Oh, what the Kell?

Writer, illustrator, and purveyor of sarcasm -- luckily, I only charge for two of those services. Name is Kell, which provides some delightful opportunities for puns.

[homunculus-argument]

Story idea: The most wanted woman in town has announced that she’ll only marry the one who can open her front door with the key around her cat’s neck. Many men try to hunt the cat down, chase and trap it, but to no avail, the cat is simply too quick, smart and clever, and always finds a way to evade and avoid them.

 You are the first one to figure out the obvious: Do not chase the cat. The cat is befriendable. Get the cat to trust you, to genuinely enjoy your company, and you can hang out with the cat. You may eventually be allowed to touch the cat. The cat will freely let you take the key.

 Secondary plot twist: The woman is a shapeshifter. She is the cat.

[browntiger15-deactivated2020110]

That’s some legit fairy tale level shit right there.

[eldritch-crone-deactivated20210]

Why is every piece of media now about “surprise! bet you didn’t see that coming” instead of themes, character arcs, internal logic, and consistency in writing?

It’s okay if your audience (especially hardcore fans) predicts your story. It means that they picked up the clues you put in, understood the themes you were trying to convey, empathised with the characters…

How is that a bad thing?

Instead each piece of media feels like it’s written by a marketing team that is looking at the latest statistics for TRP ratings and box-office collections.

[thescarletgarden1990]

Yeah… sighs.

[bendingsignpost]

Something that has also come as at least a partial result of this, is readers who think being able to read foreshadowing means the story is in some way flawed or “too obvious.”

Sometimes, you the reader are supposed to see the train coming. 

Sometimes, the true suspense is in knowing the train is coming, and knowing the characters still have no idea. 

And yet, due to an expectation of unpredictable twists, this method of building suspense can be dismissed as “too easy” a twist. 

[kategorema]

angst with a happy ending is my favourite honestly like yes bitch give me emotional conflict but dont completely ruin my soul you know

[wiipciity]

sir that’s my emotional support ending, thank u

[thesaltofcarthage]

Avengers: Endgame and Stakes That Are Too High

So Endgame is coming up (in a week and a half as I write this), and while people are generally excited, it’s also tinged with fear. The fear is joked about, or melodramatic, or memed, but there’s genuine fear in the anticipation of the end of this 22-film saga. And it’s gotten me to thinking: the stakes in our stories are becoming too high.

I feel like this has been happening more often — certainly since the turn of the millennium. I don’t ever remember being scared of a story coming to a close when I was a kid. 

I think there are several factors involved in this phenomenon. 

1) Game of Thrones. It’s not that heroes didn’t lose or die before GRRM, but Martin, combined with HBO, made a very big splash in popular culture with the death of Ned Stark. In the past, bad guys died all the time. Love interests and plucky sidekicks died for the sake of manpain to send the heroes on roaring rampages of revenge. But for the white male hero, the apparent protagonist, to die, and like that, shifted the discussion. It changed what was possible in popular storytelling. HBO noticed that viewers didn’t leave, so that suddenly gave everyone permission to approach storytelling with a Don’t Get Attached mindset.

2) Joss Whedon did this too on a smaller scale. There’s a great Sheldon cartoon from Dave Kellett where Joss says “Everyone loves it when beloved characters get killed!” and Sheldon has to protest “NO, it drives people nuts!”

(Think I’m overstating this? Joss wrote and directed the first two Avengers films. The first Avengers movie was getting everyone together. What happened in Age of Ultron? Quicksilver gets killed.) 

Then there’s the famous tweet from PaperClippe: “George R. R. Martin, Joss Whedon, and Steven Moffat walk into a bar and everyone you’ve ever loved dies.”

I am not familiar with Moff’s work beyond Doctor Who and Sherlock (where he managed to murder an entire show), but I’m assuming it’s the same deal as Joss: killing off beloved characters because he thinks people enjoy the shock.  

We don’t.

3) Social media and the Internet overall. Having this connectivity allows us to be more excited about the characters, so it allows us to be more invested in the characters. We create and share stories, art, crafts, memes, headcanons, vast swaths of meta, discussion. We talk about how we identify with the characters and their struggles. We can have these discussions for literal years, with people around the globe, most of whom we’ll never meet and would never have known about without the Internet. And I think the very strong identification with and investment in the characters is why we’re getting the “If X dies in Endgame, we riot” memes. 

The Loki fandom is suffering this in particular, although Steve Rogers and Tony Stark are getting a lot of it too. Steve and Tony have suffered so much. They have endured so much. If the actors are done with the characters that’s fine, and we get it. But we’re all out here begging Marvel not to kill them. Just let them walk off into the sunset. Let Tony marry Pepper and adopt Peter. Let Steve and Bucky have their soft epilogue. They deserve to be allowed to retire. 

Loki’s death in Infinity War was so stupid and narratively pointless that a lot of fans, myself included, believe that there’s a plan behind the scenes (since we know Endgame involves time travel) which somehow explains it and gives it meaning. Because if not, then one of the most popular MCU characters — the only antagonist to keep returning, film after film, and primarily because audiences love him — died for nothing. Loki has had an amazing character arc, especially because he started as an antagonist. Over the course of four films where he co-starred, he has gone from innocent to antagonist to broken to tortured to major antagonist to broken and tortured again to self-sacrifice to indulgence to survival to antagonist again to self-sacrifice again, dancing on the line between “good” and “bad” and never landing squarely on either side. Not even any of the Avengers themselves have had such character development. 

And a lot of Loki fans are worried. We’re genuinely, legitimately scared that Loki’s death won’t be “fixed” because Thor needs “stakes” to save the universe. The stakes are so high that the fun has been sucked out of the story. The stakes are so high that really good characters are being killed off because studio heads can’t think of any better way for a movie to end. How is this any way to run a railroad?

4) The Blockbuster Machine, aka Story Gravity. Damon Lindeloff explained this in exquisite, painful detail to Vulture magazine a few years ago. (Read the whole thing; it’s not that long and it’s quite eye-opening.)

The upshot is that “small stakes” stories aren’t big movies. They don’t make enough money. You have to have a story where the world is at stake if the studio is going to turn a profit. And now if you don’t make the Billion-Dollar Club, your film is a failure. 

