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Aria's Little Notebook of What's Yet to Be



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Wed Sep 24, 2014 6:29 pm
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crossroads says...



It will be a novel. That much I'm completely sure of for now.
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Mon Oct 06, 2014 8:23 pm
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crossroads says...



I know a little bit more.

I know it will be written in first person. I know it will take place in 19th century London. I know it will have an immortal genderfluid MC named Mari, as well as an illusionist in a circus, some thieves and Jack the Ripper.

I have some lovely scenes in mind, and I know it will have quite a dark tone - there are deals and murders and fear and a freak show, and a lot of ambitions and itty bitty magicky stuff - but other than that, I don't have all the details down yet.
It's all sort of unravelling before me, as it always tends to be with my works, but this time I happen to have a pretty clear idea of the plot and backstories and motives :3
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Mon Oct 06, 2014 9:22 pm
Rosendorn says...



Any particular Jack the Ripper, or are you going to make up your own mythos for him?
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Mon Oct 06, 2014 9:26 pm
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crossroads says...



I'm making up my own! Well, I'm going to stay true to what's known about him from actual history, and make up the rest. He's... I'm not completely sure what, yet. I'm not even completely sure it's a he <.< But he made Mari immortal and is trying to make more like them (note to self: think of pronouns) and it requires sacrifices and parts of people and possibly souls and all those lovely things.

You know.. maybe. Probably. It may change completely.
>.<
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Mon Oct 06, 2014 9:40 pm
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crossroads says...



Ha, double posting because I can.

I actually have two ideas, and it's only been a short while since I decided to go with Mari's story for NaNo.
The other idea was, in short, about a world ruled by some kind of time master, in which time stopped - no one and nothing ages or even gets sick naturally (there's a whole system of how often people of which cast and jobs are allowed to get any kind of illness and how old they can become and how fast they must artificially age and all). The main character's name is Everard Fane, and he's a thief, living in the underground and not taking his aging-meds like a good citizen (yes, I have a thing for immortal characters this year, for some reason). One day, he ends up with two boys as his charges - he's told they should be his apprentices, but eventually (as deaths line up and the plot goes crazy), he learns that one of the boys (the younger brother) actually is aging naturally, and could (by being a time master-ish thingy himself?) threaten the government and the whole regime, and he's supposed to protect him and blah blah. Oh and there are riots, all the time, and ideas of rebellions getting stronger, and I have quite a few lovely characters in mind (I use lovely as a very loose term here). Fane for one, has been pestering me for months to write this story of his, although he spends quite a lot of it not liking it one bit.

I love both Fane and Mari. I'd consider combining them, if that made any sense whatsoever. I might end up writing both, eventually... >_>

//ramble
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Sat Oct 11, 2014 1:22 am
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crossroads says...



Okay, so. Call me insane, but I actually have a big project I'm working on (SiG), and I know how I function; if I let go of another idea poking through my mind, it will keep possessing me and won't let me work on what I want to work on, while not being engaging enough to make me switch once I start working on it too. SO, as crazy as it is, I've decided to give a shot to both Mari and Fane this NaNo. I'm still striving to get 50K words - roughly 25 each. That's not such a bad plan, is it? <.<

Right, in the light of that, the first thing I need some help with is Mari's pronoun. It will be written from first person, and most people will use binary ones as they'll meet Mari as a girl or as a guy, but I feel like I should know which one to use even if I don't end up using it in the story itself. I understand the importance of having a pronoun that isn't gender-defining as he/she, but how exactly does one choose between the genderqueer ones? Are there some more common for certain groups under that umbrella term, is it simply about what sounds the best to the person choosing, is there some kind of (unwritten) rule, something I should consider as a writer and/or what Mari would need to consider as a person if [they] were choosing for [themselves]? If all comes down to me choosing which one I like, do you have any writerly advice, maybe connected to which one is the best one to use without the writing getting confusing, or something alike? Seeing as this is 19th century, and it's very possible that genderqueer pronouns weren't remotely a thing then yet, does it sound plausible for Mari to make up their own and use those?
Info is much appreciated. I will use "they" until then, but I don't want to use that one in the story itself.

