Luke Green's Blog, page 2
January 7, 2012
My Themes: Transformation
Transformation is something that shows up fairly often in my stories in one form or another. There is something that intrigues me about the idea of a person or thing becoming something something other than what they started out as. I frequently make use of literal transformation and almost always end up with a matter of metaphorical translation if enough of the story moves along.
Sometimes the transformations are blatant and sometimes they subtle, sometimes they approach quickly and sometimes slowly. Occasionally, the mind changes to match the body, but other times the new changes have to be adapted to slowly.
Transformation is a very basic, ancient theme in storytelling. Everything from Heracles' apotheosis to the radioactive spider that bit Peter Parker are representative of the theme of transformation. It always produces very interesting changes in the direction of the storyline.
The most interesting thing about transformation is not so much what the character transforms into, but in how the character is transformed and in how the people around him react to that transformation.
There are some very basic types of transformation. There are accidental transformations, willing transformations, self-induced transformations and enforced/granted transformations. There are also the transformations where the character is not so much becoming something new as they are developing naturally into what they have always been. There are also transformations which weaken, transformations which strengthen and transformations that either enslave or empower.
For example, the Pandora Pox storyline involves a magical curse/disease which transforms women into supernatural beings on a ratio of 2-part nymph, 3-part other-creature, 6-part human. These transformations are, by and large, accidental, strengthening and empowering. The Pox is transmitted through a variety of means dependent on the individual strand and it provides superhuman abilities. In addition, it is empowering rather than limiting, while they do acquire some behavior changes, overall "pandoras" take more initiative than other people around them and are less likely to allow themselves to be ordered about by people they don't respect. Pandoras change mentally before they change physically and, as a result, they usually only find their physical changes "odd" rather than panic-inducing. The mental changes themselves don't often remove character traits so much as they add new ones. A sphinx would acquire a growing interest in riddles and word games, for instance, while vampyr tend to become more "Goth" and become more active in religious activities.
Likewise, in Heritage, Terra Black is descended from gorgons, specifically Medusa. She accidentally awakens the development, but it isn't a matter of her really transforming so much as it is of discovering something that was already there. There is no mental change, so when the physical changes happen, she starts freaking out and worrying that there is something majorly wrong with her. In the end, she decides to use some of her acquired abilities to hide the finished transformation and try to remain fitting in with other people. There is really no personality change caused directly by the change itself. She doesn't suddenly decide she hates humanity and is going to turn everyone into stone. Instead all her changes in attitude are the result of her reacting to things that she now knows are real.
By comparison, there are a number of transformations in online amateur fiction that are more demeaning despite an apparent increase in ability. Probably the most easy of these to find are the sort of transformations where an individual uses some device, magical or scientific, to transform another person into their ideal. Making the perfect girlfriend, for example. These sorts of stories tend to involve the victim, and that is an appropriate word here, losing intelligence, free-will and often getting stuck with an uncontrollable desire/love or regard for the person changing them.
An example of this in my stories comes back to the Pandora Pox and what the contagious curse started out as. It started out as a potion that could be given to a woman that would make them a physically gorgeous woman with character quirks beneficial for getting jobs acting in specific sorts of movies. The changes were much less visible (the formula was 2-part nymph, 1-part other, 6-part human) and subtle, but they were still there. However, it was also noted that even these proto-Pandoras tended to be more independent than their would-be handlers wanted.
A better example from stories in general would be the traditional vampire story where a vampire forcibly turns someone into their servant. Yes, the end result is powerful and dangerous, but their overall quality of life has usually taken a severe nose dive. At least, in traditional stories. The new vampire has a reduced capacity for initiating new thought, is fixated only on feeding and has a number of limitations that further reduce their existence to something pitiful.
I tend not to use these sorts of transformations save as a threat or a source of danger. If I have an enemy attempt to use one, then I often end up having the transformation not end in the bad-guy's desired result for at least one character. And I'm back to my empowering transformations again.
Following the initial transformation, the character has the choice of trying to ignore the transformation, embrace it or hope to reverse it.
In my stories, reversing a transformation is usually impossible, and watching a character want to reverse it is very interesting. Though I tend more towards the characters that either ignore the change or embrace it. To some extent, Terra, my school girl gorgon, pretty much ignores her change and tries to simply live the same life she had before. Winter has more or less embraced her nature as a pandora and even progressed to stage 3 and stage 2 of both her infections despite that being difficult for a dual-infected pandora. Likewise, Kuwiko from "Ringing Neptune's Door" hasn't just embraced her change but to all appearances, she initiated it and worked at it from childhood until her teenaged years when she achieved her results.
