#and as such while the worldbuilding is important to understanding the plot from an overarching perspective thats not rly how the story is | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

novlr · 5 months

Note

How do I write a good monologue? Where a character has the upper hand over their rival, and they want them to KNOW IT

As a creative writer, mastering the art of writing a monologue can enrich your story and be a great tool for worldbuilding and revealing shocking truths. Characters may deliver monologues to express their inner thoughts, reveal their motivations, prove they have the upper hand, convey their emotions, or share their personal insights with the reader.

Understanding the reasons behind a character’s monologue can help you create one that is both compelling and resonant. Let’s explore the essential elements and techniques for how to write a monologue that truly connects with your audience.

Understand your character

Before writing a monologue, it’s essential to delve deep into the complexities of your character. Understand the motivations, fears, and desires that drive them both within the story, but also within the scene.

A well-crafted monologue should offer a window into the character’s inner world, revealing their personality and inner conflicts. By considering the character’s background, experiences, relationships, and the journey that led them to this point, you can discern how these elements have shaped their perspective and informed their voice. This depth of understanding ensures that the character’s monologue remains authentic, resonant, and true to their identity.

Establish theme and purpose

Every monologue should serve a purpose within your story. It’s crucial to know the thematic significance of the monologue and how it contributes to the overall narrative. Whether it serves as a moment of revelation, introspection, or a pivotal decision for the character, the monologue should align with the plot’s overarching themes.

A character’s emotional state when delivering their monologue is also a key element. Whether it’s passion, vulnerability, anger, or resilience, the language and tone should resonate with the character’s emotional journey, ensuring that it serves an integral part of their development and the story’s progression.

Craft compelling dialogue

When you write a monologue, pay close attention to the rhythm, pacing, and cadence of the dialogue. Consider the emotional state of the character delivering it, and let it influence the flow of their words.

Utilise vivid imagery, metaphor, and sensory details to create a striking and evocative monologue that engages your reader’s imagination. Experiment with the structure and length of the, allowing it to mirror the character’s state of mind. By carefully considering these elements, you can create dialogue that truly captivates and resonates.

Don’t infodump

Monologues can serve an important purpose in any story, and while a certain level of information reveal is necessary, it’s also important not to go overboard into infodump territory.

When you write a monologue, it’s essential to avoid excessive exposition of backstory or revealing plot details in a way that feels forced or unnatural. What this does is overwhelm your audience with large chunks of information, breaking the pacing and flow. Instead, try to integrate relevant details seamlessly into your character’s dialogue. Allow the information to unfold naturally, and make sure that you also reveal information at other key moments in the plot, rather than saving it all for a single monologue.

Embrace vulnerability and authenticity

A powerful monologue often stems from a place of vulnerability. Allowing your character to express raw and genuine emotions, even if they are conflicted or imperfect, can deeply resonate with the audience.

Try to avoid clichés and generic expressions; instead, infuse the monologue with your character’s unique voice and perspective. Authenticity and vulnerability not only add depth to the character’s words but also create a genuine connection with the reader, inviting them into the character’s inner world.

117 notes · View notes

rosysreadingrefugium · 10 months

Text

Review: The Murderbot Diaries (All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy)

read from 18 June to 2 July

read for bingo square " Featuring Robots"

These novellas were the first Science Fiction books I have ever read (excluding Gideon, Harrow and Nona the Ninth). I did not know what to expect but I was not disappointed. I have devoured these books in such short time and I have loved each one of them.

They were so short that I have decided to treat the 4 novellas as one book and to not rate each novella separately.

Basic Facts

Title: The Murderbot Diaries (All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy)

Author: Martha Wells

Pages: 534

Synopsis: The Murderbot Diaries is a series concerning a violent, self-hacking cyborg searching for the meaning of life. In a corporate-dominated space-faring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. For their own safety, exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid--a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, Murderbot wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is, but when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth. (Synopsis of the first book: All Systems Red)

Review / Rambling (Beware of spoilers)

I am going to be honest, it took me a while to get used to the setting of these novellas. Since I am not very well-versed in Science-Fiction literature, I needed some time to arrive in the setting and understand the worldbuilding. Especially the concept of the "feed" took me a bit to understand (I am not sure if I even understand it correctly). I cannot say if it was "typical", "tropey" SciFi worldbuilding but it was everything you would expect from such a story. There are spaceships, planets, space stations, etc. in a very futuristic setting. I liked the setting but I did not like the getting used to it (it really took me some time to understand the bulk of concepts / new things). 3 stars for worldbuilding/setting.

All 4 novellas have on overarching arc that begins in Book 1 and ends in Book 4. They are loosely connected but every book tells a different story and has an own arc. Being novellas, the plot begins suddenly and in action. It feels quite rushed and there is no fluff. Everything happens fast and the conflict is over before you even know it. The topics that are explored are overall interesting and important (cyborgs that develop feelings and relationships, slavery, capitalism etc.) but since the space is limited, they do not get explored as much as they should. There is not time for mysteries - they are solved almost instantly. All these things are typical characteristics of novellas, but if you want a really long and rewarding read, these are not the books for you. 3 stars for plot.

Martha Wells really shines when it comes to her characters. Murderbot is such a great protagonist. It is not very relatable in its struggles but it still captures such a beautiful look on humanity. Murderbot is also quite funny, esp. its internal monologues. The other characters were well-written too, I esp. enjoyed the relationship between Murderbot and ART and between Murderbot and Miki. In books 2 and 3 however, the characters seemed to not be as distinct from each other as the characters from the first and fourth book. 4 stars for characters.

The writing style of Martha Wells is also quite easy to read and understand. She likes to describe a lot of things but sometimes these descriptions were a bit too lengthy and too science-y. Also, at some points, I had the feeling that she described too little of the actual important stuff. Apart from that, her writing style was pretty straight-forward and I enjoyed it a lot. 4 stars for writing style.

+ 0.5 for overall vibes.

final rating: 4 stars

#rosysreadingrefugium #booklr #book blog #fantasy #murderbot #tmbd

2 notes · View notes

persi-person · 8 months

Text

I had a poll on Instagram a while back about what to lore dump on but I want to throw out some Upside Down stuff so don’t tell them.

Upside Down is something I’ve started working on recently. It’s based on a writing piece I’d started a year or so back when I was bored. It was originally inspired by Tales From The Gas Station by Jack Townsend as well as some other stories I’ve heard listening to MrCreepyPasta’s nonstop horror radio, but now that I’ve started working on it again, I’ve taken some inspiration from The Last of Us too. (Fun fact: I had originally called it Tales From The End but you can probably guess why I changed it lol)

Upside Down tells the story of a world that has been torn apart by a mysterious incident that set supernatural creatures loose everywhere. It’s told mostly from the perspective of Emory, who is suffering from amnesia after an accident in an abandoned hospital. He’s rescued by a mysterious figure and taken to a fortified camp of survivors where he makes his recovery and starts to learn about the world he’s forgotten. It has less of an overarching/adventurous/intense plot and is more about this characters experiencing the world they’re in and forming relationships.

TL;DR: I’m working on a story with apocalyptic themes

Beyond the cut is just me going more in depth on ideas I have and drawings I’ve done.

The first character design I had was for Root. At the time, I didn’t even know what I wanted to do with him, but he’s become very important by now. He’s the one who finds Emory and brings him back to the camp.

I’ve already posted this but these are better drawings of him.

He’s quiet and brooding and prefers to keep to himself. He’s got a lot of secrets that he’s not too keen on sharing. He’s a very skilled fighter and is almost abnormally strong and resilient (suspicious), but most people at camp don’t get to see him work because he prefers to work alone.

Emory gets to know him when he’s finally well enough to be assigned on missions and is paired with Root to go on a supply run. The captain understands he doesn’t like company, but she wants someone to show Em the ropes and figures Root knows what he's doing so he should do just fine.

Root doesn’t like Emory at first, but as they continue to work together, they start to get along.

It took me a while to come up with a design for Emory, but I came to this final look with the help of my friend. I’d like to credit her but she doesn’t have Tumblr and doesn’t want her Insta to get too much attention.

Emory is more outgoing than Root. He’s more reckless and impulsive, which has gotten him into trouble more than once. For multiple reasons I’m pretty sure he has ADHD, but if he does, it’s undiagnosed and will probably stay that way because there’s no one in the camp to do that for him. The most anyone can do is speculate. He doesn’t think he has it though.

Like I mentioned before, Root and Emory started off on the wrong foot, and that's because Emory makes poor decisions that put himself and Root in danger. Despite repeated warnings from Root, Emory rarely listens, which frustrates Root to no end.

Over time and as they go on more missions together, they gradually start to get along. Root teaches Emory how to defend himself better and Emory starts to listen to Root more (sort of).

Emory is the first to develop feelings. He doesn't say anything because he assumes Root isn't interested. Root later follows suit but also says nothing, instead repressing his feelings and convincing himself he's not worthy of love.

I have some other ideas and worldbuilding I will share in a later post because I can't spoil everything in one go lol. I have a Google Doc with all the random stuff I have on this if anyone is interested.

#writing #i really suck at tags #original character

1 note · View note

fictionadventurer · 3 years

Text

Fairy Tale Retellings

I know that @magpie-trove has been recommended enough books to fill several years, but since fairy tale retellings are my niche, I’m going to throw some more titles out there. (I’m limiting myself to 1) books/short stories 2) that I enjoyed 3) that I haven’t seen mentioned in connection to the original post. I’m also trying not to branch out into too many tales, so I’m going to be leaving out some slightly more obscure ones).

Before I go into the specifics, I’m just going to say, that if you only read three books out of this list, read Entwined by Heather Dixon (12 Dancing Princesses), Brine and Bone by Kate Stradling (Little Mermaid) and Valiant by Sarah Macguire. (And if you only read one series, make it Regina Doman’s Fairy Tale Novels.)

Cinderella

Before Midnight by Cameron Dokey: Short, sweet, autumny retelling that I like for the atmosphere and the loving relationship between Cinderella and her stepfamily.

Silver Woven In My Hair by Shirley Rousseau Murphy: Extremely short, traditional retelling, starring a mistreated girl who collects Cinderella stories while being in one of her own. Has a sweet charm to it.

Soot and Slipper by Kate Stradling: A short retelling set in a traditional fairy tale kingdom, but with an excellent plot twist. I like it very much until the ending entangles it in a far-too-complicated magic system.

The Reluctant Godfather by Allison Tebo: A sassy retelling starring a grumpy fairy baker who tries to get out of his godfather duties by getting his two charges to fall in love with each other. Gets points for a unique, almost Wodehousish parody element that is an extreme breath of fresh air in a genre dominated by YA romances.

The Spinner and the Slipper by Camryn Lockhart: Mashes up the story with Rumpelstiltskin. Clearly the work of a very young author, but I’m putting it on here for the fun use of the fairies from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Beauty and the Beast

Unseen Beauty by Amity Thomsen: Traditional fantasy retelling from the POV of one of the invisible servants. Writing that’s a cut above most self-pubbed books, with extra points for featuring a female friendship that’s just as important as the main romance.

Snow White

Fairest Son by H.S.J. Williams: Gender-flipped version involving the fae. Is the only Snow White retelling that had me uncertain for a while of where the plot was going to go.

Sleeping Beauty

A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan: A sci-fi retelling involving a girl who was regularly kept in stasis for the convenience of her corporate mogul parents, then was left in stasis for more than 70 years while the apocalypse happened. She wakes up to a world that’s recovered to become a very different place and has to deal with the emotional fallout of everything that’s happened to her. And it’s intense. This book has the distinction of being one of only two books with scenes that made me put the book down so I could sob uncontrollably. (The other is Rapunzel Let Down). There’s a little bit of content (a couple of kissing scenes that veer toward steamy, and use of futuristic swear words that have clear connections to modern swear words) but easily skippable.

The Little Mermaid

Brine and Bone by Kate Stradling: On first read, I appreciated it as a faithful-to-Andersen retelling, but found it otherwise forgettable. I reread it earlier this year and cannot understand how I possibly came to that conclusion. This has beautiful character work in a unique world that, I cannot stress this enough, is loyal to the Andersen version while appreciating the true joy of that ending.

Silent Mermaid by Brittany Fichter: First half had some excellent world-building and interesting conflicts that fell apart in a more cliche second half, but I remember it being enjoyable overall.

The Princess and the Pea

The Bruised Princess by A.G. Marshall: Part of her Once Upon a Short Story collection. They’re all decent-to-great, but this one is my favorite, a sweet little romance that makes the story make a surprising amount of sense.

I need to give a shout-out to my favorite retelling of this tale. I can’t remember the title. It was on Fanfiction.net back in the day. (I tried looking it up, but it wasn’t part of the collection I assumed it was in). It was from the POV of the servant who had to stuff all twenty mattresses. She has allergies and is miserable by the time she’s done, and gets her revenge by stuffing the top mattress with gravel.

