Mass Effect 2: The Case for the Heroine's Journey

I have a theory. And I think it's something others--especially other storytellers--might find interesting. It explains why some people absolutely adore Mass Effect 2 while others (not as many, in my experience!) think dealing with all the companions and their personal quests is boring or irrelevant.

What it boils down to is the difference between the Hero's Journey and the Heroine's Journey. There a couple of takes on the Heroine's Journey (ranging from more philosophical and psychoanalytical to more story-based), and I'm going to be pulling hard from the story-based iteration, which author Gail Carriger has written a fabulous book about. I highly recommend it.

One thing I want to mention right off the bat: the gender, sex, or sexuality of your protagonist has nothing to do with whether they're a hero or a heroine.

Everyone and their dog knows the Hero's Journey. A literal ton of writing advice refers to the Hero's Journey as if it's the be-all and end-all of narrative (thanks Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Christopher Vogler); it ain't called the monomyth for nothing.

But if a part of you grits your teeth every time it gets trotted out as The One Right Way to tell a story that sells or a story people love, you may have your mind blown by the concept of the Heroine's Journey. Every single one of you who tingles with excitement at the very thought of found family (or romance, for that matter)? Yeah, strap in, we're going for a ride.

#mass effect #the heroine's journey #mass effect meta #commander shepard #garrus vakarian #turns out i love heroine's journeys much much more than i like hero's journeys #long text post #story structure #narrative structure #and this is why we get mad when stories don't meet the expectations they've set up #i could talk about this forever but i have a yoga class to get to asap

tarysande

There are a couple more Garrus-Vakarian-related hills I'm willing to die on.

Maybe this particular bit of fanon has faded over the years, but there used to be a lot of insistence that Garrus is young and somehow inexperienced when he meets Shepard. Canon doesn't really support this. Turians start their mandatory service at 15. Garrus has at least a decade of experience. Even if he's 2-4 of years younger than Shepard (according to Patrick Weekes), he's got at least as much field experience as she does by dint of the difference in turian and human "enlistment" ages.
Garrus is really damn good at his job at C-Sec. You don't give the Case of Investigating the Rogue Spectre to a greenhorn. You give it to your best, most tenacious agent. Pallin may not always approve of Garrus's actions, but that doesn't actually stop him from putting Garrus on the tough case. Also, we don't know much about how C-Sec works but we do know a bit about how the turian hierarchy works, and we know C-Sec was essentially a turian initiative. That means it's a meritocracy where failure reflects on the superior, not the one who failed. So, in roughly a decade (Shepard's 29 in ME1; I always think of Garrus as about 27), Garrus has not only done shipboard military service, but he's also risen to be one of C-Sec's top investigators; Pallin wouldn't risk having Garrus's "failure" reflect poorly on HIM otherwise. I'd say that actually makes Garrus as remarkable in civilian law enforcement terms as Shepard is considered to be within the ranks of the Alliance military.
Of course Garrus was scouted by the Spectre program. And honestly, if his dad hadn't stepped in, I think Garrus would have become a Spectre, no problem. Especially for a turian, he's cut from precisely the cloth the Spectres would be looking for: extremely skilled, extremely capable, and--most importantly--he's a turian not just able but willing to work outside the chains of command that turians are taught from birth to revere and be loyal to above all else. This is the reason Pallin is leery about Spectres: he's a good turian. Good turians follow straight lines; they don't carve out their own paths.
Garrus's dad's not dumb, and he's not cruel, and he, too, rose to the top of the C-Sec hierarchy. He took one look at his kid, I think, and said, "I love my child, but I'd say it's a 50-50 chance he ends up a shooting-first-asking-questions-later Spectre like Saren Arterius, and I don't want to see that happen." Yeah, he uses his parental influence to try and jam square-peg-Garrus into round-hole-C-Sec and Garrus resents him for it, but there's no way he did it just to stop his son from getting his way or because he doesn't like Spectres. I expect Vakarian Sr. had to clean up more post-Spectre-interference messes than we can possibly imagine. But we also know he and Alec Ryder were pals later.
So the importance of what Garrus learns from a Paragon Spectre Shepard is this: You can't just do what you want and claim the ends always justify the means. That's what Saren does. Over and over again. Garrus's code and his idealism and his sense of justice and his ability to work alone should make him a great Spectre, actually, but he needs Paragon Spectre Shepard's actions to show him the lesson he tells her he's learned during ME1: "If the people I'm sworn to protect can't trust me... well, then I don't deserve to be the one protecting them." (And the seed of Archangel was planted.) I think for the first time he realizes that even though he believes his sense of justice to be correct, it doesn't matter for shit if he can't show others why that's so. And that's where the trust comes in. (Also, ow, the extra level of importance this gives their exchange where she tells him she trusts him and he tells her she's about the only friend he has left is... a lot. Cool, cool. I'm totally fine. Nothing to see here.)
When Shepard asks him what happened on Omega, he replies, "My feelings got in the way of my better judgement." Something tells me that this never happens to "good" turians, which just makes the line so much more devastating. And although the lesson some might take away from this is "feelings bad; no feelings ever," the "grey" that Garrus has to learn to deal with is precisely the grey of recognizing feelings, validating them even, but not acting on them until they've been examined. (Which is why my Shepard stands between him and Sidonis; she doesn't give a shit about Sidonis. But Garrus has refused to process his own feelings of failure and self-loathing, so they have to take the therapy session to the Citadel and deal with it there.)

Ahh yes. The mountain range of character analysis.

#mass effect #garrus vakarian #femshep #paragon shepard #thinky thoughts #mass effect meta #long text post #i have no idea if i'm repeating things i wrote about more than a decade ago but oh well lol #october is for talking about mass effect i guess #happy birthday month to me

tarysande

The best part about coming back to the source material after a looooong time is you sorta get a fresh look at canon in comparison to whatever the dominant strains of fanon have become. Or, in fact, whatever your own dominant strains of headcanon have become.

I mean, yes, Garrus “I’m not a good turian” Vakarian gets infinitely cooler (and more competent!) by pretty much every metric as the storyline progresses. He does. But fresh out of ME1 and into ME2 through his recruitment, I find myself genuinely amused by how thin the veneer of badass is over a pretty dominant core of straight-up nerd sprinkled with idealism mixed with self-doubt.

When you have Garrus in the squad all the time (and thus get all his ambient dialogue and remarks), you really pick up on the number of times he calls out bad behavior, unethical actions, cruelty, and rule-breaking, especially in ME1.

He’s not actually a hothead who can’t abide rules of any kind. In fact, most of the time he’s pretty pro-law-and-order, and he gets amusingly hall-monitorish when people are breaking rules he considers important and worth following.

Fundamentally, Garrus chafes when his sense of what is just is at odds with what the authorities do about that injustice (or what they stop him from doing). And I would hazard a guess that the reason his actions seem so intense or harsh or "of course we should have shot down that ship in the middle of the Citadel" is indicative not of his impatience but of the degree to which he thinks the authorities have failed to uphold that justice. We know he can be patient. He's a sniper. His whole modus operandi on Omega is precision kills without civilian casualty. But when that long fuse finally burns down, he goes from zero to shooting down ships in the middle of the Citadel in what looks (from the outside) like a heartbeat.

And yes, injured pride hastens the burning of that fuse; he doesn’t like losing. Or admitting defeat. Or failing.

Having just replayed his recruitment mission, a few things really stood out to me this time.

The merc bands really hate him--and they also reluctantly admire him (he's described as smart, resourceful, dangerous, idealistic, brave, slippery; they all agree they only way they managed to get this far is by isolating him and employing dirty tactics). I mean, there's literally a station-wide announcement that Omega can return to "business as usual" once Archangel is out of the picture because he was disrupting things so completely.
The way Garrus blames himself for the deaths of his squad is so freaking turian. Failure reflects on the leader who places his people in danger they can't handle, not the individual who fails. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Yes, Sidonis betrayed him, but the person Garrus blames the most? Is himself. For trusting Sidonis in the first place. For raising Sidonis to a position where he had the means and opportunity to harm others--and the weakness of character to turn coat, to save his own hide, instead of dying to protect the others.
Garrus mentions more than once that he was trying to emulate Shepard. And his tone always implies that he knows he failed because Shepard would never have let a Sidonis into the fold. Again, he's blaming himself. Like a good turian. Yes, he wanted to avoid the red tape and bureaucracy of C-Sec, but his code--Archangel's code--certainly aligns with Paragon Shepard's morality (with a Garrus Vakarian twist).

And since it wouldn't be meta without adding a Tara's Headcanon Twist ... I've always wondered why "Archangel" when it's such a ... human concept. But this time, when I noticed how he spoke about Shepard's influence, and how quickly he brushes aside the name when she asks him about it, I wondered if it wasn't actually his way of honoring the mythology of the dead woman whose example he was trying to follow. Not that Shepard is a God he's worshiping, but ... there is something about the way he talks about her. Garrus doesn't make himself over in the image of a God, though; he's the soldier, the right hand, the avenging angel responsible for carrying out divine punishments suited and proportional to the crimes committed, the rules broken, the selfishness or cruelty of the perpetrator.

