#writingstellar

[lrosewrites]

@writingstellar

what studying literature feels like

[writingwithcolor]

Hi, thank you all so much for running this blog--I was hoping I could get your feedback on a Jewish MC. The crux of my question is whether I, a gentile, would be out of line depicting her experiencing internalized discrimination from her own father (who in my first draft was Catholic, but I think that will be changing to a TBD protestant denomination).

The backstory I have for her right now is that her mother is Jewish and places great value on the history and culture of being Jewish, but is not a particularly religious person. Her daughter refers to her as having sometimes attended events at a local reform synagogue and making note of the high holidays but she is, overall, not someone with strict religious observances of any kind, and for a long time she and her husband (raised Christian but deeply agnostic) raise their daughter on the idea that it's important to understand where she and her family come from but that how she ultimately pursues faith--whatever that faith may be--is up to her. Both parents introduce her to the stories and lessons they grew up with but don't pressure her to attend religious events, etc. unless she has a personal, independent interest in doing so. For the first 16 or so years of her life this is how she's raised and her family is stable and her parents seem deeply in love. So far beta readers from households with one Jewish and one Christian parent have told me this backstory seems fine to them, though I welcome any feedback you have, too.

What I'm most concerned about, though, is when she's a teen and her parents divorce. Right now I have the reason for their divorce as being that they fell out because her dad becomes a bit of a Christian zelot and becomes less and less respectful of his wife's religion and background as he gets deeper into this mindset. The reason he becomes like that is essentially that when 9/11 happens MCs mother, who grew up with the story of how her grandparents fled from the Soviet Union because of religious discrimination under Stalin, only narrowly managing to immigrate as far as the US before the breakout of WWII, powerfully empathizes with the people suffering from the horrible rise of Islamophobia we saw in 2001-2002. Her husband, on the other hand, does what I saw a lot of people in my family and community do and becomes increasingly religiously conservative as a reaction the percieved "threat" of the Islamic world. (This is all clearly identified in the book as his being in the wrong.) One of the ways this manifests is that he starts pressuring his daughter, the MC, to attend church services with him and become Christian. His rationale is that he just wants what's best for his daughter--to be "saved."

MC's mother has no tolerance for that crap, as she shouldn't, so they fight quite a bit going forward and eventually separate. Mom gets custody of the MC.

While her father never says anything openly antisemitic--implying those ideas but never stating them explicitly--he does respond to 16 yr. old MC basically asking him if he would still love her if she pursued her mom's faith by saying some bullshit along the lines of "well honey I just love you and want the best for you," as his answer. She never says to him that she's cutting him out, but after this moment she's never close to her father again and by the time the main narrative takes place 10 years later, she hasn't spoken to him since she was 21.

This backstory helps build a foundation for a lot of themes for the MC in terms of different ways alienation manifests in her life, how she trusts, and what we can and cannot forgive our parents for, so I like it from a narrative standpoint, but I would deeply appreciate your feedback on whether writing this kind of experience for a Jewish character is inappropriate for me to be doing. And, if not, do you have any suggestions on ways to modify this backstory, or would you recommend scrapping it entirely? Thank you so much.

Interfaith family broken up when Dad becomes a jerk and a bigot

A difficult situation definitely but I don’t have a problem with the setup. If this isn’t based on your own observations, it’s probably a good idea to get a beta reader with experience around bigots of the same stripe as Dad to make sure the awful stuff Dad says uses word choices and ideas that feel authentic. If that IS your experience I am so very sorry and I hope you have other wonderful people in your life to make up for it. 

--Shira This seems very well planned, and thought out. It's also very real, and will be an emotional read I'm sure. As long as your character isn't forced to give up her Jewishness because of her father, and provided that you are careful during fight scenes between the parents earlier in the work (to ensure that the mom doesn't end up seeming like the Shrill Jewish Woman stereotype), I think you are on solid ground. Good luck!

--Dierdra

Also, I just caught that you said "internalized discrimination" from her dad -- that's not what internalized discrimination means. Internalized discrimination is when someone is feeling negatively about their own group, because they've absorbed bigoted ideas from outside. Discrimination from someone who isn't yourself isn't called “internalized” even when it comes from someone as close as a parent. But that's just a little language correction.