The Twelve Dancing Princesses

Entwined by Heather Dixon: One of my very top favorite retellings, a creative and whimsical and touching story focusing on the twelve close-knit sisters and their relationship with their buttoned-up father in the aftermath of their mother’s death.

The Brave Little Tailor

Valiant by Sarah McGuire: The only retelling I’ve ever seen of this tale, starring a girl who has to masquerade as a boy to get work as a tailor, and winds up entangled in a kingdom’s battle against giants. The first act is very boring, but it turns into a very well-done retelling with excellent characters and worldbuilding.

Bonus: Series

These are series that retell several fairy tales in the same universe, and I thought it’d be easier to present them all together than separating them out by fairy tale.

The Fairy Tale Novels by Regina Doman: Catholic retellings set in the modern day. They have their weak points, but they’re my gold standard for how to write a modern retelling and how to write a religious romance.

The Shadow of the Bear: Snow White and Rose Red. Fun and adventurous. Gets points for introducing me to Chesterton.

Black as Night: Snow White, focusing on the Snow White character from the first book. Darker and more intense, but with some deep themes.

Waking Rose: Sleeping Beauty, focusing on the Rose Red character’s adventures in college. By far the most popular book in the series, it’s overlong, but extremely good.

The Midnight Dancers: The Twelve Dancing Princesses, focusing on mostly new characters with a side character from Waking Rose in the soldier role. A slighter story with a pricklier main character, but it’s a strong contender for my favorite in the series, exploring the connections between beauty and truth and goodness.

Alex O’Donnell and the 40 Cyberthieves: Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, starring Waking Rose side characters. This is a lighter adventure tale. All the stuff surrounding the hacking subplot is slightly ridiculous, but it’s one of the only YA novels I’ve ever seen that explores the realistic nuances of considering marriage with someone very different from you.

Rapunzel Let Down: Rapunzel. By far the darkest themes (it’s classified as an adult book). All new characters with some cameos. I thought it was decent on first read, but on reread, it blew me away with some of its themes (Except for a very melodramatic fifth act).

The Andari Chronicles by Kenley Davidson: Retellings set in a very mildly magical fantasy world, mostly focused on political intrigue.

Traitor’s Masque: Cinderella. 60% longer than it needs to be because of the extremely wordy writing style, and it makes me tear my hair out every time I try rereading, but the core conflict between the two brothers is compelling.

The Countess and the Frog: The Frog Prince. A short prequel novella focusing on a side character from the first book. I think it’s only available as a freebie on the author’s site but may be one of my favorite romances because the leads are so cute and sensible together.

Goldheart: Rumpelstiltskin. My favorite in the series, focused on a shy painter given an impossible task and the friends who help her get through it. The writing style’s much more concise here.

Pirouette: The Twelve Dancing Princesses. Political-intrigue focused. Also much wordier than it needs to be, though not as much as the first book. Twists the fairy tale in extremely interesting ways and has some great characters. (Prologue and epilogue are some of my favorite bits of writing in the series).

Shadow and Thorn: Beauty and the Beast. The most magical book in the series, and the most confusing because of that. There was one really cool moment with Beauty’s father, but otherwise I didn’t care for it all that much.

Daughter of Lies: Snow White with spies. Short, but fun. Reminds me of a Georgette Heyer farce.

Path of Secrets: Red Riding Hood with spies. I remember nothing about this story, which may tell you all you need to know.

Once: Six Historically Inspired Fairy Tales: What I think of as a kind of spin-off to the Rooglewood collections, this novella collection by six different authors retells six different fairy tales. My favorites are a dark but beautiful “Little Match Girl” retelling set in WWII, a steampunkish Rumpelstiltskin, and With Blossoms Gold, a Rapunzel retelling set in the Renaissance. (The only one I didn’t like at all was the Sleeping Beauty story).

Destined series by Kaylin Lee: Includes retellings of Cinderella, Rapunzel, Beauty and the Beast, Red Riding Hood, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty in one interconnected storyline. I’ve only read the first four; they’re okay-to-decent books whose main strength is the unique world they’re set in (think magical steampunky 1930s, which seems like a work of genius after you’ve been reading through a million retellings set in generically fairy tale kingdoms). My favorite is the fourth, Betrayed, which retells Little Red Riding Hood and mostly stands alone (until the last act veers it into a really complicated overarching plot).

#fairy tale retellings #fairy tales #book recs #magpie-trove

52 notes · View notes

seraphym100 · 3 years

Text

100 Days of Writing

[Day 5] Worldbuilding

The prompt we were offered today by @the-wip-project was to describe a worldbuilding detail in our WIP that we really liked.

I’ve been writing fanfiction only for the past few years. I hadn’t written for decades and fic was what got me writing again. I haven’t moved away from it yet.

So I thought I’d write a bit about that. Specifically, what writing fan fiction is like versus writing original fiction.

The amazing thing about fanfiction is that the world has already been built. Depending on the fandom, there might be centuries of history, an entire planet, countries and cities, races, and political systems. Dragon Age, for example, has all those and religious beliefs, human rights abuses and champions, several wars, a rebellion, I mean, it just goes on and on. For me to come up with a world even half as rich would take years and years.

Another thing that’s already in place when it comes to fanfiction is the plot. Again, depending on the fandom, there could be a huge, winding plot full of endless loose threads to explore (and exploit), or it could be a loose, overarching plot with lots of room to make up things that happened ‘behind the scenes’. But like the worldbuilding, it’s not something we have to come up with from scratch. We can add things, insert things, expand things, all of which is easier than building the scaffolding of the plot and making sure it works well and there are no holes or draggy bits.

If you don’t write fanfiction, I can hear the question forming in your brain even as you read this:

So… if the world exists, is already populated, and there’s a plot.. what’s the point of writing fanfiction?

I live and breathe analogies, so humour me, if you will. If you’ve ever been tasked with entertaining a group of children outside, you will likely be familiar with their amazing ability to have fun with next to nothing. I worked as a nanny a few times in my teens and 20s, and then became a parent much later, and kids have this incredible capacity to bring life and stories to a backyard littered with a few foam noodles, a three-wheeled skateboard, and a broken dump truck.

For a while. But if they see the same backyard day after day, eventually their enthusiasm wanes and you need to switch it up. Or sometimes, the kids have never actually played outside before… they’ve grown up in daycares and are overscheduled with lessons and activities and have no idea what to do when faced with an empty backyard or a bare field.

This is when a smart caregiver will take the kids to a playground filled with equipment or a water park. Then the bored kids and the clueless kids have two things going for them: there are structures to explore and interact with, and they have examples of possibilities from the other kids already playing there. They give each other ideas and they build on them and it’s really fun to see how pirate battles and alien invasions and touching ‘playing house’ narratives are spun out between kids who have never met before, but who are drawn together by the cool shit they’re playing on and their ideas.

The kids are writers. The empty backyard and bare field is original fiction and the playground and water park is fanfiction. Most kids can handle both the bare field and the playground equally adeptly, but one brings something to their play that the other doesn’t. We don’t ask ‘what’s the point’ when kids are playing in a playground. We don’t think their play is somehow limited or ‘lazy’ because it’s utilizing an environment or structure that already existed! In the same way, writing a story that uses an existing world and developed characters is still deeply creative writing.

Just like kids can adapt structures to their play - such as inventing games to play with the foam noodles - they can expend the application of existing structures to accommodate their imaginations. A swing becomes the launch pad for a rocket. A slide is now the preferred way to get from the bedroom to the kitchen. In the same way, a writer can invent a world made up of things they find in their heads, and they can adapt and extend existing worlds to accommodate their own stories.

It’s kind of fucking brilliant, in my opinion.

But… if the world already exists, and it’s already populated… and you know what happens… what exactly are you writing?

I get it, I do. I don’t know any fanfiction writers in real life, so I’ve had to try to explain it a few times and the question is genuine.

And the answer is, just about anything we want to. We invent our own original characters and then make them play with the canon (established) characters. We take a scene from the movie, or book, or game and we change a detail that gives the whole scene a new meaning. Or we take something the original content mentions in passing and we go to town on it and develop it to our heart’s content. Did you think those two characters deserved more than a chance meeting when their shopping carts ran into each other? Then write a whole story on how they helped each other deal with the mess, how they teased each other about the contents of their carts, how they stared at each other for a minute and a half because neither of them were ready to walk away until finally one blurts out ‘do you wanna get coffee’ and then they become best friends for life.

Should those two not have broken up? Write the characters working through their problems and staying together. Was the ending absolutely fucked up in that movie? Of course it was. You can do better. So do it and share it with all the other people who feel the same way you did about that ending. Oh, holy hell did you see what that writer did with this character and their OC? What if they… yas, Royal, you go!

I still feel like it’s lazy, tho. Like, are you really developing as a writer if most of the imagining has already been done?

This took me longer to understand. But the short answer is that yes, absolutely you are developing as a writer. I can say this so confidently because worldbuilding, plot-developing, and character invention are still just some aspects of what good writing is all about.

Being able to move within and build upon a world, recognizing opportunities within a plot for expansion and development, and character development are also important. And many writers who have ample skill with the first things actually struggle because they’re weak in the next few things. They spend a lot of time constructing a whole world and peopling it, but the rest of the story is cobbled together.

Fanfiction hones certain skills extremely well. In order to write a fic that resonates with other fans of the same fandom, you have to write the existing characters consistently. Which means you have to know this character so well that you can introduce new people and new scenarios and the character can grow and develop while still retaining the voice and features that make up who they are. Most fans like their fic to be at least somewhat canon-compliant (following the original plot, lore, etc.). So you have to be able to identify which scenes or plot devices in the original lend themselves to your story idea and the characters you’re writing. And anytime you’re doing these things, you’re practising your writing skills, and that is never wasted.

#100daysofwriting #fanfiction #writing #lord have mercy i don’t write a ‘bit’ about anything do i

15 notes · View notes

tfw-no-tennis · 3 years

Text

ani....morphs.....

ok so picking up after the david trilogy, which hit hard as FUCK, we have book 23, which basically was a semi truck that ran over my corpse, jesus christ, they really followed up the david trilogy w/all that....

23 was so so good and also painful. its the culmination of a lot of tobias’s characterization in the series thus far and also we finally get the reveal we’ve been waiting for about elfangor....ooooh man

and there was a lot of painful stuff in this book but the worst imo was tobias wondering if it were possible that somebody wanted him and would take care of him, only to have it all come crashing down in the worst way when it turned out aria was visser three in morph, ouch.

that was so brutal augh. and when he figured it out and just crash landed and kept thinking about how he wanted to die and how he was stupid to think he could have a home...bro get these kids some THERAPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so yeah that book was absolutely brutal but also so good...and it further fleshed out the animorphs working as a near-flawless team, w/the whole setup of tobias meeting w/the lawyer being so airtight and well-planned

also more free hork bajir!! its cool that there's stuff happening w/them offscreen, I like that

I literally had to take a break from reading the books bc the david triology + 23 was like so much, and also bc the olympics were on and all my time got dedicated to watching those, but then I opened 24, not sure what to expect, and BAM it was the helmacrons lmaoooo

I don't even remember the helmacrons but ig a lot of people hate them? lmao so that whole reputation preceded the book and I was like oh wow time for a change in tone

which wasn't wrong but also I liked that book?? I was never bored, even tho the whole thing was patently ridiculous and also had very little bearing on the overarching story

but I think it would be a standout if it were a TV episode w/a good budget - the visuals were amazing even in text, and I can imagine all the cool shrinking/growing/cellular stuff would be WICKED cool visually (ideally 2d animation but an ant man-esque live action adaptation wouldn't be terrible if they had the budget for it)

whatever let me dream. so yeah I didn't hate the helmacron book even tho the helmacrons themselves were...sure something. lmao I think they come back? that should be interesting

next book is the arctic one, we have yet another alien of the week style adventure - I liked this one too, it felt like more plot-y stuff happened since they destroyed the base, and marco’s POV is always fun

I do find it funny/interesting how sometimes when the animorphs do something - like in this book, destroying that base in the arctic - it doesn't really seem to impact the yeerks much/it doesn't get brought up much after that. and then other things like them destroying the ground-based kandrona get mentioned a lot (that example is understandable tho bc that WAS a big deal). its just hilarious to me how blowing up entire building complexes has become so routine that it isn’t even worth mentioning at this point

Also I adore when they meet other random people/kids and are chill w/them, like w/that kid they met in the rain forest earlier on w/the time travel

the descriptions of the brutally cold weather were great. I hate the cold so I was like oof this is a nightmare lmao

also ig that was the first ghostwritten book and I did kinda notice it was slightly different than usual? maybe? I could be imagining it tho

okay but book 26 tho...BOOK 26. bruh

that was SO good and I really didn’t know what to expect - but when we finally revisited Jake’s dream w/crayak I knew it was gonna be good (but I didn’t expect it to be a chess game war epic..!)

basically I loved it. SUCH a good Jake book - I really appreciate his character now as opposed to when I was 10 and often overlooked him (sorry jake).

similarly, when I was a kid and read these I sympathized a lot w/the chee and felt bad for them towards the end of the series when they had to get more involved in the war (genuinely don’t remember what they even do but ik I felt bad)

but now I've basically 180′d and I'm like damn those chee sure are hypocrites huh.

like they could solve So many of the animorphs problems but their stringent adherence to nonviolence leads to them actively getting in the animorphs way sometimes? and obviously pacifism is a complicated topic, but in this case it also intersect w/the whole ‘child soldier’ thing, and as beings who are insanely old and wise, the chee probably shouldn't just leave all the dirty work to a bunch of literal middle schoolers

aaaaanyways. there’s so much I love about this book. the iskoort! they were sure something. and the ‘plot twist’ that they are actually 2 beings, the Isk and the Yoort - and the Yoort are essentially Yeerks - that slapped. the symbiosis of it all!

