#male background characters and fully flesh them out and i see people call female characters boring when i personally think if they just rea | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kob131 · 4 years

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https://rwbyconversations.tumblr.com/post/626550438587678720/the-scarlet-letter-lets-talk-about-rwbys-male

Can’t even say I stan RT since I helped in developing your own break in RT’s abusive business practices.

So let’s start with a blunt statement: RWBY’s male LGBT representation has not been good. If the series’ handling of female LGBT rep is good (which… well there’s worse shows) and the general standard for how you write LGBT characters in a show like this, its handling of male rep has been… how not to. And Before the Dawn kinda solidified the idea in my head that the show’s handling of its male LGBT cast just isn’t good enough, either by the standards of when RWBY began in 2013, or today in 2020 when compatively massive steps have been taken over the past decade to show a more diverse list of characters… or at least a more diverse list of female characters.

So how do you make good male LGBT representation? If we’re talking about how something is done badly, you’d think some ground rules would be established. ... Yeah, he never does that.

It’s big romance is (unless the writers are very stupid) going to be between Blake and Yang, their first out character was Ilia, Coco got sent to the Book Dimension where she confirmed “I use my sunglasses to perv on women without their knowledge” which uh… yeah you can definitely tell RWBY is written by men… and Volume 6 had Saph and Terra being a good example of an LGBT couple without any real drama. In the last three years alone, the show has drastically increased its lesbian and bisexual characters, alongside even including its first out trans character in May Marigold (albeit only revealed on Twitter). In general, these depictions of sexuality have been pretty OK. Would have liked it if Ilia wasn’t immediately written out of the show after Volume 5 as it made her feel a bit more disposable than intended but whatever, subject for another day.

A. What examples do we have of Bumbleby being canon? One or two animation things and voice actors? Cool, when’s White Knight becoming canon.

B. I’ve heard Barbara say similar shit. Acting like that’s a male thing is fucking sexist.

C. I’m sorry but by every single standard of LGBT writing I’ve heard-wouldn’t they be considered tokens and flat caricatures? Since they’re so irrelevant and have so little character? They’re barely even characters INCLUDING their kid.

Sorry but considering how there’s no ground rules made for what is good LGBT rep- I can only go off what others have said. And so many, OVERWHLEMINGLY MANY, people have said Saphron and Terra aren’t good.

D. Okay the Illa thing is yet another example of why ground rules need to be set. Saphron and Terra BOTH are written out in Volume 6 so wouldn’t they get chewed out too? What makes Illa getting written out different or more disposable?

RWBY’s male rep though is a bit spottier. There’s the plant bois in Volume 5’s premiere, we nearly had Pilot Boi until some last-minute revisions, and… Scarlet.

Look about the same as the female LGBT audience to me. Why is this so bad?

“Why Scarlet’s a bad launchpad for male LGBT rep”

I don’t like Scarlet or how his sexuality has been handled. Scarlet’s homosexuality wasn’t revealed in the show, or by the writers, or even in anything that’s actually canon. He’s confirmed gay in his sole of dialogue in a non-canon fan anthology, where the manga’s Twitter team had to say that Miles suggested the idea and approved of it.

In short, Scarlet is Dumbledore’d, where his sexuality is revealed in out-of-show material and in a way that doesn’t make it supremely obvious (Miles himself never commented to confirm this so this news was limited in how far it could spread. I’m genuinely curious how many people still don’t know Scarlet’s gay), and Scarlet himself is a nothing character who was written out of the show after Volume 3 and only reappeared in Before The Dawn, half a decade after he vanished. Compared to Ilia, as this came out after Ilia’s entire arc in Volume 5, it’s not a great starting point for mlm rep. But things would have been forgiven if it had gotten better, if the show did have more male LGBT characters introduced, even just on the Saphron/Terra level of just being around for a few episodes before leaving. Then it would have been a misfire but then we could all say “Things got better.”

Why should I care?

See, part of the job of a critic is to make the problems understandable to the audience. I emphasized ground rules because it gives the reader a base level understanding of what constitutes as good in this case. Why should I think Scarlet is bad when Saphron and Terra are on the same level and you said they were at least acceptable?

It… didn’t. Which is why when Before the Dawn released in 2020, a full two years after Scarlet was first confirmed gay, while the franchise had more than doubled its wlw rep, Scarlet remained the one male character in the entire franchise who had a name and liked men. I remember vividly a fake leak for After The Fall which claimed Yatsuhashi would come out to Velvet and admit to having a crush on Fox. And I remember as well how many people were disappointed when it was said to be false, because it would have been nice for Yatsuhashi’s character, especially after the fleshing out he gets in the CFVY books. If Yatsu had come out as gay in the books I’d like his writing enough to say he’s a good case for rep, albeit with the caveat of “This is all in side material.” But in reality, the leak was fake and Coco was confirmed gay instead.

I remember the same leak. Yatsuhashi also disappeared at the same time and even if he was fleshed out-he’s still irrelevant to the show so wouldn’t he be bad? And if it’s about having fleshed out characters, why did Illa whose a fully realized character get shaded while effective background characters praised?

Unfortunately, Before the Dawn proceeded to ruin Scarlet and made me at times feel genuinely uncomfortable as a queer man! Let’s talk about that.

And people said the same about Saphron and Terra and people get backlash for praising them over other lesbian characters.

I hate Before the Dawn. It’s… bad. I read it while on a vacation and the only solace I had about the entire thing was that I’d bought an M&M chocolate bar. The bar was finished before the book. That bummed me out. It’s not a very well written book, the prose is very Early 2010s YA Writer, none of the characters are memorable and there’s various Fun Incidents like “NGDO using children as bait for Grimm,” and “Neptune’s hydrophpobia being used as a threat to torture him and the scene is played for comedy.”

A. NDGO is repeatedly shown to be massive assholes in the book.

And B. I can’t really find anything wrong there. In one of my favorite shows, Justice League Unlimited, criminals get threatened with actual torture and even death and it’s treated as a joke. Yeah the context is different in that the victim are criminals but both the villains and Neptune get over it so quickly I see no real problem here. Especially since Jaune’s own low self worth was a joke up to Volume 5.

Theo was cool. I can’t wait to see him as written by good writers, he should be a highlight of the Vacuo arc.

Don’t go blaming E.C. Myers for this- Miles and Kerry helped. You’d have to call them shit writers too.

I had two hopes for Before the Dawn- “Don’t be bad,” and “Let Scarlet and Sage be well written.” I’d liked how After The Fall had handled some of its characters (barring, y'know, Coco perving on women), especially Fox and Yatsu who were surprising in how much I liked them. I was looking forward to seeing Myers give Sage and Scarlet similar treatment- two relatively nothing characters meant he’d have a blank slate to write them however he wanted, he could give them unique personalties and if nothing else it could be cool to see their Semblances.

You know how frustrating it is to see people blame Miles and Kerry for shit that Monty had a hand in and may have even been responsible for?

Yeah well we finally found the flipped version-

Miles and Kerry worked with Myers on the book. Just as Monty is just as much at fault as Miles and Kerry, they’re just as much at fault as Myers.

And then I read the book. (Sage fans I am so sorry for you, you got baited harder than Johnlock fans)

I thought we were talking about male LGBT rep.

Scarlet’s a giant dickhead in the book. It’s his sole character trait and his inner monologues go on, and on, and on about how much he hates Sun, how he revels in mocking him. Most of his dialogue is sarcastic put-downs about Sun and how lame he is, and Sun is never properly allowed to defend himself or point out how going with Blake meant he was able to help save Haven Academy.

You mean like how character criticized Yang for being so reckless even though she was trying to save Blake?

It shouldn’t matter what the intent or results are- Sun and Yang still did bad things and affected the people around them. They should be criticized, especially Sun here since A. He’s still doing it in the book, B. He hasn’t had any real flaws in the show which means his dynamics and interaction are limited and C. This addresses what people bitched at him about in Volumes 4 and 5 thus robbing them of the excuse to chew him out anymore.

(hey remember when Sun in Volume 6 expressly says to Blake “I was a bad leader for ditching Neptune and the others, and I need to work on that” only for Before the Dawn to have him staunchly refuse to accept that he let the team down? I don’t think Myers did but I do)

Remember how characters in RWBY don’t always learn their lesson, especially when it’s related to mental issues like...say....losing their parents and trying to run from their problems?

Also remember how MILES AND KERRY ALSO HELPED WRITE THAT BOOK?

Scarlet being a ratty bitch would be one thing if, again, the franchise had done more rep. He’d still be a badly written character, but it wouldn’t sting as much. But because Scarlet is still the only expressly confirmed male LGBT character in canon (the book teases that Nolan is gay but there’s never confirmation either way beyond him smiling at Scarlet), it means that he has to represent that entire ideal. So when the one gay man in Remnant is being an asshole and a snide loser, that means that by extension, this is how the franchise sees gay men. And that fucking sucks! I wanted to come out of Before The Dawn singing its praises, I wanted to like the book, but it was a massive letdown, especially coming off of the other big 2020 RWBY controversy involving gay characters.

Fun fact: LGBT people can be assholes.

In fact, Scarlet would be the ONLY LGBT character to be snide in the show. Kind of makes him unique in that regard. ...If he was an asshole in canon. When in canon, he’s portrayed as hurt and bitter over Sun’s repeated irresponsibility and doing what anyone would do in his situation.

So honestly, he’s pretty fucking human which I would praised BEYOND being LGBT.

Yeah. We’re doing this.

Remember, you choose to do all this.

Clover and Fair Game: Technically not queerbaiting. BUT:

But nothing. Once again, without any ground rules for what you constitute as ‘queerbaiting’- I only have myself to rely on. And just about every serious definition says Queerbaiting is baiting LGBT rep or pairings to get people to watch the show.

