#sometimes it seems like people are 'against' the flags for the principle of inclusion when... that's the least bit of what's 'wrong'

[shalom-iamcominghome]

hi, I've never heard of the progress pride flag, could you show what it is/tell a bit about it? thank🤍

Quick note that I'll be speaking a bit about the queer scene in the U.S., so this may not be applicable internationally

The progress pride flag, before I delve into this a bit further, is this:

This was created around 2018 as a reinterpretion/reimagining of the Philadelphia pride flag:

Essentially, these flags were both created with inclusion in mind. The black and brown stripes were made specifically to call to mind inclusion of queer PoC (though there are interpretations of the black stripe also representing the people we lost in the AIDs crisis). In the U.S., there has been a long-standing history of racism within the queer community - many PoC within the community don't feel safe or welcome within the broader queer community.

As time went on, there was also inspiration to explicitly call attention to the inclusion of trans people, as well, largely for the same reasons. With that in mind, Daniel Quasar created the progress pride flag. What's cool about it is the chevron/triangle represents progress moving forward.

And in 2021, the most recent progress iteration was made:

The first thing many people notice is how cluttered this flag looks. I'm not someone who uses this flag often, however, I think inclusion is often messy and often is explicit like this. You can have any opinions about these flags as you can - but I'd encourage everyone to remember the flags stemmed from real struggles that marginalized people within the community faced from the people who were supposed to be our own.

Using these pride flags does not inherently mean someone is actively being inclusive to every type of queer person. Using flags alone is not activism. However, I think these can be good calling cards to be aware of as a way to potentially signal, "hey, we're normal about queers who aren't made visible within the community!"

[vampireqrow-moved]

um its my birthday so wait until 12:01am pst to block me if u hate this post 🥰🥰

long story short the pansexual label is redudant and actively harmful (its far from the worst problem bisexuals face but it is one issue) and i dont hate anyone who identifies as pan because A) those ppl are bi like me and B) i used to identify as pan myself.

if thats enough for you to block me and make a callout post for me then i cant stop you but pretty please either read this whole thing or just wait a few minutes for my bday to end 🥰🥰

anyways im kicking off this point with some personal experiences bc i love to talk to myself. i got introduced to the pan label at maybe 10ish years old, and started identifying with it pretty much right away. i heard about it before bisexual and it was pitched as attraction to all genders and of course trans people. i was of course a trans ally! i had trans friends! i was trans also but hadnt figured it out yet! the way i had heard of it, there was no bisexual, there was no need for bisexual, and identifying differently was excluding trans people, which I was certainly against. being bisexual was trans exclusionary and why would i exclude trans people? the 'hearts not parts' slogan was thriving around this time and i genuinely said it and meant it.

as i started to become more online, mostly through roleplaying websites and tumblr here, i started hearing of bisexuality. it was supposedly an older term, so older people still used it, but it was common knowledge that pansexual was the better, inclusive label and younger people should adopt the new inclusive language instead of the old and transphobic words like bisexual. /s

and then bi and pan solidarity was all the rage! pansexual wasnt erasing bisexuality, why did anyone ever think that? bi and pan were two separate and complete identities that were valid and had to be respected or youre a mean exclusionist. and an asexual person, hearing people labelled exclusionist always meant they were excluding people from the lgbta community who rightfully belonged, denying peoples lived experiences, and generally telling people theyre wrong about their sexuality because theyre too young. and all of those things were bad and had hurt me, so it would be ridiculous to change labels and support "pan exclusionists" because they were just as bad as ace and aro exclusionists, and they were all the same people. or so it seemed to me at that time.

then, 'hearts not parts' began getting called out for blatant transphobic by insinuating that pansexual was the only identity that loved people for their "hearts" and personalities instead of those gross gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and even straights who only saw people for their "parts". (STRAIGHT PEOPLE ARE NOT OPPRESSED. I AM MERELY POINTING OUT THAT PANSEXUALITY WAS SHOWN AS ABOVE ALL OTHERS.) many pan people, including myself, began to denounce the slogan and insist pansexuality wasnt transphobic, there had just been a coincidence that a transphobic slogan was everywhere and a huge part of people's explantions of and associations with pansexuality. hint: it wasnt a coincidence.

from my perspective, this is when i began to see people discussing dropping the word pansexual. that seemed to be a huge step from getting rid off a transphobic slogan, and these people were just meanies who hated microlabels. and i like microlabels! as a genderfluid person, and someone who has friends who use specific aro and acespec labels, ive seen how people can use them to name specific experiences while still acknowleging their presence underneath umbrella terms like aromantic, asexual, nonbinary, lgbta, and for some people, queer.

