#it just inspires me to write better trauma that actually connects to the themes and plot of the story

[vicsuragi]

okay i finally watched an episode from the correct season of ordinary lies and i am so fucking confused that was such a 90 degree turn they took in the last 10 minutes.

[natt-writes]

~5 Writing tips that actually help~

(These tips are meant for fiction books, especially fantasy. so if you’re writing nonfiction a decent amount of these won’t apply to you. Sorry!)

Find your writing voice.

one of the biggest issues I find in things written by beginners is a lack of emotional connection with the narration. Sure the story can be great, but without personality, without looks into the characters minds, without little quips here and there, it really isn’t all that interesting. Something that really helped me to realize this was a book called the tragical tale of birdie bloom. It’s a kids book but it honestly has such a good narrator (and storyline tbh) that you can look past the little kiddy-ness. I recommend you check the book out if you’re looking for some inspiration. I will be making a post about how to develop your writing and character voices soon so if you want some extra help with that, stay tuned!

2. Get to know your characters.

I know that you all probably already know this, but characters are one of, if not the most important part of a book. Readers don’t want to read about a flat, boring character who just feels like a vessel for the horrifying amount of trauma you add to your story. They want to read about people that feel real, people with flaws and feelings and hobbies and backstories. When I wanted to develop my characters I started going through the drafts, the plot outlines, everything and seeing what the characters did, said, felt. Then I took their basic backstory and started lining things up. Like if a character decided to get into a fight with another character, I would see what had happened to them that might have caused this. Maybe they had been abused as a child and thought that any disagreement meant they had to fight for their life. Maybe this person reminded them of a former enemy. After you start to figure out what connects the characters to the big plot points, you can then start to develop subtle things. You could start writing something, realize this situation would have triggered a character, and then drop subtle hints towards them feeling uncomfortable. Go nuts with it, after all you can never over-analyze a character.

3. Describe things uniquely.

Descriptions are what help us to understand what’s going on in a scene. They can tell us about the tasty drink a character is enjoying, the slick dress that someone is wearing or the way a characters muscles tense when a certain someone enters the room. But sometimes descriptions a fall a bit flat and that can ruin the experience for the reader. Something I always try to remember is to try and come up with new words describe something, for example; “her eyes were a beautiful shade of brown.” Is a very basic and over used description, instead you could try; “her eyes sparkled as she sat across from me, gleaming a rich chocolate shade as the light from the candles reflected off of them”. This is a much stronger sentence as it gives both environment hits and a description of the eyes, all while staying away from overused terms. I often see this theme in stories written by beginners, things being described in a very straight forward manner. And of course this is ok once in a while, especially if this isn’t a very important topic, but it still sounds better when you branch away from that basic sentence structure. I always like to use descriptive sentences to push things forward. Here is another example; “she was wearing a fluffy green dress with lots of lace. She walked over to the door and opened it.” Vs “the lacy trim of her green dress dragged on the floor as she walked towards the door. She smiled wide as she held it open, inviting her guests into the building.” Making strong sentences is very important, so please toy around with different words, structures, etc, until the sentence fits the type of book you’re trying to write.

4. Make trauma realistic.

Yes, even if you’re writing a fantasy book, characters experiences have to be realistic. Something that always gets on my nerves is when writers come up with a good idea for some trauma, so they just give to a character, even when it doesn’t suit them at all. if you are going to give a character trauma you need to explain it, set it up so it actually fits into their character arc, then have the character actually be affected by it. They can’t just randomly be like “I got shot by a dude.” And that’s it if there is no way that character could have gotten shot given their life experiences. Also if you want a character to be relatively unaffected after an extremely traumatic event you have to plan it out so that they have a specific and consistent trauma response that makes them not react shortly after an event like that. Characters are supposed to be like people, and no two people react to trauma the same way, so you do have some leeway if necessary, but people also don’t just stay the same after something horrible happens, they are affected by it and that has to be accurately portrayed. This does get easier the more you get to know the characters though, as soon you will know how they react to things and how to plan trauma that suits them.

5. Make a plot outline.

I cannot stress this enough, make a plot outline. Making a plot outline literally saved my book, and they are really easy to make! I recommend you download a spreadsheet app like XL spreadsheets or Apple numbers but you could even use google docs if you want. You want to put in all the chapters and then give each chapter at least six spots to write scenes. Add a spot for adding the main event of the chapter/a summery of what you have to write. This will help you to understand what you have to write for that chapter and how it fits into the next chapter. After that you start to fill all the scene boxes in with your plot information. Having a plot outline is great as it can be super vague and messy, but still hold all your ideas. It also helps to prevent unnecessary rewrites later, as you can just edit the plot outline before you start writing the first draft. You can even make a plot outline after you’ve started writing your book. That’s what I did and I promise, it still is very helpful. (Example of a plot outline below.)

[palmviolet]

3, 5 [bbybtm], 10, 17, 25, 39 for the writers ask meme 👀

3. What are some tropes or details that you think are very characteristic of your fics?

i mean detail period, for one thing haha if you see ridiculous endnotes you're getting close. but generally i think i explore pretty big issues — my last few longfics have been about classism, trauma, homophobia, and chronic pain respectively. i also love complicated relationships where the story doesn't end when they admit feelings, but rather begins.

5. What do you wish someone would ask you about [better by you, better than me]? Answer it now!

oooh i'm going to talk about the very start of the first scene because i love it and i want to explain why i think it works.

Bleary eyes and a clang from the door; Eddie wakes to raw ice in his chest and a gritty feeling in his mouth, like road salt. Padded bench thin and utterly uncomfortable beneath him. It takes a second for vision to meet brain and connect; he says a silent prayer for his neurons, fried by whatever Rick gave him last night, those precious little jumper cables. Maybe something really is listening, because, eventually, they spark. He recognizes the room.

“He wakes,” someone says. The guy opposite him, an older guy with a belly, baseball cap pulled down low over his eyes like a sleep mask. “Thought you were dead for a second there, kid, how much did you drink?”

so from the very first we have eddie in a confused, disjointed state — sentences fragmented, various senses waking up — but even here it's all about his perceptions, sight, sound, taste, touch. he's a perceptive character and a lot of the fic is about what he notices, which is set up here. also, he's reduced to the bare essentials of existing, as in extremis, foreshadowing events to come, where he's going to have to rely on his body (which frequently lets him down) to survive. the next sentence introduces his mental state, something he's hyperaware of, 'wired wrong' in both a neurodivergent sense and a queer sense, and his relationship to drugs — the unhealthy influence rick has over him, the way he's sort of lost in it and doesn't know what he's doing. and then the final sentence of the paragraph: 'maybe something really is listening'. it introduces religiosity (and smalltown judgement, his own scepticism, the faith of other characters) at the same time as it suggests the possibility of something else out there, something from another world. i also used a car metaphor, to set up mechanic!eddie.

the presence of the other guy in the drunk tank is significant too. he's older, he's got a rural accent the way wayne and eddie's dad do. he calls eddie 'kid' and expresses concern — a pseudo father figure. volume one is all about dynamics of fatherhood and i wanted to get that in there right from the start. eddie's already dismissing the care of a parental figure, distrusting it, but it's being offered anyway (the guy 'scoffs' when eddie calls himself 'stupid'). it sets up a really significant theme across the work, that these relationships aren't hopeless, that often you can find the family you need in the most unexpected places. of course, this doesn't mean the guy from the drunk tank is going to show up again — he's a symbol, more than anything. which is something i've also loved doing with this fic, which is fleshing out the texture of everyday life, the way we'll meet people randomly who have their own inner lives, their own conflicts and ideas and histories, and yet they're only a fleeting concern to our own inner lives. it's a prominent theme!

10. How do you decide what to write?

i mean i sort of just... write and see where it takes me. better by you, for example, was a very hazy idea i intended to keep on the backburner while i worked on the 70s rockstar au and then i had a mad flash of inspiration and wrote the opening drunk tank scene and boom, i couldn't stop myself. as for the actual content of my stories, again, it just sort of happens. i do spend time teasing out plot points and working out where to put them but there's not really a logical process about what goes into the fic and what gets cut.

17. What highly specific AU do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?

i've mentioned this before but - infinite jest steddie au lmaooo i want elite tennis player steve and drug user/dealer eddie in a weirdly dystopian future conveyed by ridiculously long sentences. but hey. that's supremely indulgent.

25. What other websites or resources do you use most often when you write?

big fan of google ngram and the OED to check if i can use certain words, for the sake of period accuracy. wikipedia's also a big help. i also use top 40 weekly to see what music was popular at what points in the 80s.

39. Is any aspect of your writing process inspired by other writers or people? If so, who?

hmm this is a strange question because the word 'process' is throwing me off - is it asking about the physical act of writing? (aka stephen king's 'six pages a day' rule or whatever?) because if so, then not really haha again i just sort of let it happen, though i do hold with the idea that one should try to write every day. (which i have very much NOT been doing lately, but hey, master's degree.)

thank you!! fic ask game

[isagrimorie]

Legacies seasons 1 & 2 had such fun monster-of-the-week things but the main big bad of Legacies have been such major FLOPS.

Still better than Teen Wolf's weird pacing issues but that's not saying a lot.

Golden Trio version 1 (Hope, Lizzie, and Josie) with bonus squad: Kalen, MG, Raf, and Landon were great and Triad as the main big bad for s1 was Great Actually. Tapped into the Legacies theme of the show bringing in MG's connection to the group via his mother.

The happy days before we realized that the show would continue to re-use Malivore and the Necromancer over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Plots and characters threaded together.

Except for the part where I wish Hope was there during the siege more.

Season 2 had a great build-up to the Dark Josie arc with bonus Kai Parker providing more chaos. Building more relationship dynamics between Hope and Lizzie (my favorite!), I did actually like Josie and Landon. I know that's unpopular but they were sweet together.

Raf, unfortunately, is just reduced to re-living his traumas and then used as a puppet for Necromancer shenanigans. I hate it.

I know fans hated season 2, which I still find confusing since it felt like a fun season to me.

And then season 3 happened. The first time I watched in real-time and the season was plagued with the covid stoppage, and they were off to a bad start where they did the thing where 'Hope didn't wake up because she felt Landon was dying'.

Started out stupid, continued to be stupid culminating with Hope killing Landon. Also, I guess that was an advertisement for safe sex and how everyone should have protection during sex.

It's like when D'avin temporarily killed Sabine in Killjoys because they had unprotected sex.

Cribbing with Buffy in all the wrong ways and ensuring that Hope will never have a healthy relationship with sex again. A weird thing for a show set in a universe where it didn't have a weird hang-up over sex.

And now their strongest character in the TVD 'verse has that hang-up. I would never guess the one thing Hope would have over Buffy is a bigger hang-up regarding sex, but the Legacies writers did that.

Also doesn't give me the greatest confidence the episode where Hope a) has sex for the first time and b) kills her first love with her sex was written by Brett Matthews, current Legacies showrunner.

In season 2 they had a much better take on having sex for the first time. Maybe Barbara Brandon should've directed that episode instead of the white guy.

I miss Marguerite McIntyre (sheriff Liz Forbes) writing for Legacies.

Finally, in season 4 they're getting their groove back and I love, love how the show is setting up Hope and Lizzie on the opposite sides of the war. First by choice, and now because of the brand with Aurora, by coercion. It's some good food.

Unfortunately, Landon is still stuck in limbo and I like the kid he doesn't deserve to be there and every time it goes to the limbo scene I zone out. Because it's so Damned Boring and disconnected from everything else. I know they might connect it in some way but god, is it such a snooze fest.

I'm not a fan of Josie leaving the show but I loved Josie and Lizzie's last scene together because it broke my heart but also gave me such strong first Doctor to Susan goodbye vibes: "One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine."

I do like they're changing Cleo's powers in a way that they won't always rely on Cleo to give inspiration or save the group's ass in a way that's reminiscent of how the MF gang relied on Bonnie. (In a highly negative way -- Bonnie deserved better).

HIRE VARDEMUS FOR THE SALVATORE SCHOOL PLS.

Alaric needs another adult (who isn't Ted and the Necromancer) to talk to and it showed in 4x14.

Plus real!Vardemus actually worked a lot better than Clarke!Vardemus, which isn't a surprise.

[ginkgomoon]

Victor’s Aura- A Character Aura Study

This post is my take on Victor’s aura, taken from my knowledge and intuition to depict what kind of aura he has! I did one on Gavin, as well as Gavin’s astrological birth chart so if you haven’t seen them, you can read them after this post!

What is an Aura? “Aura” by the dictionary is “the distinctive atmosphere or quality that seems to surround and be generated by a person, thing, or place”. 

It’s essentially the electromagnetic energy field that surrounds all living things. It’s the magnetic field of vibration like how a lighted candle is lit and how a scent or perfume surrounds a flower. In fact, it’s correctly described as an extension of the body. It’s a part of every cell. Your aura can be affected by anything, including traumas, memories and emotions. It can tell us a lot about a person’s mental, physical, emotional state, vitality and path of life. Habitual thoughts, emotions and even illnesses can be clearly revealed. If a person changes their long standing thoughts and emotions, the aura will too reflect that. 

Victor’s Aura There are many layers to the aura but let’s start off with the “ground” colour. This is the main colour that dominates the aura both in size and intensity. It’s arguably the most important colour as it shows what the person should be doing in their life. 

Victor’s main ground colour is dark yellow (keep in mind this is not defined as “murky”- when someone is lost and muddled in their life). People with dark yellow as their ground are confident, well adjusted and analytical. As a result, they take life one step at a time, one goal at a time, ensuring every project is seen through properly to completion to avoid problems and setbacks later. They are patient people, setting their worthwhile goals in no hurry to reach them, as they know without a doubt that they will obtain their deserved reward in the end. They prefer to do things rationally and in a logical manner, especially at work where they are required to make use of their good memory and love for detail. As they are ambitious and persistent, they often take up roles of leadership, responsibility and of importance. From his corrections on MC’s reports to the food he makes at Souvenir (that is insisted to be cooked according to certain temperatures), Victor is no doubt a detail-oriented leader even whether if the goal he wants to achieve is related to work or not. 

