#well just also with some critiques. just genuinely really cool and exciting to dig into the writing craft of it or at least try

[shiegra]

super brief thoughts on Li Su Su

I feel like I ragged a little on her in the last post and I want to clarify - I find both her book and show counterparts fascinating. While I do love the uneasy-frenemy banter in the books between Li Su Su and Tantai Jin, where they always know the other is up to something and all their repartee has the edge of a knife even as they grow to have a strange understanding and twisted fascination of the other deeper than anyone else’s -

The narrative as it stood, this serial oft-travelogue in that subgenre of batshit action and over the top characters, would have been harder to sell on screen. I think they made an excellent choice to focus on Tantai Jin as a more complex, nuanced character and build up his personal journey. While the webnovel’s fast pace and action could carry the roadtrip adventures as they meandered back to main plot, both budget and the need for consistent overarching story structure complicate that for show.

(I also think this politely avoided some incredibly Unfortunate Implications regarding people with antisocial personality disorders due to the in-your-face allegory lol.)

In doing so they had to change up her character, and possibly played it safe due to genre conventions leaned into her directness to keep the plot moving. (Given the care and energy with which they fleshed out the two biggest secondary female characters.) But it’s also fascinating to me because even her lighter show characterization feels like it’s calling back to book characterization - but book characterization from the second dream, of her younger mischievous fairy self before the weight of apocalypse crushed her into what she is in the opening of the book.

(Plus on just a personal level maybe partly due to early fandoms I had and neglected female characters there, female characters with somewhat messy writing but who are so fascinating to explore the implications and potential layers of are like catnip to me.)

#TEOM meta #im still not sure this is coherent but i KNOW that if i put it in drafts again to write better later it will DIE there lol so #im trying to actually post things im excited to write and think about instead of everything dying on the vine because it's not 'perfect' #believe me it is wild to hear myself say 'i think they made the right choice in shifting the main protagonist to the male lead from FL' #but it really was and although LSS ended up a little simplified with less time devoted to her changing complex emotions she's still #yknow the co-lead. also i have so many weird analytical thoughts that have no answers about just the shift in directing #e.g. in early scenes with the flat composition of her contemplating him on the ice and him on the ice where i feel like the tone doesn't #quite come through. is it meant to convey a creeping sense of callousness that peaks in the whipping? #but she COULD act that - we see it in others scenes - so the combination of her sitcom acting and the shot composition and music #it feels like she was directed to act the scenes very very casually and thus leaving it tonally jarring in a sort of fascinating way #anyway i think this adaptation is kind fo amazing there's so many points where they tease out book themes and threads #and weave them back in to a different point in the story (bcs of compression) where it ends up MAKING MORE SENSE??? #SO fun to just chew on with my brain as someone who read the book and enjoyed it with critiques and has been enjoying the show a lot as #well just also with some critiques. just genuinely really cool and exciting to dig into the writing craft of it or at least try

[derpcakes]

So we watched (nay, Experienced) the BBC/Netflix Dracula series

Brought to us by everyone’s favourite team, Steve Moff and Mark Gatiss, promising to be an innovative and exciting new vision of the classic novel

Boy it was definitely something!!!

First I will say: obviously Moff is not my favourite TV writer and my fam and I did go into this with a bias. I’m happy to report, though, that it’s going to be one of these shows that haunts me forever, because if it had just been bad I could have said “bleh” and deleted it from my brain. But because parts of this were genuinely cool, interesting, and fun, and parts of it genuinely had potential, all the bits that were bad stand out as so much worse and the whole thing feels as cursed as a 500 year old undead count. 

Things that were enjoyable and well put-together:

Van Helsing has been gender-swapped into a vampire-hunting nun and her cat-and-mouse game with Dracula is rife with belligerent sexual tension. I was ready to hate this, and ready for like, Sherlock and Irene Adler 2.0, but their dynamic was actually pretty fun to watch! Their power balance is kept even throughout most of the show, and Helsing is never struck down because of ~womanly failings~ or infantilised. She’s consistently really clever and, even if there are some cringey one-liners, I found her and Draccy’s playful quest to murder each other one of the most fun parts of the show. It could’ve been better, but it was enjoyable! (I also like how Helsing isn’t Young and Hot, but is a capable older lady, and her actor and Draccy’s even seem about the same age. Amazing)

The second episode is a spooky murder mystery/horror mini-movie on a ship, with a cast full of interesting characters who all had different things going on and different relationship dynamics that were compelling to watch. There’s even an interracial gay couple! And they’re like, written pretty sympathetically and to be layered and flawed in ways that didn’t feel too stereotypical! And they don’t die first!! Wack! I understand the bar is on the ground, but it’s still worth a mention