Issue? Not only was Fair Game not used to promote the show, there are other LGBT characters in RWBY. You can’t be queerbaited anymore than a straight person can be ‘straightbaited’ (We’ll be getting into SO MUCH MORE than this later...).

Let’s pre-empt this: Clover wasn’t queerbaiting, and Fair Game, while cool and I dig it, kudos to them for becoming one of the top 5 RWBY pairings on AO3 in one year that’s fucking impressive (I say with mild malice as an IronQrow main), never had a chance. The writing never seriously boosted it barring one interaction which was flirty (them talking in the lobby of the Schnee Manor), and everything else was out of show boosting through the social media teams and CRWBY hyping it themselves by saying they liked it. If you wanna blame people, blame the animators who went off-script with stuff like Kim Newman adding the wink as a deliberate nod to the Volume 4 waitress, or the social media team deliberately using the same policies for Fair Game as they do for Renora and Bumblebee.

So nothing I should give a shit about since marketing teams often work detached from the actual product and are notoriously CUTTHROAT.

It wasn’t Eddy’s fault that things escalated, and he himself has said that in retrospect, he should have warned people that this never had a shot.

But I can’t blame the Fair Game fanbase. Because Fair Game took off like wildfire. It came right as the fanbase began seriously asking for more male rep, Qrow’s pretty hot, and the Clover wink came right after the Great IronQrow Reawakening of November 9th, 2019. The rocket was primed, and they rode it to the moon. Finally, to these people, after seven years RWBY seemed to be doing something with mlm rep in show. People started getting into RWBY just for Clover and Qrow’s interactions. And if heroes were boring, Watts and Tyrian also had a fantastic dynamic that made Nuts and Volts one of the more popular villain ships overnight. Things seemed to be turning around! RWBY was remembering that gay men existed! You could hear the choir sing!

... You JUST said that show didn’t bolster the ship aside from one interaction (one that pales to the shit I use to say in private to fuck with people). It was obviously NOT meant to be a serious component of the show. If people got into a show for something it was never meant to stick to- it’s their own fault for when that part falls away.

… And for those people, that meant that episode 12 hit like Truck-Kun.

People got pissed. People were horrified. And it didn’t help that some members of CRWBY had said in the build-up that episode 12 would have some shots that made them nauseous (probably the Tyrian thumb thing) Out of context, it looked to these fans like CRWBY were basically laughing at their suffering, like they were saying “Lol, you thought you had a chance, get fucked, I hope your vomit burns on the way up.”

Yeah, Fair Game was never gonna be canon, and I think some people ran too far with it. But in the wider context of how desperate RWBY’s mlm community had gotten for basic crumbs of content? I can see why they’d run with what they had. The writers aren’t at fault for what happened, but CRWBY didn’t help matters. And that desperate mix of what felt like official backing from the crew, jokes about how cute the ship was, and the hope that finally the show would have onscreen rep? I can see why people ran with it.

Ah huh ah huh ah huh-

Now do that for the first three Volumes of the show with a bigger fan favorite, more build up and kill one half of it off at the end of the show’s big dark turn while the creators are even MORE unsympathetic.

Sorry but when compared to Arkos, this looks fucking minscule. And you invoked the Arkos comparison due to the numerous parallels. And just like with the Arkos fans, I’ll disregard this without a second thought.

‘But Mlm are STARVED for content-’

Then go somewhere else. I’ve been saying this to your Wlw AND Straight counterparts for years. You are not entitled to have ‘a meal’. The show didn’t advertise in universe around rep- That is not the point. This is like saying you hate nachoes because it dares to have chips instead of more toppings.

So why is the show more lackluster in depicting mlm characters?

I don’t think you ever answered that the question ‘is the show’s mlm lackluster?’ because you spent a third of this post talking about something you basically admit doesn’t count.

Money. Let’s be honest, most RWBY fans don’t care if the show doesn’t have good male rep. I’m willing to bet some of you reading this won’t care and just dismiss it as not being that big a problem.

I dismiss all the romance related shit as not being that big of a problem, so what?

I don’t think the writers care if the show doesn’t have good mlm rep because they’re not poaching that market. They’re after what they see as a bigger, more lucrative market, which in this case is female LGBT rep. That gets people buying games, watching shows, raising awareness and boosting awareness of your property, which means you make more money. In short: Two women kissing hits more markets and generates more attention than two men.

I’d believe that if not for the fact that there is barely any lesbian merch for RWBY, which would be the key way to cash in on that market and squeeze them for as much money as possible. In fact, there’s barely ANY shipping merch from Rooster Teeth. Rather unusual if they’re trying to cash in on a market.

‘Well what’s YOUR explanation?’

Easy: Misandry and moving goalposts.

Guys notoriously get shat on in the fandom more than women. Jaune is STILL being called a spotlight stealing MAry Sue and numerous people are siding against Ironwood because he’s a man. So making good male LGBT rep would just be inviting more pipe bombs in the mail.

And a large amount of people like to claim RWBY has yet to give GOOD female LGBT rep, constantly raising the bar to get what they want. And considering they make up the original hatedom in the show- they naturally hold more power.

Tl;Dr- You fucked yourselves out of good male rep by having male characters having any focus whatsoever be a death sentence.

Am I saying that Miles, Monty and Kerry deliberately sat down seven years ago and said “We’re not doing gay men because it won’t generate enough ad revenue and traffic to be worth the loss in revenue from homophobes?” No, that’s silly. But I’m saying that it’s less important for them, and it shows in the things that are small and add up. Things like Miles not verifying Scarlet’s sexuality or retweeting the manga account’s confirmation to spread the message (compared to how he enthusiastically confirmed Ilia being a lesbian himself during the Reddit AMA). It shows in how Pilot Boi would have been the first mlm character only to die in his second full episode until M&K were told about the Bury Your Gays trope. It shows in how Shannon believes that Ozma is “megaqueer” and Miles jokingly laughs it off instead of confirming it, leaving it to just be Shannon’s headcanon. It shows in how actor shipping is compared between the mlm and wlw ships, where Arryn and Barbara’s frequent pushes for Bumblebee are seen as “official confirmation that it’s endgame” while Michael and Kerry saying they enjoy Seamonkeys is treated as “well it would be cute if they did it, but they’re never going to.”

The whole point of AMA is answer questions, one of which was ‘is Illa a lesbian’ among SEVERAL others.

Yeah and Illa gets called a psycho lesbian.

Yeah and no other voice actor headcanon has been accepted. In fact, Kara pushes for White Knight and the writers don’t even so much as acknowledge that unlike Shannon. Also I dunno what ‘megaqueer’ means but his only on screen relationship was straight so that’s probably why it wasn’t confirmed.

Not the creators, don’t care.

I’m not gonna say anything like “CRWBY are gonna have Qrow end up with a woman like Robyn out of spite against the bad apples of the Fair Game crowd.” I’m not gonna say that I don’t think CRWBY cares about male representation in the series. It is, however, definitely a low priority for them, and because that leads to gaffes like Scarlet’s writing in Before The Dawn being offensive in his depiction, it only makes the contrast between the sexes all the more painfully apparent.

Again, the female side ain’t much better. Fuck, the straight side isn’t much better. This was never a focus of the show.

I’m kinda tired of waiting for Rooster Teeth to show that they do care about mlm. I’m kinda tired of RWBY’s male rep being written like it came from a 1993 time capsule where I have to enhance the screen to see a guy holding a sign of Sun’s abs or be content with the only onscreen rep still being the plant bois in Volume 5. I’m tired of how often the crew dances around answering basic questions about sexuality (and age, and birthdays, and heights, and so on) by treating it as a spoiler question, as if just wanting to know what way people swing would ever be a spoiler. I’m just… tired of all this. When the best mlm rep in Rooster Teeth’s history remains the two dads in Camp Camp who show up in a few episodes, that should say something really bad about your company and your biases (To say nothing of the recent Red vs Blue seasons and their blatant queerbaiting for Grif and Simmons and the whole can of worms that is Donut).

And their best rep in wlw according to some people is a psycho lesbian.

This is all just personal opinion that is next to useless without the basis needed for clear understanding. I don’t know what you would consider good male LGBT rep aside from a squeaky clean good guy...and many would decry that as condescending and unrealistic.

What can they do except ignore EVERYONE and just do whatever they feel like?

P.S. Someone’s representation is NOT their view on LGBT people. Especially since, as I have said, the reception of said rep can be outright contradictory.

I’d like to not feel like I’m borderline unwelcome because I’d like to see two men in this show kiss, and that the sole thing that represents people like me in this show is some British twat who complains about sand.

Oh fuck off. I’m also apart of a minority group (autists) and yet you don’t see me winging about how unwelcome I feel because there’s no autistic characters. I relate to characters like Ruby not because they have shallow autistic traits but because I constantly struggle with the same ideological dilemma Ruby does: the struggle to keep doing good in an uncaring, cruel world. THAT is what you should find relatable and welcome. Not something like sexuality.

I’d just like to feel like my sexuality isn’t a joke to Rooster Teeth (or at the very least, be like Donut and have it be a funny one). But at this point after the last few years? I feel like a very uncomfortable punchline to them. And it just sucks.

Cool-Welcome to club. You know, since EVERY sexuality has been used a punchline by Rooster Teeth.

Your sexuality should be the LAST thing that you use to find being welcome, especially with a god damn company. And you have no one to blame for your feelings but yourself here.

Your post is damn near useless and I don’t even know how honest that RT stuff is considering Miles and Kerry get away while E.C. Myers gets blamed for stuff you don’t like.

