The seasons are the name of the story & the passing of the seasons reflects the progression of the story and relationships therein as well. Each of the 4 main players have one season most aesthetically attributed to them, and I can justify it thematically too...
Daichi: AUTUMN. this transitional season is a descending path from the warmth and life of summer into the cold hibernation of winter. Daichi grew up with hot blood and too many emotions, but for the sake of his family he took it upon himself to mute himself down and shed those feelings like autumn leaves. He's resigned himself to a cold life, forever just quietly shedding leaves until they're all gone. Suzu: WINTER. The cold air of winter drives people into corners seeking warmth & encourages interaction between people. Suzu's cold outside belies the warmth he has inside him, and the frostbite from the frigid weather of the persona he had developed to face his mother and peers with is ultimately what drives him to pursue the warm feelings he discovers he is capable of. Hotaru: SUMMER. this season is bursting with life almost to the breaking point. There's so much life it's almost stagnant. it's hot, sticky, uncomfortable, and leaves one restless. Hotaru's restlessness drives her out of her comfort zone, and while she rapidly matures over the course of the story, she wonders whether she wants to grow or not. The timeless feeling of summer, like life captured in a moment, a postcard, is relevant here. Su2u: SPRING. the opposite of autumn, this transitional season brings light and growth back after a dark winter. Su2u has a rocky path with many setbacks but she still finds a way to break through the frost and bloom. Her development is about coming out of her shell and finding a way to exist among other people. It's still cold, it still rains, but these things start to nourish her growth rather than stunt it. in Autumn&Winter the story is a little more evenly divided in that the first part focuses mostly on daichi and the second mostly on suzu. And the seasons of autumn and winter mostly apply chronologically to these first two parts as well. Daichi & suzu's story actually has 4 distinct parts, though. I try to keep their main goings on mostly confined to those two seasons.... again, for aesthetic and thematic reasons. As for Summer&Spring, I realize the order of those two seasons is backwards. The focus on forcing the story to take place during those two seasons isn't happening either, because it can't really. Taking turns focusing on hotaru and then su2u separately in parts like with daichi & suzu's story won't work as cleanly, so the POV is mixed between the two the whole way through. Here the seasons aren't AS prominent & important to the story as they are with daichi & suzu but I'm keeping the name & aesthetic just to tie everything in more.
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here's a copypaste of tweets from february about hotaru & su2u and stuff
hmm trying not to be cheesy/quaint/idealistic with my ocs is a losing battle. I do kind of like the idea of a character's environment affecting their feelings for eachother tho so a cheesy quaint environment could work. like hotaru just wont freaking open up at all i cant make it happen unless i put them in some sort of Special Place. I know being able to be out on the hill or in the woods helped daichi feel better about being around suzu, so I guessI gotta figure out the logistics of hotaru&su2u's settings next. hotaru obviously grows up in the same house as daichi but that enviro is really Daichi's not as much hers. by the time hotaru's part atarts daichi has already moved out. hotaru feels weird & un anchored to me. she jumps around from place to place, sneaking out to stay at daichi's apartment unannounced pretty often. she's not old enough to be moved out herself yet. so hotaru is already split between Rural (the house) & city (daichi's apt) idk which resonates with her more. tbh it's the people that're there whih draws her to an environment more... I guess... su2u lives with her parents still and is a shut in so obv she doesn't have many favored environments that make her feel good or capture her imagination. I think of hotaru wnjoying the beach sometimes. beach as an aesthetic feels really far removed from where her house is though XD it's probably a hike aways tbh my indecision is leading hotaru to be indecisive :'} hmm. hotaru focuses very much on shallow conflicts that correspond to deeper conflicts that sherefuses to look at & is afraid of. for instance "someone unfollowed me!!!!" would correspond to a feeling of insignificance/loneliness/abandonability tht she looks away from, looking at the shallow outer happening and focusing on that rather than the human inner mechanism which is the source of her dissatisfaction over being unfollowed. envisioning her alone with someone in an idyllic place is the only place i can envision her dropping those shallow conflicts and taking her feelings seriously and honestly. in a large part, the way she treats people... she takes it "seriously" but not "honestly" or authentically. her expectations and interpretations of her various relationships are based on fantasy expectations, not her honest feelings. so I need somethibg, someplace, someone, to pull that authenticity out of her somehow. so if she reacts to reality by focusing on the shallow and making up ideals for her relationships...then maybe a way to pull out her authenticity is to put her in a sufficiently fantastical or idealized situation to just flip it lol. you know how places you find really nostalgic, ideal or