Some fun with vampire lore: Draccy absorbs knowledge and traits from people he drinks blood from (which is how he learns languages. Get Duolingo, dude, stop eating people), leading to the intriguing suggestion that myths like “vampires will die in sunlight” and “vampires are afraid of holy symbols” have kinda become real to him even if they don’t literally work, because he’s swallowed so many people to whom these superstitions and beliefs were law. I’m sure this isn’t the first time this has been done, but groundbreaking or no it was kinda neat

Things that were not enjoyable and well put-together:

EVERYTHING ELSE

Episode 1: a weird speedrun of most of the original novel, feat. weaponised nuns and a weird fixation on whether or not Jonathan Harker and Draccy boned. They did not. Dracula pops out of the body of a wolf and he’s Whole Ass Naked. Him and Van Helsing have a power play where she stands just on the threshold of a convent and calls him a little bitch, knowing he can’t come and get her. A knife is licked. 

Episode 2: aforementioned cool ship horror story. Definitely the best ep. It really makes me think about hbomb’s critique that Moff is pretty good at doing standalone stories (and pilots), but when things are tied into a bigger narrative things get zonkers. 

Episode 3: Things Get Zonkers!!

Let me just. Okay. I have the most to say about this one because this is where things really got batshit. And yet, also really boring? How does that figure? Anyway:

Dracula emerges from under the sea and finds that 123 years have passed and he’s now the star of a Modern AU. Upon setting foot on British sand he is immediately accosted by what appears to be an anti-vampire task force. There’s a helicopter. It is later explained how they knew to pounce on him at this exact moment, but holy god it was wild to watch the entire British Secret Service descend on this one wet bastard in a suit

The editing shifts aggressively in the direction of Sherlock. Mark Gattis is there playing an amazingly annoying character. There’s a fuckign.... Underground Secret Society devoted to studying vampires and they put Drac in a Designated Glass Prison for Smug Geniuses (also as seen in Sherlock). Van Helsing is dead but her great-great-grand-niece is played by the same actress and. Okay. Van Helsing, vampire hunting nun, possesses her descendent and rises through the ether to roast Drac one last time, and he’s DELIGHTED TO SEE HER AGAIN. 

And she has cancer, right, so her blood is poisonous when Draccy tries to bite her, but in the end, right, the end of the episode, right, the final shots of the show, he comes to a place where he’s willing to die, and she’s already dying, and so he drinks her blood and they die together on a table while cinematic metaphor vision shows them having sex in the middle of the sun

There was a badly CGI-ed vampire baby. Jonathan Harker falls from a tower and a scene later they flash back to this event by reversing the footage of him falling down, meaning we just see him go VWOOP up through the air, bouncing off the wall on the way. Van Helsing says the words “come boy, suckle” when she’s goading Drac into drinking her blood. The show sits in a weird middle ground where the characters talk about sex a lot (”dID yOu HaVe sExUaL iNterCOURSE with COUNT DRACULA?”) and Drac is clearly meant to be super magnetic and sexy but the characterisation and cinematography is not horny at all. People have these sexy-type dreams of their lover of choice when Drac is drinking their blood but even those are very boring and weirdly chaste, except of course for the final one where, if I  can take the chance to remind you, Van Helsing and Dracula have symbolic Mind Palace sex inside the centre of the solar system

I can’t speak too much on its quality as an adaptation since I actually haven’t read the book, but splitting the story so that some characters (the Harkers, Van Helsing) existed in the time the story is set, and some (Lucy, Dr Seward) exist in The Modern AU felt very strange. Was there any reason to set the third episode in modern times, apart from the fact that I guess they wanted to do their Sherlock thing again? Or, perhaps, because they wanted to do their Jekyll thing again?? Oh my god, that’s what the editing reminds me of - the small clips of Jekyll I’ve seen. The zooming. The slow-mo. The emphasis on The Monster Man’s weird goddamn teeth

(Also, I don’t really feel qualified to dig too deep into it, but I will say there felt something a bit uncomfortable about Lucy being black in this version, while also being written to be very promiscuous and vain. idk. Also, since it happened in an ep of Sherlock as well, “weedy white Nice Boy rescues the Very Cool woman of colour he has a tragically unrequited crush on” is now an official Moffattis trope)

