#not to mention all the disagreement about which species are or are not valid

[ihopesocomic]

Relationships (even happy ones) aren't 100% perfect and I'm really happy you're depicting some personal conflict between the main couple without hamming it up. After all everyone has disagreements, and Storm and Hope both raised some valid points about their completely contrasting lifestyles (Even if on Hope's end she got a bad instance of it, which is likely why Storm seems to generalize them; definitely a bad thing to do, but given Storm was seeing Hope and seems to have had the Grove be her exposure to prides, I don't fault her for thinking all of them are like that) and how it can be hard to just suddenly settle in and agree with everything about said lifestyles, 'specially as a social species, even if Storm isn't saying everything.. hm.. I actually wonder what she held back. Either way it's nice to see! Especially in a climate of the internet at times where apparently disagreements are seen as bad for couples (no fr I've seen that, it's weird and on the same level as people thinking relationships without fights and spice and drama all the time are boring and completely unengaging which makes me, a lover of simple undramatic couples that communicate even a little instead of mishearing everything the other said, a sad lady :c).

Hopefully they do come to that middle ground sometime, like Hope settles in as a roaming lion with her little group and Storm sees that not every pride is like that like Hope said. You mentioned the Thundering Mountains being a good way to show that nuance, so I cannot wait.

Love Cackler Ma's debut too. I loved her from the get go and love her even more and she didn't even need to say a damn word. :D

I'm thrilled everyone liked Cackler Ma's debut even tho she said nothing! That means we did a scene with its intended effect haha everyone got the idea of who she is pretty quickly.

And YES they definitely have differences they need to work out. Plus Storm wasn't being entirely sensitive to Hope's perspective, along with not sharing her own experiences. Hope's pride did influence her opinion somewhat, but it more buttressed what she already believed, if that makes sense. And when Hope thinks of prides, she thinks of people who take care of each other. Which is what a pride is supposed to do in this world haha They're not an oppressive force whose existence goes against the laws of nature. But Storm definitely has thoughts worth considering on top of the points already made.

But these are the beginnings of an ongoing and evolving conversation between these two. This is the first time they talk about it, but it won't be the last. They'll eventually want what the other wants. They are end-game after all. We want it to be equal parts interesting and equal parts normalizing healthy disagreements (and we also don't want to do character assassination in order to make one seem more right than the other at an awful attempt to show flawed traits while simultaneously ignoring the bigger problem at hand. And leaving the other out in the rain...) which is something lacking in media, particularly queer media.

And we want them being end-game to feel earned. We could always just have them live happily ever after, but if their relationship leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth along the way, or it feels like they’re just being forced together, then that’s no good either, know what I mean haha - Cat

#ask

[transmalewife]

Alright, let's talk about attachment

I can’t find clear information on when exactly the non-attachment rule was added to the code. It was either soon before or soon after the great sith war. Either way, for the VAST majority of the existence of the Jedi, it wasn’t a thing. Jedi got married and had families for over 20000 years, then added the non-attachment rule, which ultimately led to their destruction. And before anyone tries to tell me I believe they deserved to be genocided, I don’t. I have never actually seen anyone say that, but I see people argue against it constantly, and imply anyone who doesn’t think the Jedi were perfect and blameless thinks that. I don’t think they deserved to die, I think they needed to change. And Yoda says that himself, many times. The Jedi weren’t prepared for the return of the sith, or the war. They had separated from the military 1000 years before, and the galaxy was in relative peace all this time, so the order’s role changed to one that worked very well with their rules. Detachment meant they could be impartial when overseeing political disagreements, lack of possessions meant they would be focused on the mission at hand and not prone to taking bribes, and distancing themselves from the general population meant they were more or less uniform, and could be trusted not to side with someone for personal reasons.

All of this falls apart once they become an army again. Impartiality is a flaw when they have to defend one side at all cost and not even allow themselves to consider compromise. Lack of possessions and attachment to people means they are prone to taking unnecessary risks, because they have nothing to lose, and do things like send 14 year olds into battle, thinking of the “greater good” over the safety of children. And the order being a monolith, with set rules and philosophy distinct from the rest of the population meant the Jedi trusted Dooku long after they should have stopped, because he used to be a Jedi after all, surely he still follows the code.

Now, I am not saying non-attachment is always bad, I think it served a very specific purpose in the order, and to some extent worked for many years. However.

