#establishing desires gives you the personality and the arc which gives you the story which gives you the ending

[saraswritingtipps]

Developing Characters in Different Genres:

1. Understand the genre conventions: Familiarize yourself with the key characteristics and expectations of the genre you're working with. Each genre has its own tropes, themes, and narrative styles. Knowing these conventions will help you develop characters that fit within the genre while also providing opportunities for unique twists and originality.

2. Establish the world-building elements: In genres like fantasy, science fiction, or historical fiction, the setting plays a crucial role in shaping the characters. Develop the rules, limitations, and unique features of the world in which your characters exist. Consider how these elements influence their abilities, traits, and conflicts. Ensure that the characters are grounded in the genre's world-building, but also explore the human aspects that make them relatable.

3. Align character traits with genre elements: Integrate genre-specific traits, powers, or abilities into your characters' development. For example, in fantasy, characters may possess magical abilities or belong to distinct races with specific characteristics. In science fiction, characters might have advanced technology or genetic enhancements. Ensure that these genre-specific traits are relevant to the plot and contribute to the character's growth or conflicts.

4. Balance uniqueness and relatability: While genre-specific traits are important, it's crucial to balance them with relatable human qualities. Even in fantastical or futuristic settings, readers want characters they can empathize with. Give your characters relatable emotions, desires, flaws, and personal struggles. This balance between genre elements and relatable human characteristics will make your characters more engaging and memorable.

5. Create multidimensional characters: Regardless of the genre, multidimensional characters are essential for reader engagement. Provide your characters with a range of strengths, weaknesses, fears, and aspirations. Avoid one-dimensional heroes or villains. Characters with complex motivations and internal conflicts are more compelling, regardless of the genre they inhabit.

6. Consider the impact of genre on character arcs: The genre can influence the character's journey and growth. In mystery or thriller genres, for example, the protagonist may undergo a transformation as they uncover secrets or solve a puzzle. In fantasy, characters may embark on quests that test their bravery and lead to self-discovery. Tailor the character's arc to the genre, ensuring that it aligns with the story's themes and pacing.

7. Use genre-specific conflicts and challenges: Explore conflicts and challenges that are inherent to the genre. In mystery, characters may face life-or-death situations or navigate intricate plots. In historical fiction, characters might grapple with social or political upheaval. These genre-specific conflicts add depth and tension to the characters' journeys while immersing readers in the story's world.

8. Give characters agency: Regardless of the genre, characters should have agency and drive the plot forward. They should actively make choices and take actions that influence the course of events. Avoid making characters passive recipients of the plot or relying solely on external forces to drive their development. Active and motivated characters make for engaging reads across all genres.

9. Pay attention to dialogue and language: Language and dialogue can be shaped by the genre. In fantasy or historical fiction, characters may speak in a more formal or archaic manner. In science fiction, characters might use technical jargon or futuristic slang. Ensure that the language used by your characters is consistent with the genre while remaining accessible and understandable to readers.

10. Embrace genre-bending and subverting expectations: Don't be afraid to challenge genre conventions and subvert expectations. Introduce unexpected elements, twists, or characterizations that defy the norms of the genre. This can add freshness and originality to your characters and story, making them stand out from the crowd.

#writing #writer on tumblr #writerscommunity #writing tips #character development #writer tumblr #writblr #writing advice #oc character #writing help #oc development #fictional characters #creative writing #writers on tumblr

[em-dash-press]

Reasons Why Your Characters Don't Feel Real

Even if you love your characters, they might not seem like real people when you’re writing them. When you can’t pinpoint the problem, consider these potential factors hold your characters back from their full potential.

1. They Don’t Have Goals

Imagine yourself on vacation. You don’t have any plans or expectations other than to relax. If you stayed like that for too long, you’d eventually feel bored. Your mind would wander.

Characters can have the same problem when they don’t have at least one goal.

Typically, the goal gets established at the beginning of a story. Especially in the first chapter if you’re writing a book. The goal could be a quest or a question. It also doesn’t have to be the primary plot driver for your entire story. It just has to get your character started.

Their goal could be to solve a mystery, make a new friend, protect someone they love, or make a specific change in their world. 

Need more inspiration? This blog post has over 100 potential goals to jumpstart your creativity.

2. They Don’t Have Any Specific Motivation

Let’s say you have a real life goal: you’re going to buy your first car.

That’s great, but what’s your motivation? What made you set that goal?

You might consciously want to have a car so you can join a travel sports team or get your own place. The subconscious motivator would be a desire for change or freedom.

Once you know your character’s primary or initial goal, figure out what their motivation is. They should have some inner drive to achieve that goal even when things get hard. 

Motivations also add emotional depth to flat characters, which might be why your protagonist or supporting characters feel not as well-rounded as you’d like. As you’re developing your characters or writing your story, keep their motivation central to the decisions they make to achieve their goal. (Or not—it depends on your planned arc for their growth.)

3. Their Dialogue Doesn’t Feel Right

We’ve all read bad dialogue and we’ve all written it. Conversations might feel too tight or robotic. How do you fix it?

First, I highly recommend reading it out loud. Act the lines out by yourself. You’ll notice the emotional weight and might write body language more accurately. You’ll also hear the unnatural phrasing or whatever’s specifically the problem, making it much easier to edit.

It’s also possible that your dialogue contains too many long sentences. It might feel natural to write them that way, but people don’t always speak at length. Sometimes sentences are short. Or incomplete. People hesitate on words, catch their breath, rush through thoughts.

You can also check out the great tips over here for more dialogue-specific work.

Remember, how people speak shows what they mean as much as your dialogue tags or body language descriptors. Give your dialogue room to be more human and your characters will be too.

4. They Don’t Have Flaws

You probably wouldn’t be friends with someone who was perfect. I definitely wouldn’t be. People who are perfect (or pretend to be) are irritating. They can also leave us feeling depressed or held at arm’s length.

Characters can create the same problems for readers when they don’t have flaws. Create those incredible characters you adore so much—then make them realistic.

Make people who have different morals than you. People who push themselves to be smart to ignore their emotions. People who love so immensely that it’s their fatal flaw.

Flaws can be physical, but they should also be internal. This site is a great resource if you want a list of flaws for inspiration. 

5. They Aren’t Growing

All great characters start their story with a worldview, a perspective, or a personality that hooks readers. By the end of the story, one or more of those things change.

Stories are about learning. Characters and readers learn things or experience things together. Characters are much less interesting if the plot doesn’t affect them in some way.

Double-check your plot outline or ideas to make sure they create a character arc. Flat characters can be useful, but they shouldn’t be your protagonist. This could be the reason why your characters don’t feel real. Make sure something challenges them so they feel like a real human growing through ups and downs.

Make Your Characters More Realistic

We’ve all found ourselves bored with our own characters. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer—it means you have room to work on your character development skills. Use these tips to get started and you’ll feel more confident about your story in no time.

#character development #character growth #creating characters #writeblr #writing tips #writing advice

[justin-chapmanswers]

hello there! love your work :) i'm wondering how much you personally contributed to bot's backstory, and however much that may be, what you think of it - why do you think the decision was made to have bot be created by test tube and fan, as opposed to some other entity? the pair had already gotten an arc in ii2 about learning not to project their desires onto a child figure (fan's egg) so it's interesting that the same was done with them again in ii3. my love of the season is not really diminished by that decision (i still absolutely love ii3!!!) but it has bugged me haha :'D but anyway, i hope you're doing well!! thank you and have a lovely day <3

- clover anon

Hihi, love the question. Honestly, while I did contribute a bit to the Bot backstory, I'll say I had a lil less to do with it than a couple other writers. It's an element I've been excited about since we got some momentum on it conceptually, but since it's not my baby I can't give suuuuper definitive answers here.

We started with the character's existence before the backstory. "Bow has the votes, what now?" The initial thought was "welp, Purgatory Mansion'd, that's that. Who's next-up on the list?" I wouldn't wanna meddle with her s2 story by suddenly making her able to be a part of the competition. There was strong-enough pushback on this that we decided to consider our options and come to a fun compromise. Robot was pitched, and it opened up a lot of options, and we wanted to have a fairly firm grasp on which we'd run with before we wrote episode one.

To your question, there was debate on what element of the world Bot would fall under. Meeple-made was considered. Contestant-made was considered. And some additional options. Ultimately, we landed on the direction that'd keep Invitational's story a little more grounded and character-focused, which was an early goal, and kept it as a personal story between the contestants.

The Meeple option was, of course, very alluring. So-much-so that half the community was guessing that Bot was Meeple-related. Might've been the obvious conclusion based on how we've set up our lore thus far (not that I think this would necessarily be a negative, so long as the execution is strong). Besides this, we still have a lot to hit on with Meeple and we weren't looking to complicate it. It felt like a breath of fresh air to us to explore a mini-mystery that didn't tie back to where our past ones have.

While, again, I didn't add as much to the story of Bot's creation as others, I do think it's nice to let Test Tube take a lead in the story as opposed to Fan. In season two with Egg, it was largely a Fan story that Test Tube would step into. Here, it was fun exploring Test Tube get so caught up in the excitement of creation for the sake of creation that she didn't connect the dots on how her creation may not experience that same excitement. It felt like a nice evolution of where we left her off, now that she's better-equipped to empathize, while also giving her a story that directly hinges on everything she's prided herself on since the start of the show. But I totally get how the parallels to season two's story with Baby Shimmer could lead anyone to feel that we're treading similar ground.

I think that one of the most notable differences is that the story of Bot is Bot's story. I enjoyed the lil mystery and all, but to me the element I've been most excited about has been allowing Bot to have a pleasant time being themself and existing in a way that feels freeing to them. I had made some pitches early-on in the conceptualization of Bot that were more baked-into the pre-established lore, and would tie them more closely with Bow, but honestly I couldn't be happier with where we landed, because my originally route wouldn't make it easy to tell a story about Bot NOT being Bow, and this has meant a lot to me.

More to come!

[emblazons]

you've been writing a lot about parentified Mike lately, and while I appreciate it, from a story perspective I just don't understand why.

Maybe its just because I'm an elmike truther, but it really doesn't make sense to me why they would put such an unpleasant aspect into their friendship or romance when they could have just had her upset at him over Max's death or not sharing interests? With steve and nancy they broke up over barb and nancy wanting something else which made of sense without making steve "parent" her. idk. Maybe you're the wrong person to ask lol I'm just thinking out loud

I mean. Maybe I'm not the best person to give insight into why the duffers do what they do, but I can give why I think they did it?

Forewarning: this got really long, apologies lmao

Honestly (and take this from an out-of-universe perspective): I think they're fully aware of the strangeness of El as a character, and how she has a lot of narrative/personal "growth needs" that other characters don't just by nature of her background. She even from the pitch is referred to as "the outsider," and all of her arc, not just the romantic one, has been centered around finding a 'home' in the world, on top of finding the family she lacked before.

This, I'm almost certain, is why she always ends up on different paths than every other person she interacts with—she started with almost no sense of self as an individual, which means a sense of "self" has to be built and discovered (and remembered) for El in a way it already has been for our other characters. Max, Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas—all of them have interests and desires, a sense of family (good or bad), know what they enjoy, and are evolving as they go along...but El didn't at the start of ST beyond lab trauma, which is why The Duffers have centered almost all of her character growth since then around discovering where she came from & who she wants to be.

With Mike though...there is an entirely different set of relational and character needs that have to be addressed. With Mike, the main struggles he has (from the pitch, again) are with insecurity, his belief that a girl will resolve that insecurity, his feeling valueless unless he can do something for the people he loves (almost like 'earning his place' in their lives) and his (almost certain) queerness...combined with how he is, at the end of the day, just another "everyman" guy.