Count Moffatula is an experience. Its pacing is buck wild. The speeding through the original plot and the mish-mashing of elements in the Modern AU section feels like another expression of contempt for the source material on Moff’s part. Someone says “reality is overrated” in a show set in the 1890s. Draccy quotes a Beatles song. He also makes quippy allusions to having eaten various famous figures and basically winks at the camera every time. Granted, this wasn’t as obnoxious as I was maybe expecting, but there are still too many lines of dialogue where you think “oh, the writers high-fived each other after they wrote that one, huh”. The fact that Moff has such vitriol against fan fic writers is more and more grating every day because this is so, so clearly a zany-ass fanfic that he happens to be getting paid for. The costumes are nowhere near as nice as they could have been, and Dracula’s cape looks like his mum made it for him for the school play in which he is playing Dracula. 

This show is So Much. Watch it to share in this fever dream. Or don’t, and save approximately 5 hours of your life. God. 5 hours. Who was I before Count Maffatula. Who am I now. Why was his cape so bloody ugly. Why did they bone in the centre of the sun

#i'm ascending from my body #count moffatula

[hidehidehideho]

Everything About Botanica

So, if it isn’t obvious, I haven’t been keeping up to date with my blog. I guess that I felt I was more focussed on my studio class and how that has affected me. With the Grad show, the works I’m trying to make and the personal developments and reflections I have been doing that have stemmed from deep and heavy conversations from that particular class, I haven’t really been considering this project. A lot has happened this semester, its been crazy and at this point, I just want to finish. 

But I want to talk about everything that has occurred with this project, my personal feelings, the good and the bad and how things have been resolved-- just everything. The previous posts were just details about our work and where different ideas came from, the artists that we have looked out an dhow our idea has taken form. But this post will dive into the nitty gritty. 

The idea of having an interesting and though provoking work in a highly engaged festival really excited me!! I was keen on the idea of creating something that challenged my current practice and help me grow. As well as that, it would be pretty cool to have this festival attached to my CV as I feel that i am lacking in my artistic endeavours currently. Just something to keep me going and allow for me to attain new skills. I was keen to collaborate with out people genuinely. However, I feel that i was drawn such a short stick. 

The first group I had, during the first 3-4 weeks when we ere doing readings was okay I liked the other visual artist and we’ve become good friends now. The other two in my group were dancers and although they were okay, I didn't like their superficialness. I know it’s unfair to say i don’t like something abut a person when we are brought together to collaborate on a work, and have to navigate ourselves to create something together, but I felt that things were so surface level and that there was a clash of personalities. I guess basically, there were comments made that I didn’t like. They were unfair things. It was really petty stuff and I had hoped form there I could be transferred into another group that would be better streamlined. But it just got worse. I really don’t and didn’t like the current group I am in. Environmentalism was my last or second last option and yet this was the group i was put in. I felt that the splitting up was redundant and that there was no consideration at all. I get the encouragement of cross disciplinary connections and ideas however there was a level of unfairness. 

I truly have no idea on how we came to the current idea that we have. I don’t really like the idea that much and I feel that it was born through our divergence of ideas and lack of communication. I really don’t remember the idea ever being discussed until it was pushed to the point it was something we had to settle on. 

I felt that there was no streamlining in the group at all. And there was no willingness to try new things. There were clashes int eh group. There seemed ot be an elitism within my group and I felt that i was on the bottom of it. Why? Maybe because of my degree, maybe its because of our privileges but it was just because of our different ideas. It felt a lot different than that. My parts got cut out, i was ignored for quite a while and because of that, i immediately checked out half way through this project. If I am honest with you, I absolutely hated this project and felt that there was no support whatsoever. i can’t deny that also falls on my lack of reaching out for help, but I don’t want to be reduced to overthinking or making things into something that aren’t. i remember when I had to make time to back to my hometown and telling my mother about my internals tress about the project and how i felt so sick and anxious. I talked through how things were going and she said “Darcy you should tell you project manager, it’s real what you’re feeling, say something!” and i just couldn’t. I felt that I had no support. I felt that what i was feeling wasn’t real or didn’t matter. I felt constantly invalidated. “Oh you’re just making it into something its not. Oaky then. Its fine. it doesn’t matter. 

I dreaded coming to class every week. i didn’t like the way it was managed. One week I had (for lack of better word) a panic attack and didn’t go, just went to the city instead to have some time for myself. I haven’t had one of those kinds of days since high school. I acknowledge that it could’ve been other things and i could’ve said something but  i will not go through finding the courage to say something to then be invalidated. I guess an answer to that is “well this is how collaborative work normally is” and I disagree with that in . the creative field. I can choose who i want to collaborate with and what were going to collaborate on. Its different in a business setting and sure, its something that you just have to deal with but feel that the response is lazy and weak. If there is no balance then there is no positive outcome. 

