#i think i can do dialogue somewhat okay but descriptions? lol no | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dizzydancingdreamer · 3 years

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Hiii 🥺 if i could ask, how do you outline your works in general? books, short stories, one shots? What are the differences? 🥺🥺

Hey I love this-- here's a little walk through of what I do. Bear in mind I do really heavy outlines-- lets go through it all, okay? It's not as daunting as it may seem

Click keep reading to see an extensive guide to outlining stories!

Books!

So I'm going to use the Maze Runner re-write I'm working on (no one steal my shit I will be sad)

First off, I get all my templates from Evernote they have some really great templates and they range from when you want to plan a little bit and when you want to plan a lot, here is the link !!!! I recomend highly!

I start with the basics. Title, genre, series (yes or no), premise, setting. I add a box to keep my dates (if you see, I'm not good at filling them in, thank god docs keeps a history so I can later. This isn't necessary I just think its fun-- like a scrapbook of my progress!)

I then add a story premise template-- this one's important!!! It's like the shortest summary for when you need to go back while writing and remember things quickly. I add details like slang (ex: the maze runner uses terms that are made up so I need to remember to use them when writing), the main events (inciting and conflict will do), and my main goal!

After this you can choose to add which template will work best for planning the story. Some people choose to do the characters first but I, in this case, chose story because I am drawing off a series that already exists and plan to stick relatively close to that. In any other case I might have planned characters first but it's up to you!

The templates for planning your story range from very in depth to not at all-- I'll lay them out for you and you can choose the best for you!

The least in depth (derived from screenwriting, this method offers just a brief outline of what you want to write, leaves a lot of room for movement as you write) : Story Beats

More in depth but not crazy (goes through all the main parts of your book, lets you focus closer to the details singularly as opposed to part of a whole, a happy middle) : 3-Act Structure

The most in depth, full crazy (plan every chapter, the exact way you want things to plan, note: you may do this and then get thrown a curve ball while writing but that is OK!) : Chapter Outline

Here is an example of my chapter outlines (again, people, don't steal my shit please I beg do not)

As you can see-- I do all the outlines LOL but this is the only one worth showing and it's the only one I focus on when I write. These are about as detailed as I get-- it's important to leave room for your characters to breathe. This is as much their story as it is yours-- if they're trying to do something you should let them do it. Natural flow is always best.

Next I dive into characters (again, you can do this first-- this is like cooking, there's a recipe but season things how you prefer to make it your own!)

First I start with a simple breakdown : The Character Master List

This includes main characters, antagonists, additional characters

An example below :)

After this I get wild-- I only do this with my protagonist(s) (in this case Ellie and Gally) and I go as in depth as I can. Every little thing I can think of about my characters gets written down. To write a book is to know your characters better than you know yourself. Their likes, dislikes, motivations, nervous habits, sleep schedules, every freckle and mole-- all of it. If you know your characters, you know your story. If you love your characters, you love your story.

Here is the template I use, again I strongly recommend : Character Profile / things I added

(On the templates (it's a dousy): full name, age, occupation, situation, motivation, height, build, skin tone, hair, eyes, facial description, prominent features / distinguishing marks, style of dress, mannerisms / gestures, how they perceive themself, one word used to describe themself, one paragraph, self perceived best personality trait / worst trait, self perceived best physical trait / worst trait, how they think others see them, something they would change about themself, one of voice, language / accent, fave phrases, personality, habits, ambition, greatest fear, biggest secret, how does this character get along with other characters, where they were born / grew up, important past events, family, current home, finances, occupation, education, health, religion, interests / hobbies, opinion of people in general, does the character hide their emotions from others?, person they hate most, best friends, love interests, person they go to for advice, person they feel responsible for, person character feels awkward around, person character openly admires, person character secretly admires, most important to character at the beginning / end)

See example, do not steal example (I know, redundant, but necessary)

Finally after characters I move on to world building. This is important! You need to understand the location and time so that you can write an accurate (or not) story!

Again, here is the template : Worldbuilding Basics

(On the templates: story location, time period, climate, geography, borders / what's beyond, architecture style, how do people get around, distinctive sights / sounds / smells, how many people live there, where do they live, how do they make a living, is the economy healthy, what is family life like, history of the place, the political situation, who are the leaders, the languages spoken, how do the people dress, what role does religion / superstition play, what holidays are important, what's the food like, what are the forms of entertainment, how do the younger generations differ from the old)

From here the rest is up to you, these are the things I recommend. As you can see from my screenshots, I do a lot for my planning.

Some other things you can think to incorporate are:

- General ideas (a place to keep things you need to remember while writing: themes, reoccurring motifs and metaphors, notes, scene ideas)

- Things to remember while writing (like general ideas but also not, a place to add notes about your characters, I like to write their habits here and keep it open while writing so that my characters remain somewhat consistent)

- Movie Script (For fanfiction books; I usually write my own dialogue but sometimes the movie does a good job of summing the basics, Ex: Alby goes over the basics of the glade and it made more sense to give him those lines again, can save you heartache)

Annnnnd that's all I do for books-- the outline I shared is about forty pages LOL so it's a lot but in my experience it's worth it!! Again, do what suits you always but this is what I find works.

Short Stories!

Usually my short stories are a very summed up version of the books. I do the chapter outlines and a very basic outline of the characters. In this case what I usually do is put it all in one doc-- outline and work as one.

This is the best example I can use without outing important story details. On the left you can see the headings of each chapter-- I recommend using these so you aren't stuck scrolling helplessly through long fics (trust me, after 25k words it gets insane).

Each of these, as noted above, I flesh out the basic scene set up of the chapter. It helps me keep the goal of what I want to convey so I don't trail off (I have a habit of doing that).

The final thing I recommend is SideNote-- it's a life saver.

Once enabled it allows you to write notes that you can see while writing in order to keep your story consistent. It has and will continue to come in handy!

One Shots!

I don't plan these at all LMFAO

Okay, kidding a little bit? It isn't worth showing because all it is is the basic outline of what I want to write and then I just attack it head on. One shots I usually just write and write and write and let it flow. They serve a purpose at the moment and thus are best written in the moment. My best advice here is to just let go-- you'll thank yourself for it!

I hope this helps, nonnie, and I hope whatever you write is as wonderful as you are! Thanks for trusting me enough to come for advice!!

#Dizzy answers #writblr #writing help #writing tips

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aer-in-wanderland · 3 years

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구미호뎐 | Tale of the Nine Tailed - Lost in Translation EP01

In which my sister and I sat down with a pint of mint chocolate chip and wrote down everything that occurred to us while watching the fan-subbed version of TotNT EP01. Contains mild spoilers.

Prologue

We open with an excerpt from the Hyeonjoonggi (현중기・玄中記), which the internet informs me originated in China sometime between 265-317 CE. In Korea in particular, gumiho are typically thought of as being female, but this is an example of a classical text that says they can be either. From what director Kang Shin Hyo said at the TotNT press conference, the premise of TotNT began with the idea of challenging this base assumption by making the gumiho male and placing him in modern-day Seoul. I would translate the passage as follows:

When a fox becomes 100, it can become a beautiful woman, or become a man who has relations with women. A fox that lives for 1000 years communes with the heavens and becomes a cheon’ho (heavenly fox). Its gifts are like that of a powerful shamaness; it can perceive things more than 1000 leagues distant.”

To my sense, the passage was introduced to show precedent for the existence of male gumiho in traditional folklore, as well as to illustrate that foxes over 1000 (cheon’ho) can be closer to deities than monsters.

On to the show. The year is 1999. I’m surprised the subs left ‘Fox Ridge’ untranslated as Yeou Gogae since it seems like it would be relevant information that the place where the accident takes place is somehow tied to foxes.

When the imposter parents (who I believe are also foxes) chase little Ji Ah up into her room and her not-dad says, “You little brat!” (or at least, that’s what the subs we’re watching say), this is an example of what’s called ‘code switching.’ His phrasing is somewhat old-fashioned, which in this case helps to give the impression that he’s not human since it’s the cant of creatures in traditional fairytales. For anyone studying Korean, the line is, “요 년 봐라,” where ‘nyeon’ might mean anywhere from ‘girl’ to ‘wench’ or even ‘bitch.’

Okay, I have to ask. Does no one else in Seoul drive on Fox Ridge? How did Ji Ah have time to go home, get attacked, and then be returned to the scene of the accident (I’m assuming by Yeon) before anyone came across it?

Also, how did Yeon know where to take her? He tells grown Ji Ah that he just happened upon her after catching the scent of blood, but I get the sense there’s more to the story than that. I feel like this is part of a larger pattern wherein Yeon goes out of his way to rescue someone and then pretends as if he didn’t.

Episode 01 Title Card: What Happened on Fox Ridge

According to Yeon’s alarm, our current timeline begins on Saturday, August 29, 2020, and he has a wedding to attend. 2020 yet no COVID19? I guess this really is a fantasy drama. ;p

The BGM playing while Yeon gets ready is called ‘The Fox's Wedding Day,’ or, more literally, ‘day when a fox goes to be married’ (Yeou ga shijip ganeun nal) and it’s actually Yeon’s theme. I was expecting his theme to be the track entitled ‘Gumiho,’ but I guess not lol

The sun-shower. In both Japan and Korea, a sun-shower is known as ‘a fox’s wedding’ (kitsune no yome-iri/yeou ga shijip ganeun nal), so this is already cluing us in that the bride is a fox (I say ‘bride’ because both these phrasings typically apply to a bride marrying into her husband’s house. The phrasing is different for grooms, who ‘receive’ the bride). This is what Yeon means when he arrives at the wedding hall and says, “That’s because a fox is getting married today.”

It’s strange to me that the bride’s identity has completely dropped out of the subs. She’s Yeou Nui (literally ‘fox sister’), a folklore character of the Brothers Grim-style horror school of fairytales. Her thing is that she’s a gumiho who preys on families with only sons who desperately want a daughter. She insinuates herself into their lives, brings calamity down upon them, and finally, eats their livers. Like most fairytales, there are many permutations of her story, but many of them feature her saying she’s consumed 999 livers. I understand where - absent this context - some people might have seen Yeon as the bad guy here (spoiler: he’s not).

The subtitle here for Yeon’s line says: “But you need to know that changing your identity isn’t as simple as you think.” What he literally says is:

Yeon: How did you go to ground so completely? You think that if you change your face and your identity, your blood-stained past will change too, right? But changing lives isn’t as simple* as changing subway lines. [*Note: ‘simple’ is in English]

This is the first real dialogue we get from Yeon, and one thing it’s doing very intentionally is showcasing just how much he’s adapted to modern life. It does this both with the content of what he says (talking about changing subway lines), as well as with the amount of English loan words he tosses around. So I personally would have kept the bit about the subway in if I had been translating.

Yeou Nui’s line was translated as, “Please forgive me,” but it should more properly be, “Spare me,” or “Let me live.” Yeon is an enforcer, not a judge. (Also, ‘forgive’ is another word entirely).

Yeon’s line that’s subbed, “Listen, you fox. How could you dare dream of having a happy ending after eating so many livers?” is the result of what’s called diagonal translation, which is an unfortunate side-effect of subtitling conventions. What he literally says is:

Yeon: Yeou Nui, after eating the livers of countless adoptive parents and older brothers* how can you dream of a happy ending?

[*Note: The word he uses for ‘brothers’ here is 오라비들, which is a semi-antiquated word, and again, the sort of language used in folktales]

Yeon’s line, “Here’s a piece of advice” is more literally, “Here’s a bit of advice stemming from experience,” which is the first hint we get in-drama that he’s been in a similar position.

Nam Ji Ah

We get our first introduction to adult Ji Ah as she narrates the script she’s editing for her TV program on her way to the wedding hall. When Jae Hwan worries about her changing the script without the writer’s permission (again lol), Ji Ah's response translated literally would be:

Ji Ah: Then let’s go with this. PDs’ livers have to be swollen or coming out of their bodies.

That’s a pretty disgusting image in English, so I don’t blame the subs for changing it to something more sensical and less graphic. But as a cultural note, in Korea and Japan, having a large liver means to be gutsy or brave. Ji Ah’s character description similarly describes her as, ‘a woman whose liver is [so large it’s] coming out of her body,’ meaning she’s about as gutsy as it gets.

Okay, call me a cynic, but I loved Ji Ah’s line about not being able to digest wedding food due to the choking atmosphere of forced happiness pfft

Jae Hwan saying, “Who knows? You may meet your destined partner at a place like this,” as Yeon walks by in the background = Jae Hwan unwittingly hitting the nail of the head #1

Lol Yeon acting like a bored kid held captive at a dinner party while the wedding takes place. Bless Lee Dong Wook because I’m sure it’s all ad libbed. I feel like this could be a game: spot the LDW ad lib.

The Wedding Hall Incident

When Yeon returns to her dressing room after the wedding, Yeou Nui changes tactics from begging to putting her hackles up and challenging Yeon. Linguistically, that’s marked by her code switching to an archaic cant. Yeon, however, remains unfazed and responds with the most modern thing possible, completely undermining her bravado:

Yeou Nui: Oh former master of Baekdudaegan, what authority have you to condemn us?

Yeon: Get a hold of how she’s talking (rhetorical). Hey, if it wasn’t for you I would’ve been watching American TV shows while eating ice cream today!

Okay, I love the way Yeon materializes his sword. I thought he was (un-)transforming his umbrella at first, but he later does it with a plank of wood so I assume he can do this with pretty much anything?

On the topic of his sword, I posted a gif set not long ago referring to it as a sa’ingeom (사인검), literally ‘Four Tigers Sword’ (referring to the year, month, day, and hour of the tiger when such swords were supposedly forged). You’ll notice it doesn’t have a cross-guard since they’re traditionally ceremonial swords rather than actual weapons. The first sa’ingeom were made during the reign of King Taejo (1392-1398), but I assume they gave him one despite it being somewhat anachronistic because they’re also said to cut down evil spirits and ward against calamity. Mostly, though, it looks really cool and is very traditionally Korean.

Not for anything, but I love this BGM track that’s playing during the wedding hall fight (‘The Uninvited’). This short action sequence was so great. I wish we could have seen more of Yeon hunting down supernatural baddies. Also more of those gumiho eyes. More gumiho everything in general.

As he stabs her, Yeon’s line to Yeou Nui in the subs was rendered as, “Don’t do something stupid like falling in love in your next time.” I would have translated this as, “If you’re reborn, don’t do something so [useless] as falling in love.” Again, for anyone studying Korean, the phrase is ‘사랑 따위" (sarang ddaui). ‘Ddaui’ means ‘such a thing as,’ and it’s always used to disparage whatever proceeds it. There’s no good way to communicate that disparagement in English grammatically, so I opted for ‘useless’ in an approximation.

The BGM that plays the first time Ji Ah spots Yeon leaving the wedding hall is called ‘White Pupils’ (or literally ‘white eyes’). The imagery typically associated with that is death, so I’m curious what inspired the track title. Maybe they mean ‘white eyes’ like the fortune teller since it’s used at fateful moments?

“Who knows? That may be the story you were destined to cover.” = Jae Hwan unwittingly hitting the nail on the head #2

“Were they mass hypnotized or something?” = Jae Hwan unwittingly hitting the nail of the head #3. Thank you, exposition fairy. ;)

Okay, when Ji Ah and Jae Hwan examine the scene, Ji Ah’s line is subbed, “I need to see what that woman of this love story looks like,” which is ungrammatical in addition to being wrong. What she actually says is:

Ji Ah: I need to see the face of that protagonist of the Romance of the Age. [And I believe the ‘protagonist’ she was referring to is actually Yeon ;) This is bordering on meta, seeing as he’s actually the protagonist of the epic romance that is TotNT]

Kim Soo Oh

The BGM playing while Yeon sits in the park people-watching and then looks pensively at his hand is called, ‘Thread Rings.’ Between that, what LDW alluded to in his VLIVE, and some still cuts I saw of deleted scenes from EP16, I’m convinced there was something more to those rings that got cut due to time constraints. ㅠㅠ

Fun fact: This scene between Yeon and Soo Oh was the first scene of the drama that they filmed.