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meowvelousmayhem · 4 years

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LOOKING FOR RP PARTNERS

Hey, you can call me Mayhem or M.M. for short. I’m not new to Tumblr, but I created this account specifically for my OCs and story ideas that I would like to RP. Amid this unique situation where I find myself with more time (as of March 15, 2020), I would love to RP with someone. I’ve RPed on-and-off for about 8 or so years now, first on DeviantArt, and most recently on Google Docs. But now I am looking for a roleplay partner/partners that are chill and just want to write some teen/young adult romance that may or may not be cliche and involve people getting/being famous and stuff or fantasy rps based off of fairytales or Greek mythology. I’m also open to RPing my story ideas or yours!

So, to begin with, I have some rules/things you should know about me:

-As much as I hate to say it, I’m a sucker for cliches. But I also like to develop original ideas, so my plots/stories will be a mix

-I am a college student, and while I may not be in class physically for the next few weeks, I do have class and a job, therefore I will not be available all of the time. However, I will always try to let you know if I’m having a particularly busy day and won’t respond more than three times. Generally, I do have more free time now so that should only happen on a test day or something. I’m in Central Daylight Time.

-I am okay with RPing characters that have gone through mature situations, such as those with histories of abuse, EDs, and etc. However, I will not write explicit smut scenes. I will fade it to black. I am okay with inuendos, flirting, and heavy makeout sessions though.

-Since there could be mature situations, I’d prefer my RP partner to be like 17+

-With my last RP partner, we mostly wrote dialogue. I think my style now leans towards at least one paragraph, or two. In your response basically, just give me something to work with, and not just dialogue all the time (occasionally, this is fine). Honestly, I’m really chill about this. I just want to have some fun romance RP times.

-I like to write romance, preferably f/m pairings, but will also do f/f and m/m. We can discuss how we both want things to go, I’m pretty flexible!

- I don’t normally do face claims, every once in a while I will, but it’s fine if you want to. For my characters, I will have a separate post for each OC with aesthetics (about 6 pictures that I feel like are my characters) and a short playlist of songs, as well as their backgrounds and pertinent info. If you want to RP with me, for your character, I would at least like background info, which you can do in a post or message to me.

- In terms of how we RP, I only am really familiar with Tumblr Messaging or Google Docs. I could do Discord if that’s your preferred. I just have no idea how it works so lol

Secondly, here are some things I like to RP, beyond just my story ideas:

YA RP (preferably older high school/college)

Fantasy RP (whether that be a modern fantasy in the real world, or a totally made up universe)

- for example: Modern Hades and Persephone, anything modern Greek mythology, something inspired by Legacies, mermaids, royalty, something like The Raven Boys, FAIRY TALES

Some tropes I like are enemies-to-lovers, best friends mutually pining but afraid to take the first step, sweetheart with grumpy, sassy energetic character with cold stoic character, and more. Like I said, I’m a sucker for cliches.

Finally, my story ideas:

- One of my ideas centers around a band consisting of four guys. I have a love interest in mind for each and a general idea of how they meet, but the plot can be up to me and my partner to flesh out fully. Generally, I’m up to either rp as the boy or girl, but I have two OCs I definitely want to write for in this story.

So, these characters are college-aged, and 4 boys in a band; the lead-singer, the lead guitarist (my OC Levi), the bassist, and the drummer. They’re gaining a following on YouTube and are planning a tour locally. I envision them at a college near a beach for some reason, preferably east coast since that’s what I’m most familiar with.

For Levi, the lead guitarist: he and his love interest met on some social media like Tumblr when they were middle schoolers, and didn’t know their true identities, but became friends after some initial misunderstanding. This communication continues for years, and they became best friends. However, one of them ghosted due to personal reasons, and never came back online. Years later, while Levi is in college and the band is becoming super popular, they meet again, but don’t know that they knew each other. Shenanigans ensue. Levi’s character post is here. I could see Levi’s love interest as male or female, your choice

For the drummer, his love interest is my OC, Arden. Arden is the roommate of the female best friend of the four band members. It is their first semester in college. The roommate is super important in getting Arden and her love interest together. In my mind, Arden has a history of emotional abuse from her previous love interest, and has an anxiety disorder and an eating disorder. If eating disorders are triggering to you, but you still want to RP with this character, she can just have the anxiety disorder. She is a photography major. Her character post is here.

For the lead singer, I imagine his love interest to be the female lead singer of another “rival” band. Some kind of twitter fued starts, but then they end up meeting in person. Female is not at all interested in his advances, but he totally has the hots for her.

For the bassist, I imagine his love interest as the female best friend of the band (Arden’s roommate). They’ve known each other for a long time, and both are pining, but are too afraid to approach the topic of becoming more than friends. Their love story might begin after the boys have “made it” and are signed to a record label and go on a world tour.

Other ideas include:

- Sophie is the daughter of a famous musician, and she is also interested in music and becoming famous. In high school, she dates a person who’s a year older than her, but they break up when he leaves for college. She becomes famous through her YouTube channel and immediately after high school is signed to a record label and develops a couple of EPs, with an album on the way. Her success is huge. Her record label decides to have her open for a male famous musician, who resents that she “got famous just because she’s the daughter of a famous musician” in his mind. There are two ways this could go:

1. She gets back with her ex. Neither of them wanted to break up, but he felt it was necessary since she was becoming famous and he just went to college. The famous musician she’s touring with decides to get into a relationship with her simply for the fame and doesn’t tell her, and is abusive to her emotionally and forces her into a world of partying and drugs. She eventually drunk calls her ex, who’s super worried. Lots of struggles and angst.

2. She dates the famous musician. Her ex cheated on her, leading to their breakup. She believes that the male famous musician is a player, as he sleeps around, and has no interest in him at all. At first, he views her as a conquest, since she rejects his advances completely, and he also wants to knock her down a peg. Later, he starts to develop real feelings for her, and she reencounters her ex at some point and musician comforts her.

- Beck is a 16-year old boy who has been adopted by a wealthy family. He was previously in the foster care system, and during his time with one family, he developed a protective older-brother like relationship with a little girl who was one of the other foster kids in the home. He wants to eventually be able to help her out and form a family. His adopted family is best friends with another family who lives right next door. This other family has a child Beck’s age, who is pretty into him. No plot developed yet really.

- this post

So just shoot me a message if you’re interested/have any questions! Mostly I just want to have a fun time and write some fluff, angst, drama and romance!

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brynwrites · 6 years

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Ask Compilation.

Topics covered:

Chapter Titles

Nonbinary character shenanigans

These Treacherous Tides, the series

Marketing yourself as an author via blog

Starting back up with writing

Writing children

Writing fighting woman with big hearts

Differentiating casts who feel similar

Writing in your native language vs English

And a few notes from my lovely followers.

All other questions should be listed on the ask queue page. (Except the last two WIP related questions I haven’t gotten around to answering…)

Chapter Titles

@aithlynfreyeaesthetic asked: Hello, I hope you're doing well. Are chapter title absolutely necessary? I've been avoiding chapter titles purely because I'm horrible at titles, but I've just always wondered.

Not at all! The majority of fiction books don’t use chapter titles. They can be fun, especially in certain genres, but they’re in no way necessary.

Nonbinary character shenanigans

@thebravetinsoldier asked: Hi! I’m writing a steampunk story were the main character is being hunted because they’ve cheated death and become immortal by changing their “deceased” parts with robotics and magic. I really want this character to be nonbinary, but part of the explanation is that they’ve changed parts of themselves so much that they no longer remember if they were a boy or a girl. Is this a bad thing? Sorry for the bad formulation, English is not my first language.

First up, I want to clarify that there’s nothing inherently wrong with most concepts in which nonbinary people are robots or mythical creatures, but it does paint an uncomfortable picture simply because there are so few nonbinary character in existence who are actually human, creating a implication that nonbinary people are not-quite-human because humans are the ones who have binary genders.

You fix that particular issue with a small adjustment: Let there be fully human/non-magical nonbinary characters in the world, even if they’re just a side characters who only appears in one scene.

The main problem here though, is the idea that physical appearance determines identity. Rather than presenting the main character as not being able to identify whether they’re a binary gender, it’s far better to present it as them knowing they don’t (and have probably never) felt like a binary gender, and feeling happy with the way their body is androgynous, because they don’t feel the need to present as a specific gender*.

Let me illustrate it this way: A girl who losses her physical, female body (or is born in a male body) will be no less a girl, even if society tries to tell her that she could or should be a boy. With time, she’ll still decide she is in fact a girl, no matter what her body says. The same is true with nonbinary people. If a person composed of robotics and magic decides they’re nonbinary, then it’s because they’ve always been nonbinary; they might have just taken a while to figure it out, especially if they original had a body their society told them had to assign them a binary identity.

(*this is not a qualification of being nonbinary by the way, though it is a common feeling among many nonbinary people.)

These Treacherous Tides, the series

@kiarazuri asked: You’ve mentioned before that Pearl is set in a mermaid series called These Treacherous Tides (awesome title, btw) and I was wondering how many books you’ve got planned? Also whether or not any of the books will interact with each other or just be set in the same world?

The These Treacherous Tides series is going to be a more or less unconnected series of romance/family-oriented books about different species of merfolk (and humans), though I’m not opposed in any way to cameos, especially of side characters.

I don’t officially have a second book planned yet, but merpeople are one of my favorite things in existence, and the moment I finished Our Bloody Pearl I knew I wanted to write more books about them. I do have two concepts I want to play with in future books, so I’ll be fleshing them out further and picking a direction for them once I’m finished with We Are, We Are Monsters.

Marketing yourself as an author via blog

Anon asked: hi! i'm getting into the final stretch of writing my first novel (i have a few drafts left to complete and then i'll begin the self-publishing process!) and i was looking into how to market myself. among other things, i've been told to create a separate tumblr blog to post about my writing. obviously, yours is working very well! i was wondering if you would suggest doing this and if you have any tips to get it started/gain a following? thanks!

