“Cold feet, Kirrek?”

The words broke the man from his brief stupor. What was a glance at the nearby bastion of flame had become a flight into his thoughts. The hesitations that flickered his heart as the flame licked the wood were etched onto his features. The young man shook his head in denial of those thoughts.

The one who had so broken the spell walked over toward him. Her hand was cold, fingers against his palm prompting him to close his own digits to warm them. She took that as a signal of acceptance, drawing him into step toward the destination above.

Each stone step was a bother now, a trudge that ached his calves though he did not protest. Though they had yet arrived, he felt the moment of such protest had long since passed. Now it was the inevitability that made him nervous.

As the summit of the stone steps fell into view, the man felt his apprehension both grow and numb in equal measure. Men and women across a spectrum of races, outfits, and social status situated sparsely within the extensive span of the temple grounds. Cliché, he so thought, but the entirety of the gathering felt opposite to that fact.

He passed by a group of men his own age, who eyed him and his guiding partner with a keen, amused eye. He felt once more as he did on the first day of academy. A man out of his element with a beacon of purity above his brow. His guiding force remained the woman he had come to adore. The woman with the chestnut hair.

She so turned to face him, once again meeting his cautious gaze with her calm countenance. He stopped, allowing her fingers to slide from his grip and draw to her pack. Extending out, a simple thing.

A mask, decorated in the shape of a mallard. The man claimed the mask on instinct alone, confusion barring the potential to effectively analyze the situation. As his gaze swept up with questions upon his tongue, they were silenced. Her eyes beaming with delight behind the face of a mouse. A mask as his own, now sliding over his features to set into place.

“So what now?” Kirrek inquired, trying to mask his concerns and nerves under the deadpan humor that he knew she adored. “Do we make a blood oath or something?” He issued a humorless laugh.

She watched his efforts, her expression hiding behind the mask beyond what could be seen in her sparkling gaze. Her head shook, soft, gentle, yet the sway of her hair and the denial of his humor was akin to an eternity in his perception. Was it too late, he wondered, to turn back.

“No need, Kirrek. You don’t have to live up to your expectations. That’s behind you tonight. We’ll go back to being Amber and Kirrek tomorrow. For tonight..?”

She stepped closer, her hand extending out. The man flinched back, finding his spine pressed to the chest of a tall figure posterior to him. Two hands rested against his shoulders, more men and women coming forward to extend their grip upon the pair.

Though Kirrek felt panic, Amber exuded peace. She lowered her voice to a sweet, serenading whisper.

“..tonight..”

Her hand met to his mask, their eyes locked, the air thin as to deny his breath.

“..we are only animals.”

His breath drew in as a cloud of cyan dust passed between them. The air tasted sweet. His fingers felt numb. Her eyes burned bright.. brilliant.. beautiful..

And the darkness followed.

the-littlest-kojin:

sundered-souls:

What are your thoughts on OP (overpowered) characters in roleplay? Would you play one?

In a broad sense, it matters much more how someone is written over how powerful they are in an absolute sense.

However, there is an additional lens to bear in mind in the FFXIV fandom in particular:

The Warrior of Light, as depicted, is overpowered.

Like, ludicrously so.

So anybody who writes their character as the WoL is automatically writing someone overpowered.

As for me personally, I personally prefer to give my characters huge strengths but equally huge weaknesses.

Gologa is extremely physically strong, but he can’t use magic. Conroy is extremely intelligent but he’s relatively unfit and possesses very little raw aether to work with.

It’s all about how you write it.

I agree it’s in how the character is written more than their power; I’ve played in open RPGs as both “normal” characters and “overpowered” characters, and got on just fine with both, due to how I chose to interact both IC andOOC with people, setting boundaries and keeping communication open, and bending as needed for the story and the comfort of other players, or simply not overshadowing someone else’s moment. Flaws didn’t even have to be related to power drawbacks or physical/magical limits; a lot of times, a character is their own worst enemy, whether it’s their doubts and worries, or how they get along socially, or what have you.

Also how one means “overpowered” matters; combat wise? Magically? Socially? Politically? There’s all sorts of ways one can exercise “power” and they don’t all look the same. I’ve played characters that can do little more than plink at a foe in battle, but their support abilities, magical skills, and social networks were absolutely vitaland terrifying when turned in certain directions.

And I’ve had characters take out enemies of greater power due to good planning and smart use of resources and help from allies. “Power” isn’t everything; it’s in how one plays. And I’ve seen some folks with what shouldbe old, powerful RP characters act pretty badly as their players were more interested in the appearanceof old and powerful and the ease of having “power”, and not what that all meant to roleplay and useit effectively. So they end up annoyances and give “Overpowered characters” a bad name.

I dunno that I agree that the Warrior of Light is “ludicrously” overpowered. In many of the major combats we fight through, the WoL succeeds due to aid, and/or a failing in their enemy. So while skilled and a determinator, I think there’s plenty of room to say the WoL has reasonable limits if that’s what one prefers, over the idea of an unstoppable fighting machine.

They (and many of the key NPCs) are definitely on the higher end of the human scale, like a lot of real world top athletes able to do what seem like amazing feats of strength, speed, endurance, coordination, to the rest of us. It’s just mostfolks on Eitherys also have at least a little magic to augment their skills, but even the ones who don’t can be powerful allies–or dangerous antagonists for the WoL, always taken seriously.

After all, combat is chance based, and even the most powerful combatant can slip in the mud, or be blinded by blood in their eye.