Whilst I didn’t mind one of my the members, I felt that there was a lack of work ethic. I genuinely think that two members did a really good job on staying on top of things and Im thankful that they picked up in areas I did not. My work ethic slacked too with this class. I was more concerned about my studio class. But as much as I hated it, I at least tried to sort myself out so that the others could manage what they had to as well. The other two members didn’t have  much that they had to do but were quite lazy and left things very last minute. Myself and the first two members didn’t appreciate that as it was a group effort .This is a small gripe, but I will admit that. But it is important to note it as a part of the overall process i guess. 

We tolerated each other. Barely sometimes. There was a lack of communication in our group. I came to a point where I did not care at all and just did what I had to do. Personalities clashed. There were many passive aggressive message sin our group chat. Even in person. There were times where I, or another member, had to become stern to keep us on track with out idea, to try and keep it simple and not overcomplicate our final product. A particular member was adamant on having a dance performance included so we had to work around them. I know nothing about dance, so you know, it was a learning point. What I couldn’t stand was the unwillingness to learn new things, to integrate themselves into something that is out of their comfort zone. That we, as a group, had to make space for her because she couldn’t have a dance showcase. that she tried to leverage her privilege with complaining about minuscule things that have no effect on er life whatsoever but to come across as someone that was struggling. is this a personal dig? yeah, it looks like it is. But it’s so infuriating to be talked down to. 

This sounds like it’s getting personal, doesn’t it? To be completely honest with you, I think it was. That we all knew that we didn't really like each other but we had to make something to pass. There was the collaborative work, but here was the underlining intolerance. 

So how was all this resolved on my end? Well, I just took a step back and did what i needed to do. The ignorance and invalidation irritated me, so i just focussed on my efforts with the work. Did what I could when l could. if there was anything I did enjoy was the feedback that our idea had received during the first and second presentation since it was something that made me consider art again. I didn’t feel like I was making art anymore, it felt like I had to just bite my tongue and hope that the weeks fly by. And that was something I hated, that I didn’t enjoy this as much as I wanted to because it felt more personal. Something was not sitting with me right.

But what have i learned from this? Aside from the personal stuff, there were many things that i had learned, especially about the gardens. I was really interested in hearing about the meticulous management of the gardens, its history, the Indigenous connection to land (wish there was more of an emphasis on this), and even learning about spatial works too. It’s always really exciting daydreaming about making a work to be interacted with by the public in a way that is completely different than white-cube space interaction. I think even working through the technical trials and tribulations and having points that we didn’t think of being brought up was something that i enjoyed too. Much like how in a previous post, an audience member brought up the visual readings of our proposed idea. That was something that always excites me because it’s a point of reconfiguring a smaller aspect to make sure the idea as a whole is strong and clear. The art process taught me a lot in that large projects require a lot planning and fine-tuning so that the work is refined. We didn’t go through many issues with our proposed idea, it was pretty steady and straightforward. We knew to donate the clothes after we used them for our work and repurpose the frames or give them way to be recycled. The idea was straightforward, even with the tweaks and critique that was brought up. It’s hard with clothes since they’re complicated materials however, the research expands our options on keeping with our environmental theme. It was a simple fix, really. It went smoothly with the work, but underneath it didn’t feel so smooth at all. 

I guess personally, I resented this class because of the lack of support. I wasn’t being heard or acknowledged. The collaboration, on the surface, looked fine. But underneath it was all just a tension in the room that we quietly overlooked. At the time I checked out, it just became a waiting game. I can understand that it’s difficult managing a project like this under the constraints that we, as a whole, were going through. Working with other is always an interesting experience but this felt like btichfest that I didn’t want to be a part of. In the end, whilst there were smalls things that i enjoyed, I’m more glad it’s over. 

[simplyoriginalcharacters]

KORNELIUS "NILS" HENRIK HOPPE

Dear SOC team, thank you for re-opening the floodgates :) I’m looking forward to seeing all kinds of characters on my dash again! I’m still working on my Zoomorphism Counter-Curse task force, and I would like to submit another member - the viewpoint character, I thought, but currently I’m not so sure. He might have to share. Please help me figure out if there are any dangling questions and missed opportunities with this character!

