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nihilnovisubsole · 5 years

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My fashion queen, incredibly important question: How would one go about figuring out fashion *style* for characters? I've noticed your OCs always have a Look(TM), and I've gathered from your blog (and fics) that you've got an eye for aestethics - please, could you give me advice at least where to *start*. I'm completely unaware of fashion and, frankly, completely overwhelmed at the prospect of just starting..

Ah! Previous Anon again - forgot to add a more specific question about fashion (I’m squeezing in 2 quesiton in one xD). Do you have fashion advice for sleek/distant female character’s clothing that doesn’t hinge on formal dresses? (as is discernable, I have literally NO idea what a Grown Ass, Self Respecting Woman would wear)

wow. that’s high praise. when i got this yesterday morning, i knew i wanted to give it the answer it deserved. this is over 1500 words long, so apologies to anyone on mobile, but i wasn’t letting go until i’d really sunk my teeth into it.

unfortunately, since you’re anon, i don’t know enough about your character to suggest anything specific. instead, i want to take a step back and see if we can solve the root of the problem - “where do i start?”

when i was a teenager, an english teacher told me this: “the biggest constraint in writing is no constraint at all.” when you have the whole spectrum of something - in this case, clothes - to pick from, it is overwhelming. the natural human instinct is to freeze up. so while it may sound strange, if you’re just starting out, you might feel better if you have some constraints to work within.

with that in mind, you can treat finding a ‘signature look’ for your character like solving a murder mystery. you eliminate all the suspects that don’t fit until you know enough to narrow it down to the one that does. that’s going to involve something else you’ll recognize from murder mysteries: you’re going to have to interrogate the character. open them up and get to know them - their background, their likes and dislikes, their quirks, the role they play in the world around them. every answer will give you clues and weed other things out, and eventually, you’ll get a box small enough that you feel comfortable working in it.

now, i love fashion, and i love using clothes to send messages about a character’s personality. so as someone who’s had that interest for my whole life, i work from the other end. the constraints happen, in large part, without me thinking about them. i tend to zoom right to a certain aesthetic or item of clothing, say, “okay, what outfit can i build with this,” and go from there. but since you’ve said you’re “unaware” of fashion and it’s intimidating to you, i’ll try to ease you in through a different route and see whether that helps.

so, if we’re going to pick your character apart, let’s think about some practical questions first:

what setting does your character live in?

if you’ve narrowed your setting down to a historical decade, you’ll find most of the style questions already - firmly! - answered for you. for example, a victorian woman would, by default, wear skirts. if the character is contemporary, you’ve got a lot more wiggle room. if you want to mess with historical fashion rules for symbolic or story purposes, awesome, but i think that’s probably more advanced than you’re looking for right now.

if the setting is fantasy or sci-fi, what’s its dominant aesthetic? is it cyberpunk? sleek ~apple~ sci-fi? or is it more like star wars? is it medieval fantasy? woodsy faerie fantasy? JRPG-style fantasy? you get the idea.

what does your character do?

speaks for itself. what’s their job?

what is your character like, just in general?

this is where everything you know about their personality goes. if they’re a fussy courtier who’s worried about their reputation and appearance, they’re probably not going to be comfortable in plain, casual clothes.

what can your character afford to wear?

again, speaks for itself. do they buy designer brands? are they trying their best with what they have? or are they super strapped for cash and just have to get the job done?

does their social scene have an easily-identifiable aesthetic that you could work with?

does your character wear urban/street fashion or preppy rich-kid clothes? are they part of a subculture that dresses in a certain way, like teddy boys? do they have the desire or freedom to go all-in with that style, or do they have to play it down, like being corporate goth?

do they need to wear something they could travel, do hard work, or fight in?

goes with the job question above. do they need some kind of outerwear or accessory where they can hide weapons? do they always need to be ready, or is it situational?

basically, where does the character’s aesthetic need to sit on a chart of form vs. function?

what do other characters who are similar to your character wear?

look at your favorite movies, games, and TV shows and see what professional designers are doing with characters like yours. what colors and cuts are they using? what other elements do they choose? do you like them? if you don’t like them, what would you change? sometimes you can learn more from what you hate than what you love.

hopefully, you’ve already culled a huge swath of fashion ideas that you Know You’re Not Going To Do. you may still not know what you do want to do, either! that’s fine. let’s move onto some more artsy questions:

are there any colors your character would prefer or avoid?

it sounds silly. it’s not. a limited color palette will go a long way toward making a character’s outfits look unified and purposeful. obviously, in real life, most people don’t restrict themselves as much as fictional characters do. but if you were a costume designer, you’d want to have some guideposts to work with.

are there any motifs you associate with your character?

animals, elements, religious or cultural symbols, plants - you can sneak all these into their clothes’ details. maybe their dress has beading in the shape of a peacock, or rose earrings, or icy sparkles, or a bear pelt for a cloak.

have fun with meanings! moon motifs for mysteriousness, poisonous flowers, etc. let your inner lit major out.

do you want your character to have a certain silhouette?

this may seem odd if you’re just going to be writing your character and not drawing them, but think about it anyway. do you want to emphasize that your character is tall? is everything they wear skintight? do they have a large, unique hat?

a great example of this is maleficent. not only does she have a horn-shaped headdress, her huge, flowing robe tells us there’s a much bigger power in her than her body would suggest.

is there a certain ethos you want their clothes to project? what, in their world, would do that? what in our world would do that?

let’s say you want your character to look very powerful, to the point where people would find their looks alone intimidating. should they wear sharp, simple, severe clothes, maybe in dark colors? or should they wear very embellished clothes, like royalty? what are your setting’s ideas about beauty? modesty? does your character play by the rules, or do you want them to stand out?

what colors, shapes, and styles appeal to you personally?

for all the time i’ve spent talking about restrictions and guidelines, it’s important not to lose the fun of it, either. use your favorite color! give them clothes you’d want to wear in real life! character style is a playground where you can let wish fulfillment run wild.

at any time, feel free to turn to google or wikipedia if you’re not sure how to answer one of these questions. if you see an interesting idea, pick it up and follow it - what you’re doing here is training your eye, and that’s how you’ll learn. that said, if you’re already intimidated, i wouldn’t dive too deep into couture/aesthetic blogs until i had a more solid grip on how i wanted the character to look. it comes back to what i said earlier - there is such a thing as too much to choose from, especially when you’re not sure what you should be looking for yet.

there’s one other thing i want to mention that can help bring a character’s wardrobe together: repetition. if you’re planning several outfits for a character instead of just one, echo some of the motifs, shapes, or colors from one to the next. they don’t all have to be identical takes on the same thing, but if they have certain traits in common, they’ll feel less like separate outfits and more like a matched set. they could all be in members of the same color family or have similar patterns on them. maybe your character has a certain accessory that they wear with everything. you get the idea.

while i may not be able to plan your character’s wardrobe outright, i hope this makes the whole process seem more straightforward. or that it gives you some ideas to work with, or any other kind of help you might take away from it. this post is getting unfathomably long, so i’ll wrap it up, but i’d be happy to put any of my own characters through a “question test” like this one if you’d like to see how it works in practice.

finally, if you can find an interview with an artist or costume designer who worked on something you like, those things are worth their weight in gold. i read an interview with colleen atwood when i was in middle school, and it revolutionized the way i thought about fashion and storytelling. and when i say “revolutionized,” i mean “i owe basically everything i just told you to that article.” dig into them and see how they think and talk about their art! they’re more qualified to teach you than i ever will be.

#anon #asks #fashion #writing

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postgamecontent · 7 years

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The RPGs of the Super NES Classic #3: Secret of Mana

Original Release Date: August 6, 1993

Original Hardware: Nintendo Super Famicom

Developer/Publisher: Square Enix

Nintendo's 16-bit hardware had a lot of great action-RPGs, but perhaps none were as significant as Square's Secret of Mana. This was particularly the case in the West, where Japanese action-RPGs hadn't caught on quite as they had in Japan. The action-RPG label has always been a fuzzy one, with most of the games in the genre leaning pretty hard on one part of the label or the other. For many a player in the West, however, Secret of Mana was one of the first such games out of Japan that felt like it could satisfy both RPG fans and action game fans in equal measures. It also got considerable promotional support from Nintendo, which surely helped the game find its way into the hands of many young players. Adding to its legend is the fact that Square was never really able to make another game in the series that had the same appeal. With no rights issues holding it back, it's easy to see why Secret of Mana was chosen to carry the action-RPG flag for the Super NES Classic.

This is the first follow-up to Seiken Densetsu, otherwise known as Final Fantasy Adventure, Mystic Quest, Sword of Mana, and Adventures of Mana in its various forms. Secret of Mana is somewhat infamous for its tumultuous development, most notably its late shift from being a Super NES CD-ROM game to having to fit on just a regular cartridge. Apparently, a great deal had to be cut from the game and as a result, the final product feels a bit disjointed and buggy at times. Of course, this shift was only necessary due to Nintendo deciding not to pursue their plans for a CD-ROM add-on. While you obviously won't hear any official word about it, I've heard rumors to the effect that the debacle around Secret of Mana was one of the reasons why Square jumped ship from their previous Nintendo-exclusive status. Still, in spite of all that, Secret of Mana is a really enjoyable game, with a unique feel all of its own.

