Trope I Really Like Is Self-loathing Characters Desperate For The Catharsis Of Punishment For Frankly

I've been thinking about this non-stop for a week while re-reading rote, and I agree, it's f-ing brilliant.

Even just from a character perspective, not looking at the commentary on the world as a whole, it immediately creates these unspoken dynamics between characters' personalities and virtues, the expectations placed on them, and the true meaning of these words they've been tied to.

Is Regal failing to live up to his name, or is regality on its own not a virtue rulers should aspire to? Is it a shallow, egoistic concept by nature?

The honest, true-hearted character that leads Verity to take on the most thankless tasks of ruling, causes those same, deceptive tasks to eat away at his mind, body, and self-image.

FitzChivalry spends the first trilogy haunted by the specter of his father, mimicking and yet failing to live up to him at every step. He's caring and empathetic, but too traumatized to show it completely. He fights to defend the people he loves, but without any outward appearance of "honor" (a beserker and an assassin, not a knight or soldier). He's a caring, morally righteous kid serving his family, but quietly, often through underhanded murder. He's more than a bastard, but not quite the image of chivalry either.

there's something so endlessly compelling to me about the naming system in rote. it really casts the whole thing into a metaphorical, mythological light. chivalry is dead. verity is gone,

and it's patience who rules in buck keep. it's patience...

Y’know, sometimes you don’t write the best fics. They’re never going to get over 300 kudos and get talked about and cherished like some of the fics in your fandom. But they’re still an important part of your fandom’s ecosystem. Maybe they’re really niche or you wrote a one shot in a couple hours and didn’t edit it or maybe you’re just writing for the hell of it. Not everyone’s going to read these fics, or tell someone else to read them, or even click on them. Chances are, despite however unloved they may seem, someone likes them quite a bit. At least enough to read them. Writing and creating doesn’t mean you have to make the best thing ever. It just means you’ve made something. That’s all. And then you get to share it with other people, and it won’t be for everyone, but everyone’s got different things they’re drawn to. All fic writers, from those with thousands of kudos to those with zero, make for a healthy ecosystem of creation. Like maybe you aren’t the goddamn sun in the sky, but it’s pretty chill to be a frog right? Or a deer. Or a tree. Or a water bear. And everything you can think of. We’re all here. Even if you’re a worm.

Having your own personal blog is honestly quite a nice change of pace compared to Reddit. I could put a funny GIF of George Bush getting hit by a shoe on here and the worse case scenario is that no one even notices.

You put that on a big subreddit and you get your eyes gouged out and a heap of political discourse underneath your post.

Which makes total sense, because Buffy knows what it's like to be labeled unfairly.

She's constantly treated as a problem child who's bound to screw up and cause trouble, regardless of her reasons for acting out or how much she improves. We see that label weigh on her, and we see how she lights up the few times an authority figure is able to see through it (e.g. her conversation with the biology teacher in 1x04).

That's why it frustrates me when her willingness to treat Angel, Faith, and Spike as people capable of growth is viewed as naïve or emotionally compromised. Is it really so surprising to her friends that this girl, who barely passed her classes and got written off as a trouble maker for a destiny she didn't choose, might be sympathetic to the "irredeemable" characters who are also victims of circumstance?

I am once again thinking about how buffy summers handles forgiveness. the scoobies et al are very forgiving to the good guys, but it’s buffy who’s willing to let anyone interested in redemption try their hand at it. it’s buffy who allows faith and spike to try again.

Do you ever think about how Beloved made the whole white prophet gig waay harder than it needed to be?

White Prophet A: lives in a house, helping people and giving advice until they form a new society around her

White Prophet B: yells at a child about her fruit-eating habits until her stealthy fruit missions accidentally restore a grove during a famine

Beloved: sees a stubborn mf who almost dies every other week and decides "yeah, I'm keeping that bitch alive (barely) until I manage to resurrect this magical, extinct species the world's forgotten about, WHILE thwarting an institution of clairvoyant autocrats"

The kids on TikTok think that just because he was a classic country singer, Johnny Cash was conservative??? My babies he covered a Nine Inch Nails song in his seventies.

Classic country singers (the majority of which came from poor roots) were always talking about how much The Man sucked because they were taking money from poor rural folk. You’re gonna tell me that’s conservative?? Get outta here.

Gojo not taking care of brats more

vampire appreciators have two modes:

it’s about the secret darkness inside you. it’s about not being able to tell if it controls you or you control it. it’s about the wrestle between who you want to be and who you need to be. the conversation between the gruesome and the uncontainable

sexy guy bite neck sexily. biting

Witcher S3 really said…

Promiscuous womanizer is pansexual (great characterization; absolutely not a stereotype)

Said womanizer has random, unnecessary romance with a genocidal maniac who would murder all his friends if given the chance

Most powerful sorceress on the continent commits suicide, sometimes a flower is just a flower, etc., bc Scorned Woman (TM)

Woman rebellion leader learns practicality way too late from Random Capable Man with no relation to the plot

Powerful sorceress abandons family to save other sorceresses only to be saved by murderous misogynist and the power of racism

…bc the books needed better representation. Ok.

Some thoughts about writing, tropes, and writing “rules”:

There are a lot of “do’s” and “don’t’s” and “avoid these tropes” for various genres, and while, sure, it might be best practice to avoid certain sayings or plot points that are overdone, I don’t think it’s really the “overdone” part that’s the issue. In most of these tropes, the initial appeal was some deeper meaning the author was conveying, and I think that’s been somewhat lost over time.

The appeal of LOTR and Sauron wasn’t just “creepy dark lord conquering the world.” The evil of Sauron and the ring was so insidious, because it played on the evil that exists inside of every person, and reflected on the exhausting bravery it takes to do good in a world that feels so much bigger than you. It became a trope, bc future writers and publishers mistook that magic for a product of the surface level plot point.

Pride and Prejudice and Emma made Enemies to Lovers and Friends to Lovers popular, respectively, not just bc of the dynamics themselves, but bc they highlighted human weaknesses, and showed how relationships can better each person involved.

So I think the question is less “what or what not to write,” and more “why are you writing it.” Write what you want, just make sure it’s what your story and characters need.