Strangely, the first instinct that comes to me when writing about Mari is to use a female pronoun - that, however, comes from a)Mara incidentally being a Croatian female name and the name of the MC in the movie I'm working on and b)Mari originally appearing to me as a girl, after which they decided to tell me their story and show who they really are.
I know them very well, but it's still a bit new to me, especially while they don't have a fixed pronoun for me to use, so apologies in advance if I slip and use "she" at some point.

Mari as a character is quite adaptable, a very good liar and a rather troubled person. They don't really know what they are, they just know that they don't like being called a demon or a freak. They're lonely and see [Jack the Ripper dude who's not named so and is Mari's creator/mentor/boss] as their only "friend", and although they don't like hiding their true self, they find it enjoyable to switch between genders and seduce/spy on/rob/kill people on his command, simply because that makes him proud and Mari feels like they're not alone and have some kind of a purpose and talent.
They don't get too close to people emotionally, and especially not sexually*, so even though they've lived for a long time and seen people die, they don't really care about those.
The first person Mari grows to actually care about is the illusionist at the circus of freaks-ish place. They get a job as his helper/apprentice and he's the one who eventually shows Mari that what they had with [Jack the Ripper] wasn't love or respect or friendship. He shows them that being who and what they are is just fine, and all those cute things. He's older than Mari, by the way, and I'm not yet sure if and how romantic their relationship may get.

I really don't know too much about the finesses of the plot yet. I just know at one point, the illusionist will figure Mari is lying about who they are, and that's when their friendship proves to be more true than Mari had expected. I also know that the circus' owner will figure it out too eventually and (at least for a while) put Mari in his collection of freaks. Also, as Mari starts denying [Jack the Ripper] in favour of the illusionist, he will actually start doing stuff that gets him the (in)famous name of Jack the Ripper, in order to make a new apprentice/servant/agent - and when Mari finds out, the only way to stop it will be to work for him again. Probably. No idea what happens afterwards, but it will come to me.
Oh also, the illusionist will probably have a daughter who's estranged to him and works as a prostitute, and will at least know one of the murdered victims.

I shall come back with some characterisation and plot for Fane a bit later as to keep my fingers in working order.

*I'm pretty sure that Mari's biological sex will be male. Partly, that's so I can have some dramatic and potentially gory scenes in which they wonder if they can make themselves a normal girl in order to stop lying to the illusionist (he meets Mari as a girl and they're dressing and acting as a girl for a big part of the story), as well as make it easier for the circus owner guy to expose Mari's 'true nature'.
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Sat Oct 11, 2014 2:24 am
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crossroads says...



Oh yeah, I forgot to mention some things xD
Mari is caucasian, and they're quite slim and bony built and.. have some eye colour and hair colour. Since their story was originally imagined as a YA thing, I've decided to keep their age at 17 - of course, that's not counting like 70 years or so they spent working for [Jack], who made them immortal prior to it.

I'm bad with character profiles and don't really like them, but I might draw my cast eventually.


Now, let's talk about Fane! I'm going to use this colour for ramblings about him and his story, so that those who only follow one can either skip it or skip right to it, and those who follow both don't get too confused.
Because I obviously have so many people who follow every word I say and are enchanted by pure brilliance of this journal and its ideas.

Okay...

At the first glance, Fane is your fairly cliche-ish badass hero. He's charming, he's brilliant in what he does, he's slept with his share of women, he has witty remarks and likes to do things his own way. Now let's hope I can make him more than that, in form of some kind of list or whatever >.>

He is a bit overly confident, he likes being right and he hates responsibilities.
He's a good liar and has people skills, especially come to manipulating and finding out information, but he's often bored by people and tends to underestimate them and overestimate himself.
He's good when he's working alone, but the death of a team spirit, and he's struggling to understand empathy.
Although he likes being the center of attention, and is rather extroverted (this one will be odd to write, being the polar opposite myself), he dislikes being the leader and isn't good at it {it will be kind of forced upon him, though, and he might have to learn to be one or die trying}. If people follow him anyway and get killed, he won't feel guilty, because it's their own fault that they're idiots and he never asked them to come with him.
He's definitely not the completely reckless type, but he does sometimes leave plans unfinished (being all like "nah, that last part won't be so hard, no need to waste time on figuring it out right now!"). It often works, but definitely not always.
He can be very selfish and a bit of a jerk sometimes. He won't really care about the boys for most part of the story, and he doesn't care about the revolution and people getting caught until it draws him in directly - and even then, he'll spend quite some time complaining and trying to get away from responsibilities.
He was born into a rich family, and is kind of spoiled, seeing everything he does as a game. He's also very good with running from troubles and thinking that he can just leave problems behind rather than ever facing them.

