ﾟ. ･ ʕᴥʔ ･ ｡ﾟ

toxic fatal flaw of loyalty where percy is consciously and happily tempting annabeth into infidelity because her loyalty to him over her own partner is like a drug to him. toxic fatal flaw of pride where annabeth is consciously and happily tempting percy into infidelity because him desiring annabeth more than his partners is like a drug to her

percy: her partners always seem to hate my guts and idk why.

insert character here: yeah it’s ridiculous i mean you guys are friends!

percy: exactly.

character: just friends!

percy:

protagonists were kind of forced into a flat dichotomy of 'active' (takes actions to further their own goals, thus driving the story) and 'passive' (is acted upon by events beyond their control, moving them through the plot) with 'active' being considered good and passive being considered bad

I think this framework is very locked within a certain cultural viewpoint... specifically of a 20th century western white male. For one thing it assumes a "protagonist" will have a certain level of agency, to have goals and pursue them, overcoming obstacles in the way. It is not very inclusive of characters that don't have much agency.

It also assumes that desire/want = orienting toward or pursuing.

As far as I am concerned, characters don't have goals. They CAN, but these goals aren't actually the functional gears of the plot, and are instead their conscious rationalizations of what's really running the show.

Rather, characters have instincts and drives. I don't like to say "desires" because desire suggests something that is explicit, a thing that the character can attribute their feelings to.

I realized when reading Shakespeare's Othello that interesting characters often can't be understood in terms of "goals" or "desires" because they don't understand what they want or why they want that and they constantly act in ways that are contradictory to what they want or think they want. What a character consciously thinks is a whole layer on top of their actual instincts and feelings, which are primal and buried in traumas and needs and other aspects of creaturehood, and often is a fiction to resolve contradictions and dissonance in the demands of the creature-self. some characters can reflect upon their own thought processes and some cannot.

Whereas a character with perfectly coherent motivations and traits is almost more like a stylization, excellent as a side character or for a particular narrative purpose but not as chewable.

I'm always being reminded of the Hugh MacLennan quote from The Watch that Ends the Night:

“But that night as I drove back from Montreal, I at least discovered this: that there is no simple explanation for anything important any of us do, and that the human tragedy, or the human irony, consists in the necessity of living with the consequences of actions performed under the pressure of compulsions so obscure we do not and cannot understand them.” (274)

And my manager was like no!!!! If that happened, I would drive to find you guys in my truck and we could eat stuff from my wife's garden and I would make sure everyone I know survived!! I would carry you all on my shoulders away from the zombies!!

The idea that societal collapse exposes mankind’s true nature ignores one thing: society IS mankind. We make it, just by being around each other. Social mores and customs aren’t arbitrary rules inflicted on us by some unseen force, they’re our own behaviors and views. We say please and thank you because we want to be kind. We establish charities because we want to help others. We set up garbage cans because we want to be clean. We’re the ones setting the standards and frowning at the people who don’t rise to meet them. We’re the ones who are appalled by the cruelties in our history.

The problem with nearly every post-apocalypse story is that they take the worst behavior of people during a riot or a natural disaster, extrapolate it to all of humanity, and assume that situation never changes. But even the worst disasters end. Hurricane Katrina looters aren't still looting. And there were far more people helping than looting.

zoey having exclusively fair-weather friends. when they're having fun, it's fun, and she recalls the memories for days . but when days are too long and school hallways are too narrow, she cannot confide in any of them.

zoey being part of trios, except she always feels like a placeholder, like a punchline to a sour joke. and so, since third wheeling is anything but nice, she ends up in bigger friend groups, hoping that would help her fit in better.

instead, the issues repeat, except they're even more obvious. she is ignored and talked-over, included solely because no one wants to be the one who directly tells her to leave them alone.

zoey's mom telling her to stop wearing earbuds so much—you'll damage your hearing—and she thinks to herself, there is nothing good to hear around me anyway. zoey's dad telling her to go out sometime, to stop draining nights by writing until the sunrise—your eyes will shrivel up from staring at the paper—and she thinks to herself, the outside world has nothing nice to offer.

and her parents think she's fine, you know? their girl is this bubbly and extroverted person, jumpy and jittery. when they visit uncles and aunts in other states, she plays with her cousins. during dinners, she still chatters and jokes. sure, her eyebags are more prominent, but she's a teen!

zoey dreams about an escape. there's a period—mid-divorce, when talks of custody cloud any other topic—when she believes living in korea would offer her a new, fresh start. but then she thinks how teens there are likely no different from teens here, and she will always stick out like a sore thumb.

she is destined to be alone. too boring/annoying/weird for her peers, and to her parents a bullet point in the lawyer's office more than a daughter.

Boy am i glad that the con has a facebook page so i can post this photo:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CTOMMY!!!!!!!!

However the drunk guys are also drinking, and eventually she can't afford to buy another pitcher for the table so she can't keep up the ever-full beer glass trick. At this point she has to resort to setting up the pool trick shot that she's never seen anyone but her boyfriend pull off, and says she'll leave with whoever manages the shot first.