Or perhaps I should say "because of all of that"? I think I've mentioned before on this site that I believe the reason why Secret of Mana is the crowd-pleaser that it is comes down to those required cuts. Series creator Koichi Ishii is a developer along the lines of his former co-worker Akitoshi Kawazu. He favors ambitious ideas and doesn't seem all that interested in being tied down by the conventions of the genres he works in. Like with Kawazu, this has resulted in most of Ishii's works being love-or-hate affairs. He's even had his name attached to some genuine clunkers. His most widely-appreciated game is Secret of Mana. I can't imagine it's a coincidence that it's also the game where he had the least amount of freedom to pursue his ambitions.

Thanks to those restrictions, Secret of Mana ended up being not much more complicated than the Game Boy game that spawned the series. It's a much bigger game, and the presentation obviously blows its Game Boy predecessor away, but the weird and woolly sub-systems that would come to characterize the Mana brand are in short supply here. You can move around and attack with your weapon, charge up for a stronger attack, and cast magic or use items from a menu. Most of the weapons have a secondary use for navigating the world, and each weapon levels up individually as you vanquish foes with it. Magic similarly becomes more powerful the more times you use it. This probably sounds a lot like the much-maligned Final Fantasy 2, but the system isn't quite as broken here. Unfortunately, you'll probably still want to sink some time into grinding levels, particularly for magic spells. One nice point is that the weapons actually change form as you level them up. You only need to get each weapon type once.

One big change is that rather than playing as one character with a rotating guest controlled by the computer, you'll end up with a permanent three-character party. You can only control one of them at a time, of course, while a fairly stupid AI controls the other two. If you happen to have a couple of friends, a couple of extra controllers, and a SNES multitap, you can swap out that silly AI for some real humans. Square did this sort of thing from time to time in the 16-bit era, and while I'm not sure they really thought of it as more than a fun extra, it ended up being a major point in Secret of Mana's favor. People with multitaps were few and far between, but you could at least enjoy the two-player mode even if you didn't have one or know someone who had one. For its time, Secret of Mana was one of the best multiplayer RPGs you could find. The Super NES Classic unfortunately preserves that "missing third player" experience, but it's still a good time.

Truth be told, though, I think the game is a little too long and leisurely to play through completely with other players. Pulling your friend in for a boss fight is a good time, but it's not quite the same joyride when you're just parking yourself outside of a town, casting magic to raise levels. If you were a kid with a brother or sister who maintained a similar schedule to yours and liked playing this kind of game, then you were set. Otherwise, it's a fun thing to do now and then but you'll be thankful that it's basically drop in and drop out. I remember the first time I beat the game, I did it with a friend controlling the Sprite. In hindsight, that was definitely the easiest way to tackle that tricky situation. The computer AI really isn't up to doing what needs to be done in that particular fight.

There are a lot of weird moments in Secret of Mana that help lend it its flavor. I've written elsewhere before about the bizarre out-of-nowhere appearance of Santa Claus partway through the game, and while that's about as strange as the game gets, there's nevertheless a lot of instances of similarly unexpected gags and references. I remember finding out from a magazine that the possessed books that populated one dungeon had a small chance of flipping open to a naked woman and being shocked that Nintendo didn't force that to be removed from the English version. There are a couple of mysterious faces carved into the world map that don't have any explanation. Then there's the Ancient City, which flips your whole image of the game's setting upside-down. You go to the Moon, you travel by cannons, and you visit an island that sits on the back of a giant turtle. It's all very quirky, if a little scatter-shot in its tone.

The game on the whole is just as patchy as its eccentricities. It does a lot of things well. The variety of locales lends the game the feeling of a true adventure. The selection of weapons gives you some interesting combat options, and it's really satisfying when you land a solid blow on an enemy and thwack them into oblivion. The story may not flow well but it's interesting enough in the moment. At the same time, there are definitely areas that feel like they needed more thought. Having the player charge up an attack only serves to lengthen combat artificially, and when that attack misses because of the dubious collision detection, it's quite frustrating. The translation was done in a hurry and it shows. The game is very terse, and there's little room for proper characterization. The computer AI isn't up to snuff in many situations, which can be frustrating. There are bugs a-plenty, and there are plenty of places where you can feel the editing scissors in action.

Happily, the good parts of the game handily outweigh the minor annoyances. I don't find Secret of Mana nearly as interesting as some of Koichi Ishii's other games, but it's probably the easiest game of his to enjoy. I keep hoping to find another layer to the game whenever I come back to it, but it genuinely just is what it is. I thought I might find a new angle this time, having finally played Legend of Mana. All the context which that really provides, however, is to underline the rather obvious fact that Secret of Mana wasn't so much finished as it was buttoned up. Frankly, it's something of a miracle the game turned out as well as it did. Almost as unlikely as Square's seeming inability to satisfy players in the same way again, I suppose.

This was a game that I actually picked up around its original release date. I can't remember what exactly pushed me into it beyond being a general fan of Square by that point. I remember enjoying the Nintendo Power coverage of the game, and I recall that one issue came with a poster of the gorgeous cover art depicting the Mana Tree. That poster was hanging on the wall of my bedroom for quite a while, and I still think it's a great piece of art. The game's art design is excellent overall. The sprites are extremely expressive, with great attention paid to the enemies especially. The backgrounds are nicely detailed and always fit the intended atmosphere nicely. It's lush and verdant when it wants to be, cold and mechanical when it needs to be, and just all-around nice to look at.

The music is also superb. You have to believe this was one of the areas that took the biggest hit from the shift from CD to cartridge, but I can scarcely imagine how it could have been better aside from being played back at a higher quality. Composer Hiroki Kikuta's soundtrack has a very different feel from other Square games of the period, with a certain organic quality to it that almost perfectly matches the game. Even small things like the whale sound that plays when you power on the game help make this game sound different. The tunes shift from breezy to oppressive depending on the situation, but all of them are good at doing what they need to.

Above all, I think it's fascinating that Secret of Mana has been able to hang on to its legendary status over the years. Unlike contemporaries like Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger, or Earthbound, Secret of Mana doesn't transcend its genre in any meaningful way. It's just a really fun game, one that Square has been decent about keeping in circulation for old fans to enjoy again and new players to discover for the first time. While none of Square's follow-ups have managed to capture a similar level of success, the company seems to understand that this game in particular is a favorite classic. The game has been re-released on the Wii Virtual Console, smartphones, as part of a Japan-only collection on the Nintendo Switch, and of course as part of the Super NES Classic Edition line-up. Secret of Mana is also getting a full remake that is due early in 2018.

As the sole representative of its genre on the Super NES Classic, Secret of Mana serves its purpose quite well. It's also one of the better multiplayer games in the package, albeit one that requires a fair bit of patience. It's unfortunate that Nintendo couldn't find a way to include the three-player mode, but I suppose it would be a lot of trouble to implement for just one game. Whether you go solo or with a friend, Secret of Mana is certainly worth playing again. Square hasn't managed to top its wide appeal with another Mana game in nearly 25 years, and it may well be another quarter of a century before they do.

Previous: Super Mario RPG

Next: Earthbound

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#retro #gaming #super nes classic edition #secret of mana #super nes #snes #nintendo #square #seiken densetsu

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preserving-ferretbrain · 5 years

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Merciless

by Wardog

Wednesday, 16 September 2009

Wardog reviews Havemercy by Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett~

And here I am with the ex-Harry Potter fanfic writers yet again. Havemercy is a fantasy novel, written by Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett of Shoebox Project fame. It's basically Temeraire meets The Mirador and, well, it’s not entirely dreadful.

It’s set in the kingdom of Volstov, which is currently embroiled in a century-long war against the neighbouring Ke-Han Empire (who are the usual different-coloured, braid sporting fantasy ‘other’). Volstov’s greatest weapon is the mechanical, magic-infused dragons, which are powered from some kind of magical well and piloted by the Dragon Corp. The war, however, recedes into the background for most of the novel; instead we concentrate on the developing relationships between the four (yes, four) POV protagonists.

First up we have: Margrave Royston, a socialite-wizard, and a big gay, who has been exiled to the country for bumming the crown Prince. He is packed off to stay with his countrified brother and his brother’s horrid wife, and finds himself becoming friends with the quiet and scholarly tutor who has been charged with the education of the children. This is Hal, Protagonist II. Back in the capital, we have Rook, the worst of the Dragon Corp, who has recently involved them in a massive diplomatic scandal on account of treating an Ambassador’s wife like a whore. And finally Thom, an aspiring academic at the university, who is tasked with basically putting the Dragon Corp through sensitivity training as a consequence of Rook’s actions.

The focus is very much on character and relationships rather than, y’know, events. The war does kick it up a notch in the final third of the book and various things come together but it all feels a bit non-urgent to be honest, although the consequences of it are genuinely devastating (more on this later). I remember the first time I ever picked up a book by Sarah Monette and I was so impressed. “Wow,” I said (or words to this effect), “it’s wonderful to come across a fantasy writer capable of creating complex characters, and taking the time to develop them.” Unfortunately, I think it’s time for me to eat those words. I’d like some goddamn plotting please. To be fair, I think part of the problem is not that they’ve chosen to focus on character over action but that they’re basically not as good as Monette. I’m not saying Havemercy isn’t moderately competent and reasonably entertaining, it’s just also emotionally unconvincing and has a weird attitude to homosexuality.

