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sinceraindia · 6 months

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Five Toxic Employee Attitudes that should be Banned from the Work-Place – People Barriers to Operational Excellence

Do you sometimes look around you at work and think you are in the middle of a role play game with quite a few characters that play the same roles again and again? I do and not being a very patient person, it does take a lot of effort for me to keep my mouth shut and continue to stay in MY character and play the game. For that is what the corporate world is – a game. And even if you don’t want to play the game, you need to know the game and know the characters very well to achieve what you have set out to do. In my case, it is operational excellence. Your objective could be something else but you would agree with me that it would make our workplace much more pleasant and energetic and reaching business goals that much easier if some toxic employee attitudes were left out at the door. So much of organizational success depends on the culture that is prevalent in the organization. I have written about the part that leaders should play or not play in the past and today’s post is for the rest of us. To be really effective at work, we have to know and understand the people we work with. Each one of us at work has a responsibility to ourselves and to others to not indulge in toxic attitudes and behaviors at the work place. Life would become so much simpler (albeit less dramatic) then.

Here are the five most common toxic employee attitudes that I have seen block personal and professional growth at the work place – let me know if I have missed any:

Attitude #1: It’s not my job or Take No Initiative –

Such people specialize in advice. They can spend hours discussing how Mr. /Ms. So-and-So (especially those in management) are not doing their jobs and if they are, how they should actually be doing this much better. They are experts in their knowledge of who could or what could be better – and the more they know and discuss, the better they feel. And no, they don’t spend time debating on how they could contribute or help. Wouldn’t it be great if they actually used this knowledge to take initiative themselves to actually go and volunteer to DO some of these things, that they know so much about, themselves ?

Attitude #2: I know who is pulling the strings and why or the Conspiracy Theory –

The intelligence agents who think that there is a sinister agenda behind every move in the organization – they thrive on drama and love sharing their inside intelligence with people on their latest theories on how management is out to get them. This one is actually fallout of less than transparent communication from the leadership teams which provides fodder to some people to create stories and scare the living daylights out of people around them. Fear and confusion are not conducive to performance and productivity. Wouldn’t it be great if these people took this particular brand of creativity outside the workplace and wrote thriller novels that I am sure we would all love to read?

Attitude #3: What is the point or We can make No Difference –

Most commonly seen in people who are unhappy with their jobs for whatever reason, this attitude is a complete dampener for people around them who love their work and are passionate about what they do. They do not believe in positive outcomes and spend time curbing the enthusiasm of those that do. If you are unhappy and still choose to stay on, it is your choice. Now that you have made that choice, do you want to spend your time in doing mediocre work for work’s sake or try to inject a dose of excellence in whatever you do and become happier by the day? And let others do their best work in peace?

Attitude #4: I cannot/will not move forward and I will do my best to pull you back too or the Frog in the Well –

I don’t understand the reasons behind this attitude myself – on why someone would want the opposite of a win-win situation. But I see this very often, common symptoms are – share no credit, slander and back-stab at the first opportunity; sabotage any work that one does not directly own, etc. Why? Why? Why? Why would you want to pull down people when you can help push them up and maybe rise yourself too? Beats me but please stop doing this – you are sabotaging yourself in the long run.

Attitude #5: Who me? I didn’t say/do anything or the Passive Aggressive behavior –

This is a very difficult attitude to identify or nail down as such people hide behind the smoke (And I am not being dramatic). Look for these people in meetings and conferences – no response to requests for question or feedback but the moment the meeting is over, you can find them with an audience around them near water coolers, coffee tables or whatever the organization version of that is. This is wrong, that is a bad plan, I know this will not work, we are doomed – you get the drift. Such people don’t speak up when they are given the opportunity to but are very vocal behind the scenes. And even more dangerous, sometimes very quietly block, hinder or just delay their part in the work flow. If you don’t like something or you don’t support a decision – can you please speak up? Chances are that your feedback could be very critical and help influence the decisions or change things the way you want.

We could do so much more if we learnt to respect ourselves and others at work. Not see each other as adversaries but as fellow travelers – united to work for a common goal. As Howard Schultz, Founder & CEO of Starbucks says – Victory is much more meaningful when it comes not just from one person, but from the joint achievement of man. The euphoria is lasting when all participants lead with their hearts, winning not just for themselves but for one another.

Do you think I am being very harsh or did you find yourself nodding your head along the post identifying the characters that you encounter in your organization? What do you think each of us can do make the corporate culture less toxic and stifling? What behavior’s do you think impede you in your journey to excellence at work? I would love to hear and learn from you.

#software development #staffing services #sincera staffing solution #sincera global staffing solution

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dreamingdarklyblog · 7 months

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I'm curious about more hypno-based games you might have played and your thoughts on them. Good, bad, recommendations, open to anything. -Anon

Hmmm, Allright. Let's start with...

Lab Rats 2 - Reformulate!

The original Lab Rats is fine too. But Much less a game, more a visual novel. Very on rails with few to no real choices. And MUCH smaller. Basically totally different style too. Barely related aside from a loose plot connection that you don't need to know to play 2.

Now, just to note, the original developer gave up on it. So it's been taken over by modders (hence "reformulate"). You can play just the base game as well, but I haven't noticed any benefit to that. The modded version just adds some more story, more characters, more things to play with.

So what's the game about?

Well, just to warn you at the core, like most games based around sex and mind control, it involves a lot of things that irl would definitely be a crime. It's not as creepy or "forced" as many are, and for the most part there's at least a pretence of consent to things. Buuuut... well, you get it. But if you like my work you're likely comfortable with that in fantasy.

So the main gameplay is basically - You're a guy who opens a lab that is making mind and body altering chemical formulas. And of course pretty much every other person in the city is an attractive woman.

The main Gameplay loop involves managing a staff who procure supplies, researches formulas, makes them, markets them, and handle HR at the office.

The formulas themselves cover a wide array of fetish material. Things to alter obedience levels, sluttiness, and romantic feelings being the main mechanics. As it goes on you can use said chemicals and repeated orgasms to induce a trance state and more directly alter characters beliefs. Maybe make them like dressing slutty. Or like cheating on their spouses. Get off on incest. Enjoy giving blowjobs. Or maybe just make them hate Mondays and the colour Yellow.

The cool thing is that all of that actually does have a game impact. Though sometimes a small of subtle one. Making them hate yellow will reduce or eliminate yellow from their wardrobe. If you force them to wear a yellow uniform, they will be unhappy about it. Making them love sucking cock will make their arousal increase faster while doing so, while making them hate it will reduce it.

You can train up various stats and skills to become more effective at different actions.

If their obedience stats get high enough you can order them to do many things. Change the names they answer to. Exploit trances to add triggers (just the one currently, to trigger orgasm). Lots of options.

There are also formulas to do more advanced things. Alter their hair colour, breast size, even height or skin colour (in the modded version). Give them a very strong fetish for different things. Induce trance directly. Induce random orgasms. Make them randomly strip throughout the day. Induce lactation (and though the system is finicky and awkward. Can have them lactate specific formulas and set up a milking lab to increase production).

The number of options is actually pretty overwhelming. It's a big game. And that's without getting into all the different sub plots that many different characters have. There's probably a dozen or more "named" characters (really everyone has a mostly randomly assigned name. One or two are set, others have a defined first name but a random last name, and most have totally random names) that have a story arc for you to explore and unlock, usually through specific actions or getting their stats to certain levels.

So yeah... I really like all the options. And experimenting with different ideas. The graphics are... Meh. All the models look rather similar, and pretty plastic. But they aren't terrible.

I dislike how long it takes to unlock things without cheating. It would be fine if it was for one play-through, but every time there's a patch you basically need to start over, and it would take hours to re-unlock everything even WITH cheats. Without them it's punishing. So I'd suggest cheating after your first time.

The game is still being expanded by the modders, though updates are infrequent. I think they're mostly focused on adding and completing storylines to characters. As well as improving some of the systems of gameplay to make them more intuitive.

Overall I really like it. I've played through it a few times ;). Lots of behaviour and body modification, and toys to play with.

#game reviews

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funkymbtifiction · 2 years

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Hi! I liked the comparison you did earlier, using a friend of yours and your grandpa, to distinguish between tert-Fe and inf-Fe. I was wondering if you could do the same for low Te. Probably yourself as an example of tert-Te, and any inf-Te that you know.

I feel like this is more of a stronger Ne example, but I had an INFP friend tell me she was really struggling to want to finish writing a novel, so I asked her why, and she said she didn't want to kill off a character that she loved, but that had been the "plan" from the beginning; she was now deep into it, loved this character, and did not want to do that and devastate all the other characters, so she was avoiding working on her story. And my answer was: then don't kill her off, come up with a new plan that causes the same conflict within the narrative without resulting in her death. And she went... "I can do that??"

Inferior Te's sometimes get so stuck on their PLAN, they forget to be improvisational, which is what they are best at. They attempt so hard to 'control' whatever they are working on that they can't just go with the flow of new possibilities, approaches, or ideas when they come to them -- in that sense, they cling to low Si (what's familiar) and Te (my plan) and repress Ne to some extent; for me, I never create a rough outline. She does, because it's the only way to know if her overall plot works -- to structure it out loosely on paper, to "see" it, and any ways to "fix" what's missing, and then lets the details create themselves. I can't do this. I can't envision that many details. So I wind up pantsing most of anything I write -- I have a vague general idea of what I want, or of the characters, or I picture an epic betrayal or scene I am working toward, and then I let everything create itself. The process of writing at first is very scattered and disorganized and frustrating for me, because I am trying hard to find the best idea / plot / approach (my tert-Te) that will streamline everything and keep it very focused and on track, but my Ne-dom is all over the place. This is why I wind up writing 6-7 early chapters and discarding them (sometimes to the tune of 50k words or more that I just 'throw away' -- she finds that a little intimidating and horrific) before I know what my plot is, which characters I need, and then it goes like gangbusters to the end.

BUT... it is way easier for me to switch paths and to focus on the rational bones of my story than it is for her to consider logistics. She likes me as a beta reader because I will notice plot holes, things that aren't resolved, explanations that make no sense, repeated words and phrases, and grammatical errors. (For what it's worth, editing is my job and I am very good at it; but I notice things that strong Te users would notice, which is plot flow, wrong words, bad sentence structure, confusing sentences, etc.)

Sometimes... it feels like tert-Te is just "obviously" logical. Like, an IFP will be trying to figure out what to do and the solution is right in front of them from my perspective, but they can't find it. Like the example of "just don't kill her off then." My Te assessed the problem -- this is making you unhappy, and you are the creator of the story, which means you control everything that happens in it, and you upset that you don't want to work on this anymore, so -- change it. :P

We have also both discussed running households in the past. INFP says she feels overwhelmed when everything is on her, because it's a lot to try and figure out meals for the family, keep track of who needs to be when and where, and keep up with a schedule -- but I would find figuring out that stuff fun, just not DOING it fun. She finds the schedules outside forces force on her to be somewhat comforting, since she can establish a routine that gives structure to her day (low Si and Te) whereas I find any restrictions on me or commitments (like being somewhere at a certain time every day/week) to be frustrating rather than liberating -- I hate feeling like I can't do whatever I want in a day; I want to make my own plan and do that, not have others dictate it to me. Routines are useful in so much as you GET STUFF DONE, but they bore me to tears otherwise.

#question #enfp #infp #enfp x infp #infp x enfp

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drimareuniverse · 3 years

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Looking for a creative writer/storyteller

Hello! I'm Jay, I'm a non-binary artist and I'm looking for a creative writer that can help me write stories for my pet project Drimare Universe! Particularly my Webcomic and Visual Novel.

More details below, all help and sharing is appreciated!

The Drimare Universe is a world located within the dreams of humans, and the Drimare are its main inhabitants spread through various different regions.

It's composed of smaller stories focused on specific groups of characters (Like how Marvel has Spider-man stories, Iron-man stories, etc.) The general tone is a fun modern fantasy slice of life type.

I've been working on the project on my own for the past 10 years, and although I have a lot of lore and character info written down, when it comes to writing stories themselves, my skills are lacklustre. I finally accepted that I need someone that could help me with that, so here I am!

I keep most of the character info and lore archived on its wiki here if you're curious to learn more about it.

My current two projects that I'm looking for help on are a Webcomic and a Visual Novel, both of which are on hiatus because of my difficulty and general dissatisfaction with my own writing :(

I basically have loose plot points, certain scenarios, conversations and ideas, and I need someone that can tie those things together in a satisfying narrative way.

You don't have to work on the comic AND visual novel, but I am looking for help in at least one of those projects.

General requirements

Be over 18 years old. I'm 23 and not comfortable working with minors.

Be LGBTQ+ friendly! A LOT of the cast is LGBTQ in some way and certain characters focus a lot on topics of gender and sexuality so the more you know about the topic, the better :)

Have the patience to learn about my characters and world's quirks and lore lol! I'll try to explain things as best as I can! Bonus points if you have weird ideas yourself.

Basically, you write, I give my input, and then we use the finished script for the comic and/or visual novel.

You will be credited!

As for rates, my budget is small so let me know how much you charge! I'm somewhat of a writer myself and I don't feel comfortable having someone work for free, but I also have no idea what people usually charge for stuff like this. I can also offer my art in exchange if the person is interested/comfortable with that! Examples are on my DeviantArt as well as other links found on my profile.

I'm looking for someone I can work with for the long term so expect me to be a returning client if I enjoy your work! :) Ideally, I'd like to make a team eventually, but a writer is the priority atm.

I don't really have a set deadline so don't worry about having to finish things by specific dates.

It's my first time trying to commission someone for writing so I apologize if my etiquette is off, I'm only experienced in art commissions. I have no idea how I'm supposed to commission writing so I'll just describe what I'm looking to get below.

For the webcomic

Drimare Universe is the first official webcomic series based around the world of Drimare Universe, focusing on the origin story of the two siblings Zelly and Blade, as well as other characters they meet throughout their journey. It's set roughly around 10 years before the current timeline.

Available to read on Tapas here

It's an origin story for two siblings, followed by episodic stories of them meeting other characters from the cast and learning about the world around them. It's sort of built like a cartoon show, with more serious episodes, others more light-hearted, some important one, etc.

There are only 13 pages in the first episode so far, but I'm unhappy with the current script for the rest of the story and need help with it.

I'd like for someone who is actually good at writing and having better ideas to give it a look and either suggest things that could work better or straight-up rewrite it from scratch but better

The other episodes only have the general main plot points written down, with further episodes still being in a draft phase (I got so caught up with my writer's block with trying to figure the first two episodes, that I haven't been able to focus on the following ones)

***

For the visual novel

Drimare Universe Friendsim, is an ongoing Visual Novel project that will feature various characters from the Drimare Universe series, it is currently being developed on Ren'Py and free to download on the DU Friendsim itch.io page.

It is heavily inspired by games like Hiveswap Friendship Simulator as it follows a similar concept of a Human protagonist meeting various cast characters in order to form friendships with them.

The series will be released in various volumes, each one focusing on a specific character, with the events changing depending on the player's choices.

Available to download for free on Itch.io

It's about a human dreamer character who wakes up in the dream world and meets respective Drimare characters.

If you've played Hiveswap Friendsim or Pesterquest, it's the exact same concept. YCH protag meets characters in a very Isekai inspired scenario. It's like a dating sim, but friendship focused instead.

Unlike the webcomic, which takes place in the past, this visual novel takes place in the current timeline. Also unlike the comic, the visual novel is not canon.

Each volume is focused on MC (Who is referred to as "Dreamer") meeting a specific character, with other secondary characters making appearances as well.

There are two volumes available so far, each composed of one short story.

The tone is playful and comedic, I guess "quirky" could be a word to describe it. But still capable of having its serious moments,

Each volume has three endings. A short bad ending, a neutral ending, and a good/true ending. (The length and amount of endings can be flexible)

You don't have to know how to program visual novels or anything like that, I just need help with the stories. I'll be in charge of adding the writing to the game, animating the sprites accordingly, etc etc.

Apologies for the long text, I just want to be sure people understand exactly what I'm looking for! Ideally, I'd love to find someone that could share my passion for creating content for this project, but for now, I'll just settle for just finding someone at all lol

You can contact me through PMs here, though I also accept messages through Twitter DMs or Discord!

Twitter - https://twitter.com/NE0Nbandit

Discord - Jay 🌸🌊#9625

Thank you for taking the time to read this! <3

#commissions #comic #webcomic #visual novel #vn #writing #creative writing #storytelling #how many more annoying tags can I think of #Drimare Universe Webcomic #DU Friendsim #Announcement

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tinyhistory · 4 years

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Hi! First off, I wanted to throw some major kudos your way for Once Around the Sun! I was absolutely blown away by how well written, researched, and all encompassing the story was. What stuck out to me the most was the pacing. It was absolute perfection. So my question for you is...how do you usually set (and stick to) the pace in your writing. I struggle with pacing in my own writing and I'd love to hear your feedback!

