esoteric-goblin

[esoteric-goblin]

my favorite thing about navigating fanfiction is finding a really good one and being all “oh boy this was good, I hope they have more!” and literally every other story they’ve ever written was for like Miami Vice 

[esoteric-goblin]

I keep remembering a run of Hamlet I saw a few years ago, where the Ghost was costumed in full plate armour which was very noisy, and instead of muffling it, they had him crash across the stage, stomping so the whole set rattled, and he said all of his lines in a bellow, like he was furious with Hamlet.

And the thing that made it absolutely terrifying was that Hamlet was the only one who reacted. He was cowering, and covering his ears with both hands, and yelling to be heard over the noise.

And no one else seemed to know why he was doing that. The other actors didn't even raise their voices.

That's scary, something so loud and painful, and REAL, and the people around you don't even notice it, and think that you're the crazy one.

[esoteric-goblin]

I think I may never be sad ever again. There is a statue entitled "Farewell to Orpheus" on my college campus. It's been there since 1968, created by a Prof. Frederic Littman that use to work at the university. It sits in the middle of a fountain, and the fountain is often full of litter. I have taken it upon myself to clean the litter out when I see it (the skimmers only come by once a week at max). But because of my style of dress, this means that bystanders see a twenty-something on their hands and knees at the edge of the fountain, sleeves rolled up, trying not to splash dirty water on their slacks while their briefcase and suit coat sit nearby. This is fine, usually. But today was Saturday Market, which means the twenty or so people in the area suddenly became hundreds. So, obviously, somebody stopped to ask what I was doing. "This," I gestured at the statue, "is Eurydice. She was the wife of Orpheus, the greatest storyteller in Greece. And this litter is disrespectful." Then, on a whim, I squinted up at them. "Do you know the story of Orpheus and Eurydice?" "No," they replied, shifting slightly to sit.

"Would you like to?"

"Sure!"

So I told them. I told them the story as I know it- and I've had a bit of practice. Orpheus, child of a wishing star, favorite of the messenger god, who had a hard-working, wonderful wife, Eurydice; his harp that could lull beasts to passivity, coax song from nymphs, and move mountains before him; and the men who, while he dreamed and composed, came to steal Eurydice away. I told of how she ran, and the water splashed up on my clothes. But I didn't care. I told of how the adder in the field bit her heel, and she died. I told of the Underworld- how Orpheus charmed the riverman, pacified Cerberus with a lullaby, and melted the hearts of the wise judges. I laughed as I remarked how lucky he was that it was winter- for Persephone was moved by his song where Hades was not. She convinced Hades to let Orpheus prove he was worthy of taking Eurydice. I tugged my coat back on, and said how Orpheus had to play and sing all the way out of the Underworld, without ever looking back to see if his beloved wife followed. And I told how, when he stopped for breath, he thought he heard her stumble and fall, and turned to help her up- but it was too late. I told the story four times after that, to four different groups, each larger than the last. And I must have cast a glance at the statue, something that said "I'm sorry, I miss you--" because when I finished my second to last retelling, a young boy piped up, perhaps seven or eight, and asked me a question that has made my day, and potentially my life: "Are you Orpheus?" I told the tale of the grieving bard so well, so convincingly, that in the eyes of a child I was telling not a story, but a memory. And while I laughed in the moment, with everyone else, I wept with gratitude and joy when I came home. This is more than I deserve, and I think I may never be sad again.

Here is the aforementioned statue, by the way.

[esoteric-goblin]

having ocs is so fucked .... i miss them so bad but im the guy who has to create new content. but im sleepy

[esoteric-goblin]

[esoteric-goblin]

writing historical fic set in real places is so scary. what if someone who knows more about Philadelphia's timeline to move from gas to electric streetlamps reads my fanfiction and laughs at me

[esoteric-goblin]

not normal about orpheus and eurydice. you loved someone so much it opened the stones of the underworld. so much that death had to listen. so much that everything stopped for your love. so much that you turned around. so much that even when you did wrong. she forgave you.

