#religious catharsis fantasy story

[raemanzu]

🌈💔🌨️ for Julian and 🐰✨❗ for Rosen for the OC asks!

AAHHH okay Julian 🌈 - Do you associate any colors with them? Yes, kind of a golden color. I think because Cal painted a very nice picture of him studying his scriptures in his room and in my mind's eye the light is very nice and golden. But also it's just the Vibe... kingly, prophetic color to me. Sunlight and heavy crowns.

💔 - Does forgiveness come easily or with difficulty to this oc? Can they forgive others? What about themselves? Gosh this is a really good question. I think he does have a lot of anger that is buried. Some of it toward himself, some toward others. So I think even if on the outside he can behave in a forgiving way, it's more a symptom of self-deception or a survival behavior rather than genuine forgiveness.

🌨️ - If this oc had a day free from all their responsibilities, how would they spend it? Drawing, painting, and talking to Ana or Rosen.

Okay now Rosen!

✨ - Tell something that makes this oc feel happy! Singing! And Julian's smile.

🐰 - How huggable is this oc? To Julian yes he is huggable. To most others he isn't particularly free with his physical space/contact.

❗- What are the highest priorities to this oc (at a point in their life of your choosing)? At the point I've written up to in the story, his highest priority is keeping Julian safe whether that be from physical or spiritual danger... but it's also staying close to Julian.

Thanks I really needed this!!!

[pythoria]

astarion is such a great character but one reason that stands out to me is how he turns the vampire stereotype on its head. vampires from their inception have been metaphors for sexuality, back in ye olden times when religious and cultural dogma repressed people's desires and forbade acting on them. they've always represented latent sexuality and people's increasing desperation. they were a fantasy that allowed people to imagine not being bound by societal rules, but by their internal hunger, giving into it and how that might feel, but more than that, how it might feel to be a victim of that. women, especially, were not allowed to express any desires, so the vampire taking whatever they wanted, as well as being desired for something as intrinsic to your being as your blood - that's a powerful fantasy. at its core, vampirism is about loss of control, and people who hold onto control very tightly in their lives will find themselves drawn to vampires as a form of catharsis.

but that's where astarion comes in and flips it around. he's far from the first character to explore the negative sides of vampirism, but as a long-term fan of many fictional vampires, i think he does it best. primarily because his story delves into the sexual aspect and the loss of control much more, while maintaining a lot of realism. his vampirism is very grounded in reality; he has real human feelings about it. the idea that people would find the powerful vampire overpowering them alluring is contrasted by the very obvious (to us, a modern audience) issues with consent involved. if the vampire cannot control their hunger, if they have no control over the desires they act on, that might sound appealing to someone who has never been allowed to act on *any* desire, but the reality of it is horrifying. it's being a victim of assault at your own hands. it's people using you and you being unable to express any discomfort, because what *you* want is always backseating what the vampirism demands. the liberating feeling of being able to act on your desires turns into the claustrophobia of being unable to deny them at all.

vampirism always came with downsides, of course. not being able to walk in the sun (being exiled from the world and polite society), not being able to see your reflection (a loss of self), dying and being reborn, but not coming back quite the same, never being able to return to the person you once were (giving up life itself, but not arriving in a religious heaven, rather staying on earth past your time, defying god, giving up the chance at eternal bliss for the inherently sinful continuation of the flesh), eternal life (losing everyone you love, seeing everything end) akin to eternal damnation in hell. all of these downsides, and yet, with astarion, even the good bits are tainted, or turned into something negative.

on top of that, the choice to damn himself for any supposed benefits of vampirism wasn't even given to him. he was turned against his will, kept against his will, had his freedom - the only thing worth anything to a vampire - taken away. he didn't escape from a life that boxed him in, he was ripped away from a life he dearly misses. but then again, considering his actions as a magistrate, it's also a sort of divine punishment by proxy, one that is entirely disproportionate to his crimes, in a way only something as extreme as vampirism can be.

obviously the proxy for all this is cazador, but he is merely a personification of the dark force vampires are slaves to. cazador exists because it's much easier for an audience to understand how little control a vampire has over his actions when they can point to someone and say "you're at fault, astarion is innocent, you forced him to do all of those awful things". but the truth is, cazador doesn't have to exist. cazador's compulsion could be replaced by an amorphous urge, coming from inside astarion, outside of his control, and his character would make just as much sense, except it would be harder for everyone (including astarion himself) to separate the actions from the person. imagine a dark urge character who wanted to be good, but the urge wasn't something they could resist. imagine an evil dark urge run, killing everyone, but entirely against your will. would you defend that character? would you be able to redeem them if one day the urge ceased? would you even be willing to wait, to give them time to break free? or would you just kill them, as a mercy on the world? there's no surprise that most people would stake astarion on sight. maybe he can be redeemed eventually, but what about the time inbetween?

yes, this all comes from dnd vampire lore, so it applies across the board, not just for astarion. vampire spawn exist as a different entity from a fully-fledged vampire because it allows the spawn to keep a part of their humanity, their soul, and have their morality exist separately from the call of the blood. all of this makes astarion fascinating, and also somewhat easier to analyse.

[sepublic]

When discussing the benefits but also the dangers of fantasy in TOH, it makes me consider how this ties into Belos’ bigotry, religious superiority, white supremacy, etc. Because I see how in the parallels to Luz and the depictions of his witch hunts as a ‘game’ he played as a kid, the show is getting into the thought process behind white supremacy and the like; Specifically, by suggesting that it comes from the same core principle of “I was born special, I’m a hero.”

Because think of it this way; I was born inherently better than others, it’s in my blood, I have to defeat evils? These aren’t unlike what white supremacists believe about themselves. After all, TOH is coming off of Harry Potter, which is criticized for the “It’s in his blood” trope with the protagonist.

This is foiled by Luz, who wants to believe at first that she’s special and things will automatically come to her because of it, but then Eda has to explain; Sorry kid, but if you want things you have to work for and earn them, just like anyone else. Some things can be attributed to luck on Luz’s part, but it’s not as if she’s blind to this and saying it’s ‘destiny’ (unlike someone else), plus in general we all have a bit of privilege in some ways.

And again, that ties back into Christian white supremacy, particularly the Puritans, who believed their colony would be a "City upon a Hill." That it’s their goal to enlighten people, or else root out the evildoers; You can see how this evolves into evangelicalism in the U.S. and the right’s obsession with anything new as satanic, even if it’s something like Elvis Presley or Pokemon (which Dana grew up with, coincidentally), or more recently, furries.

(No really, this actually happened I kid you not. It seems like an exaggeration but I swear it genuinely happened and it truly is absurd that it did.)

Anyhow I think that’s important, because it’s not just the message that Christian white supremacy is bad, it’s why people even believe and buy into these things to begin with. A lot of alt-right 4channers and the like fall into these rabbit holes because they feel cheated out of the implicit, unconscious promises of white supremacy and feel as if they’re owed something; So obviously women and PoC, the queers, the ‘diversity hires’ and affirmative action, this is what’s cheated them.

