#they're getting inserted into the narrative

[fischerfrey]

marauders' era: samara and brandon vespertine

"how do you know?"

"because i know you. i see you."

mara by @potionboy3

[sleepykas]

God i love Hireath so far. Like you don't understand how refreshing it is to find such a well written fabrication where Sun and Moon act like their in-game self. Also I live your asshole Sun like WOW he's amazingly written- the passive aggressive and straight up aggressive uncalled for behavior has me wild. Not even to mention Moon- he's my favorite character thus far. He's just a little prankster guy. He's just so him. Rrr I love your writing style and Y/N like yay! We have a backbone! Very good. Anyways, I will be eagerly awaiting the next chapter! Love your work!

WAIT HOLD UP. WAIT. YOUR HONOR. I'M SO FLATTERED OH MY GOD. THANK YOU!!!!!

[variousqueerthings]

i feel like the funniest thing about the bear s2 for me vis a vis the odd romance plot (and trying to figure out why it was done in the precise way it was) is that the closest we got to a sex scene if I'm remembering correctly was a strange purple-lit under the covers couple of flashes of difficult to decipher limbs. they coulda just been wrestling or hanging out, hell it coulda just been him in there or a piece of his imagination or a very windy day. the lack of attempting to inject sexual passion or chemistry into their relationship was fascinating and not because they were trying to give us ace carmen (rip that would be actually great). just threw out A Girl Template and did the absolute barest minimum to remind us she exists and "is great" according to occasional reviews from other characters and completely neglected to write. chemistry.

[tossawary]

This is petty fandom salt, BUT... I've been chewing on this phenomenon that I've been calling "Fandom's Darling". It is related to things like "Author's Darling" and "Mary Sue / Gary Stu" and "Protagonist Halo" and all that jazz, where one character gains a peculiar narrative weight in a story.

"Author's Darling" is when a writer has a favorite character, and the world and all other characters sort of get... warped to put the Darling in the spotlight. It's most noticeable in TV shows with multiple writers, when a character you personally like suddenly has their previous characterization destroyed to make another character look good somehow. Every other character might become weirdly incompetent. The Darling's feelings are treated as The Most Important Feelings in any given situation. The logic of the fictional world seems broken past suspension of disbelief in order to validate this one character's beliefs or skillset or some other fantasy. And so on.

"Fandom's Darling" is what I've been calling the pattern where a fandom essentially crowns a New Protagonist for their fanfiction stories (it's often a side character rather than the original protagonist, but it can also happen to protagonists). This character becomes the self-insert for all sorts of indulgent fantasies, gaining special powers or backstories, and/or becoming the focus of extreme whump, and/or hooking up with all the various hotties, starring in all sorts of tropey AUs, and so on. They're not always an obvious Mary Sue version of themselves, but the character's original personality and interpersonal relationships tend to get warped or dropped completely, and other characters tend to become a little flat around them. I call it "Fandom's Darling" because it's not just one self-indulgent fantasy fic (you do you! Have fun!) with characterization choices that I don't vibe with (I have neither the time nor the desire nor the authority to police anything, I am just venting), but rather a prolific mini-fandom of sorts revolving around this empty doll / fanon version of the chosen vessel character, so it becomes a little unavoidable.

I am salty about this (mildly frustrated) (imagine a soft sigh of disappointment before I just go do something else) because you are FUCKED if you actually liked the canonical version of this character and their interpersonal relationships. It's almost worse than liking an obscure character that no one cares about. There's about a thousand fics starring your fave, but maybe only about a dozen of them are actually rooted in any kind of recognisable canon.

[selvnite]

Really hoping “the Mandalorian can be anyone” isn’t a way for them to write off Din Djarin as a character because writers/directors/D*sney can’t decide/agree on a coherent story (for him or Mandalore tbh) or compelling character development especially when the show is built on his character (and Grogu) and in subtitles he is still refered to as ‘THE MANDALORIAN’ and known by other characters through that moniker or ‘Mando’ like what???

[yellowocaballero]

#trigun#man i need to watch tristamp#anyway yeah vash is so extremely ace#like vashwood makes sense as the two dudes getting shipped because people are always shipping the dudes buuuuuuut#and vashmeryl is kinda cute but yeah i agree on the one sided feeling especially in the manga#also idk if youve read the whole manga and idk if this has shown up in tristamp but lets just say#vashwood as presented in canon has some. interesting snags show up in volume 10 or so when wolfwoods backstory is explored lmao#its not in the 98 anime so its not well known#anyway vash is definitely unshippable to me haha via @proserpine-in-phasesphases

If you're referring to Wolfwood's age, then from what I hear it's similar as to in the manga yeah. I don't know his exact chronological age but I do understand it's 18+.

