i find a codependent relationship between two characters so much more interesting when it's exclusively platonic and i ESPECIALLY like this concept when you also introduce separate romantic partners into the mix.
the mainstream idea of romantic partnership is that each partner should be the most important person in the other's life, right.
but what happens when, as the partner of someone who is in this sort of platonic codependent relationship, your "most important person" constructs all of their life plans with special consideration for someone else? what happens when that other person is their utmost priority? what happens when your partner ostensibly doesn't care as much about you as they care about their best friend?
how would you feel if you found out that your partner would choose them over you, 100% of the time? hurt? jealous? insecure? is it even possible to feel fulfilled when you don't have anyone who would do that for you? and at a certain point, does it become emotional cheating even if there's no desire for physical intimacy involved?
i guess it's ok if the platonic relationship were to teeter over into the realm of sexual companionship, or even to go so far as something akin to romance, but that would dilute what i like about it so much. i find it more compelling when people are dependent on each other for who they are and their history together as opposed to turning to each other to fulfill physical desires.
it's normal to have sex with someone you're in love with. when there's no sex involved at all, that's when it gets interesting
i think artists should take into consideration how their characters' skin tones may change depending on the season. if they tan/freckle in summer and get paler in winter. also should consider tan lines/fades
allowing myself an overly extensive metapost expanding on sonny’s history (alluded to in the last chapter) because i don’t intend to expand on it with such specificity in the text of the story itself.
tl;dr is at the end because this became 1.5k words. long enough that i’m going to include subheadings to break it up a little bit. apologies if it seems disjointed
big CW for discussion of csa, incest, & grooming
Unnecessary explanation self-justifying why I am allowed to metapost and why I bother to share it
a problem i frequently toil with while writing Solitaire— due to its intentionally obfuscating nature related to the aspects of memory loss, unreliable narration, self-denial, and my personal style of storytelling— is that i often feel like i’m toeing the line between Too Vague and Too Obvious. ideally i land in the middle ground, but it can be hard for me to tell whether i under or overshoot it. i just have to rely on much-appreciated reader comments and theories to know where i’m standing.
i open with this because i want to specify that, unlike how i approach Porter’s mysterious backstory (which is meant to be a sort of breadcrumb trail), it is not necessarily my intention for Sonny’s internal monologue in the most recent chapter to hint at some greater reveal.
Sonny is a csa/incest/grooming survivor. it’s my hope that this can be inferred from you deserve nothing + the night he died without any further explanation, because i’m not sure i will ever explicitly state it in so many words in the text itself— not because i’m wary to breach the subject, but because Sonny is. however, i understand that it’s not exactly overt and can be more simply interpreted as general sexual assault without understanding its nature or perpetrator. this is why i wanted to metapost about it… because it’s something that is important to me (and is, in some way, reflected in other themes of the story) and i want those who care about Sonny and his mindset to receive more context via so-called Word of God.
the vagueness of Sonny’s monologue, as opposed to a literary choice meant to induce a sense of mystery or lead up to an extended reveal, is rather meant to demonstrate Sonny’s mentality— how he tackles uncomfortable topics within his own mind. that is: thinking around them. it’s his nature not to think too deeply about hard truths. in fact, he’d rather forget! (this is an important aspect of his character which spans across multiple subjects— not only his sexual trauma.)
How Sonny’s pre-amnesia trauma relates to his post-amnesia relationships:
i’ve known from the beginning or near-beginning of Solitaire that Sonny is a csa survivor, and this informs the way i write him, but i think it’s worth making clear that Sonny did not realize this himself until now. in the hallucinatory throes of fever, and with Porter’s words & actions (in the bedroom and bathroom) mirroring the physicality of how Sonny’s abuser(s) hurt him, deep-seated memories and sensations were pulled to the surface. (though he still doesn’t fully understand or remember these experiences due to his memory blocks— both psychological and chemically-induced.)
