#Textual Structure

[omegaphilosophia]

The Ontology of Text

The ontology of text refers to the study of the nature, structure, and being of text, focusing on what text is at its most fundamental level. This exploration can span several philosophical and theoretical perspectives, often addressing questions about the existence, identity, and categorization of text as an entity. Here’s a breakdown of key aspects:

1. Text as an Ontological Entity:

Material vs. Abstract: Text can be considered both as a material object (e.g., a book or a written document) and as an abstract entity (e.g., the content or meaning conveyed by the text). The ontology of text thus involves understanding how these two aspects coexist and relate to each other.

Text as a Work vs. Text as a Document: The distinction between a text as a work (the conceptual or intellectual creation) and as a document (the physical or digital manifestation) is crucial in ontology. For instance, different editions of a book may be considered different documents but the same work.

2. Identity and Persistence:

Sameness and Variation: The ontology of text deals with the question of what makes a text the same across different instances or versions. What remains consistent between different editions or translations of a text? How much can a text change before it is considered a different text?

Temporal Aspects: How does the identity of a text persist over time? This includes considerations of how historical context, authorial intent, and reader interpretation might affect the identity of a text.

3. Structure of Text:

Hierarchical vs. Network Structures: Text can be seen as having a hierarchical structure (e.g., chapters, paragraphs, sentences) or a network-like structure (e.g., hypertext or intertextuality). The ontology of text examines how these structures are constituted and how they affect the nature of text.

Units of Text: What are the basic units of text? Words, sentences, paragraphs, or perhaps even smaller or larger units? The ontological inquiry involves defining and categorizing these units.

4. Function and Intent:

Authorial Intent: The role of the author's intention in the ontology of text is a major consideration. Is the meaning of a text tied to what the author intended, or does it exist independently?

Reader Interpretation: The ontology of text also considers the role of the reader or audience in constituting the text. Is the meaning of a text something inherent, or is it something that comes into being through interpretation?

5. Intertextuality and Contextuality:

Intertextual Relations: Texts often reference or build upon other texts. The ontology of text considers how texts are related to one another and how these relationships affect their existence and identity.

Contextual Dependency: The meaning and existence of a text can be dependent on its context, including cultural, historical, and situational factors. The ontology of text examines how context shapes what a text is.

6. Digital and Hypertext Ontology:

Digital Texts: The advent of digital texts introduces new ontological questions. How do digital formats affect the nature of text? How does hypertext, with its non-linear structure, change our understanding of text?

Versioning and Fluidity: Digital texts can be easily modified, leading to questions about the stability and identity of texts in a digital environment. What does it mean for a text to have a version, and how does this affect its ontology?

7. Philosophical Perspectives:

Structuralism and Post-Structuralism: These schools of thought provide frameworks for understanding the ontology of text, focusing on the underlying structures of language (structuralism) and the fluidity and instability of meaning (post-structuralism).

Phenomenology: This approach might consider the experience of the text, focusing on how it appears to consciousness and the role of the reader in bringing the text to life.

The ontology of text is a rich and complex field that intersects with many areas of philosophy, literary theory, linguistics, and digital humanities. It seeks to answer fundamental questions about what text is, how it exists, how it maintains identity, and how it relates to both its material form and its interpretation by readers.

[slugandthorn]

Person reading this can you tell me your favorite story and why it was the way that it was.

[sendmyresignation]

finally reading dance of days (thank you ohiolink and oberlin college <3) but my most consistent takeaway thus far. is oh my god. people who think punk is primarily ideological and not subcultural/musical. are so out of touch.

[b4kuch1n]

good luck w the testing and a happy early new year!!

thank you it's already happened when this was sent but we all did get one free point for the listening section bc the audio fucked up and we didn't get to hear the part with the last question's answer. but I will now think this is luck borrowed from the future when this ask was sent

[rainphee]

i actually do have some thoughts on why i specifically think eragon is transfem but. yknow

[thydungeongal]

Okay, so I'm going to explain gleeblor by going back to the feeling that inspired my very first post on it:

I've been running this blog for quite a while and while I would never claim to be knowledgeable of the entire variety of RPGs out there I do consider myself more knowledgeable than the median RPG enthusiast. Now, a lot of people who end up commenting on my posts have very narrow experiences with RPGs as a medium, sometimes having literally only ever played D&D and maybe another game. And when communicating with my audience I often find myself in a situation like. Oh hell, this person thinks that D&D is the default RPG, the template on which all RPGs are based on, and the concept I am trying to explain simply does not make sense to them because they think D&D is the default.