I would definitely suggest creating some kind of blog for writing, and in my experience the writeblr community here is very encouraging and one of the most interactive writing communities on the web. The one thing I will mention though, is that every follower you talk to (i.e. are acquaintances or friends with) are worth a hundred followers you don’t know. I owe all my success to having a ton of writeblr friends who have (and continue to) reblog my posts like they’re gold.

Check out my marketing tag for a ton of posts I’ve written about this! (Make sure you scroll down to the article on building an audience.)

Starting back up with writing

Anon asked: So I've just had exams so I had to stop writing for a while, but now I want to get back into writing my novel but I'm really struggling. I feel like I've forgotten everything ugh. Do you have any advice on how to jump back in?

My key tips:

Start small. Write 50 words. Take a break. Write another 50 words.

Remove distractions. If you’re on tumblr you’re not writing.

Don’t worry if your writing doesn’t sound good! (Follow the link for a full post!)

Writing children

@bloodybutterfly222 asked: Hey! I really love your tips, and I thought maybe you could help me with a problem I've been stumbling in. I have a story that partially revolves around parenting (bonding with a 2-year-old, more specifically) but I realized I don't know how to write children speech/dialogue. Since I've never had much contact with children myself, I'm even more at a lost about how to portray it significantly and yet accurately. Do you happen to have any tips on the matter?

I would love to help you, but I have little current experience in this area too. (Which I’m kicking myself over, because I did nanny through all of college, but I didn’t actually think about the way children speak while I was doing it and so when I write my own child characters they tend to be really stiff and generic.)

The one piece of advice I will impart is this: Children are a lot smarter and braver and more creative than they’re given credit for, and they really do say the darnedest things. Some of my most memorable experiences with kiddos:

An eight year old asked me where evil and sin came from if god didn’t create it and then had a theological conversation with me that most adults couldn’t match.

He and his younger bother decided the heroes of our story would win by buying the villain a million ketchup covered pancakes.

Same younger bother spent ten minutes jumping on his bed shouting chocolate chips at the top of his lungs because he didn’t want to sleep.

Also same young brother would tell everyone he was moving across the country for exactly seven years whenever he was angry.

Multiple instances of really polite 4-6 year old kids coming up to me while I worked retail at the Zoo, asking some variation of “Excuse me, miss, but would be okay if I could buy one of those cups, thank you” and then conducting the entire purchase on their own.

Writing fighting woman with big hearts

@tokinokagura asked: Hello Sir, Regarding your answer about strong female characters. In your opinion, where do females who are strong and independent yet have a very very kind side (like a fighting mom or big sis type, or a type who got something to be strong for) and also how do I approach this scenario of a strong independent fighting strong mother/big sis figure? Thanks in advance

There’s no trick to writing this sort of character; you just write them. Show her being both strong and nurturing, independent and compassionate. Explore the way these traits interact and enhance each other. Does she love her own freedom and want to provide others who are oppressed the same independence she’s found? Does she see compassion as something the strong are required to give? Does she believe true heroes are the ones who fight for others? Look deeper into how she became who she is and why she fights for those she fights for, and then carry that throughout the story in every scene, every choice she makes.

Differentiating casts who feel similar

@katekarl asked: Alright, I could use some help with this WIP. I have a heavy cast of female characters, and I need a way to keep them from sounding too similar. Some of them ARE similar, and the differences in worldview/personality/dialogue might be a little too nuanced. What are some ways that I can try and keep them from looking like they were copy-pasted into their different roles?

Bullet points!

Unless your world is heavy on the sexism and holds to very constricting gender norms, it shouldn’t make any difference that they’re all women; they should have just as diverse a range of personalities, hobbies, strengths, etc as if they were a group of any mix of genders, so long as the class and cultural diversity doesn’t change.

If your characters are too similar to differentiate between them, then you probably don’t actually need all of them. Any two characters who consistently make very similar choices should almost always be combined. If two characters are in fact making very different choices despite being similar in personality and background, then it might be time to sit down and figure out where those choices are coming from and adjust one of the characters to make the origin of their choices obvious.

In my opinion, quirkier characters are always more fun than un-quirky characters, and there are a million different crazy and eccentric traits you can give your characters to make them stand out. (I have a post about developing side characters here which has a few more, similar concepts.)

Writing in your native language vs English

Hi, I can speak English on a B2/C1 level but it's not my native language. I want to write a novel but idk what language I should write in. I have a poetry blog in English and I used to write stories in English but I feel like something more serious requires wider vocabulary and better language skills in general. I have nowhere to post/publish it in my native language though, so it would probably end up forgotten if I were to write it in my native language:/ what do you think I should do?

I don’t have any advice other than this: You’ll get better at a language the longer to try to write more complicated things in it. If you want to write something more serious in English someday, the only way you’ll get there is by writing something serious is English now, even if you do a poor job of it at first.

Kind words

Anon said: I just wanted to say thank you for that fanfic answer and letting us in on what inspired you. I have an original novel in the works basically inspired by Steve and Bucky and wanting them to eventually build a definite relationship. But I didn’t want to write a fanfic, even though I love fanfic. It turned into a space opera thing

You’re very welcome! That sounds like an awesome space opera, and I wish you the best of luck with it! <3

Anon said: Hi I just saw what you said about writing through mental illness and I just had to tell you that it helped me so much! There is so much power in the advice and motivation you put there, thank you.

I’m glad it could help! I’ve been struggling as a writer (and human) with depression and anxiety for year now, and I’m just happy to share what I’ve learned <3 I’ll admit that some days I don’t... well I almost said I don’t win this battle, but that’s not a mentally healthy way of looking at it. Some days I have to give myself time to recoop. Some days, taking proactive steps towards tomorrow is the best course of action, even if that doesn’t include writing. (And the taking to best course of action is always a successful day, even if you didn’t get to any of the things you wanted to.)

Anyhow, I’m proud of myself for coming this far and I’m proud of you all for growing alongside me!

Anon said: Not an ask, rather a message. Sorry if it's in the wrong place--I'm kinda new. So, yes, I'm a newbie and I found your blog, and I love it! Keep on writing. I'll be looking forward your works. Cheers!

Thank you my friend! (This is exactly the write place. You’re so sweet to take the time to say this <3)

#writeblr #writing asks #ask compilation

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clairen45 · 6 years

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What’s in a Name? Naming Rey and Ren in the New Trilogy- part 2/3

EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD: a King and a Queen, a Man and a Woman

The second main theme induced by their naming is the question of royalty. It should not be a surprise there. JJ Abrams was very explicit in his commentary about Rey searching Maz castle

In this scene, she is drawn to this place, almost like...Cinderella.

and Ren revealing under his mask the unexpected figure of a prince.

And because we used to have Kylo Ren take the mask off in the original version, both in front of Snoke and privately with the Vader mask, and we changed both of those. This now becomes the first time that you see who’s behind the mask. And because of Vader, I think you expect him to need the mask. That, like Vader, it’s some kind of breathing apparatus, some sort of necessity. But when his mask comes off, you see Adam Driver, and he just looks like a sort of prince. And it makes no sense. Why would he wear a mask?

Even though people were anticipating Rey to be a princess in disguise, TLJ makes sure to underline she is a nobody, the shepherdess of the fable. Why some people were outraged is beyond me. The shepherdess after all usually represents high moral values and qualities that make her worthy and thus equal to a prince. Her journey where she has to undergo a series of tests and losses is in itself way more gratifying than that of the princess waiting in her tower. And Rey, interestingly enough, is shaken out of her role of waiting passively on Jakku to a life of action and adventure that puts her forth in the way of a prince (the said prince who ironically set this arc into motion by wreaking havoc on the planet where she was doing nothing at all with her life). So she is the scavenger and he is literally the prince, in his own right, which again comes heavily in his lineage. His mother and grandmother were royalty after all.

But it is a prince of mixed parentage, with a slave boy as a grandfather and a smuggler as a father, which is of high importance in their relationship.

Never does he seem to state that he finds the 'just a scavenger' girl beneath him. In TFA he even changes subjects when he senses that she is embarrassed by her condition, which is surprisingly tactful, and in TLJ, the 'you are nothing' statement leads to him dismissing it altogether and that he does not view her as being 'nothing'. So there is not, so to speak, any status divide between them in his mind. If anything he is even more awed by her, given her background.

So here we have a prince and a princess of sorts, a boy and a girl, whose journey is to learn how to become a king and a queen, a man and a woman. To know about their place in the world, and not just how to be leaders or rulers over the galaxy and the resistance, but symbolically how to be the rulers of their own lives and fates, and how to behave as fully grown-ups in a couple or partnership. In this case ruling together does not mean sitting on a throne together, it also means being strong together, that out of the partnership could come true power.

But even who gets which name can't be coincidental and foils whoever fears this relationship might be abusive due to our first impressions of them (but since Jane Austen we should know better of first impressions, shouldn't we?). For the king is NOT the boy. Rey is obviously Spanish for king, but I will suggest looking at the old French for "king", "Roy". In this light, Ren is reminiscent of "Reine" or "queen" in French. So we have our king and or queen but the genders have been totally shuffled. What could it mean? Many things... but in my view...

First, it reinforces what has been the current arc of their relationship, which points to Rey becoming the dominant one and Kylo being redeemed through his acceptance of Rey's power over him. After all, there is a pattern so far. Look at the progression in their relationship when it comes to his final proposals, since every movie ends with him reaching out to her with a new offer that would bind them together. TFA: I will be your teacher, i.e., the dominant one.

