Illogical Rant - Tumblr Posts

Bad Writing Advice For Characters

If anyone has ever wanted to write a minority character, a piece of advice you are often given is "don't write a *blank* character, write a character who just so happens to be *blank*"!

I hate this!

Firstly, most people of a minority group are either super accepting of their characteristics or are working on getting to that point. To them, their sexuality/disability/medical condition/lifestyle/etc is an extremely important and irreplaceable part of them which colors their perspective on the world.

Those characteristics aren't interchangable aspects of their livelihoods! And people don't want to change those characteristics of themselves!

This kind of advice, in my singular opinion, goes against the ways people refer to themselves!

Disabled people are called "disabled people", not people with disabilities

Gay people are gay people, not people with same-sex attraction!

These characteristics aren't like handbags you can pick up and drop! They're core aspects of their psyche, lifestyle, and character!

Secondly, I hate the phrase "they just so happen..."! You, the author, made them apart of a minority group of your own volition! It's not like it was a mistake or an accident!

My queerness, gender, and everything "other" about me impacted my perspective on the world to such a fundamental level I wouldn't be the same person if I didn't have those traits.

Writing Rant: Adam/Playboy Ship Complex

It's 9:03 and I have a wedding to get to in the morning so let's speed this up!

Basically, I am going to be focusing on a point I brought up about how stories attempting to write queer men with a heteronormative gaze tend to ascribe hyperfeminine men to the role of women even to the point of giving them the same tropes.

PART BL: The MADONNA/WHORE COMPLEX EXPLAINED

Quick explanation time, skip if you already know! TLDR; The Madonna/Whore Complex describes how men view women through a reductive lense. Either women are the:

Madonna: Enigmatic and unattainable or a domestic down-to-earth goddess. Both subtypes are united by their lack of overt sexuality and a distinct and desirable femimine charm.

or

Whore: Sexually attainable and often judged for their sexual desires. They're desirable but not respected as humans with the freedoms they're allowed to enjoy having to fit the fantasy of a sex bomb.

BUT HOW DOES APPLY TO BL STORIES?

If you have read any mlm story on either Wattpad or AO3 you can already tell.

You have the protagonist who typically falls into the enigmatic unattainable doll/Adam archetype with soft porcelain skin and doe-eyed expressions of innocence despite being in their early twenties. They're often younger than their love interest by several years in order to further highlight a power imbalance between the love interest and them.

The name Adam has further symbolism due to the fact that when the male lead and love interest have sex for the first time there is an undercurrent of moral corruption with the normally enigmatic and reserved protagonist turning into a moaning mess with creepy narration about how the protagonist isn't "pure" anymore. Adam as a biblical figure is often said to have been corrupted by the sinful presence of Eve and the apple.

The protagonist is challenged by a "Playboy" character who desires the Male Lead. The character is often portrayed in darker clothing and behaves exceedingly similar to the figure of the Femme Fatal.

You also have several plotlines based on the Madonna/Whore Complex which repeatedly appear in heteronormative queer stories.

"Good Girl Boy Who "Saves" The Sinful Man"

" The Redemption Of The "Playboy" Through Love"

"Wife Vs Mistress/Husband Vs Mistress"

"The Moral Fall Of Adam"

Writing Advice On Mentally Ill Characters

Piece Of Advice: GO HARD!!!!!

When I see a mentally ill character who is prim and proper and only has "desirable" and not "inconvenient" traits I throw up inside my mouth and I want to spit it back at you!

Write mentally ill characters who are the biggest piece of shits alive!

Write mentally ill characters whose depression is demonstrated through self-destructive habits that hurt their loved ones emotionally and physically!

Write characters who have anger attacks so brutal they have to consciously convince themselves not to pull an Edgar Allen Poe "Black Cat" stunt on their pets!

Write mentally ill characters who are abusive and aren't justified or excused due to their past!

Write mentally ill characters who don't do the "sympathetic" or "good" things like taking their medicine or believe in "safe" things!

Write mentally ill characters who are burdens on their loved ones!

Write mentally ill characters who don't have perfect loved ones to turn to and don't blame their loved ones!

Because this is reality! Depression, anxiety, insecurity, anger issues, and general mental unwellness are not hurricanes that convenientally avoid wrecking the most important parts of a character's life!

