#enemies to bff

[strawberri-draws]

Cannot wait for the Mom Team Up

[notllorstel]

making the eldest trolls siblings interact

[fixated-dark-king]

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

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

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

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

WHAT APPEALS ABOUT ‘THE MONSTROUS’ TO PACAT:

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

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

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

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

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

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

ENEMIES TO LOVERS TROPE:

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

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

WILL KEMPEN: FOUND FAMILY & THE LONELINESS OF INAUTHENTICITY:

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

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

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

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

[buckrecs]

i wanted to request hockey player!bucky au or like any kinda sport but preferably hockey or baseball because i’ve only read like 3 fics about that AU but im obsessed with it

Athlete!Bucky

masterlist | req masterlist

I didn’t put any boxer bucky fics btw ! thinking about making a list just for it..

ONESHOT

My Everyday by @pellucid-constellations

Bucky Barnes was aggressive, annoying, and—worst of all—a hockey player. Not your type. At all. But, unfortunately, your roommate.

Touchdown by @buckyseternal

you decide to reward your boyfriend after he scores the winning touchdown.

A Little Superstitious by @jadedvibes

The school's football team needs a win and a certain blue-eyed player could use a kiss for good luck to help make that happen.

hail mary by @barnesafterglow

when you start sneaking around with your brother's best friend, it's only a matter of time until you get caught

Don’t End Today by @subwaysurf45

The day that you happily upgraded you from tutor to girlfriend all because of a few nice words.

Flirting and Football by @lovelybarnes

Bucky barnes and a college au where reader is the only one who isn’t interested in him basically

Anger Issues by @hailhydra920

You’re the only one who can calm Bucky down.

fair catch by @endless-summer-soldier

Y/N joins the football team to prove a point and the last thing Bucky expected out of the season was to fall for the new kicker

SERIES

For the Love of the Game by @pellucid-constellations

Bucky Barnes was a menace. NYU’s top baseball player, he was used to girls falling at his feet and could smooth talk his way out of just about anything. You hated him. He couldn’t figure out why. So when the novelty of weekend parties and quick hookups finally wore off—and his feelings for you began to grow—he made it his mission to fix it.

No Such Thing by @sanguineterrain

You’ve been assigned to write a column for your school paper on the team’s spectacular running back. You don’t care very much for your university’s football team; you just can’t understand the hype, okay? Turns out your distaste for football bigheads was exactly on point: James Barnes is insufferable.

Out Of Bounds by @foreverindreamlandd

The chaos fic that was supposed to be a one shot inspired by me binge-watching Ted Lasso and now there’s a masterlist lmao. Enjoy the ride!

ice ice baby by @endless-summer-soldier

Bucky is a college hockey player, Y/N is a figure skater without a partner. What's happens when these two opposites start sharing the ice...

Quarterback!Bucky x Assistant!Reader by @angrythingstarlight

ice ice baby by @endless-summer-soldier

Bucky is a college hockey player, Y/N is a figure skater without a partner. What's happens when these two opposites start sharing the ice...

[plistommy]

#Canon

[emp-roar]

hahaha jokes on you all i drew all four of them for warmups funky little crossovers for my own entertainment but thank you all for participating in the poll, i can tell you thrawn folks live here now

[cashmoneyyysstuff]

honestly i don’t see as much childhood friends to lovers with katsuki as i would like to and i feel like that’s criminal. like that is a criminal offense.

[polin-erospsyche]

Moment of truth: I did not think twice about the entrapment line at first. It wasn’t until you all went pointing the finger at Colin saying “he’s cruel! He said she entrapped him. He does not love her!” (Ok I admit that last part is a bit extreme and just a couple of people said that) that in a typical me fashion, I start overthinking: “Was I tired? Did I miss that part? Do I just have a heart made of stone and I do not care?”

But now that time has passed and I’ve time to rewatch and yes, I wince a little because it’s not nice to hear, I realise why I still don’t really have a problem with that line.