So all of this kneecaps smaller character stories. But newsflash, studios: smaller characters stories are how audiences fall in love with characters. It’s how we become invested. It’s why we’ll come to the next Avengers movie on opening night and break Fandango with pre-orders. 

Age of Ultron is not the best Avengers movie, but the opening party where everyone is just hanging out and drinking and boasting and playing Try To Lift Mjolnir? That’s bliss. That’s a million Domestic Avengers fanfics. It is the reason we ultimately watch. This is the characters enjoying their reward. It’s what they fought for: the opportunity to kick back and relax for a while.

Obviously a two-hour movie about this won’t make money (or would it?), but this is the ending, the breather, that I think audiences want. We want the characters enjoying their Happy Ever After or their Happy For Now. Why is everyone fighting endlessly if they’re never allowed to get what they’re fighting for? Why suffer all this pain if there’s no reward at the end? What is the point of that, in narrative terms? 

To come at this from a different angle: I stopped watching Agents of SHIELD around the middle of Season 5. Season 4 had the amazing Framework arc, and I remember turning to my sweetie and saying “How do they recover from this, emotionally and psychologically? Fitz is a mess. He’s become a sociopath. Mack has his daughter at last. Daisy has to re-get over Ward. How are they going to continue?” And the answer was that shortly after escaping and tussling with AIDA/Ophelia/Madame Hydra, the team was… kidnapped and sent to the future. In SPACE. 

Into a crapsack future, where SOMEBODY BLEW UP THE EARTH. 

Okay, fine. That was interesting to work through, and of course we knew they would fix the problem and Earth wouldn’t get blown up, but… they got back to our time, and they accidentally brought the sniveling idiot with them whose name I blessedly can’t remember, and the sniveling idiot turned out to be FitzSimmons’s grandson. 

FitzSimmons finally, finally got married, after five seasons of teasing and being deliberately kept apart to the point where even the characters were like “come the fuck ON already,” and then Sniveling Idiot was going to turn them in or something? and Coulson announced that he was dying? and then I read a spoiler about Fitz getting killed in the finale? and General Talbot going psycho and getting powers and turning evil and blowing himself up? and I just noped out. 

The stakes were too high. There was no reward.

We invested five years in these characters, longer in the case of Coulson, and the overall stakes of the show just kept going up. And up. And up. It was HYDRA (which, I will cheerfully admit, improved the show immensely). And then the cocoons and the discovery of Inhumans. And then AIDA and other LMDs so you never knew who was real and who was a copy. And then the Framework. And then KREE IN SPACE. And I just… we needed a breather. The characters needed a breather. We needed a chance to step back, to let the tension ratchet down again, to make the story about the characters again. We needed a six-episode B-story about everyone talking to a therapist about what went on in the Framework. We needed someone like Daisy, or better yet Coulson, breaking down sobbing about the amount of pressure they felt trying to save the entire planet from getting blown up. We needed to let FitzSimmons BE FUCKING MARRIED. We needed Coulson and May to enjoy their romance quietly, delicately unfolding, if the romance was how the writers wanted it to go. (I didn’t particularly care one way or the other about the romance per se, but I did care that they spent like a year and a half building this up and then Coulson fucking dies, come on.) 

Did AOS recover to that in Season 6, with Mack as director? I don’t know, because I walked away. I got so invested in the characters that I couldn’t watch them get tortured over and over with no relief ever in sight. I know that conflict is the heart of drama, and with conflict comes risk, but at some point you also need resolution. And resolution should not always arrive in the cemetery.

This is what I’m hearing a lot in regards to Endgame. People are scared — scared! of the end of a story! of entertainment! — that the characters we have come to love so much are going to be killed off. That the only way an arc can end is in death. 

A lot of people are going to die on the last season of GOT also — the Tony Stark/Jon Snow Stark Targaryen memes have been copious lately — but GOT made a point early on that No One Is Safe, and that’s the show’s bread and butter. After the first season, you knew what you were getting into. You knew that the rule of Martin’s universe was Don’t Get Attached. But that’s not what the original promise of the MCU was.

No One Is Safe has its place in storytelling, but can’t we also have stories where the heroes are allowed to have Plot Armor again? Does every epic have to involve heroic sacrifice? Does every story have to be epic, for that matter?

Look at Spider-Man: Homecoming. This was an origin story. It was small-scale, and intimate, and frankly fantastic. It was all about the characters. The world didn’t need saving. There was one bad guy with understandable motives who was surprisingly sympathetic. 

Remember the first Thor movie? All about the characters. It was a Shakespearean family drama, Hamlet by way of Richard III with space Vikings. Civil War? All about the characters and their philosophical perspectives. Captain America: The First Avenger? Up until the end bit with Red Skull and the Tesseract, it was all about the characters. All three Iron Man movies? All about the characters. Captain Marvel? All about the characters. Doctor Strange? All about the characters. Black Panther? All about the characters and how they view their responsibilities to the world, with an enormously sympathetic antagonist whose point of view made so much sense that Nakia ended up starting to implement his ideas. Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp? All about the characters. About not giving up on family. 

It’s not that these films didn’t have villains, or stakes. It’s not that there was no conflict. It’s that the stories were about the heroes. The stories were about people making choices, and living with the consequences of the choices. 

Thor is a sadder, wiser prince at the end of his first movie, and Loki survives both that and The Dark World to continue to make more mischief. (Fun fact: Loki’s death was scripted as final in TDW. That’s how Chris and Tom played the scene. Test audiences were utterly convinced that Loki survived the stabbing and refused to accept that he didn’t have a way out, so they had to go back and film the ending where Loki disguises himself as Odin. The audiences brought Loki back out of sheer stubbornness. How’s that for Plot Armor?) Tony gets the shrapnel removed so he doesn’t have to poison himself any more, and he and Pepper eventually get back together. Steve is on the run with Team Cap, but he has regular contact with Bucky.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a big-stakes movie. It’s about more than the characters. HYDRA being hidden within SHIELD since the beginning is pretty worldview-changing. It’s taut and exciting and brilliantly done. But you never worry that Steve or Natasha are going to die. Fury appeared to be dead for a while, but Fury is a second- or third-tier character. We love him, but he’s like Odin or Heimdall: important, but not critical. 

I do love the idea of the interlocking stories building up to Infinity War. I think it was hugely ambitious, and (pending how Endgame turns out) basically succeeded. 

