#just her cadence and mannerisms are enough but also her character choices | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sandwyrm · 4 years

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I always rant tons about things I hate in fiction and I scream tons in private about loving Elijah Kamski and disliking that many people Just Don’t Get Him(tm) so why not combine the two.

Like pretty much everyone playing this damn game, my initial opinion on him was “god I wish I could punch him in the face”, but having seen most other paths, and having connected some dots, added to Neil Newbon’s stellar acting as the dude, he’s easily become one of my favorite characters not only in DBH but in general in fiction.

So this is going to be “Why This One Smug Motherfucker With An Attitude You’d Love To Beat Up With A Bat Became One of My Top Favorite Characters, The Essay”

TL;DR: Elijah Kamski planned the android revolution and deviancy

First off, let’s start by analyzing the most obvious thing: his speech and mannerism, his appearance, all play along a very common and clear trope, one that Disney especially is super fond of using:

It’s not just Disney that does this, there’s many other villains who follow the rule, and have been since the dawn of time. And there are many essays and articles on why a smallish physically weak man with aquiline features, calculated speech, and effeminate mannerisms, is such a recurring Look for villains, so we won’t cover that. But it’s very well used on Kamski, perhaps better than any other place I’ve seen, because in him, it is something the character has calculated for himself. For once, we get to SEE what the Questionably Queer Villain STARTED as:

A goddamn nerd. Just your average neighbour. Steve down in IT who comes fix your computer and spergs a little about how COOL computers are, mansplains a little about stuff you already tried because he thinks you’re so much dumber than him, sips an energy drink, and walks away leaving your computer fixed and you with a million emails you still need to answer and a questionable urge to punch him that you’ll never act upon. His mannerism isn’t there. That cadence to his voice isn’t there. He has much more genuine expressions. It is my personal opinion the actor fucking smashed this, and it’s safe to say it is an in-character change: Elijah Kamski was a damn nerd and for whatever reason turned into the Questionably Queer Villain Archetype. Ego gone to his head? Defense mechanism, to survive the sharks of capitalism? Who knows what happened in those 10 years. Who knows how much nerdier he was even longer ago? He has a PR smile going on in that interview but it’s a lot less perfected and rehearsed than the one in 2038. I honestly think it’s a very minor and yet very very stellar detail. Ah! But this is an Extra Feature, most people wouldn’t have seen Past Kamski when they see Present (Future?) Kamski. It’s not the game’s trailer (not unless you’re brave enough to send it to your friends who aren’t into the game yet), it’s a little thing you can watch after you’ve already finished the game. The Kamski you meet at first is this fucker

The fucker who hangs a portrait of himself in his lobby while making you wait on him 5 minutes. The fucker who still swims three more minutes after you’ve been invited in. The fucker who just dodges every single question, and speaks to you condescendingly. The fucker who dismisses your concerns like it’s the funniest thing to him that robots are about to take over.

The narcissist that goes all “pff Turing test is ezmode, I’m gonna make a harder test named after me which I wanna see if my robots pass.”

And because this glib bitch is what the writers intended you to experiment at first, and this is the Kamski most everyone sees while other sides are extras or brief dialogue lines, this is where most people remain with their perception of Kamski. Just another Scar. Just another Jafar. A manipulative little bitch you wish the big buff Hero would punch in the end. But there’s so much more to him.

The obvious: Elijah Kamski is a transhumanist.

To sum it up: Transhumanist is what Steve from IT probably is. If you were to ask him about it, he would mansplain to you how humans are limited by flesh and poverty, and how making technology widely available and the internet free and pushing for technological advancements such as robotics is what would improve humanity. He probably has a whole wall covered in books about AI revolution and singularity, and probably believes robots are the next step in human evolution. That is, robots/cyborgs are to replace humans, and for us to leave our flawed shells behind. Elijah Kamski is such a man, too, and barely hides it. Choice quotes: - “We had to design a machine that moves, breathes, and blinks like us. But yet is smarter and more capable than any human being.” (interview extra) - “Tomorrow they’ll replace our soldiers, and who knows, maybe one day, our leaders, to make the best decisions in humanity’s interest.” (interview extra) - “Perfect beings with infinite intelligence, and now they have free will.” (Meet Kamski) - “Machines are so superior to us, confrontation was inevitable.” (Meet Kamski) - contrast to the PR lie in the interview of “They’re machines, they cannot ever develop a conscience. Trust me.”

It’s clear that he thinks robots/androids would do a better job at society than humans - a lot of nerds do (just ask around, I fucking do, 7 months into 2020), and he’s not even hiding it all that clever.

Or maybe he just wants to fuck some robots?

A lot of people get rapist vibes from Kamski. The creep who just made himself a bunch of sex toys because he could, and there’s nothing else to the androids as far as he’s concerned. And it’s easy to see. Like,

super easy to see

he’s basically eyefucking the androids

But here’s the catch: See, we’re so conditioned by that stereotype I started this essay with that we, and I mean myself as well, easily buy the “he just wanted some hot sex slaves” theory. Scar wants hot sex slaves. Jafar wants hot sex slaves. Frollo wants hot sex slaves. The list goes to infinity. Every time a male is acting this effeminate-flirty way on screen, it’s used to indicate he is a Deranged Pervert. I’m not gonna say where it stems from homophobia and how stupid it is very because smarter people have analyzed this phenomenon, but the bottom line is, we’re projecting something onto Kamski that isn’t there, simply because it’s everywhere else with similar characters. He designed the androids, he’s ogling the androids, and while I have no doubt he’d personally fuck each and every one of his androids, here’s the thing: He only ever touches his one Chloe in a sexual way. There’s strippers in this game. There’s sex in this game. If they wanted Kamski to obviously be a creep, it would’ve been there. Touching those naked androids in the factory. Groping one of the twin Chloes in the pool. Touching Connor in any other way than putting a gun in his hand

He’s not very sensual in this moment, now, is he? It’s a very casual touch, he’s there simply helping a robot aim a gun. Because as far as he knows and thinks, Connor is following his programming - explicitly forbidding him to hold guns. And yet...

Elijah Kamski wants Connor to deviate.

Maybe this one is obvious. Maybe it’s not. If reading forums and reddit has taught me anything, is that people think Kamski is just trying to see if Connor is a mean deviant with these questions. Far as we know up to this point, deviants are Bad. Far as many hot takes I’ve seen, deviants are always Bad because robots don’t have feelings lol way to miss the point of the game jesus christ anyway He isn’t putting pressure on Connor because he’s a jackass - he’s putting pressure on Connor because he knows pressure makes androids deviate. He keeps asking trick questions - what do YOU want. What do YOU think. Time to think WHO you are.

The Kamski Test

On the objective surface, it simply looks like Kamski is here running the Kamski test for his own pride - has he created a machine capable of sparing another machine? Dumb test, you could just program that in, couldn’t you? Yes and no. You could program a machine to never shoot a human or another machine - easily. And you can program a machine to prioritize solving a case, to aid the police. Empathy and critical thought are not easy things. A lot of humans would fail this test. Put a gun in someone’s hand and tell them they can shoot another human and solve all their problems, and they would do it. They fucking do it every day, over lesser things. But that’s not the real purpose of the Kamski test, is it? He could easily have programmed this in for a carnival trick, like he programmed writer androids, fortuneteller androids, medic androids, and everything else. The test isn’t “can Connor shoot Chloe or does he see her as alive?” The test is, “Can Connor put Chloe’s ‘life’ above his programming and specific instructions?” The test is, can Connor’s algorithms decide Chloe’s ‘life’ is more important than his own? Kamski knows it - Connor knows it - we know it. If Connor fails his missions, if Connor behaves too much like a human, he will be deactivated and repurposed. He’s constantly threatened by Amanda with “deviants are bad and must be destroyed.” He knows he needs to be a Good Robot and obey. Connor’s choice isn’t “Spare Chloe or kill Chloe.” His choice is “prioritize the life of another being over his own.”

Connor Deviates

boy u got issues that i can’t help with, godspeed you glorious idiot

But what if... he doesn’t

Let’s check this path out for a moment.

He’s quite... meh. He’s bored. He’s indifferent. He loses the little spark in his voice that little peppy jackass act. The rest of this encounter becomes just another boring PR stunt where Elijah Kamski acts nicely and answers questions by giving no fucking answers at all.

a ViRuS

Mandatory Covid19 joke We find out deviancy is probably a virus that spreads from one android to the other. You know, very useful information we’ve never found out by ourselves. Except we also know that’s wrong, don’t we? Markus spreads deviancy that way - but what about the first deviants? Can we backtrack to a patient zero? Not really. Many androids just deviated by themselves. Sure, they could’ve interacted with a deviant at some point I suppose, assuming...

rA9

Ask him about rA9, and Kamski will say it’s just the first android that deviated. But that’s just a lie, isn’t it? It can’t be the first android that deviated because most people and most androids believe rA9 is Markus - and we know Markus wasn’t the first to deviate. He was just the one to take on a leader role. And Kamski knows of this - planned for this. He gave Markus to Carl Manfred, and he knew Carl Manfred was a damn hippie talking about revolutions and better worlds and must be filling Markus’ head with ideas of being more than he is. It was calculated. So, either rA9 really is just a random religious thing androids rallied behind out of the blue, or Kamski is just lying. He probably is. He’s offering useless what ifs in answer to this question. Maybe it’s this. Maybe it’s that. Maybe it’s your mom and we need better jokes in 2020.

And speaking of just lies, let’s be honest. Do you really think someone would be as dumb as to admit they started AI revolution, in front of cops? That’s why Kamski keeps playing the idiot, don’t forget. A lot of people seem to be taking his cluelessness at face value, as if they’ve never lied in person. Kamski is openly dodging other questions, and offering half lies half truths here. That’s what I’m saying. But even assuming Kamski doesn’t know about deviancy or rA9, for real, what about

Jericho

When asked about Jericho, Kamski answers. He knows what Jericho is - the place where all deviants go. He has its location, conveniently.

Wait, Chloe?

Interesting how the pool Chloes know they shouldn’t be peeping at the talk and we get shots of them hastily going back to their scripted chatting nonsense and trying to return to neutral expressions when “caught peeping” by the camera. More interesting yet, whenever Hank or Connor are directly looking at any Chloe, they’re acting very stiff and robotic. Which... every deviant does. Including Connor. Especially Connor.

Speaking of

Even with Connor failing his test, Kamski insists. Insists to remind him he still has a choice. Insists to remind him of his escape clause (useless on this path but Kamski reminding him is there, and we’re talking about Kamski) It’s almost as if...

Elijah Kamski wants Connor to deviate. Like, wants.

One of the most powerful moments in the game as far as I’m concerned. And not because Connor gets told by his creator that he’s a deviant. Not because we’re told by his creator that he’s a deviant. Not because Hank’s wheels start moving. Because for that little exchange there, Connor shows genuine emotions. Connor’s LED is red. We’ve never seen a red LED Connor up to this point. iirc we don’t even after, I think the only other time is when the security guard android pulls his heart out. Getting shot leaves him on yellow. Dying leaves him on yellow. Processing complex things in 10 milliseconds leaves him on yellow if we’re that lucky, he’s usually on blue and about as unimpressed as y’all reading this essay. Remember how I said the test is between his life and Chloe’s? There’s no dramatic wall here. There’s no direct programming here to guide him along or that he needs to explicitly go against, like when he has to shoot Markus. This is a choice he had to make, by himself, entirely by himself, outside of bounds of his normal programming, using his own intelligence. He has empathy, and intelligence. He is alive.

fAsCiNaTiNg~

There is another thing that happens if Connor deviates, in that little exchange there, Elijah Kamski is no longer that glib, effeminate, Disney villain. For a brief moment, Elijah Kamski is back to being that nerd we’ve seen in the 2028 video. That nerd that is so hyped about what androids can become. He’s showing genuine joy. Genuine fascination. For a brief 30 seconds, he is no longer playing games. This is missing on the machine path altogether. Where he’s left indifferent there, he’s genuinely excited here, genuinely fAsCiNaTeD.

Almost as if he’s happy, proud, that Connor could do it. Like watching your child take their first steps or say their first word.

This isn’t JUST an android. This isn’t JUST another deviant. This is Cyberlife’s puppet. This android was specifically created never to deviate. And he still did. We, of course, as fine purveyors of fiction, saw it coming, but seeing it from Kamski’s perspective - it really is something he’s taken aback by. An android designed to HUNT other androids is going against his very tight programming. Of course, the both know it’s not over, but it’s a start. Indeed, like watching a child take their first step, there’s so many steps left, and there’s still the revolution.

We never see Kamski again in the game, unless we get to the

Failed Revolution

This is a Kamski we’ve yet to see. Not the hyped nerd in the android factory. Not the glib motherfucker dodging police questions. This is an annoyed man. A vindictive man. Sitting cross-legged in a chair. He’s that fucking villain we were always meant to see, isn’t he? Here, scheming, with his long face and Adidas tracksuit. But what’s he scheming against?

“Wait, doesn’t this invalidate your whole fucking essay?” Nope. Remember what I said about us being shown that Kamski was not born a glib liar and manipulator? That he learned that PR smile and smug way of speech? That he learned to be a Disney villain? Do you really think he would just tell the press - the cops - that yes, he has totally planned for the android revolution?

Of course he wouldn’t. But looking under the surface - he does not return to Cyberlife when the deviancy is in full crisis. If he truly believed he should be there to stop the “error”, he’d have been there, not pushing Connor to deviate instead. The “mistake” that he learned from is the FAILURE of the android revolution. He only ever returns to Cyberlife on this path where the androids fail to revolt. To “fix a mistake”.

There’s one last clue in the shit puzzle,

Connor can show empathy from day 1

Well we already know the “error” can be dormant a long time, no biggie, Connor just got Devid-38 from Daniel or something. Some other android. Maybe... Unless...

Connor-60

There’s one combination at the Cyberlife tower. Converting the androids, and getting Connor shot by Connor-60, which leads to the androids still converting with Connor-60, the machine, watching it.

He reacts quite badly to failing, for a machine, doesn’t he? Almost as if...

Deviancy is preprogrammed. And probably so is Jericho.

Remember Chloe had the key? Logically, why would she? Chloe cooould be a deviant that somehow ended up back with Kamski after she found out about Jericho, and told him about it too. Possible, but consider...: Kamski programmed Jericho location in multiple androids, knowing they would “spread it like a virus”. There was a little speech I’ll never find in a playthrough online, but in which it’s implied some androids just “knew” to head to Jericho “instinctively.” And one way to solve the puzzle in the police station is via instructions from Carlos Ortiz’s android. Who.... never left the fucking house. Plus, Kamski accounted for Cyberlife controlling Connor. I mean... He says as much. He doesn’t even hide it.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Let’s look back at the 2028 interview

Getting a little nervous there aren’t we? We ain’t never seen him fiddle with his hands anywhere else than this one question. Not in this interview, not in any other scenes with him.

Son of a bitch has one hell of a PR smile doesn’t he

and if I haven’t convinced you with my essay they admitted in some Q/A that the Kamski ending was going to be more obviously him going back to restart the android revolution. But I found that only ages after I made the connections and fell in love with the fucker.

#dbh #detroit become human #elijah kamski #long post

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 4 years

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Humans are Space Orcs, “Two Drops of Rain.”

Alright you pseudo-sadistic people out there.

Lets be honest, we all sort of like watching authors emotionally torture their own characters, and lets also be honest that authors can sometimes be super mean to their creations.

Well I have decided that, in my universe, actions have real psychological, emotional and physical consequences. So, I am going to have to be the bad guy and be a little mean for this one.

Expect character development, and light suffering.

A droplet of rain clung to the glass of the window reflecting an inverted view of the sullen grey sky. It hung suspended there for a few seconds, capturing a moment in its surface, before rupturing and rolling downward disrupting other droplets and causing them to bleed downwards. The rain was heavy enough that the grassy compound outside was covered by a layer of grey. Water droplets lept from the concrete creating a silver haze about the ground, and anything past the distant shadow of buildings on the other side of the square was nothing more than a silhouette perhaps a lamp post, or a lone car hunched in the rain.

He raised his hand to the glass, the warmth of his fingers casting a delicate glaze of fog over the transparent surface before his fingers even made contact.

“Adam.”

He tilted his head back watching as a pair of droplets began to roll down the outside of the glass. He watched them intently wondering which one of them would win. At first it seemed like the droplet on the left would, but ultimately it’s speed caused it to lose too much weight, and it got stuck halfway to the ground.