When Soo Oh asks Yeon what he’s doing there, the sub for Yeon’s response was, “Nothing other than waiting for someone.” That strikes me as off in tone as well as pacing. I would have translated it as, “Just.....waiting for someone.” (which is literally what he says).

When Soo Oh asks Yeon why he’s waiting, the sub says, “Because a fox can only love one person till death.” I don’t really have a problem with that translation, but what he literally says is, “Once a fox takes a mate they never forsake them. Until death.”

Sub: “How are you coping with that?” / “Not well.” > Literally: “Are you okay?” / “I’m not okay.” I actually like the sub here since it better conveys how precocious Soo Oh appears in this scene. He seems to alternate between precocious and adorably dim throughout the drama depending on who he’s with, though when he’s with Rang, it’s mostly the latter pfft

When Yeon turns down Soo Oh’s offer of friendship he says, “Your nose. I’m not big on men with runny noses. And human lifespans are too short to be friends with me.” Yeon's use of ‘men’ struck me as funny since I guess to someone over 1600 years old, an 8 year old and an 80 year old aren’t all that different. Also, Yeon giving serious life advice to an 8 year old is adorable. He talks to him like he’s an adult.

The Afterlife Immigration Office

Between the BGM and the way the camera pans up the endless levels of shelving, did anyone else feel like Yeon entered Hogwarts for a sec? (not complaining) ;)

For the record, Yeon uses banmal with Taluipa and calls her halmeom (granny). In contrast, Hyeonuiong is pretty much the only character Yeon speaks to in jondaetmal and addresses respectfully as ‘elder’ (eoreushin). He speaks to Ji Ah’s parents politely as well, but it’s mainly because they’re her parents.

The text introducing Taluipa’s character wasn’t translated in the version we’re watching but it reads: ‘The god who rules over the River of Three Crossings (Samdocheon), the boundary between this world and the next.’ The hanja for her name (奪衣婆) refer to her traditional role, namely, removing the clothing of the dead for her husband to weigh on the Uiryeong’su (su = tree) to measure the weight of their sins. This is the same tree that the Uiryeong’geom (the wooden sword that appears in EP13), is allegedly carved from.

Lol Taluipa saying she has to keep up with the times but also using a computer that’s positively ancient (come to think of it, it’s probably from the 80s since that’s her favorite decade)

Again, I’m surprised that Yeou Nui’s character name dropped from the subs completely. The subs here just say, ‘the female fox.’

For Taluipa’s line, the subs say, “You’re to obey the order and capture who you’re sent after,” but that’s a loose approximation. More literally, it should be: “If the higher ups say to bring someone in, then you just have to bring them in.” I’m only mentioning it because the line implys that both Taluipa and Yeon report to someone higher up the chain of command. Otherwise they may be misconstrued as Taluipa’s orders.

Yeon’s line, “My compulsory military service has gone on for 600 years. How could I not go crazy?” is hilarious when you consider that Korean men are required to complete 2 years of military service, and even that often feels like an eternity, so I think for any Korean, the idea of 600 years of it is just exceptionally cruel. The line is iconic enough to have been included in Yeon’s character profile.

I noticed this a while back, but ‘mountain god’ is being consistently translated as ‘mountain spirit.’ Technically, Yeon is (was?) a god, if a low ranking one in the grand scheme of things (the Korean word is ‘sanshin’ where ‘san’ = mountain and ‘shin’ = god). I understand the use of ‘spirit’ though, since he’s not a god as gods are typically thought of in western mythologies.

Lol Yeon sticking his fingers in his ears (I would bet money this was also an ad lib)

Taluipa has a line that’s subbed, “Foxes never stay in debt.” More literally, it should be, “They say foxes repay eunhye no matter what.” You can find my explanation of eunhye here.

Wow, the subs really dropped the humour ball on Taluipa’s line here. First off, she says, ‘Right now’ in English. And while the sub says “Do you want your freedom back?” what she literally says is. “Do you want to be discharged?” (since Yeon had just likened his duties to military service).

On his way out, Yeon actually tells Taluipa, “Halmeom, you’re going to go to hell” (which is not the same as the underworld/afterlife as it said in the subs. Taluipa’s job is literally to ferry souls, so she goes to the afterlife all the time anyway). Also, when he says “I’ll pray for it everyday,” his phrasing is that of an elderly person pfft

As I mentioned, Yeon speaks formally to Hyeonuiong, who in return affectionately calls him Yeon-ie or Yeon-ah, which I find adorable.

Lol I’m not used to Ahn Gil Kang playing such a friendly character. Seeing him wheedle Taluipa with aegyo is hilarious.

Code Red

Somewhat of a side note, I can’t help but wonder, is Shin Joo’s last name ‘Gu’ because he’s a gumiho, a la My Girlfriend is a Gumiho (2010)’s Gu Mi Ho-ssi?

I wish the subs had just left ‘Lee Yeon-nim’ as-is, instead of changing it to ‘Mr. Lee.' As a general rule, I’m in favor of preserving character forms of address when translating.

Personally, I would have translated the name of Ji Ah’s TV program as: ‘In Search of Urban Legends’ rather than ‘Unveiling Urban Legends.’

I really like the dynamic between Ji Ah and writer Kim Sae Rom. “Should we fight?” / “Yeah, let’s fight~” How great is it that this drama doesn’t have a single catty, bitchy, stuck-up or otherwise obnoxious female character?

For anyone keeping track, Shin Joo speaks to Yeon in jondaetmal while Yeon speaks to Shin Joo in banmal, underlining their master/retainer dynamic.

Side note: There are actually multiple ‘types’ of jondaetmal: what I think of as ‘neutral polite’ (i.e. simply adding ‘yo’ to the end of all your sentences), the more formal polite (i.e. ending with ~[seu]mnida), that which elevates the subject, and that which lowers the speaker. The interplay of the four allows for varying degrees of politeness. The way Shin Joo speaks to Yeon is pretty much the highest degree. That doesn’t mean they aren’t close. Polite language can indicate distance but also level of regard irrespective of distance. This applies to Rang and Yoo Ri as well.

Again, Shin Joo calls Ji Ah ‘PD-nim’ but that became ‘that female director’ in the subs. PD-nim is a respectful (and non-gendered) form of address, and it’s perfectly suited to Shin Joo’s genial and deferential personality, so I wish the subs had just kept it.

I read an episode recap where the recapper mentioned she wasn’t sure what Shin Joo’s deal was. At the time I was confused, but now I think I get it. In the subs, Shin Joo says, “When I’m a seasoned veteran? I’m now up to the point where I’m wondering if I’ve turned into an actual person.” What he actually says is:

Shin Joo: No way~ How long have I been living in this (the human) world? Recently, I sometimes even have an existential crisis wondering, ‘Am I a person or a fox?’

[So he flat out says he’s a fox here, but that wasn’t reflected in the subs.]

Fun fact: this was Hwang Hee’s first scene that he filmed with Lee Dong Wook, and the BGM as they exit is Shin Joo’s theme.

I love the way Lee Dong Wook played this scene where they pay their tab. That is all.

It’s only as Yeon and Shin Joo exit the restaurant that we see that the sign out front reads ‘The Snail Bride’ (Ureong Gakshi). This is another folktale in-joke, since the snail bride’s whole thing is that she cooks delicious meals for her human husband everyday.

For the record, the Snail Bride (Bok Hye Ja) also uses honorific language towards Yeon and calls him ‘Lee Yeon-nim.’ I just assumed it was in deference to his ex-mountain god status, but it turns out she has a personal reason for holding him in high regard as well that we discover in the final episode.

As Yeon and Shin Joo walk away, Shin Joo’s line is subbed, “That show’s actually quite famous.” Since Korean doesn’t require a subject, the sentence is somewhat ambiguous, but I understood him to be referring to Ji Ah herself rather than the show since he says: “[Something is] really famous around the broadcast station.”

Lee Rang

Lol Kim Beom. How are you 32 years old?

I love how sharp and no-nonsense Ji Ah is. It’s so refreshing to not have to wait for the characters to catch up to what the audience already knows.

Rang’s theme that plays as he transforms back into his suave self is so iconic. The music director (Hong Dae Sung) really is a genius. It’s funny when you think about how different Rang’s theme is from Yeon’s.

Fun fact: Kim Beom shared in his Instagram LIVE that Rang ‘picking the wrong shoes’ was actually intentional. He was testing Ji Ah to see if she’d notice.

Okay, Rang says here that he likes, “everything about her (Ji Ah) from head to toe,” (not in a romantic way but in a grudging respect/she’s fun to toy with kind of way) but what happened to that? Are we supposed to assume that he would have liked her if she hadn’t been the object of his brother’s affection? But he approached her knowing that’s who she was...? I don’t know. I do know I wish they’d had more scenes together. Their verbal sparring is great.

Side note: One Korean fan nickname for Rang and Yoo Ri that Kim Beom liked was ‘Hoket-dan,’ playing off the Korean for pokemon’s ‘Team Rocket’ (Roket-dan) and mashing it together with the ‘ho’ from ‘gumiho’ haha

Yeon’s obsession with mint chocolate ice cream is a hilarious counterpoint to his status as a cheon’ho and his ex-mountain god title. Point to the writer. In Japanese, this would probably be called ‘gap-moe’.

When Yeon tells the man behind the counter, “When I’m indebted to someone, I’m obligated to return the favor,” he’s once again talking about eunhye. As a fox, he’s supernaturally bound to repay good deeds done for him. As far as I’m aware, this is unique to the drama and not part of the traditional gumiho lore.

Yeon eating ice cream like a happy kid XD Lol Lee Dong Wook, how are you 39?

Fun fact: Yeon’s line when he answers Rang’s call, “The number you have reached doesn’t exist, you punk” was an ad lib by Lee Dong Wook. The combination of the formal phrasing found in a typical voicemail recording followed by ‘you punk’ is particularly funny. It’s so witty I actually wouldn’t have known this was an ad lib if LDW hadn’t confessed as much himself.

“Let’s meet.” / “I refuse.” / “I’ll set your house on fire.” Hahaha What is with these brothers? Are they 1600+ and 600, or 16 and 6? Are the zeros silent??

Bus 1002

Ji Ah: “If possible, pick a different dream. I’ve been on the clock for 22 hours straight now.” I like Ji Ah so much. She’s unpretentious, intelligent, honest, driven, resourceful and witty.

Lol As Ji Ah struggles with the old man, you can hear Yeon offscreen urging the driver to get moving. Only he calls him, ‘driver yangban.’ Yangban is originally a word for a nobleman, but much like the word ‘lady’ in English, what was once a term of respect is now...not. lol Also, I’m pretty sure this was another ad lib by Lee Dong Wook since it happens entirely in the background.

This scene with Ji Ah piggybacking the old man is so classic spooky-folktale. I love it.

"You’re the only person I saw.” *Close up of the totem pole* They managed to make that whole sequence creepy despite nothing actually happening. Cool cool cool.

So our old drunkard is revealed to be a Mokjangseung (mok = wood). Jangseung in general are totems that stand at crossroads and the entrances to villages. tvN published some backstory info explaining Ji Ah’s past with this particular Jangseung and why he elected to save her which I translated here.

Aaaand we’re back at Fox Ridge. I can’t believe I only just noticed this, but the episode title could refer equally to the accident in Ji Ah’s past and this bus accident in the present.

Of course Rang staged the accident at the site of Ji Ah’s greatest trauma. Also, the fact that he knows that about her is telling.

Appropriately, the BGM playing as Ji Ah arrives at the scene of the accident is ‘Fox Ridge’ (Yeou Gogae). Iconic.

Back over to Yeon. The first time I watched this I wondered where on earth he was heading in that downpour but it turns out he was in pursuit of Rang, who had given him the slip.

Seeing Yeon limping injured through the rain ㅠㅠ Also, while Yeon later tells Ji Ah he carries his umbrella everywhere because he hates his fur getting wet, he clearly isn’t bothered here, choosing to keep it sheathed on his back instead. I guess all bets are off when he’s in Gumiho Mode.

Detective Baek and Ji Ah speak in banmal and he calls her ‘Nam Ji Ah,’ which I assume means they’ve been friends for a while.

Wow, good for Ji Ah for having made note of the exact number of passengers in the midst of all that chaos. I certainly wouldn’t have.

Hospital Encounter

So after Rang gave his brother the slip, Yeon realizes the next day that he’s at the hospital thanks to the news article Shin Joo reads out to him. Idk but I like that shot of the two of them heading out. There’s something vaguely Avengers about it. Which is maybe not surprising given that was another early influence for the show.

I liked this conversation between Ji Ah and ‘Soo Young.’ We get to see Ji Ah’s own resolve and drive in the advice she offers: “Even so, I hope you’ll become strong. It’s way more fun to be a PD than a victim.”

As with when he arrived at the wedding hall, the cinematography + BGM as Yeon approaches the hospital with his red umbrella is just A++

The BGM playing when Ji Ah spots Yeon approaching the hospital information desk isn’t on spotify or anywhere else that I’ve seen. It reminds me a bit of the ‘Tubular Bells’ theme from the Exorcist (a movie I actually haven’t even seen). If anyone knows what it is, I’d love to know.

“My only talent is my face~” pffft Also, decidedly untrue.

When Ji Ah tells Yeon, “Yes, I’m scouting you, but not for that,” She literally says, “but not for that genre.”

And now the subs say ‘Fox Ridge.’ Okay, then.

When Yeon says, “From the sound of it, it won’t be well made,” ‘well made’ is in English. Again, the peppering of English through Yeon’s speech makes him sound more modern.

When Yeon says, “Plus, I’m very devoted” his line is more literally, “Plus, contrary to how I look, I’m the devoted type.” Are you saying you look like a player? pfft

Yeon is such a big softie, so why does he keep threatening to kill people? Does he not realize they might take him seriously?

For this entire conversation (interrogation?), both Yeon and Ji Ah are switching back and forth between polite speech and banmal, almost on a sentence by sentence basis. On the whole, it gives the impression of a verbal sparring match.

“It’s not as if this was a blind date. No thanks on a second one.” lol I do enjoy cheeky Yeon.

Oh, I love that Ji Ah thinks on her feet. Using her leather bag to lift Yeon’s fingerprints was a smart move. Although, I’m not entirely convinced it would work that well in real life.

The ‘grim reaper’s outfit’ exchange was a coordinated ad lib between Lee Dong Wook and Hwang Hee. I mean, of course it was lol Casting Lee Dong Wook is the gift that keeps on giving.

Was that supposed to be Yoo Ri entering ‘Soo Young’s’ hospital room in those boots?

Minor detail, but ‘Soo Young’ calls Ji Ah ‘eonni’ meaning ‘older sister.’ It’s common convention in Korean to refer to people by familial ‘roles’ that fit their general age range even when you’re not actually related. I could digress, but I guess I just find it jarring when they have her addressing Ji Ah by name in the subs since Ji Ah is older and virtually a stranger.

Okay, when ‘Soo Young’ hears that Ji Ah lives alone, the smile she gives is effectively creepy.

The contrast between ‘Soo Young’s’ narration and the events of what actually happened on the bus that we see as viewers is great. Point to the director.

Wow, Rang really just slaughtered a whole bus worth of innocent people without a thought. I feel like we all managed to forget that about him as the show progressed. Hats off to the writer and to Kim Beom’s compelling performance. I actually worried initially that Rang would remain a one-note character because that would have been such a waste of Kim Beom, who is a fantastic actor. I’m so glad that wasn’t the case.

I love the subversion of viewer expectations when it turns out that Ji Ah knew all along that ‘Soo Young’ wasn’t who she claimed. This is something TotNT does repeatedly and well. We get both the dramatic tension of her being in danger and the satisfaction of her having had the upper hand all along. Point to the writer.

I’m pretty sure Ji Ah knocked that pitcher over with the express intent of using a shard from it as a weapon. Point for character consistency. Past or present, Ji Ah is apparently a ‘stab first, ask questions later’ kind of girl.

