void shouting

sideblog for shouting about my wips kaci (they/them) | 27 main: complexedandfruity.tumblr.com

[void-shouting]

writeblr intro !

about me !

hey y'all i'm kaci aka khak! i'm 27, they/them, & currently located in PA. i work full-time in live entertainment while attempting to write in my free time. i have a BS in mechanical engineering & an MFA in stage automation, & writing has served as a creative escape since i started writing way back in 2011

where to find me !

main tumblr (i follow back from here!), twitter, instagram, youtube

about my wips !

ok so i have a number of wips in various stages of development. as i start to talk more about these projects, their info will be updated below

project pm | status: backburner between edits (for my sanity) tag, playlist, pinterest genre: YA coming-of-age queer romance situation blurb: High school senior and newly minted basketball team captain Niall Daniels is on track to play D1 basketball at his parents' alma mater next fall. When a snap decision and an snapped Achilles tendon leave him sidelined, Niall is, against all odds, relieved. Now the pressure's on to whip the basketball team into shape and give them a fighting chance at a winning season. Along the way, Niall will have to grapple with foraging a path forward for himself that doesn't give him anxiety, prioritizing himself and what he wants, and finally learning to trust the music in his heart.

power in grace | status: drafting tag, playlist (coming soon!), pinterest genre: NA sapphic portal fantasy retelling of the epic of gilgamesh log line because i haven’t written a full blurb yet lol: In an initiation ceremony gone deadly, sorority president Sheli Kisher must work with the magical being she accidentally summoned to rescue a dead sorority sister’s soul from the Underworld.

project star | status: plotting/vibing tag, playlist, pinterest genre: NA sporty romance (feat. a dual timeline if i can make it work lol) blurb: NCAA hockey star and NHL prospect Silas Cross doesn't have anything against love. If anything, love doesn't like him. It doesn't like always coming second to hockey, and it doesn't like that he can always tell when girls are only into him for the promise of a big shot hockey career with a huge paycheck, and it doesn't like his sneaking suspicion that he's doomed to turn into his parents. (It also doesn't like the whole "keeping it publicly under wraps that he's a trans man until further notice" thing, but it'll have to get in line.)

Silas doesn't have crushes, and he doesn't go on dates, and he doesn't fall in love. But when he keeps finding himself face-to-face with a cheerleader with long long legs and a megawatt smile that makes all her game day stunts look as effortless as breathing, he starts to consider changing his tune.

project syn | status: vibing in the background tag, playlist (coming soon!), pinterest genre: college-leaning YA contemporary mystery blurb: Ivy Starling was eight years old when her older sister left home. For years she's trusted her mother's depiction of her former sibling despite its stark contrast to the two good memories of her sister that she clutches onto. After finding a collection of video diaries on her sister's old iPod Touch while packing for college that shed a new light on the day she left, Ivy sets off to find her estranged sister and discover the truth.

come say hi!!

[ibajo256]

[c-is-for-circinate]

There are exactly two takes on 'do your child soldiers kill people or not?' that I really respect, and it's Fullmetal Alchemist and Animorphs.

[c-is-for-circinate]

From the replies:

@nordicninja Aaaand Avatar the last Airbender

And like, okay, true! But also consider: on this particular front, AtLA is good at this because it is a solid 8.5/10 on the FMA side of this scale.

(The 8.5/10 isn't a critique of AtLA, which is an excellent show on all counts, but it doesn't quite measure up to the FMA threshhold here simply because of the limitations of being an American kids' show. It can do the thing, but it can't foreground the thing or spend five seasons of anime/27 volumes of manga meditating on the ravages and implications of violence, because it's busy also being aimed at 10-year-olds and about other stuff too.)

Witness:

You could defeat the enemy, if you killed him. Your allies say you should. It would work.

It wouldn't even make you a bad person -- not here, not now, not in these circumstances. Of course you wouldn't be "as bad as they are," that's bullshit. Putting down a single mad dog does not equal literal genocide. FFS.

You could do it. You should do it. It would work, and isn't that the most important thing? To stop the horror? In the light of all the sheer destruction and evil at play, your own personal lily-white rejection of culpability is purely selfish. Isn't it?

But, god, you don't want to. You don't want to kill. The whole point is that life is important, is sacred, is worth protecting. You haven't been forced to yet. You keep finding ways around it. You've seen enough death. You don't want to do it.