Unlike El, Mike has some sense of personhood, his own established friends and interests and a home—but he doesn't feel like he has a place he's intrinsically appreciated, because (for whatever reason) he feels who he is inherently inadequate. Its why every season (and every time we hear Finn dig a little into Mike's character) we hear about Mike trying to serve others and "feel needed again," despite being hesitant to let them in—he desires unconditional acceptance, and to be valued for who he is inherently...while also being terrified to let people in enough to see him (lest his core identity be rejected).

When Mike and El were just friends, it was easier to sort them out as some version of "equals;" we all have friends who are in different life phases than us, or who have different needs we're trying to walk alongside as they try to meet them, which is why their friendship is cute in S1. With actual romantic partners though, we introduce an element of "trying to get your needs met" with the person you're most closely involved with...and for Mike and El, that means blending "a nebulous sense of self and desire to find an identity + family" with "a desire to have a girl fill a sense of inherent unworthiness," which, as most of us can see, leads to disaster.

Basically: From the snowball onward, writing romantic mlvn meant exploring what happens when you mix what El is looking for with what Mike tries to do to feel valued...and The Duffers have decided (rightfully, I think) that this means Mike is going to (consciously or not) move towards becoming the things El lacks to "become valuable," aka: protection from the "bad men," someone who is able to keep her safe from them, and...someone who can help her fill her needs for home + family, even though he is dramatically under-equipped at all of 12-15 to meet that task.

Because (especially s4) one of El's core needs has become a healthy father figure and found family, Mike is going to move toward behaving that way to be valuable...which means he's going to inadvertently conflate himself with the men who have also placed themselves in that role: Hopper and Brenner. It also means that Mike is going to feel that same "my child is leaving the nest" energy when El "grows up" and into herself as a wholly independent entity—which is why we see him say as much to Will in the van before the painting—

—and why it sometimes seems like El is almost "rebelling" against Mike as much as she has Hopper and Brenner over the seasons.

To your point though: all of this is inherently different from Steve and Nancy...because both Steve and Nancy had that sense of individual identity that El lacked at the start of the show. There was no space for a "parental" aspect to enter their romance in that sense—it was just two people who were incompatible, which is why they failed. Similarly, if Mike and El would have started the romantic part of their relationship at end of S4 points of the narrative—or even end of S3, after El had a second to come into her own with Max—things would have been a lot different for them, I think.

Only...that's not what happened, and...not how they're resolving Mike's insecurity about being inherently valuable. They broke Mike and El down romantically vis a vis this "she's looking for herself and he's trying to fill his own void with her" track, and then gave Will the entirety of the hand to soothe Mike's deepest fears instead, which is why Mike and El will break up and Mike will end up with and around Will more, because Will knows Mike’s heart and sees Mike as an equal even with his flaws...and loves him for it. 🤷🏽‍♀️

(There are also (in my opinion) fundamental thematic reasons they were working toward as reason why they wrote even the breakdown of mlvn that way (the themes of rejecting forced conformity, found family, and even embracing your love for things other people might think are childish are served by this "version" of the Mlvn to Byler transition) but. I can see why someone wouldn't like it if they were attached to Mike and El being close anyway lmao).

Anyway! I hope...that helps? Honestly that's just how I've come to understand it, and hope that offers some sort of solace or explanation. Its what makes the most sense to me anyway (lol).

Regardless, thanks for the ask! :)

#anti mlvn #elmike #stranger things #byler #mike wheeler #el hopper #st analysis #my st commentary #st writing #asks #the me tag #duffer brothers #the come back tag

[maareyas]

Ok so Bittercold and Dark Matter. I am not over this.

(This became a sort of analysis of GTI's themes too LMAO)

My issue with Dark Matter is that there was little build up to it. I'm not talking about it's actual presence, but rather what it represents. "The negative feelings of all pokemon" then where was this negativity in the story?

I understand that the main theme of Super was connections and all. The protag duo helping and being helped by different pokemon are a consistent Thing in the plot. The climactic fight with Dark Matter involves pokemon coming together to stop its ascent.

But I ask again, where was the negativity that Dark Matter was apparently born from within the story? Krookodile?? The Partner having self-doubt?? Pancham and Shelmet being mean?? Nuzleaf and co??? These are all less "incidents of negativity the Dark Matter was born from" and more "general plot events/stuff the villains do".

So it feels like the concept of the Dark Matter feels like it came out of nowhere.

Compare it to how GTI handles the Bittercold. It's the manifestation of all pokemon's collective desire for the end of everything. The loss of hope for better circumstances. And is there narrative build up to this? As a matter of fact, yes!

From the beginning, it's established that the pokemon world in GTI is becoming more and more selfish/dangerous/distrustful etc etc. Gurdurr's and Verizion's arcs connect to this, with both of them choosing to close themselves off from the world. Dunsparce's arc too, to a lesser extent. His first few attempts to get "stronger" end in trouble, almost as if being discourages from having hope to achieving his dream. It isn't until they meet the Protag duo that they have their Character Development™

It all connects to the overall theme of "Believing in other people" and having hope in the face of uncertain circumstances and pessimistic fatalism--which is the opposite "side" in the story, represented by the Bittercold itself, as well as Kyurem and Munna's gang.

We get to see the effects/source of the Bittercold ourselves because we got dialogue like this:

(screenshot courtesy of @rutabga)

AND because characters losing hope/being unwilling to trust others happens several times in the story. Even during the climax.

In other words, the feelings that makes up that the Bittercold is composed of is present throughout the story. So when the Bittercold itself was actually introduced, it made sense for when it was explained what it truly was.

THIS is the build up I was looking for with Dark Matter.

The final stretch of the Player being supported by the voices of the Partner and other pokemon in Paradise/Post Town hits SO much harder compared to Super because of this, despite having less people.

And you know what else? The Bittercold itself could be considered a narrative foil to the Partner. Partner's goal is to make a pokemon Paradise and help others--the ideological opposite of the Bittercold (or rather, what it represents). AND IT'S GOOD!! it gives the Partner so much more Narrative Depth and I love it.

Even the concept of it specifically being ice and found within a glacier dome is sorta neat? A "cold" person is someone who remains closed off from others. It's literally ice. It's found in the heart of a glacier that's isolated from the rest of the world by 1.) A castle (and Kyurem) 2.) A HUGE DOME 3.) "uncrossable" crevasses--once again tying into the idea of staying isolated from the rest of the world.

In conclusion: Dark Matter/the stuff it represents doesn't have much of a presence in the narrative and thus makes Super's narrative as a whole weaker. Meanwhile, I hate the Bittercold as a boss fight but goddamn is it great as a symbolic entity and ties together the themes of the game.

#rey rambles #pmd gti #this is mostly me going on a stream-of-consciousness rant but akjsdjkasd #Bittercold my dearly detested #I could make another post about how Protag not being 'special' also enhances the narrative but eh #I can talk so much about GTI's story man. #I wish the gameplay was better because I feel like the story could be just as good or even surpass EoS

[warwickroyals]

✨Writing Advice✨ that will clear your skin

Hello, here is some advice for writing that I find helpful. I’m going to write them down in bullet points because if not it will just be a massive wall of text (in typical Ayanna fashion) and nobody wants to see that shit. I also want to say that a lot of this advice is based on my own preferences and biases when it comes to writing, and some of it might not work for you. I think that’s fine. We all have different approaches and styles, one of the best pieces of writing advice I can give is to just fucking do it and see which approach and style you find best. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to being a good writer.

GENERAL STUFF

WRITE FOR YOURSELF AND NO ONE ELSE: I cannot stress this enough when it comes to writing you’re not going to please everyone. I’m sure there are people who don’t like my style of writing, or hate that I tread on the lengthy side, or hate the narrative devices and monologues I use to tell Phillip’s life story or, or, or . . . and guess what? That’s fine, but I don’t really care. What matters is that you’re writing what makes you happy and you’re sending the message you want to send. Yes, you will always be able to improve your writing, but also be confident in your storytelling abilities. Don’t change how you write because someone else is saying that they don’t personally enjoy it! Writing is an art form that is meant to reflect the writer not the dumb bitch talking shit about the writer, so write on your own terms first and foremost. 

CONFIDENCE: You might think your writing looks and sounds like shit, but . . . you’re not the worst writer in the world. Being confident is very important when you’re just starting out. If you go into writing feeling like shit and assuming that everyone hates your writing, it will show. So, don’t do that to yourself! All that matters is that you’re giving it your best go. No one starts off flawless, but the more you write the more you’ll improve, and your confidence will grow.

READ: Reading anything is important because it gives you real examples of what good (and bad) writing looks like. Plus, you’ll get lots of inspiration for plot devices, characterizations, prose, and dialogue. Notice other writers’ tricks. Notice their writing style, their character dynamics, and their world-building and try to implement them in your own writing. Think about the elements you like in their writing, ask yourself why you like these things and try it for yourself. Does your favourite author use colour to convey emotion? Play around and try to think of how you can do the same. Do they write complex relationships, unpack those relationships and see what basic elements they’re using. Inspiration is a natural part of the artistic process, be mindful of what you like/dislike in other stories and learn from that.

WRITE: Never force yourself to write, but try to do it every day. Even if it’s just a page about nothing. Practice makes perfect, as they say.

PLOT

WHAT’S THE POINT: Think about the main point you’re telling with your story. Is it a romance story? Is it a story about the importance of friendship? It might sound basic, but it’s through this thought process that you can work out characters, themes and plot lines. I joke that the point of my story is “monarchy bad” but that is what helped me develop a lot of my story, thinking about how the monarchy would negatively impact people.

SOMETHING NEEDS TO HAPPEN IN YOUR STORY: This might seem like a very obvious thing to say, but make sure that your story has a plot to begin with. Things need to happen for there to be a story, right? What I like to do, is establish my characters living their regular lives and then BAM! an inciting incident happens that changes their lives and kicks off the plot. Sometimes this incident is subtle and less apparent. The inciting incident in my current arc is Phyllis getting Phillip into therapy, it might not seem dramatic but it threatens Phillip’s regular lifestyle and his desire to be left alone. It’s a massive change to his daily routine and it forces him into new situations, allowing for the plot to happen. Phyllis forcing him to go into therapy is also what leads to him meeting Jean, hooking up with her, and developing feelings for her, etc., etc., One thing leads to another. Treat storylines like a chain. Everything is connected, one event is linked to the next . . . until they’re not, but more on that later. Another thing I like to do is think of the BIG MOMENT the story has been building to and work backwards, thinking of all the things that need to happen for that moment to happen. 

PLAN . . . BUT DON’T: I don’t recommend that you plan out your entire story from start to finish, or at least now down to every little detail. In fact, I plan very little. I think over-planning prevents things from developing naturally. I like to let my characters develop on their own, and I like having spontaneous elements in my story too. Real life isn’t always planned. 

RULES ARE MEANT TO BE BRO—SUBVERTED: Don’t follow the three-act rule because that’s how stories are told. Play with these tropes and plot devices, you can play them straight or subvert them or get creative with them. This can help your story feel more unique and subvert reader expectations. That rule where I said one event is linked to another . . . I like to subvert this and throw in an event that comes from nowhere. Now, your character is suddenly in uncharted territory where anything can happen. It’s a great way to raise stakes.

RULE OF THREE: I just said rules are meant to be broken, but this one works like a charm. Set it up. Remind the reader of it. Pay it off. Three is the perfect number to develop something fully. If you noticed, there are three times that Phillip and Jean take notice of each other before they hook up and each time the level of interest they have in each other slightly elevates before they reach the point of no return. Jean doesn’t just drop out of the sky when the narrative calls for her, she’s eased into the story so that it feels natural. 

