and all that. Another problem I have is due to the established windblade and starscream dynamic, starscream is often portrayed as evil—often to the point of irrationality. While Starscream might not be the best leader, she’s smarter than sending badgeless after random cons and inciting further violence as a result. We get a lot of “tell and doesn’t show” with Starscream’s tactics (and Onslaught’s, as well), and while it would make sense for Starscream to be paranoid (hence the distrust of Windblade) and to try to prepare for a second coming of the war (even if she doesn’t realize that’s what he’s doing by amassing combiner and titan power), some of the actions Starscream takes are outright irrationally evil, just to put that dichotomy between her and Windblade and incite the redemption. Other characters become tools either to show how evil Starscream is (the Combaticons, Rattrap, etc) or to redeem Starscream (Windblade, Bumblebee). I could go on and on about this but I will end it here (for now).

Elita-One:

Again, a case of “tell and don’t show”. We’re told that she’s “another Megatron” but there’s nothing to back that up—why is she another Megatron? What has she done to imply that? She’s traumatized from being hypervigilant over being the one in charge of Carcer (wherein Vigilem and Liege Maximo are incarcerated), and that shows in how she interacts with Cybertron. I don’t think she’d be a good leader for Cybertron—for the same reason neither Bumblebee nor Starscream (nor Optimus or Megatron) could be the right leader for Cybertron. They’re too stuck in the war, though it is possible to move on from it with time and effort. I do think, however, that she’s not this grand villain that M Scott paints her out to be. God forbid women do anything.

The Combaticons:

I could also talk at length about them for days. I think that they have the issue of becoming a tool to show how evil Starscream is, rather than their own characters with their own arcs. Which is a shame, as I think all of their individual arcs and as a whole gestalt could be *so* interesting.

With Blast Off and Onslaught:

We see Onslaught being extremely stuck in the war--he *wants* it to come back because he *wants* that purpose--what does a tactician do when there's no battles to be a tactician for? And Blast Off, who loves Onslaught (and his group), wants peace. Wants rest. Wants that peace and rest for Onslaught most of all. TAAO contextualizes what Blast Off does as a *selfish* thing—he does what he does because he wants that relationship. But that’s *not* what it is. She does what she does because she wants to see Onslaught heal from the war. He (as well as Starscream) knows this can’t happen unless Onslaught is given something new to obsess over—without that something, he’ll go back to the war and vengeance. So Blast Off, in a way, offers herself to be that. This isn’t selfish, in my opinion, because he knows that the relationship is doomed if she does that. Onslaught will find out, and when that happens, any possibility of a relationship will cease to be. It’s a sacrifice Blast Off makes to save Onslaught and the other Combaticons.

Brawl:

Now, I love the part where Brawl goes to Windblade and says he can’t have the war come back. He goes behind Onslaught’s and Starscream’s backs to do so. However, I wish this transition was shown more. He willingly chose to go with Galvatron and continue the war. He’s with Onslaught and Vortex when they want to make Cybertron burn. What changes? He says it’s “feeling what it’s like to die”, but beyond a few moments in Issue #4 and the annual, we don’t *see* this. No feelings of uncertainty at post war or relief when it comes to just staying Starscream’s bodyguard, just a comic relief along with Vortex.

Vortex:

Which brings me to Vortex. He’s reduced to a comic relief character. However, we know he’s an interrogator. I think we should have seen him interrogating bots for information on Swindle, searching it out. And then I think we should have also seen the ramifications of such a violent combination on him, too. (Though that could be said about all the Combaticons).

Swindle:

And that brings me to Swindle. I think Swindle, (and I also think Bumblebee should, too, but that’s a different argument) should be more present in the narrative even when she’s dead. While this is arguably present in the first arc, she’s moreso used as a catalyst for Onslaught’s grudge with Starscream turning into something more, but I think he’s used moreso as an excuse for why Onslaught’s doing all this more than an actual reason. Then Swindle is brought back in an *incredibly* traumatic and violent way. What does this mean for how she feels about the new Cybertron? How the gestalt and combination intimately affects her in ways it doesn’t affect the others? How this —frankly, violation— of her mind and memories for Onslaught’s purposes affects her and his relationship with the other Combaticons? Ooooh the things I wish TAAO went more in depth about. Then, there’s also the fact that he had helped Windblade. How does this affect the relationship between them, especially now that Chromia’s gone? How does this affect Swindle’s relationship with Blurr???

Combiners in general:

This is a problem I have with phase 2 in general, but I wish combiners were used more. They’re A Thing now that the enigma of combination is a prominent artifact. But they’re only really seen as temporary threats. We don’t go into the reason why Starscream wants one, and when that reason fulfills itself, they’re NOT used. We could have used combiners in Titan’s Return, for example!!!

I also think that IDW writers in general don’t really know what they might symbolize. Are they abject? Are they holy? Unholy? A monstrosity or a beauty?

If I was writing a continuity, I would look at combiners as the closest one could go to “being one in the allspark” without being dead. I could go into Augustinian philosophy and theology here, but I won’t (for now). However, they change the members of the gestalt in irreversible and abject ways! They blend together with the other members—they are no longer inherently individual. They are bound to each other.

Bumblebee:

Same as Swindle, really. I wish he was more present in the narrative as haunting it. Their death is the catalyst for many things and adds to others. However, M Scott only really uses Bumblebee as a passive advisor for Starscream. I think TAAO and starbee could be a significantly more impactful narrative if Bumblebee’s ideology and perceptions of things such as factions and power also moved in a way that was more towards Starscream’s perspective, rather than just Starscream becoming more “good”. It would also give us a chance to actually highlight the flaws of the autobot faction without being like “optimus is shitty, prowl is shitty, the primes were shitty, insert cartoonishly evil villains that happen to also be autobots to show how flawed they are”.

Okay, I’m finished. This was not at all all of my opinions and ideas but with a topic as broad as all of TAAO, how could I choose?

[twig-tea]

My Ride Re-Watch Self-Reflection

This is going to be self-indulgent and long, apologies in advance!

Something you need to know about how I watch shows: I care the most about character arc. I prioritize character arc over plot holes, pacing, and possibly even politics. This is not an endorsement for watching shows this way AT ALL and it certainly isn't a moral judgment on any viewers that do or don't do this, it's just how my brain is wired (and it's not an objective judgment on shows, either! Not every character actually needs to grow--even though typing that out is giving me hives lolol). So when a character does something that I think is either out of character or unearned by the narrative, I get annoyed; if they don't change or they keep making the same mistakes I lose interest; and if a character arc is awesome, I forgive a lot of things that can make shows unwatchable to other people.