“Adam.”

He turned away from the window distracted from his daydreams and brought back to current reality; A white cinder block room, with industrial grey carpet and modern grey furniture accented in blue. Large tropical prints hung on one side of the room fake and grey in the cold light of early spring. A large desk sat opposite cheep steel and wood crouched under an equally cheap set of metal shelving units supporting long lines of fake, leather-bound volumes letters printed in minute gold or silver script up their spines.

The entire right wall was made up of floor to ceiling glass windows allowing in the thin dreary light cast through the clouds above. On the desk a small glass orb contained a self sustaining biome including a colorful pink sea plant and a single shrimp-like creature. Next to that was a family photograph lovingly dusted of grime, but somehow equally lifeless as the tropical prints on the wall.

A large green plant sat next to him.

It was real, he had already checked.

“Adam?

“Hmm.”

“I was asking if you had been feeling better since our last session?” The woman who sat in front of him was older, with short steel-grey hair, and a delicate pink white scar running over one of her eyes across valleys of sagging skin. Despite that, she was quite fit for her age, and sat with a hard straight-back demeanor that belied her surprisingly gentle manner.

“I….” He paused looking out the window again trying to track single raindrops as they pelted towards the ground and failing. He sighed, “Not really, no.”

“Do you think you can try and tell me what’s bothering you?” He could hear the rain pounding against the bushes outside the window. It was a distant sound like static or the roaring of a crowd.

“I wish I could.” The chair below him creaked slightly. It wasn’t exactly comfortable;industrial and hard, but he didn’t mind that so much. He wasn’t here to be comfortable; he had come here to get help.

“You mentioned before that you were having trouble sleeping, trouble concentrating, and that was affecting your work. Is it still?”

He shifted in his seat, and below him, Waffles, his dog, rolled onto her other side service vest creaking slightly as she sighed, “No ... the sleeping isn’t much better, and I think I’ve made it pretty clear that my concentration is still shot.” He tried pointedly to look away from the window.

The rain picked up a little, “And what exactly is it that you think about during those times.” She wondered

He thought for a minute, “Nothing mostly. Sort of just on autopilot you know…. It’s easier there, like I don’t have to think so much.”

Her shiny black shoe bounced softly in the air, “So thinking has been difficult, or do you find yourself thinking about something specific that you’re trying to avoid.”

He rubbed a hand against his temple, “I… a little bit of both I guess. Um… Its like every time I try to think about something, something I really need to think about. My thoughts just keep coming back to…. To what happened.”

She tilted her head slightly focused, intently, but no so intently as to be uncomfortable, on him, “You have yet to talk about what happened.”

He remained silent.

“You don’t have to say anything today if you aren’t ready, but I think it's important, and I think you think it’s important, otherwise we wouldn’t be seeing these obsessive sort of thoughts.” her hands swirled to emphasise the repetitive nature. A silver ring glinted on her finger.

“I guess I’ve just been…. Trying to figure things out…... “

“Don’t feel obligated to push yourself. We can wait as long as you need.” A clock ticked on the wall above her desk filling the silence.. It seemed as if it would go on forever.

“I watched a man get beaten to death, and did nothing to stop it…..” His voice was sudden filling the silence of the room with a sudden heavy weight. His heartbeat picked up as if saying the words made the reality more tangible, but now it was out in the air, he found the words sliding from his mouth easy where they had once been halting, “I watched a man die…. I knew he was going to die….. I knew hours in advice hell eighteen maybe nineteen hours. At any time I could have gotten up and walked over to the guards and told them what was going to happen, but I didn’t. I could have gone to his cell and warned him, I could have told him to run when he entered the room. Hell, I could have jumped in front of him, but I didn’t do any of it.” HIs voice had risen in cadence and octaves filling the space with it’s agitation. At his feet, Waffles sat up sensing his unease turning her head to look at him, “But you know what…. You know what I did, I sat there and did NOTHING, in fact I did worse than nothing. He’s no friend of mine, that’s what I said. I looked him in the eye and that’s what I said knowing what was going to happen to him. Like an absolute BITC-.”

“Why.” her voice was stern, and the expression on her face made it very clear he was escalating out of line. He relaxed back into his seat breathing hard. His heart hammered inside his head drowning out the sound of the rain.

“Why what?”

“Why do you think you didn’t do those things.” Waffles whimpered a bit sticking her head in his lap. He hadn’t even noticed that he was ringing his hands, a habit that he had acquired after losing his leg. It generally didn’t go past that, but once upon a time it had been a precursor to hair pulling, something that Waffles had been trained to stop.

“Because I’m A B-”

“Adam.” She said sternly, “A decision is a matter of cognition, not of a personality trait. So let’s be a little more constructive. Tell me what you were thinking.”

He sighed deeply in frustration, glancing out the window again. He couldn’t even see the light post or the car from earlier. The bushes outside the window jumped and rattled rather violently under the downpour, “At first I…. I felt sick…. I wished I was anywhere but there, I wondered if it was actually real….. I wondered why this was happening to me, and how I could make this sort of decision….. And then. After all that I was, I was ...”

She waited, but when no answer was forthcoming she prodded gently, “You were….”

“Angry…. No, no angry isn’t strong enough. I was livid, furious… i….” He felt his throat constrict, “I wanted to…. I wanted.” His voice cracked and he looked away. Tears had sprung to his eyes, and he furiously tried to blink them back angry at himself. Waffles whimpered and scooted forward against his legs resting her big soft head in his lap large brown eyes looking up at him with a deep unwavering concern not understanding his pain but begging to take it away, “ I wanted to Kill him.” He finally finished voice barely above a whisper, “I have never wanted anything so bad in my life, I wanted to go down there myself and strangle the life out of him. I thought about…. About bashing his head against the concrete. I wondered what it would be like to feel his skull caving in under my hands….” He went quiet, “Disgusting.”

“Adam,” her voice was soft but firm, “ in all my years of working, I have heard people want to do a lot more for a lot less, but why don’t you tell me why you felt that way.”

Waffles shoved her snout against his hand. He had been rubbing his chest, another habit he had as a result of PTSD, a condition long dormant now resurfacing, “Number one because he was a pedophile, number two because he was a liar, number three because I know for a fact he planned on going back to his old life after getting out. He had no remorse….. He deserved to die.”

“If that’s the case than he got what he deserved didn’t he?” She wondered tilting her head to the side.

He shook his head vigorously then nodded then sighed in frustration, “yes… I…. i mean no….. No one deserves to die like…. Like that, but ...I mean maybe he did, but that wasn’t their choice to make.” He finally blurted

“So, he deserved to die, but he deserved to die as a result of justice, and not as a result of a prison riot.” The rain had died down just a bit. Distantly a momentary beam of sunlight peeked through the clouds before vanishing once again.

Adam sighed, “YES! That's it…. The justice system is supposed to take care of this, but it didn't ...”

“Then why do you feel responsible if it was the justice systems’ job?”

He stroked Waffle’s ears foot tapping in agitation, “I…. well because I AM the justice system. Not like to be a dick or brag, but out in space, I am the arm of the UNSC, Fleet commander. It is my job to deal with human issues offworld, so when the justice system fails it's MY duty to fix it. My job, my objective ...”

“So it was your job to save this man’s life so he could be properly punished?”

“Well, yes.” he rocked in his seat again, agitated, “But I didn’t. I sat there and I did nothing, and you know what. I LIKED it, a part of me enjoyed watching that bastard die. He deserved it…..” A sudden stab of guilt shot through him, and he groaned rocking softly as he lifted his head to the ceiling eyes catching onto porous surface of the panels above. His eyes burned. His voice began to crack again, “But, but then, then when I remember feeling bad for him, and it just makes me feel WORSE because he hurt kids, he was a monster, and I have pity for him! SO does that mean I’m siding with a pedophile? So…. so it was either give in and kill him with the rest of them like he deserved treat him like the monster he is…. Or or I could stand to the side and absolve myself of the murder, but do nothing and still have his blood on my hands, but also have the knowledge that I showed that disgusting fuck mercy when he didn’t deserve it. Either way I…..” His voice caught. He could feel his stomach contracting into a sob, but he forced it down head in his hands.

The room went silent, and waffles jammed her head in between his hands forcing him to quit as his hands sought out fistfuls of hair. His chest and diaphragm contracted and released but he clenched his teeth and shut his eyes. He wouldn’t cry here…. He had been weak enough.

It took a long time before he was finally able to control himself and sit back up. He had gone very hot, and could feel waves of heat wash over him from the effort .

When he looked up he found a glass of water being proffered to him, and he took unable to look at her.

“Adam, it is horrible that you had to make that decision. You have to understand that no matter what you did in that situation would have resulted in the same outcome.” He may have gotten control of his breathing, but he had worn far to thin, far to thin in the intervening weeks. He pointedly looked away feeling hot tears pooling at the corners of his eyes.

His face remained blank.

“You join in, you’ve committed murder, you stand out, and you’ve let a man die, you run to the guards and you protect a pedophile. There was no decision you could have made that would have resulted in a desirable outcome… Tell me, Adam, Do you really think that anything you could have done would have saved that man’s life?”

He wasn’t able to stop it as a hot tear spilled down the side of his face. He kept his head turned only halfway towards her so as to hide the moisture. He rested his head against his hand so as to discreetly wipe it away, “No …” he finally admitted.

“Go through that with me.”

More tears. He fought desperately to keep the one eye dry as moisture pooled against his hand.

“Because I couldn’t have fought them all off even if I had tried, and the guards would have just let it happen anyway, but I could hav-”

“Could have what? Adam, you did what you could. You stood back to the hazard of your own health so as not to be part of something you didn’t believe in. You couldn’t stop it, and you couldn’t walk away, and that in itself is more than what a lot of people could, or would have done. A lot of people would have joined in to save their own skin.” It had grown darker outside, and he could see his reflection in the glass of the window. His black eye had long since faded but, Krill still urged him to rest as a result of bruising to his right kidney. At least he had only peed blood the one time.

“But I ... that's not, not the problem.” He shifted in his seat, and the dog scooted closer again, “I wanted to do those things, I wanted to join in, I couldn’t stop them.” His voice was growing in pitch again, and as it did the tears only flowed faster. They began to trickle down his forearm, and soon his other eye was overcome. He tried to wipe them away, but they wouldn’t stop. He was fighting a losing battle, and that only made him angier, and that only made the tears worse “Every d-damn t-time I fuck up…. I…. I-I'm weak and useless an-n-nd-” he snarled in frustration embarrassed and unable to look her in the eye, “I s-screw up so m-much, childish, o-over e-em-motional like a stupid, w-winey t-trusting-”

“Adam.”

“B-bit-”

“Adam!” Her voice cut through his rant leaving his silent. He turned away from her no longer able to control himself embarrassed. He just wanted to leave to never have to show his face to anyone ever again.

“First of all we are going to stop that sort of talk right now. It’s pointless, meaningless and it will get us nowhere. Now, do me a favor and take a few deep breaths and calm yourself. Finish the glass of water.”

He did as told still not looking at her. Waffles licked at the tears on his hands so eager to help him wash away the evidence. He finished off the water which helped a little to calm his diaphragm. He took a long slow, shaky breath.

“Would you like to continue this session another time?” She asked, “I can see this is hard?”

He shook his head stubbornly though he still couldn't look at her.

She sat back in her seat accepting his go ahead “Second of all, whose standards are you holding yourself to.. Who expects such impossible perfection, honestly if you expected any more from yourself, you may as well wish to walk on water too.” He allowed a rueful smile to break through on that last part though it was half hearted.

“Where are you getting these grand ideas of what you have to be?”

He leaned his elbows on his knees and stared down at the floor rubbing the back of his palm over his face. The eyepatch felt sort of cold and slimy now…. He was a mess.

“I…. Guess I don’t know.” He said softly.

“Your parents, family, crew members? How have they been acting towards you?”

He shrugged, “All surprisingly supportive…. Too supportive.” Waffles poked her head up under his arms resting her head against the side of his face scooting forward knowing he was upset desperate to make it go away. Her tail beat against the floor once and then twice.

“Too supportive. How can they be too supportive.”

He paused mouth opening and closing in confusion before sighing in frustration dropping his head; the one eye began to leak again, stupid missing eye which still had tear ducts, “I guess it just feels like…. They all expected me to…. Fall apart, and I did. Its like they understand that poor little Adam Vir wasn’t going to be able to handle what happened, so lets walk on eggshells so as not to upset him.” his voice was growing thick again. Ever time he broke, the edge got closer, and there was no way to hold it back.

“And what’s so wrong with letting yourself fall apart? Sometimes it happens, sometimes it needs to happen.”

He was back to where he was before, accept the tears fell silently now his voice remaining surprisingly calm, “Because it’s weak.”

“That’s a pretty antiquated understanding of emotion. Sounds like something a man from the 2000s would say.”

He said nothing, “Who do you model yourself after, Adam?

He sighed, “My father, I guess, Captain Kelly, my mother, my older brothers…. I guess maybe a little bit from…..movies.”

Her voice was soft, “Sounds like a lot to live up to doesn't it, and let's be honest. Not all of it is entirely true to life.” On the far wall the clock ticked, “You ask me that sounds pretty exhausting.” A distant rumble of thunder rolled across the open lawn. Wind picked up causing the leaves on the bushes to dance.

“Do you think maybe you feel the way you do because it seems you can't live up to the expectations you set for yourself?”

He remained quiet.

“Weak liable to break or give way under pressure; easily damaged.” She read aloud, “Now I find it interesting how a man who claims to be weak walks into my office on the coattails of a trauma and, instead of talking about the trauma he talks about his moral dilemma. He doesn't complain, he doesn't blame. He takes the weight of responsibility for an entire universe on his shoulders.”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit late for platitudes, doc.” he muttered staring down at his hands.

“Not platitudes, Adam. Observations.” She switched her crossed ankles, “So we know you aren't weak, and you can probably tell me why you aren't useless.” A car’s headlights cut through the rain illuminating a burst of light over the edge of the leaves. When she didn’t speak he sighed.

“I’m not useless because I command an entire fleet of ships, I was a decorated fighter pilot, I do all these things etc.etc.” His voice was flat and monotone. Another slow tear dropped to the floor creating a dark circle on the grey carpet. He knew what was coming next, so he continued, “I’m not stupid or winy or a bitch, but…. I DO make lots of mistakes, I am childish, to trusting and over emotional.”

“What mistakes?”

He wiped at his eyes again. Waffles whimpered quietly her head on his knee, “Well, I’ve been cheated by a Tesraki, almost got my crew killed, Trusted an enemy and almost got my crew killed, trusted a strange alien species and almost got my crew killed, lost my eye and almost died, got captured more times than I can count, almost died more times than I can count.”

The rain was coming down in sheets again. The drops which had once dotted the window now ran down in curtains, “Adam, Trust isn’t a weakness, and mistakes don’t correlate to failure. You are dealing with an entirely new species, new problems. If you didn’t make those mistakes then someone else would have to, and who knows, for them it may actually be fatal. Almost dead and very dead are separated by miles.”

More headlights.

“It ok to hold yourself to high standards Adam, it's generally a good thing, but don’t set it so high that no one can reach.” Light was fading outside and she stood from her chair prompting him to do the same. Waffles yawned and stretched. A streak of lightning rolled across the sky like the branches of some sort of celestial tree.

He wiped at his eye again finally turning his head up to look at her.

She was smiling at him, a genuine smile, not fake or pitious, “I think we really got somewhere today leave it on a positive note?”

He nodded, and she walked him to the door, “Homework, go easy on yourself this week, ok.” The door opened, he thanked her and then walked into the hall bright with the overhead lights and the same steel grey carpet as inside the office. He steered Waffles down the hall and into the men’s restroom, vacant accept for himself under the sickly fluorescent lights.

It was late.

His gate felt unsteady and his hands braced himself upright against cold porcelain.

He learned forward over the sink to splash cold water on his face pulling off the eyepatch and washing it off before pulling it back over his vacant socket. He lifted his head and stared at himself in the mirror, messy blond hair, red puffy eyes and cheeks. But As he looked, a different face stared back at him, greying skin, yellowed sclera, and cerulean blue irises.

He had yet to tell her about that issue.

He turned away from the mirror and stepped from the bathroom into the hall.

