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tthael · 3 years

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I really admire so many things about your writing - the introspection and deep meaning, the realistic and sensitive way that you handle topics. Do you have any recs for fav media/books/tv shows/fanfics ? I guess I'm curious if there are any you think might have similar qualities/themes?

This is a tough one because basically everything I consume gets picked apart and reused in some way. However, I’ll give it a shot:

The Book Thief and I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak. There’s quite a lot I like about Zusak’s use of language and have since 2007 when I read The Book Thief for the first time, and there’s something very cinematic and magical about I Am the Messenger (particularly in the chapter with the young track runner).

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell. He’s most commonly known for Cloud Atlas, but he has an ongoing theme of vampires and cannibalism reappearing in his work (I just read Slade House for the first time while I was in quarantine) and there’s something deeply satisfying about the way that all of the disparate pieces come to fruition at the climax of The Bone Clocks. Not a perfect book, but deeply satisfying.

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. Again, she’s most commonly known for The Poisonwood Bible, but I liked that well enough to read The Lacuna in 2013, and I completely hated it for the first half of the book until finally something clicked in my brain and I activated the literary critic within, who doesn’t care so much about whether they enjoy something and more cares about how well something is done. The description of US American rationing during World War II really got me onto the novel’s side, if that makes sense; and I do love a good family epic, and while this only focuses on one protagonist instead of generations of them, it’s interesting in a similar way to The Bone Clocks where you see everything start to snowball together.

Literally anything by Ursula Vernon/T. Kingfisher. I particularly recommend The Raven and The Reindeer, which I read shortly after being diagnosed with my chronic illness and really helped me to understand the irrelevance of shame. There’s something very satisfying about saying “a reindeer doesn’t care if it smells bad, so I’m going to lean into that particular apathy and not allow a bully to take me down over it.” Something comforting about taking shelter in the animal and in survival, when you and your body are in one place and working on the same side, and it’s your brain that’s ready to give up first but your body will keep dragging you through because that’s what it does. Certain lines in Indelicate were inspired by her adaptation of Tam Lin in Jackalope Wives and other Stories (https://www.amazon.com/Jackalope-Wives-Other-Stories-Kingfisher-ebook/dp/B071946RLN). Lots of her short stories are available at this link for free: http://www.redwombatstudio.com/portfolio/writing/short-stories/

TV’s a little harder to unpack, since I don’t always think in terms of visual media, I tend to default to words first. Recently I’ve been enjoying New Amsterdam on NBC--it’s nice to see the radical socialist doctor doing his damnedest to secure the right thing--and Call the Midwife--similar reasons. There’s a lot about meeting someone where they are in both shows that I appreciate.

There’s also a lot of music that inspires my writing so I’ll have to dedicate a post specifically to that in my methods and materials.

Fanfic, though! Lots of my favorites, lots of genres. Here we go:

we are all stardust by synergenic (Losseflame) (https://archiveofourown.org/works/5682496) Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, pairing Finn/Poe Dameron. Sexually explicit, but also leans a lot into physicality. You can probably see the influence on the very first chapter of Indelicate when Eddie’s waking up in pain and Richie’s at his bedside. It’s very much inspired by a similar sickbed scene here.

If They Haven’t Learned Your Name by silentwalrus (https://archiveofourown.org/works/6329503) Captain America/Marvel Cinematic Universe Steve Rogers/James “Bucky” Barnes. The holy grail of Steve/Bucky fanfiction. If you want independent character exploration, this is the place to go. Natasha shaving her head? Yes. Sam pleading with Steve to keep his shit together while thirty Koren grandmothers assume they are American celebrities? Yes. Bucky defiantly hunting down his sense of self while bingeing romance novels in a space ship? Yes. Pay particular attention to the Sam chapters, because they’re a beautiful way of defining Steve’s characterization from an outside perspective, and I’m trying to do the same with Eddie looking at Richie in Indelicate.

An Ever-Fixed Mark by AMarguerite (https://archiveofourown.org/works/8523001) Pride & Prejudice (Jane Austen) Elizabeth Bennet/Colonel Fitzwilliam, Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy. Soulmark AU. This is one of my longtime favorite fanfictions and what it taught me was cause and effect. The characters move the plot forward based on their assumptions and decisions. Definitely very helpful when I was writing TTHAEL by the seat of my pants.

You Can Keep Holding On by NorthernSparrow (https://archiveofourown.org/works/7233709) Supernatural Dean Winchester/Castiel. Sexually explicit. A lot of the summary I can give here is spoilers, but if you read this one through, you’ll be able to see the inspiration for the “Can you tell me where I can get another Eddie Kaspbrak?” scene in Indelicate.

Work of All Saints by antistar_e (kaikamahine) (https://archiveofourown.org/works/15006644) Coco (2017) Imelda Rivera/Héctor Rivera/Ernesto de la Cruz. Sexually mature. Oh my GOD this is a beautiful coming-of-age story set in turn-of-the-century Oaxaca, this is the best complete expansion of canon that I’ve ever seen; the author takes the pieces and runs with them and it is WONDERFUL.

Lycanthropic Studies by Eiiri (https://archiveofourown.org/series/575263) Harry Potter, Remus Lupin/Sirius Black canon-divergence AU. I very much enjoy the meditation on lycanthropy as a chronic illness and I sometimes reread this for comfort. Particularly early on Remus has a rant about how he’s sick and he’s always sick and his life doesn’t stop for it, despite holidays and birthdays he still has to deal with the consequences of his illness and take the devastating medication, and there’s a lot about that that speaks to me. I haven’t kept up with the series for some time, though.

Careful Truths by SassySnowperson (https://archiveofourown.org/works/12111966) Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Bodhi Rook/Luke Skywalker canon-divergence AU. Sexually explicit. Honestly identity p!rn fics are a good inspiration for that third-person limited perspective I’ve been working on in Indelicate. Also I love love LOVE Bodhi Rook. It’s fun watching him run in circles trying to conceal his identity from Luke while completely oblivious to Luke doing exactly the same thing.

Stammtisch by chaya (https://archiveofourown.org/works/15060152) Critical Role: Season 2, Caleb Widogast/Mollymauk Tealeaf, AU. Sexually explicit. Long before Caleb actually leveled up enough to cast Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion, chaya speculated about what kind of spaces he might create for each of his friends. I think it’s a very good resource for really condensing characterization down into lots of images and concepts and deciding what other characters know about them. The idea of making space for someone else is something that I lean into a lot when I write Ben, who’s the kind of man who will set himself on fire to keep those he loves warm, and even though Critical Role has far more material than even IT for determining characterization, and even though this particular moment has already occurred in canon--it’s just a wonderful homey story, and has the kind of found family vibes I like for the Losers as well.

I know that’s a lot to unpack there, but all of those fics are very good and I recommend reading any assortment that appeals to you. (Work of All Saints in particular you don’t have to be familiar with the source material beyond the basic premise; it stands on its own.) Thank you for asking, and thank you for reading!

#nocturnalpinkcat #my fic #indelicate #now what i'm gonna say may sound indelicate #nwigsmsi #things that happen after eddie lives #tthael #fic recs #book recs

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gone-series-orchid · 3 years

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i was re-reading your fics and i'm honestly amazed at how in character they all are! maybe strange question, but what one emotion do you think drives the gone characters the most (any you want to talk about of course!)? and what is their defining trait to you? thanks so much, i really enjoy your content!! -anon who's sent more than i'd like to admit 😂 maybe "🎀" anon if you do that kind of thing? :)))

omg, anon, thank you so much!!!! (and yes, i love the idea of the emoji; i christen thee “🎀” anon!) i love getting feedback on my fics; they’re so fun to write! i’m glad you think all the characters are true to how they are in the books—i’d beg to differ, as i think i’m admittedly still trying to get a handle on them, even after all these years! i have a sneaking tendency i tweak the characters a bit in favor of making the admittedly non-canonical events work, but i guess that’s typical of fanfic writers as a whole. i make it difficult for myself, though, as it’s been too long since i read the books. i i should really pick them up again.... still, thank you so much, anon, your words mean a lot to me!!

as for what drives the characters in “gone” the most? that’s a good question! i think all the characters throughout the series are all driven by the need to survive, obviously—but i think there’s also the prevailing need, at least in the “good” characters like sam and co., to believe that they’re doing the right thing. but in a world where all the authority figures and guiding influences have poofed, how can they be sure?

that’s why, for over half of the series, astrid clings to her faith and intelligence, and why sam tries to live up to his nickname of “schoolbus sam.” as young teenagers, the kids in the fayz haven’t properly developed their sense of self yet, so they latch onto things like the bible, or the belief that they’re meant to be king, or the belief that they’re a “bad girl”; they try to make themselves live up to symbolic representations. that steadily breaks down over the course of the series as the kids mature—diana seeks redemption through motherhood, realizing she can change and become good, astrid loses her faith but finds her own sense of agency, sam realizes he isn’t fit for leadership and steps down to make way for edilio, who alone is level-headed and mature enough to set his ego aside and perform his role as needed.

i think it’s interesting how all the “gone” characters (except for caine, drake, and maybe minor characters like brianna), morality is very important. even diana, an antagonist who’d be well within her right to say she’s doing good by staying with caine, knows that by some standard of morality she’s internalized that she’s “bad.” sam is terrified of being found out by an invisible jury of adults that he’s “bad,” that he’s been witness to countless deaths and trauma, and suffers survivor’s guilt because of that. astrid is sure that she is “good,” only to, in plague, recognize her folly and spiral into the same pit of self-loathing and doubt that sam and diana are trapped in (and eventually climb out of).

i think what drives a character like orc, mostly, is insecurity. that’s what makes him a sort of live wire. he’s insecure about his lack of intelligence, his father, his mother, his self-worth, everything. that’s why astrid’s kindness towards him affects him so much—she treats him like a person while he sees himself as a monster. she’s the one who inadvertently makes him realize that he deserves better. he has a powerful attraction to her because she’s the only one who makes him feel like a person worthy of respect. that’s what makes his attitude toward her during the coates scene in plague so frightening, because he’s essentially deciding to forgo any pretense of humanity and give into his worst self-destructive urges—putting him alongside the likes of the id-driven, pseudo-sexually sadistic drake—in the process of trying to kill himself. not only is he trying to kill himself physically, but he’s also trying to kill astrid’s image of him, the image that he’s previously tried and failed to live up to, by attacking her.

sorry, 🎀 anon, i think i went off track a little bit! nonetheless, i hope this sort of answers your questions.

speaking of fics! i’m currently writing one that attempts to disentangle astrid and sam’s relationship in fear. it also puts sam and diana together, though to what extent I don’t know. it might be unrequited…. also astrid is there, trying to sort out her spirituality and her feelings toward sam and diana, and also trying to help orc find god and also sorting out her feelings about THAT…astrid has a lot of inner conflict in this one, lol. hopefully i’ll get it done sometime soon!

feel free to send more asks, 🎀 anon!! you know I love them!!

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class-wom · 4 years

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Little Richard, a founding father of rock and roll whose fervent shrieks, flamboyant garb, and joyful, gender-bending persona embodied the spirit and sound of that new art form, died Saturday. He was 87. The musician’s son, Danny Penniman, confirmed the pioneer’s death to Rolling Stone, but said the cause of death was unknown.

Starting with “Tutti Frutti” in 1956, Little Richard cut a series of unstoppable hits – “Long Tall Sally” and “Rip It Up” that same year, “Lucille” in 1957, and “Good Golly Miss Molly” in 1958 – driven by his simple, pumping piano, gospel-influenced vocal exclamations and sexually charged (often gibberish) lyrics. “I heard Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, and that was it,” Elton John told Rolling Stone in 1973. “I didn’t ever want to be anything else. I’m more of a Little Richard stylist than a Jerry Lee Lewis, I think. Jerry Lee is a very intricate piano player and very skillful, but Little Richard is more of a pounder.”

Although he never hit the top 10 again after 1958, Little Richard’s influence was massive. The Beatles recorded several of his songs, including “Long Tall Sally,” and Paul McCartney’s singing on those tracks – and the Beatles’ own “I’m Down” – paid tribute to Little Richard’s shredded-throat style. His songs became part of the rock and roll canon, covered over the decades by everyone from the Everly Brothers, the Kinks, and Creedence Clearwater Revival to Elvis Costello and the Scorpions.

Little Richard’s stage persona – his pompadours, androgynous makeup and glass-bead shirts – also set the standard for rock and roll showmanship; Prince, to cite one obvious example, owed a sizable debt to the musician. “Prince is the Little Richard of his generation,” Richard told Joan Rivers in 1989 before looking at the camera and addressing Prince. “I was wearing purple before you was wearing it!”

Born Richard Wayne Penniman on December 5th, 1932, in Macon, Georgia, he was one of 12 children and grew up around uncles who were preachers. “I was born in the slums. My daddy sold whiskey, bootleg whiskey,” he told Rolling Stone in 1970. Although he sang in a nearby church, his father Bud wasn’t supportive of his son’s music and accused him of being gay, resulting in Penniman leaving home at 13 and moving in with a white family in Macon. But music stayed with him: One of his boyhood friends was Otis Redding, and Penniman heard R&B, blues and country while working at a concession stand at the Macon City Auditorium.

After performing at the Tick Tock Club in Macon and winning a local talent show, Penniman landed his first record deal, with RCA, in 1951. (He became “Little Richard” when he about 15 years old, when the R&B and blues worlds were filled with acts like Little Esther and Little Milton; he had also grown tired with people mispronouncing his last name as “Penny-man.”) He learned his distinctive piano style from Esquerita, a South Carolina singer and pianist who also wore his hair in a high black pompadour.

For the next five years, Little Richard’s career advanced only fitfully; fairly tame, conventional singles he cut for RCA and other labels didn’t chart. “When I first came along, I never heard any rock & roll,” he told Rolling Stone in 1990. “When I started singing [rock & roll], I sang it a long time before I presented it to the public because I was afraid they wouldn’t like it. I never heard nobody do it, and I was scared.”

By 1956, he was washing dishes at the Greyhound bus station in Macon (a job he had first taken a few years earlier after his father was murdered and Little Richard had to support his family). By then, only one track he’d cut, “Little Richard’s Boogie,” hinted at the musical tornado to come. “I put that little thing in it,” he told Rolling Stone in 1970 of the way he tweaked with his gospel roots. “I always did have that thing, but I didn’t know what to do with the thing I had.”