MC: It’s a sort of mark that can be left in literature or in a photograph… and I can feel it. Victor’s eyes are lowered. In his clear and tranquil eyes, there are ripples of light and shadows. Victor: Such as? The smile tugging at the corner of his mouth is clear, and I ponder this seriously. MC: For example, the way I write proposals has changed. The format of my proposals has changed. The indent of the first line, font size 15, 1.5 spacing between lines… it’s the format you find most pleasing to the eye! Victor’s eyebrow quirks. Victor: That’s all? MC: There’s more! I’ve become so much more picky with food. I never used to complain that food tastes bad, but eating at Souvenir has cultivated my palate. Now, when I eat even Michelin meals, I feel as if something’s lacking… -CN Exhibition Date 

“What happened with SE is just an example. We’re from different businesses and different fields. There’s no need to compare yourself with me. Also, I’m older than you. When you’ve reached my age, you might attain the achievements I have today.” -CN Night Meeting Date

“Slow and steady wins the race” is the moral that they live by, but sometimes adhering to this credo may frustrate others as they can be so analytical and detail oriented at times- usually at great lengths. A cute little add from the Tender Regards Date around the concept of snail mail, time (Victor’s evol!) and the goal of always reaching your destination in the end demonstrate this this motif in Victor’s relationship with MC.

“Looks like you should have received this Future Mail. Apart from supporting your event, I’m only going to do this once. This will not be repeated. The things I want to say to you are all in this videotape. It only belongs to you.” -CN Tender Regards Date 

“When will you finally understand? It’s all right. I’m patient. I’ll wait for you to see the light slowly.” -Rooftop Date

Although they have feelings, they only ever reveal it to people close to them. They enjoy the detail and technicality of conversations and find it hard to talk about their emotions. Victor’s Exhibition and Tender Regards Date are very useful sources of information in relation to these topics, as it displays Victor’s deep emotions of affection to MC and highlights the importance of expressing emotions to those you love. Dark yellow aura peoples’ greatest lesson in life is to be more emotionally open, and when do they do, it usually occurs later in life. 

“The writer wrote it down herself - “The time I spent loving someone, not a single second of it was wasted.” I rarely hear such words leave Victor’s mouth, and it makes me feel a little surreal. In my memory, we very rarely talk about the topic of ‘love’. Maybe it’s because he rarely says what’s in his heart. Maybe it’s because I’m used to being thick-skinned. We never have the opportunity to seriously understand the meaning in these words. -CN Exhibition Date 

“Do you still remember the special episode on “Feelings” from before? Actually, this theme was inspired by that episode. Giving gifts is a common way to express how one feels. But it’s not that easy to send a gift to the future. With Future Mail, the sender can convey their feelings and surprises in this gift to the other party across time.” -CN Tender Regards date 

People with dark yellow as their ground enjoy system and order such as routines at work and in their home life. This is applied to Victor’s strict schedules in his day to day life, such as taking on what time he sleeps and when he gets up to go on his morning jogs. They need to consider new ideas before grudgingly accepting them. This is especially applied to when Victor always says “just this once” to MC when he’s being “childish” with her (but we really know that isn’t the case, he knows this all too well, too). 

“Because a certain greedy cat always says she wants to eat something sweet after dinner, I made pudding before leaving the house. Do you think this is a mark of how I’ve been changed?” -CN Exhibition Date 

Next is Victor’s “radiating” colour. This represents his interests and motivations. It adds strength to the ground colour. They can work well in harmony, some can conflict. 

I would take Victor’s radiating as violet. Violet is a very highly spiritual colour, as people with this colour as their radiating will have a very spiritual take on life, as they are deep thinkers who like to analyse everything and think matters though logically. They are also naturally intuitive. Violet radiatings have the ability to come up with unique and unusual solutions to problems. As they enjoy learning, they have the potential to become experts in their field of endeavour- which is no surprise for Victor as he’s basically an “on top of the world tyrant” in the industry of finances. In addition, they feel things deeply, but rather operate things on an emotionally free level- again with the ground aura traits to enhance this! However, Victor too, has a high EQ despite this.

“I’m no different from you. There are many things I cannot do or force to make happen. It’s okay to not be strong, it’s okay to not do well. You don’t have to bottle up your emotions.” … “I won’t tell you to keep holding on no matter what difficulties you face. That isn’t realistic. There will come a time when you will become an even better version of yourself who will have enough courage and experience to deal with all of this.” -CN Colours of Rain Date 

Overall, Victor’s aura of darker yellow and violet depict him as more of a straightforward kind of person, hardworking and articulate, however soon we realise there’s more to what we see of Victor, like how MC thinks that Victor comes off as a “heartless CEO” throughout the main story chapters but he slowly warms up to her whilst determining to prove her wrong. Victor is wise, and doesn’t bother to put in his personal efforts to where it’s not needed, but when it’s up to him- he strives to go all the way for perfection and with the best of his ability. He spends a lot of time in deep contemplation to determine his plans of attack which allows him to execute them well. His values and worth ethics will always in the end allow him to make time for MC, no matter how busy he is :) 

And lastly…

Victor leans against the window, his face still written with distaste, but he does not attempt to remove that childish-looking blanket. He brings the red cup to his lips and gently blows on it. The warm light encases him, softening the aura surrounding him. His outline also appears gentler. He doesn’t look as impossible to get close to. My eyes land on Victor, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He puts down the cup in his hands, lowering his eyes, as though deep in thought. This is a Victor I have never seen before… In this moment, he seems to have put down his stubbornness and distant aura - becoming someone within reach. Only now does Victor finally feel my gaze. He raises his head to look at me. -CN Warm Date 

All of a sudden, he lifts his other hand gently. A water droplet pelts onto his palm, as though pulling him into the pattering rain. Seeing this, I find myself subconsciously frozen in place. Because of the enshrouding misty rain, the Victor before me appears warmer and more tender than usual. -CN Tender Regards Date 

It always has and always will be MC to see this side of him- the tenderness and the willingness of how he opens up to her- his aura willingly to embrace hers too. Fun fact- auras can deflect off one another if you’re with someone you dislike. But when it’s with two people in love, their auras connect, combine and produce an even brighter and bigger accommodating aura for the both of them. He’s certainly living working towards to achieve his greatest life goals- both in his businesses and being with MC, striving together to make great changes and milestones in their respective industries. Without a doubt, she has helped Victor’s aura grow, expand and shine the many rays through his doubts, allowing a light from within to burn brighter and evolve him into more of the brilliant, hardworking and tender man we know today.

[smokeybrandreviews]

End of the Joke

I don’t care for Punchline. DC is giving her this massive, undeserved, push toward something bigger, I think, and it’s frustrating to watch. Her debut is right before Joker War so I imagine she'll be a force in Gotham going forward, maybe on her own, maybe as Joker's partner, maybe as his replacement. I don't know, I don't care. What immediately strikes me is the fact that Joker’s new girl is kind of... corny. I believe that the most effective Joker is a lone Joker. A Joker allowed to be revel in his violence and depravity, free of a colorful supporting staff. That's his allure. Every other Gotham villain has henchmen or mob connections. Mr. Napier does not. Joker is a boogie man who only solicits expendable manpower in accordance with the scheme. He is an island of pure, malevolent, chaos. For me, Joker is Tyler Durden. He is the anarchist. The mass murderer. The dog chasing cars. He's an enigma that is more than the physical. Joker is Batman's opposite in every way. He is the king of Gotham's underworld, even if he chooses not to wear that broken crown and leaves the throne vacant. Joker doesn't need a second. Harley worked because she was a very different character, first introduced into a very different medium. Harls had years to develop in Batman: The Animated Series before she made the jump to the comics. Even her Ivy romance has roots in BTAS, no pun intended. Harley Quinn organically grew into a great character. Punchline, however, feels forced. She feels really try-hard. She feels disposable. I don’t know if it’s because she only has a handful of appearances but, so far, most of them have been written by her creators, which does not bode well. If they can’t get the character right, then the character will never be right and is, effectively, a wasted opportunity.

I think i dislike this chick so much because she’s a goddamn Mary Sue. Harley earned her agency after years upon years of trauma. She was manipulated, abused, and violated, by Joker. Overcoming that violence on her way to becoming a principal character of the entire DC universe, is a true story of growth with some incredibly compelling themes that have been explored at length. The Harleen we see in Mad Love is a completely different character to the Harleen we see in Birds of Prey. Hell, her first appearance way back in Joker’s Favor was perfect. She was lively, energetic, visibly traumatized, and humanized the abject horror Joker embodies. Harley feels like she’s been with the Joker for years. She fits that dynamic. Punchline does none of that. Her first appearance reads like edgelord fan fiction. Harley was more than her Harley Quinn persona. Punchline is not. Its funny to me that she references not being one of Joker’s fangirls because that’s exactly how this story portrays her.

The goth outfit. The super-crazy facial expressions. All of that big “I’m not like other girls” energy. The fact that she found the formula for Joker Venom online is just the worst. Even more egregious, the fact that she was able to modify it into a liquid form which not only inflicts more acute symptoms upon the victim, but leaves them alive for interrogation, and Joker, himself, never tried that, is borderline unbelievable. Rey Palpatine is the poster child for Mary Sues but Punchline is really giving the impostor Skywalker a run for her money. The first time i saw this chick in a comic, she fought Mercy Graves to a stalemate. Mercy f*cking Graves. Lex Luthor’s bodyguard. Harley was able to do that in the World’s Finest crossover special but she has a background in gymnastics and martial arts. Punchline is a child compared to her. She can’t be more than twenty-two years old, considering she’s still in college and that’s IF she’s a Senior. You’re telling me that this kid, who has shown no special abilities, genius level intellect, or enhanced skills, can best one of the strongest martial artists in the DC universe? More than that, she beats Harley, herself, in a fight. How??

There is no conceivable way Punchline defeats Harley in a scrap. None. Harleen’s gone toe-to-toe with Batman and even bested him a few rounds. She’s been a Suicide Squad survivor countless times. She pulled through i don’t know how many attempts on her life at the hands of the Joker and you’re telling me that Punchline, this glorified emo kid, bested her in fisticuffs, nearly killing her in the process? There’s no way. There’s no way Harley jobs that hard to anyone but, here we are. Because the writers and creators of this character are creatively bankrupt. They wanted their OC to be better so they made Harley worse. They wanted their OC to be anti-Harley, but as popular as Harley, so she had to beat Harley. That’s bad writing, man, and considering these stories are our first experiences with this character, that might be her death knell. It’s a shame because i actually think there is merit in the idea of Punchline as a character.

Punchline could have been something special, a Batgirl to Joker, so to speak. Literally just crib Batgirl’s entire origin and apply it to Joker. Disillusioned college student who derived her own persona independent of, but based upon, Joker. She’d be able to start small, committing base murders because, apparently, she has a thing for knives. Slowly gaining experience and reputation over time as a killer, as a villain, outside of Joker, eventually making her proper debut as a new force in Gotham villainy; Punchline. Show us how clever she could have been removed from Joker. Give us evidence of her ingenuity. Show us what she could do with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets. Make her the anarchist and domestic terrorist she seems to want to be, outside of that Clown Prince choker. Imagine if she Tyler Durden’d her way through Gotham in a massive, bloody, spectacle, similar to how Joker did in The Man Who Laughs, as an homage to her inspiration. You’d have sold her lethality to the audience, put her on the level of a major Gotham threat, and made it believable that Joker would want her on his team. Instead, she poisoned a guy with a Joker Venom recipe she got of Reddit, because he was uncomfortable with her anarchist manifesto that probably bordered on hate speech, while Joker hid in her dorm room closet watching. This is the lamest origin to an antagonist, ever, especially one we're supposed to believe is an actual threat. How did editorial let this sh*t get published? I do have to give it to Tyrion and Jimenez, though. Naming her Punchline was a stroke of genius because, so far, she’s definitely been the butt of a bad joke.

[yeoldontknow]

🖊writerly conversation tag

tagged by @j-pping to do this amazing interview/reflections tag. of course she put together one of the most amazing tags ever because she is brilliant. thank you for tagging me angel! 

questions below the cut!

2020

what was the most challenging part of writing this year?

gosh...i think for me the hardest bit was staying both motivated and inspired. a lot of my inspiration comes from being out in the world. im an introvert but i enjoy being out in the city around the noise and the people and the buildings on my own. the majority of my writing used to be done while riding the subway or on a weekend after id gone out somewhere. a lot of my fics are inspired by locations, and experiences within those locations. being inside for the majority of the year made it hard for me to remember how...people interact with or relate to the spaces around them. so i felt like a lot of the time staying inspired was coming from places within just me that felt inauthentic. i think my writing benefits from my ability to see multiple perspectives, so i felt like a lot of dialogue or writing itself was suffering just coming from me alone. it took a lot of work to ensure that it wasnt like that. 

and then, motivation was also so hard. the internet and the news and everything about america, the planet, the everything was unrelenting and draining. we as people were privy to so much trauma this year, to the collapse and fracture of communities, lives, governments. there were several weeks at the end of may and into june where i just...couldnt. i had no energy for anything. it happened again in november after the election and the windfall of it. energetic tensions were so high it just felt so hard to push out words when things were breaking everywhere. like there were more important things i needed to focus on, and healing was one of them.

what was the most enjoyable/rewarding part of writing this year?

i enjoyed the new community of writers/friends i found by writing for bts again. they challenged me and pushed me to better myself. @jamaisjoons is so inspirational in the way she generates community and encourages relationships between storytellers. doing the summer bucket list pushed me out of my hermit hole for camp nano, and i cranked out molotov cocktail and felt so proud of it. it mattered so much to me because it was the first long thing id written after a period of feeling deceased, and it was so enjoyable because there was a sense of community around it. its easy to forget how essential having a support system in your creative community is.

what piece has left the most impact on you and why?

probably ciperion. words cannot express how proud i am of that story and the direction its going in. i read it back sometimes and i realize that my writing was elevated because of that piece. tbh molotov was responsible for that lift, but ciperion was just a whole other tier. ive also never written anything like that story before and it felt so good exploring the themes of seafaring and pirates. 

what have you learned about yourself through the process of writing in the past year?

that i absolutely am someone who took for granted how inspiring the world is even if i see it as a stressor. but also that writing isnt necessarily about being inspired. its about pushing on when its hard. some of my best pieces came from that kind of push this year. 2020 felt like...a slog through most of it, but i kept pushing myself to write even when i was low and tired. i realized that some of my best writing comes from that push, when its not easy and when its difficult and i have to think harder. thats where i grow. 

how has your writing changed in the past year? how have you grown?

i think im more syntax and detailed focused than i used to be. lately ive been experimenting with making the act of reading feel like pleasure. my favourite books are the ones where i read a sentence, and im moved because it felt nice to read or it felt powerful. the sentence itself had power, not the image it was trying to convey. somehow separate, if that makes sense. theres a lot i need to learn before i could go off comfortably and try to write a book, and this is what ive been trying to master. my attention to detail has grown, and sometimes i think thats a detriment. i think sometimes im too detailed and i dont leave my reader enough power on their own. im still finding that balance, but i think im pleased right now with what im trying to push myself to master.