Here and now, if you did -- it would fix the problem. It would fix things! It would save the day! The world would be inarguably better. You know this!

You know this. You know it because the world will not stop telling you this. Everything you've seen, everything you've been taught. Everything the people you love and respect say to you. And it's not a lie, it's not made up, it's true -- killing, here, in this one case, would help.

Why is the world so set on forcing you to kill? Why is this how the world works, that a child (you're not as young as you were when you started, but you're a child, you were a child, the first time somebody assumed you would someday simply have to be a murderer) gets handed a weapon and made to use it?

We are using the rules that the world set. We are using the rules that the genocidal maniac set. They are the same rules, because there's a reason genocidal maniacs are able to come to power in the first place, because the world is built in a way that violence works.

You know this. You're good at it! You're skilled at violence. It's how you've come so far.

But.

((and you know, the only reason you're able to have these thoughts, is because other people have already killed for you. will kill for you again. will wear the blood on their hands to save your life. somebody else is taking it so you don't have to, and you do not get to forget that.))

But maybe, if you're skilled enough. If you're good enough. If you can find a third option. Maybe, maybe, if you are just clever enough, if you're willing to risk losing entirely, you can do more than save the day.

Maybe you can rewrite the rules. Maybe you can rebel, not just against the genocidal horror villain about to doom the world, but against the entire world in the process.

If you're good enough to find the loophole -- to master the magic -- to put everything you've ever learned into practice. If you can find another way. If you can prove that another way exists.

Maybe you get to do more than close the door on one evil.

Maybe you get to open a new door on the possibility of changing the world.

[c-is-for-circinate]

And also:

@thoughtful-collections Could you go into the Animorphs side of the child soldier question? Obviously they do kill and I think one character even kills many of the yerks while they are defenceless and justifies it as a necessary step to win. I suppose that series is saying there is no avoiding murder/killing/getting your hands dirty in war?

Yesssss

Look, there are a lot of child soldiers in the genre, whatever 'genre' that may be. Some kill easily, thoughtlessly, like any action movie star. Some have Important Moral Lessons on how killing makes us no better than the bad guys. Many of them get their very own generous plot device get-out-of-jail free card: either they have some form of captivity that their opponents get sent to at the end of a fight and we never have to think too hard about false imprisonment without trial (Steven Universe; at least one instance of Power Rangers?; Batman and Robin generally; etc), or, their opponents aren't really people, so it doesn't actually count as murder (media as diverse as the Persona series all the way back to good old Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Sometimes, through sheer force of will, grit, and absolute unparalleled protagonist energy, child soldiers get to avoid killing in a world that makes it a genuine option.

Animorphs looked at all of those options, and it said, nah.

You want a war story, little child? Okay, the books say. Here's a war story. This is war.

Here's how it starts: you're goofing around with your friends one night. You take an ill-advised turn. You watch somebody get horrifically murdered.

No, you can't save him. Yes, you can save yourselves. Get used to that. Get used to it so, so fast.

You're on a trolley. Up ahead are two tracks. On one side: a dozen evil aliens. On the other side: your brother. Make a choice.

Good job, you didn't crash the train into a cliff. By the way, did we mention there are a thousand more tracks? More people tied to each and every one?

You get to put your hands on the steering wheel. You get to drive the trolley. This is a gift. Make a choice.

(Refusing to act is still a decision.)

You can jump off the train, if you want. You don't have to be the one to steer. Maybe you'll even survive the fall. Maybe the friends you're leaving behind will be good enough to make sure they don't run you over on your way down.

Your mom is on one of the tracks, by the way. Your dad. Your sisters, your cousins. Your brother, still.

You don't have to steer. You don't have to do this. You can let the train take its course, you can let it plow through all of humanity. You can let it happen. You get to do that, if it's what you want to do.

Nobody is coming to save you.

On one track: the aliens have names, thoughts, dreams, personalities. On the other track: there are six billion humans on this planet today.

Every single option in front of you is a war crime. If you're lucky, you'll get to pick which one.

(Refusing to act is still a decision.)

It's fun sometimes, driving a train. When there's nobody in the way, for just a little while. When you can pretend you're mowing down enemies in a video game. When you can give into the rush of adrenaline and just be glad you have the skill.