She refuses and breaks him physically. TLJ: let's rule together, i.e. as equals, which already means he has toned down a bit. She refuses and lets him unconscious and broken psychologically.

Where does it go from here? The clues are all over, right? He has offered her knowledge, he has offered her power, if love is the answer as pointed out in TLJ though the character of Rose, the hidden hearts in the visuals of TFA, and the not so subtle compassion line of TFA which is reminiscent of Anakin's line to Padme (compassion is ‘unconditional love’), at the very least he has to offer something he has not offered yet: love. The one thing that he feels deficient in and is unable to show to himself or others. Which also means that according to the progression of his character he has to recognize her as the dominant one, which is foreshadowed in the beginning of the interrogation scene, with him kneeling at her feet, in a very submissive, courtly stance.

Secondly, this mixing of gender demonstrates the strength of their bond. They are, or need to be, one with the Force, and being one, like Platonic soulmates finally bound back together, there is no telling where one begins and one ends.

Their identities, even gender identities, become porous. I do not think it means she becomes a she-male and he turns into less of a man, rather it points out to balance, harmony, not just between dark and light (the recurring and obsessive theme) but also between feminine and masculine, like Yin and Yang, an escape from the dichotomous and the duality that normally pervade the saga. This blending of the genders has been played out through the choices of costumes and the sketching of their characters since TFA, with Ren, being draped in long gowns, with a long, sinewy silhouette, and his long hair when he takes off his helmet. These so commented upon lustrous locks and lack of facial hair appear very distinct from Finn and Poe's short dos or our usually bearded Jedi. The look was distinctly boyish, many people calling it EMO or goth inspired. I would not go as far as calling it androgynous but Vader’s square massive shape it is not, nor Luke's boyish wholesomeness, nor Han's roguish and conventionally masculine charm. If Ren is clearly portrayed as attractive in the interrogation scene, there is an unconventional lure to him. Whereas Rey, at the beginning, with her scavenger garb and mask (she is also a creature in a mask after all) also appears undefined in her gender.At first glance (even though the fabric draped around her is tell-tale feminine) she could be an alien, she could be a little boy, a little girl, a man or a woman.

She is also assuming roles that are not distinctively feminine (even though to be fair, SW has always been rather progressive in that realm): a scavenger, a pilot, a mechanic, a fighter, a Jedi. Even the Yin and Yang that seem to be influential in the portrayal of the couple is consciously mixed and blurred. The Yin is traditionally associated with the black, the female, the moon, the dark and water, whereas the Yang is linked with the white, the male, the sun and daylight. So here, we have the male character endowed with all the attributes of the feminine principle of the Yin, and the female character endowed with all the attributes of the masculine Yang.

But this is per their own choice of naming or self definition. Because as viewed through the others they are very distinctively male and female, Ren being the ‘son’, ‘the boy’ that must be brought back, and Rey being called out ‘the girl’ (mostly by Ren) throughout the movie.

As the cycle progresses, the original blurring is somewhat redefined, Ren becoming more and more decidedly masculine and Rey more feminine, moving on from the boy and the girl. As I pointed out before, their journey is also about learning how to define themselves as man and woman. Thus, Ren, who appears as a machine or a ghost (an apparition out of a nightmare in Rey's eyes, the ghost of Vader for us the audience and in his mind), is little by little literally stripped of his disguise and becomes more and more fleshed out, his physicality being materialized onscreen with his bare massive torso and the removal of his glove to meet Rey's hand. Gone are in TLJ the mask, trashed into a distorted shape (ironically like that of Vader’s in TFA), the gowns, the cloaks, and, in its stead, he starts favoring a more conventionally male uniform of pants and short tunic.

Rey, on the other hand, lets her hair down and also starts showing a little more skin, even though her look is still practical for a fighter.

Again, there was some outcry at Ren's apparently gratuitous nakedness. The official statement released was that the naked chest and Rey's reaction to it served the purpose of highlighting that they not just sensed each other presence, but really could see each other through the bond, all too convenient but not very convincing. One could rather point out that it goes towards showing Ren no longer as a monster but as a man, a man and not a boy, no longer ´a child playing with a mask', a man fully grown. And this in itself is actually very canon in SW standards since it has an iconic precedent otherwise known as Princess Leia' s slave outfit, aka THE BIKINI, in ROTJ. As Leia's son it seems only fair that Ren would bring sexy back in a galaxy usually so far far away from such trivial matters, but taking a page from his mother, it also shows the evolution of his arc. Critiques have long justified the skimpy costume of the warrior princess as indicating of the development of her relationship with Han Solo, when she stops 'being just a princess' and 'becomes a woman', as if she was not a woman before and had to strip down to make that obvious. Given that the object of her affection was anyhow too blinded by his time in carbonite to fully appreciate the show, and that she was already in love with her scoundrel before, this was a moot point. Let us take it as it was, in all its glory, for male and female audiences alike, it was eye candy.

In this current blurring of the female/male paradigm that the new trilogy seems to explore, the choice to have the male characters (with even Finn barely dressed in a plastic bubble medical suit) and not the female one is the clever way to go. Eye-candy it was, but contrary to his mother, it was not gratuitous as plotline is concerned. Ren becomes a man in our eyes but also in Rey’s, who is very noticeably flustered by the apparition, and who, during their next encounter, significantly holds out her hand to the one who is no longer just a creature in a mask, but a man in the flesh. Learning how to be a man, learning how to be a woman...

#reylo #reylo fandom #reylo evidence #kylo x rey #kylo ren #kylo rey #star wars meta #reylo meta

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cherry-valentine · 7 years

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Summer 2017 Anime Season: What I’m Watching:

Konbini Kareshi is a slice of life high school romance that seems to focus more on the male perspective. It prominently features two couples but it looks like it might touch on more couples as well. The show is cute and sweet and has a “feel good” vibe. The drama never gets too serious (so far) but there’s enough conflict to keep you interested. The art and music are pleasant enough. It’s not my favorite of the season, but it’s just cute enough to stay on my watch list.

Dive!! is a show I had high hopes for. Another swimming anime animated by a studio with a great track record? It sounds like a guaranteed hit. But Dive!! is no Free! and that becomes clear by the end of the first episode. Dive!! looks great, has interesting character designs, and decent animation. The problem is that it seemingly fails to realize what makes sports anime so fun. We don’t watch sports anime for the actual sports. We watch it because we become invested in the characters and we want to see them win. And we become invested in the characters through watching their lives, in and out of the sport. Dive!! takes itself way too seriously, focusing almost entirely on the sport of diving and spending very little time developing the characters. I’ve watched every episode so far and I honestly can’t name a single character in the show. I don’t feel like I know any of them. They barely interact with each other at all, so we don’t get the usual team dynamics of sports anime. There’s very little humor as well. Despite all this, I’m still watching the show because I feel like it has potential. The last couple of episodes have tried to throw in some drama for the protagonist outside the sport, and at least one character has a very interesting back story that would be great if it were fleshed out. Dive!! can still be a good show, if the writers can just figure out how to let the audience connect with these characters.

Chronos Rulers is a fairly generic action fantasy anime. There’s nothing new to see here as we follow two attractive male protagonists as they travel around fighting enemies while searching for something important to them. Already sounds familiar, right? But being familiar isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and Chronos Rulers is an entertaining series with a few interesting ideas (the relationship between the two male leads, as revealed at the end of episode one, is genuinely surprising and the concept of using time as a weapon is, if not completely original, at least presented in a fun and fresh way). The character designs are sleek and stylish and the battle scenes are fantastic. It’s pretty clear that they decided to use the whole animation budget on the action scenes because the non-action scenes look pretty shabby by comparison. Still, given the genre of the series, this was probably a good decision. Chronos Rulers will never be a favorite, but it’s definitely a fun watch.

Shoukoku no Altair is like a more realistic and serious Magi. It’s set in and around a fictional desert nation with vague Arabian undertones and inexplicably stars a young blonde man. But instead of well-timed comedy and magic, we get political intrigue and a hero who relies on his wits much more than his physical capabilities. It’s an interesting setup, as the hero legitimately wants to avoid conflict at all cost and his goal in nearly every situation is de-escalation. The political aspects are made compelling by the way the show zeroes in on individual characters and how the various shifts in power affect them personally. The series also looks great and has good music. I can’t spell or pronounce any of the main characters’ names, but it’s still a solid show.

Vatican Kiseki Chousakan is one of my favorites this season, for one primary reason: the show neither glorifies nor vilifies the Catholic religion which features so prominently in the story. The series takes a fairly neutral stance on religion itself, which is refreshing. The two main characters are priests, and present a positive view of Catholicism, but at the same time, the show doesn’t shy away from portraying negative aspects as well. For example, there’s probably one major negative thing that comes to mind when you think of Catholic priests, right? Yes, this series goes there. It also makes the concept of miracles, and whether they exist or not, the defining plot point of the show. It’s all very interesting stuff, helped by the gorgeous art (the backgrounds are amazing) and the likable leads, Roberto and Hiraga. I also admired the guts it took to start the series with a multi-episode arc in an age where most anime open with a self-contained episode to introduce us to the setting and characters. At its core, this show is a mystery/thriller, and has enough creepy moments to make it good Halloween viewing, so keep that in mind for this fall. It also seems like it would lend itself well to marathon watching. High on my watch list.

