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spurious · 1 year ago

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how about BTS for O I Think We Should Be Brethren

(Fic-Specific asks)

BTS: I’ll write a DVD commentary about my personal favorite passage from [that fic]

trap card ACTIVATED although i don't even know where to start tbh

O I Think We Should Be Brethren aka Live Oak #4 aka John Sheppard's Sad Gay Life Fic aka the longest thing i have ever completed and posted aka my sort of mcshep thesis

I did a little commentary post on the whole first chapter of this fic, soooooooooo I'll go with something from chapter 2. The thing about chapter two of this fic is that it’s kind of just a collection of episode tags, but I didn’t want it to be just a collection of episode tags, because that would be boring, but I also wanted to hew very closely to canon events but just shown through the lens of John’s developing feelings. What that got me was basically all the very clearly episode-related sections, along with sections where nothing much happens but we get some glimpses into John’s feelings, into their more mundane interactions. I was torn between choosing this or the very early section where John obliquely comes out to Rodney, because that was something I wrote really early on and informs a lot of Rodney’s actions through the story, but I feel like I might have more to say, in the aggregate, about this bit, which is set shortly after the events of The Shrine:

After what Rodney takes to calling his "brush with stupidity," he becomes obsessed with creating documentation for all of the small, essential (according to him) tasks he does around Atlantis.

I think it makes a certain level of sense that, despite having near-on five years of his life being in grave danger multiple times, the possible loss of his mind is what would spur Rodney into the realization that he probably needs to document some shit.

"I can't trust anyone else to know to do this," he explains, manic, when John finds him in a rarely-used lab at three in the morning. He's bent over a Frankenstein abomination of Earth and Ancient tech (and no small measure of duct tape), something he's obviously jury-rigged himself, and he's in such a state that, thankfully, he doesn't even think to ask why or how John found him there at this hour. "What the hell is it, Rodney?" John tilts his head, stepping in closer—it probably won't explode in his face, he figures.

Why John found him there: because he knows Rodney's driving himself nuts trying to document a million tiny things and hasn't been sleeping. How John found him there: life signs detector and several years' practice studying the Wandering Habits of the Wild McKay

"You know that old joke that the entirety of modern digital infrastructure is all leaning on some free, open-source project being thanklessly maintained by a random guy in a basement somewhere, and the whole of the internet and probably the world's banking systems will break when he either gives it up or dies?" Rodney says, hitting somewhere close to a personal best on words-per-minute and not even stopping for John's answer. "No, wait, of course you don't, you're not a geek."

I stole that joke from XKCD but it just came into my mind and I would imagine Rodney spitting the whole thing out in one uninterrupted breath. (anyway i did link it in the endnotes so)

John scowls. "Hey!" "Fine," Rodney acquiesces, "you're not that kind of geek." And that, John can agree to. He'll match Rodney on comics and sci-fi trivia and mental math, but he's never gotten too into computers that aren't on board something that can go very fast.

John being offended that after all these years Rodney still thinks he's a jock is just, cute to me alright. He's a geek, he likes geek stuff, he's just also hot and has generic man interests as well!! I like the bit about computers that aren't on board something that can go very fast, though, that feels...correct to me.

"So this is Atlantis's free, open-source project and you're the basement-dweller who thanklessly maintains it?" "Exactly," Rodney answers, apparently too wrapped up in the work to notice John's lovingly-crafted insult.

All of John's insults are lovingly crafted.

"And you're writing documentation for it?" John pulls out a chair, sprawling lazily so he can get a look at what's on Rodney's screen. He's got a laptop open with a dense-looking brick of text he's typing additions to, and a tablet with what looks like a hand-drawn schematic pulled up on it. "Oh, well-spotted, Colonel Obvious," Rodney says drily, rolling his eyes. "I doubt anyone will really understand what it does, but Zelenka's a competent enough engineer to at least be able to follow a manual." "Right," John says, and then he sits, watching Rodney type, poke at the device, curse, and type some more. About five minutes go by before he speaks again. "You could also consider just staying alive so you can keep fixing it?"

John, five years in, having watched as Rodney slowly lost everything that makes him him, is a bit weak. That's really the only explanation for why he just says the quiet part out loud, here, even though he's trying to make it sound like a joke. I like this scene because it feels right to have them have this kind of conversation, this kind of bare, quiet intimacy, while the rest of the city is asleep, cocooned together in a lab with Rodney's tech all around them.

"Well, yes, obviously that's what I would prefer as well," Rodney says peevishly, the clacking of the keyboard turning a shade violent as the pitch of his voice rises. "But apparently this galaxy has other plans for me, and it was honestly foolish of me to have gone this long without coming to terms with the fact that I could die at any moment without anyone able to continue my work, so—" John doesn't think, his hand shooting out to grab Rodney's as it flails through the air in a helpless, fatalistic gesture. Rodney stops, mouth half-open, and just stares at John's hand, wrapped around his wrist, fingers curled against Rodney's palm. They're frozen like that, both staring at their hands, until Rodney says, voice quiet, "John?"