#mass effect #garrus vakarian #mass effect meta #femshep #commander shepard #no i do not have time to write a whole epic what happened on omega fic #admittedly this all works a lot better if shepard trends paragon #but since i've never played a non-paragon shepard i don't have to twist my brain around to make it work #in sum to most of the people around him garrus is a big ol goody-two-shoes nerd #so it makes sense when joker makes the comment about the stick up garrus's ass #long text post #thinky thoughts

tarysande reblogged

celamity

shadow-manor

The rest of the thread is here.

tl;dr: Don’t monetize AO3, kids. You won’t like what happens next.

ratherembarrassing

read this thread. this is by far the most concise explanation of a lot of different issues that i’ve seen in fandom spaces in a while. cosigning both the linked thread and the thread about aus/uk/can law that’s linked in-thread.

billybluboy

AHDHXHEBSG TWITTER WRITERS DID WHAT NOW???? AND PEOPLE PAID THEM????

If someone has never taken a class that includes copyright law, they may not know this stuff, so I don’t necessarily blame random people for not knowing what copyright is, but like… maybe just maybe it’s something that should be taught????

mercurywells

Just another reminder, because this always drives me crazy, but even if monetizing your fic was 100% unambiguously legal and protected, AO3 would still not let you do it because AO3 was founded and is supported by people like me who want a fandom community that is completely divested from making money off of fic.

naryrising

Yes, this. Lots of fanworks on AO3 are unambiguously legal. Fics based on Shakespeare plays and fairy tales and Greek mythology and The Great Gatsby and your original character from your D&D game are not violations of copyright, because no copyright applies to those things.

AO3 still doesn’t let you monetize those things on the site, because we don’t want the site to be commercial! Because that’s not what it’s for!

It’s not there for you (generic you) to make money off the efforts of the people who build and maintain the site for free! We aren’t getting paid for the work we do to give you a nice site to use, just like you aren’t getting paid for the work you do to create whatever art you share there. Because fandom is supposed to be a community where we share with each other, and therefore we all benefit.

The deal is, we give you a free, stable, safe platform to host your works. In exchange, you get a site that isn’t covered in ads and tip jars and links to gofundme and “read the next chapter at my patreon”. You get one goddamn place on the internet that isn’t trying to make money off you. And we will defend that space and keep it non-commercial.

#long post #long text post #BUT SO IMPORTANT #aren't you queued?

tarysande

On Grief. And On Friendship. On Memory. And Love.

When my grandmother died, we didn't have a traditional funeral. We didn't wear black. We didn't sit around, solemn and silent. We told stories. We ate food she would have liked and drank Bailey's with cream. We got to do it together, of course, and we got to cry and hug and mourn and laugh and sing.

I'm sure all of us have heard some version of the phrase "online friendships aren't REAL friendships." I know I have. I've never understood it, either. For me, in all my neurodiverse glory, online friendships are often MORE REAL. Where else can you meet people and immediately jump into all the things you have in common? All the shared loves and hates and hyperfixations? Where else can you just bypass small-talk and, as Anne of Green Gables would say, find bosom friends so quickly? I've met so many online.

I honestly don't remember when I met Sara/@dearophelia. When I look through my tags, I know it's been at least seven years. I'm certain it's been longer because she definitely had username changes. And I am total shit at remembering username changes. More than once, I've told myself I should keep a spreadsheet. I'm pretty sure I've known her almost as long as I've been on tumblr, and that's more than a decade.

When Sara got sick, I finally used that tumblr function that notifies you whenever a blog updates. I wasn't around tumblr as regularly, but I didn't want to miss anything Sara might say. I hoped that one day I'd get the notification that everything was clear, she was in remission.

I didn't. Today, I got what will be the final notification from her blog--@vhenadahls sharing the information that Sara passed away. That there wouldn't be anymore updates. No more reblogs. No more snarky comments in the tags or gushing comments in the tags.

If this were a room and everyone who loved Sara, who enjoyed her fanfic (with or without knowing the woman behind it!), who has listened to her playlists, who played ME3 multiplayer with her, who was in any way touched by her in a way that brought their lives joy, it would be so full. We would all have stories to share. We'd all have memories to relive.

This room would be decorated with labradorite and pink and fat birbs and cats. There would be so much music--Taylor Swift and Halsey and Florence and the Machine and Hozier and so many many others. There would be a million fabulous selfies on the walls of Sara's huge smile and her vulnerability and her bravery. There would be gaming knickknacks and D&D dice and tarot decks and crystals and magic and books on every surface. All her faves would be represented. And it would still only brush the surface of how vibrant she was and how deeply and enthusiastically she loved what she loved.

If this were a room where we could also add all the characters she created, whose stories so many of us loved ... well, it would have to be awfully big. Sara wrote a lot of stories for a lot of fandoms.

And if this were a room where we and her characters were gathered, but we opened the doors for all the characters and stories that Sara helped inspire, helped grow, encouraged and enabled, well, I know a whole lot of my characters and stories would be here, too. I'm sure I decided to create Rose Trevelyan because of some conversation Sara and I had where I was imagining Rose Vakarian-Shepard grown up.

Sara, I'm really sorry I didn't get to finish the Vakarian-Shepard stories before you left. Most writers write for themselves, sure, but often they also write for specific readers. Sara was always one of mine, but I don't think she knew it. I lived for her gushing tag-comments. I loved when she was always so quick to jump in with prompts.

I'm honored that I was someone with whom Sara shared her original fic work. (She also once shared an absolutely horrifying scene with Garrus and Shepard's clones that she cut from Nora's story because it was just TOO AWFUL. In fact, she shared it with me BECAUSE IT WAS SO AWFUL and she knew I'd appreciate it.) In my heart of hearts, I wanted Sara to finish that original story and publish it. I wanted us to be part of each other's group of writer-friends (you know, you always see them thanking each other in their books). Hell, I wanted to have a small press at some point just SO I could publish Sara's stories. I believed in her THAT MUCH.

I love Sara's stories. I love her playlists. I love her blog, with its hodgepodge of interests and loves. I love her imagination and creativity and attention to detail. I love that I can still visit that mind by reading the bounty of work she left behind.

I mean, she made me wholeheartedly buy into a relationship between Shepard's mom and ZAEED.

Sara was one of the constants in my online life over the last decade. Even if we hadn't chatted for a while, I always knew we could pick up again like no time had passed (thanks, ADHD). As I write this, there's a little chat circle on the bottom right of my tumblr screen with her avatar in it and I can't bear the thought of hitting that X button and never seeing it pop up again.

Sara struggled and loved and fought and overcame and breathed and was brave. Not just in the past few years, when she was sick. As long as I knew her. And she didn't let anything stop her. She snarled in the face of it all and wrote stories so beautiful they broke my heart and then pieced it back together again in the same paragraph.

I miss her. I will always miss her. But I'm so happy I got to know her as long as I did. She'll live on in my memories, in my stories, in the characters she helped inspire. She'll live on every time I look at my favorite tarot deck--she was the first person I yelled at when I bought it--and when I see fat birbs and cute-maybe-evil cats. And if that's not REAL friendship, real love, I don't know what is.

#dearophelia #death tw #cancer tw #on memory #on grief #on mourning #long text post #tara talks personal stuff

tarysande

ADHD

I had ADHD for over thirty years before it was diagnosed, and part of the reason why it took so long is because a few specific things absolutely did not resonate with me. At all. And I saw them listed as "symptoms" of ADHD ALL THE TIME.

So, I thought I'd write up a quick list in case it helps someone else out there see past the stereotypes that are too often used as diagnostics.

ADHDers struggle with reading/words/speech etc.
ADHDers have a history of poor grades or attention at school.
ADHDers have a history of drug and/or alcohol abuse.
ADHDers can't sit still.

And how did I differ?

I read constantly. In fact, one might say I HYPERFOCUS on reading. I would rather read information than listen to it. (Reason #1 that I just can't get into podcasts!) The problem has never been reading--it's stopping reading. I'm a professional writer and editor with a background in acting. Words have never been a problem. Do some ADHDers struggle with words? Hell, yeah. Do ALL ADHDers struggle with words? Nope. Not even close. (PS: A lot of ADHDers who struggle with words may actually also have other learning struggles, such as dyslexia. ADHD loooooves a comorbidity!)
This is still SUCH a persistent myth. Even the psychologist who diagnosed me was hesitant because I had stellar grades all through my education. The more research they do, however, the more they realize that other things (autism, giftedness, etc.) can actually mask or mitigate the "typical" symptoms of ADHD that lead to it being diagnosed at school. And if you're an ADHDer who, say, hyperfocuses on learning (because it's cool! and you learn new things all the time!), or who has developed extremely effective coping mechanisms (perfectionism, people-pleasing, etc.), or who deliberately sticks to "safe" subjects to avoid challenge and possible failure, grades are NOT a good measure of ADHD. (Look into what it means to be "twice exceptional"--you may find a list of traits that resonates a lot more!)
ADHDers are out there looking for anything that'll give them a dopamine hit. Boredom is deadly. And the mix of novelty-seeking and low inhibition can often result in risky behavior. However, this can manifest in many, many ways. Drugs, alcohol, sexual partners? None of that was relevant to me. Spending, however? Especially spending money I didn't have on things I didn't need just to feel that itty bitty thrill of OOH SOMETHING NEW! ... yeah, that was a real problem. But not one I usually saw on those symptom lists, even though ADHD+finances can result in HUGE and life-altering problems.
Even bearing in mind that there are different presentations of ADHD--and that inattentive is one of them--ADHD does NOT always present as physical restlessness. Often, mental restlessness--racing thoughts, daydreaming, distractability, inability to "turn off your brain" to get enough sleep--slips through the diagnostic cracks and can be FAR more disruptive to one's health and happiness. And, again, many ADHDers develop coping mechanisms that can end up being very unhealthy or unsustainable in the long term. (I keep my ADHD in my thumb, for example. I can be perfectly still for a long, long time. However, my right thumb fidgets almost constantly. It's weird. Now that I've noticed it, I can't unsee it.)