Very often, the characters that try to ignore it have a very hard time trying to fit it into their understanding of the world. It is sort of like a form of denial, a desperate insistence that nothing has changed. They might not have lost anything specifically from the transformation, but it bothers them none-the-less and they try to keep everything else past that the same. Regardless, however, they will have to take measures to hide the change which forces them to recognize it and the continued dealing with these situations leads to further character development. Especially as they unwillingly grow used to the changes.
The ones that embrace it are either practical about such things, have undergone some mental changes from the transformation, had a poor life prior to the change and see it as a new start, or else the transformation is something that they have hoped for. The most interesting situation for those that actively sought or willingly accepted a transformation is when they start to realize that there is more to the transformation than they first thought. They will start having things that are different than they expected and things that don't match up to what they wanted. They'll want to do somethings that they now will have difficulty doing because of the fact that they are very much different.
The characters that try to reverse a change often lost something from it. Whether it was the ability to see the sun without bursting into flames or the ability to lead a normal life, something about the change has taken away something they value and they resent the result. They will tend to make their life as much about the transformation as those who embrace it do, but for completely the opposite reason. For them it is not a blessing but a curse and they would do anything to make it go away. What is really interesting is cases where you have two people transformed in the same way with one who embraces it at first but hates it afterwards and another who starts out hating and then learns to accept and embrace it.
The reactions of other people around the transformee are also interesting. Depending on the story setting, the transformation could be unique, rare, uncommon or even an everyday thing. Regard "You're so undead" where the girl's major reaction is not to being a vampire at the end of the short film and the other girls treat becoming a vampire like losing one's virginity. For them, the transformation is pretty much embarrassing rather than horrifying.
Likewise, in Pandora Pox, at the beginning, the changes are unusual because magic has long been gone from the world, but by the end of the story (once I start developing it) and when basically 1 in 10 human females are affected, the change sort of becomes much less concerning. To the point that individuals have licenses based on how far they've progressed their own changes.
In Divine Blood, it is mentioned that Immortals who used to be human outnumber Immortals who have mixed blood between the two separate immortal races that exist at the time. There are also mentioned to be "cuckoos" who are born looking human and eventually develop into a true form. But overall, transformation in Divine Blood is fairly rare. It doesn't happen in the first novel, though there are two individuals who have already gone through at least one transformation. The book doesn't identify which.
Of more interest in Divine Blood is the fact that the two Immortal Races have gone through what amounts to a mass racial transformation so that they appear as humans for the most part. The novel doesn't get into it, but the Immortals have so thoroughly taken to their human appearance that the majority of them are born, live and even die (though not by old age) looking human. Their entire racial identity has shifted to accommodate the human form such that the form they originally had in the past is rarely seen even by them and no longer even first nature, much less second.
The concept of an entire species doing that is mind-boggling. Though I can tell you that there are at least four races in Fred Perry's Gold Digger that likewise have gone through an entire cultural transformation in this regard.
In any case, the reaction of those around the transformed individuals is telling. Do they see them as a threat? A hero? A monster? Do they see through the change and find that the individual is still essentially the same? Or are they blinded by their past relationship and refuse to see how the entire being has changed? Or is it the reverse? Do they blindly attack and refuse to see the inner person, or do they look past the outward wonderful change and see something dangerous? Is the transformation something not even worthy of note because it is common place? Or is it a matter for celebration or commiseration?
There are a lot of different possible reactions to a character who has been changed and the way the people around the character change or don't change in their behavior toward him can have a heavy impact on the manner in which the character develops and eventually responds to his or her transformation.
Out of this is my enjoyment of shapeshifters, though currently, I have no shapeshifters as primary characters in any of my published works.
Beyond simply having a single incident in a character's history, beyond which they are forever different, the character that can choose to go back and forth from one state to another is incredibly appealing. While werecreatures and other such beings are the most common shapeshifter, I am also found of the doppleganger, the being that can look like any other person of any race, sex or body shape.
I find crossdressing and disguises rather...creepy. The idea of stuffing, compressing or otherwise contorting aspects of a person's body or adding pieces to it is disturbing. I think about the idea of a woman binding her breasts or a man trying to look like a woman to be uncomfortable. But I have no trouble at all with the idea of a person being able to physically change their shape from one gender to another or even one species to another. Perhaps it's just because I can imagine the sort of discomfort involved in the Hollywood-esque master of disguise or extreme crossdressing. Or maybe its because I think that if a person is able to truly and actually become something else, that it is just a natural aspect of their being.