I love this part, this image right here. John not knowing what to do and just wanting to make Rodney stop and breathe for a second. Rodney absolutely stymied by the sudden physical contact, the nearness to hand-holding, enough that he uses John's given name. Rodney's actually going through a lot, emotionally, during this fic, that all becomes eventually clear in chapter 3, and this is definitely one of the sections I wrote with all of that very much at the forefront of my mind.

John squeezes Rodney's hand, just once, and looks at his face. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you, Rodney." And it's a promise John knows he can't keep, but it's also the only thing he can think to say, because he desperately wants it to be true, to be something he can say with certainty. Rodney, of course, is a man of science, and he understands reality, understands probability. "You can't promise—" John squeezes again, feels out the broad thickness of Rodney's palm. "I've done it up till now, haven't I?"

This scene has echoes of their beer on the pier, where Rodney tries to say goodbye and John just won't, legitimately refuses to, like, engage with reality? Because on some level I think John actually does believe that he can protect Rodney, can keep him safe from harm; he knows he'll give his life for that to be the truth, and he hopes, deep down, even though he's tried very very hard to extinguish that very hope, that his love, his devotion, will be enough.

Rodney's eyebrows knit together, his gaze darting around, and then he nods, quick and final. "Yes, I suppose you have."

Rodney may not know the true depth of John's feelings, but he believes this, too. Believes in John, in a way I don't think he believes in many things.

Love and honor, protect and cherish. Till death. It may not be vows, but it feels like them, to John.

Here's the wedding vows motif making an appearance again. John, fatalistic, eyes wide open, pledging and devoting his life to Rodney even though he doesn't think it'll ever be reciprocated, because he can't do anything else. Can't do anything less. He tries, several times, throughout this story, to pull away and put some distance between himself and Rodney, and every single time it ends up failing, for one reason or another. He's drawn back into Rodney's orbit, inexorably, but he's also so wrapped up in his own inwardly-directed misery that he doesn't realize Rodney's drawn to him right back.

He swallows around the lump in his throat, standing up and using their joined hands to pull Rodney up with him. Their hands slide apart, and John steps back, puts some distance between them. "Now come on, that big brain of yours needs some sleep."

Literally right here he's putting physical distance, after saying what, to John, amount to wedding vows. It's too much, too open, and he needs to get them back to an equilibrium because it feels dangerous to let that moment sit between them for too long.

"Yeah, alright," Rodney says, gathering up the laptop and tablet before he follows John out the door.

god. okay. i gave myself a lot of feelings writing all this out!!!!!!!!!!! i love this story so much, i think it's probably the best thing i've ever written, and.....idk i'm happy to talk about it forever and ever so thank you for asking???????????????????????? seriously.

#ask meme #fic rambles

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xkcdbracket · 1 year ago

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XKCD Bracket Retrospective

@xkcdbracket (no relation) on 𝕏 also held a tournament based on the same comic, so lets see how the results differ

Round 1 was remarkably similar, with only 11 of the 45 matches turning out differently.

In Round 2 we had our biggest sweep, Oscar Wilde vs Oscar de la Renta, with Wilde winning with a margin of 97.09% (100 to 3 votes). The analogous match was also a fairly big sweep on Twitter, with Oscar Wilde "utterly KO"ing Oscar de la Hoya with a margin of 91.61% (1517 to 139)

As the bracket is large, I'll be glossing over the middle rounds, to focus on the Sweet SixFourteen.

The top-left starts off identical, save for having a different Armstrong. The bottom left on the other hand, is totally different, with Jack Nicholson having beat Fats Domino, Joseph Gordon-Levitt having beat Colin Firth, and Mark Ruffalo having beaten Donald Glover.

The top-right is mostly similar, but Bill Murray had beat Phil Pullman, Jerry Lee Lewis had beat Jenny Lewis, and most notably, Chris Pratt, this tournament's round 1 punching bag, not only beat Chris Pine in Round 1 (with what is described as a "huge win" of 77.25%), but subsequently made it all the way to the quarterfinals. The bottom-right is mostly identical, except Van Halen had beaten Rip Van Winkle.

Going into the quarterfinals, Alan Rickman beat Oscar Wilde, and Van Halen beat Beyoncé. Otherwise it was the same or analogous to the actual Round 4

Going from the quarterfinals to the semifinals, things are mostly the same as our tournament (aside from the bottom left, which is totally different). Armstrong won, Spock beat Chris P, and Scallions beat a musical act.

And finally, the finale was the same, aside from a) having a different Armstrong and b) that Armstrong winning. In our tournament, Spock beat Louis Armstrong with 55.56% (52 to 70), but on Twitter Neil Armstrong beat Spock, with 67.14% (2,252 to 1,102)

It's interesting how the two tournaments were so similar, with the exception that the guy who won one was eliminated instantly in the other.