[TRISTAMP SPOILERS] Except Wolfwood was aged up from, like, twelve. The fact that so many people are a) shipping Tristamp Vashwood and b) without insane levels of discourse is nuts to me. It's probably there, somewhere, in some insane Discord server that I am not a member of. Disclaimer that I don't care what you do and don't ship, these are not real people and this is a fantasy problem, don't ask me to die on this hill. [/TRISTAMP SPOILERS]

But you see why Vashwood doesn't help the 'Vash is unshippable' allegations haha. Vash is just so deeply unfuckable to me for mostly botany reasons, but of course so much of that is just the vibe of Trigun itself.

This is more personal, but Trigun stood out against all other 90s anime on the Toonami block because it was a) utterly unapologetically fucking bizarre and confusing, and b) utterly sexless. All anime for women had big romantic plotlines and all anime for men had a lot of fan service. Even Cowboy Bebop, its next-door neighbor, had serious fanservice. Trigun was the only anime for adults I had ever seen that never sexualized its female characters, that had absolutely no romantic plotline, and that pretty much only cared about moral questions and how weird can this new gun get. Vash flirted all over the place, but it was so obviously a bit and just made the unfuckability allegations worse.

You spend the majority of the anime assuming that this is because Vash has a dead girlfriend he is not over, which is why he never once seriously romantically engages with a woman and never once physically engages at all. This feels very blatant. Halfway through you realize that the dead girlfriend is his Mom, which is the final nail in the coffin for me of sucking out anything remotely romantic from the series. Turned Vash downright unfuckable, because there's nothing less sexy than Vash's insane mother complex. It was just the most sexless anime I'd seen in my life.

It was nice. Incredibly rare in those days. It felt pretty comfortably for people like me: who loved action and who loved complex characters, and who enjoyed visiting a world where we're all more focused on Meryl's 50 derringers than her feelings for Vash.

That's not Tristamp, which had an incredibly different vibe in general, which is fine. It a) babygirl'd Vash and made him very attractive, which I'm chill with because it feels 100% congruent with how he hasn't refined his persona yet, and b) places Vash in the feminine narrative role of a love interest and object of desire. But considering who that dynamic is with and the nature of that dynamic, the level of eroticism and fuckability of Tristamp drops down to -1000 for me! So!!

And now the fandom seems to be like 90% Vashwood content! So!!!! TL;DR: I agree VERY MUCH and my experience of Trigun seemed to be extremely different from most people's haha.

Any thoughts on ace Vash? I know it's not a popular headcanon, but ever since that scene of him just faking falling asleep to get out of anything more with those ladies it's been on my mind.

SUPER interesting note about that scene: in the 98 anime, he says "could I be regretting it just a little?". In the manga, this is the scene:

It's very interestingly ambiguous, but the manga scene implies it's more typical Vash self-hatred! Regardless, the utter unfuckability of Vash remains.

I sincerely cannot imagine Vash being sexually interested in humans, and probably romantically too. There's that scene of him escaping sex, every time he flirts with women it's a complete bit, and the thing with Meryl always felt really one sided. Beyond that, we see utterly nothing from him indicating any interest in women or men.

I think Vash is an alien space hydrangea, of a species that's either extradimensional/inorganic/????, and it frankly makes no sense for him to be sexually attracted to people. I don't really even HC him as ace/aro, because that's an orientation and Vash is botany.

Unfortunately we've also seen Knives naked, so we canonically know that they are Ken dolls down there. There's no genitalia. There's no reason for him to be attracted to people or have an innate sense of human gender.

Hey, how the fuck did Rem even know they were boys? They were Ken dolls! She really did just spin a fucking wheel on that one! Even as children they were super androgynous! Literally assigned male by your Mom!!! Randomly!!! FWIW, headcanon: I think Knives doesn't have a human gender and Vash uses he/him pronouns like he wears his red coat: it's always with him and it's integral to his appearance, because somebody he loved gave it to him :). I think to Vash 'boy' isn't something he is, it's how he presents.

This is sticking to the text and completely ignoring the subtext and narrative stuff happening for Vash and Knives with sexuality and gender in Stampede. Cause. Hahahahahaha.

TL;DR: Vash is a space hydrangea and Rem threw darts at a dartboard why is anybody giving him and Knives a sexuality and gender at all.

[kingofthewilderwest]

We need to start questioning the conflation of "maturity" with "increased stakes."

