#and as someone who wrote and illustrated a kid's book and is struggling massively to get it published...

[sherlock-is-ace]

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[wrex-writes]

Where ideas come from, revisited

I’ve mentioned this before, but in the first episode of her podcast Out on the Wire, comic artist Jessica Abel describes how she developed her idea for her comic Trish Trash: Rollergirl of Mars. I loved this description and thought I’d share it with you:

There’s an activity in [her book on making comics that she wrote with her husband Matt] we’d done many times in our classes, where you randomly choose a physical characteristic, a job, and an emotional characteristic, and you put them together, and you build a character out of it.

It’s really funny, and fun, and it demonstrates definitively the power of juxtaposition—just put those non-aligned things together and your mind starts working. I can’t tell you how many students have gotten bizarre combos like “melancholy jockey who wears colored contacts”… and then gone on to actually love those characters and use them in stories.

Anyway, I had Matt give me those keywords for two characters, so I could draw some illustrations for the book.

Here are the prompts Matt gave me:

cheerful

spiked collar

X-games

worrywort

wears a skirt

tour guide

…And I came up with a roller girl and a 7-legged Martian.

The second part of the assignment is to put the characters together into a scenario, and build a story structure. So I gamely put Trish Trash, my rollergirl, on Mars, and invented a wacky caper plot involving a stolen suitcase, and then drew another illustration to suggest that storyline.  

…it was just an example for our textbook. I wasn’t trying to come up with anything deep.

But days later, I still felt myself drawn to the idea. On Christmas day, 2006, I jotted down a few notes:

Roller Derby is the biggest Earth sport.

Mars is the farm league – it’s not competitive.

Bad roads, too many rocks. Dust, wind.

Martians use wheels, very uncool.

All right, a farm machine breaks down and she gets this holo-image asking for help? Has to find an old martian. yeah, ok.

She gathers a girl gang in high school, and has all these sidekicks like old Wonder Woman from the 40s?

…that’s just goofy. clearly riffing on Star Wars and the silly illustration I’d done for the book.

immigration problems

all brown kids. backwater, political strife, maybe?

blonde Earth teams.

…which is where I start to feel the pull of my usual, more serious concerns in fiction: class struggle, institutionalized racism, complicated personal relationships.

About 20 minutes into making my first page of notes on this idea. And I was off.

Six months later, I had read up on leaf-harvester ants, bee colonies, various theories about terraforming Mars, and I was halfway through Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars trilogy. I went to a bunch of derby bouts and talked to players.

And as bits stuck to it, my idea grew from a silly Nancy-Drew-on-Mars romp, to a massive,  world-spanning story, touching on climate change, class conflict, and coming of age.

I built a world in my mind, and eventually, with the help of my assistant Lydia Roberts, I drew it. It’s now almost 9 years later, and I’m finally close to finishing the book.

Making this book has been an epic struggle. But it all stems from 3 prompts:

cheerful, spiked collar, X-games.

And Trish isn’t even really all that cheerful anymore.

I paid attention to my attention, and I dove in, way way in. Eight years and two planets in.

And let me say again: this is MY taste. Someone else would see roller derby and mars and be like, whatever! And keep walking.

I mean, that person would clearly be nuts, but hey, different strokes.

Learn to pay attention to what you pay attention to.

What she means by that last line is, notice when things you encounter in the world grab you. We don’t always do that. Think about the stuff you like and care about, and follow them like a trail of breadcrumbs.

Here’s the full transcript of the episode.

[utopianparadoxist]

Part #1: Flight of the Movie & Anime References

This section is pretty much setup for the next three essays. There’s a couple sections here that I have a fair bit to say about, but probably just as many where I’ll close out with some minor observations, or reference to someone else’s Good Post(tm).

What I think is important is noting the consistency and similarity with which Homestuck engages in meaningful reference. I just want you to have this list in mind as I flesh out the three truly impactful references I want to talk about in this series. 

So here’s a short list of cases where Homestuck outright leans on other stories to structure itself, with accompanying references:

1) The Game Over Arc - Plot Structure & Dragon Ball Z

We’re starting with Dragon Ball Z because the references here are relatively simple and straightforward, and they largely set up either pretty clear structural parallels, rather than thematic ones. 