During this low point, he sent a tape with a rough version of a bawdy novelty song called “Tutti Frutti” to Specialty Records in Chicago. He came up with the song’s famed chorus — “a wop bob alu bob a wop bam boom” — while bored washing dishes. (He also wrote “Long Tall Sally” and “Good Golly Miss Molly” while working that same job.)

By coincidence, label owner and producer Art Rupe was in search of a lead singer for some tracks he wanted to cut in New Orleans, and Penniman’s howling delivery fit the bill. In September 1955, the musician cut a lyrically cleaned-up version of “Tutti Frutti,” which became his first hit, peaking at 17 on the pop chart. “’Tutti Frutti really started the races being together,” he told Rolling Stone in 1990. “From the git-go, my music was accepted by whites.”

Its followup, “Long Tall Sally,” hit Number Six, becoming his the highest-placing hit of his career. For just over a year, the musician released one relentless and arresting smash after another. From “Long Tall Sally” to “Slippin’ and Slidin,’” Little Richard’s hits – a glorious mix of boogie, gospel, and jump blues, produced by Robert “Bumps” Blackwell — sounded like he never stood still. With his trademark pompadour and makeup (which he once said he started wearing so that he would be less “threatening” while playing white clubs), he was instantly on the level of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and other early rock icons, complete with rabid fans and mobbed concerts. “That’s what the kids in America were excited about,” he told Rolling Stone in 1970. “They don’t want the falsehood — they want the truth.”

As with Presley, Lewis and other contemporaries, Penniman also was cast in early rock and roll movies like Don’t Knock the Rock (1956) and The Girl Can’t Help It (1957). In a sign of how segregated the music business and radio were at the time, though, Pat Boone’s milquetoast covers of “Tutti Frutti” and “Long Tall Sally,” both also released in 1956, charted as well if not higher than Richard’s own versions. (“Boone’s “Tutti Frutti” hit Number 12, surpassing Little Richard’s by nine slots.) Penniman later told Rolling Stone that he made sure to sing “Long Tall Sally” faster than “Tutti Frutti” so that Boone couldn’t copy him as much.

But then the hits stopped, by his own choice. After what he interpreted as signs – a plane engine that seemed to be on fire and a dream about the end of the world and his own damnation – Penniman gave up music in 1957 and began attending the Alabama Bible school Oakwood College, where he was eventually ordained a minister. When he finally cut another album, in 1959, the result was a gospel set called God Is Real.

His gospel music career floundering, Little Richard returned to secular rock in 1964. Although none of the albums and singles he cut over the next decade for a variety of labels sold well, he was welcomed back by a new generation of rockers like the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan (who used to play Little Richard songs on the piano when he was a kid). When Little Richard played the Star-Club in Hamburg in 1964, the opening act was none other than the Beatles. “We used to stand backstage at Hamburg’s Star-Club and watch Little Richard play,” John Lennon said later. “He used to read from the Bible backstage and just to hear him talk we’d sit around and listen. I still love him and he’s one of the greatest.”

By the 1970s, Little Richard was making a respectable living on the rock oldies circuit, immortalized in a searing, sweaty performance in the 1973 documentary Let the Good Times Roll. During this time, he also became addicted to marijuana and cocaine while, at the same time, returning to his gospel roots.

Little Richard also dismantled sexual stereotypes in rock & roll, even if he confused many of his fans along the way. During his teen years and into his early rock stardom, his stereotypical flamboyant personality made some speculate about his sexuality, even if he never publicly announced he was out. But that flamboyance didn’t derail his career. In a 1984 biography, The Life and Times of Little Richard, written with his cooperation, he denounced homosexuality as “contagious … It’s not something you’re born with.” (Eleven years later, he said in an interview with Penthouse that he had been “gay all my life.”) Later in life, he described himself as “omnisexual,” attracted to both men and women. But during an interview with the Christian-tied Three Angels Broadcasting Group in 2017, he suddenly denounced gay and trans lifestyles: “God, Jesus, He made men, men, he made women, women, you know? And you’ve got to live the way God wants you to live. So much unnatural affection. So much of people just doing everything and don’t think about God.”

Yet none of that craziness damaged his mystique or legend. In the 1980s, he appeared in movies like Down and Out in Beverly Hills and in TV shows like Full House and Miami Vice. In 1986, he was one of the 10 original inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 1993, he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys. His last known recording was in 2010, when he cut a song for a tribute album to gospel singer Dottie Rambo.

In the years before his death, Little Richard, who was by then based in Los Angeles, still performed periodically. Onstage, though, the physicality of old was gone: Thanks to hip replacement surgery in 2009, he could only perform sitting down at his piano. But his rock and roll spirit never left him. “I’m sorry I can’t do it like it’s supposed to be done,” he told one audience in 2012. After the audience screamed back in encouragement, he said – with a very Little Richard squeal — “Oh, you gonna make me scream like a white girl!”

#Little Richard #RIP

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reconhq · 4 years

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Do you have any advice for someone who wants to make a (very LGBTA positive) webseries of her own?.

oh boy! I sure do. I’ve actually been on a couple other projects other than Recon, all after the first season was written & mostly after the first season was shot, and ya girl has learned a lot because of and since season 1!

i am so sorry but this is going to be SO long. i am kinda obsessed with web series & digital content and it’s my actual professional career now so just… get ready. sorry 😅 i’ll add a TLDR at the end.

(p.s. this is just advice from me, Emma, and not the rest of the Recon team who may have different/additional advice, maybe someone will add on after the holidays)

write your bible before anything! depending on if you’re co-creating or just co-producing/writing, this should be done before you bring on additional folks. if you’re co-creating, this is obviously a collaborative process. when i created recon, i did it on my own. i pitched the original idea to some dear friends (one of whom makes a cameo as a security guard in ep 20!) and got their opinions, adapted from their advice, and once i had a solid format, main character, and general plot, i started on the bible. it took probably a month of fucking around before i felt ready to write a bible.

the basic components of a bible are a log line, short season overview, character breakdowns for your characters (mine are ~paragraph or two for main characters, with shorter ones for less central characters), a summary of the show’s main themes, genre and tones, and the format of the show (if you’re mapping out multiple seasons, it may be relevant to do this for each season as well as the overall show), as well as the most important part of your bible– the episode breakdowns. i’ll touch on those in a minute.

i do all my original brainstorming on paper, because i am adhd as fuck and it’s easier for me. your bible isn’t the place to brainstorm. separate them out. not saying you have to write on paper, but have a separate doc for brainstorming so the formatting for your bible can be easy to follow.

if you’re co-producing or having someone else produce your work, it makes sense to have your co-producer or producer right there with you as you work on your bible to give feedback. does this mean they’re writing it? no. is it useful as hell? yes.

my partner-in-creative-crime justice and i tend to share bibles and brainstorm docs with each other when we’re working together on a project. depending on which roles we’re playing on each project (e.g., i’m producing his podcast COSMIC under our company name but not co-creating or writing, so i mostly gave notes on his bible. we’re also working on a series called Inked, and we’re more like co-creators there, so we both write in the doc.)

your bible is the holy doc of your show; it’s what you show to any writers, producers, designers, any creative working on your show so that everyone is on the same page. it is your main reference and guiding light through the whole season; make it clear, organized, and as easy to read as possible. i personally use google docs for my bibles, and use the hell out of the outline function. highly recommend, but everyone has their own system.

break your ENTIRE story before before you write a single script, before you write your pilot, before anything. it’s part of your bible.

if you’re not super familiar with tv/screenwriting, breaking a story means figuring out the beats. the breakdown of reason s1 started as messy af writing on whiteboards, and turned into this:

this is absolutely not what your first outlines or final drafts will look like. we changed…. a ton while writing our scripts. you can see even in this sequence– episode 8 and 9 got blurred, and we barely touched on ava’s past because there wasn’t room. regardless, this doc & breakdown served as the basis for all our writers and kept us all on roughly the same page. when we disagreed, we could go back to this and sort it out from there!

find your people. two roles were crucial to me when we made recon: a mentor, and collaborators. having good people behind me was so so important; i could have never done this on my own.

i got…….. so lucky with my mentor, bernie su. he not only gave me incredible advice, read scripts, and reviewed cuts, he purchased the damn show, accounting for 75% of our funding. i feel like it’s important for me to acknowledge the luck and privilege i have here: the show would not happened without him, and i only got that chance because i live in LA, went to USC, and applied for the right job at the right time. HOWEVER, aside from the funding that made recon possible, bernie’s expertise seriously helped. after principle photography, we were left feeling lackluster, and bernie gave me advice that led me to make changes that transformed the show. having someone with experience– whether in tv, film, web series, any sort of writing– is invaluable.

while i created recon on my own, i did not develop or make it on my own. the episode breakdowns? half me, half other people (mainly justice lol). the look of the show? EP/DP christa, production designer amanda, graphic designer hal, and justice as costuming lead. i did not write season 1 on my own. i recruited friends from USC and even one from high school to write episodes i didn’t think i could do justice (no pun intended).

once you’ve found your people, trust them. there will obviously be cases where you disagree enough with someone’s creative opinions that you shouldn’t, but except in extreme cases, trust your people. try to only chose people you trust in the first place. letting go was so so so hard, but many of the best parts of recon happened because i got over myself and trusted my cast and crew. episode 16, player vs player, was justice’s baby, and i almost didn’t let him roll with the animations because i was too nervous. holy fuck, i’m so glad i trusted him. same with reflections (ep 15), written by my now-fiancé, which no one else could have written. hal was a bit unsure going in, but the episode is phenomenal. my production designer’s choices were amazing, and i had little to do with them other than being like “yes that is so cool let’s do it”

seriously. trust your people. watching bernie on artificial & emma approved trust us, his crew of mostly 20-somethings, with creative decisions taught me a huge lesson. i was 19 when he hired me, 19 when he bought the show, and he actually fucking trusted me and the rest of his team to do things. my initial reaction was what the fuck, but it worked. it also let him focus on the big picture while giving us the space we needed to feel creatively and emotionally fulfilled. trust your people.

this also applies to your actors. we had a google drive specifically for our actors to throw up ideas/backstory for their characters, and we’d read through it and give feedback and contributions. it led to better performances and characters with more depth. we also met with actors where we could to discuss their ideas for directions for their characters– video game nerd taylor came from convos with joré.

katiemichal and kat were just like, the same people as their characters, so there was less of this, but there is definitely value in casting the irl versions of your characters as them.

edit your episodes individually, then read through the WHOLE SEASON at once to edit. repeat that until you read it and it’s cohesive.

keep track of your timeline and your canon, even canon that’s not explicit in the show. there’s so much recon lore that we kept to ourselves that informs several decisions in the first season.

unless your character’s race/ethnicity (even gender) is a key part of their character or the show, cast with an open net. ava was originally a white girl name jody. ana, the actress who played her, originally auditioned for riley, and we changed the character’s entire backstory for her, which added an amazing dimension to the show we get to see in reflections (and an upcoming podcast shh). lesson fucking learned on my part– almost too late. don’t be like me.

ren, on the other hand, we were 100% sure was non-binary, and although we opened auditions to all genders, we specified from the start it was a non-binary character and we’d give priority to queer/nb actors. it was the right choice.

PRODUCTION DESIGN IS FUCKING IMPORTANT. cinematography is great, and we obviously focused on it a lot w the style of our show, but PD tells so much of your story without saying a word or taking up a second of airtime.

sound is the single most important thing on set. you can make an ugly shot work, ugly sound will bring people immediately out of the show and possibly abandon it. we fucked up scheduling for Punching Bag, and had to delay its release (it was originally episode 13, not 14), hire a sound editor, and put a goddamn disclaimer on it because we didn’t have time to get good sound because of our own mistakes. arguably my biggest regret of the season, because the script and acting for that episode is so good, and we low-key ruined it. GET GOOD SOUND.

only exception to this is probably coverage and continuity; although those can be fudged a lil more. get a script supervisor or have your AD do it so you don’t miss anything crucial. always get your masters first.

schedule more than you think you should. like, down to the 15-minute block. it won’t work, but it will work worse if you don’t. do your best to stay on schedule (hint: AD/producer on set)

trust your gut. this is your baby, and your choices should service the story you want to tell. let that be your north star, and while you should let your story evolve with time and the contributions of your cast and crew,

TL;DR: write your bible & break your season first. find a team you trust, and trust them with their choices (both cast & crew). if you can, find a mentor/someone with experience to give advice. edit your show both as individual episodes and as a whole season, multiple times. continuity is crucial, backstory is crucial, coverage is crucial, scheduling is crucial. GET GOOD SOUND. and always keep sight of the story you want to tell.

i am so sorry. this is a fucking essay.

#Web series #queer webseries #lgbtq web series #webseries #web series writing #lgbtq writers

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sheliesshattered · 4 years

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Fic meme

I was tagged by @primarybufferpanel -- thank you darling, this was a ton of fun to do!

This got a bit long, so I’ll put the people I’m tagging here at the top: @claraaoswald, @ambitious-witch, @someillplanetreigns, and @junoinferno, if you feel like playing!

My AO3, my old non-updating fanfiction.net

Fandoms I’ve made fanworks for: Oh lord. I’m only going to count fanfiction that has actually been posted, but if I tried to count up every fandom that I’d started writing for and left unfinished fragments languishing on various harddrives and googledocs over the years, it’d be at least double this list. I have two pseuds on AO3, with the fics roughly organized by fandoms that I post about on this Tumblr account (sheliesshattered) and fandoms that pre-date my time on Tumblr that I don’t post about very much (glasscannon). Putting all the fandoms together in one alphabetized list:

Black Sails - 5 Doctor Who - 8 Firefly/Serenity - 1 Game of Thrones - 1 The Hobbit - 1 The Hunger Games - 1 Iron Man - 2 Law & Order: Criminal Intent - 1 Mad Max - 2 Once Upon A Time - 1 Poldark - 3 Star Wars - 3 Twilight - 7 The West Wing - 1

Number of fics: 38, including a big unfinished epic that I never moved over from ff.n, and don’t plan to unless I finish it someday.