Thank you! If it helps, pacing is one of my weaker areas. So you’re not alone in your struggle. I’ll break up my advice (disclaimer: not an expert, results may vary) into four parts.

Part 1: Getting rid of the debris

I edited Once Around the Sun quite mercilessly, cutting around 20,000 words from the final product. Editing is where the pacing magic happens. When you’re reading every scene, ask yourself, “What would happen if I removed this scene entirely? Would it make a difference? Would it affect later plot or character developments?”. You might be surprised at the number of scenes that you can remove or — if the scene is needed for one particular plot point but is very lengthy — can be combined with another scene or reduced to a single line. I’m not saying you have to take the Hemingway approach to your writing, but the pacing will lag noticeably if you include scenes just because you like them. There’s plenty of reasons for keeping a scene — building tension, creating atmosphere, setting up some symbolism you plan to re-use later, developing character dynamics and relationships. But be brutally honest with yourself about exactly how necessary the scene is, and how lengthy it really needs to be.

Be cruel to your own writing. You might have spent ages writing a scene, and the dialogue is amazing, and the descriptions are perfection. But if it doesn’t add anything, kill it. If you’re really unhappy about it, you can at least salvage a few good lines and slip them into other, actually necessary scenes.

Lastly, always remove. Never add. If you realise that there’s a big gap between Big Event 1 and Big Event 2, then shorten your story. Don’t be tempted to add “filler scenes” or meaningless obstacles (see: the infamous “The Drill” episode). If I can skip 10 chapters and nothing’s really changed, there’s serious pacing problems.

Part 2: Characters

Juggling narratives is a good way to maintain pacing. You never want your characters’ development arcs to match. When one character is experiencing a big problem, the other characters should have a relatively calm patch. I say relatively because you should be subtly building their arc so when Character 1 finally overcomes their obstacle, you’ve got Character 2’s big obstacle ready to go. So there’s always something happening. The character development should look like a mountain range, with the characters rising and falling at different intervals.

Part 3: Tensions

There’s going to be different types of tension and, just like character development, you don’t really want it all happening at once. You might have suspense (building up to an action scene or plot twist), romance (building up to an affirmation), mystery (building up to a big reveal), or other relationship dynamics (building up to a big fight, an emotional breakdown, a confession, etc). These tensions will naturally ebb and flow during the story but you never want everything to happen simultaneously — or you’ll leave yourself with a serious (and boring) lull in your pacing afterwards when everything is fine and everyone’s just milling around minding their own business.

This is why good pure fluff is never novel-length. There’s not enough tension to sustain it. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with writing pure fluff or soft romance but if you know there’s only one tension in your story (romance) or no tension at all then you need to think carefully about the length of the fic. During this contemplation you might start getting Certain Ideas. If so, see earlier point about not introducing pointless obstacles or circular side-plots.

Part 4: Breathing room

All this being said, slowing the pace is also necessary. If you recall the visual of those mountain ranges I mentioned earlier, the spaces between the mountains are just as important as the mountains themselves. Give your readers a moment to breathe. It doesn’t have to be much. Don’t add a chapter of meaningless shenanigans or fluff between every other chapter in order to “change the pace”. But after a particularly big moment, you can add a little bit of funny dialogue, or a small scene where two characters go for a walk and have light conversation. Or even just a quick description of a nice view. Just a moment where readers can exhale.

Hope this has been somewhat helpful :)

#once around the sun #pacing #writing advice #answered asks

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florencecastlewritings · 4 years

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Writing Dialogue

Below the read more is a lesson on writing effective dialogue in fiction. As with everything in art, rules are there to be broken, so please do treat the below lesson as a guideline rather than a legal document, and remember that it is based on what works for me as well as advice I have received from other writers. It might not match your style, and that’s all right. It’s also a very lengthy blog post, but I have used headings to try and break it up and there’s a little contents of sorts at the start, so feel free to skim/skip where needed.

If you do find it useful, however, please consider helping me through a tricky time by sending a few pennies my way via ko-fi.

Dialogue is the written speech of your characters in your story. For some people, writing effective dialogue comes naturally, for others it feels almost impossible to master. It is worth considering, as well, the differences in dialogue for different kinds of media - in screenwriting, for example, a writer will be able to rely more heavily on actors’ expression, comic timing, body language and other effects such as music. However they will also be constrained by shorter time, more need for unnatural exposition, and lack of internal thoughts. The following lesson will focus on dialogue in fiction - for short stories or novels - although some rules will be applicable to dialogue in other mediums too, so they’re worth keeping in mind.

The Purpose of Dialogue

Dialogue should:

Progress the story

Deepen character and relationship

Have realism

Be embellished/supported with suitable dialogue tags and appropriate narration.

Easier said than done. Let’s take them one at a time.

Progress the story

As with most writing, the writer needs to be constantly asking herself ‘what is the point?’ Why am I having my characters say/do/notice this? It may be to deepen character and relationship (and we’ll get onto that), but for longer stories we must acknowledge that the dialogue needs to move the plot along as well, as much as we might want to indulge in a bit of pointless fluff now and then.

Dialogue can drive the plot in a more engaging and exciting way than plain narration. Narration on its own can be effective at building tension, but usually only in small doses, and having many pages of narration without dialogue or internal thought will feel more like a summary of events or a witness statement than the author would perhaps like. Consider the below:

Breakfast was tense that morning. They ate silently as they pondered what to do. Michael buttering his toast so aggressively that it was surprising that the knife didn’t go through it. Susan asked him to stop, but that only started the arguing again. He accused her of expecting him to get over the affair so quickly. She threw back that there was nothing left to say if he refused to get therapy, and she had warned him for years that things had to change, and that it had been one foolish night in twenty years of unhappy marriage. She, Susan insisted, had excused plenty of foolish mistakes on his part.

Compared to:

‘Will you stop that?’ she said sharply. Michael did not pause in the furious buttering of his toast. ‘I said I was sorry.’

‘What, you say the magic word and I’m meant to shrug it off?’ he replied. ‘Pretend it never happened? Pretend you didn’t-’

‘You’ve made your anger perfectly clear, and I understand, but you don’t need to be so aggressive with everything, I get it.’

‘Oh, here we go. Buttering toast is aggressive now.’

‘Well, yes, like that - I’ve tried to talk to you like a grown up, but-’

‘It really bloody winds me up when you just say insane stuff patiently and without emotion and think that makes it acceptable, d’you know that? I’m allowed to be angry, you cheated.’

I could continue. The first example can pack a lot more information in, but using dialogue to drive the plot makes for more interesting and deeper meaning. It turns it into a story, rather than an account of events that occurred. It allows the writer to layer the plot with character work and unlock the story a little at a time.

In this regard, it is good to have your characters talking. To each other, to themselves, to the reader - whatever your particular style demands. Having that personable voice is engaging.

There are a few “rules” to keep in mind in order to ensure you remain plot-focused with your dialogue:

Avoid small talk. Enter late, leave early. Naturally there are exceptions (if you want to emphasise the awkwardness of a relationship between two characters you might want to include some failed attempts at small talk), but the usual chit-chat and extended greetings that we are used to saying in every day life can normally be skipped or avoided. You don’t need to have lots of ‘hi, how are you?’ ‘I’m fine thanks, you?’ ‘Fine, cheers. Have you seen the rain?’ Your characters are allowed to just get to the point and your reader will thank you for it.

Have characters on their own thought trajectories. This is a great way of driving the plot, and though it can be tricky to master it can really help in making your characters believable individuals as well as creating some conflict. If characters know each other, or both know the topic, they will likely jump ahead, make assumptions, fail to answer each other directly - this can be a great way of showing that they’re on the same wavelength, but can also be a vehicle for miscommunications and misunderstandings, or deliberately misleading one another. In that vein, don’t have the characters telling each other things they already know, unless made to sound believable.

Similarly, don’t have characters say things solely for the benefit of the reader. This is called exposition, and while exposition is necessary, it can be clumsily handled in dialogue. It’s made fun of frequently in films where they have such limited time to get background information across. You definitely don’t want dialogue like ‘So, Michael, it’s been three years since your divorce, have you thought about dating again?’ Michael knows this, his insensitive friend knows this, the reader is not stupid and knows that it’s not natural sounding. If it must be said in dialogue, weave it into a more natural conversation - ‘I haven’t been to Ibiza in three years, and I don’t plan on going back any time soon. Don’t want to run the risk of bumping into Susan and Jorge.’

We’ll get onto weaving it in with narration and dialogue tags later, which makes that a lot easier, but, in short, use dialogue to drive your story.

Deepen character and relationship

This is my favourite thing to do, and why I often prefer to write shorter stories than longer ones. A writer can find great joy in bringing a character to life through dialogue, dragging them away from plot vehicles and making them people of their own.

Firstly, it’s important to remember that your character’s background and personality will affect the way that they speak. If all your characters sound the same, they probably sound like you! A well educated character will obviously have a different way of talking than a common street urchin, but everyone has quirks and patterns to their speech that you can use to say a lot. You might use long meandering sentences with lots of rhetorical questions for a character known to be boring, for example. You might use short, sharp sentences for a character that’s grumpy or distracted with some deeper internal struggle. You can use the way two characters talk to each other to say a lot about their relationship and power dynamic, especially if you remember that good dialogue should have subtext (what isn’t being said being important).

A good example of this is from the short story Hills Like White Elephants, by Ernest Hemmingway (CW; indirect discussion of abortion). Consider the short passage below.

‘It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig,’ the man said. ‘It’s not really an operation at all.

The girl looked at the ground the table legs rested on.

‘I know you wouldn’t mind it, Jig. It’s not really anything. It’s just to let the air in.’

The girl did not say anything.

‘I’ll go with you and I’ll stay with you all the time. They just let the air in and then it’s all perfectly natural.’

‘Then what will we do afterward?’

‘We’ll be fine afterward. Just like we were before.’

‘What makes you think so?’

‘That’s the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy.’

The girl looked at the bead curtain, put her hand out and took hold of two of the strings of beads. ‘And you think then we’ll be all right and be happy.’

It’s a really interesting story that is almost entirely dialogue, so it’s well worth reading to get a good sense of using subtext. I wasn’t aware of the abortion connotations when I first read it because I hadn’t heard of the very dated term ‘letting the air in’, but really the story is great at demonstrating the uneven power dynamic between the two even without knowledge of what the operation is. Without much description (though ‘man’ and ‘girl’ says it all really, doesn’t it?), you get a sense that a much older man is persuading this reluctant girl into this act by leveraging how hopelessly in love she is with him, though he does not seem to feel the same way. He speaks most when he is trying to persuade her - the rest of the time he is snappish and short with her childish and ignorant questions about the world around them. The above passage is the only time in the story where he refers to her by a name, and we can gather that it’s a pet one. The girl’s silence says as much as her dialogue, and when she does speak it is questioning - looking to him for authority.

Understanding character motivations and background is what makes this masterful use of dialogue. It would be tempting, for a novice writer, to have the girl argue. For her to say something like ‘what if we could be happy without it?’ But where that should be, there is silence, or repeating his thoughts back to him - because Hemmingway is not only driving the story but emphasising the imbalance of their relationship and her own naive nature. She would not argue with him, she can only wish that he will change his mind. This is all through dialogue and a tiny bit of narration, barely any dialogue tags, and really says so much without saying it at all. Show vs tell is about more than description after all.

That kind of depth when it comes to writing dialogue is... really hard. I haven’t picked Hemmingway to suggest that this is the quality all writing should be at, and I certainly don’t mean to intimidate anyone. But it really is a golden example of thinking about your dialogue within the context of the character, and how their background, situation, and goals will affect how they respond and react to those around them. Your character may not always be able to say what is convenient for you, the author, to tell the reader, because it may not be in their nature or sound authentic. But there are clever ways around that and it can make for more powerful writing, between the lines of what is said.

Have realism

If you skipped down to this bit, I understand. It’s the area that people most often struggle with. I find that people tend to fall into two traps here - either their characters sound like robots because they are over formal and have too much emphasis on being grammatically correct or over eloquent at the expense of natural dialogue, OR they swing in the other direction and try to replicate perfectly how people speak in day to day life.

If you do have a problem with stilted dialogue, it is a good idea to listen to how people naturally speak and try typing it out to get yourself out of the habit. But on the whole, the way people normally speak actually doesn’t sound that great in written format. In real life, we use lots of filler words, we get muddled, we go off on tangents, we trail off, we stutter and stammer and phrase things badly, we um and ah and say far more with our body language and expression than we realise. If you ever read transcripts, from interviews or courts, you’ll see how much of it actually doesn’t make a lot of sense. Our brains make sense of it when we listen to others, based on other parts of communication. Yes, sometimes adding in a ‘er...’ is beneficial and good, and you might have a really nice character moment of someone anxious trailing off when they realise no one is listening to them. Sprinkling those moments in can absolutely make your dialogue sound more authentic, especially when carefully used with character knowledge, but be careful not to over use it. In written dialogue, our characters can and should be more articulate and quicker to formulate their thoughts than in real life for the sake of the story. Striking that balance between overly structured and too real and easy can be really hard, but it only comes with practice - reading dialogue out loud can be a big help, as can writing the dialogue first with no narration or speech tags (more on that later).

Some common mistakes when it comes to dialogue:

Having one character speak too long without a break. Monologues are tough to get through as a reader and don’t come up often in real life in any meaningful way. They can end up cheesy or exposition heavy. Occasionally you can get away with it with very particular characters, but in general, avoid.

Over use of names. It’s really distracting as a reader if dialogue is constantly like, ‘what do you think, Harry?’ ‘Charlie, I just don’t know.’ ‘Really, Harry, you need to decide if you’re going to marry her or not.’ ‘I know, you’re right, Charlie.’ Use names to get someone’s attention and then don’t use them again unless you need to make it clear to the reader who the character is talking to.

Not using contractions. Even very formal people use contractions such as don’t and won’t, it is part of natural rapid speech. Save the ‘do not’ and ‘will not’s for when the emphasis is really needed.

Having characters speak in unison. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes this can be used to hilarious effect and can always be used for a bit of comedy. But on the whole people don’t do this, including twins.

Misuse of slang or dialects. If you’re going to use it, make sure you do your research. It’s also worth bearing in mind that if you over use it, it will be hard for the reader to understand and may break immersion.

Over explain for the reader. I mentioned this before but it’s worth repeating. If you went outside right now and saw a UFO, you would probably shout something along the lines of ‘wtf is that?’, and you would perhaps point or scramble for your potato to take a shaky video. You would probably not shout, ‘look at flying saucer! I’ve never seen anything like it!’ Think carefully about realistic reactions, even if they are not particularly convenient to you as a writer.

Over use of exclamation marks/caps lock. People aren’t that vibrant and it’s tiring to read. The less you use it, the more punch it packs.

Using narration and dialogue tags

First, a quick grammar lesson. Sorry.

‘This is some speech.’

‘This is also some speech,’ said the character.

‘Is this also speech?’ asked another.

‘Well,’ said the first, ‘yes.’

‘Brilliant,’ said the other. ‘Thanks for letting me know.’

I use single quotation marks because I’m British and annoying, the conventional double quote marks the Americans use (”like this!”) is also correct. The only important thing is that you pick one and stick to it. Quotation marks always surround the words that are being spoken aloud, and must be opened and closed. Where the sentence ends, you must use a full stop (period), or another piece of punctuation like a question or exclamation mark before closing the speech with the marks.

Where there is a dialogue tag (he said/said/replied, etc), the sentence is continuing, so a comma is more appropriate (but you can also use a question/exclamation mark and the sentence still continues), and again this must go before the speech marks close the dialogue. If you want to continue the sentence with the dialogue tag in the middle, you can continue by using another comma, or you can end the sentence with a full stop and continue the dialogue as a new sentence.

Use a new line for a new character speaking.

Phew, that’s over so you can pay attention again. But unfortunately I still have more to say.

Here is a fun little exercise. Take the below dialogue between two characters, A and B.

‘Do you love me?’

‘You’re drunk.’

‘Why won’t you answer the question?’

‘Sit down. I’ll make you a tea.’

‘I don’t want tea, I want an answer! Tell me!’

The dialogue alone already tells us a bit of a story - a picture is probably already forming in your head, perhaps of the characters, perhaps of the setting. As it stands it’s ok, and if you struggle with dialogue it can be effective to write only the dialogue out in this way (this tip from my writing teacher also helped me cut down on purple prose!). But now look at the scene:

It was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that Alex was woken at 3am by repeated bangs on the floor and shouts through the letterbox. Nothing else would have made her rise from bed. If she had suspected even for a moment that it was anyone else, she would have called the police.