I loved the part where they all realize what this means, that this is why Crayak wants the iskoort destoryed - because someday the yeerks might come across them and realize parasitism is not the only way. I love it!

alas I don’t recall the iskoort returning in the story (but also my memory is terrible so who knows?) but still that would be cool

basically I feel like this is the book where Jake Truly comes into his own as a leader, in every sense. he outmaneuvers Crayak, and even the ellimist, who’s yanking them around in his own way

the scene where jake shoves the howler off the cliff and jumps off and morphs and acquires the howler...that was fantastic and tense.

also the murder is definitely becoming more overt. I mean, it has been for a while, but it isn’t really pointed out as much anymore. oof

more on the chee - as Jake points out in this book, and other characters point out in other books - the chee could have saved the pemalites, but instead just stood by while their creators were slaughtered. on the other hand, jake says, what do the chee do AFTER they’ve killed the howlers - where to point them next? when is the end of their violence?

buuuuut also standing by while atrocities occur is pretty damning, as is frequently mentioned in this series - from the very beginning, when marco initially doesn’t want to get involved in the war at all, and the other animorphs basically tell him that turning his back on the war and acting like he doesn’t even know it’s happening would be immoral and cowardly (which imo this reaction helps to push marco in the direction he ends up going, but I digress) - this topic comes up again in 19 when cassie quits the team and rachel is upset bc she sees it as cassie elevating her own feelings above the greater good (as in, as long as cassie feels good about how she acts, it doesn’t matter how much preventable evil the yeerks are committing while she turns away). etc etc. but that’s essentially what’s happening w/the chee - even tho they help w/intel, the lack of any sort of Action on their part means that they’re essentially allowing awful things to happen when they could prevent them. this is rambly but basically...animorphs deals so much in grey areas, and the chee are noticeably black and white in their actions, despite falling, in a meta sense, in an extremely grey area. its such good, thought provoking writing!

anywayssss I keep talking about the chee lmao what else was there. oh YEAH jake and cassie kissed for the first time awww that was super cute

and ofc immediately marco teases them as asks jake if he’s gonna kiss him next, and all I can say is...marco is a bicon

also I love the background worldbuilding w/the iskoort, how they have all these groups and guilds and stuff - its not dwelled on much, which actually works really well to give the world/species a sense of lived-in realness

okay oh man and the reveal at the end that the howlers were just like...children who thought the whole thing was a game...AUGHH man that’s sooo fucked

like, when jake morphs the howler and has rachel ready to knock him down in grizzly morph if he gets out of control due to the howler’s murderous instincts, and he morphs to find that the howler is...playful, like a dolphin morph. SUCH a good fucked up sense of dawning horror there

and the fact that as far as I can tell the chee KNEW this, but wanted revenge anyways, so they let the animorphs assume that the howlers were Evil On Purpose

also I love smaller moments, like jake seeing that ax is ashamed for briefly running away during one battle w/the howlers, and then entrusts him w/an important task bc he knows that ax will see that as redemption - and when everyone thought jake was dead and were so happy when he wasn't (they all love each other so much im gonna cry about these child soldiers augh)

basically that book was so good

man one thing I absolutely love is that the longer the series goes on the more obvious it is that andalites, despite inventing morphing technology, barely use it themselves

like, most of the andalite characters we see barely morph. its kind of a last resort to them, as they’re already plenty dangerous in their regular forms

meanwhile for the animorphs, that’s all they have to fight with. that’s their only weapons against the yeerks, and its so fun to see them use the power in so many varied ways, and so creatively, while the andalites have barely scratched the surface of their own technology

its also interesting to contrast against the yeerks who start out w/absolutely no technology, and the andalites share some but not all of their technology w/them...its too bad that morphing technology was just starting out cause that would’ve been interesting

like imo a lot of the conflict w/the yeerks could’ve been avoided if they could just nothlit into better forms - of course, there’d still be plenty of yeerks who want to go start wars or w/e, just like pretty much any species in the series, but a lot of yeerks would probably be like ‘yeah I'm good’ and just chill out as nothlits

also people online love to talk about how humans are alienfuckers and would definitely have sex w/sentient aliens and whatnot, and while I'm not saying that's untrue, its just funny bc in animorphs the truest alienfuckers are definitely the andalites

as of the hork-bajir chronicles, we now have a second instance of an andalite morphing another species to be in an inter-species alien romance (and eventually have kids)

speaking of, I don’t think I’ve talked abt the hork bajir chronicles yet??? even tho I read it a while ago lmao

HBC was great...I honestly haven’t really run into an animorphs book I’ve actually disliked at this point, I’m sure it’ll come w/all the ghostwriting and whatnot, but I’ve liked at least some aspects of every book

anyways HBC was great, and it’s funny bc I remember that I read this book as a kid, and yet rereading it now I didn’t remember a single bit of it lmaooo

I really liked the framing device of the free hork bajir telling this story to tobias. I also liked how we know from the beginning that this story wont have a happy ending - we know all the hork bajir end up enslaved by the yeerks, but it’s still somehow hopeful at the end? I think this is largely due to the framing device tbh.

also I love toby, and I love that the First free hork bajir named their kid after tobias ;_;

and oooh mannn I LOVED the different POVs from this book. all the characters were so interesting! aldrea was fascinating - I really like the increasingly negative view of the andalites that the readers are getting, all while maintaining the sense that they aren’t like, actively evil, just that they have their issues - like aldrea’s arrogance, and the general andalite arrogance which lead to the loss of the hork bajir. also, who knew andalites had their own brand of sexism? Ls

I did like getting a female andalite tho, that was cool. and dak was really cool, he was such a good, compassionate character who was able to maintain his morals in an interesting way throughout the story

and VISSER THREE...or should I say esplin 9466, because he’s not visser 3 yet...getting his ‘origin story’ was excellent - I really like how we’re learning about visser 3 backwards - we start off the series w/him as the main villain, and he’s campy and menacing, and then we see him in the andalite chronicles as a power-hungry sub-visser trying to climb the ranks and eventually getting alloran as a host, and then back even further here, w/the start of his focus on the andalites and the beginning of his ambition. its been very cool and interesting to see

plus, the beginning of the yeerks as we know them! seerow! alloran! it’s a party and nobody is having a good time, except for some of the yeerks.

I like how it’s pretty obvious that the andalites are well-meaning with their interactions w/the yeerks, but go about it the wrong way - they give them enough technology that the yeerks realize there’s a whole world out there to experience, and then they blockade the yeerks on their planet and tell them they can’t leave. nnnnot the best approach imo

again, as I said above, I’m interested in how things could’ve gone if the andalites had given the yeerks morphing technology early on - could a lot of the conflict have been avoided, or would it have been worse? the yeerks seem pretty evil in this book, immediately jumping to enslave anyone they can. otoh we hear from esplin that not all yeerks like having host bodies, and find it overwhelming, preferring to swim around in the yeerk pool as a slug - I assume as host bodies became more available this type of thinking was probably stamped out in yeerk society or w/e, but there are a lot of interesting what-ifs in the situation

I loved the scene where esplin first experiences having a host, and immediately knows he can’t go back. there are a bunch of great sensory descriptions, and it’s a nice scene to pinpoint as a foundational moment for the visser three in the current story, who spent a lot of time and energy getting what he sees as the best possible host body, an andalite

I find it interesting how much visser three clearly respects the andalites, even while constantly deriding them. and you can see the origins of that here as he immediately focuses in on the andalites, working to become an expert on them in order to make himself useful enough to move thru the ranks

another thing I like is how esplin seems a lot more crafty and ambitious than the visser three from modern times - I would guess that reaching his goal (andalite host body) and being given all that power was detrimental, playing on his weaknesses instead of his strengths. basically, I don’t think it’s ooc or anything, I can see how HBC-esplin became animorphs-esplin, especially w/TAC in between

as for seerow...poor dude. you really do have to feel for him, because you get the sense he really did just want to be kind to the yeerks, but it was borne from a place of pity, and he (and the other andalites) consistently held too much power over the yeerks for the species relations to ever be truly equal and functional

AUGH I have so many thoughts about alien space politics. omg. I need to talk about the actual story lmao

so yeah I also feel for aldrea, she had a rough time, watching her entire family die and being thrown into a hopeless war

and then the andalite council or w/e not listening to her bc she's a girl AND seerow’s daughter...oof

also, I really really liked the running theme of the andalites - specifically aldrea - looking down on the hork bajir as ‘simple’ and constantly underestimating them, especially dak

and I like how this is portrayed as a bad attitude for aldrea to have, and she still remains and interesting and sympathetic character even while having obvious flaws. it’s about being 3-dimensional baby!

and oh man I love that dak realizes that aldrea looks down on him, and his entire species, but he can see that that’s how the andalites are, and it all connects back to the beginning of the story w/the yeerks, bc the andalites looked down on the yeerks and treated them with pity and kept them pinned under their proverbial thumb ‘for their own good’ and look how that turned out

but dak is wise and kind enough to not hate aldrea for this, even acknowledging when she’s using him, but not pushing her away because he recognizes good in her too - and she ends up changing, partially because of his faith in her

and I feel like it can all be compared to that scenario of like - a hypothetical creature that lives in a 2D world suddenly being thrust into a 3D world, and comprehending what its seeing, and understanding that there’s so much more out there outside of the flat lines of its world - and then its dropped back into 2D-land with the knowledge of all the stuff its missing out on, and no way to get back to it or explain it to anybody else

I loooove that ‘trope’ or w/e you wanna call it, and it’s done beautifully here w/the yeerks - whos the say they wouldn't have been fine in their pool swimming around; as esplin said, a lot of the yeerks were terrified of having a host, it was only from the andalites’ perspective that their lives were sad and pitiful, and the andalites showed them what the world could be like, and then said ‘no, you can’t travel the stars like we do, you have to stay here on your planet and do what we say.’

and then again, w/the hork bajir - dak talks about how, even though he drinks up the knowledge that aldrea gives him, in the end it might have been better to just have lived peacefully, not knowing what was in the sky or the Deep - as aldrea says: “It was too late for Dak: he knew that the stars were not flowers.”

plus the hork bajir having to go from a completely peaceful species who don’t even understand the concept of violence, to a bunch of soldiers fighting a war...oof

basically everyone in this story uses the hork bajir. the yeerks use them as hosts, the andalites use their planet as a convenient place to dump seerow and then take their sweet time coming to help, and the arn created them as means to stabilize the planet, but block them off from their society and refuse to help when the yeerks come

like, the arn modifying themselves to be un-infestable by the yeerks and then being enslaved for physical labor instead? oof guys. if they had teamed up w/the hork bajir resistance things might have gone better, but probably not

more on aldrea - throughout the story I was always thinking ‘how am I supposed to see her? as a good person, or as a bad person?’

as a POV character, especially a ‘good guy’ andalite, you just start off automatically thinking of her as a good person, but as the story goes on, she starts getting lost in revenge and begins using dak and the hork bajir, and you’re left wondering if this is a story about her slide into darkness, and then towards the end of the story her character development culminates in her making the decision to stay w/the hork bajir, and the be with dak, and that’s about when I went ‘ohhh right this is animorphs so every character is pretty much gonna be grey’

I feel like that moral grey-ness was on full display w/aldrea, and I really enjoyed that. I love so much when characters who are good do bad things, for good or bad reasons, especially in media like animorphs that’s aimed at kids. it’s so compelling.

oof, and the ending when aldrea convinces dak to mobilize the hork bajir and teach them violence...and dak asks her if she’s ever killed another andalite, and she’s horrified, and says of course she hasn’t, and he says that that’s what she’s asking him, and all the hork bajir, to do - to kill their own people, even if they are being controlled by the yeerks. biiiig oof. I love that dak can keep up w/aldrea and her andalite supremacy attitude - it seems that the non-andalite characters who get along best w/the andalites are the ones who wont take their bs

what else happened....oh my god how could I forget about alloran, and his quantum virus. oooof. I like how we find out about alloran in parallel to visser three, in the same backwards way - in animorphs he’s the tragic host of visser three, in TAC he’s the disgraced but still semi-respected war-prince who becomes the first ever andalite controller, and here he’s the guy who decides to commit some war crimes because, hey, we haven’t tried that yet

but yeah that was fucked up, I love it. I’ve said it before I think but I like that alloran isn’t some perfect martyr tragically taken by the yeerks - it’s a lot more compelling that he’s a very flawed person who was taken as a controller partially due to his own bloodthirstiness.

but yeah, the part where aldrea morphs alloran and ‘sneaks’ into that room was great. aldrea’s dedication to disposing of the virus is a great indicator of her character development - it really feels like the straw that broke the camels back w/re: to the andalites not being what she thought they were, w/their tardiness coming to help the hork bajir planet and the way her father was treated being the precursors to this realization. it all culminates nicely in aldrea saying ‘fuck this actually’ and nothlit-ing into a hork bajir.

and it’s really tragic but realistic that even though aldrea and dak end up seeing eye to eye at the end and getting together, the virus ends up being released anyways (and fails in its objective to stop the yeerks from using the hork bajir - the whole thing was p much a lose-lose situation oof), and aldrea and dak still die fighting a hopeless war

but then we have the free hork bajir on earth, including toby, who, like tobias, has andalite ancestry, but no DNA to show for it - I like that they have that connection as well as tobias being her namesake

so yeah I enjoyed that one and its many-layered themes

WOW this got long uuuuuhhh ok I think i’ll leave this one off here. at the time I’m actually finishing the writing and editing, I’m on book 35 lol so I have some backlogging to do. never fear, I have a lot to say....