Real life people deserve to see their dangerousness, suffering, and messiness reflected in characters!

Write hopeful stories about non-sympathetic and not-so perfect victims learning to grow! Sometimes the most hopeful thing alive is to learn that your worst fears of being a burden on your loved ones, of being a horrible person, of losing people you care about, are absolutely true and then have the courage to continue.

As a mentally ill person myself, I have been a mental load on my family! My mother can't understand me and has misappropiated the "cause" of my problems! My dad is a general piece of shit who is dealing with his own demons! My sisters don't live in the house and barely bother with contacting me.

And I am still alive. I am a horrible, incomphrensible burden with no friends and I am as happy as I can be! I feel whole. I feel complete.

Why can't stories ever seek to include people and stories like me?

Cringe Culture Is Dead!

You want to write a hot furry character but are afraid of the judgment? DON"T GIVE A CRAP AND BLOCK THE HATERS!

You are a trans person who wants to write a trans character who uses every single pronoun six ways til sunday? GO GET THAT BAG!

You want to write a hardcore smut fic with "disgusting" kinks! MAKE SURE TO TAG THAT SHIT PROPERLY AND ALSO GET THAT BAG!

You enjoy mainstream shit? COOL

You enjoy not mainstream shit? COOL

Whoever decided that having passions was "cringe" because it was either "too mainstream" or "not mainstream enough" can go behind that dumpster beside their establishment and cry like the fragile thing they're!

My favorite flavor of person is someone who is passionate! As long as you are tagging your shit properly and not harassing other people then the haters are being irrational!

YOU ARE THE AUTHOR AND NO MATTER WHAT U R INTO THERE IS GOING TO BE SOMEONE OUT THERE WHO IS LOVING EVERY SECOND OF IT(me)

The Key To Writing Good Angst

"I looked in the mirror on my way to school. I looked so ugly. My flowing blonde locks which wrapped around my face always made my feel insecure about my porcelain skin. I guess I just need to suffer with my dull and dry appearance...."

I'll point out the problems with this cliche bit of angst line-by-line to give a full illustration on what seperates interesting internal conflict from boring superficiality!

"I looked so ugly"

Vague. When writing insecure characters and characters that are angsting about something/someone, the trick to isolate the exact pain. What makes a character agonize over this specific event or person above all else? What has caused this turmoil? For CHARACTER A, their insecurity comes from "looking ugly"

But what does that mean really? What about their appearance makes them think that they're ugly? Is it their skin? Their hair? Facial structure? WHAT IS IT? Not only does giving details fill up the pages more, it can add more relatability to your character while also giving the reader a deeper insight into the character's thoughts.

"My flowing blonde locks which wrapped around my face always made my feel insecure about my porcelain skin."

2. Description. When describing a character's insecurity, getting inside their head is the most important! You, as the author, can use diction(word choice) and imagery to demonstrate to the non-seeing audience what exactly the main character sees!

For CHARACTER A, describing their hair as "flowing" immediately gives the hair a beautifully etheral appearance which is further highlighted by the use of "porcelain" and "locks".

In this case you could say that the "The dry and permanently matted nest, which was always proliferated with dead ends, managed to highlight another sore spot for them. Their skin looked eternally lifeless like a corpse buried in the desert. When it combined with their deep-setted eyes contoured by utter darkness from many sleepless nights, they really did look dreadful"

See! Now the reader knows and most likely understands the insecurity CHARACTER A has while not feeling superficial!

THE LAST WORD OF ADVICE: SHOW, DON'T TELL!

It may sound tedious but it's true. If you want your readers to properly internalize how angsty your character is you need to show the negative effects of this internal conflict!

EXTERNAL CONFLICT SHOULD BE A MIRROR FOR INTERNAL CONFLICT

Illogical Ranting About Writing

I have an irrational hatred of randomness in stories. By that, I don't mean I hate coincidences or "fate" or anything like that. NO!

I hate when I can physically feel the hand of the author push this event to happen or force these two characters to get together.

For example, you know how many times in an angst-based story the love interest of the angsty character will "just so happen" to walk past the character when they're describing their trauma in-detail.

It makes me scream everytime since it feels so artificial. Like the plot is just dragging these people along for the ride instead of the characters acting on their own terms. It would be so easy to have the angsty character choose to confide in this love interest.