This is long enough and I got chatty with my examples and reasoning on the specific topic of the FFXIV Warrior of Light, and how I tend to see Assumed Default WoL (and influences my own WoL’s story, which is deliberately close to how I interpret that) so below the cut it goes.

The WoL needing aid is abundantly clear in the revamped MSQ dungeons and trial, and the new Lahabrea solo duty. He kills the WoL without Hydaelyn’s direct intervention. Her Blessing, granted to the WoL, is one of the larger and longer-running aids we see, and even then it’s protection, not a power boost (Venat says so herself when she sees her own spell on the WoL). That protection is the major advantage that allows them to grow in skill.

Nidhogg, however, is defeated first with Estinien manipulating his Eye, and in the end, WoL empowered by Hraesvelgr’s Eye (and Nidhogg having already fought his brother). Thordan, meanwhile, loses control partway through the fight and just starts flailing. Would Shinryu been more of a chaotic threat if he wasn’t being piloted by Zenos, who was just looking for a good time (and also just come from a fight with WoL already)? Tsukuyomi was not meant to be a powerful summon and didn’t haveto be to get the mission done, and I maintain Yotsuyu knew what she was doing to not only end Asahi but also commit suicide-by-WoL if she couldn’t flatten Doma. Ardbert and the cleansing of all that absorbed Light helped with Hades, as well as Exarch calling for help and then the other Scions with the auracite in the end. It’s Emet-Selch’s own gift that gets us past Elidibus, with Exarch using the Tower in the end. Fandaniel piloted an incomplete Zodiark he wantedto lose, and Hydaelyn was testing Her champions. And finally it’s Zenos and the Scions who help the WoL with Endsinger, who loses control and flails in the end also.

In between there’s moments where we fight with others, or in specific circumstances with things rigged up by our friends in the Ironworks–the devices used against Leviathan, Bismark, and Omega for example–or the story simply lampshades the idea WoL has adventurer friends.

(And Omega’s failing in the end was trying to mimic the WoL at a surface level, without understanding the whys, as Alpha had learned and Midgardsormr had tried to tell them. Meanwhile we only defeat the High Seraph with the help of the Zodiac Braves, and so on and so forth through the all the major side content battles as well, both during the fights themselves and in the cutscenes after where the NPCs get their moments.)

And it’s still very possible to stymie or get the drop on WoL. Separating them from their support group is also effective; I still say a lot of the times in early expansions that removing some or all Scions from play is one of the easiest ways to nerf the WoL, as now they haven’t social, magic, research, or combat support those characters offer (alongside how it was just simpler before we had trusts and other duty systems, as well as shifts in storytelling leads and philosophies).

There’s a lot of the game, especially in these more recent expansions, centered around not only hope, but also the connectionsthe WoL has forged with others, the love of people in their life, whether that is platonic, familial, or romantic. And in the final zone and battle of Endwalker, it’s those bonds that are literally the only way the WoL can succeed.

If the Assumed Default WoL has a superpower all their own, not granted, it’s their heart and ability to draw folks together and inspire them, so WoL has something to fight for and a way to keep moving, trusting they’ve been given, or will receive, a way to make it through from those who love them.

caffeinewitchcraft:

Summary: You don’t ever want to be the main character. In your town, that’s deadly. Someone has to warn the new kid. 

——–.

Someone has got to tell the new kid in town the Rules.

“Hey,” you say.

The new kid looks up at you. He’s sitting at his desk in the back corner of the classroom, right next to the windows. It’s a chilly day, but he’s got the window open so that the breeze ruffles his curly, black hair. “What’s up? Fern, right?”

“Don’tcall me by my name,” you snarl. Then, realizing what you’ve done, you look over your shoulder. The other teenagers are still looped around the teacher’s desk, trying to get Ms. Slauson to move the test date so they could organize a welcome part for the new kid. “I need to talk to you. Privately.”

The new kid leans back in his chair and studies you. You know what he sees – a completely average high school girl in jeans, a sweatshirt, and a ponytail. There’s nothing remarkable about you. He tilts his head. “You don’t look like a bully.”

You frown. “I’m not.”

“You’re being awfully threatening,” he says in a drawl.

The accent is going to be a problem. It’s southern and sounds really cool. Honestly, it might be too late for him already.

But you still have to try.

“Meet me on the rooftop—no!” You press the heel of one hand against your eye. Fight it, you tell yourself. Fight it! “Meet me at the supermarket on Western Street. The dairy aisle. After school.”

“Okay…?”

You spin on your heel, head throbbing. Meeting on the rooftop is against the rules. You glance up at the ceiling uneasily. You’re not usually affected by the compulsion so badly. Are you being targeted?

If you were smart, you wouldn’t show up to the meeting. You’d just let the guy get sucked into the madness on his own.

But you also really need to buy some milk.

Keep reading

I.

ash falls on tile, on paper, on skin

ash enters our windways as a poison, and enters the earth as a nutrient

carved stone sculpture of an open hand, embers collecting in the palm

they spin and rise

walk among ashes as though in a sacred courtyard – unarmed, naked, empty of song or idea

walk among ashes as though barefoot into the wetlands, sinking and becoming

the ending and beginning of the worlds in their millions, ashes rise from the ground in a cloud, the cloud fades into the sky and pulls back into the distance

the shapes and forms that emerge into visibility
are shaking, secretly and inwardly
nervous, unsure how to approach

clouds that choke and clog our passageways with memory. once, from distances, this scent could pull us for miles towards the solace of warmth and comradery. In the age of paper the scent is mixed with fear and imbalance.

the clouds grow. we walk by day in ochre and fall to stillness as the veil disintegrates around us, asleep in beds of amber, washing up on their shores.

