Inspiration

Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop.

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I never thought I’d say this, not about anime, but I think I’ve questioned my outlook on life.

My sister turned me on to another show over the past two weeks, My Hero Academia, or Boku No Hero Academia, as some call it.

At first I thought, oh, it’s a cute chosen one story-line, you know, karate kid, Star Wars, Kung Fu Panda, pick almost any movie about a young boy and his mentor.

I like those stories as much as the next girl, but this show blew me out of the water by the end of the second season. If you’re into animated stuff at all, I highly recommend checking it out.

But I wasn’t expecting, even so, to actually get an epiphany from watching it. This happens to me with a lot of things I watch and read, but normally I have to dig it out. Watching this show it’s like it slapped me in the face.

The show isn’t really in your face, but it unashamedly makes its points, I think that was why I was surprised. RWBY, my other current favorite, is much more subtle and leaves you to figure out a lot of what its trying to say.

Anyway, I’m not going to review the whole thing here, I just wanted to lay the groundwork for my actual point.

One character on the show challenged me in particular, Bakugo, also called Katchan.

He starts off as a huge jerk, yet is constantly extolled as real hero material despite having obvious pride issues. (The premise of the show, if you haven’t heard of it, is a school for training young aspiring heroes in how to use their powers (quirks) well and effectively in fighting crime and rescuing people.) The teachers say that Bakugo is smart, talented, and has a grasp of what it takes to be a hero.

He’s extremely angry, especially at first, and hardly anyone likes him. I didn’t like him at all. But over time I started to see what they were getting at and how I could actually stand to learn something from it.

Bakugo always, always, wants to win. He wants to be the best, and only the best. At first he assumes this will be easy for him, eventually he realizes he’ll have to work hard at it, but he remains determined to reach for the top.

The thing is, I can’t begin to name the number of shows, books, movies, and possibly even teachings I’ve head that would tell you it’s not that important to win.

“It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.” “Strive for truth, not victory.” “It’s just a game.”

Sound familiar?

I always assumed that was true. But what this show and character smacked me upside the head with was the realization that thinking that way is actually ludicrous.

Yeah, I said it.

NOT about everything, mind you. I’m not some Victory maniac, and that’s not the real point of the show either.

But as the main hero of the story pointed out, in fighting for justice, you need to want to be the best, you need to always want to win, no matter how hard it is.

And I realized, he’s right.

Justice, what is right, what should be, it’s not something you can achieve if you don’t want to win.

You have to believe it’s worth winning for.

See, personal gain is not really a good motivation for winning. Or personal pride. That’s Bakugo’s weak point, but he does get that a hero has to win.

Otherwise, they may be heroic, but their heroism doesn’t do anyone any good.

Self sacrifice is a beautiful thing, but it needs to accomplish something.

If I go back to the Bible I realize that this is, shockingly, exactly what it teaches.

Jesus didn’t go through all that terrible suffering just to lose. He did it to win. the Bible literally says “Death is swallowed up in victory” and “it is finished.”

As in, mic drop. That’s it. We’re done. We win.

“If God is for us then who can be against us?” “We are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans)

“Blessed is the man whose strength is in You…they go from strength to strength.” (Ps 84: 5-7)

Actually, any reading of either the Old or New Testament would make it hard to doubt that God intends for us to fight to win. And to expect to win.

In fact, the notion that we can let everyone win is downright dangerous. I feel like this culture expects the good people to apologize for winning.

Considering the amount of criticism leveled at the police and other public defenders constantly, it gets even more disturbing.

It’s good to be humble, but not to apologize for winning.

It’s also not necessarily wrong to want to be the best. Being the best doesn’t make you a better human being, but it can make you more able to reach people.

There is some danger in wanting glory for yourself, but not in simply trying to be the best.

I think unfortunately Christians can shame this, because we like to focus on the underdog, the people who aren’t talented. We say “God can use you anyway.”

What about those of us who are talented? Who have a shot at being the best?

I was never pushed to get better, as a kid at church. I was told I was beyond everyone else. Not too different from Bakugo.

