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fizzybugpop · 2 months

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https://www.tumblr.com/ocaskprompts/185014954722/uncommon-questions-for-ocs-and-their-creators

1-20, then 43 for Roderick and Jared

Alright fucker (complimentary), here we are.

1. What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do? Rodrick could probably manage ~20 minutes on a whim, ~45 if he was bored, and however long necessary to freak someone out if that were his goal. Jared on the other hand could manage 1 hour 3 minutes max if it were a challenge. Otherwise, probably 7 minutes.

2. How easy is it for your character to laugh? Rodrick is a bit tricky - he usually grins minutely rather than actually laughing, even when he does find something hilarious (usually someone else's misfortune), but he does have a very quiet chuckle that tends to go unnoticed (especially if he's interacting with say, his little cousin or literally any cat. Jared is easier to make laugh by comparison, especially since he has a few good-humored friends who can get him. He likes jokes with a bit of wit and the occasional practical joke, like silly work pranks between co-workers.

3. How do they put themselves to bed at night (reading, singing, thinking?) Rodrick doesn't need to sleep as much as a full-on human does (though he'll fib and say he never sleeps at all). Usually, though, he needs some kind of background noise to help him (wind/rain, crickets, Dorito's purring, etc.) otherwise he'll feel uneasy. No noise just feels unnatural. Jared usually tosses and turns for 30 minutes to 1 hour and then passes the fuck out, unless on nights where he's thinking way too fucking hard about shit cuz lord knows my guy does a good job stressing himself out, usually with shit regarding the past.

4. How easy is it to earn their trust? Rodrick's "trust" is...questionable. He keeps everyone at an arm's length away from him out of his personal perception of safety. You never know what people might do. The only ones who have his deepest trust would be his own blood family - but even he's selective about how much and of what he's willing to "give" to them. If you haven't known him since birth, well, good luck ever truly knowing this guy. Jared is easy to be on good terms with, but to gain his trust I'd say would be to show that you truly care. Not even about him necessarily or anything that'd benefit him, about about something, that you have passion. It's something he can undoubtedly respect and therefore trust.

5. How easy is it to earn their mistrust? Refer to above in the case of Rodrick, however you'd land his "dismiss list" pretty fast you'd just have to prove to be incapable of keeping promises. He counts on reliability. Jared is a bit harder for me to suss out with this question. He doesn't have a lot of friends and he's chill overall, but, I think for him to not trust you could come down to a couple factors, like if you're a consistent liar, constantly gossip with no filter, or are especially quick to anger. These traits remind him of people he doesn't like, including himself (in the past).

6. Do they consider laws flexible, or immovable? Rodrick doesn't care about laws whatsoever, he does what he wants whenever. He isn't actually hurting anyone. Jared believes some laws do have good reason to exist, and he's known to get antsy about breaking them if there's at least a 50% chance of getting caught or if getting caught itself would outweigh any gains of breaking said law(s), so he doesn't make a habit of personally testing out how flexible a given law is and might scold a friend out of concern, but under certain circumstances...he'll do what he feels has to be done according to his morals.

7. What triggers nostalgia for them, most often? Do they enjoy that feeling? It doesn't happen often, but when it does Rodrick enjoys the feeling of nostalgia, just not the actual memories that might get brought up if they provoke certain feelings within him, like melancholy. Dusty basements and attics, that "old people" smell, sore hands/wrists, and individually wrapped candies trigger it for him the most. Jared feels nostalgia every couple months or so, for "simpler times" and all that, though he'd never voluntarily return to the past if he could help it. The feeling of rust between his fingers, kids laughing, music, and food trigger for him most often.

8. What were they told to stop/start doing most often as a child? "No, sweetie, I know you like your crafts but you need to ask before taking something that isn't yours." "Jared! Quit trying to climb that damn fence!"

9. Do they swear? Do they remember their first swear word? Not a lot in regular conversation, but drops an occasional F-bomb, in English that is, rarely does he ever swear in Russian unless he's alone. Speaking of which, when he's completely alone and struggling with something he's more prone to going on quiet little rants to himself that may include nonsensical swearing. Jared basically never swears in regular conversations, but around work buddies he plays it up a little for the shared laughs.

10. What lie do they most frequently remember telling? Does it haunt them? Rodrick recalls once when his mom made lunch he really wasn't hungry but knew his mom wouldn't accept that answer. So, knowing how his mom was, he said he'd eat outside. He proceeded to throw his food over the fence, which the neighbor saw, marched over and told his mom about it, and he was put in a "time out". He's still silently beefing with that lady even she doesn't live in the same town anymore. Jared's somewhat haunted by the memory of lying to his mom about brushing his teeth one night, the reason it being so significant having to do with his mom passing away not too long after it happened. Sometimes when he's tempted to go straight to bed after work or a late night out, it'll pop into his head and he goes ahead and at least brushes his teeth before truly calling it a night, without even thinking about it at all.

11. How do they cope with confusion (seek clarification, pretend they understand, etc)? Rodrick typically doesn't clue people in on him being confused by something when it's something he doesn't care about or he's being talked to by someone whose opinion he doesn't value. He'll be dismissive, though he does still listen, because you never know what info just might become handy later. However if it's something he genuinely wants to know, he'll ask good questions that get straight to the point. If someone won't tell him something, he'll appear as if he's unbothered, but he's certain he'll figure it out eventually, especially if there's context clues. The only time he expresses true confusion is if something genuinely baffles him - which is rare. Jared is more forthcoming with his confusion and asks questions straight off the bat, unless he feels unwelcomed to, or that doing so would be deemed inappropriate. He tries to be receptive and considerate of others' perspectives, but there are times when he wishes people would skip over details that seem unimportant and get to what he feels actually matters. He can be impatient in this way, and it can sometimes come to bite him in the ass if he rushes into things (like glances at the instructions of a "build it yourself" projects and then tossing them aside after 2 seconds and saying he'll just "figure it out"). Sometimes he'll just give up on understanding something or someone and move on since he can't seem to nail down what it is that's to be understood.

12. How do they deal with an itch found in a place they can’t quite reach? This man can reach anyway on his body actually, and he will take care of it himself. Jared would be tempted to ignore it unless it's especially bad, in which case he'll probably rub against the nearest available (and socially acceptable) surface, like a doorway or pole (because it's most likely along his back). If the itch is internal, he gets annoyed for a while until he forgets about it.

13. What color do they think they look best in? Do they actually look best in that color? Rodrick doesn't care too much about this sort of thing, at least outwardly to the people around him. He thinks he looks better in warm and neutral tones (yellow/orange, browns, dark gray/black). Jared feels blue suits him best, often wearing denim and this one coat that was gifted to him ages ago which the primary color of is blue.

14. What animal do they fear most? Rodrick doesn't fear any animals, mostly due to being incapable of dying to regular means. He also understands 99% of the time any given creature doesn't give a fuck about attacking unless they feel threatened, and he can generally discern whether one is agitated or not. At most he's worried about local cats getting hurt by other local creatures (such as scorpions). Jared is a bit freaked out by dogs, but wants to believe any given one is cool. Still, if he walks by someone's yard and their dog comes running and barking at him, he's inclined to scream and possibly even run a few paces away in fear. He's genuinely adjusted his route to and from work just to avoid this as well.

15. How do they speak? Is what they say usually thought of on the spot, or do they rehearse it in their mind first? Rodrick speaks to get to the point, - quick, short - he doesn't often sit around expanding on concepts or something said unless he's specifically asked, as if he believes every knows what he does (but he doesn't actually think that, he just doesn't waste breath unless someone legitimately wants to know). He doesn't have much of a filter and says exactly what's on his mind, which includes any and all snide remarks, which is reflected in his general tone. There's a rasp to his voice as well, and his words can almost blend together at times even though he speaks relatively slow, more so if he's tired. His short time living in Russia in his early childhood, combined with being mainly surrounded by family influencing his speech, has left him with an accent that slips through here and there depending on the word(s) and/or situation.

I am still working out how he'd sound overall, but I know that Jared has a voice a couple octaves higher than Rodrick's, but he's more mellow and laid-back. He sounds more approachable, "regular" even, and doesn't have a specific accent (at least within Arizona's standards, there's no telling how people outside the state might judge this to be the case). His speech is typically very clear, he doesn't mumble or speak fast, the latter only occurring when he's deep in panic. He'd generally be considered pleasant to listen to.

He does think about the things he'll say, and likes to be mindful with his wording and purposeful with his speech where possible. When he's in a more "loose" environment such as among friends, he thinks a little less about what he'll say and focuses more on keeping up with the flow of jokes between everyone.

16. What makes their stomach turn? He doesn't want to die. Not yet. Please, please don't leave him behind.

17. Are they easily embarrassed? Rodrick definitely isn't, as he rarely feels need to be embarrassed about something, and because he doesn't generally care about the opinions of others. He'd even let his (very young at the time) cousin paint his nails while he was in high school, fully knowing people might poke more fun at him because you can imagine her designs often came out messy. He never cared. I wouldn't say Jared is easily embarrassed, but his honest embarrassment over something pertains to if someone witnessed whatever it is that's gotten him to feel that way, and if said person or people tease him about in. He can take a few jabs for sure, but the longer it goes on or exactly how intense they are about it, the more embarrassed he feels.

18. What embarrasses them? The closest one could get him to being embarrassed would be other demons, especially ones directly from Hell. He's pretty disconnected due to him mom (and aunt) not really caring about Hell after leaving and subsequently settling down "topside", so he admittedly only knows as much as what he's told them, which isn't the most complete picture due to it being a completely different realm. So, when this sheer inexperience is made clear and demons poke fun at him, he does feel a little embarrassed about it. I mostly already said so but a couple instances I'd say would be making a mistake in front of others (the worse the mistake the more embarrassed he feels, generally he gets over things pretty quickly unless others dwell on it consistently), tripping/falling in front of others, especially if he drops a bunch of things in front of them as well. He gets over this pretty easily as well. The embarrassment and subsequent shame he feels over his past actions as a bully, especially toward Rodrick, is what's the hardest to shake, and given Rodrick doesn't make it clear exactly what he feels about said past, getting over it in any sense isn't getting any easier.

19. What is their favorite number? Rodrick likes 100, it's even, and a good number of $. Jared likes 87, the shape of it is nice, and the 80s had some good music and cars.

20. If they were asked to explain the difference between romantic and platonic or familial love, how would they do so? "Why are you asking me?" "Well...familial love is what we instinctively feel for those we're related to, like your parents and siblings and all that, because we're supposed to care and look out for each other 'cause we've known each other since day one. That's generally, though, since some people's families aren't...great. But uh, then there's platonic love, and that's for your friends and the people close to you that aren't blood related, but they look out for you and care for you the same way family would. Sometimes they even know you better than they ever could...and, uh, romantic love.... I wouldn't know about all that personally, but, I don't know. It's a special bond, between a couple or more people, comes from deep in your heart, or something. You know when you feel it, I guess. You should probably ask someone else about it."

43. If someone asked them to explain their sexuality, how would they do so? "What?" (Aro-Ace) *surprised* "I uh- I don't know. I guess bisexual. I haven't thought about that type of thing."

#asks #oc things

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rotationalsymmetry · 3 years

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One of the weird things about being chronically ill to this extent, is the way weekends and weekdays can swap roles. As in: socializing takes a lot of energy, I did a lot of socializing over the weekend, now it's Monday and therefor time to have a chill low-energy day where I don't do much.

It really was a fairly energy-intensive weekend for me. Today I just want to wear comfy clothes and not have to think at all.

#spoonie life #zoom means I don't have to go anywhere to meet up wiht people which is veyr nice #but also #the actual interaction itself is not necessarily easier and might be harder #one beltane ritual one church service and one hour long friendly zoom call #that's about the most I can do in one weekend without having to plan the entire month around it #this is so hard to talk about #I feel like I need to justify using my spoons for something that's 'just' about enjoyment #or explain how no it's really not laziness no it's not just in my head #fuck I wish it was just something that would go away if I tried harder #in practice the only trying harder that works is trying harder to stay within my limits #and even then it's not 100% reliable #cfs/me

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razberry-jam · 3 years

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Also!!! Idk if this would help people here??? But I’ve noticed a lot of people having discourse on whether Techno is meant to be interpreted, on a narrative level, if he is in the right or in the wrong!

I just wanted to share, as someone with a big nerd feelings about storytelling, plot structure, etc- that not every narrative is about showing characters who are in the right, react appropriately, have correct beliefs etc. Most aren’t, actually!

This is a strange trend I’ve noticed recently!!! I think it’s because a lot of us grew up idolizing fictional characters that we shouldn't have, and so who actually turned out to be assholes?? So I think people have somehow got it stuck in their heads that the main purpose of a character, or a story, is to be a role model, to be an example, send a message etc etc!

A side effect of storytelling is that we draw meaning- a “message” or a “theme” from it. Which is hella cool!! But it’s not what storytelling IS. Storytelling is the process by which you explain the change of state of one thing to another. Saying “The ballon was floating. Then I popped it.” Is a story! Saying “The ballon was a good person. Good things will happen to it.” Is not necessarily, because the ballon is not changing on any fundamental level. Even saying “bad things will happen to it” is not a story, because the ballon is still remaining exactly the same. (more underneath)

A story MIGHT say both. “A boy say a drowning cat. The boy saved the cat. The town threw him a party to thank him!” Is a story. It can be interpreted to send the message, “this boy is good, and because of that good things happen to him. Maybe we should be good too!” But even without the interpretation, the story still stands.

Because the story does not require a message to be itself, storytelling doesn’t require messages. So the main point of stories can’t be sending messages if they don't require them. A story DOES require that a thing change from one state to another. So, if that’s true, describing change is the point of storytelling.

It’s sort of like painting. A painting IS paint on canvas. Gogh’s Starry Night is paint on canvas, arranged to look like a night sky. People can pull different interpretations of it- but a good artist rarely goes in with their message fully formed in their mind. An artist represents something else, and by doing so, a message will often come out subconsciously through the artists’s subject combined with their own (often conflicting) beliefs, feelings, and desires.

How do most authors decide to induce change? They use conflict! Conflict: to be incompatible or at variance. Conflict, by its nature, creates change because incompatible things can’t share the same space. These two things will continue to push and fight against each other until they find a place where both of them can come to a rest. Think water and oil! Or a cat and a mouse.

This is something that is fairly often brought up in English classes! If you’ve listen to some of Technoblade’s early streams, he even brings it up during his first two Pogtopia streams!! He mentions that he’s a little worried because everyone on the server is “too nice” so there's “not enough conflict.” He’s not saying that cause he doesn’t want people to be nice- he’s saying that because when someone is not pushing against you, its harder to know what to do. You ever done improv? It’s much easier to improv a funny argument than to improv two people who are completely on the same page in every way.

So! Taking the dream smp for example cause thats where we’re at!

I saw some people were a bit upset that Techno said he was glad Tommy died. Yeah, not a nice thing to say about c!Tommy!! BUT cc!Techno choosing to say that is a wonderful thing to do for cc!Tommy!! Why? It creates conflict.

If Technoblade had a “good” opinion on Tommy’s death, there would not be sufficient conflict between them, which essentially means there is no story left to tell there. That’s not good for cc!Techno or cc!Tommy.

IF Technoblade had a “neutral” opinion on Tommy’s death (as he initially tried to have) there's still technically not a conflict there. A neutral opinion is still neutral- it does not force Techno to actually confront his mixed feelings about Tommy, or Tommy to come to a bigger awareness of those feelings, either on his or Techno’s side.