I watched My Ride as it aired in 2022 and I was so in love with that series, it was poised to become a favourite. I was so burnt out on series that had a misunderstanding leads to breakup in the second-last ep, and this show has sidestepped that with the conversation about Khai by having Mork insist on talking right away! Plus Tawan, through the entire fiasco with Por, was always direct, he didn't run from Por and he didn't ignore his own suspicions or jump to conclusions, he sought Por out to ask directly: "Are you mad at me?" "Did I do something wrong?" "Are you seeing someone else?" I loved both Tawan and Mork so much, they clearly deserved one another and deserved happiness.

And then at the end of ep 9/start of ep10, Tawan sees Mork hug Fern and runs away, quits his job before he finishes his certification and internship?! And Mork is the one who the narrative seems to think has to prove his commitment to their not-yet-a-relationship when he's been the one committed this whole time? I had 2gether flashbacks and I did not like it. I didn't like either side couple's resolution, I didn't like that Tawan had regressed in a way that didn't feel (to me, at the time) earned, and I didn't like that Mork didn't have any (again, to me at the time) character growth.

So I never rewatched it. I remembered the first 9 eps fondly, loved so much of what the show had in it, especially Cheep and Dej and the characters of Mork and Tawan, and recommended it when it came up, but always hesitated to put it on a favourites list, and I struggled with the ending and how I felt about it--at least partially because I suspected it was a me thing rather than a show thing. And then, after La Pluie, I realized this screenwriter was good and trusts their audience and I should give it another chance and maybe pay more attention. Plus the re-airing was perfectly timed to start. So I've been (mostly) quietly watching again, and whew I'm so glad I did.

I still don't love the side couples, lets get that out of the way lol [if you don't want to think about these storylines, skip this and the following paragraph]. I think Boss is neurodivergent-coded and you don't get "over" neurodivergence through force of will (at least, not without burnout). Thinking about this couple through the lens of Semantic Error, which you could argue is very similar on paper, Toy tries to pull Boss out of his carefully constructed world, while Jaeyoung tries to make space for himself in Sangwoo's world while doing his best to follow Sangwoo's rules (though he definitely pushes--but contrast Jaeyong moving a single pen to Toy throwing whole shelves of books to the ground). If My Ride had shown that Toy didn't need Boss to completely change, and had them find a way of working through Boss' and Toy's needs to find a new normal together, I would have been much more comfortable with this story. On rewatch, I will say that Toy's initial bribery attempt was not as bad as I remembered, but that man needs to keep his hands off those bookshelves, and the show needs to stop scaring Boss in order to give Toy one redeeming thing to do, as @callipigio said that was not cute.

As for the hets, the only thing I picked up on rewatch that I didn't appreciate the first time was that despite her confidence, Nadia was also not used to being chosen by the men in her life, and so when she saw Mayom had options after coming back from Japan, she assumed he would choose anyone else and that's why she was so upset. And so, the reveal that he got this attention because he was trying to meet her expectations, and that he was thinking of her in Japan and bought her a souvenir, showed he did put her first and did choose her. I just wish Nadia had suffered longer by seeing Mayom being appreciated for the hot, talented, and kind man he is, and had visibly learned something or changed in any way because of it. I don't think she has a satisfying character arc and so I didn't like this story. [again: this is just my taste! Not every story needs to contain personal growth! I am not advocating for this to be seen as a moral judgment! It just means this story was not satisfying for my brain because of it.]

Ok, Mork and Tawan time. This time, on rewatch, I picked up on hints they dropped earlier; that Mork struggled more than I noticed the first time with his bisexual awakening; that Mork didn't like how he hadn't gone to college or university, but he had been willing to make that sacrifice for Fern. How Tawan really missed his family and wanted to eventually practice medicine in Chiang Mai. How Tawan only ran from Mork and Fern after Mork described their relationship as work buddies [he not only calls them friends, he backtracks and says "not even really a friend, I know him from work"! And as @sparklyeyedhimbo pointed out in their rewatch, Mork had literally asked Tawan to co-parent just the day before, so the messages were extremely mixed]. All of this feeds into what happens in eps 9-10.

[Mork you were like this even when you were just "workplace associates", stop this foolishness]

Firstly, the timeline of ep 9-10 struck me on this rewatch in a way it didn't when watching the first time. If I'm not wrong, Tawan was already mostly burned out; his heartache led him to use up his accumulated vacation to go home to Chiang Mai, but then came back after just a few days because Mork missed him; then went to see Mork while he was still on vacation, got shocked by the existence of Mork's kid, spent a day or couple of days with them, then made study materials for Mork and Khai (likely because he knew he wouldn't have much time in the future) and then got surprised again by seeing Fern--this would I think still be during the week of his vacation? At that point, he just wanted to go back home to once again lick his wounds but his vacation was over and he had none left (he told us he used it all when talking to his parents at dinner). So in that context, actually, quitting as an instinct makes a bit more sense--I've actually been there, at one point I was going to burn out and put in my notice, and my boss stepped in and told me to take leave instead. I'm really glad his advisor was able to do the same thing my boss did for me, and talk him out of quitting but encouraging him to take leave instead so that he could go home without messing up his future.

And in paying better attention, I realized this time around that for Tawan, going back home rather than confonting Mork both made sense and was good for his character arc. Before this, he'd clearly not been visiting home at least partly because he kept taking shifts for friends, and partly to make time for Por; so after giving up some of his time in Chiang Mai to be with Mork, it makes sense he'd want to be there when he thought he might have read Mork wrong after all. And Tawan pushing and pushing Por to get answers blew up so badly in his face last time, that retreating rather than confronting Mork actually does make sense in context. Also, like Tawan said to Nadia, he was tired of not being put first, and when Mork didn't go after him outside the garage after Fern called him back, Mork had put Fern first in that moment. And up until then the only confessions Tawan (and the audience) has gotten from Mork were in Mork's imagination; he'd flirted but not actually said anything concrete aloud. So Tawan needing something more from Mork to prove that Mork actually does feel the way he's been implying, and he would put Tawan first, is fair and fits what took place in the show, actually--my past self was I think applying an unfair lens on this as a point of convenient dramatic tension. Finally, I realized on this rewatch that Tawan leaving without saying anything, after he knew Mork panicked last time and specifically told him not to do that, could be read as Tawan being a little bit selfish, actually, (which as @bengiyo said these two characters could use more of), and leaving to be chased after could be seen as Tawan (at least subconsciously) indulging a self-indulgent impulse. Having thought that through I now appreciate it as an action of his character arc rather than resenting it.

