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ganymedesclock · 3 years

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These are questions I've had for some while and it's hard to find someone who'll answer with grace. This mostly relates to disabilities (mental or physical) in fiction.

1) What makes a portrayal of a disability that's harming the character in question ableist?

2) Is there a way to write a disabled villain in a way that isn't ableist?

In the circles I've been in, the common conceptions are you can't use a character's disability as a plot point or showcase it being a hindrance in some manner. heaven forbid you make your villain disabled in some capacity, that's a freaking death sentence to a creative's image. I understand historically villains were the only characters given disabilities, but (and this is my personal experience) I've not seen as many disabled villains nowadays, heck, I see more disabled heroes in media nowadays.

Sorry if this comes off as abrasive, I'd really like to be informed for future media consumption and my own creative endeavors.

Okay so the first thing I'm going to say is that while it IS a good idea to talk to disabled people and get their feedback, disabled people are not a monolith and they aren't going to all have the same take on how this goes.

My personal take is biased in favor that I'm a neurodivergent person (ADHD and autism) who has no real experience with physical disabilities, so I won't speak for physically disabled people- heck, I won't even speak for every neurotype. Like I say, people aren't a monolith.

For myself and my own writing of disabled characters, here's a couple of concepts I stick by:

Research is your friend

Think about broad conventions of ableism

Be mindful of cast composition

1. Research is your friend

Yeah this is the thing everybody says, so here's the main bases I try to cover:

What's the story on this character's disability?

Less in terms of 'tragic angst' and more, what kind of condition this is- because a congenital amputee (that is to say, someone who was born without a limb) will have a different relationship to said limb absence than someone who lost their limb years ago to someone who lost their limb yesterday. How did people in their life respond to it, and how did they respond to it? These responses are not "natural" and will not be the same to every person with every worldview. This can also be a great environment to do worldbuilding in! Think about the movie (and the tv series) How To Train Your Dragon. The vikings in that setting don't have access to modern medicine, and they're, well, literally fighting dragons and other vikings. The instance of disability is high, and the medical terminology to talk about said disabilities is fairly lackluster- but in a context where you need every man you possibly can to avoid the winter, the mindset is going to be not necessarily very correct, but egalitarian. You live in a village of twenty people and know a guy who took a nasty blow to the head and hasn't quite been the same ever since? "Traumatic Brain Injury" is probably not going to be on your lips, but you're also probably going to just make whatever peace you need to and figure out how to accommodate Old Byron for his occasional inability to find the right word, stammers and trembles. In this example, there are several relevant pieces of information- what the character's disability is (aphasia), how they got it (brain injury), and the culture and climate around it (every man has to work, and we can't make more men or throw them away very easily, so, how can we make sure this person can work even if we don't know what's wrong with them)

And that dovetails into:

What's the real history, and modern understandings, of this?

This is where "knowing the story" helps a lot. To keep positing our hypothetical viking with a brain injury, I can look into brain injuries, what affects their extent and prognosis, and maybe even beliefs about this from the time period and setting I'm thinking of (because people have had brains, and brain injuries, the entire time!) Sure, if the setting is fantastical, I have wiggle room, but looking at inspirations might give me a guide post.

Having a name for your disorder also lets you look for posts made by specific people who live with the condition talking about their lives. This is super, super important for conditions stereotyped as really scary, like schizophrenia or narcissistic personality disorder. Even if you already know "schizophrenic people are real and normal" it's still a good thing to wake yourself up and connect with others.

2. Think about broad conventions of ableism

It CAN seem very daunting or intimidating to stay ahead of every single possible condition that could affect someone's body and mind and the specific stereotypes to avoid- there's a lot under the vast umbrella of human experience and we're learning more all the time! A good hallmark is, ableism has a few broad tendencies, and when you see those tendencies rear their head, in your own thinking or in accounts you read by others, it's good to put your skeptical glasses on and look closer. Here's a few that I tend to watch out for:

Failing the “heartwarming dog” test

This was a piece of sage wisdom that passed my eyeballs, became accepted as sage wisdom, and my brain magnificently failed to recall where I saw it. Basically, if you could replace your disabled character with a lovable pet who might need a procedure to save them, and it wouldn’t change the plot, that’s something to look into.

Disability activists speak often about infantilization, and this is a big thing of what they mean- a lot of casual ableism considers disabled people as basically belonging to, or being a burden onto, the able-bodied and neurotypical. This doesn’t necessarily even need to have an able neurotypical in the picture- a personal experience I had that was extremely hurtful was at a point in high school, I decided to do some research on autism for a school project. As an autistic teenager looking up resources online, I was very upset to realize that every single resource I accessed at the time presumed it was talking to a neurotypical parent about their helpless autistic child. I was looking for resources to myself, yet made to feel like I was the subject in a conversation.

Likewise, many wheelchair users have relayed the experience of, when they, in their chair, are in an environment accompanied by someone else who isn’t using a chair, strangers would speak to the standing person exclusively, avoiding addressing the chair user.

It’s important to always remind yourself that at no point do disabled people stop being people. Yes, even people who have facial deformities; yes, even people who need help using the bathroom; yes, even people who drool; yes, even people whose conditions impact their ability to communicate, yes, even people with cognitive disabilities. They are people, they deserve dignity, and they are not “a child trapped in a 27-year-old body”- a disabled adult is still an adult. All of the “trying to learn the right rules” in the world won’t save you if you keep an underlying fear of non-normative bodies and minds.

This also has a modest overlap between disability and sexuality in particular. I am an autistic grayromantic ace. Absolutely none of my choices or inclinations about sex are because I’m too naive or innocent or childlike to comprehend the notion- disabled people have as diverse a relationship with sexuality as any other. That underlying fear- as mentioned before- can prevent many people from imagining that, say, a wheelchair user might enjoy sex and have experience with it. Make sure all of your disabled characters have full internal worlds.

Poor sickly little Tiffany and the Red Right Hand

A big part of fictional ableism is that it separates the disabled into two categories. Anybody who’s used TVTropes would recognize the latter term I used here. But to keep it brief:

Poor, sickly little Tiffany is cute. Vulnerable. How her disability affects her life is that it constantly creates a pall of suffering that she lives beneath. After all, having a non-normative mind or body must be an endless cavalcade of suffering and tragedy, right? People who are disabled clearly spend their every waking moment affected by, and upset, that they aren’t normal!

The answer is... No, actually. Cut the sad violin; even people who have chronic pain who are literally experiencing pain a lot more than the rest of us are still fully capable of living complex lives and being happy. If nothing else, it would be literally boring to feel nothing but awful, and people with major depression or other problems still, also, have complicated experiences. And yes, some of it’s not great. You don’t have to present every disability as disingenuously a joy to have. But make a point that they own these things. It is a very different feeling to have a concerned father looking through the window at his angel-faced daughter rocking sadly in her wheelchair while she stares longingly out the window, compared to a character waking up at midnight because they have to go do something and frustratedly hauling their body out of their bed into their chair to get going.

Poor Sickly Little Tiffany (PSLT, if you will) virtually always are young, and they virtually always are bound to the problems listed under ‘failing the heartwarming dog’ test. Yes, disabled kids exist, but the point I’m making here is that in the duality of the most widely accepted disabled characters, PSLT embodies the nadir of the Victim, who is so pure, so saintly, so gracious, that it can only be a cruel quirk of fate that she’s suffering. After all, it’s not as if disabled people have the same dignity that any neurotypical and able-bodied person has, where they can be an asshole and still expect other people to not seriously attack their quality of life- it’s a “service” for the neurotypical and able-bodied to “humor” them.

(this is a bad way to think. Either human lives matter or they don’t. There is no “wretched half-experience” here- if you wouldn’t bodily grab and yank around a person standing on their own feet, you have no business grabbing another person’s wheelchair)

On the opposite end- and relevant to your question- is the Red Right Hand. The Red Right Hand does not have PSLT’s innocence or “purity”- is the opposite extreme. The Red Right Hand is virtually always visually deformed, and framed as threatening for their visual deformity. To pick on a movie I like a fair amount, think about how in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the title character is described- “Strong. Fast. Had a metal arm.” That’s a subtle example, but, think about how that metal arm is menacing. Sure, it’s a high tech weapon in a superhero genre- but who has the metal arm? The Winter Soldier, who is, while a tormented figure that ultimately becomes more heroic- scary. Aggressive. Out for blood.

The man who walks at midnight with a Red Right Hand is a signal to us that his character is foul because of the twisting of his body. A good person, we are led to believe, would not be so- or a good person would be ashamed of their deformity and work to hide it. The Red Right Hand is not merely “an evil disabled person”- they are a disabled person whose disability is depicted as symptomatic of their evil, twisted nature, and when you pair this trope with PSLT, it sends a message: “stay in your place, disabled people. Be sad, be consumable, and let us push you around and decide what to do with you. If you get uppity, if you have ideas, if you stand up to us, then the thing that made you a helpless little victim will suddenly make you a horrible monster, and justify us handling you with inhumanity.”

As someone who is a BIG fan of eldritch horror and many forms of unsettling “wrongness” it is extremely important to watch out for the Red Right Hand. Be careful how you talk about Villainous Disability- there is no connection between disability and morality. People will be good, bad, or simply just people entirely separate from their status of ability or disability. It’s just as ableist to depict every disabled person as an innocent good soul as it is to exclusively deal in grim and ghastly monsters.

Don’t justify disabilities and don’t destroy them.

Superpowers are cool. Characters can and IMO should have superpowers, as long as you’re writing a genre when they’re there.

BUT.

It’s important to remember that there is no justification for disabilities, because they don’t need one. Disability is simply a feature characters have. You do not need to go “they’re blind, BUT they can see the future”

This is admittedly shaky, and people can argue either way; the Blind Seer is a very pronounced mythological figure and an interesting philosophical point about what truly matters in the world. There’s a reason it exists as a conceit. But if every blind character is blind in a way that completely negates that disability or makes it meaningless- this sucks. People have been blind since the dawn of time. And people will always accommodate their disabilities in different ways. Even if the technology exists to fix some forms of blindness, there are people who will have “fixable” blindness and refuse to treat it. There will be individuals born blind who have no meaningful desire to modify this. And there are some people whose condition will be inoperable even if it “shouldn’t” be.

You don’t need to make your disabled characters excessively cool, or give them a means by which the audience can totally forget they’re disabled. Again, this is a place where strong worldbuilding is your buddy- a handwave of “x technology fixed all disabilities”, in my opinion, will never come off good. If, instead, however, you throw out a careless detail that the cool girl the main character is chatting up in a cyberpunk bar has an obvious spinal modification, and feature other characters with prosthetics and without- I will like your work a lot, actually. Even if you’re handing out a fictional “cure”- show the seams. Make it have drawbacks and pros and cons. A great example of this is in the series Full Metal Alchemist- the main character has two prosthetic limbs, and not only do these limbs come with problems, some mundane (he has phantom limb pains, and has to deal with outgrowing his prostheses or damaging them in combat) some more fantastical (these artificial limbs are connected to his nerves to function fluidly- which means that they get surgically installed with no anesthesia and hurt like fuck plugging in- and they require master engineering to stay in shape). We explicitly see a scene of the experts responsible for said limbs talking to a man who uses an ordinary prosthetic leg, despite the advantages of an automail limb, because these drawbacks are daunting to him and he is happier with a simple prosthetic leg.

Even in mundane accommodations you didn’t make up- no two wheelchair users use their chair the exact same way, and there’s a huge diversity of chairs. Someone might be legally blind but still navigate confidently on their own; they might use a guide dog, or they might use a cane. They might even change their needs from situation to situation!

Disability accommodations are part of life

This ties in heavily to the previous point, but seriously! Don’t just look up one model of cane and superimpose it with no modifications onto your character- think about what their lifestyle is, and what kind of person they are!

Also medication is not the devil. Yes, medical abuse is real and tragic and the medication is not magic fairy dust that solves all problems either. But also, it’s straight ableism to act like anybody needing pills for any reason is a scary edgy plot twist.

(and addiction is a disease. Please be careful, and moreover be compassionate, if you’re writing a character who’s an addict)

3. Be mindful of cast composition

This, to me, is a big tip about disability writing and it’s also super easy to implement!

Just make sure your cast has a lot of meaningful disabled characters in it!

Have you done all the work you can to try and dodge the Red Right Hand but you’re still worried your disabled villain is a bad look? They sure won’t look like a commentary on disability if three other people in the cast are disabled and don’t have the same outlook or role! Worried that you’re PSLT-ing your main character’s disabled child? Maybe the disability is hereditary and they got it from the main character!

The more disabled characters you have, the more it will challenge you to think about what their individual relationship is with the world and the less you’ll rely on hackneyed tropes. At least, ideally.

Ultimately, there’s no perfect silver bullet of diversity writing that will prevent a work from EVER being ableist, but I hope this helped, at least!

#disability #writing ruminations #readmore

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bryte-eyed-athena · 3 years

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A New Earthseed Community

I used to imagine what life would be like in a dystopian society where everything has collapsed or is on the verge of collapse. This Earthseed community project has given me the opportunity to actually put some serious thought into how a community might survive in a world that has gone off the rails. However, I am going into this making a few assumptions. First, the world I am envisioning my community living in is very similar to the one depicted in Parable of the Sower. I was considering writing journal entries like Lauren did, but then I thought that was too much like fanfiction. Instead I am going to simply respond to the questions. Second, this is an established community that has already done the hard work of gathering trusted people, escaping to a safe area, and building the community. I’m trying to think about how to make this community survive, as well as thrive, long term after it has already been established. Third, the community has decided to give their settlement a name so I will refer to them as “The Dandelion Community”. Hopefully trying to envision this ideal community can help me with thinking of solutions to solve our real world problems.

Explain two real-life issues that make it necessary to create your Earthseed community. What are you seeking shelter from?

Climate change is wreaking havoc all over the world as it exacerbates natural disasters and displaces millions of people. In California the climate will get hotter and wildfires will cause more damage. Climate change also disproportionately impacts low income people of color who do not have a refuge to escape to once the environment becomes hostile. These are the groups of people that are going to be impacted the most negatively and they are the ones who require shelter and protection.

Police brutality has impacted communities of color and immigrant communities the harshest due to the influence of systemic racism and capitalism. It has created a culture of fear and violence which harms us physically, mentally, and spiritually. It is a system that must be entirely abolished in order for all marginalized people to feel safe. If it cannot be abolished then we must seek refuge in areas where the police don’t exist and have no power.

Quote two Earthseed verses from Parable of the Sower and show how you will apply them to your community. You may be creative in your interpretation.

“All successful life is Adaptable, Opportunistic, Tenacious, Interconnected, and Fecund. Understand this. Use it. Shape God.”

The Dandelion community understands that there will be numerous challenges for them to face if they want to survive. But life is not just about survival it is also about being able to live well. This verse will inspire the community to see their existence as more than just a fight for survival. It will motivate them to seek success defined in these terms. They will internalize this message and learn to be adaptable to new challenges. They will either seek opportunities or turn their dire circumstances into one. They will tenaciously fight for themselves and for their fellow members. They will feel connected with the community and other people they meet on the outside. They will also try to make sure that all their endeavors are fertile in order to produce more good to balance all the bad in the world. With this verse in their hearts they will be able to Shape God.

“Embrace diversity. Unite— Or be divided, robbed, ruled, killed By those who see you as prey. Embrace diversity Or be destroyed.”

Out of all of the Earthseed verses, this is the one that defines the human story. Centuries of conflict and horror could have been avoided if we sought to embrace diversity and unite with our fellow man. Instead, this planet has been divided and conquered over and over. The Dandelion community will refuse to be divided, robbed, ruled, or killed by any one. Their strength will be in unity and the bonds they form with each other will heal them internally. The diversity of body ability, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, faith and so on will give the community a unique advantage to respond to change. The diversity of opinion and experience would be a useful tool and not seen as a hindrance.

Explain where you will create your Earthseed community to be safe.

Safety comes from being in a defendable area surrounded by people with the skills and tools to survive. The Channel Islands National Park is a chain of four islands off the coast of Santa Barbara. It is too far away to swim to and there is enough land to support a large community if they are spread across all the islands. The Dandelion can reserve certain areas for small villages that contain homes, libraries, and facilities to create goods. The rest of the land can be used for farming sustainably as well as a training/play area for children. Once the community is able to build boats they can start to fish farther out into the ocean to provide more variety in their diets. These islands would be easy to defend since they are isolated and far away from the coast. Swimmers wouldn’t be able to get there and the community could devise ways to sabotage the waters so boats wouldn't be able to get through. The islands are also large enough that a stable and thriving community could be built there so people can live peacefully.

Who can join your community and why? Who can’t join? Why not?

Anyone can join as long as they are willing to learn skills and be ready to contribute. They are expected to be understanding of others and respectful of diversity. They also must dedicate themselves to protecting all members of the community from external threats. It is also important that they understand that joining a community means truly becoming an engaged member of the community. This means that they make the effort to be a part of people’s lives and make positive contributions no matter how small. They must want peace and understand that it takes hard work to create the conditions for peace and love to flourish.

What will your leadership model be for your community?

The Dandelion community is very mutual aid based so it is important that every member has a voice and opportunity to exercise power. There will not be a single leader since teamwork and communication are valued highly here. Instead there will be a group of around ten people who gather and discuss the problems of the community no matter how big or small. The community will also gather in weekly town halls to address any grievances or solutions they have directly to the group of leaders. During that meeting they will try to create solutions that take into account the needs and wants of the community. After a month this group of ten people will be replaced with a different set of ten people. Anyone can volunteer to be a member of the group and it's basically first come first serve. Eventually as the group rotated members monthly every person in the community who wanted to be a leader would have been a leader at least once. This way the burden of leadership is shared equally across the community. This also means that no one person can hold total power and become a tyrant. It also means that there will always be someone in charge and someone the group can defer to in order to make a final decision.

Create a future technology (one on the horizon, not something like teleportation or time travel) to help improve life at your Earthseed community.

A water filtration device will be necessary to support the community. It would be non polluting and powered by solar energy. Once water is filtered from the ocean the community members can all go and get as much as they need. There will not be a plumbing system so people will have clay jugs to transport their clean water.

A series of solar powered radios set all around the island chain will help make communication easier and faster. If an urgent warning needs to be sent out people will be able to hear it on their radio. It will also make internal communication easier so people could just ask for things without having to travel.

Long range portable telescopes will help the defenders of the island see any oncoming threats. They will also be a good educational tool for the children when they want to see the stars.

Most importantly would be a submarine that can be used to travel to the mainland safely. The island won't be able to provide for every need and there will be times where trash needs to be disposed of. A submarine with a renewable energy source would be a good way to travel and maybe explore other places that could be safe as well.

Explain/show how your Earthseed community will SURVIVE.

The Dandelion community will survive by using knowledge collected in books and by forging strong community bonds that will encourage mental health. Books on indegenous and sustainable farming practices will help the community create a replenishable food source that feeds everyone. If there are surpluses, scouts could travel to the mainland and give it away. Books about fishing and the ocean would help the community fish safely and prevent overfishing. Books on natural medicine and surviving in wilderness environments can help the community treat and prevent illnesses as well as be attentive to their surroundings. Other books on math and literature and technology can help with basic education and entertainment which will help the community feed their minds and souls. All of this knowledge will help the community become self reliant and understand the world better which will help them Shape God.

Explain/show what TWO steps your Earthseed community will make to build a better future, i.e. education, housing, conservation, farming, etc.

The Dandelion community recognizes the importance of education and that learning can happen at any point in life. All members of the community will be educated equally and on the same topics. They will learn the basics like reading, writing, and math. They will also learn survival skills, how to cook and clean, how to swim, and how to use tools and weapons. They will also learn how to be sustainable and not harm the environment. As they grow older and develop their own interest they can divert into different fields. Some may wish to become teachers, potters, weavers, fishers, farmers, writers, etc. New members that come from the mainland will also be educated in the same way and if they have certain skills then they will be asked to contribute their knowledge as well. Innovation and creativity are encouraged, but above all the survival of the whole must be put first.

Hopefully the environment of peace and love will encourage the community to want to share their resources with others. One of the reasons Lauren’s original community fell was because outsiders thought that they were rich. In reality, that wasn’t the case, but Lauren’s family was still better off than most. If the Dandelion community found a way to share their resources and beliefs with those on the mainland they would be able to create more stable communities. The best defense against criminality and violence would be to remove the factors that cause it, in this case poverty. By sharing their technology and knowledge the Dandelion community would be able to lift people out of poverty and create stable communities across the coast line. Once those communities are stable enough they would also be able to create stability even further inland. This will ensure the longevity and survival of the Dandelion community.

#parable of the sower #earthseed #Lauren Olamina #afrofuturism

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d-criss-news · 4 years

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Darren Criss acts as playwright when he writes songs. He’s far more confident, and certainly more vulnerable, when he allows himself to play the part. In such a way, songwriting opens up a whole new world that pulses with untapped potential. So much of what he has accomplished in 15 years resides in his willingness to expose himself to what his imagination and intuition have in store. He steps into a playwright’s shoes with considerable ease (just look at his resume), and always one to put on plenty of bravado, especially during our Zoom face-to-face, it’s the natural order of things.

“As I get older and write more and more songs, I really recognize that I’ve always preferred to write for another context other than my own,” Criss tells American Songwriter. He speaks with a cool intensity, gesturing emphatically to accentuate a sentence, and when you let him go, he’s like the Energizer Bunny 一 “I can tell by just how quiet you already are that you’re fucked,” he jokes at the start of our video chat. But he remains just as engaged and focused when listening.

He soaks in the world, taking astute notes about behavior and emotional traits he can later use in song. His storytelling, though, arrives already in character, fully formed portraits he can then relay to the world. It’s not that he can’t be vulnerable, like such greats as Randy Newman, Tom Waits, and Rufus Wainwright, who have all embroidered their work with deeply personal observations, it just doesn’t feel as comfortable. “I’ve always really admired the great songwriters of the world who are extremely introspective and can put their heart and soul on the chopping block,” he muses. “That’s a vulnerability that I think is so majestic. I’ve never had access to it. I’m not mad about it. It’s just good to know what your deal is.”