So in the very first post I made about gleeblor it acted as a shorthand for "RPG fact that is self-evident to me but sounds bizarre to someone with a narrow experience with RPGs" and for the alienation I felt with my audience having to explain the fact that. Not all RPGs are D&D. Literally, I described it as feeling like I was an alien explaining a concept that made no sense to humans.

Anyway, things that have been gleeblor to people in my notes:

The idea that an RPG does not necessarily need to have Encounters (this is what started it all and. The incredulity people expressed at the idea that things could even happen in a game if it didn't have Encounters.)

The fact that there are textually queer RPGs out there besides just Thirsty Sword Lesbians

That a game supporting romance is not just a table issue but can in fact be a factor in the actual rules and structure of a game

That a game does not need to have an "adventuring party" structure of the player characters being united in going against adversity together

[prokopetz]

In my own tabletop games I typically start with a particular sort of game-mechanical procedure to explore, then work backwards to figure out "okay, what sort of narrative framing do these procedures imply?", but when I read other people's stuff I have to confess that I love games that are so high concept they're barely playable.

To be clear, I don't necessarily mean games whose core conceit is anything particularly esoteric (insert obligatory sidebar about what the term "high concept" actually means here): I mean games which prioritise game-mechanical fidelity to that core conceit over all other considerations; i.e., games where textual clarity, structural coherence, even the basic physical practicality of enacting the procedures of play are all secondary to the Vibe.

Like, would I ever play Mist-Robed Gate as written? Absolutely not – but I feel strongly that a game whose text advises you to play it on a surface you don't mind putting holes in because the escalation procedures for player-versus-player conflict resolution involve stabbing your opponent's character sheet with a knife is something which needs to exist in the world. I once read a game whose mechanics at one point instruct you to go outside and search your neighbourhood for discarded bird feathers. Fantastic.

[baeddel]

i saw someone trying to explain some things about Chloanne from Dark Souls 2 with reference to her ID as "torturer" in the game's files. in the discussion someone said: "it's probably just another unfinished character and idea, but you can mental gymnastics your way into a satisfactory lore explanation."

they weren't being rude; they were voicing a common strategy among players who take the game's narrative seriously. but i feel that something has gone a little wrong here which we are not sure how to correct. Dark Souls players face hermeneutical challenges that most players do not because of the prominence given to (so to speak) codicology and textual criticism. there are a small number of hermeneutical communities that require the reader/player to engage not only with the final draft presented to them but with all available drafts and fragments; the Bible is one, and Laozi, and for some reason we have selected Dark Souls as another.

in the chaos of digital paleography it is easy to get muddled. what does it all mean? upon what grounds may it be interpreted? most people turn towards the intention of the designers at this stage. what did they intend for this part? what did they mean by it? why did they include this? what factors constrained its creation? time, organizational complexity, business interests? what was left on the table? so much is gone; so much, what meaning is even left in the game? anything? in searching for firm grounds beneath the text, we are immediately mired in even more complex questions; instead of finding surer answers we find more uncertainty. there is no ground there, only more falling.

many players give up here and say it isn't worth interpreting. this ground was missing, so there are no grounds at all. i think this is a good argument that the "intentional fallacy" is really a fallacy. we take it so seriously that when it gives, even a little, it destroys our faith in art entirely. some encouragement to consider the game in its self-contained formal-structural appearance would be healthy at this stage.

[dis-astre]

OK A BREAKDOWN OF LES MISERABLES IN FRANCE

- they changed a lot of the lyrics (including my fav/funniest lyrics unfortunately) which was pretty interesting ; honestly i think it's a great thing bc it was last re-written in 1991 and they made the songs more textual, more like real talking and i think way more accessible for a lot of people (bc in france we have this habit of writing pretty words, with a lot of images and lyrical phrases but it's not always helping to understand the plot yknow)

- the new lyrics for do you hear the people sing/à la volonté du peuple are SO GOOD ! originally it says :

à la volonté du peuple/et à la santé du progrès/rempli ton cœur d'un vin rebelle/et à demain ami fidèle

(to the will of the people/and cheers to progress/fill your heart with a rebel wine/and see you tomorrow, faithful friend)

and now it's:

à la volonté du peuple/qui crie les mots de sa colère/le chant de ceux qui ne veulent plus/être les damnés de la terre

à la volonté du peuple/dont on étouffe jamais la voix/et dont le chant renaît toujours/et dont le chant renait déjà

(to the will of the people/screaming the words of its anger/the song of those who don't want to be/the damned on earth anymore

to the will of the people/which you can never choke the voice/and whose song always revive/and whose song's revive already)

and idk i think it's pretty freaking cool; but i'll do a big breakdown of the new lyrics of do you hear the people sing bc it's the song they changed the most and i think it's way better for our times and more hopeful and giving the will to fight

- the stage: honestly real cool and clever! it's a smaller stage, way smaller than the west end one if my memories are not mistaken, and we obvisouly don't have the rotating stage; but they played a lot with moving structures and transparent curtains to make special effect like buildings, rain, etc... and it's way real cool !

- idk who the sound guy was but props to him cause the sound was SO GOOD like it sounded so clean and like listening to an album, truly perfect on this aspect

- the actors were GREAT, you could see they rlly took the roles and made them their own (i think enjolras' actor loves his role bc ive seen some of his tiktok and he looks like he loves it a lot so that's cool af)

- also i bough this

which is a conversation with boublil and schonberg retracing the story of the musical so yay

Anyway i'll do another big post to tell y'all act by act what was happening !

[utilitycaster]

I follow someone who peaced out of C3 like a month ago, and while she still throws out the occasional post about it, despite mostly running on ✨vibes✨ since pre-Predathos fight. one of her latest takes caught my attention. The wording was a little messy, but the core argument seemed like it might have a point. She’s saying the biggest issue with the story is a lack of internal logic, which makes the characters feel kind of disconnected from their own world and setting. Her main example was the Schism, like, the general idea that the Titans were bad news for mortals should be widely accepted, and they’re dead so they’re not coming back even if the gods leave. She also argues that the idea that the gods would always choose each other over mortals isn’t really backed up by history. Basically, she thinks Bells Hells ignore some of the fundamental structures of modern religion in Exandria, which in turn makes a lot of their arguments about the gods fall apart.

So I guess I’m wondering does it seem like there’s a lack of internal logic to you? C3 is my first campaign, so I’ve been piecing together older lore as I go, and I can’t tell if this is a niche take or if there’s some bigger context I’m missing.

Yes. Or rather, I have a couple of different guesses as to what happened. In short: I think that either Matt wanted to set up a big dilemma and failed to do the worldbuilding to really support it textually; he didn't have a clear vision of what this would be at all (HUGE fucking mistake, like, actually concerning me re: the potential of a 4th campaign level of mistake and I hope it's not that); or, alternately, and honestly right now my guess is that this was the case, he straight up did not think the characters would be such selfish dickbags and thought going in that this would be a clear "we have to stop Predathos" and intended the familial connections within the Vanguard and the scene in Hearthdell to be added nuance to provide some understanding of the Vanguard not as simply mindless evil monsters but people who have genuine grievances that have been exploited by predatory cult leaders, and was not prepared for a campaign where the party immediately took the Vanguard's side.

Religion in Exandria has never been super formalized or organized. Some of this is, of course, that you don't have to like, convert or even attend services if you have a relationship with a god. But as a result, it means that any exploration of religion as hegemonic falls apart. I am not saying religion needs to fit the regular daily or weekly practices many people irl have (depending on one's levels of observance), and those characters whose powers canonically involve a deity often do observe either restrictions (Caduceus's vegetarianism) or have some form of meditative personal worship, but we never see like, a system of worship outside of Vasselheim, and Vasselheim lacks the powers that the real-world pope has (let alone the medieval era pope). Tuldus was forced by his family to pray, but it's never depicted as part of How All Worshipers of That God are expected to behave. This is really the crux of a lot of problems with this campaign - people keep taking very individualized issues - which are real, but individual - and treating them as a sign of widespread oppression that simply isn't backed up by the text. In fact, the biggest case of widespread religiously-involved oppression is the Empire going after worshipers of illegal Prime Deities (as we see with the Schuesters - the parents are arrested, leaving their young children to fend for themselves) - and the biggest case of widespread proselytizing and missionary work is from the canonically theocratic (and ruled by one person for over a millennium) Kryn Dynasty, which, hilariously, might end up even more powerful given that the Luxon - the source of their religion, their philosophy and cultural practices, and their arcane prowess - has been brought up as relevant to the gods-become-mortal plan by the Raven Queen and seems to not be under any threat from Predathos, and might even get more powerful. Vasselheim's colonial efforts, while certainly not defensible, are small potatoes.

