#ngl i hate when people say nora's not a great writer

[millportdingo]

TSC Motifs/Themes/Whatever

Dogs

Starved dog, leash metaphors, cardboard dog, obedience. I think Jean represented as an obedient, loyal dog is pretty straight-forward. I think it's interesting that in the extra content, Nora described him as an angry cat when he came to Evermore. He left as a starved and beaten dog. I wonder where this arc goes, though. Like, he takes a chain around his neck from Renee -per Neil's philosophy, is this "collar" his first reason not to slip the [Moriyama investment] leash? Also Jeremy has always wanted a dog. I guess this piece is a little harder for me to wrap my head around, maybe I'm overthinking it, but maybe he's the right kind of [s]Dom[/s] [s]owner[/s] person for Jean. He has the authority "I'm your captain," but he pairs it with an equalizer "I'm your partner". He pushes Jean, but he holds the hard boundaries. He's intrigued by Jean's scoop neck deep blue shirt - I think partly for the personal growth to wear color and partly because it allows him to see Jean's collarbone. He shivers with the sound of "Yes, Jeremy." I wonder if "my mom is allergic to dogs" is foreshadowing his family's reaction to Jean.

2. Safety

Neil's arc was about hope, finding a future in a futureless situation. Jeremy's had an idea of the future, the perfect court, but his big thing is safety. "Safe" and its variations appear in TSC 48 times. This boy is really not asking for much, but Jeremy makes him feel safer which is just too sweet. Also, tighten those screws for safety..

3. Childhood

At the beginning of the book, Jean knows immediately that he is not in the Nest, because he knows every inch of it. He feels like he knows everything about the world and he often insults people by calling them children. His childhood innocence was stolen from him at the Nest, and outside of it, he regains pieces of it. He wonders at the vastness of the world, he learns skills he never had before (shopping, cooking). I had a hard time when I found out he was 19 (ie 14 and 16 at the time of some really unpleasant things). I didn't understand why he had to be two years younger. But the protection and corruption of innocence is a big part of his story. We see that acutely with his sister's story and it allows him to turn on his parents without guilt. The duck/duckling motif is cute too. When he first comes to Evermore, Thea describes him as a little duckling. He associates little yellow ducks with his childhood and baby sister.

4. Air?

Being able to breathe is core to the safety thing. When Jean feels least safe, he can't breathe. One of his earliest revelations about being Riko's pet was the buried alive punishment, and pressing his face against the sparse airholes. Then there's the waterboarding thing. You'll see Jean mentions being unable to breathe when he feels threatened and grabs at his throat. Conversely his happy things include breeze and open sky (rainbow and the open road). When Grayson appears, Jean says he can no longer feel the breeze, and he is particularly disturbed by the neck biting. There are lots of throat and neck things going on in the book too and maybe it's a stretch but burning (ie eating away at oxygen) comes up several times too.

#ngl i hate when people say nora's not a great writer #like she gave you this masterpiece for literally less than 1 dollar #so shuddafakkup #the sunshine court #tsc spoilers #tsc #nora sakavic #all for the game #aftg #tsc meta #jean moreau #jeremy knox

[laximpulsion]

Director's Cut Commentary: Ch. 1-3 swam all across the ocean blue

so, the bunker chapters. these ones were the easier ones and ngl im stressin' about the rest of it. i have bits and pieces written here and there but i actually desperately wish the writers would just leak the s3 plot so i dont have to try to think of anything. im second guessing nearly everything about this entire fic including but not limited to the characterization, the leatin dynamic, the timeline of fatin figuring out her feelings, the timeline of them getting together, a lot of things i did in the first fic, and how tf im going to get them OFF THAT ISLAND?!!! (nora ex machina? lol)

anyway :) other than that things are going great lol so i think its time to remind myself this is just for fun and theres actually like...no pressure on me to do anything groundbreaking. this fandom is very sweet and i feel like people are pretty willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and roll with what you give them.

also time to practice committing to my choices and standing by my creative vision! (it's hard tho! but probably a good life lesson)

now some things i was proud of...i kind of stumbled my way into the whole faber manipulating fatin arc, it started out as just a “hmm i wonder what he'd say” thing, and then i think i really hit gold when i rewatched the scene where leah asks if jeff asked for her and she alluded to her calling him on the first night. i hated putting fatin through that but i was pleased to have come up with something so diabolical that perfectly set the stage for some angst.

im excited for fatin's angst arc and im excited to see if i can sell it well enough that people will get on board with it. but that's probably a whole separate post once we actually get to it (the leatin angst is not supposed to be the main angst arc, believe it or not. definitely important, but fatin will def have other struggles too)

im also pleased that in between starting my first fic and starting this one, i've gotten more bold about making slight changes to canon events/conversations to make them fit my vision better. i started out thinking i HAD to religiously adhere to events/dialogue from the show, but now im much more loose with it which makes my life a lot easier.

#ocean blue commentary