It's not to say higher stakes is always a bad choice. The first half of the How to Train Your Dragon book series has an endearingly whimsical, child-like feel. Hiccup's issues in the first half of book one are an obnoxious, cat-sized Toothless pooping in his helmet. The movie adaptation might have made the book and its counterpart distant cousins, but it was a thoughtful move to alter concepts to the appropriately theatrical: books and movies aren't the same medium. Hiccup riding alone on Toothless, exchanging fire blasts with a mountain-sized dragon, and losing his leg came off as well-done storytelling.

Hiccup staring at a prosthetic never happened in the book. He didn't lose his leg in his encounter with the Green Death. It was, as the creative powers behind the movie said, a result of the increased stakes. They didn't do this just to be more dramatic; they did it because it seemed that, based on how their narrative was going, this made sense. And this was a soft, quiet, shocking, breath-taking scene that instilled how good the movie handled its stakes. It gave us a reflective reaction to consequences that audiences might not have expected. This movie understood timing, pauses, quietness, narrative arc, poignance, reflection, emotion, love, and heart.

We know about the conflation of live action as "more mature" than animation. But a medium doesn't change maturity levels. We all know that's bogus, and many analyses have been given on that. Disney live actions add extraneous gunk, down to Gaston having a past relationship with war (so I've heard, from the people who actually watched the movie), and Disney giving us the sad scoop on why Belle's mom isn't around. Furthermore, lots of times, when I see the conversion of animation to live action, I notice creators feel a need to "raise the stakes" -- in line with the erroneous view of "giving maturity."

But "higher stakes" often means inserting action in place of mindful interaction. I feel today's Hollywood movies, in their treatment of "action," don't let movies pause and breathe anymore - ergo, they don't let us think. Isn't it more juvenile to actively avoid thought in favor of "hey look I made the building go boom"? There may be less "stakes" in introspection and mindful dialogue, but that's what gives it its maturity. That's how we went from Iron Man 1, with its grounded treatment of war and abuse, to the mindless high spectacle MCU is today.

Snappy one-liners or moments that clap at contemporary issues don't substitute for maturity. What can make a story mature is characters grappling with issues in a natural narrative through-line. A snappy one-liner is its own form of speedy spectacle.

We know about the conflation of "gore and sex" with "mature audiences." I believe they're right that graphic sex and gore is designed for adults. But that doesn't make it mature, and that doesn't make it the only way to target a medium for adults.

"Realisticness" isn't maturity. Per above regarding animation: realistic visuals are nothing. And if you think that putting more Debbie Downer material into your adaptation makes it more adult, you have to ask yourself why the themes that spoke to people's souls got muddled in its midst. We weren't mature enough to interact with the most subtle, nuanced, and impacting voice of the story. But hey! Look! There's more corpses, I guess!

It's not the visuals, it's not the events. It's not the "things." It's not the basic insertion of the external. Get past the superficial, get past the top layer of presentation. It's the mind. It's the ability to think. It's the ability to be still. It's the ability to be interested and attentive when something is slow or quotidian, because we can understand why that is important for narrative growth or arcs or themes or commentary on the human condition. It's the ability to know when and when not to include something. It's the ability to make resonant impact. It's the ability to be deep with your emotions or your themes. It's the ability to take what you have and grow it in a way by which we can derive something deeper.

Maturity is critical thought and well-conducted, appropriate responses to content of any kind.

As DeBlois tells Empire, the move to live-action brings a different emphasis to How To Train Your Dragon; a new heft, both physically and emotionally. “It’s so dialed-up in terms of stakes — having a fully credible, photo-real dragon stomping around trying to kill him,” the director says.

And maybe that DeBlois quote is taken out of context. Maybe there's more going on than that one sentence conveys. Maybe Empire is making their own erroneous assumptions. But "so dialed-up in terms of stakes," isn't, on its own, a good appeal. The animated movie already dialed things up - and knew when to include or not include something. A live-action that imitates the visuals of the animated movie exactly, as if no independent thought has been done to its unique adaptation, to the pros and cons of the medium, to what a independently-presented story needs and doesn't need... It has to make you wonder: how many conflations of "maturity" are going on?

How long are we going to keep making our own conflations?