2021

ignoring your wips for a second, if you had all the time and energy in the world to write your magnum opus piece, what would it be about? why is that the dream story you’d write, all other things controlled for?

ive had two books in my mind forever. one was originally being written as a fanfic in a different fandom before i stopped and realized its too big and so much more important, and is worth being a book id like to write. if i wrote an opus like this it would actually be a book id submit to publishers but ~

- hundreds of years in the future, society has learned how to cure most diseases. for those we cannot, the sick person can be cryogenically frozen for a period of time until a cure is found. there is, however, a limit to the length of time they are frozen. no one has ever been frozen for over 100 years, and the main character is a scientist embarking on the experiment to do just that. it is, effectively, time travel. the main character is rash, selfish, sarcastic - not a very nice person; invested in their work and science and little else. they freeze themselves and wake up in the future. during their time in rehab they have to confront the horror theyve made of themselves, the horror people have made of the future, learn to be vulnerable. they end up falling in love with another scientist etc etc. theres so much more to this story and the world is enormous. one day ill revisit it

- a fictional play on orpheus in the underworld where a female main character’s brother was sold by their mother to the goddess of the underworld (helena instead of hades) for eternal youth. the gods all live in a hotel (the concept of this main thing is being used in elysian fields but its not remotely the same) after they were removed from the heavens. main character (ophelia) must gather several totems from the gods to prove her worth and survive her trip into the underworld to rescue him. id like to not focus on a woman finding romance, and instead a woman finding herself, her strength, her devotion to family, her power, and connecting with her history.

how do you want to grow in your writing this year?

this year id like to find balance, like i mentioned above, with my need for detail and my trust in my readers. the balance between detail and dialogue. i want to try to condense my writing again so not everything is a goddamn series. the ideas i have are huge and thats great but i need to remember how to parse things again, while still maintaining impact.

what’s one thing you’d wish to see in the fan-writing community this year?

i want more community, in general. as a multi fan, i see pockets in the kpop fandom where it exists and im well and truly aware that its recently become incredibly hard to foster on the exo side. ill just say that. maybe i dont witness it or its happening amongst blogs i havent found or have not found me. i want to see less dialogue about ‘popular blogs,’ whatever that means; less focus on notes; less worries about statistics. i want people to remember that fandom is not about numbers, and the moment you make it about that is the moment you stop having fun. i want less fear from writers regarding sharing work they read and liked, less shame around it. i want to see more vocal communication for the things people like and don’t like, more engagement and more interaction. the concept of popular blogs is so ridiculous to me, because no one has any control over the metrics. no one has control over who follows them or reads their work except the person doing the actual reading. i want people to realize they hold so much power - a person with 10k notes has as much power as a person with 2 notes because sharing is what fosters community. i want this fandom to remember to share again.

name one new thing you want to try doing in your writing this year.

gosh i really love postmodernism in writing. think like mark z danielewski, who plays with the shapes of words or the act of holding a book - the physicality of it. id like to maybe write a choose your own adventure, or do something that encompasses multiple platforms. or even, more importantly, finish as still as sound and time runner. those are more reasonable goals. time runner actually is done, i just need to stop pressuring myself about it and edit it to get it up. asas, too, is largely done i just need to get my ass together. i have so many other ideas no one has ever seen i need to finish what ive started. thats a real goal.

tagging: @yehet-me-up @jamaisjoons @kyungseokie @jenmyeons @luffles424 @yoonia @shadowsremedy @chillingkoo @onherwings @inkedtae @ninibears-erigom @imdifferentshadesofpurple @readyplayerhobi @ditzymax @sugaurora @snackhobi @yeojaa @sahmfanficbts @xjoonchildx @johobi and anyone else who wants to do this. as always please only do so if comfortable or you want to!

[cynwritess]

My Outlining Technique As A Pantser

I despise outlining with every fiber of my soul. I don’t care how much people persist you need an outline, I will put it off to the very last minute and do it very half-assed. Even in school, its straight to the first draft. Outlining requires a very precise skill of breaking things down as small as possible and my mind simply does not function that way. It’s literally all or nothing. Unfortunately while this may work for writing school essays, it’s not exactly a good idea when it comes to a book. Writing a book requires structure and precision because you need to carefully place information, have an idea where your characters are going, tedious yet necessary things. Fortunately, I’ve come up with a way to outline without completely frying my brain.

Characters. 

I almost always start with the characters first and build the world, other characters, and plot around them. If you have a name in mine, perfect! Go ahead and use it! If you don’t have a name, don’t dread scouring through dozens of baby name websites. Give them a place holder name or better yet, give them a role/title. I’m going to use one of my current characters (steal anything about her and I’ll send demons after you). When I first created Selina I only had a vague aesthetic and the idea that I wanted her to somehow be attached to spirits. Her name didn’t come to me until 25k into the story, but I had to refer to her as something so I used a conjunction of a place holder name and calling her “Reaper of Souls”. This way I know exactly who I’m referring to. Also, this helps me know what path my character needs to go down. Reaper of Souls is who she’ll become, but its definitely not who she is when the story begins. It makes me thing: What steps do I need to take to get her there? This is where you can start brainstorming character arcs and give them trauma. 

Another essential part of creating characters in my opinion is giving them “role models”. Personally, if this is a brand new character I’m creating off the top of my head its hard to write them because I know nothing about them. I don’t know their sense of humor, who they would and wouldn’t get along with, their inner monologue, etc. Now you have to be careful with this and make sure to mold them into their own unique characters at the end of the day, but you can use other already existing characters to help begin the process. When creating Selina I knew vaguely she needed to be connected to spirits. What characters do I know like that? Jodie from Beyond Two Souls is a good one and Zelie is a bit of a different twist to it but still the same general idea. But wait! Selina’s vibe doesn’t match either of them. So in this case I might look at Jude Duarte for inspiration for her personality. Nitpick all your favorite things about different characters and use that to your advantage! It gives you the jolt you need to really begin to explore who your character is. 

Always do the main character first, then follow with the supporting character or villain. In my opinion, the main supporting character and villain should be foils of the main character in order to get the most out of each one, because you’ll be able to see different aspects and different arcs they could’ve/will have. Once you have those three characters you can create the others as you progress with your story.

Setting.

This can either be really simple or your worst fucking nightmare. For me, it’s a mixture of both. If your story is taking place in the real world then this can be relatively simple even if you’re creating your own town/city. If your town has a very specific location like a town square or maybe there’s a river running through it, then just google “towns with a river going through it” for a start. If you have a specific town in mind you can also google the map and start dissecting different aspects of the town and incorporating it into your own. You can even use your own town for inspiration! The town my story takes place in is made up, but my hometown actually resembles it quite a bit so I’ve been using it for references. So far, its been working out pretty good.

Now if you have a high fantasy setting... I wish you the best of luck. I’ve only written one high fantasy story when I was twelve and... well clearly its never seen the light of day for a reason (partially because I deleted it, partially because there was absolutely zero world-building). I’m sorry to say my skills have no improved much since then. I’ve dabbled with the idea of high fantasy worlds and honestly my only advice is to look at other fantasy maps and draw inspiration from that. Narnia, Ravka, the ACOTAR world, the shifting isles of Elfhame, the Avatar universe, Orisha, to name a few. You’ll also have to look at some basic geographical stuff like the climate, but overall you have pretty much free reign over how your world looks. This is the one part I feel like you can’t bullshit if you don’t want your story to seem halfway. Really go in with the details even if its just for you. The more fleshed out your world is, even if its set here in the normal world, the better.

The main issue. 

This is pretty much a given but you do need to have some sort of idea who the main antagonist is/what is the big issue your characters are fighting. If you’re writing a series then chances are book one will probably focus on an entirely different issue before the big one is revealed. There’s not really much advice I can give for this because it’ll be tailored specifically to your story. I don’t think your antagonist has to be fully fleshed out if you’re going to be introducing them very late, but do have a general idea who or what it is, their goal, and why your character feels the need to stop them.

Usually you’ll notice the problem in the beginning of the story isn’t the ultimate problem, its just a gateway to it. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a subplot but I guess technically that’s what it is. Think of Percy Jackson. The main issue of book one is him being accused of stealing the lightning bolt, but the ultimate issue was the war with the titans. Or The Cruel Prince. The main issue was Jude feeling helpless and wanting to create a place for herself in the faery world, but the ultimate issue was those attempting overthrowing the entire Greenbriar family from the thrown. 

This kind of goes without saying, but there has to be a strong motivation for the character to stop them or it just won’t work. You don’t see characters going after the antagonist because nothing in their life isn’t threatened. There’s always a motivation, something to fuel them even if done so reluctantly. For example, Zelie from Children of Blood and Bone was sick and tired of constantly fighting and being the hero, but she did it anyways because she was the only one who could truly help the maji. Or you can take a slightly antagonistic approach and look at Kaz from Six of Crows who did what he did out of greed for money, power, and revenge. Usually when I begin my stories, I only have a vague idea as to why my main character is joining the fight, which is perfectly fine. As long as you have some sort of idea and begin to build on it as you write, you’ll be probably be fine. 

Brainstorm.

I cannot for the life of me sit in front of my computer and write a bland summary of what it is that is going to happen in my book. Sorry, but I am simply not built that way but it also makes writing your books ten times harder as well. I’ve found a bit of a cheat. For one, brainstorm. Get a general idea what some of the main events you want to happen are. Do you want a character death? Does a specific location need to be mentioned? Is there subplots or character arcs you would like to explore? Is there any themes you’d like to explore? Jot them all down, along with your word count goal. You probably won’t be able to incorporate all of them in one book, but at least you’ll have an idea what path you’re going to head down in terms of your story.

And now onto my actual cheat. Because I’m a pantser who hates outlining, I usually jump into my stories without knowing what direction they are going. Recently I’ve discovered that I can outline the first five chapters, write them out, and give myself complete free reign. I’ll explore all sorts of character personalities, different beginnings, different writing styles, different scenarios, different relationships, anything I can realistically include in the first five chapters of my story. Then I’ll go back and edit it. Don’t completely delete anything, always save it in a separate file! I’ll go back and decide which characters are unnecessary at this point, what plot points can be introduced later on, what writing style suits this story, things like that. Then from there, I’ll go back to my outline and make any appropriate changes before proceeding to write the rest of the draft as normal (WITHOUT GOING BACK TO EDIT). The reason why I do this is because I need a solid base to begin my story, otherwise its so easy for me to go off track and begin to tell a completely different story. This way I’ll know exactly what I’m going after, I’ll be able to explore and get to know my characters and setting, and it’s enough chapters that I can even begin to incorporate the main issue at hand. 

[bookcoversalt]

A+ youtube video! I feel like this is a dumb question, but what other sources, exercises, etc would you suggest for a writer wanting to get better at, like, everything you do in that video? I feel like I'm just not intelligent when it comes to writing and reading. I slap down whatever seems fun and I'm sure it makes for a bland story full of stupid plot holes and everything you talked about, so how does one get better at dissecting this stuff and...writing/reading intelligently?

Thank you so much!! There’s a tendency to consider analytical people just “smart”, as if the observations they make come naturally to them. But that super isn’t true: being thoughtful and critical about media, like drawing or writing or playing a sport or learning an instrument, is a skill that you pick up by absorbing reference, learning the language of the art form, and then practicing replicating it through your own perspective.

ABSORBING REFERENCE

My two biggest critical inspirations are Lindsay Ellis, a video essayist who covers film and culture, and Film Crit Hulk, a screenwriter and movie critic, and I’ve been consuming their work since I was 15. (I’m 25 now! that’s a wholeass decade.) I've picked up many, may other sources along the way: other video essayists, pop culture commentators, TV critics, spirited roasts of 50 shades of gray, actual “writing craft” books and blog articles, long goodreads reviews of books I thought I had a pretty good grasp of the flaws on, funny booktube reviews, even “anti” posts. I read “how the last season of game of thrones went the fuck off the rails” articles til my eyes bled, not because I cared about game of thrones, but because there was so much good, insightful reporting being done on How And Why A Story Fell Apart.

LEARNING THE LANGUAGE

Not all of this is good or useful. There’s a lot of bad faith or shallow criticism out there. The cinemasins clickbaity style of nitpicking “plot holes” or penalizing a work for the mere presence of tropes without regard for broader artistic intent and cultural context is particularly insidious and should die. The people who think twilight is stupid because it has sparkly vampires are missing the point. A LOT of people critique YA in particular from a place of bitterness or bias or misplaced expectations (and so did I, to some degree, for a long time. I’ve worked really hard to grow out of that, I hope). But the point is to seek out content in this vein-- not what I consumed necessarily (I would not wish that many GOT thinkpieces on anyone), but stuff that interests you. The more of this you mindfully consume and the more perspectives you collect and compare, the more context you’ll have for what’s being discussed and the more you'll naturally start to form your own opinions on it. You will learn, slowly, by osmosis, to pull what strikes a chord with you from the noise.

REPLICATING IT THROUGH YOUR OWN PERSPECTIVE

The cool and fun part is that to some extent, your brain will start doing this on its own. You’ll read a book and you'll just notice more. You’ll call plot twists faster, or be more cognizant of the pacing, or connect dots you might not have otherwise connected. You’ll see the logistic scaffolding in your own work more clearly and you’ll be more aware of choices you’re making subconsciously. You’ll recognize thematic hypocrisy or worldbuilding inconsistencies and have the language to name them.