Of course, the obvious might be that, as far as I know, people capable of truly shapeshifting into another person or being simply do not exist in reality. It would make sense that the more impossible and fantastical concept would be more comfortable for the fact that it is something I most likely will never run across.
In any case, usually the process to become a shapeshifter involves a transformation in and of itself and the shapeshifter presents more situations of an interesting nature in addition to those of simple transformation.
Someone who has been transformed was one thing and is now another. He is different, but what he has become is stable and concrete. Perhaps slightly less stable in perception since they now know it is possible to transform, but still, they are what they are from that point on.
An actual shapeshifter has at least two separate forms and often has more than that. It's like an identity crisis on steroids. In such characters, what do they feel is their real, actual form or do they even think they have an actual form? If they don't have any one form that they feel is natural, then what happens if they relax or go into shock or otherwise experience a sensation that causese them to default? Do they default to a amorphous...something? Do they default to a specific form? Do they just stay where they are?
And how do you determine the "true" nature of something that might be able to imitate another being all the way down to the very DNA?
It's like they're a living variable.
What sort of personality would such a person have?
It is a very interesting thing to consider.
Divine Blood: Semester Start
Sometimes the transformations are blatant and sometimes they subtle, sometimes they approach quickly and sometimes slowly. Occasionally, the mind changes to match the body, but other times the new changes have to be adapted to slowly.
Transformation is a very basic, ancient theme in storytelling. Everything from Heracles' apotheosis to the radioactive spider that bit Peter Parker are representative of the theme of transformation. It always produces very interesting changes in the direction of the storyline.
The most interesting thing about transformation is not so much what the character transforms into, but in how the character is transformed and in how the people around him react to that transformation.
There are some very basic types of transformation. There are accidental transformations, willing transformations, self-induced transformations and enforced/granted transformations. There are also the transformations where the character is not so much becoming something new as they are developing naturally into what they have always been. There are also transformations which weaken, transformations which strengthen and transformations that either enslave or empower.
For example, the Pandora Pox storyline involves a magical curse/disease which transforms women into supernatural beings on a ratio of 2-part nymph, 3-part other-creature, 6-part human. These transformations are, by and large, accidental, strengthening and empowering. The Pox is transmitted through a variety of means dependent on the individual strand and it provides superhuman abilities. In addition, it is empowering rather than limiting, while they do acquire some behavior changes, overall "pandoras" take more initiative than other people around them and are less likely to allow themselves to be ordered about by people they don't respect. Pandoras change mentally before they change physically and, as a result, they usually only find their physical changes "odd" rather than panic-inducing. The mental changes themselves don't often remove character traits so much as they add new ones. A sphinx would acquire a growing interest in riddles and word games, for instance, while vampyr tend to become more "Goth" and become more active in religious activities.
Likewise, in Heritage, Terra Black is descended from gorgons, specifically Medusa. She accidentally awakens the development, but it isn't a matter of her really transforming so much as it is of discovering something that was already there. There is no mental change, so when the physical changes happen, she starts freaking out and worrying that there is something majorly wrong with her. In the end, she decides to use some of her acquired abilities to hide the finished transformation and try to remain fitting in with other people. There is really no personality change caused directly by the change itself. She doesn't suddenly decide she hates humanity and is going to turn everyone into stone. Instead all her changes in attitude are the result of her reacting to things that she now knows are real.
By comparison, there are a number of transformations in online amateur fiction that are more demeaning despite an apparent increase in ability. Probably the most easy of these to find are the sort of transformations where an individual uses some device, magical or scientific, to transform another person into their ideal. Making the perfect girlfriend, for example. These sorts of stories tend to involve the victim, and that is an appropriate word here, losing intelligence, free-will and often getting stuck with an uncontrollable desire/love or regard for the person changing them.
An example of this in my stories comes back to the Pandora Pox and what the contagious curse started out as. It started out as a potion that could be given to a woman that would make them a physically gorgeous woman with character quirks beneficial for getting jobs acting in specific sorts of movies. The changes were much less visible (the formula was 2-part nymph, 1-part other, 6-part human) and subtle, but they were still there. However, it was also noted that even these proto-Pandoras tended to be more independent than their would-be handlers wanted.
A better example from stories in general would be the traditional vampire story where a vampire forcibly turns someone into their servant. Yes, the end result is powerful and dangerous, but their overall quality of life has usually taken a severe nose dive. At least, in traditional stories. The new vampire has a reduced capacity for initiating new thought, is fixated only on feeding and has a number of limitations that further reduce their existence to something pitiful.