#xkcd #polls on tumblr #poll tournament #1529 #1529 announcements

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iwrotemrtambourineman · 6 months ago

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1 current reads

2 movie you’d never watch again

3 favorite non-domestic animal

What If? by the xkcd guy, the babs tome (aka my name is barbra), and my year of magical thinking right now, but i’ll probably throw in a grisham or some other mystery/thriller soon

Uhh any number of terrible netflix teen flicks such as the kissing booths, the perfect date, or he’s all that but also my most hated chip n dale rescue rangers*

In terms of things I see regularly, probably hummingbirds, herons, or sea lions in terms of things I don’t see except for at a zoo or in my minds eye komodo dragons, tapirs, or snow leopards!

#*i saw the director of chip n dale at a pizza place recently. but hes also a member of the lonely island so very conflicted emotions.#also i love all animals in that if I see anything I get excited to see it but these come to mind first #thank you!#asks

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catalogercas · 2 years ago

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I've been reading What If 2, which is the second in a series of books the xkcd guy wrote answering bizarre scientific questions, and my nephew is trying to come up with one's to send in for the next book.

This is what he's come up with so far:

1. What would happen if all the toilets in New York City were flushed at the same time? Then he went on to specify that he wanted to know about this happening with the original sewer system ...I guess when New York first had indoor plumbing? I'm still not sure what he meant.

2. (Pretty sure this would end up in the "Weird and Worrying" category) What would happen if a plane crashed exactly in the middle of two countries? What would happen to the people? He couldn't exactly articulate what he meant by this either ...and he seemed to be avoiding stating "if they all died" ...so not sure what he wanted to know.

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mortimermcmirestinks · 2 years ago

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sixteen miscellaneous fun language facts

for @lesbi-nyan

also sorry this came out sounding like a listicle

#1: the phrase "Mele Kalikimaka" in Hawaiian is literally just the phrase "Merry Christmas" in English, but with Hawaiian phonotactics (the rules of what sounds can go where in a language's words)

it goes like this (from Wikipedia):

Merry Christmas ↓ Every consonant must be followed by a vowel in Hawaiian. The T is removed, since it is already silent in English. Mery Carisimasa ↓ C is not a letter in Hawaiian; the closest phonetic equivalent is K. Mery Karisimasa ↓ R is not a letter in Hawaiian; it is equivalent to L. Y is replaced by E, the sound it already denotes in English. Mele Kalisimasa ↓ S is not a letter in Hawaiian; the closest phonetic equivalent is K. Mele Kalikimaka

#2: the word "orange" did not originally mean the colour or the fruit; it originally meant the tree

originally it was called the Orange Tree, and the fruit (this was back when "apple" was just a synonym for "fruit") was called the Orange Apple. Then the fruit name was just shortened to Orange, then the colour (which previously did not have a name and was usually either considered a shade of red or called "yellow-red") was named Orange after the fruit.

#3: the name "daddy long-legs" can refer to three different animals

one of them is also called a "crane fly" and is an insect.

one of them is also called a "harvestman" and is an arachnid but not a spider.

one of them is also called a "cellar spider" and is a spider!

#4: the word "temple" meaning the part of your head and "temple" meaning a place of worship come from the same root word

it originally meant "corner", and so your "temple" is the corner of your head; then it was used to refer to the corner of an altar, then the entire altar, and eventually the place where the altar was.

#5: the "ye" in "ye olde" is pronounced "the"

it comes from typgraphical limitations; when the printing press was invented, English had a single letter to represent the "th" sound, but the typographers, coming from overseas, didn't; so they used a Y instead because it kinda looks like the letter.

#6: F, Y, U, V, and W all come from the same letter

I'm not even gonna try explaining this one, just watch this video

youtube

#7: the name "Waluigi" is a pun in Japanese

okay so bear with me here

"Luigi" is Japanese for "Similar" (類似 ruiji, since in Japanese R and L are the same sound)

"Warui" (悪い) is Japanese for "bad" or "evil"

Thus the portmanteau: "Warui" + "Ruiji" = "Waruiji", or "Bad Luigi"/"Bad Similar", since he's the evil version of Luigi.

#8: nobody knows what bears are called

okay this sounds like I'm shitposting here but here's an xkcd that explains it:

#9: the reason that Americans spell "colour" incorrectly is that Noah Webster, who was a bitch, wanted to change English spelling to make it simpler

he didn't necessarily invent the new spellings but he did put them in his dictionary, which then became standard use in America but not in correct countries like Canada.

#10: "Idaho", the name of the American state Idaho, doesn't have a meaning

it was made up by some guy when they were trying to come up with a name for the state of Colorado. he claimed that it was a Native American term, but it wasn't, and he was full of shit. they did not wind up calling Colorado Idaho, but they did eventually use the name Idaho when they were naming places in the state of Washington.

#11: the term "nimrod" meaning a stupid person was originally used by Bugs Bunny and comes from the name of a Bible character

Nimrod, in the Bible, was described as a "great hunter", and so Bugs Bunny referred to Elmer Fudd as "Nimrod" sarcastically, but some people watching didn't get the reference and thought that "Nimrod" (like the similar-sounding word "numbskull") just meant "idiot".