At some point, though, he grows attached to the boys, and it's not like he doesn't care about anyone. He's not a bad person, at least not intentionally, he's just not a very reliable person for most of the story (until many people die and he realises how much they meant to him and how impossible it is for him to just run away from it all).
I'm pretty sure he's also rather emotional - he's good at hiding his feelings for most of the time, but things do hurt him and touch him emotionally, and I already have at least two crying scenes planned.

Oh yeah, and he looks about 30 or so, although he's somewhat older (he's not taking his aging meds, but he did until he figured he looks old enough to be taken seriously if so he must be).

Um.. Except him, I have five characters planned.

Two of those are the Boys - the older one is about 13 or 14, the younger is 5-ish. They call each other brother, but they're not boood-related. The older one is very protective over the younger one, and in my mind they're cute and brother-ish-- I'll get back to this at some point. I'm not 100% set on either of their personalities yet.

Then, there is a man called Uncle. He's the one who directs the way this place's underground works, who trained and practically raised Fane. {They met when some other thief broke into Fane's parents' residence, when little Everard caught that person and ordered them to take him to their leader. He wanted to learn the trade, because he found it interesting and fun and adventurously thrilling, and then just one thing lead to another.} Fane sees the Uncle as a sort of father-figure, although their relationship is more equal and friend-like one.

Four, a woman whose name I'm not yet sure of. She's, I think, the daughter of the Uncle's ex wife, or something like that. In either case, she lives as a normal person and her main connection to Fane comes from the fact that they slept together. She was in love with him, and he thought he was in love with her too, but then he figured he can't and doesn't want to be bound like that and his life was in the streets and hidden corners and shadows of residences he's about to steal from, and not in a calm house with a woman and children. She, however, is by no means the damsel in distress or the weeping betrayed ex-flame or something like that, and she isn't just waiting to fall back into his arms.
She's making money for herself (I think she owns an inn of some sort, maybe, or a similar building in which multiple people can get locked in and burned alive shall it come to it xD), refuses to live dishonest life, and thinks of Fane as just a part of her life. She doesn't want to have anything to do with him, but when he comes to her door he's hurt and with the Boys, and she decides to help after all. And it's not because she's still secretly in love with him, although it's true that she doesn't want to just let him die and doesn't want to see any children get hurt. She uses her head a lot, and is the opposite of Fane when it comes to reacting quickly, being detail-oriented and making hard decisions.

Fifth person is also a woman Fane slept with, and still occasionally sleeps with. She started off the same way as he did, but now she's working for the royal family, as a spy and an assassin. She and Fane can be equally trusted; they're both ready to give up true information only for a proper price, and neither of them is below setting the other one up. She actually loves him, in a way, or can imagine herself loving him, but thinks of it as a weakness and doesn't want to ever admit it. And it wouldn't stop her from hurting him, but it might stop her from killing him if she could let him go without getting punished for it.
As Fane realises that Boy II is a timelord-like person (I really need to work on details of this) and that the royals are the ones wanting to imprison them and/or kill them, he and Woman II officially become enemies - which doesn't necessarily stop them from giving info to each other.

Now, I will also have some royals, but I'm not completely sure about them just yet, so let's stop here <_< My fingers need rest again.
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Sat Oct 11, 2014 2:31 am
KingLucifer says...



AriaAdams wrote:I'm making up my own! Well, I'm going to stay true to what's known about him from actual history, and make up the rest. He's... I'm not completely sure what, yet. I'm not even completely sure it's a he <.< But he made Mari immortal and is trying to make more like them (note to self: think of pronouns) and it requires sacrifices and parts of people and possibly souls and all those lovely things.