Even in college, I’m not often pushed to improve. My teachers often try to say we don’t need to worry too much.

It might be less stressful, but I feel somewhat deflated knowing I can get by on so little. And knowing even if I did better, my reward would only be a slightly higher grade, and my grades are good enough.

Good enough. Yeah.

God can use anyone. That’s true. That includes talented people.

It’s not quite as discouraged now, with the cultural movement to realize what you’re good at and pursue it, but mediocrity is still a disease that infects way too many areas of both society and the church.

It bugs me more with the Church; of all people, we ought to be saying that Good should win. How often do we accept defeat?

And we do accept it.

“Oh you have cancer? Sorry”

“Oh, they made that legal now? Oh well…”

“Oh they’re teaching that’s okay at our school? Too bad about that, hope our kids make it out okay.”

Yeah, sure.

Bakugo might be slightly crazy, but I’d put him on my team any day because he wouldn’t quit until he won. And when you’re fighting to save people and take down evil, which essentially is a Christian’s job description, then heck yeah! You need that kind of grit.

I don’t give up easy, but I don’t always fight with that kind of conviction. And I was ashamed to realize that, and challenged to do better.

So, it’s unprecedented that it took a show like this to make me see it, but I’m not sorry. What I do with this revelation is up to me. But now it’s out there.

And  have to ask, what have I given up on? What should I have kept trying to win?

Well, that’s none of your business, your business is to look at your won battles and ask yourself the same thing.

Best wishes on that, until next time-Natasha.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHKpi2u4pvY

What I learned from Fan Fiction–2

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So, I googled images for writing fan fiction after my last post, and it turns out I’m like the 50th person to write on this subject, but chances are most people still haven’t read about it, since I never have…logically…

I may check out some other people’s perspectives later, but there’s nothing wrong with continuing with mine, that is why people read this…man I love blogs.

Anyway, picking up from part one, I talked about why fan fiction is written, and what it taught me functionally about writing characters and romance.

I think one of the reasons it works is because writers of fan fiction are imitating, and you learn by intimating. The quality of the source materiel is a huge part of whether or not this imitating it making you a good writer. Bad shows have fan fictions, and they typically suck. It’s hard to make it better than it already was if there was nothing praiseworthy to begin with.

But, starting from the assumption that what I like is already worthwhile😉, I’d like to get more into how and why I write fan fiction.

A part of me does wonder if it’s unhealthy and obsessive. Many people think it is and will mock fan fic-ers mercilessly. I don’t typically talk about it. Once I mentioned it to some other fans of a show I like, and one guy’s response was just “no.”

With that encouragement, I keep it to myself.

But I honestly believe fan fiction is awesome. It’s so much fun, and it helps you understand why you likes something, and why it’s good, and what it’s flaws are.

But fan fiction is always primarily about the characters. People write it to get more of their favorite. Often a character who is dead will be alive, one who left the show is still there, one who is good will be evil (I never do that, but I will make typically steadily good characters have a crisis), one who is evil will turn good (guilty as charged), and a lonely character may get paired with another. An interesting outcome of fan fictions, (and a staple of most of them), is the emergence of what is known as OCs, or Original Characters. And they are hated by a lot of people who read fan fiction out of curiosity. An OC is almost always a self insert character. Born out of the writer’s desire to experience the story for themselves.

And I do have OCs, not every OC is self insert, it typically is, but some writers come up with many of them just because they enjoy character design and creation; my sister does this, she has little interest in writing a story, she just comes up with a look and a background.

I did something more unique with my OCs, I actually repeat them. I reference my previous fan fictions each time I write a new one. I have a whole part of the story that’s original, which explains how each is connected. It’s actually a very interesting idea that I think is worth exploring, involving dimension travel and the like, but for now I’m sticking to how it helps me write.

By having repeating OCs, especially my main one, I double the learning experience of writing. When you have to make your character fit in with this other world, you have to ask what makes it different form yours, what makes it similar, how would the characters react to anew person? What can your ideas add to the story? Can they add anything?

Often the shipping fan fics do not add anything to the story, and that goes for their OCs. So they mostly just write however they want and ignore how characters act.