#12: "yeet" has etymology

originally it was a portmanteau of "yes!" or "yay!" and "neat", and was used to express excitement or joy. then there was a popular vine that you've probably seen where someone throws a can and yells "yeet", so "yeet" came to be the sound one made when throwing, then evolved naturally to be a verb meaning "to throw something with force or speed".

#13: there's a word for being scared of the number 13: Triskaidekaphobia

it comes from "τρεισκαίδεκα" (treiskaídeka), meaning 13, and "φόβος" (phobos), meaning "fear".

#14: "portmanteau" originally meant a kind of suitcase

in the book Through the Looking-Glass (and What Alice Found There), the sequel to blockbuster smash hit Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the character of Humpty Dumpty talks about combining words together, and he compares it to a kind of combination suitcase -- a portmanteau. then this became the standard meaning of the word, as portmanteau suitcases gradually fell out of fashion.

#15: "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" is a fucking oxymoron

if you're "trans-exclusionary", or "gender critical", or whatever goddamn made-up bullshit transphobes try to peddle these days, you're not a goddamn feminist. modern feminism is built on the literal blood, sweat, and tears of our trans family and you can't hide your bigotry behind linguistic tricks.

#16: william shakespeare invented the word "zany"!

how zany!

#fun facts #trivia #Youtube

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quailfence · 1 year ago

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[Image description: image 1: a reply by DeadMoth that reads “Ginkgos are so, so unutterably ancient that the entire class of bugs that pollinated their flowers no longer exist, nor do the creatures their fruits are designed for. They make do with wind and modern replacements, but everyone they developed alongside are long, long gone.”

Image 2: An XKCD comic. [Beret Guy and Megan are walking through a wood.] Megan: There are these orchids whose flowers look like female bees. When males try to mate with them, they transfer pollen. [Megan kneels next to a flower.] Megan: This orchid - Ophrys Apifera - makes flowers, but no bees land on them because the bee it mimics went extinct long ago. [Megan stands.] Megan: Without its partner, the orchid has resorted to self-pollinating, a last-ditch genetic strategy that only delays the inevitable. Nothing of the bee remains, but we know it existed from the shape of this flower. [They walk on past the flower.] Megan: It's an idea of what the female bee looked like to the male bee... Megan: ...as interpreted by a plant. Beret Guy: Wow, so...[We see a full-color painting of an orchid flower. It has purple-pink petals on a mottled grey background, along with the bee-like parts. It's quite a realistic painting.] ...the only memory of the bee is a painting by a dying flower. [The flower is alone in a panel.] [Beret Guy walks back on screen.] [Beret Guy kneels down next to it.] Beret Guy: I'll remember your bee, orchid. I'll remember you. [Beret Guy walks off-panel again.]

Images 3 and 4: Two photos of Joshua Trees. The first one is looking up at the tree at night, with a reddish full moon in the sky. The second one is taken during the day, and shows a tree in a dirt area next to a picnic table. There are bushes in the background.

Image 5: screencap of the American Forests website. It reads “Warning: Reading this article may cause a whiplash-inducing paradigm shift. You will no longer view wild areas the same way. Your concepts of "pristine wilderness" and "the balance of nature" will be forever compromised. You may even start to see ghosts. End description.]

@a-captions-blog

just learned that magnolias are so old that they’re pollinated by beetles because they existed before bees

#described #trees #xkcd #plants #nature #not fact checked

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andmaybegayer · 2 years ago

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Last Monday of the Week 2022-12-19

Winding down

Listening: I have no idea why but this song has been open in a tab on my desktop for ages and I finally got around to listening to it. And then I listened to it like a dozen more times. Here's Expert in a Dying Field by The Beths

youtube

Reading: Finished What If? 2, the xkcd What If book. A fair number of these are reruns from the site, but lots of good originals, and as always includes some comic panels that are extremely funny out of context, such as:

Also started Africa Risen, an afrofantasy/afrofuturist spec fic short story collection. I have a soft spot for afrofuturism even though I find a lot of it either unbearably optimistic or distressingly pessimistic. That's true of a lot of sci-fi though I guess. I think I saw an ad for this go by on Tumblr Blaze, so good job whatever was in that ad.

I have more to say about this collection but what I have to say will probably change by the time I finish more of it.

Watching: Umbrella Academy Season 3, first few episodes. The dance number in E1 is so good, runs just long enough that you go "wow that's a really long dance number."

Playing: Dorf Fort, started a fort on my desktop and then restarted on my laptop because I don't have power most nights and it's a good way to kill time. The new GUI is fantastic, I don't t think any of the DF players I know are using the original version anymore, it's so much more flexible. Honestly just dragging to designate is such a huge change on its own, forget even having sprites.

Have a fortress up a mountain by a huge volcano, I've done some experimental digging to create lava channels for magma forges and so on. Successfully did not kill any dwarves horribly.

Also went to a game day at a nearby board game store, played a few games but noteworthy ones were:

Photosynthesis, a strategy game about growing trees in a forest without getting overshadowed by your opponents or yourself.