[ddarker-dreams]

what would make the husband rotation genuinely mad and would they act when theyre mad?? bad vibes for everyone

upsetting chrollo is an arduous endeavor.

he values control, whether it be over himself or others. creating the troupe would've been impossible if he was easily agitated. ironically, by muting his emotions for so long, he's set himself up for failure. when they do escape the fortress he built to contain them, they're wild. their repression drained any civility chrollo pretends to have.

regarding what it takes to get to this point... a third party revealing his criminal affiliations to you would do the trick. especially if the evidence they provide is irrefutable. chrollo isn't naïve, he's always been aware of the possibility. it'd be different if your efforts unmasked his identity. sure, he wouldn't be ecstatic, but he'd feel a hint of pride over your sleuthing capabilities. he almost considers it your right, in a weird way.

this sentiment doesn't extend to another's interference. they've inserted themselves into your relationship and warped your opinion of him. it's a violation, an intrusion. chrollo comes off as unusually detached when this information reaches him. he would've preferred you confront him, so he could control the narrative and do immediate damage control. with that plan dashed, his anger will simmer, until it can scald the one who tainted your perfectly fine relationship.

gojo satoru wants to be the center of your universe.

he's selfish, he isn't content with anything less than you in your entirety. he wants to be your partner, your best friend, your rival and confidant. he's cool with your friends and family (wow thanks gojo), since he knows that ultimately, you're both close in a way few can understand. shoko tells him at point blank that he's overdependent on you. he's aware, he just doesn't care to fix it. he's shameless enough to admit it as much without remorse.

for this reason, should someone capable of exerting influence over you stumble onto the scene, he would not be happy. megumi (kid or teen) remarks that he gets this 'creepy look', like he's pretending to be human. if he released a mere tendril of the cursed energy writhing inside him, it'd be enough to render most sorcerers comatose. his vibes become that abominable.

whether it be a former mentor, childhood friend, or some other role he can't fulfill for you himself — he wants to create as much distance between them and you as possible. fortunately for him, simply being himself is enough to repel most people. gojo inserts himself into your conversations until this person catches the hint. after knowing him for so long, you've grown immune to his questionable boundary crossing. he'll keep at it until they're scared off.

scaramouche gets angry with you for making him fall in love.

had his chest cavity not been empty, he would've clawed his heart out to avoid this harrowing feeling. the timidity, the vulnerability, oh, how he loathes it; loathes you for the spell you've placed him under! this resentment is, in truth, mostly directed at himself. shouldn't he have learned his lesson by now? how many times must he be chewed up and spit out before he stops wandering into the maw of emotional connection? he resolves himself to kill this... whatever it is you both share, before he's dragged through disappointment once again. he'll work himself up into a frenzy, all righteous anger and crackling bitterness—

—then your eyes light up at the sight of him, his name a warm exclamation on your tongue. in an instant, he's pacified, like he'd undergone a lobotomy. what a lovesick fool he is. you won't even let him fester in his negativity, you keep flitting about, earning his undivided attention. it's embarrassing how giddy he is around you (though he hides it beneath snark and condescension). when the interaction ends, he's left torn on what to do. all he knows is that he's running out of excuses to make this your fault.

blade's fury could slice through stars if you were ever hurt.

his mara is voracious until he returns every ounce of your pain tenfold. it's a scene from hell; rivers of blood, shredded limbs, piles of corpses tall enough to be mistaken for towers. in the heat of battle, he occasionally forgets where he is or why he's even doing this. then, all it takes is his mind's eye flashing the image of your face contorted in pain for his mania to blaze anew. you're precious. kind, warm, bestowing care upon him that he hadn't experienced in centuries. annihilation awaited anyone or anything that threatened you. he thinks death is too good for them, but it's the punishment he delivers best.

this explosive rage isn't finite. once his sword is deprived of living prey, he's forced to endure silence. entropy. an all-pervasive thought that you'd be better off with another. he never understood why you blessed him of all people with your affection. upon wiping his weapon clean, his reflection greets him. he scarcely looks human. drenched in viscera, eyes bloodshot and crazed. is this the man you love? what would you think, if you could see him now?

he almost wishes the fury would return. it's preferable to the hollowness he now faces.

[fixyourwritinghabits]

Do you happen to have a tag for the more mechanical aspects of writing?

Hello, I'm not dead! I'm just on a very tight writing deadline and accidentally let the queue die. Argh. I promise to get posts up and running soon.

Anyway, tags! You can find our tags on this page (some things are haphazardly arranged, but they're all there). Ones that might help are:

Grammar

Words

Language

Sentence Structure

Style

POV

Narrative

Edit: If it's not loading, make sure the URL says https://fixyourwritinghabits.com/tagged/ <- insert the tag you want at the end.

[beggars-opera]

Ok, so I live in one of the more liberal areas of the country. Our governor is a lesbian and I literally did not even know until after she got elected, because it was that much of a nonissue.