But leaving that aside, others have to think about it. Many people don’t care if it’s true to story because it’s “just fan fiction” but my sisters have made me stick to the story’s tempo, it’s heart, and it’s tone. They don’t think a fan fiction is any good if it cannot work within the show or movie. because if there was nothing good about it, why would you care? And if it’s good, don’t change the good.

Change the bad.

So yes, I “fix” thinks in my fan fictions. Healing the story is actually considered to be a huge part of critical writing and reading, it teaches us what we like, what we don’t, what we value, what we don’t, etc.

fanfiction

Before you assume that makes us spoiled brats who have to have things our way, let me ask you, do you complain about your life?

Do you wish it was different?

Do you ever try to change people? (We all do it.)

Do you try to change circumstances?

Are you God? Are you all knowing? Did you bring yourself into this world? Can you control your life?

The answer to all four of those latter questions is no.

You aren’t really qualified to change your life, yet you still do, or you try, and sometimes you succeed.

That’s real. That’s has real consequence, you could screw it up royally.

But you still do it.

Now, if you, oh flawed, limited person, can do that with real life, are you really able to judge us for doing it with imaginary things? We can’t hurt anyone but ourselves by doing it. It’s fairly “safe” to mess up your fan fiction. You can try to change people, and never actually change anything except your own perspective.

And that’s why I write. I do it to get a better perspective.

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I have control in a story that I will never have in real life. It’s not a power trip thought, few things are as humbling as writing. It shows you how little you know. It forces you to limit yourself…and that actually helps you. Through writing fan fictions I’ve faced the fact that I can’t change people. I can learn from them, but in the end you have to believe people can change because they have the ability not because you can make them. You can try to help, but they have to be open.

See, I can change the events of a plot, and still change absolutely nothing. The problems remain. The only way I can solve them is to find the truth. And I turn to an outside source for that.

When I “fix” stories, I don’t do it by doing what I want solely to happen, what I want becomes merged with what I think would happen, and what I think is best for the characters. I don’t actually always enjoy what I write, but I do it to work out the issues.

Basically, fan fiction lets me do what my original stories don’t. It’s just like real life enough to present me with people’s real world problems, and then I ask: can this be helped? Is there an answer to this in my Faith?

So far, I have always found one. Fiction often mirrors biblical truths without knowing it does.

My own stories, I need to have the answer already, there’s not much time to learn it. Fan fictions let me explore until I find it, then I can take that into my next original story.

I know some people will never understand why fan fiction is helpful. But I don’t need them to, I know it is. That’s what matters, until next time–Natasha.

images

What I learned from Fan Fiction–1.

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Happy New Year! And Merry Christmas. Hope it was a good one.

I have not been posting and I really have no excuse, other than a lack of ideas and the fact that I’ve been spending all my writing time on a thing called Fan fiction, or Fan fic, if you’re in the millennial and under abbreviated word crowd.

Then I thought: Why not just blog about that?

Fan Fiction: The only literature more mocked than trashy romance and cheesy sci-fi.

IF you could even call some of it literature.

IF you’re unfortunate enough to ever google your favorite show or movie and search for “images” you probably know the disturbing porny stuff that will pop up. ( I wonder if I can adjust my filter for that?) I’m just looking for some innocent wallpaper or something, and I get this? Ewww!

Anyway, that in a nutshell is why people hate fan fiction, or at least consider it a sort of guilty pleasure and find nothing in it that would have any real meaning.

And some fan–all–fan fiction is the fans making what they think should happen happen, irregardless of what the creators of the content actually intend. Which many people think is disrespectful.

If you approach it from the perspective that there is no right way to write, then those people are right, but as all of you know, I believe in absolutes and standards that are above personal opinion, so I will make the argument that there IS a RIGHT way to WRITE, and fan fiction is then somewhat justified.

SOME of it is.

People write fan fiction for one of three or maybe two, reasons. They either ship certain characters, often LGBT ones, and the creators refuse to make it cannon, so they write the story how they think it should happen, but it’s typically very sexual, disgustingly so; porny; and at about the level of a 13-14 year old’s fantasy romance. No substance, all attraction and vanity. And yes, that was once me too. I moved on. (Just to be clear, I’ve never written a story like that, I just read them. We all make mistakes.)