The Brothers

“Hey you! I clearly told you I didn’t want a second date?!” Haha Oh, Yeon.

I saw comments from Korean fans about how Yeon burst into her house with his shoes on here, and now I can’t not think of them when I watch this scene: ‘Entering the house with your shoes on...in the Republic of Korea...Ha...’, ‘Even if you bust the whole house apart, you have to take your shoes off before entering...’ lol

I love Yeon’s line that’s subbed as, “As if, brother.” In Korean, it’s “Do you want to die, little brother?” The word he uses for ‘little brother’ is ‘아우야,’ which, while still used occasionally today, is an antiquated word Yeon might just as easily have called Rang 600 years ago. It’s also, in contrast to the first half of his sentence, quite an affectionate term of address.

Rang’s line subbed as, “It’s a long story, but the family has a dirty past,” should more properly be: “It’s a long story, but you might say we come from a broken home.” Saying they have a dirty past makes it sound like they’re the mafia or something. Also, as a fun language note, the expression is literally ‘a bean-powder household.’

“Are you worried I’ll be sucked into the Underworld?” should be: “Are you worried I’ll go to hell?” Not sure where they got ‘sucked into.’ Rang just means when he dies. Also, I wish the subs would do a better job distinguishing between hell, the underworld, and the afterlife. They’re three different words.

“It’s because you embarrass me, that’s why.” Lol at the way Yeon covers his eyes. That’s definitely another ad lib from Lee Dong Wook.

When Rang calls time here, he actually calls Yeon ‘hyung.’ I suspect this wasn’t in the script but rather something that slipped out subconsciously on Kim Beom’s part, since the writer was clearly saving that word for when it would hurt us viewers the most. ㅠㅠ

Yeon’s line is subbed, “Old habits really do die hard,” but it should properly be: “You still haven’t fixed that habit?”

“If you don’t find it until the end of the next month, this woman will die.” This should actually be: “If you can’t find [that] by the next end of the month, your woman will die.” The subject is actually omitted so it’s unclear to what exactly Rang is referring, which is intentional. I also understand hearing ‘your woman’ (ni yeoja) as ‘this woman’ (i yeoja), but when they later flash back to this conversation they use a different take in which the line delivery is clearer and I’m confident it’s ‘your woman.’ This also explains Yeon’s confusion, since at this point he didn’t even know she’d been reborn.

I Waited for You

For anyone wondering how Ji Ah got into Yeon’s apartment, apparently his house code is 0000 lol

From his expression as he discovers and then watches the video she secretly took of him, I feel like Yeon is impressed with Ji Ah in spite of himself and I’m 100% here for it.

For the record, from this point forward, Yeon and Ji Ah use banmal with each other. Ji Ah has a tendency to speak to many of the supernaturals in banmal, which is honestly the opposite of what I would have opted for in her shoes.

Yeon’s question of, “How did you come here?” could mean either, ‘What brings you here?’ or ‘How did you get [in] here?’ in Korean, and honestly they’re both valid haha

Minor note, but she actually says his Korean age is 36, which would be 35 by the typical reckoning...except he’s actually ~1636 so it’s a moot point, really.

Ji Ah’s line, “Now I can proudly say that it’s fate,” translated more literally would be: “At this point, it really is fate and not coincidence.”

I feel like Ji Ah’s strategy of throwing herself off the balcony here is possibly the only thing she does in this entire show that strikes me as dumb. Like, I’m pretty sure if Yeon hadn’t been both benevolent and able to fly (and she had no guarantee that he was either), letting her just fall here would have been the easiest way for him to resolve the matter/the only thing he could have done.

Yeon’s line, “Did you just test me?” is one of the rare instances in which he code switches to archaic speech. I guess using his gumiho powers put him in a Gumiho frame of mind. ;)

On the whole, I prefer the instrumental OST tracks to the lyrical ones, but ‘Blue Moon’ is just sooooo catchy. I wish they had continued using it more.

And that concludes Episode 1. I’ve never posted anything like this before, but hopefully it was at least mildly interesting. Let me know what you think.

#tale of the nine tailed #totnt #lost in translation #I've never done this before so think of it as an experiment #this is what happens when language nerds watch dramas #korean language #korean culture #kdrama #구미호뎐

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ichika27 · 3 years

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The World Ends with You

(Yeah, it’s the same screenshot I used for my post about ep. 1. I couldn’t get a new one so...)

Ah, first week without the TWEWY anime to look forward to. I’m actually kinda sad cause I’d miss waiting for the episode every Saturday night (Ani-One posts theirs on that day here). I have some stuff I wanna say about the anime so I thought I’d make one of these plus this is a good way to end the twewy anime blog post series I make every week. I’ll try not to spoil until the very bottom of this post which will have a spoiler warning.

Also, this will be very long and rambly as most of my fandom posts are haha.

Story:

A boy named Neku wakes up in the middle of Shibuya with no memory and finds himself as a player in the Reaper’s Game. For a week he must partner up with a girl named Shiki and both of them must complete missions, battle creatures called noise, and survive as failure meant erasure.

Characters:

Neku Sakuraba - our main protagonist who somehow lost his memories and is now playing the Reaper’s Game. He’s a loner who isn’t too keen on getting close to anyone let alone working alongside anybody - unfortunately for him, it’s a requirement if he wants to survive. As a player he has an assortment of abilities to fight off noise and other enemies (in the game this meant he can use a lot of different pins).

Shiki Misaki - the nice and friendly Shiki becomes Neku’s partner in the Reaper’s Game. Unlike Neku she has knowledge of the game and fills Neku in on things he doesn’t understand. Her ability is to control her stuffed toy called Nyantan/Mr. Mew which she uses in combat.

Beat - the tough skateboarding player, he’s somewhat more like the typical hot-blooded shounen protagonist when compared to Neku. He’s protective of those he care about especially his game partner, Rhyme. He uses his skateboard in battle.

Rhyme - Beat’s game partner who is a lot kinder and calmer than him. Rhyme tends to be the one to reason with Beat when needed and the two are always seen together.

Yoshiya Kiryu - a mysterious boy who seem to know more than he lets on and acts at times acts suspicious. He prefers to be called by the nickname Joshua.

Sanae Hanekoma - a cafe owner who helps out Neku and the others and would give them advice. His advice prove to be very helpful and Neku takes them to heart. Seem to have a lot of knowledge about the Reaper’s Game but doesn’t seem to be a reaper himself.

Thoughts:

(I tried my best to not be spoilery in the character descriptions so some names weren’t written in full)

The World Ends with You (or in the original Japanese “Subarashiki Kono Sekai”/It’s a Wonderful World) is an anime based on the video game of the same name. It had to compress an entire game’s worth of story within it’s 12 episode run which meant they cut out a lot of things and combined some scenes to quickly run through them. It’s theme song is the anime version of the game’s original OP “Twister” although this wasn’t what was originally planned but an incident involving the band who sang the original theme forced them to make changes. The original voice actors from the game also reprised their roles for the anime. The series is created to be watched before the release of the long-awaited sequel game.

The art style is made to be similar to it’s game version (with a bit of change to adapt it as an anime like when it comes to body proportions). They also retained the effect of the characters from the UG (players/reapers) being brightly colored while those from the RG having darker/muted colors. While the noise are obviously cg, I personally liked this since they’re said to be from a different plane anyways so it’s a nice contrast to those from the UG and RG. They had to update the setting though as years had passed since the original game’s creation and they had to model anime version of Shibuya to what it’s real life counterpart now looks. The characters are also given smartphones instead of the flip phones they had in the game (anime-only watchers who are gonna play the game would have to get used to them still using flip phones though lol).

Okay so story-wise... it’s rushed. Of course it is. They shortened it so that what’s left would mostly be important plot points from the main story but they cut out many scenes that consist of character interactions and several little things that could’ve fleshed out the characters more. The gameplay is also made simpler with some mechanics taken away and the mini games weren’t adapted (RIP to Reaper Creeper and Tin Pin Slammer, especially the latter as you’re severely missed). The game boast an assortment of characters and some NPCs have their own stories but due to the anime’s limited run time, they had to either be cut out (and are just given cameos) or given smaller roles (and their stories weren’t adapted). They did, however, give a few bits and pieces of information that weren’t in the game such as some details about certain characters and one supporting character was given a bit more screentime that they did in the game version.

Despite the rushed nature of the series (which may or may not affect how one views the story itself), the anime made sure to adapt several important scenes and the dramatic stuff is made worse... like, they really had to make some deaths harder to take. The battle scenes were nice as well although my biggest complaint about them is that the boss fights were over too quickly. There were scenes that were changed for the anime version and there are those that I liked and those I didn’t but there are many which I think was as good as the game’s version.

Do I recommend the anime? The game is better, the characters and story are more fleshed out and the way the character/relationship development happens is better paced so of course, me, biased already would tell you to play the game instead if you haven’t yet. Do I recommend those who played the game to watch the anime? Yes! Yes I do. I think the anime is better watched when you’ve played the game and know the stuff that they cut out cause it’ll make better sense that way. Plus I found it enjoyable seeing the scenes from the game animated and the characters are speaking whole dialogues and moving. It’s great!

Even if the anime wasn’t perfect, like I mentioned before, they did their best to condense the entire main story in a 12 episode series and it tried to be as faithful as it could to the original story so despite the deviations when it comes to how things got to the way they did, if you summarize important plot points, they would be the same (with some details changed). Overall, it was very enjoyable and it wasn’t as bad as I feared when I heard how many episodes the anime was going to have.

Some spoiler thoughts:

It would’ve been better if the anime had more episode count than just 12. Cramming a 3 week story of game into just 12 made the thing very rushed with Week 1 only getting three episodes, Week 2 getting four, and final Week getting five. They had to get to the good stuff so they cut off a lot of scenes where the characters are interacting with each other which means they suddenly get character developments and relationship developments too quickly. It might not be that obvious to anime-only watchers but to me, it felt kinda sudden and it feels like it doesn’t work out well story-wise since Neku had to learn how to trust other people and make friends and with how he started vs. how he came out of it contrasting each other.

By the way, they made the characters look good in the anime. Especially Joshua. Have you seen Joshua? He’s so pretty in the anime. I want a picture of him I could stare at anytime I want to (I do not own a phone, sadly).

I like how they gave Eri more scenes though and that they changed her outfit for the anime so she won’t look exactly like UG!Shiki. All of her scenes though made me feel like I wish the anime gave closure to Shiki’s own story by showing us her and Eri making up. Another scene I liked in the anime is Neku’s fanboying of CAT when he finds out the truth. It was adorable.

Some info was taken away from the anime. Beat and Rhyme leaving home had scene dialogue and unlike Beat just narrating it in-game but they didn’t mention specifically why he was angry and his trouble at home. Joshua wasn’t present when Sota and Nao gave Neku a pep-talk either which is a shame cause I think that helped Josh as well.

I mentioned before how the anime made things go too fast. They cut off chunks of not-main-plot story that let the characters interact with each other more which means each game day is shortened as well. I think it made sense that Neku wakes up at the scramble in the end and not stressed out because he didn’t go through as much as his game counterpart did. That said, game Neku learned a lot from more than just the main cast in the game compared to the anime so I like his character development in the game better.

They took away Tin Pin Slammer. I am sad and disappointed. I was hoping so bad for Another Day to be adapted even if it’s an OVA. That and the ramen incident are part of Josh’s week which meant some side of him wasn’t shown (I mean, anime fans don’t know he wasn’t there on week 3 since he’s busy playing a kid’s game elsewhere and how he could talk about food like he is from a cooking anime). Speaking of Josh, they made him very suspicious from the get-go in the anime. I understand as there’s a limited run-time and they can’t really afford to be subtle about it but it meant some of the fun interactions with Neku is gone and so are some scenes where they actually got along. At least they had ice cream together, I guess?

(I have more to say when it comes to Joshua cause he’s my fave character but this is long and my thoughts on it would make this way longer. I might make another post.)

In the end, it wasn’t perfect but the anime was fun and enjoyable enough that I found myself looking forward to it every week. Seeing scenes I recognize from the game in animated form (with voice acting!) felt exciting and awesome. I’ll miss this show and I still wish it was longer.

If you’ve read this far well, thank you. And also I’m confused why but still hopefully that was a good time-killer. I have so many other things I wanted to comment on but that’s for another time. Maybe.

#Subarashiki Kono Sekai #subaseka #the world ends with you #twewy #sana_post

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upstartcrow42 · 3 years

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Fic Writer Interview

Thanks for the tag, @chelsfic!

How many works do you have on AO3?

What’s your total AO3 word count?

201,056 👀

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

If we’re just counting AO3, then it’s just one. What We Do in the Shadows. I’ve only had this username for a year. Under different names in different places I have other fics for other fandoms. That would bring the grand total up to 5. I tend to have huge fic dry spells.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

66 - Especially For You - Nandor/Guillermo. Gen - Gift fic for @jujubeas. Guillermo is injured (very minor) and Nandor cares for him by buying him food from Panera Bread.

44 - Tell Me Things Will Be Okay - Nandor/Guillermo. Gen - Gift fic for @riskylatte and a collaboration with @andyandnormski. Nandor tries to calm Guillermo’s frayed nerves after they arrive home from the theater massacre.

35 - The Protocols of Revenge - Nandor/Nadja that leads to Nandor/Nadja/Laszlo. NSFW - My first fic for the fandom. Laszlo makes Nadja made, so Nandor proposes revenge. Nadja eventual relents but on the condition that Laszlo watch.

33 - Just Right - Nandor/Guillermo. Gen. Gift fic for @andyandnormski. A seasonal storm spooks Guillermo, so Nandor takes matters into his own hands as far as his relaxation goes. Naturally, things go awry.

32- He Demands Satisfaction. - Nandor/Guillermo Gen. Tumblr Prompt request for @andyandnormski. Nandor and Guillermo are taking their relationship to new levels post theater massacre, but the threat of sunlight puts a damper on things.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I get so few comments on my fics these days, so I reply to them all. I understand why people don’t comment on fics, especially NSFW ones, but I love hearing from readers, even if the comment is super short. I love getting replies back from authors when I comment, so I try to do the same for anyone who comments on my fics. I like engaging with the readers.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Rooftop Reflections. Nandor/Nadja. She’s been missing Laszlo since he want on the run and tries to escape by sitting on the roof. Nandor joins her and then leaves her be. She is really bummed out at the end after Nandor leaves and has to be alone with her thoughts about Laszlo.

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I have not yet, but I’m not against.

I’ve been wanting do a weird one with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/What We Do in the Shadows. They’re both in NYC, and they both have to keep to the shadows, so it makes sense that they’d run into each other. Leonardo vs. Nandor as leaders, lol. Donatello and Colin Robinson getting into technical details about topics. Raphael and Nadja being just the rudest. Micaelangelo and Laszlo straight up chillin’. And Master Splinter and Guillermo shaking their head at their charges acting like such fools.

I’ve also thought about them running away to Canada and meeting the crew from Letterkenny.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

When I was writing HP, yes. It was mainly about how I was ending my chapters, and to be fair, the endings were not great for what I was trying to achieve (setting up some context - kind of omncient). I’m pretty sure I’ve deleted all of those from existence now.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Most definitely. I’ve written mainly mlw and wlw with reference to mlm. I’ve also written OT3 situations with mmw.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of. How does that even happen?

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have not.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes.

I mentioned Tell Me Things will be okay earlier. Andy and I were very equal partners on that one and it was fun take their lead and then run with it and then see what they came up with next.

Nandor the Relentless: Conqueror of Courting. Nandor/Guillermo. A round robin fic where ideas were thrown out and shaped as a team. Nandor tries to court Guillermo in one-sided fake dating scenarios to protect him. I contributed to the last chapter of this gem of a fic series. I’m really proud that Nandor’s lament of the Windsor name was kept in.