Fics I spent more time on: I’m not even quite sure how to measure this. I’m a slow writer, and a single story can easily hold my attention for years at a time, or be something I return to when there isn’t a newer fandom temporarily consuming me. I don’t tend to keep track of how many hours I put into a fanfic, though. The unfinished epic I mentioned is probably near the top of that list, and was a huge part of my life from 2009 to 2013. Other contenders would be the All Hands series (written with PBP!), and Truth Universally Acknowledged, particularly if you include all the massive world-building that went into that one.

But really probably the one I’ve poured the most hours into, between research and writing, is a Doctor Who epic that hasn’t yet seen the light of day, called Home The Long Way ‘Round. Because I have such a habit of starting long stories and then not finishing them, I’m making myself get that one completely done before I post any of it to AO3, so I don’t have anything to show for it yet, but I’ve put a ton of time into it over the last five years or so. Hopefully someday I’ll actually get to share it. :)

Fics I spent less time on: Like I said, I’m a very slow writer, so any time I can turn out a story in a matter of days I’m just absolutely shocked. I wrote The Message over the course of about 24 hours, which is probably the fastest I’ve ever finished anything in my life ever, lol.

Longest fic: The All Hands series is sitting at 126,800 words, and PBP and I have more finished for it that we’re hoping to post soon-ish. The unfinished epic made it to almost 119,000 words before I ran out of steam. Truth Universally Acknowledged racked up about 54,000 words before my co-writer and I took a break from it, and probably triple that in world-building bibles and timelines, etc. On the works-in-progress side of things, Home The Long Way ‘Round is sitting at about 40,000 words currently and only about a third of the way done, and the For As Long As We Get series is at 21,000 words between what I’ve posted and what I’m still working on, and will definitely continue to grow.

Shortest story: 10 Seconds, at 208 words. Also one of the very first fanfics I ever finished and posted online.

Most hits: Truth Universally Acknowledged, by like a factor of 20 vs anything else I have on AO3. It’s the only time I’ve written for the main pairing in an active fandom (tho my purview in the co-writing was more on the secondary pairing), and that translated to a stupidly large number of hits. Fanfiction.net doesn’t count hits the same way, but the unfinished epic is sitting at about 3500 favs.

Most kudos: Setting The Stuns’ls, the first in the All Hands series -- which is SHOCKING considering that’s a tiny rowboat of a fandom, for a non-canon background pairing that has literally about 30 seconds of shared screentime, and the two romantic leads don’t so much as kiss over the course of 94,000 words (longing looks, significant hand-touches, mutual pining, definitely, but kissing, not so much).

Most bookmarks: Truth Universally Acknowledged, by a long shot.

Fic you want to rewrite or expand: I don’t tend to edit a story once it’s been posted, beyond correcting a typo or adding a missed word. Once it’s published, it’s finished and I don’t change it significantly. I do have quite a few (so, so many) unfinished stories that I would love to finish up at some point.

Total words combined: Counting only published fics, including the unfinished epic (and a companion piece for it) that lives only on ff.n, I’m currently at 376,542 words total.

Fav fic you wrote: How can you make me choose between my children like this, honestly?? Siiiigh. I’m with PBP, whatever I’m working on currently is usually my favorite. I’m having a ton of fun with For As Long As We Get, and can’t wait to publish the next part of that, hopefully sometime this month. I’m incredibly proud of All Hands, and that occupied such a specific time in my life that I’ll always think of it fondly. I’m exceptionally happy with the character voices and use of language in both Breathe Again and Upon This Rock Will I Break Myself, Until It Shows Me Your Beloved Face, and tend to feel like they don’t get enough love vs how much I love them. But my one true favorite is and will always be Home The Long Way ‘Round, and hopefully I’ll actually be able to finish it and post it someday.

Share a bit of your WIP or idea if you have anything planned: Again, how can I possibly choose just one?? Even just within the Doctor Who fandom, I currently have more than half a dozen stories actively in progress. But since I’ve talked it up so much without being able to link to it at all, and just declared it my all-time fav, I’m going to break one of my own rules and post the whole first chapter (eek!) of Home The Long Way ‘Round behind a read more:

Chapter 1: Orange Dreams

The sound of the wind is whispering in your head Can you feel it coming back? Through the warmth, through the cold, keep running ‘til we’re there. We're coming home now, we’re coming home now. —Home, Dotan

The winds shrieked and howled around her. Clara had never been in a tornado, but she imagined it would feel like this to stand in the eye of one. She could see gusts lifting the tops off the sand dunes in shimmering ribbons, gold against the orange sky. The waves of airborne sand dissipated a few feet from her, leaving only a jagged grittiness in the air.

A woman with long blonde hair was yelling at her, her words ripped away by the wind.

“Tell me again!” Clara called back to her. “Tell me how to find home!”

“It’s just physics!” the other woman shouted, taking a step closer; they were nearly the same height. “No information can ever be lost! Start from zero, and run the math! We’ll be waiting on the other end of that equation!”

There was something Clara desperately wanted to tell this woman who looked at her with kindness behind the steel of her eyes, but in that moment, the words wouldn’t come.

“Look!” someone yelled behind Clara, and though she didn’t want to take her eyes off her, she instinctively looked up, following the line of the other person’s arm up into the gathering storm-whipped dusk. There, silhouetted against the last of the light, was the unmistakable blue boxy shape of the Doctor’s TARDIS, spinning quickly as it flew away—

Clara jerked awake, her heart hammering against her ribs, already sitting up and pulling off her sleep mask before she realised what had woken her was the sound of the TARDIS materialising in the sitting room of her flat. She took a moment to catch her breath, trying to hold onto the details of the dream. In the other room, the TARDIS’s familiar wheezing and groaning came to a stop with a soft thud, followed by the squeak of the door.

“Doctor?” Clara called, not bothering to hide the sleep nor the annoyance in her voice.

He poked his head around her bedroom doorframe, grey hair awry and his most innocent expression plastered on — which meant he knew he was waking her and felt at least marginally bad about it. “Hello, Clara. It’s Wednesday,” he said pleasantly, by way of explanation.

“Is it?” she asked, deadpan.

“Technically.”

“You do know that I have to work today, don’t you?”

“Not for another six hours. So come on, up-and-at-‘em, plenty of time to go out and save the universe and still be back in time for your morning coffee. I’ve an adventure that simply won’t keep, so come on!”

His excitement was infectious, as he must have known it would be, but Clara clung to her annoyance a little longer, mostly for show. “You have a time machine: everything can keep,” she replied, but waved him off before he could launch into a lecture on all the ways that statement was false, at least from a temporal physics standpoint. He lectured anyway, hovering outside her bedroom door as she dressed, though Clara expected it was mostly to keep himself from pacing in anticipation. She followed more than half of it, and worried a bit over how often she let him babble on about the minutiae of time travel these days.

By the time the universe had been set to rights — or at least one small blue world, home to a race of sentient seahorses, that had been facing imminent extinction in the form of a rogue exoplanet — she had nearly forgotten her unsettling, vivid dream.

Given the recent events on Skaro, Clara was unsurprised when bits of her experiences there began to filter into her dreams. Truthfully, she had expected to dream of it more often than she did, but in the weeks that followed, more nights than not her sleeping mind instead conjured up the strange orange landscape. She revisited that screaming sandstorm so often it became almost comforting, and before long, other dreams joined it.

Clara was leaned against a railing on a high balcony, overlooking a large city coming alight as dusk crept on, a rusty sunset that stretched the width of the horizon bathing the world in amber. The woman with the serious eyes and long, straight blonde hair stood beside her, in the middle of a conversation, as happened so frequently in dreams.

“Alright, but what about the last stage?” Clara asked, elbows resting next to hers on the railing. “That bit depends on us actively doing something, and you know we can’t rely on my knowledge. I can’t take any of the engineering or navigation with me, so it’ll be down to him.”

“And he loves a good puzzle,” the other woman said confidently, flicking her hair over her shoulder with a twitch of her head. “He’ll want to find us. He’ll figure it out.”

“Before I die of old age? Are you sure? My mother was one of his professors at the Academy, I’ve seen his test scores. I think we need a fail-safe.”

“He did graduate,” she pointed out reasonably.

“He passed his exams with a fifty-one percent on his second attempt! No, we can’t assume he’ll have all the baseline information to even consider such a solution, much less actually accomplish the maths. We have to find some way to hide it with me,” Clara said. “Or in his TARDIS.”

The woman was silent for a long moment, her mouth set in a thoughtful line. On the distant horizon, the sun had finished its slow descent, but below them the city was coming to life, the light not so much fading as changing sources, becoming ever so slightly more golden.

“By that point in the timeline,” the blonde woman said, speaking slowly, still thinking it through, “you’ll have been exposed to his timestream and to the crack in the universe, so some of your memories will probably start leaking through. If we structure the extraction the right way, we might be able to embed a particular thought or moment into your consciousness before you go into the Schism.”

“What’d you have in mind?” Clara asked, turning her head to look at her.

“This conversation?” she suggested, laughing, her broad smile transforming her face. “No, a phrase would be cleaner, I think.”

“‘Run the math, you idiot boy’?” Clara suggested, also giggling.

“Oh yes, that’d go over well! No, if you want him to do something, call him clever. Works every time!” she laughed, leaning her shoulder into Clara’s.

“The horrid thing is that I know the temporal physics for this is part of my mother’s coursework,” Clara groaned. “If he hadn’t slept through so many of her classes, this would be a non-issue!”

“Ah, but a Doctor who was always responsible? What a boring universe that would be!”

Above them, the stars were beginning to come out, though the glare of the city obscured them. Through the haze of the dream, Clara couldn’t find any constellations she recognised. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “I was the one who helped him steal that box in the first place.”

“And if he could take half a moment to remember that,” the blonde woman said seriously, “he might realise the role of his TARDIS in all of this, and start to think of the solution that way.”

“‘Run the math, you—”

“Clever.”

“—boy, and remember when you met me’?”

The other woman nodded, considering. “That could do it. Your chronodeterminate conjugation won’t work until you come into contact with at least a little regeneration energy. Assuming you choose regeneration on Trenzalore, it might start kicking in then, in plenty of time for the last stage.”

“Run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me,” Clara whispered up to the distant stars, cradling her chin on her arms against the railing.

The woman mimicked her position, the golden light of the city and the silver light of the stars catching in her long pale hair. “It’s just physics,” she murmured back. “Start from zero and run the math. I’ll be waiting at the other end of that equation. We’ll all be waiting.”

As unsettling as they were, at least the orange-tinged dreams were better than nightmares of Daleks, of being locked in the Dalek casing, unable to convince the Doctor that it was her, it was her, she wasn’t a Dalek, she wasn’t a Dalek! Dreams of the Doctor peering at her down an eyestock, this face or the last, or any of the others buried deep in her subconscious, hearing her but not knowing her, seeing her but not saving her.

Clara grasped for that orange sky, let it carry her away in bronze sandstorms, golden cities slowly coming to life, and starlight caught in tawny hair.

Monday morning third period found her Year 10 students taking an essay exam while Clara doodled on a scrap piece of paper, trying to pull images and phrases out of the orange haze that had taken up residence in her slumbering hours since Skaro. There were bits that tugged at her memory, like a song she couldn’t quite place but whose tune was intensely familiar.

She’d written Run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me across the top of the page, and her eyes strayed to it every few seconds. The phrase had stayed with her after she woke, and had been on the tip of her tongue ever since, as though it was a message she was meant to deliver. Below it she’d rewritten the phrase, but crossed out six words: Run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me.

It was too close for comfort to the phrase that had, in retrospect, changed her life, sent her on her current course. The Maitlands’ mnemonic for their wifi password, which she’d said out loud during that first phone conversation with the Doctor, had caught his attention somehow, and it wasn’t until she jumped into his timestream that she understood. It was the last thing she’d said to him before sacrificing herself to save him. Every fragment of her scattered through his timestream had said it to him at some point as well, the words reverberating endlessly up and down his timeline.

Why her dreams would dredge it up now, and in such a strange context, Clara had no idea. They didn’t feel like random images, but more like memory-dreams, like the bits of echo lives that filtered through to her sleeping mind from time to time. It had to mean something.

Half way down the scrap paper she’d written: It’s just physics. Start from zero and run the math. Below this was the very helpful ??? and Clara idly traced over the question marks again. Physics was still a foreign language to her, despite how much the Doctor prattled on about it at times. She could bring this to him, she mused, but what was it, really? Her subconscious doing backflips in the wake of Skaro, that was all. No grand mystery to solve, no universe-altering secret code, just her. She wouldn’t bother the Doctor with this quite yet.

Besides, she was certain she could tease this apart on her own, follow the clues to their logical conclusion without his assistance. The dreams were insistent, and felt familiar, but Clara was sure she’d never dreamed of the blonde woman and the orange sky prior to Skaro. That was the next clue, then, and she jotted it down on her scrap paper. Something had changed after Skaro, something that caused her subconscious mind to dredge up these particular buried memories.

She needed more information. Dreams about her echo lives were always stronger when she was aboard the TARDIS travelling in the Vortex, sharper and easier to remember. Maybe these orange dreams would be, too. And maybe the TARDIS itself would have some answers for her.

Of course, she didn’t sleep aboard the TARDIS very often, with her insistence on returning home for a week of Real Life in between their Wednesday trips. But the Doctor was never adverse to her sticking around longer than she’d planned, and in the end it didn’t take much to convince him:

“I’ve a staff meeting at work that I’m dreading,” Clara told him on that next Wednesday, when they returned to the TARDIS after their latest outing. “So what do you say I have a little kip and then we squeeze in another adventure before you take me back to face my workday?”

She thought for a moment that the Doctor might question the change in their routine, but he seemed thrilled about the idea. When he announced that he had some tinkering with the engines he’d been putting off that should keep him occupied while she slept, Clara made an excuse to linger in the console room — “just going to finish reading this chapter, then off to bed” — until after he’d gone. Once he’d disappeared down the corridor and around a corner, she quietly set aside her book, then slipped out of her armchair and down the stairs towards the console. The rotors hummed overhead, and somehow Clara knew the TARDIS was aware of her, and was curious to see what she would do.