Criss’ strengths lie in his ability to braid his own experiences, as charmed as they might be, into wild, goofy fantasies. In the case of his new series “Royalties,” now streaming on Quibi, he walks a fine line between pointed commentary on the music industry, from menial songwriting sessions to constantly chasing down the next smash, and oddball comedy that is unequivocally fun. Plotted with long-standing friends and collaborators Matt and Nick Lang, co-founders of Team StarKid, created during their University of Michigan days (circa 2009), the show’s conceptual nucleus dates back more than a decade.

If “Royalties” (starring Criss and Kether Donohue) feels familiar, that’s because it is. The 10-episode show ─ boasting a smorgasbord of delightful guest stars, including Mark Hammill, Georgia King, Julianna Hough, Sabrina Carpenter, and Lil Rel Howery ─ captures the very essence of a little known web series called “Little White Lie.” Mid-summer 2009, Team StarKid uploaded the shoddy, low budget production onto YouTube, and its scrappy tale of amateur musicians seeking fame and fortune quickly found its audience, coming on the heels of “A Very Potter Musical,” co-written with and starring Criss. Little did the trio know, those initial endeavors laid the groundwork for a lifetime of creative genius.

“It’s a full circle moment,” says Criss, 33, zooming from his Los Angeles home, which he shares with his wife Mia. He’s fresh-faced and zestful in talking about the new project. 11 years separate the two series, but their connective thematic tissues remain striking. “Royalties” is far more polished, the obvious natural progression in so much time, and where “Little White Lie” soaked in soapy melodrama, the former analyzes the ins and outs of the music world through more thoughtful writing, better defined (and performed) characters, and hookier original tunes.

“Royalties” follows Sara (Donohue) and Pierce (Criss), two struggling songwriters in Los Angeles, through various career exploits and pursuits. The pilot, titled “Just That Good,” features an outlandish performance from Rufus Wainwright as a major player in dance-pop music, kickstarting the absurdity of Criss’ perfectly-heightened reality. As our two main characters stumble their way between songwriting sessions, finally uncovering hit single potential while eating a hot dog, Criss offers a glimpse into the oft-unappreciated art of songwriting.

In his own songwriting career ─ from 2010’s self-released Human EP and a deal with Columbia Records (with whom a project never materialized) to 2017’s Homework EP and Computer Games’ debut, Lost Boys Life, (a collaboration with his brother Chuck) ─ he’s learned a thing or two about the process. Something about sitting in a room with someone you’ve never met before always rang a little funny to him.

“You meet a stranger, and you have to be creative, vulnerable, and open. It’s speed-dating, essentially. It’s a different episode every time you pull it off or not. All the big songwriters will tell you all these crazy war stories. Everyone has a wacky story from songwriting,” he says. “I slowly realized I may ─ I can’t flatter myself, there are tons of creative people who are songwriters ─ have prerequisites to just put the two together [TV and music]. I’ve worked enough in television as an actor and creator. I can connect the dots. I had dual citizenship where I felt like it was really time for me to go forth with this show.”

But a packed professional life pushed the idea to the backburner.

Between six seasons of “Glee” (playing Blaine Anderson, a Warbler and lover to Chris Colfer’s Kurt Hummel), starring in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” on Broadway, and creating Elsie Fest, a one-day outdoor festival celebrating songs of the stage and screen, he never had the time. “I was lucky enough to be busy,” he says. “As Team StarKid’s star was continuing to rise with me being separate from it, I was trying to think of a way to get involved again with songwriting.”

At one point, “Glee” had officially wrapped and his Broadway run was finished. It appeared “Royalties” may finally get its day in the sun. “I went to Chicago for a work pilgrimage with the Langs. We had a few days, and we put all our ideas on the map: every musical, feature film, show, graphic novel, and animated series we’ve ever thought of,” he says. “A lot of them were from the Langs; they were just things I was interested in as a producer or actor. We looked at all of them and made a top three.”

“Royalties” obviously made the cut.

Fast forward several years, Gail Berman’s SideCar, a production company under FOX Entertainment, was looking to produce a music show. Those early conversations, beginning at an otherwise random LA party, showed great promise in airlifting the concept from novel idea to discernible reality. Things quickly stalled, however, as they often do in Hollywood, but Criss had at least spoken his dreams into the universe.

“I finally had an outlet to put it into gear. It wasn’t until two to three years after that that things really locked in. We eventually made shorts and made a pilot presentation. We showed it to people, and it wasn’t until Quibi started making their presence known that making something seemed really appealing,” he says. “As a creator, they’re very creator-centric. They’re not a studio. They’re a platform. They are licensing IP much like when a label licenses an indie band’s album after the fact.”

Quibi has drawn severe ire over the last few months, perhaps because there is a “Wild Westness” to it, Criss says. “I think that makes some people nervous. Being my first foray into something of this kind, Quibi felt like a natural partner for us. If this had been a network or cable show, we would’ve molded it to be whatever it was.”

Format-wise, “Royalties” works best as bite-sized vignettes, charming hijinks through the boardroom and beyond, and serves as a direct response to a sea of music shows, from “Nashville” and “Empire” to “Smash.” “Those shows were bigger, more melodramatic looks at the inside base of our world. I’ve always been a goofball, and I just wanted to take the piss out of it,” he says. “This show isn’t about songwriting. It’s about songwriters… but a very wacky look at them.”

“30 Rock,” a scripted comedy loosely based around “Saturday Night Live,” in which the focus predominantly resides around the characters, rather than the business itself, was also on his mind. “It’s about the interconnectivity of the people and characters. As much of the insider knowledge that I wanted to put into our show, at the end of the day, you just want to make a fun, funny show that’s relatable to people who know nothing about songwriting and who shouldn’t have to know anything.”

Throughout 10 episodes, Criss culls the “musicality, fun, and humor” of Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger and Max Martin, two of his biggest songwriting heroes, and covers as many genres as possible, from K-Pop to rap-caviar and classic country. While zip-lining between formats, the songs fully rely on a sturdy storytelling foundation ─ only then can Criss drape the music around the characters and their respective trajectories. “I wanted to do something where I could use all the muscles I like to flex at once, instead of compartmentalizing them,” he says. “I really love writing songs for a narrative, not necessarily for myself. I thrive a little more when I have parameters, characters, and a story to tell.”

Bonnie McKee, one of today’s greatest pop architects, takes centerstage, too, with an episode called “Kick Your Shoes Off,” in which she plays a bizarro version of herself. “She has her own story, and I’ve always been fascinated by it,” says Criss, who took her out to lunch one day to tell her about it. Initially, the singer-songwriter, known for penning hits for Katy Perry, Taio Cruz, and Britney Spears, would anchor the entire show, but it soon became apparent she would simply star in her own gloriously zany episode.

In one of the show’s standout scenes, Pierce and Sara sit in on a label meeting with McKee’s character and are tasked with writing a future hit. But they quickly learn how many cooks are in the kitchen at any given moment. Everyone from senior level executives to publicists and contracted consultants have an opinion about the artist’s music. One individual urges her to experiment, while another begs not to alienate her loyal fanbase, and then a third advises her to chronicle the entire history of music itself ─ all within three minutes or so. It’s absurd, and that’s the point. “Everyone’s been in that meeting, whether you’re in marketing or any creative discussion that has to be made on a corporate level by committee. It’s the inevitable, comedic contradictions and dissociations from not only rationality but feasibility.”

Criss also draws upon his own major label days, having signed with Sony/Columbia right off the set of “Glee,” as well as second-hand accounts from close friends. “There are so many artists, particularly young artists, who famously get chewed up and spat out by the label system,” he says. “There’s a lot of sour tastes in a lot of people’s mouths from being ‘mistreated’ by a label. I have a lot of friends who’ve had very unfortunate experiences.”

“I was really lucky. I didn’t have that. I have nothing but wonderful things to say,” he quickly adds.“It wasn’t a full-on drop or anything. I was acting, and I was spreading myself really thin. It’s a record label’s job to make product, and I was doing it piecemeal here and there. I would shoot a season [of ‘Glee’] and then do a play. I was doing too many things. I didn’t have it in me at the time to do music. I had written a few songs I thought were… fine.”

Both Criss and the label came to the same conclusion: perhaps this professional relationship just wasn’t a good fit. They parted ways, and he harbors no ill-will. In fact, he remains close friends with many folks from that time. So, it seems, a show like “Royalties” satisfies his deep hunger to make music and write songs ─ and do it totally on his own terms.

“I still say I want to put out music, and fans have been very vocal about that. I feel very fortunate they’re still interested at all,” he says. “That passion for making music really does come out in stuff like [this show].”

“Royalties” is Darren Criss at his most playful, daring, and offbeat. It’s the culmination of everything he has tirelessly worked toward over the last decade and a half. Under pressure with a limited filming schedule, he hits on all cylinders with a soundtrack, released on Republic Records, that sticks in the brain like all good pop music should do. And it would not have been the same had he, alongside Matt and Nick Lang, not formed Team StarKid 11 years ago.

Truth be told, it all began with a “Little White Lie.”

#darren criss #american songwriter #royalties press #press #royalties #june 2020

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fandom-artworks · 4 years

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My 2020 Winter Anime

2020 Winter anime I have watch and my ratings.

My Personal Top 10

1. Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! - Rating: 10/10 (Must watch)

An anime on how to make an anime, I didn’t expect this to be so good. but it is one of the best animes I have watched this season. I takes a different path from other similar anime and shows the various way anime is done and it unleash the creativity and imagination of the artists. It also shows how money is needed and used to fund the anime which most anime would never dare talk about.

2. Somali and the Forest Spirit - Rating: 10/10 (Must watch)

This is a fantastic fantasy anime. Most anime where an adult has to take care of a girl ends up being a little creepy later on in the series. But in this anime Golem only has a year and few months to live, so he will do whatever it takes to bring Somali to humans and also tries to make her happy as much as he can.

3. Mairimashita! Iruma-kun - Rating: 9/10 (Strongly recommended)

Just when Iruma though his luck could not get worst, his parents sold him to the devil and he gets taken to the demon world. However things didn’t not turn out to be the Hell he was expected. This goodest boy get all the good things he deserve. Good friends, a family, a fun school and crushes from various girls. But also he might become the next demon king.

4. Id:Invaded - Rating: 9/10 (Strongly recommended)

A computer system is development that allows humans to enter the mind of a criminal. Akihito Narihisago (Sakaido) enter this place that is made by the criminal ID well. While Koharu Hondoumachi is task to find the criminal in the real world. This is interesting detective psychological mystery.

5. My Hero Academia Season 4 - Rating: 9/10 (Strongly recommended)

MHA continues with a school festival. A new villain attempt to hijack the event for his own purpose. Not really a big fan of the school festival trope. But the first half where they save Eri-chan from Overhaul was great and the ending where Endeavor has to prove to everyone he is worth being the number one hero is awesome as well.

6. Koisuru Asteroid - Rating 8/10 (Recommended)

Moe anime meets science. Nice slice of life story about two girls trying to find an asteroid and name it. They are joined by various friends with other science related interest.

7. Toilet-bound Hanako-kun - Rating 8/10 (Recommended)

Nene Yashiro attemps to summon Hanako-kun only to find out he is a boy and also end up becoming his assistance and bound to him. This anime has lot of ship teasing and supernatural elements. She takes on the ‘Seven wonder’s of her school all which are supernatural entity with bad intention due to bad rumours. So she tries to take away those rumours and create good ones to help the various sprits. But someone doesn’t want them to have a happy ending.

8. Seton Academy: Join the Pack! - Rating 8/10 (Recommended)

This comedy features anthropomorphic animals in a human settings, only there are not much humans left. The only human guy hates animals and hates the school. but finds a human girl. However an wolf comes along to take over his life by forcing him to join her pack. Lots of comedy and funny scenes. but do know there are quite a few ecchi scenes.

9. BOFURI: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense - Rating 7/10 (Somewhat recommended)

An isekai anime but they can log out. A girl who focus her skill points on defends end up becoming a unbeatable opponent in a virtual online game. Some funny scenes and I like her turtle.

10. Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story - Rating 7/10 (Somewhat recommended)

An side story of PMMM which is also based on the mobile game. PMMM is one of my top anime of all time. However Magia Record doesn’t have the same thing going on. The story introduce uwasa or rumors which are based on legends or stories. They also introduce a magical girl’s doppel where the girl use her materialization of despair (which usually turn them to a witch) to fight enemies. But the fact remain that Kyubey caused this remains.

Other anime I have watch this season.

Heya Camp - Rating 7/10 (Somewhat recommended)

Yuru Camp continues with a short series where the girls go on a stamp rally to various parks.

Nekopara - Rating 7/10 (Somewhat recommended)

Based on a visual novel, a world where cat girls exist. A man take care of his two cat girls as they assist with his cake and pastry shop. The girls found and take home a young homeless cat girl. Now they have to teach her to be a proper cat girl. Be warn of some ecchi scenes.

Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It - Rating 7/10 (Somewhat recommended)

Two scientist fall in love but first they have to prove love exist because they are stupid. No really, they make actual scientist look bad. But there’s lots of funny moments.

Natsunagu! - Rating 7/10 (Somewhat recommended)

This is a short anime where a girl tries to find a fiend she met online after she hears the place her friend lived in was hit by an earthquake. Kinda nice story even though it was short.

In/Spectre - Rating 6/10 (Slightly recommended)

Kotoko Iwanaga sacrifice one of her eye and leg to become goddess of wisdom and take care of issues that sprits or youkai has. But they spend a really long time trying to fight of a ghost know as the steel beam lady that was artificial created due to rumours and the internet. Personally, if anyone thinks it’s easy to create a rumour on the internet about a ghost, please be my guest. They also defeat the sprit by using lies not caring about how it would affect actual people who exist. This story fails on various details but I guess it’s still okay to watch.

Darwin's Game - Rating 5/10 (Average)

An battle royal like anime where people who join an app are given various power to help the fight each another. Not a big fan of this as the plot is pretty generic for a battle royal type anime.

Infinite Dendrogram - Rating 3/10 (Quite bad)

An isekai anime but they can log out. But like super generic and basic. Boring battles and useless plot. Hey the NPC seem so real and something is wrong, like there is a big conspiracy. I can’t recommend this unless you have to watch every isekai anime.

Ishuzoku Reviewers - Rating 2/10 (Bad)

If this anime is for ‘Man of Culture’ boy I am glad to be an uncultured swine. Just make it an hentai! why bother? They go around and have sex with different species. That’s is like a guy in our world going to different countries and having sex with different races and making a feedback on those experience. Just call yourself a racist and go home. Honestly some of the scenes are disgusting and gross. I understand people have fetishes but this anime takes that to a level never seen before.

#mod post #anime list #Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!#Somali and the Forest Spirit #Mairimashita! Iruma-kun #Id:Invaded #My Hero Academia Season 4 #Koisuru Asteroid #Toilet-bound Hanako-kun #Seton Academy: Join the Pack!#BOFURI: I Don't Want to Get Hurt so I'll Max Out My Defense #Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story

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highabovethecloudssomewhere · 5 years

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The BNHA Fandom and why I haven’t been creating content for it

I’d wanted to do this several months ago, when I first returned from my break through the month of February, but at the time I was wound to the point of snapping, exhausted, and overall in a pretty rough state of mind creatively. I’ll go into why in a moment, but either way, now, I think enough time has passed for me to be able to articulate my thoughts in a readable way that makes sense.

Before I get into it, let me start by saying:

A lot of this is personal. A lot of you will agree with me; a lot of you will disagree with me. Overall, please take this as my own personal thoughts and experiences. I’m doing this in the hopes that you can at least understand my mindset and where I’m coming from. I’m not attacking anyone particularly. I just want you to be able to understand, because you’ve all stuck with me this long, and feel you deserve an explanation.

This is not a callout post. This is just me, a tired writer and creator, explaining my mindset in a way that I hope you can understand. And maybe even relate to.

This has been long overdue. Here we go.

I started writing fanfiction for BNHA somewhere in between the spring and summer of 2017. Around that time, the show’s second season was airing and quickly gaining traction. I hopped on the bandwagon, fell in love, and began creating content for it before I even finished watching the anime.

From there, I read the manga, and before I knew it, I had a new favorite series. And for a long time, it was my favorite series. I loved the cast of characters, I loved the engaging story, I loved all the different arcs, and I loved how the characters played off each other and grew through each other. I still love the characters with all my heart.

And this is where I start ranting. This is where a lot of you are gonna disagree with me. This is where the fandom divides.

Because ever since last year, the fandom has been in a meticulous state of divide, hate, arguments, controversy, and disarray. And suddenly logging onto social media to breeze through a boring 10 minutes became a truckload of fandom divide, arguments, hate, and overall toxicity.

Of course, not all of the fandom is like this. It’s wrong to generalize like that. But oh my god, the divide in the fandom is bad. Maybe it’s not as bad as it could be. I’m sure it could be a hell of a lot worse. But it is bad. And it didn’t help the fact that [SPOILERS FOR THE MANGA] Endeavor, one of the series’ most hated characters (up to a point), had his own development arc. As a survivor of abuse and someone still fighting through it now, seeing this abusive character get such an arc in the story--arcs that his abused wife didn’t get, arcs that his abused children (sans Shouto) didn’t get--really, really crushed me. And that mashed with the declining state of the fandom for a whole mess of hurt and disappointment. [END OF MANGA SPOILERS]

Since then, it’s only gotten worse. The arguments are more heated than ever. The creator is being harassed (again, actually. This isn’t the first time). There’s so much war between users in the fandom, and even if the entire fandom isn’t a part of the fighting, they’re still affected by it. They’re like me, trying to make my way peacefully through it and inevitably running into so much divide and hatred it’s unbelievable.

Every fandom has its bad parts. But as of late, all the bad in the BNHA fanbase has been more prevalent than the good. And that’s not even going into the issues I have with the original source material, or the fact that I’m no longer reading it. I’m not going to get into that, because that isn’t the point.

And here’s where it gets personal. Here’s where “general fandom crap that every fandom has” became even more than that.

In February of this year, I needed a break. So I took one. I posted no content through the month of February, consumed some other media (Ao no Exorcist and Mob Psycho 100 specifically), wrote stuff to post come March. And it was alright. Taking a break from the fandom was just what the doctor ordered.

And then I returned. And I started posting again. And god, did the floodgates open.

The attacks, the toxicity, the hate, flooded into comments. Demanding why I didn’t update when they wanted to; questioning what took me so long; ordering me to never do that again. Several comments that only contained the word “finally.” An entire, maxed-out page of the word “update” and nothing more. False accusations that were removed/deleted before anything could come out of them. And now, recently, a stolen work of mine up on Wattpad.

If you go looking into the comments sections of my fics, you might find a couple. But only because I didn’t delete them. Up until this point, I’d hoped I’d be able to shove it under the rug, so to speak. After all, in my experience, the fandom was already full of toxicity. Of course. I should expect it, right? Expect it, not let it get to me, and move on.

Except, it didn’t stop there. When I started posting again in March, along with my BNHA updates came a few works from the other fandoms I’d dabbled in. Specifically, Mob Psycho 100 fics.

The bulk of the comments I got on those MP100 fics (comments which have long since been deleted, of course) were from anonymous users demanding to know when I was going update my BNHA fics.

Crazy, right. Give them nearly 1 million words worth of content from one fandom, and the second you try creating anything for another fandom, they come at you with pitchforks. It’s... actually really sad. And I felt trapped.

Because at that point, to them, I was a creator. I was a writer. But I wasn’t a person.

And of course, not everyone was like this. The majority of people were happy to see me writing again. They were understanding and encouraging, not just of my works, but of my taking time off, too. I have a wonderful community, I really do. And I’m so thankful for each and every one of you who offer such positivity towards me and my works. Those of you who treat me like a person.

But... it was a lot. Too much all at once, really. During what was already a really hard, dark time in my life. During a time when the majority of the stuff I wrote were vent/coping fics, because writing was the one thing I knew I could run to for solitude. And, by the end of February, I was scared of updating my bnha fics. Because I didn’t know if I could handle every update ending in a flood of demanding comments from people who cared more about what I could give them than about me as a person.

You may be reading this and think I’m overreacting. You may be looking at all this and saying to yourself, “Oh, that isn’t so bad. [Creator] has been through worse and they’re still writing.”

Which I guess then begs the question: am I overreacting?

No.

No, I’m not.

Because this incident made me question my worth as a writer. Made me question if I was only worth the content I'm able to produce. And as someone who’s already driven by my abilities, as someone who already pushes myself, as someone who can only be proud of myself if I have something to show for it (which is a toxic mindset that I’m trying my damndest to work myself out of), this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

On one hand, when I was able to pull myself through this whole fiasco, when I was able to ingrain it in my head that I’m more than what I create, I was okay. I could write. I’m still writing now. Focusing on an original project as well as smaller projects in other fandoms.

But on the other hand, the past couple times I’ve opened any WIPs I have for my BNHA fics, I’ve hesitated. I’ve opened them, and they were left open, untouched, until I closed them at night before I went to bed.

Because I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Because I can’t bring myself to write for this fandom anymore.

So, there you have it. A long, unedited, overdue explanation that I’ve been struggling to get off my chest for far too long. Does it make sense? Maybe. I don’t know. I hope at least you can understand where I’m coming from. Even if you think I’m overreacting, I hope you can at least see my side of this.

So, what does this mean for my in-project bnha works?

For stories like LAH and AHDAI, which are in their final stages (both with only one chapter and an epilogue left to go), I plan on finishing those. I’m proud of both those projects and want to finish strong. When will they be finished? Good question. I don’t know.