The clearest of these examples is the section of the story that begins with the joke Arquius makes above. In case you don’t know, the “over 9000″ meme has its roots in this iconic, hilarious sequence from DBZ:

What’s notable is what follows. From the moment this joke happens, the very structure of Homestuck changes to following the loose structure of some of the most memorable DBZ arcs.

I’m no buff on the series, but the memories it calls up for me most strongly resemble the Namek/Freeza or Buu arcs, and expert DBZ consultant @alotofmomos (who hates me for writing this) confirms these are the arcs that most perform the particular structure Homestuck will now be mimicking. 

And what does that structure consist of? A particular mix of “pacing” choices, cinematography, and sheer scale of spectacle that I find hard to source to anything but DBZ. I can’t even think of other Shonen series that mix all these elements in quite the same way, though again, I’m no expert.

Some of these elements are:

A) Drawn out, massive power-up sequences:

B) Conflicts that carry out on planetary scales, and indeed often destroy the planets hosting them. 

This pretty much speaks for itself, doesn’t it? Do I really have to say some stuff to make it look like I’m doing anything other than pointing out some obvious goddamn parallels that blew my mind because they took me years to notice?

Alright, fine. I’ll say this much: I think it’s quite fitting that Homestuck would borrow from the DBZ playbook for the section of the story that illustrates the sheer mind-boggling scale of power our protagonists have reached. 

There’s very few stories out there that demonstrate this sense of mortals achieving such bonkers dominion over reality through sheer force of will, and the homage certainly hammers home the idea that these kids are Gods with levels of power we’ve barely scratched the surface of. 

But I don’t think there’s a big Narrative Payoff to this particular reference. Instead, I think what Homestuck takes from this is functional in terms of narrative. Because the most interesting things this narrative model adopts are structural.

C) Convenient plot-structure.

Namely, what we end up with is a bunch of characters grouped into disparate conflicts across the same larger “playing field”, separated by considerable amounts of distance--and thus, isolating them into distinct narratives.

As a natural consequence of this, the pacing slows down to an excruciatingly slowness, as we cut from conflict to conflict, each one progressing in small snippets of minutes or even seconds at a time. All of this is par for the course for Dragon Ball Z, particularly in the Namek saga. 

So what this provides us with isn’t a profound, revelatory moment of thematic meaning--but instead, an effective backdrop on which to flesh out that meaning elsewhere. In fact, this very arc does that like twice with two other stories!

So let's move on from this and take a look at a couple of character arcs whose resolutions are telegraphed by way of reference.

2) Terezi as Dorothy 

I don’t have too much to add to this, but it’s useful because in the eyes of much of the fandom, it’s already accepted. Check out madchen’s excellent post on the subject here.

The bottom line is: Terezi janks Jade’s shoes, and adopts the role of Dorothy in Homestuck’s symbol logic. This leads her home--to Vriska and their memories of growing up together, and ultimately to embracing her red feelings for her. 

Terezi’s resolution is one of two relationships resolved in the wake of [S] Game Over. Let’s take a look at the other. 

3) Jake as Buttercup

Don’t have much to say about this one either, cause I already wrote most of it. I will say I don’t think it’s an accident that the arcs to coincide here are Dirkjake’s and Vrisrezi’s, since the two relationships are in many ways direct parallels. But that’s another essay for another time. 

I have received some rightful criticism on my writing on Jake in particular, and this is a good place to clarify my position, however. I do not think it’s particularly “Good” or “Healthy” for Jake to indulge his own desires at the expense of Dirk’s (or Jane’s) feelings. 

My point has never been that Jake’s selfish behavior is inherently good--merely that Jake’s reasons for being in love with Dirk are his own, and not imposed to him from Dirk himself, or anyone around him. 

As with all things in Homestuck, the key is for Jake to grapple with the negatives in himself and come to balance with the tension between his own wants and his relationships with others. This is true of literally everyone in Homestuck.