Another example is when a character is just casually walking along and "just so happens" to hear a super-secret goverment conspiracy plot! Again, why couldn't you have this character have a super cool and interesting backstory which makes them suspicious of the government so the character is always trying to spy on political officials?

Why couldn't you have a character be naturally paranoid of others so they always try to spy on others?

I hate coincidences in stories that single-handedly move the plot along. You could have done so many far more interesting things!

And it's not like this is real-world "OMG, coincidence!" type of shit because YOU ARE THE AUTHOR! There is no such thing as "just so happen". You literally wrote those words, agonized over the diction of the scene, and had a stroke over these plot points!

It just feels like lazy writing. Similar to love at first sight and other types of things

Why I Hate "Out Of Character"

My soul is burning with the desire to complain about shit so this time we're going to be doing a huge big category for:

Why You Shouldn't Write "Out Of Character"

Here is my philosophy for why I hate when fanfictioners and writers alike write characters out of character

Lack Of Attachment

When I am searching for fanfiction about a character whether or not it's ship-based, adventure, canon compliant, or even canon incompliant, I am searching for that character. Unfortuantely, I am not interested in your original characters because it's basically the equivalent of having a huge party with all your favorite people and then a stranger arrives.

I don't want to hang out with that stranger. It's awkward. So when a favorite character of mine starts acting like a stranger then ~they're just somebody that I used to know~

2. Stereotypical

Oftentimes, when an author consciously makes the choice to change a character it's often made to remove the complexity from a character in order to fit a certain mold. This can be done for a multiple of reasons and with various outcomes:

In Part 1, I talked about woobification and how authors, in an attempt to write their villain characters and angsty bois and gois as sympathetic, often get rid and ignore their horrible flaws and turn them into permanently crying messes I can't stand.

In Part 2, I talked about how male characters are often feminized or masculinized when they are written in a mlm fiction. These characters are either the Sissy archetype or Toxic Masculinity.

This stereotypical lends, at best, oversimplifies a character's complexities in order for them to fit into the narrow constraints of a trope and, at worst, homogenize an entire community of people with an undercurrent of bigotry.

FINAL REASON: Author's Hand

When reading/writing a story the best place for the author to be is in the background making the magic happen while the characters are on stage acting out their lives. The problem with the "Out Of Character" stuff is the fact that it feels like a character has been placed inside a glass box where they must act out their lives. Confined to tropes.

I'm totally fine with people having different character interpretations and character arcs. Those aren't my issue. It's only when these bland stereotypical paperdoll-like stories are the only thing I can read that I start getting snappy.

Writing Advice: Writing Out Of Character

No, this time I am not going to trash bad examples of characters being "out of character". Instead I am going to explain to you what seperates a good character who is behaving differently and a bad character who is behaving illogically.

Question 1: Why Is The Character Behaving Like This?

When we writers put our characters through the ringer we often see our characters change in drastic and "unexpected" ways. This is an example of "good character arc" and not "out of character" because if you supply justification for why your character is changing things up and doing different things then it's character development!

Virtuous Character A, in a desperate bid to stay alive and after being repeatedly pushed to the brink by these harrowing cirumstances, kills Character B? That is good character development!

Intelligent and prudish Character C suddenly starts acting like they're staring in a smut fic towards Character D as their "body betrays them" due to horomones they should've learne to control in their teens? That is out of character!

Has this writer(me) been writing informative yet argumentative works but has tried to start offering a softer and less confrontational side in order to appeal to more people? That is character development!

Question 2: Have You Given Your Character Enough Time To Evolve?

Unlike what love stories try to convince you, it takes a pretty long while for people to change their behaviors and mindset!

Has your normally stoic character who has been practicing understanding their emotions finally expressing some emotion? That's character development!

Have I been slowly adding more informative perspective and softer actions throughout my rants? Then it's much more believeable that I would express a softer side towards this issue!

Writing Advice On: Relatability

Hot Take: Make you characters relatable, not like that!

When people hear the world "relatable", a certain image comes to mind of the early to mid 2000s where the most important thing for a celebrity to be was "authentic" and "down to earth" in the most superfluous and superficial way possible.

Using this jumping off point, I will talk about what I hear when people advise to write "relatable characters" and what naysayers for relatability hear! Because it isn't the same thing.