I guess what I'm saying is ... nothing is set in stone where ADHD is concerned, so don't be afraid to dig deeper, especially if some aspects hit hard. Exploration is a good thing. Questioning is a good thing.

#adhd #adhd things #tara talks adhd #brains are weird #and they're all different #long text post

tarysande reblogged

pearwaldorf

lesbianralzarek

tumblr guide for new users:

1) there is no algorithm for your dashboard. can’t stress this enough. your dashboard is in chronological order of posts and reblogs from people you follow. “based on your likes!” is a joke and they removed that feature in a week

2) because of the lack of algorithm, likes do nothing. if you want more people to see a post, you have to reblog it so it goes on your follower’s dashes

3) the vast majority of posts on a person’s blog tend to be reblogs. think 90% or so. some of those will have that person commenting on it, and more will have tags

4) comments stay on reblog chains, while tags only show up on your reblog of that post. it’s kind of like a whisper voice. in either case, both op and the person you reblogged from see that in their notifications

5) tags don’t go in the body of the post. writing “staying in #lasvegas” won’t make it appear in the las vegas tag, it’ll just look weird

6) it’s totally normal to reblog and post multiple things in one day. it’s normal to reblog the same post twice in a row. it’s normal to have 100 posts+reblogs in a day. post limit (the total number of original posts and reblogs) for a single day is 250. you heard me. 250. go hog fucking wild

7) it defaults to having a visible likes tab on your blog (but only on your blog, not the dashboard) but most people toggle it off

8) “tumblr clout” is a fucking joke. no one can see your follower count, and no one makes money here. there are no influencers. enjoy not giving a shit about maintaining a public persona. it’s all anonymous and your employers won’t find you here

hairasuntouchedaspartoftheamazon

9) you’re not expected to create a bio/carrd and in fact it often looks weird if you do

10) most people have varied interests and post about many different things, often right after one another. I, for example, post stuff about writing, sewing, about a dozen different fandoms, and anything that catches my interest.

11) actual personal information is rare, and usually only between two users who know each other.

12) Reblogs are encouraged, though it does make the post fucking long. (Often, though, long reblog conversations can turn into talking the the DMs and that’s how you make internet friends, kids)

12b) long posts torture your followers, thus they are common and always inflicted upon everyone. Color of the sky will never die.

13) to reiterate, there is no clout. Popular users suffer because once a post breaches containment people will put all kinds of shit on it and that’s before the fandoms get to it. Be cringe with no fear.

14) tags are both for public use and personal identification, most people have their own tags they use to keep track of their stuff, like #my writing or #sewing information. My personal favorite is #sebastian speaks about space pirates. Sky is the limit guys.

15) we all appreciate yet mildly mistrust staff.

livebloggingmydescentintomadness

the most important thing to understand about tumblr is that this place is a lawless wasteland, and it’s very hard to get in trouble here. this is the official list of of unacceptable content, but while someone can report you for posting something like pro-self harm or pro-anorexia content, you DO NOT need to censor any words like “die” or “kill” or “sex”. no one is monitoring the words you use.

in fact, one of tumblr’s time-honored traditions is making up the most grandiose, elaborate threats and insults possible. nobody here says “i’m going to kill you,” they say, “i’m going to pop out your eyeballs and fashion them into salt and pepper shakers.” if someone dunks on you on your own post, you are fully expected to reply, “i hope you choke on your saliva in front of your crush, you moldy piece of beef jerky.”

another important thing to know about tumblr is that once you post something, you lose all control over what happens to that post. only the people you have already blocked are incapable of saying and doing whatever they want with that post, and you have to just put up with it. you can delete the post to stop receiving notifications, but deleting the post will only delete it from YOUR blog, and complaining about people being annoying on your post is generally considered poor form. sure, you can SAY “dni if”, but once your post is out there, it’s out there, and people can say whatever they want in the reblogs and the tags. it’s wise to think twice before you post.

one of the benefits of tags is that they allow you to organize your blog and find posts later. if you tag a post as “resources”, then for as long as your blog exists you can go to yoururl.tumblr.com/tagged/resources and find everything you’ve tagged with “resources.” you can also use yoururl.tumblr.com/search/keyword to find any word(s) from any post in your blog, provided the tumblr search function gods have smiled upon you that day.

therefore, tags are used for organization, for allowing others to find your content, for warnings (e.g. “self harm tw” or “suicide mention tw” or “nazi cw”), and also for rambling about whatever you want.

for that matter, it’s also a time-honored tradition for someone to either screenshot or copy/paste your tags into a reblog if they like what you’ve had to say. this is not stealing, this is passing peer review and a high honor. it is polite to credit the person whose tags you’re reblogging, typically by going “tags via @url”

there’s also a hotly-contested practice of simply typing “prev tags” in your tags, which indicates that you like what the person you reblogged from said in their tags. this is fine on occasion, but a lot of us get QUITE peeved if we’re expected to click back through multiple reblogs to find the “prev prev prev tags” that is just some mildly amusing comment.

while you can comment whatever you want on your own blog, it is generally expected that you keep your thoughts in the tags unless you have something significant to offer to the reblog chain. leaving things like “hahaha” or “good to know” in the comments quickly clutters up the post.

it’s pretty normal to just start talking to strangers, as long as you’re polite. most of us enjoy getting asks and messages, so if you find someone whose blog you like, don’t be shy about saying something to them. they might not respond, but they’ll appreciate it nonetheless.

if you wind up stepping into a pile of shit and people start harassing you, turn off anonymous messages and definitely turn off submissions. if you still get hate, block block block. there’s zero shame in blocking anyone who bothers you. if you’re receiving harassment on a sideblog, copy the harasser’s url, go to settings>sideblog in question, then scroll down to “blocked tumblrs” and manually add the url. otherwise they may only be blocked from your primary account.

tumblr loves its long-running jokes. we are still making posts about memes from years ago. if you see a reference that you don’t understand, like “children’s hospital” or a picture of ramen noodles, assume it’s a very old joke that we gleefully beat like a dead horse.

tumblr also loves dates and anniversaries. just go with it and reblog the “it’s october 3rd” mean girls gif on october 3rd.

there’s nothing wrong with “likespamming” someone’s blog, or scrolling through it and liking/reblogging a couple dozen posts in a row. it’s flattering. no one cares.

it’s also perfectly normal to reblog old posts. you can reblog a post from yesterday and then a post from 2012 and no one will bat an eye. it doesn’t matter.

lastly, this is a place to relax and have fun. unless you’re an artist, gifmaker, or writer trying to get some eyes on your work (more power to you), don’t worry about engagement or follower count or anything. having lots of followers on tumblr mostly just means getting people yelling at you more. relax. reblog and post whatever the fuck you want.

this place may be a lawless wasteland, but it’s our lawless wasteland.

#this is a very good summary #of our weird little hellsite (affectionate)#especially our love of ancient texts (meme edition)#on tumblr #though I will say that while likes for nothing for visibility #they do make OP happy #long text post

tarysande

Anonymous asked:

Hi, Tara! I hope you're having a wonderful day!

For the director's commentary: when you say 'where you THINK you see' the story going, does that mean AHoD hasn't been plotted out completely? Or that the end is planned, but how you're getting there isn't? Or something else entirely? (Maybe this is more of a general writing question instead of something AHoD-specific, lol.)

Hopefully that's not too spoiler-y! Regardless, it's really awesome to hear your look back at Grace Notes has been pleasant! AHoD (and all of Grace Notes in general) has been one of my favorite fics for years, finished or not. Like, in the top five, easily!

Also, uh, please cut this next bit if you want if you reply to the above, because this is maybe kind of sappy and/or really weird? I found AHoD back when there were only 50-ish chapters, which led me to your blog here, and that was kind of a jumping-off point for me in terms of finding people who could relate to things I didn't have words for or felt I couldn't share with people around me at the time, years and years ago--asexuality/demisexuality, burnout, ADHD, depression, and other mental health related struggles, and, like, caring enough about my own writing to hone it instead of treating it as a self-indulgent hobby? It was just really heartening for awkward-teenage-girl-me in a small town to log onto tumblr and see an older, successful woman dealing with the kinds of things I was, and just--existing, I suppose. Like, proof I'd be alright and wasn't alone.

In short, thanks for being you, I guess? And I hope things keep going well for you in all you do! Have a great day!

Gosh, thank you for the lovely message! I'm so glad you found your way here, and that it encouraged you (from one demi, ADHD, sometimes-depressed, sometimes-burned-out writer making it through to another!). I know that, for me, the feeling of not being alone has always been such a huge part of what makes tumblr home. A bit like you, I had older fandom women I looked up to (and who helped me) when I was in my late teens and early twenties. I'm still in touch with most of them! And someday, you'll be that person to a new generation of teenagers trying to figure themselves out. It's kind of magical.