Inis, a Celtic themed strategy game about controlling territory that uses a clever card draft to distribute abilities between players.

Junk Art, a dexterity game about building towers of inconveniently shaped blocks. Not in print anymore, unfortunately.

Canvas, a really cute art-themed card draft game where you try to meet scoring criteria by stacking transparent cards to build up a painting.

Making: More quilt, I haven't touched it in a couple weeks so it was nice to get back. Every now and again you hit a patch of nice easy seams without complex corners and it's a nice break from trying to cinch together seven patches.

Digging into Linux internals to try and figure out what the hell is wrong with the sensor hub in my new laptop led me down a perplexing rabbit hole, the plan is now to try and sniff or otherwise inspect the Windows driver and figure out what it does that the Linux one doesn't.

Tools and Equipment: Gonna make a pitch for Small Laptops. My new 13-inch laptop is a godsend, small enough to chuck in basically any bag, light enough that you won't even know it's there, but big enough that it's way better for watching YouTube videos on in bed than a phone.

I've been doing all those power metric tests so I know it's good but also just using it, it's a real improvement over my old laptop, which I really only ever moved if it couldn't be avoided. The tenting and easel modes are really good for using on couches and in bed because they avoid choking the intakes.

#last monday of the week #Youtube

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max1461 · 3 years ago

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Ok shit i just realized like. The nature of combat in major twentieth century wars is isomorphic to the legendaries in each generation of Pokemon! Wait no hear me out.

In Gen 1 you start out with these legendaries that are basically just Really Powerful Animals: the legendary birds, Mew, and Mewtwo. Like, Mew is a little metaphysically important (the ancestor of all Pokemon), but mostly it's just a Strong Animal. Then in Gen 2 you start getting legendaries that are more, well, legendary: Ho-Oh is the guardian of the sky, Lugia the guardian of the sea, etc. They're metaphysically and mystically important in the history of Johto in a way the Kanto legendaries are not. In Gen 3 they really up the ante: Groudon literally made the land and Kyogre literally made the sea. At this point these guys are basically gods. And then in Gen 4, they actually are gods. Dialga controls time, Palkia controls space, and Arceus is uh, well it's just God.

And so it's like, each generation the legendaries are becoming more metaphysically important, more god-like, until you reach the point where you just don't have anywhere higher to go. So what did Gen 5 do? Well, Reshiram and Zekrom represent yin and yang, which is like. Ok, maybe depending on how you interpret things that's more fundamental than God, but I think it's a stretch. I think you've just realized there's no more vertical moves to make so you moved like, weirdly down and to the side, ya know? This becomes even more the case later, like what are the Gen 7 legendaries? Tiki dudes? Like cool we're down to regional gods again.

Ok now let's talk about wars. There's this quote which is like (I can't remember who it's from) "Word War I was the chemist's war, World War II was the physicist's war, and the Cold War was the mathematician's war." Because, like, the real New Fucked Up Thing of WWI was chemical weapons. They're what transformed the way combat was waged and captured the public's imagination. Then in WWII, it was obviously the atomic bomb. This device based on extremely mind-bending physics that (well, in the popular retelling at least) is so powerful it ends the war right then and there. And finally you've got the Cold War, which is the mathematician's war because it's basically defined by being this extremely delicate chess match between world powers. Nobody can actually fight, because you've got MAD which is this fucked up Nash equilibrium that would make the world end if anybody fought, so the whole war plays out as an abstraction of combat, through economics and game theory and careful diplomatic maneuvers and... well, the whole thing is very calculated and mathy, ya know?

So you're kinda going up the abstraction later each time, up the xkcd purity ladder, and then what comes next? When the Cold War ends? Well, it isn't exactly part of the twentieth century, but the next global-geopolitics-defining conflict is the War on Terror (this is why this thought popped into my head by the way: 9/11). And what defines the War on Terror? Well, it's this drastically asymmetric conflict between major states and non-state actors, I guess. And that's kind interesting, it's unique and different, but it's definitely a downward-and-lateral move on the abstraction ladder.

And so anyway the two are isomorphic I think. Or maybe just homotopy equivalent. Or something.

#navel gazing #shitpostposting #i don't even know

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thechekhov · 5 years ago

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Due to popular demand, I’m making a 4-part series about how to make a comic! Check out the other parts while you’re here!

1) Thinking of a story 2) Making characters (this part) 3) Drafting pages (coming not soon) 4) Presentation (coming eventually, we hope)

So, here’s the big question:

How do you make a good character?

I’m going to have us step back for a moment to say:

There is no such thing as a “Good” Character. Because how good a character is or isn’t is subjective. We can argue back and forth for hours about what we value in a character, but no one will ever agree. You can’t make a character that EVERYONE will like, and you shouldn’t try to.

Instead, I urge you to focus on trying to make ONE or MORE of the following:

Relatable characters

Sympathetic characters

Useful characters

“What the FUCK is goin’ on here I just wanna know” characters

I think they’re pretty self-explanatory, but let’s go through it anyway.

