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oraclekleo · 1 year

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Pick-A-Pile - Kinky Future Spouse (18+)

Hello and welcome to another Pick-a-Pile tarot reading.

One of the responses in the anonymous poll I posted a while ago suggested that I could do a kinky version of Future Spouse Pick-a-Pile reading.

Disclaimer: Please remember, this is a general reading, pick what resonates with you and dismiss the rest. This tarot reading was done for entertainment purposes only and you should never base important life decisions on a tarot reading only. Be aware that I can never guarantee any of what is said in the reading. Tarot isn’t an exact science and while there is a certain level of accuracy or resonance, you should take it lightly and with a grain of salt. Please don’t copy my work or parts of it to pretend it’s yours. All my tarot readings are protected with a karma spell and if you have malicious intentions with them, the universe will take care of your punishment. :-) This tarot reading includes mature content. Please don’t read any further if you are a minor or you feel uncomfortable with it.

Let’s get down to business, shall we? You know the drill. You pick one of the pics below and scroll to the assigned reading. Follow your intuition. If you feel drawn to more than just one pile, read the other(s), too. Leaving a brief feedback or thank you note is considered good manners. You can always buy me a cup of tea through ko-fi (because Kleo doesn’t really drink coffee but she’s a tea addict).

Kinky Future Spouse (18+)

Have you picked your pile? Scroll down to see your results!

🧨

Pile 1 - Vishnu (Balance)

Cards:

The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit - Cheetah, Shark

Oracle of the Radiant Sun - Sun in Taurus (Acquisition), Sun in Aquarius (Idealism)

The Edgar Allan Poe Tarot - King of Cups, 4 of Wands, 7 of Swords

The Dark Wood Tarot - King of Swords, 3 of Pentacles, King of Cups

Interpretation

Your future spouse, my dear Pile 1, is someone mature and with a greatly balanced nature. They don’t really like dramas or outbursts of emotions. That doesn’t mean they are cold, though.

When in a relationship, they are likely to take a dominant role. Not by force but simply because of their leadership qualities. They are either older than you, my dear Pile 1, or they are simply more mature and you feel an instinctive urge to rely on them and look up to them. They are likely to play the role of your mentor or teacher and they truly love such a position, I can tell you. They might even insist on the teacher / student roleplaying in the bedroom. While they look pretty stoic on the outside, great passions and desires are boiling within them and they only wait for the right moment to express their true nature. They are highly passionate and have boundless energy in them so when you suggest a night together, be prepared it may very well last till dawn and beyond. Your future spouse is someone pretty direct so don’t worry about not being sure what they want. They will tell you, sometimes with brutal honesty and biologically accurate details, maybe even making a full blown presentation with anatomy posters, powerpoint presentation and worksheets for you to fill in. They have that teacher energy in them after all.

Your future spouse is a thinker and visionary. In public they probably play their professor role seamlessly but behind closed doors, in the comfort of their home, their love for anything new and gadgets of all kinds can result in building a super equipped play room and I’m not talking about PlayStation and stacks of video games now. Your boo has an interest in toys but not only in Legos for adults. While they might spend hours building their Death Star when you are not around, my dear Pile 1, they will show you completely different kinds of toys and rechargeable gadgets when you come. They are the explorers and while they are passionate, sometimes they might insist on nights when they simply experiment with all their toys and tools on you, noting down the levels of pleasure they can incite in you (and you know they have detailed charts and graphs for that). The scientist in them might even want to record these sessions. If you don’t like the idea of being on camera while your future spouse is trying to find out what size of glowing dildo is too much for you to take, they might ask you to consent with them taking at least the sound recording. When you are away again and their Death Star is complete, they will diligently listen and analyse the recordings and you know they will have a good time.

With all this said, you probably understand why they might prefer hanging out in their place. If you don’t live together, you might notice how often they suggest you go to their place. Their home is very important to them and they probably won’t feel very comfortable anywhere else. They might not be even able to unleash, unless they are safely locked up in their house or apartment. They have the equipment and gadgets there after all, it would take days to move it all to your place for him to play there.

Your future spouse, my dear Pile 1, is a person with drive and determined to achieve what they have planned. If they pick you to be their lover and special person, you should know they have already put a label with their name on you, at least in their head. Don’t try to lie or deceit them, don’t even take any risks by hanging out with friends you know have a crush on you. Your otherwise mature professor can easily change into a green-eyed jealous and possessive monster. They don’t like to share their toys with others. They like to share their thoughts, ideas and knowledge and at a certain point of your relationship you might find out they are writing a blog with all the details of love making sessions in it (with code name for you, of course) simply to share what they have learned in terms of sexual pleasure. And if they don’t have a blog online, they do have detailed records in the locked cabinet where you will one day be allowed to look if you are a good enough student to them.

Summary

Position: Teacher Dom

Libido: Strong but under their control

Turn-On: Anyone willing to play and experiment with them and be their good student

Kink: Toys, Gadgets, Camera and Sound Recordings

Dirty Secret: Their locked cabinet or strong password protected laptop, they will never let you play with their Legos

You can always buy me a cup of tea through ko-fi (because Kleo doesn’t really drink coffee but she’s a tea addict).

🧨

Pile 2 - Garuda (Travel)

Cards:

The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit - Crocodile, Zebra

Oracle of the Radiant Sun - Mercury in Capricorn (Organization), Moon in Aquarius (Independance)

The Edgar Allan Poe Tarot - 0 The Fool, 10 of Pentacles, VI The Lovers

The Dark Wood Tarot - Knight of Pentacles, 2 of Cups, 4 of Wands

Interpretation

Hello, my dear Pile 2, and welcome to your kinky future spouse reading. First of all, your future spouse might actually take a more submissive position in a relationship with you. They might prefer to stay in their world and let you handle all the pesky everyday life matters. It’s not because they would want you to boss them around, it’s more like they like to withdraw with intention to observe, learn and gain power while staying behind the scenes. In front of your friends and family, they are likely to seem very well cultured and timid and ask curious questions. It’s very likely your family will instantly love them as they truly give a solid and reliable impression.

And your future spouse, my dear Pile 2, is truly an excellent person. They can be so shrewd, practical, organised and ambitious when it comes to their work. On the other hand, they might suffer from commitment issues and have trouble expressing romantic feelings. At first, to avoid dating you, they are probably going to suggest the concept of friends with benefits to you because they cherish their freedom so much. They like to rationalise their own feelings and even your feelings when it comes to it and simply suppress them. Hanging out as friends while enjoying the hottest sex in the meantime is their thing so you better make peace with it.

And you won’t regret it, my dear Pile 2, because your future spouse is an inventive and methodical person. They like to take it one step at a time, nice and slow, building the tension and expectation and the heat. They like to succeed, they want to gain your recognition, your pleasure is their goal and they’ll prepare most diligently to succeed. While they might not want to be bossed around in front of people, they are open to your demands in the bedroom. They might have a thing for dirty talk, as Mercury is a planet of communication. They probably prefer the dirty talk to be spiced up with some witty sense of humour, they value wits and intelligence so try to get a bit more eloquent and original with your words.

It’s very likely for your future spouse to have their tongue skilled in other areas but communication as well. Feel free to order them to kneel in front of you and give you the best oral of your lifetime.

I have mentioned before that your future spouse likes to take their time. If it’s something you’re into, they will love to edge you or deny you release for ages, watching you sweating, moaning and squirming in front of them. It applies the other way round, too, of course. They might ask you, probably a bit shyly, to keep them on the edge and play with them for hours. And they are skilled with words, they will praise you for sweetly torturing them and encourage you to push the limits of their endurance. They are quite adventurous, after all. You two might even find pleasure in experimenting with bondage or other types of restrictive toys. Your future spouse likes to repress their feelings and they might have a little masochistic kink for being restrained physically, too. Let them pull the ropes or chains, make them wait, simp over you, beg you to come closer or to finally let them cum.

And they will still insist you are only friends with benefits. Lol! During all this wild action, your future spouse is likely to grow addicted to you, unintentionally, they build a deep spiritual and loving bond with you. They might struggle telling you but being open to their needs they usually hide in front of people because they feel slightly ashamed of them, which makes them truly fall in love with you. You become their kindred spirit, their only love. Once they finally stop lying to themselves, they will come clean and declare their love and endless loyalty to you. And you can depend on them being there for you for the rest of your lifetime because as hard it is for them to confess their feelings, it’s much harder to let them go. Once you become their one and special person, they might switch into daddy (or mommy) mode quickly. Your future spouse, insisting on you staying friends with benefits only a month ago, suddenly proposes to you and nudges you about the wedding date, about starting a family and all this. Because deep down, they love the idea of having children with you. Again, they might develop a little bit of breeding kink on the way. Your future spouse is kinky, no matter how they try to hide it.

Summary

Position: Submissive, sometimes to the masochistic level

Libido: Strong sex drive but they try to suppress it

Turn-On: A friend with benefits

Kink: Edging, denial, oral - both giving and receiving -, bondage, handcuffs, possibly a breeding kink

Dirty Secret: They fall in love in the process and start planning wedding and babies

You can always buy me a cup of tea through ko-fi (because Kleo doesn’t really drink coffee but she’s a tea addict).

🧨

Pile 3 - Osiris (Renewal)

Cards:

The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit - Wolf, Unicorn

Oracle of the Radiant Sun - Jupiter in Libra (Negotiation), Mercury in Cancer (Intuition)

The Edgar Allan Poe Tarot - Knight of Pentacles, 2 of Cups, 5 of Pentacles

The Dark Wood Tarot - VII The Chariot, 6 of Swords, XVIII The Moon

Interpretation:

My dear pile 3, your future spouse is all about the emotions and nourishment. They are likely to have leadership qualities but just like in a wolf pack, they are very compassionate to their friends and family and leave nobody behind. They are likely to enter your life in order to help you heal and ascend to your higher and better self because their ability to soothe and nourish and help with transitions and renewals is uncanny. From the day one of your acquaintance they become your confidant and shoulder to cry on or your gossip pal and party partner. Depends on what you need at the moment because this person can play any role. They are all about equality in a partnership, they are not likely to boss you around more like gently suggesting their ideas on how things should be in between you, how the household should run, leaving you enough space to express your points of view on the matters. If you decide you want them to fully manage certain aspects of your life, you can completely rely on them doing their best, never slacking or forgetting their tasks and duties. If you want to keep something in your hands and have the deciding vote, your future spouse can diplomatically accept it, it’s not hurting their ego as they consider you capable and competent.

Your future spouse, my dear pile 3, is a sociable and caring person, they are likely to have a well populated circle of close friends and they nourish their friendships most diligently so be ready to meet those people soon after starting dating your future spouse. They want to incorporate you as soon as possible.

Thoughts and feelings are inseparable for your future spouse and they tend to let the past experiences affect the current situations. It might make them a little conservative in the bedroom as they prefer to stick to what felt good last time. On the other hand, they do have a very curious mind and might have tons of materials in their bookshelf. They probably have read the whole of Kamasutra and absorbed the information effortlessly without feeling any need to actually try any of the positions. It’s up to you to gently guide them towards a more active approach. It might take a while as your future spouse is slow to act but the better is their preparation. They might whine that they need to read a few more articles before they agree to try anything new in the bedroom. Let them. It’s for the best. Remember, that if the first time they try something feels in any way off for them, they will remember it and probably never try again. Be patient with them, go through the articles with them, make a plan for the night, memorise the safe word, do anything to ensure that whatever new activity you are going to try, it will be a pleasant experience.

You might feel a little put off by all this, my dear pile 3, but on the positive side, your future partner is a pleaser. If you can withstand the whole prep phase, they will do anything to give you the best Os in your life. Your future spouse has very strong intuition, they can easily tune in with your vibe, they have magnificent imagination and fantasy and they are methodical. Their memory is absolutely excellent. All these qualities allow them to learn and apply anything you find pleasing. After the first night they know all your sweet spots like the back of their own hand. And they are consistent. They never cut corners when it comes to their priorities. They are likely to deliver the best performance every single time.

Your future spouse, my dear pile 3, is likely to be the one to start thinking about marriage first. They might throw hints here and there because spiritual bond is everything to them and if they click with you, they are convinced it’s for the lifetime. Make sure to feel the same about it before you say your ‘I do’ to them because one thing your future spouse is worried about and is insecure is abandonment. They might throw jealous scenes occasionally but it’s only because of their fear of losing you. Make them believe that you’re not going anywhere and you are staying by their side.

Your future spouse has a talent for writing and has a vivid imagination. When you do have to separate from each other, you might keep the flames of love alive through sexting. This will reduce your spouse’s anxiety and insecurity and allow you both to indulge in some spicy fantasies.

While your future spouse is planning their life with you and starting a family, in this case the cards suggest they might prefer to bring up pets with you rather than children. It doesn’t mean your future spouse doesn’t like children but they might prefer to have a dog or dogs at home instead if it’s something you prefer as well. Simply, if you’re not the parent type, they won’t cry because of it and will happily adopt a puppy from a dog shelter with you (or a whole wolf pack).

Summary

Position: Equal partnership

Libido: Conservative but pleaser and with knowledge and imagination

Turn-On: A pet friendly person, patient

Kink: Sticking to what they know, sexting

Dirty Secret: Abandonment issues, not necessarily into having children

You can always buy me a cup of tea through ko-fi (because Kleo doesn’t really drink coffee but she’s a tea addict).

🧨

And this is the end of the reading. I hope you had fun, I know I had when writing it (it took me 3 days...). I'm sorry, for the miserable quality of the photos but I don't really have a good camera. 😟

Anyway! Bless you all! Leave me a comment or ask in the box which pile you picked, what resonated with you and what didn't.

Kleo 🦄

#oracle kleo #pick a pile #pick a card #PAC #pac reading #tarot pick a card #tarot pick a pile #kinky pick a pile #kinky pick a card #kinky tarot #future spouse #future spouse pick a card #kinky future spouse #kinky future spouse tarot #future spouse tarot #18+ pac #18+ content #18+ tarot

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vlazed · 2 years

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IDW Sonic theory time! So, I was looking through issues of IDW’s Sonic comic and character sheets by the artists for said comic for a sprite sheet I want to eventually make for Surge, and I had an idea regarding part of Surge’s acting and roughs sheet:

The way that half of the page is blocked off. What surprised me wasn’t that there’s visual concepts that they didn’t want to show us, that should probably go without saying, Surge is a pretty new character and it makes sense they would have stuff in the tank for the future, it’s moreso how they did it.