II.

He bought the little glass jar at a tourist trap in the Temple Pass, the tiny city they used to call Casa de Fruta and then the Nine Times City. Yes, the place where Faita’s Kite still lies in pieces up on the hillside. Yes, the same place where they still fly in the night. That place. The little glass jar was etched with the image of a poppy. Yes, that poppy.

He filled the little glass jar with soil from the shore of the ancient resevoir, a thin column dry and loose at the top, wet and dense at the bottom, he spread it out upon his tile and ran it through the sieves before funnelling it into the little glass jar with the etching of the poppy.
He was heading east against the flow, a direction that called attention, all the way across the valley he kept his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his robe, his head low, his thoughts a pure reflection of the landscape and vibration in the area immediately surrounding. A slow and silent mirror creeping along the overgrown upper paths of the Eightyway, he encountered few – and those he met, or rather saw, seemed as eager to avoid the mark as he. And so they passed each other with no acknowledgement, each giving wide berth and then erasing all shade and memory of encounter. Still, without quite realizing it, he had one set of fingers tightly clutched around the little jar full of earth with the etching of a poppy.

They stopped him soon after he entered the foothills. He had left the road by then but it didn’t matter. From atop a low ridge he had stopped to watch figures throwing logs across the way at Clipper Gap as travellers lined up outside of a tent by the side of the road. On the approach to Applegate they surrounded him in a clearing, a pickup and SUV in front of him and another pickup behind. They poured out of the vehicles. He took his phone out of his pocket – yes even at that late hour he still had a phone. A gloved hand grabbed it and threw it into the field while someone pinned his arms from behind and then kicked his legs out from under him. Then another hand forced his face into the ground and a voice was calm and close in his ear : “you can simply dissappear”. More hands pulling at his robes, tearing it from his body and then ripping the pockets open.

Someone picked him up so that he was kneeling but kept a hand on the back of his head, forcing his to the ground. They were going through everything and setting certain items aside on the hood of one of the pickups – even in this chaos he was attuned to the sound. The small leather tube containing the writ, the cutter, the digger, his canteen, the small glass full of soil from the ancient resevoir, the sieves, the tile.

One of them gave a stifled yelp. They had found his eggs. He expected them to smash the eggs in an act of mocking cruelty and was surprised to see shells fall silenty to the ground as the eggs were eaten quietly and hurriedly by whoever spotted them.

As he watched the shells fall he noticed their bootprints on the ground, the cross at the center of the pattern, and felt a cold dull pain rising at the base of his spine as his stomach began to churn. Wolves of Honor. He thought he had steered well north of their territory but things changed fast and information wasn’t what it used to be. All of the old maps were dead. Silent but nearly paralyzed with fear, they walked him over to the SUV and strapped him into a hard fiberglass seat in the back.

He didn’t know much about the Wolves of Honor, but he had seen comrades with that cross pressed into their face or back, seen the broken hands and missing fingers, he’d heard the rumours about what had they had done to Jesse, what they had done in Truckee. That was enough.

They were in motion almost immediately. The straps made it hard to turn his head, and a bare wooden board seperated him from the front of the cab. With pressure he could twist and see partially out of the window to his right, where the trees were getting thicker and the sky darker. Soon they were climbing steeper hills, winding back and forth into the Sierra, and he had to face forward to keep from getting sick. Eventually, he closed his eyes.

They stopped at a low, small building on the edge of a small and steep ravine. When they pulled him out they light was almost gone but he could feel the form of the land, run himself over the jagged stone hidden beneath soft layers of life and death.

They brought him into a small gray room partitioned by crude brickwork and thick, dull glass. In the tubelight he could see their piecemeal uniforms, the longrifles on their backs, their pins and patches, wolves and stormclouds, eagles and runes, the flag of the old empire with the five bars and the stars replaced by a cross.

Two stood behind him, hands on his shoulders. Three sat at an ancient folding table. Through layers of glass he saw several other figures crowded into a tiny room at the far end of the building, shrouded in white, their movements hindered by some binding he couldn’t see. The blur of the glass masked their faces but they looked like elders, and they were swaying gently back and forth.

The Wolves pushed him down into an old school chair that was bolted to the floor and bound him to it. Someone came in holding what was left of his robes and a duffel bag. With gloved hands they slowly removed his belongings and placed them on the table, the sieves, the tile, the cutter, the digger, his canteen, the small glass full of soil from the ancient resevoir, the small leather tube containing the writ.

One of the soldiers behind the desk produced a clipboard overstuffed with white, yellow, and pink papers and carbon sheets. Yes, the triplicates of legend. In hushed tones they debated intracacies of the paperwork among themselves. He could hear them but their jargon was impenetrable. One by one they picked up the items, gestured at the forms and eventually filled out various sections, their tone and faces muted with boredom. When they came to the leather tube, they stopped as if afraid to touch it. Then one of them slowly stood and ambled outside.

A heavy space lay on the room and all inside its partitions. The drone of the tubelight was the only sensation. Even the prisoners had stopped their swaying. The remaining Wolves stared ahead, eyes dulled. He scanned the walls, the ancient forms and notices still held up with tape, indecipherable graffiti in three languages, a crude drawing of Mia Marisol with her eyes crossed out and a snake coming out from her mouth. Could have been done by the Wolves or by any number of previous occupants; her name had been anathema in this part of the mountains long before their arrival.