Shoot Your Shot. Fendermo. Another round robin known by the writers as the Basketball AU. Nandor is a WNBA pro and Guillermo is her assistant. They’re even stupider in this story than in the show. It’s not complete, but one day we’ll finish it. I’m really proud of the text chain I wrote in the first chapter.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

I know nearly all the stories I’ve talked about are Nandermo, but that’s not my all time favorite ship. I don’t know if I can really pick a favorite. It’s just Nandor/Anyone really.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

A Chance Encounter. Nandor/Silvia de la Cruz (Guillermo’s mom). NSFW. I’m only afraid I won’t finish it because I’m stuck on the next part for how the story should flow now that the smut is out of the way.

What are your writing strengths?

I’ve been told that I’m good and smooth dialogue.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I think I use the same descriptive language too much. The same facial expressions and dialogue reactions. I also need to work on differentiating my imagery and adding more figurative language to my stories. I love seeing that in other people’s works, but suddenly forget to do it in my own.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I love to see it, or even incorporating English language learning sentence structures into fics for characters whose primary language is not English. When I write in another language, I have had a friend who can speak that language check my work and phrasing to make it sound realistic. There was a lot of that in A Chance Encounter and @theoceanismyinkwell was immensely helpful with the Spanish dialogue and the Spanish Speaker in speaking in English lines too.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

The first one I ever published on a fic site was Gundam Wing. I really hope that is not floating around still as I can’t even remember the site it was pubished on. It was peak cringe.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

It’s not complete, but Written in the Stars has consumed an epic amount of my time. The word count alone is two novels worth. It’s been fun to look into Nandor’s past, but also make him somewhat of a softie at that time too for a fic that could be otherwise very dark (there are defintely some mildly dark elements, but it’s generally just regular flavor NSFW). And it’s fun to take a semi-canon character who has one trait and flesh her out into a full person. At least I hope she comes across that way.

Tagging: @safetyhazardfics

@walkwithursus

@andyandnormski

@mapnerdbloodbag

@satincowboys

@nandoor

#Tag Games

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thirteenandten · 3 years

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hello, do you have any tips for writing in English when you're not a native English speaker? Do you write in English from the start? Love your writing, btw!

Well hi! This was a very nice anon to receive, I'm honoured! And thank you for the compliment <3

So first let me start reminding you that writing in a language that it's not your own is super difficult, because it's not just diferent words and structures, but a whole different way of thinking and understanding the world. So please be gentle and patient with yourself while you do it!

Yes, the stories that I intend to publish in English are written in English from the start. Ever since I started writing my fics in English I took this approach and tbh I think it’s the best one. I reccommend it big time because you surely will write more complex or ellaborate stuff in your native language and then it'll be very difficult/frustrating to try and take that into English. Don't worry if your first stories in English are a bit rough, you'll get better with time! Practice here is key.

You can find the tips under the cut because I’m wordy as hell so it turned out super long.

- When English is not working for you like, I suggest writing down a little summary in your own language of what you want to write for later. Not the actual thing but what you want to tell. The ideas will probably come easier in your native language and then when English is working again, you can go back to it without losing your ideas.

-This one may be obvious but READ A LOT IN ENGLISH. I would especially suggest books written in English by English speakers. But of course, everything helps, including fics. And while you do that, try to stop and pay attention to the language. When something really works for you (a dialogue, a description, a feeling) pause, go back to the words, and notice how it was done. I've been doing this "active reading" lately and it has helped me a lot.

-Similar to the one above: expose yourself to a lot of English. Tumblr is okay but also go and watch videos of native English speakers. Listen to songs in English and take the time to look for the lyrics and think about them. When a word sounds interesting but you are not certain of the menaing, look it up! Even if you don't remember the words exactly for later, the little research will help you either way. Watch movies and series and pay attention to the language and how people talk. That'll also help you to incorporate phrases, jokes and sayings that people use in everyday life. Just expose yourself to English as much as you can and have your writer brain open and attentive!

-Going more into the writing process, those lists of different ways of saying words, or words for different moods or situations are fantastic. Just always remember to check for the word precise meaning and usage before putting anything in your work.

-I highly recommend Thesaurus. It's great for looking for alternative to words (always checking meaning and usage!), but also sometimes you know there's this word that reminds you of this other that would fit perfectly in your text and you just can’t remember the actual word you want. In those desperate moments, I go to Thesaurus, search the word I do remember, and more often than not, I arrive to the one I actually wanted (or sometimes, to another great word I hadn’t thought about!)

-Using a Collocations Dictionary literally saves your life (? I learnt about these dictionaries during uni and I loved them so much I bought a physical one which saved me many times while writing essays. Basically it gives you the prepositions, adjectives, adverbs, whatever that most usually “collocate” (go with) the word you’re looking for.

-Check for spelling whenever you are not certain you are writing a word correctly. And I mean putting the word straight on the Google search bar. If you got a letter (or several) wrong, Google will help you.

-Google combinations of words between quotation marks (”word”) to see if they are actually used by English speakers. I can’t come up with anything better right now, but for example, “seat belt” in Spanish is “cinturón de seguridad” and you could translate that literally to “security belt”. If for some reason I wasn’t sure of which of these combinations the acceptable, I could google each phrase between quotations marks and see the number of results. Usually, the option with more results is the one that is most commonly used and that will be understood more easily. For example, “security belt” throws 316k results, while “seat belt” throws 57million results.

-Use Google Images to look for specific vocabulary you can’t remember or simply don’t know. “Kitchen appliances names”, “parts of a book names”, “parts of the body names” “clothing names”. You’ll get charts with pictures and names and it’ll make your life ten times easier, I promise.

-Decide if you are writing in British or American English... or if you don't care lol. The most sensible thing to do is to pick one, but if you are writing just for fun, you might as well accept that you’ll have inconsistencies in that matter and let it be. If you do choose one English variant though, google the most common differences in spelling AND I highly suggest running Word’s spellcheck after setting the language to the English variant you’re using.

-Needless to say, writing blogs are your friends. They are full of resources, some even specially thought for non native English speakers.

-In general I would say that googling stuff is an excellent strategy when you have doubts: verb conjugations, one words vs the other, anything about English grammar, etc.

-If you feel comfortable with it, getting a Beta reader who is an English native speaker is super great. A Beta reader in general would be fine because someone else may notice a mistake you overlooked (God knows how many "ringed" instead of "rang" I've posted in my life). Also a trusted friend giving a second read can help. Or you reading out loud, if it's not a very long thing, can help you identify if there's something off.

-Be gentle with yourself! You'll make mistakes! You will even post them! My fics, old and recent always have at least one mistake no matter how much I check them. That's fine! You can go and edit them or leave it, and I promise people won't get mad at you (if they do let me know and I'll virtually punch them).

-Finally, practice, practice, practice!

I hope this very long answer is somewhat useful! And do let me know if I can help you with anything else.

Much love xx

#writing #ask #anon #seriously why do i need to write such long replies lol #i hope they are at least useful skjdfhs #i'm not a pro writer by any stretch but i've been writing in english for a long time #+ i am a professional english spanish translator lol #but by that i mean that a) my advice might not be the best and b) it's okay not to be on the same level as someone else #like for sure the first two or three years i wrote in english i wasn't as fluent as i am now #and i've gained A LOT of experience since then with uni and my work #so yeah #writing should be fun

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birdy-bat-writes · 4 years

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What do you think the boys reaction would be reading your fan fiction?

Huh....Didn’t think about that....Well.

Tbh this is really insightful and amazing request but i feel like I’ve answered it really badly. 😂 😅

So do you mean everything on this blog, my works in progress or the stuff in my secret notebook that no one will ever read??? I’m going to assume you meant all of it.

I feel like all of them would get a good laugh out of reading my blog. Tim would tease Damian and Dick would tease Jason because the two Batboys that act like angry cats are being written as love bugs. Haha. Oh dear, the amount of teasing Damian would get when the boys read Lovesick. I love how this request has my heart doing backflips. Suppose in some crazy reality, these boys find my blog...

Dick should be used to having a ton of people crushing on him so maybe he would find this normal, maybe not. I feel like he would get a good laugh out of it but ultimately think its really cheesy, but still somewhat accurate. I mean, he’s a sweetie-pie.

Jason would probably also laugh but maybe he’d be the guy to send in a message to my inbox. Something of a teasing comment on my work. “Thanks, I always thought my ‘sky-blue eyes’ were my best feature too. -Jason Peter Todd.” And I would want to hide under my bed and never come out. Lol. 😂Nothing I’ve posted here is smut or graphic...yet. so maybe the reactions would be tame.

Edit: My friend said this “Let’s be honest. Jason would message you and tell you two write more about his abs.” And umm... yeah. Listen, if I get a message in my inbox signed from Jason Peter Todd, I’m hiding in my closet. My heart will explode if that happens. I will be a puddle of birdy-bat mush on the floor and you will have to send someone to collect me.😂

Tim would blush a little. smile a bit. He would probably question the dialogue sometimes because “When did I say that? Am I really like this?” Yes Tim. You are and we love it. Most of the stuff I’ve written is sappy fluff so I’m not quite sure what they would take away from it but I hope they like it. Tim would probably question what is going on with the TimKon and TimSteph dynamics here though...

As for Damian, if he was 10-13 while reading my blog he would straight up hate me lol. He would probably stare in disgust and walk away but if he was aged up he would probably read it and move on with his life and become extra conscious of every time he says something that just happened to be in the dialogue I wrote for him :D I would have successfully ruined English for him. His brothers would tease him so much. mission accomplished. 😁

Duke will very much blush and they would all cringe at some point but I feel like since Duke has less content here so far, he would be laughing more at everyone else than cringing at his own fanon dialogue.

I feel like they would all eat up the compliments and detailed descriptions of their features because who wouldn’t love to be told that they’re hot? Okay so since this was asked, it reminded me of this one thing that is in my secret book that I might consider posting. If I posted it it would be my first smut so... yeah. The plot is that the reader was a fanfic writer and they wrote about Nightwing. In current time, they are dating Dick Grayson and it’s set up in YJ universe. Dick basically asks you to read one page of your fanfic diary and you read a fluff one but he catches a glimpse of another page that’s smutty... reads it...and then...yada yada. I’ll edit that out on word and if you guys are up for it, I can post it. What do you guys think?

#dick grayson #Jason Todd #Tim Drake #Damian Wayne #Damian al Ghul #fanfiction #nightwing #Red Robin #red hood #robin #duke thomas #damian wayne fanfiction #dick grayson fanfiction #jason todd fluff #tim drake fluff #DC comics #birdy bat asks

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itsclydebitches · 4 years

Text

Welcome back, everyone!

A quick note before we begin: after the previous recap a couple of lovely friends and anons explained to me some discrepancies in my work, mainly about how Fox's semblance functions and how much info we’ve gotten on that previously. They're worth a read if (like me) you haven't read After the Fall and would like a more accurate picture of this whole project. However, I have to admit that sadly past!me didn’t think through the usefulness of those posts and tag them appropriately... so they’re just somewhere in the mess that is the “rwby” and “mymetas” tags. Still, I wanted to acknowledge their existence, both for your potential use and as another disclaimer along the lines of, “I’m reading what amounts to a sequel and recapping as I go. Prepare for a bumpy ride.”

We're on chapter five now (of twenty-two! Holy god I’m slow!!) and truth be told I actually enjoyed this opening. We're in Yatsuhashi's head this time around and he's likewise enjoying Vacuo's Meeting Spot, an "artificial oasis" that reminds him of his mother's healing gardens. I wonder what "healing" means in this particular context. A generalized benefit to your body, mind, and spirit in the form of meditation? Or a more literal, magic-based healing with its roots in aura use? In a world with RWBY's possibilities, a healing garden that someone like Ozpin might run—let's take time to settle ourselves and reflect—vs. one that someone like Jaune would create—let me use my semblance to literally heal your wounds—are rather different things. I'd be interested to know which category (or another) Yatsuhashi's mother falls under.

Regardless, it's a satisfyingly quiet scene. Yatsuhashi comments on both the beauty of the oasis as well as how that beauty, in turn, raises the desert in his eyes. Nothing like not having to deal with a hard landscape to make that landscape seem more bearable, alluring even, and this moment managed to capture that feeling rather well. The only downside is that, in a recurring theme, I once again got whiplash upon realizing that Yatsuhashi is not standing alone in the peace of the early morning, like the description had led me to believe. Apparently Velvet is there. As well as the whole freaking student body! Myers* has this strange habit of writing one kind of scene only to suddenly reveal that the scene is actually radically different from what his writing had encouraged you to imagine. Yatsuhashi is going on about healing, natural beauty, and the peace of an early morning. What's peaceful about dozens of students speculating beside him? Have you ever met a school of sleep deprived young adults dealing with a surprise announcement before breakfast? That’s as far from peaceful as humanly possible.

Mood, kid.

(*Also yes, we're working to write Myers' name correctly this chapter. If I'm going to drag his work so much the least I can do is not add an additional 'e' to his name lol.)

Along with the entirety of Shade Academy to break the peace, Yatsuhashi tells us about dromedons and mole crabs. The former, according to the wiki, is a "camel-like Grimm that can spit acidic venom" and also sports an armored hump. Fun! The latter, according to Yatsuhashi, is a "horrifying" creature that "slept just below the sand and could cut a person in two with their massive claws." And they're the normal, non-grimm animals! Screw Salem. Humanity needs huntsmen just to keep people safe from the everyday wildlife. Crabs cut people in two, Zwei is capable of being set on fire and launched at a mech... it's a miracle that anyone ever steps outside their home.

I do write this with full knowledge that Australia exists, but still.

As Yatsuhashi moves away from thoughts of killer crabs, we begin what is easily the strangest bit of repetition this chapter. Yatsuhashi's shoulder is sore from having tried to break down the hideout door and I'm going, "Wait no, you used your sword” and frantically flipping back through my PDF. To Myers' credit, there is a detail that suggests Yatsuhashi uh... rammed the door? I think? Last chapter he "Stepped forward and Fox heard him grunt with exertion." That's the only thing I can think of that would explain his shoulder unexpectedly being sore hours later: if he'd charged it instead of doing something insane like, oh, I don't know, trying the doorknob first. Odd choice of continuity, but okay. What's super weird though is that Myers repeats the detail again:

Yatsuhashi crossed his arms, then grimaced as a fresh pain shot through his shoulder. Come on, Aura, he thought. Do your thing.

I'm sorry, how badly did you hurt your shoulder? Why does a supposedly intelligent student immediately resort to what is apparently somewhat serious self-harm when faced with a closed door? Why is Myers choosing this of all things to tell us about? Is this incredibly random shoulder injury going to hinder Yatsuhashi during the test? Spoilers: I don't think it does considering that I searched for "shoulder" in my PDF and there's just a lot of hands on shoulders coming up, but nothing that, at first glance, seems to make this kind of set up necessary. So I say again: weird.

Meanwhile, weirdness doesn’t even acknowledge the continued inconsistencies with aura. Jaune heals a cut on his cheek instantaneously, but hours later Yatsuhashi needs to gripe at his aura to hop-to already? So either Jaune’s aura is far more powerful than the average person’s (never established outside of Pyrrha’s “You have a lot of it” comment), or Yatsuhashi really hurt his shoulder that badly. Hard enough that with the rest of the night and early morning to heal him, his aura is still working overtime.

Alrighty then.

So the whole student body is just kind of hanging out, striking up casual conversations. Velvet asks how Yatsuhashi is doing and he says he's fine, "Thanks to you." Wait... what did Velvet do? I mean yeah, she was there last night and she's here now, but so is the rest of the team. I don't really recall her helping Yatsuhashi in any specific way. As is the norm now, I remain mildly, endlessly confused by this novel.

But we don’t have time to delve into the gratitude attached to events I’m not actually sure happened. There’s more chit chat going on as everyone tries to figure out why they've been summoned so early in the morning. "It's not always about us," Velvet says and I nod along in agreement even though I know, as a reader, that it's absolutely about them. "As I'm often reminding Coco."

Coco fires back with how it "could be about us," noting that it would be pretty coincidental if something else was going on right now, plus Rumpole may have realized they were out last night. (Remember, Yatsuhashi wasn't subtle about trying to break down that door). This is one of those moments where I agree wholeheartedly with Coco's logic, but kind of hate to encourage the 'It's all about us' attitude. Velvet might be smiling, but as previously established this is an ongoing theme within RWBY's characterization that it could really stand to do without.