But Avengers succeeded too, and would have without the macguffin of the Infinity Stones in particular. There were big stakes, but not “someone has to die for the story to advance” stakes. 

And that’s what I’m objecting to, I guess. Studio heads feel like there’s nowhere to go but bigger. And that eventually bigger has to mean “dead.” Because otherwise people won’t get excited. It’s not daring or bold or whatever if people don’t die.

My suggestion is that the more that “bigger means dead,” the more you’re going to drive audiences away, because you aren’t promising, or even offering, a payoff for their emotional investment. Everything becomes a Michael Bay movie. Michael Bay movies are fun, but they’re meaningless. The MCU is aiming for more than that.

Similar to this, although unrelated: I asked my sweetie if he had wanted to watch a particular show from John Rogers, creator of Leverage and The Librarians. The show ended up only being one season. My sweetie refused, because he said he didn’t want to fall in love with a show which then just ended abruptly after 13 episodes. 

This is where I fear we’re starting to head with the MCU, or with SF/F stories overall. Instead of embracing new universes, new writers, new series, we’re going to hang back. We’re going to be afraid to fall in love because there’s no promise that we aren’t going to get burned. And I separate “burned” from “heartbroken” deliberately. Bucky’s death in TFA is heartbreaking. Peggy’s death in Civil War is heartbreaking. Loki’s death in IW burned us. Bucky’s death was tragic, but earned within the story. Peggy’s death was earned within the overall story, and at the end of a long and productive life. Loki’s death was not earned. It was stupid. It didn’t make narrative sense. 

When writer C.E. Murphy was wrapping up her amazing Walker Papers book series, I didn’t ask for anyone not to die, or even for two specific characters to end up together. What I begged was, “Don’t make us regret coming on the journey with you.” She promised she wouldn’t. She kept her promise: The series ended gloriously, positively, with both sadness and joy. 

The TV show Sleepy Hollow ran for three seasons with Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison) and Lt. Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie) and their amazing chemistry. In season 3, Beharie got tired of the writers not knowing what to do with her character and asked to leave. The writers could have given her an amazing year-long sendoff, but she instead died abruptly and stupidly. While Ichabod and Abbie spent an entire year reiterating the strength of their partnership and the belief that “we were not meant to bury one another,” in the season finale, the spirit of Abbie (a black woman) told Ichabod (a white man) in a vision that she was one of many helpers in his quest to do whateverthefuck it was rather than his equal and partner in their quest. Most of the fandom (me included) ragequit the show in that moment. There was a season 4, but I couldn’t even hate-follow it, and the show was cancelled. We spent three years loving these two and their interactions, and the way it ended ruined the memory of their entire journey. 

This is what we’re afraid of with the MCU. We’re afraid that these characters will come to such unnecessary, ignominious endings that our experiences of the entire 22-film story will be tainted. We’re afraid that beloved friends will come to cheap ends for the sake of a cheap shock. We’re afraid that studio heads will only see dollar signs in coffins because they lack the imagination to allow for a graceful, kinder ending. 

When the stakes are too high, the audience walks away. The stakes are so high that the fun has been sucked out of the story. Our hearts are in your hands, Marvel. Please don’t hurt us.  

[hjbender]

I’ve never agreed with something so hard in my life. You did a phenomenal job of assembling this, unpacking it, and putting it all back together again, Salt. Please allow me to scream quote my favorite parts with interspersed commentary:

People are scared — scared! of the end of a story! of entertainment! — that the characters we have come to love so much are going to be killed off. That the only way an arc can end is in death.

We’re afraid that these characters will come to such unnecessary, ignominious endings that our experiences of the entire 22-film story will be tainted. We’re afraid that beloved friends will come to cheap ends for the sake of a cheap shock. We’re afraid that studio heads will only see dollar signs in coffins because they lack the imagination to allow for a graceful, kinder ending.

Aside from being the absolute truth, that last line was beautiful in a very macabre way.

We’re genuinely, legitimately scared that Loki’s death won’t be “fixed” because Thor needs “stakes” to save the universe. The stakes are so high that the fun has been sucked out of the story. The stakes are so high that really good characters are being killed off because studio heads can’t think of any better way for a movie to end. How is this any way to run a railroad? 

WORD. RIGHT ON. AMEN. ALL OF THIS. PREACH. The only way I can see all this death being “justified” is if we’re in for a complete restoration of what was lost in Infinity War. We know for sure some characters will be returning, like Peter Parker and Gamora because they’re in upcoming features. Others… we just have to hope their deaths weren’t completely useless. (I.e., Heimdall, Loki, et al.)

It’s not that there was no conflict. It’s that the stories were about the heroes. The stories were about people making choices, and living with the consequences of the choices.

Ugh, yes. So often storylines end with the achievement of The Big Objective and we don’t get to see how the characters deal with their victory/the aftermath of battle, etc. It’s a bit of a let-down, but it sure makes for some great fanfiction.

Studio heads feel like there’s nowhere to go but bigger. And that eventually bigger has to mean “dead.” Because otherwise people won’t get excited. It’s not daring or bold or whatever if people don’t die. 

I think this might the result of poor writing and/or, as you mentioned, genuine lack of knowing how to continue a story and “keep audiences interested and invested”. Because apparently the casual slice-of-life scenes like you cited in Age of Ultron aren’t classified as compelling storytelling. (If they only knew.)

The entertainment industry is constantly striving to create something new, original, unique, unlike anything ever seen before (all advertising hooks, by the way). I suppose studio execs don’t think people will be entertained unless our faves are constantly in mortal peril, life as we know it is on the verge of total destruction, the fate of the universe hangs in the balance, or some other form of nail-biting, tremendously excruciating, high-stakes tension. (And in this day and age when fans are taking their fandom very seriously and often have preexisting anxiety issues, this formula could use some tweaking. It’s got to be exhausting to even mentally healthy fans.) 

Real life is nerve-wracking as it is. Do we really need that same gratuitous level of stress in the media we consume? Especially if the earlier franchise has been fun and enjoyable until now?

Once upon a time, cinematic tension could be relieved with a positive (dare I say happy) conclusion. But not anymore. Writers are mistaking death for compelling drama. They think it’s the only way to advance a plot, to close a character’s arc, and make the movie “live up to its hype”.