Lately, I'm seeing more and more local institutions doing things for Pride. Institutions that don't necessarily have to, or do so awkwardly, but they're trying to be good allies. And, even here, I see people foaming at the mouth. This thing is ruined. Unprofessional. Political. Sexual. Boycotting, disgusted, bye.

And a part of me is like, "Why would a random store, a museum, a restaurant, do this?" Part of my mind has been so corrupted by the idea of rainbow capitalism that the thought of someone just...trying to be an imperfect ally is a cash grab.

It's not. Every bit counts, and especially as we see pushback, and see some of those corporations beginning to rethink their rainbow capitalism, the places that continue to speak up are so, so important.

I'm reminded of a rant by Illustrious Old White Man Historian Gordon Wood a few years back where he lamented how fragmented modern history is. Why do we need ANOTHER book about women, about enslaved people, about the poor? Why are we focusing on these people instead of George Mount Rushmore Washington?

And it was an interesting framing, because he insinuated that these micro histories were bad not because they existed, but because they didn't give the whole story, which in Gordon's mind was a story in which they were the side characters instead of the mains. To that end a biography of G Wash that features the bare shadow of Billy Lee in the far distance is a complete history, all that needs to be said, because one of those figures is a God Amongst Men and the other does not deserve to be fully fleshed out as a full, autonomous human being with a family and a profession and a beating heart. And a biography of William Lee, war aid, professional valet, and person closest to the first president of the United States, with the shadow of George in the background, would consequently be Bad History, because no one is saying that this man didn't exist, but his story isn't the whole story. It's backwards; he should be a footnote, and if he's not, that's bias.

But for me, as a historian, I know that the reason these microhistories exist, and are so important, is that they didn't exist before. Before someone can be truly, purposefully, tactfully inserted into the historical narrative, you need to know who they are. Not just as a name, not just as an archetype. You have to get to the point where there are so many books flooding the market about women and children and immigrants that it's no longer controversial to be talking about them, where learning about them instead of someone else is normal.

THEN you can feel good about rewriting the more general narrative. THEN you can actually have the information you need in order to put things into their proper context, to rethink the most important figure in each story, to assess what the full milieu of the time is.

And that's where we're at with Pride. We are still very much living in a time where queer people are shadow characters in the background. They are people that many will admit exist, but for god's sake, don't make them important, don't make them real, don't make them normal. And until we can shove rainbows down everyone's throats to the point where being queer is no longer seen as a thing that is Other, until we convince people that we're not going away, we will never be able to fully assimilate queerness into society.

We can't just be normal about Pride, because normal isn't loud enough to not get drowned out.

[chenya-my-love]

Fictional Yuu

I see a lot of people basing Yuu off of characters on TV and in games. They'll have characters (usually Idia) make refrence to this fact but usually in just a throw away line. But nobody really leans into the idea of Yuu actually coming from some fictional media in Twisted Wonderland.

Like imagine some character like Cater, or maybe Vil while advertising the VDC, posting a photo with Yuu in it. Only for some random account to comment "That's an amazing cosplay, it looks so much like the character". And of course they're confused, they keep looking for who in the photo is cosplaying but nobody is there. Eventually just asking the commentor who was being cosplayed. The comment is simple.

"Right next to you. That's Yuu from (insert anime/game name here)". They don't believe it until they look up the listed media and sees the character they think Yuu is cosplaying and are shocked. They look identical to Yuu (except animated). Their name, looks, and personality are all identical to Yuu. It is Yuu.

I see two (techincally three) routes this could go. A RomCom route and an angst route.

The romcom route revolves around Yuu having a canon love interest making the boys jealous (regardless on whether they entered a relationship yet or the plot was still building it up) and trying to imulate them.

Like all the wikis say that Yuu's feelings blossomed after the love interest nursed them back to health when they were sick, so the moment Yuu gets sick the boy is just rushing to Ramshackle to take care of them. Or if Yuu caught feelings first and it was some romantic moment, the boys try to emulate that scene so Yuu will fall for them too.

But than we have the angst routes.

A scenerio where all the boys decide to watch the anime/play the game that Yuu is from. Only for Yuu to catch them, quickly learning that they're fictional.

Yuu realizing that all their memories were made up, and if their a playable character all their actions were being controlled. That all their suffering was pointless, that it was done simply to make them more interesting or to entertain a bunch of other worldly beings that Yuu didn't know existed.

Yuu having an breakdown over everything. Their life isn't even their own.