Yatsuhashi then offers some "unsolicited advice" about how Rumpole could afford to slow down some and "let things come at their own pace," to which I respond, "Huh?" Where in the world did this come from? Previously the whole group—including Yatsuhashi, considering he didn't speak out against it—was concerned that Rumpole wasn't doing enough to track down the Crown. That is, do more, move faster, get it done already. You haven’t gotten it done? Okay, we’ll do it instead. Now he's providing this subtle criticism in response to a meeting, as if that's an inherently odd or bad thing for a headmistress to do. You want the woman to do extra work faster but slow down when it comes to her actual job?

It reads to me like Myers is trying to put a lot of wise-sounding dialogue into Yatsuhashi's mouth—you know, the Asian character who keeps bringing up things like meditation and mindfulness—but hasn't bothered to think about whether that dialogue makes any sense. Of course, we then immediately backtrack to reveal that his comment was really about Coco not pushing the team too hard, but... that's not what he said? And Coco clearly didn't get the message. And the hidden meaning of the words didn't come across too well if your reader is squinting at what was said until the author has to straight up go, 'This is what Yatsuhashi actually meant.' Maybe just... have him say that? Give us some significant looks towards Coco, at the very least. Something to clue us in here that Yatsuhashi is (weirdly) blaming Rumpole for Coco's flaw.

Then he just ruins the whole scene further by mentally commenting that if all this extra work was hard on them, "what would it do to SSSN?" Ugh, look. I don't even like SSSN very much. I didn't shed a tear when they left the main series and would shrug if they ever came back, so you know the story is ragging on them too much when I'm standing up for the group at the bottom of my Character Adoration list. The duality of 'SSSN is so incompetent I don't even know how they're alive' and 'That, in comparison, makes us the best team ever' got old forty pages ago, yet I have the distinct feeling it won't be letting up any time soon.

Headmaster Theodore finally arrives to break up this thrilling conversation and the students erupt into thunderous applause. "It was what [he] expected. It was what he inspired whenever he appeared." That... is absolutely hilarious. This guy is so much of a showman, so insanely over the top, that he expects people to treat his everyday appearance as a spectacle worthy of praise and they agree. You know who he reminds me of?

The king himself, Alex Louis Armstrong. I'm digging this already. It's absurd and I will forever question RWBY's ability to balance comedy with its darker tones... but I'm counting this one as a win so far. There's got to be something to praise about this book.

Just as important, we get a description of Theodore's positively insane outfit. I immediately googled to see if someone had drawn him and the fandom did not disappoint. I'm not going to include the image here in case the artist, Edisu, doesn't want their work reposted like that, but I highly recommend you check out the link and get a visual.

The only thing left to say about this fashion monstrosity is that he has a "flowing gray-blue cape, the color of a stormy sky." I'll let our favorite textile engineer make my point for me:

Honestly, between Ruby's cape and Weiss' hair someone is going to end up in trouble one of these days.

In this world free of horrific cape tragedies, we've segued into a flashback which is, frankly, kind of boring compared to the others we’ve gotten. It's just the group meeting Theodore, information and characterization that could have easily been distributed to the audience in the present. It's starting to feel like the structure of including a flashback each chapter is hindering Myers somewhat, just because every chapter doesn’t necessarily need one, but that’s far from the biggest issue to tackle.

We learn that Theodore (really Rumpole) did a bunch of research on all the students involved in the Vytal Festival and they're very pleased that Team CFVY has joined them now, despite the horrific circumstances. We again hear about how judgmental Coco can be, that her judgements are rarely wrong... but if they are wrong she's the last to admit it. So really that's less of a 'This character has good instincts about other people' and more 'This character is just, as said, judgmental and then stubborn about it when she’s wrong.' Theodore, however, seems like a cool dude:

“Ah, she speaks!” Theodore strode toward Velvet. His voice softened. “You didn’t fail, my dear. You fought. You stayed, far longer than anyone would have asked or expected of a student. And now you’re here. Do you want to be here? Will you fight for Shade the way you did for Beacon, Velvet Scarlatina?”

This is great. This is the kind of reassurance I would expect from a headmaster who, thus far, has received a fair amount of praise. Unlike his students, Theodore understands the risks Beacon students took and when it was time for them to make a life-saving retreat. He's inspiring while also being empathetic and honestly? That's the most I've had that 'You're a good person' sense from RWBY in a very long time.

Now watch Theodore turn out to be evil lol.

He cuts the tension of the serious conversation by proclaiming that if any of them doubt whether they should be here, they should take it up with him via a fight. Theodore announces this while striking a pose. I say again:

We then get some more reflection on how Theodore compares to Ozpin:

Ozpin had believed in you before you did, almost like he knew your true potential, despite what your transcripts or fighting abilities looked like. Theodore believed you had potential, but you had to earn it and prove yourself to him first.

I agree with that and I'm pleased to see that this time the comparison didn't involve criticizing Ozpin in an effort to build Theodore up. It’s likewise a useful description and I think it provides us with at least one interpretation of why the RWBYJNR group has discarded Ozpin so thoroughly. The addition "despite what your transcripts or fighting abilities looked like" implies that Ozpin sees potential in everyone. It doesn't matter how presumably flawed you might be—in physical strength, like Jaune; in morals, like Lionheart— Ozpin will see the good in you and give that good a fighting chance. That's why he's the one tasked with doing something as crazy as uniting the whole world because he's the one person capable of seeing that potential in literally everyone. That much is true. But the flipside of this is that, unlike when in interacting with someone like Theodore, no one expects to have to work for Ozpin's faith, his praise... his trust. With Theodore you have to "earn" the respect he gives you right from the start. With Ozpin it's free! So surely that means such faith extends to every possible situation, right?

Which is when you run into trouble. When the situation is no longer "I'll give you a chance in my school" but something much more serious like "I'm risking the whole world on your character." Ozpin is an optimist, but he's also cautious as hell (with good reason), so though he sees the potential in everyone he knows he can't let his own hope for humanity blind him to reality. That person might betray you. They might turn on you. They might give up and hurt you in the process... even if you want to believe that people are simply better than that. Wanting doesn’t make it so.

If someone who had as little interaction with Ozpin as Team CFVY did nevertheless developed such a strong sense of, "Yeah, he believes in everyone!" then it seems likely that Team RWBY, already sporting a special connection with him, thought they were shoe-ins for every possible secret and task they might ask of him. Their time at Beacon was defined largely by both intentional favoritism and coincidences that could arguably be read as such. Ruby gets to go to Beacon two years early. She gets to be team leader. The sisters stay together despite teams supposedly being random. Team RWBY goes on missions not meant for first years. Team RWBY is given a nudge-nudge-wink-wink about The White Fang so that they can do what they’re able to help. Team RWBY was friends with Pyrrha, next in line for the Maiden powers. They got used to Ozpin simultaneously solving all the real problems that showed up and letting them play at being important, all while the rest of the school had to follow normal rules. They’re special. But then Beacon falls, the game is over, and they're blindsided by having to earn trust and privileges in the real world. Playing at huntresses in the safety of your headmaster’s school is over and Ruby in particular never got that there was a massive difference between that and a real war where the fate of the world hangs on your trustworthiness and ability to keep it together. It’s why she announces to the Argus guards that she is a huntress while attacking the people she’s meant to protect.

Which would be a fantastic arc to give them if the show ever had someone sit the group down and tell them how childish and selfish they're being. Instead, they're still being handed that trust and privilege—you can go into Atlas despite stealing from the military, you get your licenses years early, you get to carry an incalculably valuable relic around—while likewise still getting mad that the adults around them don't give them more. This comparison here, though realistically just a throwaway passage in a novel rather iffily connected to its original series, starts to highlight the excellent situation RT set up... and then didn't do anything with.

But I've gone on about this long enough. There are just two other things I'd like to point out about this flashback. The first is that it may help us get a handle on Ozpin's age (if we're willing to accept these books as canon, despite their other inconsistencies). Earlier we're told that "Headmaster Theodore’s whole style should have been ridiculous for a man likely in his forties, maybe older" and here, in describing their different approaches, we get "Headmaster Ozpin, who had been younger but seemed much older." So that could potentially put Ozpin his his late 30s if he's noticeably younger than Theodore in his 40s. Or, in his 40s if the "maybe older" part is right and Theodore is in his 50s. I can’t imagine that Theodore is in his 60s. Not much to go on, admittedly, but I'll take whatever I can get. The interesting thing is that if Ozpin really is that young and Qrow is now (presumably) in his early 40s, wouldn't that have made them basically the same age during his Beacon days? Perhaps even giving us an Ozpin who was younger than his oldest students? I don't know. It's really less of a definitive piece of information and more messy speculation to add to the pile—which is par the course for RWBY nowadays.

The second detail I wanted to point out was that despite all their supposed differences, Headmaster Theodore and Professor Rumpole have a very Ozpin-Glynda relationship going on. For all the cosmetic changes it boils down to the same dynamic. Both headmasters are powerful, quirky men who at first glance appear to be rather useless at their jobs, requiring the confident headmistress to swoop in and manage the daily running of a school. Those two do the heavy lifting while their bosses work wonders from behind the scenes (a la The Wizard). When I read Rumpole chastising Theodore for claiming he investigated the students, or when she reminds him that there isn't time to have an impromptu duel with his students, I couldn't help but think about Glynda reluctantly letting Ozpin invite Ruby to Beacon early, or cleaning up the cafeteria while he shrugs off the mess. To be clear, I don't necessarily mean this as a criticism, just an observation. In truth I'm not sure how I feel about it, but it adds to the overall sense that Shade is just Beacon with a slightly different coat of paint. As I've mentioned previously, for all the text's insistence that Shade isn't like the other schools, the story hasn't done a good job of demonstrating that cultural difference in any meaningful way and similarities like this only add to the feeling that this isn't really a unique Kingdom—or at least not one with a firm enough identity to be persuasively unique. Same rule breaking team sneaking out on their own mission. Same secondary team who’s talented, but not as special as the protagonists. Same strange man with his responsible woman running the school. The details differ, obviously, but the structure feels largely the same.

As mentioned above, once the flashback ends Theodore tries to spar with one of the students but is quickly shut down by Rumpole because, you know, they have a meeting to hold. Apparently there have been complaints lately from the local security about Shade students interfering with official huntsmen business.

“I told you it was about us,” Coco muttered.

Coco, when you hear that people are pissed that you, an unlicensed student, are disrupting the careers of professionals every night the takeaway should not be, 'Aha! I knew it was all about me.'

Yatsuhashi at least provides a more nuanced perspective. "This wasn’t right, though. If they hadn’t interfered, those Huntsmen would have kidnapped an innocent person." He's right. They did help someone, but what they've failed to learn is that an individual good deed does not excuse the unlawful steps they took in getting there. If Team CFVY had just been out on the town and happened to spot some shady characters pulling shit, then put a stop to their kidnapping, that's fine. That's heroic. What is not heroic is them going out with the express purpose of fixing a situation that trained professionals told them they should not be trying to fix—key word being “trying,” given that they all understand Rumpole’s worry that they’ll make things worse. It was enough to send them back home last night... after Yatsuhashi failed to break into the hideout. The problem is not the "I helped someone who needed it" part but rather the "I'm arrogant enough to think that my presence is necessary" bit.

If having students conducting investigations was wanted or necessary, it would be a part of the curriculum: acknowledged or otherwise. AKA yes, Ruby. It would be very helpful if you'd head on off to Mountain Glenn, under the observation of a seasoned huntsmen, and report back if there's any dubious activity going on over there. Ozpin said, 'Yes please' to the extra (highly controlled) help while these professionals are saying, 'No thanks.' The fact that Team CFVY acts is if they're justified in continuing this investigation—and worse, that the story keeps validating those feelings—undermines their otherwise heroic actions. RWBY really is a series that struggles with giving its protagonists compelling reasons for getting involved in the fight. ‘Because I want to help’ might be a noble motivation, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should. The Mountain Glenn mission was like a chef allowing a talented, aspiring teen to help them with a dish, all of it done under their tutelage. Team CFVY’s investigation is like the teen sneaking into the kitchen after dark to doctor all the prep for the next day’s cooking under the assumption that they’ll make it even better. Hell, maybe they will! But that’s not the point. Your help was not invited — explicitly denied, actually —and there’s a very good chance you’ll mess something up.

So because this group of eight continually insists that they know best, the whole school is required to stay on campus after nightfall. Huzzah!

It’s just too bad these consequences hurt others just as much as Team CFVY. The other students are pissed about this. I would be too! Team CFVY remains adamant though that they did the right thing, no guilt here, relying on the reader inaccurately comparing ‘saving lives’ with ‘losing free time off campus’ in order to come out on Team CFVY's side. They still fail to understand that helping people is not the reason they’re being punished.

Theodore and Rumpole reiterate that they are working on a solution and that no one else should be getting involved. Team CVFY is no more persuaded by this speech than they were the previous ones. The announcement then segues into discussion of the former Haven students which produces... boos from the audience?? My god, what is wrong with this school? I mean I get it, school is brutal—both in real life and fiction—especially when the social dynamics of your school are written much more like a high school than a college, but usually if characters are going to drag new students it's in the semi-privacy of a bathroom or an empty hall. Groaning over the existence of war survivors in front of your headmaster is a level of confident cruelty I didn't expect.

Then again, RWBY is the show that gave us Cardin pulling on Velvet's ears in the middle of the cafeteria, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised.

Theodore quickly bypasses the whole 'A decent number of my students hate these other students' issue and instead acknowledges that it is "difficult to adjust to a new school, an entirely new group of classmates, and most of all to life in Vacuo. Yet some of you have been separated from your original training teams.” Which is a nice way of saying that a good number of these teammates are dead. So what's the solution here?

Reinitiation Ceremony!

I'm sarcastic, but in all honesty I don't hate this idea. Far from it. Partly because I have a strong love of competitions in shonen-esque stories. Tests, trials, the obligatory tournament arc... they've always been some of my favorite parts of a series, largely because they allow the author to develop whacky and creative challenges that show off important characterization. See: Killua using a skateboard during the tunnel run before deciding that if Gon can manage running it, he can too; or Izuku using the mines and a piece of scrap to blast himself ahead of Bakugo and Todoroki. The structure of such tests forces characters to demonstrate creativity and critical thinking skills alongside strength, and that in turn reminds us of why they're our heroes. RWBY managed this a little bit with the Vytal Festival, but overall I don’t think the teams did anything particularly impressive to win. Team RWBY worked together, Nora hit people really hard with her hammer, Weiss' injury pissed off Yang enough to tap into more power... it was all stuff we had seen before and very little of it required planning or creativity. The Vytal Festival functioned more to set up the plot developments of Volume 3, which is fine, though for a while I had hoped that we would get a huntsmen license exam to do this sort of work... which obviously didn’t happen. Disappointing, but we’re at least getting something like that here.

So I love the concept. I even love the general reasoning behind holding the ceremony at all. Anyone who had spent five minutes on this blog knows that I think the groups need to learn to play well with others. Yet I also can't deny that the team dynamics provide stability for these characters, even if they've come to rely on that stability to an unhealthy degree. We've got students whose teams were presented to them not just as a professional tool, but their primary support system. You live with these people, attend all the same classes, spend your free time together, and survive life-threatening situations on a fairly regular basis. It's work, family, and friendship all rolled into one, so if the headmaster suddenly says that you get a new team, that's a whole lot more devastating than just learning that you've got a new project group to deal with. It shouldn't have come to that—a school looking to teach a profession that requires working with a wide variety of individuals should never have told four students to rely one each other and each other alone—but now that we're here you can't just break them apart with no notice. Especially with a traumatic war going on. It's hard to come to a new school, meet new people, learn a new culture... so let me rip away the one piece of familiarity you have left.