START YOUR STORY AS CLOSE TO THE END AS POSSIBLE: This might sound like strange advice, but you want to be as concise as possible. This might conflict with simblr storytelling a little because, let’s be honest, filler and fluff posts have their own purpose here. However, in general, everything should have a purpose when it comes to your writing. If you’re writing something for your story, ask yourself what the point of it is. Is this chapter developing characters, or is it advancing the plot? If you ask yourself this question and you can’t come up with an answer, cut it out of your story. 8/10 you don’t need it.

CHARACTERS AND DIALOGUE

BE CONSISTENT WITH YOUR CHARACTERS: Sometimes rules are made to be broken, but sometimes you need to be consistent in order for your story to make sense. If you have a character who is established to be shy, consider what that would look like. What are the pros and cons of being shy and how can that impact their relationships, motivations, etc. If your character is shy and the conflict revolves around them having to come out of their shell, it can be challenging for you as a writer to come up with a realistic solution. Furthermore, If you have a character who is shy, but they suddenly become very confident when it’s convenient, the reader might get confused, or it might feel like you’re ignoring your character’s flaws to cut corners. I never want to be thinking “that’s not something [INSERT  CHARACTER’S NAME HERE] would do” when reading a story.  However, sometimes you can, in fact, be a little inconsistent in ways that make your story stronger. Maybe Stacey is painfully shy, but she isn’t when she’s around Josh. This can be your way of showing that Stacey and Josh have a very strong relationship, that Josh is the only person Stacey feels like being herself around.  

REMEMBER WHERE YOUR CHARACTER COMES FROM: The Warwicks are royals and I think that’s painfully clear when you look at how I make them talk. Sometimes the way they speak is overly-formal, stunted, and disconnected from ordinary speech. Even Phillip, who is far more down-to-earth, is guilty of having these mannerisms in his speech. This is me trying to reflect the fact that they grew up in a cold institution that prioritizes formality, stunting his ability to communicate in a “normal” way. Nicholas Warwick as a teenager and young adult texts with almost flawless grammar. He even uses commas. It’s strange. That’s not how a normal 18-year-old texts, but that’s my point. Nick is not some ordinary teenager, he’s a person obsessed with how he conveys himself and he’s been raised being drilled on the fact that he will someday become a king, a head of state. Of course that stuff is going to bleed into how he interacts with others. Your character’s life experiences have an impact on how they act, speak, and behave. Consider that. 

ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES: There’s nothing wrong with having a favourite character in your story (who have one doesn’t, really?) but the term Mary Sue and Author’s Pet exist for a reason and I think these are tropes that you should generally avoid because they undermine the effectiveness of your story. Characters, much like people are flawed, but if you keep shielding them from the consequences of their flaws, it can give the impression that you’re giving this character special treatment. If you have a character who is set up to be a snarky mean girl, show the consequences of them being a snarky mean girl. Have that impact on relationships, how others view them, and their reputation. It gives your story more weight that there are real consequences. Jaqueline is consistently rude to Shelby and as a result, Shelby dislikes Jack, is quick to assume the worst about her and, ultimately, this bites Jack in the ass. However, Jaqueline is also a princess and holds a lot of institutional power, so there are some cases where she can bad-mouth people and generally get away with it. Like everything else there is nuance.

NOT EVERYONE HAS TO BE A MAIN CHARACTER: I think simblr (or at least royal simblr, I don’t read much outside of that) gives the impression that there’s a main character and a few side characters and that’s all your story has to room before it gets convoluted and disconnected. WRONG. One of the hardest parts of Phillip’s story is sticking to one character. I had to edit out several posts because I kept drifting to other characters when PHILLIP is meant to be the focus. However, normally I write stories with several main characters and there are ways to balance things so that everyone is fully developed. If I’m writing a storyline with Nicholas and I reach a point where there’s a natural break in his story or where there’s a short break of time, that is when I’ll go focus on another character and so on. These storylines develop together and allow for foils and contrasting with my characters. Also, everything is still connected and what’s happening with Nick will most likely impact the other members of his family. These are ways to equal balance things that are consistent so everyone gets some limelight. Phillip is the main character but as his story gets resolved I then move on to focus on his children, who were impacted by him and so on. Also, don’t be scared to include secondary and tertiary characters too! Even if a character appears once and then fucks off they can be well developed and impactful on your story. Life is full of people who you don’t see often but are nevertheless impactful. Certain characters have lives outside of the main story and showing that can make your world feel more dynamic.

DO RESEARCH: If you’re going to be writing about any social issues or anything like that, you probably should do research to make sure that you’re not writing anything incentive. For example, if you’re writing a character of colour (shocking, those exist) or a character that has a certain illness, you should do your homework to make sure that you’re being accurate with your portrayals. It might seem trivial, but your story has the ability to impact other people so please be responsible with it!

CONCLUSION

I hope someone found this helpful. Like I said before there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to being a writer, and it’s okay if some of these tips don’t work for you. This isn’t the tip of the iceberg when it comes to advise and I could probably write full posts about each of these points. But for now, I’m all typed out. Maybe I’ll do another one in a few months or something. Cheers.

#that one writing class in uni that i got an A in is guiding me through this event #warwick.text #warwick.tutorial #it's not really a tutorial but whatever #this took me a long ass time to this is in lue of a story post today #oh yeah . . . also show don't tell #long post

[corvosdaughter]

curious about your doto thoughts. i only played it once and reasonably enjoyed it (if anything, i had more issues w dh2) so im interested to read about your experience

sure thing!

first off i want to be absolutely clear that this rant is 100% petty. doto didn't, like, burn down my crops or (to my knowledge) influence any kind of shitty trend or real world harm. i don't have issues with gameplay, art etc which are ultimately bigger draws in the series. and the story was straightforward and mostly internally consistent, so ignoring the prior games, even that could be worse. but despite arkane claiming it worked as a standalone, much of the narrative's weight DOES rely on previous games. so i think it is fair to measure it up against previously established aspects of the series, and find it wanting.

when i saw promo material i thought the concept was... flawed. to be exact, i mean the idea of a) daud and billie going to b) kill the outsider because c) he's responsible for the awful shit in the world. any one or two of those points wouldn't have given me pause, but all three together seemed pretty contradictory to what we knew about the setting and the characters.

the outsider isn't responsible for the awful shit in the world. he just isn't. i do not think the previous games could possibly have emphasised this more. his direct actions are giving a handful of people magic powers and some hints, but what those are and how they are used (IF they are used) are shown to be completely reflective of the individuals both in story and gameplay. the average person in the empire is not affected by the existence of the marked at all. there is no evil magocracy. the closest thing, delilah's reign, is a takeover of the entrenched power structure and it can be defeated with the protagonist's own outsider-given abilities.

gangs, corruption, police states, religious control, wealth inequality, spreading of disease - these are the real issues that the citizens of dunwall and karnaca face daily, and they are completely independent of the outsider. time and time again we see that casting him as the source of society's ills is a hollow excuse for the perpetrators; it's exactly what the abbey does as it kidnaps children and murders "heretics". as a player, why would i think about killing the outsider when there are so many rotten institutions right there? it's even worse when dh2 portrays him as a historical murder victim himself, who seems to prefer it when people don't abuse their powers, even if he cynically expects they will.

and no one should know more about human choice than daud, post his dlcs. like, his entire character arc was realising that whatever the outsider gave him, he alone was responsible for his actions, so he must bear the consequences. it all comes down to his canonical low-chaos speech in dh1, after seeing corvo deliberately NOT slaughter his way through life: "you took a path i could have followed, but did not... you choose mercy. extraordinary." we are given every reason to believe his desire to retire peacefully is earnest and something he follows through on. the story's premise would be cheapened if he didn't.

as i see it, the key theme of dh1, its dlcs and dh2 is that, while privilege may blind and power may corrupt, there is always the choice to do better, and it is often the harder choice. and look, i think the doto writers may have been trying to expand on that. what about the root causes of privilege and power? who draws the lines? who can best try to take the system down, and what happens when they do? fair questions! but doto looks for the answers in all the wrong places, and so is at odds with the other games instead of in conversation with them.

it's kind of perfect that doto is so resolute in downplaying agency, really. if you're going to ignore the details of the stories you're building on, why not go the whole hog and make your message completely antithetical to theirs.

billie is the player character, but she is not in charge. she pretty much just goes along with whatever daud says, though she's not his young protegee anymore, and she had plenty of autonomy back when she was. there's so much focus on what daud's done and his mission and his angst about how he turned her into a killer and she's the one who has to carry out this job because he's dying etc. when they first reunite he asserts that he knew she'd come find him. because her life is supposed to revolve around him, i guess? ugh. a sprinkle of sentimentality is fine and even heartwarming, like the writers intended it to be, but to have it as The Story in this way just gives the impression that she's little more than an extension of him.

sure, you CAN technically question daud's idea of the outsider's culpability at the end, but 1) daud's dead and 2) the conversation goes straight back to whether the outsider should die for what it's asserted he's done. anyway, one argument in favour of saving him is "this wasn't his choice, he never asked for this power" lmao. it's just like how billie's void powers are forced on her (in an awfully uncharacteristic fashion by the outsider, i might add) and we're not supposed to worry too much about any carnage she causes with them.

the chaos system was one of the most interesting ways to deal with the violence = bad problem in violent video games. in doing away with it, doto pays lip service to the idea by having daud and billie wallow in guilt about their pasts, but there are no external consequences that might prompt actual introspection and a change in behaviour for them and the player. this means if you slaughter entire buildings of people, it's no biggie, nothing changes, never mind the fact that the story is trying to pose some ethical questions about murder. it also means daud is extremely annoying the whole way through. but hey - it's totally compatible with the theme that choices don't matter that much.

yet for something that's trying to be so different from its predecessors, i do think that doto relies a little heavily on nostalgia. if you aren't attached to the characters at the start, i doubt the game comes close to the emotional peaks it does otherwise. the narrated splashes aren't gonna do it alone - imagine if dh1's prologue didn't let you play with emily and simply told us that corvo looked after the empress' daughter - and there's not much character development throughout. i was definitely moved at times, i'm not going to pretend i wasn't! but often i felt it was despite the execution, not because of it.

also, "black-eyed bastard" was said way too much.

another issue was that i felt a lot of the script was written and delivered in a manner that wants to make you go "hmm, how thought-provoking", but the questions raised are never explored or answered meaningfully. even the ending is a stubbornly vague "i don't know..." i got a little sad when i noticed just how often potentially meaty bits of dialogue were redirected. it made those moments come across as insincere and non-committal even if they sounded good on their own. as an example, mid-game billie asks "is the outsider to blame for what we did? does corruption come from the void or from our own hearts?" then keeps talking about her plans to kill him. if she'd instead reflected on who was responsible for her current actions, even if there was no firm conclusion, i could believe that the story was trying to have a genuine discussion about the blame game that we could learn something from. but it's not that deep :(

overall i just feel like doto tried to take Cool parts of dishonored without always considering all the details that made them Good. a gruff assassin who has beef with god is a cool character, but he's a good character because of the specific arc he went through, and the version that shows up in doto is even less self aware than the one at the start of dh1; billie is cool because of her badass checkered past, but she is complex because her desire to be part of something bigger often conflicts with her independence and businesslike practicality, characteristics that doto doesn't really touch on; the outsider is cool as the powerful inhabitant of a supernatural dimension, but it's the distance from his devilish portrayal in the empire that makes him unique and interesting.

on a meta level, i've never seen anyone indicate a dislike of the outsider as a character, and to me the implications of his existence in the void is the most iconic part of the worldbuilding. killing OR removing him means arkane gives up the easiest, most sensible way to make a future dh game feel like Dishonored. it might never happen, but why close that particular door?* there was lots of speculation that the game was tying up the series for the forseeable future, which was probably true, but simply closing off the kaldwin era would have been enough for that. plus a smaller scope would also have been better for a small game. cosmic upheaval really deserves more gravity than doto was able to give.

what alternatives do i think might have worked? well, going back to the three points i mentioned earlier:

not centred on daud and billie, aim is still to kill the outsider who is believed to be responsible for everything - maybe a particularly zealous young overseer tries to actually do something about the outsider

centred on daud and billie, aim is not to kill the outsider, who is believed to be responsible for everything - maybe they can bring about the downfall of the abbey for good

centred on daud and billie, aim is to kill the outsider, who is not believed to be responsible for everything - maybe they have to reluctantly mercy kill the outsider for some void-related reason, or save him from someone else trying to assassinate him.

could work with any concept (i.e. i totally thought this would happen) - either billie or daud replaces the outsider in the void.

i did have issues with dh2 as well, and honestly they laid the groundwork for much of what i didn't like about doto. while i think the series always has fantastic incidental writing (whatever the collective word is for audiographs, journals etc.) the main stories have never been masterpieces, and dh2's attempt to lean more into character study wasn't super successful imo. to make some characters more sympathetic they sanded off some awesome unpleasant edges - why sokolov of all people got sad-dadified i'm still puzzled by. there's a lot more exposition. i preferred the more detached outsider from dh1. some references to dh1 and the dlcs were too fanservicey for my taste. but i think the biggest hint of things to come was the time travel mechanic - the focus was clearly "this will be really cool to play" and not "this is going to open a huge can of worms on the narrative level which we should try to address thoughtfully", the same way priorities probably were when it came to doto's "kill a god" setup. i get it, they're video games, not books. but this is how you get the insanity that IS the dishonored books. lol.