Humans are a social species. Human babies NEED physical contact and affection to develop physically. Children need a stable, strong, and supportive relationship to their caregiver to properly develop psychologically. And after last year I don’t think anyone will argue that adults don't need connection with other people just as much. And not just shallow interactions, but open affection and love. Love of any kind, because claiming that the Jedi only forbid romantic love is just untrue. I think people tend to forget that "Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is essential to a Jedi's life. So you might say, that we are encouraged to love." isn’t the actual doctrine, it’s a literal pick up line that Anakin uses on Padme.

Ahsoka and Obi-Wan both get criticized by other Jedi for their entirely platonic attachment to Anakin, and vice versa. Now, humans are the most common species in the galaxy, and in the Jedi order. Many other species are near-human, so it’s safe to assume at least some, if not most of them also need that companionship and affection to develop and live happy and stable lives. I do believe that non-attachment is a valid philosophy and chosen path in life if done carefully and within reason, I just don’t think we have a single major character that actually applies to. And chosen is an important word here. Jedi don’t get much of a choice. I’m not trying to start the baby-stealing debate here. I hear the argument of ‘force sensitives are dangerous if left untrained, and said training should start as early as possible’. I think finding a way to deal with that problem was an insanely complicated decision, and taking children into the temple as young as possible is not a bad solution. I don’t entirely agree with not letting them see their families later, (especially since in legends Obi-Wan was allowed to visit his family, which implies Anakin couldn’t go free his mother specifically because he was already too attached), but the idea is sound. I do also understand that no one is forcing Jedi to stay in the order and they can leave for whatever reason at any time. But that isn’t exactly a free choice either. Leaving the order means leaving the only home you remember, the only people you know to make your own way in the galaxy, and staying with those people means you can never fully love them. It’s a difficult solution to a complicated question, and for the most part, it worked (not always, and not exactly as intended, but I’ll come back to that.) Children grew up in the order, were trained to control themselves and the force, and became Jedi who were impartial, patient, and balanced. But everything falls apart when you introduce someone who wasn’t raised in the temple.

In The Rising Force, 13 year old Obi-Wan had barely been off Coruscant in his life. He describes himself as sheltered and unaware of all the pain in the galaxy, and says it was done on purpose, so younglings wouldn’t have to face the dark side before they were ready for it. But Anakin had seen nothing but darkness, pain and injustice before he joined the order. He was severely traumatized, and while the temple might have had some ways of dealing with trauma and PTSD in adults, they had no experience in treating the same in a child, because their children were kept safe and protected. The idea of letting go of your pain and fear only works if you know you have a safe place to come back to, if you’ve spent the first decade or so of your life in the most protected place in the galaxy. Anakin spent the first decade of his life as a slave. He couldn’t let go of his fear, because fear was what kept him alive. Fear is not irrational if you are constantly in danger, it’s what protects you, keeps you aware of the limits you can push before you get punished. And that mindset doesn’t fade just because you’re out of that situation, especially if your only family, the closest person to you, is still facing that danger every day.

I’ve seen people use every excuse possible to explain why Anakin didn’t see his mother again to avoid blaming the council, including, and I shit you not, “He just didn’t have her comm number”. But to me that seems disingenuous, when we see in his first meeting with the council that they already consider him too attached. It's one of the main reasons they don’t want him to be trained, so it seems logical that they wouldn’t allow him to see her once he became a padawan. I also want to mention that what Yoda says, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” Is just… blatant catastrophizing. Right? Like we can all see that the escalation is not rational there at all. Maybe it could apply to something else, but not to a child who just left his mother for the first time in his life and went from a tiny dustball in the middle of nowhere to the most populated planet in the galaxy, and is now being tested by a bunch of old people with the power to decide his future. Obviously he’s afraid, and obviously he’s not dealing with it the way Jedi younglings do. That, in and of itself doesn't doom him to fall. Also what Yoda misses there is that suffering leads to fear. This is a closed loop, and one that has defined Anakin’s entire childhood.

