#“a writers ability to solve problems by magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic”

[garden-bug]

Is being critical of Sabine’s force sensitivity ‘gatekeeping’ the force or it is about how it undermines the established magic system and was not well written?

I’ll give you a clue it’s the second one.

#Ahsoka critical #saw a post about this and I absolutely value the sentiment that the force shouldn’t be ‘gatekept’ BUT #as a writer I cannot abide by the execution #the character arc was not set up or executed effectively #if it had been foreshadowed ok #if it had been better executed maybe #but ultimately the mandalorian identity is integral to her character and the change would take a lot of writing work #can be done but yeah it’s drastic #as Brandon Sanderson would say: #“a writers ability to solve problems by magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic” #quoted off the top of my head but yeah #taught my 8yr old sister this recently #she gets it #filoni why’s it so hard for u huh #Star Wars critical #pro jedi #bc I like these guys #ahsoka series #Star Wars #do I dare tag Star Wars? yes I do

[sitting-becomingghost]

Sanderson’s Laws:

The writer’s ability to solve problems with magic in a satisfying way is directly proportional to how well the reader understands that magic. Avoid deus ex machina, use foreshadowing instead. This mostly applies to the end of the story. You could have figured out what was going to happen (you might not have though, there were options). Make the characters work with the tools they have rather than solving problems externally.

Flaws, limitations, and costs are more interesting than powers in a magic system. You can build an entire story around a flaw. Work with the limitations, rather than trying to fix it.

Before adding something new to your setting, see if you can instead expand what you have. Bigger is not always better. Readers will grab onto one idea well rather than ten a little bit.

(zeroth law) Always err on the side of what is awesome. What do I think is cool, what really interests me? How can I create a setting around that, rather than building a big complicated story first?

taken from his BYU course on YouTube

#brandon sanderson #science fiction #writing #sci fi writing

[sigmaleph]

Would hard magic be magic with rigid internal logic or magic that closley follows "real world" practices?

Magic with rigid internal logic.

The standard usage of “hard magic” as opposed to “soft magic” is, I believe, due to Brandon Sanderson and his essay on Sanderson’s First Law:

An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic. 

The basic idea is that magic can easily be an excuse to just pull off a deus ex machina out of your hat and that’s not really a good practice for a writer. So you have essentially two approaches:

1) Magic is mysterious, wonderful, and poorly understood. Wizards go around doing things, and you never know if something will or will not be within their power. But as a corollary, you can’t use your wizards to just poof your problems away. This is soft magic.

A Song of Ice and Fire is a good example; Magic is real, yes, but it’s not reliable. Daenerys can revive her dragons using fire and blood sacrifice, but when Aegon V tried it he burned a castle, died, and lost a good chunk of his family. Priests of R’hllor can see the future in the flames, but half the time they misread their prophecies; Thoros can bring back Beric Dondarrion from death, but nobody knows how or why that works, and when Beric tries it with Catelyn he loses his life and gives us Lady Stoneheart. Magic, most of the time, causes problems.

2) Magic is a part of the universe and people understand a decent chunk of how it works. As a result, you can set up plot dominoes where the way magic works implies something, and you can expect the readers to figure it out themselves with the information you gave them. This is hard magic.

Sanderson himself is a good example; if he tells you something about how e.g. Allomancy works it’s important and he won’t just ignore it for the sake of the plot. Plenty of important plot points in Mistborn are foreshadowed by the fact that we were told the rules of magic were one thing and we are shown something that looks like an exception; plenty of clever ideas our protagonists have are clever ideas we the readers could have if we spent sometime thinking about the tools at the characters’ disposal and the nature of the problem.

(and of course you get points in between the extremes. In Harry Potter, the readers have a weak but progressively expanding grasp of what magic can do; it’s implied that powerful wizards can do all sorts of things we have no idea about, but most of the plot is driven by schoolchildren using the spells we see them learn throughout their education. The plot contrives to make sure the powerful wizards who could poof the problems away aren’t around when there’s a problem that needs solving)

#sigma anons

[scarlet--wiccan]

Sorry for rambling. My keyboard is glitching and I wasn't making sense. I'm just very interested in what you think about the role of magic characters in the MU and the duper hero gener. I understand the mages can be extra-powerful.