You know.. maybe. Probably. It may change completely.
>.<


If this is true than recently scientists have a near perfect match of DNA of who Jack might have really been. Here's a link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 16805.html

Edit: Sorry I got the wrong link.
An angel, a knight, a man who will bring light to where there is only darkness, I am the Morning Star, the Bringer of Light, hail to me as I am King Lucifer!

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Sat Oct 11, 2014 1:01 pm
Snowery says...



Edited

Hey! Glad to hear you're working on SiG! :D

You're ideas seem really interesting! ((surprise, surprise))<-- (I really hope you read that as sarcasm o.O) I especially like Fane's story but that might be because I really like Fane XD

Mari's seems really intriguing to! One thing I'm curious about though. You say that:

they find it enjoyable to switch between genders and seduce/spy on/rob/kill people on his command,

and then you say:
They don't get too close to people emotionally, and especially not sexually*


I know you're probably just writing this down stream of consciousness style and stuff but I was curious as to how this would work. Does the second quote only apply to personal relationships then? Or when you say "seduce", that they don't end up sleeping together?

Also:

He's not a bad person, at least not intentionally,


I love that so much XD
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Thu Oct 16, 2014 5:29 pm
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crossroads says...



Silverlock wrote:You're ideas seem really interesting! ((surprise, surprise))<-- (I really hope you read that as sarcasm o.O) I especially like Fane's story but that might be because I really like Fane XD


xD I did read it as sarcasm, yes. I'm ready to cautiously agree that the ideas might be interesting (I'll hate it later, I suppose), thank you :3

One thing I'm curious about though.

I know you're probably just writing this down stream of consciousness style and stuff but I was curious as to how this would work. Does the second quote only apply to personal relationships then? Or when you say "seduce", that they don't end up sleeping together?


Oh yeah, that. Seducing doesn't end up in sleeping together, that's it. I suppose I meant it more like Mari charms them and gets them to tell their secrets or where they hid something, or show M a certain hideout/trick/whatever.
I'm not completely sure yet, but Mari maybe did sleep with some girls, as a boy, 'cause they can do that without too much controversy. But not the other way around.


@Avalon - that's interesting, although actually not very relevant. I have my own Jack-to-be character, but it's not like he'll get caught as being the Ripper anyway, and he's surely smart enough to frame someone else - especially since his methods and intentions aren't of completely natural nature (heh).

~

In other news, I realised I need names! Like, for characters and for the stories themselves. But that's about as far as my realisation went >.>
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Thu Oct 23, 2014 4:51 am
crossroads says...



Opening lines nom nom nom.

I know NaNo isn't here yet. I'll still write altogether 50K words in November, even if that means to add on what I already have.

Fane's story-
Spoiler! :
Again, just like eight years ago, Everard Fane was running. However, at that time, when in the midst of events that he would later deny had ever happened, he had been running from a woman, this time he was followed by constables.

Through the labyrinth of alleys and improvised bridges, almost completely void of citizens during the warmest hours of the day, he ran, avoiding opened doors and children's toys scattered over the planks, making his way towards the eastmost of the stairs. As he jumped over a small fence he felt the whiz of a drug-filled capsule flying by his head, and he couldn't help but feel grateful that the officers of the law were no longer allowed to use real bullets in the upper streets.
He glanced at the broken glass of the small capsule and the now harmless dark puddle around it drying quickly in the sun, as he ran by them and reached the stairs. His thoughts stayed with it for a moment longer.

Not that they won't start using those real bullets the moment I set foot on the main street below and they get their chance.


Mari's story-
Spoiler! :
There is a darkness to every light.
There are rooms as black as graves, unseen by the eyes of those in the poorly lit streets, and shadows cast by the moon, in narrow alleys and behind broken windows of forgotten homes. And there are people, in the shadows. Creatures like me, who cling to those shadows as the last safe haven, the most dangerous and calming of all places, because shadows will always be there. Regardless the time, regardless the light, the darkness always waits and invites, in the voice of silver bells and broken notes of a musicbox, promising the worlds so terrifying and enchanting that one both longs and fears to follow. It enthralls the mind and cuts the soul, with blades and blood paints a masterpiece of shattered dreams, it screams and whispers until it can no longer be ignored. And yet, one can find comfort in that voice, and dare to imagine, and following it feels like the most natural move to make.