The wind began to pick up outside. A sound of leaves and creaking branches filtered through the brick work. Then the door opened quickly and a group of soldiers came in. They wore the same patches as the other Wolves but their armor was more uniform, they were heavy with clinking gear, they smelled of woodsmoke.

One of them picked up the leather tube from the table and popped it open, then held the writ close up to their face, folded it in half, and stuffed it into a pocket. “Outside, and bring all his shit.”

Two of them got up from behind the table, languid, slow, one of them pausing to stretch. They unstrapped him, lifted him roughly from the chair, rebound his hands behind his back; three went outside and then the two behind pushed him, following.

Outside the dark was total and the wind strong. A floodlight above the door of the building shone on the gravel drive and reflected off of parked trucks. They all stopped just a few feet in front of the door. The soldier who had taken the writ was addressing the others: “He’s got a Writ of Gomez. Do you guys know what that is?” almost yelling to keep above the wind.

“You should know what that is because we signed this. In fact, every chapter of Knights on the coast has signed it. McCora signed it, I was there when he did, and that means us. Now, I want to show you guys something. I’m going to show you how these people work and how to turn their own snake language against them.”

The soldier turned to address him directly: “Gentle traveller, do you know the meaning of the term ‘to abide’?”

In the silence the wind grew stronger.

“You see in this writ it says that you are to ‘abide’. Specifically it says you are to abide by the structure of those realms you cross. Realms. Well, we aren’t a realm we are a republic, and in our republic we abide in Christ. Don’t worry, I already know you don’t. I already know that. But it says you are to abide by our strictures, and it turns out you don’t even abide by your own. How do you think we found you? Take a wild guess.” From the same pocket in which the writ was folded, his phone was produced. One of them must have gone into the field to find it.

“I don’t know a lot about how you people do things but I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to have this. You don’t look like a Bubbler to me. And you definitely aren’t supposed to have it here.” The phone went back into the pocket.

“And so we have you. Now, I know, we all know, what it is to trespass – because we are all sinners. The most we can do is ask forgiveness. To ask forgiveness, you have to accept Christ into your heart. Only then can you begin to abide – only then will it be in your nature to abide. Please kneel.”

Someone kicked him hard in the back of the legs, heavy hands on his shoulders forced him down. He whimpered as his knees were driven into the gravel, the first sound he made in their presence. With his hands behind his back he couldn’t balance on his own, the two behind him holding him semi upright.

The wind had grown stronger. Dry needles and small branches were blowing across the drive. One of the Wolves had gone back into the building and returned with the duffel bag, then one by one began tossing the items onto the ground. The sieves, the digger, the porceilein tile landed on a corner that chipped off. One of the sieves rattled as it rolled away down the slope.

“Here’s our solution, and you don’t know how lucky you are that we’re in the middle of something right now. So, it’s simple. You will open your heart and accept Christ, you will abide in Christ so long as you remain on our land, we will let you take your little witch toys and walk away because they don’t do shit here. The illegal spy device that you brought into our republic will be cleansed and destroyed by the proper method, the writ of Gomez we will keep until we have observed you leaving our territory – it will then be sent to your superiors, the old way, and with our seal attached. Now, to show our faith we will unbind you so that you may place your hand over your heart. Please do so.”

At that moment the little glass jar landed badly on a rock and shattered. Immediately the wind picked up the dust of the ancient resevoir, it circled in the air around the drive and fled into surrounding the darkness. It was then enough confidence returned and, triggering an aged memory, enough power entered him that words rose quitely in his throat and flew into the air: “may you sit for all of your days in the southwest corner of every room with a northwest wind blowing dust in your eyes.”

They had not yet unbound his hands and they never did. One of them punched him hard in the stomach and then again in the chest. He struggled to breathe. They forced him upright, marched him back into the building, opened the layers of doors to the tiny room with the elders shrouded and white, and threw him to the floor. His hands still bound behind his back, a boot pressed down on them, then kicked him in the lower back, then stopped. They were furious, but hurried – there was something odd about their speed. They closed and locked the door and then shut off lights in the outer rooms, then there was another clanking of bolts as they locked the last door from outside. Then the sound of engines and the crunch of wheels on gravel as they left. And then the wind outside, the breaking of branches, the hum of the one flickering tubelight they had left on in the tiny room.

As his breathing regained some normal rhythm and the pain began to subside, he managed to turn himself onto his other side. He had thought the room crowded with prisoners but it must have been some trick of the glass – there were only two. He recognized them immediately, the ancient teachers who had wandered the valley of Joachim and the Sierra in the chaos and the liquid days. One of them came from Fresno, the other Chico. As soon as they saw the recognition in his eyes, they looked at one another and, as though he were not present, began their Discourse. Outside, the emberse had already begun to fall.

“Was this wise, what our young traveller has done? Look where he finds himself – bound and defeated. If one is caught in a current, it is unwise to swim directly against it” said the Teacher of Fresno

“You must have failed to look into the eyes of our captors” remarked the Wise One of Chico, “our traveller has spread a fear into them. The fear will take them – maybe not this moment, or this day, but it will be their defeat.”

“It wil not be the defeat of all of them. These people, these Wolves, they are a hairs breadth from the witch burnings and pogroms of old. To use such a curse, is to incur a debt. Howsoever that fear is spread, it will return upon him and not just him, but on all of his people, on those who are bound to him by love and knowledge, and on those who depend on their kindness, and so on across the webs between us all. Not every seed takes root but the one that does will break all the soil and drink all the water of the field” responded the Sage of Fresno.