(Full profile and critique under the cut! -K)

APPEARANCE

Nils is in his late twenties, tall but gangly, filled with nervous energy. His gesturing hands and pointy elbows sometimes seem not quite under his control. He makes up for that with freakishly quick reflexes - if he elbows a mug off the table, most of the time he will catch it before it shatters.

His skin is pasty with a greenish tinge when he’s sleep-deprived or under the weather, and oddly placed freckles. He wears his mop of curly blond hair short around the ears and longer on top, and he fiddles with it constantly. His other noticeable nervous gesture is popping his joints, to fill sudden silences. His fingers are long, with pronounced joints, and his palms are always a little cool and clammy. His face is mobile and expressive, with a wide mouth made for smiling. He licks his lips a lot when he’s preoccupied, they’re always a little raw. His eyes are muddy green, like the sun seen from the bottom of a pond.

Nils has an adolescent’s aversion to anything resembling formal clothing. In summer he’s usually in jeans, t-shirts and sneakers, and he favors cheap sunglasses. In winter, he tends to underdress and shiver in the thin jacket he thought would look cool going out. He is the one who will complain about the Kevlar vests, he hates to have his movements restricted.

PERSONALITY & SOCIAL INTERACTIONS

Nils is cheerful and enthusiastic, loud and hard to overlook. He talks a lot, sometimes to himself. He would like to be cooler than he is, and he thrives under attention. He needs to be seen, he’d rather be screamed at than ignored.

His core strength is that he genuinely cares about people, which endears him to them despite his brashness. It’s also what makes him a good detective. He is intuitive and good at recognizing patterns and connecting the dots but he tends to overlook details. He has a competitive streak and a strong sense of right and wrong, which often leads him to make quick judgement calls. He has trouble submitting to authority. Emotions cloud his better judgement and he abhors anything that smacks of victim blaming.

In a social setting, he wants everyone around him to feel comfortable and included. He can be a surprisingly good listener but he isn’t great at keeping secrets. Recognition means a lot to him. He doesn’t quite know how to accept affection gracefully but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t appreciate it. He has a nerdy sense of humor; he likes puns, history jokes and useless facts.

He avoids physical confrontations if at all possible - his hindbrain still recalls being tiny and squishable. The trouble is that he gets mouthy and provocative when he feels defensive. How he reacts to pain is directly proportional to how cool he looked while getting hurt. Another remnant of his time as a frog is an irrational fear of snakes and, to a lesser extent, storks. Digs at his past get to him, as hard as he tries to rise above them. His unhealthy love for gummi worms does not help at all.

DAY-TO-DAY LIFE

JOB:

Nils is a detective on the newly founded Zoomorphism Task Force. He leads investigations, interviews suspects and witnesses, and gathers evidence for arrests and convictions.

He became a police officer because he knows how a curse takes years off your life. He wants to get the victims justice, and he enjoys the puzzle-solving aspect of his job. He prefers the more exciting parts of police work and puts off the dry, repetitive tasks as long as possible. Despite moments of immaturity, insolence, and a tendency to be late he is a good detective.

HOME:

He lives on the first floor of a four-floor apartment building in the inner city, in a spacious flat he could never afford on his own. He enjoys the short commute and the high-end consumer electronics his flat mate likes to splurge on, though his bedroom is furnished with focus on comfort, rather than design. He’s quite content with his MALM bed and PAX closet. What he likes best is coming home to another person instead of empty silence. He has befriended most of their neighbors, especially their old landlady on the ground floor. Without him Esben, with his frequent complaints and odd hours, would have been kicked out many times over.

HOBBIES:

He needs people and conversation and social validation to unwind. He likes pubs, the more intimate and grubbier the better, and he is the one who drags his colleagues out for a drink after a case.

To burn off nervous energy he used to play fast-paced video games. In the police academy, he started running instead. He takes part in the Stockholm Marathon every year and finishes comfortably in the middle third.

During his reoccurring bouts of insomnia he reads trivia blogs, makes ill-considered internet purchases and marathons TV shows - comedies, classic American action-adventure series, and anything with robots. He believes that the technological singularity is approaching, and he has claimed naming rights for any household electronics ‘that look like they might have a soul’.

BACKSTORY

Nils was the child of an affair his barely-of-age mother had with a married man. By the time he was ten she had almost entirely disappeared from his life, leaving him to grow up with his grandparents. They did their best but they had become parents quite late in life, and especially his grandfather was in fragile health. Nils was energetic, resourceful and a trouble-maker, he did not deal well with their need for peace and quiet. He constantly challenged authority, until he sassed the wrong teacher - and ended up as a frog.