I would contest the idea that magic characters are, by definition, overpowered. When magic is narrative-breaking and OP, it's typically because the writer has a poor conception of what magic is and how it operates within their story. It's not hard to impose parameters and limitations on a magical system, and it's not hard to write magical characters who are grounded in a realistic capacity for skill and knowledge. Illustrating the limits and costs of magic is generally more important than illustrating the breadth of its power, and magical characters are usually more fun when they earn a solution through creative problem solving. Nico Minoru is a great example-- although Runaways does employ soft magic in its worldbuilding, Nico as a protagonist is grounded by a hard magic system with strict limitations*. The Staff of One has very specific parameters, which Nico figures out on her own, and calling upon it comes at a direct physical cost. Runaways follows the guideline that a character's ability to solve problems with magic is directly proportional to how well they, and by extension, the reader, understand that magic.

Billy, who is Nico's closest magical peer, definitely seems overpowered by contrast-- he doesn't need any sort of technical skill to cast spells; the only limitation is his own willpower; there's little cost outside of the occasional fainting. In YA (2005), he's hesitant and inexperienced enough to balance things out, but by the time you get to Children's Crusade, he's teleporting groups of people around the globe and transforming whole environments on a whim. I believe that the narrative does earn this escalation of power-- we've seen that his connection to Wanda is what sparks new manifestations of magical ability before, and he grows stronger the closer he gets to finding her. His power does falter under self-doubt, and later, depression, but finding his own resolve and working on his mental wellness is usually the key to recovering his magical strength. This is an example of a softer magical paradigm that works in tandem with the story's emotional beats to provide moments of emotional resolution that, while not grounded, are satisfying to the reader.

Gillen's Young Avengers employs both Billy and Loki in a similar fashion- their personal abilities wax and wane in accordance with emotional beats and key plot moments, but Gillen combines this paradigm with certain hard magic sensibilities. The main plot device in this story is a spell, or really a curse, with very specific parameters. Those parameters aren't fully understood by the reader at the beginning, but by the time the characters figure it out, they're primed for the emotional denouement that unlocks the magical solution. It's a great fantasy story, but not one that always necessarily resonates with the genre trappings of a cape comic. I like the book, but Gillen's a fantasy writer and he uses similar methods to greater effect in the urban fantasies Phonogram and WicDiv.

So, those were three examples of magic characters in superhero comics that I really like. It's definitely easier to balance a character like Nico in an ensemble book than it is a character like Billy, whose magic is more narratively-driven and thus eats up a lot of the story focus in CC and YA(2015). There are also a lot of superheroes whose powers are magical in nature, but they aren't portrayed as witches or spellcasters, and they fit into the genre just fine. A mystical amulet that gives you superstrength is no less believable to me than a radioactive spider-- in some ways , it's actually easier for me to believe in magic than it is completely improbable science. There's also room in the superhero canon for fantasy-driven stories, such as Scarlet Witch or most Doctor Strange books, which allow for more thoughtful investigations on magic as a craft, and those are just as valuable to the larger canon as, say, a Black Widow series that reads as a spy novel, or a Deadpool book that reads as a comedy.

*according to Wikipedia: "A soft magic system is vague and undefined, with any existing rules or limitations of said magic system never being explained. It creates a sense of awe and deepens the fantastical setting. The focus of these types of stories is not usually on the magic itself and the main character usually isn't a magic user. The main conflict is not solved by magic; instead, it's solved by valuable lessons the main character learns throughout the course of the story. [...] A hard magic system has specific rules surrounding its use and can be used for creating interesting world building by affecting the culture, government or society at large within the fictional world. Clear costs and limitations are outlined for when magic is used and throughout the story, the reader eventually understands what they are and how they work." These definitions are generally meant for fantasy writing, so they don't apply perfectly to superhero comics, but I think it's a useful way to look at comics with magical elements. Broadly speaking, most superheroes' powers could be described as "hard magic" in the sense that they're supernatural abilities with specific functions and specific limitations.

#bee text #young avengers #runaways #nico minoru #billy kaplan #robintext

[team--mike]

Analysis/Prediction for Danganronpa: Deadication

Hey guys! I know I barely post on tumblr at all but I just thought... I have something to talk about... That's incredibly long... And about Danganronpa...

So where else to go than tumblr?

I recently started following a fangan ( @dangandeadication​ ) called Danganronpa: Deadication. If I had to pick a reason why I liked it so much, it would have to be the character design and art. Their Discord community is pretty great and involved as well. I'm a busy boy so I can't be as active there as I'd like...

You can check out part one of the prologue here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5krOHv_ls4

Anyways - what is this post about?