And you can see the connection between white christian ideas and how that can translate into a lot of fantasy stories, hence “It’s in your blood” and “It’s destiny,” as well as Isekai Colonialism; The idea that what if another world and its inhabitants just existed for you. These tropes are inspired by outdated ideas that Christian white supremacy, an outdated belief, has plenty examples of and sometimes even inspired.

And this is why it’s important to engage with these things critically and question them… But at the same time, Luz is still allowed to love Azura, it’s just about maintaining a critical eye and being self-aware of what you internalize and don’t. Hence her learning to differentiate reality from fiction and not become delusional; Hence King doing the same!

By making that connection, it does explain this type of bigotry by framing it in a way that viewers can actually relate to, even if they also condemn it just as much, if not moreso after understanding. It ties even the genocide with tropes like the dragon slayer, the endless horde of monsters you don’t ever have to feel bad about or question killing, or the DnD Evil Race; Which on their own, these stories aren’t necessarily in advocacy for genocide of course, some of them are just inspired by previous ones without making that connection. And most people know not to let it affect how they see reality.

Because it’s one thing to let yourself be petty and find catharsis against a genuine, extreme example who has gone out of their way to hurt you (those definitely exist, alas); But it’s another to actively search for people to feel angry towards, amidst groups unrelated to you, and provoke them until they give you that ‘justification’. Because you’re not responding to anything, you are the aggressor; In essence, you are performing a witch hunt, in a need to feel like a hero enacting righteous judgment.

Because you’re desperate for the power of putting someone else beneath you, which is what the mundane bully does, out of the belief this conversely translates into you being above others; Again, the ‘chosen one’ beliefs, the Christian white supremacy. And suddenly you better understand why Evangelicals raged over something as innocuous as the Pokemon games that Dana grew up with, back when they first came out.

So Luz understands; She does understand, better than some people, in fact. She understood the Collector. But just because she understands, doesn't necessarily mean Luz approves or excuses; She still has every right in condemning Belos because she never let herself go that far, and this behavior would be condemned even by those trying to make up for it; It’s why they try to make up for it. And the fiction Luz wants to happen for herself (which isn’t the same as the fictions one enjoys) isn't centered around there being hidden bad actors amongst the populace to constantly root out; Luz is only going to react, not act, and consistently, predominantly sees the best in others.

In the end, Belos latched onto Caleb marrying Evelyn, and then the Grimwalkers, and finally Luz, as a way of a proving a point to himself; That wiping out witches WAS in service of humanity, it would actually help them, by showing how he 'rescued' a human from temptation. I'm sure he genuinely loved Caleb, but in an extreme form of Luz's Wing it like Witches, at some point he subsumed Caleb's input and agency to instead make him into a docile trope to make decisions for.

And when Caleb didn't go along with that story, pointed out how it didn't fit the reality of the situation; Philip killed him! His priorities shifted from doing it for Caleb's sake, for the sake of HIS fantasy; He saw an opportunity to live out the Witch Hunter story and it mattered more to him than actually helping someone, or realizing in relief he didn't have to.

Hence the Titan saying Belos "fears what he can't control" due to "his need to be the hero in his own delusion." It’s a quote applicable to real life conservatives who look for things to outlaw, because hating makes them feel like righteous saviors; Remember Pokemon? Gotta save people from themselves and any potential temptations… Belos couldn't control Caleb, and the Grimwalkers? Belos' way of re-attempting his 'side quest' to again, prove that what he's doing is for the sake of humanity, in the absence of actual humans to work with.

Not that he cares about this for fear of hurting others, but because he fears it means he isn't the special hero. Note that Belos doesn't feel guilt over any witches and demons he killed in For the Future, it's telling; As is the assumption that even if he was treated with hostility when arriving in both Gravesfield and the isles, Belos still understood that murdering the colony was wrong… Yet ignores this lesson when it comes to demons because of hypocrisy, choosing to go after the world that was canonically accepting and would be much harder to attack.

And when Luz shows up, Belos abandons Hunter (showing how much he really cared) because Luz is a real human to save, even if she's technically a queer girl of color; But if you remember how Americans kidnapped Native children and assimilated them into Christian society and culture, it actually makes perfect sense because it's another form of genocide. And it's just as racist and insincere as the murder. And just like many homophobic Christians, Belos selectively chooses what to apply from the Bible because he knows it speaks contrary to what he does and he fears that, it’s something he can’t control despite his attempts to.

[rotationalsymmetry]

Morning catching up on golden enclaves (spoilers): (also Gideon the ninth spoilers):

Well. If Fortitude is London, then what is Patience? Is Patience the Scholomance or is it New York or what? Gah.

But I guess that explains why something was off with London but it didn't fall. Although I have no idea how El is identifying it as Fortitude specifically.

Anyways. More fun stuff. Orion is basically Harrow. I'd be craving a fic of them talking about it (absolutely fascinating to imagine Harrow's reaction to someone else having a higher conception body count) except neither of them would under any circumstance talk about it. Nor would El talk about anything. The only time El talks about anything is when she's narrating. As far as I know, Orion still doesn't know that she took out a maw-mouth in book one, and her mum still doesn't know the first thing about El's graduation. El, spending an entire trilogy grimly refusing to acquire catharsis about anything.

I do like Ophelia as a villain. We've only seen her once and she's absolutely terrifying, and also has a great self-justification talk. (I do like moral ambiguity and...not sure what word to use, reversal of expectations? So I was open to her being right about using malia being potentially the more ethical option in context, but then I thought about it for two seconds and her obvious comfort with deception convinced me that that was not where the story was going, making that just a classic villain justification speech. And I think there's a nice parallel between what Ophelia says to El and Liesel trying to recruit her, earlier in the story El's difficult choices are about selfishness and survival and taking personal risks, now they're about resisting the idea that she can help other people better if she makes compromises.

I want to say something about climate change and Ophelia's speech. That thing where she's so insistent on blaming independent wizards' cheating and not large scale enclave malia usage. Kinda the pay attention to individual carbon footprints (and not corporate consumption) thing. I really like how many aspects of the story nod at real world social justice/political/environmental issues, without being heavy handed and with having some fluidity. Mana/malia is about money and mana/malia is about sustainable energy/fossil fuels and enclaves are about class and enclaves are gated communities and enclaves are about private schools where some kids' parents pay their way and some are on scholarship and everyone knows who's who, and the "maintenance track" thing is about having to work while you study because you can't afford not to and both that and the mals outside the enclaves are about how physical labor wrecks people's bodies.

It's pretty cool.

And there's this tension where it's a chosen-one fantasy story but chosen-one/superhero fantasy stories intrinsically don't map that great onto how to solve these problems in the real world, where we have neither chosen ones nor superheroes and have to make do with crazy stuff like protests and unions and advocacy groups, and I do appreciate that Novik is going out of her way to create situations where El cannot do it alone and needs substantial help, but there is still a tension there. And I'm kind of not sure what to make about malia. Wage theft or general exploitation (or like...owning a private jet) doesn't make you super healthy and attractive right until you collapse in on yourself, you just get all the health benefits that being rich can provide until you die. It kind of feels like there's this religious moralism, sin or karma or something, weaseling into an otherwise relatively hardnosed down to earth story about inequality.