“And that of which you speak is that which must be done, the soil wil be broken and the water will be drunk, as we leave from the age of fields and enter into an age of the forest” opined the Aged One of Chico.

“Does this transition need to occur without wisdom or foresight?” asked the Learned One of Fresno “and with such dire consequence for those caught in the margins? Those with less power will suffer for what he has thrown into the wind. To move from one age to the next is unavoidable, but is it so much to ask that this be done with sensitivity, and with precision? As reality shatters can we not watch our step, that we are not cut by the flying shards?”

To which the Elder of Chico responded “Look down on the forests of tomorrow, which grow as did the forest of yesterday. Do you see it placed upon a grid?”

The teacher of Fresno was consumed in a pillar of light.

The teacher of Chico faded into the ether.

Outside, the windws carried ash and ember and the distant sounds of chainsaws and of logs being thrown across the roads.

III.

There will come a day when you look up to find the sky full of machines – heavy and strange, objects that don’t look like they should fly. Like pieces of them are breaking away and falling slowly, drifting down like steel feathers.

There will come a day when you condense all of your feelings into your fingertips until they glow and you will scrape them against the air leaving bright traces, and you will be unable to hide those traces before you are seen – was that the first time?

Think back over the dreams you have had throughout your life.

Focus on what you have seen again and again.

Not the people, not the events, not even the feeling – not exactly. Look around you. Circle around and above.

The room, the space, the architecture, the geography, the design, the living and unliving things and the balance between them.

Focus on where you have been again and again.

What are the settings you return to in dreams that you have never seen in the life you call “real”?

The intersections, the hallways, the parks, the transit systems, the view out of and into windows.

Focus on what you have seen again and again.

Do not let yourself be led astray by the temptations of literary symbolism – the roads and bridges that we see in dreams are not metaphors, they are infrastructure.

These are the marches, the borderlands, the high and distant domes of our temples are held aloft by pillars of smoke. That which happens here echoes and ripples. Currents wrap themselves around you.

Focus on where you have been again and again.

How is it possible that these memories have entered so deeply into you, the details of places you have never physically entered, this sense of routine and repetition

How is it possible the drone of machines and weight of their distance, their journey across the upper atmosphere has covered you in your sleep like a blanket all these years

Think back on the dreams you have had over and over in your life, and think on the dream you are in now

Invisible and floating in a photonegative world, awake and waiting the painted masks, the order of keys, the pulling line. Three blue diamonds buzz against glass in the light of dawn.

There will come a day when you glide just above the fields and the ground will drop from beneath you, the valley and its twisting currents far below, shrouded in mist. 

I’ve been doing quite a bit of World Running related consulting recently.

This essay is about Wind-up Worlds, Web3, World Running and the urgent collective pivot we need to make towards Slow Social experiences. 

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I skimmed an introduction to Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, where he says a bunch of cool things about the often very personal and diverse responses to the themes and characters in his book. He talks about the much discussed truth in fandom that the reason stories stick with us is ultimately because they’re *about* us, and the story is only truly created in the interplay or with the collaboration of the writer and the reader. That’s such a big truth, and it was cool to see an official writer’s perspective rather than a reader’s response, for once. He was so warmly insightful on the subject that I was strongly tempted to actually read the book(s), enough to put it on my to-read list, even though I’ve heard lots of things that make me think I’ll be disappointed eventually, especially reading as an adult who’s seen the stuff he’d said about queer people. But that’s neither here nor there. My point is, stories are always most meaningful when they’re *your* story.

Consequently, the simple truth is, I don’t need to have a ‘good enough’ excuse for why I can’t get myself to give things like reverse harem romance or threesomes in fanfic a chance. And conversely, I should stop beating my head against the wall of other people’s inevitably diverse reactions, even if they share some broad opinion (such as generally rejecting any reverse harem storylines). Their lives are different. They are different. Their book experience is never going to be the same, no matter how many starting point opinions we share.

This is, of course, the opposite of fannishness, so maybe that’s why it’s so hard for me to accept. Fandom says the things we like in stories can be shared, not just among friends, but broad swathes of people. Orson Scott Card wasn’t talking about anything so large-scale, though. At most, he was saying a group of people with a shared real life experience– specifically, being a military rescue pilot– has a common approach to and interest in his book. That’s not the same as simply happening to share an interest or framework, is it? It’s not simply that there are these fans, all of whom like to focus on the military aspect of Ender’s Game. It’s not about reading preference. Hell, I’d bet many of these people don’t even like reading, particularly. It’s about identity: their identity, Ender’s identity, and the places they intersect.

It’s funny, because while I can easily take Ender’s Game itself seriously, a part of me has a hard time treating something as pulpy as reverse harem romance sci-fi the same way. Plenty of people treat all science fiction as not being 'real’ literature. But from all accounts, it’s simply written better than your average pulpy sci-fi romance. This difference in quality is distracting. It’s also hard to talk about identity and deeper meaning with stuff that’s much, much more escapist and unrealistic than even something like Ender’s Game. But the fact is, who you are as the reader is the constant. It applies to every single piece of fiction, no matter how badly written or ridiculous. Someone who’s pragmatic by nature and focused on their job as their source of identity would need books that reflect something of their real life experiences to be truly meaningful. And then there are people (like me and maybe even many reverse harem fans) that can relate to all sorts of things that have nothing to do with their real life experience, because their identity isn’t necessarily tied into their work or everyday environment. Maybe it’s their gender/orientation or their creative interest or hobby that provides their identity. Those things can get pretty far transformed and still retain their basic nature.