Their car was waiting outside, but despite that, the two of them were still soaked by the time they jumped inside

Rain drummed against the car windows. He rested his cheek against the glass eye closed against the cold on his skin. It felt good…. He was quiet, and inside he felt strangely fragile like a cracking porcelain sculpture. Lightning flashed across the sky, and Waffles sighed her upper body resting in his lap lower half sitting under the dashboard. The windshield wipers drummed out a steady beat against the glass. He didn’t speak with the Driver, but paid him electronically and stepped from the car upon reaching their destination.

Wet tires against wet concrete, and he was left to push through the rain, jacket pulled up against the cold.

The interior of the ship was dark. Most of the crew had gone on leave. He walked through the dark halls alone, and imagined he could hear the drumming of the rain against the hull, but knew that wasn’t likely. He was just passing by the mess hall pausing when he heard laughter and saw a warm yellow light cut across the floor. The warm voices seemed to pull him in as the marines talked laughing and joking, but he couldn;t do it, couldn't make himself go in.

Once upon a time he wouldn’t have imagined missing an opportunity to socialize, but instead he turned to the dark hallways heart heavy. He had no idea where his feet were carrying him.

Sunny sat up at the knock on her door called from her worried musings by the hesitant knock. She wondered what the marines wanted now. With the Commander out for the day and most of the bridge crew gone, it remained up to her to keep the Marines in tact, which was a surprisingly difficult job to maintain.

“Come in!” She called

The door hissed open, and she was momentarily blinded by light throwing her hand up to find a silhouette standing in the doorway. It stepped in and the door snicked shut behind him.

Adam stood in the doorway, his body and hair damp with rain, his face with saline. His hands hung cold and white at his sides. Little tracts of water pooled around his boots and glistened on his jacket. His ears were flushed pink with the cold.

She stood slowly and quietly as if worried a sudden movement might scare him away. He hadn’t spoken more than a few words to her in what seemed like years, but was more like a week or two. His usually bright green eye was awash with a cold greyness, as if the cloudy sky above and seeped into his soul, but a closer inspection gave her the distinct impression of…..

Pleading?

“Sunny….” His voice was a soft rasp, thick and heavy like he was speaking past a great weight.

She missed him.

“Adam…. Is everything ok?”

His mouth twitched, his cheek quivered, his jaw worked for a long moment like he was fighting with himself internally. It looked painful, and was hard to watch. When his voice came, it came with a slight quiver, “No…. I…. its been…. A really shit day.”

She wanted to move forward, to help him, but she knew like a man drowning, he would need to reach for the help before she could pull him in. Didn’t mean she wanted to watch him drown, choking and gasping for air.

His expression was distant and glassy speaking past her more than to her, “She says I hold myself to standards that are too high.” Sunny remained quiet waiting, drawing him out, “But WHY are the standards too high? Why am I expected to fail….. WHY Does everyone have to be so understanding. Why can’t it be just what it looks like, yes Adam you fucked up and what you did was wrong and you failed. What is wrong with that?” The human looked up at her eye glistening with the vestiges of agony, “Why can’t the bar be set high….. sometimes , sometimes people just fail, and that's the truth of it. Why can’t we admit that. Why can’t anyone look me in the eye AND TELL ME THAT.” His voice was hoarse .

“Why do I have to be so accepting….. It just…. It feels like giving up. Like giving up on the man I’ve always wanted to be.”

“You wouldn’t give up, Adam….. Even if you were capable of it.” She said softly

Hed breathed in heavily air catching in his throat, “Why can’t I do this better….” he threw his hands up in the air.

“Because…. You’re only human.”

“Being human ISN’T AN EXCUSE ANYMORE!” His voice rattled off the hull reverberating through the metal. His voice snapped completely and he sagged back against the wall hand to his throat. She couldn’t stand it anymore, she couldn't watch him drown.

So she jumped in pushed past the current to catch him. He sagged against her as she fought back the current threatening to pull him under.

“How do you do it, Sunny.” he whispered

“Do what?” She wondered.

“I can’t even fight off failure when everyone is at my back…..you….. You did it and the entire world was at your heels……”

The ship was quiet, simply the soft whirr of the backup generators to pierce the quiet, “When I was young, my brother taught me one valuable lesson. He told me, Sunny stop trying to be something you’re not and may never be, but take what you have and be the best version of the person you are now…. I didn’t listen to him for the longest time…. And I suffered for it.”

She took the Human’s face in two of her hands and made him look up at her, “Maybe you can set the bar high, Adam, but you have to make sure the bar is in the same room. Because if you weren't so trusting, and if you didn’t make mistakes….. Than you would have kicked me off the ship as soon as I walked on”

Lights reflected from his eyes and she dragged, pulled him towards shore with all her might. Her voice was soft, “So I say be damned to being perfect….. Let's be honest, it's not exactly a human trait anyway.”

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vanessakirbyfans · 4 years

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Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby play 19th-century farmers' wives who develop a passionate connection in Mona Fastvold's drama co-starring Casey Affleck and Christopher Abbott.

A friendship that blossoms into romance offers two mid-19th century farmers' wives refuge from their joyless marriages and routines of menial drudgery in Mona Fastvold's The World to Come.

Adapted from Jim Shepard's moving 2017 short story of the same title, this Venice competition entry is set in a rugged upstate New York where the winters are harsh and the patriarchy hangs heavy. Resignation seems to be the default mode for Abigail and Tallie (Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby, respectively), the women at the story's center, whose lives revolve around keeping their husbands' stomachs full and their ambitions afloat. The initially halting, increasingly urgent intimacy that grows between them comes as a relief, but also a frustration — an agonizing taste of what life could be like if they weren't locked into roles dictated by their time, place and culture.

The World to Come has much to recommend it, including the polish and precision of Fastvold's directorial touch and a terrific quartet of leads (Casey Affleck and Christopher Abbott play the heroines' spouses) who, among other things, deliver mouthfuls of unwieldy period dialogue with dexterity and conviction. Kirby, especially, is a marvel, radiant and haunting as the more outgoing of the central pair.

That the movie succeeds to the extent it does is somewhat of a miracle given how often it gets in its own way. Indeed, The World to Come is nearly undone by a single glaring flaw: The drastic over-reliance on voiceover composed largely of lines lifted from the short story. On a sentence to sentence basis, what we hear — mainly Abigail's diary entries, read by Waterston — is vivid, at times strikingly lovely. But it's also so jarringly literary, and so extremely frequent, that it yanks us out of the delicate spell cast by the film's painterly, austerely beautiful images and nuanced performances. Meant to draw us into the outwardly placid protagonist's churning inner world, the voiceover has the opposite effect: one of distancing and interruption. Rarely have I so wanted to tell a first-person narrator to — for lack of more delicate phrasing — put a sock in it.

Shepard, the story's author, is credited as co-screenwriter (along with novelist Ron Hansen), so it's tempting to diagnose the problem as excessive fidelity to source material. Admittedly, the narration makes dramatic sense. Abigail is a stifled intellectual, and writing is her talent and escape; the passages from her journal give us access to feelings that her air of sleeves-rolled-up stoicism doesn't immediately suggest and her everyday duties — baking bread, plucking chickens, milking cows — don't provide an outlet for. The World to Come uses voiceover as its primary tool in building a portrait of female interiority.

But that choice underestimates the other tools at the film's disposal — namely, the director's own visual gifts and her first-rate cast. Waterston is a skilled enough performer and Fastvold an evocative enough stylist to conjure the depths of Abigail's desires and disappointments without having her give an emotional play-by-play. Much as I admired and was at times stirred by The World to Come, I'm convinced it would be a significantly stronger movie with 75 percent of the narration stripped away.

Early scenes pull us into the daily grind of Abigail and her taciturn husband Dyer (Affleck) as they struggle to keep their farm functioning while mourning the loss of their young daughter. There is distance between them — which Dyer openly deplores — though remnants of tenderness, too. Mostly, for Abigail, there is a numbing sameness to the days that pass.

A ripple in that sameness comes in the form of a new couple in the area: Tallie and her hog farmer husband, Finney (Abbott). From the moment Abigail lays eyes on Tallie — with her luxuriant tangle of red hair, splash of freckles and alert blue eyes — she's fascinated. Tallie returns Abigail's curious gaze.

Before long, the women are paying each other regular visits, candid Tallie coaxing reserved Abigail out of her shell. The two share gossip, grievances and, eventually, personal confidences as they create a space away from the men — the lives — they have settled for. Fastvold and her leading ladies establish the characters' dynamic and trace their dawning attraction persuasively, as Abigail finds herself dazzled by Tallie's boldness and independent spirit while Tallie is moved by Abigail's kindness and sharp intelligence. Their closeness is built from a gently crescendoing accumulation of gestures — stolen smiles and glances, the graze of a finger, a bundle of birthday gifts, a foot massage, a hungry kiss — and rendered more intense by their shared sense of looming danger; Abigail and Tallie know that if they're caught, the consequences will be dire.

The omnipresence of Abigail's narration during the movie's middle stretch may call to mind the recent work of Terrence Malick, a great filmmaker whose use and abuse of voiceover has become a devastating weakness. The heroine's musings here may be less drifty and dreamily existential than their Malickian counterparts, but there are eye-rollers of various types — from flowery ("my heart is like a leaf borne over a rock by rapidly moving water"); to obvious ("Astonishment and joy," she sighs following her first embrace with Tallie. Then, in case we didn't get the memo: "Astonishment and joy. Astonishment and joy."); to TMI (when Dyer falls ill: "I've restored him somewhat with an enema of molasses, warm water and lard").

Those lines would be a heavy lift for any performer, and there's something a bit mannered in the hushed pitch and lilting cadences of Waterston's voiceover. She's much more affecting in her scenes with Kirby, the Modigliani-esque graveness of her face melting into a warm, giddy smile.

And how could it not? Kirby gives Tallie a mischievous gleam in her eye and a low, slightly naughty voice that makes her every utterance sound like a confession. The actress conveys more with a slightly cocked eyebrow and clench of the jaw than most do with an entire face-full of emoting, and her magnetism here feels effortless; Tallie isn't as flamboyant as Kirby's flouncy, fancily frocked Princess Margaret from The Crown, but she's somehow just as full of spark and drama.

Affleck and Abbott, meanwhile, lend their characters dimension and specificity, making them more than cardboard impediments to their wives' fulfillment. Speaking in a hoarse, wounded whisper, Affleck locates something deeply human in the hapless, love-starved Dyer, a limited man who nevertheless is capable of seeing beyond his own needs — of having "sympathy," as he notes at one point. Dyer becomes a partner to Abigail at a crucial moment, something that differentiates him starkly from Kinney, a rigid prig who can't conceive of Tallie as anything but an extension of himself. Abbott plays him with a flicker of madness, a streak of sadism that gives the story's turn toward darkness a kind of queasy inevitability.

Even with its flaws, this represents a step up from Fastvold's last movie, the creepy but slight mood piece The Sleepwalker (2014). There's a sense of confidence and control here, starting with DP André Chemetoff's evocative compositions and scrupulously judged camerawork, which favors stillness over movement and balances close-ups with longer shots situating the actors within rustic, sparsely decorated interiors or more majestic outdoor spaces. The setting is stunning (the film was shot on 16mm in Romania), but The World to Come never succumbs to period-drama prettifying. Nature is a seen as a wild, threatening force — Tallie's trek through a blizzard is captured with cacophonous nightmarishness — wielding as much power over the characters' lives as their own choices.

Daniel Blumberg's supple score, by turns mournful, playfully jazzy and full of roiling menace, is one of several other contributions that collectively create an impression of sensitive craftsmanship. Luckily for The World to Come, that impression lingers longer than the film's aggravations.

#Vanessa Kirby #The World to Come #Review #Articles

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quietpoeticheart · 4 years

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The Coffee Shop: Part Three

Summary: Bucky is a retired military veteran suffering from PTSD. He meets Avelyn, a headstrong entrepreneur, one day at her cafe with Steve and then everything changes.

Paring: Bucky Barnes x Black! OC

Word Count: 2350

Warnings: Angst, Slight violence, Anger, Language

A/N: Another day, another chapter, this one got finished a lot quicker than I expected. I wrote it in a day but idk when the next update will be. Bucky is back this chapter and we meet a new character. Happy reading

PREVIOUS PART

For the rest of the week, ever since her mother called, Avelyn had been existing in a state of dread.

She knew that being invited to family dinner was nothing but a ploy to convince her to give up her shop and go back to the life she'd left and because she was never going to do that, she understood that nothing good was going to come out of going but she didn't exactly have choice.

She couldn't disobey a direct order from Ava especially when it meant putting her coffee shop on the line.

As Avelyn sat in the small kitchen in the shop, waiting for the batch of brownies she was making to finish, she wondered if maybe her mother was right. The shop didn't get much business, this was her third day in a row without a single customer coming in.

Maybe, this life really wasn't for her. Sure, she may have been twenty six years old with her own business but does it count if she pretty much still lives off of her parents money because her business is a complete and utter failure. Maybe she was better off going back and working for her parents.

"No, don't think like that. You know what it's like working there and you're not going back, no matter what. Even if you have to sell the coffee shop and get a regular job, you're never going to give the satisfaction." She thought to herself.

Then the chimes on the door jangled noisily signaling someone's entrance. Avelyn sighed, and walked outside to the front, only to see Bucky standing there looking some combination of anxious and upset, with a scowl etched across his features.

"Hey Bucky." Avelyn greeted cheerfully. She took a moment to run her eyes appreciatively up and down his figure.

"Avelyn." He said in a cold, clipped tone, taking a seat on a stool by the cash register. Bucky wasn't in a good mood that day, not that he ever was in a good one, he was simply in more of a bad mood than usual and he wasn't particularly interested in leaving the safety of his apartment to come to this ridiculous coffee shop with the overly chipper owner to see what she had to tell him.

Avelyn was a beautiful girl, there was no doubt about that. She wasn't particularly thick but she had curves where it mattered. Tall with long shapely legs but still nowhere near his height and smooth russet colored skin that seemed to always have a glow despite the ever present coating of flour over it. Her eyes were a simple brown, the color of gingerbread with flecks of gold that sparkled when the sun hit them and a siren like allure that lured him to drown in their depths. Her hair however, was quite literally her crowning glory. Thick, springy, glossy charcoal curls that seemed to defy gravity to float around her head like a halo or the branches of a tree extending to the sky, that bounced as she walked.

He was extremely attracted to Avelyn since he first saw her that day with Steve, but he still found her incessant optimism and almost hyper like eagerness to be annoying and rather exhausting.

"What can I get for ya today Bucky?" Avelyn asked. Her voice was beautiful, her cadence soft, melodic and lilting, with an almost vaguely British accent. Her speech lacked the brusqueness that most New Yorkers possess and to Bucky it was a refreshing change.

"You can tell me what it is you wanted to see me for." Avelyn was taken aback by the coldness in his voice. The times he'd been to her shop before, he'd never spoken to her like that. He was usually aloof but mild-mannered but now, there was an edge to his voice that almost scared her.

"Also, you have chocolate on your face." He sneered snidely. Bucky really wasn't intending to be this rude but he was just so frustrated that he was projecting it onto Avelyn.

A look of horror washed over Avelyn's face. "Shit, the brownies." As she bolted to the kitchen, Bucky tried to reel in his anger, using the techniques his therapist taught him. As he was taking deep breaths in and out, Avelyn returned, holding two plates in her hands. She eyed him curiously but said nothing. She simply set down one of the plates in front of him "I brought you a couple brownies. They're a little crisp but they're still good."

Bucky nodded his thanks and bit into one the brownies, praising the heavens that she didn't ask him about what she saw.

"So." Avelyn began, "The reason why I told Steve to let you swing by, is because I want to offer you a job."

Bucky froze, a brownie halfway to his mouth.

"You want to what?" He asked, thinking he didn't hear her correctly.

"I want to give you a job."

Bucky stared at her like she'd gone mad "Doll, you barely look like you have enough money to keep this place open and you want to give me a job?"

Avelyn nodded slowly.

"Why?"

The answer to that question was quite obvious.

She liked him but because she couldn't say that, she went with the next best option, twisting the truth.

"I know you've been looking for a job -"

Before she could finish, Bucky interrupted her, "How do you know that?" He growled.

The way his voice dropped to a such a low, almost gruff timbre could almost be considered sexy, that's of course if he wasn't looking like he was five seconds away from murdering her where she stood

"Um...Steve told me." She said, her voice a hair above a whisper.