* i'm not counting deathloop as a dh game, and i haven't played it, but i read that the connections to the dh universe are more than just a couple of easter eggs. imo that does neither any favours - the dh timeline gets boxed in, and it makes deathloop look like its developers don't have faith in it as a standalone ip.

#sorry for the wait! #dishonored #zann talks #ask #tl;dr: He Would Not Fucking Say That

[neonscandal]

Manga With Me: MHA Edition

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: covers chapters 1-50

Who doesn’t wish they could experience something again for the first time? Join me during my first MHA read through with reflections and head canons. If you’re interested in reading and following along, let me know, I love bouncing theories off of people. Be sure to drop your head canons below, too!

The story begins with a tale about a power balance between two friends. ✨ Deku’s relentless adoration and patience v Bakugo’s hubris and cruelty effectively provides the catalyst for Deku’s constant desire to catch up to and keep up with Bakugo. That and his hero fanboying pretty much leaves him no other desire than to be a hero. But the fact that Bakugo always treats Deku’s care and concern in the face of other people’s apathy or inability to act as an affront has always made me wonder what went through Bakugo’s head when he landed in that pond. Was it his first taste of fear?

Opening on Deku being powerless but heroic in the face of Bakugo’s tyranny is also something that will inevitably boomerang back later in the story. Bakugo, who aggressively bullied and inflicted violence on Deku over the course of several years, gets to be a hero just because he has a powerful quirk. Moreover, how can someone who is shown to earnestly WANT to be a hero be shown to be so cruel in the first place? Ultimately, when you have the strength of character to stand up to a bully aware of your powerlessness.. aren’t you already a hero? It kind of gives the vibe of “if you accepted this about yourself in the first place rather than seeking that validation externally, you’d have realized your strength sooner.” Kind of like the premise in “Penelope” with Christina Ricci.

The fact that Inko and All Might failed Deku as adults compounded by Bakugo’s swan dive suggestion was of course heartbreaking but also, I think, speaks to hero society as a whole. Even without aspirations of being a hero, being in that 20% of the quirkless population makes you an outcast in adolescence and has an added layer of fear at the hands of relatively OP (by normal/our standards) villains.

The below TikTok ultimately informs why I wanted to read the manga for critiques I missed during my MHA binge. So, kicking things off regarding the Sludge villain and how Kacchan was almost taken out in front of a live audience of heroes and civilians until a child rushed to his aid.. 👇🏾 just watch the whole thing because it’s great. It begs the question whether someone so foolhardily obsessed with Justice (as later pointed out by Gran Torino) was also a victim to public opinion and minding statistics. All Might is shackled with the crucible of being The Symbol of Peace but how much of that is pride and cowardice?

I’d seen the comparison before but I appreciate the softer bodies in the manga v the anime. A lot of people talk about the ableism of Inko and All Might telling Izuku he can’t be a hero without a quirk which is integral to the overall story and, not to co-opt that idea but, as we see PR factors into the overall success of heroes, I wonder if this was a deliberate choice of the mangaka.

Exploring the self-interests of the characters really provides depth to the characters of 1A. As with Ochako, you see that you can be altruistic in nature but still opportunistic and driven by money. I want to hear why more of them want to be heroes but, more specifically, Bakugo. Like, he’s the lowest hanging fruit considering he and Deku have had this shared passion for so long but why does Bakugo want to be a hero?

Momo deserves more delving into. Considering she’s the only other person in 1A on recommendation, where’s her backstory or peek into what got her in (aside from money)? Conversely, Iida is established early on to come from a big hero family like Todoroki but didn’t get in on recommendation. We find more about the Iida family during the Stain arc but, in particular, I always questioned that. Specifically because I think it’s funny to head cannon that Tenya is widely recognized as being unhinged, perhaps even by his own family. Almost like his commitment to law and justice is so extreme that it borders on lawlessness due to its extremism. For this, I also found it funny that, later, his internship was under Pro Hero Manual who the mangaka specified is by the book as well.

Deku sentimentally using his mother’s hero costume instead of opting for the practical protection and support equipment makes me want to face palm. Like, are you serious? I get that it can be indicative of his kindness, his affection, even. He is earnest and steadfast in honoring those that have helped him along the way but I think it also highlights his immaturity and ill-preparedness to grasp the weight of being a hero. That’s the point right? Children shouldn’t have to face their own mortality but, here they do and he has to do so in a onesie his mom happened to send along as an afterthought.

Did Recovery Girl purposely keep the scar on Midoriya’s right hand as a fucked up lesson before threatening to withhold care going forward? With Aizawa’s scar, I want to assume not, but even from the anime you know there tends to be a messed up sense of “lesson” and “justice” within hero society.

I love punctuating the moment Bakugo recognizes someone as his equal by him calling them by name. Especially Urararaka during the Sports Tournament. 🥺 I think this also shows how he chooses to alienate himself a lot in a culture where the use of names defines familiarity and closeness.

Re: Sports Fest, how prideful to broadcast student heroes quirks and subsequent weaknesses year over year for villains to exploit in the field or, in the case of 1A, immediately. Also, the no holds barred violence for sport with the justification that “we’re only violent against bad guys” really feeds into Shigaraki’s state sponsored violence ideology.

“Friendships born of worthy competition” - I loved these pairings the most: Bakugo and Uraraka, Deku and Todoroki, Kirishima and Tetsutetsu. I was intrigued by the fact that while most of 1A considers everything friendly competition (gauntlets are thrown but to better themselves re: Iida), Todoroki and Bakugo who have largely been standoffish and/or aggressors up until this point really only warm up socially as they are challenged and bested. I chalk it up to their respective upbringings which we know heavily emphasize strength over everything else.

Public opinion being the thin line that determines who is a hero vs a villain is also interesting as seen by the clear quirk bias against students like Shinso and, more poignantly, Bakugo’s fight with Uraraka which was misinterpreted by the crowd. Aizawa’s discerning commentary and recognition in that moment was critical to establishing clarity for Bakugo’s character but also furthering the fact that Aizawa really is our basis for honest neutrality. He doesn’t play into public opinion, deal with the press and is hardly recognized for his previous hero work. But he fairly, and to the best of his ability, tries to disillusion his students so they can better survive pro hero life. From the first chapter which is clearly Deku’s POV, we view the story through his lens which may not always be balanced or comprehensive so Aizawa provides a necessary benchmark for further insight and exposition. Even prepping Uraraka, Deku’s emphasis on Bakugo’s determination to crush her isn’t explained as explicitly as “he sees you as a worthy opponent” because it’s informed by his historical perspective of Bakugo, the complexity of which isn’t quite highlighted to the reader yet. Additionally, I like to think that Bakugo asking if Deku came up with her battle strategy was a way of acknowledging him as a worthy opponent as well.

DEKU’S WARNING

AIZAWA’S COMMENTARY

I loved the whole page, tbh

This also is highlighted with Quirk Marriages v Nomu. While the abuse of his children may not be common knowledge yet, how many hero colleagues were aware of Endeavor’s quirk marriage and subsequent attempts at forcibly breeding stronger progeny? Is it okay because of the lawless time period when it happened? Or maybe it’s just because he’s a hero and perceived to be virtuous vs the villainy of outcasts creating genetically modified organisms? It just seems like two sides of the same coin to me and power by any means always tends to be villainous in nature.

Best Jeanist drafting Bakugo simply to reject/humble him is so mean. Especially when you know how sensitive Bakugo really is. From the anime, I know he ultimately ends up taking it on the chin but still. I also wonder if Bakugo simply chose him because of his standing in the ranks or if there was another reason.

Iida going after Stain and realizing he doesn’t even register as a threat is so remarkable to me. Quirks really shape a person’s confidence and being groomed to be a hero from adolescence must really compound the feeling that you’re untouchable when you’re young. Sure you’ve had 10 years with your quirk, you might think you’re a master but UA teaches you everyday that you can be better. Yet Iida still thinks he can take down a villain that countless heroes died fighting with his sheer force of will. But in that moment, Stain shows him he’s just a kid in a costume.

See you after another 50 chapters!

#manga with me #manga recommendation #mha #bnha #my hero academia #all might #hero society #bakugo katsuki #izuku midoriya #shoto todoroki #readthrough #headcanon #mha headcanons #class 1a #manga with me mha

[scienter]

" Second, the writers ignored thought-provoking story arcs for the side characters in favor of reductive storytelling."

*sigh* This is exactly what I have thought to console myself,since TVD ended,into accepting a lot of narrative choices with regards to Caroline ( & Bonnie),the finale included.

"I know this probably wasn’t the answer you were hoping for. You asked me about Caroline and I talked about Damon."

Haha! But I thoroughly enjoyed reading your thoughts on Damon and it made me realise why I always struggled to care about his character at all.Huh! TVD is a hot-bed of lost potential and giant plot craters with 5 billion  romances(mostly poorly written) as plot twists.

" How did Damon go from having an existential crisis because he missed being human to not wanting to take the cure because he doesn’t want to be human?"

Damon's desires almost always centered around some woman especially a Doppleganger. In 1864,his desire for vampirism was motivated by his desire for Katherine.Once Katherine was gone,he was against completing his transition.In the modern timeline,his desire for the cure centered around Elena Gilbert.In s4*,he refused to take it because Elena didn't but in s6, his desire for a human life came back because Elena wanted to be human.

   As for his existential crisis,I think it popped up because Rose expressed her desire to be human in the dream(2×12), that Damon gave her, when she was dying.Once that chapter closed,his existential crisis conveniently poofed into thin air!

*In s4 finale,if I'm not wrong,Damon was dying from werewolf bite which was why Elena asked him to take the cure.Correct me if I'm wrong because I don't remember much of s4 and its convoluted mythology,but how exactly was a cure for vampirism going to protect someone from werewolf toxin?It could turn a person human.But the venom would still be in their system,right?If the venom is fatal for a vampire,should it not be even more fatal for a human?Who knows what poisonous toxin their bite contained that could instantly off a vulnerable human![Although this was Elena-logic,the girl who went from attending occult studies and having no basic fire safety skills to becoming Dr.Elena Salvatore! Hope she keeps Caroline's blood stocked in her clinic! *side eyes* ]

Or is it one of those UNO reverses the writers loved pulling instead of making an actual effort in creating a compelling narrative?You know like the one they did with Stefan in s8! Give him the cure so he is not a ripper anymore! Problem solved forever not because the conflict is resolved but because the conflict is magic-ed away by default! Who cares if Stefan never overcame his ripper issues!