When people read stories, they are looking for an immersive experience into the lives and emotions of others with the word "other" highlighted in order to make a point against relatability. Most naysayers of relability think that "relatable" means:

"has all of my superficial personality traits and life"

Obviously, the most popular characters in western media such as drug lord Walter White in Breaking Bad or disabled Ryan in Special aren't relatable to the majority of people.

And with that last paragraph, I have already pointed out a problem in "relatability is pointless". Walter White and Ryan are relatable.

Walter White is the story of corruption as his lust for power drives him further away from the man he once was. While this isn't the trajectory most follow, many can relate to being or knowing someone who went down a bad path paved with good intentions.

Ryan is the relatable "coming of age" story of a gay man with cerebral palsy who decides to go after the happier life he has always wanted. Ryan is the relatable protagonist who is awkwardly going after what he wants which is something that all of us have either tried or wanted to do.

These characters are relatable, not because of their specificity, but universality which is a made-up word probably.

"Sympathy Is Caused By Relatability And Understanding"

We sympathize with people not because we always relate to the individual circumstances but because we relate to stories about personal suffering which is universal.

It the belief that characters are only relatable when they have superficial traits that are similar to our own superficial traits that has prevented minorities such as Ryan O'Connell and Walter Jr. from taking the spotlight!

It comes from the belief that being a white cishet neurotypical abled-bodied man is the default and everything else diverse should be marketed toward a specific member of the populus.

Women protagonist = Woman story

Disabled protagonist = Disabled story

Etc. Etc.

But because people are learning simultaneously that "universal relatability is important" and "human stories are human stories which are universally relatable" which has allowed movies such as Barbie and shows such as Special to be such hits.

Obviously, Barbie is steeped in the existence of womanhood and Special is dedicated to representing disable existence BUT this doesn't remove their non-disabled and non-female audiences.

TL;DR: Relatability is important in the sense that relatability is not the "stories of people who look and act exactly like me" but instead "stories of people who live, thrive, and struggle just like me"

Writing Rant: Irrational Hatred Of Certain Tropes

Hi! Writer Here™. Does anyone have these "most hated tropes" that you know aren't intrinsically bad the same way that, like, "romanticizing abuse" in a not dark romance setting is always bad?

Like, tropes that just grind your gears so much that whenever you write, you write specifically to counteract those tropes. Basically, spite. I'm talking about spite.

For example, if you have read some of my posts you already know that I hate when I can feel the author's hand physically moving characters around and denying their agency.

I hate when the main character/protagonist is the least influencial character in the story. So, because I am a spiteful bitch, all of my characters are either written to be so competent they don't even need to know everything in order to do shit.

For example, I have a character named Nonkosi Tyali who, despite randomly being pulled into a new world, functions as a sort of anti-hero by using poisonous beetles in order to prevent the universe from getting destroyed.

Or Hetrunmeass who despite never seeing the world beyond the "death mountain", is able to create a system that allows them to effortlessly kill politians in the most efficient way possible.

They all have flaws but stupidity and being pulled by the author isn't one of them

Writing Talk: What's Your Story Style?

This time i'm talking about "writing things you always have to do"

Do you always talk about the exact same themes like acceptance, individuality, and cynicism?

Do you always have similar formatting and structure between stories. For example, there will always be a HEA(Happily Ever After) or a Love Interest

Common symbolism that you always use in between stories? A common motif that has you by the throat?

Exact same fantasy setting? Not lore-wise but "generic fantasy land" or "generic city".

Are all of your protagonists the same type of person with athe same types of love interests if you have any?

My Answer:

My stories will inevitably be about accepting yourself and others but I do try and let my character's flaws influence themes. For example, My Candycorn Squad, as I call them, all struggle with escapist fantasies which nearly dooms the world.

All of my stories will end with a bittersweet Happily Ever After. For example, Candycorn Squad are forced to leave their adoptive children and will never ever see them again. But they did save the world from total domination. I will always have a love interest for the protagonist.

I don't really use any consistent symbolism or motifs between my stories

My characters will live in "Anytown, Statesman, USA" with no straight people, thank you for asking. They will go on crazy journies to other lands and aliens will visit these locations but espect "Generic"

The only similarity between my protagonists is that they are almost always immigrants and Queer. The only similarity between the love interests is that they are almost always immigrants and Queer. Other than that, they are always different from each other.