Now, as for your AHOD/writing question: It's not too spoilery. I'm definitely of the plantser school of writing—throw down the seeds and wait to see what comes up, keeping my fingers crossed that the seeds in the packets are what they say they are. It's a bit ironic, really, since so much of my work as an editor is about weeding the gardens of other writers. I'm really good at it!

But it's harder to weed one's own WIP because sometimes weird plants start sprouting and you can't just pull them up; you have to adapt to them. They're already in the garden, and people want to see what becomes of them because they have no idea that I, the gardener, did not entirely anticipate all the flowers they see. My job is to make it seem like those weeds were intentional!

For AHOD, specifically, I've always known certain emotional beats/character growth moments I want to hit. I knew I wanted to tie up a lot of the loose ends I found unsatisfactory with the game's ending. I knew I wanted to dig into the things I'd devised that made my Shepard's backstory unique, like her time with the Callahans, her relationship with her parents, and the strengths and weaknesses of her psychology as I envisioned it.

I always knew I wanted to explore What Comes After War. There's a quote that's been hanging on my wall for a long time: "In war, many things are acceptable. You kill and there seem to be no consequences. But there are consequences—they just come after." (Vitka Kempner-Kovner)

I've always been obsessed with the consequences that come after action.

On the surface, it's a video game. Killing bad guys is part of the mechanics. But BioWare did such a good job of giving me people to care about that I wanted to ... help them recover, but without pulling any punches. I wanted to make their sacrifices and suffering and losses count, if that makes sense, because ... isn't that what we all want? Even if our pain isn't on the scale of Reaper invasions and intergalactic war, there's something universal about facing the lowest lows and somehow still clinging to hope long enough that the hope turns into the first steps of recovery, of rebirth, of growth.

So, tl;dr: Even though I think I know where the plot is headed, I remain open to the possibility that the specifics will change, because they usually do—for the better. Trying to herd the characters in my head onto a specific path only ever backfires on me.

Plus, getting to discover the details along the way makes ye olde ADHD braine happy!

#asks and answers #Anonymous #ahod director's cut #i am actually giving a talk next month #at an editor's conference #ABOUT BURNOUT #because she and i are old buddies #long text post

tarysande

I posted 719 times in 2021

79 posts created (11%)

640 posts reblogged (89%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 8.1 posts.

Longest Tag: 110 characters

#and you've got another thing coming if you think i'm going to live by your village's rules (that i don't know)

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Ahh yes, Commander Shepard. Survivor. Hero. N7.

Gets winded trying to run the length of a pedestrian bridge on the Citadel.

187 notes • Posted 2021-06-29 01:41:10 GMT

#4

The Conservative candidate in my riding just came to my door to introduce himself, and I answered because I’m expecting a package and assumed that’s what the knock would be about.

He seemed nice and polite, but he only got as far as introducing himself and saying, “And I need your help,” before I interjected with, “I’m so sorry, but I can guarantee I won’t be voting Conservative.”

“Oh,” he said, blinking. “Why is that?”

“Well,” I replied very earnestly, “it’s just that I don’t hold a single Conservative belief.”

“...Okay,” he said. The woman with him (a translator) was pretty much laughing behind her mask.

“Okay,” I agreed, and went inside again.

In retrospect, this is all funnier to me because I’m basically dressed like a 50s housewife today--cat-eye glasses, crinoline, full skirt and all.

189 notes • Posted 2021-09-03 23:10:32 GMT

#3

So I get that Lucifer has emotional and self worth issues to the end of the universe and back, but why did he think he needed to become God to be worthy of Chloe and her love? Even for him it seems over the top.

He thought it precisely because it was over the top. Even if, all other things being equal, he had succeeded in becoming God to prove himself worthy of Chloe (which would've been impossible), it wouldn't have been enough.

Because it's not about Chloe, it's not about God, it's not about any of that. It's about Lucifer and his fear that he's unworthy.

One of the most important--if not THE most important--through-lines of the entire series is the idea of therapy. Often, a goal of therapy is to name fears and address them. Again and again, Lucifer returns to this fear of unworthiness. And this fear goes back ... well, forever.

So, Lucifer's been trapped in an ever-escalating cycle where his fears of failure and unworthiness fester. Psychologically, this leads to all sorts of traits we're familiar with--complete hedonism, denial, depression, perfectionism, anger, self-harm, blaming others, avoiding attachments that might hurt him more. Even when he succeeds at something important, the buoyant effect it has on him is temporary because he's never addressing the deeper issues. He's putting band-aids on a mortal wound. Every time, the success needs to be bigger to get the same effect. It's like chasing a high. And then the low that follows? Gets lower and lower and lower.

Michael didn't make Lucifer afraid of being unworthy. He just reflected back the fear that already existed (and then he used it against his brother 'cause he's a dick that way). Lucifer is still fixating on the external, though. Blaming God, then blaming Michael, then setting himself an all-but-impossible goal of proving himself worthy to someone who has (as she says so pointedly) already made her feelings perfectly clear.

The issue is that when Lucifer looks inside himself, he still sees this failure. So he projects all over the place. He convinces himself that Chloe may say she cares about him now, but it's only because she hasn't seen what a cowering, unworthy, useless failure he actually is. And, in Lucifer's mind, it's inevitable that she'll find out. Then she'll leave him. He'll disappoint her. Just like he disappoints everyone, eventually. He'll be metaphorically cast into an even worse, even darker, even lonelier hell. I don't think Lucifer subscribes to the idea that "it's better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all."

The cycle means that Lucifer's fears are also self-fulfilling prophecies--because that happens a lot with fear.

Lucifer couldn't "become God" until he found a reason to do so that wasn't tied to his own sickly, stunted self-worth. That wasn't tied to proving himself to something external. Instead, it's tied to something that's even more a part of Lucifer than his fear of unworthiness: his belief in fairness, in justice. Desire not in the material sense, but in the spiritual.

From a place of love, he looks at the system as it exists and says, "This is not fair. This is not just. It needs to change. I need to change it."

Not for power, not for personal gain, not to "win." (I maintain there's still some hubris in thinking he's the one who has to do it, but I suspect that we'll get some fallout from that in S6--I'm going to write about that more in a later speculation post, though.)

And we do know that above all things, Lucifer is an expert in fair. And once he finally stops living his own hell loop of endless self-torture (unworthiness) over and over, he can walk through the door and be free. Actually heal. Like Mr. Said Out Bitch. Like punishing Michael but not killing him.

Linda says, "Maybe you should be a therapist."

And the truth is, I suspect that's what--as God--he'll become. Not distant and unknowable and mysterious ways. The guide who can't fix things for you, but who can concoct the perfect plan to show you how to get out by yourself. Maybe he'll answer questions with questions, but the goal will be freedom--not endless self-recrimination.

And a final quick thing I want to mention (even though the heaven/hell thing is something I want to write an entirely different essay about) ... it's not just hell that needs fixing. In heaven, Chloe didn't remember the things that made her sad. To be content in heaven, she had to forget Trixie, Lucifer, Dan. Is it really eternal bliss if, to be there, you have to forget the people you loved?

I don't think Lucifer will think so.

217 notes • Posted 2021-06-01 07:12:23 GMT

#2

Legendary

Honestly, as much as I am looking forward to replaying these games I love so, so deeply—and oh, how I am! and oh, how pretty they look!—I am also just so goddamned grateful the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition has given me something concrete to look forward to that doesn’t rely on borders reopening, travel being allowed, vaccines being available, restrictions being lifted, gatherings being held.

Sometimes the light in the dark is a video game with a release date, y’know?

263 notes • Posted 2021-02-03 05:44:02 GMT

#1

Oh no, I've been thinking.

Okay, I can't stop thinking about something ending-related. I don't know this for certain, but based on previous statements and such, it feels like the writers were always aiming for a bittersweet ending. Like, no matter what else happened or how the story evolved, come hell (lol) or high water, that ending couldn't just be happy. For reasons. I guess.

Now, I don't mind a bittersweet ending ... if it makes sense for the ending to be bittersweet.

I critique stories for a living. I'm literally taking a break from the developmental edit of someone's novel to write this post. And the persistent thought that bugs me about the Rory setup is that it is so artificial. Time travel is a pain in the narrative ass. Time travel suddenly introduced in the sixth season of a show that has never touched on time travel? As an editor, I probably would've pointed out that time travel for the purpose of angst, especially time travel without rules that make sense ("I don't know anything about time travel! Except I do know you have to take the most painful path!"), seemingly introduced as a final ploy to make that bittersweet ending work ... well, to me, it breaks the narrative contract they established with the audience. Your audience is going to be confused. An editor's job is to alert the writer to any potential confusion so it can be fixed before the story goes to print, etc. Confused audiences get mad, annoyed, frustrated. They feel hurt. They put down the book and don't pick it up again. Usually, writers don't want that. But they're so close to their work that they need a completely outside perspective to say, "Hey, I'm not sure you realize this, but..."

I mean, I keep referring to Rory as "deus ex daughter" because in literary terms, she is a blatant deus ex machina. Rory is the god in the machine of the Bittersweet Ending.

Now, I loved a lot of S6. I did. My overall feeling about the season is not negative. But ... I can't stop thinking about why the things I didn't like REALLY didn't work for me.