beautiful, they're like magic or fantasy almost? I think in a place or situation with that feeling might be one of the only ways to get hotaru to be honest&authentic for you. daichi is that way too. it came to him a little easier because it's easier for him to find places like that, right around his house. and as he grows up he learns to channel that feeling to be more authentic more often in more varied situations (aka he matures) daichi clearly comes across as a reserved person but hotaru doesn't, even though she actually really is one last thing before I go to sleep, I can't envision hotaru liking to cuddle while sleeping much but su2u would want to so the solution is to sleep with a pillow between them and both hug the pillow at the same time so they're cuddling by proxy one thin that bothers me is when youre in high school, school is a big part of your life, but I don't see myself focusing much on hotaru being in school in her story plus the main relationship of the story is with su2u and su2u lives in a different area I think? so at school hotaru would probably mainly be seen with ichiro a big driving thing in hotarus life is a srs crush she's had on (daichi's) suzu since childhood. when she starts going out w ichiro she tries to shape their dynamic around how she envisioned dating suzu might be (subconsciously or no?) but that dynamic was never meant to and never could be real so of course she has difficulty enforcing it. tbh she doesn't really approach su2u with the idea of romance coloring her expectations, until su2u makes it blatant. that's when hotaru's Relationship Idealization Drive kicks in and problems start to arise. but I feel like probably the most likely way for su2u&hotarus ship to play out long term is suspiciously close roommates forever. I like characters with unfulfillable crushes on older people it's fun to try and see the differences in how they see them vs their peers, an unobtainable crush if maintained long enough can be a safe zone almost, & age gap furthers the removal from reality & responsibility. so with hotaru when I try to think of the source of her crush on suzu & why it lasts so long & consistent: 1. daichi & she are best friends but daichi startig to see suzu separates them & hotaru is mad & wants in on it 2. daichi is a role model for her so she could easily extend that into wanting the same things daichi wants 3. having feelings for an older person makes her feel more mature which is satisfying to her, the crush is comfy& need not be resolved one of the themes in the story is being unable to separate te subtle differences in the nature of various kinds of relationships. the threads between hotaru & every other character could all be called love, but are all different subtly & hotaru keeps trying to iron out those subtleties to make everything fit one or two simpler definitions of love. but yeah i think it ends up that for hotaru, every relationship is based on a strong core pf friendship & whether you can kiss that friend or not is a thin veneer on top. I think that's what I'm tryin to get across & where I'm trying to end up with the story all of my stories have my likes & ideals in them to various degrees but i don't really have any of my Philosophies about things or any injection of any of my Personal Struggles except this one I guess. much of the difficulty i'm having with THIS story is trying to organize the Things I want to talk about. a while ago a friend introduced me to the concept of love languages, & I'm now finding it kind of neat to apply to OCs to clarify how they interact w/ people they care about. summary of the languages as I understand them:
[more under cut --------------------->] lmao don't mind that picture it's hard to find an imogen heap fan who can jsut post a dang video without some hippie renaissance faire decoration thing quick post since this song feels soooo Suzu right now, lyrics+explanation You know where to find me When you're on your way out All bustle and busy, Enough is enough Because life's sweet assemblages Are quick to driftwood away Be still with me You know where to find me For no particular reason To stop traffic behavior, Or to get something off your chest 'Cause we go a long way back Back to nothing at all mmm, be still with me Oh oh oh won't you be Be still with me You know where to find me If you think it's all over I can sense it a mile off, It's no friendly hello You could be screaming drunk Well I've got my bad days too I'm gonna be here for you Be still with me In a public place, private thoughts A reminder of a precious loss I can be a source of constant reassurance Let the breeze block sadness drop Oh oh oh won't you be Be still with me Woah woah woah Woah woah woah (Be still) Heart, lung, soul, Arteries and all A shoulder at the ready, vital organs on call (Be still) Heart, lung, soul, Arteries and all A shoulder at the ready Don't mistake my charity For what it is A deep need to be needed, Necessary Don't mistake my open arms For what they are They can turn on you So show me the money, Show me the money Blue and green, Fresh eyes on me I'm young again All things to mend with Bite-size life boats I'll fix your smashed up head Be still with me, If you want To be alone (Be still) If you'd rather die then tell You'll know where I'll be (Be still) Where to find me For hard talk To call it off or bring it on A proposal, If you're broken, I'll be here, I'll be here For secret... For a breather... If there's nothing you can do... it's about being there for someone, but I love how moodswingy it feels, that fits suzu. it begins with confidence and gentleness telling that he'll be there to support you, confident that he can help. but then we get to:
Heart, lung, soul Arteries and all A shoulder at the ready, vital organs on call it slowly becomes a little more desperate as he promises his whole self to the purpose of supporting you. and then the MOST suzu feeling part and what sold me on this song in the first place: Don't mistake my charity For what it is A deep need to be needed; Necessary Don't mistake my open arms For what they are They can turn on you So show me the money Show me the money the skin is peeled back to show this impure motive that sleeps beneath the rest of what he's done in the song so far. I love that the song addresses this part of Supportiveness: how it bounces back on the supporter, how supportiveness isn't a harmless one way street. Suzu is very self centered under it all, & if he can't actually help you it hurts him so much that he might even turn on you. however the song recovers from this dark swing and continues: Blue and green, Fresh eyes on me I'm young again All things to mend with Bite-size life boats I'll fix your smashed up head feeling better after that outbrst maybe? remembering why he wants to help you anyway? many people do have selfish intentions when they approach helping others. it's hard not to be self centered deep down, and it doesn't actually have to cheapen the value of your support. also because daichi=green I zero in on this verse as a glimpse of suzu reacting to daichi, and while the rest of the song feels like an internal dialogue of suzu's projected outward, this is a tiny peek of daichi's influence coming in & suzu reacting. possibly feeling calmed & reassured that his support is actually helping him. though suzu is the one purporting to be the sole support, daichi's mere presence is for the most part a stabilizing element in suzu's own life too. the rest of the song continues quietly & small, & fades out repeating much of the same sentiment as the beginning of the song. the tone of voice feels so small and worried and shy to me it reminds me how suzu eventually shrinks away from daichi out of his desire to help him becoming misguided. He promises to be there for him but increases distance, almost unconsciously, because he thinks THAT's what daichi needs as well. also the whole notion of "you know where to find me"; as if the help is not proactive, but passive, he waits for you to need him. And if you never come to him again, he'd decide to just keep waiting and be ready.... which is pretty much exactly what happens lol Suzu's character development is basically that of a totally self-centered person who finds someone they genuinely want to support & how he tries to be able to do that. which is this song, so it's perfect, and I get feels like back in the day listening to imogen heap in highschool thank you goodnight gaaaah.... torn between how fun and nice it is to just draw fluff, and the need to portray my characters realistically/honestly to their personalities
I've been having this trouble with hotaru and su2u. Working out their dynamic is hard. I just can't see them naturally ending up doing the things that I WANT to draw them doing. I want them to get along and be intimate, not necessarily to have them have no problems between them but for the intimacy and togetherness to persist through that at least. atm I can't see it working out well for them though... it doesn't feel genuine for hotaru to enjoy physical intimacy in the long run. su2u needs too many things from hotaru for her to ever be happy with hotaru's limits. or at least that's the feeling I'm getting off them. er, well maybe I should explain a bit more background... I feel the need to actually tackle themes and like, portray some of my inner self & conflicts or something with this story, which is something I haven't felt the need to do in my other stories. most of this is coming from my present state of mind (which is probably the problem as to why having things be happy doesn't feel genuine lmao). there are a number of aspects to the story I have tossed around already... - hotaru gains some accidental internet fame via her cat blog & the attention gets to her head, the ability to lay her problems on strangers, learning to rely on strangers to be supportive of her rather than relying on people directly involved in her life bc strangers don't come with any obligation on her part, this kind of blind no-strings supportiveness indulging her and rewarding her for being negative, dramatic, & victimized. so hotaru grows pretty self involved over the course of the story. she originally met su2u because they both ran pretty popular blogs and became internet friends, so su2u was originally in the space of that blind supportiveness. after they meet and become friends in person, though, su2u translates into a Real Person for hotaru and there conflict begins to brew. - hotaru is just developing into the stage where she is changing, her body changing, she is discovering things about romance and sexuality and adulthood and interpersonal workings. su2u is 2 years older than her but much more settled in this process already, marking a clear inequality between them. hotaru basically railroads through various adolescence conflicts over the course of the story: am i gay/straight/bi, am i ace/aro, am i a girl, how do i appear to others, how do i define myself, am i in love, do I want YOU or do I want to BE you, etc. She flip flops SO much over these things and some conflicts seem settled one day then crop up again with a vengeance later, some seem like just flash in a pan. so, for me, it's hard to have her pinned down