--Shira

Oh no, this backstory is so sad! I hope your MC has a happy ending with some very mutually supportive relationships.

I agree that this shouldn't be a problem as long as you take care to avoid stereotypes on a more micro level in specific scenes. As for the overall idea, nothing jumping out at me. You've clearly put so much effort into creating a believable background for your character and its influence on her current psyche - that gives me confidence that you will write humanised characters rather than falling back on tropes!

Also, don't know if you knew this but something to note with interfaith families: if MC's mother is Jewish, she is a Jew in Jewish law. It doesn't matter what she believes or practises or how she was brought up. (I don't say this to invalidate patrilineal Jews or oppose anyone self-identifying the way they want, but just halachically. You should be aware that many more religious Jews will consider her that way.)

Good luck with your story! I would read this 😌

--Shoshi

[rudjedet]

No you're right! It didn't really happen, this is more me using blood sacrifice as shorthand for "kills a person who has an innate heka sensitivity in order to absorb said abilities as his own", since the villain's powers derive from the big snek and he's doing said giant worm's bidding.

The Egypt novel is mostly historical, but there are some fantastical elements in e.g. a widening of the concept of heka (still within Egyptian parameters, so think the sort of things that magicians like Djedi do in Egyptian literature, or even the behaviour of god(desse)s like Isis). It makes it more in line with the concept behind it, which is that it's an embodiment of the cyclical nature of Egyptian mythology. In essence that means this book is a tale of the fight between Seth and Apophis.

[zet-sway]

🎵

Dangerous (feat. Joywave) - Big Data

This is a great excuse to write sultry Thane and I'm not sorry ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Thane legitimately didn't think he would ever tire of catching her off guard. For someone so renowned for her combat prowess, Shepard was near fatally oblivious without her combat visor. It made her delightfully easy to catch unawares.

Her breath hitched in her throat as he caught her around the waist in the bright hallway of the engineering deck.

"Jesus Christ Thane-" She hissed, "I told you-"

"Siha," he murmured into her hair, gently tugging her backwards into the elevator - and slamming the emergency stop as it began to rise.

"It may come as a surprise to you, but some of us are actually focused on the mission," Shepard protested weakly as he swept her hair from the back of her neck and kissed along the curve of her spine.

"Our target destination is four hours out," he said smoothly. "I'm sure it will be no trouble if I 'borrow' some of your time."

She hummed in his arms, his lips traveling along her shoulder.

"I give it five minutes until EDI has the elevator running again," she grinned. "Make it worth my while, soldier."

"As you command, Siha."

You understand, they got a plan for us

I bet you didn't know that I was dangerous

It must be fate, I found a place for us

I bet you didn't know someone could love you this much

[lrosewrites]

@writingstellar

[kingofthewilderwest]

princesstokyomoon replied to your post ... ... ... can we see the list?

kovu was the first crush baby me ever acknowledged i had, so seeing simba on this list is very validating lol

[high fives] Disney made those lions way too hot for their own good. Kovu would probably be on my list if I had watched the second Lion King movie more recently. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but I remember being gripped by him when I was younger. So if he magically appears on that list later...... a rewatch happened.

writingstellar replied to your post ... ... ... can we see the list?

-is queer -has a type -that type involves dark hair and eyes ...my dude do you also like them kinda damaged? Because I think we have the same taste lmao

Bruh. Bruh. I wasn’t going to admit it in the tags, but TOTALLY. When they’re damaged is when my heart melts. I relate to their struggles and issues, I yearn to care for them, I feel for them, I love them. [high five on the same taste]

maski1 replied to your post ... ... ... can we see the list?

"Elizabeth Hawkeye" ? I think it was stated her name really is "Riza" ? When I watched ATLA when I was little I didn't like Zuko. Now he's my favorite character XD Gotta watch The Dragon Prince but before, I have to watch TLoK (and before that, read the chapters that were never adaptated). I'm curious, why Aladdin? Linguini is underrated

I started replying to you in the comments of the original post, but you always have such fun conversations, so I had to hop onto here and expand!