P.S: Kmze reblogged my ask!!!

*pops champagne*

 In 1864, his desire for vampirism was motivated by his desire for Katherine. Once Katherine was gone, he was against completing his transition. In the modern timeline,  his desire for the cure centered around Elena Gilbert.  In s4*,he refused to take it because Elena didn't but in s6, his desire for a human life came back because Elena wanted to be human.

Yeah, that’s why I loved Damon’s existential crisis in season 2 – it wasn’t tied to Katherine or Elena. Damon's missing being human was an added complexity and nuance to his character. Delena (and Datherine) reduced Damon into a one-dimensional character, which is one of the reasons why I disliked that ship so much.

   As for his existential crisis, I think it popped up because Rose expressed her desire to be human in the dream (2×12), that Damon gave her, when she was dying. Once that chapter closed, his existential crisis conveniently poofed into thin air!

I think Rose’s death sent Damon into a tailspin, but his existential crisis makes sense because Damon only wanted to be a vampire if it meant being with Katherine forever. He had no interest in vampirism beyond that. Furthermore, it was established in flashbacks that Damon hated being a vampire for the first couple of decades. Damon existential crisis (Damon missed being human more than anything) was consistent with that characterization.  I’ve pointed this out before, but starting in season 4 the writers used Damon as a plot device, resulting in an inconsistent characterization. The writers retconned Damon’s characterization (his desires, motivations, and backstory) to suit the plot rather than writing a plot that suited his established characterization. (You aptly described this as the writers pulling UNO reverses.) Using Damon as a plot device in the later seasons caused his character to swing from one extreme to another. It drove me nuts because Damon’s character was all over the place in the later seasons. There was no logical character arc for him.

I don’t remember why Elena wanted Damon to take the cure at the end of season 4, but either way, Damon’s attitude change was never explained. Damon went from “I miss being human” to “I don’t want to be human” with no onscreen explanation.

P.S: Kmze reblogged my ask!!!

*pops champagne*

She sure did! 😊

#anon #ask #reply #anon for ts #ask for ts #reply for ts #meta #kinda #damon salvatore for ts #(just to be safe) #damon salvatore #tvd

[onlinemarketingbangalore]

Web Design And Storytelling

 Web design has moved far beyond just aesthetics. Websites are not just there to sell products or give relevant information, they have also become powerful storytelling platforms enabling businesses and brands to connect with their audience on an emotional level.  To leave a long-lasting impression, designers must be able to combine the principles of website design and the art of storytelling together. In this blog, we will explore the art of storytelling in website design and how it can elevate your website to new heights. 5ine web solutions, one of the best Website Development Company Bangalore helps you to interact with customers emotionally and create an interactive website that is based on the principles of storytelling.

Power of Storytelling

Storytelling has been a part of human culture for ages. It has always been one of the best ways to communicate with the audience. It captivates our attention, sparks emotions and helps us develop new connections. In the digital realm, the attention spans have become shorter and the competition has increased rapidly. Now, it is more important than ever to be able to tell a compelling story. Storytelling as we know has been the most effective way to communicate your message; the same applies to a brand or website. Incorporating storytelling into website design allows one to communicate any message clearly. 5ine web solution, the top Website Development Company Bangalore keeps the power of storytelling in mind while designing websites. Our designers have a great sense of storytelling which they implement on every website we work for

Creating an Engaging Narrative

The heart of every great story lies in a well-defined and engaging narrative. While designing a website, consider the narrative that will guide your users on their journey. Knowing about your users, their needs and their aspirations become very important while creating an engaging narrative. Craft a narrative they can resonate with. Tap their emotions and desires with these narratives. 5ine is one of the best Web design company BangaloreThey work with the best designers to create a website that your visitors will keep coming back to.

Structure the Narrative Properly

Every Engaging story has a good structure and the website design needs a proper structuring too. Every element of your website like images, videos, navigation button, and CTAs are a part of the structure. Taking proper care of all these elements and using them as tools helps you to achieve a proper structure for storytelling. Visual elements play a significant role in website design and storytelling. The use of compelling imagery, colours, videos and even typography can evoke specific emotions and reinforce the narrative.

UX as a Journey

Storytelling in web design goes beyond the visual aspects of the website. It extends to the User Experience (UX) as well. Your website navigation should have a narrative arc. It should have a clear beginning, a middle and an end. Each page should be like a chapter. It should seamlessly transition into the next guiding user along the designed path. Pay special attention to the pacing and interaction to create a more engaging experience.

Character and Persona

Characters are essential elements of any story as they provide a human connection. While designing your website, characters can be representations of your target audience. By giving distinct personalities to your personas, you can design the website to cater specifically to them. These personas are used for creating and addressing pain points, creating personalized experiences and establishing a deeper connection with your users.

Interactive Storytelling

Interactivity is one more method which adds engagement to storytelling in website design. Consider incorporating interactive elements such as quizzes, surveys, animation and videos that allows user to take part in the whole narrative. Interactive storytelling makes the experience more memorable and it also encourages the users to spend more time surfing your website

Website Design and storytelling when combined effectively create a more remarkable experience. You can engage users by weaving narrative into your website’s design. It also helps in building an emotional connection and differentiates your brand from your competitors. 5ine web solutions provid e web development services in Bangalore. We have helped a lot of businesses to grow with our interactive website development and digital marketing services.

[gatheringbones]

[“When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away—even if it’s only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaningless of modern life still have to drink water from time to time. One of my students wrote a story about a nun who got a piece of dental floss stuck between her lower left molars, and who couldn’t get it out all day long. I thought that was wonderful. The story dealt with issues a lot more important than dental floss, but what kept readers going was anxiety about when the dental floss would finally be removed. Nobody could read that story without fishing around in his mouth with a finger. Now, there’s an admirable practical joke for you. When you exclude plot, when you exclude anyone’s wanting anything, you exclude the reader, which is a mean-spirited thing to do.”]

kurt vonnegut

#kurt vonnegut #terra preta #establishing desires gives you the personality and the arc which gives you the story which gives you the ending #nothing can be accomplished without characters wanting things

[martelldoran]

WHAT'S THE CAUSALITY LOOP THEORY

Why Emma, thank you so much for asking. I’m not going to waste time before jumping into this because this is gonna get long so without further ado...

Steve Rogers’ Ending and How Endgame Doesn’t Support a Causality Loop and other such rambles

Last month, I came across a TikTok that proposed that Steve’s ending made sense because it existed within a causality loop. I would link the TikTok but I didn’t save it at the time and trying to find videos on that app is impossible. You think Tumblr’s search function is bad? 🙄 But I digress. The TL;DR of the video is that due to time travel and Steve choosing to go back in time to be Peggy’s husband, it created a causality loop where he was always meant to be her husband because he went back in time and stayed there. The TikToker supported his argument by using Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (PoA), another film that uses time travel and has a clearly defined example of a causality loop. However, his argument is fundamentally flawed so I’m going to combine my knowledge of my two biggest fandoms to tell you why.

Continued under the cut because I have no chill. Beware, it's long.

To first tell you how Endgame (EG) doesn’t support a causality loop, we must establish how PoA does establish one and does it successfully. The TikToker specifically mentions the scenes that take place at Hagrid’s Hut surrounding Buckbeak the hippogriff’s execution, so we’ll look at those first. What the film does really well is establish early on that there is something weird going on well before anyone actually goes back in time. There are three things that happen in quick succession during this scene which sets up the causality loop we see later in the film. First, a rock flies through the window and breaks a jar. Second, another rock hits Harry in the back of the head. Third, once outside, Hermione hears a branch snap and thinks she sees ‘something’. There are also two additional moments later on in the film once the Harry, Ron, and Hermione have come out of the Shrieking Shack which should also be noted: a wolf howl that distracts Remus Lupin in werewolf form from attacking the group and somebody casting a full-bodied stag patronus at the edge of the lake to save Harry and Sirius from the Dementors.

Of these occurrences, the first is arguably the most important because it does the most to establish that there is something going on outside of the Trio’s current understanding of their situation. The film makes a point to frame the jar breaking as Important Information the Audience Must Remember because it shows a visibly confused Hermione reacting to it as she picks up the rock for closer inspection and we the audience are given close up of it in her hand. Not only is it framed front and centre in the shot but the rock itself is very distinctive. It’s almost wholly smooth but for a swirl of fossil, thus marking it as not just any rock but An Important Rock To Be Remembered. This was an intentional choice by director Alfonso Curon because he uses this rock to connect this moment to its mirrored scene later on once Harry and Hermione use the Time Turner.

The audience and the characters find out about the causality loop at the same time. There are clearly stated rules of time travel that say that they aren’t to meddle with time but when Harry and Hermione see that Dumbledore, the Minister for Magic, and the executioner are on their way to Hagrid’s hut they panic because their counterparts aren’t leaving. Then, we see Hermione notice something in the pumpkin patch: a distinctive rock, smooth with a swirl of fossil. Again, we see have a close up shot with the rock centred to show its importance. Stylistically, it’s very similar to the shot we saw earlier in the film which gives the audience an emotional pay off for noticing the connection. When Hermione throws the rock and breaks the jar, it sets the causality loop in motion. The jar was always going to break because they went back in time to throw the rock that breaks it.

And it’s the same with all the other instances. Hermione throws the second rock that hits Harry in the back of the head to alert him to the fact they need to get out of the hut. Hermione snaps the branch and is almost seen by her counterpart in the past. Hermione makes the wolf call to distract Lupin from attacking. Harry, and not his father as he had assumed, casts the patronus to save himself and Sirius from the Dementors. But each of these moments are set up clearly in the ‘first run through’ to set up their payoff when the characters realise, ‘Oh, I did these things. They were always meant to happen.’ From a narrative standpoint, these are planned out moments to clue the audience into the fact that there’s something bigger at play. It keeps them ‘in the loop’ as it were.

This doesn’t happen in EG.

To successfully have set up a causality loop that made sense and had the same kind of set up and pay off as we see in PoA, it would have had to have been established as early as 2014 in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (CA:TWS). This does not happen. One of the main themes of CA:TWS is moving on from the past. Peggy Carter herself even says, “I’ve lived my life, my only regret is that you didn’t get to live yours.” Then saying soon after, “Sometimes the best thing we can do is to start over.” Peggy’s character in Captain America: The First Avenger is set up as someone who acts as the backup/back bone of Steve’s own moral compass. When Steve falters at Azzano about what to about the captured 107th, Peggy is there to remind him of what is right. She serves a similar narrative function in CA:TWS. Steve is struggling with life in the present. He’s just seen the helecarriers and argued with Nick Fury about protection vs fear after the botched Lumerian Star mission. Morally, he’s in turmoil and has turned to Peggy for council because he’s trying to find purpose in world where his rigid morality seems to have no place.

From the point of view of creating a causality loop, one would think that this scene in the hospital would be the place where an initial set-up could be made and alert the audience to the long term plan for Steve’s character. Instead, we have Peggy mourning the fact that Steve didn’t get to live his life the way it should have played out, and why would a woman who has supposedly been married to another version of Steve tell him to move on? In addition, when Steve visits the Smithsonian, he watches a video where he sees Peggy talking about how he influenced her life and how during one of his missions, he saved the man that would go on to become her husband. This is the only mention of Peggy’s husband in the entire franchise until Steve reappears as an old man at the end of EG.