He means it, he definitely do mean it I think. He just doesn’t mean to say it to Pen. He means to say it to Whistledown, who’s hurt him and his family. He says it to the person he wants to hurt in return. And the person who he wants to hurt happen to also by extension be his best friend so he knows what to say. He knows how to lash out to cause maximum damage. That is also why he cannot look at her and he almost seems to regret it immediately. Because saying it to Whistledown also means saying it to Pen. It does fit and make sense when you know he was trying to dissociate the two. Unfortunately for our boy, he cannot hurt one without hurting the other because she’s one person

[hootnhoney]

“When you lov- care for someone not much hurts more than their scorn”

VIRGIL LOVED THEM ALL FROM EPISODE ONE

This little shit

loved them and was just putting up a villainous font so he could protect them from the real dangers. Cause that’s the only way he knew how to keep them safe. Even though it came at the cost of them loving him back.

Ugh. The drama. The angst.

[thesokovianaccords]

#steggyweek2k24 - day three - aus and crossovers

work in progress (a new girl au) After her dramatic breakup with Fred three days before their wedding, Peggy grabbed the first open flat she could find. She had imposed on Natasha’s hospitality for long enough, and even though the housing market in London was horrendous, she managed to snag a room in a lovely fourth floor loft flat six minutes from the Tube.  There was never a dull moment to be found in Flat 4b - the ongoing rivalry between James (Barnes) and James (Rhodes) over their names, the will they-won’t they of James (Barnes) and his handsome Air Force co-worker Sam (he of the perfect gumbo and even more perfect arms), the ongoing saga of Steve’s creative block and its many foibles, James’ (Rhodes) uber-wealthy friend and his long-suffering PA. Peggy was pulled into a whirlwind when she signed the lease, but she enjoyed every moment of the ride - her life with Fred had been so frightfully dull, and she secretly craved a bit of the chaos that seemed to always follow her flatmates around. She also (not-so) secretly craved something else too. Or rather, someone else. Her partner in crime in their ongoing war with the landlord, her late-night stress baking buddy (insomnia loves company, after all), her go-to concert date, and her nonstop support as she fought her way through her highly classified job. Peggy collected all these little moments with Steve - unconsciously at first. Until one day, she looked at him and realised he was everything she had been looking for. But that was complicated, wasn’t it? She couldn’t risk her little corner of imperfect paradise, but she also couldn’t stop thinking about abandoning all reason and dragging him through her bedroom door. What was a girl to do when everything she wanted most was right across the hall?

[fromtheseventhhell]

"It's normal for siblings to fight" Okay well it's not normal to be extremely classist and look down on your sister for being non-conforming. Or to go to the woman who ordered the death of your pet to tell her about your father's plans, when he specifically warned you against doing so, because you want to marry the boy you saw attack your sister and her friend (contributing partially to said father's death and your sister being unable to escape on the ship he chartered). Or to think of your sibling as unsatisfactory in comparison to another when you believe her to be dead. I notice that none of the "Sansa and Arya are going to reunite and instantly have no issues" crowd ever acknowledge any of this, which makes it seem like they don't actually believe what they say about their relationship being normal and easily reconciled. People wanting them to have no issues simply because they're siblings is another example of how fandom likes to flatten complex characters and relationships. They get reduced to being bickering siblings when their conflict runs deeper than that. If the author is telling you that they have "deep issues" to work out [X], I don't understand being so adamant about ignoring said issues. I also get the sense it's about ignoring the capacity for a certain character to be flawed, but that isn't going to change the fact that her "slip of the tongue" is very likely to be revealed and a source of further conflict 🤷🏾‍♀️

[pizza-feverdream]

I spent more time editing the gif than the actual artwork lol

Here's the Boys. They're just some Totally Not Screwed Up Guys

[peoplesuckwoosh]

lestappen being sworn enemies for the first 22 years of their lives and now they’re suddenly the bestest of friends and eachothers biggest supporters is so fucking funny😭

[spectatingspectacle]

I found the first sketch of Valentine!

Originally she wormed her way into Leshy's heart by asking for a hug then punching him in the face when he refused

He couldn't tell her no after that

[toomanylizzes]

Thinking about how Jamie’s general vocabulary and grasp of idiom has improved, and my favourite imagined scenario to explain this is Sam giving Jamie book recommendations, and Jamie texting Sam his reactions as if it’s a soap opera.

[aroacesigma]

i think by far the funniest part of bsd is dazai trying to establish himself as the epitome of hetereosexuality in the first episode , and then proceeding to whore himself out to every man he meets