Or

While learning about Yuu's world and story, they learn Yuu dies. And not just a shock value death that could be removed from the plot without care, their death is important. Their death leads to the ending whether that be Yuu sacrificing themself for the greater good or Yuu's death motivating the protag to take down the villain.

All that matters is that Yuu dies and Yuu needs to die. The story can't progress without Yuu there.

The boys realizing that if they send Yuu back to their world, their pretty much signing Yuu's Death Certificate. And Yuu doesn't know. The boys now know that Yuu is doomed by the narrative and is destined to die in the end, but Yuu doesn't. They can't even tell Yuu cause Seven only knows how Yuu will take the news that not only are they fictional but they're also destined to die.

[sparrowlucero]

Even if a creator is a bad person it's still okay to like their work. People need to mind their own business.

Honestly it's not really that sort of situation. I'll actively defend Steven Moffat here.

There was a huge hate movement for him back in the early 2010s - which, in retrospect, formed largely because he was running 2 of the superwholock shows at once, one of which went through extremely long hiatuses* and the other of which was functionally an adaptation of an already well regarded show**, making him subject to a sort of double ire in the eyes of a lot of fandom people. Notably, his co-showrunner, Mark Gatiss, is rarely mentioned and much of his work is still attributed to Moffat (and yes, this includes that Hbomberguy video. Several of "Steven Moffat's bad writing choices" were not actually written by him, they were Gatiss.)

People caricatured the dude into a sort of malicious, arrogant figure who hated women and was deliberately mismanaging these shows to spite fans, to the point where people who never watched them believe this via cultural osmosis. It became very common to take quotes from him out of context to make them look bad***, to cite him as an example of a showrunner who hated his fans, someone who sabotaged his own work just to get at said fans, someone who was too arrogant to take criticism, despite all of this being basically a collective "headcanon" about the guy formed on tumblr. Some if it got especially terrible, like lying about sexual assault (I don't mean people accused him of sexual assault and I think they're making it up, I mean people would say things like "many of his actresses have accused him of sexual assault on set" when no such accusations exist in the first place. This gets passed around en masse and is, in my opinion, absolutely rancid.)

On top of that a ton of the criticism directed at the shows themselves is, personally, just terrible media criticism. So much of it came from assuming a very hostile intent from the writer and just refusing to engage with the text at all past that.

Like some really common threads you see with critique of this writer's work, especially in regards to Doctor Who since that's the one I'm most familiar with:

A general belief that his lead characters were meant to be ever perfect self inserts, and so therefore when they act shitty or arrogant or flawed in any way, that's both reflective of the author and something the show wants you to view as positive or aspirational.

An overarching thesis that his characters are "too important" in the narrative due to the writer's arrogance and self obsession (even though this is a very deliberate theme that's stated several times)

A lot of focus on the writer personally "attacking" the fans or making choices primarily out of spite.

A tendency to treat the show being different to what it's adapting as inherently bad and hostile towards the original.

Just generally very little consideration and engagement with the themes, intent, etc. of the shows

This one's a little more nebulous and doesn't apply to all critique but a lot of it, especially recently, is clearly by people who haven't seen the show in like 10 years and their opinion is largely formed secondhand through like, "discourse nostalgia". Which. you know. bad.

I think these are just weird and nonsensical ways to engage with a work of fiction. I also think it's really sad to see the show boiled down to this because that era of who is, in my opinion, very thematically rich and unique among similar shows, and I'm disappointed that it's often dismissed in such a paltry way.

This isn't to say people aren't allowed to critique Steven Moffat or anything, but the context in which he basically became The Devil™ to a large portion of fandom and is still remembered in a poor light is very tied to this perfect storm of fan culture and I just don't agree with a ton of it.

* I'm sure most people have seen the way long running shows and hiatuses will cause people to fall out with a show, with some former fans turning around and joining a sort of "anti fandom" for it while it's still airing. That happened with both these shows. ** Doctor Who will change it's entire writing staff, crew, and cast every few years, and with that comes a change in style, tone, theme - the old show basically ends and is replaced by a new show under the same title. As Steven Moffat's era was the first of these handovers for the majority of audiences, you can imagine this wasn't a well loved move for many fans. *** I know for a fact most people have not sought out the sources for a lot of these quotes to check that they read the same in context because 1) most of them were deleted years ago and are very difficult to find now and 2) many of them do actually make sense in the context of their respective interviews

[prokopetz]

So, you've mentioned before that TTRPGs always have an expected "mode of play", that is, the basic concept from which the gameplay loop is derived. I admit I have little experience with this kind of thing, but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the mode of play of Lasers and Feelings. Like, what's the unifying thread between Lasers and Feelings, Radical Catgirl Anarchy, and Lily is Girls With The Ability? Or between L&F and something like Speeding Bullets, for that matter? Is it just that they're all rules-light shitposts? Or is it based on, like, the tension between the two different ends of a dichotomy?