And after a while, one pays no more attention to the shadows.
For how can there be a darkness, when there is no light?


They're pretty much unedited and maybe don't make too much sense without more context, but oh well :mrgreen:
I am somewhat amazed by how different they turned out, to be honest.
Fane starts with action - I think I'm terrible at writing action, and that fact means his story will be a big challenge - while Mari's actually pretty calm in the beginning. It stays calmer, too! It gets darker than Fane's, and has it's moments of lovely tension, but in completely different way. I think I like that.

Oh also, there's Perry. He's the unimportant-side-character-gone-promoted. He was supposed to be just a woman whom some other thief would bring some papers to, not even introduced. Well, Fane brought them instead. And they were formulas for biochemical weapon made in the Royal Laboratories. And Perry is a guy. And he used to work in the RL some sixty years ago, while he was still a woman and before he stopped taking his artificial age medicine. Now he's been Fane's friend (and they never slept together, surprisingly enough) for some fifty years or so.
He works in an improvised laboratory in the abandoned sewer system that the thieves use as their lair, and is quite of an inventor/chemical genius.
And he wears a monocle.
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Mon Nov 03, 2014 3:08 am
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Rosendorn says...



Oh-kay. I'm just going to go down through this and answer every little tiny thing as I go.

I understand the importance of having a pronoun that isn't gender-defining as he/she, but how exactly does one choose between the genderqueer ones?


So one tiiiiny little thing: I personally am for treating he and she as non gendered pronouns, for a couple reasons:
1- Not all languages have gender neutral pronouns and/or are extremely gendered (such as French), therefore removing gendered associations with these pronouns helps allow those languages to be more trans friendly
2- Some people are plain old more comfortable with he or she as pronouns, even though they're non binary

So, if you want to take that angle, there's something to consider.

Are there some more common for certain groups under that umbrella term, is it simply about what sounds the best to the person choosing, is there some kind of (unwritten) rule, something I should consider as a writer and/or what Mari would need to consider as a person if [they] were choosing for [themselves]?


No, there aren't really any preference for certain groups, although some people think that. Mostly the common pronouns end up being the most well known, such as xe/xem/xyr, ze/hir/hirs, and e(y)/em/ems... simply because people find them faster and are more familiar with them, therefore end up feeling more comfortable with them.

Usually most people I know who chose pronouns go by sound. Basically what feels the most comfortable. For example, some people prefer very soft sounds, so they'll dislike xe and ze, because they're too hard. Some people, on the other hand, end up digging through pronouns for years and try them on and change them and struggle really hard to settle on one. Others find the right one pretty fast and just decide those are their pronouns for life.

But most people I know who try to go through pronouns have very exact sensory requirements, so the sounds and mouth feel is very important. Others who don't have those sensory requirements don't have the same hangups.

Seeing as this is 19th century, and it's very possible that genderqueer pronouns weren't remotely a thing then yet


Actually, they were! If you want a 19th century pronoun, then you have "thon", first recorded in 1850something. It was actually last used as a gender neutral pronoun in dictionaries all the way till the 1960s.

does it sound plausible for Mari to make up their own and use those


There was a demand for a gender neutral pronoun in The Atlantic newspaper starting in the 1840s, so... probably? Do keep in mind, both "they" and "thon" were considered far more acceptable than they are now— singular they dates back to Chauncer, so you do have some to chose from.

although they don't like hiding their true self, they find it enjoyable to switch between genders and seduce/spy on/rob/kill people on his command, simply because that makes him proud and Mari feels like they're not alone and have some kind of a purpose and talent.


This makes me a tiny little bit iffy, because it seems to be implying that gender is easily changeable and if ordered, a non binary person can become binary if requested. It's something a people-pleasing trans person often wants to believe but finds impossible to do.

If you have to take this angle, treat each gender change as an acting job unless your MC is genderfluid and in a mood for the gender they're playing. So if Mari's in a very masculine mood and ordered to play a boy, that's not much of a jump so it's still true to Mari. But if Mari's in a very feminine mood and ordered to play a boy, that would very much be a performance and an acting job.