And there’s an easier way of saying what I am getting at. Because Homestuck literally gives us a guidebook to understanding Jake and Dirk’s relationships to each other, as parsed in Jake’s head--a guidebook that provides context to their entire relationship. 

Just as you can read Terezi as Dorothy, so too can you read Jake as Buttercup. This is the crucial distinction I seek to make. In common readings of Dirk and Jake’s relationship, Jake acquiesces to Dirk’s pushy forcing of the relationship despite Dirk’s control issues. 

In this one, Dirk is a flawed but committed provider and protector, and Jake picks up on and begins internalize a belief that Dirk will always be there for him, prompting him to fall for him. This reflects the fundamental core of their attraction to each other. It does not present a solution to their communication issues. They both have to work through that and be more aware of each other’s needs. 

Now, The Princess Bride is a comedy action-adventure movie, but it’s also a philosophical fairy tale. Buttercup and Westley aren’t just in love, they’re in True Love, and the driving force of the movie is how Westley’s love empowers him to do anything it takes for his beloved. 

What’s more interesting is Buttercup’s relationship to that same love, and how it reflects on Jake. Buttercup has to struggle to learn how to believe in True Love, even when it seems difficult or even impossible. Along the way, Buttercup is even forced into an arranged marriage, and seemingly forsakes her feelings for Westley to avoid the consequences of being honest, a choice she then tortures herself over. 

A big part of her journey is learning to truly commit to not just Westley’s love for her, but her belief in that love as something both true and powerful. Something that can transcend all odds and obstacles. 

Which is. You know. Exactly what Jake does when he’s fully immersed in the power of his own faith. 

Now let’s move on, and note two more movie references that the comic makes outside of the context of this DBZ-mini arc.

4) Tavros as Peter Pan 

There’s not a terrible amount of depth to be drawn here, either. I think most people accept that Tavros is deliberately invoking Peter Pan in his narrative victory here, with the ghosts as his Lost Boys.  I will add, however, that if Peter Pan is the role Tavros is emulating in reaching his full potential, well...

Peter Pan isn’t exactly known for being Selfless, is he? He’s a hero, for sure, but self-centeredness is pretty much his calling card as a hero. To the point that Wikipedia claims that  

“In the play and book, Peter symbolizes the selfishness of childhood, and is portrayed as being forgetful and self-centered.” 

More fuel for the fire as far as my writing on Tavros as inherently self-centered in his building of the Ghost Army goes. Anyway, the fundamental reference is secured, right? I’m not really looking to make a Classpect argument here, I’m just compiling interesting notes. Let’s move on. 

5) Caliborn as Jigsaw

This one isn’t exactly subtle, either. I’ve already written quite a bit about how Lord English defines and dominates everything in the story of Homestuck, as have others.

Understanding Caliborn as a Yaldabaoth is one way to contextualize his power over the reality all the characters preside over, and we’ll definitely touch on that further in the next three sections I’ll be covering.

But one easy way to contextualize Lord English’s power is as...well...Jigsaw.

Like Jigsaw, Lord English builds a massive, highly controlled gauntlet that he exploits and terrorizes his victims through. The only difference is that Lord English’s dungeon is bigger than some creepy gray cellar. 

It is in fact, Literally Everything that occurs within the context of the Alpha Timeline. Every homeworld that every character originates from--except for, arguably, Beforus, which is still under his sway enough to be doomed, but also presented as borderline Eden-like by comparison to Alternia. 

While Yaldabaoth’s control seems very distant and abstract, Jigsaw’s is crystal clear and vicious. Everything the characters of SAW suffer is, ultimately, in the hands of the orchestrator of their misery. Their puppetmaster, so to speak. 

In the same sense, pretty much every single way the characters in Homestuck suffer has Lord English at the root of it--even the thing they do to themselves and each other as a result of cultural memes. 

Troll Violence, heteronormativity, quadrant normativity, and hypermasculinity--all are memetic structures that exist because Lord English himself disseminated them, in the context of Homestuck. They’re thought-traps rather than literal physical torture devices, but they’re torture tools all the same. 