The player character's grievances against the gods all boil down to "I prayed to the gods and they didn't make my life better" while failing to consider that a combination of genuinely wild specific personal circumstances (being Ruidusborn; being the child of an elemental-worship cult with terrible instincts and later running a heist on a Vanguard collaborator; being a shadow sorcerer who caught the eye of an evil Vecna-worshipping wizard in need of a host body) are the root cause. It's like. If your parents kick you out for being gay, that's homophobia, but if your parents are part of a cult that blows itself up and you are orphaned as a result that is not systemic oppression, that is a very specific cult and shitty parents. So that fails to really ground them in the setting. Compare to campaign 2, where Caleb wants to ensure the Volstrucker program is brought to light and eliminated - as he says, no more children on the pyre - vs. here, where arguably Laudna and Ashton are opening the door to far more unregulated cult/evil necromancy shenanigans now entirely unmitigated by the gods. At least Imogen will probably end the Ruidusborn I guess, as a side effect completely unrelated to her actual goals (which are, frankly, unclear) In a campaign that talks about tethers, the characters seem untethered to anything - institution, place, even for the most part family, and only loosely to each other, and it shows in their lack of care.

The other part is that yeah, a lot of things that were given to the Mighty Nein and Vox Machina as "things people would know" aren't given to Bells Hells. Now this could have a mechanical basis, namely, no one has much of a formal education and most of them are also not terribly intelligent on their own. However, it does feel baffling that they can't recognize holy symbols, or don't know the story of the titans at the time of the Schism (which...setting aside the many issues with the concept of "history is written by the victors" which is both inconsistently true in the first place and is frequently used in an anti-intellectual manner to undermine historical study that points out such things as historical racism; just because history might be inaccurate that does not mean that wild speculation otherwise is necessarily true, especially since we do know from EXU Calamity that titans did, indeed, intend to side with the Betrayers against mortals at the start of the Calamity). It furthers this feeling, after Vox Machina being relatively educated even in a story that was not as worldbuilding-focused, and the Mighty Nein having multiple research-oriented characters and a party deeply rooted in a rich world, that Bells Hells feel off and adrift and ignorant, especially since they don't even seem to remember history they lived through such as the Apex War.

Honestly, what I think is most interesting actually is that we don't ever get anyone express a motivation based on structural oppression in-game. Ludinus never got over his parents dying in a war where the options for the Prime Deities were leave mortals to die or fight the Betrayers, knowing there will be devastating casualties, but in setting up his elaborate plot he murdered countless people, destroyed through his communing with Predathos the first rebuilt elven society in Western Wildemount, and participated in actual structural oppression within the Dwendalian empire for literal centuries; he cared not for any widespread liberation and would remain on top, as an archmage, after this imagined revolution, which makes it not much of a revolution worth having. Liliana's problems were caused by Predathos, and many of the Vanguard we see are Ruidusborn. The only other Vanguard we really get to talk to are Bor'Dor, who was oppressed on the basis of his religion and preyed upon by the cult; Tuldus, who see above; and various Paragon's Call members who are mostly just following orders and getting paid. And Bells Hells, when they have the audience of Vasselheim and the rest of the world - a golden opportunity to call out the colonialism - fail to bring up Hearthdell.

In the end, the motivations are all personal pain - in many cases, inflicted, in fact, by Predathos and not the gods - or vengeance. I honestly don't know if the narrative is trying to claim there is something deeper, or if it's simply some of the characters and a chunk of the least knowledgeable fans, but yes, the worldbuilding fails to support a morally complex narrative. It fails to debunk that which was established earlier (and indeed makes the fall of Aeor far more sympathetic than when it was introduced during Campaign 2) and fails to establish any widespread harm the gods did that wasn't the result of someone threatening to kill them. I do not think one can meaningfully debate with someone who puts a boot on your throat, presses down, and claims you're the oppressor when you fight back, nor with someone who argues along those lines, and that's all that fans and Bells Hells have ever done. And yeah we might actually make a world with a formalized hegemonic religion as a result of Bells Hells' actions; it just will be a different god, underscoring that this is either motivated by people who don't know what the fuck is going on; or by vengeance rather than justice.