And now we get to Mork's character arc. Because Mork is already the best boy, so what could his character possibly stand to learn?

This was my thinking on first watch, but on rewatch I think he demonstrates that he grew in a few ways. First, he goes through the self-realization and acceptance of loving another man. I didn't give that journey enough credit the first time around.

Secondly, he re-orients himself after a breakup from a relationship that spanned multiple years. I know a lot of people saw the petrol/gas analog by Dej as learning to love men instead of women, but I saw it as learning to love Tawan rather than Fern--because they are two different people, and they have different things they need from you, and he has all of these learned patterns from his relationship with Fern that he has to unlearn, including putting her feelings first. Going back to the moment when Mork doesn't go after Tawan, if you accept my reading of Uncle Dej's advice, Mork's choice not to go after Tawan but instead to stay with Fern is contextualized through this conversation as Mork falling into old habits and putting Fern's wants and needs over all others including his own. He then corrects this by not agreeing to get back together with her, but not until promising to always be her smile--in other words, he's still struggling with reorienting himself in terms of who Mork is in relation to Fern when not her boyfriend. [This also makes Dej's pointed comment about gas being cheaper than petrol a pointed jab at Fern and her demands of Mork's money specifically, which the petty part of me enjoys.]

Mork also faced his fear of heights for Tawan, though he did that before he even acknowledged he had feelings, so I'm not sure I'm counting that as anything other than Mork continuing to be the best. But when, on the mountain, Mork finally says aloud the thing he's been daydreaming about for at this point months, this is definitely character growth and feeds into my first part about Mork struggling with his feelings for a man. I realized on this rewatch that Mork always talks about his feelings for Tawan as a hypothetical or a question--"Do I like him?" "Could we be together?" "If I do like him, what should I do?" He doesn't state his feelings as a statement except in his imagination (I think--may need to rewatch again to confirm), until the confession on the mountain. So, as @lurkingshan pointed out in her post, My Ride also makes the same point as La Pluie that clear, verbal communication is key to a relationship.

Mork also gets to be a teensy bit more selfish near the end, which I didn't really clock the first watch-through. When Tawan explains why he thought about quitting and how he wanted to relocate to Chiang Mai so that he could help take care of his mother, Mork's wheels started turning and he began planning for their future together up North--again this is not new, Mork planned his future with Fern and her goals in mind so it makes sense he'd be planning his future with Tawan in the same way. Because Mork is best. But! This time he includes in his future plans his goal to get a degree and open a garage of his own. I love this, it's such a small victory but I think it's important for his character that the thing he's seemingly regretted most about his choices (giving up on his own chance to go to school) and that he did for someone he loved (putting them through school) is now something he's doing for himself (as well as for his shared future with his partner). And this also reflects Mork internalizing Dej's point about how he's got to recalibrate--because what Tawan needs from Mork is not the same thing as what Fern needed from him, and these different circumstances allow him to adjust his future plans and fit in his own dreams. Love that for him.

I love that we get the timeskip to see a glimpse into their future, beyond it just being so sweet, it allows us to see the ways in which they've fit together, and how their relationship is not perfect--Tawan forgets their anniversary, Mork is trying to establish himself in a small community that probably does not open easily to outsiders--but it's balanced in that they support each other to make up for one another's weaknesses (Mork doesn't actually care and is happy to be the one who remembers these things; Tawan is happy to pay for the restaurant).

I didn't say anything about the Tawan/Por relationship above because I didn't really catch anything new on rewatch, from the get-go I thought it was so well done. Por is believably self-absorbed and Tawan really does such a good job of trying to do everything right. He talks to him directly and listen to his own instincts, but is surrounded by people (Por, Nadia, Mork) who tell him to let it go and ignore the signs. I continue to love to hate Por. This thread is a little unresolved because Por comes sniffing back around Tawan's ward, but we didn't really need to see Tawan reject Por, which I appreciated as the show writing him off as not a threat. I did pick up more on the glimpses of the kindness that La Pluie shows its female characters in how Fern is treated; Fern is shown to be selfish and materialistic, but also legitimately struggling with their life as-is, and by showing her trying to get Mork back, at least it gives her the credit of letting her realize what she was missing when it was gone. I'm glad La Pluie went further with keeping Nara complex and human.

Finally, I have to shout out how much love this show has for queer community and found family. Cheep and Dej give Mork and Tawan and even Fueang a safe haven to come to when they're hurt and confused, and they give so much advice. Everyone else has said it (I know @chickenstrangers mentions how special it is in their rewatch but I'm sure others have too) but it's worth repeating how much of a difference this makes for these characters.

Fueang and Mork also give one another advice and support, and I think it works well in the show that actually both Fueang and Mork can mostly just give support and some generic advice, but they can't speak from experience the way Cheep and Dej can. Still, the motorcycle gang support Fueang, and then Mork, in getting their respective partners. Tawan's sister knows exactly what is going on and gives Mork a challenge to make sure he's good enough for her brother. Fueang and the gang also show up in Chiang Mai because they're so sure their bro is going to mess up his confession, and then they cheer on the kiss when it does go well.

Mork taking on Khai as his own child when his brother failed to step up is also a beautiful reflection of the love and care his uncles gave to him and modeled for him; he clearly sees them as parental figures and was able to imagine himself as a parent to Khai because of it--and he never questions whether his getting together with a man would have a bad influence on his nephew/adopted son, the way we see Jim struggle with this in Moonlight Chicken, for example. More queer elders in stories please and thank you!

I feel so much less conflicted about this show now that I've gone through this exercise. Feel free to tell me if you think I got too far in my head and overanalyzed lol I'm always open to being told I'm now adding things that aren't there. I just really needed to deconstruct why I had issues last time and what changed for me when I paid more attention. Also, this experience makes me want to binge Step by Step to see if it makes a difference in how I feel about the ending to that show...but I don't think I'm ready for that yet.

And if you read all that, you're awesome.