But as usual, it was Sam. Blonde, tousled hair a mess, eye make up smudged, pouting lips trembling as she swayed.

‘Do you love me?’

‘You’re drunk,’ said Alex, wincing as Sam’s grey eyes shone with tears. ‘You’d better come in.’

‘Why won’t you answer the question?’

Alex ignored her, pulled her in by her slender arm. ‘Sit down. I’ll make you a tea.’

‘I don’t want tea. I want an answer. Tell me!’ Sam’s voice was loud and high, and it pierced her.

So, we haven’t actually added that much narration or dialogue tags (t’s best, if you can, to avoid using them too much), but we’re able to give a clearer picture of these two characters. You may even now be reading the dialogue in a different tone to the one you originally did - picturing the scene with a different feel. Not convinced? How about now?

Yet again, as had happened dozens of bloody times before, Alex was woken at 3am by incoherent, slurred shouting through the letterbox.

‘Do you love me?’ was Sam’s immediate demand as Alex wearily opened the door.

Alex rubbed her hand over her bleary eyes and sighed. ‘You’re drunk. You’d better come in.’

Sam turned on the tears at once, mascara running in thick, spidery lines down her blotchy cheeks. ‘Why won’t you answer the question?’

‘Sit down,’ Alex muttered. ‘I’ll make you a tea.’ She stood aside and jerked her head towards the living room.

‘I don’t want tea, I want an answer! Tell me!’

Wincing once more at her piercing shriek, Alex closed her eyes.

The very same dialogue can be shaped by carefully worded narration and dialogue tags. It’s a fun exercise to do with writing buddies - all use the same dialogue and see how different the stories come out. It can also be a pretty nifty way to challenge writers block or shake up a scene you’re struggling with.

Some extra tips from my writing teacher - I fully confess that I am not always the best at following these ones, because my writing has been heavily influenced by JK Rowling who also doesn’t seem to set much store by them. But they are good, and since I’ve kept them in mind my writing has improved.

Avoid overuse of adverbs (’she said nervously’). Use action or dialogue alone to convey this information instead.

Avoid overuse of verbs besides ‘said’. The reader will skim over said and barely notice it, if every character is whispering and muttering and shouting all the time it stilts the flow of the scene - use sparingly.

Use tags when necessary to ensure clarity as to who is speaking, otherwise let the dialogue stand for itself.

Use internal thoughts in place of speech tags sometimes.

Use action beats (’he turned to stare coldly out of the window’) in place of speech tags sometimes to help set the pace of the scene.

I hope this very lengthy post has helped! Please do get in touch if you have any further questions or would like any elaborations on anything I’ve mentioned here, or if you have suggestions for future lessons!

Lastly, I hate to do this but times must - if you have even just a couple of quid to send my way it would be a massive help to me. If you did find this useful, please consider donating to my kofi.

#Writing advice #writing lessons #writing dialogue

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hamliet · 4 years

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Pain, Fear, Death, and God: Fyodor and Gogol as Two Halves of Kirillov

God is the pain of the fear of death. Whoever conquers pain and fear will himself become God.

-Alexei Kirillov, Demons

So remember how when I first read Bungou Stray Dogs I started screeching incoherently and turned those screeches into a somewhat-coherent meta on how Fyodor in BSD was modeled after Alexei Kirillov from Dostoyesvky’s Demons?

Well, here’s the follow up.

As I said in my previous meta, Demons is (tied with Crime and Punishment) my favorite novel of all time, and Alexei Kirillov is my very favorite character of all time, in any fictional medium, ever. He’s a walking bundle of paradoxes, existential angst and stunning compassion. But Demons is not necessarily a popular novel by Dostoyevsky standards and so Kirillov, despite being written about by literary critics and Camus, is somewhat obscure. That Asagiri is so clearly inspired by his character is shocking and thrilling for me; I’m pinching myself.

The tl;dr version of Kirillov is that his whole schtick is that he wants to kill himself to prove that he is free and thereby can escape. It’s far more nuanced and complex, as I’ll go into, but essentially both Gogol and Fyodor’s philosophies and goals reflect this.

Gogol does not want to kill Fyodor because he hates Fyodor; rather, it’s because Gogol and Fyodor are two halves of a whole. They are a paradox together, embodying Kirillov’s complexity. Like Kirillov, they are suicidal, because killing one of them is like killing themselves. To achieve their goals, they both need to die.

Fyodor reminds Gogol that he is human and can connect; therefore, Gogol wants to kill him to assert his free will, as he views connections as a cage. Similarly, while we haven’t gotten much insight into Fyodor’s thoughts on Gogol, I think it’s highly likely Fyodor allowed Gogol to kill himself (he thought) because he clings to his beliefs at the expense of his (very much there) empathy, and it’s better for his goals if people who provoke his empathy die. Basically: Fyodor allowed Gogol to “die” not because he doesn’t care about him, but because he does.

For a brief background: Demons itself is an allegory about how people who become consumed by their ideas become possessed by said ideas; thus, they become devils or demons. The actual title of the novel, Бесы, is difficult to translate, hence why it has three different titles in English: The Possessed, The Devils, and Demons. The word “Бесы” in Russian refers to the ones doing the possessing, which is why the latter two are generally considered to be more accurate translations of the title. In particular, the novel demonstrates the tragic consequences of Russian nihilism and singles out moral nihilism. (It’s also looked to as a rather eerie novel, because almost everything it wrote about happening in a--then fictional--political revolution is exactly what happened in Russia a few decades later.)

As I wrote in my previous meta, Fyodor, like Kirillov, is “consumed” by his ideas, something Kirillov laments in Demons. Fyodor’s consumption with his ideals means that he is willing to sacrifice everything for his goals. Gogol, too, shares this trait.

Where they differ is in motivations for their respective plans, motives they share with Kirillov. Kirillov’s master plan is to commit suicide for two reasons: firstly, that he has free will and will thereby inspire society to live freely, and secondly, because he sees life as nonsensically painful and thereby not worth living. The first reflects Gogol’s personal aims, and the second Fyodor’s.

Let’s discuss Kirillov and Fyodor first. Kirillov believes that mankind invented God (keep in mind the context this was written in; God=Russian Orthodox Christianity) to go on living because of the absurdity of life.

Listen: this man was the highest on all the earth, he constituted what it was to live for. Without this man the whole planet with everything on it is--madness only. There has not been one like Him before or since, not ever, even to the point of miracle. This is the miracle, that there has not been and never will be such a one. And if so, if the laws of nature did not pity even This One, did not pity even their own miracle, but made Him, too, live amidst a lie and die for a lie, then the whole planet is a lie, and stands upon a lie and a stupid mockery. Then the very laws of the planet are a lie and a devil's vaudeville. Why live then, answer me, if you're a man.”

Fyodor's disgust for the world and determination to save it from the sin of abilities reflects this same attitude. Life is wrong, so it should cease to exist. Abilities are wrong, so everyone with one should cease to exist. The reason is, most likely, strongly based in how painful Fyodor’s ability has been for him.

Kirillov laments:

“God is necessary and so must exist… But I know He doesn’t and can’t… Surely you must understand that a man with two such ideas can’t go on living?”

...

“If there is no God, then I am God.”

If Kirillov is god, then he is the ultimate master of his fate. Kirillov is very aware of his own limits, and so he thinks this absurd and life pointless.

That conversation continues (Kirillov’s responses are bolded):

“There, I could never understand that point of yours: why are you God?”

“If God exists, all is His will and from His will I cannot escape. If not, it’s all my will and I am bound to show self-will.”

“Self-will? But why are you bound?”

“Because all will has become mine. Can it be that no one in the whole planet, after making an end of God and believing in his own will, will dare to express his self-will on the most vital point? It’s like a beggar inheriting a fortune and being afraid of it and not daring to approach the bag of gold, thinking himself too weak to own it. I want to manifest my self-will. I may be the only one, but I’ll do it.”

This very much reflects Gogol: killing his high moral power (connection and empathy) through the man who identifies himself as a god (Fyodor) to prove his independence and freedom.

But we’ve kind of already seen where this ends:

Gogol you’ve literally shown yourself terrified of dying (which Kirillov is as well). I know Gogol was likely acting in this scene, but given the themes of BSD and Gogol’s character, plus the fact that he did, in fact, choose not to die, I think this is likely somewhat reflective of his true feelings.

But again, Kirillov asserts:

“I am awfully unhappy, for I’m awfully afraid. Terror is the curse of man.… But I will assert my will, I am bound to believe that I don’t believe. I will begin and will make an end of it and open the door, and will save. That’s the only thing that will save mankind and will re-create the next generation physically; for with his present physical nature man can’t get on without his former God, I believe. For three years I’ve been seeking for the attribute of my godhead and I’ve found it; the attribute of my godhead is self-will! That’s all I can do to prove in the highest point my independence and my new terrible freedom. For it is very terrible. I am killing myself to prove my independence and my new terrible freedom.”

As Gogol outlined, what disrupted his plans was Fyodor’s empathy for him, and his empathy for Fyodor. Their connection literally saved his life (hence I kind of doubt their connection will kill them in the end). He cannot die without killing that connection.

Two things almost disrupt Kirillov’s plans. Firstly, and chiefly, it’s his empathy for others. Kirillov is noted to be a character who is extremely kind, good with children, and unafraid to risk himself to help others. When Kirillov finds out his friend betrayed him and is planning to use Kirillov’s suicide to get away with the murder of a third friend, Kirillov is horrified. He refuses to go through with his suicide at first, screaming in horror that his friend is dead and that he unwittingly enabled his killer to end his life. When he does ultimately go through with it, he states that it is because “I want to kill myself now: all are scoundrels.” He goes through with it because his human connections are failing.

Even the novel’s most villainous character concludes “I agree” when Kirillov is called “good.” Kirillov will stop at nothing to help his friends, and he believes all people are good and will become good if they are just told they are. However, the tragic irony of this scene is that the person speaking to Kirillov--Nikolai Stavrogin--is very much a literary example of a psychopath. (Those of you who follow me know I don’t use that word lightly.) However, Stavrogin does not want to be this way; he wants to feel, he wants to be bothered by the terrible sins he’s committed. What he’s asking Kirillov, essentially, is to understand this and call him wrong for what he did, which absolutely no one does in the novel:

“Everything’s good.”

“Everything?”

“Everything. Man is unhappy because he doesn’t know he’s happy. It’s only that. That’s all, that’s all! If anyone finds out he’ll become happy at once...

“And if anyone dies of hunger, and if anyone insults and outrages the little girl, is that good?”

“Yes! ...They’re bad because they don’t know they’re good. When they find out, they won’t outrage a little girl. They’ll find out that they’re good and they’ll all become good, every one of them.”

“Here you’ve found it out, so have you become good then?”

“I am good.”

“That I agree with, though,” Stavrogin muttered, frowning.

“He who teaches that all are good will end the world.”

“He who taught it was crucified.”

“He will come, and his name will be the man-god.”

“The god-man?”

“The man-god. That’s the difference.”

Stavrogin’s examples are based on things he’s done. Kirillov isn’t aware of these deeds, but he does know his friend’s mind better than most of their other friends. The problem is that Kirillov refuses to truly act on this empathy, to accept that men can be scoundrels and good, because he wants what he believes (that all are good) to be so. Kirillov’s too consumed with his desire to end the world (hello Fyodor) to save mankind via proving himself free to actually use his empathy to help his friends. In fact, the murderer points out to Kirillov that if he’d focused more on his friend, he might have been able to prevent the murder.

A similar attitude is reflected in Fyodor’s desire to destroy ability-users (i.e. end the world) and in his interactions with people. He doesn’t put his empathy into forming actual connections, and those he has he deliberately does not invest in (such as when he kills the kid in his introductory chapter). He kills ability users paradoxically because he cares about them and about other people. I wrote about it a bit in this meta here:

Fyodor... lives very much in a world of black and white. He makes Goncharov happy all the time, unable to experience pain or negative emotions. He believes all ability users are a sin and should be destroyed. He’s an idealist in a lot of ways, believing in absolutes (which is also a hallmark of a childish perspective...). he wants to... force every single ability user to feel his pain (that their abilities are a sin) by wiping them out. In short, Fyodor wants empathy despite refusing to listen to the feelings of others. (He understands their feelings; he just chooses to emphasize his pain over theirs.)

Unlike Kirillov, however, whose last scene is renowned as “the most harrowing in all of literature” (I can’t even describe it; it has to be read) I think there’s pretty good reason to hope that Fyodor and Gogol will not end up taking each other out. Because the thing about Kirillov, the reason his character resonates so much with me, is the second reason his plans are almost disrupted: it’s how desperately he wants to live. He just wants to know that his life matters. The way Kirillov expresses these desires is absurd in a lot of ways and certainly hyperbolic, but it’s a desire reflected in most of BSD’s characters, and in, well, a lot of us in real life, too.

Empathy and genuine human connection are the greatest powers in BSD’s world, as we saw recently through Atsushi getting the location of the page from empathizing with Sigma by telling him what he most wanted to know: that he mattered.

Sigma now knows, to an extent, that he matters. At least, he’s been told as much.

Gogol states that Sigma is key to his plans succeeding: Sigma’s ability can tell him Fyodor’s ability, which will enable Gogol to kill Fyodor. Except... Sigma’s ability might just work in an way that cultivates empathy post-connection with Atsushi. If Sigma can trust that he matters, despite having been created by the page and having been abused and subjected to all manner of lies and exploitation, he might be key to Fyodor and Gogol’s conflict resolution rather than to them actually killing each other.

Fyodor matters despite having an ability that seems to make him unable to touch people--because he can touch people with his empathy. (His empathy is, of course, literally what draws Gogol to want to kill him.) Fyodor’s empathy with Gogol has already physically saved Gogol.

Gogol matters even if he is understood by someone, because empathy is a strength and not a weakness. Someone understanding him doesn’t make him matter less, and being bound by feelings isn’t actually a bad thing. His connection with Fyodor has already saved his life.

Both Fyodor and Gogol have now saved Sigma at some point. Sigma’s design, of course, is literally split with two different colored halves of his hair, indicating that the artist likely means to symbolize the clash of two halves (see: Q, who represents how soukoku (Dazai and Chuuya) are two halves of a whole in terms of their best and worst traits). However, they exist in one person, and Sigma seems reasonably stable for someone with his situation.

Additionally, Fyodor and Gogol both are also somewhat modeled after Rodion Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, whose name literally means “split” in Russian. (Actually, Kirillov is very much a more internal, tragic version of Raskolnikov.) Like Kirillov, Raskolnikov is a paradox embodied: he’s stunningly empathetic and kind (rushing into a burning building to save orphans), but his philosophy is that it’s fine for him to kill others because he’s a “Napoleon” (special figure; “man-god,” to use Kirillov’s term).

But what is split is ultimately made whole in Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov meditates on the raising of Lazarus from the dead and essentially resurrects himself, redeems himself.

I highly doubt Gogol and Fyodor’s story will end with them dead because:

It’s BSD and nobody stays dead unless you’re Oda or a red shirt;

Gogol and Sigma have already served us fake-out deaths, so it’s a lot to ask your audience to buy another death from the same character (killing Fyodor is essentially Gogol killing himself);

them surviving and having Fitzgerald-esque redemption arcs very much fits with the themes of Dostoyevsky’s works and specifically with the book after which Fyodor’s ability is named;

resurrection seems to be a motif with everything involving Fyodor, from Cannibalism to this current arc.

#bsd meta #fyogol #bsd 79 #bungou stray dogs meta #fyodor dostoyevsky #nikolai gogol #alexei kirillov #demons #nikolai stavrogin #bsd sigma #sigma #atsushi nakajima #bsd theory

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kikithegeek · 3 years

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An Amateur Review of Ridley Pearson’s Super Sons

Please be aware: This will contain some spoilers for the Super Sons graphic novels written by Ridley Pearson. If you do not wish to be spoiled on plot or character development, please stop reading this and come back once you’ve read through the books yourselves. Otherwise, enjoy this amateur review.

INTRODUCTION

As someone who grew up reading comics from Marvel, DC, IDW, and Archie, it was always fun when legacy characters were introduced or focused on. Characters that were students or the children of characters that my parents grew up with always felt nice to me, and even relatable when they were introduced or shown to be growing up in a similar or the same time period as my friends and I. Taking this into account, it’s no wonder that by the time I was in high school, some of my favorite comics involved Damian Wayne/Robin and Jonathan Kent/Superboy. Yes, I was definitely older than them by the time their series came in, but some of the problems they faced, even the small ones, seemed familiar to my own. Problems such as Jon’s reluctance of moving away from Hamilton County to Metropolis where he’d be leaving behind people he’s known for years into what is essentially a foreign environment for him, or both characters having to live up to the examples their parents have set; something I’m sure many of us can relate to as children are always compared to their parents or successful family members. The growing friendship between them was always a highlight no matter what type of adventure they were on.