#lj reads animorphs #animorphs

5 notes · View notes

nothinggold13 · 4 years

Text

Things the people in charge of Netflix’s Narnia series should do:

Read all the books before beginning. Not just the book they’re currently working on. Know all the stories before going in.

Make notes about how the stories connect. Make sure they know how one book leads into another. Note how the characters grow and behave from one book to the next. Narrow down the continuity. Understand the overarching plot.

Make notes on continuity errors, as well. Come up with answers for each of them. Know which ones can simply be removed, and which ones need to be explained. If there are conflicting details, consider carefully which ones to use, and what will best serve the story.

Consider the timeline. Make certain they know all the characters’ ages and how long each story takes. This will make it easier to to figure out the best order to film & produce the stories. The schedule is tight between some of the books, whereas there is plenty of time to spare between others. Those in charge should be experts on this before they begin.

Most of these come down to this: know all the stories. I daydream a lot about what the series should have and what it shouldn’t. I post about it a lot. I think a lot about how scenes should look and what could be added while still remaining true to the greater story. And let’s be clear, I would be thrilled if any of those ideas came to life. But this is the most important thing the producers need to know. They need to know all the stories. They can’t go into this one book at a time. They can’t get by with only a vague idea of what comes next. To properly produce this series, they need to fully understand the timeline, the characters, and the worldbuilding. And sure, that’s true of producing any series. But with Narnia, and the way the stories are sometimes disjointed from one another, and the constantly changing cast of characters, it’s so important to know the central point of each of the stories, and how they connect to one another. From The Magician’s Nephew to The Last Battle, 49 years of English time are covered, as well as thousands of years of Narnian history, and the years don’t always match up. The 7 books span a lot of time, characters, and content. So there it is. All other things I would love to see aside, the most important thing is understanding every story fully. There is so much to know and love and understand.

#narnia #the chronicles of narnia #netflix narnia #maybe this is obvious but I want to make it clear #read all the books!!!!#have a full plan!!!#the timeline is super weird and it needs to be handled carefully!!#casting Caspian for example #you gotta know that there's 1 english year between pc and votdt #but 3 narnian years #so cas goes from 14 to 17 ~~13 to 16 but I ignore Clive here~~#so probably caspian's actor should be a year or two older than he actually is in pc #or when to do MN #if you do it first then the actors who play Polly and Digs could be the right age to come back at the end of LB!#yet alternatively if you do it in publication order then you have more time for the other kids to age between SC and LB #since that's a 7 year gap #see!!!#these are the things that need to be considered!!!#okay I'm done

26 notes · View notes

bookswithelli · 4 years

Text

a darker shade of magic: review

synopsis:

Kell is one of the last Antari—magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black.

Kell was raised in Arnes—Red London—and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.

Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they'll never see. It's a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.

After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they'll first need to stay alive.

review under the cut!

stars: ★★★★☆

First of all, although I rated this book 4 stars, there were some issues with it (mainly involving representation and characterization). I rated it 4 stars because I enjoyed reading it despite its issues, but I recognize that the mediocre representation may turn others away from this book.

characters & representation

Before I begin this section of the review, I would like to say that I am not visually impaired and therefore do not have any authority on that subject. My comments on the treatment of Lila's missing eye are merely based on my own observations and what I have heard from visually impaired people on the topic.

Lila:

A cross-dressing thief and aspiring pirate with a penchant for knives, Lila Bard brings to mind the likes of Inej Ghafa from Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows and Elizabeth Swann from Pirates of the Caribbean. There were times when I really liked Lila; she can be sassy and morally questionable which is always interesting to see when well done. However, her character had a few issues that I wanted to address.

“Delilah Bard looked like a king. No...she looked like a conqueror.” pg. 289

When will fantasy authors stop romanticising conquerors and colonization?! This may be a smaller issue since aside from White London (which is villainized) there is no mention of it in the overarching plot, but this line just really bothered me. It makes me think that V.E. Schwab is a fan of adult and YA fantasy authors like Sarah J. Maas and others who write their main characters to be colonizers and romanticize it in the process. I don’t think this line was necessary at all, and I wish the second sentence had been removed or modified to something a little less problematic (e.g. she looked like a pirate/captain/etc.)

"How did you lose it...your eye?" -Master Tieren, pg. 327

It is revealed near the end of the book that Lila has been missing an eye for as long as she can remember, and she wears a glass eye as a replacement. This is all well and good, but the consequences of her impaired vision are never explored. The only reason the reader knows that Lila is missing an eye is because the author tells them. The narrative never discusses how Lila's lack of an eye affects her day to day life, and it's only brought into the story when it is needed for the plot.

It’s also worth mentioning that Lila is the only female character with a large role in this book, and no matter how “feminist” her character is, there’s not a lot of women in this book that are portrayed positively and with depth.

Rhy:

I actually really liked Rhy and I loved his relationship with Kell. I love sibling love in books and we so rarely get positive sibling relationships, so this was nice to see! It’s also really important to have queer people of color in books. However, I don’t think Rhy’s character is good bi/pan representation (I will refer to him as bi in this review for the sake of brevity, but it’s worth mentioning that neither term is mentioned so Rhy could canonically identify as either).

“He would flirt with a nicely upholstered chair, and he never takes anything seriously.” -Kell, pg. 254

As a queer girl who has identified as bisexual in the past and may in the future, this is bad bi rep 101. Schwab is perpetuating the stereotype of the “promiscuous bi”, or one who flirts and/or sleeps with everyone and everything. This is not a bad characteristic in itself, but it is harmful bi rep because that is the way every bi character is portrayed in media. It reinforces the idea that bisexual people in real life are all like this, and it also reinforces biphobes’ points of view when they say that bisexual people are more likely to cheat because they sleep with more people. This is pretty much the most common stereotype of a bisexual person, so while I doubt that Schwab intended to be harmful in her portrayal of Rhy, it shows that she did not do much research on LGBT+ rep when writing her characters. I do know that some bi people were not bothered by this; however, I believe that writers should stay away from stereotypes, especially when writing characters that are marginalized. Even though promiscuity is not an inherently bad trait, it is harmful when applied to bisexual people because it reinforces real peoples’ beliefs and affects real life bisexuals. This is especially important here because Rhy is the only narrative-confirmed LGBT+ character in the first book. It's not the worst representation I've seen, since Rhy does have a personality outside his flirtatiousness and promiscuity (in fact, it's confirmed that this is a coping mechanism for him) but it's certainly not the best, and I'm just tired of seeing bisexual people represented this way in fiction.

Kell:

I know a lot of people who didn’t like Kell very much, and that is understandable. However, I found him really compelling. It’s refreshing to see a male lead in this genre who’s not jacked and a brooding asshole whose only redeeming quality is his dick size. He’s definitely moody, but not to the point where he becomes an abusive alpha male type guy (yes, I am aware that this is a very low bar). I genuinely enjoyed his character because he’s flawed. He’s stubborn and moody but he’s incredibly caring and he genuinely wants to help people. He feels alienated from his family so he rebels and gets himself in trouble. His character is written well because he’s not perfect by any means, but he’s still likeable and you still root for him.

Holland:

Holland is what every YA love interest wishes they were. Honestly. He’s given no excuses for his actions, and yet he is still sympathetic. You understand that he is under the control of Astrid and Athos, but you also understand that all he has done for years is carry out their orders, and that changes a person. His story is heartbreaking, but that doesn’t change what he has done. He knows it, Kell knows it, Lila knows it, the reader knows it. Honestly, if he were in a YA fantasy romance, I bet Holland would be the love interest; his female “mate” would change him for the better, and he would never face the consequences of his actions. That makes his arc in this story all the more enjoyable. Holland is one of my favorite characters of all time, and not because he’s a perfect “book boyfriend” or whatever, but because his story and character are genuinely interesting and executed well.

worldbuilding

I loved the worldbuilding in this book. There was a bit of an info-dump in the beginning, but I’m willing to look past that because the world was so engaging and interesting that I forgot about the dense first chapter once I got past it. Each London has a distinct feel, and they are all almost tangible. The descriptions of each made me feel like I was in the Londons along with Kell and Lila. It seems like the system would be complicated, but Lila sums it up well:

“There’s Dull London, Kell London, Creepy London, and Dead London.” -pg. 198

After the initial info-dump, Schwab weaves information about the magic system seamlessly through the book, leaving enough mystery for the reader to wonder at what might happen in the next books, but never leaving out so much that the reader is confused. I really appreciated the rules that existed around magic. It’s draining, and Antari magic requires blood, which means there is a limit to how much you can perform at once. Magic is seen to affect the world beyond the characters and their main conflict, which I was very happy about as well. There are too many fantasy novels where the magic system has no rules and only exists to further the plot, but in this world you can see it everywhere. The politics of Red London and White London are affected by magic, even where it is not necessarily relevant to the plot. You can see small amounts of magic being performed in the streets of Red London: spells to protect from thieves, etc. Magic is normal for the people in Red London, and it is treated as such in the text.

pacing & plot

This book flew along. I’ve read it multiple times now, and every time, I can’t stop until I finish. And then I want to move along to the next book immediately. It manages to keep up a great pace and still build up to an exciting climax. Schwab’s lyrical writing is not flowery, but it draws the reader in and carries them along the story effortlessly. It’s very engaging and accessible language, which makes it a good stepping stone into adult fantasy (especially if you’re coming from YA).

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The representation that it gets praised so highly for is disappointing, but aside from that I enjoyed most of the characters and the writing was beautiful. The plot and world were engaging and made me want to read the second book immediately (even though I’m on my 3rd or 4th reread). I would recommend this book for fans of YA fantasy who want to get into adult fantasy - this book is categorized as adult, but I found it a lot easier to read than other adult fantasies. For me, this book is a reminder that you can recognize the flaws in a book and still enjoy it, so remember to stay critical, even of your favorite books :)

#adsom #a darker shade of magic #kell maresh #lila bard #rhy maresh #holland vosijk #ve schwab #booklr #review

8 notes · View notes

rwby-redux · 4 years

Text

Deconstruction

Worldbuilding: Illness and Diseases

You know, I actually debated the necessity of this post. As I sit in my home for the twentieth week in a row, face masks and disinfectant stockpiled by the front door, I found myself thinking: Surely I don’t have to explain to people how disease impacts our day-to-day lives. It’s like calling water wet. There’s a presumed level of personal familiarity that everyone has with the subject at this point. Think of it like going to a public pool—whether you’re jumping in or sitting off to the side, at the end of the day, everyone’s going home in various stages of drenched.

But hell, why not? I’m already passing out towels; might as well start splitting hairs. If nothing else, it’s a good way to pass the time while we’re all cooped up indoors.

Sickness is one of those topics that—unless you’re directly confronted by it—tends to occupy the back of our minds. When our paths do cross with it, our focus tends to be on the immediate impact: How will this change my quality of life? Will I die? Am I going to be physically, mentally, or emotionally incapacitated? What changes do I need to make to my current lifestyle while I recover/adapt? Do I have a support network that can help me navigate these changes? How will my financial status be affected? Will my insurance cover any treatments, or do I need to foot the bill?

You can understand why our priorities might only encompass the things that occupy a smaller, more personalized niche. Depending on the extent of the illness, at best, it means inconvenience; at worst, it means contending with our own mortality. It’s hard to dwell on the impersonal nature of the existence of disease when our focus is on surviving minute to minute.