Anyway, the fact is that I relate most strongly to my ideals and values as the source of identity. It’s a no-brainer that anything that goes against my central values in the romantic sphere would be dead on arrival as far as romantic fiction goes. It would mean a story that says nothing to me. Other people may share my values (as in, one is more than enough in relationships), but their source of identity and connection may lie elsewhere in a given story. That’s all that would take for a potentially significantly altered personal reaction to the storyline. For me, of course, the value question would instinctively overrule any other concern, but that’s me. There are as many possibilities for readings as there are readers, and sometimes we just aren’t ready or it’s too late for a particular book to matter. Every story has its place and time, as well as its ideal reader. It’s really amazing, actually, that I still enjoy and relate to as many characters and stories as I do. That’s definitely something I count as a blessing.

On Sacrifice

Abraham’s Sacrifice of Isaac

Artwork by Federico Bencovich

During a more primitive time in human history, our ancestors quickly became aware that in order to gain or acquire anything of specific value, one must be willing to become involved in certain dangers.

Often, the hunters and gatherers of a tribe would need to venture out into the unknown, risking life and health in order to bring something back of value for their community.

Over the many years that would follow, this essential lesson would eventually become a central theme and practice in many early creation myths and religious stories: the concept of sacrifice.

We see it in many cultural texts:

We see it in Odin, who was nailed to the world tree, offering his right eye to acquire wisdom.

The Buddha, who left the comforts of his own palace and his family, in order to set forth and find enlightenment.

Abraham, who was willing to sacrifice his own son to fulfill his covenant with God.

And Christ, offering up his own life in order to bring about the salvation of humanity.

It seems that for as long as humans can remember, we have always understood the concept of sacrifice as a substructure- an underlying principle, that governed our reality.

We have conceptualized the forces that influence fate as something that we can negotiate with. In the hopes that if we practice our sacrifices diligently and sufficiently enough, then things will go well for us.

And so, operating under this implicit assumption, we have engaged in the enactment of this long-standing existential drama for as long as we have existed.

Yet sometimes, one cannot help but question the limits we can reach with this principle.

This is made especially clear when faced with the choice of sacrificing- of letting go, of the things in life which we may cherish, treasure, and perhaps even love, most of all.

Why does Fate…

Why does “God”…

Why does Life…

impose such demands?

…

The sad, and painful truth is:

Sometimes life does not go the way we want.

This seems to be in part because of greater forces beyond our control. As well as because of the terrible facts that come with the state of existence. Facts which are impossible to deny.

Yet sometimes, when faced with this situation, the more bitter pill to swallow is that perhaps the world is not entirely the one at fault.

In many ways, the world is revealed to us to an indeterminate degree through the values and ideals we use to interface with it.

And so, perhaps during times like these, it is best to evaluate:

Does the thing which you value most, no longer serve to help you move forward in the direction you wish to go?

…

Perhaps it is necessary to let go.

In part, that may even mean letting go and sacrificing what we love best.

To give up what we thought was essential- what was important, to what constitutes our own selves.

We must learn to let go of what is hurting us:

To give up what we are, in order to become what we could be.

It is only through this sacrifice- the voluntary renouncement of the things we hold in greatest value, that we are able to acquire our deepest truth.

I wrote this in 2011 while I was in college. This was my first narrative in my English 101 class. Mr. Oliver, my professor emailed me that night, as he was grading papers and told me about his wife. His wife drown in their swimming pool. I remember that connection my professor had that night and everyday after. I took all his courses my degree would allow, and even had him mind whenever I named my son. This story is rough for me to read, but its solely fiction. 

As I swung my feet, one after the other on the old, wooden bridge, I thought of the events that had occurred just a few long minutes before. I took another drag of my cigarette and flicked the ashes into the shallow creek under the bridge. As I finished the phone call to the police, calling for help, images of my family raced through my head like race cars on the last lap. I guess I was still in shock but it confused me that I was so calm. I felt so numb and cold. I could smell the rain coming in the air as I shivered. I took a quick glance at the trees, and saw the leaves had turned downward. They were ready for the water. I wish I had been ready for my parents to leave me helpless and alone.

I thought to myself, “I hate knowing that the last thing I said was something mean.”

The smell of fuel and smoke lingered on my clothes and hair. I ran my fingers through my hair to the top of my head and felt the wetness of the wound. Looking at my hand, I saw the blood and felt dizzy.

“It didn’t matter anyways,” I said to myself, shaking it out of my head. “Mom and Dad are gone. Nothing I can do now.”

I stopped sobbing and accepted the few moments that had just passed by.

Confused and in a daze on how I was sitting down on the bridge. How did I get here? I stood up with blood dripping off my hand from the cut deep in my hand. The sketchy  moments  flashed in my head. One moment after another; I saw myself struggling to get out from the backseat. I turned around and was amazed at the sight. I screamed and stumbled backwards in response. All at once, I had held my head in pain, with both of my hands squeezing as hard as I could and I closed my eyes wishing it would all be a dream. Once I came back from the flashback, I turned my head to look at the scene. It still looked terrible. I did not want to believe the sight of it. My parents’ car was flipped over and looked like a crumbled mess. The passenger door dented into my mother’s body and her head was against my father’s shoulder. They looked like a mess but peaceful.

I wondered to myself, “Why didn’t I try to help them? Was I selfish? It wasn’t like me to give up.”