In 2019, Ridley Pearson and Ile Gonzalez released the first book in their 3-part series starring Jon and Damian in a sort of rebooted universe. Fan feedback at the time was mixed, with some fans unhappy and others just happy they were getting more content featuring their favorite duo. Personally, I wasn’t paying attention all that much; I was in the middle of college and my focus had drifted away from comic books that year to focus on my studies, but with the recent pandemic and more time to read I’ve fallen back into the rabbit hole of super heroes and villains. I remember there being an outcry against the books when the previews began to be released, but after they did release and finished their run, I didn’t hear anything. No one really actively talked about what the books were about and most of what I heard seemed to come from people who read a handful of pages, if at all, and then never finished it. So, I decided to put my two cents in and read them. I’ll be looking at them as someone who has been a fan of their main-like counterparts for years, and as someone who also acknowledges that this isn’t canon to it and is an alternate universe (or alternate Earth in the cases of the DC comics multiverse), if anything to look at it from a neutral perspective.

It should be noted that this isn’t the first time I’ve read through Ridley Pearson’s work. In middle school and even through high school, I couldn’t get enough of Kingdom Keepers and Peter and the Starcatcher, even getting tickets to see the touring cast of the latter’s theater adaptation when they came to my state. I’ve read a few interviews on his work with the Super Sons before going into the books themselves, and he doesn’t neglect to say that this series isn’t connected to the normal DC canon (whatever that is these days; any comic book reader knows that reboots, especially for DC in the last decade, usually happen quite a bit). Okay, that’s probably a given, and it makes things easier considering the main target demographic are kids aged 10-14. There’s a lot of content to go over when it comes to everything connected to Damian and Jon, even more so for Batman and Superman, so this makes it less difficult for kids who don’t have much experience with DC outside of the occasional tv show and movie to get into it.

But what about the story itself?

THE STORY

(The majority of the story spoilers are beyond this point since I summarize the books. This is your last spoiler warning.)

The story itself takes place in an alternate future. America is called Coleumbria and the global climate crisis has gotten to the point where it’s a race to find a way to stop the rising temperatures and constant flooding. While Batman and Superman spearhead the projects set to stabilize and then reverse the Earth’s temperature, their sons are moved from Metropolis to a city called Wyndemer with other refugees looking to find somewhere safe from the floods. This causes tensions in the city to heighten as refugees, called “flood runners”, are harassed by locals. Without going too in-depth into the books (otherwise, we’d be here all day), I’m going to summarize them. Certain characters and events might be omitted, but hey, at least it gives you a reason to read them even if I tell you what they’re about.

The first book introduces us to this crisis and shows us how this world’s Jon (who still goes by Superboy in this) and Damian (who is going by Batkid) meet. While there’s some animosity between them at first, with Jon having a not-too-hidden bias against Bruce Wayne, the two eventually start to work together when they realize their individual investigations are connected. Jon and his classmate, Tilly, have been looking into a mysterious illness that’s hospitalized Jon’s mother among many others, and Damian has been investigating sabotages against Wayne Tech dams. They also meet a girl named Candace who is trying to uncover a mystery that’s plagued her since her mom’s passing. After finding clues at a food company called Sage Foods, the group is attacked and manages to escape after Jon is told their attackers were sent by a woman named Arvyc. After finding out that Candace and Damian had set Jon up earlier in the book to be attacked by a few gang members, the group have a short fight before they go to the train station to stop Arvyc’s gang.

The second book opens with the boys helping Candace make it to a boat while escaping a group of girls called The Four Fingers. While they didn’t have as much of a presence in the previous book, had been shown as adversaries of Candace’s. Continuing into their investigations into the virus, Jon and Tilly learn that it was man-made as Candace’s visions lead her toward Coleumbria’s capital. The Four Fingers, meanwhile, are adamant about finding Candace, so they’ve taken to stalking her friends, until they realize they’re “dead ends”, so they choose to follow their own leads. It is revealed that The Four Fingers and Candace all have powers that connects them to certain species of animals; with Candace, she has a connection to birds and she states her grandmother was the same. Tilly comes up with her own vigilante persona, Puppet Girl, and stays behind in Wyndemer as Damian and Jon leave to go to Cinapolis to find the virus’s source. However, the boys get captured and Tilly decides she needs to help them. Candace in the meantime has found an anointing oil her mother had left clues for her to find, which is the key to the throne of Landis, the country she and The Four Fingers come from. It ends with the Super Sons and Tilly saving Candace and helping her get on a boat back to Landis while Arvyc escapes from prison.

The third and final book opens with Jon, Damian, and Tilly trying to track Arvyc down and it’s obvious that they’ve been at this for some time now, but they soon become the hunted. Candace makes it back to Landis and finds one of the rebels her mom had led before she was arrested. As Candace continues on her journey, Jon, Damian, and Tilly are sent by Batman to a LexCorp lab to retrieve a virus sample, only to find it isn’t there. They decide to go to Landis since The Four Fingers were heading there with the virus (and Candace had gone with intentions to stop them), but Tilly needs to stay behind again. The boys and Candace continue their respective journeys through Landis, however a man who’s been pulling the strings from the shadows for the last two books, Sir Reale, has decided to send Arvyc after them along with Talia. Talia and Arvyc attack the boys who manage to outsmart them for the moment, and are reunited with Candace who has been tracking the virus with two warriors named Kizuka and Archer. Tilly, back in Coleumbia, is sent out to retrieve Damian and Jon by Bruce’s assistant, Patience. After meeting up with Tilly, the group find a lab where The Four Fingers have been preparing vials of the virus in order to release it via bombs, and a battle ensues where they learn that sunlight can kill the virus and that Talia is Damian’s mother. Learning that they couldn’t stop all of the shipments, the group gathers the people of the local town to help them in storming the factory. They succeed in killing the remaining virus, save for a vial to be used to create a cure. With Superman’s mission a success and Batman working on a cure, the book ends with Candace being crowned the new Empress of Landis, Jon’s mother waking up, and Batman making Damian Robin.

MY THOUGHTS ON THE STORY

All in all, the story was okay. Personally, I felt like it was rushed in some places, such as how we’re brought from one character or scene to the next with little to no transition or breathing space. The endings were also kind of abrupt, which I feel really brought down the ending for the final book. We don’t really linger on whether or not Superman’s efforts to reverse global worming worked or have a moment where Jon and his dad are able to reunite with Lois. I was also disappointed to see they didn’t go anywhere with the whole “Talia is revealed to be Damian’s mother he had never met before and barely knew anything about” sub plot they had going in book three. People who know me know that the League of Assassins and any character associated with them are among my favorite villains in the Batman mythos, and to see it be brought in only for it to not have anything done with it was disappointing. Heck, you could have taken Talia out of it and the story would have been the same minus Damian being momentarily shaken before getting back to business. At the very least, an ending scene where Bruce confirms she’s his mother would have been nice enough closure for it. This might have been due to there being a page limit (each book was roughly 151 pages long) which lead to things being cut out, but it’s still disappointing nonetheless, especially since I did find myself enjoying parts that had pacing problems.

Pacing and unresolved plotlines aside, some of the things I did enjoy though involved Candace’s story arc. She’s one of the characters made for this series, and watching her figure out her past and come into her own with her powers was really enjoyable. I also felt like small snippets of character interactions between the boys, Candace, and Tilly were really well written. They actually felt like kids.

THE CHARACTERS

Since there are a lot of characters in this series, I’m only going to focus on the four main characters since we’re with them the entire time.

Jonathan Kent is probably the one out of him and Damian who’s the closest to his original counterpart, and I don’t just mean in looks. While he doesn’t have as many powers as he’s come to have in the main DC canon, he does have some of the powers he has early on in his appearances, such as super speed, super hearing, x-ray vision, super strength, and being able to jump high/far. He’s a bit older here though, 12 instead of 10 making him closer to Damian’s age and allowing him to go to the same school as him and Tilly. He holds his dad’s lessons close and seems to be apprehensive about seriously hurting people, mainly in the beginning. Being older though, he’s a bit more mature than his counterpart was before he was aged up, and I feel that this version of Jon is a good blend between the two.

Damian Wayne on the other hand was given the most changes in terms of backstory and how he acts, which goes hand-in-hand. In the original continuity, he was raised by Talia and the League of Assassins, making him spoiled and a literal killer in the body of a child. Here, he was raised by Bruce (how or why, I don’t know. Talia wasn’t brought up until book 3 so I can only assume she gave him to Bruce as a baby and they agreed to never tell him for whatever reason) and Bruce refuses to let him be Robin, leaving Damian to become Batkid (which is a good reference to past incarnations of Batman’s son in older Elseworlds stories). He’s still arrogant and looks for a fight more than he should, but it doesn’t seem like he wants to kill. Beat up a guy who is already out of the fight, yes, but not kill. One thing people who’ve read the books will notice is I’ve been calling him Damian. Well, that’s out of habit; in this series he is pretty adamant about everyone calling him Ian. Why? Again, I don’t know, and part of me is bothered by it because we never find out why he hates his name. I can only assume Pearson had things planned that would explain this a bit more but had to cut them out due to page constraints.

Tilly is one of the characters made for this series, taking the name Puppet Girl as her secret idenity. She’s Jon’s friend and classmate, and is a computer expert, allowing for her to help the team from home until they need her to fly one of Bruce’s machines to them. She hangs around Jon a lot due to going to the same school and because both of them are interning for the Daily Planet. In all honesty, she reminds me of Kathy from before it’s revealed she has powers and is actually an alien since she acts as Jon’s best friend who isn’t Damian, as well as a girl who Jon might have a crush on or vice versa. The blond hair and the purple-pink outfit scheme doesn’t help.

Candace is our final main character and the second character made for this series. We meet her in the books before we meet Jon and Damian, and her story plays a huge role in the overall plot. Candace has been following a string of clues her mother left her shortly before her death, and we learn as the comic goes on that she’s meant to be the next Empress of her home country, Landis, but was forced to flee to Coleumbria when her family was usurped by a general. Over time, she unlocks her power to communicate and control birds, and later to control the weather. I found myself enjoying her story just as much, if not more than the plots that surrounded the title characters, which helps since her story is intertwined with theirs. If I had to compare her to an existing character in the DC canon, I’d say Wonder Woman due to her super human abilities and her being royalty.

THE ART

The art is also good, definitely better than what I can do. However, a complaint I do have is that the characters feel stiff and rigid. It might be the art style, but something felt off at times, mainly with the posing. Again, it’s still better than what I can do, but I feel like it could have been better. I did like how the backgrounds were vibrant and you could tell where the characters were just from a look, and the art is more detailed in general compared to other young reader graphic novels DC has been putting out. Art is pretty subjective, so I’m not going to go into this too much and a lot of these are my own opinions.

The art has come into debate as well, though not for the reasons I mentioned above. When previews for the first book started to be released, a lot of people were critical toward Candace and Damian, particularly toward their skin color. In the preview images, Candace was shown to have a blue-ish-gray tint (you can probably see why this didn’t go over well) and Damian was shown to be paler than Jon (Damian is shown in the original DC canon to be half Arabic and even though he was sometimes shown to have pale skin like Bruce’s, he was also shown to have a tanner complexion due to his mother’s side. Most fan interpretations as a result more often than not have him with tanned skin). After fan outcry, this was fixed with Candace getting a more natural skin tone and Damian’s being brought down to a darker shade than Jon’s. With Damian’s it’s more apparent in the second and third books since in the first one I did notices there were a few panels where his skin tone would be lighter than in others which makes me wonder if it was a last-minute recolor for the first book’s release.

FINAL THOUGHTS

All in all, I’d say it’s okay. It’s not great, it’s not bad; just okay. I honestly think that if Pearson and Gonzalez hadn’t been given a page limit then it could have been better since the pacing wouldn’t be as big of an issue and they would have been able to get through all of the mini arcs they had set up. They obviously wanted to tell a bigger story but were only given so much room to work with.

It’s obviously not for everyone, and it’s definitely not the Super Sons people like me have grown up with, but that’s okay. Some of the kids I used to babysit who fall into the range of “I’ve never really read DC comics and only ever saw a cartoon episode on TV” read these books too and they liked it. Same thing for the few kids who did have prior experience with the Super Sons. What dragged them in was the climate crisis and (for the ones who read them after the world went into a lockdown) the fact the characters were trying to find a cure for a virus that was similar to the flu. Yeah, and these were written way before 2020, so that’s actually an achievement on Pearson’s part.

You don’t have to like them; heck, I didn’t really have any interest in them because of the backlash from people like me until my friends started asking me to make this review. But maybe give them a chance. Find a kid in your family or friend group and see if they’d be interested, maybe you can read it together once the craziness of the last year’s calmed down.

#super sons #robin #batkid #superboy #damian wayne #jon kent #ridley pearson #ile gonzalez #review #book review #amateur review

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scrapironflotilla · 4 years

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Anzac is so much more than Gallipoli

Another Anzac day has come around and with the lock-downs and global pandemic it seemed like it would be different. But having a listen to the news or a quick scroll through the other blue hellsite, F*c*b**k, it looks like this Anzac Day is more similar than different. The reverence, the mystique and the myths are all still there, with a massive dose of social media self indulgence. So I’ll probably stay away from that today and instead talk about some history.

I don’t have a favourite aspect of the Anzac legend. I don’t think I even can. The very concept of the Anzac Legend bothers me. This is our recent history. Its members, who have all died, are still within living memory of many millions of people. The events are so well documented that we can follow some of them minute by minute in the diaries, letters and reports created by the participants. I understand the desire to turn these stories into legend and myth, especially in a country like Australia after the war and certainly in the last decades of the 20th century.

I understand how the virtues and values of the AIF made for such fertile imaginative ground in an inter-war world. The romance of war, lost on the battlefields of Europe and the Middle East, was much harder to destroy far away in the colonies, where people experienced little hardship compared to those on the continent.

I understand how and why the AIF became a legend. But I don’t think I can believe in it.

But what does it matter if I believe in it or not? It’s important to tens of millions of Australians and the government tightly controls public commemoration and the Anzac brand. The military indoctrinates its members with to strive for an unattainable Anzac perfection. A newly minted army officer once told me that during his training his instructors had screamed at these cadets, ranting at them about how unworthy they were, how they could never live up to the Anzac reputation and how they could never lead a digger.

It draws hundreds of thousands every 25 April to dawn memorial services across the world, in events whose gravitas and sombre communion even I can’t deny. It’s this secular religion that makes the legend a reality that we have to contend with. The history may vary widely from the myth, but the myth is potent enough and popular enough to be able to divorce itself from the past. “The AIF”, historian Peter Stanley points out, “has become revered as [our] romantic nationalist mystique”.

The last two or three decades has seen a steady dismantling of the Anzac legend, at least in academic circles. All its basic tenets of natural fighting prowess, mate-ship, equality and the rest have been questioned, criticised and reassessed. But this new understanding hasn’t moved far beyond academia. The short spike in Anzac TV series during the centenary showed the same romantic tragedy and nationalist triumphalism. Popular histories from the 50s and 60s were reprinted and a new slew of books turn up on shelves, from children’s books to all kinds of history and dozens of romance novels. The legend remains deeply entrenched in the Australian imagination. Little in the popular realm even attempts to challenge it in light of new understanding. Even for those in academia the revision of that history has produced harsh reaction from the right, I’m exactly one of those “cadre of academics” associated with those elite, Canberra institutions, that noted crank Bendle talks about there. But that’s the strength of this legend. Its followers take any attempt to examine it and broaden it as denigration. Lest anyone think I’m exaggerating here, just have a look at what happened to ABC presenter Yassmin Abdel-Magied after she tweeted the words “LEST.WE.FORGET. (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine...)” on Anzac Day 2017. She was attacked by the press and government ministers and bombarded with rape and death threats. There’s no doubt much of the faux outrage was inspired by racism and misogyny, but you don’t even need to attack Anzac, but merely recognise that Australia’s history is less than perfect, to be met with a violent, histrionic reaction.

To imagine that the Anzacs were perfect, individually and as a whole, is wilful delusion. They were men and as such fallible. It is no dishonour or disrespect to recognise their humanity in all its complexities. We must know and understand their failures, their embarrassments and their crimes (for they are many and varied) to better place their successes, victories and virtues. To deify them and to force them to represent only what was best, without recognising the fullness of their character, good and bad, robs them of the complexity of their own stories. It robs them of their humanity and us of our history. But while I struggle with the Anzac Legend, I also think there are some little stories that deserve better recognition.

The Anzac mythology upholds a very particular character as representative of the AIF, but little about this legend is uniquely Australian. The language used to express the values, that of the larrikin, the digger and above all else mateship, may be particularly Australian but the values are not. Irreverence and camaraderie are close to universal.