I tend not to use these sorts of transformations save as a threat or a source of danger. If I have an enemy attempt to use one, then I often end up having the transformation not end in the bad-guy's desired result for at least one character. And I'm back to my empowering transformations again.
Following the initial transformation, the character has the choice of trying to ignore the transformation, embrace it or hope to reverse it.
In my stories, reversing a transformation is usually impossible, and watching a character want to reverse it is very interesting. Though I tend more towards the characters that either ignore the change or embrace it. To some extent, Terra, my school girl gorgon, pretty much ignores her change and tries to simply live the same life she had before. Winter has more or less embraced her nature as a pandora and even progressed to stage 3 and stage 2 of both her infections despite that being difficult for a dual-infected pandora. Likewise, Kuwiko from "Ringing Neptune's Door" hasn't just embraced her change but to all appearances, she initiated it and worked at it from childhood until her teenaged years when she achieved her results.
Very often, the characters that try to ignore it have a very hard time trying to fit it into their understanding of the world. It is sort of like a form of denial, a desperate insistence that nothing has changed. They might not have lost anything specifically from the transformation, but it bothers them none-the-less and they try to keep everything else past that the same. Regardless, however, they will have to take measures to hide the change which forces them to recognize it and the continued dealing with these situations leads to further character development. Especially as they unwillingly grow used to the changes.
The ones that embrace it are either practical about such things, have undergone some mental changes from the transformation, had a poor life prior to the change and see it as a new start, or else the transformation is something that they have hoped for. The most interesting situation for those that actively sought or willingly accepted a transformation is when they start to realize that there is more to the transformation than they first thought. They will start having things that are different than they expected and things that don't match up to what they wanted. They'll want to do somethings that they now will have difficulty doing because of the fact that they are very much different.
The characters that try to reverse a change often lost something from it. Whether it was the ability to see the sun without bursting into flames or the ability to lead a normal life, something about the change has taken away something they value and they resent the result. They will tend to make their life as much about the transformation as those who embrace it do, but for completely the opposite reason. For them it is not a blessing but a curse and they would do anything to make it go away. What is really interesting is cases where you have two people transformed in the same way with one who embraces it at first but hates it afterwards and another who starts out hating and then learns to accept and embrace it.
The reactions of other people around the transformee are also interesting. Depending on the story setting, the transformation could be unique, rare, uncommon or even an everyday thing. Regard "You're so undead" where the girl's major reaction is not to being a vampire at the end of the short film and the other girls treat becoming a vampire like losing one's virginity. For them, the transformation is pretty much embarrassing rather than horrifying.
Likewise, in Pandora Pox, at the beginning, the changes are unusual because magic has long been gone from the world, but by the end of the story (once I start developing it) and when basically 1 in 10 human females are affected, the change sort of becomes much less concerning. To the point that individuals have licenses based on how far they've progressed their own changes.
In Divine Blood, it is mentioned that Immortals who used to be human outnumber Immortals who have mixed blood between the two separate immortal races that exist at the time. There are also mentioned to be "cuckoos" who are born looking human and eventually develop into a true form. But overall, transformation in Divine Blood is fairly rare. It doesn't happen in the first novel, though there are two individuals who have already gone through at least one transformation. The book doesn't identify which.
Of more interest in Divine Blood is the fact that the two Immortal Races have gone through what amounts to a mass racial transformation so that they appear as humans for the most part. The novel doesn't get into it, but the Immortals have so thoroughly taken to their human appearance that the majority of them are born, live and even die (though not by old age) looking human. Their entire racial identity has shifted to accommodate the human form such that the form they originally had in the past is rarely seen even by them and no longer even first nature, much less second.
The concept of an entire species doing that is mind-boggling. Though I can tell you that there are at least four races in Fred Perry's Gold Digger that likewise have gone through an entire cultural transformation in this regard.
In any case, the reaction of those around the transformed individuals is telling. Do they see them as a threat? A hero? A monster? Do they see through the change and find that the individual is still essentially the same? Or are they blinded by their past relationship and refuse to see how the entire being has changed? Or is it the reverse? Do they blindly attack and refuse to see the inner person, or do they look past the outward wonderful change and see something dangerous? Is the transformation something not even worthy of note because it is common place? Or is it a matter for celebration or commiseration?
There are a lot of different possible reactions to a character who has been changed and the way the people around the character change or don't change in their behavior toward him can have a heavy impact on the manner in which the character develops and eventually responds to his or her transformation.
Out of this is my enjoyment of shapeshifters, though currently, I have no shapeshifters as primary characters in any of my published works.