Carefully clearing her thoughts, she made her way over to the telepathic circuits, pushed up her sleeves, and slid her hands into the strange interface. Focus was the key, she knew, and she was nothing if not focused. She closed her eyes and held two very specific thoughts in her mind: the sand-whipped orange sky in her dreams, and the clear question, Where, please?

She hoped the please would help.

It was a long quiet moment with the circuits warmly cradling Clara’s fingers, and then something on the console beeped. Her eyes flew open and she carefully extracted her hands from the telepathic interface before pulling the monitor down to eye level.

Gallifrey the screen read in English, below an image of a startlingly red-orange planet. Immediately prior to the Time Lock.

Clara felt her heart thud painfully against her ribs as she read the brief text again. She’d been dreaming of Gallifrey? She knew she’d had an echo life on Gallifrey, but she remembered that interaction with the Doctor, and it happened indoors. She had never before dreamt of the Gallifreyan sky. Had it been buried somewhere in her subconscious with the rest of her memories of that life? Why surface now?

More confused than ever, she clicked the screen back to the desktop, unreadable Circular Gallifreyan floating idly across the display. Perhaps she should bring this up with the Doctor — it was his home world, after all. But the whole point of this had been to dream while they were in the Vortex, and if she didn’t get a move on, he’d be ready for their next adventure before she’d even managed to fall asleep. She could talk with him about it later.

And if things worked tonight as she hoped they would, maybe she would even have a bit more information to bring to him when she did.

“Fire suppressant in Pod Four!”

The frantic call was quickly overwhelmed by the sound of the requested suppressant dispensing from the ceiling. When it ended, the speaker, dressed in the dark red uniform of a technician, brushed soot and foam off his shirt.

“It hates me, that one,” he said, nodding at the unassuming gray cylinder in the open pod in front of him. It was devoid of features, even its doors invisible now in the wake of the fire, two meters tall and one meter in diameter, just like all the other patients in the workshop. But somehow it did seem to be glowering at him.

“And it always will, stop wasting your time,” his coworker said flippantly. He was perched in front of a console on the other side of the room, deep in his own repairs. “Just get the Impossible Girl to do it, she’ll have it eating out of her hand by lunchtime.”

Their conversation occurred in the time it took Clara to enter the large oblong workshop and make her way to the far end where the two were working. “I heard that,” she said seriously, earning a guilty-looking jump from the man who had spoken most recently. She continued over to Pod Four and leaned against the outer casing, arms folded over her uniformed chest, one booted ankle crossed over the other. “What did you do now?” she demanded of the first technician.

He looked at her with wide eyes, more out of genuine fear than mock innocence, in her estimation. “I just told it—”

“You what?” she snapped, in a tone she usually reserved for misbehaving students.

He wilted a little but started again “…I told it to—”

“Told it?”

“…to give me access to the logs,” he mumbled, dropping her gaze.

“Told it to give you access to the logs?” she asked, voice harsh. “Well first off, Number Four here prefers male pronouns, respecting that might put you on better footing. And secondly, as with all TARDISes, you’ll get a lot further if you ask rather than tell.”

Behind her, the other tech scoffed. “They’re machines, we shouldn’t have to baby them like that. An access request is an access request.”

Clara turned her head to pin him with an icy glare. “Some days I cannot believe I let you work here,” she told him bluntly. “They aren’t just machines, as you very well know. Yes, there’s hardware we need to be able to work with, but that’s nothing more than a radio, at some level — only instead of radio waves, we’re using oswin waves to talk to pan-dimensional beings so large, they can’t have a physical form in this dimension. Who, with a little extra energy, can take us and an infinite amount of folded space to nearly any point in spacetime. Just think about the massive intelligences that speak to us through each of those machines!

“But more to the point,” she said, turning back to the tech still covered in soot, “you have to understand their viewpoint of the universe, and their understanding of time. A Time Lord telling a TARDIS what to do is akin to creating a fixed point in spacetime. It’s in their nature to want to avoid fixed points. Ask instead, let him find his own way ‘round to it.”

Before the beleaguered technician could reply, there came a polite knocking from the far end of the room, and Clara turned to see a soldier standing in the doorway of the workshop, looking a little out of his depth. “Sorry to interrupt, but I have a message for—” he paused to glance down at the datapad in his hand, “for the Oswin. From the Lady President. Top priority.”

Clara was moving towards him before he’d finished speaking, curious and concerned, her attention focused on the message in his hands. But the dream faded out before she reached him, her mind moving on to something more abstract, more difficult to hold on to.

When she woke in her bed aboard the TARDIS, she stared at the ceiling with fond frustration. “If that was your attempt at help,” she whispered to the ship, “then I do not understand the message.”

It still wasn’t enough to bring to the Doctor, she decided later that day, watching him spin around the console room in the afterglow of a successful adventure, people saved, the universe bettered. So she was dreaming of Gallifrey, what of it? Many of the details in that last dream matched up with what she remembered of her interaction with the Doctor in that life. And while he occasionally enjoyed comparing memories of all the times her echoes had met him, she’d found he wasn’t especially keen on discussing the one in which she’d helped him steal the TARDIS and leave Gallifrey. Susan continued to be a point of pain for the Doctor, all these centuries later, and Clara understood him well enough to know better than to pick at that particular scab.

Still. That phrase was on a loop in her head: run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me. The emphasis on their meeting hadn’t been part of the original phrase, and now she was dreaming of the life in which they’d met face to face for the first time, from the Doctor’s perspective. Clearly they would have to discuss it at some point.

Eventually, but not yet.

#long post #about me #my writing #like seriously all of it #fanfiction #fandom life #AO3 #Home The Long Way 'Round #For As Long As We Get #All Hands #Truth Universally Acknowledged #et al #if you read that chapter let me know what you think!#❤️

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jewishconvertthings · 5 years

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What do *you* think Torah is?

Hi anon,

Y’all are killing me with these deep, theological questions here, lol. Before I answer this, I am going to, for the nth time, remind folks that I am not a rabbi, that I can only give you the kind of answer you’d get if you asked Shul Mom™ or That One Educated Layperson, and that you really, really should talk to your rabbis about these questions because if they are worth their salt as a rabbi, they will be delighted that you are asking them.

It’s interesting that you should ask me this right now, because I’ve been reviewing and re-reading Sacred Fragments recently in response to some theological conversations I’ve been having with a Catholic friend of mine. In any event, in it, Rabbi Gillman describes four different theological streams of thought when it comes to what revelation (and consequently, Torah) actually is. These are far from being the only four, but they are representative a wide swath of Jewish thought and are intended to demonstrate the spectrum from traditional to modern-progressive.

You all should really consider reading this book, because this summary doesn’t do it justice, but here are the four representative views:

The traditionalist view says that the revelation at Sinai was a literal revealing of G-d’s will through the words of the Torah. The words of the Torah are therefore G-d’s words and G-d’s desires for how to live our lives as humans and as Jews. It must therefore be fulfilled and kept in all its details, as it communicates G-d’s exact will for us. (Gillman also notes that there is a “softer” traditionalist perspective that says that the ideas - if not the literal words - were communicated verbatim to the people, which avoids the theological problem of anthropomorphizing G-d by claiming that G-d literally speaks at all.)

The naturalist view envisioned by Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan z”l is that G-d is “the process (or power) that makes for salvation.” (More about what that actually means here: [1], [2], [3], [4]. Basically, he defines ‘salvation’ as that which makes living worthwhile.) Consequently, revelation (and therefore Torah) is the process by which we discover how this geulah can be brought about.

One iteration of a moderate position between these is that of Franz Rosenzweig’s view that what was revealed at Sinai was the fact of G-d and G-d’s desire for a relationship with the people Israel, and therefore the Torah is the written interpretation of that encounter. It is not a law book, but rather our ancestors’ response to a profound sense of commandedness that comes from being in relationship with anyone - in this case, G-d. (It is worth noting that he was a friend and colleague of Martin Buber, and that while there are differences, this view draws heavily upon Buber’s I-Thou relationship model.)

A different iteration of a moderate position between these is that of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, whose view was that “as a report about revelation, the Bible itself is Midrash.” Meaning here, that the Torah is our ancestors’ interpretation of a more primal, immediate revelation that was far more transcendent than could ever be pinned down in human words.

For me, personally, when I was reading through these various viewpoints and trying to find myself on the spectrum, I realized that I’m somehow all of them but also none of them.

I love the traditionalist viewpoint that views G-d as a Being that you could have any sort of personal relationship with (which reflects my personal experiences), and do believe that the Torah is G-d given. On the other hand, do I think that archaeology and the historicity of the Torah bear it out as a -literally true- document, and that we must adhere to it in a literal way for all time without taking into account changed circumstances or the inevitable march of time? No, no I do not.

Furthermore, this is true even as I love that universalism of what Rabbi Kaplan has to say about the nature of religion and of G-d, which therefore allows us greater freedom to view other religions as legitimate for their adherents, even if we do not follow them. When the chips are down, I may or may not be able to defend my specific concept of G-d as a personal G-d except via my own experiences, but I feel like objective reality bears out at least Kaplan’s minimalist assertion. Therefore, on rationalist grounds, I believe Kaplan’s view of G-d, even if my spiritual practice and personal beliefs are otherwise. That said, with regards to how this impacts our view of Torah? I can’t get on board with it at all, because it flips from Torah being something we received from G-d to something humans discovered in the process of attempting to find religious meaning in the world. I can appreciate how this view works for others, but it does not work for me personally.

Which leads me to drift toward the more moderate, middle-of-the-road positions. I love Rosenzweig’s view of the G-d and human interaction as very relational - that because of our relationship to G-d, we have this profound sense of commandedness. Inherent to this perspective (in my view, anyway) is that it comes from a place of deep love flowing in both directions. We are beholden to G-d because of our love for G-d, and G-d’s love for us. That said, the imprecision in this view - namely, that there is no specific behavioral code attached to this sense of commandness renders it incomplete for me.

Heschel’s probably comes closest to what I believe. His view is that what was revealed at Sinai was “the Torah as representing God’s will for Israel, though what we have is not that Torah in its purity but rather, our ancestors’ and our own understanding of its contents.” This tracks pretty closely with my view; however, I would add a further nuance.

Ultimately, my view is that the Torah is a divinely given process. It’s not a book. It’s not a statute. It’s a path, a way of life, and a process for figuring out the way forward. Therefore, yes I believe in the Sinai moment of revelation; I also believe that the literal words we ended up with are a series of much smaller, more personal “Sinai moments” that all coalesced into the text we have now. And - critically - that this process of creating and canonizing the text is still from G-d. It’s still divinely given, even if that giving didn’t happen in a clear-cut, one-time-only sort of way. Because what was given wasn’t the literal words necessarily, but the process of using the words we already had to build a holy way of living, then and throughout our long history, and even now.

Anyway, that’s how you get to the position that I hold by, namely: that Torah is divinely given and we must take it as seriously, yet at the same time, what we were given wasn’t a textbook or a statute, but a process by which we can continue that revelation until Moshiach comes. This means that while I do view Torah as binding, I nevertheless believe that we retain the right and even the duty to continue to interpret and reinterpret Torah going forward, and to revise our stances on various topics as time progresses and circumstances change. We just have to use the proper channels and this holy process we were given.

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bbq-hawks-wings · 5 years

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Deku!

I know it’s been a while, but this ask was in response to a post I put out asking others to give me characters from HeroAca other than Hawks to stretch my character analysis skills to see what theories, predictions, or just interesting observations I find. Because this is outside the realm of my usual character subjects and my style may not be well known in this tag - I ramble and am long-winded, hence the cut to not be obnoxious to scroll past. As a manga reader I won’t add any information past the anime’s run so far if you’re curious and want to hear what I have to say.

Deku’s an interesting character to look at in the series because compared to the way we find out about literally every other character, we outright know what he’s thinking or what he’s doing or how he’s feeling, so any development we see from him we pretty much see it coming from a mile away. He’s an open book.

In contrast, not many fans were able to see how Aoyama may have been struggling with feelings of inadequacy over his abilities - particularly in the Sports Festival Arc; and this became obvious with the license exam in season 3, but the point goes that while many fans saw it coming, there were those who weren’t able to read between the lines and saw him as a two-dimensional joke character meant to fill up the class roster up to that point.

We don’t really have that level of mystery or uncertainty with Deku. As the main viewpoint into the series and the world Horikoshi is building, we’re basically experiencing everything that’s happening vicariously through Deku. Yet, it’s not like there’s no room for theories, specularization, or characterization with his character. I’ve already said I’m avoiding spoilers so theories and most speculation are out of the question as I can only vaguely hint that there’s some potentially neat thematic parallels beginning to be explored in part through him, but that’s about as many of the beans I can spill without dumping out the whole thing.

I had some neat stuff to talk about before I actually sat down and started writing this and realized so much of it was spoiler-y; but at least in way of my opinions on Deku, I haven’t actively rooted for the main anime protagonist like this in a while and his likeability is off the charts. That said, he’s not a stellar role model just yet, mainly due to his hero complex. We’ll see some of the nuance of this subject explored in the next season, but by and large Deku’s drive to save people can use some level-headed reigning in before he acts. There are many times where his action is completely appropriate and justified - almost always when there’s someone right in front of him that needs saving; and let me make it perfectly clear that the unyielding drive to help someone in distress is a positive quality through and through; but when he goes out of his way to break the rules and disregards the repercussions in order to save someone I’m kind of surprised he hasn’t gotten in much bigger trouble so far what with his history of it at this point. That’s all to say that he’s a loose canon in the series so far and needs more experience before he’s real top hero material.

However, I don’t think this lone wolf mentality is what Horikoshi is trying to glorify or endorse through the series. My guess is that the series as a whole is philosophically leaning towards the Good Samaritan principle. (I said I wasn’t theorizing, but I guess I’m a liar now.)

If you aren’t familiar with the story of the Good Samaritan, it’s a parable in the Bible Jesus told about doing the right thing in helping others, no matter who you or the other person is - even if under normal circumstances the person you’re helping would despise you. This story is so iconic that there’s a type of law named after it - The Good Samaritan Law. (And if you’re unfamiliar with it you should read it and the other parables in the Bible, they’re not just moral tales but might get you good points on an English/Literature essay if you reference them well.)