A “bad” opinion on Tommy’s death IS the most conflict inducing choice we have here. Though small, in this moment it immediately brings him into conflict with both Ranboo and Phil (Phil!!! Which is hella interesting!!).

A “bad” opinion also continues to heighten the conflict between Tommy and Techno, which again, is a good thing. If Techno had openly admitted he was sad that Tommy was dead, then there isn’t really anything new for us to learn about Techno or Tommy when Tommy comes back. It is redundant- which is something you wanna HELLA avoid in storytelling.

As well as brings Techno into conflict with himself! I’m of the opinion that, while Techno believes what he said, it is not necessarily true. We can see both from Phil’s reaction “I swear he has a heart guys.” We can see this in how he talks about other people we know he cares deeply about ie my “acquaintance” Ranboo who he was willing to murder someone over. And we see this even in his brief interactions with Tommy- when Tommy came over before seeing Dream to steal out of Techno’s chests, Techno was upset, but also incredibly lenient. Which you know, is coming from a guy who hoards things religiously, towards someone whose guts he’s supposed to hate. Techno’s inability to properly regulate his attachments- keeping a cold facade while bouncing between incredibly polarizing apathy or absolute ride-and-die devotion, is literally one of Techno’s most reoccurring struggles and character flaws. A character flaw, which if Techno did not have, he would cease to be a character with any sort of dynamic struggle within him.

And finally it brings the audience into conflict with Techno, which is actually a good thing. We loose interest in characters we completely understand, and we loose interest in characters when we know exactly the direction they are going in. People who are saying “How could Techno say that when early he’d said he’d have given the world for Tommy??” Is EXACTLY the question the writers want you to be asking.

Anyway !! To sum up!!! For technoblade, as a writer (not a character!! as a writer!!) his main concern is not portraying a character who is in the right, has the correct beliefs, or is justified in his actions. I’d argue its also NOT portraying a character who is in the wrong, has wrong beliefs, or is completely unjust.His main goal is portraying an interesting character. Through which cc!Techno’s main tool is almost always conflict!

The narrative’s goal is usually not to portray good people, or to punish people for what they deserve. It’s main purpose is not to teach us what’s right and wrong (though that is an incredibly interesting side of effect of some stories!) The main goal of most stories is to be interesting, create conflict, and explore hypothetical scenarios.

(Which, if you notice- is true of a lot of the CCs who come from a storytelling background! IE Wilbur, Tommy, etc).

I mean, the dude’s into Greek mythology. Greek mythology is like the absolute king of “maybe heroic but mostly asshole” main characters lol.

Anyway!! That got a bit long! But that’s the idea : ) of course, anyone’s welcome to interpret or enjoy the story in anyway they like! And feelings are feelings. But the fandom idea that a character’s purpose is to be a role model misses the point (and often, a lot of the enjoyment) of writing.

#tommy and technoblade both having mixed feelings towards eachother and hurting each others feelings #is a FEATURE not a BUG #as is Technoblade having the emotional intelligence and self awareness of a bag of rocks #conflict is a feature not a bug y'all!!!!!#true fluff can only exist where conflict has been bred #like you don't see anyone writing any fluff of like teletubbies cause the teletubbies have never had any sort of tension between them #that would make the fact that they actually care for eachother on a deep emotional level #actually rewarding #ok im going outside #dream smp #dsmp #technoblade #tommy dream smp #tommyinnit #me pointing at them but i love them youre honor love to see them get along some day #technos dynamic with tommy is a variation of jacks but a instead of 1000% over the top cartoonish its like 500% over the top cartoonish #and a slightly different flavor #c!tommy #c!techno #cc!tommy #cc!techno #writing #story #dream smp tommy #dream smp techno #im sorry this is big got hyper fixation #anyway hope that ends well lmao

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whitehotharlots · 4 years

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Privilege Theory is popular because it is conservative

Privilege theory, as a formal academic thing, has been around at least since 1989, when Peggy McIntosh published the now-seminal essay “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” Even within academic cultural studies, however, privilege theory was pretty niche until about a decade ago--it’s not what you’d call intellectually sound (McIntosh’s essay contains zero citations), and its limitations as an analytical frame are pretty obvious. I went through a cultural studies-heavy PhD program in the early twenty teens and I only heard it mentioned a handful of times. If you didn’t get a humanities degree, odds are it didn’t enter your purview until 2015 or thereabouts.

This poses an obvious question: how could an obscure and not particularly groundbreaking academic concept become so ubiquitous so quickly? How did such a niche (and, frankly, weird and alienating) understanding of racial relations become so de rigeur that companies that still utilize slave labor and still produce skin whitening cream are now all but mandated to release statements denouncing it?

Simply put, the rapid ascent of privilege theory is due to the fact that privilege theory is fundamentally conservative. Not in cultural sense, no. But if we understand conservatism as an approach to politics that seeks first and foremost to maintain existing power structures, then privilege theory is the cultural studies equivalent of phrenology or Austrian economics.

This realization poses a second, much darker question: how did a concept as regressive and unhelpful as privilege become the foundational worldview among people who style themselves as progressives, people whose basic self-understanding is grounded in a belief that they are working to address injustice? Let’s dig into this:

First, let’s go down a well-worn path and establish the worthlessness of privilege as an analytical lens. We’ll start with two basic observations: 1) on the whole, white people have an easier time existing within these United States than non-white people, and 2) systemic racism exists, at least to the extent that non-white people face hurdles that make it harder for them to achieve safety and material success.

I think a large majority of Americans would agree with both of these statements--somewhere in the ballpark of 80%, including many people you and I would agree are straight-up racists. They are obvious and undeniable, the equivalent to saying “politicians are corrupt” or “good things are good and bad things are bad.” Nothing about them is difficult or groundbreaking.

As simplistic as these statements may be, privilege theory attempts to make them the primary foreground of all understandings of social systems and human interaction. Hence the focus on an acknowledgement of privilege as the ends and means of social justice. We must keep admitting to privilege, keep announcing our awareness, again and again and again, vigilance is everything, there is nothing beyond awareness.

Of course, acknowledging the existence of inequities does nothing to actually address those inequities. Awareness can serve as an important (though not necessarily indispensable) precondition for change, but does not lead to change in and of itself.

I’ve been saying this for years but the point still stands: those who advocate for privilege theory almost never articulate how awareness by itself will bring about change. Even in the most generous hypothetical situation, where all human interaction is prefaced by a formal enunciation of the raced-based power dynamics presently at play, this acknowledgement doesn’t actually change anything. There is never a Step Two.

Now, some people have suggested Step Twos. But suggestions are usually ignored, and on the rare occasions they are addressed they are dismissed without fail, often on grounds that are incredibly specious and dishonest. To hit upon another well-worn point, let’s look at the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders. The majority of Sanders’ liberal critics admit that the senator’s record on racial justice is impeccable, and that his platform would have done substantially more to materially address racial inequities than that being proffered by any of his opponents. That’s all agreed upon, yet we are told that none of that actually matters.

Sanders dropped out of the race nearly 3 months ago, yet just this past week The New York Times published yet another hit piece explaining that while his policies would have benefitted black people, the fact that he strayed from arbitrarily invoked rhetorical standards meant he was just too problematic to support.

The piece was written by Sidney Ember, a Wall Street hack who cites anonymous finance and health insurance lobbyists to argue that financial regulation is racist. Ember, like most other neoliberals, has been struggling to reconcile her vague support for recent protests with the fact that she is paid to lie about people who have tried to fix things. Now that people are forcefully demanding change, the Times have re-deployed her to explain why change is actually bad even though it’s good.

How does one pivot from celebrating the fact that black people will not be receiving universal healthcare to mourning racially disproportionate COVID death rates? They equivocate. They lean even harder on rhetorical purity, dismissing a focus on policy as a priori blind to race. Bernie never said “white privilege.” Well, okay, he did, but he didn’t say it in the right tone or often enough, and that’s what the problem was. Citing Ember:

Yet amid a national movement for racial justice that took hold after high-profile killings of black men and women, there is also an acknowledgment among some progressives that their discussion of racism, including from their standard-bearer, did not seem to meet or anticipate the forcefulness of these protests.

Kimberlé Crenshaw, the legal scholar who pioneered the concept of intersectionality to describe how various forms of discrimination can overlap, said that Mr. Sanders struggled with the reality that talking forcefully about racial injustice has traditionally alienated white voters — especially the working-class white voters he was aiming to win over. But that is where thinking of class as a “colorblind experience” limits white progressives. “Class cannot help you see the specific contours of race disparity,” she said.

Many other institutions, she noted, have now gone further faster than the party that is the political base of most African-American voters. “You basically have a moment where every corporation worth its salt is saying something about structural racism and anti-blackness, and that stuff is even outdistancing what candidates in the Democratic Party were actually saying,” she said.

Crenshaw’s point here is that the empty, utterly immaterial statements of support coming from multinational corporations are more substantial and important than policy proposals that would have actually addressed racial inequities. This is astounding. A full throated embrace of entropy as praxis.

Crenshaw started out the primary as a Warren supporter but threw her endorsement to Bernie once the race had narrowed to two viable candidates. This fact is not mentioned, nor does Ember feel the need to touch upon any of Biden’s dozens of rhetorical missteps regarding race (you might remember that he kicked off his presidential run with a rambling story about the time he toughed it out with a black ne'er do well named Corn Pop, or his more recent assertion that if you don’t vote for him, “you ain’t black.”). The statement here--not the implication: the direct and undeniable statement--is that tone and posturing are more important than material proposals, and that concerns regarding tone and posturing should only be raised in order to delegitimize those who have dared to proffer proposals that might actually change things for the better.

The ascendence of privilege theory marks the triumph of selective indignation, the ruling class and their media lackeys having been granted the power to dismiss any and all proposals for material change according to standards that are too nonsensical to be enforced in any fair or consistent manner. The concept has immense utility for those who wish to perpetuate the status quo. And that, more than anything, is why it’s gotten so successful so quickly. But still… why have people fallen for something so obviously craven and regressive? Why are so few decent people able to summon even the smallest critique against it?

We can answer this by taking a clear look at what privilege actually entails. And this is where things get really, really grim:

What are the material effects of privilege, at least as they are imagined by those who believe the concept to be something that must be sussed out and eradicated? A privileged person gets to live their life with the expectation that they will face no undue hurdles to success and fulfillment because of their identity markers, that they will not be subject to constant surveillance and/or made to suffer grave consequences for minor or arbitrary offenses, and that police will not be able to murder them at will. The effects of “privilege” are what we might have once called “freedom” or “dignity.” Until very recently, progressives regarded these effects not as problematic, but as a humane baseline, a standard that all decent people should fight to provide to all of our fellow citizens.

Here we find the utility in the use of the specific term “privilege.” Similar to how austerity-minded politicians refer to social security as an “entitlement,” conflating dignity and privilege gives it the sense of something undeserved and unearned--things that no one, let alone members of racially advantaged groups, could expect for themselves unless they were blinded by selfishness and coddled by an insufficiently cruel social structure. The problem isn’t therefore that humans are being selectively brutalized. Brutality is the baseline, the natural order, the unavoidable constant that has not been engineered into our society but simply is what society is and will always be. The problem, instead, is that some people are being exempted from some forms of brutalization. The problem is that pain does not stretch far enough.

We are a nation that worships cruelty and authority. All Americans, regardless of gender or race, are united in being litigious tattletales who take joy in hurting one another, who will never run out of ways to rationalize their own cruelty even as they decry the cruelty of others. We are taught from birth that human life has no value, that material success is morally self-validating, and that those who suffer deserve to suffer. This is our real cultural brokenness: a deep, foundational hatred of one another and of ourselves. It transcends all identity markers. It stains us all. And it’s why we’ve all run headlong into a regressive and idiotic understanding of race at a time when we desperately need to unite and help one another.

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luque-moreau · 3 years

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y'know i think its about time ive refurbished my psychonauts headcanons/theories

what??? me??? rewriting my psychonauts headcanons in a more comprehensible and informed way???

alright, i think everyone knows what im talking about, by headcanons i mean headcanon as in singular, and as singular, i mean my "raz is somewhere on the spectrum of adhd".

so lets just get into it:

what is adhd actually?

adhd by definition stands for attention deficit hyperactive/hyperfocus disorder (yes, let me get into the details in just a sec). it is a nerodevelopmental disorder that is almost completely reliant on genetic factors, however conditions during pregnancy can sometimes contribute to certain aspects of how adhd manifests itself.

long story short, people with adhd have a smaller frontal lobe, and therefore less dopamine in general (even though yes, it is more complicated than that).

theres also a little bit of "chicken or the egg first" goin on here, certain behaviors or personality tendencies can also affect how adhd is presented in one individual to the next, however its still not clear if that is because it is an accommodating for a certain thought process or if someones experiences and personality shape their symptoms of adhd entirely. its a very blurry line, and the answer is different for everybody.

hyperactive type

hyperactive type is probably the closest to most stereotypical depictions of adhd, think the 5 year old whos parents brush off their child’s hyperactivity as something that will “go with age”. however, this isn’t only present in children, adults with adhd have to deal with a constant need for stimuli to make up for the lack of dopamine their current activity is providing them. this results in someone fidgeting frequently in repetitive or predictable motions, unable to hold attention to a specific task for long periods of time, or many other of the symptoms associated with adhd.(i sadly cannot provide more information in this area, i am not knowledgeable enough to...)

hyperfocus type

hyperfocus type is a tricky one, it can look like the complete opposite of adhd in theory. hyperfocus can look similar to special interests or hyperfixation, a great deal of time and knowledge dedicated to a very particular thing (although it is important to note that even though hyperfixations and special interests are incredibly similar, special interests is a term more typically used within autistic-circles, and isnt really the best word to use if you happen to be neurotypical). Think of maybe that kid who knows all the cool animal facts and won’t shut up about them. Its because certain trains of thought or activities might release more dopamine then others, so to get more of that dopamine, someone of hyperfocus type will be mentally unable to stop thinking or doing a very specific task or topic. this results in someone seemingly always spacing out, unable to change subjects or changing subjects too fast or with little to no correlation, or being completely unable to have enough motivation to do simple things.

personally i tend to fall under the category of hyperfocus myself rather than hyperactive, however the two are not mutually exclusive, its more common to find people with both types rather than just one. even myself, i might exhibit more tendencies to place me under the label of hyperfocus, but that doesn’t mean i don’t have any symptoms of the hyperactive type. its my personality that affects my mannerisms, which then makes certain aspects of my symptoms more or less apparent. Thats because im an INTP-T, i just tend to be more to myself and constantly in a state of thinking abstractly. I have trouble communicating and even sometimes recognizing my needs, and get to a point where im unable to do the simplest of things without feeling emotionally drained. Thats just my experience though, everybodys different.

so what the fuck does this have to do with raz then?

well lets think about it, rather than have it just be me projecting myself onto a comfort character:

raz finds issue with connecting to kids his age

lets be honest. none of the campers really like raz that much. or at least some do the bare minimum to be try and be polite. it doesn’t seem like any of the other campers besides dogen, whos also socially outcasted, are really fond of raz. lili might like him, but that can definitely be interpreted as curiosity in someone new and different from the norm. It might not be that the kids despise him, but nobodys opinionated enough to care whether he is around or not.