Of course, I don't really think that the teams will be broken up irrevocably, if at all. Rather, I simply want to acknowledge that despite my appreciation for these kinds of stories and despite my desire that the teams get some distance... it shouldn't be done like this. Even more-so when it’s abundantly clear—to us if not the instructors—that this little stunt is causing their students to re-live a whole bucket load of trauma. Yatsuhashi thinks about how this feels like an “out of body experience” and “It reminded [him] uncomfortably of the evacuation of Beacon Academy… He felt his breath catch in his throat.” Coco’s order to stick together “[brought] him back to the moment,” re-emphasizing that he was lost in the past for a while there. He’s clearly struggling.

Now, to be fair, this could all fall under the category of flawed characters. Meaning, anytime something awful happens in fiction we can interpret that as a skill on the part of the author: they wanted to write a scenario where the teachers are screwing up and unintentionally hurting their students. Or they know they’re hurting their students and consider that to be an acceptable sacrifice under the justification of ‘They have to get over Beacon at some point!’ There are lots of ways to paint this as Myers/RT writing complex, human characters who make ambiguous choices—a testament to their ability to write “realistically.” But to be frank I don’t really buy it. Simply because I’ve had a lot of experience now with how RWBY handles subjects like trauma and it’s only rarely been written respectfully and engagingly. I could be proven wrong as the novel continues, but it seems more likely that Myers wrote the instructors coming up with this test, wrote Yatsuhashi panicking over it, and intends to continually imply that these two things are separate plot points. Bringing both together in a narratively useful way would require acknowledging the instructors’ motivations—Why this test? Why now? Do they realize the harm they’re causing? If so, do they think it’s worth it?—and then coming to some sort of resolution, either via some recovery on CFVY’s part due to the instructors’ choices (this test did help us move past Beacon), or the instructors learning something about empathy and trauma via CFVY’s reaction (we never should have done this). I highly doubt we’ll get either.

Thus, everyone is (justifiably) horrified. The teams are gone and either the shock of that made Team CFVY prioritize feelings of safety over strategy, or they're just not going to demonstrate any of the intelligence I look for in this kind of arc, because they immediately start obsessing over staying together.

He needed to keep his team close to him. Especially Velvet. If they weren’t separated, they couldn’t be assigned to different teams.

Yatsuhashi, that is not at all what Rumpole told you:

“It’s already begun,” Rumpole said. “Everything you do from this moment forward will factor into your evaluations for new teams.”

Where in the world did you get the idea that you wouldn't be assigned a new team so long as you stuck with your old one? If I were one of the instructors here that choice would make me more likely to separate them. "Everything you do from this moment," Rumpole says, meaning that how they respond to this information is a part of the test. The team that panics and refuses to separate is the team that either can't function without one another, or at the very least believes that they can't. They're not willing to work with others and thus they're precisely the type that needs to learn this skillset. You're the ones they'll want to give new teammates to.

Of course, fate has different ideas about how things should go down. And by "fate" I mean "A completely ridiculous plot device." Team CFVY is separated because... the crowd is large I guess? It’s ridiculous. Four fighters already standing beside one another and who are now hyper-focused on staying together are not going to get swept away by a Shade size crowd who probably also want to stick with their own teammates. There are far better, far more convincing ways to keep them apart. Ozpin shot students one-by-one into the forest! Literally anything other than what we got, really.

Still, that’s what we wound up with. Yatsuhashi and Coco both try to keep the team together only for the immense power of other people existing putting a stop to their plan. Alrighty then. Before they’re dramatically swept away on different ships, however, we do get two other noteworthy bits of information that I'd like to end on. The first is Rumpole’s announcement that “When you reach your destination, your goal will be to locate a gold figurine and bring it back to the school” to which Fox replies, “Great. Glad this is fair for everyone. Who can see.” And you know what? He's right. Maybe Fox and I will both be proven wrong (I feel like I'm writing that a lot this chapter...) but unless there's some miscommunication here or a surprise in store, a goal of "locat[ing] a gold figurine" is indeed a sight based challenge and, when placed in a test that is deliberately separating Fox from his team, puts him at a severe disadvantage.

The second is simply that the year levels of the students will not be a factor in the creation of new teams. “What year we are? Yatsu thought. This can’t be right. How could a first-year keep up with fourth-years?” to which I respond, "Um... that's the entire show?" The webseries RWBY is about how Team RWBY, starting out as first years, has surpassed everyone around them, to the point where they're now beating the best team in Atlas. Time-wise they're still second years—far as I can figure out, anyway—so if second years can beat elite military operations, a first year can stand toe-to-toe with second, third, and fourth years. More crucial to Yatsuhashi's thought process—because as an in-world character he doesn't necessarily know what Team RWBY has been up to post-Volume 3—he's still seen how well first years did at Beacon. Ruby was let in two years early. Pyrrha is such a phenomenally talented fighter her face is on their cereal boxes. A first year, Yang, went on to compete in the Vytal Tournament final (even if it was rigged. Yatsuhashi doesn't know that), and Team CFVY fought beside a number of first years at the Battle of Beacon. Now, you all know that I think education and experience are damn important. I'm not saying Yatsuhashi is flat-out wrong to question whether there would be any issues attached to slamming, say, a first year, two second years, and a fourth year into one team (especially when you consider practical questions like going to classes), but the general takeaway of "How could they keep up?" seems a tad strange. You know first years can keep up. You watched it happen, both in your former school's curriculum—first years get to go on an upper-level mission—and in real life battle. This knee-jerk response reads as even worse after five chapters of looking down on Team SSSN. Team CFVY really thinks highly of themselves, huh.

Honestly, it feels like our authors didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the implications of the dialogue/thoughts they’re giving to the characters which is, again, par for the course at this point. Like the questions attached to the test, this feels less like giving Yatsuhashi a flaw (he, as an in-world character, hasn't bothered to think through whether his knee-jerk assumption about first years is supported by his experiences) and more like a flaw of the creators. That sounds like a legitimate concern—in the same way that Yatsuhashi's advice to Rumpole sounds generically wise—but poke at it a bit and you start finding a number of cracks. An author who is well aware of the world they've built and strives to adhere to it might have had Yatsuhashi acknowledge some of the amazing things he's seen first years do and still conclude that there are problems with this decision. That's legit. As it stands, Yatsuhashi just sounds ignorant and (again) overly confident, which I don't trust to be a moment of character insight as opposed to an authorial blip.

Which is about where we end. The team is split on different airships, no one is happy about it, and we're left with this somewhat unsettling image:

Headmaster Theodore was waving and whooping, like it was all some terrific game, while Professor Rumpole watched silently, her hair whipping around in the wind and an unsettling grin on her face.

This gives me some hope that the story will treat the problems attached to this test respectfully. The description of Theodore acting "like it was all some terrific game" is a mark against his character and Rumpole straight up has an "unsettling grin on her face." Is she one of the baddies? Potentially. Will I ever again get adult characters who aren't depicted as inept, traitorous, or just so flawed that they unwittingly cause great damage to their students? Probably not. These two desires remain constantly at war with one another. RWBY introduces issues that the story should tackle, but the only issues it acknowledges are those attached to the adults. So we have everyone doing a range of iffy things, but only the elders are likely to be punished or (better yet) learn something over the course of the tale. The double standard remains so strong across the franchise that at this point I just want to raise a THE ADULTS DID NOTHING WRONG banner and call it a day. Not because they're actually free of mistakes or even, at times, downright cruelty, but because if our protagonists constantly get that free pass I'm not sure why everyone else can't too.

Anyone for a spot of denial?

But I've now written nearly twice as much as the actual chapter in question. It's time to stop! At this rate I’ll have written the equivalent of five Before the Dawns in my attempt to recap just one. #yikes

Until Chapter Six 💜

#rwby #BTD Recaps #Before the Dawn #mymetas

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felassan · 4 years

Note

how do you see andrastianism being portrayed in northern thedas, especially in tevinter with its entirely separate chantry? is it going to be noticeably different than in past games do you think? looking back, the southern chantry and its templars, specifically, have played an Enormous role in the plots of the past DA games. it’s going to be interesting having a game without them, in a way...

Hello! Great question. This became long so it’s under a cut.

Hopefully true to the established lore and different in the ways and where it’s meant to be.

I think the most considerable or notable differences will be less in Andrastianism - as in, individual peoples’ personal faiths, their interactions with and conceptions of it, and how they relate to it and it to the world around them - and more in the institutional, organizational differences in the structures of the Imperial Chantry, and how that subsequently shapes Tevinter society and culture.

The former naturally varies between individuals already, as with southern Andrastians and many religions in our world. Our most visible examples of Tevinter Andrastians so far are Fenris (see his banters with Sebastian) and Dorian (see early conversation at Haven). From the little insight we get into their feelings on their faith and their opinions on it, we can see a bit of that variance, and it’s naturally colored by their respective life experiences in Tevinter. Fenris’ faith was never strong; he says it’s difficult for a slave to have faith in someone who abandoned them. Danarius, like a lot of Magisters who own slaves I assume, didn’t allow his slaves religious teaching or access to formal aspects of the faith, in order to deny them a sense of self-worth. Early on, Fenris feels that the Maker didn’t help him and doesn’t care for him or indeed anyone, and struggles somewhat to reconcile that and to square away the Maker’s existence with the ills of the world. Eventually, by Act 3, Sebastian comments that he noticed Fenris in the Chantry one day, praying.

Dorian identifies as Andrastian, but doesn’t “believe in the Chantry”. He thinks both the Imperial Chantry and the southern Chantry are outdated relics desperately clinging to relevance. He acknowledges that this opinion doesn’t make him popular - from that we can infer how his Tevinter peers from his social strata tend to feel about the Chantry, at least publicly. He doesn’t like the... not sure how to phrase it or what this is called, but like the piety-type religious practise aspects? It makes sense, given his personality and story arc in DAI, that he’s someone who would chafe under being told what to do and how to live his life. You can also see where such sentiments would in part originate considering his background (having once essentially been shipped off by his father to an expensive school in Minrathous known for its adherence to strict Andrastian discipline). At the same time he knows that he doesn’t know everything, has feelings of being small in the grand scheme of things (this stuff is an interesting layer to his character, as he usually presents as quite self-assured, sometimes larger than life, and is inclined to refer to his skill and intellectual prowess), and believes in something bigger than him existing, because the idea of there being nothing scares him.

The latter most obviously shows up in how Tevinter societal structure is flipped, with the elite mages at the top running things. It’s evident in things like how men and mages are allowed to be part of the priesthood as well as in Tevinter social mores - more tolerant views of magic, magical ability as a valued trait, blood magic’s pretty okay, magic widely-practised in society, etc. The Imperial Chantry holds some different beliefs, such as that blood magic was learned by humanity from ancient elves from Elvhenan, as opposed to from the Old Gods, and that the lies of the Old Gods are what was ultimately responsible for the actions of the ancient Magisters that led to the Blights, as opposed to mortal pride. They believe that Andraste was only a mortal prophet, albeit a mage, and even forbid worship of her. And they fundamentally reeeally diametrically disagree with the southern Chantry on the meaning of “magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him”. Instead of ‘mages should be controlled, they’re nefarious’ it’s ‘magic’s great, it should be used for the good of mankind and we’ll do that by having mages rule’. Some of this stuff diverges quite a lot from the southern Chantry, but Dorian does comment that most of the Imperial Chantry’s teachings are the same as in the south “...despite some finicky bits about magic”.

I’m looking forwards to Tevinter as a setting, in part because of these kinds of differences that it has (speaking here of these aspects of its society, not others). It’s different. It’s fresh. I’m kinda weary of the south, and definitely of the southern Chantry. I’m interested to see these things that are established and referred to ‘in person’, as it were. As you say, the southern Chantry and things associated with it have been at the forefront so far due to its prevalence in the south - it’s time for something new! Beats like “mages vs templars” are well-trodden by now. The interplay between mages and templars in Tevinter isn’t comparable. The role of magic and the lot of many mages in Tevinter is totally different to what we’ve been dealing with so far. I guess my main point in answer to the question of Andrastianism’s portrayal in the north is a bit broad; like, I’m heeere for the new stuff, that interesting setting, and I hope they do the noted differences justice.

Even more minor stuff like: How Dorian had never heard of the Seekers of Truth as they don’t exist in Tevinter (he questioned Cassandra about what they are and wondered if they were some kind of “super Templar”, lol). How there are a lot of Tranquil in Tevinter, but there it’s a sentence handed down by the Magisterium for “abuse of magic” which conveniently has “many interpretations” (the inference being it’s a handy way among the scheming elite to get rid of political rivals). That the Magisters still make sacrificial offerings in rituals, ostensibly nowadays pretending that such things are for Andraste and the Maker rather than the Old Gods. The harsher and more direct political workings of the Imperial Chantry compared to the southern one - like, it sounds like it’s totally normal for the Black Divine to openly slaughter all his enemies after he ascends. Do the templars in Tevinter get chips on their shoulder because they’re basically cityguard Magister-goons and have no real power? Imagine Magisters being confronted by a southern templar NPC’s powers. Imagine the arcane knowledge and mysteries in the libraries of the Tevinter Circles, or going to an Imperial Chantry service and seeing the magic that’s performed at those. What an intense backdrop and sandbox to be exploring. I wanna meet the Black Divine.

There isn’t much currently known about Andrastianism/the Chantry as it is in Antiva that’s specific to there or that ‘jumps’ out, so it would be nice to learn a bit more on that front. Rivain of course is mostly not Andrastian. I don’t know if we’ll visit there in this game (locales like Tevinter, Nevarra and so on feel more likely) but would certainly reeeally love to do so and explore their pantheism and belief in the Natural Order. There’s a lot of really interesting stuff there like their seers, the long-established local traditions, even the Qun. The Anders are super pious - I’m sure if we visit Weisshaupt for example we’ll encounter Andrastians who are more devoted and more dour even than their southern counterparts. Nevarra is where again it gets quite different, and in a ‘potentially quite pertinent since it feels like we’ll go there’-kinda way. Their mages have almost as much power as Magisters do in the Imperium, and the populace has those hyper-specific and fascinating beliefs on death. The political intrigue there, their niche unparalleled knowledge of the dead, their influence on King Markus... more awesome, interesting new shit for a setting.

Not sure if this really answers your question. 😅 Basically I’m really excited to go north because some aspects of it are so different, even in fixtures of the setting like the Chantry and in Andrastian belief. I’d like to see some of the differences ‘northern Andrastianism’ has in action outside of Codexes and “back in my homeland” dialogue, especially in external stuff like societal structure and culture. I’m ready for mage-rule opposite-land for a change (not because it’s good or bad but because it’s different), and for new dynamics and different spins on old worn plotbeats. I can see the Imperial Chantry being prominent in the story and I welcome the fact that the domineering rhetoric around us will be somewhat changed up after three games in the south. Obviously the Magisters dominate the Imperium and they derive that right to rule from the Imperial Chantry’s beliefs/teachings. I’d guess we will be mostly leaving southern Chantry stuff mostly behind, as that allows the writers to keep the diverging ‘the new Divine’s way of doing things’ stuff off-screen. Time for different groups to play big roles, like the Magisters, the Qunari, the Crows. And some revelation about the faith of some description, like that Andraste was secretly a ghast in disguise, wouldn’t go amiss either.

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blazefire-engine · 4 years

Text

Smelling Salts

Based on the consumable item that cures confusion.

Official description: A stimulating sports drink that takes on curative properties by way of Noctis's powers. Cures confusion.

AN: So the dialogue between the Chocobros was so funny when they were against Killer Wasps and it would cause status confusion. Also this is kinda a parallel to my Maiden's Kiss fic.

---

With a grunt, Noctis threw his blade to the sky, warp-striking a soaring Killer Wasp and spilling its guts. "Aaaand, that's disgusting."

"These things sure are persistent." Lightning remarked coolly and targeted the flying enemies seamlessly.

"Ew, ew, ewwww." Prompto cried as he bombarded a wasp with bullets, an opposite demeanor from Lightning's calmness. The wasp was already dead on the ground but he still kept shooting.

"Quite the overkill." Ignis added as he casted a blizzaga.