Tumblr users @bewareofchris and @starkysnarks made excellent points in a post regarding Tony Stark’s character arc, how it seems to be on a collision course with death and defeat in Endgame and how, up to this point, Marvel has stripped him of everything that allows him to be happy. (I reblogged with a parallel to Thor’s character, and brought up Loki’s character development much like you did, Salt.) 

This seems to be an emerging trend in cinema: create a character, let the audience fall in love with them, then proceed to tear the character apart ruthlessly – and in most cases, kill them off gloriously for the sake of a story. Because the only way for studios to “get it right” anymore is to upset the audience so badly that people end up with post-traumatic stress disorders. 

@starkysnarks said it better and more concisely than I ever could:

This is how the journey of self-betterment ends – in death. There’s no getting redemption, or rather there’s no way of getting to enjoy it post-factum because you’ll die, and some people will cry and be like “aw he was bad but then he was good and then he died how sad”, and that’s it. The ultimate finishing move of becoming a good person is just like, dying for an epic good cause in a sweeping tear-jerking sacrifice, applause, draw the curtains. Not going into the future as this “good person”, whatever that means, not getting to reap the benefits of that. Not going into the future as this “good person”, whatever that means, not getting to reap the benefits of that. Not getting to connect and reconnect with people you love, not getting to see your legacy take roots and improve the lives of other people.

When did bleakness and negativity replace good storytelling and drama in media? What’s with this prevalence of death, disappointment, and despair in an industry meant to entertain? I’m sure it’s a reflection of today’s political and socio-economic environment, and the psychological state of that all-important 18-35 demographic, but I’ll let someone more knowledgeable than me write that thesis.

Happy endings (or hopeful conclusions) aren’t just for little kids. Adults enjoy them, too. It’s possible to write a great story without killing off the heroes.

I can only hope that Endgame doesn’t follow this terrible, tragic trend.

[thesaltofcarthage]

beautifully said, and thank you for your kind words — coming from a writer and observer of human nature of such spectacular skill as yours, @hjbender, that means a great deal. :) 

[iamanartichoke]

Reblogging for @hjbender‘s addition, specifically: 

This seems to be an emerging trend in cinema: create a character, let the audience fall in love with them, then proceed to tear the character apart ruthlessly – and in most cases, kill them off gloriously for the sake of a story. Because the only way for studios to “get it right” anymore is to upset the audience so badly that people end up with post-traumatic stress disorders. 

Emphasis mine. This is especially true of the Loki fandom, where I’ve seen people time and again talking openly about how Loki’s death affected their mental health, how they went through the process of grief as if Loki was a real person, how genuinely upsetting and graphic the death itself was, and how there’s this lingering sense of anxiety and dread running through the collective masses even a year later. I include myself in all of this. It’s genuinely upsetting and I am very exhausted of studios feeding on people’s real emotional investment in characters and using it for profit, for the stakes, for their own egos. 

[rennemichaels]

I did not go see Infinity War, I will not go see this if they don’t fix their fuckups in Endgame. I am totally over their shit and will not reward them with a single dime if they mess up again. 

[portraitoftheoddity]

Just because something isn’t explained doesn’t mean it’s a plot hole; sometimes the author just made the mistake of assuming we weren’t all idiots and could extrapolate a reasonable answer on our own. 

[rin-the-shadow]

Oh dear Lord, explaining this at times..

Of course, then there are also those times where something not being explained is neither a plot whole nor the author assuming too much of the audience’s intelligence. Sometimes, the author made the mistake of assuming our minds would fill in the gaps with something that was scarier/funnier/etc, than if they had point-blank told us what it was.

Of course, I’m mostly thinking of the “nothing is scarier” trope, but I’m sure there are others that fit.

[ao3commentoftheday]

Okay in regards to the concrit comment ask, I feel like concrit should be welcomed because how else does someone improve? Not everyone is going to like what you write no matter what. But concrit is important to grow as a writer.

The concrit debate will never be resolved. There are people such as yourself who seek concrit from the comments section. There are others who look for concrit from a beta or from friends/family/other writers in their fandom. Still others just see writing as a fun hobby and don’t want concrit at all because growing as a writer is fine and all, but they don’t want to stress about it too much. 

Some people will welcome all concrit. Other people will welcome some. Still others won’t welcome it at all. If you don’t know what kind of person the author is, ask. I mean, I know it’s a joke on tumblr to say “OP, do you accept constructive criticism?” but it’s a valid question and will help avoid miscommunication. 

Anyone else have thoughts here?

[kryptodrakonprogenitor]

Ask. Always ask. Not everyone is looking for criticism, constructive or otherwise.

I’m a photographer. I have a formal education and years of industry experience in consumer portraiture and real estate photography. But when a friend shows me their album of vacation pictures I don’t jump in and start dropping tips on exposure and composition because chances are they’re not looking for feedback. Some people just want to share something they enjoyed creating. If they want it, they’ll ask for it. Same goes for any creative endeavor someone shares. Sure, concrit can help people improve, but someone who doesn’t want it and gets it anyway isn’t going to appreciate it, and worst case they get discouraged and just quit.

[mccrees-tumbleweed1-deactivated]

Writing is zipping along through six pages in under an hour and then getting stuck on a single transition sentence for three weeks.

[mccrees-tumbleweed1-deactivated]

when the fuck did this get notes 

[the-queen-of-thedas]

While you were pondering over the transition sentence

[gr8writingtips]

writing tip #1340:

design your world around your characters. allow the use of large fences and smooth materials. don’t let them escape

[womenintheirwebs-archived]

the one problem i have with people my age and younger is that a lot of us do not have hands on hobbies. like i have spoken to so many people my age who go to work, go to school and then fuck around on their phone/computer for hours and then ???????? like no wonder ur depressed and have low confidence in urself. u need to get ur hands on something, feed those dopamine receptors! learn how to play guitar, garden, scrapbook, fucking make model trains. i don’t give a shit, MAKE SOMETHING!!

it feels better than drugs when i finish making a thing—and then show it off or gift it.

and then so people my age say to me ‘well—i can’t draw/paint/knit/etc. like you can. my stuff would be terrible.’ yeah, well duh—a part of developing skill is sucking at something and then practicing it over and over and over again until you suck less. u’ll have a hard time feeling lonely or bored when you can’t stop thinking abt a technique you want to try or something you want to make for someone else. making things has SAVED MY LIFE. it gave me a reason to keep living day after day when i wanted to die.

making things have improved my generational relationships (when i worked for the newspaper i would talk to customers abt jamming recipes or cross-stitch, one of my grandmas always gives me pattern books and tell me abt when she knitted things for mom, my other grandma is giving me a wedding quilt that HER grandma gave her 50 years ago because she knows i will appreciate it). it also got me likeminded friends who also make things.

take a ceramics class! pick up water colors, bake cakes! learn to work on cars! make soap. DO SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T INVOLVE STARING AT A SCREEN.