Bucky slammed his hands down on the counter, snarling "And you decide to give the poor cripple a job out of pity."

"N-n-no it's not like that." Avelyn stuttered. She could see that Bucky was getting upset and that's not what she wanted.

"N-n-no it's not like that." Bucky mimicked, his blue eyes, now dark enough to be black, swirling with anger "Then what's it like Avelyn."

"He said you needed a job and I offered, that's all." Avelyn was getting frustrated now, all she was doing was trying to help him and he was acting like an asshole.

"I don't need your charity or your pity. I don't need it okay. I don't need your stupid job." Bucky roared, slamming his hands down so hard that, the marble of the counter split and the plates with the brownies clattered to the ground, shattering into pieces.

That was the last straw for Avelyn.

"Okay, you what I've had it. You know what your problem is, you're ungrateful. You take advantage of Steve's kindness, you deliberately make him worry about you and he gives of himself to you but you don't reciprocate. I know you have your problems but you rather hold onto them and use them as crutch to excuse your bullshit instead of working on them and trying to become a better fucking human."

Bucky stood in awe, no one had ever spoken to him like that before, even before the war. He was always the guy that people respected either genuinely or out of fear and Avelyn yelling at him like he was nothing but a five year old did not sit well with him."

"You think the way that you see yourself as nothing but a useless cripple is the way that everyone sees you and you push everyone away because of it even when people are trying to do things that are for your fucking benefit, like giving you this job. I was simply trying to help you."

Bucky grabbed Avelyn's chin in his and and lowered his face to hers "I didn't ask for your help."

Avelyn slapped away his hand "Fine James, you don't want my help, don't take it. It doesn't make a difference to me anyway. I'm sorry for caring about you."

"I didn't ask you too." Bucky said coolly. He was already beginning to regret his behavior but he'd rather die than to forsake his pride and admit that he was wrong to Avelyn.

"Get the fuck out." Avelyn yelled. She'd had enough, Bucky was clearly not the man that she thought he was and she wasn't going to waste her time trying to help someone who didn't want to be helped. He was all looks and no personality and she wanted no part of that.

"What did you say?" Bucky couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"I said, get the fuck out."

Bucky started intently at Avelyn, his eyes raking over her face. Her usually delicate features were set into a hardened glare and he could feel the anger radiating from her. She looked so gorgeous when she was mad, it made him feel so –

"I'm waiting." Her words interrupted his thoughts.

Bucky tore his eyes away from his figure and walked through the door, regret building in his chest as his heart sank, because he knew that he'd fucked up with one of the few people willing to give him a chance.

Avelyn stared at Bucky as he left the coffee shop and sighed. She understood how Bucky felt, there were times when she felt misunderstood and like an outcast but that didn't in any way excuse his behavior.

He wasn't allowed to treat her like shit because he was in a bad mood. Lord knows she'd let enough men get away with that because they were good looking but she wasn't going to let James Barnes be another one of them. The only thing left to deal with now was the bad mood he'd put her in.

As she wondered what to do, her phone began ringing. Sidestepping the mess on the floor that she'd eventually have to clean, Avelyn went into the kitchen and answered her phone without looking at it.

"What do you want?" She snapped.

"Well hello to you too bitch." Came the voice of her best friend Morgan.

Morgan Stark had been her best friend since kindergarten, a friendship that had only fueled her parents' business rivalry with the Starks even more. Morgan and her parents had never cared that Avelyn was the child of their biggest competitors. Tony and Pepper loved her like she was their own, considered her family, and that was something that she was always grateful for. The Starks were like her parents and Morgan, her sister.

"Oh hey Morgan. Sorry about that, I'm just salty." Avelyn apologized. She was doing the exact same thing that Bucky just did to her and she felt like crap.

"That's fine. What's wrong?" That was the one thing she loved most about Morgan, she was always so understanding. She could be a bit much at times because she was Tony's daughter but she also shared his big heart.

"So you know how I told you that Steve asked me to give Bucky a job, well, he came by today and I offered him the position and he lost it. He got angry, he was yelling, he cracked my counter and I yelled back at him, kicked him out and now I'm just mad. I actually thought he was a nice guy but clearly not."

Morgan sighed, she knew how Avelyn could be when her feelings got involved in situations and made the conscious decision to not mention to Avelyn that she didn't really know Bucky well enough to be the best judge of his character.

"Oh Lynnie, I'm so sorry that happened. What are you gonna do about it?"

"Probably just tell Steve that he didn't want the job, he probably won't be surprised." Avelyn was despondent, she'd really wanted to help Bucky and she felt like an utter failure but then again there's only so much she could do. You can't save someone if they don't want to be saved.

"Well, I have the perfect plan to make you feel better. Some of us are going clubbing tonight, you should come." Morgan may have been slightly taking advantage of the fact that Avelyn was moody to convince her to go out with them.

Ever since Avelyn opened the shop, a year ago, she'd been scarce and most times Morgan only saw her if she came by the coffee shop which she actively avoided because the entire place reeked of depression and broken dreams, not like she'd ever tell Avelyn that.

She knew how hard her best friend had worked to open that place and often tried to encourage her to let her give the shop a social media shout out but Avelyn refused because she was so determined to do it on her own, sometimes forgetting that she people who loved and supported her.

"You know what, why the hell not? I'm in. Where are y'all going?" Avelyn wasn't particularly a party person, but she was in need of a distraction from what had happened that day and going out with was the perfect pick me up especially since she hadn't seen Morgan and the rest of the girls in a while.

"We're going to Moonshine Cabaret." Avelyn winced when she heard the name, the place used to be one of her favorite clubs but now all it held was bad memories but maybe tonight she could replace them with better ones.

"Who's coming with us?"

"Shuri, Natasha, Peter and Thor."

"Okay." Avelyn was okay with the people who were coming, because after her breakup and decision to step away from the socialite life, she'd lost some friends and interacting with them never ended nicely.

"I'll pick you up at nine, make sure you wear something nice. Bye Lynnie, love you."

"Love you too Morgs." Avelyn hung up the phone.

Maybe this day would have some good to come out of it after all, she just hoped that she didn't run into her ex at the club or this day would get even more sour.

---------------------

Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Criticism is welcome. The taglist is also open.

NEXT PART

#bucky barnes #bucky fanfic #bucky fanfiction #bucky fic #bucky x oc #bucky x black original character #bucky x black female character #bucky x original female character #bucky x black! oc #coffee shop #fanfiction #marvel #marvel au

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senpai-no-lie · 4 years

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Black Eagles Route

Finally, with a certain level of dread in my heart, I completed Crimson Flower

Why I chose Black Eagles (specifically Crimson Flower): I had already completed Azure Moon and Verdant Wind, so it was just a matter of picking between Crimson Flower or Silver Snow. I figured it’d be best to just knock out Crimson Flower, since I still needed Hubert, Jertiza, and Edelgard’s supports.

Who Was My Dancer: Sylvain! I kept my recruits for this route only to characters I needed to complete supports, and then also Sylvain, because his aesthetic sense just seemed to jive with the Black Eagles. As a dancer, he did okay, but I think I much prefer him on a horse. However, his dancing was crucial to killing Dimitri before Dedue turned into a beast, and a few other pivotal moments. I just don’t think Sylvain has the magical firepower I like with my dancers (It should be known I don’t typically use the dancer character at all in other FE games, but I really enjoy the magic-utilty they have in 3H)

What Paired Endings Did I Get:

Edelgard & Hubert (I actually feel really bad for Hubert; it wasn’t my intention to do this)

Linhardt & Hapi

Dorothea & Petra

Jeritza & Bernadetta

Ferdinand & Mercedes

Not as many paired endings as usual because I really only cared about filling out my missing supports

Who Did Byleth Marry: Sylvain. Totally, totally not who I meant to marry; my intention was Yuri, but then I never used Yuri. And I just have a soft spot for Sylvain. I stand behind my decision.

Which Edelgard Do I prefer?: Purely on aesthetics, post-timeskip Edelgard is p hot, ngl, but I find her to be more intolerable because of how hard they push that weird sort of gap moe waifu bait with her. So I guess pre-timeskip, even if that’s not much better.

General Thoughts: I tried, oh so hard, to go in with an open mind about Edelgard and the other route exclusive characters. Edelgard leaves about 0 impressions in the other routes, as far as being an antagonist goes, but from the opening chapters on my first playthrough, I found her to be manipulative, condescending, and perhaps a bit immature. And yeah, she’s all of those things and more.... But Hubert, Hubert I love and I’m so mad that I can see the appeal of Hubert x Ferdinand now. My only point of contention remains the fact that in canon they remain subservient to her in their paired ending.

I also went out of my way to kill every single named character throughout the route, and it was both satisfying and heartbreaking. That Dimitri and Dedude death scene, Seteth’s shouts as I struck down Flayn, the dialogue between Sylvain as he fought against his childhood friends.... so good.

The Black Eagles Characters:

I did almost all the supports possible, sans route exclusives and DLC on my first playthrough, but I’ve yet to hash out my general feelings about the Black Eagles.

Edelgard: Plain and simple, I do not stan Edelgard. I found a lot of her behavior more reasonable if she was 13 pre-timeskip and 18 post-timeskip, but a 23 year old being so cringey and unaware of the greater political climate (Hubert regularly does things behind her back that she doesn’t even notice or care to notice, while complaining that Hubert makes her work for ambitions rather than letting her eat sweets or stare at the sky all day, ugh) is just unappealing as hell. The whole sequence where I had two opportunities to call her fear of rats “cute” was super off-putting, and the don’t get me started on her drawing Byleth fanart. She’s constantly looking for affirmation from Byleth (despite insisting she doesn’t need praise in lecture), while being manipulative and condescending to everyone else. Her calling Lysithea “good girl” when Lysithea is 20/21, only three years younger, and an entire inch taller than Edelgard post-timeskip is pure cringe. Also the name Black Eagles Strike Force is an awful name and I’m not sorry I told her as much.

Hubert: I’m torn on whether or not Hubert is my favorite Black Eagle. I really enjoy devoted servant characters, and I find him more endearing because Edelgard doesn’t deserve him. He’s so visually unappealing (though, not as bad as I find Lorenz to be) and weird, but I respect that about him.

Ferdinand: Sweet, dumb Ferdinand. I love him; his supports are a delight and I am consistently charmed by how sweet he is in his supports. I prefer him in other routes than how he has to behave in Crimson Flower, but what can ya do. Truly, the noblest of nobles

Linhardt: I’ve heard mixed opinions about Linhardt, but I for one like him. He’s a fair-weather sort of guy who only cares about a few things, and I support that. He’s just strange and intelligent and a dry sense of humor I can appreciate.

Caspar: This moron, I love him. Caspar is the one person I’d expect to follow Edelgard unquestioningly because he just doesn’t have enough brain cells to do otherwise. I think he’s funny, even if his tone-deaf screaming in eagerness to kill and conquer Fodlan grew taxing.

Dorothea: I like Dorothea alright; I think she has a lot of personality in her supports, but she’s not really the sort of character I find especially endearing or relatable. Nothing wrong with that.

Petra: A great girl! I find her manner of speech endearing, and I’m personally grateful that didn’t try to do some sort of accent for her that’s 1:1 for the real world. I was a bit put-off by how gungho she is with siding with Edelgard and dismantling Fodlan, but ya know, what choice does she have a political prisoner shoved into the black hole that surrounds Edelgard?

Bernadetta: People complain that Sylvain doesn’t mature post-timeskip, but Bernedetta still does that awful screeching and being a recluse routine up until the very end. I don’t like her or find her funny, but I do enjoy the sort of moral relativism she employs. Her supports with Yuri made me feel exceptionally sorry for Yuri.

Jeritza: His voice and cadence irritates me to no end, but he was enjoyable as a unit, at least. I think his “personality” or “two personalities” is troupey to the max, and his supports with Byleth were especially off-putting. I feel like if you’re going to make a murder-happy character like Jeritza, especially one with like a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde thing going on, it needs to be way more campy or bombastic.

I could honestly write a bunch more, but it’d mostly be me bitching about specific cringe-inducing moments with Edelgard that I’m sure other people who aren’t aggressively stanning her have brought up. If you like Edelgard, good for you, but I’m of the opinion that she’s a snake, and not even a clever or tactful one. Crimson Flower is so painful with how obvious it is with it’s Edelgard-pandering that it took me out of the game multiple times. All their routes have their flaws, but I guess the last (and only) animated sequence for CF was pretty dope, at least.

#my opinions about fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fire emblem 3h #fe:3h #fe: three houses #black eagles #crimson flower

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hopevalley · 5 years

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Hi everyone! I hope you’re ready for another Tumblr Special™.

Let’s talk about some stuff that’s been on my mind lately.

I’ve been working on my pet project, When Calls the Heart: Reimagined, and my bud @trash-god has assured me that the current first draft isn’t complete garbage, but the discussion we had eventually led to talking about Mark Humphrey and then character-related stuff and as usual I couldn’t shut up.

Before that, I just wanted to drop the update about Reimagined. I don’t know if that’ll be its actual title or not. It’s hard to title a novelization. On one hand you have the option to title it the same as the show, but it’s not the show, so then you’re kind of stuck feeling like you have to come up with something at least slightly different, but it’s still also technically fanfic, and—

Yeah. There’s also the potential for something like this to really blow up in a big way, at least word-wise, so that makes a title even more important. I’ll definitely be out there barking my wares like a peddler on the street, but like...here on Tumblr and especially on Instagram where there are a ton of fans. Twitter too, probably. Considering I have to type this five billion times across social media to try and garner some attention (and hopefully feedback) for it, I’d rather not be embarrassed by the title, or turn people away from it because they think it’s a regular fanfic and not a novelization of the show.

Which leaves me with very few options.

When Calls the Heart: The Novelization

When Calls the Heart: Reimagined

Some other title with a subtitle of “A When Calls the Heart Novelization”

It sounds simple but it’s not. “The Novelization” makes it sound like it’s following the show super precisely. “Reimagined” makes it sound as if it deviates in a big way. Something else could just be too much to type but at least it implies it’s an interpretation. What if this ends up getting absolutely huge and needs to be split up into parts, though? That makes it more difficult.

I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ve made it about five minutes into the first episode, time-wise, and have four thousand some odd words. It’s not even a complete chapter—more like an introduction and the beginning of the first chapter.

But something I noticed in those first five minutes of the television series is that...everything is so incredibly rushed. The pacing is awful. I think I might have talked about this a bit in my ‘episode write-up’ of the first episode, but even though it works well enough for this series (especially considering its S1 budget and everything) it would all be terrible for a narrative choice.

I mean, sure, the first chapter could start with Elizabeth on her journey thinkin’ ‘bout where she’s going, ruminating on her own hubris, and then BANDITS. Cut out and back in to her arriving in town without much of an explanation or showing how she personally handled the whole bandit thing. Then have Abigail, Cat, and Florence steamroll the heck out of her while the narrative laughs at rich, silly Elizabeth who isn’t afraid of hard work but is scared of a mouse.

But that isn’t what I want. Elizabeth as a character, especially the introductory character we’re going to get to know and love over the course of hundreds of thousands of words (in theory, of course), deserves better than that. The narrative cluster from the TV show served its purpose; it flung us right into the thick of things. Which is fine for TV and less fine for what would essentially be a book.

Again, don’t get me wrong, but I want Elizabeth to be the kind of character we don’t know everything about right away. I don’t want to spill every detail of her life right from the get-go. I don’t want her to come off as too obviously rich, especially in her own narrative. I want her observations and mannerisms and attitude to reflect the fact that she comes from money without stating it outright.

I also feel that Elizabeth as a character lacked a lot of attention in the show that, again, worked okay for a tv show, but would be doing her a disservice in a novel. She needs hobbies, passions, random relateable thoughts, habits, joys (especially the quiet kind), and motivation. Not to be That Person, but she needs a personality. As the main character it would just be completely unforgivable to have hundreds of thousands of words dedicated to a character that is dull to read about. Remember, books don’t give us the visually appealing scenes that the TV show does. Elizabeth’s smile, her hair, her fun outfits and hats... Those things can’t distract a reader from the fact that she isn’t a very well-fleshed out or understood character.

It also can’t distract from an insanely rushed narrative.

Tons of people watch WCtH for Erin’s performance of Elizabeth. They won’t be reading this novelization for that reason, because Elizabeth is not Erin.