pansexuals dont do that. they dont label pansexuality as a specific set of experiences under the bisexual umbrella, they see themselves as a separate identity, and even if they started to, the history of biphobia and transphobic undeniably linked to the existence of pansexuality in enough to stop being worth using. but i digress. pansexualitys shiny new definition that many people cling to is that pansexual is attraction to all genders. bisexual is two or more genders.

which. frankly? doesnt make any sense. my guess is that its supposed to be inclusive of nonbinary genders and those a part of cultures who historically have not had a binary gender system in the first place. i cannot speak for the latter group, but as a nonbinary person, its not inclusive. anyone can be attracted to nonbinary people. literally anyone. theres no way to know if everyone you meet is nonbinary or not. whether or not a nonbinary person reciprocates those feelings and is interested in pursuing a relationship is completely up to the individual, regardless of the sexualities of the people involved.

bottom line is that you cant number the amounts of genders someone can be attracted to, thus rendering those definitions pointless. people can be attracted to all kinds of people regardless of gender, even if they are gay, a lesbian, or straight. all people can date thousands of nonbinary genders if all people involved are interested and comfortable with it. numbering the genders you can be attracted to diminishes the post of nonbinary, as it is not a third gender, it simply any experience not fitting within the western concept of the gender binary (if the person so chooses to identify as such. if you cant tell already, the nonbinary experience is varied between every single nonbinary person.) important to note also that no widely accepted bisexual text defines bisexual as attracted to exclusively two genders or even the "two or more genders". i know this is used a lot but please read the bisexual manifesto. its free online i promise.

some people also claim pansexuals experience "genderblind" attraction while bisexuals feel differently attracted to different genders. this is very nitpicky for whats supposed to be two unconnected idenities, but thats only part of the problem. this definition is also not in any widely accepted bisexual texts, and bisexuality has never excluded those who experience genderblind attraction. i am in fact a bi person who experiences genderblind attraction. this does not mean i am not bisexual. it simply means i experience bisexuality differently than other bisexuals, and thats wonderful! no broad communities like bisexuality are expected to all share the same experience. we are all so different and its amazing were able to come together under the bisexual flag.

last definition, or justification i should say, is that yes these definitions are redundant and theyre the same sexuality, but people prefer different labels and thats okay. i agree in principle. people can define themselves as many things like homosexuals or gays or lesbians or queers or even other reclaimed slurs, while still not labelling themselves under the most "common" or "accurate" labels.

but pansexuality isnt the same as bisexuality, which may sound silly but hear me out. it has been continually used as a way to further divide bisexuals, who are already subject to large amounts of lgbta discrimination. "pansexuality was started by trans people who were upset with transphobia within the bisexual community! it cant be transphobic OR biphobic!" except of course that it can and it is. to say that trans people cant be transphobic is absurd. transmedicalism is right there, but thats not what im getting at. all minorities can have internal and sometimes external biases against people who are the same minority as them.

pansexuality was started as a way to be trans inclusive at the expense of labelling bisexuality as transphobic when its not. transphobia is everywhere, and bisexuals are not exempt. instead of working on the transphobia within the community, the creators of pansexuality decided to remove themselves from it to create a better and less tainted word and community, and the fact that pansexuality is intended to replace bisexuality or leave it for the transphobes goes to show a few things. pansexuality and bisexuality are inherently linked because the pan label is in response to the bi label. due to its origins, it is inherently competing with bisexuality and it cant be "reclaimed" from its biphobic roots. pansexuality is not a whole, separate, and valid label. its a biphobic response to issues within the bisexual community.

to top off this post, heres something a full grown adult once said to me. in person. she was my roommate. "i feel like im pan because im attracted to trans people. trans women, trans men, i could definitely date them. but not nonbinary people because thats gross and weird." she saw pan as trans inclusive and defined herself that way as opposed to bi which is shitty!

also a little extra tidbit about my experiences identifying as pan. i saw myself as better than every bi person. all of them. even my trans and bi friends. whenever they brought up being bisexual i would think to myself "why dont you identify as pansexual? its better and shows people you support trans people." because i was made to believe bisexuality didnt and was therefore inferior. thats the mindset that emerged from my time in the pansexual community. i am so sorry to all of my bisexual friends even if they never noticed. i love you all and hope you have a great day. this also goes to any bisexuals or people who identify as bi in anyway, such as biromantic or simply bi. love you all.

ummm yeah heres some extra reading i found helpful and relevant. here and here. also noooo dont disagree with me and unfollow me im so sexy 🥴🥴🥴

[lovelylogans]

Do you have any tips on how to write a female character that's majoring in journalism?

oh boy!!!!!! generally, character-wise, people will of course approach things in different ways, so i’m gonna like mention you know said character and the decisions that she’d make better than anyone else, but i’m gonna write about 1. some “character archetypes,” as it were, that comprise a lot of female members of my journalism school, 2. some general advice on personality traits that would likely be useful/realistic for a female journalism character, and 3. what not to aspire to when it comes to writing women in journalism (ie, this section is just gonna be my biggest gripes about how female journalists tend to be portrayed in media.)