In a story, however, a writer is afforded the ability to contemplate the function of disease on a larger scale. It isn’t just about the epidemiological models, pathogens, or raw science; it’s also about the historical intersectionality of illness and social dynamics. It’s important to not only consider the inclusion of disease, but to ask what role it plays in the story.

Why?

Because diseases can dismantle nations. Because they can foreshadow important elements of the plot. Because they can define the cultural identity of a people for generations to come.

If you’re familiar with my Amendment post on Grimm: Auratic Diseases, you’ll quickly get a sense of what I’m talking about. But before we get into that, I want to establish some general categories.

So, what is the purpose of disease in a story? What sort of relationship does it have with the worldbuilding?

It can establish or contribute to the overarching plot (or subplots).

It can provide a source of conflict for character development.

It can convey information about the lore and settings of the story.

It can act as a system of checks and balances that nerfs otherwise OP abilities/skillsets.

Before we go any further, I want to draw attention to an important caveat: this post won’t be containing any examples of disease in RWBY for us to analyze, compare, or contrast. This is due to the show, at time of writing, not having a single example of disease anywhere in its lore. With one potential exception being Fria—who may or may not have a neurodegenerative disease similar to dementia—we simply don’t have enough canon information to speculate on, let alone say with absolute certainty, what diseases exist in this world. You’ll have to forgive me for relying on IRL and fictional diseases from other franchises for the duration of this post.

Glad we got that out of the way. Let’s get into the specifics, shall we?

Plot Development

One of my favorite modern examples of disease and plot is Bloodborne. The game centers around a plague known as ashen blood, an affliction that transforms its victims into marauding beasts. Like many other titles in From Software’s lineup, the story is extracted from NPC dialogue and apocrypha gleaned from item descriptions. As the player ventures into the abandoned district of Old Yharnam, fighting through beasts and bloodthirsty townsfolk alike, it’s gradually revealed that the Healing Church administered a miraculous substance known as Old Blood on the populace. This panacea was extracted from eldritch beings known as the Great Ones. In time, the city garnered fame for its blood ministration, and the Healing Church rose to immense power as it eliminated seemingly any and all ailments.

Like all professed miracles cures, however, the blood was simply too good to be true.

An outbreak of the scourge of beasts led to the town being cleansed with fire, and the Healing Church isolating itself from Central Yharnam for fear of retribution. The general consensus among the Bloodborne community is that the Old Blood is the source of the ashen blood disease, and through item descriptions (like the Antidote, White Church Garb, and Poison Knife), it can be deduced that the Healing Church poisoned Old Yharnam’s citizens as the pretext for treating (read: experimenting on) people with their conveniently-ready transfusions. [1]

Mind you, not every disease in fiction is going to be the result of corrupt organizations treating people like lab rats. Sometimes people just get sick through no fault of their own, usually due to semi-related factors (like poor sanitation practices, no access to clean water, underfunded healthcare, anti-vaccination movements, immunocompromisation, exposure to pathogen vectors, etc). It’s also worth mentioning that a fictional disease doesn’t have to be massive or pervasive in scale in order to provide relevance to the plot. Heck, it doesn’t even have to be real.

Take a look at Avatar: The Last Airbender. In Book Two, Episode 3 - “Return to Omashu,” the kids help the local resistance movement evacuate Earth Kingdom citizens from the Fire Nation-controlled city. They fabricate a contagious disease called pentapox, and fake symptoms by using the native wildlife to create pockmarks on people’s skin. The appointed governor, fearing further spread of the “epidemic,” orders the guards to drive the people out of Omashu. It’s a great example of a disease (albeit a fake one) being used to its full storytelling potential, despite appearing in just one episode.

So, how do we apply these concepts to RWBY? Personally, I’d be leery of the show introducing something like a pandemic, given that it already has a hard-enough time juggling all of its major story elements. But that doesn’t rule out the possibility of using disease to elevate or expand upon already-established plotlines. For example:

While travelling through Anima, Team RNJR stops at a settlement for provisions and directions. The villagers are currently dealing with the outbreak of a flu-like disease that’s left too many people bedridden, unable to hunt, tend their farms, or fight off Grimm. This presents Team RNJR with an ethical dilemma: Do they stay for as long as they can to help the villagers, even at the risk of themselves getting sick? Or do they prioritize their mission and continue to Mistral? This creates tension in the group, and allows the characters to see the socioeconomic disparity between Mistral’s upper and lower classes up-close. Despite this farming community being an agricultural pillar of the kingdom, the people are disproportionately neglected by the government, compared to the wealthy elite thriving within the walls of the city.

Remember how Cinder’s Dust robberies had no payoff in Volume 3, and did absolutely nothing to contribute to the downfall of Vale? Well, perhaps Cinder could’ve found alternative means of crippling the kingdom. In Dishonored, the Royal Spymaster Hiram Burrows caused the Rat Plague in Dunwall by importing infected rats from the Pandyssian continent in order to eradicate the poor. Consider a RWBY subplot foreshadowed as early as Volume 1, in which a newscaster reports on an increase in the number of cases of an unknown epidemic. As the show progresses, the death toll rises, and with it, life in the city struggles to adapt. Criminal activity increases, the public begins debating whether or not to host the Vytal Festival, and the city is choked with fear (which increases Grimm activity). By the end of Volume 3, the disease has either killed or incapacitated a number of law enforcement officers and Huntsmen, making it easier for Cinder to mobilize the Grimm and White Fang operatives during the Tournament. Later, it’s revealed that the disease was a bioweapon engineered by Watts, in order to help facilitate the Fall.

Character Arcs

The example that immediately comes to mind is the HBO adaptation Game of Thrones. In Season 2, the audience is introduced to Shireen Baratheon, a young child whose face is disfigured from a bout of greyscale during her infancy. Her presence in the story not only adds fuel to the (literal) fire in Stannis’ war for the Iron Throne, but more importantly, she provides the audience with information. Through Shireen, we learn about the pathology of greyscale, and the afflicted stone men residing in the ruins of Old Valyria. This Chekhov’s gun allows us to fully appreciate what’s at stake for Jorah Mormont in Season 5, when he becomes infected with the disease while travelling with Tyrion through Essos. His infection leaves him despondent and desperate, and motivates him to participate in Meereen’s fighting pits before Daenerys; as a man faced with almost certain death, he has nothing left to lose in forfeiting his life in the fighting pits while trying to earn his queen’s forgiveness.

By Season 7, Jorah has reached Oldtown on Daenerys’ orders, searching for a cure from the maesters of the Citadel. Through serendipitous circumstances, Jorah meets Samwell Tarly, maester-in-training for the Night’s Watch. Prior to assuming Aemon Targaryen’s position at Castle Black, Sam served as a steward under former Lord Commander, Jeor Mormont, whom he feels indebted to. As Sam was unable to save Jeor Mormont’s life during the mutiny, he opts to save the life of his son, Jorah, instead, by performing the dangerous procedure of debriding the greyscale.

These pivotal character moments derive their payoff from greyscale, a disease that—while not integral to the show’s main plot—still provided emotional weight, complexity, and depth to the cast.

At the end of the day, no writer is obligated to use disease as a component of a character arc. And it’s understandable why many might not want to. It requires the writer do the necessary research beforehand in order to avoid misrepresenting those with diseases, or depicting their struggles in an invalidating light. It’s a difficult subject matter to implement accurately and respectfully.

But when done right, the narrative benefits are undeniably powerful.

Lore and Settings

When I talk about lore, I tend to focus on topics such as culture, history, and technology. Those right there are your heavy hitters—the aspects of lore that carry the most weight in regard to the worldbuilding. They’re also the parts of worldbuilding I personally enjoy analyzing the most, because they’re basically my excuse to go nuts. The intersection of lore and disease is the perfect breeding ground for creative brainstorming, largely due to the absence of limitations (beyond the self-imposed). As long as you’ve provided the appropriate backstory or context, you can justify just about anything.

Chances are, whatever ridiculous-sounding idea you want to include in your story, there’s a real-world basis for it.

Want to create a playground game or nursery rhyme based on a plague? Go for it.

Interested in making a pseudoscientific principle that assumes a plant’s appearance indicates which body parts it heals? You’re gonna love the doctrine of signatures.

Want to create an iconic aesthetic based on physicians’ attire, and later have it become visual shorthand for disease? Hey, what’s good enough for Medieval Europe is good enough for you.

What about cultures that worshipped gods of health, disease, and death? Turns out Wikipedia has an entire list just for that.

How about a disease bringing about the collapse of an entire empire? Sounds legit.

Want to name a metaphor after a physician who was scorned by his peers because he believed that handwashing prevented disease transmission? Allow me to make some introductions.

Injuries that glow blue due to infections from bioluminescent, antibiotic-producing bacilli? Check it out.

Of course, there’s more to it than that. When talking about diseases, we need to not only speculate on the introduction of potential lore, but consider how disease impacts already-existing lore as well.

Are there illnesses unique to Faunus with certain traits? Can reptilian Faunus contract scale rot, or deer Faunus acquire peruke (cauliflower) antlers? What about an arthropod Faunus that has difficulty molting?

How does systemic discrimination affect Faunus healthcare? Are physicians trained to diagnose and treat conditions found in certain Faunus demographics? Or does medical bias increase the rates of otherwise-preventable diseases?

Has disease limited where people in Remnant can colonize? What about zoonotic diseases found in certain ecoregions? Do settlers ever deforest the terrain or drain bodies of water in order to mitigate the spread of those diseases? Has that contributed to environmental issues in any significant way?

How do people living outside the capitals and major cities deal with disease? Do they have access to medicine? How does living outside the kingdoms affect their ability to navigate the healthcare system?

Can Grimm transmit diseases? Are there diseases that affect Auras and Semblances?

Can Dust exposure cause sickness akin to radiation poisoning? Can Dust be used in treating disease?

Are certain members of the population prioritized when it comes to healthcare? Because a Huntsman’s career path involves voluntarily placing themself in harm’s way in order to protect people, does that mean they receive preferential medical treatment? Do governments offer people free healthcare as a recruitment tactic, resulting in minorities enlisting at the academies at higher rates?

How have medical techniques developed throughout Remnant’s history? Have any diseases been wiped out due to public education, preventative measures, or quality of care?

Because human and Faunus populations are concentrated in certain areas due to the presence of Grimm, are infectious disease more likely to spread? How does each kingdom’s government deal with potential epidemics? Do they have efficient sewage systems, or other means of waste disposal, in order to maintain sanitation? How does this impact the public perception of sanitation workers, like janitors and garbage collectors? Are they held in higher regard because their jobs are essential for Remnant’s societies to exist as they do?

Regulatory Functions

The last function of disease I want to talk about is a rather unique one. It’s a role usually found in fantasy settings, and it tends to go hand-in-hand with magic.

When designing a magic system, one of the fundamental things to consider is how to go about balancing it. This is a common problem, particularly in interactive media, like video games and tabletop gaming. You don’t want your player to be bored by a lack of challenge due to poor implementation of power-scaling. Similarly, in non-interactive media (literature, films, etc), you don’t want to make your magic system so incredibly convenient that it delegitimizes the threat posed by your antagonists.

I touched upon this back in Worldbuilding: Aura when I ranted about Aura having no drawbacks, and therefore it not making sense why everyone on Remnant hasn’t unlocked it. Nothing kills immersion faster than watching a character tear through monsters like a freight train with legs, then turn sorrowfully to the rest of the cast and ruminate aloud on the dangers ahead.

You motherfuckers are literally walking around with the magical-equivalent of the shielding from Halo. The only thing with more durability than you is a cockroach.

So. How do we fix this?

One possible solution (the one which I’m currently wedded to) is introducing Aura-based diseases. Franchises like The Elder Scrolls and Dungeons & Dragons do something similar with their magic systems. The addition of Auratic disease not only provides worldbuilding potential for the lore, but it would nerf Aura by making it either inconvenient or dangerous to use under specific circumstances. Suddenly, characters in the show have to contend with trade-offs and risks: Do I fight Grimm up-close and potentially contract an Auratic disease? Or do I specialize in ranged weapons, and keep my distance? Do I engage that Grimm if it looks infected, or do I retreat and wait for a better opportunity? If I start showing symptoms of an Auratic disease, will I be able to reach a doctor in time? What if I’m in the middle of the wilderness, and the nearest village is several days from my coordinates? What if the disease becomes permanent?

It’s something to think about, at least.

[1] VaatiVidya. “Bloodborne Story ► Djura, Retired Hunter.” YouTube video. 25 July, 2015. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxZ2b6BBrJI]

#deconstruction #worldbuilding #writing #illness and diseases

18 notes · View notes

kpopfanfictrash · 4 years

Note

Hi Shanna! I had a writing question for you if that's okay with you. Your world building in my opinion is just phenomenal, it's such a good balance between the personal and the culture and I really come back to a lot of your fantasy stories when I need inspiration. I wanted to ask if you have any method or resources for building systems and governments and how your characters play into these overarching themes. Love you!