[starlightomatic]

How to Write Jewish Fanfic Characters

1.  Please don’t write them as “Jewish in name only.”  For one thing, that essentially takes away representation, which is hurtful, and for another, trying to prevent assimilation is a really big thing in the Jewish community.  The characters’ parents died when they were kids?  Write them as having been raised by other Jews (eg family members).  Honestly, doing otherwise is a cop out.  For centuries, people who hated us have wanted us to leave our Jewishness behind and fully assimilate.  You are inadvertently tying into that when you do write the characters as “Jewish in name only.”

2.  Consider writing them as at least somewhat religious.  Of course, there are certainly secular Jews in real life, but there are hardly any religious Jews in media and it gets tiring.  There would absolutely be practicing Jewish wizards regardless of whether Harry is religious; if we can keep our traditions despite progroms, the Holocaust, forced assimilation, and the American melting pot, being wizards won’t faze us.  There are religious Jews who participate in many cultures and subcultures around the world.  That there are no explicitly religious characters in Harry Potter is more of a function of Harry’s inability to notice these things (and JKR’s struggle with portrayals of minority groups) than an indication that there are no religious wizards.

3.  Even if they’re not religious, please write them as being at least culturally Jewish.  What I mean is, have them participate in Jewish culture. They celebrate Chanukah, for instance (if Harry celebrates Christmas, the Goldsteins can celebrate Chanukah, even if they’re secular).  They know some Yiddish words.  You don’t necessarily have to write that in, but it should be the background in your head.

4.  Don’t have them celebrating Christmas, unless they’re doing it solely for the benefit of Christian or culturally-Christian friends.  Cultural Christians tend to see Christmas as secular and universal, but for us, it’s not.  I don’t know any Jews who celebrate Christmas who aren’t part of interfaith families.  This may not seem like a big deal, but it is.  Christmas is a major signifier of complete assimilation.  When you write Jewish characters celebrating Christmas for themselves, you’re making a much stronger statement than you intend.

5.  Consider including positive details.  This is not strictly necessary (for fanfic writers, that is; JKR and Stuart Craig should have done it) but it is nice.  Positive details are little things that won’t disrupt the flow of the story, but will be recognized by your Jewish readers and will make them happy.  Examples can include a reference to candlesticks on a mantelpiece when describing a room, or mentioning that Passover is the reason a character is visiting his sister-in-law but not going into detail about the Seder meal.  Here’s an excerpt from a fic I wrote:

It is three years later (but somehow, it feels so much shorter), when Newt finds himself sitting in the afternoon sunlight, Tina by his side (her hands folded in her lap and somehow still breathtaking at the age of 109), looking up at the couple standing in the dappled sunlight filtering through the leaves twined into the posts of their wedding canopy. His grandson, grown into a handsome and capable young man, and Luna, as ethereal as she was at age twelve but now carrying herself with the maturity of someone who has seen all the horrors the world has to offer and has decided still to view the world with wonder, stand face to face, gently clasping one another’s hands and exuding quiet strength.

They are clearly following the Jewish custom of having a wedding canopy (chuppah), but I do not explicitly mention that it is a Jewish custom, and while it is clearly mentioned, it is not the focus.  The advantage to using positive details is twofold; it ensures representation without distracting from the focus of the story, but it also portrays Jewish customs as normal for Jews.  When I’m performing a Jewish ritual, it’s just a part of my life – I don’t stop and think about the fact that it’s Jewish, or think it’s at all out of the ordinary.

6.  Omit negative details.  These are things that would be inappropriate for a culturally or somewhat-religious Jewish character.  I can’t speak for anyone else, but they interrupt the flow of the story for me.  These are things like having a character eat something blatantly unkosher (pork, shellfish, dairy-and-meat-together).  It’s possible that they could be doing this if the character is very secular, but I already addressed that in Point 2 and, if this is the 1920s, plenty of secular Jews actually kept some level of kosher.  It’s entirely possible that secular Jewish characters in the 1920s could even have a fully-kosher kitchen.  That might seem very strange to you if you are culturally Christian, but Christianity and Judaism are very, very different.  The idea you have in your head of “religion” isn’t entirely applicable to Judaism.  Keeping kosher has cultural as well as religious significance.

7.  Mention major Jewish holidays if your fic takes place on or near them.  You don’t need to go into detail, but it would be odd to have, say, a fic during April with not even a single passing mention of Passover.  Likewise October and the fall holidays. This can be easily avoided if you simply set the fic at a different time.  If you’re not sure when the holidays are, Hebcal is a great resource.  Google “hebcal [year]” or “[holiday] [year].”

8.  Consider going into more detail.  This is not necessary by any means, but it a lovely thing to do and will certainly get you a reblog from @jewish-harrypotter if you let me know about it (fics with a lot of positive details will, too).  This is harder because it requires more research, but I’m always available as a resource.  I can’t tell you exactly what Jewish life looked like in the early 20th century, but if you’re okay with the fic not adhering to precise historical accuracy I can tell you what Jewish life looks like now (and the most basic aspects of the rituals haven’t really changed much).  I also very much recommend My Jewish Learning  as a resource.  Also, if any Jews reading this are also available as resources, please comment on this post.

9.  Listen to Jews.  If a Jewish reader points out that something’s off, trust them to know what they’re talking about.  If they’re telling you that Christmas is not a universal holiday, don’t tell them it is.  No one expects someone who isn’t Jewish to know about Jewish culture or religion, but there’s a difference between not knowing something and rejecting what someone is trying to tell you.

Hope that helped!  Thank you for reading!  I know writing about a minority you’re not part of is hard, and I appreciate you taking the time to read this to find out how to do it better!