As for my more recent works--specifically Resident Ghost--I honestly have no idea. I’m trying to pull myself through a few chapters, trying to at least tie up the USJ arc, but I honestly don’t know at this point. And I feel bad. Because I have ideas, I have thoughts, I have a story to tell, but the motivation isn’t there anymore. And that’s the battle right now.

I really want to be able to write and finish it. And I’m gonna try my damndest to do it. But I can’t promise speed. All I can promise is that I’m going to try my best. I don’t know what else to say. What else to do.

If you’ve read this far, thank you. Thank you for supporting me and being a wonderful part of this community. I love you guys so much. You’re such an encouragement, and honestly, a big portion of what’s kept me going for this long. Maybe I’ll be able to keep writing like I did someday. Maybe I’ll work myself out of this eventually.

Until then, I hope this explanation has been enough. Thank you for all your support.

#me #cloud speaks #this got way longer than I wanted it to #but #it had to be said #it's had to be said for a long time now #please don't fight over this #please #this is a personal explanation of my personal experiences #i'm not damning the show or the fandom #please don't get into arguments over this

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dumdeeedum · 5 years

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“The Magicians” implied spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen it!

The only thing I have to say about tonight’s episode of “The Magicians,” especially as someone who saw it coming and as someone who has seen these show-runners for their works and so knew not to trust them is this:

I hope people respond accordingly. The show-runners made a business decision and used the queer community that watches this show as a social experiment to see how their show would get more views and when they got the result they wanted they went that way. The only way to respond to a business entity, because that’s what this is, fucking you over or no longer offering you what you want is to stop patronizing it, stop buying into it, and effectively cut off your support of it.

The problem here is that I know people are going to watch next week’s episode when it airs and give it the ratings it needs so they don’t have to give a fuck about how you feel about it because ultimately it doesn’t matter. We live in a capitalist economic system and that includes creative endeavors like film and television so if you’re not going to put your money where your mouth is they’re going to keep doing this shit because they can. And we know how toxic the community of homophobes is in this fandom but they’re whom the show-runners have decided to respond to and court so why would you show you approve of that by continuing to give them ratings?

And leave the fucking actors alone, express your disapproval so they can pass it along but don’t blame them because they’re on contract and have no real control over this shit. The only thing I would say to them if I did decide to say anything is that they need to be careful about what they present about their show to their audience and not perpetuate these kinds of rumors if they know better, and sometimes they do know better. This was not filmed yesterday. So if you Kumar’d it and you feel you have to watch it to see what happens, pirate the shit. Do not give next week’s episode ratings, do not reward bad behavior. At this point you know they’re not going to miraculously pull Queliot out of their asses because if this episode showed you anything it’s that they shut that shit down by erasing it.

Let them get by with the straight, homophobic audience who doesn’t want to see the meaningful lgbtqa representation, because that’s who they’ve decided matters, not you. If they change their minds you can then respond accordingly if you feel it’s appropriate but for now they’re not going to get it if it’s business as usual, they never do.

They know they can count on fandom to get huffy and whine on social media but that they’ll get the views next week; they don’t give a shit about you angrily @ing them. I don’t mean for this to sound condescending or rude because I also know they’ve been overtly stringing along the queer community who watches this shit all season and they did it in a pretty scummy, purposeful way, but at this point you respond or you shut the fuck up about it because nothing else is going to do it.

I’m going to say this again for the people in the back: They did not ever need to imply Eliot and Quentin were a possibility, they’d never been a possibility before season 4! They did not not need to do any of this, they chose to do this! They chose to pretend it was going to happen and pull out literally an episode before the finale in the hopes that you’d watch anyway because you came too far. And if you don’t think that was done on purpose you’re being obtuse and it’s time to snap out of it because you’re smarter than that!

The Queliot stuff wasn’t even the only disappointing thing in this shitshow of a series anyway and there’s way too much out there people can be giving their time and energy to. Don’t keep allowing them to do this to you. Maybe start paying attention to whether there are queer writers or writers of color working behind the scenes of a series because ultimately real life, meaningful representation matters there too, and more-so than in the series. If they can do this fake-woke shit with mostly White, cis-het writers being rewarded for it then what movement toward equity are we really seeing and what incentive do these television networks have to hire more diverse show-runners and writers?

And, granted, I don’t know what the writer’s room looks like but I’ve heard they’re predominantly White and straight and that’s what I’m basing this on, please correct me if I’m wrong, but it matters who is getting work here. Jordan Peele more than showed you that shit when he decided, fuck these people, I’m creating for my own and hiring my own!

That’s all I got. I’m really sorry, guys, I didn’t want to be right about this because I knew how you’d all feel and I didn’t want that. I’m absolutely disgusted and so so sad that they keep doing this to you. But at least now the ambiguity is done and you can move on with your lives. If this was all some elaborate workaround and they’ll come back to Queliot at some point I’m not seeing how and until I do I don’t need to watch this, I can opt for something else and keep it moving until something actually deserves my attention. I promise you can too, it’s just like when you have to wait on another season of an anime for 2 years and you don’t know if you’ll make it but something else comes along and distracts you. Something else will come along, especially when you start supporting the right things.

#the magicians #queliot #eliot waugh #quentin coldwater #lgbtqa #lgbtqa representation #representation #representation matters #social #media #television #capitalism #business

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winterysomnium · 5 years

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What’s left (is you)[3/3]; Todoroki Shouto/Midoriya Izuku;BNHA; word count: 5,700+ words; rated: PG-15; warnings: slight gore, violence,full tags on AO3;

notes: I've finally managed to edit the last chapter of this, I guess I've been having a bit of doubts as usual but! Thank you so much for everyone who commented so far, you've all made my day and it warms my heart so much and I love talking to you!! ♥ Thank you so much for the kudos and bookmarks as well! Hope the last chapter won't disappoint! I am pondering about adding a one shot from Izuku's pov to this story, maybe some little snippets here and there, not 100% sure yet. Thank you so much again!

summary: After the pro hero Deku loses his memory as a result of an assassination attempt, Shouto is struggling to cope with everything his boyfriend’s recovery entails: from the threat of another attack to the possibility of Izuku’s memories never coming back.

(Oh, and did Shouto forget to mention that he’s 90% sure Izuku was trying to break up with him before the attack, on top of everything?)

read the story on AO3

In the listless deep of the night, Izuku’s soft knock resembles a gunshot, Shouto’s name muffled through the door but heard nonetheless, as the cocoon of sleep breaks apart around him rapidly.

For a dizzying second Shouto can’t recall where he is.

The thick covers slide off and pool in his lap silently as he sits up and recognizes the room: he’s home, he’s been asleep for a while and Izuku -- Izuku’s at his bedroom door.

The door itself is slightly ajar and Shouto can see Izuku’s bare thighs and restless feet, the worn shirt that dips low on his shoulder where the collar has been widened by Izuku’s growth, his hair is a wild crown of curls.

(Shouto wills away the sleepy embers of arousal, the heavy, rich want that sweep over him at the sight.)

There’s a reason why Izuku’s here.

“What’s wrong?” Shouto asks, the worry pushing at the dryness of his throat as he gets up off the floor and walks over to Izuku, checks him over one more time, properly, from up close.

He seems unharmed but he wouldn’t wake up Shouto if there was nothing to say: something must be going on.

“Sorry for waking you up, Shouto-kun,” Izuku apologizes softly and Shouto flushes over the sound of his name.

He clears his throat.

“It’s fine. What happened?”

“It’s … going to sound strange. And you can say no if you hate the idea! You can say no even if you don’t hate the idea and just don’t want to do it! Any answer is fine, really -- I just thought -- maybe I shouldn’t have -- but I --”

“Midoriya.”

Izuku’s ears turn red.

“Would you sleep in our bed with me tonight?” he blurts out, hands moving as he speaks, as if he’s waving the words away. “And I don’t mean like sleep sleep, I mean sleep sleep like real sleep, proper sleep with clothes on and covers on and everything on and everything!” He’s breathless, like he’s barely catching up to his own words, like he’s only got the one mouthful of air left, using up all of his reserves, rushing everything he needs to out of his mouth, before he finally, finally slows down.

“I … I’ve been having nightmares about the attack again and tonight’s been especially bad for some reason -- maybe because it’s a new moon and the room gets really dark and … it’s easier for me. To fall sleep when I’m not alone.”

There’s an unsure openness to his request, like it would truly be okay for Shouto to say no, to leave Izuku stranded in consciousness, to leave him awake and anxious, vulnerable to the creativity of the dark.

Like Shouto’d ever do that.

“Yeah, sure,” he answers easily, with more bravado on his shoulders than he truly possesses but he’s not going to turn back. He’s already pushing the door wide open and stepping across the threshold of his room; their short, shared journey to the other bedroom, the other bed, surprisingly smooth.

Izuku only hesitates at the foot of the bed, picking up the blanket whose half has fallen off onto the floor, indecisive on where to lie down.

“Which side do you usually sleep on, Shouto-kun?”

“Left.”

“Oh.” Izuku nods and as if it truly strikes him that Shouto’s going to be here, with him, in bed Izuku rushes back onto the spot he’s been sleeping on earlier with stiff determination, pulling the blanket up over himself, exposing just the top of his ears.

Shouto settles himself down with less of a rush, accepting the blanket Izuku offers him; their fingers touch.

Izuku curls into himself like a tired cat, hiding in the coil of his spine, the thickness of the night. “It’s strange,” he murmurs, before he rolls over, facing Shouto’s side of the bed. “I lie down on the right side every night but I always wake up on the left, in the morning.” Like I’m following you, he doesn’t say.

“Oh. You do?”

The blankets shift, a nod. “Yeah.”

Shouto hums into the dark.

“I see.”

The quiet spills, soaks into the borders of their skin.

Izuku creates a sound, again.

“Shouto-kun?”

“Hmm?”

“Is it unfair of me to ask if you miss me?”

Shouto’s heart stills.

(It really, really is.)

“A little bit, yeah,” answer, admit his lungs, for his heart.

“Can I ask anyway?”

Shouto’s blood stills too: then it runs.

It runs.

“I do. I do miss you, Izuku. But --” he moves closer, pulls at the cotton that hides Izuku’s face, pulls it down. Pulls at it until he uncovers him, like a secret, a fossil of an ancient sea. “But: it’s okay. Because you’re here, either way. Because somehow you still look at me the same way. You still look at me with the same kindness. You treat me with the same kindness. And that’s enough.”

Shouto hesitates as he tucks a wayward strand of Izuku’s hair behind his ear, gently, like he’s afraid to touch him, afraid to get any closer than he has.

Izuku allows the touch to linger, instead.

“Shouto-kun, can I hug you?” he asks, his own palm hovering over Shouto’s careful, wispy fingers.

“Of course.”

And Izuku’s there, in a second, in a mere moment, he’s slamming his weight against Shouto’s, close enough for Shouto to feel every inch of his skin, his height, his heart.

Izuku presses his cheek to Shouto’s chest, breathing him in.

When Shouto’s senses calm down, minutes later, he does the same.

(“Goodnight, Shouto-kun.”

“Goodnight.”)

---

After a series of check up’s and two more weeks of healing, Izuku’s officially cleared for stand-by duty.

It’s a bittersweet victory, in Shouto’s eyes.

No one will actually call upon the hero Deku for a fight or a mission offer -- while he’s able to activate his quirk and control it enough not to injure himself, he’s unable to utilize it properly yet -- but he’s also not on sick leave, anymore.

Izuku’s fought for it to be that way and Shouto can’t fault him: he asks for his leave status to be changed to a stand-by duty as well.

(They’re still afraid Izuku’s going to be targeted again, after all.)

It’s a first in the series of defeated victories, bitter with guilt only Shouto experiences: he’s angry at himself for thinking any of it is a bad thing at all.

Izuku will get his memories back.

The confirmation came from the investigation team of Point Blank’s quirk; it turned out to be a hypnosis based power requiring undisturbed, mutual eye contact -- resembling Eraserhead’s in that regard -- locking away memories one concept at a time, reaching deeper and further the longer it’s used on the victim.

It takes about a day to recover whatever’s gone, for every second it’s used.

They estimate Izuku’s exposure to have been under a minute, perhaps 70 seconds at most -- no one’s seen how long Point Blank has been able to withhold his gaze -- which means: Izuku should be getting his memories back, any day now.

Shouto longs for him terribly.

Shouto dreads it happening more.

(What if his fears have been correct, from the start?

What if they’re over and Izuku’s being mislead?

What if they’re never going to be what they were again?

What if they’re over?

It won’t leave his head.)

The next blow is the group of fourth graders that barrel them over on a walk to a convenience store -- the two of them have been sparring at an agency gym and it’s too late to start on a homemade lunch when they’re starving and sore, now -- and the five kids crowd Izuku with overwhelming intensity, chattering one over the other, asking if he’s all better? Deku, you’re gonna be back soon right? Can we take a picture? Will you sign my bag? and Shouto has no problem with the kids -- it’s the press he’s worried about.

He knows they’ve been hounding them for days and he’s worried their questions might get too personal, might cause Izuku to fall into a headache like he still often does and really: Shouto’s in no mood to even be polite to someone who he’s seen going through his trash.

He leans down next to Izuku to sign a bag and answers a few questions softly, musters up a smile because this innocent, open affection warms his heart to the core, it does and despite there being a million things to worry about, he won’t become someone like Endeavor, someone who’s been known to be unapproachable and rude.

He senses it before it happens.

They’re pulling themselves up to their full height after a round of posing for photos, Izuku’s arm slung around his shoulder and the kids still huddled close, comparing their pictures excitedly when Shouto’s body tenses, a foreboding running through his bones.

He shoves Izuku away.

Shouto’s ice erupts from around them in a wide arc just as a slew of bullets whizzes across the street and clusters its heaviest where Izuku stands, taken aback.

“Get back!” Shouto commands as he runs up an icy road and the group of fans is already being shielded by Izuku’s body, rushed into the doors of the store.

(Shouto silently begs for Izuku to stay inside too.)

There’s another round of shots, curving up along the arch of his ice and chipping away at its borders, embedding in the dry asphalt of the street underneath when Shouto drops down onto the ground and hounds the backward trajectories of the shots, he’s already recognized the annoyingly familiar threat.

Not this guy again.

Shouto dodges an attack that would’ve sliced him apart if it struck and forms another wall as the onslaught continues, he needs to unblock his path of vision (no more ice in front), he needs to decide which way to hide.

If he goes right, he’ll give Bulletproof an opportunity to attack Izuku and the kids freely; if he goes left, he’ll bring the fight to them himself.

There’s no good option.

But if he’s close he can protect them better.

(Shouto leaps left.)

He can’t rely on his icy barriers if he wants to stop Bulletproof quickly: his quirk is too annoyingly long range and precise for a long, drawn out fight and Shouto has to multitask to boot; he has to avoid the bullets and catch them with his ice at the same time, so that they won’t harm anyone else behind.

Bulletproof’s not the best match for Shouto.

But there’s a delay and a downside to the guy’s power too.

He has to aim the bullets he creates before he constructs them and it’s up to Shouto not to give him time for them to hit.

It’s up to Shouto to pin down where he’s shooting from.

Getting close is risky, as is playing both offense and defense like this -- the street’s not a busy one but the convenience store is way too close for comfort -- so there’s not much else Shouto can think to do:

He runs straight for the source.

(His fire burns.)

His fire consumes the shaky mist he breathes out, warming up his core, heating up his speed as he catches up, as he braces for the impact of the collision, the detonation that will follow.

It’s just another disadvantage Shouto has to face.

Bulletproof’s body produces its own gunpowder and none of it is accessible on his skin: it’s only exposed at the moment when a bullet’s born, when it’s about to be shot.

Shouto’s flame flares, melts the air, meets up with the explosive whisper under Bulletproof’s skin and stings, scorches as he flings himself upward -- he braces against Bulletproof’s shoulder as leverage, at the very second the explosion knocks them apart.

Shouto softens his own fall easily, landing on the comforting slide of his ice and quickly locating the fallen villain, just in case -- he needn’t worry.

Bulletproof was knocked down the asphalt road, out cold and Shouto quickly surrounds him by a thin sheet of ice, a temporary imprisonment.

He hears cheers and wonder and -- it’s the kids, unscathed and jumping around inside the second floor of the store and Shouto would scold them for climbing up there to watch when they could’ve gotten hit and hurt but he spots Izuku, fast approaching Shouto’s smoldering silhoulette, avoiding the softened asphalt.

Shouto’s charred clothes expose a strip of his skin from hip to shoulder.

(Shouto pretends it doesn’t make him feel shy.)

“Shouto-kun, are you okay?! I’ve called the reinforcements a while ago, they should be on their way right now!” Izuku informs him rapidly and there’s a conflicted expression on his face as he glances between the villain at their feet, the kids in the window and Shouto catching his breath: Shouto smears some ash on his cheek when he rubs at it, still somewhat shy.

“I’m fine,” Shouto says, following Izuku’s gaze, the questions on Izuku’s mind. “I can’t believe he actually attacked you when we’re off duty.” Bulletproof’s always boasted that that would be too easy in the past, bent on defeating -- destroying -- Deku in an honest, full on fight. “Guess that last time really pissed him of,” Shouto adds thoughtfully, more to himself: the fight ended abruptly and crushingly easily that day -- it took Izuku one move to knock Bulletproof out, all while being publicly recorder by a big news channel.

The humiliation must have risen above his morals then.

“You think he’s connected to the previous attack?” Izuku asks distractedly, like it’s not really the thing that’s at the forefront of his mind.

Shouto shakes his head. “Don’t think so. This is Bulletproof, he’s targeted you before in the past. He’s been in prison since last spring, but he must’ve escaped. He might have had help there, but I doubt he’s in touch with the group. Is everyone okay? No one got hit, right? You’re unharmed too?”

“Oh. Ah -- yeah, yeah everyone’s fine. I’m fine. You were incredible, Shouto-kun.” Izuku jolts, almost, at being addressed directly and his face flushes; he seems a little unsteady on the uneven, slippery feel of the melting ice, the sticky road.

Shouto will have to clean this up in a bit, once Bulletproof’s apprehended.

Or maybe there’ll be someone on duty with a good clean up quirk since he’s not really on duty properly anyway --

Izuku pulls at Shouto’s wrist, strong enough to make him stagger, shorten the spaces in between their heads.

“You were incredible, Shouto,” Izuku repeats and leans up, meets Shouto’s surprised sound.

And then he kisses him.

The contact’s short, both of them taste after smoke and adrenaline but Izuku’s lips are soft against Shouto’s and he’s being kissed, kissed hard, kissed like it’s the last kiss they’ll ever share -- until Izuku pulls away, lips red, face flushed pink.

“S…Sorry. I just really, really wanted to do that.” Izuku swallows, a nervous smile lifting his freckles up, up the curve of his cheek.

Shouto’s helplessly dazed.

“I know my life was being threatened and there were other people involved who could’ve gotten hurt and you could have gotten hurt but before I knew it you were using your quirk and I’ve probably seen it a thousand times before but I don’t remember and it was so amazing how fast you were and then you caught on fire and -- holy shit, that was so hot, Todoroki-kun,” Izuku rambles on and rubs his cheeks just to have an excuse for why they’re so bright red and hot and Shouto wonders if he somehow managed to swallow gunpowder during the fight, when he was blown back from Bulletproof’s body.

He must have.

He must have because --

his insides are positively on fire.

He’s left speechless, Izuku’s lips locking his mouth into stunned silence and it’s a good thing the reinforcements arrive at that moment: Shouto might have done something embarrassing.

Shouto might have kissed Izuku again, just as hard.

He might have kissed him, just like that.

It’s a good thing; not a regret.

(It’s not a regret.)

---

The kiss positively haunts Shouto.

It lingers on his lips for the rest of the day and when he wakes up the next morning, there’s infuriatingly palpable desire buzzing under his skin, thick and heavy: he’s almost feverish with want.

He wants to find Midoriya’s shoulders and kiss him stupid, he wants to push him into the covers and make a mess of him, he wants to press Midoriya up against a wall and just touch him, have him for a little while, take everything Midoriya would be willing to give.

But he can’t. He couldn’t.

He lies still until the heady fantasies fizzle out of his skull, cooling himself enough for Izuku to shiver next to him, despite the several inches and the blankets between them.

(Thankfully, Izuku’s still asleep.)

The kiss is why Shouto keeps staring at Izuku’s lips throughout the days that follow, always a moment away from being caught.

It takes a lot of Shouto’s self control not to stare openly, not to imagine Izuku stripping off his shirt, not to ask if he could steal touches that he knows won’t be rejected but -- when Izuku remembers ,he could hate you for it.

The thought sobers him, every time.

Izuku must notice something’s -- different, something’s shifted, because he looks up from his dinner curiously, the only time Shouto allows himself to be this close to him nowadays -- it’s just torture, otherwise -- and there’s concern written into his mouth.

“Is everything okay, Shouto-kun?”

Shouto quickly shoves a mouthful of rice between his lips. “Yeah. Everything’s fine,” he mumbles through his full mouth, adding more rice to avoid speaking any more.

“Say…” Izuku hesitates, before the determined set of his teeth shuts it off; he wriggles on his chair, shyly. “How did we get together? I’ve been meaning to ask for a while.”

Shouto swallows heavily as the question sears its way through his mind, almost makes him choke on his food.

(Is the kiss on Izuku’s mind, as well?)

Shouto thumps on his chest a few times, just to unblock the clump of feeling at the bottom of his throat.

Izuku watches him, patiently.

“We started dating in our second year, a few weeks after my birthday,” Shouto finally says.

“How did it happen?” Izuku prompts him and Shouto can already feel the flush hiding under his own skin unfurl, again.

“Well. We were studying together in your room, sitting next to each other. You were rubbing your cheek with the eraser on the end of your pencil and I looked over at you and I … I realized that I really wanted to kiss you. I didn’t realize I was leaning close to you until you looked at me and it was obvious what I was about to do because our faces were so close. So I apologized and ran out. You sought me out after school the next day and confessed to me.”