The other, and more interesting reason, is the fans think the writers are doing something wrong with a certain character or plot point, and they change it. These fan fictions can actually be quite fascinating from what  hear, and sometimes the creators even think so and take inspiration from them. Fans can be smart writers and amazingly creative.

Now, you may think, if the fans think it’s wrong, why watch it?

Well, to use some more pop culture internet lingo, fan fic-ers are rarely HATERS. Haters are actually the bane of fandoms (and trolls), and will complain about literally anything, even if it’s precisely the opposite of what they complained about before. For example, they want a character to get some emotional development, the writers agree and write it in (chances are they were going to do it anyway) and the fan sees it, grudgingly acknowledges it was what they asked for…and then complains that some of it wasn’t in line with what they thought would happen.

This is sometimes justified if the character is acting completely funky. Like how in the Avengers movies Captain America completely changes his emotional issues every movie. He has no consistency–except feeling out of place in the future. Which wears n me because they do nothing with it except make me feel sad.

Cap was one of my favorite characters, but I can’t keep liking him if he keeps changing every time, and it’s kind of sad.

However, most of the time, that’s not the case and the haters are whiny babies as far as the material is concerned.

That’s not where fan fiction comes from. Fans who write fiction love the show, usually more than any other fans do, and are committed enough to devote hours of their time to their fantasy. They watch every episode (or installment if its’ movies) they study every scene, and they usually have some decent reasons for their complaints. The ones who actually have complaints and don’t just ship characters. and by the way, fan fic-ers who write to fix the story usually feel disgusted or at least amused with the ones who just ship people, it’s so vapid.

Not that it’s wrong, as long as it’s not porny, but it’s…just shipping, unless it grows the characters, what purpose does it serve? (I’ve explained in previous posts how I think shipping is good when it helps the characters and thereby the fans, but bad when it’s just about attraction and hormones.)

As you can guess by now, I also write fan fiction.

I was hesitant to start doing it, my first fan fiction was about the Justice League, I wrote some for Frozen, Kim Possible, more Justice League, Ever After High, and now RWBY. (If you’ve followed me for years, you probably have read about each of those in turn.)

Now don’t worry, I have no intention of posting this stuff in public. It’s only interesting to me and my siblings because we agree about how things should happen. But I thought I’d like to talk about what I learned from doing it.

Because believe it or not, I learned a lot form writing this stuff.

When I write, I ask God to lead me. whether it’s something I want to publish, or something I never want to. Because to me it doesn’t matter. I write to teach myself as much as other people, so even if they never see it, I’m still learning.

And the first thing Fan fic has taught me is to be a better writer.

I originally was a very preachy, pedantic, fundamental Christian writer. And while there is a place for all three of those things, I write fiction. And only a few geniuses have very balanced a very preachy message with a very good story. Hans Christian Andersen, George MacDonald, John Bunyan, Louisa May Alcott, those are a few I know of.

My fiction was okay back then but it was sorely lacking in nuance. At first, when I wrote fan fiction, I treated it the same way. I paid little attention to emotional development, and I didn’t know how to make the characters true to form.

This showed in my own stories in how I often failed to flesh out the characters I made up. I liked the adventure, but my character’s motivation often didn’t make sense.

But as I got older and read back over these fan fics, I realized the problem, and my sisters pointed it out also since they are the only people usually interested in them, and they pushed me to the point of annoyance to learn how to write the characters better…so I did.

I studied them, and  I started to recognize cues like expression, body language, word choice, and their outlook on life, and I started to incorporate it.

It was clumsy at first, since it is extremely hard to write characters who talk differently then you, react differently, and think differently, ask any new writer. IF you read people’s earlier books, even famous authors, you’ll notice the same thing. But I tried and tried…and now more often than not, I nail it. I can tell how a character would react because I’ve become way better at assessing them.