Ballroom e Youkoso is very entertaining, in spite of or perhaps because of some flat-out weirdness. I have to say this first: The intense looks on the characters’ faces while they’re dancing are absolutely hilarious. They’re bizarre as hell, but still hilarious. It’s also hilarious that some of these characters look like they’re in their late 20‘s but are apparently fifteen. The female lead honestly looks waaaay too old for her supposed age. The exaggerated long-limbed and lanky figures add to this problem. Much of the anatomy and posing are downright impossible, but all this strangeness somehow adds to the show’s charm. The protagonist is, as per usual in shows like this, a likable, relatable underdog. Watching him grow through ballroom dancing is very satisfying. I honestly didn’t know ballroom dancing could be so much fun to watch, but I’ve learned that anime can make anything interesting if it’s done with the right mix of humor and tension. And this show has nailed that mix. Also, just gotta add, I would watch this show for the dresses alone. They're absolutely gorgeous and make me wanna cry rivers over the fact that I can't wear them.

Hitorijime My Hero is a BL series that caught my attention mainly by the fact that the protagonist is not the usual doe-eyed uke we see in shows like this (though there is an actual doe-eyed uke in the show, he’s a side character). Protagonist Setagawa is a pierced, bleached blonde delinquent trying to get his life back on track after separating from a bad group of guys, which automatically makes him a refreshing lead. He’s not naive. When the show’s lead seme (who does seem more like a traditional seme) toys with him, Seta is fully aware of it, and his reactions are more believable. This makes their relationship as a whole very interesting. The secondary relationship, between Seta’s best friend and a classmate, is more in line with the usual BL setup, and is unfortunately steeped in some of the worst BL tropes (manipulation and emotional blackmail galore). At least these negative tropes are presented in a more honest way in the main relationship, where the seme’s problematic tendencies are called out as being just that: problematic. Aside from that, the art is very nice, with very attractive character designs (Seta’s eyes are drawn in an usual way for a bishounen style but they give him personality). The music is also peppy and fun. Overall, it’s one of my favorites of the season.

Katsugeki/Touken Ranbu is basically a dream come true. A few seasons back, there was another Touken Ranbu anime and I talked about the fact that, after the first episode, I thought it was going to be my favorite of the season. The art was gorgeous (those outfits! those backgrounds! that generally fluid animation!) and the characters were likable. And the basic concept was really cool. Then the series went from an action fantasy series with awesome sword fights to a fluffy slice-of-life series about cute sword-boys doing laundry and opening butler cafes and going shopping. Like I said back then, it was cute and all, but I really wish it had stayed focused on the action elements because they were much more interesting. And now we have this anime, Katsugeki, and it’s pretty much everything I wanted from the first Touken Ranbu anime. The focus is squarely on the sword battles and the missions the characters go on to protect history from monstrous creatures. Yes, we get some humor and some silly hijinks but they are scattered lightly amongst the bloody battles. Katsugeki is awesome, and it’s at the very top of my watch list.

Cleanliness Boy Aoyama-kun is a comedy/parody series lightly disguised as a sports anime. You’d be forgiven for watching the first episode and dropping it, assuming it was a one-note series with not much to offer. But continue and watch episode two. I dare you watch the second half of the episode without cracking up. Aoyama-kun gives similar vibes to last year’s Handa-kun, as both feature a quiet protagonist seemingly obvlivious to the fact that he is surrounded by admirers who will sometimes go to extreme (and hilarious) lengths to help him. The major difference is that Handa wasn’t anywhere near as cool as everyone thought he was and assumed everyone hated him, whereas Aoyama is actually cool (even if he doesn’t know it) and is only vaguely aware that people like him. I think Handa-kun’s setup was more funny, but Aoyama-kun is still pretty good. The art is fine, with some nice comedic facial expressions, and the music is a good fit for the show. At its core, Aoyama-kun is a silly little show that is surprisingly entertaining if you give it a chance.

#Anime #Anime Reviews #Summer 2017 Anime #Touken Ranbu #Hitorijime My Hero #Seasonal Anime #ballroom e youkoso

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half-italy-half-austria · 7 years

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Werewolf ideas

Brought on by this post, but I go far beyond clothing in this.

I have a thing where I made up (or perhaps just grouped together, idk) several werewolf species that have different properties, however I’ve really only focused on one, so I’ll do the basic gist of three and pretty much all of the other one.

One species only transforms on full moons, which causes clothing to get ruined if they don’t get naked beforehand.

Another can transform at will (even during a full moon) and their clothes sort of “go with them” during the transformation and come back when they enter human form.

The third (which is the one I’ve fleshed out the most, so it’s really the first but whatever) is called Lupus Grandifauna, mainly because the people who fall under that category (males specifically, though females are no less imposing) get REALLY huge during a transformation. I based “grandifauna” on the term “grandiflora,” which is a cultivar of roses that are known for having large blooms. In human form Grandifauna men range in size almost as well humans, however the amount of above average sized men is much larger in quantity. Grandifauna men may also experience what I’ve called equilibrium, in which they may have been of average human size (or smaller, or bigger, or really anything) at one point, but due to an increased number of transformations (i.e. frequently transforming when not under a full moon), their height and musculature increase. While the transformations under a full moon may contribute to equilibrium, they will not have such a drastic effect as excessive transformations at will. Put simply: More big doggo=bigger manno. Grandifauna fall under the category of being able to transform at will and also being forced to transform on a full moon. Just like the second group I mentioned, when they do it at will, their clothes get preserved in the process, but their clothes can potentially get wrecked on a full moon, just like the first group. Grandifauna are humanoid from the knees up (about 3/4 the body minus the head, which is, you guessed it, a big wolf’s head) and possess the lower hind legs of (Shocker!) wolves, as well as having humanoid hands tipped by large claws. The structure of their legs allows them to stand upright like bipeds as well as sit, lie, and run like quadrupeds. Male Grandifauna are beasts with a massive, densely packed musculature coursing with extreme brute strength, whereas females possess long, graceful bodies capable of much higher agility and movement. While females on average are physically weaker, their strength is not something to misjudge, especially when combined with their high speed, mobility, and greater stealth capabilities. Males, despite their size are experts at stealth as well, but to a lesser degree. While a male may be able to silently track a herd of deer, the female is often the one to invade and kill off several before the herd notices, that way the male will still have a share should he not catch enough for himself.

In the case of equilibrium, I have a character who, in wolf form, is 10 feet tall standing upright and about 700 pounds, which is massive even for a grandifauna (they average 7.5-8 feet) and in human form he’s 6'5" and 300 lbs. Before a certain plot development he was 6′0 and 210 pounds, and because he began frequently searching for something in wolf form his height and weight increased, his transformations actually becoming so frequent that even his wolf form increased in size.

The fourth group is like the second, but they have an additional trait which is that the brightness of the moon affects their speed, full being the fastest, and new being the slowest. Other than that, there isn’t much of a difference.

In addition, there is a fifth group of werewolves known as the “Moonless,” which is a nice way of saying they can’t transform. The Moonless have to wear half moon necklaces depicting the First Quarter (the half moon before the full moon) to indicate their status in their communities. In old times the moonless were persecuted for being “essentially human failures” (ouch, right?), but modern communities are much more accepting of them. However, some still hold prejudice toward them, which is why they are given more security in the community than others due to the fact that they are still frequently attacked by members of their own kind. In the past, Moonlessness was thought to be a curse from the Moon Goddess, but modern science determined it was brought on by a rare gene. As mentioned before, the Moonless are essentially human, meaning they heal at the same rate and have the same average body temperature. They really are no different from humans aside from the fact that their blood doesn’t register as human on a DNA/blood test.

There is also Induced Moonlessness, in which an individual goes to the local witch/magical family (witches/sorcerers and all that jazz often get along well with werewolves) and buys a necklace or other piece of jewelry that catches their fancy (watches, rings, etc.) that is enchanted in a way that suppresses the wolf form, whether it be forced transformations under a full moon, or transformations brought on by those unable to control their emotions (read: rage). Induced Moonlessness is indicated on said jewelry by a Third Quarter moon, which is the half moon after the full. Some choose Induced Moonlessness of their own volition, whereas others are forced into it, usually because they have poor self control, criminal backgrounds, or both (instead of jewelry, which can be removed, the witch curses the individual.) Those with Induced Moonlessness still retain their accelerated healing rates and higher body temperature (around 105 degrees Fahrenheit).

As for reproduction, children (commonly referred to as pups) can be conceived in human or wolf form by way of sexual intercourse. It is believed a child is likely to be a better wolf when conceived in wolf form by its mother, and especially so on the night of a full moon. Conception in werewolves is the same as in humans, meaning it can take a few hours or up to 5 days for the egg to become fertilized. Should conception occur before the end of the full moon, the mother may be unable to transform into a human until after giving birth. Gestation is also the same as in humans: 9 months (about 40 weeks). Should the mother be unable to become human again she is often brought to an area of the community made specially for her and other expectant mothers, wherein they receive fresh meat and groomings from caretakers. Contrary to popular belief, most werewolves retain a large portion of their mentalities in beastly form, however mothers may become territorial and only allow mates and trusted friends into their areas. Mothers in beastly form will often give birth to a pup at night, after which the pup changes into an infant in the early morning. Other times both will retain beastly form until the child has been weaned off suckling the mother’s teat. Giving birth on the night of a full moon is considered good luck.

This leads us to imprinting, of which there are two kinds: child to mother and mate to mate. Child to mother imprinting happens when a newborn “latches on” to its mother as its primary source of care until it can move and (to a small degree) hunt on its own. The parents still have to watch over the child, but it can’t be considered fully defenseless. In some cases, children may imprint on the wrong mother and find difficulty adjusting when informed that the person to whom it has become so attached is not, in fact, its actual mother.