And you’ll also have the tools to explore your less clear-cut, more emotional reactions to art. And this is the most important but “hardest” part of this: sitting with vague feelings and unformed thoughts trying to suss out what’s at the heart of them and why, using your hard-won critical “training” and your contextual knowledge.

I like to frame them as questions:

Why did the end of [book] feel disjointed? Why didn’t I connect with the main character in [book]? What really resonated with me about the plot of [book]? Why does [character] appeal to me more than [other character]? Why does [book]’s use of [theme] make me uncomfortable?

Sometimes it comes down to just preference or subjective taste, and that’s fine and good to know. But more often than not, you’re reacting to something concrete that can be identified: 

The ending of HOUSE OF SALT AND SORROWS feels disjointed because it comes out of nowhere and has nothing to do with our heroine’s efforts in the larger story. I didn’t connect with the main character in HEARTLESS because within the context of the worldbuilding, her choices didn’t make sense. What really resonated with me about the plot of UPROOTED is its thematic coherency. The Darkling appeals to me more than Mal because the villain romance power fantasy aspect of the series is better fleshed out and ultimately more rewarding to read than the love story of two flawed teenagers. ACOWAR’s use of trauma and recovery makes me uncomfortable because it ceases to be a sincere element of anyone’s arc or characterization and becomes yet another tool to make Rhys look like the best and coolest and wokest fae boyfriend.

Pulled from an old Captain Awkward article, this is something I have in a sticky note on my desktop as sort of a criticism guide: 

One of the things we try to do is to push past “I liked it”/”I didn’t like it” as reactions to work. What is it? What is it trying to be? Is it good at being that thing? Was that a good thing to try to be in the first place? Did the artist have a specific agenda? How did it play with audiences at the time? Does it play the same way now? What stereotypes does it reinforce/undermine?

Even if it’s only for your own personal growth rather than intended for an audience, I recommend putting burgeoning critical thoughts or questions you’re trying to “work through” down in writing somewhere: goodreads reviews! tweets! blog posts! spamming your group chat! Even just a private word document. The synthesis of thoughts into written content forces you to identify and choose a specific articulation of your idea(s). If it’s in a pubic or semipublic forum, you’ll also be able to see which of your ideas resonate with other people, and that can (isn’t always, but CAN) be useful information as far as having an external barometer for when you’re onto something.

And then..... you do that a bunch of times in different ways for many years, with a lot of different books and movies and games and whatever else. Like any other skill, you will get better the more you do it. (Again: I have been doing this for ten years now, and it still took me three months to write that video script. Forming nuanced, informed opinions and then articulating them coherently is hard.)

As kind of a footnote tip, seek out peers who have the same goals and feelings, and try to connect with them! Lots of my current internet friends found me back when I was posting on my personal blog about problems i had with THE SELECTION or RED QUEEN and we bonded over having similar opinions and being in similar places in our writing/ reading/ careers. These people now beta read my scripts and posts and help me brainstorm or refine ideas. I strongly believe that creatives (and critics) do their best work and grow the most within a network of support and feedback.

But also, in regards to creative writing in particular, i want to be clear that having fun is the most important thing. I absolutely think creators need analytical skills to improve their craft, but without the enjoyment of doing the thing at the core of it, there is no craft at all. If you have to choose between the "smart” thing and the fun thing, choose the fun thing. Tbh, if you’re worried your work is bland, analysis probably isn’t the solution--  figuring out how to have more fun is the solution. And letting yourself lean into the stuff that’s wild and awesome and so incredibly you that it sets you on fire to write is a skill of its own :)

[turtle-paced]

GoT Re-Watch: Fine-Toothed Comb Edition

This post is also available on my wordpress.

Everyone ready for the very definitely final battle with the very definite ultimate enemy of the series? Yeah, me too!

8.03 – The Long Night

(2:00) I hope people may be able to forgive me for somewhat sparse commentary this episode. So much of it is fight scene, and so little of it is visible.

(2:44) Sam’s going on a West Wing-style walking tour of Winterfell. The main action’s in the back, and this isn’t the worst way to survey the exposition – watching Lyanna Mormont mobilise, learning that the enemy’s visible from the west wall, hearing the call for the gates to close. No story can show everything, there are points where we need the exposition, and this is more dynamic and better connected to the upcoming action than people standing around a table expositing. Or watching a flashback and expositing.

The visual handover from Sam to Tyrion here still makes me think of this as a relay race, though.

(3:49) The darkness and the tight shots are supposed to be atmospheric, but they fail in one key way – they don’t let us know what’s actually going on. You see a guy with a beard, that guy could be almost anyone, ‘cause you can only see about a quarter of his face, dimly. Shot selection tells me that this guy sure does have hands, though, so…I guess it’s not Jaime we’re looking at. (I think it was the Hound.)

(4:31) Peering through the pitch darkness of the cinematography, we can more or less make out the Unsullied getting into position for some serious Hollywood tactics.

(4:37) Looking at these teeny tiny little braziers in front of the catapults reminds me of something. Nobody’s mentioned fuel for fires this season as far as I can recall. We’ve had discussions about food for winter, but…firewood is appearing out of nowhere. Nobody’s talked about fuel as a resource, especially when it comes to fighting ice monsters. Nobody’s talked about the desirability of light for night fighting yet, or the need to keep people warm. There are all these ways the writers could have introduced real challenges for the main characters, let them show off how clever and thoughtful they are, and instead…

(5:03) This shot of Gray Worm here is the first of these shots of ranked soldiers that gives us a sense of the geography – look, you can see Winterfell and its walls in the background. Yay for giving us a visual cue of how these people are deployed, a necessary precondition of a conflict that is more than “smash the armies against each other!” Boo for stationing the Unsullied outside the freaking walls.

(5:29) First line of the episode! Thanks Edd!

(5:48) A rare sighting of the elusive direwolf.

(6:32) Wait, where are Dany and Jon watching this from? If that’s Winterfell, all lit up in the background there, then they made it a pretty good distance from the crypts to outside Winterfell’s walls in quite possibly hostile territory – ah, fuck it. Like we didn’t already know the show’s going to sacrifice worldbuilding, theme, and even character for individual “that looks cool” moments.

(6:55) Of course, the other big problem with not being able to see what’s going on is that the tension generated by fear of the unknown turns into “I’m just sitting here staring at a blank screen, aren’t I?” There’s a dark shape moving around out there, but damned if you can tell what it is. There’s nothing to look at, nothing much to hear. Hasn’t been for some minutes now.

(7:28) It turns out to be Melisandre, who’s here for some deus ex machina. Both in the sense that her presence is deus ex machina, and that she’s here to provide deus ex machina.

(7:37) Melisandre asks Jorah a simple yes or no question here. It takes Jorah three seconds to nod.

(7:43) Melisandre issues a simple instruction to Jorah here.

(7:57) Jorah follows that instruction here, fourteen seconds later. It’s too dark for us to see the expression of doubt working its way across Jorah’s face, and the directors actually pull back so his emoting is even less visible. Twenty seconds to get through this exchange. The action is just rocketing along.

Oh, and incidentally, what this shot does actually make clear is that there is no visible Dothraki leadership, just a few guys we vaguely recognise standing in the front ranks. The white guy has to take charge of their armies for them. Compare and contrast with Grey Worm, indisputably in charge of the Unsullied, but also the only Unsullied we know and recognise.

(8:19) Note that even though Jorah didn’t raise his voice, there are Dothraki several ranks back raising their arakhs. Best hearing on two continents.

(8:41) The moment when every viewer said “Praise R’hllor!” for we can finally see.

(9:17) The drama with Melisandre lighting all those swords ends here, with Jorah acknowledging Melisandre’s service and turning towards where the enemy will be approaching from.

(10:37) Melisandre and Davos exchange dialogue here. Because we wouldn’t have understood a) that Melisandre was let into Winterfell and b) Davos was unhappy about it without the full minute and a half of Melisandre riding to the castle walls and Davos hurrying down the steps to meet her.

There’s nothing extraordinary about Mel’s short little ride inside. Nothing extraordinary about Davos’ trip (and we can still barely see the emoting, because it’s too dark). Nothing that justifies ninety seconds of film here, not outside a moody character drama with these two in more important roles. Here, in a series where we’re about to start an apocalyptic scale battle (allegedly), have already been kept waiting ten minutes, and where these two are secondary characters at best, we need to keep it moving along. We have to prioritise. A shot of Mel riding towards the keep or entering, a shot of Davos’ angry face and him turning to go meet her, cut to the actual meeting. There we go.

(10:55) Melisandre stares meaningfully at Arya. Oh boy. It’s almost unbelieveable that thiswouldn’t be the worst writing of the entire series.

For context, these two last met back in season three. They shared one scene. Exchanged maybe three lines of dialogue. Melisandre has not mentioned Arya since, but focused her efforts on Stannis and Jon. Arya’s mentioned Mel a few times, mostly in the context of Gendry-related trauma. In seven and a half seasons of television, that’s one scene and half a dozen lines where these characters’ arcs have intersected in any meaningful way.

We are currently thirty seconds from what has been built up as the most important battle of the series kicking off in earnest.

You better believe I will have more to say on this later.

(11:45) Whatever you say about the tactics (because you cannot say anything good), this is much better use of light and darkness here, establishing the flaming swords as a visual representation of the army’s movement.

(13:05) And the subsequent dying of those flames as a representation of the army’s defeat, without having to show us every detail of the failure of the charge. Gee, who could have guessed a frontal charge by an inferior force into pitch darkness and snow might not have worked out so good? Certainly not our very clever main characters.

I find myself thinking of the Two Towers movie and the cavalry charges that marked the climax of the Helm’s Deep battle.

The other issue, which I’m not quite sure how to address, is the mass death of the Dothraki. Right here and now, at this point in the show, the Dothraki are the only culture not European-inspired and not played by white people. And also not covered up by armour all the time, see the book!canonically racially diverse Unsullied (and we’ll talk more about how they’re depicted by the end of the season). It’s the old ‘black guy dies first’ trope taken to horrible extremes. An entire polity and culture killed off because they served no further purpose in the plot (a plot where we’ve still got a pretty damned large cast, and yet only two people of colour with speaking roles). The only idea for “resolving” the challenges this group pose politically is to kill them off. That’s what this looks like right now.

Yet what we’re going to see over the next few episodes are the Dothraki randomly reappearing. The show got incredibly sloppy in its final season – I haven’t had a high opinion of the show since season five, and I’m finding it hard to believe how sloppy it got – but this is boggling. The writers kinda forgot they killed off the Dothraki, I guess.

So I’m not entirely sure how to critically approach this moment, beyond concluding that the writers just weren’t thinking about the role of the Dothraki in their own worldbuilding, and aren’t showing much in the way of broader sensitivities regarding killing off almost all characters of colour.

(14:13) Some survivors are galloping back, in complete and total silence. Nobody has anything to say about this, nobody’s inconveniently panicking at the state of the survivors. None of the survivors themselves are inconveniently panicking, or even trying to report any information. Every extra knows they can’t say a word in case it drowns out a main character speaking. It doesn’t feel real that every person on this battlefield would have the exact same reaction to the tension. Again I find myself thinking of Helm’s Deep, where a) the pre-battle silence didn’t last fifteen goddamn minutes and b) right in the middle of it, you had Gimli and Legolas with a moment of comic relief.

(14:30) Dany moves to act and protect the people who followed her all the way from Essos from being slaughtered by zombies. You know, I’ve just got a bad feeling about her intentions. Seems pretty suspicious to me.

(15:28) Finally! We finally see some zombies in this zombie apocalypse showdown! For a given value of the word “see”!

Mind you, if you’re here for my commentary, this might not be the best thing, because a lot of this episode is “and there was more zombie fighting, and there was more zombie fighting, so on, so forth…”

(16:10) The power of Jaime’s love for Brienne gives him enough fighting skills to assist her in combat despite missing his dominant hand. Essentially, a few training sessions with Bronn resolved Jaime’s physical difficulties arising from missing his fucking hand. Book!Jaime has trouble lacing up his clothes, rolling up letters, climbing ladders, crawling, things like that. I’m having trouble remembering similar from show!Jaime since, what, season four? And absolutely no trouble remembering the use of Jaime’s prosthetic hand as a gag mid-fight scene.

(16:17) Dragons first show up here. This is shown in closest proximity to Jaime, who had a bit of a run-in with Dany and Drogon last season. In a better structured show, this becomes a moment that shows how Jaime’s opinion of Daenerys and her use of power has changed over the course of that intervening season. Something that shows that even if the physical circumstances are very similar, the context of being in the middle of a battle with a woman spraying dragonfire on the ground has changed.

(16:47) Also in a better-written show, this moment where Sansa and Arya watch the dragons effectively barbecuing huge numbers of wights is where they realise “oh, holy shit, we really would have been fucked if Daenerys didn’t decide to help us.” Note that this is not exclusive of the realisation that Dany could do serious damage to a city or opposing army of regular human beings the exact same way.

(18:18) A wall of white fog advances over the battlefield. This is bad, as it further reduces visibility. Also something something Night King.

(19:55) Dolorous Edd is the first of the second-string cleanout to die.

(20:05) Sansa enters the crypts here, and we follow her through the darkness for fifteen seconds before getting a shot of, you know, the room she’s looking at. Sansa’s back isn’t doing much emoting. This is not like the shot of Dany’s back in 6.09, where the fighting in Meereen in the background gives context to the facial expressions we’re not seeing, generating tension for when we do actually get to see her face and the details of her reaction. This is just fifteen seconds of a woman’s back in a hallway too dark to see much at all. We don’t need to see every step Sansa takes in the hallway to understand she’s walking through the hallway. This can be, and should have been, tightened up.

I hate that I keep saying it, but it keeps fucking happening. Edit your show!

(20:41) In a similar vein, we don’t need thirty seconds of Sansa walking through the room and Tyrion walking through the room in order to establish that these characters are going to meet and exchange information. The actual ten-second unspoken exchange between Sansa, Tyrion and Missandei works well, though, and it’s something that works specifically because of the skill of the actors.

(22:55) Tactical situation – retreat into Winterfell itself. After most of the ground forces have been smashed. Flippin’ genius. Dany and Jon are flying through some icy fog and undead dragon noises.