The novel is told from the perspective of all four of its protagonists, which keeps things from dragging too much. There has been some attempt to differentiate their voices, Rook, for example, talks common (although, again, he comes off as a poor man’s Mildmay). And everybody else pretty much blends into sounding vaguely like Felix or, you know, possibly the authors. The effect of the four different points of view is generally positive and enlivening although I do think four was perhaps slightly too ambitious. And as much as it’s illuminating to have multiple perspectives on the same events occasionally it does lead to what feels like a tedious and self-indulgent dissection when you’d much rather be getting on with the … oh … what that’s word again … plot.

There are things to like about Havemercy. Steampunk dragons, for example, powered by the magic of eccentric magicians, you simply can’t go wrong with that. And I loved Havemercy herself:

“Just a spin,” I said. “Good,” said Havemercy. “I’m getting rusty.” “Shit,” I said, “you ain’t.” “Aren’t,” Havemercy said. “You common little fucker.”

She’s a nice antidote to swotty little Temeraire. And actually I quite liked Rook, who is the only character in the whole novel with any bollocks to speak of. And to give Jones and Bennett their due, they do a good job with the world building, weaving the history and the culture into the narrative without making it too oppressive.

However, there are a bunch of problems with Havemercy which reveal both the novel’s status as a debut and, perhaps, the youth of its authors. Spoilers ho.

Havemercy

She ain’t in it anywhere near enough. I know part of the deal with having a cool concept is that you don’t overplay it but, seriously, for a novel called Havemercy I could have done with a touch more dragon. Besides, as we can see above, when she is there she’s fabulous. As the war finally becomes marginally more important than the characters’ personal lives, the first major indication that something bad is in the offing is that the dragons start to act a little strangely and feel a trifle ‘off’ to their pilots. Now, I know the Dragon Corp are supposed to be an insular and closed off unit to which the reader has only mediated access but because the dragons aren’t really given enough page-time it’s next to impossible to engage, emotionally or intellectually, with the fact that they’re starting to go wrong. The dragons are off, are they? Well, uh, what were they like when they on? This also interferes with the climax – mad clockwork dragons charging towards their destruction or their salvation, it’s such a fantastic image but it has no depth to it because the dragons are basically scenery by this point anyway.

Sausage Party

There are no women in Havemercy, unless you count Havemercy herself. Oh, and a bunch of whores and a homophobic wife, of course. It must be the fandom-gene at work, because it’s obvious that Jones and Bennett are way more interested in pretty, angsty boys than they are in, well, anything else. Maybe I shouldn’t penalise them for this (at least they’re honest) but if a male writer wrote a book in which his only female characters were prostitutes, flirts or bigots I would hit the roof. Again, maybe it wouldn’t be such a problem if the fantasy genre didn’t have such an appalling history with female characters. History? What am I saying. Present. Also it genuinely does unbalance the book, what are women doing (apart from whoring and being homophobic) in the kingdom of Volstov? I think it might have helped the authors differentiate their voices and perspectives if one of them had perhaps been female.

Puerile Emotions

The characters are all of them saturated in angst, except, having read Monette, I can safely say it’s a kind of angst-lite, in which the characters moop and weep and put their wrist to their foreheads but ultimately it all feels a bit pointless. Take Hal and Royston. They fall for each other hard. They get caught in a rainstorm. They take shelter in a small hut. They are forced to remove all their clothes. To keep from, like, catching a mild chill or something. They have tension. They nearly kiss… but Royston decides he would be taking advantage of Hal if he did institute snoggage so they don’t. Basically their relationship goes something like this:

Royston: I am blatantly in love with you (sorry I have a silly name, by the way, I know it’s horrendously unattractive but we can work round it)

Hal: I am blatantly in love with you too.

Royston: Shall we shag like bunnies … wait … no! We cannot shag like bunnies because … because … look over there, a plot development.

Hal: But I want to shag like bunnies!

Royston: We cannot. Woe!

Hal: But why?

Royston. Because we cannot. Woe!

Hal: Woe! (I’m still a bit confused on this point)

Royston: Because I will be taking advantage of your innocence, dammit. Woe.

Hal: But I’m blatantly in love with you and I want to shag like bunnies.

Royston: But we cannot. Woe! Come away to the city with me.

Hal: But then I would have to abandon these people who are horrible to me and be happy. Woe!

Royston: You’re right, it’s a terrible and selfish thing to ask of you. Woe.

Hal: Oh, all right.

Royston Woe…err…what? Oh. Okay. Yay. Let us shag like bunnies … oh wait … we cannot shag like bunnies.

Hal: Why not this time?

Royston: Because … because … I only want to do it when you’re absolutely ready. Woe.

Hal: I’m fucking ready, I’ve been ready since page fucking 30.

Royston: Well, tough, I’m going to war. Woe!

Hal: Woe!

Royston: I am back from War.

Hal: Can we…

Royston: Well, now I am really ill and might die of a magical disease. Woe. Gosh, I wish we’d shagged like bunnies.

Hal: Me too.

Rosyton: Woe.

Hal: Woe.

Following a similar pattern, is the relationship between Rook and Thom. Rook hates Thom because … because … he does? And is generally bitter and heartless because his younger brother was tragically killed in a fire when he was but a Rookling. Thom, too, is carrying deep psychological wounds from the fact his older brother was tragically killed in a fire when he was…. Yeah. Zomg. I could cope with this Home and Away style plotting if hadn’t been so appallingly handled. Essentially Thom works it out first from something Rook says in a moment of vulnerability (Havemercy, of course, spotted it straight away because she is fabulous) and then … wait for it … decides not to tell him. Because … because … ?

There is no excuse for this kind of nonsense. Nobody in the novel seems remotely capable of behaving in a sensible, non-histrionic fashion or accepting other characters as adult human beings capable of making their own decisions. You can argue this is all part and parcel of their flaws but it seems more like authorial incompetence than human failing to me. And it makes Havemercy extremely irritating to read at times because I simply couldn’t respect the characters.

Teh Gay

So we’re getting more homosexual and bisexual characters in fantasy these days. I guess that’s a good thing. But with an increase in quantity, as ever, comes a decrease in quality. I think I’ve playfully remarked that it’s impossible for anybody even vaguely connected to the fandom to not have a gay in their books (I’ll forgive Erastes because she’s writing m/m romance), but there’s something horribly tokenistic about this parade of brand new, card carrying poofters. I’d better refine that slightly. It’s not that they are there to be token gays, but there is something about their homosexuality that feels tokenistic.

Take Royston and Hal. I seriously have no idea why these two are together. I mean, I know the principle – Royston is cynical and depressed after the unfortunate crown-prince-bumming-incident and is attracted to Hal’s gentleness and innocence, and Hal is desperate for knowledge of the world and somebody to be interested in him. It’s a typical innocent youth / man of the world pairing but it’s utterly utterly hollow. It’s all fluff, cuddles and celibacy. I’m not saying I want hot man-on-man action every other page, or even at all, but I felt no genuine sense of individual connection between them. It was more sort “hey, you have a cock, I like cocks, maybe we should think about having a relationship.” Also I don’t mean to be vulgar but the constant deferral of sexual gratification struck me as a bizarre way to endorse the merit of their relationship. It was like the authors were elevating one form of homosexuality (the pretty, celibate kind) above another (one that actually involves two men fucking each other).

Take this description of Hal, from Royston’s point of view:

I didn’t know who’d moved first to make it so, but quite suddenly he was tucked in close against my chest, warm and impossibly soft. Everything important about Hal was softness, I decided, his hair and his mouth, the sweet curve of his jaw, and the way it fit neatly into my palm.

What the hell?! Now, I’m no expert on what gay men think about the men they find attractive, but, seriously, soft? Soft?! To describe another man? I’m kind of assuming here that gay men fancy other men for pretty much the same reasons women fancy men … and, let me tell you, when I’m cuddling a man, or a kissing a man, I’m not thinking “gosh, isn’t he lovely and soft.” I’m not demanding chiselled and rippling masculinity here but there’s no way around the fact that ‘soft’ is a terrible word to use in conjunction with a man, especially if you are one. And, again, there’s something so flaccid and de-eroticised about the whole scene. For heaven’s sake ladies. Homosexuality is not an aesthetic.

It’s possible that I’m just too used to romances, heterosexual and homosexual, and therefore emotionally limp, sexually uninspiring and generally badly done romance arcs irritate me more than they should. But it doesn’t help that Hal is as wet as Fort William. He does occasionally make things happen, but mainly by crying at them. Weirdly, I do think I’d have found Hal less offensive if he’d been a woman. Not, I hasten to add, because I believe crying at things is more acceptable if you’re female, but because the “quiet governess / cynical lord” is a romance trope with hundreds of years of associations behind it, hopefully lending it some resonance even if the depiction of it is rather lacking. Pathetic guy and slightly less pathetic guy, not so much.

Furthermore, Havemercy suffers from an equally unsuccessful depiction of homophobia. The prevailing view of homosexuality is not really established – it seems to lie, rather like the present day in the real world, somewhere between widely accepted and generally reviled. Royston is exiled for his shenanigans with the Crown Prince, indicating a certain degree of political discomfort and there’s an amount of social sneering directed at him for his predilections. However, the only people who are openly homophobic are those we are supposed to view as ignorant (Rook) and/or repugnant (Royston’s brother’s wife). This leads to a peculiar implied social structure in which homosexuality is not completely approved but only evil people are homophobic. This is turn elevates homophobia to being basically morally equivalent to murder. Thank you self-consciously liberal, queer-positive fandom. Thank you. Ultimately, there is no denying that homophobia, sexism and racism are bad but there are plenty of perfectly nice, perfectly moral people out there who just happen to be, ‘a little bit racist’. As I think we’ve argued here at Fb on many an occasion, you do not get ‘isms’ by people waking up the morning and deciding to be prejudiced today. Again, I’m not saying the novel should have had more homophobia in it, I just think it should have more bollocks. And, regardless, it’s pretty irresponsible of Royston to “out” poor Hal (who, as we have already established is a basically homo-convenient) in a society that may judge him harshly for his sexuality.