Let’s come back to how the system doesn’t always work. The way I see it, most of the characters we see are attached. Obi-Wan is considered one of the greatest Jedi of his time. Windu describes him as “our most cunning and insightful Master—and our most tenacious”. And yet, he was not insightful enough to look past his love for Anakin, his attachment, and see how close to falling he was. Ahsoka was so attached to Anakin she refused to listen to Maul on Mandalore, refused to even consider the posibility he could fall. She was arguably the person with the best shot at preventing the empire forming at that point, and she loved anakin so much she doomed him and the entire galaxy. Aayla admitted to thinking of Quinlan as her father, and also, apparently in legends had a long relationship with Kit. Even Mace didn’t follow the code when he decided to kill Palpatine, which directly led to his death and the empire. He also indirectly caused the war to start. According to wookiepedia “Windu viewed Dooku as the shatterpoint of the entire Separatist movement, which meant striking Dooku down would theoretically end the imminent clone war before it even began. However, Windu's prior attachments to Dooku clouded his judgment.” I’m not even going to mention Kanan and Ezra, who are obviously family.

So basically everyone is attached and lying about it. How has no one thought that maybe this isn’t the healthiest way to live and tried to change the code? Well, I have a theory, and it’s Yoda. He was 900 years old when he died, and was on the council for the vast majority of his life. I can’t find when exactly he became grand master, but it’s safe to assume he held some degree of power over the entire order for most of a millennium. At the end of TPM he tells Obi-Wan “Confer on you the level of Jedi knight, the council does. But agree with your taking this boy as your padawan learner, I do not.” Then he reverses that decision by himself. So either he has the power to veto the council’s word, or who gets trained is entirely up to him. Either way, not great, considering his lifespan is so much longer than most Jedi, and therefore his approach to life is vastly different. Humans need love and closeness to live. However, while we don’t know much about Yoda’s species, it probably isn’t a social one. You could count all the characters of this species on two (human) hands, and Yoda lived in complete isolation for 20 years on Dagobah, and only went a little bit insane. They are naturally rare, and therefore probably lead solitary lives in nature. Moreover, Yoda outlived every master who trained him, and almost every padawan he trained himself, (there’s a great post about that here) so even if he wasn’t naturally predisposed to non-attachment, he would have had to learn it to deal with all the loss he had to live through over the years.

A lot of people think that Anakin fell because he had attachments, which is not true. He fell because of how his attachments played out and/or ended. The most obvious example being Palpatine, who used Anakin’s trust and friendship to groom him for over a decade and actively undermine Anakin’s trust towards anyone else, especially the order. (more on that here). Obi-Wan refused to take on the role of a father figure that Anakin tried to shove him into, so he turned to someone who did accept it. It’s not Anakin’s fault that it turned out to be the worst person alive, nor can we expect him to notice when he’s known Palpatine since he was a child. Another failure of jedi non-attachment, because a loving parent or guardian would not let their child be used as a bargaining chip when the most powerful politician in the galaxy blackmailed the order into allowing him to meet Anakin regularly, but a distant teacher and detached knight thinking of the greater good might. The other attachments Anakin had were taken from him (Shmi and Ahsoka, the last orchestrated by Palpatine who was fully ready to give her the death penalty to make Anakin more unstable), or he was forced to lie and hide them, compromising his vows as a Jedi (Padme) or refused to choose Anakin over the order/their principles (Obi-Wan, and again Ahsoka, and to some extent Padme, but he’d already fallen then). All these people had every right to make the choices they made, but it wasn’t the act of loving them that made Anakin turn to the dark side, it was how those attachments played out.

I think everyone agrees that Yoda is as detached as a Jedi should, if not can, be, and that didn’t prevent Dooku from falling. We see that explored in more detail with Barriss and Luminara. Luminara is detached and distant, she’s fond of Barriss, but their relationship is not familial in the slightest, and she repeatedly shows her willingness to put the greater good and the mission before Barriss’ safety and even life. And yet Barriss still falls. A complex combination of events and choices caused each of those characters to fall, not the simple presence or absence of attachment.

And lastly, just as attachment can make you unstable if your relationship with that person is unstable, it can also make you stronger. There is a reason Anakin and Obi-Wan were the face of the army. Not only did their obvious attachment (the strongest between two jedi we are shown) make them more relatable to the public, but they, when working as a team, are shown repeatedly to be more or less undefeatable. They spend half of aotc flinging themselves off great heights because they know the other will be there to catch them. They know from years of experience that they have backup and they know each other well enough (or force bond communicate) that they can trust the other will be where he needs to be to help/save them. Contrast that to how Windu and Palpatine fight in rots once the window breaks- very carefully, clearly holding back to keep themselves safe. Neither of them has backup until Anakin arrives, but until the last second they can't be sure which one he will choose. Anakin and Obi-Wan fight the same way on Mustafar, especially when balancing on that thin bridge. No acrobatics, swinging arms to keep balance, keeping their distance, being almost uncharacteristically careful compared to how they treated heights in aotc, in tcw, and on the invisible hand in rots, because they both know the other won't catch them if they fall this time.