let’s get into it!

section one: “character archetypes,” aka the average personality a lot of female members of my journalism school.

a lot of my really great friends are in the journalism school, and their personality types vary greatly. there are so many awesome women in journalism and this isn’t exactly, like, “BE EXACTLY LIKE THIS OR SHE ISN’T A REALISTIC JOURNALIST,” these are just some character traits/personality things that i’ve noticed when it comes to a lot of aspiring female journalists.

curious. always write them as curious. that’s the backbone of being a journalist is being curious and going after the story. they want to know more about the world, they want to know more about their communities, and they want to provide the perspectives for you, or the reader, or the community, so that you can be better informed/make decisions/be aware. journalists, above all, have that curiosity down; journalism majors can rarely stand not knowing things.

(this also means that female journalists, and journalists in general, really, are very tuned into gossip. not even necessarily “he said she said” gossip, though that can be interesting sometimes too, but things like who got what good grades, which professor said this, what internship accepted who? journalists are basically trained to be investigative and dig deep for things; when it comes to, say, two editors being snappy at each other at a meeting, well, you want to know why, in case whatever is affecting them will affect you. again, not necessarily gossipy in a malicious way that can be portrayed sometimes! gossipy in the sense that they’re usually very in tune with their social circle and immediate community, as well as community at large.)

they are also researchers!!! many journalists are prone to the whole “wikipedia rabbit hole” research thing. they dive deep on a lot of subjects, both broad and narrow, and they like discussing these topics with each other, which again, can vary greatly! the biggest mbmbam/taz Stan i know is a female journalism major, and from there she has a very vested interest in dnd, all because it started with a few funny mbmbam clips (okay, guilty, i was one of the two people who mentioned that it would seem like her thing and now she’s way more into it than i am) and on the flip side of that, there are MANY female journalists who have made careers off their interests—film journalists, video gaming journalists, and social media/pop culture reporters all exist for a reason, and it’s likely because they marketed their interest and therefore “expertise” in these subjects and managed to spin a job out of it!

ambitious. so many kids in the j school strive for really great things, which is super crazy awesome, and they work really hard to achieve it. i know people who have netted amazing internship opportunities while they’re in the j school (we’re talking washington post, new york times, cnn, associated press, like, big organization names) and it’s because they have the ambition to achieve it. they dream big, a lot of the time, and tend to have detailed career goals to go with it.

inclined to ethical/moral discussions. there are a lot of ethical questions when it comes to covering news (there’s actually a wyliwf oneshot in the draft talking about one of my least favorite days of the semester that always comes up in class, which focuses on ethical decisions in times of death, major tragedy, or injury, look up “the breakfast test” if you want to learn more about that particular aspect of being a journalism major) but even when it doesn’t come to major disaster coverage, there are still a lot of little ethical questions to analyze in each area of journalism; journalistic ethics is a whole branch of conversation that i (and a lot of my fellow journalism majors!) fall into discussing. it can be things from the disclosing of anonymous sources to what is and isn’t right to photograph and the inclusion of certain sensitive information or ostracizing it and the importance of fact-checking. i think journalistic ethics is a really interesting topic and it’s usually one of my favorite things to discuss; this wikipedia page just scratches the surface, and here is the spj code of etihcs, widely regarded as a base code of principles for most american journalists to follow, but i encourage you to go out and seek other instances of journalistic ethics, because a lot of the time, what is legal for journalists to do isn’t necessarily right.

organized (even if it doesn’t look like it from the outside) or complete disaster

let’s take my friend, who i’ll call a.c. ac has a color-coded planner, frequently works ahead of schedule, plans out her entire day. she is very tidy, very organized, and seems generally put together. we were roommates in the fall semester and she had a tidy room, a set routine when it came to dinners and organizing her stuff, she’s very On Top Of It

and then there is me. ac once looked at me in horror when i was just starting to write a paper the morning it was due and informed me that the way i approach most deadlines is “her worst nightmare on drugs.” i forget assignments a lot and tend to scramble to do things at the last minute, i am a CHRONIC procrastinator, and yet i still make sure i get things done in time. in essence, i know my limits, and the pressure of a deadline tends to be what kickstarts me into starting those limits.

what i’m saying here is that it’s a vast spectrum, but what tends to drive most journalists is deadlines. journalism people are VERY deadline oriented and their approaches definitely vary, but that tends to be what they stick to most. journalists also tend to have perfectionist tendencies, as a sidenote.