For those unaware, Sonic calling Tails “Pixel Brain” is a reference to Fleetway’s Sonic the Comic (which you can probably tell was made in the UK by Tails’ choice vocabulary). A pretty cute reference to explain to the viewer why they couldn’t show all of the illustrations at the time of posting, and most likely that’s all it is.

But, let’s have a bit of fun and speculate a bit, could it be possible that the concepts underneath that spot be somehow related to Fleetway’s Sonic comic? What if they’re paying homage to probably the most infamous element of Fleetway Sonic? That’s right, I’m talking about:

Fleetway Super Sonic! (Who is, to anyone unfamiliar, the comic’s interpretation of Super Sonic, an alternate personality Sonic would take on that was wildly powerful and destructive, distinguished most from other versions by the red circles in his eyes.)

Now, I’m not saying Surge is likely to get some kind of Super form equivalent, or anything that would radically change her design. The concepts were on the same sheet as other Surge actions and poses, if it was a big change chances are they would’ve used a different sheet for it.

but I do think it’s likely she’ll get those circles in her eye at some point in time for one reason or another, perhaps when going into an emotional outburst or accessing some kind of strength. It would make sense on a lot of different levels, firstly, that kind of eye rings are usually associated with hypnosis in media, and it happens that a large part of Surge’s character is how she was hypnotized and brainwashed by Starline, made into a completely different person. In fact, we’ve seen her with those rings in her eyes before, when she briefly resisted Starline’s control in Impostor Syndrome Issue #1:

And we know that she and Kit were heavily traumatized by what Starline’s hypnosis did to them, Starline themself said it was hard to deal with the “psychological trauma” and heck, just look at poor Surge on one of the covers for Issue #55, she’s clearly going through it (Though we don’t know exactly how yet, this issue still isn’t out)

So honestly, I don’t find it too unlikely that at some point during the future Surge gets those circles at times of intense stress, breakdown, or power. It’d be a cool way to show what she’s going through, and also pay homage to a fan favorite character.

Though again, the concepts getting used was put as an if, so even if I’m somehow right on the money, take this with a grain of salt! If I’m shown a curtain and told something is behind it, I’m bound to get some ideas, no matter how right or wrong they may be.

#surge the tenrec #idw sonic #idw sonic spoilers #sonic the hedgehog #fleetway super #sorta #i dont think ive posted about it here before but im really big on idw sonic #its a really good read

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sunriseverse · 2 years

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good day here’s a noncomprehenisve ripping into of every piece of writing advice i can remember right now that i hate. massive disclaimer that this is a rant based on my personal experiences etc. if you want actual advice i can give that but it’s going to be highly case specific and frankly you should take even that with a grain of salt.

- “said is dead”. i’m convinced this one largely comes from new writers who don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about, because said is a staple dialogue tag for a reason. you don’t need special emotion/tone specific words when said will work just fine if you tack on a qualifier like “quietly” or “reluctantly”. obviously the proportional amount of said to other dialogue tags is going to depend a lot on what tone you’re going for, but for the love of god do not think you have to limit your usage of said to every three paragraphs or whatever they’re saying these days.

- “get rid of filler words”. not applicable broadly. if i think about this too hard i see red. filler words exist for a reason and that reason is that it’s natural for people to use them. next.

- any sort of “emotional tells cheat sheet”. genuinely this is one of the ones i hate the most. there is no universal tell for any emotion, and relying solely on these sorts of lists will probably frustrate you and make you feel limited. you don’t even need them as an amateur writer.

- paragraph separation. every single fucking time i see a post that’s like “any time anything new happens, start a new paragraph” or “you want your writing to not have long paragraphs” it makes me violent i am not kidding. your paragraphs can have multiple things happening in them—description, dialogue, action, etc. there’s classics with page-long paragraphs and it’s not because the authors are lazy—they know what they’re fucking doing. i’m not going to tell you how to write a paragraph, but i am going to tell you that 90% of what makes a good paragraph is that it feels like it fits in with the other paragraphs. tone is one of the biggest parts of written pieces for a good reason. write two hundred word paragraphs. genuinely it doesn’t fucking matter. just do use paragraph breaks and don’t turn everything into a single wall of text.

- punctuation. oh my fucking god the amount of shit punctuation advice i see. look. as long as it fits tonally, you can do basically what you want with punctuation and it will not matter. in fact it’ll probably contribute to the atmosphere of the writing! “run on” sentences are good. interrupted dialogue is good. “over usage” of commas, em dashes, semi colons, all of that is fine. if i see one more post where the “desirable” sentence examples look like they came out of a grammatical workbook i’m going to bash my head in.

- “show, don’t tell”. every single show don’t tell post i’ve seen tries to instruct you how to do it and it’s bullshit. it’s fucking bullshit. show don’t tell is highly specific to your writing style. if someone with a different writing style from me tried to use my show don’t tell tactics it’s wouldn’t work and vice versa. show don’t tell us also genre and tone specific—it’s going to look different in sci-fi than in thriller than in high fantasy than in americana than in historical fiction. it’s going to look different depending on your pov choice, and the fucking tenses you use.

- every single characterisation advice i’ve ever seen oh my god. this is probably the product of a general preference for action driven plots over character driven plots but fuck me your characterisation should drive things because your story is about the characters. i know this is going to sound like i’m self interested as a character writer but for the love of god characterisation is key. if your plot doesn’t work without discarding characterisation (i do not mean plot forcing a characterisation change, that’s normal and a part of character growth etc), change your fucking plot.

- anything telling you that you have to change your writing style to be “correct”. this probably encompasses a couple other points but i don’t fucking care at this point. your style is the cornerstone of your writing. it will naturally shift over time as you change as a person, but trying to for yourself to “correct” it is stupid. use “big” words. use “complicated” sentences. use words to mean things that are opposite to their connotations or, fuck, even opposite to their meanings. reuse phrases. spend twice as long as you need to on descriptions.

- single paragraph of advice: write. just write. ignore rule sheets, ignore what you’ve been taught, ignore whatever the fuck listicles of quotes from stephen king and stephanie meyer and whoever the fuck else they’re putting on there says. write as much as you can stand and you will learn from it. you will develop a style, you will develop tricks for dialogue and description and emotion and pacing and tone. but it won’t happen if you don’t fucking write. your first attempts will be bad—god knows mine were. but there’s nowhere to go but up. write.

#c.txt

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socially-awkward-velociraptor · 2 years

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would like to clarify before I start this post that this is mostly emotional and that I am not speaking from a place of authority. there may have been many things I missed about this situation and this is closer to screaming into the void than anything else.

now.

I feel… exhausted with the calls to “just vote!” as a response to everything the Supreme Court is overturning. I believe that voting in local elections is powerful and that choosing the people who govern your personal world can absolutely be influential. At its best, voting is the ability to make your voice heard in the world and for the laws of the land to be based on the will of the people. Historically it has been powerful on a national level and I would absolutely never discourage someone from voting; I think that although there are other forms of resistance that don’t get enough attention year-round, such as mutual aid groups, voting has the potential to be an incredibly powerful tool.

But Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016. People said turn out and vote, and the people voted, and 3 million more people wanted her than wanted Donald Trump. And she still technically lost, because the electoral system means that those 3 million votes ultimately didn’t count.

Voting restrictions have also been ramping up in the last several years, which impacts anyone who, for whatever reason, doesn’t have access to an acceptable ID or a way to get to the polls. This prevents poor people, trans people, people of color, disabled people, and many more from being able to vote. How can a voice be counted when laws are being passed to make it harder and harder to count?

I think the most discouraging part of all this is that, while the court can be packed, they cannot be voted out. Although this was initially done to keep the justices as objective as possible (not having to campaign for re-election and give special consideration to various interests) as it turns out, it’s what they’re doing anyway. And all of this has happened while Democrats have had the White House and the Senate.

I know there are regulations and restrictions on what they can do. I don’t expect a miracle. But the only answer that anyone in power seems to have is “vote in November!” Which has been the only answer they’ve had since 2016. I think that while a lot of us don’t expect them to figure out a way to fix everything right away, it is terrifying and exhausting to watch our basic protections and rights being hacked away, bit by bit, while those who have power keep saying that it’s on us.

I’ve gone out there. I’ve voted blue no matter who. As I’ve said, I think it’s an important right to exercise and I would never discourage anyone from exercising it. But I’m scared and tired and exhausted of spending my entire adult life watching the world split apart at the seams (more than it already had, of course).

Like I said, this isn’t a post made with any authority, so please take it with a grain of salt. But I can’t imagine that I’m the only one who’s tired of watching the same story play out, year after year.

#ok to rb if you want #but again this is more of an emotional ramble than a structured sourced piece

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recurring-polynya · 3 years

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Do I mind if I ask how you approach writing longer fic? I've always struggled to write anything more than maybe two chapters long and I'm curious if you have a particular method to how you approach such stories.

Thank you so much for this ask! I absolutely love it when people ask me for writing advice because it makes me feel like a Smart Person Who Knows Things.

Before we start, here is one grain of salt to take all of this with: I have a naturally long-form brain. It is very hard for me to write something less than 1k. Short fiction is great, and there is nothing wrong with sticking to short things if that's what your brain likes to do.

So. You have decided to write a story. This is going to focus on "stories". Some people write fic that's more freeform or whatever, I am not going to cover that. What I mean by a story is this:

It starts

Some stuff happens

It ends

It is highly probable that your story contains a change of state, which could be that a villain is defeated, or a goal is reached, but it could also be that character falls in love with another, or someone learns to like broccoli.

I like to start out by completing the sentence, "This is a story where _______". This is basically like coming up with a summary for an ao3 post, except that it doesn't need to be catchy. Lots of different kinds of things could go in that blank! It could literally be what happens: This is a story where Ichigo goes back in time and punches young Aizen in the nose. It could be about what you want to explore: This is a story where Hitsugaya gets a better understanding of his zanpakutou. It could be about the vibe you want to achieve: This is an AU where everyone is in a punk rock band and has cool hair and outfits. The idea of this is to clearly define what you, the author, is interested in writing. Make sure it feels right! Maybe you pick the first one, but when you say it out loud, you say, "You know, I really just want Ichigo to go back in time so he can horse around with young Renji and Rukia and punching Aizen in the nose is just an excuse for that." That may sound dumb, but it's fine, actually! Most people don't read stories strictly for the plot, they read stories for the implications of those plots! Will my favorite two characters kiss? Will there be funny interactions between these two groups of characters? Will there be sick fights? Stories are excuses to have scenes. Sometimes, you will have a story where the interesting sequence of events is the draw, but the point is to know what you're about.

Once you feel happy with your "mission statement", you need to decide the bounds of your story: where it starts and where it ends. It may be easier to start with the end. In some cases, it may be obvious from your mission statement: everyone gets home, a villain is defeated, Kenpachi realizes the meaning of friendship. On the other hand, let's look at that punk rock AU. You've picked a vibe, but you don't really have a natural story arc. It has to have a destination, though, otherwise, it's not really a story, it's a recipe for 3 chapters of an abandoned fanfic. So brainstorm a little: Maybe they get a record deal? Maybe they win a Battle of the Bands? Maybe Byakuya accepts that the band is actually good and tells Rukia he is proud of her. Do not settle for a plot just because it works. Pick something that makes you excited! You're the one who is gonna have to write it!

I said that we needed to pick a beginning point, too, but I'm actually going to skip that for now. The next thing I do is think of all the Big Scenes I want to write, the ones you are hype to write, the ones that pop in your head as you think about the premise. Make a bullet list. They don't need to be in order. The descriptions don't need to be super detailed, but write down anything about it that is important to you. If there's a mood or a snippet of dialogue or a joke you want to make, go ahead and jot that down so you don't forget it later. What you're doing now is putting broad blotches of color on a canvas, filling in space and leaving the detail for later.

Once you are pretty happy with what you have down, try to arrange it in chronological order. Put your end at the end (if it wasn't one of your big scenes, add it now). The next task is figuring out how to traverse your scenes. You've already picked out where you want to spend the majority of your energy. The rest, I regret to tell you, is your slog writing. Now, it often happens that you will find joy in some of these scenes and your best writing may occur there, but that's serendipity. These are the scenes that you are gonna have to make yourself sit down and write, so you honestly want to limit them to just the ones you need.

So how do we do this? Look at the first thing on the list. Can you start there? If so, congrats, that's your beginning. If you can't, what needs to happen to get to there? Where can you start so that you can get to your first fun scene as soon as possible? There. That’s it. You’ve picked your beginning, good job! Now, go through the rest of your list, and add in things that must happen, even if you don’t particularly look forward to writing them. The characters need to travel from geographic point A to point B. Shuuhei needs to say something that Izuru hears and misinterprets. The Central 46 makes a new law. If you have a good idea of how these things happen, go ahead and write them down, but it’s okay if you don’t know yet. Fill in all the blanks so that if you think of each bullet list as a scene, you could read it as a story, start to end. Once you get writing, you might add more scenes, or move things around or whatever, but you should have a thing that functions as a story.

If you struggle with this, an alternative is a story with a very strong structure that is going to guide you though what you have to write.Here are two examples from my own stories Hold On, Hold On (which is only one chapter, but the principle is the same) is structured around the 5 stages of grief. Not Broken, Just Bent takes place over roughly a week, and I just decided what happened every day of the week. See You on the Other Side takes place in the middle of a bunch of canon events, which worked at mile markers.

Congratulations. You’ve just made a rough outline!