“That’s … kind of really cute.” Izuku smiles up at him: there’s a bit of wonder stuck in his eyelashes. “Now I’m wondering when I realized that I wanted to kiss you …”

“You shouldn’t try to remember. Your head will hurt,” Shouto chastises him and Izuku laughs.

“Still wish I could remember.”

A soft breeze presses between them; the opened window carries in a flicker of sound.

“Will you… will you tell me if you remember? You never did before,” Shouto asks, pretending to be busy dipping his piece of chicken into a sauce, coating it thoroughly, pretending the question was a whim.

Izuku grins.

“Deal.”

---

Izuku’s tired.

He’s tired of the standstill that’s been his life since the first attack, the restlessness always nipping at his heels and he can’t keep his energy in, he can’t keep himself busy enough.

He’s cleaned most of the apartment throughout yesterday and this morning, helped with lunch and then made tea and scrubbed the oven clean and he’s about to take apart that one squeaky cupboard door that doesn’t seem to close properly when Shouto steers him into their bedroom and shows Izuku a heap of heavy boxes hiding in one of the unused wardrobes with a resolute look on his face.

They’re stacked full of old hero magazines and hero sticker sets, carefully sorted and displayed in various notebooks and Izuku’s elbows deep in the second box already minutes later, the old, frayed pages filling him with a sense of comfort and nostalgia he doesn’t quite understand but appreciates nonetheless.

It’s then that he knocks over a little jewelry box, hiding underneath an especially thick volume dedicated solely to All Might’s career.

It’s fairly small, definitely not big enough for a necklace or a watch, that much Izuku can tell, and it’s probably something Izuku’s bought, if it’s in here because Shouto admitted they bought that wardrobe pretty much just for Izuku’s hero stuff collection entirely.

He thumbs the smooth, shiny surface and then rubs his fingerprint away with a soft sound: he’s almost ashamed of wanting to open it.

It’s something that’s his, yes, but it’s something he got before he lost half of his mind and it feels like he’s prying, like he’s going to see something intimate and private that he won’t necessarily understand -- but that’s just silly.

It was him who bought it in the first place.

(And Izuku’s way too damn curious not to look: he can admit this, at least to himself.)

He pushes at the top of the box, opens it with his heartbeat stuck in his fingertips, loud and fast.

It’s a ring.

It’s a ring, he realizes, with an oh that barely forms in his mouth and seems louder in his skull, everything Shouto’s said earlier makes sense and the thought is sudden, fierce.

There’s no other warning.

There’s no sense of a buildup or of a release, there’s no bracing for the burst of pain or the scattered pieces sewing themselves back in, rewinding their decay until they’re whole and alive and so so painful, so overwhelming: it just happens and Izuku’s not sure if he’s still a being, if he’s under water, if he can breathe, where he is, if he’s alive, anything at all.

His head hurts impossibly, splittingly, a sharp, pressing pain that holds his skull and expands against it and if it doesn’t stop, if it doesn’t go away, if it won’t deflate his skull will give, it’ll give in, give way, it’ll crack, crack open, it’ll pop and he’s going to be gone gone gone --

it stops, just like that.

The headache recedes, shrinks away into a gasp, a sense of worn out synapses, leaving a vague sense of nausea as the world spins where he kneels upon it, just a little too fast.

He doesn’t move, waits for the sway to settle and slowly, sluggishly, the vertigo ebbs away, subsides, dies down like the embers of a fire until it disappears, ashes blown into the sky.

Izuku remembers who he is.

(And Shouto -- you absolute idiot. You utter, amazingly dumb moron, god.)

Izuku’s never stopped loving him, after all.

---

After making sure Izuku won’t take apart their whole apartment because he’s bored and there’s too much of him not exhausting himself with nothing to do, Shouto’s stuck going through some of the reports his agency publishes onto their private network regularly: there’s one in particular his Father wants Shouto to take a closer look at and he’s thinking so hard whether to open the file or not -- the thought of his Father a knot in his mind he can’t untangle yet, despite everything -- that he first hears the footsteps when they hit the tatami floors.

They’re not quiet, they’re not slow and with the little time to process what’s happening, Izuku’s already sunken down onto his knees behind him when Shouto even thinks to turn around.

He doesn’t get to it: warm, scarred arms wrap around him and he’s being held, held tightly, held so tightly he thinks they might melt into each other, into one mess of a being, his shoulder blades copying the outline of Izuku’s lungs and if Izuku squeezes any more their imprints will be stuck on his clothes, underneath them, wherever they touch.

Izuku’s voice is fond, it’s exasperated and so so familiarly pitched Shouto’s heartbeat skyrockets, slams into his blood.

“Shouto,” Izuku presses into the crook of Shouto’s shoulder, like Shouto’s forgotten he knows how to say his name; repeats it some more.

“Shouto. Shouto, you idiot. Shouto, you absolute moron.” and Izuku winds his arms around Shouto tighter still and Shouto’s breath hitches, stops inside of his chest.

“Midoriya?”

“Izuku. It’s Izuku. It’s been Izuku since our third year,” Izuku answers and the feeling of relief and shame and anxiety all tangle up inside of Shouto, wringing inside of his gut, something alive and heavy.

(They seep down, down into his throat, soak up his teeth.)

“You remember?” he asks: it must be. Izuku must have remembered.

Izuku must know.

“I remember.”

Izuku won’t let go.

Shouto wants to see him, needs to see him, so he touches Izuku’s fingers, presses at the mountain range of his knuckles, tries to pry them apart.

“Izuku. Izuku, let me see you?” he asks, pleads, but Izuku shakes his head, presses his forehead against Shouto’s back.

The irony of it passes both their minds: now that Shouto is the one who chases him, chases after, Izuku is the one who avoids it, avoids meeting him head on.

The memory of everything sinks in, thick and like glue.

“You were the first one at the attack site, weren’t you? I remember now. They had a TNT quirk user blow down a building on me and Point Blank so she would have time to erase everything I knew and then kill me. He’s probably how they got to blow up so many agencies in one go -- he said something about having siblings.” Izuku breathes in, there’s something churning inside of him, violently loud, violently shaken.

It could be fear.

I could be how easily he’s forgotten how to fight.

It could be just how close they’ve gotten.

(It could be none of that or all of the above.)

Shouto listens, silent, just as afraid.

“They made me forget. They made me forget and nothing made sense anymore and they were going to kill me but then --then you were there.”

Izuku bites at his mouth, for once unsure what to say next.

(Is thank you ever going to be good enough?)

Shouto manages to intertwine their fingers where they meet at his chest, his own mouth bitten dry; there’s comfort in feeling Izuku breathe. “I … I wasn’t alone and I wasn’t the first one there. But I …I was the first to find you, yes. I tried so hard to get to you. When we found out you were their target I -- I know you’re strong, Izuku, I know you’re capable, I trust you but I still -- I --“ Shouto cuts himself off, unable to express what he had felt, fully, entirely. He settles for an apology, too, instead. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get to you. I’m sorry.”

Izuku rubs his forehead against Shouto’s back in a silent plea, a soundless no.

“You had blood on you. Were you injured too?”he asks, softly.

(Shouto struggles to remember anything else but Izuku, on that day.)

“I cut myself on a piece of wiring. It was only a scratch. Most of the blood was yours.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I worried you so much, Shouto. I’m sorry I let it happen.”

“Izuku, there isn’t anything --”

“Shouto,” Izuku cuts him off and he’s still rubbing his forehead against Shouto’s back, in small, short shifts, little warm presses.

It spreads warmth throughout Shouto’s spine, like he’s submerged into a hot spring.

Like he’s encountered summer, on a wintery day.

“Yes?”

“I know why I’ve been avoiding you before. Well, avoiding talking to you, directly. I know now. I know what I was trying to do.”

Finally, Izuku allows Shouto to face him, an awkward moment spent to rearrange their limbs and trying not to let go and when Shouto sees him, at last, it takes the very last piece of his heart away, burns it right into Izuku’s palm but there’s nothing hollow about it: he’s getting just as much back, Izuku’s face loving, loved.

Shouto has been wrong all along, hasn’t he?

“Shouto, I was never going to break up with you. It never even crossed my mind. God, just thinking about it, just thinking that you thought that makes me want to cry,” Izuku continues and he wants to shake Shouto, find that sense he’s apparently lost somewhere under the furnishing of doubt and wrong assumptions and just shake him, he wants to shake it out of him all.

“What were you doing, then?” Shouto asks, with hope on his lashes and worry on his teeth and Izuku lets go of his hand, reaches into the back pocket of his jeans.

He opens his palm up around the jewelry box and Shouto freezes, like he’s afraid to ask what’s inside, afraid to touch the very air around it.

“I’ve never stopped loving you, Shouto. On the contrary.” Izuku grabs Shouto’s hesitant hand and puts it on the top of the box in an attempt to get Shouto to open it, to move. To figure it out.

(To do more than stare.)

Izuku rubs at the back of his neck, nervously. “I was mainly meeting up with Ochako and Yaomomo trying to do this without the press finding out, since, you know, it would’ve been a disaster if they knew before you and published a story on it and you found out that way and Yaomomo knows a lot of discreet jewelry stores that were being really helpful and she also helped me find this private onsen place by the sea I was going to take you to but I’ve never really met up with her before that much and you’d probably figure it out or be suspicious why I was suddenly meeting her so much and I really wanted to surprise you so…” Izuku rambles on until Shouto moves, one hand holding the box on Izuku’s palm steady as the other pries the top open gently: Shouto stills, quiet again and Izuku waits impatiently, the worry gnawing at his lips now too, insistent and loud.

Shouto gapes.

“Izuku. Are you --is this --?” Shouto asks, reverent, touches the ring with his fingertips softly, like he’s afraid he’s going to crush it with his touch, break it within his palms.

“I was trying to ask you to marry me all this time, idiot,” Izuku confirms, with a fond, fond smile and Shouto takes the ring off of the cushion it rests upon, closes his fingers around its shape.

He’s unable of looking away.

“… You can take me there for the honeymoon,” he finally says, his bright, happy smile wobbly and Izuku’s chest, his whole being expands, just at the sight, the thought of Shouto finally, finally free of his doubts.

“Take you?” he asks though, confused, the words catching up just as Shouto presses into him and kisses him breathless, kisses him free.

“To the onsen,” Shouto answers against Izuku’s lips: his smile doesn’t waver, doesn’t hesitate anymore. “You can take me there for our honeymoon, instead.”

And Shouto smile’s is simple now, simply warm, simply affectionate, entirely, solely made for Izuku.

(Izuku’s never loved him more.)

“Does that mean …?”

“Yes.” Shouto nods as he holds Izuku’s face, tenderly. “Yes.”

Shouto can’t believe he’s been this stupid.

He can’t believe he’s misread Izuku, so so badly.

He can’t believe it’s been this obviously good, when he thought it was so obviously bad.

(He almost, almost doesn’t kiss Izuku stupid.)

But then Izuku copies his tender smile, holds Shouto’s fingers against his face and kisses him once, just a touch.

Just a reminder.

“I’m back,” Izuku says.

(Shouto knows what to do.)

“Welcome home,” he says back.

---

Shouto’s phone rings three days later, after the rush of Izuku’s recovery has settled and quieted down to a hush and a way too smug Ochako, and Shouto’s wholly unprepared for the shout that’s shrill and high right in his ear the moment he picks up.

“WHAT THE FUCK FUCKING HALF ‘N HALF?!! You fucking let DEKU beat you to asking him to marry you??? Are you fucking serious?? I lost thirty bucks because of your dumb halfassed ass!!! DON’T FUCKING TALK TO ME AGAIN!”

Shouto hears Ochako cackling in the background and Iida telling Bakugou to “please, accept your defeat honourably and pay up already,” and he doesn’t get to point out that it was Bakugou who called him before Bakugou hangs up and leaves Shouto a little bewildered and questioning, his ear ringing as he holds his phone a good foot away from his head.

Izuku shrugs from the couch, smiling up at him when he catches Shouto’s puzzled look, but there’s a smirk at the corners of his smile, a knowing curve.

The metal of the ring on Shouto’s finger pulls sunlight into its shape as he puts his phone down, warming it up, reflecting little glimmers of light, of warmth, of Izuku’s affection.

They’re already discussing the date of the wedding.

(Shouto’s already looking for a ring to give Izuku back.)

There’s still plenty to worry about: the attack on Izuku, his stilted relationship with his Father, every little thing that Shouto hasn’t quite unlearned yet, every piece of him that’s still a bit too loose, too crooked to fit properly for him to feel fully settled, content, happy.

But.

But --

Shouto feels loved.

(And right now, that’s all that he needs.)

#Tododeku #tddk #BNHA #Todoroki Shouto #Midoriya Izuku #MHA #anything else to tag?

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classpect-musings · 6 years

Note

Could you analyze a bard of time? (I love your blog so much!!)

Sure thing! (And thank you, I’m glad you enjoy it! c:)

Classpect Analysis: Bard of Time

Active or Passive: Passive

What they do: Bards allow the destruction of their aspect or allow destruction through their aspect. Time is the aspect of endings/inevitability, repetitiveness/rhythm, mechanisms, timelines (and literal time), and death/mortality.

Active equivalent: Prince of Time

Inverse: Maid of Space (Porrim Maryam)

A Bard of Time would start off acting like a Space player. Space often represents watching as opposed to acting, and Bards are pretty passive players (at least at the start), so the Bard of Time would be very chill and calm. They might be the type to space out frequently, lost in their creative thoughts. Maybe they act like a hippie artist, always relaxed and at ease as they make their creations. I could definitely see this Bard being the type to make and wear DIY baggy rainbow tie-dye T-Shirts. And speaking of DIYs, upcycling is definitely up this Bard’s alley too! They reduce, reuse, and recycle like no one else’s business, taking supposed trash and turning it into their latest creative endeavor.

Space is the aspect of femininity, so the Bard of Time might be interested in fashion– adding in to their DIY, tree-hugging type style, there might be some kind of influence in their wardrobe from the 70s. They also might be the type to dote on their friends in a motherly sort of way. They keep a bunch of low-maintenance plants around their house, too, because they want to be able to support as many as they can. Maybe they grow tea leaves, drink the tea, and then try to read their future. This Bard might also have a lot of frogs in their vicinity.

The Bard of Time currently lacks or avoids their aspect, Time. They might upcycle things again and again, still believing that they can use it for another purpose or creation. They’re reluctant to let go of things or suddenly act out, and as a result they tend to procrastinate on important things. Combining this with their passive nature, this makes the Bard of Time seem very careless. (And because they tend to put off or forget to do things, this could lead to these things gradually being destroyed through Time.) Time can also represent repetitivity/monotony, so they strive to always create something new and interesting in order to avoid falling into a pattern. And, with Time representing endings/death, they surround themself with Space in order to block out the death and destruction happening in the real world. They like to believe that there is still some light even amongst all the darkness. This Bard hates to think about death and likely wastes a lot of their time on silly recycling projects or whatever else is on their mind that day.

So, your typical Bard of Time would be a recycling, tea-leaf-reading hippie living in a giant atrium with paintings and plants, basically thriving in a setting akin to a fever dream. Super nonthreatening…that is, until they go through a sudden change.

Bards do start out acting like players of the opposite aspect, but once they have a sort of aspect-related collapse in their life, they actively pursue their aspect, trying to take in as much as possible. The Bard of Time’s collapse definitely won’t end well, considering how the aspect of Time is. Because they enter SBURB (or any other version they’re in), they have to realize that the world will end, and the universe they are so used to will be completely obliterated. That would definitely shatter their tree-hugging hippie nature. On a smaller scale, though, the Bard of Time might witness the death of a family member or a close friend, or even the destruction of their precious artwork. This destruction could perhaps be caused by their own negligence, as in, their passive attitude. Time would suddenly rush into their life, forcing the Bard to realize that the end is inevitable. They can’t avoid it forever.

You might be thinking that this Bard’s sudden character development change could be detrimental to the whole session, and that’s certainly true, since Bards are usually a wildcard in their session capable of saving or destroying it. However, if the Bard of Time does not go through this collapse, they might be just as bad (or worse!) off. Due to their procrastinating and laid-back nature, it’s likely that they wouldn’t bother with the upkeep of timelines. This could easily lead to everything spiraling into disaster. Their so-called ‘screwing around’ with the timelines could end up creating paradoxes and lots of doomed timelines too. And there’s no telling how successful they’d be at initiating the Scratch, either (though maybe that would be a little easier for this Bard, considering how it is a way to allow the destruction of that timeline by creating a reset of the session). Also, this Bard’s natural tendency to avoid death will also prevent them from facing Time. It is only through a major catastrophe in their life that they can learn to face their aspect.

But anyway, once the Bard of Time has their collapse moment, they’ll start to experience Time in great measures. They will become a much more active and outspoken person, plunging headfirst into all the destruction they witness. Nihilism? Absolutely! They’d stare death right in the face and say, “You know what, I don’t even care anymore.” This would probably result in a lot of timeline hopping too, which, like I said before, could end up being very fatal, but it’s important that the Bard experiences Time. They might even start to destroy all their art and purge their home of any of the recycled creations they have, finally learning to let go. They might keep some clocks around in order to make sure they are always on time. They might also pick up playing an instrument, since they don’t seem to have as much faith in their artwork at this point.

The Bard eventually creates a sort of balance by destroying their aspect, intuitively learning “how much is too much?” They have learned when to lay back and when to act. They’d be able to allow destruction through Time. This could involve them destroying through the literal timing of events. They’d be able to use their time travel to go forward and do something, like, “Here, let me put this banana peel right by the cliff!” And then, at just the right time, an enemy would slip over it and fall to their death. That’s more of a specific example, but in truth, this idea of destruction through timing can have a variety of applications. If the Bard were more evil, they could use this against their own team by making all the wrong things happen at the wrong times. Even the most clever and well-thought out plans would stand little to no chance against the Bard, who uses their time travel to cause the destruction when you least expect it. Destruction through Time could also involve the gradual decay of any object or, horrifyingly enough, a person. So they could do some subtle damage over the course of the battle with the Black King, gradually chipping away at his strength in a way that goes unnoticed but does a significant amount of harm. Another way this Bard could destroy through their aspect is through themself, or their own Time. So they might be able to summon a bunch of their selves from alternate timelines in order to gang up on someone. Considering their ability to decay timelines, though, it would probably be pretty chaotic. Time also has some relation to music and sound so maybe the Bard of Time can destroy through those in some way? So, to combine all these, the Bard of Time appears at just the right times on the battlefield, using it strategically thanks to the direction of a Seer, and starts strumming an electric guitar. The Black King just thinks it’s annoying, but eventually he raises a hand to his ears and finds that they’re bleeding. He is significantly weakened and can no longer hear, allowing players to have better success with attacking him. Cool, right?

Bards also allow the destruction of their aspect, so the Bard of Time allows timelines to gradually decay. Unlike a Prince, whose powers are powerful and difficult to control, a Bard might be able to direct this gradual enervation towards certain timelines. So it’s a great power if they have someone to advise them on what to do, especially a Seer, but it could go downhill real fast. Destroying Time can also prevent the future from happening, essentially, so this Bard might be able to decay Time until everything is stuck in some kind of loop or even a timeless bubble. The Bard might also be able to destroy their own Time, so they’d be much faster, more agile, and have a decreased reaction time. A Prince of Time would be able to use this in an extremely powerful way for offense, but I see the Bard of Time using this ability in a more passive way. (Maybe picture that scene from X-Men: Apocalypse in which Quicksilver runs around, moving stuff this way and that before it has a chance to affect anyone.) Destroying Time in an enemy could shorten their Time, as in shortening their lifespan. In a more literal sense, the Bard of Time could destroy clocks and music or musical instruments.

As for a land for the Bard of Time, I suggest the Land of Pottery and Tremors. LOPAT is a swamp land with lots of clay embedded naturally in the rivers. The consorts here are all very shy and often stay hidden in the beautiful vases that they have created and painted. They tend to not act on their impulses, resulting in a world with little change. However, a strange noise is starting to beat throughout the ground, shattering some of the pottery with the tremors. It comes from a series of clocks that the denizen has created in order to force the consorts from their homes. They tick constantly, and every hour, a bell sounds, causing the ground to shake. Depending on the hour of the day, they do more or less damage (one toll of the bell vs twelve). The Bard of Time must learn how to stop or destroy the clocks in order to prevent all the pottery from being destroyed, but they also must make sure that some mechanism stays in place that gradually destroys some of the pottery at times so that the consorts aren’t always hidden away.

We don’t know much about the weapons for Bards apart from Gamzee’s clubs. As for Time players, we have seen a variety of weapons (sword, whip, needles?). Since a Bard of Time would start out acting like a Space player, they might have a Space-based weapon, something big and flashy, like maybe art supplies or a giant shovel for their gardening. Once they suffer their collapse, they might start to use a Time-based weapon. As for a cool powerful weapon, Crowbar from the Felt has a crowbar (wow, who would’ve guessed?) capable of destroying any kind of temporal artifact, so maybe the Bard has something similar.

Overall, the Bard of Time is an interesting classpect capable of some pretty cool abilities, as long as they don’t completely screw over their session. Thanks for reading!

#bard of time #bard class #time aspect #classpect #classpect analysis #godtier #godtier analysis #hs #homestuck

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fierce-hummingcrab · 5 years

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My college graduation ceremony! I earned my associates in graphic design 🎉

Believe it or not, the mini prints of my work is only a fraction of what I have made during my time spent at my community college. I take pride in how I chose to attend MCC instead of diving right into a four year college, not just because I’m not neck deep in college debt, but what I value most from my career at MCC are the connections and memories that I have made there.

Every drive I made to my classes was like going to my fourth home (my other homes being my mom’s, dad’s and grandparents’). After taking many courses in the DGM and Art departments over the course of several years, you tend to see a lot of familiar faces. Among all those people that I had the pleasure of collaborating, giving and receiving critiques with, I never would have thought that I would meet my best friend Allison.