1. Regarding how I present the names on my list, I try to give a character’s full name, so long as there is strong evidence-based canon that gives or implies their name. In a few rare cases, like Elizabeth Hawkeye, there are fans who would dispute me on this, but I can give a very good account based deeply in canon for why I have the name listed as it is. If people want to agree or disagree with me at the end of the day, I don’t mind either way.

Regarding Riza... there are two types of scenarios she is called “Elizabeth” in Arakawa’s writing. One scenario is when everyone in Team Mustang is given code names. I imagine zero fans care about that as evidence. Havoc’s code name is Jacqueline, and that obviously isn’t his real name. Riza being called “Elizabeth” on the phone when Roy is disguising his operations by fake flirting doesn’t count for proof by itself. But the other instance is Roy calling her “Elizabeth” to Madame Christmas. I think most fans read that as Roy simply extending the code name for anonymity reasons. However, given Madame Christmas knows a ton about Roy’s emotional investment in Riza, and I’ve encountered some..... translational difficulties that the official English versions have with names... I think the latter’s a good cue.

Riza in older English translations and older merchandise was legitimately named “Liza,” and Liza is a common nickname for Elizabeth (especially for the time period Fullmetal Alchemist is roughly evoking). I talk about the translation weirdness here in much better depth. As you may know yourself, given your own language background, this would not be the first time the English translators made stupid mistakes with FMA names. Viz Media initially gave Xerxes the clusterfuck spelling ‘Cselkcess’ before they realized what the word was supposed to be. Ling Yao’s name has danced between Ling and Lin, despite Arakawa herself putting the Romanized spelling of his name in some drawn panels. I have seen Ranfun, Ranfan, and Lan Fan all within official FMA merchandise. Viz Media couldn’t even get a kid’s name “Kyle” down right in their translations... originally he was called “Khayal,” because at that point in time, they didn’t have a good grasp of the world (and ergo name base) that Arakawa was drawing from. Jean Havoc’s name should have been given a French pronunciation rather than sounding like ‘Gene,’ and if you wanted to Anglicize his name one step further, you could’ve named him John Havoc more accurately than what we got in the anime dubs.

With all that said and done, a character named Liza who is sometimes referred to as “Elizabeth” seems to me a logical enough indication she would have been born as “Elizabeth Hawkeye.” In any other circumstance, if I met someone who was called Liza but at one point got called “Elizabeth” by people who knew her in her past, I would conclude she was named Elizabeth. So yeah. Some people may disagree with my logic, but that’s the short of why I have it. XD

If other people are curious: another character whose name might disputed on my list is Rufus from Deponia. There’s some information in the obscure Deponia roleplaying book that says his father used to be named Landgull. Rufus was offended when his father changed his name from Seagull to Landgull to distance himself from Rufus (ergo, it wasn’t a first name change, which would’ve been irrelevant to disowning your blood relation to someone); Captain Seagull was always referred to by a title which usually goes with a last name; and ergo it’s likely Rufus could’ve grown up as Rufus Landgull. Even though the games never ever ever actually call him that.

2. NOW GOING ONTO THE ZUKO THING. Dude, I feel you. When I watched Season 1 of ATLA, I hated Zuko. By Season 3, I loved him and he was my favorite character. They did a magnificent job not just creating the character and giving him an arc, but allowing his personality to be increasingly revealed to us as audience members.

3. Why Aladdin? As a kid, I was obsessed with Aladdin. Now that I’m older, I still think his cheeky, adventurous, charming, but genuine yearning spirit are appealing. And he has sUCH pReTTy eYeSSS!!! So yeah. 