Mate to mate imprinting is when a werewolf feels an inexplicable connection to another (usually werewolf) individual, which results in them seeing that person and that person only as a mate. Very rarely will a werewolf imprint on another who does not reciprocate, which can lead to violent outbreaks and even acts of murder. Such behavior leads to the instigator being shunned, forced out of the community, cursed with Induced Moonlessness, or a combination of the three. As each community is different, they often welcome those who were forced out of others, but still take precautionary measures depending on the individual’s past. Should a werewolf lose a mate (by death, most commonly), they often find life difficult to continue, to the point where they may take their own lives or go live out their lives in isolation. Imprinting can also be extremely dangerous if one of the mates is abusive. In the worst situations, because the victim and the abuser have both imprinted, it is effectively impossible to get them away from one another, and attempting to do so may wind up in several deaths, including that of the victim, should the extremely possessive abuser become enraged. Due to a rise in mental health and welfare concerns, community members may ban together and perform an intervention to send the couple to counseling.

Small notes:

All of my species might possess a recessive gene that causes immortality. Some may get it, others may be carriers, and some don’t have it at all.

Werewolf communities (mine, at least) are very accepting of LGBT+ people. It’s generally believed all members of the pack are important (by most, ‘cause there’s always that one asshole.)

Thanks to @shawnlenore because I just randomly stumbled across their post someone had reblogged and subsequently spent a few hours writing this. It doesn’t really go with the post, but the post inspired all this stuff I just wrote, and I’m normally a very silent person online, so I want to thank them for making me want to voice my ideas for the first time.

I’ll put a link to the post here at the bottom, too. Just in case.

If anyone wants to use these, please ask/credit me.

And thank you to whoever took the time to read this, because it turned into something much longer than I thought it would be. You’re cool, and you get a nose boop.

#werewolves #my post #my ideas #long post

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simplyoriginalcharacters · 7 years

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Ruby

Name: Ruby

Species: Human/Demon hybrid

Gender: Female

Sexual/Romantic Orientation: Homosexual/Panromantic

Age: 19-21 (I haven’t fully decided as it’s not relevant to the story she’s in)

Birthday: Unknown, as she was born in the underworld and they don’t pay attention to dates in the human realm - it may as well be the same day over and over again

Occupation: Demon princess during the story, before then she was a traveller

Alignment: Chaotic Good

(Hello! I'll be handling your critique today; you can find it with the rest of the profile under the cut! -Kyo)

Relationship Status: Single

Family: Her father, whose true name to humans is unpronounceable - we may call him Darrius. It did not take her long to warm up to him after discovering her demonic heritage.

Her half-sister, whose true name is, once again, unpronounceable, and we may call her Emily. She and Emily got off to a rough start when she returned to the demon realm, due to Emily’s jealousy over Ruby soon gaining the throne from Darrius.

And a human mother whose name is unknown to all except Darrius, as she has long since vanished. Ruby has never met her, because she stole her from Darrius and placed her in a human orphanage.

Other Relationships: A male demon who took Ruby into the underworld, and is one of her servants, who we may call Adrian. He and Ruby have a bit of a sarcastic relationship, because one of the first things Ruby did when she arrived was punish him for needlessly bringing a child to the underworld. Despite that, he does care about her, and he spent 18-20 years searching for her in the human realm for Darrius.

A young human boy named Thomas, nicknamed Tommy, who Adrian brought to the underworld alongside Ruby. Tommy considers Ruby to be his new big sister, and Ruby feels the same. To protect Tommy, she appointed Adrian to be his bodyguard, and made Tommy live with her in her home.

A female, damned human who serves Ruby alongside Adrian, who we may call Lissa. Due to the reason she was sent to the underworld (sloth) she was given the most physically demanding job there is - serving the demon princess. Though Ruby tries to be kind to Lissa, it doesn’t help, because of how easily Lissa is terrified.

And finally, a female demon who is Ruby’s trainer, who we may call Eliza. She tends to be snarky with Ruby, who doesn’t particularly mind it, as she can give it right back. Eliza isn’t used to training a half-human, though, and often has to pull back with what she does because she forgets that Ruby isn’t as strong as a full demon.

Height: 5’ 4’’

Weight: 121 lbs.

Build: Athletic

Skintone: Fair/Pinkish

Hair: Long, dark red, wavy

Eyes: Bright green

Personality: Usually pretty willing to just go with the flow. But if something is about to happen to someone who is either innocent, or a child, she’ll spring into action to help. She also has no issues punishing people who deserve it. Due to a life of traveling (she escaped the orphanage when she turned eleven) through lands on foot, she’s pretty physically capable, and is used to working hard. The demonic realm she now lives in has a completely different definition of ‘hard’, though, so she’s out of her element now. She loves a challenge, though.

Current Goal: Survive training with Eliza until she can get the crown for the underworld; Survive whatever Emily might have planned for her; Make sure Tommy is happy in the underworld.

Life Goal: Survive and live happily in the underworld.

Background: Her mother gave her up to a human orphanage when she was one, because her mom discovered the brutal training that she would be put through as the heir to the underworld’s crown. She always believed herself to be fully human, and has lived as one for her entire life. She spent her life traveling the lands and going from village to village, doing little odd jobs here and there to make money. While she was away, it was decided that if she wasn’t found, her half-sister Emily would take the crown - which she believed she deserved simply because she was older than Ruby. Now that Ruby has been found, Emily will stop at nothing to get the crown.

(I feel like I need a lot of help fleshing her out, as she is my main character. As I said, so far she’s willing to simply go with the flow on a lot of matters, but it makes it hard to write as it feels like things are just happening to her. I also think that her goals might be too broad, but I’m not sure what else I could say. Any help would be very much appreciated)

I think Ruby's personality has a solid base, but it doesn't tell me enough about her, or at least it doesn't tell me as much as I'd like to know. Information about her physical capability doesn't really belond here, but you could expand on what she considers "hard work" and whether she enjoys it or not. You did mention that she enjoys a challenge, but what does a challenge look like to her? And even someone who is "willing to go with the flow" will have personality traits that change how they do that. Is she bored with her life? Is she entitled? Does she feel helpless? How does she determine who "deserves" to be punished and what ways does she punish them? This section leaves me with more questions about Ruby than answers, especially when we consider her relationships.

A lot of information in your relationships section is great - it tells me who these people are, what role they play, and why they're important to Ruby, which I like - but it doesn't really make a lot of sense until after reading her backstory. Even then, there seems to be information missing here, and you could definitely beef this section up. For example, "it did not take [Ruby] long to warm up to [Darius] after discovering her demonic heritage". Why? Did she already suspect her heritage? Was she looking for him, or just looking for a family? Does she value the relationship they have - and what exactly is their relationship like now, for that matter? In terms of her mother, does she resent having been "stolen" from Darius and placed in an orphanage because of the life she could have had? When and how did she meet Tommy, and how does Tommy feel about the sudden huge shift in his life? These are the kinds of questions that need answering, and I'm sure that as you go through this section you'll think of more details that can be added - and you can use these details to inform Ruby's personality and pump that up, too!

If I have one more suggestion in your relationships section, it's that you make one single note about denizens of the underworld having unpronounceable names and using aliases instead, and then eliminate all instances of the phrase "who we may call..." and just list characters by the names they use. The continued use of that phrase is repetitive and it just adds clutter to an otherwise solid section.

As for Ruby's backstory, it's pretty scant. I'd love to see some of the emotional impact learning these things about herself had on her, and all of the people mentioned in the relationships section should show up somewhere in here. Someone who has always believed herself to be human might be skeptical at first about the existence of an underworld or about her own heritage until it's proven to her - was that the case for Ruby? Or did she embrace her new life whole-heartedly because she was eager to accept that there was something special about her? This section honestly reads more like a synopsis of your story than a backstory, especially with the sentence at the end. You should be using it to tell me how Ruby got to where she is at the beginning of the story, and to tell me how she became the person that she is. That can mean adding details about how she was treated at the orphanage and lessons she learned from that treatment, how she came up with her escape plan and enacted it, or how she survived in the world until Adrian found her - whatever is important!

Last, does being half-demonic give Ruby any special abilities or advantages that a normal human doesn't have? How do they manifest? When did she discover them? How does she feel about them? I feel like I still don't really know what her new role entails, either, so that's also something you might want to consider talking about. And some details about the setting would be nice, as I still don’t know how much an average human knows about demons or the underworld, or what year it is, or what kind of world you’re dealing with - is this a modern setting, a fantasy one, science-fiction, what?

After reading all of this, I think that you and Ruby might have a misunderstanding that you need to consider. Based on her actions, is she really the kind of person who "goes with the flow"? A person like that wouldn't escape the orphanage and go looking for a different life - she'd sit in it and wait to either be adopted or to be released into the world when she came of age. A person like that also wouldn't be so intent on getting the crown, because being in charge of things is a ton of work and requires a lot of hustle. I want you to really, really look at your story and the kinds of actions Ruby takes that drive the plot forward and then decide for yourself - does she really "go with the flow"? If she's not driving the plot with her decisions and actions, she's not really your protagonist, because that's what protagonists do.

We've got a couple of SOC Originals that I think might help you out. Check out...

Who Are You?: Describing Personality

Backstory Of My Life

Character Depth: Questions and Resources

Character Thought Exercises

2017 Character Bootcamp Prompts

All of these are designed to get you thinking about your character and help you really dig into the heart of what makes them who they are. You don’t have to answer all of the prompts or questions, but you can use them to get your creative juices flowing and start thinking about what you’d like to add to Ruby. You can also follow the link to our SOC Originals page to find our 5WH series, but that might be a little more than you need right this instant. Start with some of the prompts and questions, and I bet you'll learn a lot about who Ruby is!

Overall, I think you have a really solid base here and a lot of great ideas. Ruby has a ton of potential - you just need to give her a little extra oomph to bring your vision for her across better. I really enjoyed reading her profile, though, and if you ever decide to revise and resubmit (which I absolutely recommend) I'd love to see her again. With a little hard work I really think she'd be a great protagonist! Until then, I hope this helps, and good luck!