stubborn. holy god. like, just look at the way journalists consistently send foia quests alone, for example, this story about journalists using foia to track hospital bed and ventilator availability in illinous (a dive into sunshine laws, aka releasing public records, which is a whole other thing that people very rarely tend to notice as an aspect of journalism but also lead to really big stories, especially if leaked (pentagon papers, anyone?) and just, yeah. check up on the state’s sunshine laws that you’re writing your story in, i think it could provide a real interesting subplot for you.) journalists. are. STUBBORN. i know people who have sat in offices waiting for public officials to come out for the better part of a work day; i know journalists who have sent hundreds of emails to get one interview; i know journalists who have staged stakeout sessions to see how public officials were using their time when they said they were in the office (hey, including me! i stood in a parking garage for three hours in the middle of winter for this exact purpose once.) what i’m saying here is they are stubborn. if there’s a story, they’re gonna dig. it took woodward and bernstein two years from the time of the watergate breakin to nixon’s resignation. most of the time, that stubbornness pays off.

competitive. yeah, remember that whole ambitious thing i mentioned earlier, coupled with the stubbornness above? journalists are competitive. it’s a competitive job market, so that means that many journalism majors tend to strive for those same big name journalism internships. this is definitely part of my j school culture, so i’m not sure if it’s the same at others, but a lot of people tend to examine what internships or job opportunities or professor favoritism or whatever and see what everyone’s doing, because everyone compares everyone to everyone else. this also tends to feed into other things: getting a story, getting good grades, so on. there’s a definite competitive sense to things, i’m not quite sure how to best explain it, but... yeah. journalists are competitive, sometimes. when it comes to women journalists, it can also be interpreted in other ways (”bitchy” is one) but a lot of journalism majors strive for the best.

supportive. 

section two: some general advice on personality traits that would likely be useful/realistic for a female journalism character

a lot of these were touched on above, but i’d also just like to add: they probably have an interest in some aspect of “social justice,” as it were. feminism, ecological issues, economical issues, racial issues—most of the time, a lot of journalists see these real world issues and it’s what leads them into the career. 

there’s also the whole... ugh... fake news media thing, which i feel like i have to touch on just because: i will say fake news is a meme amongst journalism majors, in that we mutter fake news to each other when our professors are like “this class average is so low y’all need to study more” when it’s their fault for not teaching us i won’t go on that tangent, however, i will also say that this whole idea has contributed to spiking rates of mistreatment and violence against journalists. i’ve been fortunate in that the most tense i’ve ever felt in that situation is taking an uber to a journalism assignment in a white guy’s truck littered with american flags and blaring alex jones on the radio, which i was able to lie and say that i was doing something else and concealing the whole journalism aspect, for my own personal safety, but a lot of other journalism majors i know aren’t so fortunate. i know women who have been yelled at, insulted, and there was a girl who worked around the same time as me who got spit on.

female journalists are usually treated more roughly regardless (when i went out for my first story, my editor sat me down and looked me in the eyes and said “someone might laugh at you because you’re young, and you’re a woman in print journalism, and you know what? fuck ‘em.” which was the first time i’d ever heard her swear and also one of the only times i’d ever heard her swear) so they tend to have to double down and really make sure they know their stuff in case they’re ever quizzed on it in a way that male journalists never really are. this is of course not to say that we’re all mistreated, all the time; it’s just something that female journalists are aware of, the way most women are aware of sexism in general.

section three: realism, and also, hey, maybe don’t do this? just because it’s both unrealistic and like. kinda sexist undertones imo

hoo boy. i’m just gonna take it down the list of some popularized media portrayals of journalists that you might be familiar with and outline why each one is, well..... Not My Favorite?

camille preaker, sharp objects

i do really like gillian flynn’s work, especially gone girl, but camille preaker just rubs me the wrong way? it primarily comes from the ethics involved in her whole situation, and i know they did it for ~drama, but it just... okay, here we go. for starters, you would probably not go out drinking with a source, unless it’s at an event, and you definitely don’t get drunk. you try not to interview people you have personal ties to, because the bias can infiltrate through your work. you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT sleep with your source, especially if he is a member of the police force and a primary source on the murder investigation you’re looking into. just...yeah, those two are the main things?

rita skeeter, harry potter

ugh, the way that rowling painted the daily prophet rubs me the wrong way. like, i understand, and i know that it’s probably more a mention of tabloid culture than like News, but it still just?? it’s the primary news source of the wizarding world?? really?? but yeah, sneaking into places (hospitals especially) to get a story is a massive no-no that would immediately get you arrested.

joan calmezzo, parks and rec

look, i know it’s a comedy, and i know that it’s not realistic, and i know that there is definite semblance for the “alcoholic journalist” thing (an editor i worked for once talked about how her old boss hid a flask in the water fountain in city hall so that he’d be able to get it and drink on the job) and statistically, it does show that journalists turn to sugar/alcohol/caffeine, but i just?? journalists wouldn’t show up to work absolutely blacked out, and if they did they’d definitely get fired.