(Though of course you can imagine her in the role if you want to and most readers will; it’s just not the kind of thing that can carry a book the way it can a piece of visual media.)

Reimagined is, as of right now, just a slight deviation from what we’re used to. Elizabeth has hobbies, interests. She is a passionate teacher who took the position in Coal Valley for Reasons You’ll Read About.

I really liked aspects of the Elizabeth portrayed in the film by Poppy and in the novel by Janette Oke, and some of those tiny things can and will work their way into this version of the story, too. I’m on board with Elizabeth being a writer, but I’m not on board for that being used as journal exposé writing for Narrative Ease and not to really go all-out in showcasing it as something she’s truly and honestly passionate about. If I want to see a movie that did a great job of showcasing a passionate writer, it’s Anne of Green Gables/Anne of Avonlea. Sure, Anne’s flair for flowery writing and drama was embedded into the voiceover bits and had some narrative function, but it was SO clearly a part of WHO SHE WAS that when you thought about who Anne was, you thought, oh, she’s a teacher for her job but she’s a writer at heart—especially when she learns to write from the heart (instead of what she thinks will make her successful).

I don’t expect Elizabeth to be that type of character (she’s far too sensible), but I need her to have a passion. A person doesn’t just take a teaching post in Nowhere Valley, Canada, in 1910 and not have a good reason for it. What drives her? What motivates her? What makes her happy?

And when it comes to writing...what is it about writing that she likes? Enjoys? What’s the best part of it? The worst? I wanted to like Elizabeth’s writing arc because duh, I’m a writer, but it didn’t spark any joy in me because it was just too flat. If you give me half a chance I’ll tell you all the best parts of writing, and the worst, and the most frustrating, and the most rewarding. I’ll talk about character growth and development. I’ll talk about cadence. I’ll talk about self-indulgence.

Elizabeth’s passion for writing existed for one reason: “she writes in her journal for easy skips in the narrative.”

I think she’ll keep her writing passion in Reimagined, but she’ll have other things that matter to her, too, and hopefully if it’s consistently presented it won’t feel like it’s there just to carry a plotline (only for it to disappear afterward).

It’s been fun so far! Elizabeth has been surprisingly nice to write. I won’t lie, though; it’s hard to follow the show enough to make things feel like a novelization while still deviating where it makes sense to. One small example is the conversation that Cat, Abigail, and Florence have with Elizabeth when she gets to town; the TV show didn’t do a bad job with it at all, but when it’s written out exactly the same it feels intensely rushed and out of character/unrealistic. Again, it’s something that got the job done in the TV show, but is nigh unreadable in novel format.

And it’s not the info dumping, either. It’s just the way the characters go about things; it’s not hospitable, it’s not kind, it’s not thoughtful... and we know from later episodes that Abigail is the pinnacle of hospitality and kindness, and Cat isn’t too far behind her! Even Florence isn’t a monster.

So there has been an attempt on my part to twist things slightly, where mayyybe what Florence says that sounds so rude is really just Florence Being Florence (and observing a truth/reality, not always being awful), and where Elizabeth isn’t mocked on top of being doubted, and of course where some concern is shown for her well-being after her stagecoach was robbed and no doubt didn’t show up in town IN THE FIRST PLACE. I mean, how could they NOT know why Elizabeth was late? Being late by a few days or a week was NOTHING back then. It happened ALL THE TIME. (Thanks, weather!)

So yeah! The project is going. I was really getting into writing it last night, and I’d be working on it now, but I’m just too tired to feel useful.

For those wondering about Abigail...she’ll be there. I like the original character and I’ll try to move forward with that person in mind.

But back to the whole thing with Mark and et cetera. It’s really interesting how many WCtH characters got the short end of the stick when it came to character development. They have too many characters for the amount of episodes they get a season, which resulted in like...everyone dating for absurdly long periods of time (that had nothing to do with character-reasons until they felt they had to add that stuff in there to force it to make sense). It wasn’t just Jesse and Clara, either. Obviously Elizabeth and Jack took way too long to get together...and Abigail and Frank dated for literal years and should have had something related to that being..a plot for them. I think it might have been interesting in ways Jesse/Clara can’t be, just because Abigail had a long marriage with Noah and she’s much older than Clara, so she brings all that into a new relationship. Clara’s got different issues and sadnesses to work through.

Obviously it didn’t just result in characters dating for insane lengths of time; it also gave us a lot of just..nothing. This conversation started with Frank, because we were talking about Mark Humphrey, but he’s just one example of a handful. The series focused a LOT more on plot driven stuff than character driven stuff, which makes sense, but look at Frank’s character. He got an arc, and then when it was over, he just kind of became a very backseat background character. We might as well have named him Abigail’s Boyfriend at that point, because he hardly did anything that wasn’t related to Abigail DIRECTLY. He didn’t even really get scenes with Cody, which...c’mon. We deserved those. (The best we got was the Christmas movie where the peddler has his old Bible from prison but that whole thing was...not nearly as good or meaningful as it could have been, and of course IT DIDN’T GO ANYWHERE.)

But then it also happened to Lee, and Jesse, and Clara, and Carson and Faith and—yeah, you get it. I feel like if we had 20 episodes a season this wouldn’t be so bad (each recognizable character could easily get a two part episode plotline), but it’s a symptom of plots > character storytelling. More episodes won’t fix that if they just dump in even more bad plots.

S6 was a large improvement in many areas but they REALLY dropped the ball with Bill overall (easily one of the worst parts of S6 just because he went from being such an involved character to kind of a joke/rag doll that nobody knows how to include in a sensible way) and the children aren’t characters so much as tiny plot devices...that frankly aren’t even particularly interesting.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what they’ll do with S7. I hope it’ll be good! I really want them to get their footing onto solid ground and do the best they’ve ever done. They have something really wonderful and I want to be able to tell people “this series found its way and is worth checking out even if it’s usually not your speed.”

But it’s hard to do that when the characters always end up feeling secondary to the (poorly constructed, not very engaging) plots.

So we’ll see! These are things I can improve upon in Reimagined, but I’d really like the show to do some of that work, too. (Better late than never, right?)

#wcth reimagined #and other shenanigans

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pickyperkypenguin · 5 years

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Recently I remembered that Mabel podcast exists. As I had an upcoming journey, it seemed like a perfect occasion to renew my interest in it, and to get to know how the story of Anna Limon and Mabel unfolds.

(Disclaimer: I am writing all this after listening to twenty five episodes. I don’t exclude the possibility that I’d change my mind, had I listened to more, but for now this is what I think. Also, I had no idea I’ve had so much to say about Mabel podcast, so the length of this text is a surprise both for you and for me. tl;dr: I love the idea of this story, execution could be better.)

What I realised after listening to a couple of episodes after a long break (and the natural break in the narrative, at which point I initially finished), was that it’s, like, Really Bad. But, you know, sort of in a good way.

The general premise is something that a person ( I, the person. When I say we or a person I mean I, but it’s too late to care about my phrasing now) wishes badly to exist. Who doesn’t want a queered fairy tale, dramatic and tragic lesbian romance, the kind that somehow feels like in every single scene the heroes (heroines, in this case) are standing over the edge of a cliff, their ripped white shirts barely covering their chests, their bodies shivering from the wind, and somebody is about to kill or kiss the other person. You know, the romantic as in the historical period kind. Everything over the top, but better, because it’s not subtextually, but screamingly textually queer.

And it works at certain points, really – the queerness of the heroines queers the structure of the story, it plays on the archetypes and sort of fulfils the desire to appropriate them for the queer self for once. It’s a pleasant feeling.

The descriptions are flowy and opulent, the romance goes how certain type of straight romances would go – assuming that the listener will assume the same stuff about a queer couple, as about heterosexual one. And it provides the portrait of an unhinged, feral, burning and at times tender love I see so rarely in queer narratives, because it often would be considered “problematic” (again, it would not, was it a straight romance, but we do tend to have higher expectations for queer romances) or simply botched (it often is in straight romances). It’s the love that’s not really supposed to be nice, and that’s based on imagining and idealisation of the other person more than the reality of the connection (and it goes both ways, as we see after finally getting Mabel’s POV). It is indeed for the most of time disconnected, here by literally a wall between the worlds, but not as the finishing scene, but by the duration. The sun and moon type of romance (and the podcast seems self-aware of all that, I think the creators are delighting in the fact that they can construct it like this).

And I think that till a certain point it all sort of works out more or less, minus the details I’ll be complaining about. When it comes to the luscious descriptions creating the atmosphere of a fairy tale in vivid detail, they are really over the top, bordering on purple prose (or sometimes just plunging right into it). The repetitions and flowery adjectives have their own charm and work in small amounts. I thought – maybe it was not made for binge listening? But no, on the other hand the structure of plot is slow to unfold and convoluted enough, that were I listening to it week-by-week, I’d get nothing from it, really, and would probably be discouraged by the fact that it’s not as much that I don’t understand anything, but I can’t see the larger plot that’s supposed to be unfolding. It’s a mystery-based podcast at first, and I would probably forget what would be considered as base-level unusual in-world, and it would not make an effective impression on me with the increase of oddity.

Another explanation of the purple language – maybe it’s Anna Limon’s character? Maybe she is that kind of girl – after all, for what we know she might as well be going crazy in an old lady’s house, fixating on mysteries and family history that’s not hers for the lack of anything to do? The voicemail “letters” (for a lack of better word, but it has that feel of XIXth century love letters, you know) charm at first. Well, at least me. (Same went with Alice Isn’t Dead, with the main character constantly addressing her wife that she misses – that was I think the first time I encountered a wlw affection showed like this, and I liked the idea very much).

Unfortunately, the formula starts breaking when the first arc of the story ends, and we get to know Mabel’s point of view and Mabel’s character. Here the similarities of that language start grating: Mabel is a not-really-a-girl-what-does-human-mean-at-this-point who has been isolated for a long time in the Kingdom Under the Hill, where concepts work in a slightly different way than in the real world, and she could be this over the top just from the isolation and existing for a long time among this non-euclidean post-death plant-gymnastics.

Both Anna and Mabel could have their own reasons to be speaking like this (speaking! That also changes the feeling of it, it read distinctively different in text form). But when those reasons are so different from one another, and yet the language stays about the same, it’s just obvious that it’s the writing of the show, and unfortunately, as I said, in larger quantities, in it not being a distinctive characteristic but how the script is written, and also because it’s all spoken, it starts charming and ends up jarring. It’s becomes too over the top, if I can say it like that, and it doesn’t work as it should, also because – and here we come with another thing – it takes itself so. damn. seriously.

The Mabel podcast does not joke, but it contains a lot of unhinged, wild and hysterical laughing, giggling and sobbing. Maybe it’s the fault of the voice acting (and sorry if it’s rude, but I’m afraid I think the voice acting is really not good overall), but at a point it just started getting on my nerves. The show never stops to give itself a breather, but rides the high C all the time, and there is no rest. That cheapens, I’m afraid, the moments that are supposed to be impactful and end up less so, because they have no chance of shining brighter than the others, as everything tries to shine at once.

I also think that the voice acting itself is annoying me more than it should. I don’t really find the cadence of the voices pleasant – especially Mabel, who is unfinishing her sentences a lot but in a way that sounds artificial. It’s like amateur actors who know they are supposed to not finish a sentence, because it has been written in the script that another character will interrupt them. So, they go off from their way to facilitate that, and there is the minuscule but noticeable pause that just sounds stupid for the spectator. It’s even worse when there is no other character to interrupt, just one person abandoning a sentence – but they have long ago known they will abandon it in the first place, oh my god, it doesn’t make sense. Sorry, I think I really didn’t like Mabel’s way of talking.

I mean, at first it was sort of incredible – I remember the impact it made on me when I finally heard Mabel’s voice! And she was so angry! She was angry at Anna for switching places without asking her if she even wants that, and she didn’t fit in the real world acutely, and she has had a lot of pretensions and grievances. She was yelling a lot and hitting things. It was awesome. And then, sadly, it all lost the impact, because I then started noticing everything that I listed above and all this became just a baseline communication for her, and nothing had the time to reverberate. Her appearance was the best and the worst that could happen, because it could be executed so well, but instead has basically destroyed the formula of the show that seduced me in the first place.

And the formula was this – one sided relation from events we don’t know if they are actually happening, or if it’s a portrait of a person losing herself and going insane. The distortions instead of voices when the worlds were colliding and the other world and its inhabitants were communicating was absolutely selling that ambiguity. It was providing a certain foundation to Anna’s self-doubt if she isn’t going insane, and at the same time giving us the structure of the narrative that we’re familiar with, because we’ve been (I was, in Central Eastern Europe) raised on it. It was (and is, I stand by it) an amazing choice for showing an encounter with the Other, with strangeness that the modern world (and its recording devices) is not equipped to handle, and the heroes are barely able to as well. I do believe the only way to scare us at all in the XXI century and the time of incredibly realistic special effects is to leave us guessing, because only then we’ll be able to scare ourselves. The theatricality will work out where the gore fails, and here it worked spectacularly. I still don’t know who exactly was speaking in which moments, if the house was speaking at all, if it was maybe Luna Thorn or the King. Who the fuck knows, and what a delight it is.

But the story started to fall apart, as I said, when we finally had both girls actually talking to each other, and then them speaking of the other as if she was not theoretically right next to her. In the exact manner as when they were apart, divided by the veil between the real world and the fairy kingdom. The distance disappeared, we got both points of view, and that should be the moment of losing the gravity, and I think it would kind of saved the show. Unfortunately, I say as a mantra here, even though the attempts were made – bravo for Anna, expressing her desire for Mabel to just fucking talk to her like a normal person and to co-exist, be in the same spacetime. To which we got a counterargument that oh, of bloody course Anna wants normalcy because that’s her fetish, and Mabel is not normal because she’s barely human and did even Anna love her all this time, can she love her after confronting that otherness of Mabel? Aaand there it went. I mean, it does make narrative sense a lot, but it also prevents from riding out the narrative high C, and so we are still listening to an equivalent of ten hour version of the last phrase from the Phantom of the Opera theme song.

The romance starts showing its imperfections, and normally it would be good, because it would lead us to the protagonists deepening the connection, going from the abstract, ideative one, to one forged in the fire of just being in near proximity, and in situations where they are supposed to work out compromises to rely on each other, instead of making decisions for the other and expecting gratitude. At the point which I listened to last, they confronted that issue, but didn’t seem like it was going anywhere (yet?). Which leads me to a point, that I will probably listen to at least a couple more episodes, both because I sort of want to give it a chance and to know how it will unfold, and also because I have another upcoming journey and what you expect me to be doing on a train?

Yeah, that’s about that. Gods, what the hell, I had no idea I would write this much. There might be several grammatical mistakes in this meta, because I am not a native speaker and there is no way I am going to go over 2k of words that nobody may even read, and I should seriously be going back to what I should be doing instead of this. Though I admit, right now I will try to go to the gym, because I am highly caffeinated (have you noticed???) and I, like, cannot really do caffeine. At all. Why did I do that? Oh yeah, I had to because I was working on some stuff before. Oh gods, how will I even fall asleep today.

#mabel podcast #meta #to whomstever it may concern: i am so sorry i drank this yerba mate based drink i will be punished by my own system anyway

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Riverdale Season 5 Episode 1 Review – Chapter 77: Climax

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This RIVERDALE review contains spoilers.

Riverdale Season 5 Episode 1

“Clearly our last two weeks of high school are going to be fraught…”

Friends, on this day we find this country starting a new chapter, one that is full of hope and excitement for the future.

I am of course referring to the airing of Riverdale‘s season premiere, a somewhat wheel-spinning, melodramatic affair that feels more like the closing pages of a book than the start of another story.

And that’s because it is precisely that. This episode was a leftover from last year, filmed but not completed production until the pandemic lockdown was over. As such it thrusts us into the start of the endgame of last season’s storylines — namely the fallout of the Betty and Archie kiss, Mr. Lodge’s illness and how he is using vigilantism to cope with it, the mysterious (and suitably anachronistic videotapes) arriving at the doorsteps of Riverdale residents, and the gang prepping for their imminent post-high school lives.

There’s a lot to be told here until the show finishes telling this specific story. Writers Ace Hasan and Greg Murray handle this arguably thankless task with aplomb, squeezing out the necessary exposition needed to push the plot points towards their approaching conclusion while shoehorning in a (now unfortunate) Katy Keene tie-in. To be fair, it’s a solid episode. Just one that, through no fault of its own, doesn’t really work as a season premiere.