4. Linguini is VERY underrated. What a dear.

[mydetheturk]

Author ask meme! 1, 2, 8

1. What is your favourite word, in any language? Why? Desiccate (or Desiccation) I love the way the word feels when I say it, and “to remove the moisture from something completely” is just a fascinating thing ouo

2. What is the longest word count of any stories you have ever written? somewhere in the vicinity of 32 thousand words, but I'm sure some of these fics i’m working on will surpass this

8 Which fandom world do you want to live in? god. None. as normal and plain as our earth here is, I really, really don’t wanna live in any of the universes i write for

[a-daks]

writingstellar replied to your post: hahahaha people are so pissy about this ep not...

I like wanna know what people are on about but also know it will just piss me off to go in the tags, so let me guess: someone’s fear in the labyrinth wasn’t what people wanted it to be

lmao nailed it People are so in love with potential that they forget that sometimes that isn’t what happens.  These are the same people who chuckled about angry Game of Thrones fans and how they needed to just write fanfiction. 

Don’t like it? Write your own labyrinth story. 

[lrosewrites]

@writingstellar

writers and artists getting hit with a new creative hyper-fixation that's about to take over their life

[mochisquish]

writingstellar replied to your post: “I discovered recently I never transferred all my Tron fics from LJ to...”:

Kudos to you. I've been telling myself Im going to do this for years and I can never face down the editing to do it

Thanks!  Unfortunately, I can't take any credit yet, lol.  I'm a big fan of being a perfectionist and procrastinator, but I am trying.

If you're thinking of reviving your old stuff, you can do it!  One page at a time.  Show those words who’s boss.

[yayneloveart]

writingstellar replied to your photoset “Grimmons and Lolix keychains are here!”

Do you have any plans to make single character keychains? I need either a locus keychain or a locus pin

the keychains are kinda expensive to make so the only single character ones i have are Wash and Caboose, but i do have Locus pins and stickers available in my store

[lrosewrites]

@writingstellar

[arirashkae]

So that post about “brooding” male protagonists floated by again recently, so I thought I’d post a few things of broody hens for your viewing enjoyment (And chicken communication in general):

Yes, broody parents are fucking vicious (jump to about 4:15):

Tumblr won’t let me add more video so:

Same farm, hen jump scares at the beginning and around 7:40

And broody hens really don’t give a damn if the baby is theirs or not

[syn0vial]

@writingstellar replied For someone who isn't familiar with legends and knows him as "that guy skilled enough to be on Vader's speed dial but ballsy enough to need reminding not to disintegrate a target" and "that guy who could have fucked Din up but mostly wanted his damn armor back and then felt bad for the poor, albeit skilled, sod" would you still recommend it? As like an AU take?

i mean, i'm def biased bc i grew up with legends!boba, but i would recommend looking into at least some of boba's legends material just bc it provides a lot more depth of character than disney, even at its best, ever will. at the same time, i also recognize that boba's arc in legends isn't for everyone; boba does some really despicable stuff that makes it hard to root for him a times, it deals with a lot of real life depressing topics like generational trauma, cancer, and even sexual assault, and though there are glimmerings of hope and grace throughout, it does NOT have a happy ending. also, there's plenty of stuff by multiple authors that has not aged well at all.

but if you can stomach it, i think that overall it's one of star wars's most emotionally impactful character arcs and i really admire it as an example of how to "redeem" a villain without just flicking a meta-narrative switch that just makes them go "okay, i'm nice now!" or pulling the disney classic "redemption through death."

[arse-blathanna]

writingstellar replied to your post “i just realized that i’m flying south for a glorified booty call in 2...”

May it be Worth It

At the very least I’m going to an aquarium, getting waffle house, and visiting a 21+ only burger joint that has a GIANT WOODEN DICK that’s there with the purpose of chasing off the undesirables. 

So hopefully. Just have to survive the air travel and pre-trip anxiety first. 

[lrosewrites]

The other day @writingstellar helped me make soup, and I made bread. The soup was done first. We each got a bowl and started eating, when stellar asked something like, "Has the bread cooled enough yet? I wanted to dunk it in the soup."

And what came out of my mouth was, "When bread is bread your soup will no longer be soup. So, more soup."

And she understood exactly what that meant: "By the time the bread has cooled, your soup will be cold. So you can have warm bread with a second bowl of hot soup."

LANGUAGE IS FUN XD