[arunneronthird]

Uhhhh, yikes this is probably very unpopular among older Jon fans, especially JonJay shippers and this is probably just an excuse to rant but you cannot convince me otherwise that Jay Nakamura isn't a corporate oc. Don't get me wrong, his story and character in itself doesn't bother me but the reasons of his existence and the method of his conception have made him really bothersome and he ends up disgusting me. He is forced into a role of being Jon's equal when that can easily be dilled by existing characters. His "romance" with Jon was so rushed because they had to make a kiss happen in Pride Month, he checks off every box to be the perfect boyfriend to Jon it is actually very concerning (is a reporter who is also a fan of Jon's mom?? Happens to be someone Jon's best friend admires??) Of course some people believed he was a secret villian, he was too convenient. He annoys me because of it, he is so pushed to be Jon's romantic interest that it just ends up making him bland and overrides any actual character potential he had. The editors and writers don't care for him to take time in having him be a character just have him pushed as much as possible to cater to being Jon's romantic interest. I think DC should've have focused in having audience grow to like him before pining him to another character and have him ride on his popularity instead. But that's just me.

we will get cancelled together anon, also believe me, older fans genuinely do not give a shit about jay or jon for that matter, they care about the alan moore era joker and how bad superman films are and for that i respect them inmensely, i wanna be exactly that insufferable when im older

anyway, i think all decisions regarding the bendis era onwards are dc decisions made based on wanting to reach a new specific audience, but fun fact we the gays were here forever cause batman and robin are the least straight coded people on the planet but sure, lets ruin jon

i am okay with old jon now, but the start was... really fabricated wasnt it? which is not necessarily always a bad thing, tims existence was a dc decision which was "I DONT CARE THAT U HATE JASON WE WANT KIDS IN OUR AUDIENCE" and i respect it and i love tim

that being said, in the words of someone better at english than i am, jay feels... so preachy... hes perfect, hes beautiful, and everyone loves him and hes perfect for jon cause tom taylor said so but like, asides fromhaving a truth newspaper (were the truth is!!!!) telling everyone that they are not doing enough cause they arent supporting 45683 causes every hour of the day and saving the eastern box turtles and newborns in southern portugal and family owned ballerina shoe shops and making jon do whatever he wants what does he do

honestly i think i dont like him for the simple reason that he genuinely makes me feel the way politicians at debates make me feel

not gonna add too much about him being pushed into the narrative just before pride month cause i will actually Get Mad and i am trying to make this funny to read but just know i agree that the timing is suspicious and that he feels so hurried and perfectly constructed to work that i couldnt get into it

[star-dust-n-astral-wind]

Why The Doctor Ran Away

We can construct a surprisingly consistent narrative on this topic given what little has been revealed over the years. I'll be sticking mainly to TV, although I'll mention some expanded material towards the end.

In Heaven Sent, Twelve claims to have been scared:

DOCTOR: I was scared! I ran because I was scared! Is that what you want me to say? Is that true enough for you?

Which presumably ties to this little speech later in that same episode:

DOCTOR: Long before the Time War, the Time Lords knew it was coming, like a storm on the wind. There were many prophecies and stories, legends before the fact. One of them was about a creature called the Hybrid. Half Dalek, half Time Lord, the ultimate warrior. But whose side would it be on? Would it bring peace or destruction? Was it real, or a fantasy? I confess, I know the Hybrid is real. I know where it is, and what it is. I confess, I'm afraid.

And in Hell Bent, we have this interaction with Clara:

DOCTOR: Ah, no, he didn't tell anyone anything. He went completely mad. Never right in the head again, so they say. CLARA: Okay, that's encouraging. DOCTOR: The last I heard, he stole the moon and the President's wife. CLARA: Was she er… was she nice, the President's wife? DOCTOR: Ah, well, that was a lie put about by the Shabogans. It was the President's daughter. I didn't steal the moon, I lost it. CLARA: I'd know you anywhere.

A bit later, Ashildr has this to say on the topic:

ASHILDR: You were barely more than a child. You broke in here and the Wraiths spoke to you about the Hybrid. Why did that story make you so scared?

In Twice Upon A Time, the First Doctor claims that "There were many pressing reasons" to leave Gallifrey. He also talks about good and evil:

DOCTOR 1: There is good and there is evil. I left Gallifrey to answer a question of my own. By any analysis, evil should always win. Good is not a practical survival strategy. It requires loyalty, self-sacrifice and er, love. So, why does good prevail? What keeps the balance between good and evil in this appalling universe? Is there some kind of logic? Some mysterious force?

In The Five Doctors, Tegan and Five have this scene:

TEGAN: You mean you're deliberately choosing to go on the run from your own people in a rackety old Tardis? DOCTOR 5: Why not? After all, that's how it all started.

And then there's these choice bits of expanded material:

In the novel Beltempest, Eight claims to have left his home because he "disagreed with the philosophy of its Masters".

In the novel World Game, Two said that he grew tired of "the deviousness and corruption of Time Lord politics".

In the audio story Prisoners of Fate, Five says that he had little time, and just needed to get the first Tardis he lay his hands on.

And then comes Remembrance Of The Daleks, and it all falls into place.

I propose that the story goes something like this:

One of the Doctor's children (Susan's parent) was president of Gallifrey, and intended to use the Hand Of Omega for some reason. Given Eight and Two's statements, this may have been a matter of political corruption. This was a largely popular decision amongst the Time Lords, although the Doctor strongly disagreed with the idea, although their concerns were ignored.

And so, the Doctor did something tremendously stupid (as they often do): they stole the Hand Of Omega in an attempt to stop the Time Lords from utilising it. Along the way, they also took Susan with them, possibly fearing that she'd be used as a bargaining chip against them, or simply knowing that she would suffer/was suffering on Gallifrey without the Doctor to shield her/comfort her/etc.

Now, this was not entirely a spur of the moment decision. The Doctor had been debating leaving Gallifrey for some time now. Both due to knowledge about the Hybrid that they'd learned from the Sliders in the Matrix Database during their youth, but also due to a growing curiousity concerning the nature of good and evil.

Given that the Sixth Doctor would call out the Time Lords for being "Degenerate! Decadent! And rotten to the core!" during his trial, I think it's a safe bet that while they maybe didn't include the Time Lords on the side of "evil", they almost certainly were not counted amongst the "good" either. So if the Time Lords weren't ensuring that evil did not overcome good in the universe, who or what was doing so?

And so the Doctor - fearing for Hybrid that lurked in the future, fearing for Susan's safety, fearing for what the Time Lords would do with the Hand Of Omega - stole a Tardis and ran away.

Also at some point during this mess, the Doctor "lost the moon"? Not entirely sure what that means or how that happened, but apparently it did.

[night-wyld-system]

You know I finally figured out a way to explain anti-endos and those similar. This applies a lot to systems who throw tantrums about others trauma as well and feel entitled to feeling like their trauma was "the worst" or "all trauma is equal" when neither are ever true.

Crabs in a bucket.