[gendertrickster]

in homestuck isnt gender canonically a bootstrap paradox

in a sense. calliope/caliborn perceived gender roles as an inherent truth of reality rather than the social construct it was, which ended up projecting itself through the narrative forces those two represent and causing the construct to have existed to begin with, oppressiveness and all. and this worked heavily into caliborn's favor because his fated foe, vriska serket, is one character most affected by her gender role, and she dies trying to adhere to it. on the other hand, though, is the character caliborn is implied to be most weak to: davepeta, the sole textually transgender homestuck character with no room for interpretation. so yeah gender is sort of implied to be another one of lord english's tools of oppression, and canonically speaking, any character that circumvents traditional gender structures has an edge on him

[johnskleats]

is anyone going to tell the kat@angers that it's not feminist activism to argue Katara's arc in LOK is fine on the grounds that "some women want to be homemakers and that's okay!!"

Like you're not helping real women that way. In fact, most antis for the cannon ship ARE women. Many are homemakers themselves.

Katara is not a real woman. She is a fictional woman written by men.

Can the sensibilities and wishes of a girl change by the time she is a adult? Yes!

But as this is a textual character who, as per the text, rejects the societal structure of her fictional world (which mirrors our own) that women are and can only ever be docile homemakers (i.e. I don't want to heal, I want to fight; I will never turn my back on people who need me; let's start a prison riot; let's engage in vigilante ecoterrorism; let's pitch an absolute fit because the boys are not pulling their fair weight in the homemaking; let's confront my mother's killer at the absolute rejection and condemnation of the male figures whom I am to respect; etc) it is perfectly reasonable to argue that this end was not a natural course for her character.

Fictional characters are not real people. This means that they do not change their mind off screen. That is not an acceptable argument. That is called a "plot hole", which is a nonsensical change made at the convenience and contrivance of the writer(s), who in this case are men exhibited to not care for women or girls all that much. It is within THEIR character to write this way.

Regardless of who, if anyone, Katara ended up with, Katara tolerating disrespect, neglect, abuse of her children, giving up all of her former aspirations to live in the shadow of men, and dying as a mere footnote in history (and being alright with it!!) is not surprising given the absolute vitriol Bryke has shown toward female fans of their "creation". It was supposed to be a "boy" show. It was always supposed to be a "boy" show. The creators of Supernatural and Game of Thrones did the same thing. ATLA just did it first.

Arguing "not all women" is not activism in the face of what is really happening in this discourse. Sending death threats to real, actual women with feelings in defense of a fake pretend woman's fake pretend autonomy is performative activism, and worse, hypocritical.

Not all women agree with you. Not all women feel represented and find the outcome of Katara's story satisfactory. If y'all care about feminism and respecting women's choices so much, lay off the real life women you're so fond of harassing. Our views and opinions, while opposing your own, don't affect you.

[artbyblastweave]

Is there a reason Marvel comics Canada ended up being such a nightmare factory?

I think it's basically almost entirely downstream of the development of the lore surrounding Wolverine- and if something bad about Canada wasn't introduced in conjunction with Wolverine it got drawn into his orbit.

The first big Horrible Specifically Canadian Lore Element was The Wendigo, a Hulk villain native to Canada; Wolverine debuted as a third participant in the fight the second or third time Hulk got into it with Wendigo in Incredible Hulk 180, having been scrambled by the Canadian military to try and get the two of them under control, and not characterized as anything more structurally sinister than a cape who happened to answer to the Canadian government. After that, Wendigo was functionally retooled as a Wolverine villain, the kind of thing that the Canadians had kept him on retainer to deal with in the first place, and whenever it shows up it's usually in Logan's orbit, not Banner's.

So, now it's established that Canada has a super soldier. When Professor X headhunts him for the ANAD X-Men, the plot hook follow up is Canada sending Vindicator to retrieve him, so now Canada has two super soldiers and a no resignations policy. When Vindicator can't pull it off they send in all of Alpha Flight, and now Canada has a superhuman draft, a full nationalized superteam, a no-resignations policy and a willingness to operate illicitly over the border to retrieve their assets. And there's a Wendigo. (Sometimes many Wendigo.)