And you can even see Jigsaw as a symbol for Lord English’s influence, since it is, after all, one of the primary differences setting apart Bro and Dirk. Dirk has no interest in the SAW franchise at all, whereas Bro makes a point of mocking Dave with it.  (thanks to @jadedresearcher for pointing this out, by the way!)

So yeah. Not only does SAW tell us a lot about the nature of Caliborn’s effect on our characters through the Alpha Timeline, it also acts as a mark for his influence. That’s...pretty much all there is to say on the matter.

For now.

That wraps up this little introductory round-up. Now I can get to talking about three of the biggest influences on Homestuck as a story: The Neverending Story (the book), Earthbound & Mother 3, and Gnostic Myth. Hope you’ll follow along with us over the next couple of weeks to find out more.

[Master Post]

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Catch you on the flip side.

Keep rising. 

[learnstuffwithme]

Thursday Lesson: Carmilla Prologue & Chapter One

LeFanu, Joseph Sheridan. Carmilla (Illustrated). Edited by Etienne DeForest and Jimmie Ford, Bizzaro Press, 2012.

QotD:

“Lay your hand along that hollow in the bed; someone did lie there, so sure as you did not; the place is still warm.”

Characters:

Dr. Hesselius - writer of a note and essay about Laura’s accounts; also possibly a keyboardist for a metal band

Laura - protagonist; laughably naive rich girl

Laura’s dad - English-born landowner of schloss in Styria following service in Austrian military; has no name

a whole pack of nursemaids

a doctor

a... priest? maybe?

Summary:

Wow, so Bizarro Press is really bad at formatting for Kindle. Anyway...

- Prologue -

So this book is basically Laura’s personal account of Those Weird Few Months in Styria, but it’s framed by narration from ... someone? Le Fanu, maybe? Maybe this makes more sense in the context of In a Glass Darkly, but the prologue appears to be an unnamed person explaining a manuscript package which is already explained by a note and essay from Dr. Hesselius. We also learn that Laura has died since the manuscript was created, which we find out later that she wrote eight years after the events occurred. (The events occurred at age 19.)

- Chapter One -

Here we learn that the protagonist and primary narrator is Laura, who lives in a schloss (castle) with only her dad, her childhood governess and mother-figure (Madame Perrodon), and her “finishing governess” (Mademoiselle De Lafontaine). This huge castle is absolutely desolate of other people... except for servants “or those dependents who occupy rooms in the buildings attached” who apparently do not count as people. She’s definitely extremely lonely and not at all constantly surrounded by people who could lose their livelihoods if they didn’t give her attention on demand.

She assures the reader that despite living in a castle on her father’s pension of “eight or nine hundred [pounds? probably?] a year”, which is a fucking lot back then, that they’re not really rich people, they just chose to live in a poor country. She also assures the reader that even for being a poor country where everything is cheap, the schloss was still a real bargain. I’m sure that’s not a warning sign at all. So yeah, we’re dealing with a massively spoiled and naive rich kid.

It’s so mind bending to read this in the modern era with Laura going on about how the nearest other inhabited schloss is 20 miles away, so she’s super lonely. Like, that is a 10 minute drive at most. If the radio play of Carmilla that I’ve previously listened to is at all loyal, the same General Spielsdorf that lives in that schloss takes forever to correspond with Laura’s dad about anything because of the distance, and it’s like. These two castles would be 5-10 minutes apart from each other with any working modern automobile and a direct road. It’s just... so weird to wrap your brain around. I think maybe this is turning a bit more into a review than a lesson, but I think it’s really important for understanding the context of the novel how totally different Laura’s experience is from almost anyone who would be reading the story today.

There is an inhabited village seven miles “to the left” when looking out from the front door (Laura, you are terrible at directions), but also an abandoned village only three miles westward. (Why is it abandoned? She’ll tell us later.) Again, I’m sure this portends absolutely nothing. Within the abandoned village is a half-ruined little chapel, which is a blatant Chekhov’s Gun if you already know you’re reading a lesbian vampire novel, but like, it actually does work really well as eerie scene setting. I think the weirdness of her rich brat circumstances and the casualness with which she describes everything and the way she constantly reassures the reader that these things are normal and no big deal really undermines how totally creepy this story is. Possibly on purpose?