Hi, anon!! Thank you so much for your kind words about my fantasy writing. That’s one of my favorite genres, so it makes me so glad to hear it’s one you enjoy! :) I’ll be honest though, I don’t really have a formal process for world-building. In light of that, I tried the best that I could to map out what I do and provide some pointers on worldbuilding, overall!

Focus on the story. I usually sketch out my story first and, as I reach points where worldbuilding decisions need to happen, I’ll either pause and think about it, or insert a placeholder and continue. For example, if I’m mapping out the first scene and a character is traveling from one city to another, I just might put CITY NAME until I decide what that is.

As I think up elements of the world, I’ll write them all down in some shape or form. Oftentimes, I keep a notebook by my writing desk. For example, if there’s magic or types of magic, I’ll write down the types of magic, the nomenclature of each kind, how magic manifests itself / what the source of magic’s power is. If someone is a Princess in a Kingdom, I’ll jot down their family name and probably how long their family has been in power/who the key royal players are. Are there contenders for the throne? What type of monarchy is it? How is succession decided?

As I introduce worldbuilding elements, I compile it all in a document somewhere! Either on my computer or in a notebook. I write down names of other countries in the world, where each city is located, how money is made, etc.

Keep in mind you don’t need to know everything before you write your story. I think this is one of the common misconceptions with fantasy: you need to have a gigantic master plan before starting to write. I would argue that while yes, it’s helpful to have an outline before you dive in, it’s equally burdensome to expect to think of every detail before you’ve even fleshed out your characters.

Another thing that’s important to keep in mind is that novels, even ones told in a fantasy setting, are about the story. They’re about characters, first and foremost. Worldbuilding is an art (and an amazing one, at that), but no one will care about insane landscapes you paint if they don’t relate to the people within them. In that way, it’s important to start your world with the story and let the details unfurl from there. Your world is only important in that it shapes your characters and brings about plot points which drive your characters along their journey.

Another great tip is to edit. And I don’t mean sitting down to re-read your fic. I mean finishing writing, printing out the story and re-writing again. I honestly think I only understand my world and my characters once I’ve finished writing the fic. Re-writing is an opportunity to take a fresh look at the world you’ve created and fill in any gaps you may have left along the way.

I hope something in the above was helpful to you, anon! Best of luck with your fantasy worlds! Hope you’re having a great day/night :)

#asks #on writing

15 notes · View notes

alternis-dim · 4 years

Note

If someone wanted to get into persona, what is the best game to start with?

to be honest, Persona is kind of nice in that it doesn’t matter a whole lot where you start, since each game is a relatively self-contained story which only has brief mentions or cameos of previous entries! some elements of the lore make more sense if you play certain games before others, but it isn’t anything drastic enough to impact your enjoyment. Hell, I started with Persona 5 and was just fine. So I guess I can just sorta talk about the pros and cons of each game as an entry point to the series! I can also briefly describe their premises in case a particular one seems more interesting, which could help someone with deciding where to start.

this is gonna be long, so I’ll put it under a read more.

Persona 1/Revelations: Persona is the only game I wouldn’t recommend playing first. Its mechanics are pretty outdated and not reflective of the rest of the series, and it’s relatively short compared to the others as well. Not to say that it’s not worth ever playing! In fact, from my understanding it has wonderful characterization, an engaging plot, and lays important groundwork for the franchise’s worldbuilding. I just wouldn’t recommend it for getting a taste of what the series is like.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin is the first of the dual entries for the Persona 2 duology. It has some of the same cons I mentioned for the first game; it’s relatively old, so its mechanics are a little outdated, and it plays more similarly to an SMT game than the future Persona entries do (for example, the story is fairly linear and occurs over the course of a few days, whereas later entries are strung out over a year). It is a little more refined, though, and the formula is starting to get there. It also has, in my opinion, some of the best character writing in the series.

P2IS is a story about how strange occurrences are brewing in the city of Sumaru because of a phenomenon where rumors actually influence and/or become reality. A group of high schoolers get tangled up with a mysterious man named Joker, who can supposedly grant wishes and, for some reason, seems to hold a very personal grudge against them. They discover their ability to call upon Personas to defend themselves from the demons at his command, and soon end up teaming up with journalist Maya Amano to get to the bottom of Joker’s identity and the source of the rumors which are warping the city. Over the course of their journey, they slowly start to piece together their past in order to figure out why Joker seems so invested in them.

Pros: - Stellar character writing- An intriguing, interconnected plot which is a bit of a rollercoaster but a lot of fun- Lays the groundwork for lore in the Persona series (most importantly the existence of Philemon and Nyarlathotep, as well as the origin of the Velvet Room)- Incredibly mature takes on the impact of trauma and familial abuse (TW for both of those things though)- Canonically bisexual protagonist with a potential same sex dating optionCons:- Unavoidable random encounters and really grind-heavy, as most 90′s jrpgs go- Outdated mechanics that aren’t really reflective of future Persona entries- One of those wiki-heavy games: it’s damn near impossible to unlock certain character interactions or personas without use of a guide- The second game in the Duology, Eternal Punishment, isn’t nearly as accessible to English audiences

Persona 3 is where a lot of the series formula originates from! It’s also my personal favorite, but I’ll try my best to be unbiased describing it. Small note: I recommend playing Persona 3 FES specifically, since it refines a lot of the things that were clunky in the vanilla version, adds more character content, and features a post-game which answers a lot of questions.

P3 takes place in a coastal city called Iwatodai at the beginning of the school year, where the protagonist moves in as a transfer student after being bounced around in foster care for ten years following an accident which killed his parents. Upon arrival, he experiences the strange phenomenon of the Dark Hour: an extra 25th hour in the day where people are transformed into coffins and monsters roam free. Technology doesn’t work during this hour, and anyone not protected by a coffin is violently attacked and seems soulless the next day, a condition local news dubs Apathy Syndrome. A select few people have the potential to stay conscious during the Dark Hour and protect themselves by use of a Persona, and these people make up a unit called the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad (S.E.E.S.). The protagonist joins, and the game follows their investigation of the phenomenon. It’s considered the darkest entry in the series, and for good reason: “memento mori” is right in its introduction. The game focuses heavily on themes of death, what it means to be mortal, how people deal with being confronted with their mortality, what the point of life is, and much more.

Pros:- Introduction of the Persona formula: school life and dungeon exploration which requires time management on a linear calendar, the knockdown/1-more feature in combat, all-out-attacks, social links. Starting with this game may actually be the best way to go gameplay-wise, since coming back to this game after playing later entries makes it seem clunky.- Dungeon-crawl style of gameplay, which is a lot nicer than random encounters. You explore randomly generated floors and choose when and where to ambush enemies.- Excellent character arcs which enrich the game’s narrative- A dark, mature, and interesting story which explores human natureCons:- Still an older game, so some controls are clunky. One game mechanic in particular that many are frustrated with is the inability to directly choose what moves your teammates will use, instead requiring you to use Tactics to direct how the AI should behave.- Probably has the worst pacing issues out of any game in the series. There’s an entire calendar month where you do basically nothing.- The post-game is grind-heavy and long for the amount of story it offers. Some people just recommend watching a playthrough.- Features an uncomfortable transphobic skit towards the middle of the game.

Persona 4 is a refinement of many of the features of Persona 3. The best version to play is Persona 4 Golden, since it has a lot of extra content, but it’s vita exclusive and I’m stuck with vanilla :( Vanilla’s still fine in my experience, at least!

P4 takes place in the small town of Inaba, where the protagonist has transferred for a year to live with his uncle and cousin due to his parents leaving the country for work. Shortly after his arrival, a bizarre series of serial murderers start to occur where the bodies are found strung up on telephone lines. There’s also a rumor that looking into a turned off television screen on a rainy midnight will reveal your soulmate; this rumor is referred to as the Midnight Channel. The protagonists and friends inadvertently discover a parallel world which exists alongside Inaba, which can be entered through televisions but which can’t be exited without the help of a mysterious denizen named Teddie. They discover that these worlds are linked; people who show up on the Midnight Channel turn up dead in the real world shortly after, and the weather is inverse to Inaba’s. They discover that this is because someone is throwing people into this world, who are then unable to escape, and that the Shadows living in it become violent when the fog lifts (inverse to when the fog settles in the real world). This world also has an interesting quirk: people who enter it end up confronting their own shadow, which is a manifestation of the parts of themselves they repress or deny. Denying your shadow leads to it attempting to kill you, and this is likely what caused the deaths of the first victims. The protagonist and team discover that confronting and accepting your own Shadow, however, turns it into a Persona which you can then use to combat the monsters in the world. Equipped with their unique knowledge, the team sets out to save victims, solve the murder mystery, and learn how to accept themselves.

Pros:- A powerful message about the importance of seeking the truth and accepting all facets of yourself- An absolutely incredible murder mystery with clever plot twists and high stakes: getting the true ending is actually difficult if you don’t know who the murderer is, and you’re expected to understand the themes of the game and the characters in order to get it.- A nice in-between for the mechanics of P3 and P5: it’s pretty easy to transfer to either one after playing this one. (also introduces the ability to control party members directly, thank god)- A TON of spinoff content if you find you enjoy the characters and setting- Probably one of the best games in terms of understanding the overarching lore of the series, since it explains how Personas and Shadows work in much more depth than other entriesCons:- Has sort of a wonky difficulty curve. The first couple dungeons are honestly kind of a pain in the ass because of how level scaling works, and it takes a little while to level out.- The character arcs aren’t quite as well-written as previous games, due to the ultimate personas being associated with social link completion rather than events in the plot.- Oh god, such clumsy handling of LGBT topics. Plays around the idea of a gay narrative for one character (Kanji) and a trans narrative for another (Naoto) but ultimately just ends up playing up stereotypes and then backing out before doing anything “risky.” Another character in the party is pretty homophobic to Kanji for a while too, which sucks.

Persona 5 is the most popular in the series for sure, and for good reason. It’s the complete culmination of the Persona formula, and it adds all sorts of stuff to the gameplay and lore. It has a pretty lovable cast, to boot. Not that it doesn’t also have its problems, imo.

P5 features a protagonist who was falsely convicted of assault after attempting to defend a woman from a drunk man harassing her. His criminal record and probation result in his expulsion from his home school, so he moves in with a family friend in Tokyo where a school will accept him until his time’s up. Tokyo’s been strange for a little while now. Mysterious incidents have been causing disruptions for a while. There’s been a surge of “psychotic breakdown incidents” in which people act out unpredictably for seemingly no reason, and on rarer occasions “mental shutdowns” where people seem to completely break and die shortly after. The protagonist and friends get tied up in nonsense pretty quickly when a mysterious app on his phone transports him to a parallel world in which real locations of Tokyo are warped beyond recognition. The protagonist discovers the power of persona pretty early on, which he uses to fight the enemies there. With the help of a strange creature named Morgana, they learn that this is the “Metaverse”, a space in which the twisted desires and perceptions of people are made manifest. It’s a space where a person’s Shadow lords over a “Palace”, an altered version of real-world locations which reflects how that person views the world around them. They also learn that personas are the result of having a strong, rebellious will, allowing you to control your Shadow in combat. By breaking into a Palace, defeating the Shadow, and stealing the “Treasure” at its core, the Palace will crumble and the person in real life will come to grips with the morality of their actions, effectively outing themselves. This is referred to as stealing hearts, and the Phantom Thieves are born; they quickly become infamous in Tokyo, though their reputation attracts unwanted attention, as well as blame… could those breakdown incidents be related to the Metaverse, too? This game focuses heavily on the corruption of society, the abuse and manipulation of people in power, the ways in which our circumstances force us to hide parts of ourselves, ideas of justice, and all sorts of fun ideas of “rebellion”.

Pros:- ABSOLUTELY the best gameplay in the series. The controls are smooth, the battles and UI are streamlined, the visuals are absolutely stunning. This is the one that’s most fun to actually PLAY, bar none.- More of a stealth/heist game than a dungeon crawler, which is a fun spin on the series.- Excellent social commentary on the injustices young people face in a system stacked against them.- A really lovable cast of characters, and social links which actually grant you access to helpful gameplay features as incentive. Cons:- Sort of a small thing, but one of the game’s twists is a lot more fun to figure out if you’ve already played at least one other entry in the series.- Has some serious writing issues. The game has a very strong first half, but then starts to feel rushed the further along you get after a certain point. You can tell that the developers wanted to fit in a lot, but didn’t quite have the time to refine the ideas they implemented.- On that note, some of the character writing starts to regress or even becomes contradictory.- Has a couple instances of homophobia surrounding the Red Light District.

This got long, sorry, but I hope it’s helpful! like I said, you really can start anywhere, and you don’t have to play them in a particular order. Just pick the ones that seem the most interesting and have fun!