social isolation is one of the most damning things i had to experience from an early age and still feel even today. there is a sense of feeling that you are different among your peers, whether that is a good thing or bad thing. it feels difficult to interact with other people you are not familiar with, and can really stunt you emotionally and socially. from a really early age, theres somethin in you that knows something is very different between the experiences of your peers compared to your own, and it can feel incredibly isolating.

raz and his borderline stupidity

time to get real again. raz is a fucking idiot. at least in the sense that sometimes his decisions seem incredibly spontaneous and not really thought through. he runs from home to attend a summer camp, not really thinking about the logistics of how he will get there, how the staff will react, how long its gonna take for his parent to find him, and so on. it doesn’t seem like he over or underestimates his abilities, he just goes for it without considering. that doesnt seem like the smartest thing to do, even though we know hes incredibly intelligent when it comes to larger, abstract situations. its the little details that he misses, small minuet things that seem unimportant that he overlooks, which can sometimes make things harder for him in the end.

i think its obvious that impulsivity is one symptom of adhd. however i cannot stress how difficult it is to think at supersonic speed and still feel incredibly stupid. i mean, thinking faster doesn’t inherently mean you will have better ideas, you can always be stupider faster, but being able to realize stupid mistakes or inconsistencies in your own thought process is annoying as hell. it feels like every time you try to recognize the issue, fix it, and move forward, you only end up not paying attention to another issue that gets bigger and more annoying than the first. Its always two steps forward, one step back, constantly making the same mistakes even though you try everything in your power to avoid them or grow as a person. The simplest of facts, ideas, or just things to remember end up being forgotten, and once youre reminded of them you remember them and feel like an idiot. however, arbitrary things and complex issues are much easier to digest and remember for me, things like history and the whole blame game charade of it all, biology and how every minuet thing has a greater impact on others and intertwines with every single factor of its environment, philosophy and theorizing why we think the way we do and what can be changed. but oh shit, im a dumbass i forgot to do my laundry. shit. god fuckin dammit.

empathy over sympathy

one of the basic themes of psychonauts is empathy. simple as that. raz goes around into other peoples brains, and tries to help them as much as he can, even if his efforts are not always successful in the way he intended. he never demonizes anyone to the point of unredeemability, and can empathize and understand other peoples perspectives. hes open to new ideas and

although some studies out there theorize that empathy is impaired due to adhd, from my perspective i feel like that is simply not true. if anything, i would say the sensitivity that comes with adhd (hypersensitivity) only enhances that empathy. i could definitely see social disconnection being one of the reasons it might appear that someone with adhd is less empathetic, however i would doubt that adhd would impair a persons empathy. adhd tends to also entail heightened emotions, this doesn’t necessarily mean a more outwardly emotional person, however it definitely shifts a persons perspective of their own emotions as well as others. the concept of hypersensitivity also completely contradicts the idea of people with adhd be less empathetic.

miscommunication and disconnect

sigh, the dad thing. yup. raz has that very iffy relationship with his dad at the beginning of the game which is eventually resolved. very abruptly, might i add. but thats not what this is about, thats a topic for another day. miscommunication seemed to be the root of the issue, however we only get razs side of the story. not to mention the severity of his claims and willingness to seemingly drop everything afterwards. kinda sus, ngl.

alright this ones a doosey. this, i feel, cements my theory pretty well. like i mentioned before, social disconnect and hypersensitivity are side effects of the symptoms of adhd. this means people with adhd are highly more likely to either misinterpret someones words or actions if those in question are not completely transparent, its because they tend to overthink and interpenetrate responses with too much thinkin n such. the social disconnect makes a whole lot of it worse, it can just pile on top of already established feelings of inadequacy and isolation. and oversharing as a poor coping mechanism isnt an exclusively adhd related thing, it tends to be shared within similar neruodevelopmental disorders such as autism or even ptsd. i find it incredibly easy to disconnect myself from my own emotions at times and think critically at what i feel and how it affects me. which is a bad thing. if i dont acknowledge my emotions like they are my own for too long, everything falls apart. its not fun. but, that disconnect can make talking about certain more traumatic experiences or instances that had deep personal effects on my life and development as a person much easier to just share. and not always in an appropriate manner, comedic opportunity can be v e r y enticing. this also explains why raz might have been able to drop everything about his dad after he apologized. he didn’t really, he probably still suffers just as much afterwards as he did before. but he probably wont realize that for awhile, since logically, the issue has been resolved. long story short, he has not had the time to cope, and to put that off he detaches himself from those feelings. w a c k

of course i have other reasons why i feel like raz could potentially have adhd, or at least be accurately represented in headcanon with adhd, some minor mentions being:

he uses his camp map as a journal to track his in-game progress, list of goals, and notes/snip-its of information. writing down information on some form of notepad or book is a common tool used by kids and even adults with adhd to help them keep track of minuet, individual tasks. its just using a planner, but with a bit more information.

just from my personal perspective, the lengths raz goes to pursue his dream of being a psychonaut feel more like a special interest/hyper fixation sort of thing. he can jump between having genuine conversations with his fellow campers and just exploring the campground, to investing himself entirely in obtaining his goal, even when it seems almost impossible. thats some serious dedication to one very specific thing, y’know?

this one isnt as solid as the other but: m̶̖̰̯̫̍͝o̵̦͖̟͈̹̤̥̝͐̿̄̀̀̎̓ņ̶̛̭̠̐̊̆̍͝ķ̸̝͈̺̙̰̊e̶͉͚̼̅̔͗̂͐̍̕͝͝y̶̦̖̼͖̪͎̝̖̠̐̑͋̾̔̑́͐͘ ̵̢̲̘͎͉̔̀͒̄͌͊̀͌̀m̴̲̫̮̪̖̍̐͆̕͜͝ͅả̶͙͚͗n̶̗̳̩̙̘̼̦̦͇͝ ̷̡̨̡͔̗͕̘͍̥̑͒̎̐̃g̴͔̔̈̅̐̏́̌̔̈́́o̶̥̱̽̆̂͌̀͗ ̶̝̩͙͕͛́s̴̛͓̥̲̜͓͚̣̠̆̓̌͌p̶̜̹̯̦̫̯̣̎͐̽̉̾ḙ̴͇̬͑̈́̐̈́͘͠ͅȅ̶̡̗̞̩͔̫̪͈͑̓͗d̵̠͇͎̜͔͇͒̈́́̀̅̈́̒͘y̸̡̦̠̻̖̥̿ͅ. yeah, its the most generalizing reason but look, hes moving nonstop the entire game, climbing and running around the entire goddamn place wrecking havoc. a bit of imp can be found in most people with adhd if you look hard enough.

so thanks for reading this far i guess? im oversharing even right now with this, like an i d i o t but yknow what i dont want to read the great gatsby rn, so ive got nothin better to do. who knows, maybe the second game will give us more info to either support/discredit this theory? gotta wait for pn2 i guess

:^)

#psychonauts #psychonauts 2 #theory #headcanon #razputin aquato #this is real biased #isnt it

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bettsfic · 5 years

Text

socknography: the importance of preserving fan creator biographical data

i wrote earlier on utilizing collections and bookmarks to boost the archival power of ao3, and in that post mentioned how i wish authors would fill out their bios so we can preserve fanauthor information as well as we preserve the fics themselves. so, here is my rant about WHY WE ARE SO IMPORTANT.

for my masters thesis i wrote about the layered pseudonymity of fanfiction authors, and after doing a ton of research, i find myself still thinking of the pseudonymous/anonymous divide as it pertains to fic. we have authors we consider “famous” and ones whose followings eclipse that of traditionally published authors, but unlike traditionally published authors, we don’t put a handy bio at the end of our fics. in fact, if you want to find out about the author, you have to hope they’ve linked somewhere to their tumblr or twitter or dreamwidth, or they have consistent pseuds across platforms. and from there, you have to hope they have an ‘about me.’ but most, myself included, don’t.

unlike traditional publication -- where amazon and goodreads and even the back of the book contains biographical info -- and even unlike the rest of fandom archival etiquette -- which, despite having virtually no committed rules still maintains its organizational structure -- there is no standard etiquette on fanauthor biographical data.

i speculate the reasons fanauthors are hesitant to write their own biographies is very complicated:

there is no “ask” for it or existing standard. when i publish stories under my real name, i’m required to provide my bio, which contains my accomplishments, where i got my degree, where else i’m published, and my website. all literary author bios follow this formula, so they’re pretty easy to write. other than this post, i have never seen a request for fanauthor bios. so without an editor demanding it, and without a standard formula or platform to draw from, a total lack of information becomes the norm, and almost any info other than the standard “name. age. pronouns. ao3 name. list of fandoms and/or pithy one-liner” of tumblr or occasional ask game is seen as a deviation from the norm. even ask games get a bad rep sometimes, and they’re transitory, a post you see as you’re scrolling through to somewhere else, not static, like a dedicated profile page.

pseudonymity veers too close to anonymity. an anonymous author cannot have a biography. a pseudonymous author can, but biographies may be seen as defeating the purpose of writing under a pseudonym, or multiple pseuds. a sock account is a sock for a reason -- you don’t want it associated with your main. moreover, i believe fandom creates an environment in which to acknowledge your accomplishments and promote your own content is seen as narcissistic. fanfiction can sometimes be seen as a genre of selflessness, donating time and energy into a community centered around a shared canon, not personal gain. to acknowledge the self publicly is to invite attention, and attention is contradictory to anonymity.

shame and humility. the more information you have on the internet, the easier you are to find. very few fanauthors use their real names, or feel comfortable connecting their fan identity to their real one. i hear pretty constantly how often fanauthors hide their fannishness from their coworkers and loved ones, how only the people closest to them know they write/read fanfic. moreover, you might think “my most popular fic only has 10 kudos and 1 comment, nobody wants to know about me” (which is so not true, but i’ll get to that in a minute).

fandom is constantly changing. with a central archive for fanfiction in place, it’s easier now to be in multiple fandoms at once than it ever has been. if you want to read all sugar daddy fics, there’s a tag for that, and if you’re not picky about canon, you have an entire buffet of fandoms to choose from. communities are growing and shifting and changing shape. i move fandoms, and i keep my friends and readers from previous fandoms. i get dragged to new fandoms frequently. my interests and inspirations change, but i don’t erase my history or identity every time i move, i only add to it. i am always betts whether i’m in star wars or the 100 or game of thrones. but if you only read my fic, you don’t know the stories behind it. many people don’t know i entered fandom in the brony convention community in 2012, or that i was sadrobots before i was betty days before i was betts, or how fandom changed my life and led me through a path of personal trauma recovery, or that i co-founded wayward daughters, or ran the fanauthor workshop, or all these other things about fanfic that is not fanfic itself.

if you are a fan creator, your fannish personal narrative matters. telling your story helps preserve the metatextual history of our genre.

i think constantly about what our genre will look like in 30 or 50 years, if it will be like other genres that began as subversions of the mainstream: comic books, beat literature, science fiction. genres that, at the time involved groups of friends creating stories for each other, bouncing ideas off of one another, experimenting with or distorting other genres, and which became, over time, well-regarded forms with rich histories.

maybe one day, like the MCU, we’ll have a dedicated production company that churns out adaptations of longform coffee shop aus written between 2009 and 2015. maybe “BNFs” will be read in high school literature curriculums. maybe our work will end up on the real or virtual shelves of our great grandchildren. and if that happens, if fanfic goes entirely mainstream, how will fanfic authorship be perceived? how will fanpeople in 2080, if humanity is still around by then, interact with the lexicon we’ve created and preserved? what would you do if you found out Jane Austen wrote under five different sock accounts across three platforms over the span of twenty years? how would you, a fan of Pride & Prejudice, even begin to find all of her work?

we have so many social constraints pushing against us. there’s purity culture, which encourages further division of identity -- fanauthors may write fluff on their main and have various sock accounts for underage/noncon fics. if you’re a scarecrow, you’re much harder for a mob to attack. there’s misogyny, which dictates women/queer ppl shouldn’t be writing about or indulging in or exploring their sexuality at all. there’s intellectual property and a history of DMCAs, which, although kept at bay by the OTW, may still have influence on the “illegal” mentality of our work. with social armies against us, it’s easier to exist in the shadows, on the fringe. we change URLs based on our moving interests, and split our identities a million different ways, and keep sarcastic “me” tags full of self-deprecating text posts. we are difficult beasts to catch, because we have not been allowed to exist.

i spent a lot of time today googling the word for “pseudonymous biography” and came up empty-handed (if someone knows of an existing word, pls let me know. “pseudography” is apparently a fancy word for a typo; “pseudobiography” is a fake biography), so for lack of anything better, i’ve come up with the term “socknography” because 1) it’s funny and doesn’t sound intimidating, and 2) it encapsulates the sensitive and complicated way fanauthor identifying conventions work. and also i think “fanauthor biography,” “bibliography,” and “profile” just doesn’t cut it for the actual work of these pieces. they don’t necessarily include IRL biographical data, they include more historical/community context than a bibliography, and the words “profile” and “about me” don’t really inspire interaction, or acknowledge the archival importance of this work.

astolat’s fanlore page is my go-to example. astolat writes under multiple pseuds and has major influence in the history of fandom. she’s also a traditionally published author, but you notice, her ofic novels are not mentioned, nor any other real-life identifying information. fanlore has a really good policy on this in place, for those concerned about doxxing.

(moreover, i am not suggesting you centralize your socks. they’re socks for a reason. but most everyone has a main, and that main identity has a story.)

there are 2 existing spaces to preserve socknographies.

fanlore, a wiki owned by the OTW, you can make an account and create a user page (which is different than a “person” page) using a user profile template

ao3′s “profile” page, which is a big blank box in which anything goes

(i’m not including tumblr on this list because i don’t think it’s a stable platform.)

fanlore’s template is straight to the point and minimal, which doesn’t really invite narrative the same way a literary bio would. ao3′s big blank box leaves us with the question -- wtf do i say about myself? how do i say it? how much is too much? and because of that, most profiles are either blank or only include a policy on translations/podfic/fanart, and maybe links to tumblr and twitter. but let me tell you, if i have read your fic and taken the time to move over to your profile, you better believe i am a fan. and as a fan, i want to Know Things.

here are the things i want to know, or

a potential template:

introduction (name/alias, age, location, pronouns, occupation)

accomplishments (degrees, personal history)

fan history (fandoms you’ve been in, timeline as a fan, how you were introduced to fandom/fanfiction, what does fandom mean to you -- this is where your fan narrative goes)

fandom participation (popular fics/posts, involvement in fan events/communities, side blogs, interviews, etc. 3 & 4 might be one and the same for you)

spotlight (which of your fics are most important to you/would you like others to read and why? what are the stories behind your favorite fics you’ve written?)

find me elsewhere* (links to tumblr, twitter, insta, etc.)

policies on fanart, fanfic of fic, podfics, and translations

*you cannot link to ko-fi, paypal, patreon, or amazon on ao3/fanlore per the non-commercial terms of service

i’ll be working on filling this out for my own profile as an example, but you can also see how my @fanauthorworkshop participants filled out their fanauthor spotlights, and the information they provided. obviously, you should only share that which you feel comfortable sharing, and as your fandom life changes, your narrative will change too. it’s not much different than updating a CV or resume.

tl;dr the goal is to provide a self-narrative of your fan life/identity for posterity. who are you and why are you a fanperson? why do you create fan content? what are you proud of and what do you want to highlight to others? who are you in this space?