Captain America: Civil War (CA:CW) also offers an opportunity to set up the causality loop at Peggy’s funeral but again, this does not happen. The only family we are introduced to is Sharon Carter, Peggy’s grand-niece. When it comes to filmmaking, every choice made is intentional. From the hair and makeup to the clothes, to the music used, everything in a film means something whether it is to further character development, world-building, or the plot. Filmmakers have a limited amount of time to convey a story and anything that doesn’t matter isn’t shown. Therefore, we can conclude from the text of the film that Peggy’s husband doesn’t matter to the narrative. The person in Peggy’s family who matters to the narrative is Sharon Carter which is why she is given prominence during CA:CW’s funeral scene. Had the causality loop been set up here, there would have been a defining moment like in PoA where the audience is clued into the larger story arc. Maybe someone says something, or he meets his older self, but that doesn’t happen. It should also be noted that apart from a small scene in Ant Man, Peggy isn’t mentioned again until EG.

In Endgame itself, the film still fails to set up a causality loop. It could be argued that this is the most important film for the set-up because this is when the audience gets the payoff. The first thing we see after the 5-yer time jump is Steve in a group therapy session for those that survived Thanos’ snap. Survivors share their stories and Steve talks about Peggy, a woman who has been dead in canon for 7-years and who died of old age. It’s incongruous and sticks out because narratively it doesn’t make sense for him to talk about her and not someone he watched disintegrate in front of his eyes. Steve watches his best friend and hundreds of others turn to ash around him and that film ends on his horrified face as he sits by his best friend’s ashes. Narratively, this is the thread that should carry through to EG but instead, he talks about missing his chance with Peggy. However, unlike PoA, there is no indication whether through dialogue or framing that clues the audience into Steve’s eventual ending at the end of the film.

Even when he goes back to the 70s, we see him looking mournfully at Peggy through the blinds in her office and a picture of him, pre-serum, on her desk. Steve and Peggy’s relationship prior to Endgame is supposed to represent the bittersweet loss of the life he could have had had he not sacrificed himself to the cause in CA:TFA. Then, since the audience knows from Steve and Peggy’s conversation in the hospital in CA:TWS that she moved on from Steve to live a happy life, we can assume that this picture is meant as nothing more than a fond memento of someone that meant a lot to her. Once more, there is no indication that Steve is ever meant to be her husband.

It’s impossible to infer a causality loop here in the same way as we saw in PoA. In PoA, there is a payoff for every single unusual or weird moment the story presents the audience before and after the use of time travel but this is something that’s completely absent from Endgame’s narrative. Steve himself doesn’t even vocalise a desire to go back in time at any point in EG nor at any point during the other films he appears in. In fact, when questioned by Tony Stark about the possibility of ‘going home’ in Avengers: Age of Ulton, he says, “The guy who wanted all that went in the ice 75 years ago. I think someone else came out.” While it is indicative of his unhappiness in the modern-day, it does indicate a level of acceptance of the fact that this is his life and he has to make his peace with it. He’s taken what Peggy said in CA:TWS on board. He’s starting over and moving on.

With time travel, and Steve choosing to stay in the past came the fan theory that one of the pallbearers carrying Peggy’s casket in CA:CW is Old Man Steve, her husband. When presented with this fan theory, writer Christopher Markus said during an interview with the LA Times at SDCC 2019,

“I would very much like that. There is no set explanation for Cap’s time travel . . .I mean, we’ve had public disagreements with [directors Anthony and Joe Russo] about what it [time travel] necessarily means, but I love the idea of there being two Steve Rogers in the timeline. One who lived a long life with Peggy and is in the background of that funeral scene watching his young self carry his wife’s coffin up. Not just for the time travel mumbo jumbo of it, but for the just weird, personal pain and satisfaction that would be happening between two Steve Rogers there. I kind of love it.” [emphasis mine]

This shows that unlike in PoA there was no intention of creating a causality loop prior to Markus writing EG with his writing partner Stephen McFeely. In fact, it makes clear that the actual rules of time travel were in contention and that even those making the film didn’t have a unified idea of what they wanted to create in the first place. The fact that there is confusion surrounding EG's time travel is due to the fact that the people behind it, didn't seem to know what they were writing or consider the consequences of it.

What all of this shows is that an argument of a PoA style causality loop doesn’t hold water. The film doesn’t support it, nor do any of the previous films, because there aren’t any indicators for the audience to latch onto. There is no moment of the rock breaking the jar, or the patronus chasing away the dementors, no moment where that the audience is told to hold into this information for later because there’s some timey wimey stuff going on. Ultimately, when examined, there is no set-up for a causality loop that supports the theory he was always supposed to go back and be Peggy’s husband, particularly when examined against a film that successfully lays it out from the start.

Right, the more academic (lol) part of this post is done. I just want to address one more TikTok that bothered me because I have opinions and MCU Captain America is my Mastermind specialist subject.

The TL;DR of this one was that Steve’s ending made sense because he got out of the fight and was at peace and that that has been the ultimate goal of his character arc. This person argued that Steve used the Avengers to distract himself from the fact that he’s this man out of time and he can’t find peace without a fight which to some extent, I agree with. I don’t deny that that is a major driving force to his story. We see that in Age of Ultron with his WandaNightmare. I don’t deny that that is key to his character. However, this creator then made a comment at the end of this video to the tune of, ‘bUt BuCkY iS hIs StOrY aRc’ and tried to play it off like this wasn’t true or that people were wrong to think that this is the case.

These two things aren’t mutually exclusive. They’re both true. They’re intertwined. But you cannot say that Bucky Barnes isn’t at the heart of Steve Rogers’ story. Bucky was the catalyst for every single one of Steve’s movies. He becomes CA because of Bucky. He goes against SHIELD because of Bucky. He defies 107 countries and the Sokovia Accords because of Bucky. You take Bucky out of the equation and what do you have? What happens in those films if you take Bucky Barnes out of the equation? Viewing it objectively, and even without shipper goggles on, you simply cannot sit there and claim that Bucky Barnes isn't a defining component to Steve’s story. Steve Rogers is motivated by Bucky Barnes. Steve Rogers is motivated by the depth of their relationship and the fact that Bucky Barnes is one of the few things connecting his new present to his old life.

You can definitely see the fact that Steve is uncomfortable in the modern world. He doesn’t address any of his trauma but he still attempts to move on. However, if they wanted him getting out of the fight and finding life as a civilian to be the natural end to his story arc then there was a way to do it which didn’t require him going back to Peggy. It would have been a better and more satisfying ending if he’d actively chosen to retire because I often see the argument that him going back to Peggy is him finally allowing him to be selfish after shouldering so much over the past decade or more. If Steve chose to retire and put himself first, then that sends a better message. He’s still getting the chance to ‘be selfish’ but he’s not throwing the life he’s built away. At this point in EG, he’s spent a huge portion of his adult life in the modern-day. This isn’t the future for him anymore, it’s the present and he’s lived a life and made real connections with people. The MCU does a piss poor job of showing the interpersonal relationships between the Avengers but he is at least shown to be friends with Sam, Nat, and Bucky.

But he goes back to a delusion. Or an idea of something that was never his in the first place.

When I see people make these videos and share their opinions, I can see their points but it’s like they’re taking EG on its own when that's impossible. Endgame only ‘works’ if you have the context of 10 years’ worth of films. You have to at least be somewhat familiar with the characters, who they are and what they’ve done up until now to be able to make sense of it.

However, in saying that, they wrote and filmed the movie in a way to make you think you didn’t have to take into account anything you’ve seen in the past ten years. If you only watch Endgame, you only see a grieving man mourning the love he never had. You see a man, regretful that he didn’t get to be with woman he loved. So at the end, of course it would make sense that he goes back to her. But you can only do that if you completely divorce Endgame from its ten-year canon and in a franchise like this where they make a big deal about everything being interconnected, it simply doesn’t work. Steve’s story arc in Endgame is incongruous to the narrative arc we’ve been presented in previous films.

Ultimately, Endgame is a movie you’re supposed to watch once and then not think about again. It’s made for that first viewing when everything is shocking and exciting because if you stop to think about it even a little bit, it falls apart under scrutiny.

Finally, I think that the downfall of a lot of these ‘Steve’s ending makes sense’ posts is that made by people who are most certainly MCU fans but not Steve Rogers fans and it shows.

#in this essay i will #endgame wank #anti endgame #for the filters #steve rogers #my writing #because this i didn't spend my afternoon on this for nothing #marvel #stevie #angelblue007

[seasteading]

so you're missing a plot

over the course of my 3+ years on writeblr and some time on writing twitter, i’ve noticed that a lot of people can come up with characters and worldbuilding, but then get stuck on creating a compelling plot around those characters. so, here are a few tips that have helped me, and that i hope will help you too!

note: this will apply mostly to fantasy and sci fi, since that's what i write and what tends to have more plot-heavy storylines. 

these are also all my opinions! you don’t have to listen to any of this—all of these are tips that i’ve used in my own experience, and what works for me won’t necessarily work for you.

tone

this is one of the first things you want to decide. even within the same genre, you’re going to have a lot of variety in tone and atmosphere. the kind of plot that works for a fun fantasy adventure romp might feel odd and out of place for a darker fantasy with an emphasis on political intrigue. to figure out what kind of tone works best for your wip in particular, you want to look back at your characters. writing is a massive investment of time and energy, so you want to go in a direction that’s actually interesting to you. this is the very first step, and will help you decide what direction you end up going, and will most importantly give you a hint towards what ending will best suit the story you’re trying to tell. if you go with a more lighthearted tone, then suddenly having a tragic ending won’t make any sense since it’s the equivalent of a bait-and-switch. the same applies for having a darker tone—a happily ever after where everyone lives and gets therapy won’t necessarily fit. 

worldbuilding

worldbuilding is important of course, but it doesn’t need to be completely developed before you start coming up with a plot. in fact, you should try to avoid dumping all of your time into worldbuilding, and instead get the basics down before moving onto the plot. i’m sorry to say it, but you’re not tolkien. you will never be tolkien, and you don’t have to aspire to be like him either. you don’t want to write yourself into a plothole because something in your worldbuilding ends up conflicting with the story, so generally it’s good to have a little bit of wiggle room. sometimes you also run into a situation where the plot itself inspires an important piece of worldbuilding that makes the story richer and more interesting. your worldbuilding is there to enrich your plot and inform your character motivations, not the other way around. however, you do want to establish any rules your world has before getting into the plot, since breaking them can itself become a driving factor in characters and their arcs. this is especially common in fantasy, where a frequent premise lies in the fact that everybody can’t use magic while the protagonist can, or the other way around. this isn’t a plot quite yet, but it can be a good starting point.

character driven vs. plot driven

you will also need to decide the main focus of your story. character-driven writing is common in literary fiction and shorter works, and it’s focused specifically on the internal conflict within characters, as well as their thoughts and personal arcs. few external events are going to happen in character-driven stories, which tend towards more towards slice-of-life where not much really happens but you’re still invested due to the characters. plot-driven writing puts emphasis on (you guessed it!) the plot, and this is a lot more common for longer works. the two can and do certainly overlap, but most works tend to lean a bit more one way or the other, and you can determine this by asking whether you’re more interested in the characters as people or in what happens to them. 

motivation

so now that you have an idea of the direction you want to go, how do you actually come up with your plot? no matter if your story is character driven or plot driven, you still need compelling characters, and one way to find your plot is to look at their motivations. every one of your characters should have something they want to achieve or to obtain. your character’s want is going to be their main driving motivation. something is wrong in their life—if it wasn’t, then you wouldn’t be writing this story—and they think that obtaining what they want will fix it. this can be a macguffin-style quest for an object/place/person, the desire to climb the social ladder, solving the mystery behind a disappearance, etc. at this point, i would recommend taking a look at media with similar character motivations to yours and dissecting them to see what works and what doesn’t. you want to be genre-savvy and know what tropes are common to the type of story you’re telling.