These aren’t values to be denigrated in any way. But they’re representative of most militaries in war. But the AIF did have a character unique to the Australian experience. Much is made of the fact that the AIF was an entirely volunteer organisation. From a population of fewer than five million more than 330,000 men and women served in its ranks between 1914 and 1918. Conscription was put to the people in referenda twice and twice it was defeated. People joined the AIF for the duration of the war. Few pursued careers in the military and although many had prior service it was in the militia, the part time army.

The ranks were filled from the cities, the suburbs and the bush by civilians. Even the officer corps was fleshed out by the professional and middle classes of lawyers, bankers, teachers and the like. These men saw themselves not as regular soldiers, but as civilians in uniform. They saw their role as merely a job, not a calling. They were there to fight the war, to defeat Germany, or the Ottomans, and to go home and back to the farm or the factory.

Australia had one of the strongest trade union and labour movement in the world in the early 20th century. It was the first country to vote a labour government into office and ideas of unionism, collective bargaining and fair work practices were strong in the minds of many working Australians. The language they used and the tactics they employed to deal with the discipline and hierarchy of the military demonstrates just how powerful these beliefs were. Soldiers routinely referred to their officers as their boss, refused orders they thought were unfair and protested their ill treatment by military authorities. They released soldiers imprisoned under field punishment, refused to salute officers and rejected the distinction between officers and other ranks imposed by the British army. They went into clubs, restaurants and hotels set aside of officers, believing strongly that they had the right to drink or eat where they chose.

They took strike action when they felt too much was asked of them, when they were refused rest or when they felt hard done by. When battalions were to be broken up due to lack of replacements in 1918, they mutinied. Refusing orders to disband, they ‘counted out’ senior officers sent to negotiate with them. Counting out consisted of soldiers on parade counting down from ten to one, before shouting a final obscenity at the officer concerned. It was a powerful form of insubordination that humiliated officers when it occurred.

In autumn 1918, after months without leave, Australian battalions took to strike action when they were ordered back into battle. After being promised a fortnight’s rest they were ordered back to the front for an offensive after just a few days. Unhappy troops - veterans, mostly - refused to move. The battalions were well understrength after months of fighting and the men felt they had been lied to, that they had sacrificed enough and that they were being overused. The soldiers took action in the way they knew how. They shot no officers and destroyed no property. For men used to fighting for their rights in the workplace it was natural that they would turn to collective action in trade union style.

(Ex-union organiser and Labor prime minister Billy Hughes, seen here with some of his beloved men. Hughes was a favourite of the Australian troops who dubbed him ‘the Little Digger’)

And so it was in the 15th Brigade, under the command of Harold Elliot. Called Pompey by him men he was a courageous and fatherly figure, both liked and respected by the men under his command. It was his unique character that allowed Pompey to negotiate with his men, although rant and then plead were the words used by diarists, and convince them to follow his orders. Other officers, less well known and less admired by their men failed in similar efforts.

The civilian attitudes made them difficult soldiers to discipline. The standard punishment of the army, called ‘field punishment’ was particularly odious to Australians. Field punishment consisted of being bound to an object, a post or a wagon or gun carriage in the open for a number of hours. Due to the danger of artillery this punishment was not just humiliating but also potentially fatal. Diaries and letters from soldiers are full of stories about field punishment. They usually tell of Australian troops coming across British soldiers undergoing field punishment and freeing them, fighting with guards and military police.

There was a powerful resistance to the dehumanising and anti-individualising aspect of military discipline and authority. The AIF by and large saw themselves as civilians first and soldiers second. They understood the need for discipline and obedience and as more than one Australian noted “we have discipline where it matters”, on the battlefield. But the trappings of military culture and authority were repellent to the Australian working man. Strict obedience to hierarchy and the seemingly pointless requirements of military discipline were not only alien to Australians but went against their own values. Mutual respect was the key to the AIF as most of its officers discovered.

This side of the AIF, the strength of its civilian values is one that ought be remembered and celebrated in Anzac. The ideas from the labour and union movements, the fair go and mutual respect deserve a place alongside mateship and the larrikin as part of Anzac. The men who fought for the eight-hour work day and living wages were the same men who filled the ranks of the AIF and who fill Australian cemeteries in Europe and Turkey.

This is a part of the Anzac story that deserves a better place in our telling of it.

#anzac day #anzac #australian army #wwi #ww1

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suncatchr · 3 years

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Heyo if u wanna talk abt ur ocs can u tell me abt the newest ones (or at least the ones that r new to me which is all of them on the last pic of ur oc post I think?) :3

omggg thank you for asking :3 this is long sorry i haven’t organised my thoughts about them yet ahjfklsa but here we go

before i can talk abt rain n evie i have to explain the universe with kes, amaya, and rio. im sure you remember them :3 but umm you said they were based on pacific rim and i don’t know anything abt pacific rim fhjlafnj sooo i made a bunch of stuff up. soooo there’s a parallel universe/alternate dimension full of people and like, monsters. the alt. universe people r testing ways to break into our dimension and open the door permanently so that both dimensions are their domain. the... city...? that the story is set in is like a capitalists’s dream, split harshly between rich and poor with no middle class. the poor faction of the city that will be named soon is the one responsible for keeping the other-dimension-ers out of our dimension, most if not all of them are responsible in some way for keeping their area safe from those tears in the ozone layer. they in return are given technology, money, and supplies from the rich faction. those guys do next to nothing, they operate like any other city where everyone has jobs and pays their dues to the government. they are very strict about who they let into the city; they don’t want outsiders to know about their dimension problem lest they stop the warriors from doing their jobs or do something to make the tear bigger etc etc. they also don’t want poor people in the city, even if they’re responsible for everyone’s safety. I’m thinking of making the story a really obvious allegory similar to older-fashioned dystopian novels like animal farm and brave new world because i’m obsessed with those in concept. so i think supporting characters will be one-dimensional caricatures of types of people in society, and only the MCs will have nuance. this also makes it easier for me to write side characters ;3

so kestrel and amaya are siblings mostly born and raised into monster-fighting. you know when there’s a factory or whatever in town that most people in that city work at? there’s one of those but it’s like... a firehouse for monster fighting. they mostly live and sleep there, they’re fed and clothed here for free so long as they fight and they’re both content with that. I’m not sure what happened to their parents yet but they’re probably dead. not everyone’s parents are dead, some people have families that they live with at the... compound, these two are just tragic and whatnot. families are encouraged to fight together in duos or trios so that loyalty makes them fight smarter and harder to protect each other. when they’re not at the compound, like if they have shifts off or whatever, they live in an abandoned subway station and steal power from the government who’s unaware that that track is unused 😌

so as far as them as individuals, i kept the planets that u based them off of :3 kestrel is based off mars and mars is the planet of action, energy, motivation, temper. kestrel is moody and temperamental, but their choices are never made without careful consideration. they’re a quick thinker and that makes them confident, so they never back down from a challenge. they have a hard time masking their emotions and it’s easy to see what’s going on in their head. they’re hard to embarrass, though, and they’re very confident in most of their assertions. they’re impatient and crabby, but they aren’t at all shy.

amaya is based off venus, so she’s more emotionally rounded than her sibling and more interested in the poetry of life. she’s very expressive and polite, and she has a thing abt maintaining her image. she’s a bit materialistic and self-centred, focused on her looks and her space, but she’s realistic in her material n sensual desires because al things considered she lives in a subway station. she knows what to expect from life, or at least she thinks she does, and is just as confident in her own assertions as kestrel. she’s stubborn and argumentative for that reason, but her confidence makes her a natural leader and people flock to her for advice and assistance. she loves this.

and adrion, based off earth, comes into their lives later. rio used to live on the rich side of town until a second dimension creature escapes the notice of the warriors (i swear they won’t actually be called “warriors” forever 😭) and destroys his part of the city. his family is alright, but the destruction makes him feel like he could do a better job than whoever’s currently there. he leaves his family to join up with the. the compound, and when asked to find a partner to fight with, chooses amaya and kestrel because they’re a top-of-their-class team who are always talking about how things could be better. at first, they don’t want him bc they’re lone wolves and they do not like to be told what to do. but he’s a tough fighter and he’s got the motivation to be good, so they let him stay on the team. as far as personality, rio is really chill and understanding, often willing to let other people’s faults slide. as long as he’s allowed to do what he wants to do, other people can have their way. he’s cheerier than the other two but he’s quieter and more in-the-background. his strong will makes him sensitive and he refuses to change his mind often because he’s quite naive and gullible, making him easy to trick and take advantage of which makes him insecure. this makes him prone to snapping when people put pressure on him.

now for rain and evie. i originally created them as prototypes for their own narrative but the story seemed really similar to my other stuff so i scrapped it BUT i thought the characters themselves worked in this story instead so i kept them :3. rain and evie are brothers who were initially raised in a fighting ring. they live on the poor side of town but they never worked for the compound. they make a living by gladiator fighting, people pay to come in and bet on them and obviously they’re paid for winning fights. rain is an extremely adept fighter and usually manages to beat opponents with brute strength. evie is smaller and less physical and usually fights by using the opponent’s strength against them. they’re simultaneously popular and unpopular in their neighbourhood as they’re like. cool for being good in the ring but they’re really weird otherwise. they’re aggressive, angry and irrational, they act like they’re always in the ring. rain is more sociable and capable than evie, who tends to be reactive and angry. he doesn’t want to be here, but rain is more content in his abilities, so he handles mostly everything so that evie doesn’t have to be responsible for anything. they end up moving on from the ring after evie takes on an opponent that rain tried to tell everyone that he could never beat. evie takes a violent blow to the head that leaves him comatose, and rain spends a huge chunk of money for a piece of technology that replaces the damaged areas of evie’s head and functions in its place. no one tells rain, though, that the thing he put in evie’s head is technology from the other dimension. after the two leave the ring, they decide to make themselves useful and fight the monsters that forced them into this life in the first place.

personality-wise, rain is a laid-back, go-with-the-flow kind of guy. he likes to let things take their course and he isn’t much concerned with proceedings outside of himself and evie. he purposefully denies himself negative emotion and usually tries to fake that everything is good all the time. despite this, he’s emotional and reactive and extremely defensive. he doesn’t like to be challenged or made unhappy and in his dream world he and evie are always just hanging out doing what they want and not having to answer to anyone. people often find him charming bc he’s able to finagle most situations into him getting his way, he’s exceptional with people but he doesn’t like them.

evie is more sullen and droopy. he almost always lets rain do all the talking and he usually appears unconcerned with most goings-on because he’s letting rain evaluate the situation. he’s usually inside his own head, daydreaming or fussing. most of his interactions with others are verbal or physical fights bc he’s unsure how to manage himself without rain around and is often willing to fight for whatever he thinks rain would want. he’s independent outside of that, doesn’t like to be told what to do or how to act. not even rain can calm him down when he’s on his soapbox because he truly believes that if he had to grow up a fighting dog he should be allowed to do whatever the fuck he wants. in downtime he’s usually a little bit more uppity than rain but still similarly laid-back and willing to act like things are okay.

the five of these characters r in the same universe and they go on missions together often, though kes and amaya don’t really get along with rain and evie because they’re all so stubborn.

next are niko and andre, who i got from sammy! we got urban fantasy going on here, and i’m thinking of setting it in like. the mid 1800-s. i’m feeling spicy. umm so i think the key thing about this universe is that “hunters” are a species of humanoid monster. this world is spinning with vampires, werewolves, faeries, demons, etc. pretending to be human in order to survive, and hunters are a mimic species that look human but just... aren’t. they have an insatiable desire to hunt and kill (used to be for food but humans make food more easily accessible), but killing humans makes them vulnerable to being found out. killing other monsters is the perfect substitute, plus humans praise them for it. they’re onto each other but they can’t make scenes in human society so they have to dance around each other to do all of their killing in secret.

andre is a hunter living in the shadow of his older sister, angel. she’s a better, more ruthless hunter than he is, with stronger instincts and a greater prey drive. she’s popular with people in town and generally just more charismatic. he really wants to be like her, but he’s klutzy and insecure and his instincts are poor cuz he overthinks them. one day he comes across niko in a bar and, perceiving him to be human bc he has 0 instincts, they get their flirt on. until niko says something that makes andre realise he’s a vampire. embarrassed and ashamed of his attraction, andre tries to turn his feeling of betrayal into murderous instinct, and he can turn that anger into his first solo kill. niko keeps chasing after andre trying to catch his non-murderous attention because he actually really likes him and doesn’t want to let what they are get in their way.

personality wise, niko is a noisy little wisecracker who likes to be popular. he’s a genuinely nice guy and is famous wherever he goes for being wise and helpful. he’s usually pretty optimistic and very charming, especially in bigger crowds where he can fit in. he can be purposefully oblivious and is very good at disguising his feelings and intentions. he’s witty and sarcastic, often masking negativity for the sake of keeping it light.

andre is a straightforward intellectual type who likes to work and create and achieve. he’s intelligent and steadfast and always strives to do his best (which is why being terrible at hunting is upsetting for him). making achievements kind of replaces his understanding of himself, and not being good at things really digs at his self-worth. he’s not much of a people person but he’s not really shy, either. he’s polite and good-natured, though his feelings are quite fragile.

next generation, same universe, next is honour (whose name HAS to be spelled with the u), journey, and solace. resident throuple. honour and solace are hunters, and journey is human. honour was raised in a big home with lots of hunters under the iron fist of like, the mean nursemaid from annie. they hunt monsters as an organised group, but its a violent institution that doesn’t believe in autonomy nor the worth of human lives. humans exist as something to blend into while they exterminate all other monsters. honour stops believing this when she gets older, mostly due to meeting journey. she assumes journey is just going to be vapid and goofy bc he’s a human, but he ends up being a really cool dude who’s just as in-depth as her and she begins to realise how terrible the lessons she was raised on are.

journey’s family were aware that they were often surrounded by monsters and as such were very protective of him and his siblings. journey never gets to go out and do things, and being stuck in the stuffy comfort of his home is not what he wants to do with his life when he knows there are monsters out there. when he and honour hit it off, they decide to run away together, deciding to shed their upbringings entirely by changing their names to the things they want most.

i set this in the 1800s JUST so that i could have honour and journey use the train to run away. not nice public transit trains, i mean they are riding the dirty rusty rails to seek a better life. they intend to ride a long time to make sure that they’re never recognised. on one of the trains they catch to head north, they come across solace, helping him onto the train as he got there a split second too late to catch it. despite his initial gratitude, solace is unpleasant to ride with. turns out he’s been on the run for most of his life and is just trying to find a place to stay where no one will care that he’s a hunter. in human-only societies hunters are known as mimics and are heavily discriminated against if you’re suspected of being one and straight up killed if you are. after living an uncomfortable life and seeing his father killed, solace decides to go from town to town until he finds a place that’s mostly hunters. when honour reveals they’re looking for the same thing, solace decides to go with them. he’s hesitant to give up his name because it was given to him by his parents, but ultimately he wants to leave that life behind and embody comfort and. yk. solace.

haven’t quite figured these three out personality-wise bc i only finished their designs and names in time for posting the art, rip

and lastly my warriors ocs! I decided to make regular fanclans as opposed to using my existing ocs in an au mostly because i didn’t wanna add in random npcs (as it were) to fill the nursery and elder’s den even tho those r important to clan life. so, i made separate ocs, they live in the arctic! summitclan in the mountains, tundraclan in the plains, and glacierclan by the. glacier. the story so far is a murder mystery, cats of all clans are being killed and going missing and no one knows why. while most warriors assume there’s a bear or fox hanging around the territories, the apprentices saw something while they were hanging out that made them decide to investigate deeper...

our mc is snowpaw, a repurposed rp oc fjdkfjld;af. he’s a summitclan cat and he’s known to be strange and standoffish. he seems cold and apathetic about almost everything and it’s hard to see what he enjoys and dislikes. his secretiveness makes it easy for him to investigate the murders, no one ever questions where snowpaw is going or what he’s doing. with his friends and family snowpaw is a little more jovial, he has very dry humour and is also always trying to help

crowpaw is a tundraclan cat. he’s stuck up and big-mouthed, very arrogant little know it all. don’t ever tell him that, though, bc he’s very sensitive and he will cry. he likes to be seen as the best at everything so he dedicates excess time to learning and is actually a very curious and adventurous cat underneath.

swiftpaw is a glacierclan cat. he’s very mature and is often rumoured to be a great deputy choice when he’s old enough. he’s calm and level-headed, a quick-thinking problem solver with a bit of a superiority complex but not one that anyone in his life would be aware of bc he’s so darn polite. the warrior code is important to him and so are rules of daily clan life that reduce conflict in any way.

teapaw is also a glacierclan cat. she, like snowpaw, is a little bit quiet and secretive, the kind of person (..?) that kinda lurks in the back of important things going on rather than offering her voice. she’s a healer’s apprentice and takes a lot of pride in being effective and efficient with all her duties. she’s curious and observant, and shes good friends with her clan’s seer, deadhawk (i split the medicine cat position into two for these clans, healers do doctor stuff, seers talk to starclan), so she tends to be up to date w what starclan says, which helps her and her friends w their mystery.

and finally, breezepaw! he’s a summitclan cat and snowpaw’s bff. he’s kinda clueless and distractable, very much a follower personality as he likes others to decide what’s important for him to do. he’s a quiet cat, but he’s not afraid to speak his mind when the time comes. kinda a goofy jokester dude, but he knows how to read a room and keep quiet when he doesn’t know what to contribute and jokes won’t help. he likes snowpaw because snowpaw’s always confident in what he’s doing and never clowns on breezepaw for not knowing wtf is going on

#this took me so long to type out all the way jfdkslfjd sorry abt that #maybe its been a week and a half who are you to judge #anyway thankie again for asking it was great to tupe out stuff abt them for the first time :D #type* -_-#oc ask #edit: ive just decided that hunters feed off life energy but only as it escapes #that's what drives their desire to kill

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semiotexte · 4 years

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As the years passed, I learned to think of dreams as an integral part of life. There are dreams that, because of their sensory intensity, their realism or precisely their lack of realism, deserve to be introduced into autobiography, just as much as events that were actually lived through. Life begins and ends in the unconscious; the actions we carry out while fully lucid are only little islands in an archipelago of dreams. No existence can be completely rendered in its happiness or its madness without taking into account oneiric experiences. It’s Calderón de la Barca’s maxim reversed: it’s not a matter of thinking that life is a dream, but rather of realizing that dreams are also a form of life. It is just as strange to think, like the Egyptians, that dreams are cosmic channels through which the souls of ancestors pass in order to communicate with us, as to claim, as some of the neurosciences do, that dreams are a “cut-and-paste” of elements experienced by the brain during waking life, elements that return in the dream’s REM phase, while our eyes move beneath our eyelids, as if they were watching. Closed and sleeping, eyes continue to see. Therefore, it is more appropriate to say that the human psyche never stops creating and dealing with reality, sometimes in dreams, sometimes in waking life.