It's about my predictions for this Killing Game. I'm not one to simply pick randomly who lives and who dies, there's a method to my madness. I have this fancy shmancy way of making predictions for Danganronpa, and it's called the Elevator Prediction! We simply take a look at the picture of the students in the elevator before the first trial, and we cross off people based on their position. Any sane artist wouldn't group all the survivors next to each other, now... Would they?...

Wait... Deadication doesn't have one of these yet...

Oh, well. I'll just use my detective instincts to place these characters based on their talent, personality, and official Danganronpa games.

A few disclaimers before we begin:

There will be spoilers for DR1, SDR2, and DRV3

I'm explaining my thought pattern here along with each character and why I predicted what I did. I apologize if I sound overly critical - that's not my intention. I had fun thinking of these predictions and I'm looking forward to seeing how they pan out!

There's one more thing that I'd like to explain as well, and it will help contextualize some of my choices.

One of my favorite writers, Brandon Sanderson, writes some great books involving magic. I bring this up because a few ultimates here (Lucky Student, Psychic, Illusionist, Alchemist) are explicitly "magical". The extent of their abilities is unknown for the most part. Being a writer, Brandon Sanderson created rules about writing magic stories, and being a writer myself, I really took this one to heart. (reference: https://brandonsanderson.com/sandersons-first-law/)

"An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic."

What does this mean? Basically - if the magic isn't explained - it feels like magic can solve any problem at any point without warning. There's no mystery to it at all - it just happens. Explaining magic systems is a really great way to actually add to a mystery - it gives the reader rules to follow when the theories start forming in their head. Now go replace the word MAGIC with ULTIMATE... And this creates a framework for working with ultimates in mysteries. It’s so much harder for readers to solve mysteries if it isn’t what can and cannot be done in the universe.

An example of this is Tsumugi's Cospox in DRV3. Her ability was cosplay, and with it, she could basically disguise herself as any character. It was inevitable that a murder would happen with her disguised as someone else, and there was no telling when, or how... Except that they immediately explained the extent of her powers in Chapter 1 after the first killing. This took that possibility off the table - and made all the future cases that much easier by focusing our minds on what was actually relevant instead of some gotcha that wasn't explained.

Again - this is only a guideline - it's not a hard-and-fast rule that everyone has to follow - so my predictions could be off because of this. It's all guesswork anyways, and I'm sure at least half my predictions, if not all of them, will be wrong. But that's the point, isn't it? XD

Without further ado, let's get started!

Yuuma - lucky student  Ok... He's lucky so he can't die right? We don't know how lucky he is, but if we base it off the first two games, then yes, he'd basically be unkillable. There are a couple ultimates here that could get around that... But that would be weird because those ultimates are magical and it seems that Danganronpa Luck is too big a barrier... Keep in mind we've had a survivor Lucky Student and a victim Lucky Student, so what's left? Verdict - CH1 blackened

Shu - bounty hunter Here's another babyface that basically screams "Don't fuck with me!". Considering the case of Fuyuhiko I'm not pinning him as someone who has a change of heart, and considering his profession I think he's not going to be a blackened. I think that would be too obvious. So what does that leave us with? A victim. Also I'm offing him in chapter 1 because if he's not killed early then he will be a suspect in every subsequent case. Which might be a good thing, but I wouldn't want to deal with that :P  But who could possibly kill someone trained to kill... Hmmm... Verdict - CH1 victim, failed attempt to kill Yuuma

Toru - filmmaker Everyone's always comparing him to the Actor and saying that there's some important story element here since their ultimates are so similar. I can't help but think the same. I don't think this dude is the Mastermind, since that would be too obvious in my eyes, however I feel he's involved in some way. If Deadication pulls the same thing that DRV3 did with Rantaro, then they can have some backstory for this guy while also having him dead, all while throwing the suspicion off him as being involved in this game due to him dying early. Verdict - CH2 Victim

Otoha - basketball Literally Akane and Tenko. One of them died and the other survived. Maybe she's a blackened? I don't have much else to say here honestly. I guess she's cute. Verdict - CH2 blackened

Kyusho - detective Alright this is such a clear reference to Kyoko that there might be something actually relevant here - maybe this is an AU where Aoi and Kyoko mashed their names together and adopted him? Maybe the real Danganronpa is going to be mentioned in this game? I doubt both these points but they're good to bring up. So we haven't seen an evil detective yet from the other games so I'm getting that vibe from him. Especially one that doesn't explicitly commit murder... Verdict - CH2 accomplice, CH3 victim