#star wars meta #attachment #star wars #anakin skywalker #obi wan kenobi #yoda #jedi order #mine

[ginnyzero]

Writing Breathable Moments; What/Why

I’ve mentioned “breathable/ma/quiet” moments in the past and how the Dawn Warrior has very little of them and the Lone Prospect is chock full of them. But I don’t believe I’ve ever explained what that means.

So, what are “breathable/ma/quiet” moments? Is it anything like breathable cotton?

No. Not really.

Breathable moments in your manuscript are moments of rest for the reader. In the Japanese, this is called “ma.” Miyazaki explains these moments as being extra. They are the rests between action. It’s the backgrounds, the sighs, the little moments in time between beats in the story that convey time, space and who the character is.

Not everyone is a fan of these types of moments. They feel that the ‘breathing’ room in the story slows it down and delays the action. That these scenes have no purpose and need to be cut out entirely. This is a very Western and very modern contemporary type of thinking where everything is about speed and the bottom line and cutting things “to the bone.”

Books of all types have been reduced to pulp fiction penny dreadfuls rather than Dumas or Dickens who were paid by the word and so they really bloated their works to get more money. Then there is the High Fantasy Tolkien approach where the breathable space in the story is Tolkien either giving backstory like in the Ents or describing massive amounts of scenery. Or, there is the Brian Jacques approach where breathable moments are describing epic feasts and putting in funny songs.

Whether or not you find these moments of rest important really depends on your style of writing. How much do you care about character and relationship development? How much do you care about relaying the background and history of your world? How important is describing the setting of your story? Is there something going on in the culture of your people that’s important enough to show it rather than to summarize it?

Because breathable moments, the quiet moments are about showing the intimate details of your characters, your setting, and your world building. Depending on what your goal is for your story is going to necessitate whether or not you have these breathable moments in your work.

Tolkien was trying to write a history. He wasn’t telling an adventure tale. He was relaying/translating a historical document. It was important to him to tell the history of the world, of the Ents, and to expound upon the landscapes. Whereas, his contemporary, Lewis was writing an allegory for children about the Christian life. To him, the story was more important than the details and history of the world. So much so, that he only included tiny bits of history that were important in the Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe. It was only later in other books that we found out more about, say Jadis, and where she came from.

Are you a Tolkien or are you a Lewis?

Both types of storytelling are valid! It’s up to you as an author to decide how fast you want the action beats to proceed. Your story can be tight and fast and like an action movie in words. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Or your story can still be tight but punctuated with moments for viewers to relax. This could be more drama or art house or well, Spirited Away. Bang. Pause. Bang. Long Breathe. Bang. Bang. Pause. Bang. Bang. Bang. End. Or, the plot of your story can be conveyed with mostly breathable moments leading up to the final action. This is more maybe an adventure story or a thriller story type of set up. Maybe even horror.

Let me use different Urban Fantasy writers as examples. Kim Harrison and Patty Briggs have very little breathing room in their books. Patty Briggs writes books at about 110K words and Kim Harrison’s Hollow Series clocked in between 150K and 165K words. Kim Harrison usually put her biggest breathing moments at end of the book. Patty has a bad habit of even turning dates into major action sequences and cuts off any breathing before it really begins. Breathing room is more like a punch line. Most urban fantasy writers including Seanan Maguire, Faith Hunter, Jennifer Estep and Cassie Alexander all fall into the category (plus a few others I’ve read.) We are told these characters have friends and hobbies and lives outside of their job, but we’re never really given a chance to see them do more than ‘finger their shell collection.’ (I think that’s a Cat Adams example.) We “know” the characters, but at the same time, we don’t because we’re never given that breathing space where they aren’t about to be pushed off the edge of a volcano all the time. It’s all quips and punches but no long walks on the beach and banter with their friends.