1. Relatable Characters:

What is says on the tin. These are character you and someone else could relate to. Maybe they’re a teenager who hates school. (Timeless classic.) Maybe they’re a young adult down on their luck and in need of money, willing to forgo some moral standards to get by. (Millennials, roll call!) Or maybe they’re just like you (or literally you. We don’t judge self-insert. There’s a reason Write What You Know is a thing.)

Regardless of what you want to believe, many human experiences are universal. Some of them are universally unacknowledged, but they are still universal. You want to just be careful about falling into the ‘my character is so special and the rest of my characters are dumb’ trope. That isn’t interesting - or realistic.

(source: xkcd)

2. Sympathetic Character:

I also call this the Looking Glass Character.

Even if most of us have universal human experiences, many of our own experiences are also unique to us. Some experiences are things we will never live through - but we can still sympathise with the emotional state of the characters. If a story allows us to experience new things THROUGH a character, we feel connected to them.

Keep in mind - this character still has to be somewhat relatable. We have to be able to say “if I was in this situation, I would do that too!” Allowing your readers to believe what is happening makes the reading experience more believable.

(I’m pretty sure none of us have been a half-gem half-human hybrid suffering through trying to right your defected-the-diamond-authority war-criminal mom’s past mistakes, but seeing Steven repeatedly say “I’m fine!” as he descends into madness is something we can all sympathise with.)

Similarly, if your character is in the woods and finds a tiny house on the edge of the prairie and it’s getting dark and the house has flickering lights - whether or not they go inside is inconsequential to sympathy. What matters is if they have a good REASON to go inside. Sometimes, it’s not the actions that’s sympathetic - it’s the motivation!

(My sister disappeared in just such a house! I must get revenge! vs I’m a bored teenager with a potentially unrequited deathwish and/or a crush on a ghost. Well... scratch that, I can sympathise with both scenarios.)

3. Useful Characters

I was previously asked what to do to avoid making your characters into a Mary Sue. This part will be about that.

Let me start by saying: I don’t think Mary Sues are as prevalent as some people bemoan them to be.

A Mary Sue is a character that is often described as ‘too perfect’ - they can do everything, know everything, never fail at anything, have a tragic past that excuses every emotional outburst, and are overall just ‘too good to be true’.

I think, if played correctly, such a character can still be a good one. What makes all the difference is how useful these aforementioned traits are to the plot - or to other characters.

Let’s acknowledge some universal truths (aside from the one about the men in want of wives and the relation of such a desire in proportion to their fortune):

The plot must go on. That’s obvious.

In order for the plot to move, there must be things happening (in one sense or another). Also obvious.

In order for things to happen, there must be a conflict or a tension of some sort. THAT is your litmus test for a ‘Mary Sue’ character.

“If I remove them from the plot, will the plot suffer any holes? Will they impact the plot or impede it? Will their OP superpowers make some other worldbuilding completely useless? Will their incredibly tragic backstory overshadow another conflict between other characters?”

Characters should be like legos - they must have a function within your plot. Looking cool isn’t a function. Well, sure, it CAN be - but it must also be a function that doesn’t break Newton’s Laws. An object at rest will remain at rest. If your Perfect Character is already flawless, they have no reason to change, ergo nothing needs to happen.

Make your character serve a use within your plot!

4. WtFiGOHIWK Characters:

Do you ever watch a show, or listen to a podcast or read a webcomic and think to yourself “Okay, cool, but what the FUCK is UP with _____? What’s their deal?!”

I like to categorize these characters in a group of their own. These characters are likable ONLY because we all have a socially wired brain that makes us CRAVE comprehension of social background like drugs. We CRAVE THAT MINERAL. And the mineral is - gossip. Backstory. Tea. The DEETS.

Many characters are somewhat of an enigma, and the initial plot doesn’t give away all their secrets. We get hooked not because the characters are relatable, and sometimes not even because they’re sympathetic - but because their social tension within a group of other characters is RIDICULOUS and we are wired to want to understand them.

Everyone has their own examples, but one of my favorites is this asshole:

Do I relate or sympathise with Dr. House? Broadly, no. He’s obscene, rude, and most of the time he’s not even the good guy in any given episode. But his morality roadmap resembles knitting directions for a scarf and his reactions to the most mundane situations are FASCINATING.

(Never underestimate the power of human curiosity and how strongly it can work to make your readers turn to the next page, even if your whole plot is about a dumpster truck on fire next to a fireworks factory.)

Q: So how do I make a character?

There are several options:

- Wait and do nothing. The character will happen when you least expect it or are least prepared. Now they’re in your head. They won’t leave. aaaaAAAAAAA!

- Take a person or another character you know. Change 3-5 fundamental things about them (I don’t mean name, hair color and shoe size... I mean something PERSONAL, like background, motivations, religion, dream job, species, etc.) BAM character. (I mean, is it QUESTIONABLE to write a story about your sister as a lizard who wants to go to the moon? MAYBE. Should she still be more grateful than she is? ALSO MAYBE.)