Manny
i think the first time it was really on my mind while writing was shanghai rummy ii, when Sonny was alone in the bathroom with Manny who was half-naked.
“He presented the T-shirt, not trusting himself to speak. The enclosed space of the bathroom made it hard to breathe. The white noise of the faucet gave it all a foggy quality.
… “Sonny wished his master hadn’t sent him up here alone. He took consolation in the fact that the door was wide open behind him.”
since his first appearance, i intended for Sonny and Manuel to have a relationship imitating family bonds. Sonny doesn’t think of his relationship with him in those terms, but the association is subconsciously there— both in the wholesome way (connecting with him over shared identity) and the unsavory way (fearing to be alone with him). he’s Sonny’s allegorical uncle— Manny even relates to him in those terms when he compares Sonny to his nephew.
Manny is meant to be a frustrating character! i’ve observed that readers mainly dislike his bystander attitude (which is very valid). there’s another frustrating aspect to him which i think flies under the radar— the way Manny keeps putting himself and Sonny in situations where he oversteps boundaries as an older, more powerful man (both physically and socially). with the added context of Sonny’s trauma floating around in my mind, it makes this repeated offense even worse.
“There was something off about him. I offered him a smile, a little sheepishly, feeling bad about surprising him. Still, I stepped into the room."
in black eye he LITERALLY oversteps the boundary that is Sonny’s private space. he even acknowledges Sonny’s nervous demeanor, feels guilty about it, and waltzes in anyway. and then he touches Sonny without asking!!! (not that Sonny would expect to be asked, but i still consider it inappropriate.) Manuel induces an undeniable anxiety response in Sonny. i like him and i trust him, but… is he going to do something this time? is he going to take advantage of me? i want to briefly mention that this moment also parallels paper cut when Oz intrudes on Sonny in his room, though Sonny very much does NOT trust Oz.
(as an aside, i think if i had decided to write more about Sonny’s relationship with Dave and the Han family as a whole, there might also be something to be said there— but i didn’t.)
Port
Sonny’s little crush on Port, similarly to his status as a csa survivor, has been entirely subtext up until these recent chapters. (this is yet another example of Sonny’s refusal to put words to uncomfortable subjects— it took him a while to even recognize and accept these feelings.)
these two things— his crush and his trauma— are related in my mind. it’s not a coincidence that Porter explicitly referred to Sonny with the word “brother” in the very same chapter that took Sonny’s crush from subtext to… a little more than subtext? (i don’t know if it can be entirely classified as textual until Sonny brings it up in the night he died, but he did kiss Port’s neck. though Port, notably, does not use the word “kiss” which points to his similar tendency to beat around the bush.)
the events of you deserve nothing i think carry clear implications that sonny has some sort of sexual trauma… or at least the content warning at the beginning of the chapter should put the thought in the reader’s mind. (if they even read it. personally i rarely read content warnings; i just dive in and embrace the unknown.)
(btw is it obvious enough that Sonny has traumatic associations with bathrooms?)
it was not made plain that this sexual abuse was specifically incestuous, but one may be able to extrapolate this by noting the juxtapositional use of “brother” and considering why Sonny was speaking spanish as opposed to english. Sonny’s wires were very much crossed in his feverish state— he saw Porter not only for who he was, his companion whom he has loosely defined feelings for, but at the same time a warped version of a (spanish speaking) family member he used to know. when Port pushes him away, Sonny is confused and somewhat hurt— was this person not undressing him for the purpose of molesting him? he asks “¿no me quieres?” -> this literally translates to “you don’t want me?” but the verb querer in this context is commonly translated as love— “you don’t love me?”