#socknography #fanfiction #ao3 #otw

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sagemoderocklee · 4 years

Note

⭐the most recent chapter of taol with shadow!shikamaru⭐

ohhhhh thank you for asking about this chapter! this is definitely my favorite non-gaalee chapter! it was also the chapter that I was probably the most nervous about because of the direction I took Shikamaru in!

it’s been a while since i published that chapter, so i had to skim before i could really touch on the elements of it that I really wanted to talk about, so sorry this took so long to get to. again, not something i could really reply to in the midst of having my tits tattooed. and i was too tired last night after my appointment to reply to this cause i knew it was gonna be long.

anyways, director’s cut for chapter 11 of The Art of Love is below the cut:

so a quick breakdown of what happened in this chapter to refresh anyone’s memory:

This chapter was a Shikamaru PoV chapter, (and aside from Gaara and Lee, he’s actually one of my fave characters to write. It’s hard to rank who I love writing the most, tbh, but I really do love Shikamaru as a character and enjoying writing from his POV.)

With this chapter, things are really starting to progress in a very material way--we’ve got Shikamaru’s fake arrest, Chouji taking his place in Iron, Shikamaru’s team for a secret mission is formed, and his escape from Konoha takes place. He rendezvous with Team Eight and Sai, and they begin a long journey, posing as civilian travelers who’ve been impact by the outbreaks of violence throughout the last five years.

First they go to a town I made up for this fic, Kōten Outpost, where they uncover a small bit of information. Here, things take a drastic turn: Shikamaru makes a pact with Shadow Kami--a pact that hasn’t been made in hundreds of years, and the records of which are unclear and incomplete. This reveals something about the Nara clan otherwise unknown. They’re abilities to manipulate shadow comes not from chakra specifically, but from ancient pacts, magic that has since been forgotten by shinobi.

This pact poses a danger to Shikamaru, to his teammates, to the world, but he takes it on because he is more than determined to rescue Temari. He cannot possibly predict the consequences of the pact, but he knows it will give him unimaginable power. Power he definitely cannot control.

After this, they move northward, making their way out of Fire Country and into, first Steam Country (originally Hot Water Country), and then Crystal Country (originally Frost Country). Their goal is to make their way to Kumogakure in Lightning, but posing as civilians means traveling slowly. And Shikamaru is no longer in the best condition as he struggles against an unimaginable force that now lives within him.

The journey from town to town, and village to village takes months. They disguise themselves in numerous ways, and eventually they do make it into Lighting, a harrowing feat made possible by Shikamaru’s growing strength and understanding of the Shadow Kami.

The chapter ends here, after they’ve crossed the boarder into Lightning.

So, brief(ish) recap.

I think the main things I’d really love to talk about are Shikamaru’s pact with the Shadow Kami, the team he put together, Hinata’s role, some of the minor worldbuilding that went into this chapter, and his relationship to Temari. Which is obviously a lot to talk about lol but i really love this chapter.

So, to start with, I wanna talk about the less in depth stuff, which would be the team he put together and Hinata specifically.

I think it’s obvious that Team Eight and Sai were the best choices for this incredibly covert operation. Sai with his experience in ROOT and Team Eight as a team of trackers were the best candidates, even though Team Eight doesn’t necessarily specialize in undercover work. My thinking is that every shinobi has to have at least a basic grasp (cough except Lee) of undercover work and disguise. We obviously don’t get a lot of that in the series proper, but the series sort of takes the fact that these characters are ninja as more of a loose concept. ANBU and ROOT are really the closest to actual ninja, I’d say. Whereas Genin, Chuunin, and Jounin are more like your standard military personnel, I guess.

But that all being said, I don’t think you could really have someone be a successful Chuunin or Jounin without some experience and skill in these areas. I mean, as we saw in the first Chuunin exams, one of their tests was literally intelligence gathering without getting caught.

The team itself is large, but I didn’t want to skip out on using any of these characters, because each of them offered something vital to the team, and I don’t think Shikamaru would want to risk not using all the skills available to him that Team Eight and Sai offer. Sai’s obviously the best and most likely to fit into this role, and I think Shino is also well suited to this kind of work, but Kiba and Hinata are a little harder to place here. Kiba because he’s rather brash, and Hinata because she’s so... meek and bland. But Kiba is honestly easier to justify than Hinata from the off.

Hinata is always the character I struggle with the most because she doesn’t really offer us much in the canon. I’m sure someone will tell me I’m wrong or whatever, but Hinata exists specifically as a vehicle for male fantasy fulfillment. She’s fan service. Big tits, sweet, meek, totally devoted to the hero. Her arc revolves around Naruto, she exits to prop him up.

And that was a big reason why I wasn’t going to avoid writing her into TAoL. I couldn’t. I needed to address the issue of her relationship to Naruto, for starters, and I wanted to give her the chance to grow. I like her more when I separate her from Naruto--whether that’s presenting their obviously imbalanced relationship as detrimental to her and thus something she needs to finally let go of, or just not having her interact with him at all (like in Kado).

Shikamaru wondered if Naruto would even care that Hinata's acceptance of this mission was her way of breaking up with him.

I wanted to make it absolutely clear that this was the end of her relationship with Naruto and the start of her becoming her own person. We don’t get her PoV in this story because she’s not a central character in the grand scheme of things, but she has her own journey, and that revolves largely around her being a more competent shinobi and defining herself separate from Naruto. She’s faked an illness without telling him and he never went to see her--their relationship is over, and Hinata can finally move on.

And she starts to come into her own within this journey. She’s not in Konoha anymore. She doesn’t have her father to contend with or her sister or Neji’s death. And she doesn’t have constant reminders of Naruto (except when Kiba’s being an ass). Writing her as a more confident shinobi is... difficult to say the least. I personally don’t think she’s actually suited to shinobi work (politics, sure, but not actual combat), so even though I’m writing her as a more competent shinobi, it was very hard for me to suspend my belief for that. But that’s always been my problem with Hinata, and I kinda had to push myself past that hurdle of “is this recognizably Hinata?” because 1) she isn’t the central figure and 2) I need her to not be too much like Hinata because otherwise their cover is blown. So I can accept that she might come across as a lil OC. She’s undercover anyways, so she’s not gonna act like herself. And again, I want her to be more interesting and more dynamic than she is canonically.

But it definitely was a struggle.

Setting aside the issue of Hinata, I think the most fun I have when writing Naruto fics is really the worldbuilding aspects. For TAoL, I have like countless reference books and my kanji dictionary is always on hand. You can bet that any original towns and characters, I spent a lot of time scouring my kanji dictionary for a good name. Even if the name is fairly innocuous in meaning, I didn’t just pick it at random.

So for instance, Kōten Outpost uses kanji 995 in my kanji dictionary which mens ‘take a turn for the better’. Kōten is at a four way crossroad, and it’s specifically a place for travelers, merchants, etc.

Kōten Outpost was a quaint, sprawling town at a four-way cross-roads and the oldest settlement in Fire.

Long before Konoha or the rule of shinobi, before the daimyo, before the Warring States era, Kōten Outpost had sat like a picturesque painting. In the midst of wars and battles, in the midst of political upheaval and petty squabbles over boarders, Kōten Outpost had withstood the test of time for long centuries and would most likely continue on well after the age of shinobi.

Obviously, if you’re reading TAoL or just about any canon setting fic I write, you know I like worldbuilding. Kōten is a small piece of worldbuilding, whereas Gyokukakushin is a much larger piece, but Kōten still has it’s place within setting the stage and developing the world of Naruto. I really liked coming up with all the different towns in Fire that were affected by the skirmishes, and I really enjoyed imagining what the towns not run by shinobi would be like. What the people are like, what their culture is like, how they feel about shinobi. I think Kōten is a good example of a snapshot of worldbuilding--not a lot of depth per say, but enough that you get the sense of what it’s like.

With this chapter, however, the focus isn’t on the places and the culture of those places, so it really is just snapshots of places. Yugakure, Shimogakure, Kōten Outpost... This chapter is about the desperate hunt for information and doing whatever it takes.

That being said, the worldbuilding element comes into play again in a big way with Shikamaru and the Shadow Kami.

Admittedly, this was not in my original outline of this fic at all. It was something I came up with in the midst of writing this chapter, and it did make me kinda nervous to take this mystical route with Shikamaru given that nothing in the canon supports it. But then again, nothing in the canon supported aliens, and yet we have canonical aliens. \

Anyways, I felt that, despite my anxiety over the reception, Shikamaru was at least suited to this because I think it’s much easier to pull off mysticism with something like shadows. Plus, we don’t have a lot of canonical backstory for most of the clans, and I enjoyed bringing something new into the canon history, something wholly different.

Precautions had been noted in the scroll for this ritual, warnings from the first ones to perform it of the dangers it posed; his ancestors reaching from beyond the past to guide him through a long forgotten practice: Never look upon the Summoned, for they are more than mere shadow. Never show weakness to the Summoned, for they do not borrow hearts and souls, and will not show you any compassion. Never appear before the Summoned without an offering, for they are bottomless voids and will take you if you have nothing to give.

I really wanted to emphasize that the Shadow Kami do not follow human laws and are entities outside of human conception. There’s a lot more planned for Shikamaru and the consequences of what he does here are far reaching. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I can promise that what Shikamaru’s done doesn’t end at the end of this fic. This isn’t a one time deal, like “oh you can use our power for a little while and then we’ll slip away and you can be a normal shinobi again.”

Shikamaru has unleashed something that will live within him forever. And it will pass on to future generations (assuming he has children at any point.) He, of course, knew the risks, but Temari is everything to him, so what’s being a vessel for Shadow Kami if it means having the power to save the woman he loves?

I wasn’t entirely sure how successful I was in conveying these consequences and I really worried over how OP Shikamaru would be, but the questions I always ask myself are:

1. Is this errand? 2. Are there consequences?

And the answer to both of those questions are yes, in this case.

Shikamaru is a genius, and he’s in line to be the head of the Nara clan. He has access to the scrolls that contain these guarded secrets, and he absolutely doesn’t care about the consequences even though he knows there will be heavy ones.

While yes, at this point, Shikamaru has essentially achieved god-like powers, he cannot control them, and he is always going to run the risk of losing himself completely to the shadows. Shadows aren’t human. They don’t have human rules. They don’t have human wants. And the Shadow Kami, like I said, are bottomless voids. They take and take. Shikamaru has to rely on his own willpower to not be lost.

I imagine that the next Shikamaru chapter will explore more of the Shadow Kami history and the Nara clan history, but I think overall, the introduction to the Shadow Kami was good. It’s a hard balance though for sure because on the one hand, the Shadow Kami are a HUGE plot element that needs to be explored and talked about, but I also don’t want to take away from the immediacy of what’s happening in the overall story--the danger that Temari is in, which is always at the forefront of Shikamaru’s mind.

Which brings us to his relationship with Temari.

She’s his motivating factor in all of this. He does care deeply for Kankurou and Gaara as well, but Temari is the love of his life. That’s his everything. I personally am not a fan of maintaining Shikamaru as this like misogynistic person. He was twelve at the start of the series, and I think it’s safe to say he outgrows that, and also his desire not to get married. I think he genuinely values Temari--as a person and as a shinobi. She’s his equal and his partner.

And I think she’s sort of the great equalizer between him and the Shadow Kami:

Shikamaru's resolve hardened. He wasn't shadow, he wasn't just an empty void for them to fill. He might have given up his body and his humanity to them, but he would never give up his love. He sat back down, and forced the shadows to recede from his veins.

I personally feel like Shikamaru as this sort of embodiment of the lazy genius, this very blase and carefree “i wanna look at the clouds” character has a lot of potential to fail and become uninteresting. I think Temari makes him more interesting because she challenges him, and I think that the focus on their relationship really helps to highlight the pull of the shadows. Now he’s in this constant dance between giving himself over completely, and not forgetting Temari.

The antler that comes up repeatedly throughout this chapter is a symbolic link to Temari.

The antler ring tethered him; it was a blinding light to chase away the darkness; a necessary reminder of who he was and what mattered to him.

I think by the end of the chapter it’s fairly obvious what this is meant to be: an engagement ring.

I decided that it was a Nara tradition to make a ring out of antler, and Shikamaru carries this with him, making the ring when he has downtime on the mission. It’s not just a symbolic link to Temari to help him stay grounded, it’s also his assurance that he won’t let her die.

The repetition of the ring as an item on his person is inspired by a creative writing assignment I had back in college. There’s a story called The Things They Carried, and it kinda reminds me of being in theatre and having object work for a character you play. But the idea is that the things a character carries tells you a lot about them. It’s a window into someone’s soul, a way of communicating something about them without outright telling you about them.

So Shikamaru carries this piece of antler, that starts out as nothing more than a piece of antler and slowly turns into a ring, because he’s lost any and all reservations about marriage in the face of losing Temari. His love for her drives him onward, and his love for her is why he can’t fail. The ring is his refusal to fail.

I think that the ring is one of my favorite elements in this chapter. It’s obviously very subtle and small compared to like the Shadow Kami, but it’s such a desperate and beautiful element of romance. The image of Shikamaru awake late into the night, whittling down the antler until it becomes a ring, his promise to Temari whispered into the night. I think that’s powerful, and I think the ring really does highlight that in a way that not even the pact he made does.

And.... that’s I think the main stuff I wanted to talk about!

This particular chapter was actually supposed to cover their time in Kumo, but the chapter itself had gotten so long at that point that it didn’t make sense to keep going. Plus, the way this fic is planned out, it made sense to move everything that will happen in Kumo to a later Shikamaru chapter.

Thank you so much for this ask! It was fun to talk about this chapter! <3

#naruto #shippuden #nara shikamaru #hyuuga hinata #taol #fanfic asks #shikatema

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inventors-fair · 4 years

Text

Recycling day: Commentary on “Unique Artifacts”

This contest went exactly how I was hoping it would go. A variety of artifacts, a whole slew of unique mechanical ideas, experimentation — what more could I ask for? I’m glad that people liked this one. I’ve been stewing with it for a little bit. I think there were a few wording issues that I’ll get around to, but I’m also a stickler for perfection. Y’all should know how pedantic I am at this point. I’m practically a vedalken.

Anyway. Commentary time!

@ajani — Devra Chai

I really like your callback to Indian inspiration and the nature of Kaladesh. Mechanically, this card’s got some chops. I also like the abstract use of energy here as it relates to food. There are a few easily fixable issues. Firstly, there should be a comma after “sacrificed.” Secondly, as this is a Food, the second ability should be “2, T, Sacrifice Devra Chai: You gain 3 life.” The “You” is super important. Lastly, and most pedantically, as great as the flavor text is, “it’s” should be “its” because English is certainly a language. Small issues aside, good idea overall.

@deafeningsandwichpeach — Ancient Stone of Greed

The power level here is really hard to judge. The draw on the first ability seems really strong. Did you base this on Coveted Jewel? Overall, I feel that this card is a fine idea but a little busted with any artifact untapping. Filigree Sages makes this an infinite draw combo, but it’s not broken wide open. Let’s fix the wording. The second ability should be “Spend this mana only to cast a Hydra or Dragon spell.” This should be four lines, with “Skip your draw step” and the death trigger being on separate lines. I’m 80% sure that “Skip your draw step” also should be the first line on the card, and with that, you can probably take off the flavor text.

@demimonde-semigoddess — Gilded Yarn

This is an interesting one. Personally, adding an activated ability onto the equipment itself that’s not an equip cost seems a little hard to grok for the average player. Flavorfully, I understand the first ability, but not the attack clause at all. I’m not connecting it to anything specific in mythological tropes. It’s not a bad card mechanically, but I’m a little lost. Did you shift+enter for the equip cost? It looks really close to the other line.