"Prompto!" Gladiolus shouted from across the terrain. "Stop bitching, start killing!"

The blonde gunsman whined. "I hate bugs."

"Me too." The Prince grimaced as he observed the gooey substance on his engine blade. "Icky."

Distracted by inspecting his weapon, Lightning warped on his unguarded six o-clock. "Noct, watch out!"

"Gas attack!" Ignis shouted, immediately ducking his nose and mouth to the crook of his elbow. "Don't breathe it in!"

However, Lightning took the brunt of the attack. As she instinctively inhaled, the rancid green gas infiltrated her nostrils and mouth. A burning, toxic sensation traveled to her lungs that made her feel very lightheaded and disoriented.

"Lightning!" Noctis coughed out as he turned and saw her drop to one knee. He went to her side as the others finished off the last of the wasps.

From her perspective, her vision was sporadic and there was a dull ringing in her ears. She felt her body being shifted to lay on her back. As she stared, she met Noctis' face - or two or three.

His black hair looked fluffy and soft. She lifted her hand, trying to touch it but failed the task.

"Light." Noctis murmured and looked down in concern. He brushed some hair away from her face. "You okay?"

Ignis came to their side, observing her hazy blue eyes. "She's a touch confused."

She continued to stare at Noctic, trying to focus so the images could remain in one spot, but he seemed to appear everywhere. So many Noctises, if only she could catch one.

"You're so sexy." She breathed, her hand finally catching a Noctis by the hair. So soft.

"Wha-" The Prince in her possession yelped, his face heating up. While Prompto stared at her, mouth open like a fish out of water.

"Looks like she lost her marbles." Gladio voiced out.

"Can you try to stand?" The advisor asked, gently holding onto her other arm.

The Glaive tried, but felt that her thoughts and actions were not coordinating with her legs. "Dizzy." She admitted, plopping back into Noctis' arms. "Sorry."

Lightning closed her eyes, hoping the spinning would go away. Her other senses heightened, especially her smell…

"You smell nice." She murmured, snuggling closer. "Musky. Manly."

Noctis felt the tips of his ears go hot and a sweat break on his back.

"I think she finally snapped!" Prompto exclaimed, almost aghast.

The Prince cleared his throat. "As much as I'd like to hear her compliments, this has me pretty worried." Although, he can't help but feel his ego somewhat inflate.

"Aha." With a snap of his fingers, Ignis rummaged through their pack and brought out what he was looking for. "Smelling salts. It should do the trick." He eyed the laying Glaive, who seems to be too comfortable. "She needs to be awake for the cure to work."

"Right. Thanks, Iggy." Noctis took the bottle. He turned to the woman in his arms, shaking her a bit. "Don't fall asleep, Light."

With a small grunt, she opened her eyes, looking a bit better, but still disoriented. "Your eyes. Pretty blue." She blurted in awe. "Like the ocean. I like them."

He couldn't help but chuckle. Lightning was pretty adorable. "Glad you think so. I like your eyes too." He opened the bottle and held it by her nose. "Now, breathe it in."

She obeyed, taking a deep breath. A strong, spicy aroma filling her lungs and head, followed by a soothing and almost minty, nose-clearing sensation. A complete opposite from the gas she had inhaled moments ago.

"Ugh." Lightning groaned, lifting a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. After a few moments to collect herself, she opened her eyes to see four other pairs stare intently into hers.

"Hey." She responded with less infatuation and enthusiasm.

The four of them all gave a sigh of relief - a reaction that confused the Glaive, what could have possibly happened to elicit such a reaction?

Though they all knew, the statements that Lightning said must be based on some sort of truth.

---

AN: This is it. This is the closest thing we'll get to seeing Lightning high. LOL I had a hard time ending it. I think it would just be best for Lightning to not know what she did. Poor Noctis though HAHAHA. Also the Chocobros legit worried she lost her shit.

Those confessions, Lightning… everyone knows babe ;D

#lightis #nokurai #lightning farron #Noctis Lucis Caelum #ffxv #ffxiii #animus #i wrote a thing #omgggg wrote this on a whim #what have i doneee

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inkforhumanhands · 3 years

Note

1, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 20, 24, 29?

1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.

Good questionnnn. I guess slightly ridiculous? But also slightly angsty? Also gay lol i can’t write het stuff ‘cause i ain’t one, RIP straight people (lol)

5. Share one of your strengths.

I don’t know if this is actually a strength since I’m sure like nobody else notices it but I have a weird habit of (maybe coincidentally) choosing words near each other with either nice alliteration or assonance lmao

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Okay this whole one-shot was really fun and chaotic, and part of the premise is that the two main characters meet for the first time at a punk show and one of them has his hair dyed red and the other his hair green and the colors clash. Anyway I Iike how I treated the colors as representing each character as he was unknown to the other one, yet they were both attracted to the other for some reason. These paragraphs don’t run together but I like them both as parallels:

A moment before he shrugs away from the action, that bit of green catches his eye again from somewhere in the thick of all the movement. He stalls. The color was on the kid’s hair, or it was the kid’s hair, or the kid’s hair is the color. Green, green, sour but not too sour, like the lovechild of a lime and a kiwi. Billie Joe kind of wants to taste that color, kind of wouldn’t mind tasting that kid’s lips, either.

and

He sees the back of his head first. The color irritates him before he can come up with a reason, but then he remembers that his own hair is green. There’s a bad joke to be made here somewhere, yadda yadda Christmas.

And then the asshole with the bright red, the Atomic Fireball candy red fucking red hair turns around and Tré maybe rethinks his position. The guy has a nice face. Tré digs the nose ring, digs the bold eyebrows framing soft, yet potentially devious eyes. Heck, he digs it so much he’s having trouble looking at him straight on, like the guy is some sort of eclipse. Or maybe he doesn’t want to be caught with his mouth open. He averts his eyes and brushes past him like he fucking hates baby Jesus. Time to seek out another joint.

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

lol okay I like this dialogue that my Magnus Archives ficlet ‘Poptimism’ is based around. this like 80% of the fic because it’s short so sorry but:

“Sorry to interrupt, but Tim asked me to hand you the copy of the police report for State—hang on, is that Billie Eilish?”

Jon did a grumpy thing with his mouth. He had been hoping Martin would stick to business. This was one of the things he liked least about his assistant: too friendly.

“Yes.”

“Oh,” Martin said, and blinked in a way that affected surprise.

“Is there a problem?” Jon’s scowl deepened.

“No, no. It’s just—”

“Just what?”

“Just you don’t…seem like the type to listen to popular music is all.”

Jon moved out from behind his desk and snatched the folder from Martin’s hands. “It’s called poptimism, Martin.”

“Popti-what?” Martin laughed, and Jon found his irritation deflating somewhat. Clearly he was too tired to waste emotions on this idiot any longer.

“What kind of music did you think I listen to, then?”

“Hmm, something a bit more indie maybe? Old-school emo?”

Jon snorted. “You would have me be some hipster, then.”

“Yeah, basically,” Martin agreed like it was nothing. “But now I know not to be surprised if next time I walk into the archive you have Lil Nas X blaring.”

11. Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby?

Somewhere in between? I used to want to be a writer of some sort and now I just do academic writing which is.....not fun. Maybe someday I will actually like write a book or something though. I would like to take it more seriously again.

12. Is there an episode above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?

This isn’t direct inspiration but just like The Vibes from the scene where Matt loses his hearing for a bit in season 2 and then season 3 depression Matt are where it’s at.

13. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?

I’m biased because this is a huge pet peeve of mine when reading fic, but “don’t use epithets unless it’s called for” is great advice. It’s okay to repeat names and pronouns, it’s not repetitive, I promise. “The man” though, when you and the narrator both know who “the man” is? That’s awful.

14. What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?

This one isn’t the worst, in fact it’s Good advice, but a lot of people don’t seem to actually understand it: “Don’t use purple prose.” Purple prose is by its nature unnecessary and clogs up a story, especially one that might have an otherwise faster pace. Purple prose is NOT, however, the same as just having a writing style that’s on the descriptive or metaphorical side. You wouldn’t say Virginia Woolfe’s entire body of work was purple prose; that’s just her writing style.

20. Describe your perfect writing conditions.

Writing on a better laptop than this piece of shit, that’s for sure. I would say maybe with a cup of tea beside me but then I’d have to keep getting up to empty my bladder, so... I don’t know, I guess just being comfortable (like a good chair that doesn’t kill my back) + being able to get down ideas fast before I forget them and/or being able to change/edit sentences easily so good technology are musts. Also like air temperature should not be too hot or too cold.

24. Have you ever deleted one of your published fics?

Nope, HOWEVER I did get banned from a website when I was 15 (LOL) and I recently did a web search to make sure the fic I had on it doesn’t exist online still because it was really bad (unrelated to the reason I was banned). Anyway it’s gone now and will never see the light of day again so if that counts as fic deletion then yes. Otherwise no, I would be too sad if someone liked one of my fics and I accidentally took that away from them.

29. If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

Okay not technically a sequel or prequel but I think it would be very fun to poke around in a_silver_sun’s Time Traveler’s Wife AU “Always Crashing in the Same Car”

#ask games #writing #happybeans #asks

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advernia · 4 years

Text

the world in her heart, her heart in his hands

assorted sidenotes for the fic i made in response to an anon-sent aesthetic prompt! oooh boy, i sure took long on this one lmao...... _(:3 」∠)_

prompt #7: steady notes coming from a guitar nearby, fireflies dancing around the clearing, two sleeping bags close together, and a bright full moon briefly covered by a cloud.

so the core idea i had when i saw that prompt got requested was based on jonah’s say i do! route: he says that one day, he wanted to go to the land of reason + see the place alice was born and raised. tbh idk how the prompt even led me to that, but the imagery vibes i got from the prompt hinted of something like freedom. or something like lovers secretly meeting in the woods, which i sort of went by.

OKAY SO I SWEAR I FINISHED WRITING THE PROMPT (day zero!!!) EARLY (by my standards) LMAO.............. like, maybe a week after i got the ask or so? but then when i went about proofreading it i felt that it was... lacking??? i can’t explain it myself, but i didn’t wanna post it yet until i got that feeling cleared out - i tried revising + adding, but it didn’t help so i just started thinking about expanding the fic instead...

thinking about the scenes really took longer than i thought?!?!?! i wanted this request up early but i was stumped on what kind of scenes i wanted to see + how their lengths were gonna be.... plus i was thinking if i should go solely on narration + description........ or maybe more of dialogue...... then i jumped to holy shit what’s my timeline gonna be what cultural whatnot am i gonna emphasize and i think i fussed over those aspects rather than picturing the actual scenes LMAOOO.......................

great disclaimer: i have NEVER stepped into the uk..... or england + london for that matter ahahaha GET REKT tho i want to someday huehuehue....... i heavily relied my research on maps + history websites + train timetables to help me get through the touring parts so do forgive me if i messed up somewhere + butchered history haha..... i was thinking to make things vague, but since i’m always in for emphasizing the differences between cradle + land of reason, i decided to get a little technical with it......

i have to admit that i wrote most of the fic during breaks in work hELLA RAD........... i’m doing my job properly, i swear........ it’s just that when i already have a stable idea of what i want to happen, the scene becomes clearer in my mind. i wanted so! badly! to add scenes of jonah pronouncing words and looking at various things funny!!! jonah and his attempts to communicate with londoners!!! fussy jonah poking around a boutique, him being fascinated + studying displays of gun shops, or him accidentally offending the royal guard + constables LMAOOOOO but i couldn’t seem to write anything satisfactory involving those ideas........... ಥ_ಥ

back to the issue of timeline, i was picturing the london in this fic to be around the 1860s or smth.... but then i remembered that in edgar’s dramatic end letter, he mentions his fascination with electricity aka lightbulbs......... which were, like...... discovered early 1800s but only became common in 1882 ahahaha....... when i realized this i was already writing day 18 oOOPS so i just decided to go on and wing it I’M SORRY _(:3 」∠)_

on timeframe, i know that it’s very highly unlikely that jonah would take a vacation for two months. i bet the mere concept of a one-month vacation is enough to give him a heart attack LMAOOOO but let’s just say that red army told him to take his time in the land of reason, especially when they learn that jonah plans to formally meet alice’s parents. when he hears about this, lancelot tosses in the suggestion of proposing to alice while they’re in the land of reason, so that jonah can tell her parents about that too. jonah thinks it’s a fantastic idea..... so he decides to accept hot damn, a two month vacation!

whole route & lengths of stay (points streaked with red are mentioned within the fic minus nottingham whoops sorry):

london [16 days bc IT’S A BIG CITY LMAO (day 30 - 14). rides a morning train going to bristol on the 14th, arrives there midday.]

bristol [5 days (day 14 - 9). leaves bristol on the morning of the 9th to walk all the way to glastonbury, arrives there come late afternoon / evening.]

glastonbury [4 days (day 9 - 5). leaves midday of the 5th to walk their way to alice’s village, arrives there around sunset.]

alice’s village / ‘actual wonderland’ lmao [5 days (day 5 - 0). located somewhere in between bridgwater, taunton, and glastonbury. month 1 of vacation has ended.]

day log commentary!

thirty. arrival in the land of reason through falling - routes where alice does go back don’t feature her falling down london’s sky, so maybe she’s just... spit out from the hole????? idk haha so i altered it anyway!!!!! the landing scene was initially like this: jonah lands first, he catches alice in his arms, they banter a bit....... and then they suddenly remember the suitcase only for said object to fall right on jonah’s head LMAOOO....... it’s a cradle magical object that looks like a regular suitcase but will always be as light as a feather despite it’s contents + it has GREAT CAPACITY so jonah is actually okay!!!!!! i decided to scrap that scene concept though haha!

twenty-nine. does the hole to the land of reason only open around midnight or smth???? i’m sure it doesn’t, but i went with jonah + alice leaving cradle minutes before twelve o’clock, so when they arrive in london jonah gets to see the big ben signal midnight. is that planned on alice’s part? maybe. on another note, i’m assuming that a high-ranking officer + noble like jonah is definitely used to traveling to other countries so he’s definitely not one for homesickness, but i like the thought of him always feeling all sorts of uncomfortable on his first nights away from home - he doesn’t make a big deal about it bc he gets better three days in or so. idk, it just seems fitting for someone very particular like him.

twenty-seven. if luka’s hair is fucking dyed, my god (no wonder i found those light ends of his hair sorta funny), then here’s jonah excuse to adapt another hair color with the help of magic crystals LMAO - i always stick with a reality ensues standpoint, so his ikeman looks aside, i’m sure londoners would find jonah’s hair color (heck, maybe even his eye color) very unique. alice can’t deal with all that sudden attention lol but she somewhat proud that the man who has effortlessly captured the attention of the people of her world too is the man she proudly calls her lover ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

twenty-three. now that i think of it, what exactly does cradle mean when they say the land of reason? are they simply referring to the city of london, or earth as a whole??? most likely the latter, but i’m pretty sure no one except blanc (and possibly ray bc that globe in his room lol) know exactly how large the land of reason is. anyway, not gonna lie, i wanted jonah + alice talking about novels by maybe the likes of charles dickens, thomas hardy, george eliot or h.g. wells. heck, maybe jane austen and charlotte bronte too!!!! but i had to scrap that bc gaps in understanding cultural & historical references + use of language, figurative and non-figurative.... it’s a shame about the last two though - i’m sure jonah can somehow probably relate to the society depicted in their books since the red territory sounds like your typical breeding place of victorian era nobles lmao!!!!

eighteen. sometimes when people learn / gain a deeper understanding about new things, they have the urge to brag about said knowledge to others - of course jonah wants to show alice what he knows about her world so far haha! calling a train a mechanical beast tho lmao..... he refers to it that way, but i think it’s his target of fascination in london!!! noise and possibly environmental issues aside, it’s very convenient + efficient and can cater to all, but what he finds most impressive that it’s a man-made locomotive!!! that’s something worth incredible praise!!! ( ᐛ )و

fourteen. actual train ride!!! hmmm.... i think jonah only panics maybe a good thirty minutes in when the train starts moving??? alice tries to calm him down by pointing at the passing scenery out the window + idle chatter until jonah finally relaxes himself.... but then he starts to panic slightly again when alice suggests that they look around the train and he’s like: is that even remotely safe??? what about our baggages, can we leave them unattended??? hey, i saw you snicker - how dare you laugh at me!!!