It differs from place to place and not all countries have them, but the principle is if you think someone is in immediate danger and you attempt to save them they can’t turn around and sue you for “wrongdoing.” For example, if you see a baby or an animal locked in a car on a hot day and you smash the windows to pull them out and get them cooled down, whoever owns that car can’t sue you for smashing their windows and damaging their car. There’s a lot more nuance and fine print, but that’s the basic idea. In many cases where this law exists it actually legally obligates the bystander to help. The hope is that these laws help reduce the Bystander Effect (really neat if you look it up, but also scary and very humbling) and encourage people to help those in imminent danger without fear of negative repercussions.

Something I didn’t quite realize until now is that with the advent of a superhuman society, the Good Samaritan Principle is largely done away with all the way across the globe. Even if people are in active, life-threatening danger, you can’t use your powers to step in unless you have a hero license or you risk getting in serious legal trouble. To an extent this is understandable in a precarious and delicate situation - just look at the precision called for in the second half of the Provisional License Exam; but it occurred to me that not only are everyday people discouraged from getting directly involved they’re actively penalized if they do! If a hero was already on the case or shows up while you stall for time it makes sense to not insert yourself and complicate matters - you wouldn’t get in the middle of a hostage negotiation, for instance. Yet, that’s not what we see reflected in the series. There’s an over-saturation of heroes to the general public so that there’s almost always a hero close by to swoop in which rarely ever leaves an opening for someone else to step in while a hero is on their way; and the problem with this is that it leads to an over-dependence on heroes to intervene in other’s lives instead of taking the responsibility into one’s own hands as a citizen of the community.

This has repercussions that are directly echoed across the series, even (and especially) up to date. If you’re not a hero, you’re supposed to step back and let a “professional” handle it. If there’s truly no “Good Samaritan” exception in the world of HeroAca then that really gives Deku a solid ideal to embody and work towards in his world. He outright inspired All Might at the beginning of the series because he demonstrated the Good Samaritan Principle when rescuing Bakugo.

“It doesn’t matter that he hates me and bullies me and steps on my dreams. It doesn’t matter that I’m not a hero and can’t even stand up for myself. It doesn’t even matter that I don’t have any kind of superpower to use in this situation. He’s in danger and if I don’t do something now he’ll die! I can’t let that happen, and I won’t let that happen!”

That’s literally the parable in a nutshell. He even gets reprimanded for it after the fact, but he certainly doesn’t apologize for it. Deku is the personification of the “hero’s heart.” It’s recklessly helping others when they need help, and the moment he recognizes that someone is lashing out in pain (a la Todoroki or Shinsou or even Bakugo) he instantly recognizes that even though they may be against him in the moment and that threat needs to be reigned in, they’re still as much in need of saving as someone falling from a building. While All Might deterred crime through threat of force, Deku is on track to deter them before they even get to that place at all, and his character is making a case of normalizing this mentality instead of drawing black and white lines in the sand and chasing the symptoms of the disease rather than the cause. (I’m literally having a big brain moment typing this, “All Might-y power” in one generation vs “Deku” as someone who might normally be worthless but only needs a nudge to become “Dekiru/ I-can-do-it!”)

It’s a theme resonating through the series about how heroism and villainy both have roots in the heart, and while there are threats that have to be dealt with in the immediate and physical, there’s still an emotional and psychological component that has not only gone unaddressed for too long but is directly responsible for the surge of villains in society. You can already see it in so many of the League of Villains’ members (and some of the more troubled heroes) - if someone had been there to reach out their hand and metaphorically save them when they personally needed it in their lives (“It’s okay, I’m here.”) then they probably never would have become bad guys in the first place.