Beyond simply having a single incident in a character's history, beyond which they are forever different, the character that can choose to go back and forth from one state to another is incredibly appealing. While werecreatures and other such beings are the most common shapeshifter, I am also found of the doppleganger, the being that can look like any other person of any race, sex or body shape.
I find crossdressing and disguises rather...creepy. The idea of stuffing, compressing or otherwise contorting aspects of a person's body or adding pieces to it is disturbing. I think about the idea of a woman binding her breasts or a man trying to look like a woman to be uncomfortable. But I have no trouble at all with the idea of a person being able to physically change their shape from one gender to another or even one species to another. Perhaps it's just because I can imagine the sort of discomfort involved in the Hollywood-esque master of disguise or extreme crossdressing. Or maybe its because I think that if a person is able to truly and actually become something else, that it is just a natural aspect of their being.
Of course, the obvious might be that, as far as I know, people capable of truly shapeshifting into another person or being simply do not exist in reality. It would make sense that the more impossible and fantastical concept would be more comfortable for the fact that it is something I most likely will never run across.
In any case, usually the process to become a shapeshifter involves a transformation in and of itself and the shapeshifter presents more situations of an interesting nature in addition to those of simple transformation.
Someone who has been transformed was one thing and is now another. He is different, but what he has become is stable and concrete. Perhaps slightly less stable in perception since they now know it is possible to transform, but still, they are what they are from that point on.
An actual shapeshifter has at least two separate forms and often has more than that. It's like an identity crisis on steroids. In such characters, what do they feel is their real, actual form or do they even think they have an actual form? If they don't have any one form that they feel is natural, then what happens if they relax or go into shock or otherwise experience a sensation that causese them to default? Do they default to a amorphous...something? Do they default to a specific form? Do they just stay where they are?
And how do you determine the "true" nature of something that might be able to imitate another being all the way down to the very DNA?
It's like they're a living variable.
What sort of personality would such a person have?
It is a very interesting thing to consider.
Divine Blood: Semester Start
Published on January 07, 2012 18:10
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Tags:
my-themes
January 6, 2012
Random Rant: Faith in General
I was having a discussion regarding the Grimm's Fairy Tales with a co-worker. This is a reasonably intelligent person I've worked with in the past at this job, a test-scoring facility here in San Antonio. She's educated and well spoken and knows at least one more language than I do because English is her second language (I tend not to count my limited French and Korean as 'knowing' a language). At any case, I started to discuss this one Grimm story that involves the Virgin Mary taking a child up to Heaven and taking care of her. My co-worker interrupted me and asked me to clarify that the story was about the Virgin Mary, and I commented that it was, but that a lot of the old European fairy tales were pre-Christian stories that had become Christianized afterwards.
Her response to that was "well, Europe has always been Christian."
This made me stop and blink because, well, no...it hasn't.
Christianity is not a religion started by Anglo-Saxons, the Norse, the Gauls or even the Romans. It started as a small off-shoot of Judaism based around the teachings of a Hebrew carpenter whom many believe, myself among them, was the Son of God. Almost all the original adherents to Christianity, back when it was an obscure cult, were Middle-Eastern in descent, primarily Hebrew, with probably the odd Roman or other traveler in as well. One of the oldest sects of Christianity still in existence is the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which has its roots in a passage of the Bible where Philip the Evangelist baptized a royal Ethiopian official.
I'm not surprised that people equate Christian with Europe, because Europeans have done the most to spread the religion in the past seventeen hundred years, but it did surprise me to find that college-educated people had forgotten that Europe had not started with the religion. Forgotten or never realized.
It started me to thinking about ideologies and religions and culture.
European culture was essentially stripped bare and built from scratch by Christian missionaries in the early AD centuries. It is certainly not completely gone, you can see elements of the older cultures still in place in things like the Maypole, the Christmas Tree and so on, but given the way that a number of Christians of the time pressed through and obliterated anything they felt was evil while assuming anything they felt was useful and acceptable, much of what we think about pre-Christian Europe is largely guesswork.
It seems to me that every ideology goes through this stage at some point, and not just religions. The sad thing is, a lot of the times, the methods used to spread the ideology are not always in accordance with the aims, ideals and teachings of the ideology itself.