This carries over into my writing. One of my favorite books I’ve written has six main characters, and I gave each of them their own quirks, speech patterns, sense of humor (or lack thereof) and body language, I thoroughly enjoyed rereading it and my sister laughed out loud at a lot of their exchanges. I don’t think I could have written it without months of practicing in fan fictions.

Fan fictions are training stories for me. It’s where I practice new styles, concepts, and types of characters before I attempt to create some of my own. I find out what I’m good at writing, what I struggle with, and I practice it.

Another example: Romance

writing good romance is essential to an author who’s going to have a diverse cast of characters in their story. It’s bound to happen, and it’s fun to read, but I was very shy of writing it. Fan fiction helped me push past that. Knowing it wouldn’t go public, and no one but me necessarily has to see it, gave me the freedom to practice.

Romance is till probably my weakest writing point, but it’s improved immensely over time because of fan fiction.

That’s all I can fit into this, but next time I want to talk about the even more important reason I think fan fiction is awesome and crucial to many people.

Until next time–Natasha.

More than a stereotype.

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I know Thanksgiving was last week, but I’d like to start this post off with a few things I’m thankful for.

I celebrated my 20th birthday recently. And my sixth spiritual birthday. I can’t believe it’s only been 6 years since I became a  Christian, I can’t imagine not knowing God. I also can’t believe I’m no longer a teenager, after seven years of it, I almost forgot what that’s like, I hop my twenties are the plus side of not being a teen.

I’m thankful for my family, they are doing better for the most part, and we recently found out we have a family member we’ve never met. My dad has a half brother, I could swear it’s like a movie.

I’m thankful for my friends…because I actually have some finally! And I’ve been getting to know them better over the past few months.

I’m glad for making good grades despite feeling overbooked this semester.

I’m thankful for RWBY providing me with a lot of interesting content to think about and enjoy.

And of course I’m thankful for all of you. I had not idea I’d ever make it to 80+ followers.

Now, on the subject of thankfulness, I’d be the millionth person to write about that at this time of year, but it’s truly something we need to remember every single day. And honestly, I don’t. I’m not a negative person but I don’t stop and thank God for things every day, and I really should, because school is teaching me I have it really good.

We had to read “Death of a Salesman,” over the holiday. Real cheery play, perfect for the occasion–can you hear the sarcasm?

At this point I’ve become philosophical about the darker content. At least the dramas are easier to stomach than the poetry was, poetry really shouldn’t be dark.

I digress. I had a revelation reading about the terrible people in this play, terrible in that their mediocre, petty, and false. I just stopped on one page, and understanding rose up inside me. I thought “I am happier in my simple life than people like this will ever be, because they strive for money, recognition, and gratification. They want to prove they are something, and prove they’re a real man (or woman) and prove that they’re the big shot…and it’s all vanity. And I don’t need to prove anything, and I don’t need money or fame to be happy. I’m more content now then someone like that has ever been.” Of course I didn’t think it in those exact words, but you get it.

It just fully hit me for the moment that what bothers me about these plays we read and stories too is the incessant hunger I find in them for what doesn’t matter. People have some agenda to push, some need to be affirmed by people whom they resent. I find resentment, envy, hatred, and selfishness in all of them. I realize it reflects what the author thinks people strive for and even what they need. They think people are that petty and can’t connect. Endless hunger and discontent drives these stories.

And I can’t believe how foreign that feeling is to me, like, what world are they living in.

You know, I’m not unaware of those feelings, of course I do have that restlessness sometimes, I think all young people do, and older folks too. But by the grace of God, it has never turned me into the monster you find in these stories and dramas. Everyone is either cheating on their wife or destroying their relationship with their family…or raping someone, or murdering someone. You know, like most people do when they are down on their luck…yes, I’m being sarcastic.

If I’m honest, I’ve blundered a lot in my relationships, and I’ve even destroyed them. Butt at my worst, I’ve never done what the people in these stories do. I attribute that to God, because I know that in my selfish human nature I have the capacity to do things like that, but in my redeemed new nature, I would never do it.

These stories would make you afraid to love anyone if you didn’t believe in a God who can change people’s hearts. We read these stories and know that we are like that. We’re petty and selfish and envious and discontent.