We’ve had one or few classes with each other in the past but didn’t talk too much with each other, until we were in a mixed class of Graphic Design one and two, which also happened to be taught by my role model. I’ve been in many friend groups throughout my life so far, maybe even had a close friends here and there but I don’t think I’ve ever had a “best friend”. And I was starting to think that I never would. But a new door was opened when I was able to get to know Allison. She’s a photoshop wizard, a fellow skull enthusiast, highly skilled designer, eyeliner expert, dedicated Disney fan, Dunkin’ Doughnut vanilla latte connoisseur, animal lover (who is now the mother of my leopard gecko Pablo). More importantly she has always been my rock, she’s practically my sister. Allison is someone I can come to for a second opinion, whether it be life stuff or art stuff, a shoulder to cry on, someone to make adventures with, she’s especially good at keeping me in check when I get oddball ideas and lending a hand on my hijinks. Which is often. Allison is more than what I deserve in a best friend and I am very grateful that I crossed paths with her in my lifetime.

As for my role model Justin Schmitz, Justin has this incredible creative drive that pushes him to put so much extensive labor into his projects until he gets his visions to manifest, he's funny, witty and isn't afraid to befuddle his students with obscure references from his generation or the unfamiliar corners of the art world that went over my head at times. My kind of juice and jam. Not only is he a great photography/graphic design professor, but he is able to keep his own creative endeavors on the side alive and well. He's able to make a stable living as a professor while going in any direction he wants with his own photography series and the occasional commissions he gets. He has inspired me to push myself by any means of reaching my full potential as an artist and person. His extensive knowledge of technological and artistic disciplines would always blow me away. Of course he’s well rounded in those regards, he has years of experience, a masters degree under his belt. But how he projects himself in his loud and unique nature is what makes me want to be able to take on the world like he does. What I appreciated about taking a class with him is that he was always invested in what fellow students were creating, gave us his thoughts on how to better our work, and then would take a step back to allow us to explore a combination of ideas. But what I appreciated most about him as a professor and a creative, he would always support me and my ideas whenever I hit a roadblock, I will always remember his compassion.

The Professors of the DGM and Art department have provided me with the skills of not only pushing myself as a creator, how to be self motivated, how to conceptualize an idea and articulate my reasoning behind the idea, I must push myself outside my comfort zone in order to add more skills to my tool belt, to have fun with what I'm making and how to legally protect my ideas.

Moving forward I plan to find some internships in the graphic design field to gain some experience as I look into options for a four year school to earn my Bachelors in graphic design OR take a different route. One thing is for certain, I will continue to create and pride myself as an artist, a graphic designer, a wildlife enthusiast, a cartoon junkie, bone collector an independent woman.

#the hummingcrab chirps #hummingcrab #hummingcrab creates #mary kate thompson art #hummingcrab gratuates #graduation #2019 graduate

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trashassassin · 6 years

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How to Smut 101: Getting Over the Hump (heh) and Just Doing It

Hello friends! This little guide comes to you from someone who has literally been creating original stories in some form or another since before they could hold a pencil. So well over a decade. And yet, I’ve only really delved into the land of smut writing in the past few years. This was a genre that I, and many creators I’m sure, were scared to touch. It was too difficult, too embarrassing, too easy to get wrong.

And yet, I believe I’ve gotten a pretty good handle not only on writing it effectively but also dissolving the embarrassment surrounding the subject, at least in my own mind. Obviously everyone’s methods for writing are different, so this will be less of a guide and more of an outline full of things to help you prepare for your jump into the world of smut for the first (or maybe twentieth after a bunch of scrapped attempts if you’re like me) time.

The first thing that really helped me was changing how I thought about smut.

Sex scenes always had this mystical, untouchable quality to them whenever I thought about writing them. They were set apart from the rest of the story, placed on a sort of pedestal, a pedestal that had my thought processes heading places like “alright, now it’s time for the Sex Scene™”. Sometimes I would just throw random sex scenes into a story because I felt as thought they had to be there. Which brings me to my first real point.

Sex scenes must have a reason to exist!

Unless you’re writing a plot-what-plot situation, a sex scene must be in your story for a reason! This applies more to published novels or longer fics, which is why I’m posting it first as this one in particular won’t apply to many of the people who clicked on this post.

Imagine this a bit differently. What if your story was progressing along normally when, all of a sudden, you threw in a random, pointless scene about your characters stopping to get coffee? Nothing plot-relevant happens; no important characters interactions happen; there are no special items hidden in the coffee shop. Your characters just decided that they needed a pick-me-up and sit around quietly sipping coffee for 1,000 or so words. This would be really boring, right?

Well, an unnecessary sex scene is the same way. I’m not naming any names here, but there is an exceptionally popular series of erotic novels out there that makes this mistake all the time! If you have pointless sex scenes sprinkled into your story every chapter, it’s going to become boring and grating in a hurry.

Sex scenes must be consistent with the tone of the story, happen naturally over the course of the plot, and/or teach us something important about the characters involved in order to have a true place. If these things are not present, I find it’s best to reconsider if it’s really best to have a sex scene during this point in the story or in the story at all.

Sex scenes are just like any other scene!

Going back to the whole stopping for coffee analogy, a sex scene is just another scene in your story. Now you might be thinking to yourself, “well, duh!”, but this realization was actually a big turning point for me.

I realized the main responsibility we have in writing is to take mundane, everyday activities and present them in a new or interesting way. Think of an adventure story. A group of characters going on an adventure to find the Golden Sword of Wisdom is the exciting version of you and your friends driving down to your local Walmart to obtain Golden Magnum Ice Cream Bars.

Or, consider the Harry Potter series. It takes going to school, something every person within its targeted age group is required to do, and turns it into a fresh and, dare I say, magical experience.

Instead of simply providing a blow-by-blow (pun intended), textbook-style retelling of a sexual encounter, it’s important to put your own unique spin on it.

Play with your readers’ senses.

A huge part of what makes any scene great is the ability of the reader to immerse themselves into it. And you as the author can make this much easier for them by describing it to them in as much detail as possible, how everything contained within it looks, feels, smells, and tastes.

And sexual scenes are certainly no exception to this. In fact, I’d say creating an enjoyable sensory experience is of the utmost importance.

Consider things like how does your character’s partner smell? How do their surroundings smell? Are there any candles burning, a window through which fresh, or perhaps not-so-fresh, air is streaming? Have their clothes or sheets just been washed and smell of a particular scent of detergent?

Also consider how things feel. Is your character in a cold or warm place? Perhaps you could describe a feeling of goosebumps rising on the skin or of sweat dripping down their back. How do the sheets feel beneath their fingertips? How does the brick wall feel at their back? What is it like to be pressed up against a window pane?

What sounds are present, besides the obvious ones? Is there music playing? A fan going? Cars outside? Perhaps the sound of footsteps are present as they desperately try to keep quiet in a crowded place.

Also consider your characters’ own personalities, as well as how much experience they have in sexual situations. How do they feel about their partner? Are they excited or apprehensive? Are they overwhelmed with love or simply looking to get their rocks off? All of these are important things to consider when creating a well-rounded scene.

Your scene does not have to be vulgar, but it can be!

You may think that every sex scene must be contain levels of vulgarity reserved for professional porn movies, but this is simply not the case. As I said before, take into account the personality of the characters involved. A shy character would not likely use words like “cock” and “pussy”, where as a more bold or experienced character very well may.

And if you’re not comfortable with using such words in your writing, well, now is the time to step outside of your comfort zone! As long as it is appropriate for the characters involved, of course.

But regardless of boldness or levels of experience, some are simply just not into super vulgar dirty talk. This post by Smut 101 is a perfect example of dirty talk of a more romantic sort for the more hopeless romantic types that may appear in your stories.

Keep things accurate but not necessarily realistic.

You always see people criticizing sex in books and movies for not being realistic enough, for not involving vagina-having characters taking a piss afterward to prevent UTIs, for a lack of condoms, for both characters reaching orgasm at the same time. You know what I say to that? I say that sexual scenes are meant as an escape, as a fantasy, and that such realistic touches would ruin the illusion of the perfect scenario the reader is looking for.

That being said, if everything is sunshine and rainbows all the time, you’ll once again find yourself with a boring scene on your hands. It’s alright to include moments where your characters knock their heads together or say something so ridiculous it makes the other person laugh. Sex can and should be fun and, when the moment calls for it, a bit goofy.

Something that you cannot compromise on, however, is accuracy. If you’re delving into a particular fetish or act you’re not familiar with, it’s best to do your research beforehand, something else that the author of the aforementioned exceptionally popular series of erotic novels seems to have neglected. Watching videos, reading articles, and browsing forums can all be useful in familiarizing yourself with the subject.

Even if you’re a virgin, this does not bar you from writing well-written sex scenes, I assure you! If someone was required to experience something in order to write about it, the vast majority of authors would be up shit creek without a paddle.

As with any genre, it never hurts to familiarize yourself with it before you start writing it. Reading highly praised romance novels and other peoples’ erotic fics is a good place to start if you’re looking for inspiration or guidance.

Don’t be afraid to draw from your own experiences.

If you have had a bit of sexual experience, it’s not a bad idea to draw inspiration from this. Remembering specific sensory experiences you’ve had and applying them to your writing can help enhance the realism of a scene.

It’s also not forbidden to include your own personal fantasies in your stories. Just be careful that all of your erotic stories don’t turn out exactly the same. While we all have our own individual tastes and preferences, it’s good to step outside of that to keep your stories fresh.

Some general tips for you as a writer.

Writing smut is going to feel awkward if you’re not used to it. And even if you are used to it, feelings of embarrassment may still come up on occasion. This is normal. Do not let it dissuade you from pursuing your creative endeavors. Even if the embarrassment over writing lewd scenes never fully goes away, it will get easier with time. I promise.

Whenever I’m writing any kind of scene whether it be exciting, emotional, or, yes, lewd, I always like to select some music to set the tone in my mind. Spotify and YouTube are my go-to sources. If you’re settling down to write a smut scene, find yourself a sexy playlist to get your brain in the zone.

Your mood is important as well. Obviously you don’t have to be dripping with lust to write this sort of scene, but being upset, tired, or ill can definitely put a damper on your ability to get into the proper mindset.

Never try to force writing of any sort if you’re not feeling inspired. As that old saying goes, writing is like a fart: if you have to force it, it’s probably shit. The original quote pertains to relationships, but I think it’s pretty fitting here as well. Should this happen, don’t scrap the project entirely. Simply take a break, play or watch the property involving the character(s) you’re writing about, read some of your favorite authors or fic writers, read some guides like this one. And then come back when you feel suitably inspired.

In conclusion...

As I said before, this is less of a guide and more of an outline. Everyone has different methods for putting out their best content. Perhaps listening to music distracts you or the writing of others sticks in your head and hampers your ability to create original work.

And that’s completely fine.

That being said, I hope that you guys found this useful in instilling you with the confidence you need to finally begin writing smut! There can never be too many smut writers in the world. If there’s something in particular that you’d like advice on, leave a comment and I’ll try to address it as soon as I can. Thanks for reading, everyone! Now, go forth with the faith that you can finally do the thing !!!

#writing #smut #writing tips #fanfiction #how to write sex scenes

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allisondraste · 5 years

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Writer’s Questionnaire

I was tagged by @gingerbreton ! Thank you, friend!!!

short stories, novels, or poems? I much prefer to write short stories because they take up less of my brain space and I am more likely to be able to complete them than longer stories or poems. However, I used to be a prolific poetry writer. I had tons of poems saved to an old email account that has sense been deleted and I have no way of retrieving those poems.

what genre do you prefer reading? I love fantasy and science fiction, as well as historial fiction. However, I will read anything as long as it is very character-focused. I love exciting adventures and stories, but what really draws me into a piece is the character development, what motivates characters, what makes them who they are. Bonus points if it is not stated outright and I have to figure it out.

what genre do you prefer writing? Go figure, I really like to write character-focused fantasy. My favorite type of such is hurt/comfort or just a smidge of angst. I like show how strong people can be when they are faced with adverse events, and how those events affect them going forward. Relationships are are also a personal favorite of mine, so I also write a lot of romance.

Are you a planner or a write-as-I-go kind of person? I suppose it depends on what I’m writing. For longer stories, I have rough chapter outlines, but for short stories, I usually fly by the seat of my pants.

what music do you listen to while writing? I have a hard time listening to music with lyrics while I write, so most of my writing happens with ambient noises or instrumental pieces. While I am daydreaming about my writing I sometimes shuffle my entire library and skip through until something hits me just right. Results on that are varied.

fave books/movies? I am not a big movie-watcher type person, but I have an inordinate amount of love for the movie Love and Other Drugs. It is one of my all time favorites. As far as books go, I really enjoyed Jennifer Donnelly’s YA works, Crime and Punishment, and the Artemis Fowl series.

any current WIPs? I have one more chapter in my post-blight-confused emotions-hurt-comfort-angst fest Convalescence. It is an epilogue of sorts, and completely in the works. I’m also working on my Big Mega Longfic (that will probably the shortest longfic ever) Beneficence, which is an MGIT about a psychologist who is pulled across time and space through the Fade by a spirit. I’m working on chapter 6 as we speak.

if someone were to make a cartoon out of you, what would your standard outfit be? leggings, tunic, peacoat

create a character description for yourself? Medium-length brown hair and hazel eyes that are sometime more green and sometimes more brown depending on what color shirt she is wearing. Grumpy, stubborn, easily excitable but tires quickly. Not as cool as she pretends to be.

do you like incorporating people you actually know into your writing? A lot of my characters are plucked right out of the DA universe, so I’m writing about characters I already know, but not people. I definitely think that I draw from real life experience and real life people who are similar to those folks when I am writing however. It has helped me come up with some interesting lines.

are you kill-happy with characters? I have only killed two characters and they were both AUs/in dreams in an in-universe story. One was a fic where Lucia pushed Alistair out of the way and took a blow that was meant for him. Another was a Solavellan piece where So Done Lavellan killed Solas in a dream. I can’t kill my children for real. That would make me a monster. I do however enjoy some casual emotional torture.

coffee or tea while writing? Tea.

slow or fast writer? Again, it depends. I can crank out dialogue like nobody’s business, but ask me to describe how my characters are moving, what the surrounding scenery looks like, etc., I stall for days.

where/who/what do you find inspiration from? Oh boy, so I have some amazingly wonderful fandom friends who support and encourage me in my endeavors. A lot of my writing inspo has come from discussions with them. Other than that, there are some songs that inspire me.

if you were put into a fantasy world, what would you be? Realistically, some random village nobody who thinks too much and does to little; however, since we’re using our imaginations here, I definitely believe that my scholarly ways would make me most likely to be a mage of some sort, probably a healer or alchemist.

most favourite book cliche? least fave book cliche? My favorite cliche is strong female characters who don’t need romance to make them whole, and who are completely interesting characters on their own without a love interest, but who happen to meet someone who does not complete them, but adds little accent notes to their story that makes it even more beautiful than it already was. Bonus if that character is also completely whole outside of the romance. My least favorite cliche is damsel-in-distress type things.

fave scenes to write? Conversations, banter, and the internal musings of any given character. I love writing people and their thoughts and interactions with others the most.

most productive time of day for writing? The middle of the damn night when I need to be asleep.

reason for writing? Self-care, escapism, pure enjoyment, creative expression... it’s a challenge and something that I have always enjoyed but would like to be better at.