Special note for avoiding burnout!: I am a slogger. I will drag myself through the broken glass of an interminable plot to get to a single thirsty scene. That's why, at this stage, I try to look at the ratio of what I want to write to what I must write. It's gonna vary for everyone, but this is a hobby, and if looking at this proto-outline makes you feel deeply tired, maybe this isn't a good story to be devoting your time to! Can you carve it down? Can you chuck two scenes you really want to write and get rid of 80% of the slog? Or maybe you can't! In that case, just write that thirsty scene as a standalone drabble! Or just go work on something else! Maybe in the future, this one will come back to you and you’ll have a fresh idea or a renewed enthusiasm for it.

Another thing I sometimes like to do at this point is to write out some notes about my characters and their motivations and moods. Character A is homesick. Character B is so determined to defeat the enemy that they are having a hard time being sympathetic to Character A. Character C cares for both A and B and is trying to support them both. This is sort of background info that you want to keep in your head as you are writing. Depending on the type of story you are writing, this might actually be the main plot, or it might be happening subtly, but adding to the emotional impact of the story. It’s very easy for me to write these sorts of emotional arcs, but if you struggle with that, you may wish to go ahead and made a more detailed outline for that, too.

Now, it’s time to start writing! I am great at beginnings-- it is very often the case for me that the opening scene was one of my Big Tentpole Scenes. (Before you hate me too much, I make up for this by being double horrible at endings; just let me have this) Usually, I will start at the beginning and write linearly for as long as I can until I get stuck. Then, I will look forward on my outline and do the next chronological scene that I feel like writing. In general, if I sit down to write and there is something I have an urge to write, that trumps everything else. Inspiration is a precious commodity, and you should embrace it when it hits! You can slog any day. I will occasionally hold off writing a scene that I really want to, because I am saving it, like a prize for myself for getting that far. This is a very personal process of figuring out what motivates your brain and then giving your brain what it needs to be its most productive.

Eventually, you will run out of things you are excited to write, but the good news is, you’ve got a bunch of story now! Odds are that what’s left is going to be a lot of those connective tissue scenes, and you’re just going to have to do them, except that now, because you’re connecting two concrete points instead of two abstract points, it will be a lot easier. You can continue running jokes you’ve started. Maybe you invented a cafe in an earlier scene where your characters hang out and you can have them return there. Try to think of ways to make these scenes more fun, both for yourself to write and for your reader to read.

Around this time, I like to start refining that rough strokes outline into what I will call an “as-built” outline. (This is an engineering term where you update your plans or models for something to reflect any changes that had to be made along the way). This is a great activity to do at times when you feel like you have writers block. I write down every scene I have written as a 2-3 word blurb, in order. I break the scenes into what I think makes logical chapters, and I will do a word count on those prospective chapters and write it down. As you do this, you will realize that maybe you can move a scene from here to there, which will make it 1000% easier to write. Things may be happening too much, or you’ve got the characters eating three times in the same chapter. If you have subplots and dangling threads, this is where you make sure they get closure. I know this sounds very headache-y, but you are so far along in the story at this point that it’s really not-- it’s a way to look at the problems you have left. Use some sort of formatting (I like to bold things I haven’t done and sometimes I put them in red) and it gives you a very visual to-do list.

You specifically mentioned multi-chapter fanfics and I admit that I don’t tend to think in chapters, I tend to think of the story as a whole and just break it up where it feels natural. The as-built outlining I described is very helpful in making sure that my chapters feel balanced. They don’t necessarily need to be the same length, but I like them to have the same amount of stuff in them. One chapter may basically contain one long scene, and other may contain many short ones. I don’t tend to, but you can certainly have a fanfic that varies between short and long chapters, that can actually be an interesting effect. But like I said, I always like to know what I am doing, and so having it mapped out, you can say “welp, this is what I’ve done, how do I feel about that?”

Polynya, you may be saying at this point, do you write the whole fanfic before you post any of it? and I regret to inform you, the answer is yes. A lot of people write as they go, and I have made one attempt at this and I didn’t like it. I don’t like locking myself in, I just need to be able write out of order and go back and change things. Here is the story of a little in love: someone gave me an AU prompt and I got mildly obsessed with it, and wrote 5 snapshots drabbles in that universe, ending with a slight cliffhanger ending. I probably should have stopped there, but I decided to keep going. I wrote out an outline of 5 acts where the first act was detailed to the degree of each chapter being specified. The chapters here were much smaller than I usually make chapters: 1-2k. I wrote act i and ii and it was actually great, and then I hit act iii which required a lot of set up for misunderstandings and a mini romance arc. I couldn’t wing it, but nor could I figure it all out with outlining. I write dialogue in almost sort of an improv “Yes, and...?” style, so until I do it, I don’t know what’s going to happen. So, what I did was treat the second half of act iii as a complete story in the process I describe above, wrote the entire rest of it, and then posted it. One might notice that the chapter lengths grew to 3-5k each. I have two more acts to go, and I haven’t decided how I am going to do them yet, but I suspect I will treat each of them as their own mini-stories.

(I will admit that in Heart is a Muscle, I tend toward chapters that are about 10k long, and this is honestly too long, someone should smack me. If you like punchy chapters, 1-2k is good. I think 3-6k is probably an ideal chapter length. Is this how long the chapters are in my latest fanfic? Absolutely not.)

Okay, so there’s one more step, which is quality control. I am habitual re-reader-- I read my fanfics-in-progress over and over and over while I am working on them. I understand that not everyone does this, but I am usually the primary audience for my own writing, and this is the actual fun part for me. Nevertheless, you should re-read your work at least once, to make sure it hangs together.

This is purely optional, but I recommend it: get a writing friend (if you don’t like re-reading your work, I recommend this even more strongly). If you can get a full-service beta reader, that’s great, but if you can’t find someone, or if receiving that level of critique stresses you out, it’s perfectly valid to just find a friend who will read your stuff and a) shower you with compliments, b) reassure you about parts you aren’t sure about (or suggest ways to help) and c) point out any huge problems you missed. When I am writing a long fanfic, it is a huge motivational factor for me to be able to send my beta chapters as I finish them. If you are already an established writer, and you have people who consistently comment on your fic, they might be overjoyed to get a sneak peak at your work.

And that’s it! That’s the way I do it, anyway! Some people are able to sit down and write a very detailed outline and the write it start-to-finish. Good for them, I say! I have tried this and it doesn’t work great for me. I will admit that some of my fics (especially my early ones) I just sat down and banged out whole-cloth like an insane person and they are generally better than the ones I actually plan out, but that’s not a reproducible process.

As one final mechanical note, I usually write in Google Docs, which I can access on multiple devices (I used to write a lot on my phone), has convenient sharing functionality, and I use the ao3 html formatting script add-in. I generally have two documents for a single story-- one is the outline, and any other notes I want to have handy. I’ll usually put a trashcan space at the bottom for scenes that got cut but I don’t want to lose. The other is the fanfic itself.

I hope this is helpful! Please feel free to follow up with other questions and good luck with your writing!

#writing advice #longform writing

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vidalinav · 3 years

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Nesta’s Characterization **Spoilers for ACOSF

Unpopular opinion, but I loved how normal Nesta was as a character and that this book was written about 75% to be about the day to day of Nesta’s life. I’m telling you it gave me Studio Ghibli vibes. Like falling love with everyday life and that routine, but also with this normalcy of magic.

I know a lot of people will not like Nesta not being angry or losing a lot of that fieryness. And at some points I can understand especially near the end. But the end has a lot of problems altogether, so I take that with a grain of salt. I didn’t really think she lost a lot of that cleverness or wittiness or that I give no fucks attitude. She’s always been an I will die for my family and the people I love type of person. Which she shows again as she did in ACOWAR. This is the girl who said “I don’t care about me” in ACOWAR when Feyre was like okay I can take you home if you feel unsafe or whatever. I was not surprised at all that she had such self-hatred. But I do think her personality looks shifted, because it’s Nesta’s POV. I’m frankly glad that we get to see that Nesta is very emotional like Feyre had said in ACOMAF. I don’t know if any of us really thought that her anger for the world and that bitchiness and I don’t mean in a bad way would be her final form when it seemed to have always been a shield for her. She wanted to starve to death, she was pointedly vindictive, like she was not mentally healthy. I’ve written so many analyses of Nesta’s character that I’m glad that I was right lol (Not to toot my own horn-but that do not come for me post--that was me and I was right). Does that mean I like everything with her and the IC? No, not necessarily. At some points I thought some characters were too harsh for a long time and some characters had a problem in the beginning that they didn’t in the end, some of it was too easy, some too hard. I feel like there was a bit of holes in the story, which was my main issue with this book. But Nesta herself was not an issue to me at all.

I loved Nesta’s characterization as being soft but never having the ability or opportunity to show that and being able to show it with those she makes meaningful relationships with. She’s Cassian’s mate the guy who perpetually puts himself down. Like calls to Like guys. They match fire by fire, insult for insult, love for love, and this insecurity equally. I don’t feel that she’s OOC and I don’t think she’s any less powerful by being less scared of the world. She was a traumatized person, a survivor of assault, so many things happened to her and it was too much and she needed to learn to live again.

That being said, I love that:

1. She is clumsy at first. Falling down stairs must have hurt but it was funny.

2. She eats a lot and loves cake

3. She’s obsessed with smutty romances

4. She is so out of shape for most of this book and is so sore the entire time. I thought that was funny. Pelaton instructor Cassian FTW

5. She is very curious. She asks so many questions and never shy's away.

6. She’s very caring and sweet but also conniving, because she knows how to manipulate people in soft ways. I don’t know how to word that. But getting the priestesses to fight, Emerie, etc.

7. She likes playing the game and is good at showing people what they want, not showing that things bother her so she’s able to be that seducer, that prize you can never have. (Ie. Eris, Lanthys, etc.)

8. She does not give up and inspires others to not give up. She’s stubborn in that way.

9. She has very good opinions of people, granted she needs to know them first and kind of let her guard down, but once that happens she’s like you’re the best person ever Cassian (paraphrasing). Gwyn and Emerie my best friends forever, so caring and nice. I’m undeserving of all of these people.

10. She’s affectionate--she hugs Azriel, she wants to cuddle after sex lol

11. She’s very open about sex. I really liked that part that she wasn’t ashamed or anything. That she was very like well I want it lol, I wanted it then, I want it now, Cassian is here, we tease each other anyway, why the hell not?

12. I love that she charms almost everything. Fantasia vibes. She made friends with a house.

13. She wants people to believe the best in her. That she’s good. (of course she has to believe this in herself, but she gets there)

14. She’s scared of a lot of things. She’s inexperienced. It’s very normal. She’s got a lot of power she doesn’t know how to use, but despite this, she’ll do what must be done and she almost seems to learn to enjoy it. Like it becomes her.

But anyways, this is just a small list. And these are all things we knew of her, her stubbornness, her love for smut, her care for people that cannot help themselves, her cleverness but they’re shown in a slightly different way from Nesta and Cassian’s POV, and I really liked how Nesta turned out to be.

IMO

#nessian #nesta archeron #cassian #acosf #acosf spoilers

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violetlunette · 3 years

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Why Bakagou’s slapstick doesn’t work for me

Below is basically me saying why I don’t like Bakagou’s slapstick. This isn’t me calling anyone out, it's just a view of an opinion. If you find the angry porcupine funny I won’t judge you.

That being said, below does have anti-Bakugou elements and Bakugou Critical. If these bother you, I suggest you spend your time elsewhere.

Let’s get this out of the way; Comedy in itself is subjective to each person. Mineta is a perfect example; some people laugh at him along with his antics, while others don’t. Whether his actions may be funny to some, others who have suffered sexual harassment won’t laugh. (Personally, I don’t think the violence is harsh enough to make his antics funny, but more on that later.)

Nowadays, a lot of people don’t find physical violence funny. I am not one of those people. I love physical comedy—if it’s done right.

These are the official rules of slapstick comedy—Though they come from a mime school, so YMMV;

Pain without real consequences.

Editing to turn a situation more unrealistic.

Impossible situations.

Those are mime rules, but here’s mine;

The person that receives the pain must have done something to earn it.

The pain must be because of a direct action of the recipient.

Pain without real consequences. (We share this rule.)

There are a few exceptions, as I’ve seen nice characters get hit with slapstick, but because rule three is in play, I still laugh. Like with Courage the Cowardly Dog from the show of the same name. He is the sweetest and bravest thing, but he still suffers a lot of slapstick. Usually, though, the pain goes away right away, so most viewers laugh as it’s “pain without real consequence.” When the pain stays for more than a few scenes, it’s serious.

As I mentioned earlier, I wouldn’t mind Mineta too much if he received more punishment for his perverted acts and said punishment was more cartoony violent. I recognize his character type as a typical anime trope and because their actions earn the violence, I laugh when they get their just desserts. When Kota kicked Mineta off the wall, I laughed. When Jiro stabbed his eye, I laughed. And so on. As a person, Mineta doesn’t connect to me (though there was potential), when it comes to his slapstick, I’m all for laughing. His pain is funny to me because it’s earned by actions he consciously makes and there’s no lasting damage. Better yet, no one ever just waves off his action as ‘that’s just Mineta.’ More often than not when he acts like a perv others call him out and react properly--usually.

A character I do like that suffers is Monoma. Most of the BNHA fandom hates him—mostly Bakagoustans—but I find his antics funny, as well as his pain. The reason Monoma’s pain is funny to me is simple; he acts like a jackass and is punished for it.

Monoma is Class-B’s Bakagou, but unlike Class-A they don’t ignore his actions. When he does something rude or annoying, Monoma is called out. They tell him straight out that what he's doing is NOT okay, and they don’t agree with him. If he continues, then Monoma is knocked out. Class-B even goes the extra mile and apologizes for him. They acknowledge that Monoma’s actions are wrong then they do something about it.

Now, to be fair most of the scenes played for comedy with Bakagou technically fit the slapstick rules;

Pain without real consequence- Debatable, but we don’t usually see any physical scars from his actions.

Editing to turn a situation unrealistic and impossible situations- During these scenes, Bakagou’s face gets cartoony as hell, and the way he causes pain isn't usually something we see in everyday life.

So, yeah, I can see why some people laugh at him as he follows the rules technically.

This is where the subjective comes in. Now just a reminder, this is all my opinion, therefore there will be a little pettiness. Ye have been warned.