Whedonesque

And I mean that as an insult. Again, massive, honking spoilers incoming. So, at the end of the novel they realise they can probably deal with the magic illness that is affecting Royston and the other magicians, and driving the dragons made, by taking out the magicians who cast the spell. Conveniently these magicians are standing around like NPCs in a big blue tower in the middle of the Ke-Han capital. So the dragon corp get on their now batshit dragons in a desperate attempt to tkill the magicians, save themselves and save the world. All the dragons and nearly all the dragon corp are killed. Except Rook, the one who might be gay, and the non-homophobic one, of course. In some respects, the fact I was genuinely shocked and upset by this says positive things about Jones’ and Bennett’s writing. On the other hand, it’s also a shot so fucking cheap it’s worthy of Mr Whedon himself. Kill Tara why don’t you. Kill Wash. But keep your main characters miraculously isolated from the slightest ill fortune as if the Almighty Plot Angel itself was watching over them.

Conclusion

I guess I’d better stop bitching and wrap this up. For all my criticisms, and let’s face it, there were many, I did kind of enjoy Havemercy, in spite of myself. It has some good ideas, even if they are somewhat buried beneath the layers of adolescent characterisation and gay-fetishisation.Themes:

Books

Sci-fi / Fantasy

Minority Warrior

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http://ruderetum.blogspot.com/

at 13:02 on 2009-09-17There seems to be an infestation of dragon riding books right about now, with all of these Eragon's and Temeraire's and what not. Personally, I've never really cared for that idea, especially if the dragons are supposed to be intelligent. In Harry Turtledove's Darkness series and George R. R. Martin's The Ice Dragon(at least in the short story) the dragons are not terribly intelligent or are quite alien (respectively). But in these other books the dragons are supposed to have personalities and to be intelligent.

So we have a large awesome magical beast which is awesome in its own right and then we have some whiny humans who control them. What! I mean, dragons can be good and all but the idea of an intelligent awesome creature being controlled consensually by some puny and usually whiny humans is not acceptable to me. Dragons might give the occasional lift to a human, but they are not horses people!

In other words some jerk using a dragon as a weapon and that dragon just getting along with the idea reduces their awesomeness into mere attributes to make the human characters cooler.

My other point concerns the high amounts af angst which seems to infest the genre as well. It connects to the point about this books' take on homophobia and in general coming out stories and such like. Now, it is clearly meant to make some aesop about how homophobia or such like things are bad, but if we have characters who are only defined by their narcissistic whining and their utterly frustrating behaviour because of this, we have a problem. The problem being that they are uninterestin characters.

I mean if the character being portrayed isn't a teenager(and an angst ridden teenager is a horrible cliche in itself) or clinically depressed then it just doesn't make any sense. It is strange that reading the Maus comic book for example contains very small amounts of angst from the main characters, even when they're put in Auschwitch for god's sake and on the other hand we have fictional "heroes" who can't do anything because things are so frigging bleak. I'm looking at you Mr. Potter.

End rant.

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Arthur B

at 13:51 on 2009-09-17

So we have a large awesome magical beast which is awesome in its own right and then we have some whiny humans who control them. What!

I do find this a bit jarring myself, and it only gets more jarring the more independently intelligent the dragons get. I seem to recall in the

Pern

books it kind of makes sense because the dragons aren't smart enough to just be told "go and destroy those space threads", they need telepathically linked human riders to steer them right. But if you've got dragons who are massive, powerful, and smart enough to follow a mission briefing and understand what they need to go do, one does begin to wonder what the point of having someone riding them is in the first place. Why stick a squishy vulnerable person atop a powerful war machine when the war machine is perfectly capable of doing the job itself? What on earth does the rider bring to the fight which the dragon doesn't bring in spades?

Which isn't to say that

Havemercy

doesn't have an answer to that - Kyra doesn't mention either way - but it is something people should probably think about when they're writing this sort of thing.

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http://ruderetum.blogspot.com/

at 14:26 on 2009-09-17The use of dragons as war machines and comparing them to bombers and fighters should really be examined and justified more completely if it appears that these 'machines' have real intelligence. I believe Michael Swanwicks' The Iron Dragons Daughter is one of the greatest successes when it comes to making this kind of thing work. The dragons are gigantic warmachines whose intelligence is like a magical artificial intelligence filled with hate, because they're war machines. So they need to be controlled by pilots or they would try to destroy everything. So there's actually a reason for the control. It's so sad that some pure badass creature would take orders from some squishy apes without being fordced to.

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Dan H

at 18:47 on 2009-09-17I'm with Arthur on this one. It's not that I find it degrading for dragons to have riders (I find it a little hard to get het up about the dignity of fictional beings, and I don't actually have a problem with the whole "bond between dragon and rider" thing) it's just that in a military context it makes no sense at all. It's like insisting that all of your soldiers go into battle with a small child on their back.

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Rami

at 19:00 on 2009-09-17Wow. Magical steampunk dragons. I really can't see how you could go wrong with that. Maybe you could have them run out of coal mid-flight and have the riders necessary as stokers, or something.

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http://ruderetum.blogspot.com/

at 20:15 on 2009-09-17Well, truth be told, I'm not much of a torch bearer for fictional beings' rights myself. I just get bugged about stuff and too often the cool image of dragons is just a cheap way of giving the central character(s) a cool accessory.

In this case, the dragons being mechanical, I suppose it's not really important. The cover blurp is incorrect though, steampunk magic dragons can be found in The Iron Dragons Daughter, which I mentioned before. It's a great idea though anyways.

Actually Dan, judging from your own writings that book by Swanwicks' could suit you. It's been described as an anti-fantasy and is its authors reaction to run-of-the mill trilogies and such. Plus it's a changeling story, with a magical society run by amoral elves, which is pure cutthroat capitalism and rule of the strong.

An example is that when a citys' and its universitys' costs and population gets too high, they(it's emblematic of the story that who they are is left intentionally unclear) initiate a Tenism, which means that in carnivalistic time of chaos one tenth of the population is handily destroyed. The strong and the rich are supposed to survive. Well, it's at least different I suppose.

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http://miss-morland.livejournal.com/

at 15:55 on 2009-09-18

Everything important about Hal was softness, I decided, his hair and his mouth, the sweet curve of his jaw, and the way it fit neatly into my palm.

Blergh. This is the sort of weirdness you'll find in a lot of slash fanfic, and which contributes to giving the genre as a whole a bad reputation. I'm so glad I've never bothered to read The Shoebox Project...

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Wardog

at 16:26 on 2009-09-18

Blergh

Thank you. I read that description and I felt exactly the same way. But I thought perhaps too much hypermasculinity had warped my sense of romance. I feel vindicated in my blergh now.

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Arthur B

at 18:45 on 2009-09-18The jaw bit seems particularly weird. Jawbones are not, by and large, especially soft, and jaws by extension tend not to be soft unless they have a fair amount of padding. Heck, I'm a fat bastard and I still don't have enough fat in my face that you could really describe my jaw as soft to the touch.

The mental images conjured are bizarre. Either Hal has some sort of horrible bone-melting disease and has to eat through a straw, or he's an extremely chubby guy whose jowly jaws and double chin fit neatly into Royston's hand.

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http://miss-morland.livejournal.com/

at 19:20 on 2009-09-18

he's an extremely chubby guy whose jowly jaws and double chin fit neatly into Royston's hand.

Lol! What a romantic image. :-D

But really -- I don't mean to sound condescending or anything, but I do wonder a little how much these authors actually know about the male physique, because realistically I'd expect there to be some stubble, at least. Not all this 'softness'. But perhaps gay men don't have facial hair? *eyeroll*

In fact, I get the impression they think gay men are completely different from straight men, both mentally and physically, which I find offensive -- it's not so much that I have a problem with male characters crying; it's rather that I have a problem with male

gay

characters crying, because I'm 100 % certain the author wouldn't portray a straight male character that way.

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http://miss-morland.livejournal.com/

at 19:46 on 2009-09-18Oh, and I should add that I haven't read

Havemercy

, I'm just speaking about bad slashfic in general.

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Dan H

at 21:27 on 2009-09-18The "gay man = woman" (or possibly "alien") thing is particularly disquieting, if only for its popularity amongst people who would never in a million years think of themselves as homophobes.

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Arthur B

at 22:45 on 2009-09-18We have people riding dragons, we have weird attitudes towards homosexuality... I don't think there's ever going to be a better time to cough and note that

Anne McCaffrey

has some interesting ideas about tent pegs.

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http://descrime.livejournal.com/

at 03:05 on 2009-09-19My impression of slash fanfiction is that there are two kinds of slash writers: writers whose characters like they like to write about just happen to be guys, and writers whose characters they like to write about happen to be guys because they hate writing women. I once took part in an online discussion where women seriously complained that it wasn't their fault they just wrote women completely out of their stories, it was simply too hard to write female characters. And they saw nothing wrong with this. From this review (I haven't read the book), it seems these authors fall in the latter category.