When all’s said and done, I think that’s the point of Deku’s character in the story, why he’s the main character, and why he’s going to be the greatest hero in the world.

~~~~~

Wow, that was more satisfying to write than I thought it would be. And to you, Momo and Uraraka anon, I have heard your question and I am trying to get it out soon. I just have… Much work to do.

After that, though, I hope to open HC requests again soon!

#deku bnha #deku mha #she writes #bnha meta #mha meta #bnha deku #mha deku #midoriya izuku #izuku midoriya #spoiler free

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heidi-in-high-school · 5 years

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Sanders Sides Characters - An Essay

I know I said that this account was going to be used primarily for school-related posts, a blog to keep track of my success during the school year. That’s all well and good, but a few days ago came a very monumental episode of the web-series Sanders Sides by Thomas Sanders and Joan S. I was so moved by the episode that I ended up ranting to my friend for so long that it ended up into a 14-paragraph essay. This essay doesn’t speak about the plot (as to not spoil anything major for my friend; it still spoiled stuff, though), but it does speak about the characters and their importance to the story. So I implore you to now realize my obsession with this series through this essay (you can also use this to explain the basics of the Sides to anyone willing to watch the series).

•••

Thomas and the Sides

Thomas is the "Host" of all of the Sides. When combined, all of the Sides would create Thomas. He represents the idea of personality to the story.

On the subject of the sides, there's Logan, Roman, Patton, Virgil, Remus, Deceit, and potentially others. Each Side has a purpose and powers that affect Thomas (and sometimes other Sides) directly. All Sides have the power to shape-shift and summon themselves and others into scenarios.

Along with this, there are two categories of Sides, Light and Dark.

The Light Sides

The Light Sides contain the three original Sides, Logan, Roman, and Patton and possibly others. Their power is weak compared to the others, and they are susceptible to any tricks that they pull on each other and/or the Dark Sides pull on them. They are considered to be the “good guys” in the series, but that is up for suspicion.

Logan wears a black collared shirt with a blue striped tie, along with a pair of black glasses. He represents Thomas' logic and intelligence, along with his rational thinking. Logan has the power to pass on his rational thinking unto others, even if his presence isn't felt by Thomas or the others directly.

Roman is Thomas' hopes, dreams, GOOD creativity, and passion. He wears a regal costume; a white jumper with a red sash and small yellow frills around his arms. Roman has the power to give Thomas convincing ideas quickly without having to explain them at all and the power to conjure things, specifically puppies. Roman is pictured to be very confident and joyous at first, but after a few episodes, we start to see his insecurities shine through, along with some bouts of depression, even.

Patton has a light blue collared shirt with a grey cat hoodie wrapped around his shoulders. He wears the same glasses as Logan as well. Patton represents Thomas' heart - his emotions, his inner values, and his morality. His power is more of a hindrance than anything, as it's a way for others to ignore bad emotions and enhance their other, happier emotions. This was shown in "Moving On 1&2" when they all ventured into Patton's room to ignore the sadness of a recent breakup that Thomas had. That did NOT end well.

The Dark Sides

Now we enter the realm of the Dark Sides. This category contains Virgil, “Deceit,” Remus, and possibly others. These Sides have more power than the aforementioned Sides and use it to wreak havoc.

Confirmed in the newest episode, Virgil was a former Dark Side that turned into a Light Side (main character) after his story arc (Accepting Anxiety 1&2). He is known most for his gravelly voice and his smeared, black eye-shadow, which are both important to remember in the future episodes, as both get more intense per episode. His costume is a "homemade" stitched hoodie (a la "Nightmare Before Christmas") with a ripped, purple shirt under it. Virgil's power is to bring light to insecurities that any of the other Sides have (Roman fears for his reputation and is insecure about how others perceive him, Logan wants to be taken seriously, and Patton doesn't like his surge of emotions). It's obvious when this is happening because the other Sides (and eventually Thomas) generate eye-shadow under their eyes as Virgil's voice becomes multiplied and more demonic. In actuality, Virgil doesn't like his power and these instances usually happen on accident. He would do anything to get rid of it and seem "normal" in the Light Sides' eyes.

Then comes Remus. He is the twin brother of Roman that Roman pushed away for a long while. Their sibling rivalry was canonically based on the Roman myth, "Romulus and Remus," where Romulus kills Remus and finds Rome (hence Remus' question at the beginning of the [newest] video: "Have you ever imagined killing your brother?"). Remus represents Thomas' unfiltered and BAD imagination, along with his impulse thinking and irrationality. He wears the negatives/complements of Roman (green and black) to show that as well. He has the power to muffle sounds and tune out the outside world so he can speak to Thomas directly. He also produces hallucinations for Thomas and the others to see that are used to get them all wrapped around his finger.

And finally, Deceit. “Deceit,” despite what he claims, is not his real name, and there is no current information about his name yet. He wasn't shown explicitly in the [newest video], but he was the first Side to be represented as a Dark Side, the leader, if I am not mistaken. He represents Thomas' deception and will for self preservation, which was violently displayed in "Selfishness vs. Selflessness," the episode prior to the [newest one]. Deceit has the power to lie very convincingly and manipulate others into doing what he wants. Because of his lying persona, he is a metaphysical hybrid between a snake and a human, with one side of his face being covered in scales with a large cut in the middle (there is no meaning behind the cut yet) and his personal left eye is a yellow snake eye. He mentions often that he is the "snake to trick Thomas into sinning," as he is comparable to the snake in the Tree of Knowledge that fools Adam and Eve into eating the Forbidden Fruit in the Book of Genesis in the Bible.

Deceit wears a black cape around his shoulders with a deep purple, almost black, vest underneath, along with his signature bowler hat ... and yellow gloves. Though being a snake/human hybrid, he can (kind of) be compared to the Greek Hydra, which is a Greek/Roman monster that has multiple heads that multiply every time one is decapitated. Instead of having multiple heads, however, Deceit has 6 arms that seem Slenderman-esque that represent every Side.

“Potentially Others”

It has been teased by the cast and crew that the Sides listed above are not alone, as humans have multiple different aspects of their personality and how each asset can fluctuate between Sides. For example, Logan is shown as rational and pristine, whereas Virgil is shown to be thinking rationally from time to time, without the power to express that physically or verbally.

Each Light Side is also paired off to a Dark Side -- it has been confirmed that Remus and Roman are paired off because they are twins and that Deceit and Patton are paired off because Patton represents truth and Deceit represents dishonesty.

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sol1056 · 5 years

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git along little nonnies

Got a whole bunch of you on related themes, so I’m just gonna do this all at once: a bunch of questions about DW, spinoffs, merchandise, business, management, support (and protest) and whatnot. In no particular order.

Ok there are petitions and peaceful boycotts directed at DW but problem is they aren’t addressing the EPs and things they, not DW, did so how are we to sign them, how to handle this when this could at best confuse the situation and not give any results and at worst, make matters even worse about what we want regarding DW addressing things?

Here’s what companies care about: money. Everything else is gravy.

If you want a corporation to pay attention to your complaints, then you need to figure out their sources of income, and find a way to threaten that. If the social reprobation is high enough, damage to the brand can translate into lost sales, but the tempest required to make that happen must be much, much larger than anything I’ve seen the fandom manage.

I’ve been saying this all along: voices are far more powerful than signatures. If twenty thousand people wrote or called in, and said what they liked vs what upset them, that would have a far greater impact. Certainly a lot more than a list of names with no emotion beyond a request that may not even be something DW can, or would, fulfill.

And don’t even get me started on mailing stuff in. Cute, but hardly actionable.

Do you know what kind of contracts DW sign, as in, are they obligated to air all seasons, can they choose not to air them, do the companies they work with (netflix, wep) have a say or more say than them? Who gets the last word? Is airing all seasons squarely on DW or more?

As I’m not a corporate lawyer employed by any of the signatories, I can’t tell you what the contract stipulated. What I can tell you is that a contract of the magnitude of the DW-WEP-Netflix agreement probably had a dissertation worth of riders covering the different types of possible defaults or breaches, and the penalties for each. Additionally, the contract also likely covered what constituted ‘satisfactory delivery’ of the product.

To take it down to a really simple level: you place an order at a restaurant. You expect to get it, eat it, and pay for it. You don’t expect to be told, “hey, we burnt your steak and we’re out of butter for your sweet potatoes, so have some green beans instead,” and then be told you still owe the full amount, anyway.

Netflix wouldn’t settle for ordering (and paying for) something never delivered, anymore than you would. Sure, any corporation worth their over-inflated stock options would try --- but that’s the point of contracts, to make sure they can’t.

Netflix paid, DW delivers, end of story.

...do you think ppl in charge didn't think EPs would tell they made changes and also thought they'd manage to bury it? And then they got in trouble and DW is going thru changes for that reason? -waves at DW goings on and silence.

I got lost in all the pronouns, there. Who’s the first ‘they,’ the EPs or DW execs? Is the second ‘they’ referring to the same as the first? So... I’m not really sure what you’re positing, but if the ‘DW is going through changes’ is implying DW’s got a shakeup and/or is promoting its head-of-TV to president and that’s somehow connected to two newbie EPs screwing up?

I’d say the chances are so infinitesimal as to be nearly in the negative. (I should also note, the press release listed successful shows Cohn oversaw, yet oddly did not include VLD.) DW is not a three-person start up; it has stakeholders and a board and a C-suite to satisfy. Cohn got that promotion ‘cause she’s got a track record going back thirty years, most recently growing DW’s TV division from 8 to 800 in five years.

Most corporations tend to announce their new CEO or President like someone woke up that morning and went, hey, I’ve got a great idea. Truth is, it’s usually in the works for at least a year, sometimes several years, or more. The only thing that has me side-eyeing the announcement is the silence around who’ll fill Cohn’s previous position.

But that’s again less to do with a single series, and more to do with what it says about DW as a whole, business-wise.

What meaningful changes could the new president Margie Cohn make that would be different than the last one? Also I'm sorry if your getting a bunch of Voltron/DW questions lately, you just seem to be the most knowledgeable person on this platform.

I’d be willing to bet I’m far from the most knowledgeable person; I’m just someone not bound by an NDA, and curious enough to do a bit of digging and jaded enough to talk about (most) of what I find.

A president can have immense impact on a company’s direction; that’s kinda why they exist, to set that high-level strategy. That said, Cohn will be bound by all contracts signed by her predecessor. The TV side (barring someone filling the shoes she left) will probably continue as it was. The theatrical side (which she’s taking over) will be where we’ll probably see any major changes.

And even those aren’t likely to be on films currently in production. Hell, given theatrical animation can take up to five years, I’m not sure that’d show much change, either. Look instead to changes in investors, new deals, and new properties.

What do you think DW will do about a sequel if there’s really no bible? Theres tons of plot holes & abandoned storylines. VLD will never feel satisfying, and fans already argued with different interpretations based on conflicting content, without a nice satisfying explanation...

I know this is the first of a three-part ask, but I’m skipping the rest because the only answer possible is to your very first question: the bible doesn’t matter.

Any new series --- even a continuation --- will construct its own bible. Same as we’d do in fandom: they’ll patch together what they can, fill in blanks as they need, and gloss the rest, or retcon it outright. Even if there were a bible, diligently followed, that doesn’t mean the next series is automatically beholden to it. Some franchises would care (ie Star Wars) while others might let a reboot mess with the details (ie Star Trek).

For every continuation, there’s gradations in between, since otherwise what’s the interest for creative minds, if you’re obligated to follow someone else’s script exactly? So, no. The absence of a story bible doesn’t preclude the next iteration making its own, as it needs, to whatever extent it requires.

I was wandering around the hot topic online store, and i noticed a shirt that raised a few flags and questions. it's the 'Voltron Location' shirt. it has all the paladins in different places in a star globe chart thing? with what might possibly be planet designations. plus Lance is the only one not inside his blue colored bubble. Keith is in Red and Shiro in Black again. it's interesting at least.

Nearly all the shirts use the same base images, just changed up. It feels a little like someone handed a designer a half-dozen images with a request for forty-something designs --- and now HT is just throwing them all at the wall to see what sticks (or sells).

HT’s stuff has been pretty consistent, from what I’ve heard: Shiro is Black, Keith is Red, etc. Considering the t-shirts seem to be selling out regularly (along with various other sidelines), I’d say someone is savvy as to the fact that the segment of fandom spending the most money is also the segment that prefers the S1/S2 lineup.

If that’s what customers want, it’s smart business for DW to provide.

(Yes, that applies on more than one level.)

There are VLD comic books being released by LionForge Comics, are those considered canon? Do LM and JDS have any involvement? They take place before Season 7and8 but I don't wanna support the original EPs.

Every fandom has its own stand on what counts as canon. Sometimes (especially with adaptations) you’ll find fandoms being explicit as to whether they’re book or movie (ie HP and LotR). I expect the same will eventually shake out in VLD’s fandom, too.

From everything I’ve heard, Hedrick and Iverson were handed the comics and ran with it. I suppose that would argue for seeing the comics as canon, being they were written by people also writing the main series... but from what I can tell, it’s one-way. The show affected the comics, but nothing in the comics ever affected the series.

That said, your purchases have nothing to do with the original EPs. All you’re doing is telling DW you like the VLD-iteration of Voltron.

What are your thoughts on the final vld poster? I feel like it’s missing the end. Allura is randomly staring back into nothing.

It’s a clever idea to do a poster for each season, but it’s not something I’ve ever paid any attention to, really. If it were drawn by the head writer? That might mean the artist had more insight than, say, a storyboarder or animator. But even then... cool picture, still not-canon. I’m only interested in canon.

Do you think that Voltron was rushed purposely by the EP's. [...] Wouldn't this effect the quality of, well, everything? I feel as if they got frustrated with the show at that point and just wanted out.

Dude. There are times I sit here and just stare into space, bewildered yet again not just at the thought of 39 episodes released in one year --- but doing that with 26 as a last-minute cut-and-paste rearrangement. All I can tell you is that what I’ve seen from animation people and aficionados (and friends) is that three full seasons in one calendar year is just bonkers.

If DW hadn’t wanted the schedule that packed, the EPs aren’t the ones getting the say. That’s a DW-Netflix thing. I really wonder whether DW used VLD as a guinea pig. TH went a year between S1 and S2, and the numbers slumped badly. Perhaps DW wanted to know if more episodes, more often, would keep fan interest high? DW has experienced execs, but they’re all from broadcast; how you arrange and time things in the brave new world of binge-watching is a completely different beast.

So, it’s possible it was less of a rush job to get the show out, and more from a desire to see what'd happen to release so much, so close together.

I still think it’s a bonkers schedule, though.

"Relaunch the whole property" sounds like they won't continue expanding the whole vld universe and they'll make a new itineration. Though if they do a spin-off it'd likely be on the vld universe surrounding the new "Legendary Defenders" from the epilogue. And "especially given the response" do you think after the negative response from s8, wouldn't be better for WEP to not keep working with Dreamworks? Or maybe they need to clean their brand from vld fiasco? What can you say about all of this?

I can say you might try re-reading, because boy is that a radical interpretation of the text. Remember, Jeremy was speaking before S8, and all indication is that he was caught off-guard as much as the fans. Re-read in light of Jeremy (at the time) appearing to expect S8 to be a crowd-pleaser.

...I'm becoming more confident in my belief that DW has something planned for Voltron. I mean they are still heavily promoting the show, LionForge is still publishing Voltron comics, and merchandise is still being made. These don't seem like the actions of a company trying to get people to forget a show.

You’re not wrong. Up to the last few days of 2018, DW gave every indication they wanted S8 quietly buried. Nothing they’ve done since has fit that pattern --- including the anomaly of failing to announce their 2019 series. Something is going on, that’s for certain.

Did DW really just throw the VAs to the wolves [for] three days? and there's still no official stance? One panel was enough. They had [the VAs] take the heat for them? But thankfully fans felt sorry for them? Which could also have been the goal, shut the fans up [with] the VAs of the characters who got the worst treatment and who love their characters ... Yes DW this really makes me trust you /sarcasm/

I don’t think that was the original plan. Let’s pretend DW released its 2019 schedule via press release in the first few days of January, and among those was an announcement of a VLD sequel or spinoff, coming late 2019.

People wouldn’t be fussing over putting the VAs through three panels. They’d be complaining we didn’t get the biggest room for every panel. The majority of the fandom doesn’t trust the EPs, and is wary of DW --- really, the only ones who retain any goodwill, at this point, are the VAs. So who better than to assure a nervous fandom about the goodness of the second iteration than the VAs whose characters were most shafted by the first iteration?

What breaks this is that immediately after S8 dropped, Josh and Kimberly went silent on twitter. AJ slipped into passive-aggressive snarking; Jeremy fell off the radar and usually he’s pretty interactive with his fans. Bex pretty much wiped VLD from her stream, possibly including deleting older tweets. Neil tried to engage and made a hash of it, bless his heart.

Josh and Kimberly are consummate professionals who reliably promote the series after every season drop, but their radio silence continued for almost two weeks. This wasn’t the first season that came saddled with controversy; if there was a time to go quiet, it was after S7. Something else was going on.

I have strong suspicions backed by research, but if I’m right, I’d be stepping on a major legal landmine. In the interest of not getting blown up, I’ll only say that the VAs appearing for those three panels (and their low-key and mostly diplomatic hedging around VLD’s conclusion) was a good sign that all parties involved are willing to work things out.

[DW was] quick to handle the Season 7 backlash and have stayed mum on what is arguably a much worse reaction to the 8th and final season.

and

I believe the S8 of voltron we got was not the original ending we were supposed to get and highly edited. My question is why? What was the point of changing the original ending? [The] radio silence from DW and the cast is driving me nuts. I wish DW would make a statement.