First of all, Bakagou seldom receives punishment for his asshole tendencies. He can yell at people, insult them, and physically attack others, but no one does anything. Once in a while, we’ll get a “knock it off Bakugou” or Class A will be appalled, but that’s it. If Bakugou showed he was irritated by getting ignored, then maybe it would be funny. But no. He yells, he hurts someone, then it’s brushed aside.

Cartman of South Park fame is an asshole, but I can laugh at his actions as the narrative never says that his horrible actions are right. Even when he gets away with it the show states, “yeah, we know this is wrong, but so what?” Because of that I’m not annoyed with the story and can laugh. See, if the horrible action is at least somehow acknowledged in some way, I’m more likely to laugh.

There’s also the fact that the people Bakagou attacks usually have done nothing to earn his ire. Bakagou’s just being an asshole. (Monoma’s an exception, but again, his slapstick is funny.)

Izuku is the most common target of Bakagou’s tantrums and he NEVER does anything to deserve it. He’s just doing his own thing and Bakagou will get jealous before attacking, verbally or physically. And Izuku just takes it! Even when Izuku isn’t even talking to him, Bakagou will attack him!

“But more often than not, Izuku is okay, right? So wouldn’t the ‘Pain without real consequence’ rule come into play?” Not in this case. Why? Because of their history.

I don’t like to throw the word “abuse” around unless it fits. The reason for this is that it takes away its power and seriousness. I also believe that there’s a difference between being a jerk and an abuser. To me, in anime or cartoons at least, a dope-slap here and there isn’t abuse.

I have no idea about the full story and said story seems to be changing to manipulate views, but what’s clear is this; Bakagou bullied Izuku.

I’m not clear when bullying passes the line into abuse (please forgive my ignorance of this at this time), but whatever Bakagou did had traumatized Izuku. I won’t go into it here, but there are several posts out there that prove Bakagou’s actions left lasting mental and emotional wounds on Izuku that affect him and his actions throughout the story.

There’s too much unpleasant history between Izuku and Bakagou for the latter’s actions to the former to ever be entertaining. Bakagou bullied Izuku throughout their whole childhood and belittled him. After so long of Bakagou’s actions being played seriously, I’m supposed to see it as a joke now? Nuh-uh. No way. Nothing’s changed.

Bakagou still jokes about Izuku dying, belittles him, and attacks him whenever he gets a little attention. Just like he always did. Whatever development he may have got, Bakagou is still a brat who throws a tantrum when he’s not the focus.

The only difference is that instead of reacting to it, Izuku’s gotten used to it. He’s numb to it all. That’s not funny at all. It’s sad.

When Izuku was flinching, at least his body was instinctively trying to protect itself. In that subtle way, it was acknowledging that something was wrong. By not flinching, or doing anything to defend himself, Izuku is no longer acknowledging the actions are wrong. The worse thing about it? No one else is either.

Sure it wouldn’t be in character if Izuku yelled or fought back, but others in Class A could. They don’t even have to do anything major, just along the lines of what Class B does.

Another thing is that the people Bakagou yells at or attacks are people who won’t or can’t fight back. Izuku, Fuyumi (who has lived with an adult version of Bakagou all her life), and Shoto. Shoto is a little better because Bakagou never hurts him or bothers him and Shoto ignoring Bakagou’s tantrums leads to the latter getting annoyed which is kinda funny.

All that said, to me Bakagou’s antics always have been and always will be bullying, and they are NOT something I can laugh at.

However, as many others can this just proves that humor is subjective. Take everything I said with a grain of salt.

#bnha #mha #anti bakugou #bakugou critical #slapstick

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darter-blue · 3 years

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Okay, so someone I dearly love has asked me for a little helpful advice on how to get started writing. I take this as an ENORMOUS compliment because - well,,, you know me, anyway, focus, sorry. Okay.

So.

This was this question, about a brilliant set of ideas that have been put to paper and are desperate to be made into a fic:

‘I think we actually want to try and write it but....how???? Do you have any quick tips for me?’

And I do!

Okay let me start with the first and it is this -

There is no right or wrong way to write.

There is no process that is a holy grail. Everyone is different and everyone works differently and it’s so important to know that if something is not working for you - try something new. Don’t give up. Just shift to a new process. And keep shifting until you find your stride

(this is especially true of how and were you write, listen to music or alone in a quiet room, in marathon 3 hour sessions or do 2 x 20 min sprints in a week. Its totally up to you).

That said, there are a lot of really helpful writing aids out there, that are free, and easily accessible if you have a computer or a library card, and you can and should look at websites/books that give you tips for the following:

formatting

grammar

syntax

rhythm

Try something like this: https://firstmanuscript.com/format-dialogue/ which is laid out really well and gives you amazing tips on how to write dialogue

Or this: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/active-vs-passive-voice/ which is a great and easily understandable way to improve your active voice over passive (which will make your writing snappier and sharper)

Okay and I’ll prefix the rest by saying - this is helpful tips on my process, and what works for me - so take that with a grain of salt because - as I said before - everyone is different. Remember that.

Write a plan or a map.

At the very least - if you are not a map/plan kind of person... Write down three things, the beginning, the middle, and the end. It’s really important that you have an end in place -and that can be as simple as ‘They get together’ especially if it’s stucky or a similar ship.

What your reader wants is a narrative that follows a thread - and that will weave its way back to itself. Even if its a simple romance or rom com, have the characters work their way to some kind of resolution that was obvious from the beginning. and a map - even a really basic one - is the easiest way to make that happen.

Flesh out your characters

Write a character dossier, even a super simple one, even for fanfic.

You want your characters to seem real and relatable. And the best way to do that is to give them a background - even a quick one. And then give them a unique voice, way of speaking (use your dialogue or internal voice) and make them behave in ways that seem realistic and understandable with respect to the world in your story.

World build

This can be really simple, it doesn’t have to be about sci fi or magic or anything - just give your characters a place to live - give the background some depth.

If you’re in a coffee shop - make sure you show how the coffee shop works, what it looks like, who else works there, give some indication of whether its a good or bad place to work, to drink coffee, is it busy or quiet? Do the other staff love or hate their jobs? Is there that one customer who is always there in the back corner and you just bring him bottomless cups of tea all day and he tips like crazy... little things like this will make your readers feel like they are in a real place. Which makes the whole fic seem more real.

Show, dont tell...

This is the biggest one for me. Don’t just start out your fic with a big list of what happened or where you are. Weave it into the action and the dialogue slowly.

Don’t just tell - ‘Steve is a lawyer for a big corporation and he hates his job. It makes him unhappy.’

Show - ‘Steve is dreading going back to the office today. He doesn’t want to have to play nice with his boss, he doesn’t want to have to smile at his clients who he knows are guilty. He’s dreading it so much it makes his stomach hurt.’

Okay and the hardest one to get used to as a new writer -

Find a POV (point of view) and Tense and be consistent

I recommend third person limited. This means you write from that persons point of view and see, think, feel, only what they see, think and feel. You cant see or hear the other characters thoughts or feelings about something. You can’t physically see something happening that is not within your characters viewpoint.

You can switch between characters as long as you have a delineated break - and let the reader know you are switching (I always give a heading for a new character)

I also recommend you use present tense - it’s much easier to keep consistent. But it’s totally up to the individual. Just make sure you don’t change it (and a beta reader can help you with this)

So.

That feels like a lot of information to throw at you, let me give you a really quick list of what you need to do to start -

Map out your beginning, middle and end

Choose your main character and your POV (which one will tell the story best, who will have the most emotional impact - do you want to switch and see both POV? think about who the real main character is, who is most of the action happening to)

Choose your secondary characters and give them some backstory - especially about how they are connected to the main characters.

Choose a setting and give it detail.

Start writing - get your ideas down.

Read your dialogue out loud so you know it sounds like something you would really say.

Go back and edit later

Research things you’re not sure about - but also you can just say >check science< or >which restaurant< and come back to it later to keep your ideas flowing.

Send it to someone who is happy to look over it for you and help you edit (but only once you have edited it yourself and made it as clean and sharp as possible)

Be super proud of yourself for the amazing thing you have just done.

Post it to tumblr or ao3 if - and only if - you want to.

Okay. Well... I hope this was helpful!

Come ask me anything about any of it! I’m happy to elaborate.

And good luck!!!!!!

#writing tips #how to craft a narrative #how to get started #becs tips

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youwontlikethisblog · 3 years

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Betty, My Betty! Part 2.5 (Hopefully the last one)

Alrighty, I think this will be my last post for tonight? This morning? But it is still in the same vine of Armando being possessive so he is the main subject of this breakdown but I will also be discussing Mario a lot here so this in an attempt to be the final post regarding this episode will be a lengthy one.

Again I accidently bought the bootleg version of the novela so some scenes and episodes are missing as well as the chapters aren't titled.

We are in the same episode of Armando reacting to Betty having a boyfriend.

Right now Betty is exiting her office, she just hung up the phone with Nicolas who warned her that they needed to pay a loan to the bank because their 24 or 27 days were up.

Mario is leaning over Armando's desk and Armando is leaning forward as they are both discussing and whispering (that part is so short you can't really pick at what they're talking about but you can imagine what it is. I'm assuming that while Mario was telling Armando not to question or judge Betty on her personal life that Betty was in her office on the phone with Nicolas and when Mario leaned forward to talk to Armando Betty was about to end her call so they are essentially talking about how to go about finding out who Betty's boyfriend is) something I cannot hear. As Betty fully exits her office Mario moves from being up front to in the back of the room by the doors that take us to the meeting room. He looks Betty down and up as if checking her out.

This small frame(I don't know if when they were whispering it was them arguing over Mario's proposal of the plan or if Mario hadn't proposed it yet and it was just them talking about how to find out who Nicolas is because again, since this bootleg version isn't the complete one some scenes are missing so I could be wrong about this one! but the episode I saw on NBC showed the exact same scene so I'm going by the first "(red)" in the paragraph above) allows us to depict Mario coming up or starting to scheme the plan.

We know Mario Calderon will screw anything that has legs, wears skirts, and breathes and consents that is(<-hopefully). Every woman who has had a seggsual relationship with him has said so. Marcela warned Paty about it before they got involved so I'm assuming that in this scene Mario is checking out Betty to see if it's possible for someone to really love(lust) her and if not than he needs to figure out a plan and a way to convince Armando to follow through said plan.

When you're writing a novel you write down the key points you want to make but as you imagine certain scenes you really delve into detail of characterization. You make sure that whatever happens in that scene that your characters behave as themselves. So you really spend time getting to know your characters. This is a general rule of thumb for any creative writer. The plus of being a novelist or writing literature is that you can really go deep into details and write scenes in really long poetic ways. I don't know how to write scripts but I've read some from TV shows I've watched and they are written differently than a novel. Scripts have more dialogue than poetic descriptions and they are usually blunt with what the writer wants from each character in that scene.

For example: (Take this with a grain of salt I don't know how to write scripts I am going off based on how I've read them)

Ana walks into the room. The camera focuses on her face. There's lighting outside and we see the lighting flash on her face.

Julian turns to see her. He is surprised to see her. He thought she was dead. He stands up slowly. The camera focuses on his face and then Ana's.

She smiles at him, tears forming in her eyes.

"Is that re-really you?" He stutters. He then walks slowly towards her.

In a script you write where the camera goes, where the actors move, the facial expressions, the mood of the room, and so forth. Yes directors do have a say on how they choreograph scenes and actors can add their own two cents but script writers have a pretty good idea of everything that is going on the scene and why it is. If in novel writing(that's not the correct term) we focus a lot on how the reader will imagine the scene and being able to correctly and artistically discribe it as well as how they will understand it because we are not focusing on visual cues like script writers but rather focused on using words to be able to paint a inner visual picture than in scripts the writer usually focuses on tone and movement. The same rule still stands though; show don't tell.

Why do I even bring this up?

This helps us understand that what is shown here isn't just an accident. We aren't being fed what we're told, we are being fed what we see. What we see is the final vision of the writer. Fernando Gaitan was the only one to write this novel and he wrote every detail with the intention of it to mean something.

I have no doubt that the actors added their own flavor as they are excellent actors and the reason why we were able to fall in love with these character. The directing is amazing as well. The scene cuts, the frames, and the choreo are amazing(tho some stills are funny and y'all know which ones) but the writing has a lot to do with it. If anyone is a script writer or knows what that's about correct me if I'm wrong!

I say this because what we are being told and shown is that Armando had feelings for Betty and not a crush like Betty did. He actually cared about her, as a friend. I know many don't agree with that because Armando was a crappy boss. We see them always interact as boss and employee but the reason why I continue to bring up the fact that he started to blur those lines is because we were being told and shown that.

Armando is mechanical. He is emotionless to the outsiders. As he once told Betty that she probably thinks he is a man of ice and later on in the future we see Betty daydream telling Marcela that she knows Armando acts like he's got a heart of stone but deep inside of him he needs a lot of love. However Armando isn't a man of iron and he tells that to Betty himself.

We are told this but what are we shown?

We are shown an erratic, often driven by emotion, and neutronic person. Now the people he has surrounded himself with aren't the most loving and welcoming people. They are pretty judgy and stuck up. So often the emotions he shows and knows how to distinguish well are anger, frustration, and most of all being erratic with the emotions mentioned above. These emotions drive him. The people around him think that he is a man of stone and that nothing moves him. However we then meet a woman who isn't like that at all or like any of the people he has surrounded himself with.

This person is kind, loving, respectful, and sweet to everyone. She loves her job, loves her friends, loves her family and secretly loves her boss. In a very poetic way Betty is color in an otherwise black and white world. She brings warmth to Armando and because they work so closely, how is he not supposed to be affected by this? How is he not supposed to be changed and moved by this?

He is an awe of her morals, of Betty's qualities and her general presence and though we aren't bluntly told this by the characters themselves we are shown this and it's not by accident and not by mistakes of post production.

Take a break if you need it.