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Viorica

at 05:16 on 2009-09-19I think it's also a form of emotional porn/Mary Sue syndrome. There's a reason fangirls swoon over angst.

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Dan H

at 20:36 on 2009-09-20It's one of those difficult situations where you *almost* have to stand up and say "well fair play to them then". I mean it seems that what you've got here are a couple of girls who are mostly interested in pretty men angsting about stuff and who write exactly that. You've almost got to admire the honesty.

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Wardog

at 23:12 on 2009-09-20@Dan - Yeah, I know what you mean about the honesty. But ultimately I think I'd be kicking up a fuss if a male writer did it so I feel morally obliged to kick up a fuss if female writers do :)

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Arthur B

at 01:58 on 2009-09-21I think the difficulty is the inclusion of the homophobia angle; by introducing what is essentially a RL issue into their story about pretty unthreatening men having pretty unthreatening relationships, they are kind of inviting people to compare said pretty unthreatening homosexuals to actual flesh and blood homosexuals. And asking the reader to compare your fantasies to reality is not a game that ever ends well.

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http://roisindubh211.livejournal.com/

at 02:07 on 2009-09-28I actually find it odd that they did such a silly job with the romance in this, because they wrote much more believable boys in the Shoebox project:

Sirius makes a noise that's kind of a laugh and kind of a groan and then presses his lips against Remus' without any warning. Or with ample warning that Remus is only just now beginning to decode. He hasn't shaved and his hands are sweaty and there are teeth in there, and it is not much at all like kissing Lily except that kisses, Remus has learned, are wet, nervous, compelling, terrifying things. He makes a sound. Sirius jerks away. "Let's never mention this again," Sirius decides out loud, leaping to his feet, as if he's been electrocuted. "Shall we?" "Uh," Remus says.

I'm wondering now how much of the quality in the Project has to do with the pre-existing characters.

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Dan H

at 10:36 on 2009-09-28I'd imagine pre-existing characters are a big part of it. It takes pretty much no effort at all to make a relationship between two characters convincing if everybody is *already* convinced those two characters are at it doggy-style.

There's very little, for example, in the passage you quote that tells us why these two people are attracted to each other beyond the fact that they're Remus Lupin and Sirius Black.

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Arthur B

at 16:39 on 2009-09-28This would, in fact, seem to one of the dangers inherent in using fanfiction to develop your writing talents: because someone else has done all the heavy lifting of establishing the characters for you, there's far less need to actually develop your skills on that front.

It's slightly less true of setting, because you get weird alternate universe fanfics which play merry hell with the setting - or indeed ditch it entirely and populate an entirely new world with the same characters - but the fanfic scene does seem to be all about the familiar characters. Even when the occasional original character creeps in, it's considered bad form (and indeed textbook Mary Sueism) to let them upstage the established characters, and you don't see many people writing alternate universe fanfic where the setting is the same but all the characters are different.

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Dan H

at 18:48 on 2009-09-28To be fair to fandom, there's a sense in which working with pre-existing characters can actually help sharpen your mad characterization skillz. You can talk about "voice" all you like, but in the end one of the best ways to really understand how the whole thing works is to look at something and say "yes, but would Severus Snape really *say* that?"

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Arthur B

at 19:17 on 2009-09-28It can help there, sure, but that sort of exercise does nothing to help you establish "Who is this Snape person?" in the first place, which is the aspect I think people can neglect. As you point out, you can get away with not explaining who Snape is in fanfic, you can't get away with not explaining who Royston is if you're introducing him to people for the very first time.

Essentially, it can help you understand voice, and how to write in particular voices, but those skills are at best ancillary to the skill of coming up with distinctive voices for your characters in the first place. Hence Cassie Cla(i)re and the mysteriously Malfoylike qualities of certain of her characters.

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http://roisindubh211.livejournal.com/

at 01:53 on 2009-09-29They do make them believably attracted to each other throughout the Project, I just chose that segment to contrast with the "Hal is so soft and delicate" bits from Havemercy. I think they would have done better to write about teenage boys in a "semirealistic" setting (I can't believe I just called the Potterverse semirealistic- I guess I mean contemporary with or without magic tacked on).

They do a good job with characters we don't really see in the books -Pettigrew, for instance- you almost get why he'd fall in with the DE crowd and his motivations there- and also they manage to write James as a

likable

jerk, which is not the easiest thing to pull off.

Mostly, I mean that they can write boys who are goofy and dorky and shy and pull pranks on each other, and who like each other, without getting taken over by teh gay like poor Hal (and, to be honest, a hell of a lot of slash fanfic)

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Wardog

at 12:22 on 2009-10-05I just wanted to say, I like the bit you quoted and I see why you quoted it. I think the fandom/not-fandom thing is, for this, largely irrelevant - the point is it shows them having something like a clue. I can only presume they threw said clue out of the window when they came to write Havemercy. I don't know how could they could from this quite harsh, quite 'realistic' depication of a clumsy boykiss to soft melting girly Hal.

Seriously, ladies, what the hell happened to you?

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valse de la lune

at 12:26 on 2011-12-08Necroing this to note: the things you've said about slash and fandom here would have gotten you absolutely

eviscerated

in some circles and, probably, called a raging misogynist or something. Slash fandom has become this weird sacred cow thing to some social-justice types. It's bizarre and also reminds me that, in my flailing desperation to seek out more lesbian representation, all the attention is always given to the hot gay boys--consider the Rachel Manija Brown thing and the "say yes to gay in YA." All of which always made me comfortable too because, uhm, we're still raising a big giant fuss about a couple of straight white ladies who wrote this gay Asian--Japanese?--boy. Wow gosh, they are so brave! Deepa D.

expressed her misgivings

better than I could. tl;dr even if I don't think much of her writing on a technical level, Malinda Lo's Asian lesbian girls > this crap by an order of magnitude of fifty thousand.

but there’s something horribly tokenistic about this parade of brand new, card carrying poofters. I’d better refine that slightly. It’s not that they are there to be token gays, but there is something about their homosexuality that feels tokenistic.

That seems to be a thing which plagues pretty much all former HP fanfic authors who "graduated" to writing YA. And, well, there's probably a reason the YA reader/writer subset is so strangely insular and so very, very like fandom.

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Wardog

at 14:39 on 2011-12-10Yes, I'm slightly more aware of the discussions / context of the role of homosexuality in fandom these days so I might express myself a little better ... but I do kind of stand by my comments. And although I'd rather people didn't come and bite my face off and make me sad ... well ... yeah. It's just everything about the portrayal of a gay relationship in Havemercy brings me out in HIVES.

As I'm sure we've discussed before I have no problems with people getting off on hot (potentially not very dudely) guys sexing each other up - but when you claim that's *representation* then it's *appropriative*.

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valse de la lune

at 18:09 on 2011-12-12No, I agree with you and don't mean to bite your face off by any means!

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Wardog

at 18:45 on 2011-12-12Hehe, not you! I meant an angry fandom complaining about me impugning them :)

#Ferretbrain #Havemercy #Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett #Joss Whedon #Harry Potter #Fanfiction #Wardog #Minority Warrior

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bangtan-spells · 7 years

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Hoseok Scenario: The Magic Of Us.

Request: hey babies!! 🎀♡ can you do a super duper fluffy and romantic scenario with hoseok where you guys went on vacation to disneyland and its so couple goals and stuff? i love u girls 💌💭

Genre: Fluff.

This was your dream vacation, ever since you were a child you had dreamed of visiting Disney World, so going there with your boyfriend took that dream to another level, you had planned this together and taken note of the things you wanted to do the most, so when you stepped into the Magic Kingdom you already knew your first stop.

You were jumping like a little girl when you saw the inside of The Chapeau, with all the pretty hats and accessories of every disney character, you wanted everything, you knew you were going to be like this, in every single store you’d want everything since you loved disney so much, but you knew you couldn’t buy all you wanted so your eyes went to the couple shelves, where couple hats and items were aligned, this was perfect for you and Hoseok and you knew you didn’t need to beg your boyfriend to wear something like that because he loved disney just as much as you did.

-Jagiya, oh my god, let’s buy the Mickey ones- Hoseok was now the one dragging you to said hats. He grabbed the Minnie one and put it on top of your head smiling when he saw you, you giggled grabbing the Mickey one, getting on your tip toes to be able to put it on him and arrange his hair a little.

-How do I look?- both of you asked at the same time making you laugh.

-Great- he said as you walked to a full size mirror, you made funny faces in front of it and then saw that you could get a monogram on the back. So you decided to get the date of that day to remember it as it was such a special occasion for both of you. You only had to wait for a short time and then the hats were given back to you, so you took the chance of taking the first selfie of the day.

-There you go - Hoseok said, fixing your brand new Minnie hat properly on your head while you giggled, then you helped him with his and you were set. You took the first pic with Hoseok’s phone while smiling at the camera and standing close to each other, then snapped a few more while doing different expressions, but you also wanted to get one of the date at the back of your hats so you asked help from one of the workers and so you posed with your backs facing the camera, Hoseok’s arm behind your back and your head resting on his shoulder. The photos came out perfectly.

You stayed at The Chapeau for a little longer picking up more goodies and you made sure to get complimentary matching buttons as well which read “Mr. Mickey” and “Mrs. Minnie” on each. Both of you were having a blast and this was just the beginning, to think that you were practically still at the entrance of Magic Kingdom and you had still lots of things to discover made you feel ecstatic.