That time blurs in his memory. He very clearly remembers the day he met a girl in a large, lily-covered garden pond. Instinct made him crawl into her hair while she swam, and when she got to her room and discovered him, she threw him against a wall in disgust. His curse broke. He was sixteen, newly human, his head hurt and he had never seen anyone so beautiful. He fell instantly in love.

She didn’t, she screamed for her parents. The van Steegs were kind, they took him in until he got his life back on track, but Lily kept avoiding him. In the end, he was very gently advised to give up on their daughter and move out.

Nils threw himself into the student life in Stockholm. It took him five semesters to tire of living from party to party. He applied for the Police Academy twice before he got in, and his experience with a zoomorphism curse was a consideration. He got assigned to the Spellcraft Crime Authority almost straight out of training.

He tried to file charges against the witch but nothing stuck. (Prosecution of such crimes is still in the fledgling stages.)

RELATIONSHIPS

FAMILY:

Nils’ relationship with his grandparents is strained. The older generation still tends to think curses educational, and to a certain extent, they seem to believe he deserved what happened to him. Recently, they moved to an assisted living facility. Nils phones them sporadically. Sometimes, they have news about his mother - she lives abroad, she seems to have found some stability at last. He doesn’t really care to know. He never got to meet his biological father.

He did not keep in contact with the van Steegs, he thought they might prefer it this way, but he sometimes wishes he could have.

FRIENDS:

Nils makes friends easily but after the curse, he had a very big secret to keep, and most friendships stayed superficial. He met Esben in a chatroom, drawn by someone who understood and shared his experiences. After the van Steegs, Esben was the first person he told his whole story. They met in real life because Nils insisted after weeks of chatting that they needed to go out for beers like normal blokes, a concept that put off and fascinated Esben in equal measure. They got roaring drunk together, and decided Nils should move into the huge, half-empty flat Esben was financing with his father’s guilt-money. Despite their glaring differences they cohabitate well: Esben is quiet and keeps to himself, Nils is laid-back and accepting. At work, they balance each other.

RELATIONSHIP STATUS:

Single. He tried dating, quite aggressively when he first moved to the city and a little less desperately and with more success a few years later. Nothing ever went anywhere – he is still hung up on Lily, probably always will be. It might be because she’s his curse-breaker, or he’s just unluckier than most. Since she took over the task force, he tries not to let it interfere with his work, with varying success.

Hello again! I'm really psyched to see another character from this story in my inbox - I think I've mentioned this before, but there's nothing I love more than fairy tales when it comes to fiction, and I'm really fascinated by the way you're using and rewriting them. Let's get to it!

One of the things I genuinely enjoy about your characters is how realistic they are. There are a ton of details in this profile, much like in the profiles you submitted for Esben and Felice, but they all fit together beautifully to paint a picture of the kind of person Nils is. In this specific profile, I really do get the sense that Nils is the sort of person who never quite made it out of adolescence, but is doing his best anyway. He comes off as a bit of a "class clown with a heart of gold" type, and I dig that. I'm interested to see how his flaws might impact your story!

Something I definitely want to touch on is how brief and vague Nils's backstory is in comparison to Esben's and Felice's. If this is going to be your viewpoint character, you're going to want to work on the connections between his backstory and his personality. Where we've been always affects how we make decisions going forward in our lives. One specific place I'd like to see you put work in is Nils's craving for validation from others. Where does that come from? Does it go back to his mother's neglect? To his grandparents not being able to keep up with him? To Lily? Additionally, while you mentioned that older generations see curses as a viable method of teaching a lesson to people, I'm not sure Nils really learned much from his time as a frog. It doesn't seem to have had a huge impact on his personality, other than making him averse to violence and conflict. I'd really like to see some more thought on that incorporated into this profile, too. Tell me more about how Nils became, well, Nils.

That'll help you out with my next point, too. I'm not getting a good sense of where Nils's story is going. It almost feels like his story is over after reading this profile, and that makes it hard for me to imagine him as the viewpoint character. I'd like to get a better sense of where Nils is going, developmentally, or of where you'd like to see him go. Right now I'm not sure what the plot of his arc is, but I'm at least curious about it, so you're going in the right direction.