(23:08) This aerial shot of the Unsullied protecting the retreat with their unsurpassed discipline would have been much more effective if the subject matter was visible. I am watching this in a darkened room, face inadvisably close to my computer, and I still can’t really tell what’s going on beyond movement in unison.

(23:28) Ah, you see, Jon calls out for Dany in the midst of battle, but Dany is focused on her goals. Another worrying sign. Everyone make your firebreaks!

(26:59) Tactical situation – trenches unlit. Nothing’s going to make the tactics any better here, and I don’t think the showrunners are even trying to balance the Rule of Cool with tactical plausibility, but they can string together action scenes. While those actions scenes inevitably reflect an ethos of “we’re going to make this as awesome as we possibly can” rather than “we’re going to use the rules of the setting we’ve established to make an awesome scene,” the only thing the fight scenes are suffering from are the fact that I don’t care about these characters any more. And that’s not a problem with the fight scenes.

(28:45) You know, if it was possible for a Watsonian character to be a Doylist MVP, I’m nominating Melisandre just for lighting the episode for us.

(30:02) “At least we’re already in a crypt.” I think that might have been the first joke of the episode! Seriously, though, it’s been half an hour before we had any gallows humour.

(30:37) This is actually related to my problems with Sansa this episode, and the marked contrast between her now and her back in season two. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that she’s as bad as Cersei was during the Battle of the Blackwater by any means. Nevertheless, the writers seem to think that Sansa’s grim appraisal of the situation is clear-eyed and praiseworthy. As she says, “It’s the most heroic thing we can do right now, look the truth in the face.” (At 31:05.)

What Sansa got better, even in “Blackwater” (written by GRRM), was the importance of keeping up morale. Sansa here is not a comforting or inspirational figure. It’s a bit of a slap in the face that this character, who was so good at giving small bits of comfort to others when she had nothing else to give and because there was nothing else she could do, has gone backwards.

(31:44) Missandei points out, quite rightly, that without Dany’s assistance this battle would already be lost. In spite of being right, and clearly so, this doesn’t actually provoke any re-evaluation of attitude. It’s just a one-liner. It doesn’t mean anything.

(32:51) This Theon and Bran scene, seriously. Alfie Allen has been consistently Too Good For This since season three, and here he is in a scene with a character directed to show minimal emotion. It’s not a good contrast.

Related problem: it is incredibly hard to relate to a character who is totally unaffected by sitting out as bait for the unkillable superzombie while his family are fighting and potentially dying and the world potentially ending.

(33:54) More than half an hour into this final battle, we’re at last seeing the Night’s King and the zombie dragon.

(36:09) Tactical situation – zombies are now charging the walls. Dragons intermittently swooping around but largely ineffective.

(38:55) We’re even past most of the dodgy tactics, now, and we’re seeing our characters on the losing side of the fight. The show’s doing a good job of conveying this right now. Like I said earlier, I’m finding these scenes unsatisfying because the character development earlier has resulted in me honestly not caring very much.

(39:55) I didn’t comment on the first shot, but now it’s a bit more prominent, I’m also glad that the showrunners remembered that Sandor has fire-related trauma. As in, this isn’t a matter of cowardice, this is a matter of being overwhelmed by PTSD.

(41:39) “We’re fighting Death! We can’t beat Death!” “Tell [Arya] that!” I’m going to be generous and count that as foreshadowing, or at least intentional dramatic irony. Guess what this makes this statement! That’s right! The FIRST bit of foreshadowing directly and in hindsight unambiguously related to Arya’s defeat of the Night King. (No, Melisandre’s “eyes” speech is not foreshadowing that meets that criteria. That’s a blatant retcon.) 42 minutes into the episode where she kills him.

(42:10) Lyanna Mormont is the second of our second-string cleanout to die. It’s slow, painful, and gruesome. You can hear the cracking. This show certainly is edgy.

(42:57) Hey, my favourite shots of the episode! After a lot of murky flying through icy fog, the dragon chase breaks into the clear moonlight above the clouds. It’s just nice to look at, and a good way to kick into the actual dragon fight. Reorients things effectively.

Just…try not to pay attention to how neither Dany’s nor Jon’s hair is moving much in the breeze.

(44:03) Arya starts sneaking through the wight-infested halls of Winterfell here.

(46:26) Some of Arya’s blood drips on the stone floor. The zombie hears that. Just to establish the level of senses we’re talking about.

(48:33) And four and a half minutes later, scene change. No dialogue. No idea how this affected the broader tactical situation except in Arya’s continued survival. While I understand the value of having a tense scene of a main character sneaking through the halls of their own home in fear for their life and increasingly unsure how long they can keep it up, four and a half minutes? That’s about half the amount of time as we spent watching the fight outside of Winterfell.

The cut to the crypts establishes that the fighting has reached the entrance of the crypt.

(49:50) And for contrast, that scene watching the characters in the crypt realise that the fighting had come to them took a minute and a half. Again, no dialogue, but there were more characters whose reactions we could see.

(52:11) You know, with the sheer number of wights it was established the defenders were facing, and the apparent disintegration of the defending forces, I’m kind of wondering why there are so many empty rooms about the place.

(52:30) Third to die in our second-string cleanout is Beric Dondarrion, who was stabbed a few minutes ago in a do-not-pass moment to save Arya and Sandor.

(53:36) Melisandre here retcons the eyes speech to mean that Arya will kill the Night King. 52 minutes into the episode where Arya kills the Night King. There was never any reason to think of that speech as relating to the Night King until right this second. It is a blatant retcon.

This is bullshit. Or tripe, but whatever it is, it came out of a bovine’s digestive system. More when the moment itself comes, but for the moment let’s focus on how this affects Melisandre’s characterisation.

Again, since she mete Arya in season three, her storyline has been focused on Stannis and Jon. Once Stannis failed, she brought Jon back from the dead. Last season, she showed up to Dany’s plot basically to say “hey, Jon’s important, the relationship between Dany and Jon is important, and I’ll see you all for my death scene next season!” And now it turns out, on the strength of one interaction, more than four seasons ago, Melisandre’s story was actually about Arya? Without any sort of emotional reaction from Melisandre, to boot. If you’re thinking this isn’t playing fair with character development…I think you’re right.

(54:03) “What do we say to the God of Death?” “Not today.” That is the only good thing the show does with that. The only thing. And even that, I think, is laden with a misunderstanding of the evil the Night King represents in the book – the Others of the books are slavers who force humans and animals alike to do their bidding even after death. Which is how Dany maintains a thematic connection to the primary threat of the series even when she’s not on the same continent as the action. Her work in Slaver’s Bay is prep work for the end of the series.

(54:56) The fight now arrives at the godswood.

(55:13) Here we see undead!Viserion’s fire blast through the walls of Winterfell.

(56:21) I haven’t mentioned it for a while, but it is seriously nearly impossible to see what’s going on. Vital, climactic dragon fight, and we don’t actually get to see it.

(58:04) The Night King tanks a full on blast of dragon fire. He can do this because reasons. And these reasons are “the showrunners wanted to subvert expectations.”

(59:03) Well, now that a faceful of dragonfire has failed for reasons unknown, it’s time for Jon to step in. Okay, that makes a good amount of sense. Jon’s entire storyline has dealt with the threat of the White Walkers. Hell, Jon and the Night King even had their staredown back in season five. So clearly it’s time for Jon to take on the Night King directly.

(59:46) Nope! Jon does not fight the Night King. Instead he gets surrounded by garden variety wights.

(1:00:00) This little breathing space where everyone the protagonists have managed to kill stands right back up again does work well as a darkest hour.

(1:01:31) Meanwhile, in the crypts, nobody has apparently realised that the dead bodies there might also be raised. Also nobody down there has any idea how to fight or any weapons on hand, so this was well thought through all round.

(1:04:22) Jorah Mormont out of fucking nowhere to rescue Dany.

(1:07:10) Ramin Djawadi here starts his bid for the real MVP of the episode. Though we all know that he’s the MVP of the entire season.

(1:09:01) Try to ignore how Jon’s ducking behind stone pillars to avoid Viserion’s fire, despite this exact fire blasting through those exact walls fifteen minutes ago.

(1:11:21) Alfie Allen, still too good for this.

(1:12:57) Jon comes face to face with zombie Viserion. Ah, okay! So if he’s not going to kill the Night King, he’s at least going to take out a zombie dragon, right? Well. Not happy with that as a culmination of his story, but, you know, still damned impressive.

(1:13:02) Jon ducking behind this little ridge of rubble here isn’t quite as bad as Indy hopping in that fridge…but it’s getting there.

(1:13:25) Fourth to die in the second-string cleanout is Theon.

(1:15:31) Oh. So Jon’s only going to scream at Viserion. Not fight him. Um. That’s…not at all a satisfying conclusion to Jon’s arc vis a vis the White Walkers. Not remotely.

Seven and a half seasons of buildup, and what Jon accomplishes in the fight itself is roughly equivalent to the achievements of any given surviving named character who participated in the battle. I don’t like “the main characters do everything,” but the main characters have got to do something. In particular, when a main character spends the entirety of his arc focusing on the one context, it really does feel unfair to the viewers when he doesn’t play a meaningful part in the resolution of that plot.

I will say this much: my expectations were certainly subverted. I expected the writers to play fair with storytellling conventions of setup and payoff.

(1:15:41) So. The wights could hear a drop of blood fall from across a room. The White Walkers can’t hear a girl running and screaming halfway across a forest. And this is honestly one of the least of the problems here.

(1:15:52) And so Arya kills the Night King. Arya. Who has had no meaningful story connection with the fight against the White Walkers. She was the last member of House Stark to return to Winterfell and the least involved in the preparations to fight. This comes perhaps a little bit out of left field.

The showrunners later stated that they chose Arya to kill the Night King specifically to subvert expectations. Meaning that they set up seven and a half seasons of other people being more involved with this plot and Arya not being very involved with this plot only to throw it away for a “fooled you!” While I’m sure it was satisfying to the writers, it’s not very much fun for a viewer. When we invest years in watching characters realise the extent of their problems and seek to solve them, having the writers yank the payoff away right at the very end with a “nope! Someone else solved it!’ is not a good return.

Plus, while “wow, wouldn’t have picked that!” is the end result, it’s not the “I wouldn’t have picked that!” which comes from creative use of foreshadowing and careful structural and thematic development so that everything falls into place in an unexpected yet logical way. This is the “I wouldn’t have picked that!” which resulted from there being nothing to pick at all. It’s a plot twist divorced from the plot.

(1:17:46) Fifth to die in the second-string cleanout is Jorah Mormont. Emilia Clarke doing her damnedest, as well. In a scene where everyone’s standing around like stunned mullets, Dany’s open grief is quite the contrast.

(1:18:59) I like the shot of the dawn here, which really helps to convey that yes, this is over and done.

Structurally, should it have been over and done? Almost certainly not! You could definitely do some scouring of the Shire, the post-action action which demonstrates the effects of the central conflict on our leads, but in terms of plot, this should have been it. There is no conflict greater in scale than this. The fight against the White Walkers should not have been a distraction from the fight over the Iron Throne. The fact that it was is just….did the showrunners read the books?

(1:19:45) Sixth and last to die in the second-string cleanout is Melisandre. Which closes out the episode.

Next time, the season starts to go really off the rails.

[blogbyliv]

Personal Reflection

Liv Gardner 

Women’s Writing Worldwide

Prof. Richard

30 July 2021

Personal Reflection

Growing up as a young woman in a conservative town where feminism is seen as an outlier, devil-made, radical set of ideals, my understanding of the term has always been mixed. From birth to age 14, the concept was somewhat foreign. What little I knew about it did not bear a positive connotation and it seemed to always loom in the background, an uncomfortable topic, like race or sex, that no one seemed to want to discuss. As I moved into a different high school, one away from my hometown, one advanced and labeled as a college preparatory school, things changed. I was exposed to new teachings, new ideas, new people, and the connotation and anonymity of the word in my life changed. As we fast-forward to today, I look at things like this course, one that my pre-teen self could have never imagined would exist or let alone would be one that I was taking, and I admire the impact it has made on my overall body of knowledge. While the world around me has not changed, the community still bearing the same traditional and sexist sentiments as always, it seems as if I have, undoubtedly for the better. 

As I searched for inspiration for such a project, I tried to look back through the TedTalks we often annotated this summer. Many struck me again with the veracity of their messages, but there was one in particular that moved me just as it had the first time: a young woman who was speaking about her Indian heritage and culture. I listened as she talked about the traditions that involved the garments and accessories of the women. She explained how Indian women took pride in their beautiful bangles and colorful saris, but how this would so quickly change once their husbands passed. Their saris would only be allowed to be white and their bangles would be broken. Their lives were seen as irreparable once without a man. This struck me then, just as it did again recently. The clothing, shoes, and accessories that women wear can often say a lot about their culture, how their culture views them, and what they value. At the same time, there can also be heavy misconceptions about these garments that can mark a group of women indefinitely. In my commonplace project, I wanted to explore all of these things. There are countless cultures across the world that are often overlooked, or, conversely, noticed, quickly misunderstood, and then passed by. Coming from a household where my mother owned her own boutique, I knew this was a topic I wanted to explore. Through my blog, I worked to highlight specific garments of different groups of women and look at what each said explicitly about their circle. In my choices of cultures and clothing, I also sought to find pieces that represented various topics and concepts that we had learned and explored throughout the last eight weeks. 

There were various objectives I wanted to meet with my writing for this project. The first one was to highlight misconceptions that we commonly have about certain cultural garments. One example that I used for this was the hijab. Through our unit on Islam and our extensive readings on the wearing of the hijab, I was drawn to highlight its ability to be a fashion statement just as much as it is a religious one. Society, because of media misrepresentation and single stories of the culture, has often linked the hijab to the idea of subjugation. Many see it as the antithesis of feminism. In reality, it is quite the opposite. Musliim women who choose to wear a head covering do so by their own free will. While some states do still exist that make it a mandate to cover, most are progressing away from this traditional and sexist way of operating. For the majority of Muslim women, covering is seen as a privilege and a religious duty that exhibits their dedication to their faith. This dedication, as mentioned before, does not mean it has to be unfashionable. I wanted to highlight through my blog the many prints and styles of hijab that exist for Islamic women to dress and have fun with. Another misconception surrounds the kimono of Japan. For many, the depiction of the kimono often stems from some form of fighting movie that was Americanized and popular in the states. It also typically pictures only a male wearing such garments. Through this blog I wanted to show that traditional garments do exist for women and in actuality are much more complicated than the males. While this might simply be a stylistic detail, it seems to be the culture’s own reflection of how they view women as a whole, touching on another objective I sought to meet within my project. 