#longpost #allison does memes #gingerbreton #writing things #q

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ferricide · 6 years

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Review: Final Fantasy XIII

[originally posted: April 11, 2010] I haven't written a review in a long time. The last review I wrote, in fact, was of Devil May Cry 4, for the Official Xbox Magazine, in 2007. I didn't much like Devil May Cry 4, really. In the way of game journalists of my generation, I gave the game a 7.5 and an even-handed review, because there are things that it did do well. All the same, I was never asked to write another review for the magazine; much later, a staffer told me that someone from management had asked them to stop publishing my work. "Fine! Fuck you, too!" I thought, and then felt a burden lift. I had been reviewing games professionally since 1999 and was tired of it. I have long hinted that I would some day write an expose about what's really wrong with game reviewing, since nobody seems to quite get it right. But by the time I felt ready to do that, I was so bored with the whole business that I couldn't make myself want to. To my surprise, I instead find myself compelled to write a review once again. The game which I will endeavor to review, in a way that I'll make up as I go along, is the most complicated game of 2010: Final Fantasy XIII. * * * Final Fantasy XIII was announced for the PlayStation 3 in 2006, at Square Enix's E3 press conference. As a long time fan of the series who was confounded by its direction at that time -- the gully between Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XII -- I was eager for both a return to form ("form" as a concept roughly equivalent to "more Final Fantasy X" in my mind) and a justification for Sony's yet-to-be-released next generation system. Well, things change. * * * One thing that will make this review dramatically different to any I have ever written is that I will be considering what I learned by reading others' reviews, talking to other players, and generally trying to synthesize the concept of why this game was made the way it was made, not just whether it's any good. To my mind reviewing games in 2010 the old fashioned way is beside the point; as a journalist I recognize my own obsolescence -- the old tools have been made irrelevant by the power of marketing and the cacophony of the internet. Plus it's boring. That's not to promise that will be a review worth reading. I'm going to try, all the same. Final Fantasy XIII was released for the PlayStation 3 on December 17, 2009 by Square Enix Co., Ltd. It was localized into English (and ported to the Xbox 360) and released on March 9, 2010 in the major Western markets by the company's international subsidiaries. This is notable because it reveals so much about the flux of development from the time this game was conceived until it was released. Final Fantasy XIII came out nearly three years too late, by my reckoning. By the time it did come out, one of the only ways it successfully aligned with the market it was released into is that publishing a major game in March isn't, anymore, all that peculiar. Final Fantasy XIII, however, is. In 2008, Square Enix delivered a talk at the Game Developers Conference in which it described the features of its Crystal Tools game engine which powers Final Fantasy XIII -- a talk which a developer friend and fan of the series emphatically described as "terrible" shortly after. Terrible not because the technology is bad; terrible because it took the company so long to step into the technological present. In 2008, Crystal Tools promised to deliver yesterday's features tomorrow. Coincidentally, Final Fantasy XIII was released into the Western market on the second day of GDC 2010. When I review games, I typically insulate myself from the opinions of others. This was a solemn requirement at the heart of reviewing games for EGM, for example. Editor-in-chief Dan Hsu, who was one of my mentors for much of my career as a reviewer, demanded three distinct opinions. That's not as easy at it sounds, and not just because editors are talkative. If you go out there with the wrong score, you're going to get a lashing from the internet; you may well have to justify yourself to the game's publisher; you may even put your job at risk. Consensus is a safe haven. This is part of why reviewing Final Fantasy XIII in April 2010 is amusing: staying isolated from opinions of this game, so polarizing and so widely discussed, is impossible. I've spent the better part of four years anticipating the game more than any other ever released. I've also spent the better part of the last four months marinating in the game and people's reactions to it. I've read, written, and spoken more words about this than any other game in years, and probably any in the foreseeable future. In fact, this may be the last time I can claim authority over any sizable chunk of the mainstream game industry. I didn't think about it that way in the past, but Japanese-developed RPGs have been, since the early 1990s, my passion. The JRPG is my favorite genre. Very, very briefly, it was also the world's: starting in 1997, with the release of Final Fantasy VII, it seemed that the games I loved would finally get their due. I used to have the mentality -- which now feels quite dated -- that I could convince people to give games a shot. I thought that if I could cut right into the heart of a game and explain exactly what made it tick and why that mattered, I could convince people, with only my words, to try something they weren't planning to. While I don't think that's impossible, I think it's an edge case; voracious consumers of games, maybe. Enthuasiasts of a genre, perhaps. Convincing someone to pick up an interesting book, CD, or go to a film is one thing; with games... it's much more difficult, it seems, and it's only getting harder thanks to everyone's shrinking reserves of money and time. One thing I realized over the years is that a large contingent of gamers who were suckered into playing Final Fantasy VII for its groundbreaking cinematics and engrossing story actually weren't that happy about it. They may have enjoyed that experience, but they began to become frustrated by and by, and other games in the genre perplexed and bored them. Many, many people didn't value what I valued in games -- and I don't just mean turn-based combat or pop existentialism. People simply didn't value stepping out of their comfort zone. I just didn't realize how true this was until my comfort zone started to shrink and become more and more irrelevant. It's now well-known that Microsoft approached Activision and Infinity Ward and asked them to deliver Call of Duty 2 for the Xbox 360's launch, because Halo 3wasn't going to be ready. While that's not the whole of it, it might just be the inflection point where things changed. By 2010, we know the story by heart: Western developers who'd never had access to an audience like this before had the console market hungrily in their sights and, driven by ambition and talent, made bold games that made what had come before look rudimentary. Meanwhile, the reliability of Japan's market and the peculiarity of the way its businesses are run had created somnambulent companies which attracted university graduates with a promise of reliable jobs rather than creative possibilities. Of course, these things are, to an extent, cyclical. It's not over yet. Things are changing. Square Enix is reputed to be a vision-driven company with strong creative minds in charge. Its president, Yoichi Wada, has complained that the staff's creative pursuits delay its titles from shipping on time. The most famous man at the company is Tetsuya Nomura, an illustrator who got famous for creating characters so memorable that it enabled him to get his thumb into the majority of the company's creative output within a decade. On the other hand, Final Fantasy XIII was the company's first real step into the next generation; it's a humongous production designed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. For all of these reasons and more, Final Fantasy XIII is, most obviously, a bizarre compromise. In his borderline incomprehensible -- through no fault of his own -- GDC 2010 talk, the game's director Motomu Toriyama described how, over the years, the creative process for developing Final Fantasy titles changed from a collaborative to top-down structure thanks to the workflow demands put on the teams by technology. In the immediate aftermath of the development of Final Fantasy VI for the Super Famicom, the team bullshitted up some ideas for Final Fantasy VII. But when it came time to produce that game, the decision had been made to move to the PlayStation and deliver a Hollywood-style cinematic experience. Still and all, the game was put together piecemeal -- and if you remember its wild inconsistency of play, it's not a surprise to hear that now. From to snowboarding to defending Fort Condor to performing CPR to motorcycle combat to the Golden Saucer, the game provides arguably too many diversions from its core gameplay. By the time Final Fantasy X rolled around in 2001, said Toriyama, "An impact on experimentation took place. From this [game], scenario had to be fixed first, because of motion and voice [recording]. So each staff person we could not incorporate their comments or opinions, since just a small number of people were working on the story creation... It was a major change in Final Fantasy X." Throw in a platform shift for which the company was totally unprepared, a mandate for visual perfection, and a production team in the hundreds, and Final Fantasy XIII, as it is, is born. Still, I haven't even approached Final Fantasy XIII's greatest and most fundamental sin. * * * "It starts to get good after about 12 hours," I said. "Twelve hours? I can't believe you give that game such a huge by," said Lulu. "It's not a by," I responded, lamely. She turned away. Zak looked at me. "I just know that if he sticks with it..." She shook her head. "The fact that they can rely on that kind of loyalty --" "...if he sticks with it -- I'm not talking to everybody, I'm talking to Zak -- he'll enjoy it." A few moments later: "You're right. It's a by." The biggest sin of Final Fantasy XIII is that the developers assume that once that disc slips into the drive, gamers are commited to seeing the ending credits. The developers assume that everybody wants so much to play this game that they will simply plod through it all. This sin is compounded by Square Enix's obvious, terrifying mandate to make the biggest, most popular Final Fantasy game since VII, and bring gamers into the fold who've never before been interested in the series. And it is complicated by their total misjudgment of the demands of today's audiences after years of increasing sophistication in games. * * * Let's play a game. No, not Final Fantasy XIII. Let's pretend that Final Fantasy XIII came out in December 2007, a year after the launch of the PlayStation 3, much as Final Fantasy X did in 2001 relative to the PlayStation 2's launch. And since we're already enmeshed in this fantastic scenario, let's take another little leap: let's pretend that the Xbox 360 never existed. Boy, Final Fantasy XIII seems pretty fucking excellent now, doesn't it? Yeah, it may not be the best game in the series, but I can't wait to see what these guys are going to do when they really come to grips with this next generation console technology! That's the world this game was made for. There were just some complications... * * * Thanks to Call of Duty, mainstream audiences of unparalleled size are getting used to the production style pioneered by Square Soft in the early '90s. These games are so complicated and huge, somebody thought, we ought to bootstrap a few teams and get them rolling into production simultaneously, so we can have a continuous flow of product for fans. At some point, this production process broke down. By the time of Final Fantasy XII's hideous and unprecedented delay, FF production was critically wounded; it has not recovered. Motomu Toriyama showed one deeply confusing screenshot of Final Fantasy XIII for the PlayStation 2 in his GDC presentation. I've privately been told by someone who'd know that the game was unconventional in a way that the Final Fantasy XIII that was manufactured and shipped to retailers is not. Something happened during the production of the unconventional, deeply flawed Final Fantasy XII to kill experimentation at Square Enix. Something happened during the troubled birth of Crystal Tools to complicate Final Fantasy XIII's production until a group of very intelligent and experienced developers were forced to pare down the design document to what would obviously and flawlessly function. In his GDC talk, the lead game designer of Assassin's Creed II, Patrick Plourde, talked about the production of the first game. Half an hour after he joked that "the Final Fantasy guys are probably the only others who face these problems" -- putting together a 30+ hour game with a team of hundreds, that is -- he explained that a separate team designed and implemented the assassination missions in the original Assassin's Creed. These missions were stapled onto the core game and, though they formed its primary gameplay objectives, they had nothing to do with its core gameplay. Ubisoft Montreal's production processes had been designed to produce different streams of content simultaneously and bolt them together at the end -- a method that was retained but completely rethought for production of its sequel. In a strange coincidence, Motomu Toriyama was sitting next to me during this presentation. * * * Most people who had anything to say about Final Fantasy XIII shortly after its release were those who were repulsed by early design decisions the team made about the game. And while I don't think production realities excuse a shitty game, they sure do explain it. If one thing's clear, it's that production ramped up on Final Fantasy XIII before there was a clear plan on how things were going to be bolted together. As Tim Rogers points out in his review, "A producer of Final Fantasy XIII explains that there was 'enough discarded content' from Final Fantasy XIII to make a whole other game. The 'content' in question is mainly levels -- game-play areas." He draws the correct inference: the production process for this game was so deeply flawed that artists were being paid to create content that the core creative team was unsure if it would have any use for, just to make them do something. As I explained to Zak and Lulu, the really bad part of Final Fantasy XIII is not, as many have said, the first two hours, in which you have no meaningful choices in combat and cannot earn Crystogen Points and so cannot level your characters. The worst part is also not the next five hours of the game, which establishes the core of the game's narrative premise and slowly and surely delivers its gameplay systems one after the other -- the tutorial. No, the worst part is between hours 8 to 14. This is the most vapid and superfluous part of Final Fantasy XIII. This is the painful and tedious point where the game has firmly established its core gameplay, its cast of characters, and then... refuses to give over. From the second half of the Gapra Whitewood to the end of the Sunleth Waterscape, Final Fantasy XIII is a tedious mess made by people who clearly don't understand what they're supposed to be doing. Here's my quick guide into making Final Fantasy XIII not suck shit. It'll sound pretty easy when I explain it. Immediately institute gameplay. Without changing the scenario at all, allow players to experiment with special abilities and raise levels in the Crystarium -- even allow them to raise the levels of the NORA troops Gadot and Lebreau, though the player won't ever use them again (notably, in the release, Gadot and Lebreau's HP are listed as ??? instead of numbers because they're NPCs.) Nobody will resent wasting this effort; certainly no more than they did being held back from experiencing gameplay for the first two hours of the game. By the time the party assembles for the battle against the Pulse Fal'Cie in the Pulse Vestige, they should have earned a few abilities in the Crystarium. (If there's one thing this game is spookily good at, it's balancing the distribution of CP as it effects gaining abilities and fighting boss battles, so I don't doubt the team could balance this well.) You don't have to unlock much, but just enough to give the player a sense he is making decisions: enough for advanced players to know what's in store and little enough for novices to stick with it. Remember, the novice audience wants to learn how to play your game. As the party escapes to Lake Bresha, lay on the tutorials, just as you did. There's a debate to be had here about teaching the player how to play the game by presenting challenges that require him to exercise the options at his fingertips -- remember that battle in Palumpolum which forces you to play the Sentinel role? like that -- but let's just assume we're not changing things that drastically. It'll work. The Vile Peaks proceed as normal, though perhaps the roles of some of the characters have to be tweaked. But here's the crucial difference. By the end of the Vile Peaks, the entire Crystarium must be unlocked and available to players. You have to be done with your lessons approximately... now. There's time for introductions to more advanced gameplay later, but the core: we're done. Here comes a tough part. Narratively, I don't see a way around having Hope and Lightning come to their own understanding in the Whitewood as Sazh and Vanille later do in the Sunleth Waterscape and Nautlius. A mix of cutscenes, structural changes, and judicious and much-needed cutting would have to happen here to make the game tolerable and well-paced. Get players to Palumpolum as fast as you can, and once the six party members gather in Hope's apartment for the game's first real climax, you've just delivered an adventuring party that will never be split up again. If you've balked at my earlier suggestion to unlock the Crystarium fully, now's when you really have to do it. You will never again force the party formation to follow the whims of the plot; that was annoying enough in the 16-bit days in what I would consider the most irritating game in the series, Final Fantasy VI, and it's excruciating now that we know other games actually give us a credible illusion of control. After Palumpolum, Palmecia. And after Palmecia, Gran Pulse. And in Gran Pulse, which we should get to much sooner, something besides mark hunts. "Something", in fact, like the second half of the game. "The answer is staring them right in the face. Gran Pulse should have been the World of Ruin. What were they thinking?" I said this out loud. It's very likely nobody else was in the room. * * * Let's talk core gameplay mechanics. I theorized, in December, that at some point there was a meeting in Square Enix's Shinjuku headquarters where things were decided that altered the course of Final Fantasy XIII's development profoundly. I'm not wrong, of course -- there were probably dozens of such meetings. But let's visualize this for a minute. Yoshinori Kitase, Motomu Toriyama, Yuji Abe, and the rest of the team is sitting at a conference table. The light is bright and fluorescent. There's stale coffee, 330 ml bottles of French spring water, and, since this is Japan, there might even be cigarette smoke hanging in the air. Production on Final Fantasy XIII is not, to put it lightly, going as planned. Crystal Tools is nothing like done. In the back of his mind, one of the men is wishing -- for not the first time and not the last -- that Matsuno's fucking team had got Final Fantasy XII out the door in time for FF13 to hit the PlayStation 2 before its market died, and that Crystal Tools could have been sorted out before production had begun on a next-generation title. Toriyama looks at Kitase. Kitase looks at Toriyama. "What are we going to do?" somebody asks. I tried, and failed, to write this scene with drama and snappy dialogue, but let's be fair: this is a Japanese office. One of the junior planners walks around the room handing out sheafs of stapled A4 paper to everybody. This is what they're going to do. They've identified the strenghts of the series: its characters and story, courtesy of Nomura, Toriyama, Kazushige Nojima and others; its battles -- thank Toshiro Tsuchida and Yuji Abe; its beautiful environments, Isamu Kamikokuryo; and the character leveling system, the Crystarium. Everything else is expendable -- it either has to be tied into the plot, or has to serve the purpose of getting this game out the door. When I talk about Final Fantasy XIII's battle system, I get excited. People can hear the excitement in my voice, and they get interested. I have actually seen this happen in real life. That's a measure not just of how much I care about the game and the series, but my genuine admiration for the level of execution of this absolutely core facet of the gameplay. Their plan almost worked -- or perhaps could have worked -- but it didn't. It fails in some very fundamental ways that mostly have to do with the developers' control and complacency. * * * Time for pure gameplay complaining: the Crystarium stinks. Let's do some comparing and contrasting and background here, since we might as well. At some point -- I guess Final Fantasy X -- the developers at Square Enix decided that traditional experience points / earn a level-style leveling systems were passe. I don't in the least bit blame them, since how you grow your characters is one of the best gameplay aspects of an RPG when handled correctly. The Sphere Grid, which was Final Fantasy X's stab at delivering that sort of gameplay, was compulsively addictive to me. It was essentially linear for a good portion of the game, but starting not terribly far in, you'd be forced to make decisions about what to unlock when, and how to balance your party, and soon after that what secondary sets of abilities you wanted your characters to develop. One of my absolute fondest memories of FFX is running in circles in Zanarkand raising levels for an entire day. Final Fantasy XII's leveling system, the License Board, is a pathetic thing, paltry and simple, trivial to exploit. It encourages you -- or at least it did me -- to rob your characters of any distinct identity and instead gravitate to what delivers the best advantage: my party were carbon copies of one another by the end of the game; bizarre hybrid mage-warriors with no trace of specialty nor identity. It's worth noting that when the game was rereleased in Japan, this entire gameplay mechanic was deleted and replaced with something new (called the Intenational Zodiac Job System, fuck knows what that is. I certainly don't care.) The Crystarium is not that bad. But it is not very good. I think one of the real flaws with it is that it's split into six: each role has its own distinct set of bonuses and abilities, because each role has to be defined within the context of the game's Paradigm System battles, which are in fact quite excellent. Unfortunately in concert with this, there's no freedom of movement, and your only decision-making process is which of the jobs you wish to raise first. But that complaint is really irrelevant compared to the real flaws in the system. The Crystarium is divided into levels, and levels are locked. They are not locked, as would be logical, until you complete one; they are locked until the arbitrary point in the game -- always after a boss battle -- where the developers deign to unlock the next stage of Crystarium growth. Frustratingly, too, in my experience, the game perfectly metes out experience points throughout so that you're just about ready to hit the next level of the Crystarium by the time you get it. This is one of the many things about playing Final Fantasy XIII that makes you feel like a rat in a maze. There's an ominous awareness of someone in control, just out of your field of view... And there is a severe and obvious flaw with this: gamers don't all enjoy games the way the developers intend them to. Gamers don't all enjoy games in the order developers intend them to. And gamers do not all enjoy games at the speed which developers intend them to. This is the first game in the series which does not allow for this, and that is a severe flaw. There are six potential roles for each character (pretentiously renamed in the U.S. version to Commando, Ravager, Medic, Saboteur, Synergist, and Sentinel from the readily comprehensible Attacker, Blaster, Healer, Jammer, Enhancer, and Defender.) However, for the first two thirds of the game, you aren't allowed to access any but the three the which the development team assigned to each character at its outset. The CP (Crystogen Points, or experience points) you earn are only enough to really concentrate on the three jobs you are given anyway. This, in fact, holds true for the whole game, including the last boss, unless you do a tremendously unpalatable amount of grinding, even when you have access to the other three jobs. This sucks out all player choice once again. Since you effectively can't raise optional jobs, since the CP costs are so astronomical, you can't really experiment with new party builds without swapping characters in and out to form the party you want. All I accomplished by trying to make Lightning a Saboteur was putting her behind Hope in primary job progress, and I quickly abandoned the idea. I got a slight benefit out of making Fang a low-level Synergist, but since you also only have six Paradigm slots this became irrelevant, too. There just wasn't room for that Paradigm. The worst aspect of the Crystarium, though, is that not every character gets every ability in every job. For example, as a Synergist, Fang gets Shellga and Protectga. I assumed Hope would earn access to these abilities soon after -- when his next Crystarium level unlocked. Nope. He never gets them -- ever -- and Synergist is one of his three primary jobs. Worse yet is that without consulting a FAQ, you'd never know this, so it's impossible to plan ahead for the ideal party without researching online -- and personally I like to avoid FAQs as much as I can. In the end, the Crystarium is just a linear leveling system in a Sphere Grid disguise, and it's probably my personal biggest disappointment with the game. Tim compared the game to busywork in his review, and it's not wrong -- by removing meaningful choice, the Crystarium has transitioned from a thoughtful system into something akin to stuffing envelopes. * * * All the same, when I look at the game, I'm more sympathetic to many of the mistakes the developers made because I came to the realization that they are tremendously determined to get players through this game, fully understanding its gameplay. And I also laud them for turning up the challenge at the point at which they believe players should fully understand it -- which is one of the most satisfying sections of the game, if not the most satisfying section -- the Battleship Palamecia. It's obvious that this is why the game is so drawn out, and derisively (though somewhat fairly) called a neverending tutorial by gamers. Gamers, for one reason and another, don't like to be condescended to, and this was a miscalculation on Square Enix's part. But it's not so simple as that. This isn't just about teaching novices to play the game. It's about making sure everybody gets it. Really, really gets it. This is necessary because with previous titles in the series, it was fully possible to get to the very end without understanding their gameplay. Not just possible, in fact, but likely. The most obvious culprit here is Final Fantasy VIII -- the game is complicated, more than a little broken, very abstract, and full of gameplay loopholes. On reading what people have had to say about it over the last 11+ years, I have certainly realized that I -- no newbie to Final Fantasy or RPGs in general by that point -- got to the end of the game without really understanding its gameplay in more than the most rudimentary way, and I was hardly alone in that. In fact, I never actually beat Final Fantasy VIII. I got to the last boss, but I never did defeat her. Let's go back to that word "abstract". When it comes to core gameplay, RPGs are the most abstracted of all established game genres. In a shooter, you shoot someone; he dies. You physically move the aiming reticule over a target; you pull a shoulder button like a trigger. It's simple. Game developers are forever adding abstract, complex gameplay elements to titles of all genres, because the kinds of people who buy Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games enjoy these abstractions. Only RPGs are build their foundations on them. Even relatively simple concepts like "equipment" tend to be so complicated by either special abilities or innumerable choices that they lose a great deal of their concreteness. There's the famous example, of course, of Dean Takahashi's review of the original Mass Effect -- in which he forgot to level Shepard. Dean is not a stupid guy. At this year's GDC, Peter Molyneux said that Microsoft research indicated that more than 60 percent of the Fable audience understood less than 50 percent of the series' gameplay. Fable is not as popular as Final Fantasy. The answer that BioWare and Lionhead have posed to these problems is to streamline the everliving fuck out of Mass Effect 2 and Fable III. The Final Fantasy XIIIdevelopment team tried that, too. However, where the paths diverge is that the Western teams have gone to great lengths to make their gameplay systems concrete. ME2 is a full-on shooter; Fable III doesn't have levels anymore: you gain followers, and that power is reflected visually by your character. Instead of moving towards action or something else easier to understand, Final Fantasy XIII completely retained an abstracted, command input-based tactical battle system with text and gauges and jobs and hit points -- they just tried to teach players to use it. As a hardcore gamer who loves abstraction (and in particular loves this battle system) I sure do appreciate it. But it's easy to argue that Square Enix is going both against the grain of the collective wisdom of the industry and also working against the mainstream audience they want to cultivate. One solution -- and I'm not even sure this is precisely intentional on BioWare's part, but if it is, it's genius -- would be to split Final Fantasy into hardcore nerdy and open and casual variants, in the same way Mass Effect and Dragon Age compliment each other. No significant number of BioWare otaku who want the D&D-inspired bollocks of Dragon Age's gameplay resent Mass Effect 2's simplicity. And they will buy every scrap of Dragon Age content thrown to them, and most of them will buy Mass Effect, too. Like i said, if this is intentional, it's pure fucking genius and probably what I most respect BioWare for right now. I've talked to a guy online -- a smart enough guy, an adult and avid gamer, who got to the end of Final Fantasy X without understanding the Sphere Grid and couldn't beat Sin. Despite my problems with FFVIII, this never occurred to me, simply because I understood FFX so well. And, more troublingly, I know a guy online who's gotten past the point in Final Fantasy XIII where the developers assume you understand the game and just throw everything at you -- far past, with the help of strategy guides and a level of perseverence that's difficult to credit but so refreshing to see -- and I'm not quite sure he really gets it. He certainly can't reliably execute it. Because of the tight control over the Crystarium he can't grind his way out of tight spots; because of the developers' faith that their style of teaching players how to play is adequate, he has to resort to following online strategies. Even the official guide isn't enough. So as much as I like the impetus of teaching novices to understand Final Fantasy -- because how else are you going to convert them into fans like me who live, breathe, and love JRPG gameplay? -- I don't think Square Enix pulled it off. And worse, they alienated a good chunk of their existing audience by making it sit through kindergarten, or as I like to call the beginning of the game, Disc 0 (think about this in PlayStation 1 FF terms and you'll get it.) * * * So while I'm on the subject of gameplay, let's keep this going and talk about the fucking battle system already. The best -- if not most appealing -- way I can think of to explain the Paradigm Shift system is that, in a regular FF battle system, you were the grill team in the McDonalds kitchen, all working to produce the meal. In FF13, you've been promoted to manager. Rather than making the same, repetitive individual decisions moment-to-moment, you control the overall flow of battle via the Paradigms. Once the system gets cooking, you get the same intense and strategic push-pull of a traditional turn-based battle system in maybe one fifth of the time. So each Paradigm you set up, to back up a bit, is a party build. Each character has three jobs (let's say three, because as I discussed, five or six is a lie and even four is pushing it.) Your job is to switch between Paradigms which offer the most effective mix of jobs (and thus, skills) for current battle situations -- you become the mini-general, flipping your troops' jobs around. And it's not just that you must tell them what (generally) to do; you also have to be mindful of how their skills compliment each other. That's before you take into account enemy behavior. To say that the battle system is challenging and addictive would be an understatement -- this is the compulsive and most highly polished aspect of the gameplay, bar-none. The problem is that it doesn't fucking get that way until the aforementioned Palamecia section... like 15 hours into the game. Sigh. But once it kicks in, it's fucking kicked in for the whole rest of the game; smacking the everloving shit out of the last boss was a highly amusing pleasure. There's also the extremely fast pace to laud, and also the strange but addictive process of Staggering enemies. Until you Stagger an enemy, damage is negligible, and you need to hit them with both physical attacks and magic to make them Stagger. This really is the way in which the Paradigm Shift system is unified with basic damage dealing, you see, and the icing is the game's maniacal reliance on buffs and debuffs later on to add another layer of tension and make your finger itch on the L1 button as you shift Paradigms compulsively. This is the good shit. This is where it's at. And when you Stagger (or Break) -- I definitely prefer the Japanese version's "Break", it's more forceful, more aesthetically appealing -- So when you BREAK an enemy, there's a skill called Launch that the Commando class gets which throws the fucker up into the air. When the enemy is up in the air it can't do jack shit -- it can't attack you at all, and just wriggles helplessly. This is so super fucking satsifying that I can't even articulate it. It makes me giggle. And to answer one of the questions Tim raised in his review of the game, yes, it's inherently satisfying to see giant fucking numbers (representing damage) pop out of enemies when you hit them. Of this I have not the least shred of doubt. * * * Let's talk about the whole NO TOWNS thing. The game does not fucking need towns. Towns would not solve this game's problems. The whole towns thing reminds me of people talking about Steven Spielberg's A.I. A lot of people didn't like the saccharine ending of the film and said that the movie should have ended with David staring at the Blue Angel, implicitly forever. No -- that would have just been a different shitty ending. In the same vein, stapling some classic-style towns to Final Fantasy XIII would not solve anything. What people who are asking for towns are asking for are two things, and one of them is valid and one of them is bullshit. 1. Give me what the series has always had, because I am old and I fear change. (Bullshit.) 2. Give me something that would improve the game's pacing, and add agency and variety. (Correct.) Let me be clear: I have no interest in seeing towns come back to Final Fantasy as towns were once executed in the series, that's for sure. But something needs to come in -- a solution must be devised. The bit where you chase the Chocobo chick through Nautilus: that was simple, and stupid, but fun. The way I much more miss towns, in all honesty, is that so many of the cutscenes in this game feature people just stopping in some corridor in some dungeon and having a conversation, and the context they do this in has absolutely nothing to do with that conversation, and it starts to feel extremely false and disconnected from any sense of reality. This is to be avoided scrupulously in future games in the series, in my opinion, and one of the ways to do that is to make sure that the important story sequences are context-driven. And to have context-driven story you need, well, a fucking context. Obviously. Things like towns are meaningful. Giant blue glowing forests, while totally fucking awesome for smacking the shit out of rampaging biological experiments in, are not so great for having a conversation about your dead mom. * * * One particularly notable object lesson in this is the segment of the game which takes place in Palumpolum. The game goes from romps through attractive but irrelevant video game backdrops to a struggle against fate in a city populated by civilians. Context comes flooding in to illustrate concepts that were so recently abstract. There's an army, there are buildings that make sense, there's the whole scenario with Hope's dad in his apartment. Things just gel fabulously here in a way that totally makes sense, and stands in stark contrast to the last several hours of the game. The Hanging Edge. Gapra Whitewood. Sunleth Waterscape. No. Vile Peaks. The Fifth Ark. Kind of; good enough. Nautilus. Palumpolum. The Palmecia. Eden. Yes. * * * Let's talk about the characters and story. The Final Fantasy series has been pretty hit or miss when it comes to antagonists. This game is pretty much a miss. It's really not until the last fucking battle that you begin to get a real understanding for what actually drives the antagonist, who is an Old Man In A Dress, the Fantasy Pope -- which is a lazy cliche, while I'm complaining -- to push your party around, try to kill them, et cetera. This is what I like to call a Big Fucking Mistake. Until then, you're confronted with the fact that he's just a floating asshole who pushes you around and lies to you. It's easy to see why the characters dislike him, but as the player, it's not so easy to feel strongly about it. Also he's a big stupid monster / god thing, really, it turns out, of course. And I found this particularly boring because, oddly enough, the real world's Evil Old Man In A Dress has been in the news a lot lately. And he has been implicated in multiple coverups involving child molesters. And while the whole complicated tale is heartbraking and infuriating, it's also a human story, one that has real heft and weight: I'm more interested in taking my band of adventurers to Rome and knocking Cardinal Ratfucker out of his Prada loafers with a hail of Blizzagas than spitting on Primarch Dysley, FF13's antagonist. Think about that rich and complicated story of venality, ambition, insensitivity, and arrogance and compare it with what motivates FF13's Pope, which is "I'm a god, but I don't like being a god that much." Right. That said, stories of gods pushing humans around don't have to suck. I mean, we have the whole pantheons of Greek and Norse mythologies, and those are just the ones I am immediately familiar with as a white nerd. Those are some fucking interesting gods. And beyond that I can think of examples from fantasy like Megan Whalen Turner's The Queen's Thief series, or Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books, or Diana Wynne Jones, or Neil Gaiman. These gods have many of the same qualities of the Fal'Cie -- aloof, manipulative -- but they're used effectively. That's because the action of the story rests on the decisions of the people, even when the gods command; FF13 does, to its credit, try to do that, too, but it doesn't come together until the end. Let's detour quickly into "Fal'Cie." We already have a word for gods, and it's "gods". Bad fantasy overuses superflous terminology like Fal'Cie that obscures both the meaning and, to my mind, seriousness of its story, and this is a prime offender. I have a theory that Japanese people are more willing to accept bullshit katakana terminology because their language is full of it -- bear in mind that everyday concepts like Personal Computer and Digital Camera and Internet and Sony PlayStation are all made up fantasy words to the Japanese, more or less, and it seems easier to understand why their games are full of them. Then again Dragon Age has shit like the Grey Wardens and (gag) Darkspawn, which sound just as bad to me. It's a problem. Fantasy people: restrain thyselves. One of the really frustrating things about this game is another aspect of the Disc 0 problem I alluded to earlier. It really, really extends to the development of the characters. Plenty of people I've talked to (aka The Whole of the Internets) really hate Snow, Hope, and Vanille. I do not hate them. But I can understand it, because for the first chunk of the game, they are boring do-nothing characters. Contrast the Sazh who stumbles around the Hanging Edge with the one who talks about his son, Dahj, in Sunleth Waterscape and Nautilus. In my opinion, Hope's problems make sense, and he begins to speak and act intelligently and with conviction earlier on. But Vanille is in a way the linchpin of the plot, or many of its mysteries, and you have no bloody idea until way too far into the game. There's a reason she's narrating the thing, folks. Snow, well... Snow can't really get into gear until he and Hope have it out, and thanks to the game's shitty pacing, that just takes far too long. Someone I know said "the plot seems like it's always an hour away from getting good", and that's apt. I've also heard it said that the text Datalog entries add necessary details to flesh out what's going on -- and that's true not in terms of understanding events (I had no problems) but it's very true in terms of shading. In the end, I'm not wild about the cast. They're not as sympathetic as the Final Fantasy X crew, somehow. I felt for them, but not strongly. I think the context problem I wrote about -- Talking In Dungeons -- and the boring antagonist help screw them up. The lack of a real focused main character (aka Final Fantasy VI-itis) is also a problem. Lightning never comes to life as a character -- she's an idea of a character, a representation, a simulacrum. She's fascinating to watch in motion and she spits out some great lines -- love her attitude -- but there's no her. Sazh, on the other hand, is dependable and sympathetic, and one of the only in the party capable of surprising you with his actions. How in the fuck did Japan deliver the one of the first truly rounded and sympathetic black characters in a game (and deliver him with a Chocobo chick in his afro, and make it work?) Talk about an unexpected triumph. Snow is a stock character. Snow is not a badly-written version of that character, but he does not exceed those bounds enough to become fully three-dimensional. He's important to the story, though, and I forgive it. He's kind of like this game's Wakka, with a role that exceeds his depth, yet somehow a less interesting conflict to resolve within himself. I had thought Hope was going to be a Shinji-type character, but he's really not, or not for very long. He's a believable adolescent; his background really comes into play for his character in ways I didn't anticipate (observations easier for me to make, perhaps, because he's the one I identified with most.) You can tell he's well-educated though he never really talks about it much; later you see he's a child of privelege who grew up in the big city, and his attitude and demeanor makes sense. Characterization Success Get! He acts in ways that are logical, and if anybody sells the whole Fal'Cie/l'Cie thing, in the whole cast, it's Hope -- through both his reactions to the situation and his knowledge. Vanille... is a conundrum. First up, she's the worst character design Nomura has shit out since... Irvine Kinneas? Long time. Part of that's a cultural Japan/America thing, and part of that's a borderline misogynist "girl skipping around in a short dress is tough to take seriously" thing, let's face it... but part of it is that she has just a hideous outfit and ridiculous hair. Even Hope looks like he's dressed to walk around a bit. She... well, it'd be an okay outfit for a summertime date. If she didn't expect to have to sit down and get hit in the back with that... beaded... thing, that is. When her role in the story becomes apparent, though, suddenly she's really interesting. I can't think of another character in an RPG who lies so much, and for such believable reasons. Usually RPG characters only lie because they're Secretly On The Other Side or whatever -- normal fantasy turncoat bullshit. That's it. You know, totally unlike real people, who lie all the time with both good and bad intentions. Not so, Vanille. And Fang is kind of dumb but she looks awesome, is gorgeous, kicks ass, has a rockin' Australian accent, and is just generally too much fun to not love. And you can easily pretend she's a lesbian. The game's real strength, though, is the dynamics of the characters -- their interactions. Lightning and Hope. Hope and Snow. Sazh and Vanille. Vanille and Fang. Japanese writers seem to have a facility for group dynamics and this frequently shines through in FF13's story more than the actual plot point that's occuring. * * * Chris Hecker has warned us that if we're not careful, games will become like comic books. What he's talking about is cultural ghettoization. I think we're already there -- we're just there at a profitable scale for a wide audience, unlike comics. And in many cases we're at an even bigger disadvantage -- it's much more challenging, and at times impossible, to step out of your preferred genres and either enjoy or comprehend the games. The FF13 solution, as I already outlined, was to teach people to enjoy it. Sure, Square Enix was less than fully successful there (though the guy who I spoke about who's struggling loved the game so much -- his first JRPG ever -- that he kept at it, and has pushed through the points where he was stuck, and even crossed over into JRPG fan territory by buying the CD soundtrack!) But I digress. My brain has been programmed by long exposure to love the JRPG genre. The experience of playing genre-based games is to gradually understand them more. As long as the games are good, your accumulated knowledge makes them more enjoyable. Hell, even mediocre games in a genre that you like and understand tend to be somewhat entertaining, because they lightly caress those synapses. Your decisions are driven by your tastes, but your tastes are reinforced by repeated exposure, until you start to think about buying games you think look terrible because they have good aspects -- for example, Eternal Sonata, which I though about buying I don't know how many times before I finally gave up on the idea. Its adorable vapidity repulsed me too much to sit through just to experience a battle system which looks pretty nifty. One thing I love most about the JRPG genre is its visual panache, and one thing that the deveopers of Final Fantasy XIII prioritized beyond perhaps all else is delivering those visuals. They are stunning. The character animations in battle and exploration are excellent, the scenes burst with detail, the environments are eye-catching and complex and unexpected. The amount of art generated for this game is nuts -- especially because that's the most expensive part of current generation game production. When I saw Lake Bresha for the first time in December, I said -- out loud -- "this is why I bought a PlayStation 3" and I was not kidding. There was my $600, three years later, right there. When I had the chance to speak to him, I even brought Lake Bresha up with Toriyama, and here's what he said: That body of water you were mentioning is crystallized, and technically it's very difficult to create something that's basically half see-through to bring that frozen effect. So it's not only that artistic vision, but it's also providing that technical expertise to create that; and that's something that really sets us apart from other developers. Other developers I don't think can really create that. You know what? It sounds arrogant, but the blend of techniques, aesthetics, and Japanese orientation to detail represented by Final Fantasy XIII is unmatched this generation. This game is a visual masterpiece. Sure, it's not subtle; The Lost Guardian is going to be more refined. But FF13 can encompass so much about what's great about current generation visuals in one game: it brings in elements of all genres and all aesthetics and blends them together and makes them work, stunningly, and in realtime. And that was something I could always fall back on and enjoy, because it's something I love. And that's what being a genre fan means. Tragically, so much of the most beautiful, exciting content is saved for late in the game. The developers just presume you'll get to Gran Pulse and see its impressive vistas. What if you get bored and sell the game before then? I don't think that thought crossed anybody's mind. That. Is. Fucking. Nuts. The same goes for the game's soundtrack: Masahi Hamauzu, long relegated to Square's B-titles, does a fantastic job here. Yes, it hews close to the aesthetics that have been long established in the genre. A friend of mine, whose music taste I respect a great deal, called it terrible. I got really annoyed. But it's hard to see something like this the way he might: not as a fan of JRPG soundtracks, but as a fan of music. I actually have plenty I could say about the topic in its defense, but that's for another time: it's enough for me to put out that, in another aspect of its conventionality, this game excels. * * * Though all games don't feature strong narrative elements, I think it might be true that games are a unique medium because they are both complex software systems and content-driven media. Together, they forge a context. It's an important tenet of fantasy writing to be embroiled in worldbuilding, of course, but games literally build the worlds they describe. One of the problems that complicates both creating and reviewing games is that they are both software and media. To create software is to create function; to create media is to create feeling. The place where things get interesting is in where these two aims, which don't have a hell of a lot to do with each other, intersect. When they diverge too obviously, pain lies. In a narrative-driven game, both the story-related events and the gameplay systems are expected to come together -- and when it works, this combination is more satisfying than either element would be alone. This dual strength allows you to forgive the flaws. Though game stories are routinely, and not unfairly, criticized for the fact that they would be dissatisfying as a linear narrative (say, a movie) I also think it's valid, and I feel comfortable saying, that the intersection point is what allows games to become more than the sum of their parts. I fully believe this. Games are satisfying because they are a synthesis. They may rountely be a clumsy synthesis in 2010, but their success is still built on this. This is not an argument against games striving to improve both in narrative and play contexts, but it explains, to me at least, my immense satisfaction with flawed experiences and failed experiments. By the time you put it to bed, Final Fantasy XIII proves both that its story is functional and its gameplay is sound. But unfortunately there is a continuous shifting and even breakdown of forged context for a great deal of the adventure. What it's trying to accomplish keeps changing. The game has something like an act structure -- not as most narrative media does because the characters make decisions that propel them forward, but because it's assembled from parts and the seams are visible. The hand of the creators is all too evident in this work, and this is even worse than it could be because it's clear the hand is shaking. And that brings us back to the fundamental problem with FF13, and, finally, to the end of this text. The team have erred seriously in their assumption that players will simply, left with no other option, like the game. Their assumption is that players will, by the end, understand the game; their assumption that, in doing so, players will inevitably care about the game's content. It always comes back to that, in every facet. I would argue that it would be ridiculous to assume someone who doesn't like what Final Fantasy has to offer should or could be catered to by a Final Fantasy title. I can't play Madden just to enjoy what it does well despite a near-total lack of interest or understanding of football. I will never develop an appreciation for Halomultiplayer, even if I can understand what makes it so compelling to so many. I don't really care to try, frankly. That attitude, which I think is common, is an important part of what makes games a tough medium to create in. Even if you allow, as you should, that the game is made for an audience that could potentially enjoy it, Final Fantasy XIII takes this assumption too much to heart, and in doing so severely tries the patience and, some would say, insults the intelligence of its audience. That is a profoundly dangerous place to go and a precipice the developers absolutely must back away from. Final Fantasy XIII For PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 Released: March 9, 2010 Publisher: Square Enix Developer: Square Enix Three stars out of five