[pearwaldorf]

[A tweet from Lauren DeStefano:  Writing is like reading except the book is trying to kill you] (source)

[skittidyne]

#also it’s screaming the entire time#and so are you

[deducecanoe-deactivated20161213]

Oh god. It is.

[a-princesa-de-cristal-deactivat]

@gemlikegemstone

[daily-volcanology]

Things Disaster Movies Always Get Wrong

We all love disaster movies! The cool special effects, the underdog stories, the underlying themes of hope. As cool as they are, they do tend to use misconceptions about natural disasters. This normally wouldn’t be an issue since Hollywood will always embellish but it’s important to know the true science behind these phenomena should you ever encounter them.

1) Pyroclastic flows will kill you almost instantly, you cannot survive a direct hit

Movies guilty of this: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Dante’s Peak

Pyroclastic flows exceed 100km/h and reach temperatures over 1,000°C. You definitely cannot outrun it in either car or on foot. The boiling hot toxic gas, ash, and lava in the flow will kill you instantly and pummel your smoking corpse into oblivion. Sorry, Chris Pratt.

2) Tsunamis do not crest, they are more like a sudden flood than a wave

Movies guilty of this: Literally any movie with a tsunami ever

Tsunamis are massive and sudden floods caused by the displacement of ocean water due to earthquakes or massive landslides. They’re not tidal waves and thus do not crest. It’s poetic, but inaccurate.

3) Hail is always spherical and doesn’t fall in big cinder blocks of ice

Movies guilty of this: The Day After Tomorrow

Hail can get quite large and can definitely be fatal, but they are exclusively spherical. Hail is formed by water droplets cycling through the updrafts of a thunderstorm and the rotational movements make the resulting hail a ball.

Looks more like a stage hand is throwing the remains of an ice swan than a hail storm

4) You cannot freeze instantaneously. Not even in space.

Movies guilty of this: The Day After Tomorrow, Geostorm, The Cloverfield Paradox, Sunshine

Space, and certain places on Earth, can get exceedingly cold. The coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth was −89.2 °C. That’s damn cold. But you still wouldn’t flash freeze into a peoplesicle within mere seconds. Intense cold can kill you quickly if you’re completely exposed but it would still take time before your body would be a thoroughly frozen chunk of meat. As for space, it can get quite cold, but it’s also an empty vacuum. There’s nothing around you but empty void, which means there’s also nothing to transfer your body heat away from you. Without convection, your body heat would be lost via radiation and that can take a long time.

5) Earthquakes over 10 on the Richter scale are physically impossible on Earth.

Movies guilty of this: 10.5

You would need a massive fault line to carry that sort of energy. Something on the scale of going through the earth’s core. Which does not exist . Even then, if such an earthquake would occur, the planet would literally explode.A 15 magnitude earthquake would release energy on the magnitude of 1x10^32 joules. That, coincidentally, is the same amount of energy contained in the gravitational binding of the Earth. Simply put, anything greater than 9.9 on the Richter scale is impossible and would cause the Earth to explode.

6) California will and can not sink into the Pacific like a big slab, and it can’t break away from the rest of the US.

Movies guilty of this: 2012, 10.5

Most movies cite the San Andreas fault as the reason for the cleavage, but even this isn’t enough. The San Andreas fault is a transform fault, meaning the North American plate and the Pacific Plate are slowly horizontally grinding past each other, not pushing away. As California is a part of the greater Pacific plate, it literally could not snap free from it to “sink into the sea”. Because if the entire tectonic plate underneath California where to flip over and sink then the entire ocean would drain away into the mantle.

7) You can’t sink in lava. You also can’t stand near it without being burned.

Movies guilty of this: Volcano, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

Lava is molten rock, and is incredibly dense. In fact, it’s three times as dense as humans, who are mostly water. If you were to cannonball into a lava pit, you would dip in a bit before bouncing to the top and floating. You would also burn up and die super quickly. Because fresh lava can exceed 1,200°C! Even standing a couple feet away from a lava flow, you would feel the intense heat radiation. You would lose your eyebrows and probably the top layer of your skin if you stood too close. There’s a reason why volcanologists wear protective suits. Sam and Frodo would have been roasted.

[dra-aluxe-oldblog]

Can we make one of this but with Anatomy, biology and microbiology facts against Horror and Slasher movies?? Some mistakes are funny to watch but they’re so common that they became annoying.

[hobbitonwheels]

Petition to have one of these for the various inaccuracies of medical dramas.

[writing-prompt-s]

Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up.

[sadoeuphemist]

Arepo built a temple in his field, a humble thing, some stones stacked up to make a cairn, and two days later a god moved in.

“Hope you’re a harvest god,” Arepo said, and set up an altar and burnt two stalks of wheat. “It’d be nice, you know.” He looked down at the ash smeared on the stone, the rocks all laid askew, and coughed and scratched his head. “I know it’s not much,” he said, his straw hat in his hands. “But - I’ll do what I can. It’d be nice to think there’s a god looking after me.”

The next day he left a pair of figs, the day after that he spent ten minutes of his morning seated by the temple in prayer. On the third day, the god spoke up.

“You should go to a temple in the city,” the god said. Its voice was like the rustling of the wheat, like the squeaks of fieldmice running through the grass. “A real temple. A good one. Get some real gods to bless you. I’m no one much myself, but I might be able to put in a good word?” It plucked a leaf from a tree and sighed. “I mean, not to be rude. I like this temple. It’s cozy enough. The worship’s been nice. But you can’t honestly believe that any of this is going to bring you anything.”

“This is more than I was expecting when I built it,” Arepo said, laying down his scythe and lowering himself to the ground. “Tell me, what sort of god are you anyway?”

“I’m of the fallen leaves,” it said. “The worms that churn beneath the earth. The boundary of forest and of field. The first hint of frost before the first snow falls. The skin of an apple as it yields beneath your teeth. I’m a god of a dozen different nothings, scraps that lead to rot, momentary glimpses. A change in the air, and then it’s gone.”

The god heaved another sigh. “There’s no point in worship in that, not like War, or the Harvest, or the Storm. Save your prayers for the things beyond your control, good farmer. You’re so tiny in the world. So vulnerable. Best to pray to a greater thing than me.”

Arepo plucked a stalk of wheat and flattened it between his teeth. “I like this sort of worship fine,” he said. “So if you don’t mind, I think I’ll continue.”