This becomes the pattern. Every time they flesh out a piece of Wolverine's backstory, the fact he's Canadian causes some new piece of torment-nexus worldbuilding to become Canadian. Sabretooth, originally introduced as a comparatively nondescript punching bag for Iron Fist? Is integrated into Wolverine's backstory as a longtime rival, meaning he's now either Canadian or spent a lot of time there in the past. Weapon X is eventually revealed to to be an invasive megatorture program and not the run-of-the-mill black-budget super soldier op it was initially framed as in the 1970s. And then it's revealed that Wolverine wasn't the only one they made, leading to a slew of nightmarish dark-age villains that are all textually Canada's fault, and then you get Deadpool, where the path of least resistance to explaining his involvement in Weapon X is that he's also Canadian, and you learn that they also made a gender-swapped clone of him that he eventually adopts, and then you get the retcon that "X" is a roman numeral and there have been nine more of these, successor projects to Captain America, some number of which are also Canadian. I don't remember at what point in the timeline Wolverine's immense age was first implied, but once that happens suddenly awful things need to have been happening to him in Canada for a very, very long time.

All of this was basically arbitrary. In the counterfactual timeline where Wolverine was introduced as an American asset fighting Hulk in Alaska, all of the nightmare fodder in his backstory would similarly have followed him to America, where it would fit right in alongside existing lore elements like The Sentinels, The Purifiers and Nuke. And if Thunderbird had been the meteoric breakout character instead of Wolverine, we'd instead be asking questions about why so much of the peripheral X-Men lore came to be centered specifically on the Apache nation and federal government abuses thereof, with Weapon X as a weird little underdeveloped footnote acting as listicle fodder.

[the-littlest-goblin]

this started as a reblog comment on this post but it got tangential so it gets own post instead. still, credit and thanks to @utilitycaster for reigniting a brainworm I've been meaning to exorcise for ages, which is: fate as a narrative element of Critical Role.

Cause "fate"/"destiny" is another thing that gets name-dropped a lot where frequently the function is purely poetic, but is also shown to be a metaphysical truth of Exandria even though it's unclear exactly how it works. We can say for certain that Exandrian fate is not predestination. On a meta level that would be antithetical to an improv and dice-rolling format, and it's not a belief we ever hear of in-universe to my recollection.

I spent a lot of college studying Homeric epic, and also writing about fate and predestination as functions of narrative temporality in general. There's two load bearing concepts in Homeric studies that I often find useful references in other literary context, especially as a precedent for epic fantasy like CR vis a vis gods and fate as elements of the worldbuilding. First is that the Greek word for 'fate', moira (μοῖρα), also means 'lot,' 'share,' or 'portion.' "One's lot in life" gives a more accurate impression of the workings of fate in Homer than the connotation of inflexible predestination, as it is often misconstrued. The ultimate and only truly unavoidable moira is death (for mortals, at least). That is the model for the relationship of fate and causality (which, side note, can be surprisingly compatible with existentialism in certain contexts).

Speaking of causality, the other concept is the "double motivation," which is an interpretation of the gods' frequent influence on mortal action that allows divine interference to coexist with free will and character agency. It simply attributes causality and moral responsibility for divinely-influenced actions to both gods and mortals simultaneously (as opposed to other interpretations which seek to deduce a position on one side of a binary between either straight-up divine mind-control or gods as figurative personifications of mortal interiority.)

In the past, I've used double motivation analogously as a frame for literary criticism more broadly, paralleling the divine-mortal duality with an extradiegetic/structural sense of the narrative and the diegetic/internal world of the characters, respectively. It also loosely maps onto when we talk about plot-driven stories vs character-driven stories. My personal metric is that the best works achieve a harmony of double-motivation such that they can't be sorted into the plot- or character-driven dichotomy. The needs of the story and the motivations of the characters are coterminous.

It's worth noting that modern expectations of narrative and standards for what makes a "good" story differ in a lot of ways to ancient modes, especially when it comes to the psychological facet of characters. We hold works to much higher standards in terms of justifying why characters do things, which makes metaphysical destiny a trickier concept to incorporate textually. A lot of modern lit crit (and a lot of fandom discourse, in my experience) only wants to see or consider the character motivation. Some structuralist corners are more hospitable to the narrative motivation, but it depends on who you're talking to really. I digress.