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driftingglass · 6 years

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Your writing is absolutely stunning and I can't help but be amazed by it. I have read all your fic's and I love all of them. I love writing but I believe mine is average and I really want to improve. How can you write so beautifully? How long did it take you to write in such way? ( practicing I mean) 😊❤

First of all, thank you for taking the time to leave this comment in my inbox, and for providing such a thoughtful question to mull over. This is important for any writer to address, and I’m honored you’re seeking advice from a writer like me. I’m always insecure about my skills as a writer and learning how to continuously develop is difficult for anyone, no matter how experienced and well-rehearsed.

There are a few simple rules that I’ll share with you that I practice myself, and other personal beliefs that keep the process moving.

I don’t have a specific timeline set out because I can’t remember a time where I didn’t write. I was horrible at it, understandably, at first, like most everyone. Still sinking into this new “skin,” so to speak, that I understood was the eventual layer of writing I wanted to reach and hold onto.

Unfortunately, I can’t provide a “step by step” process to achieve a certain kind of style. That, ultimately, is up to you. But we’ll get more into that later.

For one thing, it’s essential to know how much you love writing.

And clearly, you seem to care quite a lot about it, hence that you love it but you believe it’s “average” and you want to improve. I’m not going to say that average writers don’t exist, because they do. People who tell you that every writer is “good in their own way” are wrong.

Not every writer is good. Of course, this can be subjective to a point, but the fact remains that there are degrees of separation. And there is, at least in my experience and journey, a main difference between great writers, average writers, and, yes, terrible writers.

I want to make it clear that I don’t consider myself to be a great writer by any means. Like every creative, we’re always pushing ourselves to be better and hone our craft, and this is no different for me. It’s an endless scope of a process that requires discipline and evolution, and both your own critical eye and that of another.

One of the most important aspects of being a writer is understanding the amount of time and commitment you will need to carve out for your craft. “Good” and “average” writers only write and read every other day. Terrible writers don’t put in the time at all.

But you don’t want to be good or average, do you? I doubt you even want to consider yourself “great” at one point. You want to be solid, and the best you can be. Maybe even the best.

And what I want to share with you is what separates the average from the best.

In order to become that level, or at least improve, you must make the time to read and write every single day. It could be as little as 250 words or as many as 10,000 when it comes to writing. And reading? Well, reading is accomplished no matter what, but reading essays, articles, nonfiction, fiction, it all counts towards something.

It’s important to take the time to both consume from other influences, genres, sentence structures, ideas, plot developmental strategies, etc. just by reading other works. Invest in your favorite genre of fiction or whatever you’re interested in practicing yourself, and watch as even your subconscious works to help you grow.

My average wordcount per day is 4,000 to 5,000 words. I also tend to overwrite quite a bit, and cut away the unnecessary fat later. My heaviest wordcount taken in one day caps off at 11,000 words.

I get up early in the morning, go to the gym or run outside to get the blood flowing, write for a solid hour, then leave for work that same morning. It requires a lot of discipline and no, it’s not easy, but it’s worth it. And after work I write as well until I reach my goal for that day.

Although I might also be a wee bit insane. So take that into account when asking for advice from someone who cares way more about writing than pretty much anything else, save for… coffee, some animals, and a handful of friends.

Regardless, this is something every great writer does. They make the time.

Start small, and grow from there. See how many words you can accomplish in one busy day. Create a routine for yourself. Let the ideas flow and grow into something that even surprises you.

There are countless writing prompts, exercises and more to draw influence from. With my own ideas I just think of them on the spot, but in college I tended to look for prompts for short story concepts that didn’t require more than one ginormous chapter to set up a plot.

I’m hesitant to give advice about critiquing because I’m ware of how much this is a problem for me personally. I’m very harsh about my writing and can be obsessive about the turnout, leading to an ironic series of burnouts and even stalling.

However, I can say that being critical, while sometimes dismissed by friends and colleagues, is absolutely necessary for you to improve. If you notice something off about your sentence structure, or if you realize that a character you’ve created definitely would not say “that line,” then feel free to erase it.

One of the best things about writing is that you are in control of your own imagination, and what you put down.

Just remember that it’s normal to feel burned out.

Writing, like any passion, takes a lot of practice, time and commitment to make into something grand and beautiful. Your style will grow into itself and you’ll find a reflection of you in what you create. I never planned to have a certain style.

The moment you try to replicate every other writer instead of accepting the type of writer you are meant to be, is one of many mistakes a first-time writer makes. Take it from someone who struggled with this for years before finding the courage to understand that writing is a process.

Writing is rewriting. Remember this too.

It’s easy to forget how not everything you craft will be perfect. Writing is always imperfect. Even the best writers are far from perfect. Because perfection is, well, impossible to achieve.

All that you can control is how hard you work at it, what you choose to focus on to improve your craft, and how you choose to approach your inevitable mistakes.

The fear of failure is one of the biggest reasons great minds stop before they go through with what they want to accomplish. Sometimes it’s truly the only difference separating a published work from an unpublished work.

Believe me, these upcoming aspects will tie together. I don’t intend to leave you hanging.

J.K. Rowling was rejected twelve times for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (and probably even more). Pierce Brown faced rejection from over 120 agents before he was able to sell Red Rising. Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, J.R.R. Tolkien, William Golding, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Rudyard Kipling–and so many more, have all faced rejection.

But rejection is inevitable for anyone who dreams. In fact, let’s move away from just writers for a moment. Would you believe that Walt Disney himself was turned down from his plans of financing the Walt Disney Company over 300 times?

Success never falls into laps. Real success is made by actions taken. The choice to take those steps and keep moving forward, and never giving up, is one of the most important things about being a writer (and person).

If you remain in a comfort zone, you will forever be stagnant. Growth only comes to those who challenge themselves and push forward. If you struggle with adapting character, research and figure out ways to make them more personal. Do you struggle with dialogue? Read your phrases allowed, study the character more, and test out different clauses and details.

There are countless ways to approach improving writing. It takes a myriad of steps, and it all comes down to the all-around focus you want to have.

You know you want to improve. You know that you love writing. And for some, that’s enough of a reason to throw yourself into it and see what happens.

As one last thing to close this off (I could go on and on about this for days), please remember that your style is unique to you. It is a part of who you are, not anyone else. Everyone has writing influences (dozens, even) but their style is meant to be that. An influence. Not a replication.

It’s a difficult journey and extremely stressful and heartbreaking at times, but it’s so, so rewarding.

Writing, while something that’s incredibly wonderful to share with the world, is ultimately about you. You should write for you, so write what you want to write, reshape it accordingly, and keep at it until you reach your goal… and then keep going.

I wish you the best with your endeavors, Anon. Thank you.