We are like that in our flesh. But fortunately I don’t believe that is all we are. I feel so sorry for my classmates who have no defense. no reason to say “That’s not the end of the story.”

The more I see of what people are thinking and saying, especially ones my age, the more I pity them. I pity them because they are so, so lost.

Young people are desperate for faith. They are looking for someone to be willing to have it. They don’t have it themselves because they’ve had different opinions battering them since grade-school. Many don’t actually want to abandon the idea of God, they just aren’t sure how they can hold onto it. They doubt they are smart enough to figure it out.

Young people are aware of how they are stigmatized, and they believe it. That is the saddest thing. They believe they are stupid, shallow millennials, who are fit only to embrace the stereotype culture has of us.

Most of them care about more than just their phones and their shows, but they talk about that because they feel incapable of talking about anything else. If you aren’t mingling with them, you don’t realize…the ache is palpable.

Man, they want to connect, they just don’t have a clue how to. No one taught us to.

You don’t realize it, but no one did. I was never taught how. I had to learn. TV didn’t help. TV would have taught me to be selfish and snarky if I went by how kids are portrayed on the shows.

We’re called flaky and air-headed, and maybe we are. (Not me obviously.) But…we are expected to be. We don’t know any different. In fact, it’s part of our culture to expect flakiness.

That’s another subject, but what I’m trying to say is this stereotype is killing us faster than social media is, not because we may be addicted, but it’s because we’re written off that we are not helped.

Guess what, it’s not us who don’t care. It’s not us who are apathetic, it’s the 40+ year olds who’ve decided we’re losers who are beyond hope. I assume, if you’re reading this, that’s not you. But I bet you know some.

I am not condemning the previous generation. Millennials frustrate me too, but they are not what I was told either.

I do not think we can change the culture as a whole quickly or easily, but what falls to us is to reach out to people we do know. And to try to rediscover what connecting with them means. Our hunger for it isn’t going away, and Netflix can’t fool us into accepting a substitute forever. But I don’t want us to let that depress us, I think we should be excited that we get to rediscover friendship. If we don’t let fear stop us.

And I’m not being naively optimistic. There’s plenty we’ve lost. But I refuse to believe that that’s the end of the story.

Until next time–Natasha.

 

 

 

The Gauntlet.

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You know, I love to draw meaning from stories, it’s one of the most fun things I know of. I hope all of you have had that experience of sitting (or standing) with someone and just analyzing a story you both like. You get such a satisfied feeling afterward.

As I mentioned, I’ve been watching RWBY, and the show is just too good not to analyze in depth. There’s a lot to choose from, but today I’m thinking of one of its more sobering themes. It’s problematic, but it plays into a common concern parents and teachers, as well as young people like myself, have with entertainment, and how we should prepare kids for the world.

RWBY has, ever since season 2, not hesitated to bring up the question of when children should be considered adults. The idea the show deals with is if it’s really correct to call kids kids after they’ve taken up the gauntlet to fight for good.

This dilemma is presented literally by Yang, a girl who actually uses “gauntlets” to fight, and makes a point on multiple occasions of saying she doesn’t consider herself a kid. Now that she (spoiler alert) has made the choice to risk her life defending the world, been on a mission armed to the teeth, and then lost her arm defending her friend, she feels pretty adult.

Yang’s perspective is understandable, but it is counted by her mentor Ozpin and also her father, Ozpin never talks to Yang about it specifically but he does wish for the youth on the show to retain some of their child-likeness as long as they can, knowing it won’t be for long. He also hopes they will  not lose their sens of humor. Yang’s father Tai tells her directly that she’s still got a lot to learn, just fighting and undergoing trauma doesn’t make her an adult.

Yang does go on to prove she is growing up by making her own difficult choices. But we are still left wondering if it had to be that way. And if it’s right for children to take on such adult roles.

It’s an old problem on shows with young characters that they tend to act more adult than the adults, but this show takes a closer look at why that is. Maybe the simple truth is that we talk down to kids, and they are capable of handling far more than we realize.