gay is not a plot

repeat after me. gay is not a plot. gay is not a plot. gay is not a plot. there should be something to your wip’s plot other than “they’re gay, what more do you need?” (see this post). a romance isn’t going to be interesting if the characters aren’t interesting on their own, and that requires them to actually have their own motivations which (see motivation) themselves create the basis for a plot! in that same vein, having representation shouldn’t function as your plot or your primary selling point. representation should be a given, and making that the only descriptor for your work essentially boils down your characters to just their marginalization.

retellings

i know retellings of fairytales, myths, and shakespeare’s plays have gotten really popular, especially as of late. retellings are a great starting point since they already give you a base off which to work with, and instead of having to come up with all of your concepts from scratch, it becomes a question of putting your own spin on them. these tend to require some knowledge of the genre and common tropes, which you should have regardless of whether you’re writing a retelling or not. here, instead of having characters and a world first and a plot second, you’re working backwards from an existing work to reinterpret the characters and world surrounding a common plot. the important thing to note is that just because you have a starting point doesn’t mean that your work is done—i’d recommend researching other variations of the story you’re retelling and cataloguing similarities and differences, what works and what doesn’t, and moving things around/restructuring them depending on the changes you yourself want to make in your retelling.

prompts

i actually wouldn’t recommend relying on generators and prompt lists for your plots, since they tend to be extremely vague and difficult to get invested in, since you weren’t the one to come up with them. prompts can be really good for sparking inspiration, though, and once you get an idea for a few scenes, you can build off of them to figure out what circumstances lead to each one and what the pivot points are. prompts are a useful tool, but shouldn’t be used as the basis for your entire story.

final thoughts

if you’re here that means you’ve made it to the end of this behemoth of a post, and hopefully something here was helpful! at this point you should be able to find a premise, but it’s important to note that a premise is not a plot. here is where the real work begins—interweaving your characters and worldbuilding with your storyline, figuring out if there are any holes in your cast or if there are a few darlings you need to cryogenically freeze for now. you don’t need to fill in all of your plotholes; that’s a problem for when you actually have a draft down and more material to work with. for now, focus on creating a storyline that’s interesting to you. most importantly, don’t try to force it. you don’t want to treat a plot as a trope checklist, but instead let it come naturally so it actually fits the story your characters are made to tell.

#long post #anyway #r.writing #writeblr #writeblr advice #again take all of this with a grain of salt AHSDFKJLHASF

[blufox234isadumbname]

Why does no one ever talk about the abuse C!Tommy did to Dream? Tommy ruined everything C!Dream worked for when he first entered the world. He found it funny to break the rules and to drive C!Dream down a dark path. And then he hated it when c!Dream finally did something back. C!Tommy also murdered Dream twice. With every intention to kill him the third and final time… c!Dream isn’t perfect but c!Tommy practically caused his downfall but it doesn’t get talked about.

ok imma just- roll up my c!tommy apologist sleeves *ahem*

here's my response to this:

(All mention of members of the Dream SMP are characters, not the actual content creators behind them unless stated otherwise with the cc! tag, this is all within Minecraft roleplay and not reflective of the actual people

This also mentions the Exile Arc, which has themes of suicide and abusive relationships. If the subject is of discomfort, please scroll away)

I'm assuming that the first part is in reference to the early stages of the Dream SMP era, like in the same-ish month-long period when cc!Tommy joined (and officially when Tommy emerged to be a part of the slowly forming story at that point). This era of the Dream SMP is a little hard to gauge in terms of morals since the distinction of what's canon and non-canon just don't exist. At this point, it was before fully fleshed out characters were introduced, just the CCs as themselves messing around in a Minecraft server. Hence, a lot of the aspects, such as violence and psychological effects, of current DSMP lore aren't seen in the same serious regard during this era. It is still a part of lore but it's not to be really seen as "serious" - not unimportant but not exactly the most grounded in logic. Though, the word "abuse" is incredibly harsh to describe the early stages of the Dream SMP. It just implies Tommy deliberately causing trouble out of pure malice. The things that Tommy was at fault for don't refelct that kind of intention, most were the result of the first Disc War - which was instigated by Dream stealing the discs first. Other things were harmless pranks, not really meant to break someone's psyche. There was the conflict that occurred reflect the burning of Ponk's lemon tree but again no actual mind-breaking stuff happened on either Dream's end, just annoyance

Later on in the L'manburg era, again no sort of malice is shown. Dream was the one insistent on starting a war over L'Manburg's independence, Tommy has just pulled along and stood with Wilbur during the confrontations. The most consistent thing in the early eras of Dream SMP lore and early L'manburg is that Dream is seen to be the bad guy, though not as the malevolent force in more recent Dream SMP lore. He was more like a bully if anything, starting conflict to get what he needs and keep things under his control. Post-War and such had Dream be less of a threat and more of that one begrudging chaperone that hates a certain group of kids, also known as the L'manburgians. Dream was more cartoon villain than the careless monster he is presented during the more recent storylines.

So to say Tommy to be the reason for Dream's turn into a genuine and serious threat is false. If anything, Dream's own downfall through the storyline was mostly his own doing rather than someone else's. Again, the Disc War was started by Dream himself stealing the discs and holding them as leverage and the war for L'manburg's independence was caused by Dream's own insistence otherwise. No other force beckoned him to do so, just his own want to control the happenings on the SMP. Around Manburg's and Pogtopia's formation, Dream was acting out of interest of the SMP that he has power over, which included siding for the act of chaos and subsequent power that comes from it. Again, all out of his own volition, not a single person convinced him to not chase the promise of control. He could've just declined the Revival Book from Schlatt yet he accepted the bribe anyway. Same with letting Wilbur having the TNT and dethroning Eret.

It's already established during Tommy's Exile arc that Dream was already becoming a vile person, pushing away any close alliance aside from hiring Punz - even then, it was only a business relationship rather than one forged in close bond. All the things that led to Dream's descent into a more immoral person were his own choice. That included deliberately secluding and messing with Tommy during his exile. The entire arc was about the growing abusive relationship with Dream as the manipulator and Tommy as the victim. From destroying any armour and items Tommy had in order to prevent any way for retaliation, feigning friendliness to gain Tommy's trust and cutting off Tommy from any other source of support, Dream made the entirety of Exile a traumatic experience filled with conflicting feelings and depression. Even near the beginning, with the scene of Tommy looking down at lava in the Nether, Tommy already showed signs of decline in mental health. That was only further proven by the scene where Tommy attempted to jump off the dirt pillar.

Tommy had gone through hell yet managed to pull through, realised what he had experienced was abuse and headed off towards Technoblade's home in search of a better place of shelter. His leave from exile was healthy but doesn't diminish the sense of anger he had towards Dream. Even when his stance on Dream at the time was conflicting, still regressing back to the same belief Dream was his friend, he still held a hatred for Dream. That was further strengthened when he was able to overcome fears that stemmed from Exile, such as heights and Logstedshire itself. The finale to the Disc War began and Tommy was back to being played around by Dream, being threatened and forced to give up his items all over again. All the build-up then leads to almost everyone on the server entering through the Nether portal and Tommy finally getting revenge.

The scene where Dream was being killed until his last and final life wasn't just Tommy getting revenge, everyone else was backing him up. Most people on the server were fed up with Dream's doings, they all wanted Dream gone. It was only because Dream held something of importance, the Revival Book, that they wanted to spare him. Tommy's want to kill his abuser and enemy wasn't out of his own desire, it was fueled by everyone else's anger towards Dream too - which was further reinforced by the wall of important attachments that Dream intended to use against everyone else.

Moral ethics of whether death is justified in a Minecraft roleplay aside, Dream's death was simply akin to the downfall of any other villain. He was made within the story of that season to be unempathetic, with the lack of a perspective to see his side of things. It was a quality that made Dream a good villain in the first place, a villain you couldn't understand. A villain whose inner machinations were a mystery and thus made him much less like a pitiful human. To say that it was Tommy's fault that he became a villain is undercutting the purpose of Dream as a villain during that storyline of the season. It undervalues why he is a villain and genuine fear amongst others in the SMP. Additionally, saying Tommy was wrong for wanting to kill Dream undermines what he went through in exile. Disregarding the most important arc of the character just leaves an incomplete hole in him.

Hence, the reason that no one talks about Tommy being the downfall to Dream in becoming a villain is that it is untrue and completely devaluing to either character of what made them what they are in the story.

#consider this my response #this is practice for me because i have an analysis essay to do #i only write this because i had time on my hands and I like to write #dreamwastaken #c!dream #c!tommy #tommyinnit #dream smp #/rp #/dsmp #analysis thing #full writing #i dont get c!dream apologists sometimes #no hate to those specific people #i just find it strange how people can completely change the context of the story #i also find it veyr damaging to see c!tommy to be blamed for c!dreams downfall #because no one else can be blamed for your own mistakes #you got to own up to it and c!dream just doesnt #thats all really #i dont like this take #suicide mention #abuse mention

[codenamesazanka]

I feel like I can’t stress enough how important Spinner is to the ‘My Villain Academia’ arc, and how badly I need BONES to give him the attention and care in portraying him that he deserves. BONES have been pretty faithful to the manga, they’ve followed the story and brought each scene on the page to the screen... Except for some reason not when it comes to the Villains. Maybe it’s because arguably the Villains wasn’t the focal point of the show and they weren’t what most viewers watched the show to see; fine, but that was the case in the beginning and no longer.

Shigaraki Tomura, his exploits, his character, his story *is* the manga: the Heroes and protag react mainly to him and his actions, his past and motivations is one of the main factors that caused the current central conflict, and resolving his character arc is what will probably bring the whole series - to its end or near end. Yeah, imo I argue that everything about him moves the plot along.

Unfortunately(?), I think Horikoshi-sensei realized/decided/planned this a bit too late in his pacing. He said himself during the Stain arc or so that at first, he wasn’t planning on doing villain profiles - he wanted the villains to be scary.

But for the time being, I have no intention of writing about [the villains]. I do the introductions because l personally like those sorts of behind-the-scenes things, and also because I want my readers to feel a connection to the characters. But with villains, I decided I can't have them too likable. They're supposed to be terrifying.

Often it’s what we don’t know/understand/predict/expect (and therefore can’t get a grasp on) that makes things scary/uncomfortable/dislikable. The Villains were strange, seemingly erratic and incomprehensible in their behavior and motivations, malicious without rhyme or reason. Even now, I think a lot of people still think they’re just ‘completely evil crazy psychopaths’.

Anyways, the quote from him is from Volume 7. A whole bunch of volumes later in Vol. 23, he decided nvm: “The story has evolved beyond that point, so I'm ready to start doing villain profiles.” As he said himself, the profiles are to help the readers connect with the characters, make them relatable and likable. That’s what My Villain Academia is all about in the meta sense - to demystify Shigaraki Tomura and his ragtag chaos friends, to give them depth, and to induce interest in their stories, if not sympathy. Hype them up for the rather major roles they play in this ‘final arc’ of the series.

Enter Spinner, the lizard ninja guy.

Besides his unusual looks, Spinner is really, truly nothing special. He’s got a weak quirk, he holds no title of being the strongest or smartest or whatever member of the League, he’s not related by blood or thematically to any major players in the main conflicts, and his ‘tragic’ backstory is completely mundane compared to his allies - he was bullied as a child, and so is fueled by resentment. In the events leading up to the start of the arc, Spinner is the most moral and understandable of the Villains - has a ‘good’ reason for his crimes (eradicate corrupted Heroes), has standards on who he’s willing to fight (questions attacking the police and anyone with a ‘true heroic spirit’), and wants a concrete game plan instead of aimless discord the rest of the League seems alright with.