I do like the...I mean, it's nightmare fuel, but the way the enclaves are founded, the horror under everyone's feet that they can't feel and don't know about but it's there. Chef's kiss. Perfect metaphor, for growing up and being told your world is good your society is good, and then you find out about things like slavery and colonialism and let it sink in for a bit. But you still have to live. But also your society might end up eating you.

(Plus also maybe you were told that you have a good life, but you're weirdly miserable for someone who has such a good life, and have never had a way to make sense of it.) (I mean. I know where I am in this story. I'm not El. Social location wise, I grew up in an enclave. So. It's a different experience than El's is, where her struggle isn't about figuring out what to do when the thing you've materially benefitted from but psychologically endured agonies for turns out to be evil.)

[pleasestaywithmedarling]

Author Ask Game

Thanks for the tag @starlit-hopes-and-dreams!

I'll gently tag @verkja, if you'd like, cause I am SO excited that I should finally have time soon to start reading your work, and I'd love to hear more about it if you're down! And of course, anyone is welcome to jump in; please tag me if you do!

I only have one fic on this side of the internet, so this will all be about my WIP Sin of Purity, Purity of Sin.

What is the main lesson of your story (e.g. kindness, diversity, anti-war), and why did you choose it?

I personally don't vibe with the idea of writing "lessons." I guess the ideas that have been sticking out to me the most have probably been guilt and innocence, and the way the past can recontextualize the present and vice versa. But that's just me; I'm sure anyone could read this and see something completely different.

Or maybe we're all just here for the whump :)

What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding (like real-life cultures, animals, famous media, websites, etc.)?

Disclaimer: I have nothing at all against any religion that is not causing anyone harm; there are obviously a lot of wonderful religions and religious people in the world, and I 100% support that.

That being said, the key feature of the worldbuilding in this fic is the official religion of the kingdom, and that was very much inspired by my own wildly toxic religious upbringing. Before I started writing, I didn't really bother to plan out what most writers would consider the basic features of a fantasy world--I don't think I even got around to naming the kingdom the story takes place in until maybe a half-dozen chapters in. But I had worked out a lot about the fundamental theology and practices of the worship of Vato, the way the temple system is organized, the relationship between the temple and the culture and subcultures of the kingdom, the doctrines and practices that are basically arbitrary or just make no sense, etc. And all of it draws pretty heavily from my own experiences with the type of churches that I grew up in.

What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, help readers grow as a person?

Okay so the obvious answer is that Anden and Kiri are both trying to gain their freedom. But Anden would prefer to achieve that by his own strength--he doesn't like feeling weak, and to him being forced to rely on others can sometimes feel like weakness. And Kiri...I think Kiri would prefer the temple simply have a change of heart and let them go lol

If there's anything that I'm trying to achieve with them, I guess it's just the catharsis that I personally get from watching them suffer together the different ways that they're growing, both individually and together.

How many chapters is your story going to have?

No idea! The events of the story are all mapped out, but I'm letting myself just experiment and have fun with this fic, and I'm really trying to embrace serialization rather than try to match the pacing of a typical novel. I would say that the chapter I'm currently working on is right at the midpoint of the narrative arc--if that term even applies to my unstructured mess of a plot--but that may or may not mean I'm at the halfway point in terms of the chapter count. The back half of the second act could end up stretching out a good half dozen chapters, or for all I know it'll only take, like, two. And how long will the third act be? Who knows? Not me!

Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

Unusually for me, this is an original. I will probably just keep in here on tumblr; idk if I'd want it on my AO3 account with my fanfiction--it feels odd to me to mix the two.

When and why did you start writing?

I started this one I think about a month and a half ago--it has not been long! Tbh I'd had a pretty awful summer, and I'd been getting back into reading whump as a form of escapism. Had the idea for this one, and I realized it would do me a lot of good to have an outlet just making something I want to make, just cause I want to make it, and not worry about how good it is or what other people think about it. This is easily the most self-indulgent work I've ever written, and it makes me so happy to hear that anyone else is enjoying it too!

Do you have any words of engagement for fellow writers of Writeblr? What other writers of Tumblr do you follow?

Idk, you do you!

Oh gosh I hate doing these because I am SO forgetful and I feel like I always leave off a favorite blog! But here's a sampling of writers whose works I've been really enjoying this past year: @i-can-even-burn-salad, @little-peril-stories, @clairelsonao3, @dont-touch-my-soup, @whumpcereal, and of course @starlit-hopes-and-dreams who I guess I'm tagging twice in one post!

Blank questions below:

What is the main lesson of your story (e.g. kindness, diversity, anti-war), and why did you choose it?

What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding (like real-life cultures, animals, famous media, websites, etc.)?

What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, help readers grow as a person?

How many chapters is your story going to have?

Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

When and why did you start writing?

Do you have any words of engagement for fellow writers of Writeblr? What other writers of Tumblr do you follow?

[dragon-appreciator-fray]

The down side of writing about serious topics is that I actually need to brush up on my knowledge about how unpleasant subject matter plays out and why. All so I can reproduce it in my fantasy world without it just being unpleasant for the reader and myself. It has to manifest in ways I can break it down, navigate it, and provide some fucking catharsis for cherishing every single time the queer people in our lives that we love come home after brushing against it.

This blog post has been brought to you by my background noise at work being about Stochastic Terrorism, Conversion Therapy, and Cops.

I don't want my Watchers to be reduced to being read as cops because I know I can do better.

Depths of Promises Sworn demands the likable members of the cast share large page counts with impressionable youths who are being inspired to vicious acts of violence, policing their in-groups for outsiders, and all kinds of risk whenever we interact with them.

These are still people. With names, relationships, roles, experience, and a lot of shared history suffering together.

And I think that's worth digging into because I come from a hyper conservative and religious background. I'm not where I want to be as a person.

I'm still learning to recognize and live with some conservative impulses that were normalized for me.

I've got lines where I make exceptions I shouldn't.

I know I can do better.

But that takes time, effort, and resources. I've still gotta live in this shitty capitalist and imperialist hell country unconcerned with its own accountability.

But Ayre comes from a different environment entirely. Even if I have given Ayre all the supportive lovers and allies to make their transition as easy as they are gonna manage in their world... Ayre still comes from a place of understanding the kind of authoritarianism they are at odds coexisting with.

Ayre is probably going to eventually stop playing nice and kill most of the Watchers.

At the end of the day, most of them are not going to give up the only roles they have ever known that demand they harass, isolate, and exterminate outsiders they are convinced are an existential threat.

The two Watcher groups are such endlessly fascinating foils for Ayre and their support network.

But the one I would widely consider best girl who most deserves a happy relationship with Ayre comes from the ranks of the Watchers.

It just feels worth engaging with them as people and not dehumanizing them as just numbers and roles until they outlive their narrative purpose.