Whereas over the course of the past few months my waking life has been, to use the euphemistic Catalan expression, “good, so long as we don’t go into details,” my oneiric life has had the power of a novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. During one of my recent dreams, I was talking with the artist Dominique González-Foerster about my problem of geographic dislocation: after years of a nomadic life, it is hard for me to decide on a place to live in the world. While we were having this conversation, we were watching the planets spin slowly in their orbits, as if we were two giant children and the solar system were a Calder mobile. I was explaining to her that, for now, in order to avoid the conflict that the decision entailed, I had rented an apartment on each planet, but that I didn’t spend more than a month on any one of them, and that this situation was economically and physically unsustainable. Probably because she is the creator of the Exotourisme project, Dominique in this dream was an expert on extraterrestrial real-estate management. “If I were you, I’d have an apartment on Mars and I’d keep a pied-à-terre on Saturn,” she was saying, showing a great deal of pragmatism, “but I’d get rid of the Uranus apartment. It’s much too far away.”

Awake, I don’t know much about astronomy; I don’t have the slightest idea of the positions or distances of the different planets in the solar system. But I consulted the Wikipedia page on Uranus: it is in fact one of the most distant planets from Earth. Only Neptune, Pluto, and the dwarf planets Haumea, Makemake, and Eris are farther away. I read that Uranus was the first planet discovered with the help of a telescope, eight years before the French Revolution. With the help of a lens he himself had made, the astronomer and musician William Herschel observed it one night in March in a clear sky, from the garden of his house at 19 New King Street, in the city of Bath. Since he didn’t yet know if it was a huge star or a tailless comet, they say that Herschel called it “Georgium Sidus,” the Georgian Star, to console King George III for the loss of the British colonies in America: England had lost a continent, but the King had gained a planet. Thanks to Uranus, Herschel was able to live on a generous royal pension of two hundred pounds a year. Because of Uranus, he abandoned both music and the city of Bath, where he was a chapel organist and director of public concerts, and settled in Windsor so that the King could be sure of his new conquest by observing it through a telescope. Because of Uranus, they say, Herschel went mad, and spent the rest of his life building the largest telescope of the eighteenth century, which the English called “the monster.” Because of Uranus, they say, Herschel never played the oboe again. He died at the age of eighty-four: the number of years it takes for Uranus to go around the sun. They say that the tube of his telescope was so wide that the family used it as a dining hall at his funeral.

Uranus is what astrophysicists call a “gas giant.” Made up of ice, methane, and ammonia, it is the coldest planet in the solar system, with winds that can exceed nine hundred kilometers per hour. In short, the living conditions are not especially suitable. So Dominique was right: I should leave the Uranus apartment.

But dream functions like a virus. From that night forward, while I’m awake, the sensation of having an apartment on Uranus increases, and I am more and more convinced that the place I should live is over there.

For the Greeks, as for me in this dream, Uranus was the solid roof of the world, the limit of the celestial vault. Uranus was regarded as the house of the gods in many Greek invocation rituals. In mythology, Uranus is the son that Gaia, the Earth, conceived alone, without insemination or coition. Greek mythology is at once a kind of retro sci-fi story anticipating in a do-it-yourself way the technologies of reproduction and bodily transformation that will appear throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; and at the same time a kitschy TV series in which the characters give themselves over to an unimaginable number of relationships outside the law. Thus Gaia married her son Uranus, a Titan often represented in the middle of a cloud of stars, like a sort of Tom of Finland dancing with other muscle-bound guys in a techno club on Mount Olympus. From the incestuous and ultimately not very heterosexual relationships between heaven and earth, the first generation of Titans were born, including Oceanus (Water), Chronos (Time), and Mnemosyne (Memory) … Uranus was both the son of the Earth and the father of all the others. We don’t quite know what Uranus’s problem was, but the truth is that he was not a good father: either he forced his children to remain in Gaia’s womb, or he threw them into Tartarus as soon as they were born. So Gaia convinced one of her children to carry out a contraceptive operation. You can see in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence the representation that Giorgio Vasari made in the sixteenth century of Chronos castrating his father Uranus with a scythe. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, emerged from Uranus’s amputated genital organs … which could imply that love comes from the disjunction of the body’s genital organs, from the displacement and externalization of genital force.

This form of nonheterosexual conception, cited in Plato’s Symposium, was the inspiration for the German lawyer Karl Heinrich Ulrichs to come up with the word Uranian [Urning] in 1864 to designate what he called relations of the “third sex.” In order to explain men’s attraction to other men, Ulrichs, after Plato, cut subjectivity in half, separated the soul from the body, and imagined a combination of souls and bodies that authorized him to reclaim dignity for those who loved against the law. The segmentation of soul and body reproduces in the domain of experience the binary epistemology of sexual difference: there are only two options. Uranians are not, Ulrich writes, sick or criminal, but feminine souls enclosed in masculine bodies attracted to masculine souls.

This is not a bad idea to legitimize a form of love that, at the time, could get you hanged in England or in Prussia, and that, today, remains illegal in seventy-four countries and is subject to the death penalty in thirteen, including Nigeria, Pakistan, Iran, and Qatar; a form of love that constitutes a common motive for violence in family, society, and police in most Western democracies.

Ulrichs does not make this statement as a lawyer or scientist: he is speaking in the first person. He does not say “there are Uranians,” but “I am a Uranian.” He asserts this, in Latin, on August 18, 1867, after having been condemned to prison and after his books have been banned by an assembly of five hundred jurists, members of the German Parliament, and a Bavarian prince—an ideal audience for such confessions. Until then, Ulrichs had hidden behind the pseudonym “Numa Numantius.” But from that day on, he speaks in his own name, he dares to taint the name of his father. In his diary, Ulrichs confesses he was terrified, and that, just before walking onto the stage of the Grand Hall of the Odeon Theater in Munich, he had been thinking about running away, never to return. But he says he suddenly remembered the words of the Swiss writer Heinrich Hössli, who a few years before had defended sodomites (though not, however, speaking in his own name): “Two ways lie before me,” Hössli wrote, “to write this book and expose myself to persecution, or not to write it and be full of guilt until the day I am buried. Of course I have encountered the temptation to stop writing … But before my eyes appeared the images of the persecuted and the wretched prospect of such children who have not yet been born, and I thought of the unhappy mothers at their cradles, rocking their cursed yet innocent children! And then I saw our judges with their eyes blindfolded. Finally, I imagined my gravedigger slipping the cover of my coffin over my cold face. Then, before I submitted, the imperious desire to stand up and defend the oppressed truth possessed me … And so I continued to write with my eyes resolutely averted from those who have worked for my destruction. I do not have to choose between remaining silent or speaking. I say to myself: speak or be judged!”

Ulrichs writes in his journal that the judges and Parliamentarians seated in Munich’s Odeon Hall cried out, as they listened to his speech, like an angry crowd: End the meeting! End the meeting! But he also notes that one or two voices were raised to say: Let him continue! In the midst of a chaotic tumult, the President left the theater, but some Parliamentarians remained. Ulrichs’s voice trembled. They listened.

But what does it mean to speak for those who have been refused access to reason and knowledge, for us who have been regarded as mentally ill? With what voice can we speak? Can the jaguar or the cyborg lend us their voices? To speak is to invent the language of the crossing, to project one’s voice into an interstellar expedition: to translate our difference into the language of the norm; while we continue, in secret, to practice a strange lingo that the law does not understand.

So Ulrichs was the first European citizen to declare publicly that he wanted to have an apartment on Uranus. He was the first mentally ill person, the first sexual criminal to stand up and denounce the categories that labeled him as sexually and criminally diseased.

He did not say, “I am not a sodomite.” On the contrary, he defended the right to practice sodomy between men, calling for a reorganization of the systems of signs, for a change of the political rituals that defined the social recognition of a body as healthy or sick, legal or illegal. He invented a new language and a new scene of enunciation. In each of Ulrichs’s words addressed from Uranus to the Munich jurists resounds the violence generated by the dualist epistemology of the West. The entire universe cut in half and solely in half. Everything is heads or tails in this system of knowledge. We are human or animal. Man or woman. Living or dead. We are the colonizer or the colonized. Living organism or machine. We have been divided by the norm. Cut in half and forced to remain on one side or the other of the rift. What we call “subjectivity” is only the scar that, over the multiplicity of all that we could have been, covers the wound of this fracture. It is over this scar that property, family, and inheritance were founded. Over this scar, names are written and sexual identities asserted.

On May 6, 1868, Karl Maria Kertbeny, an activist and defender of the rights of sexual minorities, sent a handwritten letter to Ulrichs in which for the first time he used the word homosexual to refer to what his friend called “Uranians.” Against the antisodomy law promulgated in Prussia, Kertbeny defended the idea that sexual practices between people of the same sex were as “natural” as the practices of those he calls—also for the first time—“heterosexuals.” For Kertbeny, homosexuality and heterosexuality were just two natural ways of loving. For medical jurisprudence at the end of the nineteenth century, however, homosexuality would be reclassified as a disease, a deviation, and a crime.

I am not speaking of history here. I am speaking to you of your lives, of mine, of today. While the notion of Uranianism has gone somewhat astray in the archives of literature, Kertbeny’s concepts would become authentic biopolitical techniques of dealing with sexuality and reproduction over the course of the twentieth century, to such an extent that most of you continue to use them to refer to your own identity, as if they were descriptive categories. Homosexuality would remain listed until 1975 in Western psychiatric manuals as a sexual disease. This remains a central notion, not only in the discourse of clinical psychology, but also in the political languages of Western democracies.

When the notion of homosexuality disappeared from psychiatric manuals, the notions of intersexuality and transsexuality appear as new pathologies for which medicine, pharmacology, and law suggest remedies. Each body born in a hospital in the West is examined and subjected to the protocols of evaluation of gender normality invented in the fifties in the United States by the doctors John Money and John and Joan Hampson: if the baby’s body does not comply with the visual criteria of sexual difference, it will be submitted to a battery of operations of “sexual reassignment.” In the same way, with a few minor exceptions, neither scientific discourse nor the law in most Western democracies recognizes the possibility of inscribing a body as a member of human society unless it is assigned either masculine or feminine gender. Transsexuality and intersexuality are described as psychosomatic pathologies, and not as the symptoms of the inadequacy of the politico-visual system of sexual differentiation when faced with the complexity of life.

How can you, how can we, organize an entire system of visibility, representation, right of self-determination, and political recognition if we follow such categories? Do you really believe you are male or female, that we are homosexual or heterosexual, intersexed or transsexual? Do these distinctions worry you? Do you trust them? Does the very meaning of your human identity depend on them? If you feel your throat constricting when you hear one of these words, do not silence it. It’s the multiplicity of the cosmos that is trying to pierce through your chest, as if it were the tube of a Herschel telescope.

Let me tell you that homosexuality and heterosexuality do not exist outside of a dualistic, hierarchical epistemology that aims at preserving the domination of the paterfamilias over the reproduction of life. Homosexuality and heterosexuality, intersexuality and transsexuality do not exist outside of a colonial, capitalist epistemology, which privileges the sexual practices of reproduction as a strategy for managing the population and the reproduction of labor, but also the reproduction of the population of consumers. It is capital, not life, that is being reproduced. These categories are the map imposed by authority, not the territory of life. But if homosexuality and heterosexuality, intersexuality and transsexuality, do not exist, then who are we? How do we love? Imagine it.

Then, I remember my dream and I understand that my trans condition is a new form of Uranism. I am not a man and I am not a woman and I am not heterosexual I am not homosexual I am not bisexual. I am a dissident of the sex-gender system. I am the multiplicity of the cosmos trapped in a binary political and epistemological system, shouting in front of you. I am a Uranian confined inside the limits of techno-scientific capitalism.

Like Ulrichs, I am bringing no news from the margins; instead, I bring you a piece of horizon. I come with news of Uranus, which is neither the realm of God nor the sewer. Quite the contrary. I was assigned a female sex at birth. They said I was lesbian. I decided to self-administer regular doses of testosterone. I never thought I was a man. I never thought I was a woman. I was several. I didn’t think of myself as transsexual. I wanted to experiment with testosterone. I love its viscosity, the unpredictability of the changes it causes, the intensity of the emotions it provokes forty-eight hours after taking it. And, if the injections are regular, its ability to undo your identity, to make organic layers of the body emerge that otherwise would have remained invisible. Here as everywhere, what matters is the measure: the dosage, the rhythm of injections, the order of them, the cadence. I wanted to become unrecognizable. I wasn’t asking medical institutions for testosterone as hormone therapy to cure “gender dysphoria.” I wanted to function with testosterone, to experience the intensity of my desire through it, to multiply my faces by metamorphosing my subjectivity, creating a body that was a revolutionary machine. I undid the mask of femininity that society had plastered onto my face until my identity documents became ridiculous, obsolete. Then, with no way out, I agreed to identify myself as a transsexual, as a “mentally ill person,” so that the medico-legal system would acknowledge me as a living human body. I paid with my body for the name I bear.

By making the decision to construct my subjectivity with testosterone, the way the shaman constructs his with plants, I take on the negativity of my time, a negativity I am forced to represent and against which I can fight only from this paradoxical incarnation, which is to be a trans man in the twenty-first century, a feminist bearing the name of a man in the #MeToo movement, an atheist of the hetero-patriarchal system turned into a consumer of the pharmacopornographic industry. My existence as a trans man constitutes at once the acme of the sexual ancien régime and the beginning of its collapse, the climax of its normative progression and the signal of a proliferation still to come.

I have come to talk to you—to you and to the dead, or rather, to those who live as if they were already dead—but I have come especially to talk to the cursed, innocent children who are yet to be born. Uranians are the survivors of a systematic, political attempt at infanticide: we have survived the attempt to kill in us, while we were not yet adults, and while we could not defend ourselves, the radical multiplicity of life and the desire to change the names of all things. Are you dead? Will they be born tomorrow? I congratulate you, belatedly or in advance.

I bring you news of the crossing, which is the realm of neither God nor the sewer. Quite the contrary. Do not be afraid, do not be excited, I have not come to explain anything morbid. I have not come to tell you what a transsexual is, or how to change your sex, or at what precise instant a transition is good or bad. Because none of that would be true, no truer than the ray of afternoon sun falling on a certain spot on the planet and changing according to the place from which it is seen. No truer than that the slow orbit described by Uranus as it revolves above the Earth is yellow. I cannot tell you everything that goes on when you take testosterone, or what that does in your body. Take the trouble to administer the necessary doses of knowledge to yourself, as many as your taste for risk allows you.