One-page games can be tricky in this respect because they just don't have the bandwidth to explicitly state many of their assumptions. They necessarily depend on the players (and the GM, if present) bringing the "correct" set of assumptions to the table regarding how the game ought to be played.

Still, there's enough there to draw certain conclusions. For example, in a typical Lasers & Feelings hack, rolling the dice gives a pass-or-fail outcome (with optional complication) for a discrete physical, mental, or social task. This frames a session of play as a sort of narrative obstacle course: the story consists of overcoming a series of well-defined obstacles in order to arrive at a particular goal. That might seem like a fairly banal observation, because that's how a lot of tabletop RPGs frame a session of play, but we need to make that explicit to contextualise the next step.

That next stop, of course, being the approaches.

One of the baseline assumptions of any tabletop RPG is that you're going to use it to tell the kinds of stories about which the rules have something to say – indeed, a tabletop RPG has to assume this, because if you're not telling the kind of story about which the rules have something to say, you're not playing the game!

To that end, a Lasers & Feelings hack is usually going to give you a pair of approaches to roll against, each consisting of a set of ways of conceptualising the obstacle in front of you. I'm not using the term "conceptualising" just to be fancy here; in Lasers & Feelings, the GM (if present) describes the obstacles, but it's on the player, not the GM, to decide "this is the kind of obstacle which can be overcome with [insert approach]", and nobody gets to tell them they're wrong.

Thus, a Lasers & Feelings hack assumes that the story of your game is going to consist of a series of obstacles (see above) which can usefully be conceptualised using at least one of the game's two approaches. A game where your approaches are "the power of friendship" and "the power of unimaginable violence", for example, probably isn't one that you'd want to use to play out a scenario inspired by Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, because those approaches aren't useful ways of conceptualising the kinds of obstacles such a story is likely to present – and if you used it anyway, the story would rapidly stop being a Pride and Prejudice pastiche.

All that in mind, it might be more accurate to state that Lasers & Feelings as a framework presents meta-expectations; the framework provides a set of mechanisms for a particular hack's chosen approaches to direct play, but you have to look at what that hack's chosen approaches actually are to pin down what that direction is.

[theforsakenprince]

Forsaken as a revenge story fascinates me but not because of anything really related to the revenge story itself but rather the context surrounding it. like, "revenge is wrong" stories are everywhere and almost expected at this point, and Forsaken is no different, really. Forsaken says going on this path of revenge will turn you into a monster, but... we as the player don't really care? And why should we! Uldren killed one of our favorite characters! And every expansion before this has us killing something, so it's not really out of the ordinary.

This feeling is especially reinforced by how much Bungie tried making the young wolf a self insert during y1 (which REALLY did not last long). We, the player (if you played d1/y1 anyway) are angry at Uldren for killing off the most popular character at the time. It's PERSONAL now. And sure, the ending does feel like we're kicking someone who's already down (Ghost says it himself: Uldren's already done for), but we got the bad guy! The end, right?

Nope! Our actions have immediate consequences! Ghost is scared for us. We have to watch Petra struggle with the events of Forsaken while trying to lead a city of people stuck in a perpetual 3 week loop. Mara is obviously not happy with us (and we know we have to deal with lightbearer Uldren at some point). We may not feel bad about killing Uldren, but it doesn't feel great either. And unlike most past Destiny expansions, Uldren isn't an obligatory unequivocally evil big bad alien we need to shoot because this is an fps, he's... just some guy we barely knew anything about before now. Sure, he was a dick to us, but watching his descent into madness throughout the campaign is downright uncomfortable. All our past enemies, in comparison, have been rather straightforward: they're trying to kill us? well we gotta kill them first.