“Do what you will,” said the god, and withdrew deeper into the stones. “But don’t say I never warned you otherwise.”

Arepo would say a prayer before the morning’s work, and he and the god contemplated the trees in silence. Days passed like that, and weeks, and then the Storm rolled in, black and bold and blustering. It flooded Arepo’s fields, shook the tiles from his roof, smote his olive tree and set it to cinder. The next day, Arepo and his sons walked among the wheat, salvaging what they could. The little temple had been strewn across the field, and so when the work was done for the day, Arepo gathered the stones and pieced them back together.

“Useless work,” the god whispered, but came creeping back inside the temple regardless. “There wasn’t a thing I could do to spare you this.”

“We’ll be fine,” Arepo said. “The storm’s blown over. We’ll rebuild. Don’t have much of an offering for today,” he said, and laid down some ruined wheat, “but I think I’ll shore up this thing’s foundations tomorrow, how about that?” 

The god rattled around in the temple and sighed.

A year passed, and then another. The temple had layered walls of stones, a roof of woven twigs. Arepo’s neighbors chuckled as they passed it. Some of their children left fruit and flowers. And then the Harvest failed, the gods withdrew their bounty. In Arepo’s field the wheat sprouted thin and brittle. People wailed and tore their robes, slaughtered lambs and spilled their blood, looked upon the ground with haunted eyes and went to bed hungry. Arepo came and sat by the temple, the flowers wilted now, the fruit shriveled nubs, Arepo’s ribs showing through his chest, his hands still shaking, and murmured out a prayer. 

“There is nothing here for you,” said the god, hudding in the dark. “There is nothing I can do. There is nothing to be done.” It shivered, and spat out its words. “What is this temple but another burden to you?”

“We -” Arepo said, and his voice wavered. “So it’s a lean year,” he said. “We’ve gone through this before, we’ll get through this again. So we’re hungry,” he said. “We’ve still got each other, don’t we? And a lot of people prayed to other gods, but it didn’t protect them from this. No,” he said, and shook his head, and laid down some shriveled weeds on the altar. “No, I think I like our arrangement fine.”

“There will come worse,” said the god, from the hollows of the stone. “And there will be nothing I can do to save you.”

The years passed. Arepo rested a wrinkled hand upon the temple of stone and some days spent an hour there, lost in contemplation with the god.

And one fateful day, from across the wine-dark seas, came War.

Arepo came stumbling to his temple now, his hand pressed against his gut, anointing the holy site with his blood. Behind him, his wheat fields burned, and the bones burned black in them. He came crawling on his knees to a temple of hewed stone, and the god rushed out to meet him.

“I could not save them,” said the god, its voice a low wail. “I am sorry. I am sorry. I am so so sorry.” The leaves fell burning from the trees, a soft slow rain of ash. “I have done nothing! All these years, and I have done nothing for you!”

“Shush,” Arepo said, tasting his own blood, his vision blurring. He propped himself up against the temple, forehead pressed against the stone in prayer. “Tell me,” he mumbled. “Tell me again. What sort of god are you?”

“I -” said the god, and reached out, cradling Arepo’s head, and closed its eyes and spoke.

“I’m of the fallen leaves,” it said, and conjured up the image of them. “The worms that churn beneath the earth. The boundary of forest and of field. The first hint of frost before the first snow falls. The skin of an apple as it yields beneath your teeth.” Arepo’s lips parted in a smile.

“I am the god of a dozen different nothings,” it said. “The petals in bloom that lead to rot, the momentary glimpses. A change in the air -” Its voice broke, and it wept. “Before it’s gone.”

“Beautiful,” Arepo said, his blood staining the stones, seeping into the earth. “All of them. They were all so beautiful.”

And as the fields burned and the smoke blotted out the sun, as men were trodden in the press and bloody War raged on, as the heavens let loose their wrath upon the earth, Arepo the sower lay down in his humble temple, his head sheltered by the stones, and returned home to his god.

[sameenbyhat]

Sora found the temple with the bones within it, the roof falling in upon them.

“Oh, poor god,” she said, “With no-one to bury your last priest.” Then she paused, because she was from far away. “Or is this how the dead are honored here?” The god roused from its contemplation.

“His name was Arepo,” it said, “He was a sower.”

Sora startled, a little, because she had never before heard the voice of a god. “How can I honor him?” She asked.

“Bury him,” the god said, “Beneath my altar.”

“All right,” Sora said, and went to fetch her shovel.

“Wait,” the god said when she got back and began collecting the bones from among the broken twigs and fallen leaves. She laid them out on a roll of undyed wool, the only cloth she had. “Wait,” the god said, “I cannot do anything for you. I am not a god of anything useful.”

Sora sat back on her heels and looked at the altar to listen to the god.

“When the Storm came and destroyed his wheat, I could not save it,” the god said, “When the Harvest failed and he was hungry, I could not feed him. When War came,” the god’s voice faltered. “When War came, I could not protect him. He came bleeding from the battle to die in my arms.” Sora looked down again at the bones.

“I think you are the god of something very useful,” she said.

“What?” the god asked.

Sora carefully lifted the skull onto the cloth. “You are the god of Arepo.”

[stu-pot]

Generations passed. The village recovered from its tragedies—homes rebuilt, gardens re-planted, wounds healed. The old man who once lived on the hill and spoke to stone and rubble had long since been forgotten, but the temple stood in his name. Most believed it to empty, as the god who resided there long ago had fallen silent. Yet, any who passed the decaying shrine felt an ache in their hearts, as though mourning for a lost friend. The cold that seeped from the temple entrance laid their spirits low, and warded off any potential visitors, save for the rare and especially oblivious children who would leave tiny clusters of pink and white flowers that they picked from the surrounding meadow.

The god sat in his peaceful home, staring out at the distant road, to pedestrians, workhorses, and carriages, raining leaves that swirled around bustling feet. How long had it been? The world had progressed without him, for he knew there was no help to be given. The world must be a cruel place, that even the useful gods have abandoned, if farms can flood, harvests can run barren, and homes can burn, he thought.

He had come to understand that humans are senseless creatures, who would pray to a god that cannot grant wishes or bless upon them good fortune. Who would maintain a temple and bring offerings with nothing in return. Who would share their company and meditate with such a fruitless deity. Who would bury a stranger without the hope for profit. What bizarre, futile kindness they had wasted on him. What wonderful, foolish, virtuous, hopeless creatures, humans were.