#hope this works as an answer! sorry it got kinda long #persona #shush

27 notes · View notes

this-is-a-podcast-fanblog · 5 years

Text

ok here’s my really long night vale meta

(I want to just start by saying that I love Welcome to Night Vale more than any other show that I’ve ever listened to or watched. I’m not sure if I would even still be here without the positive change it brought to my life and the art form it introduced me to. So although this post is critical of recent story develops, please understand that I critique with love, and that I have nothing but the highest respect for the writers and cast.)

So let’s get into it.

This turned out way longer than I meant for it to be.

Since the beginning, each season of Welcome to Night Vale is basically self-contained. The things brought up in them can stretch across seasons, but for the most part any conflict or Big Bad brought up will be resolved when that season ends, which typically is on June 15th.

Let’s look at the first five seasons and their overarching in-season arcs.

Season One: The introduction season. This season laid the groundwork for all the seasons to come and established Cecilos. The arc of the Apache Tracker was resolved within this season.

Season Two: The Strexcorp season. This season taught us a lot about the characters, and about Desert Bluffs.

Season Three: The auction season. This is also the long-distance relationship season for Cecil and Carlos. Both plotlines are resolved beautifully by the end and relate well to each other.

Season Four: The beagle season. Also known as “Who’s a good boy?”. The evil beagle puppy was defeated by the end of the season. I felt like this season’s arc felt very natural and was enjoyable to listen to.

Season Five: The Huntokar season. A lot of things that have been building slowly come together. We finally meet Huntokar after hearing a lot about her throughout the show. The small arc of converging timelines is resolved, but as we will see, it later comes back.

So that’s the first five seasons.

Now, as far as writing styles go, Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor are pretty formulaic. (This is also evident in their other shows, Alice Isn’t Dead and Within the Wires). I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all. Quite the opposite - I think one of the reasons why Night Vale is so endearing to so many people is because you always know what to expect: the complete unexpected. The world is weird and it doesn’t make sense, but it’s consistent in its inconsistency. You’ll get a community calendar or sponsor, you’ll get deep thoughts about life, and you’ll get a weather. Similarly, with the seasons, you’ll get a problem introduced over the course of the season, and then it will be resolved.

But as you can probably see from the list I’ve written out, the seasons don’t exist in a bubble from each other. The things that happen affect each other. The arrival of Strexcorp in town was what eventually drove Carlos through into the desert otherworld, which set up the conflict for season 3. The tiny city under the bowling alley in season 1 was revisited to teach us more about Huntokar in season 5. Each season has a different flavor, but they’re all ultimately the same dish, if that metaphor makes any sense.

And this is where we get into the issues I’ve been having with the most recent three seasons. My biggest problem is simple. They just don’t have a distinct flavor like the other seasons do. They don’t have anything that stands out to me.

Let’s take a look at seasons six and seven, and then the first episode that dropped today of season eight.

Season Six: The guest writer season. This season was mostly written with guest writers that would do a mini-arc of two to three episodes.

Season Seven: The Carlos’s Double/Blood Space/Lee Marvin/Thanos-Snap season. Not sure what else to call it.

The basic premise of season six was that it would be a bunch of character-driven stories set in the world of Night Vale, most of which were written by guest writers. To me, worldbuilding and characters are more important than plot every time, so I didn’t hate this as a concept. It was just... the execution honestly wasn’t all that interesting to me. I feel like the way the characters were discussed moved their placement within the world, but it didn’t actually change anything we knew about them. Tamika’s episodes, for example, didn’t really show us anything new about her, they just showed us how she acted as a city council leader instead of a militia leader (spoiler alert: pretty much exactly the same).

My biggest problem with season six is that it set up a lot without actually doing anything. All of the best moments from season six were things I thought we would revisit later: who will be the mayor now that Dana stepped down? What is it Carlos is still keeping from Cecil? What’s up with the shipwreck? But then all of these things were totally forgotten in season seven. It was like the writers didn’t care. That may be because they were established by different writers, but it still feels... I don’t know, *Cecil voice* Incomplete?

Now let’s talk season seven. I think season six was definitely the weakest of all Night Vale seasons, but this was a close second (and that shows you how much I love this show, because even the weakest seasons had moments that blew me away, and I’ve relistened to most of the episodes at least once, if not more.) Season seven, like season six, just had way too much going on. For the first few months there was no plot whatsoever, just a bunch of disjointed episodes with seemingly no relation to each other.

And don’t get me wrong - I think a lot of these episodes were amazing. Are You Sure? was thrilling, totally game-changing for podcasts. Save Dark Owl Records was a really great look at Maureen and Michelle. I’ve relistened to UFO Sightings a bunch. But there’s a difference between enjoying episodes alone and thinking they fit in a larger story. And so while I really like a lot of the episodes of season seven... they’re kind of pointless story-wise. What disappointed me the most was the Kevin mini-series near the start of the season - Kevin is one of my favorite characters, and so while I liked to see him happy, I was annoyed that they forgot about him again after the arc ended and they moved on.

That’s because season seven didn’t really have a story - it had a bunch of stories. The problem is that they weren’t introduced until near the very end. We had the Lee Marvin arc that started somewhere in the middle, and I did like that. I thought it was cool to take what seemed like a throwaway gag and turn it into a story, especially one that seemed relatable. But running this arc concurrently with the Blood Space War arc didn’t make any sense to me. There were a bunch of times that I thought the two could relate - linking time travel to being trapped in time would be pretty easy, I thought. But that never happened.

Then the Blood Space War arc nosedived into a pit of emotion after both Cecil and Carlos were erased from history, and I was ecstatic. Not that Cecil and Carlos had been erased - but that the show was taking such a drastic emotional change. It felt like a shift in tone, but also consistent to the show’s format, hitting that perfect sweet spot. I was even more excited when I found out that the resolution to this was that Leonard Burton would have to die again. That seemed like the perfect end to his (albeit brief) character arc, and a great emotional high for the season.

And then the next episode was just... Cecil saying everything had been fixed.

That really disappointed me. It felt so anticlimactic, especially considering the heights some of the other season finales had reached (I’m especially thinking of the dog’s ominous barking right before the finale of Who’s A Good Boy, and the town almost being destroyed). The ending to the Blood Space War arc felt rushed to me. I liked the close of the Lee Marvin arc, but everything else seemed a little off-beat.

I think a big problem with season six and seven is they try to take us to new things within the world of Night Vale, but they do that in a way that doesn’t actually show us anything we need to learn. Eunomia hadn’t been in any other seasons and her backstory was minimal, so her death in season seven had no real impact on me.

So why are they doing that? I don’t know. But it seems like the writing team has made the decision to utilize Cecil more as a voice for the town than an independent character, and are trying to let other people take the spotlight. However, because Cecil is by far one of the strongest and most beloved character, and because he drove most of the story for the first few seasons, this doesn’t work as well as you might hope.

I hoped that season eight might go back to the old format. However, the first episode was another self-contained episode (although I do love Josh Crayton), so that has me worried.

I guess I can say, there’s a difference between a story podcast and a storytelling podcast, does that make sense? Those might overlap, but they aren’t really the same thing. While a story podcast exists to have an overarching plot, a storytelling podcast just wants to put you in a world and let you look around. What I love so much about Night Vale is that it has always been able to be both. It has a plot, but it isn’t just a plot like many other shows are - it can let you walk around, run from government satellites, and NOT enter the dog park.

However, it seems to me that Night Vale is forgetting it does have a story, too. There are still SO many things from past arcs that haven’t been resolved yet. What’s more, the show doesn’t seem all that interested in resolving them. You can have floating cats and five-headed dragons, but you can’t give up an essential part of your show. That doesn’t mean the show can’t still be fun to listen to, if they decide the plot no longer matters. But I think it will be a little less rewarding.

And to finish I’ll just share my biggest fear: I really really really hope Night Vale isn’t going to become normal. At the end of season seven, time started working again. I’m so scared that they’re going to slowly convert the whole town to being normal before the show ends. And I think that would really suck, because it would change what Night Vale means to a lot of people, and what the town really is.

TL;DR: although it is one of the greatest shows ever, Welcome to Night Vale has recently started to stray from its established formulas, tropes and characters, especially in seasons six and seven. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, I feel like the way it’s been executed has weakened the recent episodes. Seasons six and seven also tried to fit too much in without actually doing anything to advance certain arcs or plot points. Nonetheless, it is a great show, and I’m optimistic about the future.

I’d love to have a dialogue about this so if you are the one person alive who’s going to read this, please don’t hesitate to comment or send an ask! Again, I absolutely love this show, these are all just my opinions, and my ability to critique the show exists outside of my adoration for it.

Now I should sleep.

#It's one am #this is not beta'd #and my formatting is all over the place #but here you go #please someone read this #welcome to night vale #night vale presents #podcasts #meta #my meta #cecil palmer #carlos the scientist #cecilos #all hail the glow cloud

59 notes · View notes

abigailnussbaum · 5 years

Text

The Boys - Good & Bad

Being an itemized list of the strengths and weaknesses of the first season Amazon’s superhero show The Boys, based on the comic run of the same name by Garth Ennis, which I haven’t read.

GOOD:

The show looks good. It’s not tremendously visually inventive on the level of, say, Legion or Doom Patrol, but it’s got a definite style, and not just in the action scenes. The stagings pop, the street scenes look crisp and interesting, the boardroom scenes take advantage of the set designers’ inventiveness. There’s the requisite loss of saturation once our two main characters lose their respective love interests, but it’s not color-graded out of existence, the way a lot of other shows trying to evoke masculine despondency do. A “gritty”, laddish superhero show conjures up certain expectations where visuals are concerned, and The Boys exceeds them at almost every turn.

There are actual episodes! With beginnings and endings and common themes! I had no idea streaming shows could still do that, but The Boys is really good at finding mini-stories within its overarching plot and structuring its episodes around them (which should be a basic implement in a TV writer’s toolkit and instead has all-but disappeared). Episode 2 is about the Boys realizing how screwed they are by having captured a nearly-unkillable superhero who has seen their faces, and trying to figure out a way to kill him. Episode 5 is structured around Annie and Hughie’s visit to a superhero-themed Christian revivalist festival. It gives the entire season a more engaging structure, and pulls you along with the story in a way that most streaming shows don’t even attempt.

There are some genuinely clever worldbuilding choices that emerge from the “what if superheroes, but awful” premise. The fact that superheroes star in their own movies, for example, or that their power competitions become major sporting events, is hilarious, and perfectly conveys the sense of moral bankruptcy that I think the show is going for. And the crossover the show posits between superhero worship and white Evangelicalism is an obvious and perfect fit, tying into the latter’s barely-concealed love of power and authoritarianism. Also, there are some inventive demonstrations of how combining superpowers, limited intelligence, and corporate greed can lead to horrifying results, some funny - The Deep trying to rescue a dolphin from captivity - and some genuinely gutting - the plane crash scene in episode 4 is the queasy highlight of the season, as the viewer realizes just a few seconds before the characters do just how badly they’ve screwed up, and how horrible their future choices are going to have to be.

The cast is uniformly excellent, and pretty much everyone gets a lot of different layers to play. The highlights are Elisabeth Shue, Erin Moriarty, Jessie T. Usher, and Tomer Capon (bit of hometown pride here, but it’s easy to see why he’s such a well-regarded young actor in Israel), but pretty much everyone is good and interesting to watch. Even Karl Urban, who gets the show’s most thankless task - he has to carry most of the story while playing its least nuanced character - manages to infuse some humor and complexity into Billy.

There are a lot of interesting, complex relationships, the top one being Homelander and Madeline Stillwell. As a character says near the end of the season, it’s a relationship that is “hard to quantify” - does he want to fuck her, or kill her, or be her child? Does she want to control him or does she genuinely get off on his desire for her? Other relationships are less fraught - Frenchie and Kimiko are incredibly sweet together - but still a lot of fun to watch.

The show seems to understand that at the root of almost every villain, and certainly privileged ones, is childishness. You see this in the way The Deep sinks into self-pity after experiencing the consequences of his sexual assault on Annie, or the way A-Train becomes obsessed with blaming Hughie for his girlfriend’s death, even though he’s the one who killed her. You see it most of all in Homelander’s resentment of Madeline’s baby and the attention she lavishes on it. It’s simply stunning how openly envious this grown man is of a months-old infant, and it makes every scene the two share almost unbearably tense, because you’re just waiting for Homelander to snap and kill the baby. Which ends up much more effectively conveying the point the show is trying to make than the sudden shock of him actually doing it would have - the fact that this character would clearly feel themselves justified in killing an infant, and is only holding back because he knows there’ll be a fuss, is the sum total of the show’s criticism of absolute power.

(This emphasis also justifies the show’s insistence that Hughie is redeemable, because though he starts out quite immature, he does grow, unlike the superpowered villains. He starts the season killing a super who hasn’t really done anything to him, just for the rush of it, and ends it saving the life of the super whose selfishness destroyed his world, because he’s actually realized that his are not the only problems that matter.)