rory gilmore, gilmore girls

the way rory approaches job hunting makes me cringe down to my very soul. in the original series, from what i’ve seen, she approaches it relatively well (applies everywhere she can, networks, ends up accepting a relatively small job that still provides a massive opportunity to report on a major political figure) but in the revival. who DID that. rory sleeps with a source (WHAT IS IT WITH FEMALE JOURNALISTS ALWAYS SLEEPING WITH SOURCES IN TV SHOWS AND MOVIES?!??!?!!? NO!!!!!!!!!) and falls asleep in the middle of an interview (N O !!!!!) and seems to not understand the concept of freelancing at all (really????? you aren’t working on multiple stories at once??? really????) and also just??? completely disrespects the basic semblance of a job interview??? no matter how impressive your resume is, you still come prepared with ideas and answer questions and no job is OWED to you, especially not with journalism being as competitive as it is, just????

the movie “absence of malice”

i know this one is probably less common, as it’s a movie from the ‘80s, but i still wanna talk about it anyway. sometimes, yes, you write about suspects of murder on the front page of the paper, but federal prosecutor’s don’t usually leak info like That (though rosen is obviously corrupt) and you just?? okay, anyway, carter not revealing her source is good, that’s what a journalist would do, however, teresa perrone disclosing personal information and pleading for her not to include it definitely falls under the realm of an anonymous source. the primary aspect of journalism is “do no harm,” and since disclosing what perrone told her would have harmed her livelihood, carter absolutely either shouldn’t have put it in or made perrone an anonymous source. then we get back to the whole dating sources thing (YOU DON’T DO IT!!!!!!) and then you don’t REVEAL THE SOURCE THAT HURT THIS MAN, OH MY GOD, you still have an obligation to protect your sources!!!! also just generally just!!! this movie does explore a lot of ethical journalistic issues but the sloppy reporting in it just puts me On Edge, ya know?

[emmybluefire]

Accounting for Powerful Characters in RP Events

Story Time

So, towards the last couple hours of my shift at work, a rather concerning thought occurred to me: 

“I roleplay a dragon for a reason. But every time I enter the city, or attend an RP event, I’m not allowed to use it. Period. At this point... I might as well be playing a generic mage. That kinda sucks...”

And to be honest? I got a bit angry about it. To the degree that I even started verbally ranting about it to myself in the form of mutters. I just sat there asking myself: Why? Why is it that whenever I enter a RP event, I can’t play my character to the fullest extent? I’ve worked so hard to balance out them out. To make them fun, make them memorable... and yet, people still have yet to get the full experience. 

Dilemma

Every time I try to cast something like “Spellsteal” or “Counterspell” or even use the most basic of dragon abilities: “Dragon’s breath” I’m told “No. No, you can’t because it’d solve the problems in the event too quick! And it would be very unfair to others!” It’s almost like people just- don’t account for powerful characters. Ever. No, that would make things “Too Complicated” or “Too Easy.”

But that’s when this thought occurred to me: “Powerful characters being ‘too special’ and ‘A sign of bad RP’ and ‘A red flag that indicates an asshole player’: These thoughts have been so ingrained in our collective server conscious for so long that even guilds who say they’re alright with powerful characters still don’t account for them in their events.”

This often leads to someone having to constantly annoy the DM asking: “Hey. Is this okay? Can I do this or would it be too much?” and detract from the RP at large. And let me tell you, that’s not fun at all. You feel bad for annoying the DM, and the DM winds up constantly distracted from actually running the event. That needs to change.

Disclaimer

Now, before I get too far into this: I would like to say I understand the opposing argument. One character being more powerful than the others would, In fact, make things unfair to other players. It could, in fact, make things too easy. A character that can solve a complex problem with one spell does tend to remove the challenge the DM worked so hard to develop all too quickly. Games like D&D, 5e especially, face this challenge all to often once the characters get to certain high levels. It’s a problem so many people are unsure how to tackle. At least, in a conventional setting...

On one hand: You need to let your characters play true to how they would. On the other: It really sucks when your hard work is surpassed so easily. Many DMs are unsure what to do, and so leave things as is, and silently vent to their closest friends in the background afterward.

My post today isn’t here to argue against this argument. My post today is here to offer potential solutions to these dilemmas all DM’s and event runners face every day. So, without further Ado: “How to Account for Powerful Characters.”