I could hear the sirens coming around the bend. My heart was fluttering as I tried to get up from the bridge using the edge of the railing as a balance beam. As the ambulance drove past the scene and parked near me, I got scared. I saw the men and women’s heads turn in horror towards my parents’ car. They were oblivious to the other car, which lay on its’ driver’s side, just a few feet away.

All at once the memory of the crash hit my head again, which made me grab my temple  and close my eyes in pain. I yelped at the site of it and one of the men ran to my rescue, slamming the truck door in a hurry. I protested and fell to the ground pushing him away from me. I sobbed and did not care that it was not going to help my parents. I just knew in the back of my head that my parents were gone.

The men and women worked quickly as they pulled out the equipment from the ambulance. Supplies were flying and the help was frantic. I had to listen to the numerous questions the man I had pushed away was asking me. Somewhere in the midst of watching everyone help my parents, he had told me his name was Henry. I guess I had told him my name, since he was saying it after every question. I was sidetracked and started to get up and walk to my parents’ car.

Henry put his hand out, grabbing my shoulder saying, “You do not want to go over there, Eleni. It is not safe.”

I turned my head towards Henry, looked in his eyes. The expression on his face turned from concerned to true sadness and sympathy.

I heard men cheer for joy and it made me quickly turn my head, to realize that my father was pulled out of the car, and I watched his chest heaving for breath. My heart started to race and I realized my body was running towards him. I had no idea what came over me. A firefighter stopped me, mid-stride and held me in place. He told me the same thing that Henry did, without using my name. I shot him the meanest look and struggled to get out of his hold.

“Is he going to be okay?!” I screamed. “Daddy, please don’t leave me!”

Knowing that I wasn’t going anywhere, I kept screaming like a broken record player. He was put on a stretcher carefully. My eyes grew concerned as they followed my father being pushed to the ambulance on the stretcher. He managed to open his eyes and smile at me. He wanted to let me know that he was okay.  He groaned in pain and held his ribcage as they placed him in the van.

“I want to go with him!” I screamed to the firefighter. Tears started to roll down my face.

“He is going to be fine,” the firefighter managed to say without choking up, still grasping me into his chest.

“What about my mom?” I asked, turning towards my parents demolished car. He nodded towards the car.

While I had been watching my father drive away with the meds, the passenger door was sawed off and placed a few feet away from the car. My mother was carried carefully to a stretcher with a neck brace secured on her neck. I started to feel my head pound again and tried to lift up my hand to check the wound, but the firefighter’s grasp was too tight. My neck gave out and my head started to feel like it was falling off. I grew tired and felt out of breath. My body went limp and I passed out.

My eyes blinked fast and my head was still pounding. Lights kept going on and off, as I felt like I was gliding. I was so lifeless and my face wrinkled in confusion. I moved my head from side to side and my heart began to race very fast. I knew where I was, once I saw the white lab coats. I opened my month to scream, but all I could hear was a moan of discomfort.  The gliding feeling finally stopped and I started to feel like I was going to throw up. A nurse heard me try to talk as she was putting something in my skin. I felt a sharp pain.

“Oh honey, don’t try to speak. You have a tube down your throat to help you breath. You are going to be fine. Don’t get scared.” She brushed back my hair to calm me down.

I nodded and felt sleepy again. My eyes grew heavy and I felt warmth around me. The nurse had put a fresh blanket around me.

I smelled perfume in the air whenever I opened my eyes again. I yawned and noticed the tube was out. My mouth felt very dry and fuzzy. I looked around the room and pinched myself to make sure it wasn’t a dream. The room was very rich in color, dark blues on the wall and matching chairs in the very corner. My eyes grew big as I saw my father sleeping in one of the chairs. I pushed myself into a sitting position quietly and he started to wake up. I smiled as he looked up and moved into a more comfortable position. He cleared his throat, bent over picking his cup of water from the ground and ached in pain, grabbing his rib cage. When he looked back up, he tried to hide the pain but I saw it in his eyes. He took a drink of the water and coughed gently. I grew concerned as he coughed again.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” he reassured me. “Everything is okay.”

“Are you just saying that because you need to hear it too?” My voice cracked in the middle of asking him.

I could tell in his face that he knew I was right. I nodded in triumph.

I looked around the room for a button to push for a nurse. I had never been in a hospital before, so I was just going by what I saw in television shows and movies.

“The red button,” my dad said, knowing what I was looking for.

I looked up at him and he had a weak smile on his face.

I pressed the button and sat waiting in silence. I knew that my dad was not going to answer any of my questions. I started to wiggle my feet in anticipation, waiting for her to respond to my call. The room window was open slightly and I felt the cool nighttime air on my hot flesh. The sweat rolling off my face and onto the bed was making me feel at ease and calm.

I heard the sliding glass door open and shut slowly a few moments later, and the nurse came up to my bed smiling.

“Are you feeling okay, Eleni?” She mispronounced my name.

I rolled my eyes and I shook my head in disgust. My dad chuckled, knowing how I was about my name.

“Where is my mother? Why is my dad holding his rib cage in pain? Why am I in a hospital? When am I getting out?” All my questions just shot out like a machine gun. They startled the nurse. My throat still hurt from the tube. I had no idea why I needed a tube either.

“You are in the hospital because you were in a car accident, Eleni.” She mispronounced my name again.

“Eleni. It is E-lan-e.” I corrected her rudely. “Where is my mother?”

“I think you need some more sleep, sweetheart.” My dad tried to rise up from the chair, struggling with the pain.

“No. Where is she?” I screamed and threw the covers back, trying to get out of the bed.