That minor gripe aside, there’s a lot to enjoy here. First and foremost are Archie’s struggles. It was wise for the showrunners to make the character realize that he is a bit of a rudderless dolt. Addressing this most obvious of character flaws makes our oft-shirtless protagonist that much more of a likable guy. He’s discovered that while he has some options — running the gym is his best bet — he also needs to clear his head, and getting out of Riverdale would help with that greatly.

Now that the Navy isn’t an option, and he’s questioning his whole life. This results in his destroying his relationship with Veronica by telling her about his illicit kiss with Betty. One, it should be mentioned, that made Betty feel super uncomfortable…although that could’ve just been the terrible song Archie wrote for her.

The deception is enough to blow apart the pair’s “endgame” status…at least until after the upcoming time jump and their old flame is inevitably rekindled. (Even though we know that Veronica will be married to the jerky Chad Gekko, another Katy Keene character climbing aboard the Riverdale express). Much drama will ensue, but in the show’s now, they are done. What’s the over/under until we see Veronica performing “Bittersweet Symphony” at La Bonne Nuit?

Elsewhere, the Choni ship (I am in my forties and just wrote those words!) is threaten by the ghost of the greatest thing to ever happen on Riverdale: The Blossom family’s Maple Syrup Blood Feud. It’s not that Toni’s Nana has an issue with her granddaughter’s sexuality — although she kinda does — but more that Toni is dating a sworn enemy of the Lopez family. As much as I love me some Shakespeareian motifs, these characters regularly deal with serial killers and cult members. So the family drama here isn’t really very compelling, you know?

The most interesting thing happening on Riverdale right now is also its most frustrating, the saga of The Auteur. Betty didn’t tell Jughead about Archie’s shitty song or the kiss because in her mind, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Just a sort of awkward thing that happened in the moment that isn’t worth blowing up her life over. Adult decision making at its finest! Whether or not this choice impacts her relationship with Jughead, and I bet it does, will be revealed soon. Right now though they are doing what they love the most, investigating a mystery. One that really needs to ramp up the excitement and fast.

David seems to be too obvious of a choice to be the identity of the Auteur. It also goes against the show’s habit of making the protagonist someone we already know. Episodes from last season have shown us Charles and Chip plotting together for a yet to be revealed reason. To a lesser degree, Evelyn Evernever is a possibility too. But this episode raises the most intriguing potential suspect yet.

Jellybean Jones.

Think about it. She is a cipher of a character, one who would have had access to Jughead’s stories and knows about almost every aspect of his life. Perhaps she is making these videos because she is scared about him going away to school. Maybe they are some sort of bizarre revenge plot cooked up by Jellybean and Gladys Jones against Jughead and FP? By making Jellybean the auteur this creates more drama for the ever-complicated Jughead and gives him a personal tragedy that mirrors what Betty experienced with her father. I truly feel that Jellybean being at David’s film fest/rave by herself (we never see her friends she is supposedly with) is much more than a red herring. Time will tell. But we need to see some clarity on what the motives behind these tapes are, ASAP.

And so Riverdale is back. While we are watching the blending of the programs fourth and fifth seasons unfold due to real-life production concerns, it remains the most welcome of escapes.

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Riverdale Rundown

• This episode was filmed before production on the series was shut down due to Covid-19. As such, the next few installments will cover the gang’s final weeks at Riverdale High before jumping ahead seven years — which will occur in what was originally intended to be last year’s season finale. And you thought Doctor Who was timey wimey.

• The above explanation also explains why a character from a cancelled CW series — K.O. Kelly from Katy Keene — plays such a crucial role in tonight’s proceedings.

• Speaking of Katy Keene, that show took place during the time period that Riverdale is about to jump ahead to — one in which Hiram Lodge has completely recovered from his mystery disease.

• Did anyone else find Archie’s constant referring to K.O. as bro endearing? And OF COURSE these two characters were given a shirtless workout montage/steam room scene. Besides, what’s an episode of Riverdale without plenty of gratuitous objectification?

• Archie really did himself no favors by neglecting to mention to Veronica how Betty shut him down after his attempt to woo her. Communication is the key to a solid, healthy relationship, fam!

• Ashleigh Murray’s Josie McCoy was a main character on Katy Keene, yet as of this writing it is unclear if she will return to Riverdale or not this season. (And for the record, Archieverse showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa hasn’t permanently shut the door on some sort of Katy Keene revival either).

• The cancelled fifth season of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina would have been a major crossover with Riverdale. Although we were denied that magic, if the above official key art is to be believed, it does seem that we will be getting some major supernatural happenings is season. Afterlife with Archie anyone?

• Archie’s scars from his bear attack really come and go, don’t they?

• Kett Turton returns tonight as David, the owner of the Blue Velvet video store. His perfect recreation of David Lynch’s cadence and mannerisms combined with the costume department seemingly raiding the Twin Peaks mastermind’s wardrobe is a perfect illustration of how Riverdale commits to its goofiness 100%.

• I’m not sure, but I think the Black Hood movie being shown in room 317 is a very subtle reference to the Miss Saigon song that also takes place in that location.

• In a nice callback, some of the tickling videos like the ones Kevin and Fangs made are being shown at the film party/rave. (Along with snippets of exploitation/art flicks clearly inspired by the works of Kenneth Anger and Herschell Gordon Lewis).

• “You had me at snuff film.” Here’s hoping Kevin Keller never changes.

• Cheryl is at her most Cheryl tonight, melodramatically spewing lines like “perhaps your camera will capture the sublime tragedy of my life” with an effortlessness that would make Bette Davis proud.

• Putting Fizzle Rocks in the punchbowl, classic Reggie Mantle.

• Further evidence of how this show is, to quote The Tragically Hip, chronologically fucked up, the songs played at the prom were Sixpence None the Richer’s “Kiss Me,” BoDeans’ “Closer to Free” (itself the theme song to another popular teen show, Party of Five), Collective Soul’s “The World I Know,” Mazzy Star’s timeless “Fade Into You,” and Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer.” Would any of these songs actually be played at a prom taking place in whatever year in the 2010’s this series is set in? Your guess is as good as mine.

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atcmicorgasms · 6 years

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ORIGINS & FAMILY:

Name: Oh Gayeon

Nickname: Grace, Gracie

Reason for name: Grace was given as a sort of nickname for Gayeon when she was younger and it’s always stuck, so as she’s gotten older, she’s started using Grace as the name

Birthday: May 31, 1989

Age: 28

Gender: Female

Place of birth: Grace was born in Wichita, Kansas

Places lived since: Grace lived in Wichita until she was two before her family relocated to Athens, Georgia. Grace moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA and has stayed, pursuing an acting career

Parents’ names, backgrounds, occupations: Grace was born to Oh Jin Young, who ran his own carpentry business and Oh (nee Kim) Yoo Ne, a real estate agent. Jin Young and Yoo Ne (who would go by Jin and Yuna, respectively, at the time) met in college at the University of Kansas as lab partners in a biology class and ended up being in the same Psychology and English 102 later in their college careers)

Number of siblings: 2, Junior and Sora, Grace is the middle child.

Relationship with family (close? estranged?): Grace’s relationship with her family is distant. She still will talk to her family, but traveling to see them doesn’t happen very often. Her parents weren’t too excited about her leaving the nest but it’s something they’ve been slowly working past.

Happiest memory: Easily her acceptance into university.

Childhood trauma: Grace chooses not to talk too much about any of the actual major traumas that have happened during her childhood and instead chooses to recall the time she had been caught smoking pot underneath the bleachers and the punishment she received from there.

Children of his/her own?: none

If so, relationship with their mother/father?: n/a

Age he/she gave birth/became a father: n/a

PHYSICAL

Height: Grace is 5′9

Weight:

Build: straight

Nationality: Korean-American

Disabilities (physical or mental, including mental illnesses): Grace has PMDD, which gives her more severe symptoms than the average PMS.

Complexion (freckles, acne, skin tone, birth marks): Grace has a noticeable tan, and has finally gotten control of her adult onset acne, although she’ll get very nasty flare ups the week leading up to her period.

Face shape: rounded

Distinguishing facial features: the apples of her cheeks are very prominent when she smiles

Hair color: Brown

Usual hair style: Grace is self-conscious about her ears (Although she’s been told on numerous occasions that they’re perfectly normal) so her hair is usually kept down.

Eye color: brown

Glasses? Contacts?: none

Style of dress/typical outfit(s): Grace honestly is Target girl at heart, so nine times out of ten, she’ll find things from the clothes section in Target, she doesn’t really have a distinct style or anything typical.

Typical style of shoes: Give Grace tennis shoes or sandals any day.

Health (is this person usually sick? or very resilient?): Grace got a ton of ear infections as a kid and despite getting a flu shot every year, she tends to fall victim to the flu or a nasty bout of pneumonia if she’s lucky enough to avoid the flu.

Grooming (does she/he wear makeup? shower daily? wear only clean clothes? pluck her eyebrows?): Foundation and eyeliner are Grace’s go to for make up looks. Grace showers daily, if she skips a day, she ends up showering twice in the next day that she does shower

Jewelry? Tattoos? Piercings?: At any given time, you can find her with a simple chain necklace with some small accent piece on it (like an arrow or feather) and bangles, and about two rings on either hand. Any of the cuff style bracelets are reserved for when she’s dressing up.

Accent?: She’s worked very hard to get rid of any trace of an accent, although it’ll still slip when she’s talking to certain people or saying certain words.

Unique mannerisms/physical habits (bites nails, talks with hands, taps feet when restless): Grace tends to lick her lips a lot when she’s nervous and if she starts to feel any sort of embarrassment or awkwardness when talking to someone, she’ll wiggle in place.

Athletic?: She loves doing the high intensity workouts and pilates

INTELLECT

Level of education (high school drop out, undergrad BA/BS, PhD, MD, etc.): Grace has a bachelor’s in sociology and has looked into going towards social work if acting doesn’t pan out

Level of self esteem: 6.3

Gifts/talents: Grace has a great memory and she’s good at wrapping presents.

Shortcomings: Grace can be incredibly naive and fairly easy to upset, she’s been working on being in better control of her emotions, especially when she’s due for her next cycle.

Style of speech (loud, mumbler, articulate, etc.): Grace has a medium volume of speech, she speaks at a fairly quick cadence and her voice is a little more on the huskier side

“Left brain” or “right brain” thinker?: Right brain

Artistic?: She’s good at coloring and has made some sort of name for herself, albeit small in acting so there’s some artisticness there

Mathematical?: Not at all. She was able to scrape by in her math classes and had to study five times as hard to make sure she really understood a concept and as soon as she was done having to take math classes, she was super happy

Makes decisions based mostly on emotions, or on logic?: Emotionally

Neuroses: a mild hypochondriac. She visits webMD way too often for anything small to turn it into the mountain she does

Life philosophy:

Religious stance: Buddhist

Cautious or daring?: A little bit of both

Most sensitive about/vulnerable to: Some of the major life choices she’s made.

Optimist or pessimist?: Optimist

Extrovert or introvert?: Extrovert

Level of comfort with technology: Like a 7 or 8

RELATIONSHIPS

Current marital/relationship status: Single

Sexual orientation:

Past relationships: 2

Primary reason for being broken up with: Location and it just being a short lived thing

Primary reasons for breaking up with people: Long distance

Level of sexual experience: 4

Story of first kiss (if any—if not, how does he/she want it to happen?): A middle school dance, it sort of just happened by accident

Story of loss of virginity (if any—if not, how does he/she want it to happen, if at all?):

A social person? (popular, loner, some close friends, makes friends and then quickly drops them): Grace is social when she needs to be. She’s very comfortable reaching out to network, but she can also be a huge homebody.

Most comfortable around (person): Herself

Oldest friend: A friend she made in George

How does he/she think others perceive him/her?:

How do others actually perceive him/her?:

VOCATION

Profession: Grace is an aspiring actress

Past occupations: She helped out with data entry in her dad’s business and has worked in the mall

Passions: Music, cat cafes, going to the beach

Attitude towards current job: She likes it

Attitude towards current coworkers, bosses, employees: It really depends on the gig

Salary: Depends on the gig

SECRETS

(Every character—no matter how minor—should always have secrets!)

Phobias: She has a reoccurring nightmare of her going into any room in her home and the lights not working

Life goals: Just to be recognized

Dreams: Win an award

Greatest fears: losing her family and not finding out for a long period of time

Most ashamed of:

Most embarrassing thing ever to happen to him/her: Her brother telling his best friend that Grace had a huge crush on him when she was thirteen

Compulsions: She buys one of those decorative birds from Target every season

Obsessions: practicing for hours, even after rehearsal or performances are finished

Secret hobbies: Ghost shows

Secret skills: Did I mention that she’s also really good at putting shelves up and even crafting some shelving units

Past sexual transgressions: nothing completely naughty

Crimes committed (and was he/she caught? charged?): staying out past curfew, underage drinking and smoking

What he/she most wants to change about his/her current life: Nothing

What he/she most wants to change about his/her physical appearance: Nothing

DETAILS/QUIRKS

Daily routine: It varies on when she wakes up

Night owl or early bird?: Early bird

Light or heavy sleeper?: Light sleeper

Favorite food: Give Grace all the pasta and starches in the world

Least favorite food: But if Grace has to eat another cheesecake she will lose her mind

Favorite book: She really likes Danielle Steele novels

Least favorite book: Lord of the Flies

Favorite movie: Clueless

Least favorite movie: she really doesn’t have a least favorite, she just doesn’t watch the ones she doesn’t like very often

Favorite song: Edge of Seventeen by Stevie Nicks

Least favorite song: That Ed Sheeran song that’s getting played all the time

Coffee or tea?: Coffee

Crunchy or smooth peanut butter?: She’s allergic to peanuts

Type of car he/she drives (or wishes he/she drove):

Lefty or righty?: Lefty

Favorite color: She likes the magenta-y color the sky can take during a really pretty sunset

Cusser?: No

Smoker? Drinker? Drug user?: More of a social drinker than anything, she doesn’t smoke, or hasn’t since she’s moved.

Biggest regret: Not talking to her brother and sister more

Pets?: She has a maltepoo named Charlie that she constantly posts about on her social media.

#Grace ( about )#i just want a queue

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actualkomodo · 6 years

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Plot and Story Meme

I finally finished this. Under the cut--hopefully for mobile, too--as this is a long post and a lot of text.

ONE PLACE ♦ Ishgard: The first point of civilised contact for Cuinn in Eorzea, Cuinn remembers this city-state with great clarity… and not for its pleasantries. The very mention of the place brings back memories both bitter and painful and he has given it a wide berth ever since nearly a decade ago.

TWO VILLAINS ♦ Discrimination: Cuinn has no real issue with a person or people in general, but he does have one very big problem with any individual who chooses out of prejudice to attack--be it verbally, physically, or otherwise--another or a demographic. He has no qualms about permanently removing anyone who does, though he has mellowed--a little--over the years... he might give them a few seconds to try to change his mind before he runs them through. Being in public will not deter him in the least. ♦ Himself: Likely the person most dangerous to Cuinn is himself. He is constantly reminded of his pain and failures, openly but subtly ridiculing and shaming himself by cutting his memories--stories that he associates each carving with--into his horns. He is nigh numb to his own struggles though he is aware of them, often ignoring his own health and safety.