Notice I'm saying ideology rather than religion. This is because it isn't just religions this happens with, it's any unified system of faith or belief. As an example of this, there is an idea among some that religions are inherently bad because they lead to wars and fanatical behavior. One of the films I transcribed discussed a psychological phenomena that they felt explained religious fanatics. That discussion runs as follows:
***********************
"Gunnar: (Narration) On the surface, I found a complex diversity of beliefs and tradition. Underneath, it was all about the same thing. Many of their ways were beautiful. Their rituals. Their techniques. Their meditations. So how is it possible, so easily can turn into violence and horror? One day, I met an expert on the human being. He said it is possible because we experience what is real, differently.
Scientist: When we have a dream, as real as it may feel, when we wake up, we realize that it is an inferior level of reality. We recognize that this reality is more consistent, more definitive, more vivid and the dream was just a dream. When people have mystical experiences where they perceive ultimate reality and God. Those are perceived not only to be real but to be more real than our everyday realities and appearances. So just like our everyday reality makes the dream reality seem inferior, the mystical reality makes our everyday reality seem inferior. And that raises some very challenging questions if we ultimately accept the idea that only way we know what reality is, is by how real it feels.
Gunnar: (Narration) He said that when you have this deep connection to a specific belief, this changes how your brain perceives the world. If your connection with Shiva, Buddha, Jesus Christ or Mohammed as the ultimate connection, it’s so strong that it changes your life from inside out. And it creates a feeling that this reality is the only one. Nothing else is real. And that’s where the whole scene turns bad.
Scientist: When we interact with other people in the world, it’s very hard for one person to physically injure another person, because even if they don’t agree with you, you at least recognize them as another person with feelings or a family like that. Well, if you don’t even recognize them as part of reality, then you really can do anything you want to them, because you’re not even affecting the real world. And your whole sense of morals. You’re not hurting another person, you’re hurting something that’s evil and unreal.
Gunnar: (Narration) When I saw that potential in religion, even in me. I made a choice. I turned my back on God. "
- Gunnar Goes God, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1827425/
*********************************
The statements are not wrong, but the assumption is that it is religions only that provoke these reactions and the narrator of the film decided that the mere potential for it to happen was enough for him to give up on religion, at least for a while. In reality, that "mystical" or "religious" experience can come about in relation to any of a number of beliefs.
All of them in fact.
Every form of Faith has had its harmful fanatics, and some number of such people exist as long as the Faith does.
In addition, I think there is another problem beyond what the scientist mentions. If another person were simply not part of your reality, there'd be no reason to deliberately and directly attack them or press them to come to your way of thinking. If they're not a part of your reality, then they are no threat to you, after all. However, fanatics don't simply live with an opinion that they and only they are right, they feel actively threatened by people that do not agree with them.
To the fanatic, not agreeing with them is the same thing as attacking them.
Look at every Faith structure:
There are atheists that go to extraordinary lengths to humiliate, repudiate and even harm people that believe in a religion. Words like "superstition" and "primitive" are often bandied about with rather heavy helpings of sarcasm.
There are strong elements in the American culture that will not be happy until every country in the world enforces the same ideal of freedom that we have.
The Christian efforts to convert people are well documented what with the aforementioned scouring and piecemeal assimilation of European culture and the actions of missionaries following that.
Look to the Bible's history of Exodus and then on to the lives of David and Solomon to get a hint of what the ancient Hebrews thought was appropriate to do to their enemies.
Germany, Japan and Italy took National pride on into demonically horrid levels.
The leaders of Capitalism have been often defamed for taking advantage of people whenever and wherever they can.
Communism is an ideology that has been especially harmed by its own fanatics. And while I tend to think the idea just doesn't work since it devalues the efforts of individuals in society, I'm fairly certain that Marx did not have Stalin in mind when he came up with the idea.
The list goes on and on.
I can even look at my personal ideology and see where it could be corrupted. I dislike the notion of a chosen people, it just seems wrong to me. I also believe in God in a primarily Catholic perception, though I feel that most religions probably have God at their base, partially because of my disbelief that any of us are particularly more chosen than the others. Add to this the fact that I believe in evolution and other such scientific theories because they make sense and God must have given us our sense for a reason. I also believe in the soul, that the body is essentially a shell around the soul and that we are inherently immortal and that anybody and anything can be redeemed if they choose. Reincarnation makes a lot of sense to me because it would give a soul pretty much infinite opportunities to redeem itself, and that feels like something God would give us.
All in all that sounds like a rather tolerant and open-minded view on things.
But, it does carry the threat of fanaticism like anything else. I can see where someone following this line of thought could become hostile to anybody that believed their people to be chosen by Heaven. The fear would come that such a person would come to force that way of thinking on me. I'd have to get them to change their mind and come to my way of thinking, and, if not, well if I kill them to protect myself then they'll just go on to their next life and maybe then they'll understand better. It's not like I'm hurting the real person, just the physical body.