@dimestoretajic — The Steel Leaf

The one and only! I like the callback. From a cursory look, I don’t think there is an actual “steel leaf” on Dominaria, but the sentiment is appreciated. I’m a little iffy on the fact that it doesn’t exactly do anything if you don’t have the trigger, and it doesn’t really help itself to the trigger, but it’s okay to have cards that you need to build around. The last ability is a little awkward because the way it’s worded now you can return green creatures your opponents control to their owner’s hand and it gets around hexproof, which I’m sure wasn’t intentional. “you control” could fix that easily.

@fractured-infinity — Cold-Iron Skillet

This is a fascinating little equipment. I love the creativity here. Honestly, not a whole lot to say about this one. It’s niche, but flavorful enough. Maybe the second ability should somehow be tied into being equipped to a creature? After all, the skillet’s not gonna do anything by itself, right? Major notes: both “foods” and “faeries” should be capitalized.

@gollumni — Pontiff’s Coinbox

Now this is unique. I can perfectly imagine the art here, which is majorly cool. I’m not sure why you tied the untapping to each opponent’s upkeep rather than their untap step, which is the way things usually go. And based on the amount of massive counters you can gain fairly early on, “twice the number” might be a little too powerful. The last ability should have “YOU gain 3 life” as well. I’d add a “(1)” to it as well, personally. I’m a little iffy on this kind of white acceleration, but there’s only one way to find out, right?

@greensunzenith — Dust Bunny

It’s a super cute idea, for sure. I kinda like the idea that your opponent keeps having to sweep it away, and that it’ll keep coming back. The difficulty in removing it is a bit of a pain, but that’s the nature of the beast, I suppose. I wouldn’t call the design anything mind-blowing, and frankly, as a one-drop it’s a pain in the butt probably more than it should be, but it’s not bad. Might have to cost 2 or 3 mana, and I would add a little flavor if you can come up with something.

@grornt — Smothering Rug

Well, I didn’t expect a rug for this contest, so kudos there. It changes up combat in a really powerful way, and I’m worried about its power level in a limited format. It’s an anti-trampler, anti-first striker, and man, that makes combat complicated. This is a card that would have to see a significant amount of testing, considering that every deck can play it. Doesn’t blow me away, but it’s good enough. Again, might want to consider flavor text with the amount of rules text that you have here.

@hypexion — Spy Satellite

It’s unfortunate that we had two spy-oriented cards submitted here. Surveillance is a great concept, and I’m glad you used the name in a flavorful way. I don’t know how powerful the surveil is here considering that it’s harder to remove than other creatures which have repeatable surveil. It’s a good card, certainly. I don’t know if the second ability needs UU instead of 1U, but I guess I can see the reasoning. Flavor text is pretty good. Overall, it’s a fine enough card. Save it for a custom cube.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Press of Magic Knowledge

Ah, batching. I think that you were ambitious in the way that you designed this card, and I’m not sure the payoff is entirely worth it. Seven different creature types is a lot to ask for, and it implies that all these different types would be in a single set. I think that’s entirely too much to ask for. The card itself isn’t...bad? It’s incredibly powerful. The wording might be a little convoluted. Why does it give the ability to the spells, instead of having it just be a trigger? “Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, you may tap an untapped Spellcaster you control. When you do, copy that spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.” A little easier to grok. Name and flavor text could use a little work, too. Doesn’t excite me.

@illharg-the-rave-boar — Hunted Windmill

I’m still thinking about this card. The fact that is has menace and that it gives your opponent a single creature is kind of an “eff you” but in limited, it’s certainly a pain in the butt. The two toughness really makes it feel fragile, but maybe the eight power makes up for it? I think this card could be fine. I think it could even be good. It’s still asking a LOT of questions that only playtesting and the right environment could ask for.

Also tfw “Dawn Kijote.” Take your kudos and go.

@kavinika — Ace of Spades

This card is... Restrictive. Basically, it says that “for the rest of the game, I decide all coin flips,” and that’s not interactive. It’s not exactly fun. If it was a sacrifice effect with a secret kind of ETB, then I guess it would be okay, but unlike Krark’s Thumb, it’s getting rid of a key part of randomness with no time limit, and that’s not great. I liked the philosophy of your submission, but I don’t feel that this card is adherent to MTG principles.

@koth-of-the-hammerpants — Amphora of Ephara

Kudos for making me look up the word “amphora.” Yet another card I can easily visualize! So, in terms of power level. Man. This card is a pain in the butt. In the right deck, it can grind out aggro decks with even the smallest creatures, and I assume there would be enough artifact/enchantment removal to make it not busted, but holy cow this could be a potential pain. And you know what? That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I would call this card annoying, certainly, but not in a “win the game” way. Two things: One, there should be a comma after the blue mana symbol in the activated ability. Two... “a city?” Too vague. Gotta spice it up with worldbuilding and/or specificity, man.

@machine-elf-paladin — Headmaster’s Lectern

Another great choice for a unique artifact here. Love it. It’s a simple design, but it’s perfectly functional, and sometimes that’s all we can ask for. It’s a great uncommon. Doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it’s a card that works, and that’s just plain fine. Flavor text 7/10. It’s a little hard to grok exactly what that immortalization looks like and where we are in the timeline. You set up a grand artifact, and then add a funny bit, and the two don’t exactly mesh perfectly. Both parts are fine. Again, good enough to worldbuild.

@mistershinyobject — Peace Table

Let’s get the good out of the way: I like how the middle ability gives a “swords to plowshares” kind of feel. That aspect works. That first ability, though, is missing a major wording. As it reads now, you can tap it and tap any number of creatures with different names — that you don’t control. And you can target those same creatures after. So, basically, for four mana your opponent never gets to attack again. I know that wasn’t your intention at all, but that’s the way the submission reads. Minor note: the flavor text should feel funny, but the art and concept is pretty serious, and it’s a little bit of a tonal clash.

@misterstingyjack — Unwanted Gift

Surprise! It’s horrible. Not the card, though, because I love this card. I can see it going into a set with Morph, and that works perfectly well. It might have to be mythic, because holy shit a reverse Immortal Sun is still awful to deal with. And I take a LOT of issue with that last ability. Just have it punish for every card draw! It’s totally functional without that weird restriction.

@nine-effing-hells — Beldam’s Mortar

This is my favorite artifact in terms of uniqueness. You added mythological aspects that are little-known but easy to grok, it feels magical, it seems cool, and it’s so unusual that you can’t help but to just plain love it. Now, the card. Using Bladed Bracers as a template, there should be one line for the equip buff, and another that says “As long as equipped creature is a Druid, Hag, Shaman or Warlock, it can’t be blocked.” I might take out either Druid or Shaman from that list, personally? Three might be the limit for batching. The flavor text could also talk a little bit more about the importance of the mortal itself as a means of transportation.

@nvijork — Scrying Dish

I have a soft spot for tutors. They are my absolute favorite cards. I love combo, control, unique synergy, all that crazy stuff. Additionally, I love randomness. So, there are two changes I would make to this card, one mechanical and two syntactically. The syntax one is that “3″ should be “three.” That’s just how Magic works. There should also be a comma after “(4).” Mechanically, I would also add that after you shuffle and put the cards on top, you draw a card. It’s the payoff to the scry, it bumps the power level up, and it justifies the cost. Overall, I really liked this card.

@real-aspen-hours — Nutrient slurry

I guess this card would be an uncommon? You gotta add rarity to text submissions. I think that for next week I’ll add an example post. Anyway, besides the name capitalization, I think that this card actually works really well. It feels green, it’s powerful enough, it’s synergistic with the game, and could see some pretty cool +1/+1 counter interaction. Not bad at all. The flavor text might need to be in quotes, because, well, it’s first-person. The card is pretty great, but the submission needs polish.

@reaperfromtheabyss — Resincase Relic

I really would have added imprint here. Although, would that imply that the card never comes back? It’s honestly not the worst price to pay. This is a perfectly functional mana rock, a theoretically budget version of Chrome Mox, and I’m okay with that. It should be “one mana” instead of “a mana,” looking at the Thriving lands and Chrome Mox itself. And two lines of flavor text wouldn’t have gone amiss here.

@scavenger98 — Storm Jar

I really want to like this card. For the first ability, I would absolutely make it a may ability — “you may have target creature gain or lose flying until end of turn.” Gotta simplify it. The second ability needs the “s” in “sacrifice” to be capitalized. This is a fun card mechanically, and very potentially powerful in limited! What’s with the flavor text, though? I don’t get it.

@shandylamb — Cursed Compass

So, major mechanical issue: You, as the player, don’t explore — the equipped creature explores. It would read: Equipped creature has “T, Pay 1 life: Scry 1, then this creature explores.” Easy enough fix, but needs to happen. Additionally, good lord, this should be at least an uncommon. Potential scrying and exploring each turn? Very powerful, moreso than I think you’re giving credit for. A great idea for sure, but NOT common, no sir. I like it, don’t get me wrong. Also, I assume this is from one of the Pirates movies. In the future, please clarify the specific piece of media.

@starch255 — Orb of Petrification

This is a card that I really spent a lot of time thinking about. I still don’t know what to feel about it. It’s evident that you spend a lot of time thinking about this card and putting it together, and I want to give you credit for that first and foremost. The second ability is really weird to me, because it prevents the orb itself from activating its abilities, and it shuts down all artifacts on board? I’m not positive how that works flavorfully. It’s not bad. It’s probably super powerful in commander, not gonna lie. Control magic out the wazoo. I’m still on the fence about this one. Fine in standard, fine in limited, probably part of a frustrating combo in eternal formats. Still gotta congratulate you for the design process.

@teaxch — Semaphore Flag

Another really cool choice for a unique artifact. Functionally fun as a build-around. The card needs some kind of basic flavor text, because man it’s looking blank as heck right now. But older cards do that sometimes. Maybe I’m just a stickler for these sorts of things. Overall: probably fine. Probably not gonna see play except for in that deck made by That Guy that copies a buttload of artifacts.

Thank you all for your submissions! New contest tomorrow. Get the creative juices flowing.

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #contest #entries #commentary #unique artifact #inventor's fair

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thegeminisage · 4 years

Note

hey liz i've been thinking a lot about story structure lately and i wanted your take on how you decide what structure your stories will have? i know there's that "you have to do what your story needs and tells you to do" thing but these bitches dont ever tell me anything they just multiply so. thoughts? - bma

(as an aside, i don't know whether involving medium would change many things but it may be worth considering. mainly i think medium is just a matter of arrangement and that the story would be for most intents and purposes the same no matter how you choose to tell it. i guess you could argue that structure is arrangement in itself and intrinsically tied to medium but i sort of feel like it is secondary arrangement, if at all? like if you consider time as an element to outline -- the time IN the story (how things happen to your characters) is not necessarily the time you’re telling the story IN (how you are telling your reader that things are happening) aka internal chronology doesnt equal your work’s pacing? or should it??? does this make sense? i dont think so. i am sorry.) - bma :|

NOOO dont be sorry ur making total sense

i think there’s 3 thots to unpack here (medium, structure, & chronology) & i’m gonna start with medium bc it’s easier. im also putting it behind a cut bc it’s gonna get just stupidly long and rambly. i’m sorry in advance if it’s not helpful to you, i have a lot to say for someone who has never taken even one single class on writing and as a result doesn’t know jack shit (there’s a tl;dr at the end dont worry)

about MEDIUM:

so like ok i’m just some goof-off with a HS degree who writes fanfiction but In My Very Super Qualified Personal Opinion, i don’t think that most of the time medium is intrinsically tied to STRUCTURE of the main storytelling arc...i think the art of storytelling itself is distinct from the medium you choose to tell the story IN. this post puts it better than i ever could but basically for me, i feel like the story itself is sort of the raw, malleable concept, and the medium you choose to tell it in is how you convey the information??

like in a book, you can say “she forgot her keys” and in a film you have to show her smacking her forehead, heading back into the house, and swiping her keeps off the counter. you can’t TELL in film, you have to show. similarly i regret every day i cannot perfectly describe a facial expression with words when i see it so clearly in my head. for audio-only podcasts that are dialogue heavy out of necessity you have different limitations than you would for, say, animated music videos with no dialogue at all. games allow for more interactivity and exploration while sacrificing accessibility, tv shows allow for more length while sacrificing, uh, a big hollywood budget...medium affects the kind of story you can reasonably tell which is why some stories are better suited to one medium than another. i think trying things in other mediums is a good way to stretch your storytelling muscles but with enough skill nearly any story could be told in any medium. i think when trying to decide on a medium you just gotta weigh the pros & cons and what you feel comfortable with/what you think would be most effective/what would evoke the strongest reaction

re: structure:

firstly “do what the story tells u to do” is a little silly like...the story isn’t sentient. come on. that’s like “i can only write when the writing gods inspire me” there are no writing gods! inspire yourself! it’s all in our weird messed up brains! ok anyway.

this is, again, just how i do things, and i am 700% self-taught so take it with a grain of salt, but when i sit down and start blocking out a story from scratch i don’t...actually consider the big structure at all! sorry if that’s not helpful to you. i like to make a list of everything i want to happen, and then put it together in a few different orders to see what looks best. and when i’m finished, whatever i have just like...IS the structure i go with, with perhaps minor tinkering to make it flow more smoothly. (i think this might be in the same spirit as “do what the story tells you” with less bullshit and more Agency Of The Writer.)

for long and more complex projects, i actually usually have several lists - one list of stuff that is, for example, the Action Plot (the kingdom has been cursed, i’m tracking down my serial killer sister to bring her to justice, i’m running from djinn who wanna kill my dad, i’m trying to bring my dead not-boyfriend back to life). then i have another list for Character A & Character B’s romance or whatever. and maybe a even another one for solo character development (magicphobic prince learns to love magic, former werewolf hunter figures out his family is a cult, half-demon learns to embrace his own nature). and as many lists as we need for however many Main Characters and or Plots/Sideplots

how i order the lists: individually first. don’t mix them together to start with. when deciding the order of an individual list i like to, for example in a romance arc, use escalating intimacy. “A and B have dinner together” is naturally gonna go way sooner than “A and B kiss” or “A and B talk about A’s angsty backstory” because that’s more satisfying. draw it out, good/important stuff last, dangle that carrot so we have a reason to keep reading! for singular character development, it’s basically a straightforward point A to point B...if i want my guy to start hating magic with everything he is and end up being very comfortable with it, i have to put “reluctantly uses magic to save his own life” WAYYY before “casually using magic to light torches and reheat his cold stew.”

the tricky part for me is when i’m done with these lists and then i need to mix them together To Pace My Whole Story. (this is usually why i wind up with a rainbow colored spreadsheet.) i don’t like to put too many things too close together because then the pace feels uneven. even if my Action Plot is only a thinly veiled excuse for romance and character development, i still don’t want to focus on a romance for 30,000 words and then go “and oh yeah in case you forgot Serial Killing Sister is still coming for your asses.” the more sideplots and major character arcs you’re juggling the harder it is to get an even distribution, which is my main concern always

and like, generally, whatever i have when i’m finished...is my structure. (sorry.)

i don’t know much about the classic 3-act or anything like that, but i usually can divide them up into 3-5 big arcs based on story turning points. sometimes i take a scene out of one arc and put it in another because it fits better and i like for my shit to be organized, but usually by the time i’m finished with all that, that’s what the final story is mostly gonna look like. (there have been a few exceptions when i realized i needed extra scenes/changes while i was MID-DRAFT and let me tell you that murders me EVERY time. it happened on the merlin fic i’m currently posting and that was like my own personal hell.)