Lastly, let's talk about Lily. She's mentioned briefly a few times in this profile, but I'm not getting nearly enough of a sense of her to justify how important she still is to Nils. We know that she broke Nils's curse (by throwing him against a wall - was that a reflex? Was it deliberate?) and that he thinks she's beautiful; we know that she avoided him while he was living with her family. And...that's it. I'd like to see more about whether Nils tried to woo her and how she responded, and whether he ever has conflicting feelings about her treatment of him. Unrequited love can be interesting, but you've got to find the emotional hooks in it to really get it to tug at peoples' heartstrings - and in this case, I need to see how it's affecting Nils's decisions and impacting his story.

Looking at this profile as-is, right now I'm not sure that Nils is a viewpoint character. He feels like a side character to me. This is another solid profile, but it does need some work compared to the other profiles I've seen from you already, especially if you want to tell your story through Nils's eyes. Because I have seen your work before, though, I'm confident that you'll put in the effort and bring Nils up to scratch. He has a ton of potential - he just needs a little spit and polish to bring it out more fully! As always, if you'd like to revise Nils and send him in for another round, or if you have any more characters from this story you'd like to see critiqued, I'd be delighted. For now, good luck, and I hope this helps!

-Kyo

#SOC Critique #OC Critique #submission

[ugdigital]

INTERVIEW: Renn Tyler: Beautiful Chaos

As we work diligently at reintroducing ourselves into the media world, I spend a lot of time critiquing artists, and determining who I would like to feature within our pages. It’s not always an easy decision. Obviously, the industry is flooded with artists, and we have to be sure any artist being considered fits the concept of our pages, and just that it makes sense. In my recent search, I came across Renn Tyler, and I’m beyond impressed. Renn certainly has what it takes to make it in this industry, and it becomes ever-so-clear at the first listen of her music. By look, she’s not what you would necessarily expect, which h is more reason why you should never judge a book by the cover. Sure, we hear that all the time, but there’s much truth to the idea. You would miss out on an amazing artist here if you took the initial look and ran with it in terms of her capability. No question, she’s beautiful by all standards, yet, she doesn’t have the “typical” hip-hop look. She’s authentic in every sense of the word, and you would be doing yourself a disservice by not giving her a listen. So we had the opportunity to catch up with her, and it’s awesome that we were able to get an interview completed. She’s perfect for our rebranding and relaunch, and I’m excited to have connected with her. We’re also her first interview, which is amazing in itself. Check out the feature below, and be sure to give her a listen. We have an artist page for her here at U.G. Digital as well, so you can definitely hit that page up and listen freely to her music. 

U.G. Digital: First and foremost, I want to thank you. It’s huge, first of all, to connect with you. I think you really have something big, especially with the single “Nada”. I liked it immediately. I don’t say that about many today, and I’m in this place where I’m not necessarily the biggest fan anymore. Honestly, I’m stuck in the 90s and early 00s. I drive uber as a side hustle, and many of my passengers marvel at the music I play because it’s often more than 20 years old. It’s a little refreshing that you’ve come along, and have something that I’m eager to play. You sound authentic, and I believe it’s a good look. We’re in a bit of a reinvention stage, even though we’re seven years in, and you’re that perfect look for us. I appreciate that so much.

Renn Tyler: Yes, thank you as well. 

U.G. Digital: So the first thing I want you to do is tell everyone who you are?

Renn Tyler: I am Renn Tyler. I’m a rapper and an artist in so many different areas. I like to dabble in all sorts of things, so whatever I’m into at the moment, I just get it done. I’ve always been unapologetically myself. That’s kinda like my mission. We’re all so unique and powerful on our own. People spend so much time trying to define themselves, and I want to encourage people to do that. 

U. G. Digital: I like what you said. You said you were “unapologetically yourself”. What fans want is somebody that puts out the music they love of course, but more importantly someone they can relate to, whose life resembles theirs, and so on. They have the same ideals, or same principles. In the last few months, I’ve been in this place where it’s like “F” everybody, I’m unapologetically me, and whoever doesn’t like it, whatever. That resonates with people. 

Renn Tyler: Right. 

U.G. Digital: You were a poet before. What took you to rap?

Renn Tyler: I’ve always been a fan. It’s always been there, but I never believed in myself as far as being that artist. I just remember going to a spoken word event, and being completely awe-struck over the spoken word and the ability to communicate through story-telling and put it to a beat. What pushed me over to rap was meeting James and Darren. It was like a snowball effect. 

U.G. Digital: I think I’ve been a huge fan  rap, R&B, soul, rock, alternative, and just a lot of different music for my entire lite. Rap was where it started for me though. I’ve also been into the diversity of hip-hop and the fact that everyone who raps is not black. There’s always this idea of somebody being a culture vulture when visibly they’re not really a part of the culture or when they’re not black, but I really look more at how organic it is though. I would imagine, though, that people judge you just by the look, without even hearing you. What has been the feedback that you get as you go out and you’re introduced to people as a rapper? Do you get the side eyes?