This is not exactly a happy thought.
Though, of course, I'm pretty much just Joe-Schmoe nobody over here, nobody is likely to up and decide I'm some sort of spiritual guru and go off on crusades in my name.
I just wanted to show case the process.
Personally, I tend to think that fanaticism is more a show of a lack of Faith than a show of Faith. Fanatics seem to me to be afraid of the idea that they could be wrong, where as for me the knowledge that you are human and thus capable of being wrong about anything, especially religion and ideology, is a necessary awareness to have for actual Faith.
I believe in the existence of God. I believe so, but I do not know so. Knowing would mean it is a fact and you can't have faith in a fact. A fact is whether you believe it or not. It requires no effort to believe in a fact.
Faith requires active effort.
Since Faith isn't something I can know, it can only be something I believe, therefor it logical includes the concept that I could be wrong.
This is a problem for a lot of people. Because if its possible to be wrong, then how can the Faith be true?
But then, Truth does not require proof. Only Fact requires proof.
And, yes, I know I'm butchering Descartes, I'm sorry.
In any case, a lot of people equate "I believe, but I could be wrong" with "I say I believe, but I really don't" because in a lot of people's minds, belief requires that you not accept that you could be wrong.
But look at this.
I think *I* could be wrong.
I don't think God could be wrong.
Accepting the possibility that I'm wrong about the existence of God is not a denial of God's existence, but simply an acceptance of the fact that I'm a pitiful human being that is capable of hallucinating or having errors in logic.
Accepting the fallibility of humanity does not mean I don't believe in God.
In addition, if I am right, that doesn't necessarily mean that another person is wrong.
In the case of an atheist, yes, my belief in Christ and God is directly counter to their belief in the lack of a supreme being.
But in the case of Islam, my belief that Christ is the Messiah does not mean Mohammed was not a prophet of God. There are, of course, likely individual beliefs that I would not agree with, but again, I could be wrong.
Likewise, with Shinto, my belief that God is supreme and the creator of all does not mean that things like kami and yokai don't exist. After all, Christianity has angels and demons and Catholicism has saints, so within Christianity it is canon to accept the existence of beings that are neither God nor human and yet have supernatural power.
My belief in American democracy and civil liberties doesn't mean that a dictatorship is automatically bad.
Being proud of my heritage as a American does not instantly make me proud of the atrocities committed by Americans against the Native Americans and around the world.
One thing being right does not always make another thing wrong. It is possible to believe two different things.
Now, a fanatic believes in their chosen ideology, but that belief is shaky. The sight of someone else who believes something else bothers them. It bothers them even more if that someone else is happy and successful. After all, if they're right, then nobody who doesn't follow their ways should be either happy or successful, right? This means that the very existence of the other person threatens not just their lives, but their entire concept of life and existence.
And this threat exists simply because the other person just....is.
Without the acceptance of "you could be wrong" or at the very least the idea that someone else could be right, then you are closer to a situation where your world view can be threatened and you feel the need to defend it.
Anyway, that's my random rant.
Her response to that was "well, Europe has always been Christian."
This made me stop and blink because, well, no...it hasn't.
Christianity is not a religion started by Anglo-Saxons, the Norse, the Gauls or even the Romans. It started as a small off-shoot of Judaism based around the teachings of a Hebrew carpenter whom many believe, myself among them, was the Son of God. Almost all the original adherents to Christianity, back when it was an obscure cult, were Middle-Eastern in descent, primarily Hebrew, with probably the odd Roman or other traveler in as well. One of the oldest sects of Christianity still in existence is the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which has its roots in a passage of the Bible where Philip the Evangelist baptized a royal Ethiopian official.
I'm not surprised that people equate Christian with Europe, because Europeans have done the most to spread the religion in the past seventeen hundred years, but it did surprise me to find that college-educated people had forgotten that Europe had not started with the religion. Forgotten or never realized.
It started me to thinking about ideologies and religions and culture.
European culture was essentially stripped bare and built from scratch by Christian missionaries in the early AD centuries. It is certainly not completely gone, you can see elements of the older cultures still in place in things like the Maypole, the Christmas Tree and so on, but given the way that a number of Christians of the time pressed through and obliterated anything they felt was evil while assuming anything they felt was useful and acceptable, much of what we think about pre-Christian Europe is largely guesswork.
It seems to me that every ideology goes through this stage at some point, and not just religions. The sad thing is, a lot of the times, the methods used to spread the ideology are not always in accordance with the aims, ideals and teachings of the ideology itself.