When I used to be involved with a lot of the hate-filled people who spend 24/7 tearing down others online and interacting with discourse in a vitriolic manner this is what I was met with. A lot of systems will just beat each other and pull one another down and try to make them and their situations worse in hopes of it somehow making them feel better and get back up to the top and be free of the hellish narrative they constructed for themselves. Once you get close to freedom and feeling comfortable one of the members will make sure to make you miserable and drag you back down. If you accept reality and feel comfortable that is taking from them because they aren't doing that instead of you.

When I had my therapist advise ways of starting treatment that were right for us as a polyfragmented system we were again dragged down for getting to close to the edge of the bucket. We shouldn't do what she wanted, that would make us happier, freer, it would make us be in a better place than them and they couldn't have that either. So down we were thrown.

When we started realizing we grew up in a cult and wanted to move towards healing the people around us constantly grabbed us and forced us away from any ability to get help or get better. It made them feel so scared and insecure that I could have experienced something that in their own words and actions seemed to be what they genuinely saw as worse than their trauma. (My trauma did inevitably end up being remembered to be worse than theirs* considering I was a slave from ages 3-17 but they didn't know that at the time and neither did we. Though they'll probably get mad that someone is saying being enslaved is infact worse than being abused by your parents.)

*I want to be clear here this is not us saying our trauma is the worst trauma in the world. Our trauma is more severe compared to the people we were interacting with who were tearing us down. (It's possible some have since uncovered their own memories and could in fact have experienced worse). I know many people who objectively have even worse trauma than me. Sure I was trafficked for 15 years but some people get trafficked for 16 or more or until death. Those are worse. I cannot have it "the worst" because that would apply to literally only one person ever and would be impossible to quantify or qualify.

I would consistently align myself with face-eating leopards, go to bat for them, defend them without question or really seeming to comprehend the things I was partaking in. I ate the faces of others and did harm that I have apologized for sense but I cannot fully retract. In the crab bucket I pulled down other crabs in my scramble to the top with hope I would be free and feel better.

And yet every single time I was surprised when my so called friends ate my face too.

Sysmeds don't want to make safe spaces for traumagenic systems either. They don't want to help pwDID or OSDD get better- they just want to make everyone as misreable as they are. I was such an idiot to not see just how clear the comparison between transmedicalists and system medicalists was. I'm glad I broke out of my own stupidty, I'm lucky to have good friends now who helped me get out of that hellhole. And I'm so thankful for my therapist as well for helping me realize I had to cut those people out of my life in order to actually start to recover.

I forget if we had made a statement yet on why we now use the term sysmed when we used to be one of those who saw it as transphobic.. it's simple enough, we were better educated and proven wrong. Our main hang-up had been on implications... ones that were completely destroyed when we were informed that actually yes cis people can have gender dysphoria and be diagnosed with it. All it took was us being educated that gender dysphoria does not always make you trans. Then there was literally no difference between our beliefs when it came to trans people and beliefs when it came to systems. So we accepted the term as the proper descriptor as well.

[stillness-in-green]

Why are fans mad about second war asspulls when we’ve got deku’s extra quirks and lady nagant surviving a face explosion as prime examples in the final act. Heck just looking at the todoroki family: shouto perfecting his ultimate move in 1 month, endeavor’s never before seen eye beams, and now dabi copying a quirk in a handful of seconds. At this point let’s just enjoy the ride.

That is an admirably, even enviably mature view, anon, and I suppose we would all be more content that way.  However, I’m afraid that, at least where this series is concerned, it’s just not how I tick.  But as to why, at least some of it is tonal, I think, and rooted in a conflict between how the series operated up to the tail end of the first war and how it’s operating now.

I could try to go into all that, but actually, some while back, a friend pointed me in the direction of a YouTube video that really broke it down perfectly.  I’d recommend this to pretty much any BNHA fan, but especially those who want some bittersweet validation or those who don’t understand what the big deal is.

I don’t agree with every single detail of this,(1) but my quibbles are extremely minute compared to the number of times I was ready to literally raise a glass to the points he makes.  I particularly like the parts where he talks about how a narrative needs more than bare functionality to make it work—that just because you can construct a solid enough thematic spine on AFO’s refusal to cede the narrative to the next generation, that doesn’t make said theme less of a disappointment compared to the much more interesting theme we could have had with a more interesting and challenging lead villain.

I would add also that, strictly speaking, the complaining isn’t new-new.  There were 100% people complaining about the SIX QUIRKS!!1 reveal—I was just a reader at the time, not active in the fandom, but I certainly didn’t much care for it, and I saw plenty of other commentary around with the same view.  Back then, though, people could and did still tell themselves, “No, it’s cool, see, because think about how much Deku struggled to get a handle on just the base power of OFA!  Now he’ll have to do that six more times!  It gives him more power but also gives him more work to do!  It’s cool!”

And that looked like it might prove true when it was just Black Whip.(2)  Like so much else, though, it went straight down the shitter towards the end of the war when Float and Danger Sense kicking in proved no detriment. It got even worse during the Edgy Deku arc, when Deku proved to have a better handle on what Smoke Screen and Fa Jin could do than their own original bearers despite assurances from the narrative that he was totes struggling, we swear.

Or how about the whole matter of quirk evolution introduced during MVA?  You’d better believe people complained about that, even as other people said, “No, it’s fine; this is just the power-scaling kicking in; shounen manga always does stuff like this.”

BNHA has always had some things you could call asspulls.  I think the reason people are complaining so much now is that, previously, people could tell themselves that asspulls were just newly introduced elements that would be used to further the drama.  There’d be fallout; there’d be time to decompress.  Because there was before!  See again the six quirks stuff, where it really did take Deku a full (if short) arc and then some timeskip afterward to master Black Whip.  But since the end of the war, the pacing has been so fast that we’ve entirely lost that kind of breathing room, and the asspulls have only been getting worse: more frequent, less foreshadowed, and with ever less time before the end to even pretend there might be reasonable space to decompress or deal with fallout.

Thanks for the ask, anon!  I hope you continue to enjoy the ride, because WOW, that Edgeshot nonsense was like getting thrown off a mechanical bull.

---

1:  For example, I can make just as good an argument for Ochaco being involved in the Stain fight as this guy does for Shouto, so I don’t think, “It could only ever have been Shouto and Iida, no one else,” holds.

2:  Though for what it’s worth, even mastering Black Whip mostly got handled off-screen, during all that time with Endeavor that the readers didn’t see because the offscreen villain fights weren’t advancing the plot.  But at least the story had the decency to give us a timeskip and highlight the fact that Deku had been focusing his training on parallel processing the whole time.  