Jim Butcher puts a moderate amount of breathing room in his books. Whether or not this is a good thing is debatable. Harry Dresden’s investigations don’t always involve a lot of explosions right off the bat. He is a private eye and this does involve some tedious things like “talking to people.” Harry isn’t completely without friends. He just tends to avoid them for months at a time until he’s got three days to save the world and then suddenly he needs them again. But at least we know that Harry walks his dog and spends time playing DnD with the Werewolves. Because we see it. Laurell K. Hamilton also has a moderate amount of breathing room in her books. Most of it is taken up with sex! Rachel Caine is also a good example. Occasionally, she drives her car real fast, manages to get a tan, and goes shopping.

The urban fantasy/dark fantasy writer with the most breathing room that I’ve read is Anne Bishop. Anne Bishop makes the characters and their relationships the heart of her story and the plot is moved forward more by what the characters do rather than outside forces acting whether the characters like it or not. For instance, in the Others series, the main character runs away and the villains are trying to reclaim her. She is learning how to live life as a normal person and hold down a job interacting with species that are in no way human. And these non-human creatures (who can look human) do everything they can to protect her and that is the story. So, there are long stretches of the book that is her learning her limits and how to do things like drive a golf cart. The characters and the culture is what makes the story enthralling. (And, yeah, you don’t want her to go back to the villains either. You’re rooting for her to remain free.)

You as a reader or writer have to decide what category you fit into. I’m more of a Jim Butcher/Anne Bishop preference type of reader/writer. I liked Kim Harrison well enough because there was enough words put into the book that I could sink my teeth into the world even if there wasn’t a lot of quiet moments. It was the fact the character never seemed to learn anything and became super special important that put me off The Hollows Series.

Now, back to my own books. In the Dawn Series, there isn’t a lot of breathable moments. I have Roxana and Marcellus go on a date. There is some teasing all around and at the end I have a wedding because there has to be a wedding. (Is it Roxana and Marcellus? I’m not telling you!) But honestly, the book goes from one action beat to the next with very little pause. It’s not a history. It’s an adventure story about a Princess trying to evade her curse. It doesn’t need a lot of history or explaining or paragraphs of ogling the scenery. None of that is important.

On the other hand, Tales of the Heaven’s Heathens MC, while not a history, I’m trying to write about a culture. It’s a mix of biker culture and in this case werewolf culture. I created a werewolf society that lives within the veil hiding from the greater human society. They don’t necessarily think like humans or act like humans completely. I want to show this instead of telling it. The characters also take jobs, security jobs, and they can either step aside and let things happen or they can take action doing something about it. The books are very character driven in this aspect.

For instance, in the upcoming book, I have a chapter or so where Savannah takes Gideon shopping. Now, I could just say that Gideon hates clothes shopping and be done with it. But Jasper is “special” and they don’t have department stores, so Savannah is being nice and taking him to where he needs to go to buy clothes. But that’s still not the point of the scene, the point of the scene is to compare and contrast Savannah and Gideon and their werewolf states of mind. I want to show the difference in how they’re handling being attracted to each other and resisting it. It’s part of the romance aspect of the book.

But for many people, many writers that type of scene would be redundant and be edited out because it has nothing to do with the main story of smugglers invading the Heathen’s territory. I agree. It doesn’t have much to do with that at all, except getting Gideon to look like a villain in leather pants.

Sometimes a girl just needs a boy to be in leather pants.

To me, the meat of the story in Heathen’s isn’t the explosions. It’s not the gun fights or car chases. It’s the people. It’s the families. It’s showing the relationships and how they work together for the good of the pack while still managing to have disagreements. (And it’s not as easy to write as you’d think because I’m going against years of ingrained prejudices about emotional labor. And I’m not a werewolf, I’m a human. I have to reorient my thoughts.)

It's also set in a future where the world has been reshaped by a war. The town they live in was built after the war to very specific codes. Eventually, we'll go to a huge city and I'll describe that too. That's breathable moments.

There are lots of readers (and publishers and agents) that really love books that are 100% action all of the time. They want books that are plot driven where the character is an afterthought rather than the instigator of the action. Which is fine. I get it. At the same time, there are those readers who like authors like Butcher and Bishop who put more ‘breathing’ space into their works. I think there is plenty of room for both.

#writing advice #writing tips #breathable moments #writing tumblr #writer tumblr #writrblr