DW is in an interesting place. Its TV side is barely five years old, but dominated by execs with long-time broadcast experience, predating vibrant interactivity afforded by platforms like twitter, tumblr, or instagram. DW’s background as a theatrical company also seems to incline it away from any ongoing engagement with the audience. It releases a movie and by the time that hits theaters, DW is onto the next thing.

It’s a strong contrast with production studios like Zagtoon (Miraculous), who penned an open letter to their fandom about production delays. Or little studios like Wonderstorm (The Dragon Prince) whose deft use of twitter and tumblr sets their brand apart. Or Federator (Castlevania), with their witty marketing campaigns and willingness to engage with fans. Even Disney was willing to be open about its errors with Tiana, and to make clear how it was striving to do better --- so there’s no excuse that only small studios do such outreach.

My guess is that DW's core leadership is from the school of business in which admitting a mistake is tantamount to ritual suicide. Don’t blink first, or maybe the rule is never let them see you sweat, but whatever it is, DW is turning into a textbook case of how silence can damage a brand.

Companies have multiple avenues to reach customers directly, now. Our modern technologies are a two-way street, and good companies leverage that to create not passive fandoms but active communities. It takes work, careful planning, and some level of transparency --- something old-school execs find highly uncomfortable, to be honest --- but in this day and age, those are crucial building-blocks to achieving any kind of audience loyalty.

DW isn’t going to render itself obsolete (at least not overnight), but it's on a track to end up as the studio whose work audiences only watch when there’s nothing better being offered. Unfortunately for DW, there’s a hell of a lot of other studios out there, and they're all offering something better.

#vld #voltron #television production #marketing #business #sol thinks about stuff

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rpoli3 · 5 years

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Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

I publish under multiple names in fiction and non-fiction, and am an internationally-produced playwright and radio writer. I spent the bulk of my career working backstage on Broadway, and a little bit in film and television production.

How long have you been writing for?

I started writing when I was six; I was published in school literary magazines, and, in high school, published in local papers when I handled publicity for the music department. I started working professionally in theatre when I was 18. In college, my major was film and television production, and I veered away from the writing and more into technical aspects. Working off-Broadway, I started writing monologues for actresses looking for good material; that grew into plays, and then back into short stories and novels. So I’ve been writing for A Very Long Time.

What motivates you to write? How did you begin writing?

Writing is how I make sense of the world. How I explore other lives from the inside and the outside.

Do you have a writing routine? If so, what’s a typical day like for you?

I do my first 1K of the day on what I call my “Primary Project” (whatever’s being drafted) early in the day. Feed the cats, do my yoga/meditation practice, write my first 1K of the day.

The rest of the day shapes up depending on if I’m doing only my own work, or a mix of my own work and client work and other freelance writing gigs. It’s shaped by what’s on the tightest deadline and the highest paycheck. I prefer to write in the morning and edit in the afternoons. Since I’m always juggling multiple projects, there are usually a handful of projects in various draft stages, and then some more in editing or galleys. Scriptwriting usually requires a much tighter turnaround than books, so when those jobs come in, they take priority. Sometimes, I just have to stay up later or get up earlier to get it all done.

What was the first thing you did when you found out your book was being published?

Cried. Tears of joy, but I cried.

What was the publishing process like? How long did it take?

Months, of course. For me, there’s generally been one major edit from the editor’s initial notes and discussion, and then one to two more rounds of edits with the editor, with a tighter turnaround. Then, the copyeditor is brought in, and we have those edits and galleys. When I have unusual people names or place names or phrases in other languages, I submit that with the draft that goes to the editor and the copyeditor, so they can help me stay consistent.

For the series I write, keeping the Series Bibles updated is vital, too. As soon as a book is out of final galleys and headed for release, I update the Series Bible. I use tracking sheets for details that may change within drafts, but once it’s finalized, I update the Series Bible. That way, an inconsistency is a plot or character choice, not a mistake.

Are you currently working on anything new?

Always! The radio plays are getting a lot of traction right now, and I have four stage plays to finish this year: one on the painter Canaletto’s sisters; one on the gun violence epidemic; a collection of monologues called WOMEN WITH AN EDGE RESIST that’s a follow-up to one of my most popular plays, WOMEN WITH AN EDGE; and a play about two famous women authors. Plus, I have to keep up with the series I’m writing — The Gwen Finnegan Mysteries, The Coventina Circle Paranormal Romantic Suspense Series, the lighter Nautical Namaste Mysteries, and a few one-offs. Plus client work. So I’m always, always working on something new. This is my passion, but it is also my business, not my hobby. It’s how I keep a roof over my head.

If you weren’t a writer, what would your career be?

Still working on Broadway, as a dresser. Or, if I hadn’t gone down the theatre/writing path at all, probably an archaeologist.

What’s one thing you learned through writing that you wish you knew before you started?

Don’t let others define you. Define yourself. And realize that your life and your career are always a work in process.

What is your favorite book, genre, or author?

I don’t have just one of any of them! My favorite, favorite book, the one I’d need on a desert island, is THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE. I never get tired of Shakespeare. I also love POSSESSION, by AS Byatt. Genre would probably be mystery. I find it often the most satisfying, although, as a writer, I like to mix it with other elements of other genres. Author? I don’t have a single favorite. Again, I always go back to Shakespeare. But it was Louisa May Alcott and Harriet Beecher Stowe who were the big inspirations for me to write. And Mildred Wirt Benson, the original writer of the Nancy Drew books as “Carolyn Keene.” She did another series, under her own name, with a heroine named Penny Parker. Penny is such a brat, but she’s hilarious.

I collect juvenile series mysteries from the early twentieth century: Beverly Gray, Vicki Barr, Judy Bolton, all of those. The racism in them is shocking, but it’s also a good snapshot of what was considered “normal” at the time and why we should know better now (but far too often don’t). You get a heroine like Ruth Fielding, a turn-of-the-twentieth-century heroine, who did all these great, adventurous things solving her mysteries, and then went on to a career writing in Hollywood, in a happy marriage. A lot of these heroines showed girls that there was more than one definition of “good” — and that it wasn’t a terrible thing to be smart, and show it.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

Put your butt in the chair every day and do the work. Books don’t write themselves. Plan time off as you want/need it. Don’t let the writing slide. And don’t blow first rights posting material from your drafts online or on social media if you want to sell the polished/finished work. There’s a world of difference between throwing out a rough draft and sharing an excerpt of a piece that’s contracted.

Is there anything else you would like to share?

Find your tribe. Find other writers you like to hang out with and talk to. Read each other’s work. Support each other. Every time one succeeds, it helps everybody. Jealousy and envy are a waste of energy. Learn the craft — craft is as important as art. Do the work, build the community, and you’ll start to see results.

About Devon Ellington

Devon Ellington publishes under half a dozen names in fiction and non-fiction and is an internationally-produced playwright and radio writer. She has eight novels published, several novellas, dozens of short stories, and hundreds of articles. She worked backstage on Broadway and in film and television production for years and teaches both online and in-person. Her main website, http://www.devonellingtonwork.com, will lead you to the websites for the different series, and her blog on the writing life, Ink in My Coffee, is at https://devonellington.wordpress.com

Buy Devon’s Books

The Coventina Circle Paranormal Romantic Suspense Series: Playing the Angles | The Spirit Repository | Relics & Requiem

The Gwen Finnegan Paranormal Archaeological Mysteries: Tracking Medusa | Myth & Interpretation

The Nautical Namaste Not-Quite-Cozy Mysteries (As Ava Dunne): Savasana at Sea

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Meet Devon Ellington [Author Interview] Please tell us a little bit about yourself. I publish under multiple names in fiction and non-fiction, and am an internationally-produced playwright and radio writer.

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littlemisssquiggles · 6 years

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RWBY Musings #48: The possible mystical connection between the Faunus and the existence of magic in Remnant. Were the Faunus formerly animals that were made human by magic?

@bloomfireprincess asked “I love your musings! Especially the possible origins of the silver eyed warriors! But how do you think the Faunus fit into it?

Maybe they were the first beings created by the elder brother, and he created the silver eyed after to protect his creation and the world? What if that's the deep seeded resentment, that they were first but pushed to the background by the humans?”

Squiggles Answers:

@bloomfireprincess Hey Bloom. Though my original intent was to wait until my original files were salvaged, as of this week, I’m still awaiting a positive update on the state of my old system. So given my recent streak of RWBY Remarks, I figured it’d be more favourable to just resume working on my musing posts even if it meant starting from scratch.

I know I said I had started your answers before in a previous file but I think the theories I shared in this new post exceeded my previous points. So I think you might like them.So here I am, at long last with my response to your questions. So without keeping you waiting any longer, let’s dive right into it:

Silver Lining

“How do I think the Faunus fit into the origins of the Silver Eyed Warriors? Were the Faunus the first beings created by the Elder Brother? Were Silver Eyes created to protect the Faunus as the first creations of the God of Light?”

These are some great questions Bloom. While I do like your idea about the Faunus possibly being one of the first forms of life created by the God of Light, however I personally don’t think this is the case. Not to discourage you or debunk your theory by the way.

As I said, it’s a great hunch. I just have my own idea of how the Faunus fit into the history of Remnant and sadly, my concept involves the Faunus’ origin coming a little later into the world.

Similar to the First People of Remnant, I also don’t believe that the Silver Eyed Warriors shared any ties to the Faunus either. Just as I described in my original post on the Silver Eyes, my main guess is still that they were an ancient race of beings that existed in a time before the current Remnant, in a previous world that was the God of Light’s first attempt at a planet filled with life that was soon thwarted by the God of Darkness and his monstrous Grimm.

I still think the Moon of Remnant is a relic of that original world that was partially destroyed after the Brother Gods first opposed one another and pitted their strongest creations: the Creatures of Grimm and the Silver Eyed Warriors against each other in a War that hurt the planet.

Or…perhaps the Moon was formerly the home world to the original Silver Eyed Warriors that the God of Light had intended to make into Remnant or another New World with the Silver Eyes as its first people. However all of that amounted to nothing because the God of Darkness sent forth his monsters to destroy everything. Either way I strongly believe there is a deeper connection between the Moon of Remnant and the Silver Eyed Warriors.

This makes me wonder something now. I wonder if the Creatures of Grimm weren’t the God of Darkness’ most dangerous creations but his second. When I think of the character of Salem and consider the uniqueness of the type of creature she is, it makes me wonder if Salem might’ve been part of another ancient race from the same era as the Silver Eyes.

In RWBY Musing #39, I shared a theory about Salem previously being a human woman who was part of the First People of Remnant. I theorized that in her past life, Salem was Ales (or Elsa as some of you preferred) and she was the partner and lover of Ozpin.

The Eve to his Adam as I speculated that in his very first lifetime, Oz was the First Man of Remnant under an original name of his own that I dubbed Emmanuel. In a similar fashion to Eve in the Bible, Salem was manipulated by a Grimm that resulted in her being banished by the Gods after trying to steal the Relics. Later on, Salem becomes fully possessed by said Grimm, turning her into the Wicked Witch and proclaimed Mother of the Grimm that we know her to be. That was one theory I shared for Salem’s beginning. Now I have another assumption.

I’ve brought up Grimm-like human hybrids before, correct? What if…before Remnant, before even the Creatures of Grimm, there were others like Salem. For lack of a better term, I’m going to refer to these beings as the Grimmoire (cause why not).

What if…in the forgotten past that Salem once quoted back in V1, in the first incarnation of the World that became the Moon, the Brother Gods feuded over the fate of this old world and sent their strongest creations to war: The Silver Eyed Warriors and the Grimmoire.

It could help justify how Salem is able to communicate and control the Grimm. Her being part of an original race born from the same dark powers as the Grimm---the very first one of their kind---then it would make as much sense for her to lead them as it would if Salem was just a superior type of Grimm possessing a human body. It could also explain how Salem can ‘create’ the Grimm.

What if…Salem was even the Queen of the Grimmoire---the First and only surviving member of her race with powers beyond that of any of her kind. Powers that made her just as great as a god. A goddess as Tyrian once put it.

It could also explain Salem’s interest in Ruby. Ruby is a Silver Eyed Warrior and as far as I know, the only one in existence in Remnant. If Salem is a Grimmoire (granted that my theory is canon) and the Grimmoire are like the Grimm then the Silver Eyes are their main weakness. Salem’s weakness. It’d make sense for Salem to want to see how her ‘old nemesis’ held up in the current Remnant especially if she’s following up from the previous one she encountered, referring to Summer Rose.

Pulling from RWBY Musing #46, I believe Ozpin sent Summer Rose on her last mission which got her killed. That mission was to defeat Salem once and for all. But Summer failed and died because she wasn’t strong enough as a Silver Eyed Warrior. Now that burden and responsibility has fallen to Ruby who has the chance to become a fully-realized Silver Eyes with the power to put an end to Salem.

Buuuuut…I’m getting off track here.

Returning to the Faunus---it’s as I said, I don’t see a connection between the Silver Eyes and the Faunus. If it were anyone else, like the Brother Gods or Ozpin or even Salem, then yes, most definitely. But not the Faunus. I believe the Faunus have their own origin that is completely separate from the Silver Eyes.

That being said I do like your idea of other Silver Eyes being reborn into the current Remnant to be the protectors of mankind. It ties in with a little follow-up hunch I have about the God of Light creating a couple of Silver Eyes to defend the First People of Remnant and their first kingdom. Perhaps it were even the Silver Eyes who inspired and helped shape Remnant’s first legion of huntsmen.

However I’m not sure how that will fit since in the main series, apart from Ozpin, no one else seems to know about the Silver Eyes. As for the Faunus, I’m starting to think they might’ve come later in Remnant’s history. At least a little ways after Mankind had already started colonizing Remnant.

Man and Faunus

A lot of the history surrounding the Faunus and their resentment towards man was actually already explained in World of Remnant. The Faunus are basically indigenous people of Remnant. According to the episode on the Faunus; they were first discovered by early man at some point in Remnant’s history.

But because of Man misinterpreting them as a threat due to their animalistic traits, the Faunus; who were once a free race left to roam Remnant as their home, they were instead driven into a life of danger and ridicule at the hands of the very man who mistook their kind for monsters.

These are some quotes on the History and Biology of the Faunus and their connexion to Mankind taken from RWBY V5 C4.5 (World of Remnant: Faunus):

“…As far as everyone’s aware, Faunus have been around as long as mankind; if not a little longer. History gets a little fuzzy past a certain point. But we do know that their kind and ours are completely compatible from a biological standpoint…”

“…Scientists are still scratching their heads when it comes to a lot about the Faunus. But science isn’t the problem; it’s how we all get along, or in this case, how we don’t…”

“…Early man was scared to death of the Faunus and honestly, it’s not too hard to sympathize with that. Seeing something that looks like you and acts like you walk out of the forest and reveal a pair of fangs can be a…little upsetting…

Like most things Man doesn’t understand, all sorts of rumors and stories surround the Faunus. People avoided them like the plague, pushing them out of settlements and sometimes even hunting them down.

Man began to outnumber the Faunus and the Faunus began to consider Man as nothing more than a hostile species.

These clashes between species were unavoidable as land that was safe from the Grimm was in constant short supply. But it was the Grimm that finally brought Humans and Faunus together for the first time. A village in Sanus fell under attack and the reason anyone survived was because the Humans and Faunus united against their common enemy. It was a step in the right direction but it didn’t fix everything.

Once humanity learnt that they weren’t so different from the Faunus, they still used those differences as an excuse to exploit and alienate them. The trade men of the Faunus differed around the world and things wouldn’t improve much for them until the Great War.

Vale and Vacuo against Mantle and Mistral. A war unlike anything anyone had ever seen. And when it was over, the world was desperate to find compromises to ensure they never see the likes of it again.

The Faunus were awarded equal rights as citizens of Remnant. And as an apology, they were given an entire continent of their own to do with as they pleased. There were some who saw this as fair and just. But many saw it for what it really was---a slap in the face from a nation of sore losers. And so Menagerie was born.

There’s still Faunus all over the world. Though the fair equality they were promised varies from place to place, but Menagerie will always be their safe haven. Here’s the thing though, you can only push and prod people so much before they reach a tipping point. And when you pack those people together, it just makes it all the easier for them to get organized and get even…”

This info actually ties into what Blake explained to Sun when they first arrived in Menagerie back in V4.

“…We asked to be equal, to be treated just like everyone else. Instead we were given an island and told to make do. So we did the best we could. We came together and we made a home where any Faunus could feel welcome. But this island, this town, will always be a reminder that we're still not equal. That we're still second class citizens…"

To once live in an free open world only to have mankind basically just give you one patch of land when the entire world used to be fair game to be shared by both man and Faunus---when you look at it from that standpoint, as a viewer I don’t blame the Faunus for being displeased.

I mean, speaking as someone of African descent from a nation that was once colonialized under the British before we gained our own independence, I could imagine being very displeased if suddenly all the black people or perhaps all the people of colour in the world were forced into one single area on the map and told to make do with the landscape. All the while still being treated as outcasts by the population if they dared tried to make a life in another area. That sort of life wouldn’t be the most ideal.

But that’s only one aspect of the Faunus’s history. The only thing that wasn’t answered about the Faunus was where they came from. You would think that the easy answer would be that Man and Faunus were cut from the same cloth as both creations of the Brother Gods, right? But what’s odd to me is that there was no clarification of that during Qrow’s rendition of the Tale of the Brother Gods story.

The Tale of the Brother Gods, as told by Qrow Branwen in V4, C8:

"…Not many people are super religious these days. This world's been around for a long time, long enough that people have created dozens of gods. But if you believe Ozpin, two of them are actually real. They were brothers.

The older sibling, the God of Light, found joy in creating forces of life. Meanwhile, the younger brother, the God of Darkness, spent his time creating forces of destruction.

As you can imagine, they both had pretty different ideas about how things should go. The older one would spend his days creating water, plants, wildlife. And at night, his brother would wake to see all the things that the elder had made and become disgusted. To counteract his brother's creations, the God of Darkness brought drought, fire, famine, all that he could do to rid Remnant of life. But life always returned.

So one night, the younger brother went and made something. Something that share his innate desire to destroy anything and everything.

The Creatures of Grimm. You guessed it.

The older brother had finally had enough. Knowing that their feud couldn't last like this forever, he proposed that they make one final creation. Together. Something that they could both be proud of. Their masterpiece. Younger brother agreed. This last great creation would be given the power to both create and destroy. It would be given the gift of knowledge, so that it could learn about itself and the world around it. And most importantly, it would be given the power to choose, to have free will to take everything it had learned and decide which path to follow: The Path of Light or the Path of Darkness. And that is how humanity came to be…"

At the end of the Brother Gods story, Qrow mentions that they made ‘humanity’ together. Sure you could make the argument that when Qrow said ‘humanity’ he was referring to both Man and the Faunus, right?

However to make sure, I checked back V4 C8 at the exact point when Qrow brought up the Brother Gods creating Humanity. In the final shot when he was describing the Brother’s collaborated creation, we get one image with a group of silhouettes to represent humanity being born in Remnant.

However…I don’t recognize any Faunus in this shot. How strange that all of these shapes appear human and not one of them represents the Faunus species. Either the Faunus were omitted from this depiction because a CRWBY production artist forget to add some Faunus to the shot and no one noticed till after the episode was made (which I doubt) or…it was done intentionally to show that when the Brothers made humanity, they only made Mankind. Not the Faunus.

This is, however, slightly contradicted a bit by what Qrow said on the Faunus in World of Remnant: Faunus.

Then again…the wording ‘as far as everyone’s aware’ gives me the impression that this is more a common assumption in Remnant as opposed to an actual fact. As far as any Remnant historian is concerned, the Faunus were around for as long as man. Simple deduction but there aren’t any further provided evidence to support this. As a matter of fact, the show even goes out of its way to explain it that way--- as if no one is truly clear on the exact origins of the Faunus either. That’s a cool touch.

Additionally, the Faunus being around as long as mankind; if not a little longer doesn’t necessarily mean that the Faunus came before or even around the same time Mankind was born. If anything, I think it more hints that the Faunus might have longer lifespans that allow them to outlive the average human.

Who knows? Perhaps there are ancient Faunus in the modern Remnant who have lived for decades and can probably shed light on history surrounding their own kind not known to others and the audience. While there isn’t much more canonical evidence from the series to support this assumption, there isn’t anything to denounce it either. So for now, it remains a possibility.

The impression I get here is that there is no clear origin of where exactly the Faunus came from. As I said, the practical conclusion would’ve been to assume that all Faunus were a created by the Brother Gods.

However, the weird part is that each time RWBY delves into the Faunus; it’s presented in a manner that makes me assume otherwise. Heck, the very first line that Qrow says in World of Remnant Faunus is:

“…Y’know most of us spend a lot of time talking about Mankind versus Grimm, but technically, there is a third party in the mix. The Faunus…”

My point is that there’s some other underlining mystery surrounding where the Faunus came from. A little extra thing we have yet to learn about them. I mean I guess it could be a ruse set up by the CRWBY Writers to subvert the audience from the actual clear truth that the Faunus are being treated as inferior to Man despite sharing the same origins. When you look at it that way, it makes sense especially in the context of the narrative the series has already created for the Faunus.

Still… I wish to divert from that and toss in another potential consideration that could also be an outcome.

What if…the Brother Gods only created mankind and it was another entity that made the Faunus and brought them into Remnant?

An interesting ideology, yes? I’m probably reading too much into this but it’s just a feeling I have based on all the info I’ve gathered on the Faunus so far from the canon series.

But now pegs the question: If the Brother Gods didn’t create the Faunus then who did and with what?

Here's what I think.

Where Have All the Animals Gone?

I’m not saying that animals don’t exist in Remnant. However what I do find a little peculiar is that we haven’t seen much animals in RWBY.

I mean we’ve seen one or two animals establishing that they do exist in the World of Remnant. It’s just that…I find it weird, not to mention ironic, that we see more of the Faunus and the Creatures of Grimm than actual legit real animals. I find this funny since both species have been called out for their animalistic similarities.

“…Each Faunus has a single animalistic trait; some more apparent than others…” ---World of Remnant: Faunus

“… Many ancient cultures believed the Creatures of Grimm to be animals possessed by evil spirits or perhaps the spirits of tortured animals themselves. However, further study---as well as the discovery of newer, more horrific forms of Grimm---does not support this hypothesis. With new creatures discovered every day, scientists perpetually find themselves with more questions than answers…”---World of Remnant: Grimm

I can actually count the real animals I’ve spotted in RWBY thus far on my fingers alone. There is RWBY’s number one indestructible Grimm-bashing power Corgi, Zwei, who everyone knows. There was that one bird (I think it was a crow) that Ruby accidentally knocked down back in V1 after Ozpin launched all the students off the cliff into the Emerald Forest. There was the horse that Fall Maiden Amber was seen riding in V3.

And lastly, there were the numerous flocks of birds that we’ve spotted throughout volumes and character shorts between the first trilogy and the Mistral Arc. I mean at least there are birds, right?

After that…that’s it. I can’t recall seeing anymore. Correct me if I’m wrong if you’ve spotted others. Like I said, we know animals do exist in Remnant since the characters have food and products that come from animals like milk and meat. So at least we know there are animals raised as livestock for food. But why haven’t we seen more? You get what I’m saying, right?

For the love of Oum, Oscar Pine is a character who literally grew up on a farm and still we don’t so much as see a single cow or chicken or sheep roaming said farm. Seriously, where are all the animals?

Either the budget required for the CRWBY to model, rig and animate animals into RWBY is so high that it’s cumbersome to dare try or…there is an actual narrative world-building reason why we don’t see a lot more real animals roaming Remnant.

The smart alec answer might be ‘Squiggles, we don’t see any real animals in RWBY because real animals aren’t important to the story of RWBY. Doi!’ to which, I say, you’re probably 100% right in that regards and I’m most likely just overthinking things as usual.

However…this squiggle meister is curious about something. Let’s say… there is a connection between the Faunus and the animals of Remnant.

What if…and this is a big if…the Faunus---the First Faunus originated from animals given human likeness by someone who possessed the power to do so. What I’m trying to say is that I think the Faunus were created using magic.

Think about it. What’s the closest thing in the universe of RWBY to the power of the Brother Gods? The answer is magic.

As demonstrated by Professor Ozpin, if magic has the potential to grant humans the ability to turn into animals like in the case of the Branwen Twins. Then who’s to say the reverse isn’t possible where magic can turn animals into what we know as the Faunus?

This is why I don’t think there’s a connection between the Silver Eyed Warriors and the Faunus. I think the Silver Eyes predate even the Faunus. If I had to make a list of beings in Remnant based on who I believe were created first, it would go:

The Creatures of Grimm (by the God of Darkness), the Silver Eyed Warriors (by the God of Light again to firstly combat the Grimm in the God’s Feud), Mankind (by both Brother Gods working together) and then the Faunus.

This is only my assumption but I think the Faunus came into the picture after Mankind had already started populating the world. My only thing is that I’m not sure what Remnant was like in the ancient days after the world was made and the First People of Remnant walked the earth starting to create civilization.

If magic does exist in the RWBY-verse then, just like the Silver Eyed Warriors, was magic or the use of the mystical arts another thing that was been lost and forgotten to time?

I mean Qrow did imply once that Remnant had been around for a very long time. So who knows what kind of eras existed in the world before arriving at the modern time that we recognize.

Perhaps there was a period in Remnant’s history where magic was a prominent thing so it was more recognized by the general public as opposed to the current story where the very prospect of magic sounds so farfetched, even the main characters are in disbelief of its existence.

“ ...Legends; stories scattered through time, mankind has grown quite fond of recounting the exploits of heroes and villains; forgetting so easily that we are remnants, by products of a forgotten past...” --- RWBY VI CI

Perhaps magic was more known during the time of the First People of Remnant, a time when the Brother Gods made their presence more known to the world as I described in RWBY Musing #39.

Or…perhaps magic was just something that only a handful of people knew existed and could only vouch for it after encountering the one being in the Remnant we know possesses magic.

Or…perhaps the skill for one to use magic derives from years of training one’s Aura to the point that they become more than just a mere mortal and awaken newer kinds of powers.

“…Unlocking your Semblance isn’t the end. It can still grow and evolve. Providing you’re willing to put in the work, who knows what could happen…” --- Ozpin (RWBY V5: C4)

“…With enough training and focus, a user's Aura can turn them into something much more than just a man...”---World of Remnant: Aura

I’m not quite sure what the case with that will be. All I’m here to state is that maybe there is indeed a magical connection to the Faunus.

What does Remnant, the Grimm and Mankind all have in common? They were all created by powerful supernatural beings who possessed magic or the power of a god or however you chose to refer it. The same could be said for the Faunus.

I just don’t think it was the magic of the gods that spawned the Faunus but more so another character known for possessing the closest equivalent to such a ‘god-like’ power.

God of the Faunus

Now for the real meat of this post. Once upon a time, I read a RWBY Theory from back in the early days of V1 and V3 where a fan theorized that Ozpin created the Faunus. Though interesting, at the time I didn’t know what to make of that theory because I guess there wasn’t much canonical evidence to support it. Now seasons later, I’m beginning to wonder if that original theorist might’ve been on to something.

It’s not to say that the Faunus, the First Faunus, were originally lab experiments that escaped into the wilds of Remnant. That wouldn’t really make sense since according to the World of Remnant episode on the Faunus; they existed long before the current Remnant where technology is booming.

So the theory that makes sense, at least for now, is the one about Faunus being animals transformed into the Faunus via magic.

And who do we know in the RWBY series has the power to turn animals into humans? Ozpin. Here me out with this one. As I said, it was already established in the series canon that Ozpin has dabbled in using his power to ‘create special beings’ in his past lives.

I wouldn’t exactly call the Maidens a race of powerful beings but they are close enough. The Maidens were technically normal women who were granted immense power beyond anything norm in Remnant and they were created singlehandedly by Ozpin.

And let’s not forget, that Ozpin also granted the Branwen Twins the ability to shapeshift into birds. And he made that possible for the Branwens with just a sliver of his magic all in his past life.

So…if Oz’s magic can turn humans into animals, what’s to say his magic can’t do the opposite? I’m starting to slowly believe that Oz might’ve unintentionally created the Faunus using his magic. I don’t have much more evidence from the canon series to support this but, it’s starting to make sense given what we know of Ozpin, his abilities and the unknown origins of the Faunus provided by the series.

When I say Oz unintentionally made the Faunus, I mean it could have been a scenario that occurred after he was reincarnated for the first time and realized he had powers. Now I’d imagine that in his second or third lifetimes, Ozpin originally did not have as much grasp on his magical skill so he probably had moments where he suffered a couple ‘boo-boos’ with using magic or legit moments where his magic did things that he never anticipated would happen.

I mean, I’m sure when Ozpin first created the Maidens he didn’t anticipate that the power would ‘evolve’ the way it did so that the original Four Maidens could each have successors that would carry on their legacy of power and continue to aid Oz in the protection of the Relics. After all, I’m sure it must’ve surprised Oz the first time he learnt that the Maiden Magic could be passed onto another.

For my fellow FNDM fam who watch Nomad of Nowhere. Spoilers for the first season but remember how the Papa magician that created the Nomad didn’t expect it to possess magic of its own.

Imagine if… there was a similar scenario with Ozpin where, in his past life, he probably encountered some poor animals that had been preyed upon and injured by the Grimm.

In his attempt to help those animals, Ozpin used his magic in hopes that his power might heal the creatures. However what he did not anticipate was for his power to turn the animals into human-like beings still retaining their animalistic features. And that’s how the First Faunus were born.

It’s be interesting, not to mention kinda funny if, Ozpin used his magic on some animals and didn’t realize that he had made the Faunus until a few lifetimes later when word of the existence of the Faunus became rampant throughout Remnant.

You think that a person like Ozpin who’s lived many lifetimes would have also played some part in shaping Remnant’s history, especially for the Faunus, right?

Imagine if…Remember that memorable point in Remnant history when Mankind and Faunus came together for the first time to fight the Grimm in that village in Sanus? Perhaps in one of his previous lives, Ozpin was somehow responsible for instigating that?

What if…Ozpin was somehow responsible for planting the seeds that also lead to the Faunus receiving equal rights following the first Great War too?

I mean a common theory among RWBY theorists is the belief that Oz was formerly the King of Vale who helped end the Great War. So who knows how much Oz has played a part in shaping Remnant’s history for both mankind and the Faunus.

You never know. I wouldn’t put it past him if he did since he is the only known human in Remnant who has that kind of power and influence.

If Ozpin’s predecessors were responsible for creating the Maidens and essentially founding the Four Huntsmen Academies that house the Relics while also appointing his most trusted to be the Headmasters. For real, what else has Ozpin done to shape the world? But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

Back on the Faunus, I honestly would not be surprised if later we learnt that not only was Ozpin formerly responsible for creating the Faunus but also shaping every event that led to ‘his creations’ finding their place in the world. That sounds like something Oz would do, right?

With this in mind, this brings up a curious question I have about the Faunus. Religion isn’t something that’s normally discussed or depicted in RWBY. I mean, Qrow just mentions the possibility of it in V4 like an afterthought.

That being said, I wonder if there are indeed those ‘super religious’ cultures in Remnant comprised of people who spend their days praying to said ‘created gods’. If some of them are the Faunus then who do the Faunus view as their god?

I ask this question because I have this concept where somewhere in Faunus culture; there is an interpretation of who the Faunus believe as their god--- the mystical entity they believed created their species. This depiction is one that Ozpin recognizes as one of his past lives. Meaning that the Faunus believed him to be their God; only reimagined as a Faunus. It’d be an interesting twist if the more religious Faunus believed that there God was probably a Faunus like them---A Faunus God of some sort; but in actuality they were made by an immortal wizard who is closer to human than Faunus.

I like this idea because it would tie into my hunch about Ozpin unknowingly creating the Faunus in one of his past lives with his magic. Not to mention that I also quite like the satire of the Faunus viewing Ozpin as a god when in actuality, the old wizard is nothing more than just an angel that fell from grace when he was cursed by the true Gods of Remnant for failing to stop the personification of the devil and their demons in the RWBY-verse.

‘…Born an angel, heaven-sent. Falls from grace are never elegant…’

When you put it like that, it sounds quite compelling. But for now, it’s only another hunch in a pool of hunches.

So in conclusion…

I am sooo sorry that it took me this me to answer you, Bloom. I know you told me that you don’t mind waiting but still, mucho apologies fam. Nonetheless, I hope this answered your question. Thanks for sending them to me by the way. I always appreciate hearing feedback from fellow RWBY fam regarding my posts so it was awesome to receive yours. It definitely helped me to concoct theories surrounding the Faunus that I never considered.

Honestly, it’d be really interesting if there was a side to Ozpin that harbours some inkling of a, not so much a grudge, but more so a feeling of longing to return to his former glory where he was someone in tune with the Gods. Or at least die and actually get to rest in peace this time instead of returning to complicate another successor’s livelihood. You don’t get a line like ‘born an angel, heaven sent’ for a character if it didn’t garner some symbolism for something important involving said character that involved real gods, y’know what I’m saying.

I truly like the thought of Ozpin, in a subconscious attempt to feel worthy or like the former angel he once was, using his magical powers to perform miracles he believed would aid mankind. Y’know…give his own gifts to mankind like the Brother Gods did before him.

I mean, he did create the Maidens and the Branwen Twins; in spite of fact that the Maidens became targets for the forces of evil to prey upon their magic including one of the Branwens who additionally became someone who is against him.

At least there’s the Faunus. Ozpin could’ve potentially given the people of Remnant the gift of the Faunus and look what good they did for man---y’know what, never mind.

I’d even go so far as to bring up the idea of Oz potentially creating the Silver Eyed Warriors too. I mean that’s another theory I’ve observed circulating the fandom. However as you know, I’m more in favour of my earlier hunch about the Silver Eyes being an early creation of the God of Light to combat the first onset of Grimm set by the God of Darkness or…perhaps another ancient race that resembles Salem. That’s my view on it.

I know they’re all just theories but I really like those ideas above anything else. Definitely more so than Ozpin creating the Silver Eyed Warriors. I mean it’s a terrific theory especially if anyone can sell the idea really well. But to me, not every magical concoction that suddenly appears in Remnant has to connect back to Ozpin.

I am inclined, however, to the belief of Ozpin sharing a close special bond to a former Silver Eyed Warrior in his first life.

I’m not talking about Oz being a Silver Eyed Warrior himself. But more like, perhaps one of the first people Ozpin ever truly loved or cared deeply for was in fact a Silver Eyed Warrior and his past with them is what also sparked his whole endless debacle with Salem. I really, really like this idea. Might talk about this some more in a future musing or remark or something. But for now, these are just my views.

Anyways, I hope you liked this musing. Let me know what you think Bloom and to all my other readers, I hope this musing was enjoyable and gave you something to muse about with RWBY.

More Squiggles’ RWBY Content

~LittleMissSquiggles (2018)

#rwby #rwby theories #professor ozpin #rwby faunus #blake belladonna #rwby musings

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