Hoseok held onto your hand, you were a perfectly looking couple and everybody was going to know that even looking at your from afar, so you laughed at each other and walked ahead to continue with the trip.

You started walking, not entirely following the map, just wandering to whatever place caught your eyes, you had bought the photo pass so you were with your eyes opened at the places where you could get photographed, of course you were looking forward to be photographed in front of the Cinderella Castle, because what could say disney more than that? It was a classic and you were decided to have that photo taken with Hoseok.

The frontal view of the castle passing the main street was amazing and you squealed a little louder as you were getting closer.

-Pose for a picture Jagi-

-But we are going to have the picture taken-

-But I want one for myself, pose-

You did so smiling like a little girl and Hoseok took all the pictures he wanted. Then you walked and waited a little bit to be able to take the photo, you were feeling a little nervous, you guessed it was just the excitement of the moment, you had kissed Hoseok more than a hundred times but this time felt crucial, like you had to do it right no matter what.

The photographer indicated you the best place to stand and when you met Hoseok’s eyes both of you broke into a fit of laughter.

-God, this feels like a wedding kiss or something like that-

-Like we haven’t had enough practice-

He laughed getting closer to you, embracing you delicately as he leaned down gracefully, like a prince of sorts, you wondered if Hoseok had practiced this by himself.

-Should I do it like this?-

-You are perfect- you affirmed pecking him.

The photographer was waiting for you to tell him when you were ready and when you did Hoseok leaned down again the same way, kissing you softly as you inevitable smiled into the kiss.

Hoseok and you made your way to Fantasy Land when some of the most famous attractions were located, and when a particular one came to your sight you dragged Hoseok there.

-It’s the mad tea party! Oh my god Hoseok I can’t believe it! we are going to feel like we are in wonderland, like I’m Alice and you’re The Mad Hatter-

-I wonder if that spins too much though, you know these things can be dangerous-

You laughed. -Look at all the kids in the line, come on babe! This will be fun-

Hoseok smiled unsurely but went ahead because it was true, there were a lot of kids around and if this was safe for kids then it was safe for him.

The line was not that long and it moved fast so you were inside your cup in no time. You were thrilled to be inside one of disney’s famous cups.

-How amazing is this?- you smiled looking around.

-This is pretty amazing I must say- Hoseok agreed. The ride started and you laughed and laughed, Hoseok enjoyed it more than he thought as it was more of a fun light ride than anything else but still made you happy. You made a little snap there with all the cups spinning around you.

You kept walking encountering with disney characters everywhere, you took pictures with everyone or at least with all the ones you could since sometimes the line for pictures was too long and you wanted to visit everything.

You went from Mickey’s Toontown to Tomorrowland, you went around marveling at everything and then you turned to Hoseok and did puppy eyes at him as you were close to one of the big rides of the park, the Space Mountain.

-Please-

-I don’t know Jagi-

-Please Hobi, we are here, we must!- He stared at the big white structure and then at you. -Nothing will happen, and this will be really good memory for us, please?-

-Well, since we are here and you want this so much and since I am such a good boyfriend I’ll oblige, but you had to repay Y/N-

You curled your arms around his neck and kissed him. -Of course I will-

Hoseok was actually a bit relieved the ride was indoors, but he still was a bit nervous about what to expect from it since it said it was a thrill ride. For this one the wait was longer, so you made use of the fast pass you had bought for rides like this one, you just had to wait a little bit and in the next round you were up. This was one of your favorites for sure, you screamed and laughed at the same time, hearing Hoseok also screaming beside you. So at the end the ride was worth it, Hoseok’s heart was racing but you could tell he hadn’t hated it.

You wandered a bit more around Tomorrowland and then went back to Main Street where you had seen a place in which you were definitely going to eat. How could you not eat at Tony’s?

-We are finally at Tony’s this is will be our famous dinner-

-This is going to be epic-

You sat and of course you ordered spaghetti for two, the same way the lady and the tramp had done in the movie. You were really close to Hoseok and you laughed while eating and slurping on the same strand of spaghetti. You looked at each other like asking if you should, and of course you should, so you got closer and closer until your lips were touching, giggling you pulled apart feeling silly but happier than ever with this man.

After Tony’s you went for a sweet treat you ordered a sink of ice cream for the two of you, you rested while you ate that watching some of the snaps you had made throughout the day.

It was all charging batteries to attend the parade that was about to start, so you headed to the central plaza viewing area to enjoy of the experience, your cameras ready to snap some pretty moments. The ambiance was filled with energy as the music sounded and the park seemed livelier then, it was beautiful to see all the famous characters in one place, all the dancing and special performances made just to entertain the visitors and keep the magic running.

You spent the rest of the day going around all the areas of the park, taking pictures with your pass, you went to the other side of the park, to Liberty Square, Frontierland and Adventureland, honestly time wasn’t enough when you were in a place like disney.

Night came and you were starting to feel a bit tired, besides you had made plans to watch the fireworks show, it was in the Tomorrowland area, it was named the Wishes Dessert Party, how could you miss that? Impossible, so you rushed there to get a nice spot to watch.

It was the best way to conclude this amazing day with Hoseok, both of you had felt like children in the park but also you had enjoyed a lot of each other, doing couple things and it was the most romantic activity of your day.

You were escorted to the Plaza Garden from where you were going to watch the show. The way they did the firework show was just like in the movies, all the colors shinning brightly in the night sky amazing all the eyes that were watching, including Hoseok’s and yours. He hugged you to his body and whispered how much he loved you, with such a magical sight you felt like you were in a movie.

-I love you too, I loved this here-

-Me too- Hoseok sighed dreamily. -Should we come back tomorrow?-

You smiled mischievously and nodded. -Definitely-

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doycetopia · 7 years

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Dungeon World Character Creation Thread

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We’re starting up a mini-campaign of Dungeon World, with most of the conversation taking place in a single private Google+ conversation thread.

But it was too good, so I’m saving most of it here for posterity.

Okay, I think the plan I’m going to go with is running a Dungeon World thing, followed by a Masks thing. (I’m especially jazzed about Masks since I just got a new packet of playbooks from the Kickstarter yesterday, but patience…)

SO, here’s the particulars.

The Roll20 page is [link redacted] – you can jump in there and open a character sheet and put in stats and moves as you like, if you’re super motivated. (Mike, your Artificer is in there already.)

Dungeon World is baaaasically a PBTA take on classic DnD, so the standard DnD classes are there: Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, et cetera, and you can dig into alternate playbooks if you want to go the Basic DnD route of “Dwarf is a character class” or whatever. The System Resource document has all the basic classes, but seriously if you have some kind of fantasy trope you want to play, ask, because it probably exists out there somewhere.

Once I know what people are playing, I will hit you with personality and background questions.

The tone of the game will be fantasy closer to White Dwarf and Heavy Metal magazine covers than The Hobbit. Magic is powerful, weird, and dangerous.

We’ll be using Flags instead of Bonds, so ignore Bonds in the rules.

That’s about everything I can think of right now.

Yay! Glad to finally be back to Dungeon World and interested in how Flags play out. Might I also suggest this document.

Oh I like those! Good stuff!

Basically, unless you’re a bard or some other highly social character (some priests might qualify), pick or design two flags for people to hit. If you’re super-social, three.

BTW Doyce, are we still going to be doing the thing with the timeloop where my artificer remembers what happened that you’d mentioned in the previous thread, or are we doing something else? Will probably help me determine my Flags.

What do you think? I was thinking something like you suddenly find yourself riding a horse on the way to Frostberry at the base of the mountain, with these people you know, but also with that other set of very vivid (but fading?) “memories”… it would tie into your experiments in the cabin pretty well.

Or you could play someone else and your other guy can be a backup character following someone’s gruesome death.

Actually, Mike, I was looking over my notes from that other session, and guess what? During the lead-in questions, we found out that group was actually the SECOND group you were heading to the mountain with – the first group was wiped out before you ever got to the mountain.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BE TRYING TO REACH THE PEAK?

(~Ash tries to play it cool as he relives a hellish groundhog day scenario for the 113th time…~)

I’d forgotten all about that. Man, Ash really shouldn’t have played with that clock… every single time.

I kind of like the idea of Ash just flashing back to town, with a brand new group of adventurers ready to head up to the Mountain. “Gods below, why is it always a new group of people? Why do the memories always end when we get to the door? Why is it always the same day but everything is different? Maybe things will turn out differently this time…”

I love this, so much.

Also of use: the dungeonworldsrd.com site has a section just on Character Creation – nice, since the actual character class pages don’t cover things like “what stat numbers you get.”

I’ve been re-reading the Flags article Doyce originally linked to at http://walkingmind.evilhat.com – From Bonds to Flags.

(Saying this aloud to be sure I get the idea): a Flag is a Significant Personality Trait, with how others can tap it to demonstrate it (both trait and tap being something that makes the game interesting) and so earn them an XP.

I would say the label of a flag is usually expressed as a personality trait, although the actual flag itself is the action that somebody takes to point at that personality trait

To go down a little bit further, it’s not just a personality trait that your character has, it’s an aspect of your character that you think will be FUN to see called out fairly regularly in play. People are going to be getting Xp rewards for hitting this thing, so they’re going to want to hit it. if you don’t want to see it… actually I’m going to say that if you don’t think you’ll enjoy seeing it repeatedly, pick something else.