Children, as any teacher who’s had any success might tell you, are capable of grasping very deep subjects, often faster than adults do. Things like loss can be hard on kids, but sometimes they still handle it better than adults.

It depends on the person, but it’s fair to say that children surprise us with their maturity often enough to make us question if sheltering them really makes sense.

i don’t mean you shouldn’t protect kids from knowing about evil. But some people think that includes not telling them about suffering and pain, and that’s not something we really can keep from kids. There’s no sense dwelling on it, but if it comes up, should we hedge around it as we often try to do?

RWBY is honest about one thing: This is war. As a kid, that’s what I was told. We’re in a war between good and evil. That wasn’t hard to accept…it’s not really like that’s news to a child. They see the fight all around them.

But in a war there are casualties, an damages, and wounds, and losses. What do we do with those? Some say we should encourage children to think about the happier things in life as long as they can. Others that we should not shield them from harsh realities.

If I might offer some insight on what I think the real answer is…

I think that we over think it, honestly. Unfortunately, the reason we do that is because we have the luxury of it. Not so long ago, most kids would have known someone who had died, or had lost a close family member. Tragedy would not have been a strange notion to kids. They weren’t sheltered from it because there was no way for them to be. Parents couldn’t hide the truth. Cruelty and hate were things kids witnessed, not just in bullying or movies or online, but in person. Between adults.

In many countries, this is still the case. I don’t know why the West doesn’t get it, honestly, I think it’s because we spend so much time running from realities like that ourselves. For some reason, we think our happily ever after comes without a struggle.

It’s not that we should give up on happy endings, which our culture has more of than most, all over its’ fiction and sayings and ideals, and I love that about America; but we tend to pass over the part in every story where the hero or heroine had to got through nearly hell to get to the better ending.

It’s quite simple, if you want a mediocre, quiet ending, then live mediocre and run from what would make you a hero. If you want a truly happy ending, then you have to embrace the sorrow in life and let it temper you into something new.

My pastor pointed out this past Sunday that Jesus said “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” He said “we need to learn how to mourn.”

And that got to me, because, I don’t know how.

Golly gee whiz, I’m not the only one am I? As a freaking culture, we don’t know how to mourn. Our whole message to people is that if you get knocked down, you get right back up. You shove people’s abuse of you right back at them. You keep moving forward.

Well, yeah, you should, but first you have to mourn.

If we hold it together all the time, then our strength will be brittle and a strong enough blow will shatter us. But if we let ourselves break over and over again, we’ll heal a little faster each time.

And this applies so much to children.  I wasn’t usually told to stop crying when I was upset as a kid. Mostly, I could express my feelings. But I still bottled them up out of insecurity, a huge part of my christian journey was learning to cry over my hurt. And just let myself admit it sucked. It’s funny, when you quit trying to be strong all the time, you find things aren’t so hard to bear. Not with God’s help.

And other people’s.

And dang it, that’s what we need to tell kids. Yes, you’ll have hard times. But it’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s because we treat suffering like it’s something to fear that it’s so hard to deal with it. It can be scary, but that doesn’t mean we need to fear it coming.

And there is comfort. That’s important to remember.

–Natasha.

 

The Resurrection Arc.

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

Hey fiction buffs! You’ve heard of character arcs before, but did you know there’s different kinds?

Yeah, probably if you read or watch any TV show that’s fictional, you knew that. I’m simply being dramatic.

You might know of arcs (and for you non-buffs, an arc is how a character or plot develops from one point, usually an immature one, to another, usually a better, wiser one. Typically the arc is what shows us the point of the whole story, but there are negative arcs that show one good guy turning bad, or a good guy slowly giving up on their cause. These are the bad example arcs that are meant to be a warning.) But have you heard of a Resurrection Arc?

Most arcs follow a pattern and this one does too. It’s actually pretty widely used, but since it is often misused, and people are now knocking it, I thought I’d write a defense of it.

All arcs are meant to change the characters and show them something they did not see before. Some arcs are a part of the plot and the characters learn by dealing with the challenges of that part. That’s what category I put a resurrection arc into.

