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nunalastor · 1 day

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Radioapple Your Lie in April AU because April's almost over and nobody has brought me this pain, so I'll do it myself.

Lucifer has been suffering from depression since his wife left him and took custody of their daughter. He has slowly begun to rebuild his relationship with Charlie since Lilith's disappearance, but he has yet to come to terms with what happened, and he sees the world only in monochrome without color.

Enter Alastor, who brings color into his life the moment they meet. Unfortunately, they do get off on the wrong foot and don't get along very well initially, but everything changes after the extermination, when Lucifer jumps in to help Alastor fight off some attackers against the hotel, and they slowly become closer...

Until one day, Alastor collapses after a fight side by side with Lucifer against the Vees.

Alastor brushes it off as having an iron deficiency and he hadn't eaten any people in a while, so it wouldn't happen again, but Lucifer knows something is seriously wrong. He doesn't push the matter at first, he is too grateful for the friendship Alastor brings and doesn't want to push his boundaries. He doesn't want to lose Alastor like he lost Lilith. But when Alastor collapses again, this time not even showing up to a battle, Lucifer has to pry.

Turns out during the extermination, Alastor was struck by Adam's blade. He has been able to hide it and fight off the injury, but the holy elements of the weapon have been infecting him like a disease, eating away at his very being and not even his own powers can stop it anymore. He manages to hide the strain at first, but when he gets the prognosis that unless something is done, he is going to die, he becomes more irritable overall.

Lucifer begins to spiral all over again. He wants to help Alastor, but the infection has spread so much he doesn't think he alone can do it, and it reminds him of how he failed Lilith and it caused her to leave. His mental health taking a turn allows an opening for Roo to appear, and the hotel gets notice that she plans to attack the hotel as well.

Charlie spoke to heaven about the situation with Alastor, and because he sustained the injury fighting against their genocide, aka he was the righteous one in the situation, Emily is able to overpower Sera's opinion and agree to set up a surgery for Alastor to extract any of the angelic power remaining and save his life. Unfortunately, this surgery is very dangerous, and it would have to happen on the same day Roo is estimated to attack.

Lucifer agrees to go into the fight alone, praying that when he got back Alastor would be in recovery, but halfway through the fight, a ghostly image of Alastor appears by his side and is able to fight alongside him. This was Alastor, but the way he was here... Lucifer knew what had happened, begging Alastor to stay as they win the fight, but he has no choice but to watch Alastor disappear forever, with only a final whisper to him.

"Goodbye."

Alastor died from complications during the surgery, and because of the angelic weapon poisoning him, he was gone for good. Lucifer didn't need to be told the news, but he didn't come out of his room for a long time after that.

But it's while he's making more ducks to cope that he finds a letter hidden among his duck-making supplies. The letter was from Alastor, written the same day he had told Lucifer about the surgery. He had known he was likely going to die, and decided to tell Lucifer everything, about who he was, why he came to the hotel to help Charlie, and most importantly that he had fallen in love with Lucifer and wanted him to be happy.

Lucifer uses that as the strength he needs to continue on and stay alongside his daughter, but he would never forget about Alastor. He would never be able to see another spring without him, and he would always wish he had told Alastor he loved him too.

(Yes I know, given their assigned instruments the roles would be the other way around, but this felt more fitting since how the hell would Lucifer get terminally ill.)

👀

#hazbin hotel #radioapple #alastor #lucifer morningstar #Your Lie in April #nunalastor asks

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graceshouldwrite · 10 months

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The Most Powerful Hack to Make Your Readers Cry

You’ve seen it all: show, don’t tell, plant a visceral image in the reader’s brain of the environment/character, write a complex character arc with lots of growth and setbacks, establish deep relationships, high stakes, etc.

All the advice for making readers cry I’ve seen so far is basically that list. But, while those things are absolutely important, I find that the thing that always does the trick, whether as a tipping point or in and of itself, is this:

THE CALLBACK!

Before we move on, this is an ANALYSIS heavy post, so all the book + show examples contain spoilers!!

So, what do I mean by a “callback?” Think of Chekhov’s gun, but, here, you use the gun to pierce your reader’s heart. As a refresher for anyone who needs it, Chekhov’s gun is just a rule in writing that anything you introduce in the book should play some role in the plot.

Specifically, the name comes from the example that if a reader introduces a gun in the first act, it MUST go off later, (maybe, say, in the third act). For example, in the TV show Breaking Bad, the protagonist Walter White prepares a vial of poison (ricin) that he wanted to use to eliminate an opponent early on in the series. After the assassination attempt falls through, the ricin makes an appearance again in the very last episode of the show, when Walt finally uses it to kill another opponent.

Got that? Alright, onto the examples of successful, tearjerking callbacks:

1. The Last Olympian (Rick Riordan); “Family, Luke, you promised.”

Context: The character Annabeth says this line. Years ago, Annabeth had run away from home, and Luke had effectively adopted her into a found family with another kid named Thalia. Common reason for leaving home = parental trauma! Yay! He promised Annabeth that they would be each other’s “family” from now on.

Now: Kronos, the antagonist titan, has possessed the demigod Luke and uses his body to strike Annabeth, injuring her. She’s also holding a dagger that Luke had given her when she joined his “family.”

Significance: her words + the dagger are a mental + physical reminder to Luke of his promise. They force him to recognize the sheer degree of his current betrayal by bringing him back to a different time. The fact that their found family only happened because of parental trauma bringing them together makes it worse—Luke felt abandoned by his Olympian father, Hermes. Now, he realizes that he basically did the equivalent to Annabeth by joining the titans.