Throughout this project, I also wanted to achieve a series of connections between the garments and some of the specific topics we learned throughout the summer. One of these was colonialism and post-colonialism. We can look specifically at the dress of the Herero women to see this illustrated. Mimicking much of the 19th century Victorian women’s dresses, the Herero women are known for their clothing called the Herero dress. The garment that identifies the women are not of their own creation, but yet a piece of German socialization that was left behind following their early 20th century invasion. The Herero dress still exists today, but not for the reasons one would assume. In their pursuit to convert and conquer the Herero tribe, the Germans were the perpetrators behind a mass genoicde that wiped out a majority of the tribe. Not only did they leave behind trauma and pain, but also their style. The Herero women of today wear the dress not to show that they were products of cultural diffusion, but rather as a symbol of rebellion. By wearing the piece on their own terms and in their own styles, they believe they have taken back a bit of their history and made it their own. Another piece of clothing that we can see through the eyes of post-colonialism is the maasai shuka. The Maasai are a group of semi-nomadic people residing around the area of Kenya in Africa. Brough to the area by both Scottish missionaries and colonizers, the shuka resembles a blanket and can be draped in various ways to cover and protect the body. It is known for its bright colors and prints that can vary based on location in the region and the group of people within the Maasai that wear it. 

Aside from connections to our learning topics and exhibiting the misconceptions of some cultural pieces of clothing, I also wanted to highlight basic garments that were traditional in some popular nations, but are often overlooked within the eyes of Americans. These are pieces like the Ao Dai in Vietnam and the tichel in Judaism. While the garments can be interwoven into the themes and objectives mentioned prior, the emphasis on their existence is what I really sought to highlight within the blog. 

Growing up in a household dedicated to profiting off of and maintaining what you look like, I have always understood the power, both positive and negative, that clothing holds. Fashion gives us confidence. This can be confidence in ourselves, confidence in our faith and religious ties, or confidence in our culture and nationality. Regardless of its form, it gives us a boost, a push that allows us to feel empowered in all that we choose to do. Yet, there is another side to its power. Fashion also creates divides. It can separate one class from another, one nationality from its neighboring state, and even one age group from those above and below it. Regardless of its purpose or the role it plays for the women and other individuals who wear the pieces, all fashion can be united under one word: beauty. Each piece featured within this project shows dedication to a variety of things. There is dedication to the garment itself, dedication to a nation of origin, and even dedication to a specific religion. Each of the pieces show intricate designs and bright colors, all of which represent those who wear it and the regions from which they originate. They also embody the strength of the women who wear them. For the Herero women, we see the capability to overcome cultural subjugation and persecution. For the Muslim women, we see the power to separate themselves from society and profess their faith and beliefs through the covering of their hair. For Jewish women, we see the fortitude to break a tradition long dominated by men, and the slow and progressive adoption of the tzitzit into daily wear. Each has their own story, their own origin, their own connection to those who wear them, yet all embody beauty and promote the strength of the females who are fighting for a place within their own cultures and within society as a greater whole.

[dweemeister]

Best Live Action Short Film Nominees for the 93rd Academy Awards (2021, listed in order of appearance in the shorts package)

NOTE: For viewers in the United States (continental U.S., Alaska, and Hawai’i) who would like to watch the Oscar-nominated short film packages, click here. For virtual cinemas, you can purchase the packages individually or all three at once. You can find info about reopened theaters that are playing the packages in that link. Because moviegoing carries risks at this time, please remember to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by your local, regional, and national health officials.

This blog, since 2013, has been the site of my write-ups to the Oscar-nominated short film packages. No pandemic was going to stop me this year, as I was able to view the short film packages virtually thanks to a local repertory, the Frida Cinema of Santa Ana, California. Without further ado, here are the nominees for the Best Live Action Short Film at this year’s Oscars. Films predominantly not in the English language are listed with their nation of origin.

The Present (2020, Palestine)

Since the 1990s, the Israeli military has set up hundreds of checkpoints within Palestine’s West Bank. These checkpoints have impeded Palestinian movement within the Israeli-occupied West Bank, supposedly to better protect the extraterritorial Israeli settlements there. Directed by Farah Nabulsi, The Present could have easily fell into an agitprop trap – leaning on political outrage rather than the individual emotions that power this film – but it deftly avoids doing so. On the day of his wedding anniversary with his wife, Yusef (Saleh Bakri) decides to go shopping with daughter Yasmine (Maryam Kanj). Yusef and Yasmine travel to and from Bethlehem (which is in Palestine, but is not easily accessible by Palestinians) to purchase a new refrigerator, groceries, and a few goodies for Yasmine. The process of traveling just a few miles from home proves onerous and humiliating.

Nabulsi’s film never feels like a lecture, instead preferring to juxtapose the cruel ironies that these Israeli checkpoints embody. The viewer intuits how militarized and confusing these checkpoints must be to the Palestinians. Israel’s apartheid mindset extends to the West Bank – the checkpoints have a single lane for Israeli drivers and a gated, narrow entryway specifically for the Palestinians. Past the checkpoint during their time shopping, life seems briefly normal. That Nabulsi can navigate the contrasting emotions between these scenes reflects the tautness of this film and its hints of Italian Neorealism. Bakri, as Yusef, is excellent during his tense conversations with the Israeli soldiers, even if some of these moments feel more stilted due to the actors playing the soldiers and the guerrilla filmmaking this piece employs. For Kanj, as Yasmine, one can see her anguish in seeing her father discriminated against on what should have been a special day. For Palestinian children, injustice is a rite of passage.

My rating: 8/10

Feeling Through (2019)

It is a chilly night in New York City at an hour where few are outside by choice. Teenager Tareek (Steven Prescod) is homeless. After saying good night to his friends, he happens upon Artie, a deafblind man (Robert Tarango, who is deafblind himself) holding up a sign requesting anyone to assist him. Curious and half-willing to help, Tareek taps Artie on the arm. Artie pulls out a tattered notepad and marker, asking for help to get to a bus stop. What follows is an uplifting connection between two cast-off souls, sharing each other’s good company and good humor if only for a brief time. Director Doug Roland based Feeling Through on an encounter he had with a deafblind man named Artemio. Roland’s film was accomplished in collaboration with the Hellen Keller Center.

Cynical viewers might view Feeling Through as syrupy, its swirling score too manipulative, the screenplay predictable, the filmmaking pedestrian. To different extents, each of those criticisms are true, but that does not undermine the raw inspiration responsible for this film’s pulse. It boasts solid performances from Prescod and Tarango – the latter a kitchen worker from Long Island and possibly the first deafblind actor in a lead role in film history. Roland’s screenplay beautifully strips away stereotypes of deafblind people. Tarango, as Artie, is neither overly dependent nor secluded from society. He knows that being deafblind sets him apart from those who can see and hear, and embraces the difference – lending a refreshing directness to how he communicates. Despite its lack of filmmaking or acting pedigree compared to its other nominees in this category, Feeling Through enters this Academy Awards season without a single loss in any of the film festivals that it screened in. No wonder: it is a crowd-pleaser in the best sense, without ever glossing over how difficult it is to be deafblind.

My rating: 9/10

Two Distant Strangers (2020)

Production on Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe’s Two Distant Strangers began in the shadow of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Its emotions are raw and there is no doubt behind the importance of the film’s messaging. Carter (rapper Joey Bada$$) has had some first date with Perri (Zaria Simone), and leaves in the morning to get home to his pet dog. Just outside the apartment building door, a police officer named Merk (Andrew Howard) stops Carter, profiles him, and ultimately kills Carter in cold blood. Once Carter dies, the film cuts to Carter and Perri in bed once again. Immediately, the viewer knows this film is a time loop a la Groundhog Day (1993), and, no matter what precautions he takes, Carter just cannot avoid execution from Merk’s hands. Through the film’s structure, Free and Roe capture the sinking, repetitive feeling that black Americans go through when hearing the news of yet another incident of police brutality.

Good intentions and urgency, however, do not necessarily make a worthy film. Some of the editing in Two Distant Strangers’ middle third shows too many images of Carter’s bullet-riddled body. After the first few instances of the time loop, the viewer does not need another glimpse of a lead-shredded corpse, blood splattering across pavement. The filmmaker’s fury towards Carter’s situation – that nothing will change – is already evident in the idea of such killings. Combined with the questionable dialogue in the final time loop and the mediocre acting, this all feels exploitative, an unwitting product of Hollywood’s history of fetishizing black trauma. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), historically, likes to reward films they perceive as demonstratively staged and thematically urgent. Two Distant Strangers meets both these criteria, but this material could have retained its rage without as much sensationalism.

My rating: 6/10

White Eye (2019, Israel)

Like Feeling Through, Tomer Shushan’s White Eye – the winner of the Narrative Short Film award at South by Southwest (SXSW) – was based on an actual encounter in its director’s life. Late at night in the streets of Tel Aviv, Omer (Daniel Gad) has spotted his stolen bicycle locked onto a rack. Omer lost his bike more than a month ago, has not filed a police report, and seeks to reclaim it as soon as possible. The police are of no help, and the people proximate to the intersection where these events take place are unwilling or hesitant to help. The now-owner of the bike is an Eritrean refugee named Yunes (Dawit Tekelaeb), and he insists to his manager (Reut Akkerman) and to Omer that he did not know that the bike was stolen property when he purchased it. And yet Omer’s tenacity and fit of passion spirals the situation beyond his or Yunes’ control.

White Eye is impressively staged, filmed in a single take – no cuts, no edits, all in real-time. To compare this film one last time to Feeling Through, White Eye accomplishes all it needs to say at a short film’s length. Some might claim Saar Mizrahi’s cinematography and 360º smooth-rotating is just another modern filmmaking gimmick; instead, it submerges the viewer into Omer’s mentality as he fights to retrieve his bike. The purposefully subjective framing questions the viewer on what our reactions might be in this situation, how deeply would we allow out outrage – and perhaps our ethnic/racial biases – to guide our actions. Shushan challenges the audience not to adopt Omer’s conclusions and emotions so readily, and he does a masterful job in appealing to and challenging one’s empathy as it becomes clear there will be no storybook ending.

My rating: 8/10

The Letter Room (2020)

By virtue of its central actor, The Letter Room is the most high-profile of this year’s nominees. Elvira Lind’s film is a dark comedy and its approach and tone are difficult to categorize. Richard (a mustached Oscar Isaac, who is Lind’s spouse) is a corrections officer who has requested a departmental transfer. With the transfer, he trades a more hands-on role for an office job. As the prison’s communications director, his responsibilities now entail filing through all of the prisoners’ incoming and outgoing mail – reading through all of the letters, reporting to his superiors for prison rules violations, censoring materials if necessary. At first, this role is as tedious as his previous position. But when Richard begins to read the histories of the prisoners and their loved ones, he becomes emotionally invested in a particular exchange between one death row inmate and his loved one (Alia Shawkat).

The Letter Room, despite a serviceable performance by Isaac as the unusual and stiff lead, has a milquetoast commentary about how the American criminal justice system imprisons more than just the inmates. These themes shambolically merge with Richard’s inherent loneliness, his inability to separate his own feelings from the voyeuristic work that his new position entails. This is a fellow looking for meaningful human connection, finding none, and attempting to understand something he has never found. The Letter Room curiously never questions the tricky ethics of Richard’s decision to intervene with the decisions made by Alia Shawkat’s character, and how the power disparities of his interactions color his life. The film’s conclusion is unearned, placing too neat a bow on a film that cannot balance its incongruous themes.

My rating: 6/10

^ All ratings based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

From previous years: 85th Academy Awards (2013), 87th (2015), 88th (2016), 89th (2017), 90th (2018), 91st (2019), and 92nd (2020).

[gins-potter]

TV Guide Article

So I had a lot of fun running down what happened in the teaser and thinking about what it means for the new seasons, so I thought I would do something similar for the tv guide article that came out a couple days ago.  Thoughts and musings under the cut because it got long:

Chicago Fire

“We are going to reflect what the world is like in 2020 for Chicago firefighters, pandemic and all” so that’s pretty blatant that we’re going to get covid-19 storylines in some regard on Fire.  Maybe Stellaride is the couple who have to quarantine together (again i heard that was going to be upstead but am not sure if that’s confirmed or not).

“[Brett] becomes a mentor to young medic Gianna Macket, who grew up in the same rough South Chicago neighborhood as firefighter Joe Cruz” hopefully is Brett is becoming a mentor to Gianna that means they’ll be friendly pretty quickly, I’m not a massive fan of drama within company’s.  I do love that the new girl might already know Cruz going into the house (altho they lowkey missed the chance for a cross-show dynamic, because I think the Halstead bros also grew up on the south side?)

“Look for Brett and Macket to quickly find themselves in harrowing circumstances, Haas reveals: ‘Don’t miss the premiere’s last 10 seconds’“ so we’re gonna have a cliff hanger in 9x01 which is interesting.  Usually they leave that sort of thing for the season finale, altho they could be making up for the one we didn’t get in s8.

“Brett could experience a new partner in her personal life as well.  Will she begin a serious romance with smitten Captain Matt Casey?  The first two episodes will tell.” Well, there it is Brettsey fans.  We’ll know if our ship’s setting sail by 9x02.  The use of the word smitten is giving me hope, along with the knowledge that they’ve been building this ship for two seasons.  Hopefully they don’t back out in the last second.

“Firefighter Stella Kidd heads in a new direction when Chief Wallace Boden asks her to take the lieutenant’s exam.  Her ambition could cause tension between her and boyfriend Lt. Kelly Severide.”  I’m down for Lieutenant Stella Kidd, but not down for tension between her and Kelly.  Happy Stellaride all of s8 was amazing and I don’t want trouble now.  If she does get her bugles (if i’m using that phrase right) I wonder where she’ll go since all the Lt spots are full, but she could pull a Herrmann and just stick around until something opens up and fill in when she’s needed.  I’m a tiny bit worried they’re gearing up to write one of our Lt’s out, but I’m hoping I’m very wrong.