Ayuna - psychic Ok so Psychic means either two things (1) she's a complete airhead OR (2) she's a complete airhead but also Hagakure. Considering my stance on magic powers as explained earlier, I think her powers are going to be meaningless. Maybe she sees a vision that ends up getting her killed? Verdict - CH3 Victim

Sakumi - alchemist Alchemy means either two things (1) she's another complete airhead OR (2) there will be some poison case in this game. I'm honestly feeling the latter. Alchemy is another vague ultimate that has to be explained - and I can only see this being relevant to poisoning. There hasn't been a poison double murder yet and I'm assuming that Deadication will be keeping the same format of double murder since it's classic. But I could be 100% wrong since I'm a sucker for strict guidelines. PS: She's also cute. Verdict - CH3 blackened

Reika - ??? Hmmm I wonder what it could beeee... With this illusionist/alchemist/psychic/occultist quadrafecta I'm thinking she's along a similar vibe, maybe witch or something. We haven't had a ??? blackened yet... thinking-face-intensifies... I'm thinking their ability will be revealed as the cornerstone to this case. Verdict - CH4 blackened

Minoru - barista  Ace Attorney - Godot's theme plays in the background Wait what slot didn't I assign... Oh yeah that's right Verdict - CH4 victim

Iori - gardener I have no idea. He has a Kokichi Ouma face sprite but he's also very knowledgeable about plants. He's probably gonna be a Gonta type - a Hope Boy. Verdict - Survivor

Megumi - attorney Franziska Von Karma was best girl in Ace Attorney, and now Megumi is giving me that same vibe. Now here's someone who can talk her way in a trial... As I'm pinning Kyusho as chaotic, maybe Megumi will be the voice of reason throughout the game... Although I really am suspicious of everyone. There's always a survivor with a head on their shoulders (Kirigiri, Shuichi, Hajime) Verdict - Survivor

Haru - occultist I totally feel that Haru is going to play a big part in this, and have some sort of change-of-heart that makes them a better overall person. They're also cute as well so I can't just kill them off. If at any point in the story Naohiko dies, I fully expect Haru to take his place. They're the most main-character-like out of everyone else. They'd probably take the Byakuya or Fuyuhiko slot in the survivor list. Verdict - Survivor

Keiji - surgeon Come on now you wouldn't make such a large meme NOT a survivor... I feel he's going to be very much like the survivors Kazuichi or Hagakure or Himiko - thinks he's tough shit but he really can't do a darn thing. Verdict - Survivor

Luna - arctic explorer Um I don't have much to say about her except I like her and she's super cute and I want her to survive. She's the waifu survivor like Aoi and Sonia and Maki. She's also smart as well so her surviving would actually make sense. Verdict - Survivor

Ok guys! That's it! We're done with all the predictions for Dead-

WAIT! WHAT IS IT? I'M FORGETTING ABOUT TWO CHARACTERS?

Oh yeah you're right. Whoops.

Hitomi - illusionist Ah yes, the detective's sidekick, just like Kaito and Chiaki and Sayaka. She's overly optimistic, which makes me think she's evil, but there are two reasons why I don't think she is (1) I can't possibly envision any angry or distressed Hitomi sprites AND (2) With an ultimate like Illusionist, it would be too obvious that she's a killer. Based on the principles of magic as I explained earlier, her illusion abilities should come with some set of rules. And these rules weren't explained to us in the prologue - so I'm sort of throwing her ultimate to the curb for now and ignoring its effect on the story. Which is probably wrong, but ah, what the heck. I have a bigger prediction for Hitomi based on her relationship with Naohiko as opposed to her ultimate. Verdict - CH5 victim.