I don't want to frame killing the Watchers as right. I didn't write Ayre to be a parasitic vampire to be self righteous or come off as anything resembling a heroic ideal.

It circles back to the whole, they can choose to not be authoritarian/fascist vs. They'll only leave us alone when we are dead.

Ayre is just incredibly capable of defending the ones they love. Being the one left standing atop a mountain of corpses is why Ayre even got to live and become a Vampire in the first place.

Ayre and the rest of the queer cast are gonna resist their own annihilation. They're just gonna have to recognize that some of the people they are fighting to protect come from the same systems/environment.

It's all still worthwhile.

I just... want to really engage with everything I have decided to put into my story.

[imrandymeeks]

Just finished Fall of the House of Usher and I think you’d probably really enjoy it this October! Imo it’s not Mike’s best or most impactful work by a long shot (I believe that honour lies with Midnight Mass), but it’s Flanagan operating on the most fun, mean-spirited, queer, campy, and cynical level he’s ever been on

It’s like if Succession was made by someone who really wanted all those rich assholes get their deeply karmic comeuppance, no matter how on the nose or predictable, and really it’s all the better for it

Yeah, Succession with ghosts and whatnot is exactly the vibe I got from the trailer, and I'm really looking forward to it. I got sidetracked by Goosebumps, and had a blast with the first batch of episodes, House of Usher is next. Unless I get distracted again by, I dunno, Haunting Hour or something. I'll try not to.

I'm of the mind that genre tropes can and do add whole new levels of catharsis to grounded stories, satire, drama, or anything else under the sun. They give you freedom to do more direct and palpable stuff that simply won't work within the realistic, non-genre framework. To be more blunt, more heightened, occasionally corny, and way more fun, be it pop-marxist horror or NRA power fantasies in any given zombie flick. (It cuts both ways, whatcha gonna do.)

It's just way more satisfying to, say, have a character actually, literally, in 4K get eaten alive than make a thoughtful parable on the exploitative nature of something or other. Or have someone actively die and come back wrong on Easter in a "my religious upbringing did not affect me whatsoever why are you looking at me like that" limited series on Netflix. And Flanagan gets it, and he has my undying loyalty.

[egregious-beast]

what’s your story about, if you don’t mind sharing?

Hey! I don’t mind sharing at all, I really appreciate your interest! I’ve been wanting to start talking about the story on here for a while now, but have previously been overwhelmed & afraid. So this is a good way to start :)

It’s fantasy political, with a healthy dose of religious issues & crusades. Lots of the found family trope, as well.

The main character actually makes it clear right at the start that he is recalling the story seven years later from a prison labor camp. So expect a lot of “doomed from the start” in the narrative. Essentially, his goal in telling the story is to justify all the questionable actions that got him to this point (imprisoned) in his own head. I think he sort of imagines that he’s telling the story to a loved one he hopes will one day forgive him. Sort of a downer, but what can I say? I’m a sucker for catharsis.

Conscripted holy soldier, Private Pine, returns to Fort Valendwell a month after deserting his battalion. He’s coming out of the wilderness, presumably with a secret about what lays beyond; which could devastate a lot of his nation’s religious theory, but potentially end a civil war on the other side of the country.

Pine’s goal, however, was to make it past the fort and never look back on his life in the military. Not even to disprove a religious system he knew was deeply flawed. All Pine wanted to do was escape.

Unfortunately for him, he’s nearly killed by a monster in his attempts to get past the fort, and is saved by two fellow soldiers on scout duty, who seem to think he’s a new recruit.

But as luck would have it, Pine’s commanding officer- Colonel Crowmore- agrees to keep his AWOL a secret. This saving grace comes at a price though, and Pine ends up doing a lot of dirty work for Crowmore with little to no benefits.

The most interesting assignment Pine is given? To act as a guard to Princess Freyja, who despite only being twelve, is expected to arrive at the military outpost as a nurse (with special magical abilities which uniquely qualify her for the position!).

It’s curious that Crowmore is using Pine in place of someone who would arguably be more competent at the job. Perhaps Crowmore finds himself in a messy situation too? Forcing him to resort to the blackmail? But that’s not the only concern Pine has about his new objective.

He suspects that the reason the church suddenly has so much leverage over the government is because the King committed an act of heresy. He figures instead of outright punishment, the lead priest decided to grant the King mercy by using his daughter as a pawn in their power play.

That’s the set up. The story itself is about Pine juggling a ton of secrets, and a ton of guilt over keeping them, especially when these secrets force him to lie to people he cares about. The worst part is that he’s using a system he disagrees with to climb the political latter.

[soul-dwelling]

I got a question about Kurono and Nataku in Fire Force that I’ll address in this post, regarding how the manga justifies the abusive relationship. 

…Yeah, I can’t really add to that: Fire Force justified that abuse, either to act like this is a legitimate answer (“abuse children”) or as a warped aesop for comedic effect (“LOL imagine anyone reading a comic for philosophical validation, this is a joke, let it go”). 

But this requires getting into Fire Force spoilers, as well as requiring content warnings (death mention; death penalty discussion; mentions of rape and sexual assault of children as portrayed in Fire Force).

And spoiler warning for the orphanage headmaster in Bungo Stray Dogs.

Content warning as well for discussion about the current (as of 2023) national attack on LGBTQ+ people (fuck homophobes, fuck TERFs, fuck transphobes, fuck the Republican Party, fuck these lying sacks of shit lying and maligning LGBTQ+ people with lies about child abuse, fuck this goddamn Nazi-level genocidal shit).

This discussion also requires that I bring something up that keeps being an argument, about whether the art you read reflects on your ethical standards. 

I get that your life should not be based on the art you engage with. 

Sometimes, art is just entertainment, not a reflection on your values. In those cases, your reading of it does not indicate your ethical alignment: if you pick up the book and read it, that doesn’t suddenly put a scarlet letter onto you--you read it, you got whatever you got out of it, that was an experience--what happens after that experience is what we need to discuss. So, about that post-reading experience: even your enjoyment of whatever you got enjoyment out of doesn’t make you a bad person…unless you’re enjoying the unethical stuff…

…Which, yeah, this is a thorny issue I’m not going to do a great job addressing, but I’m on the side of, if you enjoyed the unethical stuff, that suggests you do some self-reflection on your values. 

In that regard, sometimes, art is indeed reflective of a set of ethical standards, and if you end up agreeing with the message of that story, in that specific context, and you know that is fucked up, yeah, your ethics are fucked up. 

If I heard someone say, “Kurono was right in how he went about handling Nataku,” I would say, “Fuck no, he wasn’t.” I get that ascribing this to Ohkubo personally is difficult, if not impossible, seeing as you can’t know what a creator is thinking, even if you go through their work. If the excuse is, “It was a joke,” sorry, I don’t find that funny, it feels too mean and too much of a lie to work as a joke. 

That leaves me with, “Does Ohkubo agree with Kurono,” and, again, I can’t answer that: I don’t know what he was thinking, I don’t know who he is or what his philosophy is about teaching or child care, and I am not about to make any assumptions beyond, no, Ohkubo does not agree with Kurono. And that’s the side I come down on: I don’t think Ohkubo agrees with Kurono’s treatment of Nataku. 