Or, you can establish that presentation means absolutely nothing to Mari, therefore dresses and pants and everything in between don't impact feelings of gender at all. "All clothing is nonbinary when worn by a nonbinary person" is the attitude, which needs to actively be established (probably repeated a few times) because there's such a gendered connotation with clothing even though there doesn't have to be.

I'm pretty sure that Mari's biological sex will be male. Partly, that's so I can have some dramatic and potentially gory scenes in which they wonder if they can make themselves a normal girl in order to stop lying to the illusionist


This is one of those things I'm on the fence on, because once you reveal biological sex, people will often assume that the gender is male— when that's not the case. So you're basically going to have to walk the line between "I want to change my body" and "I am still this gender regardless of what my body is". There's even a certain amount of movement that each person's body is the gender they associate with, so there's no such thing as "male bodied" because regardless of what actual anatomy is, if somebody identifies a guy they're "male bodied" no matter what they were born as (the term that's more appropriate is "assigned [gender] at birth") .

as well as make it easier for the circus owner guy to expose Mari's 'true nature'.


Please make this an extremely villainous act because "exposing" a trans person (and the violence done in the name of "exposing" a trans person) is a terrible problem in the real world.

The plot... the plot the plot the plot. I like how it goes from abusive to learning what abuse looks like to going back to abuse. It'll be really interesting to see how Mari will be different before and after learning what abuse is and what good friendship is. You don't really have much, so that's really all I can say on the topic.

I've decided to keep their age at 17 - of course, that's not counting like 70 years or so they spent working for [Jack], who made them immortal prior to it.


Gender roles change over time, and that 70 years of abuse is going to leave massive impacts on the ability to recognize non abuse. Also language changes over time so has Mari's pronoun stayed the same over this period, or has it changed? Did non binaryness come because of those 70 years of changing genders, or were they already non binary before then?

You've got to consider how Mari has been impacted by immortality, how they see it, how they've adapted to it. You mention a lack of emotional closeness, which explains how they can handle it, but what about the immortality itself? Does their attitude about immortality change when they get close to the illusionist, who I'm assuming is not immortal? Is there a way to reverse this immortality, and will that be a subplot to the main plot?

What about where Mari came from those 70 years ago? Has that shaped their character at all? Impacted how they see the world? Or have they simply taken to Jack to the point nothing is in the past?

It's hard for everything to gel right now. You've got the core personality of not caring for many people, but things like how they related to time itself, historical change, immortality, changing professions, and various other important things is lacking.

-----

So I'm not completely sure I'm sold on Fane yet. He sounds stereotypical but at the same time not. Emotions and impulsivity are what saves him, I think, simply because usually those types are cooler. You'll probably have to write him for me to really click with who he is. His character arc looks a little typical, from emotionless to emotional, and it fits extremely well with an anti hero character arc. Like, going from unattached to attached is something I remember vividly from children's cartoons, only less death. This isn't necessarily bad, but I'd just like a little more meat to it— what makes those boys different?

You've got a fire and ice combination with Fane and his ex. I kinda like it, but the fire and ice thing is... common. Like I'm watching two characters with that dynamic in The Flash right now. I do like she makes her own money and doesn't fall back in love with him. The dynamic looks good and fire/ice is ridiculously common so... whatever. It'll probably spice up when you actually write.

However, the other woman I'm not so sure about, simply because I am extremely sick of "love is a weakness" even though enough people see emotions as a weakness for that to hold true. I think another thing that bugs me is it's one sided, with the attached woman and apparently unattached man. I like the lack of trustworthiness both of them have, but I'd like the "love" aspect a little more balanced.

---

The Jack the Ripper thing is most likely false, when you consider how badly the evidence was handled at the time. Have a nice intense breakdown on the topic from somebody who's done far more research than I have.

---

And Perry is a guy. And he used to work in the RL some sixty years ago, while he was still a woman and before he stopped taking his artificial age medicine.