THREE RELATIONSHIPS ♦ Cuinn and Bran: Bran is Cuinn’s “adopted” brother. They grew up as together as an au ra and an outsider hyur could given the tribes’ nomadic ways, and it was Bran who taught Cuinn the majority of his Eorzean. Bran’s family was not, however, Eorzean, and Cuinn carries this oddity with him in the form of a subtle accent–they spoke in similar cadence as well. Quite close despite the occasional distance, they helped each other hone their skills using techniques varying between their homelands and physiques. Bran’s weapons of choice were staff and spear, both arts that he passed along to his unrelated sibling before eventually focusing on the blade. Their relationship ended when Bran left the steppe in pursuit of justice and Imperials, and Cuinn did not follow. Since then, Cuinn has seen no sign of him and has no idea if he lives. Bran’s family moved on from the steppe in his absence. ♦ Cuinn and “Hawk”: “Hawk” was the name a few of the Kha tribe picked up from Bran’s family when they first encountered the Xaela Himaa, so called for his angular features–echoed in his son–skill as an archer, and his chillingly shrill call… and song, if he so wished. He is Cuinn’s father as well as that of many other children scattered throughout the tribes. Intending to mentor Cuinn in the ways of a bard, Hawk’s drive to do so soon dwindled when his son exhibited rather poor ability for song. There was little time for love between the two, Hawk often leaving as quickly as he arrived and sometimes with a companion on his arm, but Cuinn feels little resentment for him. In Eorzea, Cuinn took up his father’s moniker to remove himself from… himself, and reality, much like his sire from him and because Hawk embodied strength that the young mercenary so desired. ♦ Cuinn and a “friend”: Unnamed for the time being, this was a young Raen who fled Doma with her family–parents and a younger sister. They were welcomed by the Kha to some extent, choosing to maintain relations mostly with Cuinn’s immediate family as they were already on good terms with Bran’s kin. She and Cuinn quickly grew close and he spent the next year learning more than he thought he could of a land beyond his home–everything from Doman cuisine and language to modest etiquette… and some less so. When her family decided to move on, the pair’s relationship became somewhat strained because Cuinn chose to not accompany her–nor did she ask him to. Needless to say, they had not been simply friends.

FOUR ITEMS ♦ Gil: Much of Cuinn’s motivation is the promise of gil, however, he spends little of it, choosing to stash it in various places around Eorzea. He also has little need of it as he has no trouble living off the land. Even so, when he is offered a job, he will often push for greater payment regardless of circumstance. ♦ Lance: Cuinn’s weapon of choice, it is draconic in appearance, unnamed, and adamantite, ink blue and accented with black and silver. It has seen a lot of use and bathed in a lot of blood, plenty of wear and great care, and is fully attuned to Cuinn’s aether. It serves as an auxiliary reserve of aether and balance. He is almost never without it. Usually he will carry it freely in his hands, settled on his shoulder, or wrapped in leather and slung over his back. ♦ Bird Figurine: The tiny, flying, blue bird, secured by twine in the space where the base of his right horn curves away from the side of his head, is a pendant left behind by the Raen Cuinn befriended on the steppe. He was not–or was he?–intended to have it, but he has had no chance to return it. It is a reminder for Cuinn of the time he spent with her and, by extension, the rest of his family in a time when all his companions were alive, well, and as happy as they were likely to be then. This piece was passed down to the Raen from her mother, and sometimes seems to contain an almost aetheric glow. ♦ Lanner Whistle: During his travel on the Abalathian Spine, on his way to Ishgard for the first time, Cuinn took in an injured hatchling left for dead after getting caught in some manner of tribal conflict. The lanner recovered after Cuinn's group moved into Dravanian territory and Cuinn returned to the Sea of Clouds only to realise the bird refused to leave him. He reluctantly approached the Gundu who generously supplied him with a whistle. Once the bird was familiar with the sound and associated it with the Xaela, Cuinn left her with the vanu vanu. It was some moons before she was able to fly and hunt on her own, one day to come within earshot of a stray whistle.

FIVE CHARACTERS ♦ Kishiligh Malqir: Of great frame and cunning mind, Kishiligh hails from the steppe and he carries it with him. He never seems to smell of anything besides the steppe--from worn leathers to herbal smoke, fur and grass, and his language follows suit. Understanding and speaking very little Eorzean despite having spent some time across the sea, he still gets around just fine. He was among the group with which Cuinn traveled to Eorzea and witnessed many of the same atrocities, however, he fled whenever possible, deeming conflict inevitable failure and likely death. It was in fact because of this caution that Kishiligh escaped Ishgard unscathed and saved the younger Xaela from dying at the hands of knights. He did not stick around to be thanked nor even offer a name. They encountered each other again in then-allianced city-states and while Cuinn sees him as knowledgeable and rational, each meeting ended with Cuinn feeling bullied and worthless. Kishiligh does care, but he has gone to great lengths to ensure the mercenary does not regard him as a friend. ♦ Shargu Dazkar: Shargu traveled with Cuinn’s group as well. She left a daughter--old enough to manage her own affairs--on the steppe. Since the incident in Ishgard where her husband was killed, she has been a constant companion of Kishiligh’s. Unlike the flighty giant of a man, Shargu has a hot temper, the eye of an assassin, and a decent grasp of the Eorzean language. She does not, however, allow her emotions to control her (most of the time), but brings a more emotional and ethical perspective to Kishiligh’s rather less empathetic opinions. She convinced Kishiligh to help Cuinn--though only after she herself gave up and Kishiligh, to her irritation, pointed out that it was her idea. She, along with Kishiligh, have since returned to the steppe a number of times. Her relationship with Cuinn is vaguely sibling-like as she treats him more as an equal than her current partner does and does not push him. ♦ J’zakielh Korhe: A traveling desert cat, J’zakielh--or Zakielh or Zak as she is more affectionately known--is the daughter of a businessman and a chef. She and her sister are both adventurers though while Zak is more about sightseeing and new experiences, her sister has stayed closer to home. She encountered Cuinn in Ul’dah and, after helping him escape from under the baleful eye of rowdy citizens and foreigners alike, invited him to dinner with her family. It was not wholly smooth sailing--the Xaela had suffered greatly at the hands of discrimination of all types and the miqo’te’s parents were also skeptical. Zakielh persisted, teaching him about Eorzea and their customs, and tutoring him in the basics of the written language--though mostly to little avail. She introduced him to finding work as a mercenary but encouraged him to pursue other interests. Nothing if not a little clumsily but openly supportive, Zakielh is a confidant of Cuinn’s and one of his first few friends in Aldenard. ♦ An Ishgardian blacksmith: In the years after Cuinn arrived in Eorzea, he drifted back to Ishgard’s surrounding areas, eventually to be wounded and aided by a smith from whom he immediately attempted to flee. The woman subdued the weakened Xaela, spouting sense the entire time. They never introduced themselves, shared only meals and stories--reluctantly at first. Aware that the young man--driven by rage of a depth she scarce wished to see consume him--was likely to get himself killed attempting to slaughter dragons, and sympathetic to his situation caused by her people nonetheless, she bade him retrieve the materials she needed to forge him a lance--almost as dangerous and strenuous a task as slaying a dragon given he was unfamiliar with the land and the trade. And it would not be the first time he did so. ♦ An Ishgardian knight: Spurred by the promise of a generous payment of gil, Cuinn dared to return to Ishgard some years after his leave of it. His welcome, led by this knight, was unpleasant to say the least. With his time so far in Eorzea, Cuinn’s struggle with his emerging darkside was at its worst and his restraint was fraying (no pun intended) rapidly, resulting in a few violent skirmishes that saw both parties wounded. The knight, doing his duty and abiding by his beliefs, confronted the Xaela, attempting to remove him from the Forgotten Knight, only to be disarmed and aetherically strangled. The next time they met, he was dead. His role was short but Cuinn remembers him for bearing the brunt of a deep-set fury. [This is the knight from a brief story I wrote ages ago on my personal blog.]

SIX MOMENTS ♦ Bran New: Perhaps the vastness of Cuinn’s curiosity began when he had his first glimpse of a world outside the steppe--the realisation that Bran was, in fact, not from a different part of the homely expanse. Bran eventually tired of the Xaela’s questions, but he continued to field questions as time went on, often referring them to his own family or offering to find the answers. ♦ Fault in His Scales: Imperial occupation had never been much of a concern, despite Bran’s family having left their home to escape it. Cuinn and Bran, little more than children at the time, stumbled upon an Imperial camp while on an exploratory adventure. A soldier meant to seize Bran who slipped away with help from Cuinn whose appearance aided him in surprising the man, but the soldier’s first instinct was to kill him rather than take him prisoner. Cuinn took the blade with his arm and managed to flee, leaving the soldier confused at seeing the face of a mere child. Thankfully, nothing else came of the incident, but Cuinn carries a prominent scar to this day. ♦ Under the Raen: Cuinn’s first meaningful encounter with Raen au ra was another look at the greater world. This was the first time he experienced any love outside familial--many of his tribe, and Bran’s family, he considered extended family of his own. His understanding of the Doman war came with this arrival, as well as the weight of choices he and others would have to make. ♦ Imperial Measurement: The Raen were gone, and Cuinn did not go with them. There had been no tears, but there was a void in both him and his friend, ones that neither had the courage or conviction to fill. Fearing the advancement of the warfront, they headed to Eorzea. Within the year, Bran went in the opposite direction--or so Cuinn assumed after his brother extended the offer to accompany him into the war. Cuinn could not find his answer and Bran left him as well. ♦ Death Sentence: Following a great, depressive silence, the Xaela traveled with members of both his and other tribes to Eorzea, each for their own reasons be it curiosity or pursuit of some ideal or other. Some intended to return. It had not been the first time Imperial troops had wandered onto the steppe, either. They traveled by land where possible, by sea when it was not, and a few yol helped them traverse the most difficult terrain. Their first city-state was Ishgard, where a number of them were put to death, others left for dead, and few managed to flee for their lives. It was here the original scar on Cuinn’s arm was reopened and extended to his shoulder. Eorzea’s welcome was, by far, worse than what they thought to expect on the steppe. ♦ Just Looking: The first true contract that Cuinn undertook was a simple one--for him. He slew and brought back the cleaned hides of numerous beasts, and was poorly paid for the labour. From this, he learned immediately that he was not to do more than he was asked to, and to negotiate for more payment... And the fear that many Eorzeans harboured when faced with the quiet, dark Xaela with the carved horns and worn lance--he could use that. The next job would not be the last for which he returned with furs still bloodied on the underside, fresh off the unfortunate creatures’ backs.

SEVEN QUOTES ♦ “Wanting is enough.” » A generous spirit at heart–as cold and nonchalant as he often presents himself–Cuinn has said and meant this on numerous occasions. Once he has offered his assistance, only direct refusal will prevent his intervention. This is for only those who have earned his favour, for he asks nothing in return. Not even thanks. ♦ “Mayhaps.” » Non-committal as ever, Cuinn is hardly one to agree or disagree without all the facts before him. He also uses this when he would rather not answer, though generally he means it literally. ♦ “Hawk.” » This is usually the only name Cuinn will offer unless he is explicitly asked for the other. Sometimes he will still brush off such a request, but he does not hide that "Hawk" is simply an alias. ♦ “My lance is yours.” » Usually follows the first quote. In saying this, he means it–until he changes his mind. He is, fortunately, not fickle with his decision to fight for another. ♦ “What are you thinking?” » This is Cuinn’s go-to when he wants to know just this; asking “what’s wrong” is generally outside his consideration (if I’ve written this for him instead, I messed up). He believes this is more direct and succinct, asking exactly what he seeks to hear. ♦ “I’m looking for someone.” » Want to know why this Xaela has wandered as far as Eorzea and remained for nearly a decade? This is what he will tell you. It seems to be less true with each passing day… ♦ “As you will.” » Another one of his usual phrases in response to activities he is indifferent to or at least accepts he or they will pursue. Sometimes he says this almost in reverence–voluntary submission to the will of another. ___

Tagged by: @niomemizune thank!! I was going to steal this off someone… I’m super late to this party anyway though. Tagging: Okay, so I actually want to tag a lot of people because I’ve read a few of these and I loved them because I learned so much about their characters. I won’t tag everyone--mostly people I’ve interacted with--but if you want to do this, please do it. If you don’t think anyone will read it, I will read it if you mention me (and I will like it...). That said, this was quite the undertaking so don’t feel obligated to do it. I learned quite a bit about Cuinn as well! even though I almost cried writing it

@mrhos-xiv @pearlescent-scales (I know you’re doing this for Azena already but... I’m pretending I don’t know that) @sundancer-xiv @othardsflames (tall... order but... both?) @grumpy-limsan-customs-cat (Hotsu! or anyone as you wish) @eggplant-xaela (I’d like to see one of these for Kaede, but again, your choice) @ff-14-aileron @krimsonkate (they should meet maybe?) @sarantsatsrdotharl (-admires from afar-) @therealmtraversed (I know you’re super busy but... you know) @onceahocat (good luck) @foxlike-ffxiv (Good Luck) @falconsgaze (GOOD LUCK) @the-shoosh @muteboofwiggles @subetei-noykin (I’m pretty sure I didn’t see this on your blog already) @maeltaa-ktemo

#|memed #|meme: plot and story #|cuinn #hits post while screaming

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seenashwrite · 7 years

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The Nail: August 2017

The Nail isn’t about perfection. It isn’t about award-level contenders. It’s about seeing focus and effort and hard work radiate off of the screen.

And The Nail’s purpose isn’t to highlight genres of fics or specific ships or pieces written during a certain time frame - the sole focus is quality.

Character dimension. Writing with clever readers in mind. Solid world-building. Tension through boundaries. Crazy crisp dialogue. Incredibly tight plotting. Big emotion.

And though yours truly - nice to meet you, new folks, I’m Nash! - is editor of the list, the goal is for YOU to curate the content.

Read more about how all this came to be, find past editions, see what factors are considered when constructing the list, and how to get your recommendations in/be a curator HERE.

Hey, ramblers? Let’s get ramblin’.

For your reblogging convenience, here’s The Nail Master Post of Editions!

Quickie Nash Note:

As this project evolves, I'm still determining the best way to present it for easiest reader use.

And so, faithful followers of The Nail, you'll notice a touch of a categorization change-up. The lengths are still the m.o. vs. type ["angst", "fluff", etc.], but are now listed in order of word count, low to high. The rest of the categories remain the same, plus a new one that may or may not appear on every edition [you'll see why!].

I've also put a new page on my blog, mainly for authors, with explanation for things they may question regarding this format - things I’ve mentioned prior, but it takes up too much space. Some of the current FAQs are....

- Why did someone make up a summary/why didn't you use my summary? - Why did someone make up a title for my story/poem? - What are those Q comments? - Is Nash actually reading all of this?

One last thing: The Nail is meant to go out the first full week of each month, and was mostly ready this weekend, however I just wasn't in a jovial, woo-hoo mood, I made a brief post why, I've no doubt each and every one of you understand, but you have my apologies nonetheless as poor time allocation on my part meant this wasn't out at some point during the past week.

XO - Nash.

* ~ * ALL FROM THE WORLD OF "SUPERNATURAL” UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED * ~ *

- SUPERNATURAL SUPERSTARS - Organized by length.

THE BOY KING'S DEMONS - @rex-daemoniorum / @vengeuse WORD COUNT - 279

Sam understands that there are exceptions to even his own rules.

Q: Nice detail, pertinents given painted the picture effectively/no belaboring; through-line present of Sam's ability to relate without spelling it out/written for intelligent readers; complexity of situation related in short amount of space

[Nash Note: Additional shout-out to @azazelsocks, who provided a high-quality prompt, as - if your humble editor may be blunt - most fic prompts are beyond lame. Well done, 'Socks.]

--> I cannot tag these folks, if someone could kindly let them know or give it a go in your reblog

CIRCUMSTANCES - @jessmoorechesters WORD COUNT - 347 words As years pass, the Moores have often found their thoughts turning to Sam.

Q: While perhaps started as headcanon, reads third-person omniscient; emotional, rambling, almost panicked cadence/style/lack of caps/punctuation absolutely works for this subject matter; nice full-stop short sentence toward end; inclusion of poignant details/no unneeded detail

[Nash Note: I already had this on the list, had a couple informal suggestions to check it out, spotted it more than once in my feed - overall, this resonated with many of you, and rightfully so.]

DESIGNATED DUTIES - @fanforfanatic WORD COUNT - 412

A tale about the seemingly ordinary things we do for one another.

Q: Moves at a crisp clip; heartfelt without bending sappy; several great lines/points of humor, prevents getting too heavy given the short length/action in question; nice cap-off/prompts reader to use imagination while not ending on a proverbial cliffhanger

HELLO, DARLING - @whispersandwhiskerburn WORD COUNT - 789

Crowley and Billie have a little chat.

Q: Excellent use of vocab in descriptions; quick, crisp dialogue; spot-on characterization; kept story moving/pacing well done; didn't waste time on explaining things/rehashing things readers already know from watching the show/written for clever readers

SHAPE OF YOU - @winchester-family-business WORD COUNT - 1K [minus song lyrics]

In which Dean walks into a bar, has a drink, meets a woman, and whether it's for now or forever, it's definitely meaningful.