Someone seems to have realized that having a female (Asian) character whose name is simply The Female is an absolutely terrible idea, and the show gives her a name as soon as possible. There’s also hints that she may be regaining the power of speech.

BAD:

The use of violence - and particularly sexual violence - against women ends up privileging men, even when those men are the perpetrators. Both Hughie and Billy are motivated by the loss of the women they loved, and in both cases the show plumps for the classic approach of single scene featuring the love interest being angelic, and doesn’t bother to shade either of them in or give them a personality or a chance to speak on their own behalf. And even when the victim is a main character, as when The Deep assaults Annie, the focus is much more on him than on her. Annie processes her trauma in a scene and a half, and it ends up being folded into her overall dilemma over how to be a superhero. Whereas the Deep spends the rest of the season coping with the consequences of his actions and folding them into his general lack of self-esteem. While there’s the germ of an important point there - just because this guy has problems of his own doesn’t justify his assault on another person or make him particularly tragic or compelling - the show’s insistence on going back to that well, even as the season approaches its climax, is simply baffling.

This feels, in fact, like a smaller component of the show’s broader problem with sexual ethics, the fact that it seems to have no way of distinguishing between sexual behavior is depraved, and sexual behavior that is just weird or maybe a bit kinky. Like, the fact that the Deep has consensual sex with dolphins is not worse than, or even equivalent to, the fact that he assaulted Annie. The fact that Homelander prematurely ejaculates when he and Madeline have sex isn’t a worse reflection on his character than the fact that he may have raped Billy’s wife. And yet those cases are treated as equivalent by the narrative. It ends up feeling profoundly anti-sex, rather than anti-sexual-violence, an impression that is only intensified when Annie and Hughie - the show’s sole “good”, loving couple - have sex that is completely vanilla (and despite Hughie’s earlier assurances that he isn’t intimidated by Annie’s strength, he still ends up being the dominant one in bed, and she even lets him be on top). It also prevents the show from any serious discussion of the one aspect of sexuality that is unique to its setting, the possibility of supers inadvertently hurting their human partners. The scene in which Popclaw crushes a man’s head between her thighs is the nadir of the season precisely because it’s played for laughs, for that “aren’t we outrageous” vibe that everyone told me the comic was suffused with. When actually you could do something interesting and character-based with it, if the show actually cared to.

(Having said all this, I do think that the show is a lot better on the subject of sexual violence than it could have been, and a lot better than the source material might have dictated. It feels significant that - with the exception of the aforementioned Popclaw scene - we never see any act of sexual assault on screen. We see Homelander and the Deep scoping out their victims, Rebecca Butcher and Annie, and maneuvering them into a position of vulnerability. And we see the aftermath of the assault for both victims. But we don’t see the act itself, in a series that is otherwise perfectly happy to depict consensual sex, even if it judges anything resembling kink. I also thought the handling of Queen Maeve, as a woman who has lived for years under a sustained campaign of sexual harassment, was extremely powerful - again, the focus is on how the abuse twists the victim up and makes them feel powerless and alone, not on any overt act of violence.)

I really don’t get why I’m meant to care about Billy Butcher. It’s not even that I don’t like him - I just find him completely uninteresting. He works as an engine of plot and a way to inject chaos into the other characters’ lives (the repeated device in which he authoritatively promises to solve the team’s problems, only for the show to cut away to him alone, wearing an expression that makes it clear that he has no idea what to do and is about to make everything worse, is pretty funny and effective). But as a character in his own right and with his own story, he just feels too one-note and monomaniacal for me to care about. I care what happens to MM and Frenchie and Kimiku and Annie and Maeve. I even care a little what happens to Hughie. I simply can’t bring myself to give a fuck about Billy.

I don’t see why I should be rooting for Hughie and Annie to make it work. It’s great that he feels she helped him rediscover his moral compass, but in the meantime he lied to her, used her, and concealed the fact that he had murdered one of her teammates from her. Annie has the right of it when she hears his confession and replies “the thing is, I don’t care”. It would be one thing if their reconciliation at the end of the season was more of an ethical one, a case of Annie choosing to rescue Hughie and the Boys because she knows they don’t deserve to die, not because she forgives him. But I got the impression that we were meant to read it as a romantic reconciliation too, which Hughie hasn’t even come close to earning.

If you must have interchangeable Middle Eastern terrorists as your go-to, killable background villains, doesn’t it seem obvious that there should be at least a few positive, named Middle Eastern characters in the foreground? (I suppose Frenchie might count? But given Capon’s heritage, he could just as easily be a Sepharadic Jew, which doesn’t really avoid the problem of Islamophobia that the show cheerfully blunders into.)

The plot kind of loses the thread towards the end of the season, partly, I suspect, because of the need to set up characters and plot points for season 2. It’s a particular shame because the plotting had been so strong in the first half of the season.

The sound mix is terrible. It should tell you something that I even noticed this and worked out the right term to use for it, because I’m usually completely illiterate on these matters. But after the millionth time you’ve had to raise the volume during a dialogue scene, then immediately lower it during an action scene, you start to wonder if there isn’t something wrong.

Overall, this is a much smarter, more interesting, and more entertaining show than discussions of the comic had led me to expect, but I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t benefitting from the fact that we’re so saturated with superhero stories right now. There’s less pressure to be the one subversive superhero story, which leaves The Boys room to be more character-focused, and to use superheroes as more of a metaphor for the corrupting influence of power and the evil of corporate overreach. Its supers feel a lot more like generic celebrities - A-Train is an anxiety-ridden athlete; Annie is a pageant kid; Maeve is an aging movie star whose career and soul have been blighted by ubiquitous sexual harassment. Characters who are genuinely set apart by their superpowers, like Homelander, are in the minority (and even in Homelander’s case it turns out his psychopathy has more to do with having been raised in a lab).

Basically it feels like the people who adapted the comic saved it by telling a story that is much more generic than the original, which may be entirely to the good. But I do wonder whether the second season won’t veer further into exactly those parts of the show that I find least interesting. The final scene seems to suggest much more of an emphasis on Billy’s manpain and his conflict with Homelander, and the introduction of superpowered terrorists threatens to move the show away from the criticism of power that made the first season work.

#the boys #this was a lot better than i was expecting #while still having enough flaws #that i can easily see it falling apart in season 2 #still #if you were holding off because of the comic's reputation #the show is a lot smarter and more nuanced

47 notes · View notes

bigmoodword · 5 years

Text

On Mary Sues and Underdevelopment (pt. 2)

In [Part One], I discussed how Mary Sues are often just underdeveloped characters in need of a character arc, and while character arcs are a great way to fix potential “sue-ish-ness,” sometimes that’s not enough.

Sometimes the problem stretches beyond the character, because for whatever reason, the rest of their story is underdeveloped too.

But that’s kind of odd, isn’t it?

The Mary Sue* trope originated in fanfiction, so in theory, the character inhabits a fully developed world with other fully developed characters. In theory, most of the development is already done, yet if that’s a core assumption, we’re horribly underestimating what fanfiction authors actually do.

To write good fanfiction, an author must research the existing canon on top of developing their own twists, and that takes time. That takes patience. Ostensibly, an author’s work takes place in the same universe as their source material, but without a deeper understanding of the canon characters’ internal landscapes or the wider world’s mechanisms, the story starts to warp.

The original cast break character for Mary Sue’s benefit, and the world’s previously rigid rules bend whenever Mary Sue needs them to.

Applying the same lens to original fiction can be tricky, because unlike fanfiction, there’s nothing to compare it to. Technically, there is no “out of character” or rule-breaking, because the world’s built by the story itself. However, it’s still possible to see the same warping effects...

footnotes —

*again, although this post uses the gendered name, i’ve never considered the trope female-exclusive**, so i’ve opted to use “they/them” pronouns instead of the typical “she/her.”

**gary stu and marty stu exist, but afaik those never quite caught on.

2ȼ (on story)

Underdeveloped original fiction features only a superficial setup. There’s a cast with set appearances and broad roles, such as mentor, sidekick, or love interest. There’s a generalized setting, like a major metropolis, and a vague plot, like “Mary Sue becomes the best superhero.”

That’s pretty sparse, and just as in fanfiction, that underdevelopment can lead to some familiar problems.

The vague plot creates a disjointed story. One day, our superhero is hosting a fancy gala. The next they’re fighting aliens, and the day after that they’re saving orphans from a house fire. While it’s certainly possible to link these events with an overarching narrative, an underdeveloped plot has yet to specify what exactly those links are. The story jumps from one to the next, because the only goal is proving the character a great superhero. Consequently, that character is the only obvious throughline, and the work reads like Mary Sue’s fantastic to-do list.

Likewise, underdeveloped characters read like a list of people for the Mary Sue to help, get support from, or overcome. If readers get the chance to see what these other characters do when Mary Sue isn’t around, they’re usually discussing or thinking about Mary Sue. There is little to no hint of a life beyond that central character, because without further development, they don’t actually have a life of their own. They exist to fill whatever role the Mary Sue needs.

Put all this together, and Mary Sue stories are infamous for being The Mary Sue Show all the time, but again, the problem isn’t actually the Mary Sue. Rather, it’s the cardboard world around them. If there’s no real plot to direct the story and no set personality to guide the other characters, of course they warp to the Mary Sue’s whims!

Better developing these other elements can give them their independence, and one of the quickest ways to test whether or not a story is sufficiently developed is to, well, remove the Mary Sue.

To revisit Marvel’s The Avengers, if Tony Stark (Iron Man) didn’t exist, the other Avengers would still come together, still learn how to work as a team, and most likely, still take on Loki at the big climax. The exact circumstances may change, but the broad strokes would probably stay the same, because the other characters have their own reasons to pursue the main plot. At the climax, however, the story sans Tony fundamentally changes.

Tony is the character who takes a nuclear missile through a wormhole to destroy the Chitauri fleet and disable the forces already on Earth. As the only Avenger with true flight, he’s the obvious choice for this task, and because his suit gives out, he falls back through the wormhole before it closes, ensuring his survival. If he didn’t exist, what would happen instead?

It’s a stretch, but because Thor feels responsible for his brother Loki, he might try using his hammer to fling himself and the missile through the wormhole. If he succeeds, the heroes would still win, but Thor’s survival is even less likely than Tony’s. A similar scenario would play out if Hulk, in an overzealous rage, somehow jumped high enough to do the same, but either way, the team would probably have a true death on their hands.

Alternatively, without that tidy finishing move, New York City might cease to exist, because the Avengers are forced to 1) destroy the fleet on Earth and 2) fend off the World Security Council’s nukes. Maybe they eke out a victory but have to deal with all the collateral damage, or maybe they don’t and humanity falls under Loki’s control.

That’s an awful lot to consider. However, having flexed our fanfiction muscles to craft a theoretical, it’s possible to see why Tony Stark is so important to the story. At the same time, it’s also possible to see how, despite that importance, the plot and the other characters don’t fully depend on his presence. Whether or not he exists, the villains will still attack Earth, and because they’re well-developed, it’s possible to imagine how the other characters might act in a slightly different situation.

In a genuine Mary Sue story, removing the suspected Sue brings the whole thing to a screeching halt. The plot is so tailored to the character that it doesn’t change in their absence, it disappears altogether. The characters are so dependent on Mary Sue’s influence that it’s genuinely hard to imagine them doing anything interesting without their lead.

Obviously, not every character needs to be developed down to their favorite ice cream flavor, but every character should be developed enough to boast their own internal logic. Whether that means giving a recurring character their own character arc or simply picking a few relevant personality traits for the local barista, it should be possible to imagine the other characters going about their lives behind the scenes.

In the same vein, not every plot needs to sprawl across different worlds and feature an ensemble cast. Sometimes a plot is small-scoped and features a single protagonist trying to fit in at a new school. Maybe their ultimate goal is to make friends, and maybe the plot isn’t much larger than their main character arc. They’re the plot’s primary driver, absolutely, but in a fully developed story, events beyond their control will push the plot forward too.

Much like a puzzle, every story element works together to create a whole picture, and while a major character may be the piece that ties it all together, they’re still just one piece. Alone, they’re little more than a spot of color. Only once all the other pieces are assembled will that spot of color became the eye of a much larger portrait.

development resources

for characters

legit-writing-tips’s character worksheet

the internet writing journal’s guide to character profiles

writer’s digest nanowrimo character cheat sheet

for plot

story writing help’s plot worksheet (basic)

annie neugebauer’s plot worksheets (requires microsoft word)

jami gold’s story building worksheets (advanced)

for worldbuilding

eva deverell’s worldbuilding worksheets (basic)

ny book editors’ fantasy worldbuilding worksheet

the novel factory’s ultimate worldbuilding questionnaire (advanced)

shoutout to — @el-queen for the discussion that inspired this post and @mvcreates for an encouraging chat!

#tropes #mary sue #underdevelopment #part two #character development #plot development #worldbuilding

20 notes · View notes