- Take yourself and change uhhh... at least one thing about the character. Try to veil the fact that it’s actually just you. Fail. Wipe away tears. Write the story anyway. Hope no one notices.

- Write a story in your head and then think “Who is the LEAST likely person to participate in these shenanigans?” There’s your character.

Q: What should I avoid in a character?

Honestly, you can go around to 100 people and ask this, and they’ll give you 100 different answers. What people dislike and like in characters is so vast that there’s NOTHING you can do to stop people from hating on a character.

But yes, there ARE some overused tropes and I want to share 1 rule that I personally keep to when making characters. (Keep in mind, this is MY personal list. It isn’t the end-all-be-all, and yes, you can argue about this. But don’t @ me, I don’t care.)

DON’T describe your character as “______ is kind and friendly until you piss them off - then they will kill you.”

This has been my biggest pet peeve since high school - and it’s unfortunately an absolute staple of any YA character. Someone is ‘friendly’ and ‘nice’ and ‘shy’ UNTIL - you hurt their friends. Then they go berserk.

I know it’s tempting because ‘usually demure character lets loose their True Potential’ is a very empowering thing to see. (And I admit, I think Mob Psycho 100 pulled this Trope back in by the scruff of its neck and managed to get JUST the right angle for it to work.)

BUT it’s overused and it tells us absolutely NOTHING about your character. It’s a calorie-free fact. Feels like a description but is actively devoid of any interesting information about your character.

Why? Because literally EVERYONE is like this.

We are all, at a baseline, somewhat friendly. That’s... just how most people are. Societal convention tells us we must behave with some semblance of dignity and respect towards others in standard situations in order to keep peace.

And I daresay getting pissed off and Breaking Character is ALSO a thing that most humans experience. Getting angry when your friends/loved ones are hurt is the bare minimum necessary for being relatable.

Not to say your character can’t do this but - it doesn’t need to be described as a part of their personality any more than, say, the fact that they have hair on their head.

Q: How do I make my character more believable?

Research.

We all hate that word, because school usually teaches us to think of research as boring but it is ESSENTIAL to your desire to make ‘good’ (relatable, sympathetic, useful) characters.

IF YOU PLAN TO WRITE FOR AN AUDIENCE, THEN YOU NEED TO PUT IN THE EFFORT OF MAKING YOUR CHARACTERS MULTIDIMENSIONAL.

That means - knowing their background. Knowing details. Knowing cultural, financial, religious terms you need to know to write them believably.

I know, I know - what if I’m just writing for myself? you say.

Well, fine. If you’re not planning to have your work be widely public, if you’re just having fun and don’t care, then write whatever you want. Make a Japanese character with a Korean name. Force your UK characters to use USA slang. Forgo any historical accuracy. Change up facts! Erase the moon landing, whatever.

But if you want to share your work with people, and if you want people to interact with your writing on a more serious level, then you NEED to know how to use Google and gather at least SURFACE information what you are writing. If you don’t but pretend you did, people WILL be jolted out of their zone.

Research the things and people you are writing about. And more importantly - READ about the experiences of the people you are writing about! Avoiding Stereotypes in this day and age is EASY. You literally have an endless, free encyclopedia in your hands. If you can send a tumblr ask, you can google it.

That’s all for now, and CHEERS!

#how to comic #how to comic part 2 #chekhov writes a tutorial #writing

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zeldahime · 1 year ago

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I hadn't heard of him before last week, but I was sent a link to his video on Good Omens and The Sandman, and thought it was pretty good. I played a few other videos by him while I did some QC at work, and only noticed 1) that he was confused about the origin of the Good Omens novel, in a way that made sense for a game of internet telephone, and 2) that he didn't really seem to understand the inner workings of Disney in his The Owl House video -- something I am always very willing to forgive, because I'm often the embodiment of this XKCD when it comes to Disney if I don't actively check myself. I'd noticed he had some interesting-looking videos about queerness in the Golden Age of Hollywood in his back catalog and had added them to my YouTube queue on my work computer because I knew I didn't know much about that subject.

If I didn't watch hbomberguy's video the day after it dropped, I would have binge-watched this guy. I'd have taken what he said about pirates or whatever at face value. I would have had no idea he was ripping off other creators. I did have no idea that the points he made about the writing of Good Omens and the Sandman that I liked were written by other people. Because they were plagarized, I still don't know who those people whose words spoke to me actually are.

I probably would have picked up he was full of it when he started ripping off Tinker Belles and Evil Queens if I watched that video, but honestly I wouldn't have watched that video because.... I've read Tinker Belles and Evil Queens, I've read Disney War, I've worked for Disney. I know this stuff and, having watched the The Owl House video, knew he didn't and had already forgiven it of him.

Because that's what humans do, most of the time: we assume good faith. We assume that, like us, everyone else is doing their best. We assume they care about the things they say they care about. We assume that people we like and trust are worthy of that.