2. Les Miserables (Victor Hugo); Jean Valjean’s death

Context: At the beginning of the book, the bishop had caught Valjean trying to steal candlesticks to sell. Instead of handing him over to the police, the bishop told the police that he had given them to Valjean, saving him from arrest and showing him mercy. This changed his life forever, kickstarting his character redemption arc.

Now: Jean Valjean dies surrounded by his loved ones, remembered as a benevolent man who bettered thousands of lives. He’s surrounded by light from candlesticks that once belonged to a bishop.

Context: Valjean had once taken in an impoverished woman named Fantine, showing her mercy and promising to take care of her daughter, Cosette, after Fantine died. Valjean then rescued Cosette from abusive quasi-foster parents (it’s a long story), raising her as his own daughter. This furthered his arc by allowing him to finally understand how unconditionally loving someone feels.

Now: Valjean describes Fantine to Cosette, who never knew her mother.

Significance: Both examples throw readers back to much earlier points in the story before the completion of Valjean’s character arc. In a way, this final scene feels like an external manifestation of his kindness paying off; both he and the reader feels a sense of accomplishment, relief, and just a general “OMG WE MADE IT.” Readers don’t feel cheated, because they were with Valjean every step of his 1,400 page arc. The weight of it all just crashes down on you...

3. Your Lie in April (anime); Kaori’s letter after she dies

Context: Kaori’s entire plot significance is that she helps Kousei, a piano prodigy who can’t play piano anymore due to traumatic parental memories associated with it, play again—but also, just to help him enjoy life again after a turbulent upbringing. She meets him a year before she dies of a medical condition, and her free spirit + confidence influences him to find beauty in life and music again. They basically do a crap ton of crazy funny stuff together lol

Now: Kaori has died, and she leaves a letter to him. Among other general confessions and thoughts, she references things they did and memories they shared: she says, “sorry we couldn’t eat all those canelés,” reminisces about jumping with him off a small bridge into the stream below, “racing each other alongside the train,” singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star as they rode the bike together, etc.

Significance: Yes, the nature of the letter is just sad because she’s revealing that she loved him all along, apologizing for not being able to spend more time with him, lying that she didn’t like him (to spare his feelings b/c she knew she would die soon), etc. BUT, these small details highlight exactly how many experiences they shared, and the depth of their relationship. Thus, they emphasize the significance of her death and the emptiness it leaves behind.

4. Arcane (show); “I thought, maybe you could love me like you used to, even though I’m different.”

Context: Character Jinx says this in the last episode to her now estranged older sister, Vi. Without going into the crazy complex plot, basically, orphans Vi and Jinx used to care for each other before a bunch of crap went down that got them separated. They then grew up on opposite political sides; Jinx grows up on the side of the underbelly city rebellion, and Vi grows up working on the side of the richer city that essentially oppresses the undercity. Thus begins the development of their opposing viewpoints and work environments, to the point where they always meet on opposite sides of a political battle, never able to come together as a family or understand each other again.

Now: After a super dramatic confrontation, Jinx reveals that although she wants Vi to love her like she did before their separation, she knows it’s not possible because “[Vi] changed too.” She finishes with, “so, here’s to the new us” before blowing up a political council meeting a few blocks down filled with people Vi sides with. Oops! This cleanly seals the fate of their relationship as something basically irreparable.

Significance: This callback isn’t through literal flashbacks or items like in the previous examples. Jinx’ lines are enough to bring back images of their childhood to the audience’s mind. Now, the audience subconsciously places this image of: 1) two sisters so different, hurt, and torn apart, right next to 2) the image of two sisters as innocent children who loved each other and would care for each other no matter what.

Why do callbacks work so well?

If you’ve noticed something in common with all of them, you’re right: they remind audience of a time BEFORE the characters have come so far on their arcs, developed, and put on so much more emotional baggage.

Callbacks force the audience to SUDDENLY and IMMEDIATELY feel the weight of everything that’s happened. The character’s anguish and overwhelming emotions become the audience’s in this moment. Callbacks are a vehicle for the juxtaposition of worlds, before and after significant development.

This works because we, as mortals, fear IMPERMANENCE the most. We fear LOSS. For us, time gone is time we will never get back; callbacks make us face that exact fact through a fictional character. A lost moment, time period, or even part of oneself may hurt as much as losing a loved one, and nothing makes humans grieve more than the realization of a loss. A callback slaps the audience in the face with the fact that something was lost; loss hurts so much because almost 99% of the time, what’s gone is gone forever.

Of course, a good callback requires good previous character development, stakes, imagery, and all that jazz, but I thought I’d highlight this specifically because of how under covered it is.

∘₊✧────── ☾☼☽ ──────✧₊∘

instagram: @ grace_should_write

I’ve been binging general media lately: I finished Death Note, Your Lie in April, and Tokyo Ghoul all within like a month (FIRST ANIMES I”VE EVER WATCHED!!), reread lots of Les Miserables, analyzed a bunch of past shows like Breaking Bad, watched a bunch of My Little Pony, worked to fix up my old writing... and that’s not even all! The amount of times I’ve CRIED while enjoying the above media and so much more honestly just inspired this post.

Like, no joke, my eyes were almost always swollen during this period whenever I hung out with my friends and it was so embarrassing help

Personally, I just find that this method works super well for me, and I watched a bunch of reaction videos to these above scenes (and read book reviews on the book scenes I mentioned), and it seemed that just about everyone cried during these parts. That’s when I realizes that the callback might also just be a universal thing.

Anyway, this post is long and dense enough as is. SORRY! As always, hope this was helpful, and let me know if you have any questions by commenting, re-blogging, or DMing me on IG. Any and all engagement is appreciated <3333

Happy writing, and have a great day,

- grace <3

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