I actually don’t have any real problem with Shouto mastering his Phosphor move in a month for the same reason: we had hints that he was working on it and we know he had time to be training it in.  I don’t expect as much attention for a side character’s training as I do the protagonists.  Anyway, just because he calls it his ultimate move doesn’t mean it’s actually the ultimate, final expression of his experience and training; “ultimate moves” are just what heroes call their flashy named signature tricks.  Endeavor has like sixteen of them.

[elphael]

as a full commit to the bit, i've asked my friends what they think the most insane things i do at the table as a player are aka a list of reasons why no one should share 100% the same takes as me:

"I think my favorite thing about you as a player is you specifically request that your dms put you in a hole filled with snakes and ringed with barbed wire while it rains swords on your head because you're not living if whatever beast of a character you've constructed isn't fighting for their fucking life."

"It's not even your builds. It's how you go balls against the wall in your risks and choices."

"You are so brave for rolling all those smite dice when you can't add. I'm kidding. My real answer is you take a lot of bold actions for someone who can't roll above a 10 on the dice."

"Desire for bad things to happen to you specifically."

"The grip that 'bad' decisions have on you. Someone will be like 'hey here's a situation' and you'll be like 'Hm. what's the wildest way I can wiggle my way into or out of that.'"

"There's your commitment to putting your pcs in the worst fucking circumstances possible all the time. But also I'm pretty sure that life transference warlock you did breaks something in the rules. Not mechanically, just emotionally."

"Oh I've got it, 🪟 which I use for two reasons: first of all, I'm thinking of Ophelia breaking through that one stained glass window which stands in here as a testament to just how far you go in terms of The Most in combat. But also the sickest thing you do in just a few words: dramatic irony."

"You Commit To The Bit, but not like for a scene, for like an entire character arc."

"Liza 'I think I will cause problems on purpose' Actionsurges but the problems are exclusively for yourself."

"You just love making your own barriers to conquer, specifically for yourself. And once you have them you refuse to stop until you get through them. Honestly, it's admirable but fuck dude you scare me."

"Your commitment to making bad decisions if they're what makes sense for the character or have a good narrative payoff, even if it means risking dire consequences."

"You look at builds that are super mad or have incongruent main abilities and say yeah ill make that/play it."

these all had me howling because yeah of course it boils down to me being sick in the head as a risktaker.

[variousqueerthings]

I haven’t given many just “and here’s where we’re at in the watching” recently and I wanna

because I’m most of the way through my rewatch of s3

and most of the way through my first watch of s10 

and MASH continues to get more haunted and I note how I wrote nothing about “follies of the living” as if it didn’t make me go OH OKAY out loud (and I think it is good and right that Klinger can see the ghost and that he sincerely tries to help)

and in “where there’s a will there’s a war” I noticed that this Thing that I’d been feeling with Hawkeye (that he’s starved for close emotional contact with the other characters by the narrative consistently removing him to his own separate Land Of Pain) and that it made it clearer to me by showing the opposite --

several scenes of how close he is to the others, how they’ve made him laugh, how they’ve made him feel better, how they’ve found ways of comforting each other.... 

and I think I’m internalising a lot of my own headcanons and reads of who he is vs most of the others (exception being Margaret) who will all “go home” to what is “real life” and put all of this behind them (ofc they may fail to do so, but that is their plan), while for him this is the family he’s built and he’s noticeably not going home to a more normative-or-already-established version of that 

so I’m feeling a lot of heartache for the trundle towards the end of the story and imagining where he’ll be at the end and whether these memories of him with these people (people to whom he is leaving things in his will!!!) and an occasional reunion will be the sum of the intensity of his relationships with them

and whether he’ll build other connections in the future in a more normative society, when I cannot read him as able to be anyone other than himself, and therefore not someone who’d get married for the sake of marriage as a construct or forming any kinds of close relationships easily while everyone else is living in that construct/hierarchy

*

MEANWHILE in s3 we watched Adams Ribs and then went back to watch OR in one day... oh dear......... 😩😂

Trapper really is ride or die to the fullest, that man was gonna get his man some ribs! 

I have this really long musing I’m constantly trying to formulate about Hawkeye-and-managing-mental-illness and how people on the show at various points offer support (and so does he when needed), and how madness-as-danger and queerness-as-danger go hand in hand in narratives and in real life and how I think something awful is going to happen to Hawkeye at the endish of the story, and my worry that he’ll be more abandoned to systems that cannot fully offer humanity to him, such as institutions (which, in other settings, he has a non-zero risk of being locked up for one reason or another, he’s literally threatened with imprisonment and had his actions called some version of mad or potentially worthy of institutionalisation) 

anyway I just think Adams Ribs is a really good example of ways in which Trapper naturally goes along with this ostensibly out-there notion that Hawkeye has fixated on that is ultimately harmless to the social order (more harmless to the social order than, say, starting a protest about food quality), but also could have been dismissed out of hand as a crazy thing to do/Hawkeye as crazy

and now I do wonder about times in which Hawkeye is dismissed and how that affects him..... 

thoughts, none formulated to a conclusion.....

[sunset-a-story]

Good day! I had a couple of questions for you, no need to feel pressured to answer if they don't apply ^~^. I've recently run into an issue while writing and I'm looking for advice.

Do you have beta readers? If so, how do you handle the ones that try to take over your writing? I.E. They try to bully you into writing in a different voice, they assume to know more than you about the story and try to tell you how characters act, or tell you that you're writing your own plot wrong- including any foreshadowing bits or lack thereof (for plot reasons, of course). And finally, how do you handle the ones that act like their your friend only to steal major elements of your story because "I can do it better than you"? (Or conversely accused you of stealing from them just because something you did was apparently really close to something they did?)

Thank you for your time!

Uh, first off--what the cinnamon toast fuck. That sucks and I'm very sorry that any of that is shit you have come up against. Gottdamn. I am far from an expert here but as far as pushy beta readers: I went to a very small college for my creative writing degree and the brutal critiques taught me something they probably didn't intend: the ability to recognize that sometimes everyone else is wrong and it's okay to throw their opinions in the trash.

I got used to getting shredded in workshops, sometimes justifiably so and sometimes not. Sure, it's vital to be open to critique but not all feedback is equally valuable. Ex. I once sat there listening to the whole class and professor harping for half an hour on not understanding who these characters were to each other in a story of mine while I, not allowed to speak, sat with my pen--circling all the instances of the word "sister" that they'd somehow all failed to read.

So I got a lot of experience getting 12 different, very confident opinions of what was wrong with my story & how to fix it and being able to look at that and recognize, "Nope, you're all wrong."

To have a meeting with a professor to receive suggestions/feedback on a senior project and say, "I'm not doing that. You've missed the point," and have that be an acceptable answer--and get an A.