And one reason I can’t imagine Ohkubo would agree that Kurono’s abuse of Nataku is good is given how Ohkubo wrote what happened with Joker and the religious authority figure who physically abused him and sexually abused him. Joker’s story felt like an indictment against real-world religions that have histories of sexual violence against children, the Catholic Church being one of them. Joker killing his abuser should work for catharsis, again showing why what you enjoy may not indicated anything about your own ethical values: you read a fiction to see an abuser get killed, that may indicate you want to see abusers punished but not necessarily that you want to see abusers killed--it’s fiction, it’s fantasy, that’s all. 

But then you get to Kurono, who physically abuses Nataku. How is that not treated the same way as all the torture Joker went through? Why is the story asking us to cheer on Joker getting vengeance, while telling us that Nataku should not get vengeance on Kurono? Because the abuse is somehow less? Who is to say that the abuse is less? Isn’t it enough that Kurono crossed the line from fair behavior to abuse, and that Kurono should be punished for that abuse, period, regardless whether or not it was worse than other forms of abuse seen within the story? 

Ohkubo tries to glide past these questions by pointing out the kind of emotional abuse Nataku suffered from his parents, how Nataku was putting so much pressure on himself to be better and be perfect--and Kurono arrives, tells him to stop thinking he has to be perfect because he’s just a kid with a new ability that he cannot control so he shouldn’t expect to be perfect because no one else thinks he can be perfect at that age and with such a complex ability. 

Does that mean Kurono is making himself the embodiment of everything Nataku feels--all that self-hate, now externalized to be represented by Kurono himself--so that Nataku can stop self-hating and just hate Kurono? 

Spoiler warning, but that’s pretty much the back story for Atsushi and the orphanage headmaster in Bungo Stray Dogs: we spend two seasons thinking the headmaster is a monster, that all of our hate against him is justified, so that when he dies in the third season we should feel relief--only to see Atsushi is conflicted, because this person was the closest to a parental figure he had, and what is worse, as Atsushi learns after his death and as we the audience learns as well, the headmaster was abusing Atsushi on purpose to make Atsushi not hate himself for his own dangerous ability and to instead take that anger out on the headmaster so that Atsushi would strive to get stronger, get out of the orphanage, and put this miserable past behind him. 

If you have read discourse about Atsushi and the headmaster, you’d see that general consensus ranges from “this doesn’t work” or “I get your point, but I completely disagree with this ethical lesson.” I think it worked for Atsushi’s story--not because it was pulled off well, not because it is an ethical lesson I agree with, but because series writer Kafka Asagiri wanted to go in this direction, to build up the world of this story and where the headmaster factors into the organized crime of this world, and to give Atsushi a new challenge, whether to hold him back given how overpowered he is, or to give him a way to bond with Akutagawa, or to set up future plots. This is a case of, “I get why you did it, but I do not agree with this message at all.” 

But then there is the another argument Bungo fans have made, that the point is not whether what the headmaster did was correct--it wasn’t--but that we are to focus on Atsushi’s response to this trauma, and that is is valid for Atsushi to feel regret and sadness for the headmaster, even if he was an abusive parental figure, because our emotions are not so simple that we just turn off our sadness when someone we know was awful to us died, because that was still someone we knew personally who died. 

But back to the question I received. The question asked whether Kurono’s abuse of Nataku seemed to justify abuse, including sexual abuse, towards minors. 

As I said, Ohkubo’s story seems to settle on that we can justify non-sexual abuse of a minor, whether as an actual lesson (“Kurono was right to abuse Nataku, so that he would externalize his own self-hate and put it against Kurono, so that he can grow up at his own rate and not feel the pressures to grow up faster than a child should”) or as a joke (“LOL you thought Kurono would have some heart-to-heart with Nataku, but instead Kurono promises to keep physically attacking Nataku, and Charon and the White Clads say this is good, so they leave, and Shinra and Company 8 just let this happen, LOL, aren’t they all just the biggest fucking dumbasses you have ever seen?!”--God, I fucking hate Fire Force). 

But as for sexual abuse? Fuck no, the Kurono and Nataku shit is bad, but it never struck me as justifying sexual abuse. 

As I said, look at how the story has Joker murder the person who sexually assaulted him as a child. The story seemed to act like this was fair for Joker to kill his tormentor. Even Burns, who supervised the program that held Joker as a child prisoner and a child assassin, permits Joker to walk away, not just because Benimaru was going to kick his ass, but also because this child molester wasn’t worth Burns’s time to defend and protect. It’s gross, and speaks even worse about Burns (a topic for another time), but the story seemed to make it clear that it was on Team “Let Joker Kill That Rapist, Fuck Him.”

…Granted, Shinra then resurrecting that rapist at the end of the manga complicates this. That seemed like a take by the story to suggest that no one gets to play God and decide who lives and who dies, that it’s not for any one person to decide someone deserves to die…

…which, fair philosophical argument with real-world applications regarding how, especially in the United States, we are so excited at the prospect of executing people, even if later evidence may exonerate those convicted, and at a time where I’m seeing my country getting this close to wrongly associating LGBTQ+ people with child abusers that deserve to die (fuck homophobes, fuck TERFs, fuck transphobes, fuck the death penalty, fuck the lies defaming LGBTQ+ people as corrupting children when that is not fucking happening you fucking fascist sacks of shit). 

So, yes, taking an anti-death penalty stance is something I’m in favor of in real life. 

But also, this is fiction, and that fictional character was a fucking child rapist, so fuck no, let that fucker die in this fictional work.

[vapemaster42069]

💖 🤯💋

hiya phantom!

💖: Uhh, I'm not really sure! the first time i can remember creatively writing for enjoyment was this one story i had to write for 8th grade english class, where we were given a story that ended on a cliffhanger (The Lady and the Tiger), and we had to write endings. so, being being as obstinate as i am, i chose to write a story of murder, vengeance, and eventual necromancy where the princess summons a demon into her lover's body after carving his heart out with a pocketknife. i had to read this in front of the class. it was a religious school. i think i really enjoyed crafting a world where i could make anything, and i'll always remember looking up from my paper, hands shaking, voice tremoring as i read the last line, to see an absolutely-aghast class. my teacher looked like she had swallowed a cockroach lmao. so, long ramble aside, it started because other people liked to hear my stories, then became a catharsis in high school, then became more fun as i learned how to do it!

🤯: action for sure. I love high fantasy, sci-fi, steampunk, all that jazz, but i also have a propensity for writing extremely-long winded and ridiculously detailed sentences that don't lend themselves to fast-paced, punchy scenes (pun intended). i'm ballin when i can write the emotions of a fight scene because it gives me an excuse to nerd out and make it really fucking sad, but the actual fighting part is difficult lols. working on it!