My dad shook his head and started to choke up in sadness. I wrinkled my face in confusion again. It hit me hard as I jumped to the conclusion.

“She isn’t with us anymore,” he was able to make into words. “I’m sorry. It is my entire fault.”

The nurse looked at my dad and she got the hint to leave.

I started to shake my head, not believing him.

“Wait!” I screamed and the nurse turned around. “Are you serious?”

I paused, waiting for her response. She nodded and left wiping a tear.

I stared off into space, trying to remember everything. Out of habit, I noticed that I bit into my nails and the skin around it to ease the tears. It didn’t help at all. I just would bite harder as the tears rolled down my face faster.

“I can’t remember anything, Dad. There is just…” I paused, “black.” I forced my eyes closed.

“It’s okay, sweetie. She isn’t suffering anymore.” At that time, he had managed to sit down next to me on the bed.  We sat there in silence for minutes. The minutes turned into hours and the hours turned into us watching the sunrise in the window. My dad grabbed my hand and patted it. I was pulled out of my trance of shock and looked into his eyes. He wasn’t crying anymore. I pulled my face away from his hand as he tried to wipe the tears away from my red and puffy cheeks. I looked into his eyes.

“What are you thinking about?” He looked confused and hurt.

“I was trying to remember my last words to mom.”

He looked away from me, towards the sunset. His eyes were glossy and deep.

“You don’t need to remember the bad moments, Eleni. Remember her like a mother and I will remember her as a great wife. She was the thing that kept us sane in life. She was the love in our hearts. She will always be with us.”

“I can’t help but to blame myself,” I whispered.

He quickly turned his head towards mine and shook his head in disappointment.

“Eleni, nothing that happened that day was your fault.”

Tears continued to roll down my face, as I listened to my father pour his wisdom out.

“We can make it through this.” He paused. “I know we can do anything.”

I managed to crack a tiny smile and just nod. Even though I didn’t believe at the time, I wanted him to at least get something positive out of it. At least we had each other even though my mother left us behind.

We left the hospital a few hours later and walked to the nearest bus station. We were given scrubs at the hospital since our clothes were ruined from the wreck. I didn’t care that we might have looked like outcasts. Once Dad bought the tickets, we walked out of the station, and onto the right bus. I chose a window seat and my father occupied the one next to me.

The bus doors clothed as the last few passengers took their seats. My heart started to skip beats in excitement.

“Is this wrong?” I thought to myself.

“What’s the matter?” My dad must have known that I was confused.

“Nothing is wrong.”  I winced in pain for a moment when I placed my head on his shoulder. “I am just glad we are together.”

The whole bus started to move forward and it startled a bunch of passengers. I looked out the window and was puzzled.

“Where are we heading, Dad?”

“Away.”

I never knew that one word could mean so much to me. But the way my father said it made me look up at him and I knew it was true. He was looking out the window. It seemed like he was looking past the glass, past the bus station building and past the busy people. It seemed like he was letting all his sadness and loneliness fly out of his body.

The bus turned out of the parking lot and we never looked back. There was no point to look back.

lyhoradka:

hi kings let’s find out which of my fave literary devices you are

absolutelynotclassicusernam-blog:

sarah-sandwich:

polizwrites:

athingofvikings:

“But let me give you the dark side of writing groups. One really dark side of writing groups is, particularly newer writers, don’t know how to workshop.

"And one of the things they’ll try to do is they’ll try to make your story into the story they would write, instead of a better version of the story you want to write.

"And that is the single worst thing that can happen in feedback, is someone who is not appreciating the story you want to make, and they want to turn it into something else.

"New workshoppers are really bad at doing this. In other words, they’re really good at doing a bad thing, and they’re doing it from the goodness of their heart. They want you to be a better writer. They want to help you. The only way they know is to tell you how they would do it, which can be completely wrong for your story.”

—Brandon Sanderson, Lecture #1 Introduction, Writing Science Fiction And Fantasy

And this is why many writers (including me) don’t ask for concrit on their published stories - they’ve told the story they want to tell. 

If that’s not the story you want to read,  you are welcome to write your own version.

He goes on to say that to give good feedback, tell them how the writing made you feel. Don’t say, “instead of that you should do this.” Tell them, “this part confused me.” Or, “my attention drifted during this scene.” Your job isn’t to tell them howto fix it or even that it needs fixed. Your job is let them know what impact their story had on you, the reader. Then they can determine if it’s accomplishing what they want it to and if not, they know which parts need attention.

It isn’t just young writers who do this! Until last fall, this is what I did because this is what my teachers taught me to do. And I hated writing workshops. I kept going to them because I needed to learn how to be a better writer, but…did I actually learn? Mostly what happened was that my work got picked apart and I became depressed and left the story behind because I no longer thought it was any good. My teachers were operating with the best intentions in the world too, but with their help, I ended up with the world’s worst case of writer’s block and a chronic lack of belief in myself.

Then, last fall, my very last semester of college, I took a class with a professor who told us that we were not going to use the classic workshop format. Instead of writing down everything that we thought our classmates should do, we were assigned to ask them questions. And as writers, we were assigned not to sit passively while feedback was fired at us, but to ask questions, to explain what we had been going for and ask if it worked, and if not to brainstorm together how we might make it work.

It was miraculous. Instead of shutting my mind down, this workshop process blew it wide open. Instead of going home after class dispirited, never wanting to touch my story again, I went home inspired, with a hundred new ideas.

So I am a big advocate for this method–and I think it is important to underscore that it isn’t just students who need to be taught it. Writing teachers need to learn it too.