Maybe, maybe somebody will come to save you. They'll take over steering. You won't have to choose.

(Refusing to act is still a decision.)

Who will they choose to hit? Will they care? Will they care enough?

You watch TV. You watch Xena, and X-Files, and Buffy. You can pretend to live in a world where your enemies are nameless monsters without souls, if you want. If that makes it easier.

Is it easier, to kill them soft and vulnerable and completely powerless, unable to fight back? Does that feel better than killing the ones hunting you down, weapons in hand?

You are looking for a loophole. You are looking, and looking, and looking for a loophole. You don't get to fight monsters without souls. You don't get to lock them up in tiny bubble jail. They are going to kill you. This is what you get.

It's you. You're the one standing here. This is what's happening.

Refusing to act is still a decision.

(There is a loophole, eventually. A third path. One of you finds it, eventually.)

(It would not have worked, without years of war first. It took you years of war to find it and if you hadn't killed so, so many, it would not have worked.)

You don't get to be good, in war. You don't get to save the day by sacrificing your own life and remaining morally pure. That would be too easy. War means dead bodies. That's what it means.

That doesn't mean you give yourself over to despair. That doesn't mean you shrug and figure the lives being spent don't matter. You don't get to throw your own moral code on the altar of heroic sacrifice and claim to be the real victim here. It never stops mattering. It will never, ever get to stop mattering.

That doesn't mean you never fight. It just means that when you choose to step up and fight for something, you'd better be goddamn sure it's worth the cost, because chances are somebody a lot less powerful than you is going to be the one to pay.

On one track: Your brother. Your cousin. Seventeen thousand unarmed, helpless enemy agents.

On the other track: a new train's barreling straight at you and all six billion members of the human race. All-out slaughterous war. Giving over the steering wheel to the last hands that decided the best answer to their problems was genocide.

(REFUSING TO ACT IS STILL A DECISION)

You make a choice.

[winedark]

happy 35th anniversary to the pale blue dot !!!!!!!!

[katarinazurar]

me while writing: ah yes, this character should do this, it feels so natural with what they're saying

me while editing: why the FUCK does he lean on the doorway SEVENTEEN TIMES IN THIS CHAPTER

[penny-anna]

The problem w writing fiction is that you'll be like tee-hee I'm going to write a story about a fucked up little scenario that's got nothing to do with anything in real life, just some pure messed up nonsense, and then you finish it and take a step back and go aw rats I made a metaphor again

[sapphofinch]

[windrunnered]

[ID: a screaming brown-and-white cat with dilated eyes yelling into nothing. Comic sans text in huge font reads: WHY IS IT. ALWAYS ABOUT GRIEF. /end ID]

[segamascott]

[ocmaker]

It takes one minute to imagine the scene and 500 hours to write it

[malewifegradyruewen]

writing is so fun

[malewifegradyruewen]

i hate writing so much

[malewifegradyruewen]

this is so frustrating

[malewifegradyruewen]

i’m a literal god at writing

[nondelphic]

the agony of knowing exactly what a scene should feel like and not having the words sharp enough to cut it out of me

[chucktaylorupset]

*emerges from the other room covered in blood* you should see the word document

[wantonlywindswept]

does it look like this

[vickythestrange]

[yharnamsnewslug]

"The trolley problem makes you ethically complacent because it releases you from a third option" the Trolley Problem is a fucking thought experiment, idiot, and a real-life comparison to matters where you DO NOT HAVE A THIRD FUCKING OPTION.

Shut the fuck up, oh my god.

[pandirpus]

(via @cicadahaze )

[undeadentropy]

I feel like they did pick a third option. When given a messy decision, where good and evil isn't black and white, they will break down and scream at clouds, rather than make a decision.

But in practice, this means no lever is pulled, simply by inaction. You don't have time to think, and only one of two things is going to happen, however you dress it. Choose to walk away, or waste time cursing god for putting you there. In the end, the result is the same.

The trolley problem speaks to what is in someone's heart, when all the chips are down, and you've got a terrible decision to make. We all know that the objective correct decision is to flip the switch to save the most lives. But could you really make yourself do it, if you were in that situation? Could you choose who lives and who dies, even for the greater good? Is that even your decision to make? And that's why it's such a good thought experiment.