So basically you have a trans man, which means you'll have to be aware of binary trans folks. Such as not referring to him as "she" even when he was presenting as a woman. Trans people are the gender they feel like for their whole lives, they just get forced into a different box that isn't who they actually are.

I think this is long enough without me critiquing the actual prose. So I will leave that alone.
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Mon Nov 03, 2014 1:02 pm
crossroads says...



Oh yay, thank you~
Let me take this bit by bit as well.

Rosey Unicorn wrote:So one tiiiiny little thing: I personally am for treating he and she as non gendered pronouns, for a couple reasons:
1- Not all languages have gender neutral pronouns and/or are extremely gendered (such as French), therefore removing gendered associations with these pronouns helps allow those languages to be more trans friendly
2- Some people are plain old more comfortable with he or she as pronouns, even though they're non binary


Hm, yeah, this is true. Croatian doesn't have them either, which gets really annoying quite often, especially in writing. Mari would want a pronoun that would show that they're neither a male nor a female, though, even while they appear to be one of those, so they'd see both "he" and "she" as very confining, regardless of masculine/feminine moods.

Which makes me realise that I won't exactly get anywhere if I keep quoting bits and pieces, so I'll just talk now and address all the questions sort of at once.

I am not yet completely sure where Mari was born, but wherever it was, they were born NB. They had a different name - again, not yet sure which, but it was masculine and they took "Ma" from the name and "Ri" from the surname later on - and were living in the streets when they met Jack. He made Mari immortal and took them into his service because of Mari's non-binary nature; he saw it as very useful, and has since told them that a number of times. They very practically inseparable for years, and during those years he basically taught Mari to suppress the moods they happen to be in and in fact change as ordered. Mari is bothered by that, but they don't know that they are. They used to be very confused by the whole sudden changing of moods, until Jack came along and presented it as a superpower which he can help them control. Mari saw it and still sees it that way, and whenever they struggle with an act, they remember they have to get over it in order to control it and be of use to Jack.
Similarly, Jack has always treated Mari as a child/teenager rather than an adult, and never quite let Mari think seriously about time and changing of the world and people around them. Mari has thoughts about it, but for them it's just another stage, just another thing that keeps changing and requires adapting to.
Mari is actually associating clothes with gender a lot, because that was the way they were taught acting the most. They'd be certainly capable of playing a woman in pants now, but at first they used clothes to get in character better and they generally help Mari to remember who they're supposed/expected to be at the time.

Regarding pronouns, thanks for all the info! I figured I will only have a few instances in which other people refer to Mari and hence need third person, but if I end up using it then I will probably go with singular they after all - or thon, I like that one.
Before Mari meets the illusionist, no one except Jack knows about them being non-binary, and they don't really have friends or anyone who'd ask them about any preferred pronouns or care about them anyway - so if I use them, I will use something that makes sense in 19th century, as that's when the illusionist lives. He's not immortal, while on it, just a bit magical. They talk about magic and immortality and all that, and he tells Mari that he would never want to be immortal, and that makes Mari realise just how lonely they've been because of the whole immortality thing, and in just how many ways did Jack screw them up.

This is one of those things I'm on the fence on, because once you reveal biological sex, people will often assume that the gender is male— when that's not the case. So you're basically going to have to walk the line between "I want to change my body" and "I am still this gender regardless of what my body is".


Yes, I hope I end up walking that line right. Mari doesn't really want to change their body, but at that point, they're with the illusionist, whom they've met as a girl, they perform as a girl and have a group of people around who know/met them as a girl - and they want to be 'normal', without anyone noticing anything different. They don't go through with changing their body in any way, though.

Please make this an extremely villainous act because "exposing" a trans person (and the violence done in the name of "exposing" a trans person) is a terrible problem in the real world.


Oh, I will! I have some lovely (from the POV of a somewhat sadistic writer) scenes for it c: The show/circus owner (those freak shows were mostly separated from circuses back then, so it's not really a circus after all, just a traveling show) will see it as a new source of income, and actually want Mari to perform (as in walk out on the stage in some kind of half-male half-female costume, or actually take clothes off or something), which will freak Mari out even more 'cause at that time they'll also be very afraid of Jack finding out where they are.