A lot of things kick off arcs. The most famous is getting a challenge like being chosen for something, or the sadder common catalyst is a character losing someone close to them. Sometimes just witnessing a tragedy is enough to do it, other times the character has to lose their soulmate for their arc to begin.

However, there’s another really cool thing that kicks of some arcs. And it’s a resurrection. A resurrection can happen one of two ways. Either it’s a character literally coming back from the dead, or from being almost dead, or they just thought they were and it turns out they weren’t; or something else can be restored to a character that they felt they lost. In fiction especially this can mean a gift or power, or it can mean a belief in something they had lost faith in. It’s popular now for a memory to also be something that helps a character in this way.

In older stories resurrection is often just straight up someone’s coming back to life. This theme appears in fairy tales way more that we realize. Often it’s intertwined with redemption. Many of Anderson’s lesser known stories involve resurrection, and even his most famous ones that have had those elements removed in the retelling.

In modern fiction Death has an oddly compelling presence. Take “The Fault in Our Stars,” or almost any dystopia fiction now. Death is everywhere, often very young people are obsessed with it. (Funny that it’s often older people writing this stuff.) I always loved life, I was happy when nobody died. I considered “The Lion King” a sad movie, (and that part still is.) But of course, Mufasa isn’t really gone, and that can be part of a resurrection arc. Realizing that death isn’t so powerful. It’s why you won’t see this arc in the death-shadowed stories I just mentioned, unless it’s in some twisted, unholy way. Frankenstein’s monster is no example of resurrection, just to be clear.

Life wins out in the end, and love. That’s the message of resurrection arcs in a nutshell. But the complaint, which I’m sick of hearing, is that they don’t create lasting stakes.

Since the Avengers franchise took off, fans have been growing dissatisfied with happy, everyone’s alive, stories (like they don’t all hate it when their friendly neighborhood Spiderman gets knocked off, please.) While I find the constant whining about it to be stupid, I do note that there’s something to be said for making things a bit more realistic.

It’s not that no one dies that really bugs me, it’s that no one gets hurt for very long, no one loses anything in their lives, and no one seems to be affected for longer than two films by any traumatic experience. Also I fail to see character growth even when they are.

In truth, whether characters live or die has nothing to do with depth. Action flicks that kill off henchmen by the dozens aren’t known for being deep. And Chick flicks that don’t kill anyone, or else do it in a more drawn out, romantic way, aren’t necessarily shallow. The Notebook is dumb for most of the movie, but the ending always gets to me because it is saying something profound about love.

That said, I think people who knock resurrection arcs are missing their potential. It’s not always a cheap cop-out to have a character not stay dead. In fact, often it’s a very good catalyst for growth in both them, and everyone else.

When a characters is resurrected, everyone has to reconsider what life and death means to them. They have to ask themselves what they are willing to sacrifice, and what they aren’t. But most of all, it changes the dynamics of how they see the antagonists. Maybe there are things more powerful than whatever the evil stands for.

As for the character who comes back themselves, they get a chance to change things about their lives that maybe only losing them gave them the clarity to do. Or they impart some wisdom on the other characters that they couldn’t before. Resurrection means restoration.

If we no longer like that, it is because we have grown more hopeless. It’s more cool now to just accept the crap in you life and deal with it, then it is to hope for a change. People encourage you to give up on hoping for others to change, for things to turn around. Be the force, they say. Well, that’s fine in its place. But what about when your force isn’t enough?

What about when all the kick-rear skills in the world won’t save you? What about when you’re losing heart and nothing else will help? What about when someone simply can’t save themselves?

Resurrection is what solves this, and nothing else can. It’s a restoring of life and hope and faith to someone who had lost heart. It’s the only thing that makes redemption fully possible. Because though a death may redeem someone, it only sticks if life comes out of it.

Resurrection, in the end, is what breeds humility. What engraves the inevitability of our own need for someone to intervene on our behalf into our souls. By overcoming mortality, it reminds us of it.

It’s not cheap. It’s often the hardest thing to do well.

I for one will never get tired of this arc, until next time–Natasha.