It isn't an accident that we see Mario so much in these scenes just standing in the background taking it all in because he truly is the mastermind behind Betty's downfall. He truly mapped out and planned the way to seduce Betty and how to manipulate Armando and didn't even care if it hurt her or his best friend. What he cared about was that his best friend remained President because titles mean everything to him. As we saw in the past when Armando and him were arguing over the deal with the Panamanian fabric seller, while Armando focused on how it not only affected him and the major shareholders but everyone, Mario reminded him that he was also a minority shareholder, but a shareholder nonetheless. Armando's inner turmoil was that he was jeopardizing the livelihood of not only the company's shareholders, and his family but the entire company's employee roster while Mario was more focused on himself, telling him that he too had a lot to lose but not understanding what really weighted down Armando's shoulders.

Think about it, Mario in a sense is a leech. He gets the crumbs of women Armando doesn't want. If I'm not mistaken in the spinoff Eco Moda Mario himself says that women only ever showed interest in him because they wanted to get close to Armando. Mario lives off of the crumbs of Armando, not only with women but socially. Armando is one of the major shareholders of Eco Moda, he's attractive, charismatic, and an important figure in society and not only among the Fashion world like Mario is. Mario Calderon wasn't going to let his best friend lose the title of being President for anything because than it would be bad for him. It would be bad for his reputation to have been his close friend and accomplice to Armando while also being a part of a disastrous presidency term in the company.

Mario is charismatic, one could even say a lot more than Armando seeing as I myself even like him even when I know all of this about his character. I find him funny, charming, and at times endearing but of course that's when you look at him on a surface level.

Mario Calderon is despicable. He is downright selfish and egocentric down to the bone. He maps out this plan so easily because he knows his two victims well. He has seen Armando's disagreements with Marcela, he has witnessed first hand Armando's change towards Betty and silently observed Betty's interactions with Armando. He himself has thrown out his conclusions on Betty's actions by a simple snip bits of conversation that he's either been in the room to hear or heard from Armando himself.

Who better to make Betty fall in love than Armando? Because Betty has those feelings there and who better to do be the one to do this than Armando? Not only because those feelings are there but because Armando can stomach the job. The man who is confused about his feelings and behaving erratically and emotionally driven than Armando?

Because Armando proposes for Calderon to do it. At first Calderon is grossed out by the idea but Armando presents everything telling him he isn't the boss, that he has no morals and he was perfect for the job. Mario agrees with all of that, even asks for a bigger percentage of shareholding and Armando agrees. This gives us the understanding that Mario would be willing to seduce Betty.

I realize this contradicts my own personal opinion that Armando agreed to do this because it meant he was saving Betty from Nicolas but lets remember that Armando was afraid to face those feelings and he wasn't even aware that they were there. Here Armando and Mario weren't talking about love, as he thinks Betty is so in love with Nicolas that he is her eternal love and that Nicolas would take advantage of that and poison her against them, they are talking about seduction, meaning seggsual. Which I've said before Armando thinks lust is love and therefore that if he ain't wanting to jump they bones in that instant that it cain't be love therefore my mans thought he had no feelings for Betty(idk why bc we do get two scenes where he checks her out briefly (I am sure of this because it's the episode where Betty tripped and was limping and when Mario brought it up Armando asked if she didn't already walk like that, if he had been noticing her walk than he would have been aware of the limp but his eyesight went from the top of Betty's head all the way down. Do with that information what you'd like :)) and where he gets jealous when Charlie Zas kissed her cheek(someone once said that they were celos de jefe and excuse me ma'am jealousy is jealousy and a normal boss would not feel that. If my boss or manager ever did that I woulda done been fired in that instant))

Take a break if you need it.

Okay return back to this scene.

While Calderon does this mila second rundown of Betty, Armando and him share a stare. Either Armando wants the room to himself or is looking at him for a confidence boost. Then Mario nods and lets him know he'll leave them be.

Armando sticks to the script by not removing his trust from Betty. Instead he encourages her and congratulates her on doing things well.

In this scene while Betty has been entirely focused on the work at hand and being professional Mario was busy assessing the situation while Armando... is hard to read here. He is keeping himself composed rather than being emotionally driven or erratic or neurotic. In truth he is showing one of his best traits so far, composure. When he is sure of what he wants to happen Armando is really good at keep composure, feelings at bay, and controlling the situation. Something he later loses as he begins to get more lost and confused in his own feelings and understanding them.

Betty here is endearing, honestly I find Betty endearing at all times lol. She's super cute and such a good sport since her character is written to capture your heart, not by sympathy but by empathy. Again just like Armando how are we not supposed to be affected by such a sweet character? Constantly putting her feelings aside for Armando's, who hasn't done that? We empathize with her because at some point or another we've been her and ironically it's the exact same reason why we sympathize and empathize with Armando because at some point or another we've all been there where we let the worse get the best of us and we've learned to live with it and deal with it same as he.

As Betty starts to leave the office Armando calls her name, stands up in a slow but steady way showing us that he is the one in control in this situation. His tone is controlled but not enough where you don't hear that resent.

"Betty you didn't hadn't told me you've got a boyfriend"

Betty looks taken aback by this behavior of his. As she stares at him a bit shocked and rocks on her feet, seeming uncomfortable with this but also worried.

Armando proceeds to say "and that that boyfriend is Nicolas Mora, your friend from university. The one you've got in Terra Moda" Notice how now there is a waiver in his voice and he no longer is being as composed or in control of his emotions. As he for split seconds allows those emotions of jealousy and possessiveness to sweep through his tone of voice.

In this scene Armando isn't so much giving us body language as he is stiff, showing nervousness and discomfort himself, often we see this whenever Marcela is interrogating him but he is giving us tonality in voice.

Again the sequence as he names the list of what and who Nicolas is shows priority. First, Nicolas is Betty's boyfriend, that guy she's talked about who she went to university with, and she's got him working in Terra Moda. His priority: Betty has a boyfriend. He knows who said boyfriend is and he knows what he does.

Betty tells him that she doesn't have a boyfriend: "Ay ay no Doctor, eso no es cierto." Betty normally has a waiver her voice whenever she's nervous or scared so it's not unlike her to have it here, she smiles and chuckles nervously. In translation what she says is lost so by interpretation this is what she said "Hmm? No sir... um that's not true."

Armando's tone is now accusing her. He seems angered by Betty's "denial" as he tells her "It's not true? I heard it-" we then get a frame of Betty's reaction. She is truly concerned over this as we later find out at the end of the day that she was worried that it could cause Don Armando to build distrust towards her. Again we are shown that Betty is keeping it all professional whilst Armando isn't.

"I heard when Bertha told you, right in front of me. [Y'all] started gossiping, didn't notice I was there. You both forgot about me, no Betty?"* He is shaking as if agitated and he sports a cocky smile because he feels like he caught her in her own lie.

[*]This could be taken in a double sense. In his eyes Betty was so excited about hearing that her "eternal love" called her that she forgot he was in the room and in a figurative way, Betty forgot him.

Betty's understanding of his behavior is rational. He's upset that she withheld vital information from him after she told him she had nothing else to hide(when he interrogated her the previous night) and this is related to a professional work related situation.

Armando now sports similar traits to that of Marcela when she is looking for reasons to act out on her anger. Armando is agitated as stated before and while Betty goes to explain herself Armando grabs his glass of whisky, not taking his eyes off Betty and drinks(cantinero, otro whisky!(Now his behavior here is very interesting because as he grabs the glass to drink from it he takes in a deep breath. At first I interpreted this for anger but after seeing it a few times I realize it's panic. While at first he was composed and sure of what he was feeling which was anger, now he is faced with uncertainty from feelings he doesn't recognize and he doesn't know where this conversation is going to head or how he'll react or feel so he enters panic mode)). She tells him that it was something the cuartel came up with because she once mentioned Nicolas and since then they haven't gotten it out of their heads that he is her boyfriend "I don't have anything with him."

Then relief starts to wash over him as Betty's final words are reassuring him that she doesn't have a boyfriend. In this frame Armando no longer has a drink in hand and he doesn't seem as tense as before.

"Definite? We're sure of that?"

Betty chuckles and nods and his tone of voice returns to being soft spoken and calm, even hopeful as he tells her "Okay, okay it was only curiosity." (What kind of curiosity tho?;))

Betty leaves his office and has a slight smile and was on the brink of a daydream when Sofia interupts her from doing that.

I have this dumb theory where Aura Maria and Freddy are in some way a parallel of Betty and Armando except that Aura Maria takes on the role of Armando while Freddy takes on the role of Betty and if y'all want I'll write a post explaining this.

Take a break if you need it.

Skip a scene we've got Armando interacting with Freddy. Usually everyone pays the burnt of Armando's anger and in this scene he looks anything but angry. He actually humors Freddy which allows us to know that after that conversation with Betty, he has one less problem(you know the one that topped all the others). He then laughs at Freddy(I find it ironic that Freddy told him that what Jenny and him have is strictly professional at which Armando laughs and repeats the same thing. The reason I find it ironic is because we as an audience know that what J & F have is not strictly professional and the conversation Armando just had with Betty wasn't strictly profession. In other words, Fernando Gaitan has a good sense of humor) and tells him to show him his lil dancy dance and leaves to go to Mario's Office.

When he enters his office he informs him he spoke to Betty about that infamous boyfriend.

"What did she say?" Mario asks.

"Well no, that she doesn't have a boyfriend." his smiles and says happily. He the catches him up on the gossip.

While Armando is now showing an array of emotion and excitement Mario is poker face, fidgeting with his pen and studying Armando.

He tells him "You know what this means? That I'm a happy man!" he chuckles and looks around the room as if really taking in the news and letting the relief settle in. "What a relief, finally some good news today, ah" he says the final part as if he were an italian chef. This lets us know that Armando is truthfully relieved to find out that Betty, his Betty is single and that he is still her special man.

In the previous post I talked about how Armando went about listening his excuses to start drinking early that day and how he basically went going from his smallest problem to the biggest one as he says that the one that topped all of his other problems was Betty having a boyfriend.

See, all his other problems were a cause of stress and anger, emotions he is very familiar with so they don't disconcert him however, jealousy or fear of losing Betty, are new territory for him that alone freaked him out but the fact Betty had a boyfriend was enough to just push the boy just close enough to the edge he needed a drink so early in the morning because it was anguish.

Mario tells him he has never seen him so relieved and happy to find out a woman doesn't have a boyfriend to which we pan out to see Armando roll his eyes and slouch against the chair, annoyed at Mario's insinuation once again.

Mario reminds him of the last time he saw that same expression on him which was when he found out some woman was separated from her husband. Armando then tells him not to diminish the good news because it meant Betty hadn't ommited any information from him.

To really bring this post to the full potential of it being analytical let us break this down.

Why was it important for him that Betty not omit information from him? Especially relating to something so personal and intimate of Betty's life outside of the office? (Again the argument that this is only about Eco Moda and Terra Moda are disproven in the previous post).

[EDIT: Sometimes as I write I've got two ideas at the same time and forget to finish writing them. It wasn't only important for the reasons mentioned below but because he does in fact want to know more about Betty as he later tells Bertha the same thing].

Armando went through the five stages of grief.

Anger, denial, anger, denial, more denial, and then moving on.

He did not accept that Betty had a boyfriend therefore when she told him she didn't he fully believed her, didn't ask more questions.

For Armando Betty's character means a lot. I don't mean the individual personification of Betty as a fictional character in this novela I mean as in her inner self and what she represent. To him Betty represent stability, comfort, unconditionality, honesty, and most of all fidelity and loyalty and the last three qualities are what he is always naming. If she withheld something from him it would mean that Betty was no longer that. She no longer would be an object of reassurance and comfort but like everyone else she'd become an unpredictable and untrustworthy individual in his life. Some one more that he needed to keep at arm's length or pretend around.

Armando has gotten a taste of being around someone who doesn't judge him when he is himself and doesn't hold it over him when he makes mistakes based on his neurotic nature or anger issues. Instead he has been around someone who understand he's like that, someone who is patient and knows how to call him out on it and how to handle his erratic behavior so he has learned to let his guard down little by little and found a niche of comfort in his assistant but if she lied to him it would take all of that away. It would be betrayal in his eyes.

That's why it was so important to him that Betty didn't keep secret from him. Especially seeing as they were forming a friendship that was based on honesty and respect towards each other. This explains why that was important to him. It's important for him to have trust in her.

However we ain't kidding anyone because his reaction was possessive over Betty because Betty has given all of these things to Armando, who has never really received them without some fine print, and he doesn't want to share her with anyone else. This is possessiveness and it is not love or romantic. It is a toxic trait because not one person belongs to someone and Armando feels that Betty belongs to him. Be it romantically, platonically, or work related, a person is a human being and they do not belong as an object or property to anyone.

Armando is a very emotionally immature individual and this shows us that.

Mario then proceeds to be his classical self, which is to sow the seed of paranoia in his best friend as he starts to point out that her friends wouldn't be saying that if Betty hadn't given them a reason. His hands clasped in front of him show a position of power. Right now he is holding the cards and he is well aware of that.

Right as he see the reaction he wanted from Armando he leaves him to ferment so to speak in the paranoia he has left in him. Armando becomes nervous all over again and susceptible to it.

He is left with himself and he says "Y quien es el.." now if you're hispanic or latino you'll find the humor in how that scene ends as he starts to sing in a sorrowful tone a very romantic and a song that I'd say most listen to when dealing with a break up "y en que lugar se enamoro de ti?"

Which translate to "And what is he like? and in what place did he fall in love with you?"

I won't read too much into that as I'm sure it was written in for humor or added in for the humor effect as we've had some pretty heavy emotionally driven scenes in this episode but I do think it's an ironic placement of humor.

Now to bring the final scene that I will be discussing regarding Armando finding out about Betty's boyfriend we come full circle with Armando asking Bertha about it.

He acts charismatic, composed and professional to get Bertha to talk to him.

"The subject is the following: I've got a long time working with Betty and It's just until now that I find out she's got boyfriend. Do you know who he is?"

"Well like really know? No, because she's so reserved"

He then with a pierced mouth nods. Again those feelings are creeping back up. I get it. He's feeling paranoia, distrust, betrayed, hurt, offended, scared, jealous, possessive and angry but this proves what I mentioned about Armando having his guard up at all times because he doesn't show any of this to Bertha, at least not enough where she picks up but because we as an audience are given so much detail regarding his character, we can.