I have more plot thought of now (including two possible endings), but I'm still keeping it fairly simple. Mari and the illusionist run off at one point, and there's some kind of object (uh, or a spell? Something alchemy-ish that I haven't thought of much yet, in any case) that Jack wants in order to create more immortals to use in Mari's place, which is most of the reason why Jack wants Mari in the freak show in the first place. It's also said to be able to transfer life from one person to another and all kinds of life- and time-related things. I'm aware of how random and confusing this paragraph is.

Regarding Jack the Ripper and London at the time (thanks for the link as well!), I actually did quite a bit of research, to the point of having my bookmarks filled with tons of links and pads with notes, and iPad equally filled with maps of Whitechapel, maps of London, maps of different parts and buildings, copies of letters and handwriting, pictures of victims, pictures of places, pictures of graves... I imagine one could think there's something slightly wrong with me if they didn't know it was for a story.

--

Fane!
I realised that purple is a bit painful when there's lots of it, so I'll stick to black xD

Fane is a story that's been prodding its way through my mind for months, and I want to write it mostly because of the characters (and because they're loud and won't let me think of other things). I put much more thoughts and research in Mari than in Fane, and I know how cliche Fane is at times. It's not that I want to write unimaginative already-seen plots, but I don't quite mind it in this case. Although some of the ideas already changed since my last post here >_>

Like, going from unattached to attached is something I remember vividly from children's cartoons, only less death. This isn't necessarily bad, but I'd just like a little more meat to it— what makes those boys different?


Haha, yes, I'd say that's exactly what Fane's story is like. Those boys are different primarily because Fane actually spends time with them. He does bond to people emotionally, it just takes him a while and he's usually not good at recognising it until he lost it somehow. He doesn't stick around same places for long and doesn't really give himself time to form proper relationships and bonds, so he's convinced that he isn't even capable of doing it - and he's fine with that. He only really realises that he cared for many of the characters once they die or betray him somehow - and he only really realises he cares for the boys once he tries to leave and feels unusually and unexpectedly bad about it.
There is no big talk about a seamingly meaningless something that actually makes him see how the boys, through their childlike innocence, are right about deeper meanings of life, at least.

Fane and his ex... I like to think his ex is an interesting enough character, but I'm having troubles convincing people of that without actually showing them parts of the story itself with her inside <.< In any case, her relationship with Fane isn't exactly the kind in which they fight or call each other names or anything alike (they do fight once or twice, but not about all kinds of things) - it's more sort of that she doesn't deny that there used to be something between them, but at the same time isn't into trying that again and doesn't really care for his attempts of charming her (which exist, because he's not so good with accepting he screwed up and she isn't falling right back into his arms).

As for the other woman, I thought about that too. I figured that it's not really as one-sided as it seems, and Fane actually does care about her (though he only realises that when he has to kill her, I think xD), and in a more ideal setting the two of them could have their happily ever after. I'm not completely sure yet, really - maybe I end up feeling unusually nice and grant them both a chance to live and explore that relationship of theirs further. Maybe.

As for Perry, he's.. an odd bird. Not because he's trans, but because of his whole personality, and because he sort of fell into the story out of nowhere and suddenly has a huge role which might or might not be that of one of the villains. As for his identity, he lived as a woman for a while and, if asked about it, he'll claim that he was bored and figured a change might do him good - but yes, he was feeling wrong as a woman and had more of a reason than boredom to change genders (and sex as well, eventually). He's still fairly feminine in some aspects, though, and doesn't have an issue with talking about his "lady self" from the past.

I'm no longer sure what I wrote in my last post, but I ended up putting much more thought in the whole biological warfare thing (Royal Labs are developing all kinds of drugs to catch anyone who's breaking the law, so the police and others allowed weapons have ammo made of capsules with a drug that makes a person sick if they aren't taking the age medicine) and I think this whole story is turning out more sci-fi-ish than I first planned for it. Not that it's a complaint, but I'm really bad with sci-fi and action scenes...and Fane is kinda all about those >.<
• previously ChildOfNowhere
- they/them -
literary fantasy with a fairytale flavour
  








Stupidity's the deliberate cultivation of ignorance.
— William Gaddis