“’Ritter has an epic rescue coming up,’ says Haas, ‘and he might be taking a break from [his boyfriend]’” Yay epic rescue, boo break from his boyfriend (unless that means Ritter/Gallo in that case I’d totally be here for it).

“While Gallo’s effort to woo EMT Violet Lin fizzled” rip, I wasn’t a massive fan of Violet/Gallo but sad to see her go cause she was a badass paramedic.

“[Gallo] now faces an even bigger challenge: impressing his boss, Captain Casey. ‘Especially,’ warns Haas, ‘if he decides to cowboy a call instead of following orders.’“ I’ve seen the theory that Gallo cowboying a call is what puts Brett and Gianna in danger and Casey loses his shit and it leads to Brettsey and honestly?  I’m here for it.

Chicago PD

“... new Deputy Superintendent Samantha Miller who arrives in Chicago with an intense police reform agenda, in a story inspired by the country’s current movement.  ‘Miller wants to abolish the ‘warrior-cop’ mentality and help Hank Voight and Intelligence adapt to the new reality’ says exec producer Rick Eid.... Facing hostility from the community and scrutiny from his bosses, Voight must assess whether, indeed, ‘he’s part of the problem of part of the solution’.” Honestly this type of storyline is long overdue and I really hope they’re committed to following it through.  Because we’ve seen them explore themes of ‘reform’ in the past but they never seem to stick.  I think if cop shows want to stick around they need to take a hard stance against police brutality in their story telling and be willing to be critical of their own main characters.  It’s not enough anymore to see the characters stand up against other racist cops, they now need to look at how their own policing has been racist.  It won’t make PD a completely unproblematic show (and I don’t know if there can be a completely unproblematic cop show) but it will be a step in the right direction.

“While the unit lost undercover specialist Vanessa Rojas at the end of last season...” so, did I miss this happening?  I assumed Lisseth would come back for 8x01 to write off her character but this makes it sound like she isn’t.  Which has me confused because I’m pretty sure they haven’t given her a proper exit yet, but maybe I’ve just forgotten about it.  The fact that they specified she’s an undercover specialist makes me think she’s just going to disappear and they’ll throw out a single line about how she’s gone undercover for another unit.

“Upton’s chemistry with Det. Jay Halstead did not weaken during her absence, but both know the complications of dating colleague.”  this ain’t gonna be a smooth ride to canon Upstead, me think.

“As do officers AdamRuzek and Kim Burgess, still mourning her miscarriage.  ‘It’s become an emotional impediment to their relationship,’ Eid says. ‘They have an unbreakable bond, but are they better off as friends?’“ Fuck off Eid, and just let them get back together already.  That’s all I have to say on that.

“Intelligence’s Kevin Atwater has his own troubles - with members of the force.  After breaking the ‘blue wall of silence’ by testifying that racist cop Tom Doyle was killed in crossfire after racially profiling an innocent Black man, Doyle’s connect friends and family want vindication.” This storyline coupled with the new superintendent sets up a very interesting season.  But I will say this, they better let Kevin Atwater carry this season, because it is his time and he deserves the spotlight.

Chicago Med

“The stories on Med’s sixth season will consider how first responders have been impacted by the coronavirus.  But while the docs at Gaffney Chicago Medical Center will see covid-19 patients, ‘we focus more on how other types of cases are treated in this new environment’ exec producer Diane Frolov says.” this is an interesting way to do covid storylines and i’m interested to see where it goes.  clearly none of the shows are shying away from the current state of the world which i’m personally fine with, but can understand why some people don’t like.  tv is a form of escapism for a lot of people, but personally i enjoy when tv shows aren’t scared to go there and get real with certain subject.

“Amid all this, Dr James Lanik quits as emergency department chief (but stays with the hospital)” rip bye Lanik, can’t say I’ll overly miss you.  I find it interesting that they specify that he’s not leaving the hospital though.  I wonder if that means we’ll see him in another position.

“...and a main character is unexpectedly named to the position.”  I feel like it might be Ethan, because iirc Will is running some sort of clinical trial or something?  And being a surgeon I doubt it can be Marcel.  Nat’s lower than Ethan in terms of hierarchy I think so I don’t think it’ll be her, but maybe that’s the unexpected part.  Ethan or Nat for the position would be my guess.

“‘There’s always a push-pull between Dr Ethan Choi and Nurse April Sexton, but deep feelings remain on each side,’” guess we shouldn’t give up on Sextoi just yet.  pretty ambivalent on them these days which is a shame cause i used to really like them.

“trauma surgeon Crockett Marcel and Dr Natalie Manning have drawn closer since Marcel opened up about the loss of his child.” okay this is the one thing I’m actually interesting in seeing in s6.  Not a massive Marcel fan but I liked the storyline about his past (not liked as in glad he’s gone through shit but liked as in it made him slightly more sympathetic to me).  I’m also curious to see where this thing with Nat goes.  Especially because I swear I saw a lingering glance between her and Will at Maggie’s wedding.  I smell a love triangle?  Love quadrangle perhaps if April’s still into Marcel?  Love pentagon, if Ethan’s still into April?  Goodness.

“...and Dr Will Halstead, who’s tapped to supervise a clinical trial on a new heart disease medication, is still entangled with ob-gyn Hannah Asher.  Whether Halstead should trust the recovering addict is still to be determined.” yup knew Will had some other big thing going on this season.  Don’t need the Asher relationship stuff tho.  Sorry Jessy Schram, I’m sure you’re lovely but you can leave now.  That being said if they pull a Bekker level stunt and have her go batshit in order to write her off, I will actually lose my shit.

And there we have it.  All my thoughts on some pretty big scoops for the new seasons and what I think might happen.

[deliciousscaloppine]

Writing Bound - a photo essay?

Hewwo, I wrote a little nieyao/sangyao story a while back called Bound, this is me discussing how I used research to create the world, the characterization and themes of the story with the intention to further develop them at a later time. 

You’ve read “write and don’t analyze”, well this is the opposite and it’s super important in the creation of complex and culturally sophisticated stories.

Dedicated to @annulareye​ and their silver tongue. But also many thanks to the other people interested in this. 

The setting

I placed the action in Hong Kong. Probably inspired by the fact Wang Yizhou is from there? Or visits there a lot? And also its rich and deeply romantc cinematic tradition (Wong Kar Wai). 

Also the sprawling metropolis setting amplifies emotions of isolation and vulnerability. The room for passion and romance is very narrow, and conditional, which explains the good reception of their erotic content. A space for flesh in the heart of a concrete city. 

I also liked the idea the brothers as two artists that haven’t quite made it yet. That Mingjue might be the one who is holding them back, hiding them in a gritty industrial space with just the bare necessities instead of a fashionable studio, but that may also be the foundation of their success combined with his dependability.

Another inpiration for placing the action in Hong Kong are its sprawling cemetaries, and highly organized funerary culture. I found out about these cemetaries from a brilliant film - The Pillow Book, by Peter Greenaway. More so than a place of death, the cemetary is in a way a burrow of the metropolis. Making the afterlife a real possibility. The dead inhabit a place and they want things, a connection with them is still possible in such a setting.  

I chose photography, and not some other type of event, or visual art as a discipline for the brothers, not only because of the beautiful aesthetics of the photography studio, because of the experience of photography itself, which is spontaneous and performative, but also highly organized and introspective.

The developing process where  a picture appears slowly in its bath is also another allusion for manifesting feelings, their fleetingness and uncertainty, and how they could change according to who is viewing them and at what time. 

Moments of spirit. 

I had decided early on that a great deal of the romantic tension would rely on the contrast between Meng Yao’s physical and emotional availability. He might be bound, and bent, documented and processed, but he cannot be possessed. Aside from his time in the studio he is invisible socially and even unwelcome - which are core traits of the character in their original context. 

He is a bit like a ghost, and the brothers’ romantic attraction to him, haunts them. He is intagible and incorporeal in a way that makes them uneasy and uncertain of if he is even there. 

The physical torture of binding him, the documentation through photography they are all ways to assure themselves of his human dimension. The imprint of his sweating body drying on the concrete, and the personal portrait Huaisang took while they were making love are both confirmations of his corporeality, his existence in space, and a reinforcement that the two brothers can affect him, can capture and ground him to reality if you will.  

A huge inspiration for those two moments was Francesca Woodman’s self portraits.

And Carol’s portrait, Therese takes, in Todd Haynes’ Carol (Huge lesbian film watch it.)

A huge inspiration for Meng Yao’s behavior is another film, Under the skin by Christine Adler - where a grieving woman whose mother is dying, engages in masochistic sex with strangers. I liked the idea that Meng Yao is also not sure if he exists himself, and having reckless sex with both brothers, and enduring pain affirms to him his existence and capacity to endure. In the background of Bound’s plot is that all three of the characters have lost their parents slowly and painfully to disease, and neither of them is really sure about the meaning of their continued survival - which are also the big themes of this film.

Burning funerary offerings, and self-immolation as an act of desperate self-sacrifice.

Again I was exposed to the custom of burning effigies as offerings to the dead for things they might need in the afterlife from the film The Pillow Book. I liked this idea of the dead wanting things in the afterlife, real things that they might have use for like cars and houses and servants. I also liked the idea of the two brothers strolling in these traditional markets of Hong Kong being so familiarized with death and suffering that it is a game to them to see these novelty items and think on what they would like if they died.

(Photography from this article)

Back to Pillow Book, Nagiko, a model turned writer, who writes her memoir on the skin of her lovers, loses her lover and fellow writer Jerome to suicide. She burns his books, and effigies of his car and typewriter. So there came the idea that not only effigies, but also actual possessions of the dead person might be burned. She later also burns her possessions and returns to Japan - in a way offering to Jerome’s afterlife, the part of herself that he met and fell in love with.

That is why Mingjue clears the apartment, and that is why he also burns himself. It’s a gesture to restore to Huaisang his previous life in death, and to offer him what he needs, which was Mingjue’s love and support. 

At that moment he views himself as an extension of Huaisang’s life.

That is also why he buries Meng Yao with Huaisang, Meng Yao too becomes an offering, in an effort to shift the blame for the accident entirely on his self. 

He is still lying of course to himself, because he only responded to Meng Yao’s advances when it became evident to him, Huaisang had him. So he becomes an adversary to the two lovers, and for this he must be punished by the system of the work. Punishing a character, however, is meaningless as an action directed to them by the author. 

It renders their destruction void. 

Which takes me to the act of self-immolation in the real world, which has a rich history as a protest against oppression.

In the story the real culprit is the city, the oppressive reality of modern life that does not permit the slowing or stopping of activity. It causes the trauma, it creates the perfect conditions for accidents, it buries and forgets and continues. And that is the peak of suffering.

Self-immolation says I am suffering now more than if I were on fire or fire is to be endured, and so is death, but not existing invisible and uncared for among people. 

These are thoughts, or messages generated by a very well-known photo of the buddhist monk  Thích Quảng Đức burning in protest in a street in Saigon. It’s very well known not only for the powerful visual of a human being burning, but because of the monk’s peaceful and meditive countenance. 

(Picture under the cut.)

I read recently an article titled the tragedy of self-immolation is that no one cares - or something like that- and it startled me. Because actions like these might not bring abrupt visible changes, but they do matter, and they are added to the collective human soul for better or worse. Anyone who comes into contact with them cannot but be moved and changed. 

I wanted an end to this story that is both a reasonable demise fot the character, and a point to address to the reader about the futility of control and authority, and the trauma it generates in the human soul. Messages like that are highly abstract but incredibly succinct.

Which brings me to the narrative mechanism used to develop most of the themes of the story.

Bondage.

The pictures that follow, are not highly graphic there’s nudity, and bondage for the most part. They belong to a photographer called Nobuyoshi Araki, who has had a long career both as a photographer and a bondage artist. Recently a very young model that he also had a relationship with of his has come forward accusing him of physical and psychological abuse. So I’ve kept them at the bottom of this post if you do not want to be exposed to his material.

I found his work very early when I studied as an art student, and I was very drawn to the beauty and sentimentality of his models. For anyone who doesn’t want to see these pictures, but wants to know what they look like, they are not strictly pornographic.

He has said about his bondage work, that you can bind a woman’s body, but you can’t bind her soul. And after all these years and my relationship to his work, I see that his photography is just another effort to capture and bind that female soul. To pin it in a cushion for others to admire and use.

And this is the theme I worked on for the brothers’ bondage art. For them its a gateway to fame and recognition, a way to manipulate and effect change, to make their places more solid to the world. 

For the people who offer themselves to be bound and photographed, it’s a medium to expose and subject others to the romantic sensitivity locked deep in their souls. A romance developed from rejection and dismissal to be offered back in defiance, or sorrow, as a continuous effort to be accepted back.

There’s also the notion of the tempering quality of cruelty in the creation of something precious and unique, worthy of an audience’s attention, which mirrors the why this story is created in the first place.

[afinepricklypear]

hello!!! im really sorry to bother you! im a huge fan of your powerless series and i was very excited to see you beginning to post the next instalment, but i just had a question!! od*zai makes me really uncomfortable for personal reasons and i was wondering if there would be any of it in the fic? again im really sorry for bothering you vnjdfklnb

I don’t know when this was asked, I rarely come here...but I’ll answer as best I can and hope it’s not too late. I really don’t want to spoil the story too much, but I can also understand that many fanfiction readers (myself included) don’t like too many surprises in their fics and, when it comes to a multi-chapter fic, they don’t want to invest too much time in a fic that might disappoint them in the end. I also understand that for many people (once again, myself included), ships can make or break a fic, and that many people have notps (I, personally, have *a lot* in BSD), so I’ll try to give you an indirect answer.

I’ll start by noting that I do tag most things appropriately -- including romantic relationships that will appear in the fic, so that’s always your best bet for determining if a particular ship will show up in one of my stories -- sometimes things come up as I’m writing that I didn’t anticipate, and I’ll always warn when the tags of a fic change. I also try to tag when a fic will have an ending that the readers might not be satisfied with.