(As a side note, and not to discourage anyone, but bearing in mind that this is meant to be a short campaign, it may not be necessary to boil the ocean to create our characters. Though I’ll confess I have several paragraphs of backstory already written …)

He’s going to feel so silly when he dies in the first room.

No worries, I can run an immediate sequel campaign using Wraith: the Oblivion.

Is there a mechanical reason to put the Flags in the Roll20 Bio page, vs. putting them in on the main character sheet as if they were Bonds?

(We’ll probably want to gather all of those into a convenient document, since we need to know each other’s Flags more than our own.)

The bio page is the only page that other people can see, other than the people who can actually edit the character sheet. So you can see the part of the sheet with all the stats and numbers and moves, but somebody else looking at your sheet can only see that bio page. So if I wanted to see what flags to hit on your character, I can click on your character sheet and see those flags on the front page, but I won’t be able to see them if they’re inside your character sheet, and even if I could see them in the character sheet they’re a lot harder to find in there.

Basically I would put them in both places, but I’m weird like that.

Put another way: The bio page is basically for everything you want other people to see and know about your character

Poifect, thanks.

Did anyone else figure out what they are playing?

Dave’s got a bard, Mike is doing his Artificer, Kay is I think gravitating toward a Ranger or Fighter. I don’t know about Margie yet, and my personal experience with her character choices, while extensive, isn’t deep enough to let me guess.

I do know that she’s usually as willing as you are to fill a needed gap, so you need not wait.

Right now, the ‘gaps’ are primarily thief- and fighter- or cleric-shaped, I think?

That said, it’s three sort of hybrid classes so far, so more dual-mode stuff (an unclassed ‘elf’ or ‘dwarf’ or something, for example) also works.

Knowledge/lore stuff can be covered by both the Artificer and Bard, but don’t let that rule out a Cleric or proper spell-caster.

I mean, really, I’d say go for whatever type of play most appeals to you – if you guys don’t end up with a bend-bars/lift gates or lockpick person, you’ll have to work the problems another way.

I shall sing to the iron bars and they shall part to let me pass!

Or … most likely not.

My favorite part about the alternate Bard playbook is that it’s specifically designed to remove the ‘singing with a lute in the middle of a fight’ stuff.

Okay, stock Thief is statted in Roll20.

I will noodge the kinfolk.

Bill, you say “stock thief” but the image makes me think of a very specific thief who wants my HP or my GP. 😉

I’m not picky.

“Cowardly: Put us in situations I can justly complain about.”

Well, there’s everyone XP fountain for the game.

PERFECT.

Hey, Ash and Basler can complain about everything together! 😀

Actually just noticed that they both have the same flag, just named slightly different; I found mine under the Lawful header, but I figured I’d rename it for something more character appropriate.

Hmm. Yeah, that duplicate flag might be troublesome. Something to ponder. Hmm…

Oh I don’t know Doyce, that just means that Ash and Basler will want different things to complain about. Can’t speak for Bill, but from the Cowardly tag it sounds like he wants Basler to complain about being put into dangerous situations that he doesn’t want that he can complain about. “Hey Basler, this hallway looks suspicious. Mind taking a look?” “Oh, I don’t know…”

I see Ash’s more of seeing other people in danger and after helping them, complaining about being put upon to help. (just making some assumptions here…) Eduard: “Oh no, I’m being beset on all sides! Someone help me!” Ash: disgusted noise “I swear, if I wasn’t around to pull your butts out of the fire.”

Sure it’s a slight distinction, but I can see it being quiet different in play. Sort of an internal vs. external dynamic, if that makes sense.

I am 100% on board if you guys are.

Kay has given you all a marvelous gift for this campaign.

“Go fight that demon! This talisman will protect you.”

By the time that PC dies, the rest of us will have leveled up enough to beat it.

Actual conversation I had with kay on Roll20 tonight:

“Seriously, can I trust the thief?”

GM looks at your ‘Gullible’ flag.

“Absolutely.”

This whole thread is a national treasure.

Just checked out all the characters on the Roll20 page and I must say I’m very excited for tonight’s game.

Yeah, thank goodness this is just a one-off adventure, otherwise folk might have put real effort into devising interesting characters …

If you guys don’t end up destroying the world, I will keep them around for additional Adventures.

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nettvnow-blog · 7 years

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Annie Howard & Betsy Lippitt | Detox

Ever felt like you needed a cleanse from whatever negativity invading your life? Well so did co-creators of Detox, Betsy Lippitt and Annie Howard. After launching an impressive Indiegogo campaign, the writing duo have raised over $15,000 with just two days left to meet their goal. Learn more about the LA web series, tips on crowdfunding and more.

netTVnow: I love the series’ playful attitude and it isn’t afraid to poke fun at trends like juicing. Where did the idea for the series come for?

Betsy Lippitt: I was driving home late one night and heard an interview with the author of the book Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything? It made me laugh at first, but then I got this sinking feeling I’ve been totally wrong about what my happiness looks like. I’ve always had this GOOPY vision of being happy riding a bicycle down a country lane with a basket full of flowers and freshly picked fruit. It’s this very visceral fantasy of a clean, simple, happy life. I’d been thinking that I had to strip all the complicated parts of my life down to find happiness. Purge my closets. Eat clean. Wear minimal make-up. Like this desperate search for happiness through minimalism. But life is actually pretty messy sometimes. Why can’t my messy side be fun and funny and bring me happiness? All this to say, I started thinking about this as a larger theme of what women today are dealing with. And we do some really funny shit thinking it’ll be “the thing” that’ll finally bring us peace. The series is really playful and fun and silly, but also digs into what women are up against in their lives. When I shared my thoughts with Annie, she was like yes! And we dove into writing.

Annie Howard: Betsy is always coming up with great ideas and together as a writing team we develop projects into places I can’t go on my own as a writer. Our joined philosophy from all our projects come from highly character driven narratives, which as actors we find the most compelling type of story-telling, where the characters, however flawed are always trying to do the best they can, which routinely falls short of being good enough for those they are closest to.

NTN: Tell us more about each of your industry backgrounds. Have either of you worked in web series before? What did you like most about it?

BL: I’m a trained actor, having studying at NYU and the Moscow Art Theater. Mostly, I’ve done theater and new plays. A few years ago I moved to LA to pursue film and TV. I’ve made some great short films and projects in my time here, in addition to an episode of The Middle on ABC. I only recently started getting into web series. I love how anything goes in a web series - the genre, the format, the circumstances. Literally, anything can happen when telling stories on the internet and I find that so exciting

AH: I’ve never written a web series before, it’s a format I’ve snobbily shy-ed away from through my years as a writer. I’ve written countless pilots for television, many screenplays, and a few plays, one acts and features. The majority of these are dark, character-driven dramas, that follow highly flawed but ultimately lovable characters. All of my stories focus on a female protagonist because I think the things that make women tick are nuanced, diverse yet ultimately universal. I continue to hear advice from artists I respect who have “made it,” and they continuously encourage aspiring filmmakers to create their own content, so after enough rejection and reaching new levels desperation and tenacity, this snob caved.

NTN: What are you most looking forward to with bring Detox to life?

BL: Annie and I made a pact to be the kind of artists who don’t wait around, who make their dreams a reality. I can’t wait for the day when we get to sit back, watch the finished product, and be like wow. We kept our promise.

AH: Word.

NTN: What are both of your roles in the series?

BL * AH: We are both the co-creators, writers, producers, and stars of the series. We’re wearing every hat in our closet. It’s very GOOPY of us. It’s almost like we’re celebs creating a lifestyle brand and writing a book and designing a line of shoes. But for web series.

NTN: Can you describe your characters?

BL: I play Becca, a perfectionist who’s always gotten everything on her perfect timeline - entrance to a top law school, great career, loving husband, beautiful home. Now she wants a baby, but her uterus is not on board. Becca is fascinating because she’s very private. She doesn’t want people to know what’s going on with her so she has all these scenes where only she and the audience really know what’s going on with her. It’s a very intimate, realistic role that also has some really fun moments of breaking the tension with outrageous characters and situations

AH: I play Delia, a woman very near and dear to my heart, who has a relatively stable life, but is really lonely. She thinks her loneliness will be remedied by having a committed romantic partner so she puts all her energy into trying to manipulate and control that aspect of her life, while also trying to find ways to maintain a healthy sex life as a single, but adult and consenting woman. Of course, she suffers from deep intimacy issues and her real problem is that she doesn’t fully know, love or appreciate herself, which is the ultimate root of her seeking a solution outside herself. All of our answers come from within, but unfortunately Delia is completely blind to this.

NTN: In your campaign you mention that Becca’s character is going to go through issues conceiving, do you plan on exploring other sensitive topics of discussion in the series?

BL: Yes. The characters are real people dealing with normal human problems! Even though the series has a fun attitude and concept, we really don’t shy away from making it authentic.

NTN: Your funding campaign is impressive! What has that process been like for you?

BL: Whoosh. Lots of ups and downs. We started out with a bang. We were getting funding left and right and had so much momentum. Around the middle we started sweating because the contributions stopped rolling in. We hired this awesome dude, The Kickstarter Guy, who gave us really amazing tips, tricks, and coaching on how to maximize the last week of our campaign. And it’s working! We are really hopeful that we’ll reach our final goal.