As for how these relate to CR: I see the sense of "destiny" attributed PCs as relating to their narrative function as protagonists. In the same way that death is the ultimate moira for mortals, the inevitable "destiny" of PCs-as-such is that they will be the heroes of a story; the story itself is not preordained—it is loosely planned, but obviously not set in stone. We cannot be sure what actions and events will make up the story, but we can be sure that the PCs will be at the center. This is also just another, more top-down way of phrasing the linked post's point about destiny as a matter of character intent. There's a conceptual link between "destiny" and "agency," counter to the connotation of predestiny.

The format of TTRPGs make them an excellent ground for demonstrating the double-motivation narrative in process because of how visible and integral the diegetic facet of the story is (*don't say Brechtian, do not call it Brechtian*) playing out in real time. And I think out of all the AP shows I've seen, the CR cast most tends to build characters in pursuit of psychological realism. Those pieces in combination make a higher bar for achieving that narrative harmony; the marvel of CR is how often they still manage to accomplish it, and it's extra satisfying because of the challenge at the outset. This is why I find Campaign 2 especially so impressive: even as PC choices warp the path of Matt's anticipated narrative in some big ways, it all still synthesizes into narrative harmony. M9 are not traditional heroic types to start out, and often act counter to the expected archetypes of the genre. Matt responds to their decisions with a degree of flexibility in the plot, resulting in a deeply believable psychological story about M9 developing into heroes—one which still hits the promised elements of heroic fantasy and the necessary beats of Matt's story outline, while being the most sandbox-y out of all the campaigns, complete with serendipitous emergent themes of choice, agency, and identity throughout.

Campaign 3 is the opposite. BH are metatextually "fated" to be the heroes of their narrative the same as M9. Like M9, their actions much of the time don't correlate to the role; unlike c2, the story does not respond to or accommodate the characters. BH may seem to lack a "sense of destiny" as part of their NPC vibes, but they nevertheless retain the moira of being PCs and are stuck as the primary focalizing point of the story, regardless of how they continuously lean on literally anyone else to make decisions. The commentary on being nobodies who fell into this position could have been a gratifying thematic through-line similar to what both c2 and Divergence accomplish in different ways, if only BH had ever developed past the premise of that statement and started acting like PCs. Instead they kind of made the opposite thematic statement: shirking destiny not in a textual way that actually engages with fate as an in-universe concept, but by trying to abdicate the narrative duties of protagonist without ever escaping that positionality. Thus the hand of god—both in the figurative sense of the DM's writerly hand and the in-universe deus ex machinae feeding BH plans of action—is extremely visible as it props them up through the plot. To bring back the Homeric comparison: imagine the Odyssey with all the same plot beats, but Odysseus spends the whole poem talking about how his wife and son are kinda meh and he doesn't really care all that much about returning home. That's c3, to me.

[hylianane]

I have an opinion about Holly Kujo and I’m a little scared cause I dont know the Jojo fandom enough to come in with what I think is a hot take.

I’ve noticed that, in fanworks, a lot of people portray Holly as tougher than she is in the show. And it makes sense, cause the idea of her being so weak-willed that she couldn’t handle a stand when even baby Shizuka could manifest one is kinda bs and a testament to Araki not being very confident with writing women at the time (thank GOD he got better though, so, so much better).

But. What always gets me is when her relationship with Jotaro is written to be a little more standard, still loving but with the child having a healthy fear of their mom’s anger- unlike what we see in Stardust, with him constantly being a brat, calling her “bitch” and her shrugging it off with an “Okay!”. also him getting himself thrown into jail while she still can’t bring herself to get mad, just upset. And the fanfics take a very fun play on them too, but I just worry that people who default to this dynamic for Jojo and Holly might not see how the canon characterization of their relationship is interesting in its own right.

Because even tho Holly being a doormat is a creative choice born from Araki pussying out of giving her a stand, it doesn’t change the fact that once he made that choice he gave it great importance. I think the fact that Holly’s idea of supporting her son is just accepting everything he does without any anger is central to their relationship. It’s how, despite having a mother who loves him unconditionally, Jotaro is still a very troubled teen and emotionally withdrawn. Though it’s easy to blame it on Sadao’s implied absence, or troubles in school, we don’t have a lot of textual evidence for that.

But kids who are raised without at least some semblance of discipline and structure typically stop seeing their parents as authorities, and most importantly, protectors. A more textually-backed explanation for why Jotaro is always acting tough and independent is because he doesn’t have any adults in his life who he would trust to help him. He loves his mom, he traveled the world to save her life, but while doing that he saw himself as her protector, not the other way around, not the way it typically should be.