Forsaken also marks a MAJOR tonal shift. It literally kills off the comedy relief. Every release after Forsaken has a noticeably more serious tone (and while humor isn't completely absent (Saint, Crow, Fynch, and Nimbus have their moments) Forsaken's story is a particularly dark one, and it seems to carry over the rest of the year as we first start to consider the "line between light and dark"). It was definitely much more noticeable at the time of release, but Cayde's death has an impact not only on the characters but the tone of the story overall (he is the perfect example of characters continuing to haunt the narrative imo) and clues us in as the audience that shit is about to get Real.

and what happens the next year? We find a Pyramid ship.

this post is kinda all over the place but MAN not a day goes by that I don't think about Forsaken and how good it is as a self contained story and as an expansion that sets up a lot of the major players leading up to final shape! it's not really controversial to say that Forsaken is one of destiny's best expansions (story wise at least I'm not touching that power grind with a 10 foot pole) but I feel like a lot of that sentiment comes from the fact that it came out after curse of osiris/warmind which. no hate to either of them but anything that came out after them would look really good in comparison.

anyway uhhh forsaken good uldren did nothing wrong (JOKE I feel like I have to specify this is a joke people have taken this statement from me seriously before)

[weepingchoir]

can you give some concrete examples of what "writing defensively" sounds like? I'd like to apply the advice to my work but I don't know exactly what it means.

It manifests differently in nonfiction and fiction.

Nonfiction is easier. I get a lot of essays that take momentary asides to promise that they're making a point, and that we'll all get to enjoy the point soon, if you just bear with them. Not only is saying that you're making a thesis not in fact making a thesis (and by literary rudiment, wordcount bloat), it's also drawing attention to the ways you haven't yet arrived at your thesis. It is counter-thesis.

In fiction, I find that it manifests in largely two ways:

Good King Syndrome. You take the time to explain to the audience that this particular instance of something you understand to be real-life ethically, socially or politically incorrect (pardon my french) is exceptional and good.

Very Bad King Syndrome. You take the time to remind the audience that you are real-life aware that the thing you're portraying is wrong.

Both of these methods of literary self-defense preempt a dialogue with the audience, a dialogue that doesn't actually have to include the real-life you. A complete work of literature can, if you let it, be a standalone entry into a discussion. It can run its own course. By preempting the dialogue, though, you are opening it, and by emphasizing the ways in which it does or doesn't reflect your real-life morality, you are inserting yourself into the dialogue. You've created a gap in your work through which your actual self is vulnerated, like a House of the Dead boss.

Often, defensive fiction will warp a character into a mouthpiece for author opinions. Readers can very easily pick up on when you're doing this. It disbelieves their suspension, and it turns the rest of the work into an open hunt for your real-life beliefs, invalidating its worth as narrative fiction in favor of a morality essay. Writing morality essays is the favorite activity of most bad writers, and most bad writers are readers. Which is why defensive writing doesn't repel haters, but in fact attracts them. You're giving them free raw material!

[matt0044]

Regarding the "Does RWBY like women?" poll (yes, yes it does BTW).

You know... the whole poll debacle reminded me of something.

RWBY helped me expand my media diet by telling me that just because people hate something enmass, it could just all be bullshit coupled with mob mentality.

Instead of hatedoms getting me to think:

"Damn, I don't even wanna be associated with that show based on the rage it inspires."

My more skeptical brain is like:

"Okay, so why is it reeeeeeeally hated? Is it reeeeeeeally bad or are people going along with the crowd because critical thinking is too much of a burden in this capitalist hellscape?"

Because bad media literacy is in part a result of the fact that most geeks and normies alike aren't out to be legit critics but rather just want to enjoy the thing, gush about the thing and so forth. They can't exactly articulate their reasonings why like they're trying to get an A+ in Therapy Studies.

And THAT is how the YouTube Video Essay and Angry Critic scene takes off.

We dunk on the Nostalgia Critic (often for VERY real IRL grievances) but his catchphrase: "I remember it so you don't have to" is something many who'd come after would take to heart. These video maker people are taking about a thing you like and are explaining it in a way you not only agree with but makes you feel vindicated.

Be it for love... or for hate.

Because hatedom circles like the RWDE looks to video essays that reassure them, keep them from doubting their stance on the thing and how they enforce it.

With the burden of actually seeing the thing and thinking hard taken off of them, people can confidently say things like "RWBY prioritizes Jaune" despite not looking at any potential evidence in the show that might contridice it.

Which is why this is a call for everyone to question the popular opinions.

Does Jaune Arc reeeeeeally get that much narrative importance at the expense of the main girls?

Was Jaune reeeeeeeally a self-insert?

Was Ironwood reaaaaaally derailed in his character arc?

Was Adam reeeeeeeeally representative of the Faunus?

Was the Faunus reaaaaaally offensive?

And of course...

Was Monty Oum reeeeeeeeally the only one who's vision matter to the show above all else?

Ask yourself these questions and do the work to back them up. If people are giving you responses that contridict you, responses that take evidence from the work itself more often than not, then try to do the same in turn.

Think about that show or movie being panned? What if... you actually like it?

Not everybody is a critic... but we can at least try to.