So he painted the sunset with yellow leaves, enticed the worms to dance in their soil, flourished the boundary between forest and field with blossoms and berries, christened the air with a biting cold before winter came, ripened the apples with crisp, red freckles to break under sinking teeth, and a dozen other nothings, in memory of the man who once praised the god’s work on his dying breath.

“Hello, God of Every Humble Beauty in the World,” called a familiar voice.

The squinting corners of the god’s eyes wept down onto curled lips. “Arepo,” he whispered, for his voice was hoarse from its hundred-year mutism.

“I am the god of devotion, of small kindnesses, of unbreakable bonds. I am the god of selfless, unconditional love, of everlasting friendships, and trust,” Arepo avowed, soothing the other with every word.

“That’s wonderful, Arepo,” he responded between tears, “I’m so happy for you—such a powerful figure will certainly need a grand temple. Will you leave to the city to gather more worshippers? You’ll be adored by all.”

“No,” Arepo smiled.

“Farther than that, to the capitol, then? Thank you for visiting here before your departure.”

“No, I will not go there, either,” Arepo shook his head and chuckled.

“Farther still? What ambitious goals, you must have. There is no doubt in my mind that you will succeed, though,” the elder god continued.

“Actually,” interrupted Arepo, “I’d like to stay here, if you’ll have me.”

The other god was struck speechless. “…. Why would you want to live here?”

“I am the god of unbreakable bonds and everlasting friendships. And you are the god of Arepo.”

[corancoranthemagicalman]

I reblogged this once with the first story. Now the story has grown and I’m crying. This is gorgeous, guys. This is what dreams are made of.

[threefeline]

[writing-prompt-s]

This is amazing!

[doesthendnlive]

I think the cruelest thing about being Native and majoring in media studies is that I already have this built in defense mechanism that keeps me from sitting down and watching movies or reading books about Native Americans / First Nations people because I don’t want to watch another Native woman be raped. I don’t want to watch another man who looks like my father and uncle get murdered or killed or abused. I don’t want to see Native children abused or beaten or killed. I don’t want to see another massacre. I don’t want to see another Native woman fall in love with a white man who either breaks her heart or gets her killed. I don’t want to be bombarded with racist stereotypes or actors in redface or some outsider’s perspective about what anti-native racism is. I don’t want to see alcoholism and suicide and extreme poverty and violent racism. I sure as hell don’t want to see a white savior who needs to witness our pain in order to grow as a person.

And it’s this psychological tug of war where I KNOW that these stories need to be told, and especially need to be told by native content creators, but I hate that these are the ONLY stories that are told about us. And I hate that, when I look for Native representation, I’m afraid to investigate further to see if the representation is good or not because the chances of it NOT being good or at least being DEEPLY upsetting and potentially PTSD-inducing are pretty high.

If you want to know why I haven’t seen that movie, or played that game, or watched that show, or read that comic, it’s because I’m hesitant to. I’m afraid to. At some point I will push back against that anxiety and do it for the sake of this blog and for the sake of my writing but for the most part, I just do NOT want to get hurt again.

And that’s really sad to me. It’s really, REALLY sad that this is the only story people seem to give a damn about. If it isn’t some New Age Panindianism “magical native” racist nonsense, it’s death and destruction and sorrow and I am just so TIRED of both of those things. 

[inkskinned]

it’s sleeting. i tilt my head up and blow out because for some reason i’m a grown adult who always thinks this time my breath will make a cool shape in the air.

i put another chocolate in my mouth. you’re on the stoop, staring at a puddle. i think you forgot about your cigarette, but i don’t think you actively like smoking them anyway. i offer you a mini snickers and you unwrap it without blinking. like wherever you are, it’s not a place your eyes can see.

“maybe we should go get dry,” i say.

the sleet falls. i want to french kiss the person who invented good insulated hoods. my hands are cold. i want to stab the person who invented lazy stitching on gloves. 

“can a person break?” you ask finally. i knew this was coming but it still feels like i’ve been dropped from an okay day into an important moment. i don’t know how to handle it. i pull out another chocolate.

we’re made of bone, of flesh. we cannot break, we are built to rebound, to grow, to scar over our cracks but to come back up from the ground below. so many promise me: when a plate breaks, you can seal it with gold. but a person? a person is not ceramic, we don’t shatter.

but then i look at you and i look at where the snow’s already covering the road and it’s all turning into a sandy mess and you still haven’t finished your cigarette and i’m running out of chocolate and i don’t ever have the right words in the moment. what is there to say except yeah shit sucks but it’s not all rotten.

“i think,” i say finally, “it can feel like it.” 

what i mean is. yes it hurts as bad as a knife-edge. what i mean is. i know where you are, i was born there and the back of my throat never stopped burning from it. what i mean is. it’s okay if you’re like this, i’ll show you how to wrap your soul in a sling and carry it until it stops hurting.

“but no,” you say, distant. “No, you don’t think so. a person can’t be broken.”

“well,” i say, but you’re already moving. you stand up, throw down the cigarette, leave a burnt orange smear under your sneaker. stomp off snow.

you flash me a smile. moment over. moment gone. something i said, i know, was deeply, terribly wrong. i hear a door closing between us. some kind of shutting. behind your eyes, something is leaning in, giving up to the storm. 

“Come on,” you say, that dead-inside smile still on, “let’s go inside.”

“no, i…” 

the smile grows. you take a chocolate. “it’s all good,” you say. i know it’s not. “let just go get warm.”

[hewnhart]

It’s said a lot in writing circles that you can’t please everyone, which is true. You can’t please everyone.

But I also think it’s important to note that whatever you do, you will please someone. Someone out there will enjoy what you write.

[hewnhart]

Its incredibly heartwarming every time I see this post going around again.

Keep writing, everyone.

[1st-1]

According to the laws of physics, a planet in the shape of a doughnut (toroid) could exist Physicists say that such a planet would have very short nights and days, and arid outer equator, twilight polar regions, moons in strange orbits and regions with different gravity and seasons.

[mx-fairywings]

Actually, I’m reblogging this again. Because I just wanted to say this is a brilliant thing to potentially add to a story at some point and I want to tag this so I can find it later.