💋: this is kinda a cop-out answer but it really depends on the situation for me! i'm always a fan of softer fics, quieter, slower stuff that makes you enjoy the Entire fic instead of just Waiting for them to get together to like it, yk? but a pet peeve of mine: kissing anyone to shut them up/get them to stop talking is an absolute no in my book like if someone did that to me id probably end up hitting a bitch. not my jam. but otherwise, chill :]

[raemanzu]

I started trying to write my fantasy story again and I wish I could hire someone who is actually really interested in it to ask me lots of questions about the characters to get my brain out of this rut lol

[musiconanironingboard]

22 February 2023: Femina Furens, Djunah. (self-released, 2023)

Chicago duo Djunah, led by Donna Polydoros, who goes by Donna Diane in this project, was formed after the dissolution of Polydoros’s first band Beat Drun Juel. I happened upon a Beat Drun Juel show purely by chance when I had a rare free night to myself and decided to go see a lineup of local bands doing a Planned Parenthood benefit at a small club called Beat Kitchen that almost never books anything I’m interested in. Beat Drun Juel’s sound was hard rock, almost thrash at times, and I was amazed by Polydoros’s onstage presence and command. She rocked harder than any man I’d seen in ages, and more compellingly and convincingly so. The band had done an eight-song EP in 2016, and when I acquired that I spent plenty of time playing it. I later found out that Polydoros did some similar professional work in her day job as me, and I found it all the more interesting that she balanced bookish education-related work with the furious sound of Beat Drun Juel.

After the band’s dissolution, Polydoros did a few solo gigs around town before debuting a new group, the two-person Djunah. There is a drummer, currently Jared Karns, and Polydoros simultaneously playing guitar and then bass pedals with her right foot. Because the bass sound is there, Djunah’s sound is much more powerful than your usual duo. The sound is not quite as thrashy as Beat Drun Juel occasionally got, but Djunah is still hard rock bordering on metal. It’s not one of my usual niches; but, again, Polydoros keeps everything so interesting, and I do like the music.

In 2020, I posted about the first Djunah album, Ex Voto. Polydoros put extensive work into that album’s imagery and visual concept; in that case, the imagery was heavily religious. Femina Furens is no different as a high-concept package; in fact, it goes well beyond the album art. The title, Latin for “a furious woman,” shows that the catharsis of all her previous work is ongoing. She wrote in one of many Facebook posts about the new album, “I chose the name Femina Furens for the album as a way of reclaiming a term used pejoratively to describe women who express anger. Rarely are women who express rage seen as powerful warriors or leaders. Instead they are often belittled, infantalized, and shamed. This album is one way I reclaim the power and beauty of anger, for my own healing.” (Polydoros has stated that art and music, particularly live performance, are therapeutic channels that allow her to process her experiences of childhood abuse and to manage her related diagnosis of Complex PTSD.) The imagery of Femina Furens, though, is rooted in 1970s sci-fi fantasy art; think artists like Frank Frazetta, but with a decidedly feminist approach. She worked with Salem, Massachusetts photographer Courtney Brooke, who made the backdrops, and Polydoros herself made the costumes she wears throughout the album packaging. You can see more of this work in the striking video for “Seven Winds of Sekhmet” from the new album. Polydoros does nothing halfway and, seemingly nothing without an intellectual background, and of this song she says (also on Facebook) “Sekhmet is a powerful symbol for me. She's the Egyptian goddess of healing and war and the daughter and eye of Ra, who sent her to earth to destroy mankind. She is perhaps the original femina furens—in Latin, a “raging woman.” (My breastplate on the album cover is an homage to the rosettes appearing on statues of Sekhmet.) For me, her story is all about power and emotional regulation—core themes of trauma disorders. Her name translates to “she who is powerful,” and she was one of Egypt’s most feared and revered deities. The myth goes her bloodlust was so insatiable, the only way to stop her was to trick her into drinking beer dyed red to look like blood.” Knowing that Polydoros made not only her costume—and, of course, she also shared with fans a video of her making the ornate breastplate out of metal pieces—but also things like the “alien pregnancy” effect you see around the four-minute mark of the video, which is not CGI but something Polydoros actually built, well, all of this illustrates just how deeply Polydoros goes into her art. (I can’t find among her many posts about the album what she actually calls it; I don’t think it’s really “alien pregnancy.”) There are half a dozen other interesting quotes I could post and details I could give about the album and the video. In the meantime, you can see the video clip here. I had to laugh when a random commenter on her Instagram page said something along the lines of “Why does the woman have to be sexualized in this video?” and blamed the music business, not knowing that all of it is Polydoros’s choice and each aspect of it comes with some sort of well-determined intellectual reasoning.

Above are the front and back covers of Femina Furens.

Below is the opened gatefold.

The inner sleeve is plain; below are both labels (my shot of side one a bit blurry).

Polydoros most always finds time to personalize mail orders, and in this one she enclosed a postcard signed to me with a message. She encourages fans to post photos of their own copies on her social media, and while I didn’t do that I saw plenty of others’ copies and can confirm the handwritten messages are different for everybody.

Djunah is currently on an extensive tour. I wasn’t able to attend the recent Chicago show, and though I was in Milwaukee on the same night as their show there I had other obligations. I hope to see another Djunah performance before long. I’ve not seen them in several years, since previous drummer Nick Smalkowski was in the band, and from what I’ve seen online Djunah shows have only gotten better. It already reached its quota of spins on my stereo and then some, but I’ll be playing Femina Furens more in the near future.

[burningdarkfire]

books i read in sept 2022

[these are all short + casual reviews - feel free to msg me and ask about individual ones if u want a full review or ask for my goodreads!!] 

i always knew that the month i read priory would turn out like this, i just hoped that priory would be worth it but it wasn’t :)

nona the ninth - tamsyn muir ★★★★★ (sci fi)

this book destroyed me and i thanked it. the best love story of 2022 is in this book. i cried. i got the emotional catharsis i was looking for from this series and now i am just peacefully looking forward to the ride in alecto

[reread] die, volume 1 - kieron gillen ★★★★☆ (fantasy comic)

i pre-ordered the bound hardcover and the ttrpg rulebook so figured i should revisit the actual comic. lovely art, intriguing story, and rereading this after years of playing ttrpgs really does make it easier to understand!

the testament of mary - colm tóibín ★★★★☆ (religious novella)

i completely lack the religious and historical context to get a lot out of this (so much googling was done!) but i thought it was beautifully written anyway

us against you - fredrik backman ★★★★☆ (contemporary)

still loved the writing etc. but the pacing felt off to me - the first half or so retread too much old ground from the first book. everyone else in my book club loved this sequel tho so maybe it was just me 🤷‍♂️

the priory of the orange tree - samantha shannon ★★★☆☆ (fantasy)

this is actually a very generic, completely average fantasy. my goodreads review for this book is almost 1000 words long because i lost my goddamn mind but overall it is just fine

our wives under the sea - julia armfield ★★★☆☆ (horror)

eh, not a book for me. interesting take on grief and some lovely/horrific imagery but just didn’t land for me on a personal level

time is a mother - ocean vuong ★★☆☆☆ (poetry)

every ocean vuong book that i read only gets lower and lower ratings so that’s a rip. brief moments of brilliance here but a lot of this just felt like random line break poetry

[jojo-reader-hell]

Can we get a happy ending for Secco's sugar? Please? Make it into a little trilogy kinda thing?