I only watched like four videos by that guy and felt like a total dunce after watching the hbomb exposé. I can't even imagine how his fans must feel right now.

re: Somerton

Not for nothing, but I think we should remember that James Somerton's fans and subscribers are normal people, just like you. They are people who received his output in good faith, and extended to him a normal amount of grace and benefit of the doubt, which he took advantage of.

I don't think it's helpful to respond to the exposé on Somerton with sentiments along the lines of "wow, how could anyone ever think THIS GUY'S videos were any good, ha ha ha, how did he ever get subscribers?" because 1) you have the substantial benefit of hindsight and a disengaged outsider perspective, and 2) it's a rhetoric that creates a divide between you (refined, savvy, smart, sophisticated) and Somerton's audience (gullible, unrefined, easily taken advantage of, terrible taste), which is a false divide, with a false sense of security.

Somerton's success happened because he stole good writing. He found interesting, insightful, in-depth work done by other people, applied the one skill he actually has which is marketing, and re-packaged it as his own. He targeted a market which is starving for the exact kind of writing he was stealing, and pushed his audience to disengage from sources that conflicted with him.

Hbomberguy makes this point in his exposé video: good queer writing is hard to find and incredibly easy to lose. The writers Somerton stole from were often poor or precarious, writing freelance work for small circles under shitty conditions, without the means or the reach or the privileges necessary to find bigger markets. And, as Hbomb demonstrated, when people did discover Somerton's plagiarism, he used his substantial audience to hound them away and dissuade anyone else from trying to hold him accountable.

He stole queer writing by marginalized people, about experiences and perspectives that people are desperate to hear more about, and even if his delivery and aesthetics were naff, his words resonated with people because the original writers who actually wrote them poured their goddamn hearts and souls into it.

Somerton also maintained a consistent narrative of persecution and marginalization about himself. He took the plain truth, which is that queer people and perspectives are discriminated against, and worked that into a story about himself as a lone, brave truth-teller, daring to voice an authentic queer perspective, constantly beset by bigots and adversaries who sought to tear him down. As @aranock, who works with some of the people he targeted, writes in this post, Somerton weaponized whatever casual bias and bigotry he could find in his audience to reinforce his me vs them narrative (usually misogyny and various forms of transphobia), which is what grifters do. They find a vulnerable thread in a community and pull on it. And while you may not have the particular vulnerability that he exploited, you do have vulnerabilities, and they can be exploited too.

People felt compelled to support him, even if his work was sometimes shoddy, because he presented himself as a vulnerable, marginalized person in need of help, he pulled on that vulnerable thread.

Again, he has a degree in marketing, and just like propaganda, nobody is immune to marketing.

YouTube as a system is set up to push for more, constantly more. More content, more videos, more output, more more more more, and part of Somerton and Illuminaughty's success was their ability to push out large amounts of content to the hungry algorithm, even if it was of inferior quality. The algorithm rewarded their volume of output with more eyeballs and attention, and therefore more opportunities to find people who were vulnerable to their grift.

It is a system which quite literally rewards the exact kind of plagiarism that they do, because watch-time and engagement are easily measurable metrics for a corporation, and academic rigor is not. There is pressure to deliver, and a lot of rewards to gain from cutting corners to do it.

Somerton and Illuminaughty and Internet Historian are extreme and very obvious cases, so blatant that you can make a four hour video essay exposing what they've done, but the vast majority of this kind of plagiarism isn't going to be obvious - sometimes it might not even be obvious to the people who are doing it. Casual plagiarism is endemic to the modern internet, and most people don't get educated on what the exact boundaries are between proper sourcing and quoting vs plagiarizing. We had an entire course module at my university aimed at teaching students the exact differences and definitions, and people still made good faith mistakes in their essays and papers that they had to learn to correct during their education.

All of this to say: it is extremely easy in hindsight to call Somerton's work shitty and shoddy, his aesthetics flat and uninspired, and to imagine that as a sophisticated person with good taste and critical faculties, you would never be taken in by this kind of grifter. It is extremely easy to distance yourself from the people he preyed on, and imagine that you will never have to worry about your fave doing your dirty like that.

But part of the point of Hbomberguy's video is that plagiarism is extremely easy to get away with, and often difficult for the average person to spot and call out, and with the rise of AI tools blurring the lines even further, it is not going to get any easier.

So I think we should resist the temptation to think of Somerton's audience as people with bad taste and poor faculties. We should resist the temptation to distance ourselves from the perfectly normal people he preyed on. Many times in your life, a modestly clever man with a marketing degree has fooled you too.

On a personal note, by the same token, I am resisting the temptation to assume that I am too good to be vulnerable to the systemic pressures that produced Somerton and Illuminaughty. No, I've never made a video by word-for-word reciting someone else's work, but I know for a fact that I could do a better job of double-checking my work and citing my sources. I feel the exact same pressure to get a video out as fast as possible, I have the exact same rewards dangled in front of me by YouTube as a platform, and I can't pretend it doesn't affect my work. To me, Hbomb's video felt like a wake-up call to do better.

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