I have not come for that. As my indigenous Chilean mother Pedro Lemebel said, I do not know why I come, but I am here. In this Uranian apartment that overlooks the gardens of Athens. And I’ll stay a while. At the crossroads. Because intersection is the only place that exists. There are no opposite shores. We are always at the crossing of paths. And it is from this crossroad that I address you, like the monster who has learned the language of humans.

I no longer need, like Ulrichs, to assert that I am a masculine soul enclosed in a woman’s body. I have no soul and no body. I have an apartment on Uranus, which certainly places me far from most earthlings, but not so far that you can’t come see me. Even if only in dream …

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spockandawe · 4 years

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Okay, I want to pull together more detailed thoughts at some point, I think, because the sheer amount of material means I have about ten billion thoughts to sort out. But I’ve read all three of the mxtx novels now, and loved all of them, in different ways. Though I already tried to figure out if I can pick a Favorite, and tbh, I can’t. I love them all in ways that are too distinct to let me rank them easily. And... man, it’s lucky for my friends that social distancing is in place, or I’d be hassling them shamelessly to give these novels a try.

RIGHT. So.

The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System: Shen Yuan goes to bed full of rage directed at a trashy webnovel with a grimdark blackened hero who conquered the world and collected hundreds of women into his harem.... and wakes up in novel, while that hero is still an innocent youth. As the hero’s abusive teacher. Who is doomed for a horrifying death unless he can somehow turn things around.

I think I had the most fun with this one. I really enjoy self-referential stories, and stories poking fun at certain genres, and I’ve run into the concept of transmigration before (the idea being a person enters a fictional world, a la lost in austen), though I’m blanking on any media like that I’ve actually consumed. This was chronologically the first book mxtx wrote, and it has less of a sprawling cast with complicated relationships than the other two books, but it definitely has the thing where she lays early groundwork for later revelations that shatter my poor heart.

And there may be fewer relationships to play with, but my GOD, do I love the relationships we got. I’ve been rolling around in svsss fanfic since I finished the book, even more so than mdzs or tgcf. There’s a lot of good crunchy relationship content with the 79 ship (they destroy me, all day every day), Liu Qingge owns my whole-ass heart, and Luo Binghe makes for a fascinating love interest. I love that even at his best, he remains a needy, needy, manipulative boy, who’s so smart and strong and nEEDY. I don’t love how the book handled moshang, but mmmm the fan content is Good. And Shen Qingqiu does the unreliable narrator thing that is usually not my jam, but works so WELL in these books, in that his unreliable narration is hugely skewed towards not giving himself nearly as much credit as he deserves. Xie Lian takes this to UNBELIEVABLE heights in tgcf, but in Shen Qingqiu’s case, it’s done on such a casual, immediate, personal level that I’m fascinated by everything he does.

And, since Shen Yuan/Shen Qingqiu is a millennial fan of trashy romance webnovels who gets yanked into the universe of a novel he hates, into an old-timey xianxia setting, the prose is SO COOL. You swing between modern slang and old school high society courtesies at the drop of a hat, and I’m honestly awed that the translators were able to catch so much of that. Like, in-setting, I love all the nuance you can get in ‘qi-ge should give his a-jiu the scroll’ vs ‘yue-shixiong should give this teacher the scroll’ vs ‘you should give me the scroll’. But then it adds a whole new layer when the person ALSO has modern-day casual speech bouncing around in their head. It makes for a fascinating, fascinating reading experience.

The Grandmaster Of Demonic Cultivation: Thirteen years ago, Wei Wuxian died. And then he wakes up! In someone else’s body. I’m not going to try to summarize the premise of this one, go look up The Untamed if you want someone to do a better job of this than me XD

Ahhh, this was the book I read first. I still haven’t watched the show (only clips) and I’m not sure I ever will, because adhd is a hell of a drug. But it’s hard to purely evaluate the prose when there’s also this gorgeous, beautifully-acted visual adaptation all over my tumblr to bias me in its favor. I think this book benefits a lot from the MYSTERY of it all. From the very start, there’s the question of ‘what the fuck is up with this goddamn arm’ that the characters pursue, even as that takes them through flashbacks and other arcs within the story. It gives a thrust to the novel that I think isn’t exactly there in tgcf, though I’m torn on which one is “better.” This gave the story momentum, yes, but it also meant I was much more impatient in yi city and the 3zun flashbacks, because this isn’t what I was focused onnnnnn this is cool but how much longer will we BE HERE--

That being said, I think I’ll be more patient with those flashbacks on my next time through the book, now that I have a better picture of where everything is headed. I think the balance and structure of the book worked really well, I was setting myself up for self-sabotage because of the pace I was plowing through the thing. My reading habits didn’t lend themselves well to the nonlinear storytelling, and it speaks to the story’s strength that it held up that well despite me. And the CAST. My GOD. I went in not caring about anyone but Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji and maybe the jackass nephew, but... that Did Not Last. I didn’t intend to care about 3zun? Nope, too bad, you care so much now. Who cares about Xue Yang? Me. I care. Way too much. HECK!!!

And something that happens in this book and tgcf that was much less of a thing in svsss is that there are some meaningful holes in the story that I’d like to be filled, and I really care about filling-- and the story doesn’t go there. But it doesn’t leave me unhappy, it leaves me cheerfully scrabbling around in the throwaway details trying to piece together a picture of what happened when I wasn’t looking. What happened to Wei Wuxian in the burial mounds? How did Hua Cheng take control of the ghost city? Idk, but let us Rummage and theorize and roll around in ideas and have a fantastic, speculative time. Svsss might hook me more than the other stories from an au+shipping perspective, but mdzs and tgcf do a great job of making me want to roll around and create within the bounds of canon.

Heaven Official’s Blessing: 800 years ago, Xie Lian ascended to heaven. And fell. And rose again! And fell again. Now he’s ascended for the third time, and things are Awkward.

God, I just finished this, and I’m still reeling. This is the LONGEST mxtx book, that’s for sure. I also think it’s the most tightly edited translation. All the translators did an unbelievable job, I could never even approach what they accomplished, but I am genuinely stunned that a book this long was edited so well. I blew through this in about 3.5 days (if not for work, i could have made it in three dghsafdsgf) and my brain was cooking in my skull by the time I was halfway through, but I couldn’t STOP. I was ENCHANTED the entire time! I was reading so much my head was destroying me and I still sulked so HARD every time I had to put my phone down and sleep.

This book sprawls the hardest, I think, because it involves a cast made of mostly immortal/immortal-adjacent people, so time and space get... flexible. And I feel really bad saying this, because Lan Wangji is DEVOTED, but this is seriously the book with the most attentive and adoring and respectful love interest. Hua Cheng is..... god. I truly don’t think I’ve EVER read a character quite like him before, and I am so, so sad, because I don’t know how I’ll find one who lives up to these heights ever again XD I recommend reading this book just for the Hua Cheng experience, if nothing else. I was making audible noises at literally flailing at multiple points in the story, but most often, it was because of him.

Shipping is what usually drags me into a fandom hardest, and all of these books do pretty well for themselves, all of them have a nice selection of fluffy and crunchy ships to choose from. And this one... goddammit. I just realized, that the best, most crunchy ships are too spoilery for me to be willing to talk about them here. Hell. Goddammit. But I think tgcf has the crunchiest ship of all, even better than xuexiao. I was so invested, and then there were Reveals, and then I was like OH NO THIS IS TERRIBLE BUT MY INVESTMENT HAS EXPONENTIALLY INCREASED.

And something that I really, really appreciate, is that across the mxtx books, even though a lot of characters fit into strong archetypes, there’s nobody that is blurring together for me, either within or across the books. Liu Qingge isn’t Jiang Cheng isn’t Feng Xin. They’re all blunt, fighty boys, but all super distinct in my head, and what I want for each of them is distinct and character-driven. I want Liu Qingge to be properly cherished and I want Jiang Cheng to relax with his brother and nephew and I want Feng Xin to [goddammit i don’t want to spoil this book AGH]. It’s something I appreciated in the other books too, but I can really FEEL it in this book, with how long and luxurious it is.

And last thing I have to say, I think, is that tgcf is so long. It’s so, so long. But I would FITE if anyone tried to pare it down at all. I can’t think of anything I’d be willing to sacrifice. I enjoyed every last piece of it so much, and it was all ultimately SO well-constructed and interlocking, that any piece I can think of snipping out would take away significant emotional impact from what was left. It’s a nonlinear story, like mdzs is nonlinear, and I loved mdzs a lot! But the construction here is so, so, so elegant. I’m just in AWE of how well it was assembled. I was in Agony as reveals happened, because oh no no no no, now that they’ve told me this, that casts this whole other scene in a brand new light! The one I read hundreds of thousands of words ago! Literally, I need to go start the book over so I can savor the shitty teens in new ways, given [redacted] as revealed in like, the last twenty percent of the book. The book was a fun experience, but there’s so Much here that I know I haven’t even absorbed yet. I loved the other mxtx books a lot, and in many ways, they were easier to get a grasp on than tgcf was, but even before I finished tgcf I was already despairingly trying to figure out how easily I could fit a full reread into my life, and I think that says a lot

#tgcf #mdzs #svsss #long post/#[sad journaling noises as i realize that whatever ridiculous wordcount tgcf has still only counts as one completed book on my list]#i need to get an actual wordcount at some point #then stack up enough physical books to visually represent each of these monsters #i know i read a lot #enough that i very much want to know *how much* i read #because CHRIST

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sweetsmellosuccess · 4 years

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NYFF 2020: Part 1

It’s been a curious season of festivals — as always, Venice, TIFF, and the NYFF go more or less back-to-back-to-back, making for an almost indecent amount of captivating offerings for all but the most gluttonous of cinephiles — but not without its charms. In this time of massive uncertainty in the industry, amongst film distributors and theaters particularly, it’s deeply reassuring to know the medium is still capable of powerful statements, exquisite imagery, and haunting performances as it ever has.

Mind you, next year at this time, if there’s still no widely available vaccine, there might be a more serious dearth of selections, but for what has been an unsettling and mostly miserable 2020, we can thank the stars that films are often shot a year or more in advance of their release.

This year’s NYFF (still ongoing, as I write this) has provided some glories and some failures, more or less in keeping with the usual standard. Herewith, a quartet of selections, ranging from a resurrected Hungarian triumph, to a modern French non-romance, to the debut of a new and energizing auteur.

Damnation (1988) Dir. Bela Tarr

Perhaps no setting in cinematic history is more appropriate for shooting in low-contrast black and white than late ‘80s, post-communist Hungary. Bleak, drab, and pelting with rain, the landscape bleeds in shades of grey. Bela Tarr’s 1988 film, a newly restored 4K edition from the Festival’s “Revival” section, begins with a long shot of a ski lift-like apparatus, endlessly transporting buckets of coal to a repository, whose grinding machinery offers a looping hum throughout the film. Much as Tarr’s various musical interludes include similarly cyclical drones of accordion music, are the men and women of this nameless small city seemingly doomed to their various loops of behavior and experience. In Tarr’s Hungary, everyone looks haunted and morose, like a selection of down-on-their-luck rummies in a dive bar at last call. One such bar patron, Karrer (Miklos Szekely B.), is deeply in love with a beautiful, depressed (unnamed) nightclub singer (Vali Kerekes), married to a loutish man, Sebestyén (Gyorgy Cserthalmi), in bad debt to the wrong sorts of people. When Karrer’s friend, bar owner Willarsky (Gyula Pauer), offers him a potentially lucrative gig picking up a mystery package abroad and bringing it back to him, Karrer instead offers it to Sebestyén as a means of getting him out of debt, but more importantly getting him away from his wife, so their affair can continue apace. Tarr’s films move slowly, with long, static shots, or slow-panning camera movement, but within his frame, he packs in detail — from the pellet-like surface of a wall, to the expression of a group of people huddled under a station roof, staring out at the endless rain — and adds in acute sound effects as further punctuation (the sound of a man close shaving over his scruff with a straight-edge, for example, or water dripping from an unseen leak). As with his 1994 opus, Satantango, he includes extended shots of drunken merriment, with people dancing, stumbling, falling over each other, and coming back again, but the effect isn’t exactly heartening. As packs of stray dogs work their way over muddy, mostly deserted fields, and Karrer continues to imbibe the depressed resignation of his life’s trajectory (“the fog settles into your soul,” Willarsky helpfully explains), Tarr’s film, his first collaboration with Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai, presents a remarkably tactile vision of life under a blundering political machine, well past the point of repair. With its deep shadows, and obvious femme fatale, you could make the case that the film is a ripened Noir, but one with much of the magistry beaten out of it, tarnished in the mud of the fields. Karrer wears a trenchcoat, alright, but it’s only there to keep out the rain.

Mangrove (2020) Dir. Steve McQueen

Frank Crichlow (Shaun Parkes) didn’t mean to create a community, exactly, when he opened his restaurant in the section of West London that had become home to many immigrants from Trinidad and Jamaica. He just wanted to have a clean business that wouldn’t attract undue police attention, as his former nightclub, Rio, had done. As more and more natives of the Caribbean moved abroad, however, there became a greater need for a place where the community could gather and feel at home. Frank’s place became a local landmark, and Frank himself, a reluctant leader of the growing movement against the continual police harassment many of the residents faced on a daily basis. In this, he wasn’t given much of a choice: Led by a deeply racist police force — more or less personified by writer/director Steve McQueen in the form of the sneering PC Frank Pulley (Sam Spruell) — Frank’s place had been unnecessarily raided nine times in six weeks. So, when approached by local Black activists, including Darcus Howe (Malachi Kirby) and Altheia Jones-Lecointe (Letitia Wright), he agrees to take part in a peaceful protest against the constables. Naturally, the police turn violent, and in the resulting chaos, nine protestors, including Frank, Darcus, and Altheia are arrested. Over time, they are tried, acquitted, and re-tried for even more serious charges. McQueen’s film, another segment from Small Axe, his chronicle of London’s West-Indies neighborhood through the decades, focuses on this specific case, not just because two of the defendants decided to represent themselves (proving to be adept barristers), but because it became a landmark part of the British crusade for civil rights (even though, as the film’s postscript explains, Frank was still routinely harassed by the police for another 18 years after the trial). To capture the sense of the complexity of the community, McQueen employs a David Simon-esque narrative hodge-podge of smaller scenes from different characters’ vantage points and views, allowing us an in-depth sense of the neighborhood and the stakes, while rarely dipping into the more played out elements of the courtroom genre. I would say, in light of the recent racial protests after the Louisville grand jury failed to hold two of the three officers involved in the death of Breonna Taylor responsible, the film could not be more prescient, but, sadly, this would have also been true just about anytime in the last three decades. As Frank says of the incorrigibly racist leaders and henchpeople continually holding them down, “These people are like vampires, you think you beat them, but they keep coming back again.”

The Salt of Tears (2020) Dir. Philippe Garrel

From the flinch-inducing title (a direct translation from the French), which sounds like a YA novel steeped in melodrama, to the mournful piano soundtrack of the intro, Philippe Garrel’s (very) French counter-romance would seem to indicate a different sort of film than what he’s actually made. It’s a bit of flim-flammery from a celebrated director unafraid to throw his audience for a loop or two (take that title, which proves to be thoroughly ironic until the very last scene). Luc (Logann Antoufermo), a young man from the provinces, has come to Paris to take an entrance exam at an exacting wood-working institute in order to receive a degree in joining, in order to better emulate his woodworking father (Andre Wilms), a kind, elderly man with a “poet’s soul.” In Paris, he happens to meet Djemila (Oulaya Amamra), a sweet young woman falling hard for the handsome Luc, who callously breaks her heart after he returns to his village. Back home, he takes up with Genevieve (Louise Chevillote), an old high-school flame, who also falls deeply for him, getting pregnant in the process, but when he unexpectedly gets accepted to the woodworking school, he dumps her to return to Paris, where — you guessed it! — he meets up with yet another woman, Betsy (Souheila Yacoub), a stunning brunette whom, we are told via our occasional narrator (Jean Chevalier), is finally “his equal.” Or more so, to be precise, as she takes in a second lover (Martin Mesnier) to their apartment, making the unhappy Luc live as a threesome. Garrel’s charting of Luc’s endless relationship explorations themselves gets tiresome, but the director isn’t much interested in his protagonist’s romantic investments, as he is the callousness of Luc, and the young in general — Luc crushes two loving women; then himself gets crushed; while treating his loving father as yet another irritation from time to time — and the manner in which their decision-making has often not matured enough to include the expansiveness of empathy. They know not what they do, until it’s too late.