We sure can get some fluffies for this sweet childe 🥺

Secco and Sugar!Reader/ Pannacotta Fugo x Reader

.

It’s a dream that you’ve wished you could have.

For so many years you hoped and prayed. In the books you found in the library, the ones that older folks read religiously, there were “true stories” of loved ones coming back in dreams to check on those they left behind in the world of the living. Sending messages beyond the grave that spoke of hope, love, and light. Like a child believing in magic and fantasies, you prayed to whatever God existed that you would have this dream.

It wasn’t too cut and paste, but the premise was the same as the stories. You were standing alone in a vast space, not enough detail really stood out to make the area around you memorable. There was no caricature of heaven. No catharsis that you knew this was something otherworldly. Mostly it looked as though you were alone in the dark room you’d fallen asleep in. You were looking down at the hospital crib they had placed the newborn in, a little girl, with wispy blonde fluff atop her head and a fist in her mouth.

You knew you were not alone. Your husband was asleep in his chair, but you knew you two weren’t the only ones in the room with the baby. Not when you felt two strong, familiar arms wrap around you tightly. A permeating scent of petrichor fills your nostrils, and the hands that encircle you have the slightest grit to them.

“You came...” you whispered, even in dreams concerned about your baby.

The one who hugs you nods, a soft familiar grunt makes tears well in your eyes.

“Never left you alone...” he whispers. “Never left you... you did good. So good.”

“Didn’t hurt.” You insist. Your tone becomes that familiar soft baby pitch, because no matter what happens to you or how many children you have, you’ll always be his baby.

“Baby...” he murmurs softly, extending a calloused hand to reach out towards your newborn.

She doesn’t make much noise when he lays a large hand over her swaddled body, just continues to smile in her sleep as she dreams. Perhaps she dreams of her father like you do. It’s so nice to see her smile and sleep peacefully under your Papa’s earthen hands.

“Miele...” you tell him.

Your papa smiles when he hears her name for the first time. That same sweet closed lip smile he gave you whenever you made some wonderful artwork for him, or even when you two shared one of his treats.

“Sweets for the sweet.” He smiles. “Small sweet for my sweet.”

“Mmhmm.”

You nod confidently as he holds you, rocking you slowly back and forth, back and forth, gentle as a lamb as he hums in happiness for his new grandchild who is just as sweet as her honey name suggests. You wish this could last forever. Being held by papa the rest of your life, you’d be ready for anything. Any challenge you faced, even the scary prospect of growing older and watching Miele turn into an adult.

The last thing you hear before you wake up is his whisper in your ear, his drawn out and adorable ‘I love you’ game that makes you wake up before you can respond in the dream.

When you come to, Fugo is already awake, the lamp by your bedside table on as he rocks his daughter softly back and forth. Despite the disappointment of realizing your father’s love is just a dream, you look serene. Relaxed. So much better than before when you were on the verge of a breakdown. When you call his name, Pannacotta Fugo looks so relieved. He smiles when he sees you’ve open your eyes, sitting on your hospital bed with you as he eases the baby into your arms.

“Hello beautiful.” He murmurs, kissing your forehead. “I’m sorry to be so forward, but we need you, our little honey bee is hungry.”

“Hungry?” You respond, looking at little Miele who is working her little lips, periwinkle eyes searching as she moves in her blanket. Her little grunts and gripes sound more like a piglet than a baby, and it makes you chuckle softly to yourself when you hear it.

“That’s called ‘rooting’.” Fugo explains as he unbuttons your nightgown, “She’s looking for this.”

He guides her to you, making her soft sounds as she feeds. It’s such a wonderful, pure feeling as she attaches. It reminds you of when your papa would feed you in your earlier years, making soft sounds that warmed you from the inside. You coo those same sounds to her, your husband smiles and gets in the hospital bed covers with you to hold you as you feed his baby.

“Ti amo tanto tesoro.” He murmurs in your ear. “Thank you for giving me my family.”

“Loooove you.”

“I love you.”

He doesn’t play the game like papa does, but that’s ok. Fugo just smiles and kisses you softly on the lips as you cradle Miele in your arms, echoing the soft sounds of love you were born hearing. He tangles himself with you, making you feel that all is right and good in this perfect little world the two of you have created.

It’s almost perfect. Not quite there. It would be if the what ifs were reality. This fact does little more than make you ache, but the aching doesn’t last when you’re surrounded by love.

As you reminisce about the what ifs, you neglect to notice Fugo’s little frown when he sees something on Miele’s blanket and your shoulder. He wipes it off nonchalantly and returns to holding you and showering your lips in his softest kisses.

In the past, he’d get worked up over the little particles of dirt. But it’s ok now. All is right at last with the world.

[askyourwritergrandma]

if i understood what you're aiming for correctly lol then how would you flesh out a story centering around a character with a lot of religious guilt, for example?

I've got a good selection of these so I'm going to do one a day until I run out.

If you're finding this post randomly, I had asked for single, random story elements (a place, premise or character) so I could show how to go from that one single element to a more fleshed out story idea. Since sometimes we only have one small element at the start, and figuring out how to go from there can be difficult, I was hoping a little step-by-step demonstration might help folks in the same situation.

Since I expect this to get a bit long, it's going to be under a cut.

Story Element: Character with a lot of religious guilt.

Her name is Gertie, because its the first thing I thought of. If you're a person who agonizes over character names, that's fine just pick a nickname or an acronym to fill in the blank until you know more about your character.

Gertie has religious guilt. Gertie is a woman.

Why does Gertie have guilt? What kind of guilt does she have? What kind of religion is she in? (Real world religion? fantasy religion? sci-fi religion?) Does this sense of guilt come from herself or is it impose on her from the church itself? How long has Gertie been feeling this guilt?

We should be thinking of these things, but we don't want to answer them yet. Before we get there, we're going to decide what kind of story we want to write. No need to even have a genre at this point, we're just deciding on basic plot structure/conflict.

Our main character conflict at the moment is Religious Guilt so we can either:

Make it better: Allow Gertie to do some soul searching, realize that she is enough and her guilt is misplaced Allow Gertie to do some soul searching, realize she's in a cult and escape Allow Gertie to do some soul searching, realize its not a cult but it wants things from her that she's not willing to give and that there are other ways she can live and to make the choice to break free and live her own life

Reconcile/Break Even Allow Gertie to experience her religion, confront the source of her guilt (i.e. she had a miscarriage, she slapped a priest once, she had pre-marital sex, pick a topic) and emerge reaffirmed in her beliefs Allow Gertie to achieve catharsis via a mission trip by seeing the power of her religion's love and Christian TV Movie of the Week Values

Make it Worse Hound Gertie with an ever-worsening circle of blame and a community-based sense of shame that drives her deeper into her guilt from which she can no longer emerge Hound Gertie with her own doubts and self-hatred and see those things reaffirmed by her church to the point that despite the one attempted Savior's desperate attempts to free her from the downward spiral, she submits to the guilt and either dies or lives in misery Villian Origin Story: Gertrude K. Honeymaker's Rise to Infamy

(Please note, all of the above are various well-accepted tropes and plot structures. All I did was plug in Gertie's name and situation details.)