I loved the emotional growth we saw in Lucifer and Chloe facilitated by the question of parenting and parental love. I did. And I would have loved to see a lot of those notes hit not with an angel kid out of nowhere ... but with the daughter already in the picture. Especially because it would have circumvented the icky idea that a child has to be one's flesh and blood to induce such feelings. I also understand that coronavirus and Scarlett's age and schedule made this difficult. But I just can't swallow that the only way to wrap up the story of this show--a show about found family, non-traditional family, friendship, connection, FREE WILL, love in all its many shapes and forms and colors ... was to introduce a brand new character via a device (time travel) that fails to make sense almost every time it's used, no matter the medium. (And then had only that brand new character be there when her mother died. Don't even get me started. Ugh.)

If time travel was always going to be on the table, couldn't we have found a more plausible way to use it with the characters we already knew, loved, and had spent four or five seasons with? A time-travelling older Trixie, say? If you're going to use the impossible device, just ... twist it another way to make it work.

Okay. Okay. So, leaving Trixie aside for now ~~just like the show did~~, let's say we leave everything about the season the same, even Rory. Do you know what ending makes more narrative sense?

Future Rory sacrificing herself by NOT forcing Lucifer to make a cruel and impossible "choice" so the baby that might have been her grows up with a family that loves her. Chloe's already pregnant. That's not going to be undone. And this nonsense of a "closed time loop" falls apart if you side-eye it for even a few seconds. The Rory who came from the future never exists except in the memories of those she met when she came back from that future. Chloe and Lucifer lose that daughter even as they gain the new one whose existence is not a tool of unrelenting fate because wow this show has always been about free will what the heck happened there yikes. And a choice made under the duress Chloe and Lucifer were under, forced out of them, and forcing them to "choose" a life apart for *handwave* Reasons has nothing to do with free will. A "choice" made at gunpoint is not a real choice. Future Rory basically bullied them into ensuring she got to exist--something, quite frankly, neither her parents would have done.

Instead, how much more appropriately bittersweet is it if Chloe and Lucifer lose that child while gaining one who, because of that angry time-travelling version, will never suffer as she did.

Also as an editor: the groundwork for my version is already laid, by the way. It should have been Rory learning about the importance of free will over fate. The importance of personal sacrifice. The importance of not thinking your young self knows best ... because experience and therapy will help rid you of that self-centered world view. That's the contract the writers made with us with this show. And Chloe and Lucifer have already BEEN THERE AND DONE THAT. (See: the end of S4.)

Furthermore, this season finally HAD Chloe and Lucifer DEAL WITH the only thing that actually would have contributed to a narrative, characterization-based reason for Lucifer to disappear: His history of running and his putting Chloe on a pedestal. Once they really talked that out, his "disappearance" became a Rory-induced trauma of inexplicable fate that flies in the face of all the progress Lucifer made over six seasons. (I would rather have had more of that and less of mysterious disappearing oh no plot.)

And I'm sorry, the "Once you get to Hell you're going to work 24/7" excuse given for why Lucifer won't be around and why he can't make time for Chloe until she's DEAD(????!???) is ... it's lame. If AMENADIEL AS GOD can make time for his kid's birthday party, I refuse to believe Lucifer can't work out some Hell/Earth-work/life balance. Never mind that in the show about partnerships, the Bittersweet Ending just ... destroyed it. Chloe was planning on being God's consultant; she could have helped Lucifer solve Hell's Trauma Mysteries (it's what she did with Jimmy, setting up that yeah, Lucifer could do it alone like he accidentally did with Lee, but doing it with HIS TRUTHSEEKING PARTNER would be more effective). Just as Lucifer could have continued helping HER solve some of the problems within "that corrupt little organization" of hers.

tl;dr: I think the writers fixated so completely on their version of Bittersweet that they missed all the foreshadowing, groundwork, and clues that were right there, already built into the story, poised for a different kind of ending than the one they once imagined. That's why so many parts of it feel almost-but-not-quite right and why these aspects are so off-putting. That's why it's just not ... organic. It's something squeezed into a box it grew out of ages ago.

Ironically, certain elements of this season involved the writers insisting on the FATE they decided long ago instead of letting the story and the characters have the FREE WILL to choose a different, more fitting, more organic ending--one that had long-since evolved past that original flavor of Bittersweet.

384 notes • Posted 2021-09-15 01:42:29 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #Long text post #lucifer spoilers

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tarysande

Oh no, I've been thinking.

Now, I don't mind a bittersweet ending ... if it makes sense for the ending to be bittersweet.

I mean, I keep referring to Rory as "deus ex daughter" because in literary terms, she is a blatant deus ex machina. Rory is the god in the machine of the Bittersweet Ending.

Now, I loved a lot of S6. I did. My overall feeling about the season is not negative. But ... I can't stop thinking about why the things I didn't like REALLY didn't work for me.

Okay. Okay. So, leaving Trixie aside for now ~~just like the show did~~, let's say we leave everything about the season the same, even Rory. Do you know what ending makes more narrative sense?

Instead, how much more appropriately bittersweet is it if Chloe and Lucifer lose that child while gaining one who, because of that angry time-travelling version, will never suffer as she did.

wickedgoodbooks

And I'm sorry, the "Once you get to Hell you're going to work 24/7" excuse given for why Lucifer won't be around and why he can't make time for Chloe until she's DEAD(????!???) is ... it's lame. If AMENADIEL AS GOD can make time for his kid's birthday party, I refuse to believe Lucifer can't work out some Hell/Earth-work/life balance.

this!

Having a purpose in life, a calling, or whatever you want to call it is important. There's no denying that. But seriously? You want me to believe that after longing for eons for a person to love him for himself, Lucifer is just gonna give Chloe and his daughter up because damned souls need therapy to get into heaven?

And there's no way around doing it 24/7? I call bullshit.

Sure, their daughter's appearance is the catalyst for that revelation, but honestly, would it really have been that big of a deal if he hadn't come to that exact realisation? Is fulfillment of his supposed destiny/fate as therapist to the damned and wicked suddenly that much more important than being loved and making his own choices? Deciding how he wants to spend his life and what his purpose is for himself?

I do like a bittersweet ending in general, but in order for me to appreciate it, it needs to make sense within the framework of the story. And it just doesn't for season 6. Nope. Doesn't.

In addition to all the excellent points already made in the post above, I have some more thoughts to add on the "angry child from the future".

Time travel and Trixie shunning aside for the moment, what exactly does this character have to offer the viewer except being the flesh and blood of our beloved Deckerstar?

Not much, if you ask me.

To me, Lucifer has always been a show about emotional growth. I mean, the self-absorbed Devil learned to put others first and actually communicate somewhat decently, right?

From what we learn from the Devildaughter's mouth herself, she's "older than she looks" thanks to her half-celestial metabolism. So we know she's not in her early 20s. That tells us she's probably in her 30s, maybe even 40s when Future Chloe passes away.

I'm not one to shame someone for fashion choices, but given that she's had an amazing upbringing despite the absence of her father (badass mom, badass aunt(s), badass uncle God, badass sis and so on), I find it hard to believe that she'd still be stuck in that angsty teen phase at that age and that the fury about her father's absence is the only thing that defines her as a character.

Am I really supposed to believe that in all those years she's lived she's not developed a single other personality trait? She's not found anything in life that gives her joy, meaning, some sort of purpose? I mean, she doesn't only have Earth at her disposal, she's able to travel between the planes of Heaven and Hell. And yet she still seems to be nothing but this angry little kid that's never been able to move past that one-dimensionality? Because that's what she feels like to me.

It's not like her wrath against that absentee father isn't valid, it's the backstory and circumstance which makes the extent of it implausible to me.

She's had years and years to actually go try and find him. She could have gotten some sort of answers, or at least she would have had something resembling agency in trying to get some. But she didn't, not really. She was used in whatever way seemed the most dramatic for each episode (in too predictable manners, I might add), and for that reason alone I have trouble relating to her as a 'character'.

To me she's a sadly cheap plot device and nothing more.

A fact that makes me really really sad, given that I always wanted for Deckerstar to be parents in one form or another (Trixie!). And even with that ridiculous inclusion of time-travel, I think the show could have done so so much better in finding a way to make the ending bittersweet, but also worthy of these characters I've come to love so much.

tarysande

I absolutely adore this addition because it highlights the other thing that really bothers me about Rory: her one-dimensionality and—something that came up while I was discussing this on twitter—her lack of internal consistency. She is a Plot Device, not a person. This show has never particularly excelled at Plot Devices. Its strength has always been in its people. IMO, the only other character this one-dimensional and Plot Device-y was Cain/Sinnerman and, unsurprisingly, he was the only other character I had to jump through headcanon hoops to make sense of in a way I could accept and deal with. (He's also the only other character whose actions, in my opinion, made the main characters act out of character to varying degrees.) A plot device is inserted whenever an author is trying to exert control; a person is allowed to evolve through the telling of the story, even if it means the story goes in a different direction than the author once thought it would.

Some folks have brought up some of the things Ildy and Joe have said after the fact, and while some of those revelations might make people feel better, the truth is that if a story needs further explanation after it's told—whether to make sense or soothe feelings or give hope or whatever the case may be—it means something broke down along the way. Something failed in the telling.