to one drawable state that I can enjoy drawing for fun lol. - hotaru must figure out all the various forms of love in her life, how they're related & how they're different & how they may bleed into eachother. she's had a persistent crush&admiration on [daichi's] suzu since she was a child. she has feelings for su2u that waffle between friendship, romantic, and experimentation. she actaully has a boyfriend too (I never... like... draw him... even though it is a VERY important connection to her for the sake of the story lol. stab me I'm biased toward the gays), he's kind of at the opening of the story, her first real step into this "what is love" conflict, her first direct involvement in the conflict (besides her crush on suzu, but that's a passive action and more of a prelude. havin her OWN romantic relationship, not just admiring one from afar, is the first step). so, we've got lots of different kinds of feelings tangled up to confuse her. ----- OBJECT: an unfulfillable aesthetic "prince charming" type crush on the unobtainable suzu, who is gay and with her brother whom she has also idolized since childhood. relationships that you know to be unfulfillable like this can be comforting in the face of more direct relationships that you're involved in personally, which have consequences and rammifications and stuff. ----- RESULTING CONFLICT: "could i be gay too", "what if I'm unhappy being a girl", "do I want YOU or do I want to BE you" ----- OBJECT: her boyfriend, who is totally dedicated to her and really, genuinely likes her. her feelings for him are likely brought on mostly because he showed genuine interest in her first. "what do you like about me?" "I like that you like me" that kind of thing. her first firsthand experience with romantic love, however it becomes clear they both are operating on different levels with regard to the definition of Love. he is physically attracted to her & has his own conflict over this, this fact matters to him immensely, he has complexes about it and it colors his behavior greatly. however, hotaru isn't like that about him. he is into her specifically; she is into the idea of dating someone in general, as a bolstering to her "adultness". realizing this difference makes her feel very bizarre, and the idea of people being into her specifically becomes more and more worrisome and undesirable. ----- RESULTING CONFLICT: "am i cold and incapable of love", "how do I deal with not being able to control how people see me" ----- OBJECT: feelings for su2u, which, like her feelings for her boyfriend, arose initially because su2u expressed interest in her first. this relationship is exciting to hotaru because of multiple aspects. one, is that it's an exhilarating secret because technically it constitutes as cheating on her boyfriend lol. another is her inner world opening up like woah, Straight Is Not The Only Answer. and su2u is easier to relate to emotionally than her boyfriend is. Another is that su2u's interests are more typically "feminine" than hotaru's so she gets to explore femininity as a thing now.... to mixed results. ----- RESULTING CONFLICT: "could i be gay too", "what if I'm unhappy being a girl", "do I want YOU or do I want to BE you", "am i cold and incapable of love", "how do I deal with not being able to control how people see me" lol yeah basically all of them. this IS the centerpiece of the story after all I don't LIKE stories that address those things too specifically and bllatantly, they can tend to feel too, like, Tonight On A Very Special Episode... My preference is to boil things down to almost as pure as possible. Almost as if the characters don't even know what the heck they're feeling, like they're all babies. I wouldn't even SAY "asexual" or "aromantic" in the story, even though I want to address them as topics. admittedly because they're lesser known traits and i don't want to... only appeal to like....... tumblr people................. like yeah I'm a wimp but also it feels purer to me to be able to present universal, relatable experience or concept without calling it its name which are often charged words associated with THE TUMBLR SJWS so writing summaries of stories like so above helps me personally to like, remember stuff I've thought of better lol, but not to really get a picture of the atmosphere I'm going fo. oh well I guess. just like, read what i wrote above and imagine it in a world where none of the characters have ever personally encountered the concepts of transness or any orientation besides straight/gay/bi T_T the story has reoccurences of characters liking multiple people at once, and characters liking people older than them. those concepts to me, apparently, play out as themes of the fine line between love, hate, friendship, romance, selfishness and selflessness... how people use others to define themselves and when that strategy falls apart.... and how the purity of interpersonal relationships can become warped and complicated..... yeah etc if you know anything about me you can probably guess that these ideas are pretty personally relevant to me hahaha... getting into female characters can be so hard... not enough distance... it always becomes too ~~~ME~~~ lol anyway my original point in making this post was to whine WHY DO I HAVE TO MAKE EVERYTHING ABOUT OCS I JUST WANNA DRAWS SOME CUTE GIRLS HUGGING WITH NO STRINGS BUT THAT'S NOT INTERESTING ENOUGH APPARENTLY BUT ANYTHING ANY MORE INTERESTING THAN THAT REQUIRES ACTUAL WRITING WHICH IS BEYOND MY SCOPE blah blah |
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April 2016
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