Naohiko - actor The man of the hour himself, the green haired protagonist. Before we begin - let's go over what happens to the protagonists in the first three games: Makoto - survives. Hajime - survives but his past self is the mastermind Kaede - is a blackened and dies in chapter 1 Considering Kaede's case - I'm doubting that there is a protagonist switch at all in this game. I'm pretty sure that they switched during Chapter 1 because of the Hope Fragments and the character development and attachment. As much as I loved Kaede, there wasn't a real reason to have her die in a later chapter. It just wasn't a good game design choice. Now Deadication isn't a game so this might be different but I'm tossing this aside for now. There's also the possibility of Naohiko dying, but I don't think he'd be the one to die in chapter 1. The main character actually has a relevant ultimate this time - actor. One that can be used as a blackened... and a mastermind... dun dun DUN... Technically this is different from SDR2 since Izuru is his own original character and not Hajime Hinata. What I'm going to propose is slightly similar to Hajime's case but it's different in the fact that Izuru had absolutely no effect on the Killing Game other than starting it. One more thing before I explain what I think will happen to Naohiko - let's take a look at the other masterminds' goals: Junko - Inflict Despair on everyone watching Izuru - Preserve Junko and the Remnants of Despair Tsumugi - Entertain everyone watching Now there's one thing that I think is clearly missing here... And that's a personal motive, one that isn't based on world domination or entertainment. Especially because this is a fangan that doesn't explicitly have to be tied to the main series - and it's getting increasingly difficult to do so anyways. So let's recap - A personal motive that isn't based on the Hope-Despair conflict, yet also requires Despair to work properly. This one really wracked my brain but here's my theory:  Naohiko is a schizophrenic just like Toko is. However, he does not know that he has this other, "evil" side to him. There are a few reasons for this: (1) If he noticed it, he would clearly get it treated. Which spelled doom for this evil persona. (2) He's the ultimate actor. Actors retake scenes often enough and they have so many fans that it's typical if he forgets something. This evil side - let's call it Hikonao because I'm boring - has been waiting for its chance to overtake the real Naohiko - and this killing game is just that. Bring Naohiko to Despair, and then his real side and his evil side will be one and the same. So Hikonao sends a letter to Toru stating something about working with Naohiko - only if he brings 14 other ultimates to this secluded area. The letter is signed H - which implicitly brings suspicion on other characters like Haru and Hitomi. Hikonao can be doing things at nighttime or during the day that Naohiko wouldn't remember - and that could clue the reader in to what is happening... (and it also could get us to suspect Hitomi's illusions instead...) Hikonao's plan is to bring the largest possible Despair onto Naohiko - and that would climax in killing his own beloved, Hitomi. In the chapter 5 trial, Naohiko realizes that he is the one that killed Hitomi - and we have to explicitly argue that he didn't kill her, knowing this - something that hasn't been done before in a game, even with Kaede. And then, just like in game 1, Naohiko isn't actually executed due to some ambiguous reason. And then they find the letter from H, find some more stuff, and the mastermind trial. This also brings up an important point - just like the Gonta case in DRV3. If someone else's consciousness kills someone, are you guilty? I have a feeling that Naohiko will end up expelling Hikonao and everything will end happily ever after... Verdict - CH5 blackened and mastermind. Oh and he's also a survivor too

Now I know that you guys think this is a crazy crackpot theory but it's based on writing principles! Even if I'm entirely wrong, I have become a better mystery writer because of it! The more you think about these things, the more you dive deep into how these games are put together and the best way to order and position the story and killings so that things make sense together.

To those of you who have read the entire thing, thank you so so much! I appreciate it, especially since I rambled at times. I'm really looking forward to this project and I know everyone will do a great job with Deadication!

That's it for now. Team Mike, signing off!

#danganronpa #fangan #fanganronpa #deadication #naohiko #hitomi #theory #prediction #dr1 spoilers #sdr2 spoilers #drv3 spoilers

[promptsblog]

Sanderson’s Laws of Magic Systems

I recently discovered Brandon Sanderson’s lectures on youtube, through which I found his Laws of Magics. To my dismay, I could not find anything on them searching through tumblr, so I thought I’d post them here as a cool world-building resource for Fantasy and Scifi Writers.

Zeroeth law: Always Err on the side of Awesome

First Law:  An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic in a satisfying way is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic.

This rule is about foreshadowing and avoiding a dues ex machina. If magic plays a role in solving a problem in the story, Sanderson believes you should show this ability or type of magic earlier in the story instead of just whipping it out of nowhere. 

Second Law: Limitations on powers are more interesting than the powers themsleves.

A lot of stories would be over in twenty pages if the abilities had no limitations.If a precog had no limitations on their powers, they could see every possible negative outcome and how to avoid it, easily saving the day. Story over. However, if they can only see a possible future that changes as people’s decisions change, like Alice in the Twilight novels, or can’t control what they see or when they see it, such as Phoebe form Charmed or Doyle form Angel*, then the story has weight and stakes.

Third Law: Expand what you already have before you add something new. 

Sanderson cautions against “Worldbuilders’ Disease” (Creating too many elements). Instead, he suggests developing your existing elements and considering how they relate to each other as well as the setting at large.

*Phrased deliberately to avoid spoilers for those who haven’t seen Angel.

#misc #tip #ref #sanderson's laws #fantasy #scifi