#lucifer spoilers #lucifer s6 spoilers #lucifer morningstar #chloe decker #aurora morningstar #deckerstar #on storytelling #on writing #lucifer thoughts #lucifer meta #lucifer on netflix #long text post #and getting longer #lol #lucifer critical

tarysande

S6 Thoughts: A Tale of Two Brothers

But wait! There’s more. Thoughts on the overall arc of the series, Heaven and Hell edition:

#lucifer on netflix #lucifer morningstar #amenadiel #lucifer meta #chloe decker #lucifer thoughts #lucifer spoilers #lucifer s6 #lucifer s6 spoilers #long text post

tarysande

Anonymous asked:

As funny as I found Lucifer being annoyed by God I also loved it when God was actively being supportive, because while a little over the top everything God said and all of the pride he expressed was genuine. “ He moved to LA all on his own... That’s my son over there... He’s a consultant for the LAPD... giant smile and giant wave”.

I'm C&Ping another God-themed ask in here, too.

One thing I loved about this season was how much Lucifer still loves his dad in spite of everything. You abandoned me... you’re annoying me... go away... no one lays hands on my father!!! cue devil form. Also on that, I think seeing that form allowed God to see how badly he had failed Lucifer and how deep his self hatred runs because until then he’d been willfully blind to it.

I have ... so many thoughts about God.

I’ve written a bunch of meta that included a lot of my own ideas and speculation about God and his relationship with Lucifer, but it’s been a long time since I went back to read it. So, I just did that. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5.) And the truth is ... most of my thoughts still hold up pretty well.

So. I think Lucifer’s reaction to Actual Dad showing up on Earth was more or less perfectly in line with what was previewed in “God Johnson.” Lucifer is so angry (and with Lucifer, anger = hurt) at the end precisely because it’s an equal and opposite reaction to what he felt hearing those words of love and support from his dad. His self-loathing convinces him that his dad would never say those words. Then, the family dinner seems to reinforce that. But what we see happen, of course, is basically a slower version of God Johnson. Even though Lucifer is still angry (HURT), his natural state isn’t that anger or hate or annoyance or hurt--Lucifer’s greatest desire really is (and always has been) to love and be loved. For who he is, not what he does.

The irony of Lucifer thinking he doesn’t know how to love is that he’s actually about 91.5% love (by volume). He loves Earth, he loves humanity, he loves all the random things humanity has created or improved upon, he loves nice suits and luxury and his car. He loves good whiskey and strawberries and Hot Tub High School. He loves music--he loves music so much. (And, given his reaction, I’m firmly convinced Lucifer loved the dinosaurs.) And even though that love has been, at times, poisoned by selfishness and self-loathing and anger to the point where it sometimes seemed nonexistent, it was still there. We saw it in the first episode, with Delilah. We see it all the time.

So, the other thing 5b made pretty clear is that while Dad's eldest son (Amenadiel) may be closest to him in physical appearance, Lucifer (the youngest) is closest to him in ... so, so many other ways. Music. Cooking. Bad puns. Pranks. Jokes. Curiosity. Delight. The childlike enjoyment of novel experiences. Teasing as a love language. Love. Just love in general.

I think God hoped Lucifer would grow beyond even what he, God, was capable of. The thing is, God backed himself into a corner. Since his angels responded to everything he said like it was, well, THE WORD OF GOD, he knew they'd never actually be free if he was always around ... SAYING things. And I think that when he created Lucifer, he gave him the curiosity and questioning and rebelliousness that he knew his children would need if they were ever to become more than just Traits of God made manifest.

Lucifer could have walked out of Hell any time--he could have walked through the door, like Mr. Said Out Bitch did. God knew this. I'm pretty sure God hoped it wouldn't take EONS for this to happen. But God ALSO knew Lucifer's own guilt and fear and pain couldn't be WORD OF GOD commanded away, or that precious free will Lucifer prized would be lost forever.

During the Rebellion, Lucifer wanted to be God for the wrong reasons. God knew Lucifer had the capacity to be God for the right ones. I think God hoped Lucifer would one day achieve that; I think he wanted to see his child surpass him. But Lucifer had to learn the right reasons for himself. He had to learn the selfless side of desire and not just the selfish one. He had to learn giving without needing or expecting equal reciprocation. And ... it took a long time. He's still working on it.

And Lucifer? Lucifer, 91.5% love (by volume), needed to hear that his dad loved him and was proud of him. He needed the context so he could finally understand these feelings that had been such a primary motivator for him FOREVER. He needed the words. He needed that damned hug. And God, knowing he was at last freed from accidentally WORD OF GODing his son out of free will, was finally able to give it.

And the thing is ... I think God needed those words and that hug as much as Lucifer did. I think being remote and distant hurt him more even than it hurt his children--God always knew what he was sacrificing for them, for their chance to have freedom, to be more than slaves "of God." And he did it anyway, even though he knew they'd resent him, hate him even, for it.

#lucifer on netflix #lucifer morningstar #lucifer thoughts #lucifer meta #lucifer and god #lucifer 5b #lucifer 5b spoilers #lucifer spoilers #approximately 12.2% of my feelings on this subject maybe #long text post

tarysande

Thoughts on 5x16

I haven’t had time to do my full rewatch yet, but I wanted to watch the finale again (because I’ve got a relevant one-shot in the works). I have no idea if anyone else has talked about this yet--nor have I seen a gif set crossed my dash, and it deserves a gif set--but wow, Chloe’s death and resurrection almost perfectly echo Lucifer’s death and resurrection at the end of S1.

Only, in 1x13, everything is dark. The whole scene in the hangar is shot in the cold blues of Hell. In 5x16, everything is golden. There’s a real hell/heaven parallel. But that light is menacing, too. It’s blinding, it burns. Malcolm shoots Lucifer in the stomach; Michael stabs Chloe in the stomach--in both, the magnitude of the blood loss is framed really specifically.

Lucifer dies alone, pleading with a father he believes is absent in what is a catalyst of a selflessness that sets Lucifer on a very different path. He pleads for Chloe’s life and offers up his own as payment--as the return on the favor he’s asking.

Chloe dies in Lucifer’s arms, pleading with him not to feel guilty, knowing what guilt has done to Lucifer in the past. She dies with love on her lips.

In S1, Lucifer wanders the halls of hell; in S5, Chloe picnics in Heaven. And even though the dark and light are in play here, there’s still a sense of sadness, of loss. I know some people disagree with me on this, but Heaven made me nearly as uncomfortable as Hell. Instead of hell loops of guilt, Heaven is cherry-picked memories of happiness. “Just like I remembered,” Chloe says as she bites into the sandwich, but moments later, when her father calls her ‘Monkey’--her nickname for Trixie--not even a flutter of recognition of what she’s left behind registers. Both Heaven and Hell use human memories to manipulate them. The memories are nicer in Heaven, but they’re incomplete. And if someone must be rendered incomplete for the afterlife to work, I’m sorry, that doesn’t strike me as heavenly. (Would Chloe forget Trixie if Trixie dies and goes to Hell? Would she ever think of Dan again, if thinking about him means she has to remember he’s in Hell for eternity?)

In S1, Lucifer’s resurrection is wrapped in mystery. Was it God? Was it the loophole of the bargain he made with Malcolm (i.e., because Malcolm shot him, Malcolm broke the deal that granted him the pentecostal coin, thus returning the coin to Lucifer for him to use to return to life)? In S5, we see the exchange that returns Chloe to life--Lucifer’s first selfless act echoed in what becomes his ultimate selfless act: Choosing her life over his own, even if it means he ceases to exist.

There’s a gorgeous parallel that happens here. In S1, Lucifer’s heartbeat is an underlying part of the soundtrack as he dies; it falls silent when he dies. In S5, we hear Chloe’s heartbeat before we see her. In extremely similar shots, we see Chloe return to life almost identically to the way Lucifer did--the gasp, the sitting upright. Lucifer is shot, gasps, looks down, sees blood on his fingers, heartbeats. Chloe has heartbeats, gasps, looks down, sees blood on her fingers, rises. Bookends.

Malcolm says “I feel like I’ve been given a second chance, and I’m sure as hell not going to waste it” when he threatens to kill Chloe. Lucifer follows this with, “Is this really what you did with your second chance? Dearie me.” In the finale, we see the idea of second chances again and again--for good. For hope.

There’s another great moment here. In Lucifer’s prayer, he says, “I don’t know if this is all part of the plan”--oh, I think it very much was--"...I’ll be the son you always wanted me to be”--Lucifer is the one who thinks his dad wanted him to be the devil; but I think the Lightbringer is the son his dad always wanted him to be--“I’ll do as you ask. Go where you want me to.” It’s so important here that Lucifer (and the audience) assume this is all related to Hell. God, I think, had very different ideas about what he was asking and where he wanted his son to be.

Chloe and Lucifer do the same thing upon resurrection, too, for that matter: punch a bad guy. We don’t know if Lucifer would’ve killed Malcolm--but Chloe stopped him before he could, before he could do something that wasn’t him: kill a human. We do know Chloe was seriously considering killing Michael--but Lucifer stopped her before she could do something that wasn’t her: killing from a place of vengeance.

Anyway. Writing, acting, cinematography, direction--it’s phenomenal.