However, I feel like you might be able to guess the answer to your question too if you read my notes throughout the series. I’ll reiterate a few things I’ve said in the past installments here:

- I’m not a huge fan of Oda. It’s not that I dislike him, I just don’t particularly like him either. I’m neutral about him, I guess. Apathetic is most appropriate. I just don’t feel that the character was well developed by Asagiri. He’s flat and bland. His personality traits read off like a character the author is desperately trying to make readers like by cramming arbitrary positive characteristics down our throats that feel as though they weren’t fully thought out or given much impetus: he rescues orphans, wanted to retire as a novelist, mafia grunt that never kills (though he doesn’t quite qualify as a ‘criminal with a heart of gold’ like Chuuya because we never see him do anything criminal...but then again, we never really see the Port Mafia doing a lot of criminal things beyond murder). He also knows nothing about fairytales and apparently that makes him interesting -- and not an idiot(?) -- to Dazai. In short, like his ability name, he’s basically Flawless. Unless you count his breakdown in Dark Era when his plot devices...er...I mean, orphans that he rescued, each of whom are indistinguishable from one another (except Sakura because, she’s *the girl*) were killed by Mimic, which spiraled him on a Saint’s Martyr journey. 

OMG. He’s the Gary Stu of BSD. I never realized it before.

Er, I’m ranting. I didn’t mean to turn this ask into an Oda-Bash, and I mean no offense to his fans. We all connect to different parts of a character, and I just...didn’t connect to anything with him. That’s not to say I wouldn’t rise to the challenge as a writer of giving the character more depth than presented in cannon.

- I’m not so much a multishipper, as I don’t care about any other ships in BSD outside of DaChuu. Not much else to add to that one...

- I won’t be introducing any romantic pairings into the story that weren’t tagged in the first story of Release, because it would be wholly unfair to the readers who’ve stuck with me through to a fourth story to suddenly throw a curveball at them with potential notps. So, while there might be hints to other pairs (teasing, more like, similar to cannon), no new romantic pairs will be confirmed and the readers are free to interpret relationships between characters how ever they want...though I might note in comment replies my own preferences on those ships, that isn’t to say that the readers are wrong in reading into characters within my story their own shipping preferences since the characters are otherwise meant to be close to cannon, and there are no cannon ships...therefore, anything goes.

- I want to see Dazai and Chuuya move towards a healthier relationship in Release. As it stands, there are a lot of growing pains they would need to go through to get there. It’s not enough to “confess your feelings”, relationships are built on a lot more than that. They’ve got a lot of bad history, in cannon and as established throughout my story, that they need to work through. They have certain understandings that they relied on in the past to work with one another which no longer hold true, and so they have to figure out new ways to work together. There’s a lot made of the trust between them, also, in the story, they themselves and characters like Lady Murasaki have made mention of the solid trust between them. The problem there, however, is this trust predated their confession to one another, and is, therefore, built on a foundation that is regardless of love. So it isn’t really a great measure of the state of their romantic relationship -- a mistake, I might point out, Dazai may have already made.

- Not technically me that said this last one, but I would also refer you back to chapter 2 of Lock-Down, where Chuuya and Dazai briefly talk about Oda. Although Dazai is rather aloof about his feelings towards Oda there, he is very clear that he and Oda were never romantically involved while Oda was alive.

...

Something I haven’t really said, but I do want to create space for it here, is that there are many different kinds of love. When I set out writing Release, I wanted to keep as many things as possible close to cannon, I wanted the characters as close to cannon as I could get them, tweaking only what was necessary to make the story work. One of the things from cannon is that Dazai’s relationship with Oda had a powerful impact on it. I see a lot of soukoku writers deal with this by ignoring or downsizing the relationship between Oda and Dazai, or changing Dazai’s relationship with Chuuya to "elevate it” -- for lack of better phrasing -- to the same level. What can’t be denied about cannon is that Oda meant a lot to Dazai, his dying words inspired Dazai to leave the Port Mafia, and in the Beast AU, he changes *everything* and even, arguably, puts Atsushi and Kyouka through a kind of hell to create a world where Oda lives and finishes his novel. I would be a terrible fanfic writer if I didn’t at least acknowledge that it is made obvious in cannon Dazai does love Oda...however, it all depends on your perspective what kind of love that is. Odazai fans like to interpret it as romantic love, and that is their ship, nothing wrong with it, but romantic love isn’t the only kind of love with power, and it’s not the only kind of love that drives people to do whatever necessary for the life and happiness of that person. 

Within the context of the Release series, Chuuya also interprets Dazai’s love for Oda as romantic love. This itself is a conflict, but it’s representative of a larger conflict in their relationship...that being Chuuya’s insecurity with regards to Dazai’s feelings for him, which is a theme I really want to explore. I don’t know that it’ll ever explicitly be discussed, but a lot of the trauma from Chuuya’s assault by Dante is actually closely tied with this insecurity too. It isn’t Dante’s actions that affected Chuuya so terribly, rather the newness of his romance with Dazai at that point in time, and how easy it felt for him in that moment, for Dante to brush aside “Dazai’s kisses and touches”. It really represented for Chuuya how fragile and vulnerable his feelings for Dazai are, and how afraid he is that he’ll lose whatever is developing between him and Dazai before he ever really gets to call it his own.

An element of the Release series that I use to drum up drama and suspense, and which I try to impress on readers is that, with few exceptions, we’re only getting Chuuya’s perspective. His information is limited, and his interpretations of events and the people around him are not always going to be reliable. But we’re on this journey with him and we learn most information at the same time that he does. In this case, the important thing isn’t whether Odazai is a thing, it’s that Chuuya *believes* it is a thing. This creates a nice conflict, because it’s very problematic, highlighting that, while Chuuya trusts Dazai with his life, he doesn’t (yet?) trust Dazai with his heart. A partner secure in their relationship would be understanding that they’re not the only important person in their lover’s life, and that their lover can have strong emotions of love for others without it changing their love for their partner. Thus far, it hasn’t come up as a major conflict in their relationship, because Oda is dead, but recent revelations in the fourth Release story (the reliability of the character who gave the reveal, notwithstanding) raises some interesting questions stemming from: what if Oda could be brought back to life. Most readers seemed to have accepted Chuuya’s logic built on his personal narrative that Dazai was in love with Oda and vice versa, that if Dazai is trying to bring Oda back, he’s using Chuuya to do it as some sacrifice, because he truly loves Oda and wants to be with Oda, and that his relationship with Chuuya is meaningless. So, if we stay within that perspective we’re left with the one question: is he really trying to bring Oda back? -- and the conclusion drawn from it being: if he is, he doesn’t love Chuuya, and if he isn’t, he does love Chuuya. But there are some other important questions I don’t see too many readers asking, such as: are these things truly mutually exclusive? Would Dazai being romantically in love with Oda represent the only explanation for why Dazai would want to bring Oda back to life? Would Dazai really see bringing Oda back as being in conflict with his and Chuuya’s developing romance?

Of course, this added potential motivation for Dazai aside, stopping the Grimm Brotherhood is paramount. This is a dangerous organization that is doing horrendous things, and their mysterious machinations are made more ominous by the fact our heroes don’t fully know their ultimate goals. Thus far, everything that’s happened involving Chuuya has been beneficial towards bringing down the Grimm Brotherhood. Regardless if Dazai is pursuing the Brotherhood for personal reasons, his actions still align with the motivations of the Agency and Chuuya.

I don’t know if this answered your question but I hope that you might trust me as a writer that has no intention of “pulling one over” on the readers and that you will continue to stick with the story. I don’t get my jollies from leaving stories with unsatisfactory endings. I believe that there should always be an appropriate payoff that the story built towards. Thank you for the question, thank you for reading and enjoying my other stories, and I hope that you take care!

[linkspooky]

What makes an unlikable character likable to you?

If you were to ask me to explain it, I would say they’re more well-defined. They have personality. Main characters in manga, especially shonen manga where popularity in weekly polls is king tend to be written to appeal to as many people as possible. That’s why so many of the protagonists written in jump end up resembling one another. They are written to appeal to their audience first and as characters second.

They just end up being better than the main characters because they’re actually allowed to be characters.

Sometimes in an effort to make a character more likable, personality traits that stand out will be sanded off. If a person is always friendly, always smiling, and has an optimistic attitude it’s hard to hate them isn’t it? No, it’s more like there’s nothing you could possibly hate about them. Oftentimes these characters get reduced to positive traits with only job interview flaws as their character conflict, like they care too much, or they’re too selfless. 

Part of having a personality, is having traits that people can dislike. The more you stsand out, the more under scrutiny you will be and the more things people will find wrong with you. They have to have qualities that people can find unlikable in the first place. It’s like the saying that having an opinion means someone out there is going to disagree with it. As villains and what are typically considered “anti-heros” are not meant to be likable, they are allowed to be more they’re own character. The characters often feel like their own person. They are allowed to be unlikable. 

Risks is one of the things that creates the most inspired fiction. When you give a character unlikable traits, you are betting on that people will like them anyway in spite of their flaws. You basically have to do the work to make something compelling about their charatcter so people will look past their flaws. Which is why a lot of times, despite being terrible people these characters happen to be very emotionally driven, and even sometimes relatable. This kind of writing just doesn’t show up in protagonists often, because they’re not allowed to be their own characters, with their own flaws and complex inner worlds. 

I always say the best characters are the ones that allow the audience to dislike them. Because that means the character is actually about something, and therefore you can agree or disagree with the idea. It’s why I don’t even react that much when people dislike characters that I like, because if people can disagree with that character it means that character stood for something or stood out in some way to be hated. 

Here, I’ll give an exmaple of what I mean. 

There are a lot of things to dislike about Shigaraki. He’s basically introduced as a violent manchild, who seemed to want to destroy, and make others miserable for no reason at all. The fact that Shigaraki is so difficult to like is what makes him appealing.

Shigaraki’s a genuinely damaged person and it’s hard to understand his worldview or even relate to him. The story actually has to develop him. As easy to dislike and hard to like as Shigaraki is, he’s an extremely strong presence in the story and he’s probably the most complex character who has gotten the most character development. All because he started as a gremlin who wanted to destroy everything and the narrative had to work hard to make him into a character you wanted to understand. 

Shigaraki is an abused child whose entire life was destroyed by the flaws in the hero system that everybody else loves. He also takes in several other people who have fallen through the cracks of the system, and provides them friendship and a surrogate family where they have none. He has a unique dynamic with each member of the league, and he also reflects each of them in a way. Shigaraki and Dabi are abusive victims connected to the number one and number two hero respectively. Both Shigaraki and Himiko were born with quirks that do not fit into society, and were abused by their parents and not allowed to be the person they want to be. Spinner and Shigaraki are both shut ins who lived really empty lives because of how much society rejected them due to their quirks. Shigaraki and Twice are both heavily mentally ill, and the type of bad people that a hero would never save. Compress and Shigaraki are both show-offs. 

Everything Shigaraki has in the story he had to earn. The story is way harsher on him as a villain than it is on any of the main characters. When he makes mistakes he’s never given any leeway. He loses things. His friends die as a result of his failures. He loses kurogiri, Magne, all for one’s resources. 

Then we see him pick something up and build everything on top of that. Almost as if Shigaraki is the hero of his own story. A lot of the heaviest emotional themes of the manga, quirk discrimmination, abuse, the failures of society, are tied up in Shigaraki’s character as well and we actually see Shigaraki fight against it. Shigaraki even opens up and tells all of his worst trauma to his close knit group of friends. 

Because there are several things to hate about Shigaraki, the story has to work hard to show you that underneath all that Shigaraki is still compelling and sympathetic. He’s also, allowed to be unlikable, and flawed, which causes him to be given the chance to work on and better those flaws which is why the Shigaraki we know now is almost completely different from the one we were introduced to at the start of the manga. A lot of very emotionally heavy topics are tied to Shigaraki as well because as an unlikable character he’s actually allowed to go to those dark places. 

Let’s compare this to Deku. Just to be clear, I like Deku. I think he’s fine as a character. This isn’t meant to come off as hate, I’m just trying to explain why I like the things I like. 

Deku himself has the makings of an interesting character, but all of his major flaws are sanded down. Deku is clearly a character that the audience is meant to like and relate to, and because of that he’s not allowed to stand out personality wise. Like, the reason Bakugo wins all the character polls is that like him or hate him, having a personality will always draw more attention.

Deku does have a character. He’s timid with extremely low self esteem, he doubts himself all the time, he’s basically a chronic overstudier, and overthinks everything. However, none of these traits are ever a problem for the story. Deku could have more pronounced flaws, if his tendency to self harm himself, or his lack of direction in his life, or the fact that he never has any self esteem so he thinks saving people means hurting and sacrificing himself were treated as more serious flaws that would be something to build a narrative around.

As it is, Deku basically has what are job interview flaws. He never has to change his personality much, he just has to get stronger. Rather than overcoming something or learning something, he just, gets physically stronger as the plot goes on. 

Like. The real reason people were upset about Deku getting six quirks out of nowhere wasn’t because it was a power boost. Main characters get weird power boosts all the time that’s just how it is. It’s because Deku’s character is only ever progressed by getting random power boosts. They don’t feel earned.

Compare what Deku did: Have a deram.To what Shigaraki did: Spent two months homeless in the woods fighting Gigantomachia. Went to rescue his friend against an entire city of people. Opened up about his past and his motivation to his friends earning Spinner’s loyalty. Went one on one with a hulk. Had a mental breakdown in the middle of a fight, and THEN remembered all of his past memories and decided his desire was that he wanted to be free from the shackles of his trauma. 

Nothing changed about Deku, he just got stronger because the plot needed him to be. There’s nothing wrong with Deku as a main character, but that’s exactly the problem. Deku’s not really about anything,. Deku at the start of the manga, and now is pretty much the same character but with a power upgrade. Deku’s “saving people” often comes off as just punching a bad guy because Deku never confronts the bad sides of society, he’s a total fanboy of the system. Whereas Shigaraki saves people by giving people who are victims of the system but won’t be saved by heroes, a home, and an emotional connection. 

Deku has moments where he reaches out to other people too, but it almost always involves some kind of punching because he’s a shonen protagonist. That’s ultimately why a more unlikable character can come off as likable, Shigaraki’s not a protagonist or anything, he’s just a character.