AH: It’s been really not a great experience for me. I have a hard time being vulnerable with people I am tangentially close to. My close family and friends, no problem, and strangers are also really fun to be creatively vulnerable with, but it’s the Facebook level of intimacy people that I am terrified to expose my deepest desires to, which is of course to be a filmmaker with a relevant platform.

NTN: What are some tips you can give to other web series creators looking to fund their own series? What perks work best, what perks don’t?

BL & AH: Get a coach or a team member who has done this before. It’ll make all the difference. Also, do your research and plan out exactly what you’ll do & when for the entirety of the campaign. It sounds like a lot of work, and it is, but it’s way less than having to scramble during the campaign when you’re trying to do a million other things too. Perk-wise, don’t bother with a lot of physical swag like t-shirts or posters or whatever. Most normal people don’t actually care about that - they want an experience or access!

NTN: What do you like most about the web series community? What’s something you wish more people would know about web series?

AH & BL: Anything goes! It’s a scrappy, pull yourself up by the bootstraps kind of endeavor. We really admire people like Lucy Gillespie of Unicornland and Ben Sinclair & Katja Blichfeld of High Maintenance. They had amazing concepts and made something beautiful and real. Kate Berlant’s 555 on Vimeo is high quality, hilarious and quietly tragic. It’s inspiring to see people be the captains of their own destiny.

NTN: Any upcoming projects to share/anything else to add?

AH & BL :We have three more projects in development. We are currently reworking a series we’ve previously written, developing a new series, and re-writing a feature. We’re on a roll!

Follow Detox Facebook | Indiegogo | Twitter |

Follow Annie Howard Instagram |Twitter

Follow Betsy Lippitt Instagram | Twitter | Website

#Indiegogo #Annie Howard #Betsy Lippitt #Detox #High Maintenance #Unicornland #Ben Sinclair #Katia Blichfeld #Kate Berlant #555 #Lucy Gillespie

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scrawnydutchman · 7 years

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Why Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 1 is (currently) The Best Spider-Man Film

Thanks to the everlasting popularity and success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC following steadily in their footsteps by creating a cinematic universe of their own (though very haphhazardly), superheroes are arguably a more prominent piece of our culture then they ever were before. Characters that were so obscure only readers of the comics would know them are now household names among our new generation as more and more celebrities are hopping on the gravy train in hopes of taking part in the next box office blowout. But not too long ago was a time where there were only 3 heroes that even non fans knew pretty much the core essentials about, including their real identities, origin stories, rogues gallery and supporting characters. Those three heroes were Superman, Batman, and of course everybody’s favorite friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Premiering in Marvel’s Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1962, Spider-Man skyrocketed to popularity even in spite of some of Stan Lee’s cohorts adamantly protesting the idea of a teenage lead character with coming of age problems based on a “bug everyone hates”. But obviously the idea stuck and left a huge impact with audiences, primarily because he was a character who lead a life comics most prominent demographic at the time could relate to and whose superhero antics left real consequences on his regular life. He was a character who had something to lose for doing good, but did good anyway. That’s a level of drama Superman and Batman weren’t offering at the time and arguably still aren’t, and as a result for a long time Spidey was the 3rd highest grossing comic book franchise in the world until it was beaten by the manga phenomenon One Piece.

So naturally a character often put on the same pedestal as the other two greats has gone through his fair share of varying film adaptations; more then Superman, not quite as much as Batman. The Sam Raimi Spider-Man series was a box office and critical success for it’s first two releases but went downhill with the third movie nearly everyone agrees is a trainwreck clusterfuck of poor ideas (personally I think it’s only as silly as the previous 2 films with the exception of the following gif).

a short time after that we got the Sony reboot with The Amazing Spider-Man series which many critics have panned for it’s overly complicated story arcs, overtly goofy tone (because apparently people still don’t realize that goofy and Spider-Man sort of go hand in hand), and a Peter Parker who many deem far too cool and slick (because if there’s anything I want from my new adaptation, it’s the exact same depiction of a character I got years ago). The 2nd installment especially got some shit. But quite honestly I think these movies are passable. I went in asking for cool Web Slinging action with interesting visuals and teenager related problems and that’s what I got, and I’d even go as far as say the second film improved upon the first as it’s far more colorful and dynamic looking and it’s easier to make out what’s going on in the action scenes.

Eventually Sony handed the rights to Spider-Man back to Marvel after their runs critical panning, when the web slinger showed up in one of the cinematic trailers for Captain America: Civil War, naturally everyone lost their SHIT. It was probably the most talked about factor about the movie for quite some time and a major contributor to it’s success. Now we have a new Spidey movie on it’s way with Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Homecoming, about a young Peter Parker being taken under the wing of seasoned superhero Tony Stark/Iron Man and finding it within himself to be a competent and reliable hero. Based on the trailers I’ve seen the new adaptation looks pretty promising and I’m excited to see what new life Marvel has to breathe into the franchise now that they have their most precious baby back.

But until this movie comes along I have to wonder; what Spider-Man movie is the best? Which one best captures the spirit of the web slinger? which one has the best villain, the most memorable scenes, the best action? Many people would argue Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 is the best of the Spidey films, and while I agree that film is very entertaining, after giving it some thought … I’d have to say the first movie from 2002 is the best.

The number one reason I think the first Spider-Man movie is the best is because, quite simply, I think it comes the closest to getting Spider-Man. Most likely due to the fact that it follows his origin story more or less to a tee. Nerdy kid who everyone picks on in school goes on a class field trip to a science museum, gets bitten by radioactive spider, gets superpowers, uses them for personal gain, refuses to stop crook, crook kills uncle, spidey gets revenge only to discover had he just acted responsibly he could have saved his uncles life, from then on swearing nobody would ever pay that price for his lack of responsibility ever again. We get the absolute essentials, give or take the invention of web shooters. Nothing more. No cryptic bullshit about a conspiracy centered around Peter’s parents, no dancing around saying the phrase “with great power comes great responsibility”, we get the simple cut and dry story as it was meant to be told, and for the first time that this story be accessible to this wide an audience that’s precisely how you should do things.

From there on we hop into some goofy comic book inspired action and slapstick we’d want from our Spider-Man movie. The action in this film may not be as dynamic or crazy as the action in Spider-Man 2 and it certainly hasn’t aged as gracefully, but for it’s time period it was unlike anything we’ve ever seen before and in many ways still holds up. Not only that but I think the action in this film is superior thematically. There are real stakes whenever Green Goblin attacks, and it has great use of shadows and camera angles and music in it’s climax that really sticks out to me as an emotional and suspenseful ending to a film. Green Goblin is legitimately threatening in the film but also the right kind of goofy and hilarious. Compare that to it’s sequel where, the climax isn’t even the most memorable part of the film. the action sequence that happens in the MIDDLE of the movie is the one everybody remembers so fondly.

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Truthfully, I think what’s more important then having impressive visual effects is having timelessly iconic visuals, because while the former all too often fades in it’s appeal with time the latter lasts forever. I adore the climax of this movie because of it’s ups and downs in tone and atmosphere. it starts off dead quiet with no music accompaniment and every punch feels and sounds painful (the sound effects are especially great). Green Goblin is just absolutely wailing on Peter, whereas nothing Doc Ock ever did to him felt nearly as consequential. This goes for New Goblin, Sandman and Venom too. Overall, much like in the comics and other shows, the Goblin has proven to be more of a bane to Spideys existence then any other villain. He murdered his girlfriend, made his best friends life a living hell, and in this film after finding out Spideys identity he goes after everyone he loves with a vengeance. Really, Goblin just does everything the following villains ever did before it was cool. And unlike the villains afterward that were legitimately good people just caught in bad situations (or Venom who had such little screentime his motivation didn’t matter anyway) Goblin remained sinister the whole way through up until his demise. What’s more important then a realistic relatable character, is a motivated character, and often times the best villains are the ones who are just so unapologetically malicious. The Joker has such an appeal and so does the Goblin.

Overall, I just think this film is the tightest of the Spidey movies. It had the absolute essentials of what makes Spider-Man … Spider-Man. it has the origin story as it was meant to be told, it has the moral conflict of Peter Parker down, it has his love interest present and serviceable enough without contriving the main focus, it has a compelling villain, it has a perfectly cast selection of supporting characters (you will NEVER find a better J. Jonah Jameson then J.K. Simmons. Never. It’s just impossible. Forget about it.). It’s delightfully goofy just like a Spider-Man film should be. It tells it’s story without contrivances or undercooked subplots that serve no other purpose then to be material for sequel territory. It’s action scenes, while dated, convey tone and stakes and drama very well and have perfect action beats. It doesn’t rely on weird unexplained story arcs coming and going to illustrate a point (did we ever get an explanation as to why the hell Peter randomly lost his powers in the second movie and then got them back at just the right time?). It does everything it does at a time where it’s fresh and brand new, unlike it’s sequels that basically just tries to do that again (villain that has something that drives them to insanity, threatens safety of girlfriend, ends up killing themselves somehow so Spider-Man doesn’t have to. Oh, and the shoehorned American patriotism). It has a villain that has direct ties to Peter’s life since the beginning and leaves such an impact the seeds of his actions are planted in the following films. The first Spider-Man is just a raw, beat for beat, purposeful Spider-Man movie that has no ulterior motives then to be a faithful adaptation with only a few necessary changes. And for that I like it a lot.

#spiderman #the amazing spider-man #tasm #spider-man homecoming #homecoming #film #comic books #reboots #marvel #dc #sony #spider-man #marvel studios

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