Renn Tyler: Yea, I think it’s still foreign for me to call myself a rapper, and I’m hesitant for that reason. In the end, that is what I’m doing though. I haven’t gotten any crazy looks though. Nothing has been too disheartening. Mostly its people who have heard me or know me already. I’m kinda like a wild card, so no one is surprised that I’m doing it. 

U.G. Digital: As crazy as society can be, I think things are changing slowly. Everyone has their own experience, and many people grow up with rap now. 

Renn Tyler: Right. 

U.G. Digital: Talk about the material you’ve been putting together?

Renn Tyler: We have a couple other songs already recorded. I write everyday. I’m always writing, so there is so much material out there that’s all influenced by my life. I don’t think there’s anything written that is not an honest experience. 

U.G. Digital: I have such an appreciation for the artist that talks about a day job (laughing)

Renn Tyler: Yea, we gotta pay bills too [laughing]

U.G. Digital: Right, but it’s just cool to know that we’re all on the same page. I have many jobs, so I know the whole thing with it (laughing). 

Renn Tyler: Yea, for sure. 

U.G. Digital: I think it’s cool though. I love what you have put out. What do you feel you want to represent as an artist?

Renn Tyler: Like I said, just being unapologetically yourself, but I also want to encourage young women. It’s so hard to be a young girl in this society. I want girls to look at me and say that’s what I had when I was younger. I want to give back in that way. So being who I am, self expression, and communicating through storytelling. Being able to take that to the next level and make music is great. I’m communicating my experience which is therapeutic for me, but they take it in however they do and it becomes therapeutic for them. I love that exchange and it’s the power and importance of life. You’re not alone and other people have gone through what you’re going through. 

U.G. Digital: I love the poetic side of it. When you think of your Jill Scotts, and many others, this is something that’s definitely being done. What are your thoughts on hip hop and its current state when it comes to women? How can you help?

Renn Tyler: I think it’s going in a good direction and I’m excited. Everyone has their own brand and it feels natural. All these dope women are making the music they want, and they can be sexy when they want. I think it’s moving in a cool direction. 

U.G. Digital: That’s dope. I ask that because there’s so many women who are phenomenal, and they struggle so bad to work together. They’ve lost a lot of respect in the industry, and it seems like it’s moving backwards. 

Renn Tyler: I think we’re coming to that place of being organic and genuine. We used to want the larger than life artists, like Brittany Spears, but now we want to know the artist is just like us. Why do you ask? Do you think it’s going backwards?

U.G. Digital: What I think is the respect is gone. You have so many dope women, and they’re constantly at each others’ necks, for wthings that seem ridiculous. It’s changed a lot of the new dynamic that was forming for them in past years. I think you have the Queen Latifahs, and the Monie Loves, and so many other females in rap who have worked so hard to not only make it more inclusive of women, but to build the respect level for women, and you have women today who are so brash, rough, and unapologetic about it, and it’ ruining the work that was done.  I look at the stuff with Nicki and Cardi, and to me, there was no point in it. They have their own styles, and are both dope, but they’re killing the game with their nonsense and it overshadows the music, which truthfully is what fans really want. It makes people pay less attention to the woman herself, and look more at the unnecessary stuff. Like Missy Elliott has this new EP out which is super dope, and I feel like it’s totally being slept on. 

Renn Tyler: That’s so true. That speaks to the nature, like people want information so bad. They don’t respect it as much. I agree as far as the beefing too. Women are so powerful, and when they get together that power is insane. 

U.G. Digital: So what are your plans as far as releasing more material?

Renn Tyler: Yea, we have a remix that is being worked on right now, and I’m excited for that. Then I’ll take care of the music video. 

U.G. Digital: I’m excited for you. I dig that we are your first interview too. I also appreciate how prepared you are today. You sound like a complete natural at interviewing. I think its definitely your time. How can people keep up with you online?

Renn Tyler: On instagram, I’m at @bulletproofteeth. That’s normally what I’m on. I also do fashion design, and hand embroidery. 

U.G. Digital: I think it’s super dope. Thank you so much. Any final comments?

Renn Tyler: My single is out everywhere, buy it on iTunes and all online retailers, including Tidal, Spotify, and so forth. Make some Tik Tok videos to it. I would really appreciate that (laughing). 

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