And it really needs a gif set. ;D

#lucifer on netflix #lucifer morningstar #chloe decker #lucifer meta #lucifer thoughts #lucifer spoilers #lucifer 5b spoilers #lucifer 5b #long text post #it's just REALLY NEAT okay???

tarysande

Anonymous asked:

Why did Lucifer both become and stop being vulnerable around Chloe?

Well, we need to look at the self-actualization of angels. Because obviously this self-actualization was something happening long before they realized it was happening. And we need to look at the heartbreak of Chloe Decker.

I wrote this meta a few years ago about the scene in 1x04 when Chloe sees the scars on Lucifer's back. I think that scene is the first time we see a crack in Lucifer's devil-may-care (sorry) attitude. That is, it's the first time we see him emotionally vulnerable around Chloe. Then, later in the episode, she shoots him and we see the obvious physical vulnerability for the first time.

Long story short, Chloe's the first person with whom Lucifer's been genuinely vulnerable in ... maybe forever, and because self-actualization is a thing, that vulnerability becomes something physically tangible where it wasn't previously (clearly Lucifer gets shot many times in Chloe's presence in 1x01). The effect she has on him literally changes how he sees himself in relation to her. It also changes the audience's perception. We start to equate that physical vulnerability with emotional vulnerability the way Chloe will later.

Time passes. Sometimes, Lucifer's vulnerability is a genuine weakness. At others, it's a symbol of Chloe's specialness to him. When Chloe finds out about it (and in the axe scene of perfection), it becomes something else. It's proof (to her) that she matters to him, that even though he's hurt her before--and he really has--he also cares enough about her that he's willing to risk being hurt, even dying, to be around her. To Chloe, the idea of physical vulnerability becomes irrevocably tied to that of emotional vulnerability, and it's the latter that she's always wanted from Lucifer.

Which sounds romantic and all, but it can be a colossal pain in the ass when you're vulnerable enough that a mere mortal paralytic works on you, you nearly die, and the Detective nearly dies, too.

Personally, I've never really seen Lucifer's return to invulnerability as backsliding ... because he was vulnerable around Chloe for so very long before (and after) he learned he was self-actualizing it. On some level, after the experience with the copycat whisper killer, Lucifer recognizes that his physical vulnerability was a liability; he doesn't realize he's self-actualized it away until Dan shoots ... and doesn't kill him.

Instead of being happy about this, though, Chloe's upset because she mistakenly equates physical vulnerability with emotional. To be fair to her, Lucifer does not have a great track record. In the past, displays of emotional vulnerability have led to, say, massive backsliding (like marrying a stranger in Vegas). Chloe, who is still dealing with that hurt, sees the loss of physical vulnerability as evidence that he can't handle the emotional side of things. And then his inability to say "I love you" appears to be yet more evidence corroborating this belief.

Meanwhile, Chloe's an open wound. She's made herself even more vulnerable by telling Lucifer she loves him (and by begging him to stay, even though she knows it's the selfish choice). She's picturing Vegas times a thousand. Only this time, Vegas is Hell, and it's apparently forever.

Until it isn't. But Lucifer's still invulnerable ... which must mean he's no longer emotionally vulnerable, which means he's going to break her heart again, which means she's setting herself up for a world of pain again, and even knowing all of this, she can't help herself. She loves him. Even though it hurts, and she's waiting for it to hurt even more (like it did post-2x13).

When it comes right down to it, though, Lucifer's physical invulnerability was just as much, if not more, a manifestation of his love for Chloe than the vulnerability. All those things he says about being a shield, etc. etc., are true. He's removing the burden of worry about him from her shoulders while also making it more likely he'll be able to save her if things go sideways. It's just that his giddy delight doesn't translate well to a woman grasping at celestial straws and hoping she's not going to have her heart broken again.

#lucifer morningstar #chloe decker #deckerstar #lucifer meta #lucifer on netflix #lucifer thoughts #i used the word vulnerability so many times in this post it doesn't look real anymore #long text post #anyway the show is basically all about cognitive distortions and how to deal with them #(or fail to deal with them)#keeping linda in diaper money 2k21

tarysande

Anonymous asked:

Because it's not about Chloe, it's not about God, it's not about any of that. It's about Lucifer and his fear that he's unworthy.

The cycle means that Lucifer's fears are also self-fulfilling prophecies--because that happens a lot with fear.

From a place of love, he looks at the system as it exists and says, "This is not fair. This is not just. It needs to change. I need to change it."

Linda says, "Maybe you should be a therapist."

I don't think Lucifer will think so.

#asks and answers #lucifer morningstar #lucifer on netflix #lucifer meta #lucifer thoughts #lucifer spoilers #lucifer 5b spoilers #lucifer 5b #long text post #Anonymous #look! my brain is having ideas again!

tarysande reblogged

ivalane

systlin

Anonymous asked:

Me being traumatized and not wanting that to happen to other kids makes me a bad person now :)) I’m disgusting :)) and horrible :)) and it’s my fault that happened :)) and everybody hates me more now :)) cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool.

systlin answered:

You are not horrible. And I do not hate you. It is not your fault that it happened. But things that are marked as adult very clearly are not for kids, and if you read it anyway it is on the people who should have been supervising you and did not intervene, or, assuming that you were old enough to know what ‘adult content’ means and chose to engage with stuff produced by adult fans for adult fans, on you for ignoring the warnings.

If a ten year old child goes to a library right now, and walks to the romance section and pulls down a book, that child’s guardians are responsible for saying “Hey now that is not for you.” If that same child comes back at thirteen and, knowing there is content in that book that adults do not want them to read, furtively hides away from guardian’s eyes and reads it anyway, that is not the fault of the library for having that book, or the author for writing it.

I am very sorry you’ve been hurt. But adults are going to produce content for adults, and if you ignore the guidelines set in place to keep kids out of that content, then that’s not the fault of the adults who wrote the stuff.

catsandwitchcraft

I do not understand this new generation of kids doing the internet equivalent of going into a clearly marked strip club, showing a fake ID to the bouncer and then being shocked and appalled by it being full of adults and strippers.

ruffboijuliaburnsides

Well I had this whole paragraphs-long response I added, and you got it in like. A sentence.

like i get this argument, i really do, and there really is only so much content creators can do to try and stop children consuming content not suitable for them

BUT we cannot trust a thirteen year old to have the maturity and foresight to know what is and isn’t good for them. Yeah, their gaurdians should be the ones looking out for them and trying to stop them from getting hurt, but in your library analogy, when the library chooses to have that content it’s also somewhat responsible for restricting access to it - whether that’s putting those books somewhere the librarian can monitor most of the time, or having a slightly restricted sentence you need to be registered and have a verified age to go into, but there needs to be something - if you knowingly let unmonitored kids into your buisness, but especially if you encourage them like libraries do, you are responsible for their safety- it takes a village to raise a child and we are all responsible for their safety

that said it’s deffo not the authors responsibility, but the host, tumblr, ao3, where ever. they gotta do something

joyfulldreams

They literally already are. Rating and tagging everything as mature and clearly marking content is the barrier. This isn’t a movie theater or a library. None of those websites are KNOWINGLY allowing children into their business, because EVERYONE IS INVISIBLE.

There is literally no way to effectively bar children from accessing content they shouldn’t have access to, that doesn’t involve gross invasions of privacy. You can ban all children from a website and that STILL won’t work because there is no actual way to accurately determine who is and isn’t a child. In a lot of cases the bare minimum you can do is just outright ASK if they are a child, but then they LIE and there is no way to STOP them from lying or even figuring out IF they are lying. Hell, not even outright banning all icky things will work, as Tumblr’s disastrous NSFW ban has shown us.

‘We all have a collective responsibility to protect children’ only goes so far. If all children are invisible and can be literally anywhere at any point, ‘collective responsibility’ ends up meaning ‘in your day to day life, you must always act under the assumption that there MIGHT HYPOTHETICALLY be a child in the room’. We can’t help raise a child if we literally cannot see them and don’t even have any way of confirming their existence. And it is going too damn far to tell adults they are not allowed to do adult things with other adults because a child MIGHT POTENTIALLY be able to see them do it, even if they’re not supposed to, especially if they’re not supposed to. It’s also going too far to tell all websites that they are responsible for keeping track of legions of invisible, hypothetical, lying children.

All methods of reliably confirming people’s age online are immediately gross and dangerous invasions of privacy. All measures to try and prevent children from seeing things they shouldn’t are flimsy, at best. The MOST EFFECTIVE thing is the thing we are doing already: meticulously tagging and archiving content with extensive filters and multiple warnings, so that every potential viewer can make an informed decision about what they choose to look at.

Which means that, at the end of the day, dumb 13-year-olds and the few people in their lives who can see them as Not Invisible are going to have to take responsibility for themselves, and potentially each other.

truxi-twice

Hey so also, just to address part of what lnalovegd said, that thing about libraries being somewhat responsible for restricting access to certain materials…

No, actually.

That is the opposite of what libraries are supposed to do.

Public libraries do not–and CANNOT–restrict materials. At all. You hear every now and again of some that do. It is not a good road to go down. I live in a city with a lot of conservatives (the attempt at a drag queen storytime nearly got the library defunded by a lot). Whose judgement do you use? How do you determine that?

You could say “ratings” but honestly, that’s still not great, since LGBTQ things get rated higher than hetero things. Books don’t really have ratings, and they shouldn’t.