Quickly he asks her "And you don't know how long she's been dating him?" brings us full circle again. The same tone he had with Betty when he told her that he was in the same room as her when Bertha said that she had a boyfriend, minus the smirk and actual reaction of his, once again proves that Armando knows when to show his reaction and how to be in control and composed.

Bertha proceeds to tell him the "actual" story in which she tells him "dating dating? No, but he does have her eating from the palm of his hand because she's stupidly in love with him." and we hear Armando gasp and say "No." we then get a frame of his face which shows us... the opiset of happiness, joy, relief, tranquility, peace, serenity but with someone trying to be composed.

Bertha tells him that Mariana read her the cards and said that he was Betty's dream man and that he was going to change her life and she was going to change his life. I don't care for that but for the sake of this breakdown I'll mention it.

We know that Betty's dream man is Armando, not Nicolas. However everyone else thinks it's Nicolas. Armando's facial expression shows someone once again panicking.

He not only finds out that Betty has boyfriend, now it turns out she didn't just omit something from him but lied when he asked her and to top it off she so happens to be stupidly in love with him and on top of all of that he is Betty's dream man and to finish it off, he will change her life and she will change his life in the mildest of riches, meaning with Betty becoming the sole owner of Eco Moda and Terra Moda, making her rish rish $$$.

This is when it no longer is just about his mixed up feelings for Betty but now the entire livelihood of his family and everyone that works for Eco Moda.

Eco Moda is Armando's pride and joy. He does love that company which is why he started that scheme in the first place because he didn't want to lose it, let his father down, prove Daniel right, and throw away 30 plus year of his father's work and life time(Also as we're told because of his goals). The company means a great deal to him and in ways he's not aware of yet, so does Betty.

However someone is aware of this, not to the deep knowledge that Armando has regarding whatever he thinks he is feels towards Betty but they've got some sort of idea regarding this and they innact and come up with a plan to secure the company, the presidency, and his statues and reputation.

Step one: Tell Armando that he needs to make Betty fall in love with him to secure the company. Women in love will do anything for the one they love therefore if he beats Nicolas to the goal we secure the company. It worked with Paty(he's stupid so his logic doesn't work)

Step two: Convince Armando that he is the right candidate for the job. If that doesn't work, manipulate him with paranoia and make him fear Betty. If that doesn't work, tell him you were sure that Betty was in love with him before you found out about Nicolas.

Step three: Tell Armando I will be in charge of all the corny details because he will freak out and get way over his head and ruin the plan.

Step four: make fun of him.

Step five: Go on a trip and write a letter that explains the entire plan in detail and leave it on my desk without telling my secretary to not let anyone touch it or go near it except Armando so that she can go into my office, and I know how she likes to be nosy, and she can then think it's in the wrong office and give it to her assistant who takes care of all of his stuff, literally, and she finds it, reads it and does exactly what I was afraid of and made my best friend afraid of as well and that will then bring her downfall, his downfall, therefore the entire company's downfall.

Step six: never realize how stupid I am or take full accountability for it and apologize sincerely for all the wrong and harm I have caused.

Obviously I'm not saying Armando is innocent or that he didn't do anything wrong. He did. He allowed his best friend to manipulate him when he said he wouldn't listen to him again(the panama thing), he allowed his best friend to make fun of Betty and was a coward to admit his true feelings not only to himself but to his best friend. He was a willing(felt guilty for it but nonetheless willing) participant in the plan.

By now breaking down these past episodes and scenes allows us to understand where Armando was coming from so we can sympathize just a bit for him and his confusion and how he was so easily manipulated by Mario, however this doesn't mean he isn't guilty. At the start of it he too to some degree thought no one could love Betty, (yes we later find out that he did care for her as he tells Mario that he feels endearment for Betty and he looks relieved to find that out. I will be breaking down that scene when I get to it) because of her physicality (I already talked about this but when the time is right I will go into deep detail regarding this part of Armando's character).

It is eleven AM. I have been writing this post for the past seven hours and I am beat and tired. I hope this makes sense.

Once again, 'til next time.

HAHAHA OKAY I FORGOT TO ADD SOME COMMENTARY ON THE REST OF THIS SCENE.

[Edit:

Bertha proceeds to tease Armando about him liking gossip and being Nosey. He gets annoyed at her but in order to get the information he wants he stays composed and tells her that he just wants to know about Betty.

"It's not that[I like gossip], it's just that this is about someone who is really close to me everyday-who I work really close with- and truth be told I am a little curious about Betty's life. You know, one just imagine her a little ugly and with boyfriend...? You know? Why don't you tell me the whole thing?"

At first he is a being defensive while trying to justify the fact he is being nosey. His tone then changes to endearing as he tells her "truth be told I am a little curious about Betty's life." and his face goes along with the tone as he says "you know, one just imagines her a little ugly-" he catches himself and say "and with boyfriend...?"

Overall what we have learned here is that Armando is really good at dismissing his feelings on the spot, suppressing them, and running away from them(I too do that and it's a pain in the butt). He does this as a sport.

Bertha then tells him "The thing is that Betty doesn't like it much for you to know about her private life." and this again offends Armando as he straightens his face and stares at Bertha in shock and as Bertha says "How is it, Sir..." and he quickly sits down to listen to her. "that this morning when we left your office she pulled me aside and told me that she didn't want you to know about her intimate life?" he rubs his chin, eyes still on Bertha and whispers "Really?"

Armando knows that Bertha can't tell half a gossip so instead of asking her to keeping telling him, practically begging her to tell him the whole scoop he manipulates her by saying "If this is going to cause problems then don't tell me. Let's leave it as is, Bertha, thank you." his tone is somber to tug at her strings, how could she possibly leave this man curious over this juicy gossip? and how could she not tell the whole story? Especially because it's her boss?

Bertha chuckles and tells him that she, of course is going to tell him, that she is dying to tell him. Armando then tells her "Well then if this is between us two it doesn't leave the planet, go on, tell me how did it go?"

Armando starts to bit his nail as he listen to Bertha start from the beginning.

She tells him word for word what Mariana said about Betty's dream man. She's obviously describing Armando, but to everyone else that's Nicolas, so the impression or idea that Armando now has of Nicolas is that he isn't some loser or nerd or some nobody but he is an important man who is the type of man woman lust over. They will have an intense relationship that will be strong and that the man is fundamental for her life.

This describes a man that is both important and that will be for sure in Betty's life.

Now Bertha goes on to describe the man Betty told them about. He is desired by woman,tall, handsome, strong, isn't rich but has money, has a big car, and his name is Nicolas Mora. However Betty clearifies that she has nothing going on with him, that she just likes him and she feels a strong attraction to him but that nothing has happened between them.

Then Mariana tells her that something will happen because it will change both of their lives.

Take into account that though Betty's life in a personal aspect hasn't changed much in the professional aspect it has. She's got a respectable job, a boss who values her work ethic and her enough to hand over his company which means she's could be rich. She's abandon some of her morals to collaborate with her scheming boss and is doing things that aren't morally correct.

Armando's life has changed not only professionally but personally. For one he's begun to let his guard down and given more of himself to a woman he isn't in a relationship or knowingly attracted to, his relationship with Marcela is only getting worse and Betty is usually the center of their biggest fights, he has now built a friendship with said woman built on trust and respect, something he has never done with any other woman and of course professionally he has sunken his and his family's company into debt.

I'd say Armando's life is changing a lot and that's not even the peak of it. Betty's life is also changing a lot and they haven't even started dating.

Armando is aware of how Betty's life is changing on a work related level so he obviously believes everything Bertha is telling him because he knows things she doesn't know.

Impatiently and annoyed Armando tells Bertha to explain what she means by "it's going to change their lives." which again since he "knows" things Bertha doesn't, therefore Tweedledum has sowed the seed of paranoia and Tweedledee has given it the perfect terrain for it to flourish so Armando is now listening to Mario's voice that Betty could turn against them though the important thing to note here is that Armando isn't mistrusting of Betty instead he is really mistrusting of Nicolas, because again, who could really fall in love with "ugly" betty. Except that's a joke on it's own because the idiot was already having feelings for her.

They are interrupted by Guti Guti and this is where I will end this post.

Truthfully until next time. ]

#analysis of ysblf #armando mendoza #armando ysblf #don armando #mario calderon #betty pinzón solano #betty ysblf #betty la fea #ysblf #yo soy betty la fea

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ronsenburg · 3 years

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Hi! I wanted to ask you something about Klapollo. What topic/argument do you think could possibly cause them to break up or take a break from the relationship? I live for the drama and was thinking about maybe writing a fic but like I dont want to make either of them assholes, like Apollo bringing Kristoph up to hurt Klavier, for example. I don't think he would do that but I struggle to come up with something else.

Oh boy, I hope you’re not upset about this, but I wrote you an essay. I’m sorry.

Overall, I really like the klapollo relationship timeline because, compared to, say, narumi/su they have a much more normal, organic story. They meet, flirt, share a mutual trauma, get together! Totally normal! But I also think that they would have a much harder time than narumi/su finding the balance you need in a serious relationship and I can see them calling it quits for perfectly practical reasons that aren’t really anything to do with one being a jerk, you know? Here are my top things that I think they would have to navigate and maybe struggle with before a real happily ever after:

1. Money. You’ve probably seen my post where I talk about Apollo feeling uncomfortable with displays of affluence. I don’t think that this is an easy one to get past. AA6 Spoilers, but Dhurke and Datz literally raised them in hiding on the run in the mountainous jungles of Khura’in. They sent Apollo to the states as a nine year old. We don’t know what he did when he got here, but my money’s always been on the foster system. That doesn’t typically breed a sense of stability, financial or otherwise.

From my experience (so take it with a grain of salt), children who grow up with very little tend to behave in one of two ways when they reach financial stability and/or achieve wealth: first option, they’re really bad with it. They spend it nearly as fast as they make it on things they didn’t get to have or experience when they were growing up. Second option, they never spend it. They know what it’s like to be without, so they save as much of it as they can so they have the security of knowing, if something happens, they won’t have to go back to the way it was before. I will always put Apollo in the latter category. He works hard for what he has and what he gets and, I think, things that signify extravagance make him uncomfortable. On the other hand, I think that the Gavin’s have always had some sort of wealth. Klavier and Kristoph have very different aesthetics to their spaces that we get to experience (Klavier’s office and Kristoph’s cell) but they’re both pretty lavish. Now, we can assume they each made their money individually in their respective careers but, honestly, Kristoph’s cell is so gaudy. To me, it screams “this is what I’m used to and I refuse to accept any less” which is an attitude that I feel comes more from a lifetime of that treatment.

So if we accept everything that I’ve said above as true, trying to put a person who saves every penny they get and feels bad treating themselves with a person who spends money freely because it’s been a constant throughout their life? It can go poorly. Casually dating, maybe it’s not such an issue once Apollo says “please no more presents and can we just get takeout for once?” but if you’re talking about something more serious, where you have to live in the same space and pay joint bills and be confronted with the other person’s spending habits constantly, it’s a whole other thing. Please take it from me as a person in a long term relationship who loves their partner tremendously—everyone fights about money. Everyone. It would be very difficult for Apollo to feel comfortable, even if he knew that finances were in good shape and there was savings, etc. Things happen, people leave. Nothing gold can stay. Changing that line of thinking takes work. It would also be easier said than done for Klavier to just do an about face on his own habits for Apollo’s comfort. Being a celebrity makes money, but it costs money, too. There is a certain amount of lushness that people expect. That can’t just go away. These are things that become bigger problems overtime, no matter how much you love each other.

Anyway, I would be really surprised if—even if you’re writing them as really happily married—Apollo doesn’t have a ‘emergency fund’ that even Klavier doesn’t know about. It’s a ‘just in case’. Just in case Klavier leaves him. Just in case he needs to get away fast. Just in case the world ends. It’s not a logical thing, something that he sat down and rationalized doing, it’s just there because it feels better to have it than to not. But that can be kind of hurtful if the other person finds out about it, so. There you go, a whole minefield of money related drama.

2. Apollo’s Abandonment Issues. He’s got them! What do you call and orphan twice over who also lost his very best friend? I don’t know, but if capcom doesn’t stop picking on my boy I’m going to kick them in the teeth. I will still never get over AA6 for telling us that Dhurke took Apollo in when he was orphaned as a baby, then abandoned him in the USA, then came back for him and got his hopes up, and then was actually dead the whole time! Hahahaha! What a trip!

Anyway, you don’t come back from that super easy. People who suffer this kind of trauma usually have a really hard time trusting others, which is understandable. They also can have unrealistic needs from their partners, become codependent, or even just self-sabotage their relationships, pulling away first to try and avoid the pain because they think the other person will leave them. I think that last one is most likely for Apollo, especially given the disparity in circumstances I mentioned above. If Apollo can’t trust that Klavier actually loves him, can’t trust that he won’t leave him like EVERYONE ELSE HAS, then they can’t have a healthy relationship. Drama.

3. Klavier’s Emotional Trauma. Kristoph is a pretty big jerk to Klavier in the last case of AA4. He criticizes and undermines Klavier, threatens and admits to manipulating him. In the anthology, Klavier shares an “lol so funny!” story about Kristoph accidentally breaking a window while he and Klavier are playing ball. In it, he convinces Klavier that it was his fault and that he should take the blame and apologize for breaking the window! And Klavier does! That’s gaslighting, baby, and since the Anthology is supposed to be canon, we can take that to mean it’s been happening since Klavier was a kid. Think about that. An entire life of gaslighting and manipulative behavior! You don’t come back from that easily, either.

People who experience emotional abuse can, among other things, suffer from depression and low-self esteem. They need affirmation from their partners and can have a hard time with letting people in or being honest (though not from a malicious mindset—more a “I’m going to say what I think you want to hear because if you’re happy, bad things won’t happen!”). They can also always be waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. Sure things are good, but when will that end and the bad time start? It’s a self fulfilling prophecy: if all you can do is worry about things going wrong, then you aren’t actually enjoying when things are going right and you will cause the issues you’re so worried about. Drama.