Once the arc starts, we immediately learn the basics of his character - he’s got a heteromorph quirk that makes his appearance a humanoid gecko and it’s something he was born with that he can’t control, and yet he faces discrimination from literal KKK-type cultists who refuse to see him as human. This was more or less his life in his small, rural hometown, harsh enough that his heart had become ‘completely empty’. It’s simple, it’s relatable and an realistic analogy anyone who has faced prejudice and harassment and been hurt by it can understand.

All this is so Spinner ends up being the most normal and typical sympathetic of the League of Villains, which sets him up to be a sort of ‘gateway Villain’. It’s why he’s narrator. He doesn’t understand at all the crazy All For One shenanigans, he’s thinks Shigaraki is an incompetent weirdo, and he asks what we were all thinking: “Shigaraki Tomura, what the fuck are you doing.” Quite obviously, Spinner’s meant the audience surrogate and so he is. That being a core of the way the story of My Villain Academia is told means it needs be followed by the anime adaption.

This core sets up the rest of the arc - sets up how we will come to view Shigaraki Tomura and his backstory, alongside the rest of the League Villains, their relationships and dynamics with each other, and who they are at heart. Shigaraki’s telling of his distorted origins in Chapter 222 is horrifying as it is already; but it’s Spinner’s worried-facial-expressions reactions littered throughout the chapter that adds to it by telling us one major thing: Spinner’s an empathetic guy, because he immediately feels a kindred spirit with Shigaraki when the latter talks about the hollowness he feels. So begins the audience surrogate’s change of opinion and us readers going along with it, and also: that Shigaraki Tomura now has Spinner’s concern and attention - and is deserving of it.

Pardon the sudden heavily edited quote, but CS Lewis says,

Friendship arises...when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common...which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique [burden]. The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, "What? You too? I thought I was the only one." ...And instantly they stand together in an immense solitude.

That’s almost word for word Spinner in that moment, suddenly realizing he’s no longer as alone as he thought. He’s no longer as alone, and this means perhaps neither should Shigaraki. Because established in that very chapter, too, is the hate in Shigaraki’s heart fueled by his grief and despair, the loss of his family, past, and faith in others, his misery of thinking he’ll never feel good again. Yet - there’s Spinner, willing to extend some empathy and care, the very antidote to all that Shigaraki had revealed. Because the desire for companionship (or at least the lessening of the pain of loneliness) is universal, even among villains - maybe especially among these villains - we probably love to see it. Want to see it.

On that basis - friendship borne out of empathy - Spinner puts his faith his leader, puts his trust and support, and the rest of the arc is us following the tension of whether he was right to do so. Whether Shigaraki would live up to what Spinner expects of him, whether Spinner will side with Shigaraki despite their earlier conflict. Whether they could become friends, or something like that. And once they do, the consequences of this as things spiral more and more out of control, beyond this arc - that Spinner would know Shigaraki well enough to do something crucial at the turn of a battle later, that Spinner would stick by Shigaraki’s side when he’s in danger, that Spinner is loyal enough to Shigaraki to help him as a friend should.

Through Spinner, we come to see Shigaraki, originally incomprehensible and terrifying, as someone beyond a Villain or a leader, but rather someone valued as a person, a friend, a fellow silly gamer nerd. He’s still scary, of course - just less so, with a seed of doubt of his doom that Spinner - and only Spinner, by virtue of his specific narrative and emotional role in this arc - planted in their characters and the story.

It’s because of Spinner that MVA works, by itself, and as a stepping stone towards the rest of the series. So he really needs to be everything he is, was, and more in the anime adaption please BONES oh my god please

#long post #nalslastworkingbraincell #shigaraki tomura #bnha #mha #heroaca #Spinner #Iguchi Shuuichi #my interpretation of course #but like #everything I said is right there in the text and can be convincingly argued for #so I’m right and it’s mandatory that BONES listens to me

[nonbinarykai]

Ok since two people asked

Why Lloyd is my least favorite ninja and how I rewrite him

Notes:// you know the rodeo by now, long post so it’s going to be under a read more, and I’m not gonna tag this with Lloyd because of the criticisms I have against his character, if you don’t want to hear Lloyd be critiqued then don’t reas the post

Why I don’t like Lloyd

Maybe it’s because I’m a Kai kinnie or maybe it’s because I have a bias agaisnt the younger sibling but Lloyd has never really been a favorite of mine

He was enjoyable in s1 but after that he kinda lost all personality for me and I stopped enjoying him

I think this is mostly for two reasons:

1. His screen time

2. His “character arcs”

I’ll go ahead and knock out his screentime here because it pretty much speaks for himself

Lloyd takes up so much screentime in the show that it’s actually jarring, he’s the character with the most seasons, having s1-2, s4, s8-11, and finally s14 ((the island special)). Which I think makes lloyds writing flaws all the more noticable

A big reason, albeit a bit of a petty one, for why I don’t like him is because he constant hyjacks other characters plots and makes them about him, this happened with Kai in both s4 and s11

Even if he’s not the main focus of a season, he always has a side plot focusing on him like in s3 and s12

The writers need to include Lloyd in other seasons is making it harder for the other main characters to actually have enough screentime to grow and develop on there own

And as a side effect of this, Lloyd gets to become the most important character in every season he is, taking roles from other characters who needed them

My best example is Cole being leader, he was set up and established as leader in the pilots and s1, and he did pretty good in it! Cole being a leader is a interesting concept that I would have loved to see been developed

But after Lloyd grew up they threw that plot point into the trash so they could have the mystical green ninja be leader even though throughout s1-7 he hardly actually talks to the main cast and him being leader doesn’t add any interesting dynamic like cole and kais rivalry despite Kai being a sort of right hand man to Coles leadership.

And in s1-s7 especially everything literally revolves around Lloyd to the point where his existence is more important than everyone else’s, and everyone’s motivations are to protect him.

Again I understand he is important, he’s the green ninja, but you have to let your other characters grow and develop, Lloyd is not the only main character in your show

Like for fuck sakes I don’t need 3 arcs about Lloyd and his dad, can I finally have another Kai season

Lloyds character arcs honestly kinda suck

Im going to be honest with you

Lloyds kinda an ass

The reason I like jay more then Lloyd even though jay has been way more mean spirited then Lloyd throughout the entire series is because you can atleast make the argument that jay doesn’t know when his jokes can hurt. And the show doesn’t portray jay as in the right, he gets what he deserves for some of the meanier things he says.

The same can’t be said about Lloyd

Lloyd says things to the other ninja that is honestly so mean spirited it’s jarring to hear it from him

Best example being when Lloyd told Kai to get over his shit when Kai was grieving in s4

But what makes it so frustrating is that the show always portrays Lloyd like he’s in the right which is why a lot of his character arcs feel flat or uninteresting

The only time this doesn’t apply is in s2 and in s3, in s2 the show paints Lloyd as being unfair to Misako when he RIGHTFULLY gets mad at her for abandoning him, I’ll get back to this later

The second time in s3 is when he’s traveling with Garmadon and having to be taught to balance his powers, which is actually one part of s3 I really liked, it was nice to see these two bond and have Garmadon teach Lloyd something that wu would other wise not teach him. And it’s a real shame the season cut it short AGAIN

The biggest example of the show making Lloyd seem in the right no matter what is in s4, Lloyds whole arc there was to learn how to view things from a different perspective and appreciate the things others have done for him. And this is would work if the show decided to do the same.

Again back to that scene with Lloyd and Kai in s4, the show treats Lloyd as if he’s in the right and it’s never addressed after this. Even though this is supposed to be the beginning of lloyds arc where he’s supposed to learn to view things from a different perspective

This scene would have worked if

1. The show didn’t paint him in the right for this, either by having Lloyd apologize or having the show acknowledged how it might have hurt Kai

2. If the plot Lloyd has remained a side plot instead of taking up the entire focus

Seriously, s4 could have been the ONE season where you can have a Lloyd side plot thats not forced and yet they fucked it up and made it the entire focus of the season thanks a lot.

To quote what I said in my Nya anayalsis awhile back

“I’m not upset that he has a flaw, just that it’s not recognized as one”

Lloyd would work way better as a character if the show just let him have consequences for his actions

Ever since he grew up and got the green ninja role he’s been treated like he can’t do no wrong which is clearly not true

But since we’re already on this topic

Hurting Lloyd doesn’t make him a good character

I feel like Tommy ((and sometimes the fandom)) really misunderstand what the use of suffering for in a story

There atleast 3 reasons writers make there characters suffer

1. To undergo a arc and realize where they have been wrong or to give a character a lot more depth to expand upon

2. If the story is a fallen hero one and the character suffers because of his Huberius

3. If the story is a tragedy

Ninjago is neither a fallen hero story or a tragedy and his pain doesn’t develop him as a character

A lot of writers don’t understand that suffering isn’t what makes a character good, it’s what pushes them to become good, you can’t just throw a character at the wall and expect them to instantly be a well written fleshed out character

A lot of the suffering Lloyd has to endure is mostly for no reason and it’s really mean spirited because it adds nothing to the plot, it’s just there to hurt him

Let’s bring up s11 as an example, Lloyd didn’t HAVE to fight the ice emperor from a writing standpoint, if anything it should have been kais battle because his lose of power and Zane going evil would have been a perfect reflection of s4 and tie it up after it ended kais character a bit open ended

But no let’s have Lloyd do it instead because haha isn’t trauma COOL and HIP

Now to be clear, I’m not saying that all of your stories have to end on a happy ending or anything like that, if your a writer then your allowed to do whatever you want with your personal writing

What I am saying is that ninjago is an actual SHOW made by PROFESSIONAL writers and they can’t understand the concept of a story structure

And the lack of actually addressing his trauma is really bringing down Lloyd as a character

Because it comes to a point where you understand why Lloyd is sometimes mean or distrustful of other people and it’s frustrating because you know that it’s flaws of him that are never going to be fixed because there writers want there trauma baby

How I would rewrite him

I’ve seen a lot of people suggest Lloyd become a villain in a future season and you know what, I sort of agree

But not in the way you think

I feel like it would be way more compelling if Lloyd was a villain but is still a ninja, instead of Lloyd switching sides, the show is switching perspectives

More or less I want Lloyd to be a reflection of the “true” villain, which is how wu ((and subsequently Lloyd)) put small Victories as more important then the ninjas life, passion, and desire, and how there black and white thinking of good and evil ends up to a lot of problems because there’s a lot of grey area there choosing to ignore

I want Lloyd to start of being loyal to wu’s philosophy and the protagonist, for random example let’s say Kai, sudden turn on these ideas in order to look outside the box to find if there truly is a better way to protect people without harming himself

I want Lloyd to be upset over what he thinks is a turn to the dark side when in reality, it would make his motivations make sense and not make his turn to “villainy” be out of character.

And over the course of the season he starts to realize how wus and subsequently his leadership has hurt the others and himself, and have him reflect on if all the pain they suffer through just to clean up wus mistakes is really worth it like wu says, or if there’s a better way like kai says

As for Lloyds actual character himself, I’d like for his flaws to be more noticeable

Have Lloyd be a gifted kid who gets praise when he doesn’t deserve it but still kinda acts like a brat because he’s still mentally like 10

Have him be a control freak who follows the rules way to strictly and is all serious when they have to do missions

Have his idealization of wu be realized and critiqued because honestly wu sucks ass

Would this make his character less like able? Maybe, but then he’d actually have depth and something to improve on

He can still have his s3 and s4 arcs, it’s just now they’re more important because he’s actually learning to be better

AND BEFORE ANYONE SAYS IM PURPOSEFULLY MAKING LLOYD WORSE SO THAT KAI LOOKS BETTER

ILL HAVE YOU KNOW AWHILE BACK I MADE A POST SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING ABOUT KAI AND HIS FLAWS SO THERE (/hj /lh)

#ninjago #kai smith #ninjago kai #sorry this post is way less structured then my other ones