nine. according to google, an estimate of a walk starting from bristol going to glastonbury is 8h 25min. that’s for the present time though - would’ve it been shorter or longer in the past??? idk, but definitely one’s pace during the walk affects the total time, lol. since railroads only started out around 1830s + i made alice a village girl, walking really is her way to go. pedestrianism was still a thing around the 19th century!!! her stamina in other routes tho lol (ﾟ⊿ﾟ)

six. here’s my self-indulgent thing of wanting to add a dance scene, pt. 1 LMAOOOO - the steps in the scene aren’t really from a certain folk dance in england, much less from glastonbury itself... i did look up on england folk dances, but i couldn’t pick one that i wanted to incorporate into the scene so i went with describing some random steps on the top of my head _(:3 」∠)_ ..... maybe someday, i’ll write a proper one..... on another note though, i suppose jonah can adapt quickly to folk dances, but he may come off a bit stiff at first in line / column dances where there’s the switch of partners??? i mean, there are formal 19th century dances that have that same concept, but.... the finesse + personal boundaries are all there lmao - he’s not against the casual intimacy + show of obvious joy in folk + common dances though, it’s just more of that he’s not used to the informality of it all, i think.

five. plot twist: alice does lead jonah to her home, the cottage on a hill like she always described, but what he doesn’t expect is when she solemnly says that she’d introduce him to her parents she leads him to the back of the hill and in the foot of the hill he finds himself staring at her parents’ gravestones as she’s smiling sadly with a bouquet of flowers in her hand OH WAIT WRONG GENRE WASN’T THIS SUPPOSED TO BE FLUFF LMAO - kidding aside, i do hope cybird catches onto the idea of a story event of chosen suitor going to the land of reason with alice to meet her parents or smth!!! they did do a travel event in the jp ver, after all.... but i’m not keeping my hopes up haha....... _(:3 」∠)_

zero. self-indulgent thing of wanting to add a dance scene, pt. 2 - tho it’s in the latter part along with the prompt lmao!!! hmmm, i’m pretty satisfied with how this one turned out tho i had a little problem arranging the first half - the rest i relatively left untouched even after i added the rest of the days to the fic. hopefully, does well as a nice end to the fic itself..... tbh, the thought of summer dress alice + casual shirt & pants jonah both barefoot & running around like children in moonlit woods (don’t do this in real life folks) made me smile a lot. give me more soft-and-not-so-tooth-rotting-fluff scenes, cybird

also!!! since the prompt involved a guitar, i had a certain track on repeat lmao - you can listen to it here, and it’s the second to the last track titled umibe ni yurete (swaying in the beach)! (ノ^∇^)

and that’s all that i’ve got today!!! thank you very much for reading + hope you’re staying safe & well wherever you are!!!!（｡≧◇≦）ﾉ

#rundown.txt #u know what else took me so long to decide on this fic #a title + summary LMAOOOO #i wanted the title to be something related to the prompt but.... so much for that orz #i usually have no problems making them up but #why was this a struGGLE LOLOL

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galadrieljones · 5 years

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Telling Stories Through Patience and Implication: More Showing, Less Telling

Sometimes I get asked by other writers how to make their scenes and writing more immersive, like how to influence readers to experience that “I feel like I’m right in the scene, or the room with these characters, and I’m crying” kind of reaction to their words. I had an idea on the way home from taking my kid to preschool today and thought I’d make it into an advice post: on how to use more ACTION and DESCRIPTION of object and place in our writing, instead of relying too much on interior monologue when telling stories. I also thought it would be useful to talk about forcing patience (for yourself and for your reader), and also using implication rather than purely narration to both push the story forward and to stimulate climactic, emotional moments and/or reveals. This is a little long! But if you’re so inclined, I hope it helps!!

Why is using too much interior monologue ineffectual in telling stories?

One thing I’ve learned over many many years of reading and writing and also teaching reading and writing is that there is a HUGE distinction between the inclination to tell stories through telling and then the inclination to tell stories through showing. The “telling” way, which is often funneled through a close third or first person POV and manifests as a list and/or series of interior thoughts and abstract perception is something that we, as writers, often start off doing. This is because choosing to write is largely choosing to put a part of your inner self on the page, and the easiest, most obvious way to do that is by narrating interior monologue. It looks something like this:

She felt pain. Real pain. Pain for the first time. And hunger. Like she was falling through a glass plate and never hitting the ground, falling so fast, and she wanted to land, but there was nowhere to fall to, and so she just kept wanting. And wanting. And her heart felt forever wound into the threads of time and imagination. She was helpless to his touch, and yet she hated everything about it, because it was old. So she just kept falling, hoping maybe somewhere there would be a surface for her to land.

There is nothing wrong with this “interiority” type of writing. It can often be quite beautiful and imaginative. As long as it is not the only or super dominant type of writing in a story. This type of writing is very “telling.” It’s explaining the meaning and feelings of a character’s mind, as well as the themes of the story, to the readers in a somewhat unfiltered way. But note that it’s also very far up in the writer’s head, and because it is so abstract, this type of writing all by itself actually cancels immersion for most readers. It is like floating in a sea of feelings, which might be interesting at first, especially if the prose is beautiful, but after a while, you get tired as the reader, and you find yourself searching for a lifeboat. This type of writing is often found scattered in with dialogue in scenes as well--replacing action and description, and it’s sometimes italicized to indicate that it is an “inner thought” of the POV character.

So what is the opposite of this? Well, the opposite would be pure showing, ie: using description of action and object only to imply emotion and idea (rather than simply telling emotion and idea):

She went to the bathroom, and when she got back, she sat down at her desk. The room was warm. She stared at the picture frame he had purchased for her at a truck stop in Missoula, Montana five years before. She had never put anything in the picture frame. It was still the same smiling people from the stock photo provided by the manufacturer. A long time ago, they had used to go paddling down the Clark Fork river and then tie the canoe to a sturdy root in the bank and hold hands on the shore. Now, he had not held her hand in many months. She picked up the picture frame and then she placed it in a drawer, and then she got up to dust the curtains.

The above type of writing communicates a similar sense of sadness and unclear emotion over a relationship that seems to have changed or died, but that emotional message is communicated through a kind of literal stoicism: actions and descriptions of objects, not the character’s interior monologue. It is not as overtly emotional, but this type of writing is a very effective tool, because it puts things in the scene, creates actions for the characters to undertake, sets up choices that affect the physical world, and attends to setting as well as exposition and character code. It puts your reader in a concrete place, too, a lifeboat, so to speak, giving them actual information to process. It is a break from the effusive emotion we see in the first example, balancing said effusion with stoic and solid objects in the world.

A (Brief) Case for Why We Should All Read Hemingway

Note that most writing has a combination of both of these things--the interior and the exterior. But some writers avoid interior monologue altogether, or reserve it only for VERY important moments. Many of them are short story writers of the modern tradition of Realism, ie: Ernest Hemingway and his many acolytes of the 1970s and 80s--Ray Carver, Ann Beattie, Joy Williams, etc. Even if you hate this sort of writing, it is worth studying. Why?

Many writers, particularly young writers, I find, eschew writing like Hemingway’s as stilted and boring, and in truth, I did not fully appreciate Hemingway till I was in my late twenties (I’m “old” lol). But I think the reason we reject Hemingway is because it is just...so different from what we’re used to. It demands a great deal of us, the reader, and it never EVER tells us what to think, what to feel, or what the characters are thinking or feeling. Instead, it communicates ALL of this through pure description of action, object, and setting. When you learn how to read Hemingway effectively, even if you still don’t love it, you will see that he is an excellent teacher when it comes to using ONLY action and description to communicate messages about emotion and theme. This is a valuable skill in terms of taking steps toward immersion in your writing and creating concrete settings and pictures for your reader to experience. His writing is very stylized but also very stoic in this way, and it is my experience that a great deal of writing these days could use a bit more stoicism and a bit less effusion, because it is robust ACTION and DESCRIPTION that immerses readers in scenes and settings the most--not soft and abstract interiority and feelings alone.

How Implication Works in Writing, ie: Make Your Readers WORK

The word implication here just literally means “implied meaning.” When I’m teaching, one of the most tell-tale qualities that I look for in a writer’s work is whether they rely too much on overt, over-explained meaning and theme via interiority and narration, or whether they use some form of implication in their writing: do they IMPLY their themes through action and description in the story, attend to both setting and process writing, and do they allow their characters to make choices and their reader to do a little work. The latter style usually indicates a writer that is somewhat more mature in their craft. They have read more and understand the importance of setting and action in fiction. They take their cues from books, not movies and TV. But even if you read a LOT, it’s really difficult and takes a long time to get out of your own head as a writer, and to acknowledge that the most important thing in terms of pushing any story forward is action, not thought or narration, and the most important trait in terms of immersing your reader in any scene or situation is through description of action, description of setting, and description of process (ie: giving your characters something to do).

A common problem I see when teaching writing is the tendency to hand readers everything on a silver platter through the narration of the story: here is what the character is feeling, and here is what the story is about. This is usually handled in the most overt, effusive way possible, and very poetically in very poetic prose. It is also a tendency related to the tradition of “voiceover,” a product of film and TV. But the thing is, much of this is really the writer making notes for themselves, often overcompensating for their failure or unwillingness to imply these ideas earlier or later through more successful means. However, as we grow as writers--by reading more, writing more, and learning over time--we slowly start to realize that readers are independent factions, and they have agency, and they are privy to MUCH more than we realize. They want to see characters doing concrete things in a concrete place, not just read their thoughts all the time. So it’s okay to allow the reader to do a little bit of work, to keep some or much of your meaning and messaging implied, and to allow your ideas to build and unfold overtime, through action and description. When writing, it is very difficult to avoid saying exactly the thing you want to say, and saying it as soon as possible. But as with everything, in writing, patience is a virtue, and it is a skill acquired over time.

An Example in a Song

The thing that drove me to make this post in the first place, while I was driving home from my kid’s preschool this morning, was actually a song. It came on Spotify, and I had not heard it in some time, but I have always thought that, in terms of stories, it is one of the best songs there is. The song is “Making Pies” by the folk singer Patty Griffin. In this song, there is very little interiority and literally zero effusiveness in terms of communicating or expressing emotion. It is tightly held, and its stoicism, in and of itself, is a part of the story it is trying to tell. Even its title is a concrete action: Making Pies. The best thing about this song is its patience in telling the story, and how it also demands patience in its listener.

Here is the song (youtube | spotify), and here are the lyrics. If you read and listen closely, especially the second time through, you’ll see just how long it takes Griffin to get the actual crux of the story, and even then, all is done through implication. Examples: In the first verse, she asks: “Did I show you this picture of my nephew taken at his big birthday surprise, at my sister’s house last Sunday?” This question is our first major clue into the narrator’s life: she has no children of her own, and she probably lives close to the place where she grew up. This, all by itself, is not a big deal, but as the song unfolds, more and more details begin to arise, cluing us into her sadness and sense of isolation and resignation: the constant, monotone repetition of “making pies,” the walking to work, the graying hair, the fact that she types for the local pastor on Thursdays, as it is an excuse to leave the house, her somewhat cynical, but ultimately resigned relationship to her religion, via her description of Jesus on the wall. All of these things show us SO MUCH about this character. We can feel her very distinct and specific sadness, even as she never ONCE tells us how she feels.

The first REAL clue that we get about her life and the story comes at the end of the second verse: “Did I show you this picture of my sweetheart, taken of us before the war? Of the Greek and his Italian girl, one Sunday at the shore.” This is a huge reveal, done through an action (not a thought): the showing and description of a photograph. We learn so much in the ensuing four lines, which are entirely descriptions of action and place:

We tied our ribbons to the fire escape They were taken by the birds Who flew home to the country As the bombs rained on the world

Once this happens, we know. We now know everything there is to know, because we’ve been set up that way. This is the entire story, right here, and not ONCE does the narrator ACTUALLY “tell” us what happened. She does not say, “The only man I’ve ever loved died in the war, and now my life is an ongoing loop of resignation, quiet bitterness, and depression.” All of this she IMPLIES to us, through description of action (walking to work, making pies, typing for Father Mike on Thursdays, repeat) as well as description of objects (hair color, photographs, Jesus on the wall, the birds, the bombs). This song is beautifully sad and highly immersive in its storytelling. The reason for that is, it uses patience and subtle clues through action and description to tempt the audience forth, and then it uses more pointed clues through action and description to make its final reveal--but it takes a long time to get there. In this sense, the pay-off is immense, and it is an incredibly effective song. We aren’t just hearing about her feelings. We’re seeing what happened and experiencing those feelings for ourselves.

A slight tangent, but still related: One of the hugest problems I see with lots of current writing, particularly in how it manifests in the modern Hollywood filmmaking tradition, is that there is literally no patience anymore, anywhere. The “hook and snare” is all that matters. Modern dramatic television shows explain their entire thematic purpose via voiceover in the very first scene of the very first episode of the series. Modern action movies spend no time establishing character or contextual lens, and instead dive straight into violence and speed. Nobody trusts their audience. Nobody has any patience. Quietly terrifying blockbuster movies like Alien (1979), which unfold slowly over time, relying on character code, dramatic irony, and careful suspense are now incredibly rare outside the art house. Instead, we are hit with a barrage of color and animation. All messaging is linked directly to the surface level. Characters are stock, cliche, and/or one-dimensional in scope. And too many writers, as they are highly entrenched in the visual media culture of the day, are using these same cues in their fiction: tell the reader exactly what to feel, when to feel it, and how, instead of allowing for patience, build, and reveal, which allows the readers to figure through and come to the emotional climax by themselves. It is the latter that results in immersion.

Conclusion

Why do we love the stories that we love? I will use some modern video games that I love to show that, yes, even in visual media, incredible storytelling through implication exists. Games like The Last of Us and Red Dead Redemption 2 employ all facets of setting, character code, and action to tell their stories. They are often maddening, because we, the player, can often see what is coming, though by the time we realize, it’s usually far too late, and we can only watch it come to a boil, just beneath the surface, unable to do anything about it. We are controlling characters who, thrown into action, decision-making, consequences, and often fear for their lives, simply do not see what we see. We watch them make mistakes, and watch these mistakes unfold, manifesting in ways we could not have foreseen, and sometimes not for dozens of hours of gameplay. HUGE moments in these games, like Joel and Ellie’s reunion at the end of the Winter chapter of The Last of Us, or Arthur’s iconic “I’m afraid” line at the train station with Sister Calderon toward the end of Chapter 6 in Red Dead Redemption 2 are not contrived through overt telling and explanation of theme and emotion in the narration of the game. They are earned as longterm, complicated results of many, many actions and interactions that have lead up to these very poignant, very emotional and climactic moments in the story. The themes of the story are not only and overtly told by the characters, or by a narrator, or through voiceover. They are also shown (or reflected) through the setting--the way it looks, the atmosphere, how it changes over time, through the individual quests, how they look, and the types of choices they force the characters to make.

In this sense, patience and implication are the keys to stories that infuriate us with immersion and make us cry. If you want to slow down a moment, or a scene, or you want to hit your reader over the head with an emotional reveal, focus on earning that moment, scene, or reveal over time, and through much more than simple interior monologue of characters. Use the setting, use action and process writing to communicate your characters feelings and thoughts and the themes of your writing, and to simply anchor your readers in a PLACE. You can STILL use interior monologue, but balance it--with concrete stuff in the world, concrete actions, and concrete choices for your characters to make. Remember, the key to immersion is NOT to tell the reader to be immersed by relying only on beautiful language and narration of thought, feeling, and idea. It is to actually put them in the concrete world you’ve made, and to have them experience those thoughts, feelings, and ideas organically, for themselves.

#on writing #writing advice #writing tips #long post

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