I am not a religious person and I'm a sucker for a happy ending so we're going to pick 'Gertie leaves a bad situation' Now that we know that, we've got decisions to make about who Gertie is and how her community operates.

Some options (but certainly not all):

Gertie is too free-spirited, not meek or submitting enough to be a good wife in her community

Gertie is a trouble maker who has always enjoyed rock music and action movies

Gertie is gay and/or any of the initials in the LGBT acronym

Gertie does not have enough space in her heart for the holy spirit and/or does not believe

Gertie is the unfortunate victim of generational shame because her mother did something bad and now Gertie is, naturally, the spawn of satan

(Well established tropes strike again. These tropes and character types are just the framing of the house we're building. You won't even notice them once we put the drywall on.)

I'm going to pick Gertie is too free-spirited to fit in. She doesn't want to be married, she doesn't want to make sandwiches, she doesn't want to have babies and if she can't do those things she cannot fulfill her role as wife and mother in the community she was raised in. Shame on her.

So now we need to work out some further basics about Gertie:

How old is she / how long has she felt this way? Has she ever been married and/or engaged? What does she want to do? How close is she to her family? How unhappy to be there is she? How large of a family does she have? How big of an impact on her family will her leaving have? If she leaves, can she ever come back? What does she do for a living, if anything? What are her basic characteristics? Is she brave enough at the start to do this and she's being held back by obligation or is she scared and needs that final straw that broke the camel's back?

All of these answers will almost 100% certainly depend on your life experiences and your preferences in reading. There is no one size fits all. Even from this point on, if every person reading this wrote out their answers to make a story, none of us would have exactly the same ideas.

But here's mine:

How old is she / how long has she felt this way? She's in her early 30s, at least, and she's felt this way since she was a teenager and her parents/religious community really started pushing the idea that she was getting older and needed to settle down.

Has she ever been married and/or engaged? Not married, but she's come close to being engaged. The man left because she was obviously disinterested in caring for him and raising a family.

What does she want to do? Dance naked in the moonlight. No, Idk, be free.

How close is she to her family? She had a very happy early childhood, she loves her mom and sisters. Her brothers are standoffish with her because men/women are raised differently in this community. Things started changing when she was a teenager and the expectation she marry fresh out of high school came about. Now her relationship is strained because she's an embarrassment to her parents who have run out of sympathy for her.

How unhappy to be there is she? Scream into the night levels of unhappy. Unhappy enough to be dangerous to herself and others.

How large of a family does she have? 4 sisters, 2 brothers, mother/father and various aunts and uncles. Large family but not the largest.

How big of an impact on her family will her leaving have? Considering she's already an embarrassment and a black eye, her running away would probably be a blessing for the family but she would never be able to come back. And the family would face a good deal of gossip, but also a bit of "sometimes kids just go bad you know."

If she leaves, can she ever come back? No.

What does she do for a living, if anything? Works with her family, a kind of placeholder job until she's married off to her husband to be effectively a housewife. She doesn't have many skills and her paycheck isn't really hers so much as it goes to pay rent and she gets a little bit of allowance.

What are her basic characteristics? She's an unrepentant dreamer. Sturdy, steady and ready to do anything but her world is very little and 'anything' is really only 'do what you're told'

Is she brave enough at the start to do this and she's being held back by obligation or is she scared and needs that final straw that broke the camel's back? I think...probably its both. She certainly could leave but its not done in her community and it would be like dying in a way. She wants to be accepted by the people who raised her but probably th story is going to be about how she tries to prove that she's got worth but no matter he accomplishments, her attempts are just further embarrassments to her family. And it's her parents finally flat out saying that if she isn't going to get married then she might as well be dead that will set her free.

Since I'm a pantser, this is as far as I would go with plotting my story. I have my character and I have the basic idea of what the story is going to be about. I'm not overly into in-depth character design so unless I have a compelling reason to change it she will have brown eyes and brown hair.

Most times, I chose my names by picking the year they're born, going to the social security administrations most popular names by year page and using a random number generator to pick a name. I'm old and indecisive and names are hard.

[albino-whumpee]

10, 12, 14, & 16?

Why do you love whump?

Some of that is catharsis. The rest is a mix of loving the complicated dynamics that ensue, watching a character being completely mistreated and neglected to then watch them pave their way to a life while dealing with the after math is amazing.

How much different is whumpee during the whump to how they are after it´s over, is fascinating to me.

What are your least favorite whump tropes?

I don´t think I´ve one. I think it´s gotta be more of the overall product to make me hate something whumpy. Whumper and whumpee falling in love overnight without plot and time to make it sustainable makes my eyes roll so far back.

Do you have any whump media recommendations (whump blogs, books, movies, etc.)?

DGRAYMAN. I´m never gonna shut up about my favorite series of all time and the WHUMP. Cults, religious trauma, lab whump, child soldiers, betrayal, a self sacrificing idiot, evil villains that just dont fit the role, souls used as fuel for massive destruction weapons, found family, a whole lot of action and emotional whump due identity crisis.

And just to give you a taste, here. Have my favorite scenes. SPOILERS CW

The candle impalement scene

the hole in the heart scene while alive scene, the human letter scene, the OH FUCK IT HURTS SCENE

Hear me out. THEIR WEAPONS EAT THEM OUT ALIVE AND AS A SICK JOKE IT´S CALLED "INNOCENCE"??? THE USE OF CATHOLIC SYMBOLISM TO MEAN "BOUND TO A CAUSE REGARDLESS OF WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT IT" AND "IM ONLY A WEAPON, BUT I CHOOSE TO FIGHT FOR MY OWN REASONS, NO MATTER THE CONSEQUENCES IT BRINGS ME"???

Amazing, inspirational.

GO READ. D.GRAY.MAN.

It´s amazingly illustrated, it has an amazing story and there´s a gray morality to absolutely every single one of the characters. It has it´s issues, but I assure you it´s a great read.

Dorohedoro.

I can´t for the live of me explain how good this manga and anime is. Pet whump, mind control, amnesia, ptsd, hallucinations, time travel, found family, captivity, magic whump, fantasy whump, demons and sick rituals, body horror, torture, great relationships between the characters are lovely, so much, in the end you won´t want anyone to lose. Even the bad guys.

This story has everything and anything. It´s very graphic too. So I advice you to know your limits before diving into it.

Insignia is really good regarding captivity whump, emotional manipulation, mind control, whumper becoming a caretaker, young adult trilogy set in a distopic future.

Banana fish has a lot of drugs, noncon and navigating a relationship after it (kinda implied only but yeah), mafia, kidnapping and a lot of gang stuff with the equal of comfort. Warning for CSA and human trafficking tho. It´s a big part of it so be careful.