[esoteric-goblin]

“period typical homophobia” what about period typical GAY COMMUNITY? what about lesbian flapper SPEAKEASY?

[esoteric-goblin]

what studying literature feels like

[esoteric-goblin]

Leonardo Devito.

[esoteric-goblin]

Dressmaking in Paris, 1907.

[esoteric-goblin]

Please please please can we stop calling unnecessary sequels and remakes by big companies “bad fanfic”??? Even the most poorly-written fics are somehow born from a love of the original text. A soulless cash grab made people who don’t give two shits about what they are actually creating is not “bad fanfic” and will never be.

[esoteric-goblin]

Q&A: Badly written Violence

What are your biggest pet peeves when it comes to portrayals of something violent?

A few things come to mind: Violence without purpose, violence without consequence, and violence without thought.

A basic piece of writing advice holds: Everything in your story needs to serve a function. If it’s not building your world, characters, or advancing your plot, cut it. You may have written something you enjoyed, but if it doesn’t serve a purpose in your story, it should not be there. Violence is no exception; it can do any of those. The best fight scenes do all three at once.

When someone inserts a fight scene because, “there should be a fight here,” that’s where I check out. It’s easy to understand how this happens. I don’t have a problem with gratuitous violence, but if it’s not doing something for the story, it should have been cut.

There’s a few wrinkles here. Visual media (both comics and in video) can get away with stylish violence. If you are here for the spectacle they can satisfy. The extreme end of this is probably Kill Bill: Vol. 1, where the entire film is just one spectacle fight after another with the context stripped out. Except, each one does what a scene needs to. They explore the characters, build the world, and advance the plot, almost entirely through violence.

The other wrinkle is games. Not just video games; any game. Violence can be adapted into a rewarding play loop. You can build your entire play experience around violence and have an enjoyable game. Many strategy games build of the idea of managing violence, whether that’s a battle or a war.

Roleplaying games, both tabletop and electronic often have a heavy focus on combat systems. Some of this is because D&D was originally developed by tabletop wargamers, and that influence cast a long shadow on the genre. If you’ve ever participated in a tabletop D&D campaign, you’ll be familiar with entire nights lost to a few minutes of combat. You can build entire RPGs around nothing but violence. In video games this where things like Diablo came from. Taking the experience of traditional RPGs and distilling it into a pure combat gauntlet.

If I’m being completely fair, any scene can suffer from lacking purpose. This isn’t a problem exclusive to violence, however, it is easier to accidentally build your world and characters by letting them talk.

The second issue is somewhat related to the first, violence without consequences is deeply unsatisfying. If the violence changes nothing, then it has no purpose in the story, but it goes beyond that. It’s not like I’m looking for specific, or even negative, consequences from violence. I’d just like to see some indication that your character was almost killed a couple pages back.

Violence is messy, it’s destructive. Having characters roll over from a fight like nothing happened without any aftermath just causes me to ask, “why bother?”

Violence can instantly remove characters from your story. It can introduce new challenges, such as lasting injuries, further complicating characters’ lives, or even just draining resources. If it’s not doing anything, why use it? This is a very dynamic tool for a writer. It kills me when an author pulls it out and does nothing with it.

This last one is a little more complex. When a character’s approach to violence is irreconcilable to the rest of their identity, that’s a hard no. This can crop up in a lot of ways, but it starts with the author thinking about violence as a flavor for their scene, and not a part of their story.

“My character is a good person, they would never kill!” as they leave someone stranded, and wounded, hundreds of miles from civilization, in a hostile environment that will ensure they don’t make it out alive. This is a Bond villain routine being passed off as moral high ground.

Shooting to wound ends up in here. The author wanted to use guns, without the morally icky idea of killing people, “so let’s just set those firearms to stun,” like they’re fucking phasers. (And, no, shooting to wound is not a thing. You can bleed to death from a limb almost as easily as a center mass hit.)