Finally, we move on to actual memory. The story she relates is that of the first memory in her life that made such an impression on her as to be clearly memorable years later. This memory is that of the incident in which, at the age of six, she was woken up in the middle of the night by an unknown grown-ass women entering her nursery and staring at her from the side of the bed. Laura seems to be of the impression that because it is a young and beautiful grown-ass woman, that this isn’t creepy behavior. Granted, she’s six and apparently has several nursemaids (all of whom have retired for the night), so from her point of view, it’s totally natural for adults to come and go as they please from her room and check up on her. In fact, prior to noticing the woman, Laura had actually started whimpering for attention simply because she had thought there wasn’t anyone in her room at night.

When little Laura fails to scream in terror, the strange woman “caresses” Laura, climbs into bed with her, and draws her close like a teddy bear. The woman continues caressing Laura until Laura is overtaken by calm and falls asleep. She is then woken again when the vampire bites her on the chest (probably above the heart?), and Laura cries out in startled pain. This apparently startles the vampire woman who stares at Laura for a moment, then creeps down to the floor and hides under the bed.

Yeah, Laura, this is totally incidental and hardly worth mentioning. Jfc.

Having caused a stir, Laura’s nurse, nursery maid, and housekeeper all run in to see what is the matter. (Keep in mind, none of these are her governesses, one of which hasn’t even been hired yet. But yet she lives such a solitary life.) They look under the bed and conclude it was only a nightmare until the housekeeper shows the nurse that there is, in fact, a warm hollow in Laura’s bed where an adult had slept next to her. The housekeeper and two servants decide to keep watch in Laura’s room for the rest of the night, and from then on there was always someone keeping watch in her room up until she was fourteen.

The next day, Laura remains terrified and doesn’t want to be left alone, so a doctor is called in to give her calming medicine. Her father interviews the staff and laughs the whole thing off, considering the story impossible. In the end, they decide to gaslight her and tell her that the nursery maid had laid down with her and that the whole biting thing was only a dream. All the same, the nurses later call in “a venerable old man, in a black cassock” with white hair and a “sweet face” to pray over the room and lead Laura and the nursemaids in prayer.

Themes and Concepts:

Feminine Horror - So in college, I learned that there’s apparently this stupid-ass but still useful for analysis purposes dichotomy of “feminine” vs. “masculine” horror. It’s not necessarily an indication of protagonist gender (Though was named such because early horror did tend to follow along those lines.) nor of the intended audience. What it describes is circumstances of the story. In feminine horror, the protagonist finds themselves accosted, their space invaded, or with a need to escape their circumstances, immediately prior to which they had been leading a normal life. In masculine horror, the protagonist is actually the invader, going somewhere they shouldn’t have or otherwise becoming the victim of their own curiosity. 

Carmilla is definitely a classic example of feminine horror, highlighted from the very first chapter. Laura is doing nothing to instigate these circumstances other than living where she’s accessible to vampires. Meanwhile, the monster masquerades as someone trustworthy while invading her space and seducing her before finally attacking her; a plot which will be repeated through the rest of the story in longer form.

The Seductive Monster - The really impactful thing about this story is that when you’re sucked into Laura’s PoV, the vampire is very seductive and empathetic. LeFanu actually does a wonderful job of showing the vampire’s emotional state. It’s not until we step back and realize that a grown-ass woman climbed into bed with a child, conducted intimate gestures, and then bit her that we realize “Oh, wait, this is super fucked up.” And the thing is, this introductory chapter makes the situation all the more horrific because this Laura is six, not nineteen. And yet the way the story is told, the reader is constantly lead away from realizing that something horrifying - as opposed to simply weird - is actually going on. This also makes the introductory chapter (as opposed to the weird prologue) absolutely vital to the story. As Laura struggles to understand Carmilla’s sexual and romantic attention at age 19, the first chapter serves to remind us that this has always been a predator-prey relationship.

Foreshadowing - As mentioned, the whole plot of this one chapter -- innocence and perceived safety, seduction, invasion, attack, and finally action -- really just demonstrates in short what we can expect from the longer plot of the following chapters.