That's not every time. It's not like I was always right. Far from it and I got lots of constructive crit that improved my writing which I am beyond grateful for. But for the kind of feedback you're talking about? You know your characters and story better than anyone. And yeah, you're not writing the story the way they would write it, but you're the one telling the fucking story. You are under no obligation to put their notes into action. Not doing what they suggest is not an attack on them. If they're mad about that, they've misunderstood their role.

So I'd probably handle that by reiterating the type of feedback you want. I've specified certain things to my readers like "Can you follow the plot/world-building?" "What/who is keeping you interested?" "What/who is losing your attention?" That kind of stuff. Or stop giving them any more fiction.

I currently have three beta readers for Sunset and all three are close, trusted friends. Despite working on this story for around a decade, prior to a year or so ago, we hadn't shared it with anyone (except our best friend who sadly died in 2020) because of anxiety around exactly what you're talking about. Even when I know everything above to be true, it's still stressful.

I can say I've had readers either coming in with their own expectations or narrative getting a character completely wrong and kind of hanging onto that point of view and forcing it into the story. "I don't think X would do that." etc. It's frustrating but I just set it aside to compare with other readers' take on it to see if it's a them-problem or a me-problem and decide what needs refining to prevent that reaction. As far as stealing, I wish I had an answer for you. That all sounds terrible. People are always going to steal and, again, I'm sorry you've dealt with that.

I'm naive I guess because I could never imagine doing that to someone but people do. Hell, we had a visiting big-ish name writer come to our college who outright copped to stealing a line from one of our professor's books. It's gross. People kinda suck. It's something we worry about.

All I can say there is, they can't tell the story the way we can. They can steal the interior design but we have the foundation in our heads. We know what's on the second floor and which stairs squeak when you step on them. I guess that's what I would tell myself.

I don't know if I got too wordy there or too serious or whatnot, but those are my thoughts. Feel free to throw my suggestions in the trash too. You know your story.

Thanks for the questions and good luck!

[skadren]

I keep seeing a bunch of live and let go, boundaries are personal and not moral stances posts about writing and i largely agree ppl should be able to explore what they want in fic but also. Is there a way to balance or talk about "hi um white author so you kinda reinvented racism/blood eugenics and unilaterally present sex work as inherently degrading and etc etc etc for Shipping Angst Drama fodder, when the text is like. None of that" in fandom or even just in like. A server community. Maybe I'm a bit sensitive bc i feel constructed/projected misery is kind of tacky to begin with and i wouldn't do it with a complete stranger but idk my guy. I don't want to alienate myself but it's weird to go completely uncritical here

i think there are a couple items you need to check off the list before you can go "yes talking to internet stranger #37461239 about a highly sensitive topic is a good idea"

is it tagged appropriately? if it's tagged trust me the writer knows. they have probably gotten way more unsolicited feedback than they would really like

is the portrayal you're concerned about reinforcing an unhealthy or discriminatory predominant social narrative? if it is and you think the writer is genuinely unaware, then yeah, it might be worth bringing up. the emphasis here is on predominant please i am begging on my hands and knees

will this result in a productive conversation? if the intent behind this is to get people to reconsider, it isn't helping anyone if you know it will just lead to them doubling down and doing it even worse. at that point you're only making a performative statement to validate your own stance

if it really is bothering you that much, is there a compelling reason why you can't just block and move on? it isn't your responsibility nor is it feasible to fix how a fandom is doing things, especially if it's a group of people you don't really know. your own mental health always comes first, and a bit of salty venting in private with your friends never hurts anyone

if it IS a friend or acquaintance who is doing this and you think they would be open to discussing it with nuance, then you can probably bring it up. if that person has a basic level of consideration and respect for you it tends to go well, but i've also seen people double down because they already know there's something wrong with their attitudes but get mad at you for wanting them to change, and then it creates a whole ton of drama and people get hurt and it's not pretty. so. ymmv

ultimately, someone's views on racism or sex work or whatever is reflective of a broader social norm, and fandom is not the best space to try to fix that through confrontation-- it's usually someone's "safe space" where they want to retreat from the world, not come face-to-face with any sort of personal reckonings. do i think it's a mark of privilege that some people have the luxury of ignoring these issues when they "just want to have fun"? yes, but again, this is about being able to have productive discussion, not about what's "fair". unfortunately.

my two cents: if you're in a server community or some other space that makes you uncomfortable there's really nothing wrong with going "hey, we have fundamentally different standards when it comes to [x], and i don't think i want to be here" and moving on. the best way to challenge these things is quite literally to make your own food. there's a much better chance of the people you're worried about coming across it and realizing they like it than magically being able to argue them down with well-placed logic and reasonable points or whatever

EDIT: OH ALSO IM STUPID if you mean talking about it in general. not naming writer names but trends in the fandom. yes absolutely-- not in a public space like social media but definitely find a group of people who you trust who you can talk about these things with!! it is good and healthy. just make sure it isn't just a discord server open to the public or smth tho so you personally know and trust everyone who can see it (and you don't accidentally shit talk someone who is in that space lmao)

[gorematchala]

Final Fantasy 7, as its own self contained series including all the compilation stuff and Remake, is one of the most bafflingly awful pieces of media I've ever interacted with. Its popularity is part of whatsso frustrating about it to me, but the real issue is a lack of form and structure. I struggle even now to organize my thoughts but this is gonna be a full spoilers rant because I just finished catching up on Remake

FF7 on its face is a game about ecoterrorism, and class inequality. At least for a while. It then gets into flirting with the concepts of an ancient civilization and an alien invader. The afterlife and the perversion of it by the invader. These are all pretty dense topics

You see normally stories, especially long ones, have a thing called "internal consistency" which goes alongside "framework". The problem with games written by Tetsuya Nomura, like Kingdom Hearts, is that the man loves to write the phrase "and then" at the end of literally every sentence. Kingdom Hearts is the most obvious example. There was a bad man named Ansem, and then there was 13 bad guys led by another guy, and then there was a guy who was both of those guys, and then there was a X-blade which is like the keyblade but a morbillion times stronger, and then and then and then

And I have friends who love Kingdom Hearts. Its fine to like it, but lets not pretend its a well structured tight narrative. I often describe those games as Vibe Based Storytelling. The Darkness means whatever you want it to mean in the moment you're hearing about it. People are always "a part" of other people and no one ever explains what that means beyond the separation of the body and soul. I never used to compare FF7 unfavorably to Kingdom Hearts, but FF7R really took the worst parts of those games, which is "The Darkness" and all the vague lofty dialogue that surrouds it, and slotted it into a story that already had issues. And then they also introduced time travel