“Flex Raiding”

This one is my first and foremost solution. The one that I, as a DM or Event runner, would personally turn to as my first solution. In MMOrpgs like “World of Warcraft” , the RP environment is so diverse, vast, and random that it’s rather hard to cater to everyone’s preferences. You have people who like playing silly mundane characters like Old Men, Young Warriors, Book Binders, or even just your average run of the mill Civilian Drunk. But in the same environment you also have people who like to play more grandiose characters like Grand Archmages, Grizzled War Veterans, Elemental Lords, Dragons, and things like that. Sometimes more than one pour into the same pot, so to speak. So when you run a guild or dungeon group that contain characters from all ends of the spectrum, it’s hard to find one particular “Rolling System” that would accommodate for all of those and have it still be fair. 

My solution? Don’t. Instead, here’s what you can do:

In some MMOrpgs, there’s a mechanic called “Flex Raiding” , it’s when the raid or dungeon scales to the number of players doing it at once, and the levels of each player’s character. One can, in some ways, apply this same principle to roleplay events.

Write a version of the event that would come to being if your entire group consists of “Powerful Characters” , A version of the event for when your group consists of just “Mundane Characters”, and a version for when you have a mix of both. It doesn’t have to (And shouldn’t) just be: Army faces hoard, and bellows into them head on.

This can manifest in ways such as: Your antagonists anticipated facing powerful characters, and prepared accordingly. Perhaps they tamed large, hulking creatures from the deep, and placed them among their ranks to aid the hundreds of soldiers. The powerful characters must focus on them to succeed, while the mundane characters keep the armies busy. Or perhaps they managed to cast a large defensive spell that makes it hard for even the most powerful characters to enter, and the mundane must find creative, mechanical ways, like siege engines, to get past it.

Your antagonists trapped the protagonists, and now the soldiers must defend the casters for as long as they can while they pool their powers together. Encounter ends once the casters succeed in casting a very large, devastating spell that annihilates all enemies around them, or the soldiers fail to defend the casters, and must retreat.

Or perhaps it is just a generic battlefield scenario, and all you have are the mundane characters to appose them. The limit for this is truthfully the sky. Your imagination. BE CREATIVE WITH YOUR ENCOUNTERS!

You prepare accordingly, and you’ll be able to run an event where everyone is able to play their part, and their character to the fullest extent. The downsides to this obviously are the level of preparation you have to do in order to make a viable “Flex Raid” ... and obviously the complexity. But if you get used to doing this, it’ll become much easier than it sounds.

Share the Spotlight

All (Well Written) Characters have strengths and weaknesses. Even the most powerful ones. All characters are an aspect of the player’s creativity. Everyone knows that. You could have a really powerful archmage, but they have a crippling phobia of rats. That very same powerful archmage could also be a ritualist caster, meaning that their really powerful spells take time to cast, taking them out of some attack rounds. Without that time, they’re just a generic mage. Little things like that. Of course I’m describing my own character here, but in that situation, your other party members could very much help you out. 

You enter a dungeon that’s infested with rats, and now the archmage is too shaken up to cast. In that situation, the spotlight would turn to the druid who’s able to talk to said rats and remove them from the scene, while one of the more soft-spoken characters work to snap the archmage out of it.

The warrior suddenly finds himself in the middle of an enemy tavern after failing at a stealth roll. At this point, the spotlight would shift to the bard and rogue who’d step in and form a charming distraction or convincing lie to make the patrons look the other way.

The party is asked to come up with battle plans for the impending war ahead but none have any idea how. All, save, for the warrior. He’s fought in wars before. Hell, he was once a general! He knows how to do this. The spotlight shifts to him as he lays his hands over the map and is very quickly able to find a choke point to slaughter the enemy from.

The party is surrounded by a hoard of encroaching goblins, and all seems lost. But at the last second, their draconic ally catches up to the rest of the group and bellows a large cyclone of flame onto the unsuspecting hoard. The spotlight then shifts to the dragon as the party now has an opening to escape their predicament.

Little things like that would help to make roleplay events far more dynamic, all inclusive, and fun for everyone involved. Powerful, OR mundane. Sharing the spotlight with everyone, gives everyone a chance to shine in one way or another. The downside to this one: Depending on the nature the groups you play with, this may require quite a bit of improvisation. But if you’re good at that? Well, what the hell is stopping you? XD

Creative Bosses

Ah yes. The Classic boss. The biggest, toughest, most badass motherfucker in the entire antagonist group. Perhaps even the one leading them all too. I mean, it is in their title right? “The Boss” Well, here’s the thing. MMOrpgs and turn based RPGs often execute them in a way that: “We need a bigger challenge? How do we do that... hmmm.. MORE HEALTH OF COURSE!” ... This, my friends, is a mistake. Especially when there’s much more powerful characters in the group you’re running with. Said characters would, “realistically” just melt through that ungodly amount of health.

All adding more health to a boss does is create conflict among a group, and prolong an event for far longer than it should be. Come on guys. We all have lives, we cant spend ten hours a week of it playing through an event that gets almost nowhere. Instead, what I’d suggest is to consider the following questions: 

-“What makes this ‘boss’, the boss?”  