-Kyo

#SOC Critique #OC Critique #submission

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aion-rsa · 6 years

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Lies Sleeping and the Challenge of Crafting an Intersectional Narrator for the Rivers of London Series

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We talked to Rivers of London author Ben Aaronovitch about writing about intersectional identities beyond his own experiences and identity.

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Feature Alana Joli Abbott

Nov 19, 2018

Lies Sleeping, the latest installment in Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series is out November 20th. The series follows Probationary Constable Peter Grant in his journey to magical detective-hood.

As a newcomer to Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series about a London-based detective solving supernatural crimes, one of the things that surprised me most about the British book series is the rich intersectionality of narrator-protagonist PC Peter Grant.

Grant is the son of a white British jazz musician and a Fula mother from Sierra Leone. Peter doesn’t identify himself as “black” in the pages of Lies Sleeping, but he very much identifies himself as the child of an African mother, and he identifies “whites” as "other." That gives him a unique worldview for the paranormal mystery genre, but it’s not his sole identifier. He’s also a magical practitioner, a detective constable (by Lies Sleeping), the boyfriend of a river goddess, an SFF fan, and an atheist (despite, or perhaps because of, dating a goddess).

Read Lies Sleeping by Ben Aaronovitch

I recently finished reading the excellent Writing the Other, a guide for writers hoping to create realistic characters who don’t share their worldview. This is in contrast to writers of the #OwnVoices movement, who are writing about underrepresented characters or communities informed by their own experiences and identity. The book has inspired courses for writers hoping to better their own fiction by understanding how to write nuanced and fully-fleshed characters from different backgrounds, particularly those of race, (sexual) orientation, age, ability, religion, and sex (termed ROAARS traits). Authors Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward discuss the “unmarked state,” or assumed characteristics of most point of view characters (very frequently in fiction white, straight, young, able-bodied, male), and make note that the idea of the unmarked state is itself problematic.

Aaronovitch, through Peter’s worldview, does an excellent job of subverting the idea that any of the common traits that define a “normal” character can be assumed. Part of this is how Aaronovitch counters expectations through naming conventions. Dr. Abdul Haqq Walid’s name likely causes readers to assume, on first encounter, that Walid is of Middle Eastern extraction. Instead, Walid is a Scot who converted to Islam, and is described as a “gingery” man in his late fifties. But a larger part is in Peter’s narration:

"When dealing with the excessively rich and privileged, you’ve got your two basic approaches. One is to go in hard and deliberately working class. A regional accent is always a plus in this.... That approach only works if the subject suffers from residual middle-class guilt—unfortunately the properly posh, the nouveau riche and senior legal professionals are rarely prey to such weaknesses. For them you have to go in obliquely and with maximum Downton Abbey."

Fortunately for us we have just the man.

Peter establishes characteristics here of both the man they’re going to be questioning (later described as a “big, wide, white man with the heft that the naturally fat get when they exercise like mad in middle age”) and Peter’s superior, Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale.

Further reading: The Best New Fantasy Books

Obviously, readers who have been with the series for a long time will be familiar with Nightingale, who serves both as Peter’s boss in the police force and as his mentor. But the comparison—Nightingale as a man who would be perfectly suited to appearing in a very posh television program—reinforces the idea that Nightingale comes from privilege through his race, sex, class, and magical background.

There are a few jokes about cultural differences both Peter and his river goddess girlfriend Bev have from contemporary white culture. Upon seeing a movie with a white female protagonist, Peter comments that both he and Bev find “her inability to control her fourteen year old goth daughter ... hilariously white.”

Throughout the narration, it’s always mentioned if a character being encountered is white, defying the traditional narrative perception that, by default, a character’s race is white unless otherwise mentioned. It’s never jarring, and I might not have noticed it had I not just finished Writing the Other, but the refusal to accept “white” as the unmarked state is a subtle and point-of-view appropriate way to remind the audience both of Peter’s intersectionality and the intersectionality of London as a whole.

Ben Aaronovitch told Den of Geek about the origins of Peter’s character.

“Way back when the books were but a twinkle in my eye and I was kicking a TV format idea around in my head by the name of Magic Cops, the protagonist was to have been called Simone. She, like Peter, would have been a young PC just finishing her probationary period and would have a friend/rival called Lesley, but unlike Peter was a British woman of Jamaican descent. When I shifted to prose, I wasn’t confident enough of my abilities to write a woman in close first person, which is a very intimate viewpoint. So Simone became a man, and around that time Peter Grant arrived in my head complete with jazz legend father and Sierra Leonean mother. He’s been stuck there ever since.”

Peter’s heritage is underscored by the importance the Sierra Leonean community plays in the narrative, particularly in a very brief encounter with Peter’s cousin just before interviewing a person of interest, but also in his visits to his mother’s house.

“I grew up in a mixed area of London and I had a ton of friends whose parents were from Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria. I naturally retained many of those links as grew older so when I chose Peter’s background, I was confident enough to make his mum Sierra Leonean,” Aaronovitch told Den of Geek when we asked about his research in creating an authentic view of the London Sierra Leonean community. “My research mostly involves phoning up people I know and demanding recipes and random bits of Krio translation. Some friends of mine have accused me of basing Mama Thames, Fleet, and Lady Ty on their relatives but I deny everything.”

But in creating other characters outside his own worldview, Aaronovitch had to dig deeper. “Guleed on the other hand was much trickier. I wasn’t familiar with the Somali community. I literally had to go around accosting complete strangers for help—something I’ve never liked doing,” he explained. “I hope I haven’t made too many mistakes.”

Creating a London that reflected the real London’s diversity was an intentional choice. “Having spent so many years in the racial straitjacket of British TV, working in prose gave me an opportunity to write London as it is, to me at least, as opposed to the city imagined by posh white provincials,” Aaronovitch explained. When doing so required research, he gathered his sources. “I grew up knowing loads of people from West African families, and so I could write people with their background with confidence. I knew fewer lesbians, so I needed to actively gather more information, and I didn’t know any police officers at all, so I had to start from scratch with them.”

Peter’s race, and the way he points out the race of others, is just one aspect of his identity. They are an important aspect, and present throughout the novel, but they are of no greater importance in how Peter views himself than his identity as a Londoner and the quintessential Britishness of his narration.

Also central to his identity are his chosen profession as a police officer and his calling in the practice of magic. Both Sherlock Holmes and Harry Dresden’s detectives would feel at home talking shop with Peter (and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit, if Holmes existed in Peter’s world as a historical figure, he’d have been a wizard himself.)

If Peter ever had any problem navigating the world of magic, or believing in its existence, by Lies Sleeping, he’s well beyond that. He also has no trouble differentiating between the metaphysical and the esoteric. When in a discussion about whether or not he believes in God, his colleague brings up what he views as evidence for the divine:

"'After the shit we’ve seen? ... You can do magic, Peter,' said Carey. 'You can shoot fireballs out of your fingers and your girlfriend is a river. That kind of shit. Like possessed BMWs and just all of it. All of that shit.'

'That’s different,' I said. 'That shit is real.'"

He’s also a technophile—he finds a place to stake-out a building based on it being the only position where he can get good wi-fi—and a fan of science fiction and fantasy, both on screen and in print. His pop culture references are spot on. He identifies the quality of a script that’s evidence in his case as “straight to Netflix”; a picture of Sir Isaac Newton, in his own hair, makes the famous scientist and magician “a dead ringer for Ian McDiarmid in Revenge of the Sith—just before Samuel L. Jackson rearranges his face for him."

Peter readily (and quite geekily) identifies a tattoo in Tolkien’s dwarvish script as the Peter Jackson film version, rather than Tolkien’s original. He describes “a misspent youth playing role-playing games,” and, after escaping a situation in which his captors provided him with a copy of The Silmarillion to read, downloads a copy to his phone so he can finally finish it.

In many ways, Peter’s existence as a reader and a fan of the genre in which his stories take place are a different idea of the “unmarked state.” Genre readers are likely to understand his references—if not all of them. I had to ask my husband, who has actually finished The Silmarillion, if the jokes while Peter is reading it makes sense; but then, I’ve attempted The Buried Giant and bounced off if it, just like Peter, while my husband has not. While genre readers and watchers may have vastly different views on particular books and films Peter mentions, they will take it as absolutely normal that Peter himself has opinions on those works. (When asked, Aaronovitch said Peter’s top two recommendations in genre books and film would be Guard, Guards by Sir Terry Pratchett and season three of Farscape.)

Aaronovitch has accomplished some amazing world-building in the Rivers of London series, and his diligence in research shows. When discussing how he conducts that research, Aaronovitch told Den of Geek: “For me, the hierarchy of research sources goes from best to worse: Direct contact with real people. Accounts written by real people about themselves (this is often the best you can get for historical information). Accounts written about real people by people you trust. Accounts written about real people whose biases you can allow for. Fiction written by people about people like themselves. Fiction written about people by people not like themselves. Television documentaries. Television drama.”

Aaronovitch has accomplished some amazing world-building in the Rivers of London series. His mystery pacing in Lies Sleeping, which dips wonderfully into Arthurian legends as a plot point as well, is excellent for a novel this late in a series, leaving time for continued world-building and character development as the plot moves forward.

But it’s Peter’s intersectionality, which is to say the richness and complexity of his character across so many aspects, that is truly remarkable. As far as this (white/cis/female/straight/able-bodied) reviewer can tell, Aaronovitch either has some remarkable life experiences I’ve not been able to uncover, or he’s done some in-depth, quality research of his own. I’ll absolutely be eager to read more of Peter’s adventures!

Read the Rivers of London Series by Ben Aaronovitch

Alana Joli Abbott writes about books for Den of Geek. Read more of her work here.

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