When I worked at the desk of the public library, one thing we HAD to practice was impartiality. It meant handing people hateful books like Anne Coulter’s drek without a side eye. It also meant that if a kid showed up at the desk with a library card and, say… Saw or the Godfather… well. I was going to check it out to them. That’s how public libraries run. Anyone can check out anything, and parental approval is not needed (for us. Parents might have other ideas. I still get mad remembering this woman who wouldn’t let her son check out Calvin & Hobbes or certain other books. But again, I did not say a word. Neutrality).

It’s crucial to a public library that we operate like that.

Libraries do not restrict material. We can organize it. Kids sections, teen sections, adult sections. But no librarian or library tech is going to monitor what children are checking out.

Yeah, kids won’t always know what they’re picking up. The first romance I ever picked up had sex and graphic medieval torture in it. I sure wasn’t expecting it. I stopped reading it. Then when the internet happened…hoo boy, you kids should have seen that wild west.

Comparatively now, I see folks really make every effort to use tags and warnings. Maybe you know what it means, maybe you don’t. But they’re there. They’re the best method we have for keeping content away from people who would be emotionally harmed by it, or who just plain don’t want to see it.

At the end of the day, if you’re old enough to go looking for content on your own, you’re going to have to accept that you might see things you don’t want to see. Yes, even as kids.

There are kid-friendly websites and forums where you can go if you don’t want to deal with that.

glorious-spoon

The fact that so many people just blithely go ‘oh, well of course libraries restrict what content they’ll allow minors to access and monitor what they check out and notify their guardians if they’re reading something (that the librarian deems) inappropriate’ always makes me want to scream.

hawthornewhisperer

Just to add on: a small town in Wisconsin went through this ~10 years ago, when local conservatives tried to get YA books with LGBT content moved to the adult section and labeled “sexually explicit” to try and deter children from accessing them. Librarians refused, and in retaliation the town council refused to renew the contracts of four library board members for supporting them.

The books stayed where they were.

Librarians do NOT fuck around.

legsdemandias

Yeah, I just want to say as someone who works in a library, that it’s absolutely NOT my job to smack books out of kids hands? Sometime last year a 12 year old girl wanted to read YA books and her guardian was down for it so we handed her The Cruel Prince, Children of Blood and Bone, and Eragon (likes fantasy series) and like all of those contain content that I might cringe to give my own 12 year old niece–but dad was okay with it. She decided for herself that she wasn’t about that Cruel Prince vibes and put it down before it got to the sex and “adult man on teen girl” action–which has always been the goal.

Libraries want children and adults to monitor their own consumption of materials, children with the guidance of their parents until they can make that decision for themselves.

“whether that’s putting those books somewhere the librarian can monitor most of the time, or having a slightly restricted sentence you need to be registered and have a verified age to go into, but there needs to be something”

^^^^ This?? does not exist. Especially not the bolded part. There’s actually more monitoring in children’s areas for children’s books that are made for children than there is in the adult section. We barely watch those books and if a 8 year old wants to read The Shining? Holla. Mom signed off on his card, she better be watching.

This scene here with Matilda could never have happened if Libraries required matilda to have a “rated access” on certain books. Charles Dickens, at the lowest, is usually sorted into YA. Remember, Matilda is going into kindergarten.

GIF by where-our-stories-start

annissamazing

I was ten or eleven when I started pulling books off the romance novel shelves. My dad saw, took me aside, and told me the books had some parts that might make me uncomfortable, and if I was uncomfortable, that it was ok to skip a few pages and get back to the story.

He didn’t bar me from reading or censor my chosen content; he gave me the tools to make my own decisions.

nonasuch

When I was ten or eleven, I read all of my dad’s Stephen King and John Grisham books, because they were books and they were in my house and I’d run out of new things to read.

Were they appropriate for me? No.

Should my parents have noticed me reading them, and stopped me? Probably!

Is that the fault of anyone outside my house? also no.

The thing is, a couple of years later when I started reading fanfic, I knew, from that experience, that I did not want to read fiction with a lot of violence or explicit sex, so I avoided fic labeled as such and back-buttoned out of a lot of stories as soon as the kissing started.

kangofu-cb

My 12 year old is a voracious reader. We talk about book series she’s interested in. Sometimes I google the ones I’m not too sure about and sometimes I know them already - but I’ve never outright told her she couldn’t read a specific book or series of books. We talk about the content and why I think it might not be age appropriate (she reads at college level) but she gets to make those decisions for herself.

This year she discovered ao3 (~~please god don’t let her find me I’d never recover from the embarrassment and neither would she~~) and we talked about what the ratings and warning tags were about and for. I don’t police her reading but I give her the tools and information to make informed and (I hope) good choices.

As a parent that’s my real job. To provide tools and guidance, not police her content consumption or hide things from her.

Don’t make fandom censorship about “but think of the childrenz” becayse that’s not what it is. It’s not really about children - it’s about virtue signaling.

Parenting is about thinking about the kids; fandom is about making content you enjoy creating and enjoying the content that’s been created. Properly tagged fanfiction is probably safer for kids in that regard than wandering unaccompanied around the library and picking up, for example, Clan of the Cave Bear which triggered me so hard (at 11) that I’ve never fully recovered.

#long text post #important #it's actually not anyone else's responsibility to parent or raise your child #and it takes a village does NOT extend to strangers on the internet #i'm not part of your village #i don't know your village's rules #frankly i don't care about your village's rules #and you've got another thing coming if you think i'm going to live by your village's rules (that i don't know)#aren't you queued?

tarysande

cauldron-chatter asked:

Hi I’m sure you’ve probably been asked this quite a lot so you can simply add a link to save yourself the trouble if you’ve written about this before, but I’d very much like to become an editor some day but I’m not sure what steps to take to get me there. Could you help explain the best ways to get started in the industry?

Okay, so, um, another Anon asked me a similar question back in ... October. And I started a response, saved it to drafts, and then proceeded to work myself into burnout. So, I’m going to C&P the response I started (and their question), and then flesh it out a bit. (Sorry Anon.)

A couple of posts I wrote about this in 2018:

Here.

And here.

Anonymous asked:

Hi Tara! I was wondering if you had any advice for someone who spent their life reading and writing for fun and wanted to try to get into editing professionally? What would you say is a good starting point career-wise? Are there any particular hurdles to be aware of?

I’ve been quasi-mentoring a friend who’s thinking of transitioning into editing. Like you, she’s a lifetime reader and writer. She has an English degree (maybe combined History/English?). And when she really started digging into what an editor does, she said, “I have learnt that I know a lot less about basic editing than I thought I did.” (Her personal style guide prefers ‘learnt’ over ‘learned’ ;D)

Ironically, even though editing is all about clarity, there’s no one clear path to the profession. The truth is, there’s no official regulatory board of any kind*. Anyone can set out their shingle as an editor**.

* Various editing societies offer certification and/or professional designations that do count for something because they require editors to put their money (and experience) where their mouths are.

** Unfortunately, this means there are a lot of untrained “editors” out there. These people usually undercharge (dragging down the average pay rate industry-wide). Many do subpar work (dragging down the average reputation of editors industry-wide).

Education is important. But what constitutes “education” in this field is a matter of debate—and oh, does it get debated.

Some editors insist you need to have an editing degree (even though most editing-specific programs are fairly young). I can see the appeal. Usually, these programs are short (1–2 years), and you’ll learn a ton in a structured environment with lots of feedback. If you can afford it, this is a great way to go. Many programs offer online options.

It’s not the only way to go.

My path was completely different. Honestly, I fell sideways into editing. Recently, I had to write up a comprehensive explanation of my experience, and much like writing, I started editing so young that it’s hard for me to pinpoint when it began or how I learned (or where the heck my youthful confidence—“Of course I can do this!”—sprang from). I did start an entire school-wide magazine in the fifth grade, though. That was probably it. :D

However, I can say that I’ve spent the last five or six years really concentrating on knowledge, including learning the reasons behind my instincts. I’ve done this by reading a lot of books, participating in some good Facebook groups (even though I hate Facebook), and taking some great courses. (If you’re on Facebook, the Editors’ Association of Earth is an amazing resource. You’ll learn a ton even if you’re just lurking.)

Back in 2017, I applied for a position at Scribendi. It involved a pretty grueling editing test, which I passed. I gained a ton of experience there with a ton of different projects and types of editing. I still pick up work there when the need arises, but I’ve been pretty solidly booked through my own business in the past couple of years. I joined Editors Canada and have a listing in their directory. I was also accepted as a Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editors and Proofreaders. A lot of professional organizations have Beginner or Student memberships that give you access to training, forums, mentoring, webinars, professional development, etc. They are worth looking into. My Editors Canada membership has paid for itself many, many times over.

I do have a post-secondary degree: A BFA in Theatre, Film, and Creative Writing. I took a lot of Honors level English classes. But editors come from ALL backgrounds. Without the degree, I wouldn’t have been hired at Scribendi. A lot of editorial training does NOT require a post-secondary degree.

This post is already long, but it’s also important to really delve into the kind of editing you want to do. Because there are many types. The word “editing” is a catch-all for many, many different jobs. That’s probably a whole post of its own.

Blogging on my professional site (and I can always cross-post here) is on my to-do list this year, so if you have any burning questions about editing, writing, business, etc. please do send them my way. <3

#asks and answers #on editing #tara talks editing #Anonymous #cauldron-chatter #long text post

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