-“What is happening to them that’s making them so impossibly powerful? Can it be stopped? How do you get around it?” 

-“Does ‘power’ always have to mean magical ability?” 

-“Do they utilize all the resources at their disposal? What’s stopping them form doing so if not?”

Considering these, and applying the answers to your “boss” makes them much more interesting and dynamic. It gives the players something to strive for, something to work together on as a group to figure out and take advantage of.

Your boss could just be a normal human war general, but who’s power come’s from his political influence and the men he has at his disposal. This makes the players strive to expose his corruption and unseat him from his political standing. The men at his disposal could also make it difficult to get to him as well. Get past those obstacles, and suddenly he just becomes a normal human that can be overpowered and arrested just like any other.

Your boss could also be a young, power-hungry elven sorcerer who’s only been studying for about a decade. But in that decade he somehow came across forbidden lore and is now attempting to conduct a ritual that makes him physically invincible. The players could find out about this and find him in the middle of this ritual. To stop the ritual and take away his invincibility, you can’t just cast a “Spellsteal”. The overwhelming power of such magic would tear anyone apart without proper anchoring. So to stop him, you have to destroy his ritual components and the magical crystals he’s siphoning from while he tries to stop you. The boss fight, at that point, would just be avoiding his attacks and his minions until you shatter all the crystals, and the ritual itself is the thing that destroy’s him. Not you.

Conclusion

Accounting for powerful characters, when done right, can be just as hard as it is fun and dynamic. All it requires is, if you’re willing to have a powerful character in the group, is to mold the event accordingly, and work to understand the strengths and weakness of each member. If they don’t show up then have a backup writ on hand for the non-powerful characters. It just takes a bit of care and consideration. I suppose the TL;DR to take away from all of this is: Be creative, consider the circumstances, and create rolls each character in your party has a chance to fulfill. That way nobody feels left out, or held back.

Thank you all so much for reading. As you can tell, I did a lot of thinking into this. I’m open to discussion, and questions should anybody have some. But overall, I feel I’ve said all I need. After all, the goal of this post wasn’t to tell you--step by step--how to account for a powerful character. Just ideas and suggestions to guide you on your way to greatness! ... Being over-dramatic of course XD. But yes. All of you, have a good day or night wherever you may be!

[theampreviews]

Dragged Across Concrete

When I sometimes attended my Film Studies classes at University one thing stuck with me from the Script Writing class; an economy of writing was critical to the success of your screenplay. It was a mantra echoing the sentiments of William Goldman’s “Arrive Late, Leave Early” approach to scene writing (as detailed in his books Adventures In The Screen Trade and Which Lie Did I Tell?). To his mind this prevents an audience getting “antsy”. It’s a notion S. Craig Zahler wholeheartedly disregards.

If Zahler’s first two films, Bone Tomahawk and Brawl In Cell Block 99, could be described as leisurely in pace (both clock in at 142min), then Dragged Across Concrete, with its hefty 159min, is positively lethargic (which, for context, is still only 10mins longer than the last Avengers movie and 5mins shorter than Blade Runner 2049), and will likely push most multiplex audiences to their limits. Holding it to The Goldman Standard; this could be the least economical screenplay ever filmed, but it’s all the better for it.

Going into this film you need to understand that you’ll have to bed down and submit to his tempo, which is at times almost static. Zahler builds scenes of great magnitude that draw his viewers in, enveloping them like a sphygmomanometer (I had to Google that), applying ever more pressure until it’s almost unbearable. Virtually scoreless throughout, there’s precious little to distract from Zahler’s writing, but thankfully he’s still one of the most refreshing wordsmith’s out there. He might not pack his dialogue with pop-culture references as Tarantino can do (someone he’s rather erroneously compared to), but his way with words is just as pleasing to the ear. It’s hard-nosed, pulpy writing that exists purely in a world of his creation - his actors chewing on his dialogue like a T-Bone. He can also show a man eat an entire sandwich in silence and have it pay off.  

The most satisfying part of Zahler’s writing is that everything matters. There’s nothing throw-away about anything he shoots. The space he affords actors within the scenes allows them, and us, to take it all in without relying on cinematic shorthand to move things forward. No matter how long a scene is, it feels right, even (or especially) if that feeling is one of discomfort. The narrative drive of the film is relatively linear, we know exactly where we’re headed from early on, it’s in how Zahler stretches everything to breaking point in getting there that generates an anxiety that makes you shift in your seat; not the run-time. He can cut to the chase, but don’t be surprised if that chase is a leisurely tail across a freeway - the antithesis of Friedkin’s To Live & Die In L.A. but just as enthralling.