this is also where thots about chronology come in:

i think time CAN be an element of this if you WANT it to be, but it doesn’t HAVE to be. if you want it to be, i would consider it just another “list” like character development or the romance arc.

i usually plot without considering Time very much...to me, it’s all down to the events you want to show, and however much time it takes is the byproduct. if you want to show something from a character’s chilhood but then tell the bulk of it when they’re adults, that’s one thing. if you want to show a scene from their childhood, teenhood, young adulthood, etc, that’s a different kind of pacing?? i usually do it this way so i can regard time like wordcount: it takes as long as it takes. 3 days or 3 years, a 1.5k drabble or a 100k epic...overall, my LARGEST CONCERN is that even distribution. in the same way that i don’t want one chapter to be 30,000 words when the rest are 10,000 words, i personally am not a fan of huge timeskips offscreen

(because this where i think someone’s own internal chronology DOES matter...this is just a personal preference, as a reader i have a hard time really comprehending, say, a year timeskip or a 10yr timeskip when all i did was turn one page. like, a year is such a long time. i can’t even begin to describe how different i am now to how i was a year ago. it’s the same for character development. time IS development and as a writer i’m not really comfortable having that take place offscreen - for main characters, at least. it’s just too jarring. a little prologue with something happening 10 or 20 years ago is usually fine, but for the most part, i’m not a fan. ...i can do one chapter per year a lot easier than i can do two chapters in childhood and the other 8 in adulthood. of course you can play with this a LOT with nonlinear storytelling, which is a whole other very cool thing, and someone skilled in their work can keep me sucked in no matter what, but imo if you don’t want to risk throwing your reader out of your work it’s better to keep things steady)

HOWEVER sometimes time IS an element u wanna consider outside of just making sure your shit is evenly distributed...if your heart is moved to tell a story in a specific timeframe, over a year, or from solstice to solstice (this was almost the timeline for my merlin fic and then i changed it), for the first six months of a friendship, or even a huge journey in the span of a single day (toby fox had a lot of success with this one lol).

i think it can help to choose a start and end point for your chronology the same way you do for character development (prince goes from hating magic to being ok with it, story takes place from ages 8 to 25, or from new year’s eve 2038 to 2039, whatever) - that way you can keep your distribution even, if that’s a thing you want to do...even if you have a lot of skips you can still note what happens offscreen to make it work better in your head? like, if you just make it another List, another column on your spreadsheet, when you’re in the early stages of organizing you can be conscious of it and make sure it’s playing into the story the way you want it to

anyway these r my thots im SOOOO SORRY this is so long lmao. brain machine broke today which is why i had to ramble more to explain myself. the tl;dr in case ur brain is melting out of ur ears & u didn’t sign up for an essay:

imo medium is totally distinct from storytelling tho ofc some stories are better suited to some mediums

structure? i don’t know her. i plot w/o regard to structure and then if it looks funny i mush it into a more structurally sound shape

my main concern when structuring anything, including time, is an even distribution of Events and a steady rate of escalation

structure to me is just what i have when i’m finished plotting. i’m sorry one day i’m gonna take a writing class

internal chronology matters to me personally because i have a little bit of time blindness but maybe not to everyone, i know many very successful stories where they disregarded that entirely to no ill effect

writer’s block isn’t real! everyone just needs more rainbow spreadsheets

thank u for asking I HOPE i didn’t make you regret it too badly lmao and that at least a little of it was helpful!!

#personal #liz loves writing #liz answers asks #brit marling anon #i couldn't figure out how to answer u without walking u thru my entire process #so that's what i did and that's why it's so long. very sorry.#im gonna set this up to reblog itself at the time u sent ur ask so that ur sure to see it!!#edit: there was SUPPOSED to be a cut on this but tumblr put it in the ASK?? i can't seem to fix it. rip

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pangolin-404 · 4 years

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Delving into what chapter 2 of Bendy: Rewritten (or just the side scroller AU, as a couple people have called it- still working on a vaguely clever name hh) would be like, where there are choices and reactions! More canon divergence! Things set up and hinted at!

The background music changes. No shame to batim's music, I quite like it, but it can be better. Whenever Sammy's around (carrying the cutout, looking over the band room, giving his ritual spiel) a banjo is added to the bg track. The followers get string instruments, more added depending how many are in the room. The sacrifice room is mainly string instruments

Sammy is somewhat a lost one. He loses his buff rights and is a mix of his pre- and post-update designs. I say somewhat because, while he is skeletal, he drips a lot and doesn't really have feet.

Sammy actually has followers. It can be pieced together from notes and dialogue that he split from the Lost Harbor after a close run in with Bendy permanently mangled his body and converted him to worship. He brought a few other lost ones with him (like, only a dozen but a couple died on the way). They wear Bendy masks, too, yet he's the only one wearing pants (mostly to hold his legs together). He also wears gloves to hold his fingers together, and only takes them off for brief periods to play an instrument before having to put them back on. Bendy left him with a lot of lasting damage

They all look the same and they know it hh

He's a proper prophet figure now that people look up to him. If Henry can find them huddled around a statue in prayer or drawing a ritual circle, they will talk about how much hope he gives them and how kind he is, despite how strict or overly optimistic he can be at times.

The followers' opinion of Henry changes with his behavior. Suggest Sammy is nuts? Say Bendy is evil? Drink too much soup? Break cutouts? They don't like that. Ask to learn more, give them some fresh soup, maybe even draw Bendy for them if Henry comes across fresh paper, and they'll appreciate it.

The cutouts are decorated with soup and candles. Drink a couple cans and the followers won't notice, drink more and they'll be upset, drink them all and they'll get concerned. Ink rats will scuttle out of hiding and can be found licking the empty cans.

Oh yeah you think humans were the only thing the ink affected? No there are ink rats and they scuttle around. Sometimes they become an enemy if multiple melt/fuse together and it's just a Lump Of Rat

"Did you drink the soup?" "No, did you?" "We don't have mouths! We can't eat!" "Who drank all the soup then?" "I don't know, but now there are rats everywhere!"

The whole chapter 2 area is bigger, kind of. Lots more signs of being lived in, with offices turned into little bedrooms and such. The followers are shy, though, and lurk behind locked doors, so finding them is tricky. Signs of life are everywhere but finding the life itself is difficult. Finding ones that talk more than a sentence is even harder.

Sammy is unhinged. Well-meaning, but ultimately mentally...cracked. He claims to have visions he interprets, but it's ambiguous whether they're nightmares/dreams or if Bendy's messing with him. He genuinely believes that Bendy will set them free, and he wants the best for his sheep. He'd be amicable if he wasn't trying to sacrifice Henry.

Instead of pressing the switches to open that first door, Henry had to find a pipe valve. A new "mechanic" of sorts is draining flooded halls. Ink pours down from piped above in an unpassable wall, and one or two valve are needed to shut it off completely.

Remember those notes I mentioned earlier? Well, some found around the music department contain buckets of how the followers see Sammy and their situation in general. They range from "oh hey here's Sammy's favorite tune-" to "note: don't play the organ! D:"

It's possible to find old newspapers and comics. Some of the pictures have been carefully cut out and pasted on the walls in various memorials, ranging from Bendy letting them outside to Sammy being "blessed" by the Ink Demon.

Some of the more petty depictions paint Alice as a jerk. She's an angel, he's a demon, so they're opposites. Since Bendy's so great, she must be awful! Rumors of a cruel Alice in deeper levels are hinted at.

The band room is slightly different. The projector's bulb is burst and there's a sticky note on it saying something about how touching it when you're made of ink is a bad idea, and to fix the projector before Sammy notices. Henry has to find a lightbulb and fix it now before he can turn it on.

The fight after opening the sanctuary affects the followers' opinions. They begin to realize what Sammy has in store for Henry. Killing all the searchers make them either makes them wince or frustrated, depending on their view on him up til that point.

I feel like you could probably click/interact with the banister to look over and it shows a still image of the band room below, and it shows whether or not the projector is fixed/playing and also shows any Bendy cutouts that pop up. I tried to draw that but couldn't get the angle I wanted, so

Sammy's sanctuary is like...just a big ol Bendy shrine. It's also where he sleeps, writes songs to Bendy, and where his banjo is kept. He has a Bendy plush on his bed

The further the chapter goes on, the quieter the followers are to Henry. They're gathering candles and offerings of personal belongings. They might be bittersweet, neutral, or glad to be away from him, depending on Henry's actions.

Jack is important to Sammy. They worked closely together and so they somewhat remember each other. He acts as Sammy's personal treasurer and doesn't let go of anything given to him. The first encounter with Jack is relatively the same, with needing to grab a valve from him. However, instead of holding the valve, it's sitting on the box

Henry's notes in his sketchbook also change depending on his interactions with things. If he annoys the followers and develops a bad relationship with them, he'll treat them like blind fools. If he helps them or is generally nice, he'll sound more sympathetic towards their situation and wish them well.

One is in the infirmary, badly hurt, missing a leg, practically a searcher, and delusional after getting just grazed by Bendy's aura. They believe they've been blessed by his presence, despite falling apart more and more by the hour (Bendy and any ink creature do not go together-). Henry can kill them and put them out of their misery, if he so chooses. The others won't like that.

Whether Henry kills him or not, Jack remembers. Getting items from him in the future becomes harder if he's killed multiple times, until eventually he's downright scared (I'll delve into more detail on the mess that is chapter 3). Befriending him completely later in chapter 3, on the other hand, will make the task easier.

Killing Jack triggers a horror vision. Henry briefly becomes unable to move, visibly distressed and looking around until the vision ends.

Not necessarily the sewers you first encounter him in, but close enough. You know you've entered an area Jack's in if there's a random item on a box that's under a light in an otherwise dim ink-flooded room

He goes through 'stages.' First the valve is on a box. Henry tries to grab it, but Jack (moving through the ink) pushes the box away. The methods of dealing with him is a messy web of cause-and-effect, with chances to crush him, corner the box slowly and steal the valve, it rush at it and cause it to slide off, or snatch his hat and bargain. (It's possible to steal his hat, kill him, and then keep/wear his hat, but why would you do that? Jack would forever loathe Henry and later on Sammy may ask for it back)

Nothing will stop Sammy from knocking Henry out. No matter how kind or cruel Henry is to his followers, Sammy will smack him over the head with a dustpan. He can't run, but the man can be sneaky if he wants to be, lurking through shadows and phasing in and out of the ritual portals.

(Clarification: because it would be a side scroller and the player could see Sammy sneaking up on Henry, instead there's a ritual circle on the wall that he'll jump out of when Henry walks past it.)

The sacrifice room is more of a hallway. The followers are all watching from the sidelines, peering through knocked out walls and over makeshift fenceposts. Candles and other offerings are around Henry. Sammy gives his spiel as always, first starting with a quiet "that face..." whispered mostly to himself but then using his Big Loud Musician Prophet voice to put on a show about how grand the sacrifice will be and how happy Bendy will be. The followers get excited for it.

Messy rendition but you get the picture

Sammy enters the room off to the side and calls for the Ink Demon. Ink leaks from the vents, and his aura is making some of the followers unsteady/weak. They become more restless, and unstable, until the calling reaches its climax (Sammy also sounds out of breath and his voice becomes wet and labored) and Bendy arrives out of sight. Sammy is torn apart, as per usual, though it's a slower, more audible mauling, and drags on through Henry's escape.

Some followers flee into the ink, while one or two are liquidated just by Bendy's aura. Others panic and attack Henry when he breaks free, messed up by Bendy's aura and so they resemble searchers.

Whether or not Henry powers through the onslaught or axes the frenzied followers may alter the number of followers he encounters later on, and (combined with how he'd treated them) how they react to seeing him again. "Oh I kind of remember you" vs "I don't blame you for using the axe" vs "Did you slaughter your way down here, too?"

Like in the updated chapters in game, the you can see ink machine lowering past crates/wood boards

Bendy actually pries himself up out of the ink with effort. Like, hands planted on the ground, lurching up, ink sloughing off of him, generally more detailed for a 2D animation.

Boris time! The boy himself peeks out from behind a wall before stepping out of the shadows

Feel free to send an ask for clarification/more detail about anything- I'm happy to go on more tangents!

#rants #batim au #Bendy: Rewritten #batim but it's a side scroller multiple choice game #but not really a game because i'm not a programmer so i will instead share every single choice and outcome #batim

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tmitransitioning · 5 years

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Radfem-friend anon from earlier! My friend does (at least seem to) genuinely care about my transition and making sure I'm comfortable/getting gendered properly and cares about other trans people getting the same respect, and I find it really hard to believe she'd intentionally hurt anyone? I've also found myself agreeing with a lot of the radfem stuff she posts and it doesn't seem as bad as people make it out to be?? Idk if I'm being swayed, should I still be concerned about this?

Yes, I think you should.

It’s difficult to talk about stuff like this for a couple reasons. The first is that we run the risk of making radfem communities seem appealing through internet atrocity tourism—the urge that makes people, say, hateread blogs they don’t like or lurk in horrible subreddits to make fun of them. When a whole bunch of people tell you how awful something is, and you haven’t necessarily experienced that awfulness as a direct target, or haven’t seen someone you care about be a target, it’s tough to consider the harm that the thing has in the concrete rather than the abstract.

Then, when you have trouble seeing it as concrete and real and affecting people’s lives, it becomes a lot easier to say “well this doesn’t seem so bad”. The harm becomes hypothetical, and the thing in front of your eyes seems a lot more salient. This means that you don’t have a readily accessible “defense” in your mind that you can compare someone’s words to, and it makes it a lot harder to counteract what they’re saying to you.

Think about, for example, a homophobic relative that you see during holidays. Say it’s your uncle Steve. Every time Steve says something homophobic about Gay Marriage, you might think of your own relationship, if you’re part of the acronym community, or you might think about your gay friends Jean-Paul and Kyle and how they’re scared to hold hands in public. Your cousin Wanda is a lesbian, and just married, and she gets mad at Steve because she’d waited to be legally married for a very long time. These are personal connections. Steve knows that you have those connections, and he chose to say homophobic things anyways.

But your aunt Peggy is straight, and doesn’t know very many gay people, and she says you’re just being too hard on Steve. It’s not like he wants to personally deny gay people marriage licenses, and besides, she has a gay friend, Natasha, who thinks that you should just sit down and talk to Steve to convince him of your view. Maybe Steve doesn’t outright say “the gays are ruining marriage”, he just says that he thinks you should have to marry for the “right reasons”, and that you should have to “prove you’re really in a relationship”. These are statements that you might, on the surface, agree with—you think hey, marriage is a big commitment, maybe people should have to swear that they’re doing it for love. But Steve isn’t saying these things because he believes in the sanctity of love, he’s saying them because they don’t sound as outright homophobic.

Maybe Steve is a huge racist and is saying this about immigration. Maybe he’s saying it about disabled people on welfare. Maybe Steve is a TERF—instead of marriage, he’s talking about medical transition, and claiming that people should prove they’re transitioning for the right reasons, because it’s a big irreversible decision, and you should prove that you’re a real transsexual with real dysphoria in order to seek medical care. Some of these things, if you see them outside of context, you might kneejerk agree with—“hey, medical transition is a big and irreversible decision, maybe we should make sure that people are really sure before they do it”. It’s not a moral failure to kneejerk agree with these statements, because they’re worded very intentionally to get you to do that. They give you a little bit of truth (“many parts of medical transition are irreversible”) and then, once their foot’s in the metaphorical door, it’s a lot easier for them to get you to agree with the rest. This is literally called the foot-in-the-door technique.