Q: A get-in-and-get-out in the opener, setting the scene with just enough information and moving on to the actual story/no wasting time with a long set-up; excellent use of a "gimmick", re: initial communication; nicely fleshed-out protag who has her own thing going on, which he respects, which is in line with the character we know; took a commonly used set-up and took it to a thoughtful but not belabored/shmoopy place

GOOD NIGHT, LITTLE KING - @moonlightcas WORD COUNT - 1.6K

At the age of six, Sam is visited by Lucifer.

Q: in medias res; excellent pacing; perfectly plausible in canon; slightly chilling and pressing and foreboding without being suffocating; timing of the name reveal is Absolutely. Spot. On.

ONE, TWO, THREE - @kathaswings WORD COUNT - 3.4K

A trip to a bookstore turns out to be more than you - or Sam - could have imagined.

Q: in medias res; structure that would please any screenwriter; meet-cute without being immature/shmoopy/saccharine, specifically - protag didn't turn into a pile of weepies or gigglies/displayed strength; nice choice to include action; solid ending/author knew when to step away from the keyboard

[Nash Note: author's inspiration is revealed post-story, however they kept a light hand/did not merely re-hash source material bit-by-bit & just throw SPN atop it, instead made it their own - points and gold stars for this, always]

SUNDOWN, SUNDOWN - @thayerkerbasy WORD COUNT - 6.2K

"Crowley was done. After hundreds of years and one last sacrifice, he was done. Except, somehow, he wasn't."

Q: in medias res; spot-on characterization; tackled character departure in unique manner that could have easily gone shmoopy/author demonstrated restraint in walking the emotional line/kept that slightly off-kilter tone; moved at quick clip/efficient structure/fluid; touched on things/events seen in show but did not belabor/used as tool vs. crutch; phenomenal end dialogue/last line

- POEMS & POETICAL PROSE - Mostly quick reads, these are actual poems of any structure & short [< 2K] stories that have a poetic feel to the narrative with appropriate use of poetic verbiage given the subject matter and / or setting; pieces in the less-than-300 words neighborhood are considered quality in their entirety, therefore no "Q" notations; organized by length.

SECOND FALLING - @vintagesam WORD COUNT - 135

"Despite the silence in the church, the earth is deafening."

INTOXICATION - @copbydayfangirlbynight WORD COUNT - 199

"Out of nowhere, these two guys you’ve never seen show up and slip onto the bar stools next to you."

THE LEGEND - @quailpower WORD COUNT - approx. 300 words

Exploring the costs of immortality, and what one angel chooses to do with his time.

JULIET - @roxy-davenport WORD COUNT - 1.7K [minus song lyrics]

A night in the life of Crowley's beloved hellhound.

Q: HERE [Nash Note: Short version? Knowing when it is appropriate to inject "flowery" verbiage into a narrative. Hint: fits the time period and/or character, is kept crisp, to-the-point, and used sparingly, regardless]

- MULTI-PARTERS - Stories with a minimum of 2 parts, max of 3-to-4, with modestly sized [1-to-2K] chapters; completed as of this list; organized alphabetically by title.

None this time! [but I’ve got a couple bookmarked whose wrap-ups appear to be en route]

- SERIES SPOTLIGHT : SUPERNATURAL & SPN CROSS-OVERS - Works that are completed series, as well as ongoing / in progress series, with at least 3 parts published as of/prior to the edition of The Nail in question; unfinished series must have been updated within roughly 6 months of this post; these are lengthier than multi-parters, getting into a 5K+ range per chapter; organized alphabetically by title.

MISE EN PLACE - @sp-oops

A look inside the ways you - and the rest of the family - help Dean deal with the effects of the Mark of Cain.

Q: in medias res; quick, crisp dialogue & pace; no heavy-handed/laborious descriptors of setting/emotions, whether internal or verbal; nice character development/casual, easy feel to character interactions; sex fit into plot organically/didn't feel forced; plausible reactions by Dean/Sam/protag regarding the complexities of the residual impacts of the mark; witty humor throughout; nice cap-off/author knew when to step away from the keyboard

Curated by @smi727 , who said: "Stumbled upon this little beauty of a series recently. I was seriously blown away by the plot, the writing, the reader’s personality, everything! Please Nash, share this wonderful writer with the world!"

- RANDOM FANDOMS - All types, all lengths, all the things that aren’t SPN but are still pretty damn super; organized alphabetically by title.

AGENT 15 [series in progress] - @bellamysgirl

[MARVEL - AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.]

"Agent 15 was one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s top agents - that all changed when a mission went terribly wrong... but Coulson found a way to drag her back."

Q: in medias res; moves at a quick clip/no time wasted on extraneous detail; well-done characterization of both known/O.C.; reads as if watching episodes/movie; nice format/use of time flip vs. heavy exposition telling another character about those events; keeps intensity while splashing in moments of camaraderie

VERY MUCH FAEBLOODED [drabble] - @mickeyrowan

[POTTERVERSE]

"She knows she’s different. She’s always been different... No place lets her forget this."

Q: Introspective without taking the reader on a deep, angst-filled dive; even-handed character portrayal; tone consistent; nice choice of event highlighting vs. a traditional narrative; well done on complementary kick-off/wrap-up

WHO YOU ARE [one-shot] - @blackcaptainrogers

[MARVEL - AVENGERS]

Bucky knows showing love takes on a variety of forms.

Q: HERE

[Nash Note: Short version? Your audience consists of such variety, it’ll take your breath away. And, well...]

On that piece of white paper, Sam wrote, "Write about me sometime." And I typed something back to her, standing right there in her bedroom. I just typed, "I will.” ― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

- ORIGINAL WORKS - Anything from haiku to novella; pieces in the less-than-300 words neighborhood are considered quality in their entirety, therefore no "Q" notations; organized by length.

IT IS SO TIRING TO BE DIVINE - @mythaelogy WORD COUNT - 52

"The architecture of your bones was built by conquerors."

MYSTERY GIRL - @inkskinned WORD COUNT - 111

"[A] girl who convinces you of magic, who flickers just a little on the edge of reality..."

I HAVEN'T LOOKED AT THE STARS IN A MONTH - @poemsforpersephone WORD COUNT - 125

"It’s an easy thing, to open a window, to step outside."

A TRADITION - @wakor-rising / @wakor & @sonatagreen WORD COUNT - 189

"In peacetime, the ruler grows their hair long. In war, they cut it short."

--> I cannot tag these folks, if someone could kindly let them know or give it a go in your reblog

NEW YORK CITY TO RICHMOND - @haleyincarnate WORD COUNT - 269

"I wonder if he knows that I can see the trying part of him..."

THE HOUSE OF GRUMLY - @erinnightwalker WORD COUNT - 553

"Everyone knew that the Widow Grumly’s granddaughter was a werewolf."

Q: Sharp start with a phenomenal choice of an opening sentence; took a "historical fact", ran with it, and created a captivating world / plot in an incredibly short span of time; formatting, flow, verbiage crisp; nice & layered/written with a clever audience in mind

THE ADVENTURES OF ROXY AND JUJU - @wheresthekillswitch WORD COUNT - 2.4K [part one/series in progress]

"JuJu finally relents and hands over the car keys to Roxy. It couldn’t possibly go more wrong than it did the last time Roxy drove…. right?"

Q: in medias res; crisp dialogue; absolutely engaging, witty characters developed in a short amount of space; vivid descriptors without being heavy-handed; leans into a vignette [character study] feel vs. hashing out a distinct plot; nice intro/kick-off for a series, though if author opts not to proceed, works just fine as stand-a-lone...

[...which is why I broke my own damn series criteria rule, so sue me. -N.]

- STUFF SO CREATIVE & UNIQUE, IT JUST CAN'T BE CATEGORIZED - What it says, organized alphabetically by title.

ENTRIES - @cardinaleyes

An inside look into the journals of Team Free Will:

DEAN

SAM

CASTIEL

Q: an ongoing pseudo-series with a creative concept; keeps distinct style for each; bonus points regarding convenience for the reader by having a "home" for each character vs. all together in one blog

JEOPARDY

In which Team Free Will plays a game.

It began with a piece of fanart by @lastlabyrinth ....

....which got some dialogue by @phantomrose96 ....

.... which got a follow-up by @casonly, and a nice wrap-up from @guntheramvs

Q: Written with sharp, quick-witted audience in mind; spit-take worthy humor; great characterization, spot-on in fact regarding our host for the evening; crisp, fun dialogue; excellent collaboration by all involved

[h/t @waywardafbabygirl ]

JOURNAL OF A MAN OF LETTERS - @petite-madame

From the creator: "[This is] a diary in first-person narrative written from Sam's point of view. Once a week, I post an art and a ficlet inspired by an episode or a scene. I'm following the show timeline as close as I can but I'm taking liberty with canon here and there."

Q: Extraordinary, above-and-beyond, clearly evident care, devotion, countless hours put into this project, and it has paid off many times over - there is some of the most beautiful art you'll ever see, there are stories [have a sample] that will hit you right in the feels, there are moments ranging from light-hearted to introspection, and you even have an option of platform - go HERE for the LiveJournal headquarters. Phenomenal, top-to-bottom. I am not over-selling this.

TWO AGENTS MISSING, PRESUMED DEAD - @bohoartist & @piecesofscully

[THE X-FILES]

Two agents are missing - follow the twists and turns as clues are examined, leads are followed, and information is exchanged.

Q: The planning and execution throughout was nothing short of excellent; written/developed with smart audience in mind; methodology of storytelling unique and, more importantly, appropriate for how the authors chose to unfold the plot; format/use of images was spot-on; clear through-line and tone; mystery that was engaging, teasing but not frustrating

[h/t @itssteaksauce ]

*~* Shameless Self-Promotion *~*

Happy Reading! XO - Nash.

* Authors, I encourage you to express your appreciation to your curator(s). Readers, if you enjoy curator selections & found them to be of quality, I encourage you to not only give the authors feedback, but also thank the curator(s) for bringing the story/series to your attention. I suspect they’ll dig it. *

#The Nail #Nailed It!#Quality Writing #Must Reads

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bexical · 5 years

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July

Rather late, I know - I started this post on the first of the month actually, but it took some time and I got sidetracked by a variety of things. At least I’m here now :P

To briefly summarize the previous month’s progress: as expected, draft 0 is not complete, but I’m not too concerned. I do want to note my writing experiences this past month, particularly one rather intense session: I immersed myself in my character in order to capture her feelings, and as a result I was actually on the verge of tears for a significant amount of time while writing that scene.

Looking forward though, my goal is still hopefully to finish draft 1 of “Ghost of a Fireflower” by the end of August. It’s unlikely that I’ll finish draft 0 by the end of July, but I’ll do my best. Unfortunately, I think that means being a little less social for some time perhaps, but if that’s what has to happen, so be it.

Either way though, I want to take a little break between “Ghost of a Fireflower” and before “Birth of a Dragon”. While this is partly to give myself some time to develop the third part, I also need to spend some time on other writing-related things to refresh my excitement about writing in general. I'll spend some time on portraits and landscapes (an idea I had where I take a particular picture and write a scene from it) and more flash fic (I still want to make a final edit of “Blue”). I'll also likely spend some time practicing editing on r/DestructiveReaders.

In addition to the usual update, I wanted to do something unique this time. I'm normally quite harsh with myself, but it's not healthy for my motivation. I actually have a lot of things to be proud of, and even if it's a little self-aggrandizing, I want to go through these things:

Worldbuilding

I am incredibly proud of the world I’ve built. Even though I kind of feel like I’ve lucked into creating this amazing world, that doesn’t change how I feel about it. Its otherworldly elements range from mundane to beautiful to exotically horrific, and together they create a very rich world that is distinct from our own. I think it feels rather refreshing as a result, and again, I’m really happy with this world that I’ve built.

One thing in particular that I want to note about the world is how well it ties together with the plot and the characters and even with itself. Because it all ties together so well, each new element feels appropriate when it is introduced. It provides a strong sense of cohesion to the whole book, and I really like how it’s coming along as a result.

Worldview

I think I have a take on relationships and gender that is both insightful and unique enough to be worth sharing. Kiri and Rose are born from my experiences, and their respective journeys reflect my views on love and relationships. Kiri further reflects my take on gender, in particular what femininity means to me and my acceptance of that as a part of who I am. I hope readers will be able to resonate with Kiri and Rose and be inspired by them in some manner, and I'm excited to write their journey.

Wordcrafting

I generally like my writing, especially the more descriptive passages, and I’m occasionally rather proud of certain phrases that use creative imagery or an interesting cadence for example. I think I would attribute this generally to the care and attention I dedicate to the words I use and the way I phrase them. When it comes to the cadence of my writing in particular, I might actually attribute that to my love for music and my experience with it.

Narrative structure

Due to the extensive time I’ve spent analyzing film, I’ve become pretty good with narrative structure. Admittedly, I started this project with much less sense of structure, and I had no outline for the book - parts 2 and 3 didn’t even exist, and while I knew how part 1 ended, I made up a lot of it as I went along. All of this is pretty evident in draft 1 of “A Dying Spark”. Since then though, I’ve improved significantly and developed the outline much more. I’ve developed a three-part structure, likely inspired subconsciously by A:TLA and its three books (since it is my favorite series, after all =P). Admittedly, I did explicitly analyze the pacing of the antagonists of A:TLA when creating my own. These antagonists helped shape the plot shifts that mark the separate parts, resulting in three distinct parts with different themes and character motivations. Still, these parts manage to come together in a single, cohesive arc. When it comes to individual parts, I want to call out "Ghost of a Fireflower". The outline features the parallel stories of Kiri and Rose, and their stories resonate with each other and interleave together in order to advance a shared plot thread and emotional arc. The two stories come to a head together in a twin conclusion, and I’m really excited to write this conclusion. As for “Birth of a Dragon”, I don’t have much of an outline for it yet. However, I am confident that I'll be able to structure it so that it is engaging on its own and it ties together all of the threads that came to be in the first two parts.

Editing

At some point, I decided I wanted to analyze what exactly I thought about the media I consumed. It was no longer sufficient that I just like something, and it was especially insufferable that I just dislike something: I had to be able to describe its flaws as meticulously as possible.

More and more analysis has helped me develop a detailed and accurate sense of what constitutes good and bad writing. This includes big picture aspects like narrative structure and character arcs as well as minutiae on the order of sentence structure and word choice. In a fortunate coincidence, this is what I (perhaps biasedly) consider to be the most important quality in editing: after all, it’s important to be able to describe the problem before attempting to fix it.

I think my dabbling in game design has also helped me develop this skill. Games can be very multifaceted art forms, perhaps even more so than novels and films. As with editing a novel, it is important to be able to describe the problems and isolate what aspects of the game are causing them; otherwise, a designer can end up making a number of changes that fail to address the actual problem. I developed these skills while working on various game design projects, and these skills have transferred over to my writing and made me rather good at editing.

Finally, I want to finish this post off quickly with a description of a few small areas I need improvement in:

Writing speed

I write too slowly. I know it’s because I want every word to be perfect, but I really need to find a way to push myself to move along and write at a quicker pace. I think I need to recognize that not everything needs to be perfect the first time around - after all, any given scene might be replaced in its entirety. As another example, I’ve spent so much time on this post, which has little purpose beyond its effect on my pride.

Brainstorming

I’m really bad at brainstorming (something I’ve also noticed with work and in my game design pursuit). When faced with a problem, I need to be better at coming up with varied ideas that explore different paths. My current problem-solving ‘strategy’ is just to kind of struggle with a problem until a solution comes along, and this just isn’t viable. I’m going to come across problems in the narrative, and I’ll need to be able to handle them quickly and sufficiently when they come up.

Pride

This might be ironic, given that I wrote this whole post because I felt I needed to be more proud of my work, but pride is actually my biggest flaw. In other aspects of life, I might even say the vast majority of my problems stem from my pride. As for writing, it’s likely why I write slowly, since I can’t bear writing something I’m not proud in. Perhaps more importantly is the issue of feedback - throughout my time working on this book, I will get feedback at various times. I’ll need to react in an objective manner and let go of my pride if I want to write the best book I can, and hopefully I’ll be able to do that.

Well, that’s finally all for now! Even if it is going slower than I’d like, I’m really proud of what I’ve created so far. I love Kiri and Rose, and I’m really excited to take them to the conclusion of “Ghost of a Fireflower” and start brainstorming what they do in “Birth of a Dragon”. Whew, it’s been quite a long post =P pce out til next time!

#writing #mynovel #monthly updates

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