The other key attraction to a Zahler movie is his now notorious use of extreme violence. Whilst it would be disingenuous to say he has toned that down here (this is still far beyond much that you’ll see in your average movie these days), it is used more sparingly and dwelt upon less so than in his previous two. If Bone Tomahawk was sparse but unflinching in its depictions of depravity, and Brawl In Cell Block 99 relished the gonzo splatter effects of old, this time Zahler uses short, sharp jolts of violence to provoke the mind rather than overwhelm it. Often shots of explicit detail are cut away from so quickly that you’re still processing what you saw well into the next scene. It can have a disorientating effect, but one that makes you consider what you saw rather than simply have it thrown in your face.

Zahler also expands his eye for Old White Males, something I know many roll their eyes at, with his casting of Mel Gibson. Adding to the ranks of Kurt Russell and two time cast members Vince Vaughn, Don Johnson, Fred Melamed and Udo Kier, Gibson fits into Zahler’s aggressive, grim fatalism with ease. Some might consider this a role Gibson’s publicist might have urged him to avoid.

Since his original “cancellation”, Gibson has sought refuge in B-Picture pulp (Get The Gringo, Machete Kills, The Expendables 3) and couple of Father roles casting him as avenger/protector to wayward daughters (Edge Of Darkness, Blood Father) which all points to him acknowledging his new found villain status whilst also embracing a need for redemption (even the seeming outlier of Studio Festive Comedy Daddy’s Home 2 dines out on his asshole persona). Here though, the role of Brett Ridgeman felt too close to the bone for some; a bitter, mean son-of-a-bitch with a heavy-handed disdain for minorities. Be that as it may, Gibson is perfection and should be recognised for what is close to a career best - certainly it tops the list of performances in this second half of his career. Equal part hang-dog weariness and brittle rage barely concealed below a haggard surface, I can’t think of many others that could embody the character this wholly.  

Gibson and Vaughn’s Anthony Lurasetti are police officers who find themselves suspended without pay for Ridgeman’s abusive arrest of a Hispanic drug dealer; an act captured on a cell phone and spread throughout local media. The idea that Zahler frames their subsequent descent into “crime to make ends meet” as right-wing apologist rhetoric for the "forgotten majority" has made many uncomfortable, and I don’t doubt for a second that this is by Zahler’s design. Do I think he holds those beliefs? I wouldn’t know, but this film is not one for the Red Hat brigade if that’s what concerns people, but it does wave those common red flags without flinching (look to the “Black Panic” scene in which Gibson’s daughter is tormented by black youths on her way home, Gibson’s character bemoaning his lowly wage forcing them to live in such a “shit hole” with a young daughter and disabled wife).

As counter-point, the third main protagonist Henry Johns, played by a revelatory Tory Kittles, offers another staple of the genre; the recently paroled felon in desperate need of cash (imagine Denis Haysbert’s role in Heat given more screen time) providing a cultural juxtaposition to the craggy old cop routine (he and his partner Biscuits even “whiting-up” at one point). Whilst he rises a notch or two above the others in the morality stakes, he’s no Magical Negro; his purpose is not to elevate or educate his white co-stars, he has as much stakes in the game as either (sharing a financial need for care-giving with Ridgeman), and just as much blood on his hands (and sometimes more...). 

The Heat nod was clearly intentional, as Zahler cited that as a reference point in his Q&A, along with Dog Day Afternoon and Point Blank. Lofty comparisons they may be, but as a homage to those films, Dragged Across Concrete holds its own, albeit through the filter of a filmmaker that clearly loves exploitation cinema as much as any. Swimming in those waters, Zahler toes a fine line as to what audiences will find acceptable in both content and execution, and I think he’s pushed back against that line a little further here than he has before. It’s a provocative film without being insolently button-pushing and I’m sure it’s one that will divide audiences for some time (all but guaranteed to be a future Cult Favourite though).

There’s a scene that precedes the pivotal bank robbery that proved contentious to some during the screening I was at. We’re introduced to a character (one of the principle cast members) who we assume will form a large part in the film going forward, only for her screen time to be short lived and inconsequential to the plot. It makes for a quite harrowing and frustrating vignette, prompting one audience member to ask Zahler to account for its inclusion, a question met with spattered murmurs of approval around the auditorium. Zahler, clearly relishing the fact that this scene had struck a nerve, went on to explain (accurately) how everything from that point is framed in an entirely different way. It may have elicited anger from some of those watching, but he’s right in how that scene causes a shift in how you view the film and the protagonists going forward. He also acknowledged that, had he made this film under the watchful eye of a Studio and without his Final Cut deal, that scene would be the first thing any Producer would make him cut.

In a world dominated by audience pandering franchises, I think Zahler’s singular voice is one that needs to be preserved in tact, no matter how acquired a taste it may be.