TERFs apply this technique constantly. Online, it’s wrapped up in concern trolling—e.g. “don’t you think that we should protect children from being attacked in locker rooms?”. You want to agree with that statement, because who doesn’t want to protect children? Children being attacked is objectively a bad thing. The words that they say are explicit content—children, attack. These are what you read. The meaning of their words is implicit content—they are trying to get you to agree with the concept “trans women are dangerous”. In order to do that, they hide the target (trans women), often omitting the idea of the perpetrator entirely; it becomes a question of children, the “victims”, being “attacked” by a nebulous force on which your mind can project whatever it thinks is the scariest thing that children could be attacked by. Once they have you agreeing with that sentence, they introduce the next concept, maybe “did you know that men commit more violent crimes than women do?”. Again, explicit versus implicit content—the phrasing itself is not factually incorrect, and you want to agree with it. But they don’t mean men when they say the word, because they view AMAB trans people, particularly trans women, as men, and they’re trying to get you to make that association too.

This goes bit, by bit, by bit, until you’ve agreed to a whole bunch of premises that seem logical and then suddenly you’re tricked into agreeing to things that are very explicitly transphobic. All along the way, you’ll be praised for listening, for being logical, and for finding people who really care about you. Every time you agree with a statement, you will be reinforced somehow—your friend might say they’re happy you agree, or randos on tumblr might like your posts or send you hearts. If you agree with someone else, you will also feel a social link to them (which is why this article is so resonant; cw ableist language), which is inherently reinforcing—who doesn’t like to belong to a community?

And that is the second reason why it’s difficult to talk about things like this. TERFs call trans communities “cults” a lot, and will refer to people from said communities who interact with them as “desisters”, or frame them as escapees from some dangerous ideology. Ironically, TERF rhetoric is textbook cult tactics. But just me telling you that, even though it’s true, sets up this “us vs. them” concept—even though it is that, because they are inherently opposed to our existence. But because I’ve said those words, too, when you see something that doesn’t seem that bad, it doesn’t fit with the concept of TERFs in your head. So you think wait, maybe these people aren’t really so bad. And then they have an opening to try this kind of language on you, trickling it past you bit by bit until you’re in the middle of the river and being swept along.

That’s why I’ve written all of this out. I don’t want to tell you “cut your friend off and don’t read that”, because you’d likely go “wtf hell no”, and it doesn’t help explain why trans communities are largely so insistent about no-platforming TERFs. Instead, I want to urge you to evaluate everything you read with a critical eye, and to ask yourself “is there any hidden meaning to this language that I might not immediately see? what does this person really mean when they say this? what motivations could they have? what would people I trust say if they read this?”. That applies for everything you read, including from us—I generally try to lay things out in detail, personally, because I think that it helps people to be able to see someone’s intentions. You know, writing into this blog, that we’re a group of trans people who have an interest in not exposing ourselves or our followers to transphobia. You also know from Rabbit’s previous response that at least a few of us (some of our answers go through committee behind the scenes) feel strongly about no-platforming TERF ideology.

It is fully possible that your friend does legitimately care about you, just like it’s possible that your homophobic uncle Steve cares about you, his trans nibling, or like it’s possible that Peggy and Natasha are actually friends despite Peggy’s apologism. But you should be careful not to let that care and the social bond between you two overshadow the impact of someone’s words on the world. You might love Steve because he’s family, but he still lobbies his congressperson to challenge Obergefell v. Hodges and reverse the legalization of same-gender marriage in the States. You might have a friend who’s a TERF, or a radfem adopting TERF ideology over time, but you should examine the impact that the things she believes have on trans people’s access to legal recognition, medical care, and quality of life. Be wary, read with a critical eye, and understand people’s motivations so that you can protect yourself and others.

- Mod Wolf

#mod wolf #long post cw #transmisogyny cw #transphobia cw #homophobia cw #apologies to steve rogers along with the other avengers and also alpha flight

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gffa · 5 years

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So... I've seen a /lot/ of your thoughts about the prequel-era of Star Wars, and the original trilogy of Star Wars is pretty much loved by everyone... but that latest meta got me thinking. What exactly are your thoughts about the new trilogy so far? What do you love about it, what do you hate about it, and where does it fall in the end?

My feelings are pretty boring, to be honest! I like the sequels’ characters pretty well, but I’m middle of the road on the plot and the worldbuilding. There are things I like about it very much, there are things I dislike about it, there are things I’ve dug out of the whole thing that I like, there are things I’m never really going to get over, and mostly it just doesn’t really sing to me like the prequels and originals do.Things I like about the sequels:- The characters are all pretty darling and I very much want to know more about them and their stories! Rey and Finn and Poe are precious, I really love Maz a lot, I’m interested in Ben Solo, I appreciate TLJ bringing us the Leia/Amilyn potential, I WILL FIGHT A MAN FOR ROSE TICO, etc.- TLJ actually made me really think about Luke Skywalker a lot, how I see him and how fallible he was in the originals, versus the Pure Cinnamon Roll that was all I saw for a long time. And it really, really helped me understand his character a lot better.- The supplementary material has been really good to me. Whether it’s the absolute batshit of Phasma (SHE MADE HER ARMOR OUT OF SHEEV’S YACHT, THAT IS THE SINGLE GREATEST THING HER CHARACTER COULD EVER DO, LOL) or the sheer adorable feelings that Cobalt Squadron gave me about Rose Tico or how Battlefront II’s storyline connected the dots between the OT and the ST really well for me, how much I legit enjoyed some of the lines from Jason Fry’s TLJ novelization, or the Poe Dameron comic being amazing, or a whole bunch of other things! The ST has given us the chance to have these things that I really love and I cannot (nor do I want to) full divorce those things from the movies in my mind, which means I have affection for the movies because I love the whole big picture that Star Wars is building with these characters and the galaxy!Things I don’t like about the sequels:- TLJ is something I don’t mind in and of itself at this point (mostly because I’m just so tired of the arguments) but it’s never going to be what my heart wanted, it’s never going to be satisfying for me in that sense. Yes, I get where they’re coming from, I think it’s a fascinating look at showing that yes the dark side/dark emotions is a LIFELONG STRUGGLE to overcome, that Luke fell back into them because it’s not a one-and-done thing, but that means that’s the ONLY story we got for Luke from the sequels, as played by Mark Hamill. If we’d had more stories of Luke with Mark, I think it would be easier to take, but this is the only thing we’ve gotten so far with Mark Hamill on the big screen, so it has all the weight of our expectations on it, and because it’s undoing so much of what ROTJ worked so hard for, it’s never going to be satisfying. I think it’s justified in what it did, but it’s never going to sing to me. (I would like to hope that TROS will stick the landing and make me change my mind, I’m absolutely willing to be won over, but I’m skeptical.)- Rey’s being wrapped up in the Skywalker themes, they’re going to have to step really carefully to stick that landing for me as well, and so far I haven’t been satisfied by the story. I don’t necessarily need her to be a bio-Skywalker (though, that would be my preference), but I need her connection to them to be thematically coherent, and so far it’s not enough for me. It’s not the worst ever, but so far it’s not singing to me, either.- The worldbuilding in the movies has been very lackluster. The planets all look like Earth locations for the most part, the aliens aren’t very creative, there’s a weird eschewing of established aliens, like they don’t actually want this to be Star Wars in setting, and there’s no sense of this being a bigger galaxy in the movies. The supplementary material does a lot of this lifting and I live in that space, so I’m not as cranky about it as I might have been (ie, god bless Battlefront for its gorgeous planets omg), but it’s pretty noticeable in TFA and TLJ.- The squandering of the OT cast. I’m actually okay with Han’s death in the movies, but I’m frustrated by totally taking out any impact it has on Luke and Leia, that they weren’t even there. Leia briefly feels Han’s loss and staggers over it, there’s mention of it in the TLJ novelization, but that’s about it. She feels Luke’s death, she gets a moment to talk with him in TLJ, but it’s so brief. Ben only briefly feels her and doesn’t pull the trigger on her, until one of his squadmates does. And, hey, I get it, this isn’t the OT’s movie, they had their movies, this is the ST’s movies. But I feel like there was a way to give them more meaning, to have their presences actually felt in the characters’ lives. TLJ at least started us on Luke and Ben’s relationship, but for all the weight it’s supposed to have, it’s barely a blip compared to how much time he and Rey spend together. There’s barely any interaction between Leia and Ben at all in the movies. Han and Ben get one scene. It’s harder for me to connect to Ben when he’s so disconnected from the people who he grew up with and so I’m told he’s part of this legacy, but I don’t feel it in the way I wish I did.Contrast this against the prequels, where Obi-Wan and Anakin’s dynamic is expanded on, that those interactions give such weight to their battle on the Death Star, to the way Vader won’t shut up about Obi-Wan, the way Palpatine’s influence on Anakin’s life has more weight now that we’ve seen what went down with them, and why it was such a huge thing for Anakin to break away from him, why seeing Obi-Wan and Anakin and Yoda standing together as spirits has so much more meaning, now that those connections were established. You can add in new characters (like Padme and Ahsoka) while still building up what was already there, but I feel like the ST really hasn’t connected the dots that well. There’s still this HUGE gap between ROTJ and TFA/TLJ and maybe one day I’ll come around on that, I certainly have enjoyed what we’ve been given so far, but there’s a disconnect between the ST and the OT/PT so far that’s hard for me to overcome.Where it all falls in the end:I’m hoping that I will come around and fall in love with the ST, but I’m skeptical because the ST is what brought me back to Star Wars, it’s where I started out after I watched TFA, that was where my investment was, until I started spreading my wings a bit, and the PT/OT really just bit into me hard in a way I never expected. I started out as largely a blank slate (I was a fan as a wee thing, but my feelings back then are pretty much the opposite of what they are now, other than that I Liked Obi-Wan Kenobi, apparently that’s my one true constant!) and one part sang to me and one part didn’t. I’m not sure TROS (especially not in the hands of JJ, who made Alias, which, look, I loved that show, but its ending was not strong, and don’t get me started on his Star Trek, SIGH) can change that for me. I hope to be proven wrong! There are a lot of things I will focus on and yell happily about–I love the characters, I actually genuinely enjoy looking at Luke’s character, I’m enjoying the worldbuilding of the books, comics, and games SO MUCH, but idk I just don’t have the same passion for the ST despite that I love the individual pieces a ton.(AS A NOTE: If someone really loves the ST and has fun with it, I would like to request that you continue to do so, because people loving things always wins me over, like, the most fun I have is when someone goes, “I love that thing! And I also love this thing!” and it makes me want to love that second thing, too! That kind of positivity always wins me over more than anything else.)

#meta #sequels discourse #stormmodblog

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coffin-of-eternal-darkness · 5 years

Text

Thank you for over 3000 followers

I reached 3000 followers a while ago and even though I didn’t do anything for my other milestones, I thought I should make a post about this one (though I couldn’t think of anything special). After all, 3000 is most likely the highest I will get and it really is an amazing number, considering I’m not doing anything special XD Kinda fitting too. In NnT everything started 3000 years ago, and for my blog everything started 3000 followers ago XD I’m not sure how many people from the old days even follow me anymore, but, thank you all. It’s been some amazing years!

As for what I’ll do… Well, my friend @maybeishouldwait helped me with some question prompts, so it’ll sort of be like an interview? I hope at least some of you are interested. So, let’s start!

1. Let's start with an easy one: how did you discover NNT, and what drew you to it?

I’ve recently answered an ask with a similar question but here we go! It was a complete coincidence. I wasn’t necessarily searching for something. I randomly browsed a manga reading site, probably looking foe updates and the title somehow caught my attention so I clicked on it. I didn’t take it seriously at first, the first chapter really didn’t impress me at all, and I only continued because I thought it was funny. It’s no secret I fell in love with the series but it still baffled me how fast it went from “Lol, this is funny and stupid” to “BEIRHJ I LOVE THIS SO MUCH” in a matter of a only few chapters XD Everything was such a new experience to me. The characters weren’t the usual stereotypes, they were actually deep and interesting. The story took a while to become interesting, at first it was more about just… gathering these super powerful knights and it was so cool to see what kind of crazy character the next one would be. I also loved how I could never see anything coming. Even now that we know what kind of series this is, there are still plottwists like Hawk’s eyes being the portal to purgatory or Cath’s whole appearance that just… could not be predicted and I really love that surprise effect when something unbelievable happens. So I love the characters and the surprises but I also love the story, or rather how it’s told. For the first… 70 or so chapters to me it felt like with every chapter it just got even BETTER than before. I still had a few of those moments in the Commandment saga, just, scenes that blew me away and made me think “Wow, I wonder how much better this series can get”. I think it also was around chapter 70 that I created my blog. And more than anything I think I love the tragedies. It’s hearbreaking but heartwarming at the same time somehow. Not many of you probably know this but my first NnT OTP was actually Banlaine and I cried so much when I read their backstory. I loved how deeply in love they were to the point of sacrificing themselves for the other. Both had to deal with a large chunk of loneliness in their lives and for both of them the other was their salvation. Every time Ban was saying anything about Elaine in the main series I was both crying and cheering for him. By now everything is a tragedy and while I wish there were a few more lighthearted scenes for… personal salvation… I like that and crying about all those characters and CARING for their happiness really helped me get into this series I think.

2. How has your blog changed since it started?

Well, apart from the fact that is has grown popular… I actually think I’ve burned out a but. I write a lot less text posts than before. I had an awful amount of (stupid) theories back in the old days and also an awful amount of free time somehow. Now I feel like I don’t think about theories that often anymore, let alone post them. Part of that is that I’m busy with work and other hobbies, but partly that’s because the series has gotten so long and it’s becoming harder and harder to remember details, especially from the newer chapters. I really want to reread the series but I never get around to do that anymore. I also think that back in the days I more or less posted just anything I found or thought was cool, while nowadays I’m always wondering what I could do. I still try to keep it up but it’s becoming harder and harder. Oh, there’s also a lot more follower interaction too!

3. What are some of your favorite blogs or sites for NNT stuff?

As for sites, I usually only check the official ones, like the official HP or the official Twitter account. As for blogs… I don’t really follow a lot of people since I look through the tag almost on a daily basis anyway. Of course there’s @spoilerkingjuliane, she’s a must follow XD I can also highly recommend @maybeishouldwait since she’s an awesome writer. I always enjoy @nostalgicbookworms gifs a lot and @sdsmangacaps is my go-to account for manga caps. There are a lot more blogs that I really like, there are tons of really good artists on Tumblr and Twitter but since I’m not actually following a lot of them and I fear I’ll forget a few I’d rather not mention them directly and hope they know I appreciate them. The most obvious Twitter account is yuka_sai0127 btw, but there are a lot of others.