[ten0rreaper]

But is it the objectively correct decision? I think most people would instinctively agree. It’s the most harm reduction, after all. But then you look at it more- is personally killing one innocent more moral than watching as five people die?

We look at variations- what if the single person is someone you love dearly? What if the single person is the sole scientist working on life saving research? What’s the most moral option to you? What do you think is the most morally correct? Which do you hold more responsibility for?

There’s the- I did not name or come up with this- fat man variation. You’re standing on a bridge over some train tracks. There are five people tied to them and the train is coming. You are the only one who can do something. You’re too small and too high up to do anything, but next to you is a man of the perfect size and weight to stop the trolley. All you have to do is push him off the edge and into the path to save those five. Is it more moral to murder him, or to let the five die? How different does it feel now? Is there an objectively correct option here?

And another one of my favorites. You are a surgeon. There are five people who desperately need organ transplants fast, or they’ll die. You do not have matching organs available to you. However, there is a perfectly healthy person in your custody whose organs would match all of the patients. He does not want to die to save them. Is it more moral to take his organs and kill him, or to let the five die?

That one has a very different result than the original trolley problem, doesn’t it? Sure, there’s other factors that we’ve created in the medical field, but ultimately, the medical field has decided that it is NOT more moral to save the five by killing one. The “objectively correct” decision would be to let the five die. When people and places do take organs by force, it’s horrifying.

What people see as the “objectively correct” decision changes completely based on context. It would also change based on moral philosophy. Utilitarianism, if I remember correctly, would always say that saving the five is more moral than saving the one… even in the organ donor problem. Some moral philosophies would say that inaction would not be a moral wrong, and that the moral wrong would be to personally take a life.

The trolley problem is wonderful. It makes you uncomfortable, it forces to you to make a binary choice, and more importantly, it forces you to think about why you made that choice. It questions underlying assumptions. If an option is “objectively correct”, why is that? If you’re so uncomfortable that you need to search for another option, why? What moral concepts are motivating that?

I love the trolley problem.

[banalityofambiguity]

yeah the point of the problem is to force you to defend a position and say why pulling or not pulling the lever, or pushing the man, or not doing so, or whatever other variant is the best option given a binary choice. You can come up with a lot of reasons to defend either choice, it’s not a binary “this is why someone would pull the lever”, but you have to be honest with your consequences. People complaining there isn’t a third option are missing the point because they’re not answering the question.

Let’s use a physics example since the notes seem to like this metaphor. You are asked to give the rate at which something is accelerating down a slope. Complaining that the problem excludes the third option is like answering this physics problem with “well who put it on the slope”. Sure, it might be meaningful in a bigger picture, but it does nothing to answer the question in front of you. Every number in existence is a valid answer (though many are wrong), but “why is it on the slope?” isnt an answer.

However, by criticizing the problem people manage to avoid actually defending their positions. “I think 5 people dying is preferable to me killing 1 person” is a lot harder to say than “I shouldn’t have to make this choice”. What these people miss is that in life, you will be faced with hard choices, and even though it might not be fair that you have to make them, “this isn’t fair” is not its own choice.

[hunxi-after-hours]

love it when an extremely high-functioning and put-together character gets slammed with something that would topple any lesser person but continues to function in an alarmingly efficient manner while everyone who knows and cares about them flutters anxiously around them like "please lie down please rest please accept medical attention" while the high-functioning character just looks askance at all their concerned faces like "what are you talking about? I'm perfectly fine" as tiny cracks start appearing in their demeanor and facade

[mossistyping]

You are never letting a WIP rot. You are doing it a service. Your WIP is a sourdough starter and the five words you wrote that one day were all it needed to sustain itself. It will bubble and be ready when you are.

[chronicallydragons]

*drags myself out of a fiery pit, wipes blood off my chin, and brushes the grime off my knees* So, anyway. I wrote 2 sentences today.

[flightlessbirds-society-deactiv]

me too, me too 🥹🥹

[chronicallydragons]

look at us and our 2 sentences we dragged back from hell!

[void-shouting]

participated in the mortifying ordeal of being known (shared a log line for a writing project with a writing friend) & was rewarded handsomely (friend’s first response was “OHMYGOD THAT IS INSANE” followed by more coherent positive feedback)

[charbroiledchicken-deactivated2]

if it's good enough for you, then it deserves to be made. don't let anyone else decide if your story is worth it or not.