Think about, for example, how the adult he mouths off to the least in his life is probably Avdol. And I think part of that is because Avdol walked into that police station, took one look at Jotaro, and instantly clocked everything I just said. Because while Holly and Joseph tried to to get him out with simple words (and for Holly, tears), Avdol was there to force him out. And at first Jotaro says, “If he tries to force me out, I’ll just stay here even longer”, but Avdol doesn’t give him a choice. And he doesn’t win by overpowering him (if he had, I dont think he’d have gotten the same positive result, I am not pro setting troubled teens on fucking fire) but he outsmarts Jotaro and doesn’t quit the fight until his goal is achieved. He stays in control of his emotions when talking to him, and proves himself to be someone strong and assertive. So later, on the trip to Cairo, Jotaro is more willing to rely on him than he is to rely on his own grandpa. (+, it’s a similar thing with Kakyoin, who he trusts almost more than anyone else, because he saw Kakyoin’s will and power first-hand when they met, and left with the lesson that Kak is someone he can rely on to protect of both himself and Jotaro. Someone with strong convictions, but most importantly, willing and capable of clashing with Jotaro if necessary.)

All this to fucking say. In a world in which Jotaro was raised to fear his parent’s reprimands (and I don’t mean fear to an unhealthy amount, an abusive amount), he would act very differently than he does in the show, and his relationships to other characters would probably look very different. Holly’s personality and parenting might seem like it was an afterthought to Araki, but I think he truly did take great care in making it consistent with her son’s character. She is a very loving mom, who is very loved in return, but what I think a lot of people perceive as a flaw in her writing is actually just a flaw in her character, with narrative weight and interesting consequences. And I’m not sure how many people are really aware of that.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Some Poetry Vocabulary

alliteration: The repetition of consonant sounds.

allusion: An indirect reference in art or writing to another visual or literary work or a historical personage or event.

antithesis: The contrast of ideas through the use of terms with opposite meanings.

appropriation: The practice of incorporating elements from a preexisting literary or visual work to create a new work.

assonance: The repetition of vowel sounds.

calligram: A type of poem, such as that created by the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire in his book Caligrammes, made up of words that are placed in such a way that they visually represent the subject of the poem.

coined words: Invented words.

concrete poem: A poetic work that calls a reader’s attention to the visual appearance or shape of the letters, words, or lines comprising the poem.

ekphrastic [ek-FRAS-tic] poem: A poetic work written about a work of art.

epic poem: A long, rhymed, narrative poem, usually about heroic characters and their actions.

epic verse: Text written in a rhythm traditionally used for an epic poem.

epistolary [eh-PIS-toh-lehr-ee] poem: A poetic work written like a letter, with one person addressing another, often including conventions typical of letters, such as a heading, greeting, body, closing, and signature.

form: The structure of a poem, whether standard (like a sonnet) or without a regular pattern.

hyperbole: A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used to convey a particular effect.

imagery: In literature, mental pictures of a feeling, sensation, or idea that are suggested by language; also, actual pictures.

list poem: A poetic work composed of a list of items.

metaphor: A type of figurative language in which a term for one thing serves as a symbol for another thing.

onomatopoeia: A word, such as swish, zoom, or whiz, whose name describes a sound.

pattern poem: A poetic work in which the words are artfully placed in the shape of a picture or symbol.

plastic poem: Term used by the Japanese Surrealists to describe a poetic work that utilizes photography, in addition to or in place of text, to evoke complex and symbolic meanings.

rhyme: The repetition of the sounds of words in a poem.

rhythm: In poetry, a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.

simile: A type of figurative language in which two different things are compared using “like” or “as.”

sonnet: A poem traditionally comprised of 14 lines written in a set rhyme scheme.

surrealism: A 20th-century artistic and literary movement that emphasized the role of the unconscious mind in creating visual and textual works.

symbolism: The process of using an object or idea to represent or suggest something else.

tableaux: Scenes depicted through posing without talking or moving, usually with costumes.

typographic poem: A poetic work in which the way words and letters look on the page is more important than what the words say.

visual poem: A general term for a poetic work, such as a calligram, concrete poem, pattern poem, or plastic poem, that uses an arrangement of text and/or images to visually convey meaning.

a list of poetic terms ⚜ More: Word Lists