Sonny’s relationship with Porter is not black and white, similar to how his relationship with his abusers was not black and white. he both crushes on port and thinks of him in a brotherly sense at the same time. it’s a reflection of the twisted relationships he had with his own family members, when familial and sexual intersected in ways that they shouldn’t.
does this mean a romantic/sexual relationship between Port and Sonny would be wrong? no, i don’t think so. they are not brothers, even if they may think of each other in those terms sometimes. i dislike to delineate transient, abstract relationships with such nuclear labels and forcing them into boxes in which the appropriate parameters of closeness and intimacy are strictly defined, and outside of that, labeled immoral or otherwise. relationships are complicated and often span across multiple descriptors used for the sake of perspicuous definitions.
however, it’s also understandable for someone to be uncomfortable with the idea of a romantic/sexual relationship between them when considering the added context of Sonny’s history. Sonny’s convoluted perspective is partially informed by his past experience with grooming, even if he isn’t fully aware of such implications. though i would also like to make to clear that his thought process is not Port = Brother = Lover (or any order of those things). his associations are below the surface and his attraction to Port is not founded on them. and for the record, this isn’t a statement on whether or not such a relationship will be explored in the future.
TL;DR
Sonny is a survivor of incestuous csa & grooming and did not recognize this until recently. his vague approach to this information is a demonstration of his tendency to avoid exploring uncomfortable topics. i don’t intend to treat it as a dramatic backstory reveal, hence why i write about it here. Sonny’s complicated perceptions about family color the way he views Port (both as a brotherly figure and as someone he is attracted to) but their relationship is not meant to invoke an explicitly incestuous aura, nor does Sonny think of it in such a way. this information is simply meant to provide more context to Sonny’s character and mental state.
i welcome any thoughts if you have any. hopefully this shines some light on his character in a way you find interesting
wanted to check the word count and ended up making a nifty spreadsheet.
TOTAL WORD COUNT: 65.5k
act i: 33.4k
act ii (so far): 32.1k
see averages, standout chapters, and a ~bonus statistic~ below the cut
terminology i'm using:
"chapter" = fics with unique titles (therefore combining multi-parters)
"part" = each fic as linked on the masterlist(s)
ex. Whitetail is 1 chapter with 3 parts
AVERAGE WORD COUNT PER CHAPTER: 2850
AVERAGE WORD COUNT PER PART: 1873
act i:
longest chapter: Whitetail (6535 words)
longest part: Black Eye (3068 words)
shortest chapter: A Familiar Nightmare (522 words)
if we are talking about back stories: how did oz’s friend group all meet? what were they like when they were younger?
* * *
well well well i’m glad you asked because thinking about oz’s childhood in the first place is what got me curious about others’ ocs…!
as for how they met:
oz & dave met at a casino, klaus & manny met at a bar, dave & manny were in a bowling group together and hit it off :P and so all four of them got together and bonded over their love of card games.
growing up:
oz went on the bullied -> bully pipeline. he suffered a looot of ridicule from his peers until he grew 6+ feet tall and started hitting the gym. got into a lot of fights, suffered a lot of mental health issues. he met noshin in adulthood because their parents knew each other. it was basically an arranged marriage, which he was fine with.
oz did not get along with his parents at all, though he attributes this less to the way they would beat him and more to the way they never emotionally supported him in anything. he always thought his dad was an asshole and never really understood his mom. some of his family history is expanded on in seen a ghost ii.
klaus was a bully for the LOVE OF THE GAME! his dad died before he was born (in vietnam) so he only grew up with one parent. had a lot of flings & girlfriends which he treated like shit until his mother told him to knock it off. she was a hardass but he loved her until she died.
manny had a pretty happy childhood. has a big family, which he gets along with, and spent a lot of his life going back and forth between the US and mexico. went into his father’s roofing business.
dave was kind of a nobody. his parents pushed him to do well in school, so he did, and that was that. he respects them a lot. met grace in high school and fell in love. they dated while he went to university and she went to culinary school.
grace has always been highly motivated and knew from a young age that she wanted to become a chef, much to the disappointment of her parents. she does not have a good relationship with them, but would hesitate to call them abusive. has never done anything to sonny that she hasn’t experienced herself.