4. Fame. Klavier has been in the spotlight since he was a literal child. If the Gavinners were already hits when Klavier was 17, they likely formed and starred their rise some time before then. A year, maybe two? Klavier spent his formative years in the spotlight. He quite literally doesn’t know any other way. Apollo, on the other hand, has never experienced the kind of scrutiny he’d be subject to when dating someone like Klavier. It can be really stressful and hurtful and just overall not a good time. And I’m not saying that Klavier wouldn’t be sympathetic, but I don’t think he would really understand how difficult it could be to have been thrust into that position out of nowhere, because he’s had years of dealing with it and was in a completely different place in life when it began for him. It’s not unreasonable to think that Apollo might not be able to take it. You can love someone and want to be with them but if you can’t adapt to their lifestyle, it’s not going to work. They could walk away rather than risk what might happen to Apollo if they kept it up. Drama.

5. Careers. They both have very demanding jobs. While sharing a similar profession can mean there’s a mutual understanding, it can also cause issues if you... never get to see each other? Schedules can be out of alignment (which could easily happen; their cases can’t always line up and they seem to require a lot of time investment outside of just normal hours). If Klavier goes back into music, that’s an additional time constraint. Why be in a relationship when you can only see the other person for moments here and there? What about the stress that comes with those jobs? That can cause drama.

6. Klavier looks like Kristoph. They are very different people, yes, but similar enough in some ways that it could cause tension. Maybe Klavier is tired and stressed and snaps at Apollo, and suddenly, all Apollo can see is Kristoph and all he can feel is the uncomfortable churning in his stomach that goes along with the memories of him. Someone he trusted, someone who let him down. That’s a difficult subject to broach, and it can fester like an infected wound if left intended.

But Apollo sounds like Kristoph sometimes. We saw it in AA5, which is, of course, an extreme circumstance. But it can come out from time to time in other ways. A phrase that slips out, the way he intones certain words, the way he signs off in his emails—little things that are harmless, but can still act as triggers.

Sometimes you need to get away from things that can remind you of your past in order to work on getting over them. If you are in love with someone who shares a similar trauma, who brings those issues from the past to light frequently just by being themselves, it might not be a healthy situation. I don’t think they would need to throw it in each other’s faces for it to become an issue. Drama.

There are more, but I probably took this more seriously than you intended. Whoops! Anyway, I hope that helps??? Maybe???? I hope you get them back together in the end because they deserve to be happy though!!!!!!!

#LONG POST #shut up krissy #if you want me to cut this please let me know #klapollo

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masked-puppetmaster · 3 years

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hey, i saw you asked a while ago why dream & techno apologists are apologists for those characters (and you liked a bunch of my posts concerning that, actually) i was wondering if you still have any more questions - and also i wanted to ask if you wanted to talk a bit about c!tommy and what makes you like him so much? like is it just the emotional attachment to him? is it the trauma? anything specific about the way in which he is written? i've always watched his pov & i'm very curious! / - red

yo yo yo hey! I think I understand it a bit more now, for the dream & techo apologists, I think I’m still a bit confused when it comes to technoblade. I see a lot about people only using him as a weapon/ him not being able to trust people / no one sticking up for him and I’m not sure where it comes from? In all fairness, I only know him as the guy who executed Tubbo / spawned withers but im assuming that’s in large part because I came into the story so late (iirc I didn’t really get into the dsmp until around doomsday, and I got most information of past events just by like. osmosis or reading wikis) so I might simply just not have enough information on techno to get it. Like, he executed Tubbo under a lot of pressure iirc but that doesn’t take away from the fact he did execute him? or things with the withers, I know technoblade doesn’t like the government and I’d go as far as to say he has a point, but was it really necessary to destroy lmanburg (iirc, multiple times). I know he was mad, but I feel like he shouldn’t have taken in that far, like from what I see and understand it’s like yes he had his points but he hurt people and doesn’t seem to care that he hurt anybody, just kinda stands there assuming he’s right about everything and not rlly looking at the situation from anyone else’s perspective. That being said like I said I came into the story really late and so my arguments might be able to be chalked up to just a lack of proper context, and even if I’m kinda annoyed at Technoblade’s behavior I still like him as a character & when techno does stream I enjoy the content so I’m not like a technoblade hater or anything I just don’t see why people can be apologists for him bcos from my pov he’s just kind of hurt people and not taken any personal responsibility for it (I mean this as in acknowledging to himself he was ever in the wrong; ex. The whole Tommy / techno betrayal situation which I think was a p complicated matter to be fair he just keeps saying over and over how Tommy betrayed him and it doesn’t seem to me like he’s even bothering to look at the situation from Tommy’s pov or rlly reflect on his own actions at all)

I just rlly like Tommy! I think at least some part of it can be chalked up to Tommy being the first streamer I watched in the dsmp and one of the ones I watch the most from (half the time I’m watching the dsmp it’s a Tommy stream) so there’s just gonna be some inherent bias towards him there like there is with literally any of these streamers. As you put it, it is kinda the trauma, haha. trauma and emotional attachment lol. I think part of it is I relate to him a lot, and I can see where he’s coming from on a lot of things, and I also just like the way his character is written. Smthn abt him that people have pointed out is that his trauma isn’t pretty and romanticized it’s ugly and yk he acts out and all that, which I appreciate. I can see where he’s coming from on a lot of things or at least understand why he thinks the way he does. I like seeing him learn and grow I like seeing his arcs both personally with himself and with other people. He’s an interesting and complex character and he’s been through a lot and I think it’s just super interesting to see how what he’s gone though affects his mental state and his actions as a character, like just from like a mental analysis standpoint there’s a lot to talk about which I think is pretty cool. this isn’t to say that he’s never fucked up or done anything wrong, because he has, but to be fair so has everyone else on this server I don’t think there’s a single member of the server who’s done nothing wrong (except maybe like. Charlie. Charlie my beloved). He’s made his mistakes but every good character fucks up that’s what makes them a good character is their flaws and so with the ways that he’s messed up and the ways he’s hurt people I’m an apologist because I can see why he acts that way, where the feelings and actions are coming from and I can forgive him for it because I understand the why. Also I just think the punishments he’s received for his actions are rlly unfair, easy ex with exile he did something many people on the server have already done at one point or another and was exiled and mentally broken down over it and rlly it’s just been like one thing after another and even if he’s made mistakes he gets way more harshly punished than I think was fair. I’ve seen people talk about how annoying and selfish his character is and when I read the posts (not all of them, there’s a nice chunk of people who are civil about it) it just seems like they’re not rlly thinking abt his character and his experiences. I’ll see people explain his signs of trauma and say it’s annoying because it’s not soft crying trauma it’s messy acting out trauma which it’s just like you do not understand this at all, do you? Or with the discs, I’ll be honest with you here. I will defend Tommy’s attachment to these stupid little music discs till the day I die. Why can’t he have his discs? They’re his , they’re not even that valuable outside of the fact that they’re his, why can’t he have things? why isn’t he aloud to have items he’s attached to without someone taking them for the sole reason of he likes them. And all I see is people saying he is selfish and cares about the discs more than people, which is literally disproven in the rp. Ranboo flat out says he’s not selfish, when Tommy takes the blame for George’s house (also keeping in mind here tommy and ranboo barely knew each other at the time, and if Tommy was actually selfish he could’ve very easily dragged Ranboo down with him) and when it comes to the discs he’s given up the discs multiple times in favor of helping other people (he gave them up for lmanburg, and then for Tubbo I think twice actually) and the one time he told someone the discs were worth more than they were, that was the moment yeah made him realize he didn’t like who he was becoming and he immediately backtracked and allowed the disc to be handed over. TL;DR he’s not selfish he’s just got a lot of strong attachments and his attachments are both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness. And he’s a kid, he’s been though a lot of things, he’s got a lot of trauma he’s dealing

with and it’s not always pretty but he gets better, he has his arcs and he gets better and learns from some of his actions, and I think looking at him and his yk. Timeline and character development and arcs and his whole like mental deal and just general character choices are super interesting and I find it fun, as someone who enjoys character analysis, and all in all I love him I relate to him in some ways and some of it also might just be emotional attachment and bias towards him as Tommy being one of my comfort streamers

& it’s fully possible someone could have just as much of an argument for c!techno, my deal w looking at c!tommy making mistakes and c!techno making mistakes and being able to be an apologist for Tommy and not for techno is more about me understanding tommy’s character better and understand the reasoning and the why behind the things he says and does, vs. techno who i dont really get and i can’t be an apologist for him if I don’t understand anything hes doing or why he’s doing it and then seeing him over and over dismiss other peoples perspectives and never rlly reflecting on himself (not to say Tommy couldn’t use at least a little of that himself- I am Looking over at his relationship w Jack Manifold lol) can be kinda frustrating but as I said earlier that might just be me not knowing all the proper context

I could probably write more about Tommy especially when it comes to the whole technoblade vs Tommy thing but this post is already way longer than you probably ever wanted to read so I’ll stop now I’m sorry I’m just hyperfixated haha and yk if anyone wants to like add arguments or points or if you or someone rlly likes technoblade or dream or whoever and wants to talk to me about that go ahead I encourage that like I rlly enjoy having those conversations w ppl provided theyre civil abt it bc like we’ve all said a million times over before eveyone in the dsmp is an unreliable narrator and you’re just going to automatically have a bias towards a character if you watch their POV most and all that so. Yk I am a tommy apologist but I watch his streams most and I’m also just emotionally attached so anything I can say has to be taken w a grain of salt bcos I’m biased towards his character

#Long post #ask #anon #red #tommyinnit #c!tommy #technoblade #c!techno #c!technoblade #DSMP #dream smp #Tommy apologist #technoblade apologist #I’m so sorry I talked way more than I intended to whoops !!!!#That’s my two cents

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calliecat93 · 3 years

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When I started TNG, the biggest curiosity I had was why Dr. Pulaski was so hated. I heard plenty about why, but at the same time I wanted to see for myself and be able to draw my own conclusions. Well now that I’ve finished S2, I think that I can safely state my opinion and the reasons why she had such a bad reception.

My general opinion is… Pulaski’s fine, but she got an bad start. She’s a very competent doctor who is devoted to her duty. She’s a bit of a smartass, but otherwise a friendly enough person. She’s a VERY much based off a certain CMO form a certain other Star Trek show that came out before this one, but we’ll get to that later. Pulaski honestly had a lot working against her and she just wasn’t able to get over them despite her actress Diana Muldaur (who played Miranda Jones in TOS) doing an excelent acting job. It ultimately ended with Pulaski being dropped all together and Crusher returning in Season 3.

While I understand the hate against Pulaski and can’t say that it’s unwarranted to an extent, I think that a lot of it that I saw was overblown. Now if people disliked the character, that’s fine. Everyone has different tastes and reasons for what they like and dislike and should be free to have and express those thoughts. But a lot of the issues with her that I had were taken care of very early on and she became much better by the end of her tenure. So why do I believe that Pulaski ultimately failed? Well I’ve come up with three explanations based off my own observations from watching the show and what I got from fandom consensus. Now this is all my opinion based on those observations and is not objective fact whatsoever, so take this with a grain of salt. So I believe the reasons that Pulaski failed are:

#1. She Is Essentially a Female Dr. McCoy… Sort Of: Pulaski was clearly heavily based on Dr. McCoy from TOS. She’s an middle-aged, somewhat world-weary doctor. She’s stubborn, grumpy, and doesn’t put up with anyone’s crap. She’s witty and always ready with a biting comment. She has the dedication to her job. She has the bantery relationship with the Science Officer, which we’ll go into that here soon. She is a doctor before she is an officer and that will always be her top priority, even at great risk to herself. She has a zero tolerance towards authority and isn’t afraid to talk back to anyone no matter how much they outrank her. She even outright has a hatred of teleporters that McCoy had. The parallels are all there. It may be why I’m a bit more lenient on her since McCoy is very much my favorite character in TOS and so far all of ST. But I think it is very much the root of the problem.

While Pulaski has several of McCoy’s traits, I think the writers really only understood McCoy on a surface level. They forget to include his compassion, his empathy, his humanism, his loyalty to the captain even when he opposes his actions, all of the things that make McCoy… well, McCoy. I don’t even know if the pacifism is there. Also McCoy had over 70 episodes of TOS and at that point five films (Undiscovered Country hadn’t been made yet). Pulaski had about 20 episodes and her relevance depended on the episode. McCoy had that as well, but he also had more material so we had FAR more time to get to know him. Pulaski didn’t get to have the time to gain that depth or care from the audience. Like… can I imagine Pulaski hypoing someone so that she can be tortured in their stead and it have the same impact that The Empath did? Can I see her counseling and assuring Picard if he’s having doubts like McCoy did for Kirk in The Ultimate Computer (okay tbf that would be Troi’s job but still)? Could I imagine any of the main cast being crushed about Pulaski dying of a terminal illness and choosing to stay on essentially a doomed spaceship with someone she just met and feel as gutted as I did in For the World is Hollow…? Honestly… given time maybe but in the end no. Now could I imagine McCoy risking getting an aging illness to possibly cure a child and others of it ala Unnatural Selection? Yes, albiet I think he’d be smart enough to bring protective equipment with him to be safe. Could I imagine McCoy telling someone like Data they’d be wrong to sit by a woman giving birth because he wasn’t human ala The Child? Hell no. Maybe he would if he was worried it would cause potential distress the one giving birth, but it sure as hell wouldn’t be because they’re an android. But I could imagine that someone who just saw McCoy as ‘grumpy doctor with a bad bedside manner who says witty lines and argues with the logical Vulcan character’ would get that interpretation. Thus why I think that Pulaski may have ended up how she did.