4. What advice would you give to someone wanting to make their blog as successful as yours?

Tbh I have no idea how I even got so popular in the first place XD I started on a whim and thought I’d lose motivation immediately and nobody would follow me anyway. But before I knew it I had almost 100 followers in a matter of a few days. Maybe it was my obsession? I also quickly befriended the other popular NnT blogs, that probably helped too. I think it depends on what kind of blog you have, but I think the most important thing is frequent updates and high quality. I also think blogs should have a good balance between your own content and reblogs. There are blogs that live only through reblogs and that’s fine but I think it’s harder to be “interesting” when you don’t have your own content. Try to find something only you can do and do it. @spoilerkingjuliane for example is good at finding info and she is immensely popular because of that. I will forever be slightly jealous of her because I will never reach that level XD”

5. What's the best part of running your blog? What's something you wish was different?

The best part without a doubt is how much it involves me into the fandom. I’m more or less forced to see all kinds of fandom posts and while that’s sometimes stressing me out, I also see a lot of amazing content and being able to share those posts with so many people makes me really happy. Running this blog also helped me boost my own confidence. As I mentioned earlier at the beginning I thought nobody would be interested in my blog anyway and I’d give up right away. But I gained followers quickly and it showed me that yes, I might not be as boring as always I think I am. It showed me that I can do things if I just try. On the downside though, running a popular blog puts a lot of pressure on you, and I constantly feel like I have to do something, have to go through the tag, have to make SOME content somehow. And even when you’re stressed you can’t just take it out on people after all so the stress piles up. That’s probably my own responsibility and not the blog itself that is doing that, but I still wish I could take it more easy.

6. How did you learn Japanese? Did you find it difficult?

Well, it wasn’t easy at least. I started learning Japanese twice, once I gave up quickly because the book I used was a horrible starter and after that I learned the basic grammar and a few words through a magazine crash course. Learning specific words was easier than to learn all hiragana and katakana on their own and since I also knew the basic grammar it made it easier to learn and understand whole sentences. Still, I’m an extremely lazy human being and even though I’ve been learning Japanese for almost half of my life now I very rarely actively studied. Most of the time I would try (and fail) to read manga in Japanese and pick up new words and grammar here and there. But through switching between actually learning and trying to read manga I got better. Once I was at a certain level I bothered a ton of random japanese people too in order to befriend and speak japanese with them, which also helped. I think the most major step in my learning career was getting obsessed with Tales of Vesperia a few years ago tho. I was at a comparatively high Japanese level back then already but playing a game of THAT length completely in japanese was a challenge. I learned a stupid amount of new words and grammar and ways of talking through that game and it probably helped that it was just an amazing game that remains to be my favorite. I’ve also translated a few manga chapters back then that really got me practicing and I also worked at an Udon restaurant with (except for me) 100% japanese staff. And as is the case with all languages… Talking with real people is always the best practice. Then of course my year working in japan gave me the final boost. I still have a ton to learn and I’m nowhere near really GOOD but I like to think my japanese is pretty decent at least.

7. What do you see for the future of your blog?

It won’t be all too long anymore til the manga ends and when that happens there won’t be any theories or reviews to write anymore… There will still be an S3 and possible an S4 and maybe more anime projects. But it will be harder to update the blog with original content. Eventually it will most likely turn into a reblog only blog. But I hope I will have some more time and motivation to actually reread the manga, complete my NnT encyclopedia and update the blog with interesting stuff I find in between. I really want to keep this blog up for a few more years!

No matter how it will turn out though, I’m happy I came so far. I made a whole bunch of good friends during this time and had a lot of fun. To my friends and followers (silent or not): Thank you so much for your support!

#personal #follower celebration #kinda #man i really hope someone is actually interested in this #i feel kinda bad not doing something more flashy #like drawing a huge picture #or doing requests or whatever

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mild-lunacy · 5 years

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Building Sexual Tension and the Sexualization Threshold

Reading this quote by Francesca Coppa on the purpose of fanfic and erotica, it's not that I disagree. Not at all. It's just... when I read a fantasy that includes romance and some sexuality, like Grace Draven's work, I remember my stance on how I do prefer romance to be slow-build and sexual, and this fits the bill. I absolutely like the careful, gradual characterization involved in slow-build romance like this, although I like there to be tension or animosity as much as friendship as a foundation. Starting with sex is a difficult proposition (although not impossible to do well by any means, as long as it's not instalove). The issue is that 'eventual sex' isn't enough for me either. The friendship needs to be built up to have satisfying romance, just like Coppa suggests. But the sex too needs build up.

The problem with Draven's books is that they have some sex but they're not sexy. The sexual tension is barely plausible. Sometimes, like with sci-fi/fantasy erotica by R. Lee Smith, the sex isn't sexy but this isn't important due to the amount of characterization and situation-specific tone that goes into each of these scenes. They're not sexy as in titillating, but they don't have to be: they're enlightening, sometimes sweet, sometimes grim, sometimes just weird. With Draven's books, there are pretty paint-by-numbers sex scenes that aren't either sexy or especially personal. This is an issue when it's original writing, rather than fanfic. With fic, you let the original work do a lot of characterization heavy lifting so that in explicit fics, you can spend a lot of time on building sexual tension. And sexual tension is no minor add-on. I think portraying it believably is way more important than the actual sex scenes. Combining it plausibly with friendship is a major feat. It generally takes more than one book in a series, or a pretty long story, at the very least.

In my opinion, sexual tension is a huge part of the draw for erotica of any kind, just like romantic tension is a major factor in the appeal of romance. One reason why I admire good fanfic is that I think using most established friendship as a source is difficult, especially if you're hoping to be in character. It's definitely not easier than an original work that starts with romantic/sexual tension, and it might well be considered harder. The thing is, good sexual tension isn't something that comes late in a relationship (in most cases), though it can be pretty subtle at first. It always exists between two people in a way friendship doesn't, but it doesn't prevent the slow build of self-awareness and an actual relationship. It's just a delicate balance.

In Draven's work, you can see she actually tries to do this: the sexual tension is gestured at, more or less. But it's not actually *there*. One reason it's so tricky is that while you can simply sit down and write a sex scene, sexual tension pervades every interaction between the characters in some small way. And it can be subtle (at least at first) or very overt, as long as it's *palpable*. It's very obvious (at least to me) if the writer doesn't feel the heat, so to speak. And it's very obvious if they do, even if no sexual innuendo or overt arousal occurs. To be clear, a man having a hard-on or a woman blushing and staring at his eyes or mouth is not necessarily 'sexual tension'. Even less so, lots of references to the extreme attractiveness of the other person. Good banter, on the other hand, is frequently all that's needed.

Good banter is hard. One of the reasons fanfic of noncanon couples succeeds for me even though I'm a canon-whore is that a lot of times, the source material includes well-written, bantery dialogue. You can probably ship every other character with each other in Marvel or on Buffy at least partly for this reason. This was definitely true in S1-2 of BBC Sherlock, at least for me: it's not that they were such close friends and fic could use that. It's that they *weren't*. There was tons of tension involved in that relationship, both bantering and not. Combined with their obvious (if conflicted) attachment, this created all that's necessary to make a romantic relationship plausible. Once their relationship truly settled into comfortable, close friendship, IMO some mild romantic potential remains but the sexual tension would be gone.

It's perhaps hard to explain properly what a friendship that doesn't lend itself to sexual romance is truly like, which is why I mention Grace Draven. I knew it when I saw it, particularly so because this is m/f friendship (in a romance genre work) and my brain should have a low threshold for accepting sexualization in this context. And yet, her couples seem platonic to me.

I'm not sure this perception is common. A lot of people in fandom seem to have a very, very low sexualization threshold (especially for their preferred couples). Outside fandom, lots of readers seem content with using the heteronormative attraction presumption more broadly and easily than me, judging by the comments on Draven's book, at least. I did find one Amazon commenter who said they found the sexual tension to be implausible, though they said this was due to some of the description or nature of the characters and their situation rather than the writing itself. I'm a lot more open to a whole lot of different situations and contexts leading to attraction. But the writing has to sell it for me. Grace Draven is a good writer, who is very good at characterization overall (which is what makes her a good example of this specific flaw). She is just not very good at selling sexual tension. It may or may not be related to her average skills at snappy dialogue. There are definitely other ways to build sexual tension, but not a lot that coexist with slow build romances based on friendship first.

Anyway, ordinary friendship is definitely not enough for me if the relationship is going to be romantic. That's probably partly why I'm not a huge fan of Hallmark movies. They tend to have a relatively slow build, but the tension is low; sexual tension is extra extra low. Of course, the portrayal of sexual tension and attraction in general is different in film. It's partly about dialogue, but it's also just the actors and their chemistry and even personal charisma. A truly charismatic, sparkling actor-- especially a pair-- can overcome or strongly enhance the platonic tension or lack thereof in the script and create something unnameable and perhaps ineffable but undeniably romantic.

#writing #sex writing #narrative #characterization #fanfic meta #romanticism #reader response #johnlock feels

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maiji · 6 years

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WHO'S WHO IN NORTH BOUND

Pretend this is one of those character summary thingies you see at the beginning of manga as you move further into a series! As a personal preference, I usually try to not create OCs in my fanworks, mainly because I love working in and highlighting minor characters whenever I can. And I’m lazy so building on existing things is easier But, partly because of the timeframe, I ended up having to create and design a lot of them for North Bound. (Also in comics it’s harder to gloss over people’s appearances the way you can in a written fic, so I end up expending more effort even on throwaway one-off figures.) I still want to work in actual existing Yu Yu Hakusho characters wherever I can - but they would still need new (old) designs because this is 700 years ago lol. So, great character design practice! and lots of screaming and crying over historical research

For fun, I also roughly estimated psychic power classes, though the Reikai didn't really start using this classification system till modern times. I always remember it based on these approximations: E = lowest measurable range, D = Hiei and Kurama when Yusuke first meets them, C = Saint Beasts, B = Toguro Ototo, A = Hiei and Kurama when they fight Sensui, S = everything above that. And that power class doesn't necessarily mean upper-hand in battle. And also I’m indecisive so you’ll see some broad ranges lmao.

You can read the YYH North Bound fancomics at this masterpost! I'll try to update the list as the story moves along, and as I add more portraits!

At present, the following contains some spoilers for Mirror Most Dark and North Bound up to set 4 (A House That Holds Long Limbs).

THE ROKUROKUBI / THE RETAINER / HOKUSHIN

demon - rokurokubi, estimated E to D, then D to C class and growing following Long Limbs

A rare male rokurokubi captured and raised to be a perfect servant. Has lived with humans all his life. Following the death of his second lord, he wanders in search of a new master. Changes his identity every decade or so until he meets Raizen, who gives him his current name. When he decides something is worthwhile, he commits all the way. Being rude and losing his temper are very rare for him, though you wouldn’t guess that with Raizen around.

For more on rokurokubi in North Bound, see this post.

RAIZEN (HOKUSHIN'S THIRD LORD)

demon - toushin (battle god), S class

Extremely powerful battle god who spent all his time fighting and causing trouble until he met and fell in love with a remarkable human woman. This life-changing experience makes him resolve to reform and never eat humans again, also planting the seed of his ambitious vision: a future where humans and demons peacefully co-exist. Unfortunately his newfound ideals tear a major rift between him and his friends. While travelling the human world looking for others who might share his dream, he finds Hokushin and is delighted to discover a demon with lots of experience interacting with humans. Hokushin taught him how to disguise himself as a human, so now he’s having a ball learning about humans and trying to start a movement and driving Hokushin crazy. Big on ideas, short on planning.

URAMESHI YUSUKE (HOKUSHIN'S FOURTH LORD)

part demon - toushin, S class

I wonder who this is. Descendant of Raizen 44 human generations down the line. Won't be born for another 700 years. Appears in flashforward episodes.

HOKUSHIN'S FIRST LORD

human, D-B class (I told you I can’t decide)

A noble who is also a powerful psychic. He captures and raises Hokushin partly as a surrogate son, but ultimately to be a loyal retainer serving the interests and well-being of his family. Hokushin loves and serves him wholeheartedly. A kind, intelligent, well-respected man whose main flaws are that he is too moody and private about his personal problems and never really educates the people around him, especially his own actual son, about demons.

LADY OF HOKUSHIN'S FIRST LORD

human, n/a

An elegant and gentle lady. Hokushin loves her a lot as well - as their loyal servant, his lord and lady are his otp. Her death following childbirth triggers a chain of tragic events.

HOKUSHIN'S SECOND LORD

human, possibly latent psychic powers but it doesn't matter

Long-awaited son of Hokushin's first lord, born several years after Hokushin joins the household. Not a bad person per se, he truly only wants the best for his family and the legacy of his father. Unfortunately, his upbringing is distanced and he grows up into a young man short on confidence and wisdom. After learning Hokushin is a demon, doesn’t trust him anymore. Makes a series of super bad decisions that brings about the downfall of the entire household.

[pictures coming for all characters following]

YATA NO KAGAMI / EIGHT-HAND MIRROR (MIRROR OF DARKNESS)

supernatural artifact, probably super powerful but can't really do anything by itself

A mirror in the possession of the Emperor of Japan. Has the ability to reflect the viewer’s truth - specifically, one's truest desire - and can channel living energy to bring that desire to life. Due to human greed, this usually results in terrible endings, causing the Mirror to be associated with Really Bad Stuff. After talking to Hokushin, it is convinced to put in some legal conditions to make the whole wish-granting thing a lot harder to do. Last seen at a Buddhist temple somewhere, wrapped in a ton of seals.

THE FALSE ONMYOUJI (KIRIN)

demon, D-C

Mysterious youkai serving the human Emperor, watchful for anything endangering the imperial line. Part of his job is guarding Yata no Kagami. Keeps tabs on Hokushin because he seems way more trustworthy and competent than anybody else. Is supposed to have a showdown with Hokushin to prevent him from achieving his second lord's wish with the Mirror, but it doesn't happen. Decides to gives Hokushin the Mirror to deal with because he doesn't want the Emperor tempted to do stupid stuff to mess up his [Kirin's] goal of a nice cushy life in the imperial palace. Will eventually take the name Kirin and become Mukuro's general.

THE COLLECTOR

human, D-C

A powerful psychic with a disturbing rokurokubi fetish. Using his blood seal techniques, he collects them, dismembers their limbs and eventually kills them, among other creepy things we won’t get into. Super obsessed with finding a male rokurokubi.

SERVING GIRL

demon - rokurokubi, sub E

A hard-working girl who has no idea she is a rokurokubi and can't keep a job because of it. Ends up in the Collector's collection. A shikigami mimicking her likeness is used as a lure for Hokushin.

COURTESAN

demon - rokurokubi, E

A sophisticated, worldly woman who ends up in the Collector's collection. A shikigami mimicking her likeness is used as a distraction for Hokushin. OLD WOMAN

human, n/a

An elderly beggar who seems to have known Hokushin in one of his former lives.

MISTER KASA (RIYUU)

demon - karakasa obake (umbrella demon), E

Buddhist monk umbrella who is really impressed by Raizen's ideas and starts spreading the word to other umbrella demons and tool spirits. Super historically inaccurate OC cameo. TOUOU

demon - tatsu (dragon), ?

One of Raizen's main followers who adopts human guise. His true form is shown to be a dragon in one of the flashforward comics. A bit rough around the edges. SEIZAN

demon - ?

One of Raizen's main followers who adopts human guise. True form to be revealed. NANKAI

demon - ?

One of Raizen's main followers who adopts human guise. True form to be revealed.

MORE ACTUAL YU YU HAKUSHO CHARACTER GUEST APPEARANCES TO COME OOH AHH.

#yu yu hakusho #hokushin #raizen #urameshi yusuke #mirror of darkness #kirin #touou #seizan #seitei #nankai #riyuu #ocs #fanart #fanfiction #comics #art by Maiji/Mary Huang #yyh north bound

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