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magalarajoonideprohvetid · 6 years

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blackouts [transgressive anthropology]

«Wow! I thought the lights went out!» (sudden exclamation by prof. Carlo Cubero at Debates in Anthropology lecture on the 15th of March 2018)

This moment is embedded in my memory, an ultimate manifestation of honesty, said out loud with no restraints, the peak of the lecture, the peak of the whole course – a sudden darkness. I do not know about you but I have on several occasions felt a sudden blackout, like the blink of an eye and I am not sure – did I just blink, did the lights go out for a micro-second, did my brain shutdown for a second, did I have a stroke, did only I (not) see it? Usually I have had others around me to calm me down, «Yes, we saw it also, I think the electricity flickered for a moment.» Is it you, Niko, sending us inter-dimensional messages through your most known invention, chthonic news through alternative current? If there would not be electricity in our households, would I even be writing about this phenomena, is momentary blackout a ‘thing’ without the light bulb? Or am I writing about something completely different, the blackout our unconsciousness creates when our consciousness is not ready for the incoming message?

writing culture

If there are any dogmas in anthropology, it is the inclusion of fieldwork into the methodological frame - for it to count as anthropology, a researcher needs to step out of academia and come back with outsourced data. Yes, it is extremely valuable that there is something new added to the usual academics circular referencing, agency has been given to the unheard and original voices. But in the same time questions arises - what is and when is anthropology? Is it students reading the theories? Or is it anthropologist on the fieldsite? James Clifford analyzes the cover picture of Writing Culture, where Stephen Tyler is writing during his fieldwork:

«In this image the ethnographer hovers at the edge of the frame—faceless, almost extraterrestrial, a hand that writes. It is not the usual portrait of anthropological fieldwork. We are more accustomed to pictures of Margaret Mead exuberantly playing with children in Manus or questioning villagers in Bali. Participant observation, the classic formula for ethnographic work, leaves little room for texts.» (Clifford, 1)

This picture gives the impression than an anthropologist does everything in the field, he participates, observes and simultaneously writes. In reality the ‘real’ writing happens retrospectively, and that might be one of the biggest problems of anthropology – there is no anthropology of the present, the reproducible anthropology is classically done in the post-fieldwork stage. This is valid for both ethnographic writing and film, as both ‘texts’ are produced afterwards. Doing currently auto-fieldwork, being on ‘ramadan-mode’, I am deeply stressed as I cannot do much writing, my notes are scribbles bearing no great weight, I am too heavily influenced and too stuck in the actual experience to do any reflective writing. Vincent Crapanzano says similar things about Goethe’s experience of the carnival:

«A conventional Ash Wednesday meditation, perhaps, Goethe's conclusion marks are turn to contemplation, introspection, and concern for the meaning of what we do. His “return” parallels a return in the ceremony he describes. During the carnival there is no reflection, just play, masquerading, and, as we say nowadays, acting out. With Ash Wednesday begins a period of penitence, and, we must presume, a return to introspection, order, and individuality.» (Crapanzano, 68)

After the experience thou, the author becomes active and starts to describe the lived experiences; how the description is done, how it is reflected and to whom it is directed, that depends on the author. Crapanzano describes the ethnographic encounters of George Caitlin with the Mandan tribe in North America and their initiation rituals of O-Kee-Pa:

«Here Catlin moves from his (objectifying) metaphorical perspective to that of the tortured; despite this move, his intention is not phenomenological, but rhetorical: He does not describe either the Indian's or his own experience of the torture. The «imps and demons as they appear» (to whom? to Catlin? to the Mandan?) is stylistically equivalent to «there is no hope of escape from it.» They are directed to the reader, and it is the reader's reaction that will guarantee Catlin's perceptions.» (Crapanzano, 57)

So Caitlin’s intention was to captivate the reader, to tell the story in a way that it works specifically on the reader, it is not him nor Native Americans in the story he has written, it is the reader he is trying to drag into the story. In Caitlin’s case, the author is playing around with the reader’s morality and the reader’s possible endeavor toward morality. Crapanzano gives another example, where the author is more inclined to play on the ‘dirty’ thoughts of the reader by using contemporary puns:

«The title of Clifford Geertz’s essay «Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight,» written about the time the film Deep Throat was all the rage, announces a series of erotic puns—puns, Geertz maintains, the Balinese themselves would understand—used throughout his essay. Puns are frequent in ethnography. They position the ethnographer between his world of primary orientation, his reader's world, and the world of those others, the people he has studied, whom at some level, I believe, he is also addressing (Crapanzano 1977a). Through the pun he appeals collusively to the members of one or the other world, usually the world of his readership, there by creating a hierarchical relationship between them. He himself, the punster, mediates between these worlds.» (Crapanzano, 68-69)

Crapanzano’s general theme for the article in Writing Culture is anthropologist/ethnographer as god Hermes, someone who is always bringing messages, someone who is a translator between ‘gods’ and ‘humans’, but whose messages might not contain the whole truth, they (singular!) might be lying for the sake of themself, the informants or for the sake of the readers, they needs to make a convincing case (Ibid, 52).

transgressive fiction

If I have to name three books from high school that really influenced me (both literally and literary), then these books were not and most probably will not be in the obligatory reading list. Two of them were loaned to me by friends, they had read them and suggested that I would be interested – Dead Babies by Amis Martin and The Beach by Alex Garland. Both stories travel in closed communities where sex and drug usage is common among the characters, where atrocities happen to them, and in general the environment of the book, its locus is a degenerate one. If one is to make charts, then Dead Babies is in my opinion a few grades more on the transgressive fiction side than The Beach. Now the third book was Check-out by Estonian author Kaur Kender, the first and last book in Estonia that has had «PARENTAL ADVISORY EXPLICIT CONTENT» sticker on it (only for advertisement reasons, there has not yet been such restrictions in the literary scene). The protagonist of this book is a filthy rich business-man, whose main efforts in life revolve around fornication and intoxication, both fueled by boredom and leading to the humiliation of others as he is capable to do whatever he wants with other people, it is self-destruction and liberation, mirroring society back at itself. Having grown up watching movies like Pulp Fiction and Dobermann, where protagonists are the ‘baddest’ on the conventional moral and ethical paradigm but in the same time there is something likable about them, they stand on the right side of life whilst doing bad things, Check-out did come as a shocker because there was nothing good about the main character, he was utterly bad, none of that misunderstood Robin Hood type of ‘badness’. For the first time I had been transgressed by the author, and I transgressed into the character. In retrospective Kender has said (heard it on a public event of the re-release of the Check-out in 2016), that the character was based on the stories he had witnessed and heard of local businessmen, and of his own alcohol and drug addictions (especially the ending of the book, where the protagonist starts using heroin). His book was based on participant observations and autoethnographical method.

Chuck Palahniuk is most known for his novel Fight Club, made famous by movie adaption and Brad Pitts’ six-packs’. I have not read that novel but I have read Haunted by Palahniuk (that one also has a PARENTAL ADVISORY sticker on the cover, Kender’s book was released almost a decade earlier). It tells the story of a group of people who apply for an experimental creative writing course and are then locked up in an abandoned art-house cinema. Every chapter consists of a poem about the main character of that chapter, a story of her/his origin, and a part of the main narrative with her/him as the leading character in it. The first chapter tells the story of a character named Saint Gut-Free, it consists of three different stories about ‘masturbation gone wrong’, onanism that might have killed the onanists. On page 17 of this 400 page modern horror story I have a blackout, the story becomes so disturbing, so real in my head, every word brings me closer to the conclusion of the story, and in my mind I already know where it is leading, Palahniuk has given enough hints, there is no happy ending, and every word brings it closer and my heart is rushing and I feel noxious… I blackout, I skip a paragraph (of course I read it later), I calm myself and continue reading. Palahniuk writes in the afterword a longer explanation how this story came to life, and how the reception has been so far. We tend to hope that the craziest stories are not the ones taken from real life, that these are made up, the fruit of fantasy. Palahniuk ruins the illusion the same way Kender did:

«No, this week, my writer friends just laughed, and I told them how the three-act story of ‘Guts’ was based on three true anecdotes. Two had happened to friends, and the last had happened to a man I’d met while attending sex addict support groups to research my fourth novel. They were three funny, gradually more upsetting true stories about experiments with masturbation gone wrong. Horribly wrong. Nightmarishly wrong.» (Palahniuk, 407)

Without mudding the water, I say out that in my opinion he was performing a participant observation, he, as many other writers, are ethnographers without the academia and without theory. Palahniuk’s emphasis is not on the credibility, it is on style and on affect:

«Reading ‘Guts’ takes a full head of steam. You don’t get many moments to look up from the page. But when I did, the faces in the front row looked a little gray. Beyond that were questions and answers. The book signing. The End.

It wasn’t until I’d signed the last book that a clerk said two people had fainted. Two young men. They’d both dropped to the concrete floor during ‘Guts’ but they were fine now, with no memory of anything between standing, listening, and waking up surrounded by people’s feet.» (Ibid, 408)

I could have been one of these two fainters, or at least fluctuating between consciousness and blackout. The main question for me is in the affect of the text, how something that is usually considered ‘unreal’ can make us feel physically sick?

transgressive ethnography

In a way, ethnographers have always written transgressive texts, most of the texts describe social norms and activities very different from the one of the audience of these texts. One of the dogmas for transgressive fiction is that the protagonist emerges through the violations of norms as a free(er) individual. One way of describing anthropologist is that they are like translators, who translate different cultures to an understandable format (as a colonialist discipline it used to be for the Europeans but things should have changed?). Another way of describing anthropologists is not so much as an interpreter but an inventor, s/he invents a culture, dogmatizes its principles into an ethnographic ‘holy book’, how this culture should be, has been, and will be, not understanding that it is not how it used to be, that is not how every single person inside that environment and/or space relates to that culture, and people do not have to spend their lives fulfilling the dogmas set in the ethnographer’s ‘holy scripture’ (most probably half a year later there will be a missionary there and everyone is wearing pants and singing songs of our Saviour Jesus). Vincent Crapanzano unites these two description into one:

«Like translation, ethnography is also a somewhat provisional way of coming to terms with the foreignness of languages – of cultures and societies. The ethnographer does not, however, translate texts the way translator does. He must first produce them.» (Crapanzano, 51)

Lets take for instance the infamous case of Margaret Mead and the Samoans. As we know by now, Margaret Mead went to do fieldwork with Samoan, came back and wrote an awesome ethnography on how Samoan teenage girls are sexually liberated. Derek Freeman waits a few years after Margaret Mead’s death, publishes a book on how she was wrong and that Samoans have actually very strict rules for sexual conduct. Now, there are several interpretations for this controversy, and explanations, some of them, like Paul Shankman’s The History of Samoan Sexual Conduct and the Mead-Freeman Controversy gives more ambivalent interpretation to the sexual norms and behaviors in Samoa (Shankman 1996). It could be possible that both Mead and Freeman just saw different sides of the same society, if there only would not be this moment when one of Mead’s informants tells a retrospective view of the incident:

«Yes she asked us what we did after dark. We girls would pinch each other and tell her that we were out with the boys. We were only joking but she took it seriously. As you know Samoan girls are terrific liars and love making fun of people but Margaret thought it was all true.» (Heimans 1988, 3:36)

So what did she do – ‘translate’ the culture in the wrong way, had wrong data, or maybe she was in a way creating something the readers wanted to hear? Looking at both Mead and Palahniuk I must come to the following conclusions: Samoans lied and we were happy, Palahniuk presumably told the truth and it is disgusting. We as readers, we like to read about ‘sexually liberated’ women, and Samoan girls played that role in Mead’s ethnography really well. In a way, Mead’s ethnography tells more about her own society and herself than about the Samoans, she was giving liberation to the Western world and to herself.

In a discussion about transgressive fiction, we cannot continue without talking about Untitled 12, a modern horror story by Kaur Kender, where the first person protagonist is a pedophile (and sadistic sexual pervert in general). I read the whole story on Nihilist.fm on the night it came out and it was a devastating experience, I skipped parts of it as I was not capable to read even the obviously exaggerated and absurd descriptions of sexual violence, I felt hollowed after that experience, and that was something he wished to accomplish (Kender 2015). What happened was that someone reported to the police, that it might be child pornography (Estonian laws include a very wide range of material from pictures and videos to written text as it might depict underage children in pornographic situations), and police went after it. It was taken to court and got media coverage even outside of Estonia (as it is not usual any longer in Western societies that known writers have been taken to court for these specific charges) (ERR 2017). In the end he was declared innocent by two levels of court, and has since then left Estonia with a promise to never write in Estonian again. But what was very interesting with this case was the possibilities for alternative situations and how would they have been perceived. For instance, if it would have been someone’s personal experiences, someone who had been raped as a child and if that someone writes about this experience with graphic details, could that be also considered child pornography? Or if someone describes their sexual experience as a minor (depending on the explanation of the Penal Code it could be either under 14 or 18 years old), could that be considered child pornography? As a reader, was I consuming unknowingly child pornography if Kender would have been found quilty? These may sound as hypothetical questions, but if one is active in literary world (both as producer and consumer) then these questions become rather substantial.

Untitled 12 is made up, it is fictional, and from this fictional world it became very realistic, I was in court during a few of the open hearings and those benches, the jury and the prosecutor, they were all very real. But how is this all connected to anthropology? In some cases anthropologist are not the good guys, friendly scientist, who participate with respect and observe with sincerity. For instance José Padilha’s documentary Secrets of the Tribe deals with several controversial incidents what different anthropologist researching Yanomami tribe had caused. One of these anthropologist was Jacques Lizot, who according to his victims had raped and sexually abused several young Yanomami boys (Padilha, 42:44-55:08). This was known by other anthropologist and researchers, but it was overlooked for many years and until today there has been no court cases nor other serious consequences for his real transgressions. He transgressed in real life, not in a fictional world, his victims are real human beings and not made up characters. His contribution to anthropology? Yanomami dictionary, with specific terms for sexual activities like masturbation etc.

Lizot case is a real pedophilia case, this kind of behavior is not accepted in the current Western society nor in Yanomami society, it is a taboo. Gilbert Herdt’s case is a little bit different, but the similarities reside in the transgression, in his case it is the witnessing and writing part what matters. Herdt has done fieldwork with the ‘Sambia’ tribe (pseudoneum he created for the tribe) in Papua New Guinea and has published several articles on them and a collection of these articles Sambia Sexual Culture: Essays From the Field (Herdt, 1999). The Sambia tribe used to have a rather controversial initiation rituals for young boys (current situation with these rituals is unknown for me) – they were taken from their mothers at age 9, put through painful purification ritual of bloodletting from the nose, and then forced to perform oral sex on older boys. Later on they become the boys who receive oral sex, and after that they become adult man who will marry a woman and presumably only participate in heterosexual activity. Reasoning behind the ritual is that the bloodletting will purify them from the attachment to their mother (and women in general), and that men are born without semen and to have semen one has to digest semen. Herdt seems to view these rituals from a less negative stance, as a form of bisexuality and gives agency to free sexual desires. James Giles, who has written a review of Herdt’s book, is less enthusiastic about it and clearly questions the rituals as in his opinion they are not connected to desire at all:

«… sexual behavior can be engaged in for numerous reasons, many of which have nothing to do with sexual desire (Giles, 2004). This fact is especially important to be aware of when one is studying the sexual desires of people from a sexually nonpermissive and prescriptive culture like that of the Sambia.» (Giles, 2004, 414)

Now my point is neither condemning of Sambian rituals nor Herdt’s presentation and analyze of them, my point lies much more in the product, in the ethnography. If an anthropologist writes on a similar topic, something that is in generally considered a taboo topic, that s/he describes with graphic details, then there is a chance, at least in Estonia, that someone might complain to the police, as was the case with Kender’s book. Police will then forward it to the “Porn-committee”, expert committee in Ministry of Culture, who will then decide if it is pornographic or not. We might say “But this is science and it is protected by the constitution”, but this was also the case with Kender – both are protected by the constitution:

«§ 38. Science and art and their teachings are free. Universities and research institutions are autonomous within the limits prescribed by the law.» (The Constitution of the Republic of Estonia)

What is problematic, is the Penal Code, definition of child pornography is rather broad and thus it can include different forms of it:

«§ 178. Manufacture of works involving child pornography or making child pornography available

(1) Manufacture, acquisition or storing, handing over, displaying or making available to another person in any other manner of pictures, writings or other works or reproductions of works depicting a person of less than eighteen years of age in a pornographic situation, or a person of less than fourteen years of age in a pornographic or erotic situation, is punishable by a pecuniary punishment or up to three years’ imprisonment.» (Penal Code)

I have been so far talking only in the context of written text, most probably the situation becomes more difficult if the text includes pictures, Allah forbid if it is not text but a film. In case it includes pictures, or if it is a film, then we have a serious ethical and moral problem, and that is not even connected to the child pornography laws. It is a question for us anthropologist, can we and should we show visual data to others, are we abusing the right for privacy, are we exploiting our informants? A great friend of mine had a self-made zine which he called National Pornographic, he had taken old National Geographic editions, cut out all pictures of naked ‘indigenous’ people and glued them together with added sensual texts. He did it purposely to show how Western society has sexualized the ‘natives’, how their breasts and nipples can be shown without censoring, as if the same rules do not apply to ‘them’ as do to ‘us’. National Geographic is a safe haven for monsters like Lizot.

[non]clusion

There are occasions when anthropologists truly transgress. And there are occasions when anthropologists write truly transgressive ethnographies. Unfortunately it usually happens after they themselves have been transgressed. Such is the case when reading Eva Moreno’s chapter Rape in the field in collection Taboo: Sex, Identity, and Erotic Subjectivity in Anthropological Fieldwork (Moreno 1995). First, and basically the foremost, she builds the story (ibid. 219-232), like the rapist built the assault on her, she builds it the same way as Palahniuk built his story, the reader is obviously hinted from the title that there will be rape but she is calmly leading the reader toward the rape, adding with the suspension until one fatal page she hits us with it. And I do blackout again, skipping paragraphs ashamed as I have a privilege to do it, she did not have a chance to skip it. The reflection part of the chapter (Ibid, 236-248) adds other layers, it elongates the rape but in a weird way calms the reader as you will see the surviving after the rape. I do not know her feelings about the chapter and writing it, but it does feel as if she has done something that is more on the positive side than on the negative one, that this text has been written with traumatic emancipation.

What seems to be essential in this inner discussion is the role of the author. These texts (both literary and audiovisual ones) would not exist without the author, people and culture and practices and incidents would abide in their own realm as they are, but these texts need the author. And as much as these texts need the author, so does the author need the texts, it is a validation of their experience. Having just finished Michael Muhammad Knight’s Osama Van Halen, sequel for his debut novel Taqwacores, I feel compelled to do something with the author. Knight’s take on the author was that he included himself as character into a fictional story, as Michael Muhammad Knight and as ‘the author’, he tossed himself around in the novel until he is beheaded by one of the main characters, by ‘burqa wearing riot grrrl’ Rabeya (Knight 2009, 207). Is the symbolical beheading of the discipline, the removal of the ‘mind’ and revival of the body, is that something that I am after as an author? Sometimes we need to blackout to flashin.

«Sun set a few hours ago, and moon is not around. Sky is striped with clouds, stratocumulus and stratus clouds, altocumulus and altostratus clouds, they are all there. Midnight prayer was already 2 hours ago and I look on horizon as the rays of dawn shine there. Smoke diffuses and the bud drops in the ashtray, I recede to lay on my bed and to watch the first season of Narcos. As the violence on screen escalates, I have doubts in my sanity, I think I am hallucinating as I continuously see flashes of lightning outside of my window. Delusions were happening already on the first week of Ramadan, I saw glimpses of movement, small swirls of energy in midair, flashes of something from the corner of my eye. Today there is lightning I see from the corner of my eye, moments of flash/ins instead of black/outs. It’s not raining and the clouds are not dark, air doesn’t feel as it has been electrified to that extent. Kristi is sleeping and I can’t get verification from anyone. After the first flash I think maybe it was some kind of trick my mind played on me, after second one I think maybe it was a reflection from TV, after the third one I assume it was an ambulance car light (I live next to a hospital). After the fourth and final flash I am afraid to look out from the window, instead I drink my last glass of water and pray dawn prayer. 17th day of Ramadan has a weird start. As I fall to sleep, I hear the rain arriving, it sooths my fears of going insane. I saw the lightning and heard the rain, but I didn’t hear the thunder nor see the drops.» (Fieldwork notes; 17th of Ramadan, 1439 / 2nd of June, 2018)

References

Clifford, James. 1986. Introduction: Partial Truths. In James Clifford & George E. Marcus (Eds.), Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography ( 1 – 27 ). Berkeley, California and London, England: University of California Press.

The Constitution of the Republic of Estonia.

Retrieved June 5, 2018 from

https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/530102013003/consolide

Crapanzano, Vincent. 1986. Hermes’ Dilemma: The Masking of Subversion in Ethnographic Description. In James Clifford & George E. Marcus (Eds.), Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (pages of chapter). Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.

ERR. 2016. Finnish PEN club: Kender’s ‘U12’ is a ‘grotesque thriller’, not child porn. Eesti Rahvusringhääling (ERR). Retrieved June 5, 2018 from https://news.err.ee/118569/finnish-pen-club-kender-s-u12-is-a-grotesque-thriller-not-child-porn

Garland, Alex. 1999. Rand [The Beach] (Turu, Rein, Trans.). Tallinn, Estonia: Varrak.

Giles, James. 2004. Book Reviews: Sambia Sexual Culture: Essays From the Field. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 33(4), 413–417.

Heimans, Frank (Director). 1988. Margaret Mead and Samoa [Documentary]. Cremorne, New South Wales: Cinetel Productions. Retrieved June 5, 2018 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8puR-AaSrg

Herdt, Gilbert. 1999. Sambia Sexual Culture: Essays From the Field. Illinois: University of Chicago Press.

Kender, Kaur. 2001. Check out. Tallinn, Estonia: Pegasus.

Kender, Kaur. 2015, January 14. Mõned sõnad Untitled 12 kohta [Few words about Untitled 12] [Web log post]. Retrieved June 5, 2018 from http://nihilist.fm/moned-sonad-untitled-12-kohta/

Kender, Kaur. 2014. Untitled 12. Nihilist.Fm : ZA/UM

Knight, Michael Muhammad. 2009. Osama Van Halen. Brooklyn, New York: Soft Skull Press

Martin, Amis. 2000. Surnud lapsed [Dead Babies] (Metsaots, Kati, Trans.). Tallinn, Estonia: Olion.

Moreno, Eva. 1995. Rape in the field. In Don Kulick & Margaret Willson (Eds.), Taboo: Sex, identity, and erotic subjectivity in anthropological fieldwork. London, England: Routledge.

Padilha, José (Director). 2010. Secrets of the Tribe [Documentary]. Brazil: Avenue B Productions Zazen Produções. Retrieved June 5, 2018 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd7SXbsn0hU

Palahniuk, Chuck. 2006. Haunted. London, England: Vintage Books.

Penal Code of the Republic of Estonia. Retrieved June 5, 2018 from https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/522012015002/consolide

Shankman, Paul. 1996. The History of Samoan Sexual Conduct and the Mead-Freeman Controversy. American Anthropologist, 98(3), 555-567.

#anthropology #transgressive #transgression #autoethnography #literature #eesti kirjandus #kirjandus #ethnography

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