Now mind you I do think it IS a double standard to excuse McCoy’s dickish momemts and flaws, but demonize Pulaski for her’s. It’s like saying a man can be that way because it’s just expected of them and they can be forgiven, but a woman doing so or being assertice is wrong and they are horrible and unforgivable for having these traits or having flaws even if they correct them. That being said I do think that it’s more than that and it all comes down to the fact that TOS and TNG are two different shows with different character dynamics and ways of doing things. TOS mainly followed a Triumvirate (for the most part but that’s a different post entirely), TNG is much more of an ensemble. Pulaski didn’t have a Kirk nor a Spock to bounce off of or either let her traits shine or be kept in check like McCoy did nor did she really develop any unique relations for herself aside from maybe with Troi. We hear about her empathy and humanitarianism, but we don’t really see it on-screen like we did with McCoy. She has his surface level traits, not the deeper ones that the Triumvirate dynamic along his doctor position allowed him to showcase. In other words, Pulaski was put in a series that wasn’t designed for her while McCoy was exactly where he needed to be in order to thrive. It really speaks to how much the TNG writers didn’t really seem to get McCoy or why and how his character worked, which is strange since they got him right when he showed up in the series premiere. But maybe that was due to DeForest Kelley and him absolutely knowing the character he’d played for so long. But yeah they tried to replicate McCoy, and it just didn’t work with TNG’s already established character dynamics nor did they fully get the character that they were trying to recreate. If I want McCoy, I’ll go watch TOS or AOS. I didn’t need Pulaski for that.

#2. Data and Misconstrued Character Dynamics; This is in relation to the first reason and REALLY shows how much the writers didn’t think the dynamics through. We all know how much Spock and McCoy bantered. How they are opposite ends of the spectrum and how their perspective points helped Kirk in making his decisions. Well clealry they wanted to re-create that with Pulaski and Data. Makes sense, Pulaski represents the humanism and Data the logical. But there’s one big, BIG problem with that: Data is NOT Spock. A lot fo people have pointed this out, but here’s the thing about Spock. Despite whatever he may have said, Spock DID have emotions. He kept them suppressed due to the issues in his upbringing and that wasn’t necessarily healthy, but he did have them. And despite speaking in a calm manner, he was also an utter sass bucket, could be rude, and had no issue putting down humanity if he had a point to make. He and McCoy were very much equal in their bantering and yes maybe McCoy could go too far with his insults, but there was always an equal balance and Spock was also perfectly capable of starting/escalating their spats. There were also plenty of moments to show that in spite of it, they were still friends and cared a great deal about each other with probably the best examples of this being The Immunity Syndrome, Bread and Circuses, The Empath, and plenty of moments in others like Miri and For the World is Hollow… Those who have been following me know how much I love the Spock/McCoy dynamic and I could go all day, but the point is it’s a complex relationship that may seem like disdain on the outside, but is so much more when you examine it up close.

Data however? Data is intelligent and the Science Officer with a calm demeanor, but that’s about where the similarity between him and Spock ends. Data is an android. I do not believe that he is emotionless, he just has a different wiring that causes him to feel things differently. He’s never shown disdain towards humanity at least from what I’ve observed thus far. If anything, he actively seeks to understand it and emotions more. He actively has hobbies like Sherlock Holmes. He tries things like sneezing and growing a beard in an effort to understand more. Data is more or less a child with a child-like understanding of things and he doesn’t really understand social cues or things like humor, but he DOES have emotions and feelings. There’s too much on-screen evidence to say otherwise. He just has his own way of processing it. This is what makes Pulaski look so bad. When she calls Data a machine, says he can’t understand, and even purposefully mispronounces his name, she comes across as an outright bully. She is essentially bullying a neurodivergent child. Do I need to explain why that’s awful? Data, while by no means a doormat, isn’t the type to sass back or make any biting comments back like Spock would. There is no balance. There is no equal footing. There are not enough positive interactions outside the banter to show that there is something deeper there at the end of the day like Spock and McCoy did. Heck you can even compare how Pulaski and McCoy talk to Data via McCoy’s guest appearance in Encounter at Farpoint. He DOES make a quip about Vulcans when talking to Data and when Data points out he’s an android not a Vulcan, McCoy mumbles “Just as bad.” But immediately after he gives Data genuine heartfelt advice on treating the Enterprise with care. It’s clear that ultimately it’s McCoy being his usual grumpy self who’d be acting the same way towards anyone else and is otherwise perfectly civil and encouraging to Data. We’ve known him long enough to know this. Pulaski didn’t have that luxury, coming off as condescending towards Data at best and considering that she’s a doctor, it looks especially bad.

Now to be fair this only lasts for about four episodes. Pulaski does start catching herself by her second episode, and stops completely after Unnatural Selection when Data helps her and stays with her after she gets the aging virus. After that she’s MUCH moe civil to him, even defending his choice going against the Prime Directive in Pen Pals and was at his retirement party in The Measure of a Man. But clearly the damage had been done. Data is a very beloved character and by Oulaski’s intro had already been established and well-liked character. Data was treated equally and was valued as far more than just an android among the rest of the crew, Crusher included, so Pulaski coming in a season later and acting that way also didn’t help. The writers did not think through why Spock and McCoy worked and how to try figure out a unique dynamic for Pulaski and Data. Instead they just tried to copy TOS, and it utterly failed. It ruined Pulaski’s chances before she could even really start running. But I do believe that she could have rebounded and as I said, she DID get past it. She did relapse some at the end of the season in Peak Performance to the point I wanna say that maybe it chronologically happened earlier in the season, but even then she felt realized her screw up and apologized. It’s still an improvement from early on. But things just weren’t meant to be, which leads is to…

#3. She Only Lasted One Season/She Replaced Dr. Crusher: I believe that the biggest thing that worked against Pulaski is simple: she was cut after Season 2. Pulaski was created when Gates MacFadden left the show. I’ve seen conflicting reasons as to why, but regardless she left and a CMO was needed. IDK how popular Crusher was, but I had really enjoyed her. She was essentially the mom of the ship which added something different from TOS (wel McCoy was also the mom lets be real XD), had a son onboard which also added something new, was very much capable and devoted to her job, and was a badass when she got to use a phaser. Her being written out sucked, but that’s not necessarily a reason to hate Pulaski. But as I highlighted above, she just didn’t work. They tried to make McCoy, but without the dynamics and depth that let McCoy flourish. TNG is not TOS. Whenever TNG tried replicating TOS like with The Naked Now? It blew up in their faces. The key to a spinoff or reboot is to keep certain themes and tone alive, but to not just replicate what came before. TNG flourished when it began to find it’s own footing, and ultimately lasted four seasons longer than it’s predecessor due to it.

I genuinely believe that Pulaski COULD have developed into her own character and could have found her place the same way that McCoy did. But alas that didn’t happen. People wanted Crusher back, so they managed to get MacFadden to return and thus Crusher was put back in her rightful place. Because of it, Pulaski was just forgotten about. She didn’t get the chance to form her own character. She didn’t the chance to develop further and leave her early days behind. Why? Because she simply wasn’t given the opprotunity to do so. I can’t say it was the wrong choice, but it’s an utter shame because I do believe that Pulaski was on her way to improving. But it was too late. Her bad start with Data, her character not working in the TNG dynamic, and her replacing an already perfectly likeable character who did fit the dynamics all amounted to the character’s abrupt end. And because she didn’t get the chance to develop further and find her own path, her bad reputation has stuck to this very day.

In the end, the whole thing just feels like a waste. Pulaski had potential, but it just didn’t work in the end. I can’t say that I hate her. If anything, I feel bad for her. The writers failed her at the end of the day and by the time they tried correcting their errors, the audience had already made their judgement. It may have been for the best to just drop her and bring Crusher back, but I also hate seeing character potential just so utterly wasted. I hope that if any side material used Pulaski, they were able to find a much better direction for her. I can’t say that I love Pulaski. In a more TOS-like setting maybe she’d have worked better. But in the end I think that Pulaski was a decent character who just had too much working against her and they caused her to crash and burn. Just an unfortunate case all in all.

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#this is all mainly opinion so feel free to ig kre

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hamliet · 3 years

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when does a relationship become queerbaiting? theres a book that i really like and the 2 male leads characters have a lot of storylines and arcs where they get closer and i think some of the tropes used can be similar to the typical romantic tropes, neither of them end up with anyone at the end of the story since its more about found family and the long journey the whole cast goes through. they even get shipped by another character as a running gag. personally i always saw it as being open to interpretation but recently the revised edition of the original novel came out and there were several lines those 2 characters had about each other that were kinda toned down, i didnt think much of it but i saw a post about how it was clearly baiting and the author was being homophobic for toning it down. i didnt think it counted as baiting since as far as i know, the novel was never advertised as anything with romance and the author never pretended they were gonna end up together. i am definitely a little weirded out by the decision to change those specific lines but a lot of the story stayed the same, including a lot about their relationship so idk what to think.

i guess im more confused on if it counts as baiting, or even substext??

Sooooo I am not the best person to ask about this, because I’m a cis woman who has thus far in life only been attracted in a romantic sense to cis men. I can talk a bit about baiting as a general concept in fiction, but you should definitely take it with some grains of salt.

Baiting, for me, is like deliberately playing up an aspect writers have no intention on delivering on. Usually this is done for ratings, to tease fans, fanservice, etc, but without payoff, it is just bad writing. Red herrings are good in writing, but only can be successfully used if the actual result is more satisfying than the herring. This applies to writing in general, not just to romantic ships. However, when the baiting involves historically underrepresented groups for no reason other than to get fans to spend money consuming the story, I think we can all agree that becomes something more grotesque than just bad writing: it’s insensitive, socially irresponsible, frankly hurtful.

Some common examples are Bridgerton which has a gay character, who is extremely minor, yet they played up this character in advertising. Also, Rizzoli and Isles I think actually had its producers mention deliberately playing up the lesbian subtext to hook the audience without ever intending on following through.

That said, context also matters. Like, there are aspects of the culture of the work’s author, the target audience, and such that come into play here also (so like, romantic tropes differ by culture. For example, enemies to lovers is common in Asian stories but less in the west, and the “girl who pursues a guy” is extremely common in Japanese shonen in particular, while it is very much a cringe trope that almost never results in romance in American fiction. So if a writer reads, say, tropes that are common in America into a Japanese work and says it’s baiting, that’s quite possibly not the intent even if it may have been the experience of the reader. So even if there was no intent, there can still be hurt, and that hurt can be real, if that makes sense.

The definition of what constitutes ‘baiting’ varies. I do think that, in true Tumblr fashion, the term gets thrown around a lot and loses its intended meaning, or is so rigidly defined that creators can meet the letter of the “not a bait” requirement while ignoring the spirit of it.

To start with the latter: regarding something hitting the letter of what most wouldn’t consider baiting yet not really the spirit, let’s look at The Rise of Skywalker. This movie had a genuine lesbian kiss in it... between two characters we’d never seen more than a glimpse of while others are celebrating around them. Since it has a kiss, it’s not baiting, right? Well... the director deliberately said in the lead-up to the film that he included it because he “wanted LGBT people to see themselves in the film.” If “see yourselves in the film” is like a nanosecond of background, then, like... idk. Baiting or not, it feels icky, and I know some people consider it baiting and some don’t even if they don’t like, love that representation. But I think this is more queerbaiting than like, Nobara and Maki, who don’t have explicit romantic coding.

Going back to the former, in terms of ‘queerbaiting’ losing its intended meaning... I think there are a lot of really poorly written romantic ships out there, often het, while a lot of same-gender relationships are really well written regardless of whether there’s romantic coding within the text. The main emotional energy in stories with 90% male characters (as frankly many if not most stories are, great job world) is probably between two men. There’s just so much more potential with well-written characters who share a lot of screen time, so of course people are going to ship them. In my opinion, this does not inherently make it baiting, but it certainly creates an environment that lends itself to baiting even if the writers aren’t intending to do this.

Like, you could say the main emotional energy in BNHA is Bakugou and Deku. However, Bakudeku is 100% not queerbaiting. It’ll never be canon romantically (I don’t even ship it lol). There has been nothing to imply romance between them even if the main emotional message can be seen in their development. Deku/Ochaco is likely to be canon, but there is a significant lack of genuine emotional energy between them (the story’s plots and themes don’t coalesce around their relationship), so it’s probably going to feel forced. In contrast, Naruto/Sasuke had an actual kiss in canon, which while played for laughs is a lot more direct romantic coding than anything between Bakugou/Deku. I actually don’t think the majority of Narusasu is baiting, but I definitely think that one moment in chapter like 3 was really poor fanservice for yaoi fans, and has not aged well at all.

It is also the case that fans can confuse headcanons with what is actually in the text, and that just never ends well. For example, Clover and Qrow’s ship in RWBY: a lot of people read Clover as gay, which led to “bury your gays” outrage when he died. A member of the crew stated explicitly they had never intended for Clover to be a love interest for Qrow, and truthfully here was nothing strictly romantic in their relationship--nothing like a kiss or a declaration of love or a parallel to another romantic couple. Hence, I don’t personally consider it queerbaiting or bury your gays, but a lot of fans felt that it was and their pain is legitimate even if I think textually the argument isn’t there. The one thing I do think is true about this in particular is that there was also no strict platonic coding, which encourages headcanons. Clear writing, yo. It can help.

Note the word “can” not “will,” because strict platonic coding doesn’t always fix things, either. In what was probably a reaction to the outrage over Clover’s death, you had extremely blatant platonic coding of Ruby and Penny’s relationship this season leading up to Penny’s death. Ruby refers to Penny as “our friend” three different times, wherein “friend” sends a platonic message and “our” sends an even stronger message that it’s not about the two of them despite the fact that their friendship is one of the sweetest and most interesting in the show. A lingering Ruby-Penny hug then is followed by a lingering Penny-Weiss hug, then Yang, then Blake, etc. The writers went out of their way to hit people over the head with “platonic” and yet they have still gotten accusations of bury your gays and queerbaiting because people will see what they want to see in a story.

Seeing what you want to see in a story also isn’t inherently bad. People who are underrepresented are going to have to read themselves into stories because Lord knows writers ain’t incorporating them well enough if at all. It’s why “Mary Sues” are common in fanfiction, which is primarily written by people who are not straight white men: because where the hell else are we to see ourselves in fiction? So essentially the macrocosm of culture creates this problem, both in terms of baiting and the misuse of the term, and the only fix is a shit ton more good representation.

#ask hamliet #writing stuff #Anonymous

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