Violence is ethically complicated. You can have an ethical system to moderate yourself, but if you’re going to engage in violence, you will harm others. If “being a good person” is important to you, you need to spend some time meditating the ethics of violence. So of course, you get the authors who are sure that, so long as their character doesn’t personally drop the hammer, whatever horrors they inflict on their foes are entirely acceptable.

In fairness, I have a pretty low tolerance for hypocrisy, so this may be related.

If your character is going to engage in violence, be honest with yourself about the kind of person they would be. Violence, and the will to commit violence affect you as a person. This holistic, and affects the entirety of you you are. Including characters who have that capacity affects your story. Again, the entirety of your story. “But my character’s a good person, they would never…” And that’s when I start pounding my head into the desk, because anything other response would end with, “…and that’s when I shot them, Your Honor.”

Like I said, violence is a fanatic tool for an author. I love it. However, if you’re going to use it, actually use it. Don’t just pull it out as a way to break up a few scenes, and go right back to where you started.

The ethics of violence is an incredibly deep subject, there’s a lot of stuff to talk about, and it absolutely kills me when an author tries to table the entire thing in favor of logic that would have been embarrassing in a Saturday morning cartoon.

-Starke

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Q&A: Badly written Violence was originally published on How to Fight Write.

[esoteric-goblin]

Writing sometimes feels like a strange disorder you just kind of cope with by being creative. Like your brain randomly decides to dump a million-piece puzzle in front of you and says, 'Solve this or we will never think of anything else, ever.' You toil away for years and by some miracle you solve it, and it's the most fulfilling, exhilarating feeling in the world. It's perfect. You did it. And your brain is like, 'OK, here's my idea for three sequels and a spinoff.'

[esoteric-goblin]

When writing toxic family dynamics

Toxic family stuff isn’t always screaming matches or broken plates. Sometimes it’s quiet control. The expectation to shrink, the pressure to be perfect, the guilt that rides shotgun. It’s complicated. And it’s deeply, deeply personal.

✧ Make the love real, but conditional.  One of the most damaging things about toxic family is the illusion of love. It’s not “I love you no matter what.” It’s “I love you when you obey.” Let your character notice that.

✧ Control shows up in micro ways... Who’s allowed to speak. Who’s allowed to feel. Who apologizes first, even when they’re not wrong. Control doesn’t need to be loud. Sometimes it’s a raised eyebrow or a guilt trip.

✧  Let them question reality. Toxic families are great at gaslighting. Your character might constantly wonder, Was it really that bad? Am I being dramatic? Let them doubt their own memories. That internal confusion is real.

✧ The guilt will be crushing. Leaving a toxic family doesn’t feel empowering at first. It feels selfish. It feels wrong. It feels like betrayal, even when it's survival. Show your character grieving the fantasy of the family they wish they had.

✧ Let them try to earn love. Your character might work their ass off trying to “be good,” hoping maybe this time they’ll be enough. Toxic families move the goalposts. Let that break them a little.

✧ Show emotional whiplash... One moment everything is warm and nostalgic. The next, it’s tense and full of landmines. That unpredictability is the dynamic. Use it.

✧ Don’t make the villain cartoonish. Even the abuser might think they’re doing what’s best. They might bake cookies and say “I’m just worried about you.” That’s what makes it so damaging. Write them like people, flawed, manipulative, real.

✧ Let your character unlearn in layers. Even after they leave, they still flinch. Still fold under pressure. Still crave approval. Recovery isn’t clean. But it’s worth it. And when they finally say no, even just once, let it be electric.

[esoteric-goblin]

No Wrong Answer

I saw this writing prompt a while back and it was stuck in my head until I finally cranked out a short story about it.

[esoteric-goblin]

No Wrong Answer

I saw this writing prompt a while back and it was stuck in my head until I finally cranked out a short story about it.