Beginning (2020) Dir. Dea Kulumbegashvili

Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s debut feature, about a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses working as missionaries in a small village outside Tbilisi, and the abuse they endure at the hands of religious extremists, captivates and bewilders in equal measure. The film begins with a long single shot from inside a “prayer house,” as congregants slowly file in and fill the pews, eventually allowing David (Rati Oneli) to begin his sermon concerning the story of Abraham, willing to sacrifice his beloved son in order to appease God. The shot remains static for so long, building its own rhythm, that it becomes that much more shocking when a side door suddenly opens, and an unseen assailant tosses in a fire bomb, lighting the floor and sending everyone into terrified tumult. Kulumbegashvili’s film is filled with similar striking compositions, long single shots with very little camera movement, the edges of the frame gradually generating increasing levels of apprehension, as the action swirls often out of our visual range. She has a way of filming the opposite of what you expect: Several key conversations between pairs of characters are shot with the focus on the reaction rather than the speaker, and vitally significant scenes are crafted with characters’ backs to us, such that we can’t read their expressions or get our normal bearings. It’s a similar conundrum for the missionaries themselves, especially Yana (Ia Sukhitashvili), David’s dutiful wife, a former actress, who tries to make the best of their difficult situation, even in the face of such violent opposition to her husband’s proselytizing, a job David, ambitious he is, sees as the key to rising up in the Church’s hierarchy. After their prayer house is burned to the ground, David leaves for a few days to meet with the Elders in order to secure funding for its replacement. Into that void, enter a detective (Kakha Kintsurashvili), who appears one night to “talk” with Yana, but ends up intimidating her into a sort of sexual compromise, an event that leaves her strangely unfazed, even, it might be said, oddly curious. From there, things get both more dire, and more peculiar, with Kulumbegashvili’s implacable camera remaining stoically witness to her characters’ increasingly distressing plight. As curious as it can be tonally, she is so in command of her narrative, the film is never less than compelling, even as tragedy becomes something else entirely. By film’s end, true to David’s earlier sermons, it’s clear that at least his most devoted acolyte has taken in the biblical lessons he proffered, for better or worse.

#sweet smell of success #ssos #piers marchant #films #movies #nyff #New York Film Festival 2020 #Mangrove #Beginning #The Salt of Tears #damnation

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idiotacadamia · 3 years

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Book Review

Book: Fahrenheit 451

Author: Ray Bradbury

Genre: Dystopian, Science Fiction

Stars: 4 ½ stars

Fun Fact: This fact isn't really fun but it is quite creepy. The inspiration for the book came from Adolf Hitler. When Bradbury was asked about it he said, “Well, Hitler, of course. When I was 15, he burned the books in the streets of Berlin. Then along the way I learned about the libraries in Alexandria burning 5000 years ago. That grieved my soul. Since I'm self-educated, that means my educators—the libraries—are in danger. And if it could happen in Alexandria, if it could happen in Berlin, maybe it could happen somewhere up ahead, and my heroes would be killed,’

Actual fun fact: Fahrenheit 451 has been banned in some schools. Schools who are completely unaware of the irony in doing so.

What is the book about? No spoilers!

Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, books are illegal and his job is to burn them as well as the houses that contain them. Montag never questions his habits of destruction until he runs into Clarrise, his eccentric young neighbour who introduces him to their past, where firemen supposedly put out fires instead of starting them. When his wife attempts suicide and Clarrise disappears, he suddenly questions everything he has ever known.

Did I enjoy the book? Why/ why not?

I really enjoyed this book for several reasons. Not only was it one of my favourite genres (dystopian) but it was fast paced and kept my interest during the majority of the book. I was quite nervous at the concept of the book and how the author was going to portray it. However after reading it, I was pleasantly surprised with how well it was written and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy dystopian novels and would like to read a classic. I think the writing style is quite easy to understand however the fast pacing of the book can sometimes throw you off.

What would I improve about this book?

While this book was a pretty amazing book all round, I did have a few issues with it. Sometimes when describing things, the author got too caught up in it and it would completely baffle me. He could have been trying to build suspense in not actually naming what he was describing but it felt more of a hunk of information that confused you rather than a suspenseful build up. I think he does this a lot during this book which is a shame because the rest of it is so beautifully written in my opinion.

What would I add? Spoilers!

I'm not really sure how I feel about the way he formatted the sections of the book. While I think it definitely helped me ( the world's biggest procrastinator) read the book faster, it only did so because I hate putting a book down in the middle of a chapter. But the lack of chapters did put me off at first. I definitely would NOT KILL CLARISSE. However, that's me coming at this with my reader mindset and not my writer mindset. I think we all get emotional to say the least, when your favourite character is presumed dead by a really annoying twat.

What was my favourite part?

While I liked Part 1, Part 2 really captured my heart. I feel that the eerie and uncomfortable feeling that Bradbury created in Part 1 almost put me off the book entirely but looking at the book overall, that scene development did a lot for setting the tone for the book. My favourite part in particular though is definitely the end of Part 2 and beginning of Part 3. Montag and Beatty are driving to a house to burn it and right at the last moment of that part, Montag is hit with the realisation that they have pulled up right outside his own house. I in a way, felt this moment foreshadowing. I felt that it was going to happen eventually however my predictions originally were that Beatty was going to make Montag burn down Faber’s house. I was really prepared to feel some angst but then BOOM! They are outside Montag's house and the beginning of Part 3 has Mildred ( Montag's wife) fleeing the house! You find that Mildred called the alarm on her own house and husband and then ran away. I was really pleased to find that the suspense that Bradbury built up for this part was not put to waste. I really was put into that feeling or possibility that something is going to go awfully wrong very very soon.

Who was my favourite character? Why?

My favourite character was Clarisse. She reminded me of looking at the historical and philosophical side of things which I think is really necessary to be able to make judgments that are supposedly morally ‘correct’. She was super eccentric and seemed like the kind of person who didn’t let the judgements of people around her influence the way she behaved or saw things which again is really important to me. She has this really calm and omniscient kind of vibe which I feel that this book really needed. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see any sort of character development within her because she is killed off within Part 1- The Hearth and the Salamander. However, I really loved seeing how her words really influenced Guy Montag and his entire outlook on life. This book without her would have never happened.

Who did you hate? Why?

I didn't ‘hate’ Mildred but she reminded me of everything I never wanted to become. I have to say that I was really mad at Montag when he slapped her. I really couldn’t stand violence between 2 people who are meant to ‘love’ each other, even though Montag and Clarisse establish from early on that they don’t really love each other. I think my main reason hating Mildred wasn’t her neediness but her great betrayal on her husband. I didn’t have any strong feelings until Part 3, Burning Bright when I found out that Mildred called the alarm on her own husband and then proceeded to run away from the house. As someone who really believes in loyalty, I was furious. I feel that that move Mildred made was really cowardly. However, I do stand with the fact that at the beginning, Mildred is portrayed in quite a bad lighting. Bradbury tries to portray her to show that she is a bad wife for forgetting important things such as when she and Montag first met or how she is obsessed with watching TV to the extent where she calls them family. I think that the way Bradbury portrayed her was trying to hide that she was seriously unhappy with her life and in a way depressed. Bradbury portrays Mildred as a shell of a human being devoid of any sincere emotional, intellectual or spiritual substance and I really hated that. I feel that Mildred had the potential to be a great character but she is purposely portrayed to be cold, distant and unreadable. She, in a way, is what was considered to be the ‘perfect wife’ at the time of this being written and yet you witness how she buries all emotions of despair and emptiness deep inside of her because she is afraid to come to the realisation that she, just like her husband, is unhappy and sees no purpose to living. Bradbury really tries to emphasise that Mildred is much less satisfied with her life by having her attempt suicide and then proceed to have no memory of it; which further intails the severity of Mildred’s behaviour. She watches TV obsessively to hide her lack of feeling and despair within herself and has therefore created great attachments with the people on said TV to the point where she associates them as ‘Family’. I disliked Mildred because she had so much potential but instead Bradbury uses her character to portray betrayal.

Was the book predictable?

Other than predicting that Montag would definitely read some books, a lot of the things that occurred within this book took me by surprise. In fact, going into this book, I knew nothing except that books were illegal and firemen were meant to burn them. I remember gasping when realised that Mildred was getting her stomach pumped because she attempted suicide. I was more comfortable reading this due to my history in reading this genre. I was expecting a big twist like in many books in a similar genre but I simply had no idea what it was going to be. The book definitely kept me gripped and I didn’t feel like I had to push myself to read it which is always a good thing when reading. The overarching plot was simple, books are banned and this dude is going to go and read some books. Like most books it had small plots intertwined to keep it moving. Bradbury does an excellent job at this because the plots are all related and don’t overcomplicate.

How did you feel about the ending?

This may have not been my favourite part. In fact at first I didn’t like the ending however after much consideration, I have very different opinions. I understand that Bradbury tries to illustrate violence throughout the novel and the beginning of the war depicts the new extremes of violence which destroys society and its infrastructure. The ending altogether shows the inevitable self-destruction of such an oppressive society and yet a glimmer of hope. I love how it feels so relevant to the situation today. The mass majority of us are part of a minority whom are oppressed, whether you are of colour, female or queer and many more. Bradubury foreshadows that if we oppress what actually creates our society, if we oppress those with different views, if we oppress those who are different, out of the fear that they will overcome us, we are bound to self-destruct. Those who today feel safe by suppressing those of colour or muslims because they are ‘terrorists’ or ‘thugs’ or ‘drug dealers’ will be the ultimate downfall of themselves. Remember ‘Security is mortals chiefest enemy’ as Hecate said.

What do you think about the character and scene development?

As this book was not very hard to understand, I feel like I didn’t pay much attention to the development of the characters and scenery (thank god for my notes). Looking back at the character of Guy Montag, I feel that it didn’t fulfill the potential it was given during Part 1. This may be because of the fact that when starting the book, the reader witnesses Montag change his mind about burning books quite quickly. I would have loved to see more resistance to his curiosity or more loyalty to the ‘law’ . However, I do think that the development you witness later on later on in Parts 2&3 is much better. We witness Montag lose complete control as he becomes more erratic and inarticulate; thus the results of his actions are quite horrific; for example, when he finds himself burning his captain (Beatty) to death. However, it also gives us a glimpse into his deepest desires to rebel against the status quo and find a meaningful way to live.

Favourite quote?

This was super hard to choose. In fact are so many quotes from this book that I felt were absolutely amazing so I will definitely be posting those separately from this. My all time favorite quote though was

“What is there about fire that is so lovely? No matter what age we are, what draws us to it?” -

Beatty, Part II - The Sieve and the Sand.

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caden · 4 years

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Honestly thank you for saying that. I also don't hate Travis but can't stand the way he goes about proving his "wokeness" he's obviously good natured but his approach is just so off and it's awkward when listening to the other brothers try to swerve around it, being more self aware than he is. I can't listen to the new Adventure Zone arc because her went out of his way to create a disable character and then be like "are you gonna ask me about my wheelchair" it's just too fucking much dude.

This is a super long rant-y response that doesn’t really say much of consequence, but...

yeah i have not enjoyed his arc so far sadly. I’m still going ahead with it for the time being, it’s worth listening to but honestly TAZ hasn’t gripped me all that much since balance. I feel like one of their issues is that balance really really tactically built up to its big emotional dramatic moments, everything felt really natural and just flowed so well-- whereas with these other arcs, I feel like they just jump the gun and try to constantly have dramatic stuff happening without ***earning*** it. The nature of most roleplaying games is just that they’re long form, and IMO the most important element of nailing a podcast like TAZ is making sure that the downtime is really enjoyable-- that means having really charismatic side characters, engaging and open-ended worldbuilding that allows for lots of different situations, and PCs that have clear and interesting motivations. Travis just isn’t a good enough DM to pull that all off. He’s decent at roleplaying IMO, but his personality / skills are just better suited to being a player. He clearly isn’t as good a storyteller as griffin, and even griffin’s storytelling has been strained from time to time.

I honestly really really really wish that they would play a more Critical Role / MCDM style DnD game, where the worldbuilding took front-stage over the characters, and where it was assumed that the main players would cycle through MULTIPLE characters because their characters could actually die if it was dramatic-- or even just if the players fucked up in combat. I’d love to feel like they were in a setting that allowed them to have guest players on, where the world has internal consistency (unlike the live shows which are always fun but clearly not sustainable for a long-form story), and where the whole thing isn’t all built along railroading players down an ultra long-form epic story in the vein of Balance. Like one thing that’s great about DnD for me is that if you don’t currently feel like you’re gelling with the character you’re playing, you can just make a new character! If the quest you’re on isn’t incredibly engaging, you can tell the DM that you want to explore something in your character’s past or independently pursue some other motivation instead. I really wish they would experiment with a more freeform, noncommittal story, where they could lean into their improvisation skills (which is what they’re very good at) over their storytelling skills (where they're sort of lacking).

I also feel like-- and this is just an unintended byproduct of the general vibe that they’re going for-- one big problem that I notice with their storytelling is that all of their characters are just like... too good. I feel like they’re so committed to being wholesome and non-stressful that everything about their worlds just has no edge at all. I’m not saying that I want TAZ to be game of thrones, obviously that would suck-- but so much of the conflict in their worlds feels awkward or forced because they don’t create their characters to be as flawed as I think they should. Justin usually being the exception. I think this is reaaaalllllly coming to the forefront in the new arc, Travis just isn’t capable of putting the kind of tension into his stories that Griffin was because he’s too committed to making his world crunchy and chill and, dare I say, woke. But I think the wheelchair thing is coming from a different sort of bad storytelling-- writers put a diverse character into their story and then feel so immediately proud of themselves that they forget to actually make the character interesting or memorable beyond that, inadvertently tokenizing the characters.

Griffin also did something really smart when he was DMing, which was that he intentionally never told us anyone’s race. He explicitly said that it being an audio medium allowed the listener the freedom to imagine whatever race they want, as well as imagine trans-ness, disability, etc. Which, even though it might sound kind of like a cop-out, is IMO the best way to handle it. If they play characters outside of their race, people will be mad. If they don’t have enough diversity, people will be mad. If they have explicit diversity but portray something insensitively, people will be mad. I personally think that griffin would have been smart enough to do these things sensitively, but he’s always erred on the side of caution. The only exception in balance was them explicitly stating that Lup was a trans woman, which was also handled very well IMO. Travis just isn’t taking that level of subtlety to his DMing because he isn’t as perceptive about these things as Griffin is. He’s stating all this stuff explicitly because he wants people to know that his world is diverse. Which is cool, but it comes with the baggage of actually having to execute that diversity with some level of insight. In this case, I honestly think the players should be more comfortable going ahead and making characters that are explicitly NOT cis white (or white-coded) men. They made the move after balance to start playing women, which was good. The alternative is just constantly having protagonists that, even in fantasy/sci-fi settings, are cis-coded, white-coded, or male-coded.

All in all, the big issue for me rn with the Mcelroys is that i have much more of a sense now that they’re the types of creators who are entirely just trying to please their fanbase. This is really visible in the style of comedy that they’re doing these days as well. They aren’t trying new things, they’re just finding what’s comfortable, what fans clap for in live shows, and doing more of that. I remember once in a live show they said “okay guys, we’re making a change. we’re no longer gonna allow you guys to ask questions that are just you bragging about a cool thing you did”. That was one of the best decisions they made from a content perspective, lol. Their most interesting work of the last three years has been the Trolls 2 podcast, because it’s stylistically VERY different from their normal stuff, and because NOBODY was asking for it. And as a result, it was able to be a novel, funny concept. I feel like in the age of streamers, youtubers, creators who are basing their brand off of PERSONALITY over CONTENT, we’re gonna be getting more and more of this kind of art. As creators, the Mcelroys aren’t trying to do something new, to create exciting thought-provoking funny content. They’re just repeating the things that have found them the most success. They take the desires of the fans a bit too seriously, which keeps them from going in new directions, because fans can’t validate things that don’t exist yet. The fans shouldn’t be the ones who create new trends or decide the tone of the content. That should be entirely in the hands of the creators. You can sorta tell that at times Griffin and Justin are unhappy about it. I think this was at its worst about a year or so ago, and they’ve realized it and started to work on course-correction. They stopped doing TAZ live shows with the balance characters, which was a good choice. I DON’T think that the issue is that they ran out of ideas, it’s just that they’re overdue for a creative renaissance. I would love it if instead of just doing more TAZ and mbmbam, they continued to do a bunch of small unusual projects in the vein of Trolls 2, the old Monster Factory videos, the new non-DnD TAZ live shows, etc. I’m also enjoying The Besties (I listened to it before it got canned and was excited when it came back), because I feel like Griffin and Justin act more like normal humans on that show and less like Mcelroy brothers.

WITH ALL THAT SAID, their content is still often very fun, and I think it’s really good that they exist as successful creators. They’re a net positive force in the world, the small attempts people have made to cancel them for dumb shit will always be petty and stupid. They’ve more than earned a spot in the podcasting hall of fame, I don’t think they’re just has-beens, and I will continue to listen to plenty of their stuff for the conceivable future even if it’s not always exactly what I want from them.

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