I do this thing often where I trace a problem back to its source. Its interesting to look at the few potentially little actions or motivations that spiraled out into a much bigger problem. Breaking Bad does that for you by telling you in like season 4 what Walt's actual inciting incident was. And it makes you go wow, what a small petty selfish man. Which is good in that example, I think because you know what kind of guy Walter is by then, so you go "Oh of course it would be fucking nothing. Of course it was just you being too stubborn to do a good thing for yourself at the expense of a little pride. Thats so Walt-core"

In FF7 if you trace the plot back you arrive at professor Hojo, who's motivation from the start is that he loves doing "research". I think this is because they wrote a mad scientist into the script and never wrote like, why he's a mad scientist. In FF7R they keep talking about the Promised Land, and constructing Neo Midgar, but never once do they explain what they think the Promised Land is or how they think Aerith can get them there, or what building Neo Midgar would do for them exactly. With all the time and money they invested in the underground facilities for each department they could just like, build better roads if that was what they wanted. But since they have meetings all the time just to whip Reeve in the balls I dont think thats their goal

So like the framework we're given in this modern era of ours is that they found Jenova and thought she was an ancient, so they started using her cells to make super soldiers for some reason, and then Hojo shot vincent and fucked his girlfriend to make Sephiroth. Sephiroth found out he was a weird mutant and he either went crazy or finally started to hear the call of Reunion or something? So he starts doing the joker smile and repeating the same 4 lines from Advent Children over and over again every time he appears in something. He dies, Zack dies, Cloud inherits the sword and Zacks persona, he also gets a little Jenova goop in him. Then in the original Jenova's body is taken over by Sephiroths will and escapes Shinra tower, which draws Cloud to him at the temple of the ancients and then a bunch of shit happens.

So Cloud and Sephiroth have no relationship except Cloud was the guy that threw Sephy into the abyss. Hojo is compelled to "Do Research" to the point that he later digitizes his brain and takes over Weiss's body so he can Do Research some more, with no particular goal in mind. Which its now been revealed that Chadley made that possible. The little shota android that Hojo made to be his assistant, which I think warrants a harddrive search. Sephiroth wants to destroy the planet, or rule it, or ride it across the universe to find whatever the Kingdom He- I mean the Promised land is. But in 7 Remake he just teleports himself and Cloud to the edge of the universe, so if he can just do that then what does he need the planet for? And Tifa needs twink cock sooo bad or she will die, and she will sacrifice the whole world if it gets her filled like a water balloon

So at the end of 7 Remake Sephiroth opens a portal to somewhere and says come get me teehee, and Aerith then turns the portal white? And then they go in and fight the advent children guys and a big purple soul monster in what seems to be a parallel universe??? And it isnt clear if theyre still in that parallel universe at the end of the game?? But they fight the Sephiroth kids because the whispers are the cries of the planet but they are also destiny, and they also control time, and theyre also monsters sometimes. So they kill the big guy, which somehow ripples back and makes Zack no longer dead. If Zack is no longer dead, the whole thing falls apart because Cloud is nothing without that death. But whatever, it places him as he was back then into current day, sure. But why? I know the answer is because fans like him, but this is what I'm talking about. The whole plot of everything that came out after 7 is based on how much the fans love Sephiroth, and they keep throwing in all this extra shit like Genesis and Angeal, the whispers, reunion theory, deepground, Sephiroth literally just making Kingdom Hearts shadow portals and purple heartless tornados, and it's all constructed on the inciting incident that Hojo just likes to Do Research. There's no solid understanding of anyones motivations, or the mechanics of the setting, or why Tifa had to arch her back and make herself look more breedable for Cloud while Jessie was dying. Or why she can't stop making sex noises whenever a door opens or an elevator stops

I guess I can relate cuz this post has no clear motivation I'm just pissed off that they're parading Zacks corpse around and that they got maybe the worst voice actor of all time to replace one of the best voice actors in the franchise. Because Zack is this shining beacon of normalness in Crisis Core. All this bullshit is happening around him and Genesis is talking about the gift of the goddess, and Zack is like dude I dont know what you're talking about, and I'm like me neither brother

[bittersweetpangs]

Be it through a veil, tell the truth. And other writing advice

ZADIE SMITH:

"Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never ­being satisfied."

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/20/10-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-two

Here are some more rules

ROSE TREMAIN:

1 Forget the boring old dictum "write about what you know". Instead, seek out an unknown yet knowable area of experience that's going to enhance your understanding of the world and write about that.

2 Nevertheless, remember that in the particularity of your own life lies the seedcorn that will feed your imaginative work. So don't throw it all away on autobiography.

SARAH WATERS:

1 Read like mad. But try to do it analytically – which can be hard, because the better and more compelling a novel is, the less conscious you will be of its devices. It's worth trying to figure those devices out, however: they might come in useful in your own work.

3 Treat writing as a job. Be disciplined. Lots of writers get a bit OCD-ish about this. Graham Greene famously wrote 500 words a day. Jean Plaidy managed 5,000 before lunch, then spent the afternoon answering fan mail. My minimum is 1,000 words a day – which is sometimes easy to achieve, and is sometimes, frankly, like shitting a brick, but I will make myself stay at my desk until I've got there, because I know that by doing that I am inching the book forward. Those 1,000 words might well be rubbish – they often are. But then, it is always easier to return to rubbish words at a later date and make them better.

4 Writing fiction is not "self-­expression" or "therapy". Novels are for readers, and writing them means the crafty, patient, selfless construction of effects. ...

HILARY MANTEL

7 Concentrate your narrative energy on the point of change. This is especially important for historical fiction. When your character is new to a place, or things alter around them, that's the point to step back and fill in the details of their world. People don't notice their everyday surroundings and daily routine, so when writers describe them it can sound as if they're trying too hard to instruct the reader.

8 Description must work for its place. It can't be simply ornamental. It ­usually works best if it has a human element; it is more effective if it comes from an implied viewpoint, rather than from the eye of God. If description is coloured by the viewpoint of the character who is doing the noticing, it becomes, in effect, part of character definition and part of the action.

MICHAEL MORPUGO:

2 Ted Hughes gave me this advice and it works wonders: record moments, fleeting impressions, overheard dialogue, your own sadnesses and bewilderments and joys.

WILL SELF:

1 Don't look back until you've written an entire draft, just begin each day from the last sentence you wrote the preceding day. This prevents those cringing feelings, and means that you have a substantial body of work before you get down to the real work which is all in . . .2 The edit.

3 Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.