Notice I'm saying ideology rather than religion. This is because it isn't just religions this happens with, it's any unified system of faith or belief. As an example of this, there is an idea among some that religions are inherently bad because they lead to wars and fanatical behavior. One of the films I transcribed discussed a psychological phenomena that they felt explained religious fanatics. That discussion runs as follows:
***********************
"Gunnar: (Narration) On the surface, I found a complex diversity of beliefs and tradition. Underneath, it was all about the same thing. Many of their ways were beautiful. Their rituals. Their techniques. Their meditations. So how is it possible, so easily can turn into violence and horror? One day, I met an expert on the human being. He said it is possible because we experience what is real, differently.
Scientist: When we have a dream, as real as it may feel, when we wake up, we realize that it is an inferior level of reality. We recognize that this reality is more consistent, more definitive, more vivid and the dream was just a dream. When people have mystical experiences where they perceive ultimate reality and God. Those are perceived not only to be real but to be more real than our everyday realities and appearances. So just like our everyday reality makes the dream reality seem inferior, the mystical reality makes our everyday reality seem inferior. And that raises some very challenging questions if we ultimately accept the idea that only way we know what reality is, is by how real it feels.
Gunnar: (Narration) He said that when you have this deep connection to a specific belief, this changes how your brain perceives the world. If your connection with Shiva, Buddha, Jesus Christ or Mohammed as the ultimate connection, it’s so strong that it changes your life from inside out. And it creates a feeling that this reality is the only one. Nothing else is real. And that’s where the whole scene turns bad.
Scientist: When we interact with other people in the world, it’s very hard for one person to physically injure another person, because even if they don’t agree with you, you at least recognize them as another person with feelings or a family like that. Well, if you don’t even recognize them as part of reality, then you really can do anything you want to them, because you’re not even affecting the real world. And your whole sense of morals. You’re not hurting another person, you’re hurting something that’s evil and unreal.
Gunnar: (Narration) When I saw that potential in religion, even in me. I made a choice. I turned my back on God. "
- Gunnar Goes God, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1827425/
*********************************
The statements are not wrong, but the assumption is that it is religions only that provoke these reactions and the narrator of the film decided that the mere potential for it to happen was enough for him to give up on religion, at least for a while. In reality, that "mystical" or "religious" experience can come about in relation to any of a number of beliefs.
All of them in fact.
Every form of Faith has had its harmful fanatics, and some number of such people exist as long as the Faith does.
In addition, I think there is another problem beyond what the scientist mentions. If another person were simply not part of your reality, there'd be no reason to deliberately and directly attack them or press them to come to your way of thinking. If they're not a part of your reality, then they are no threat to you, after all. However, fanatics don't simply live with an opinion that they and only they are right, they feel actively threatened by people that do not agree with them.
To the fanatic, not agreeing with them is the same thing as attacking them.
Look at every Faith structure:
There are atheists that go to extraordinary lengths to humiliate, repudiate and even harm people that believe in a religion. Words like "superstition" and "primitive" are often bandied about with rather heavy helpings of sarcasm.
There are strong elements in the American culture that will not be happy until every country in the world enforces the same ideal of freedom that we have.
The Christian efforts to convert people are well documented what with the aforementioned scouring and piecemeal assimilation of European culture and the actions of missionaries following that.
Look to the Bible's history of Exodus and then on to the lives of David and Solomon to get a hint of what the ancient Hebrews thought was appropriate to do to their enemies.
Germany, Japan and Italy took National pride on into demonically horrid levels.
The leaders of Capitalism have been often defamed for taking advantage of people whenever and wherever they can.
Communism is an ideology that has been especially harmed by its own fanatics. And while I tend to think the idea just doesn't work since it devalues the efforts of individuals in society, I'm fairly certain that Marx did not have Stalin in mind when he came up with the idea.
The list goes on and on.
I can even look at my personal ideology and see where it could be corrupted. I dislike the notion of a chosen people, it just seems wrong to me. I also believe in God in a primarily Catholic perception, though I feel that most religions probably have God at their base, partially because of my disbelief that any of us are particularly more chosen than the others. Add to this the fact that I believe in evolution and other such scientific theories because they make sense and God must have given us our sense for a reason. I also believe in the soul, that the body is essentially a shell around the soul and that we are inherently immortal and that anybody and anything can be redeemed if they choose. Reincarnation makes a lot of sense to me because it would give a soul pretty much infinite opportunities to redeem itself, and that feels like something God would give us.
All in all that sounds like a rather tolerant and open-minded view on things.
But, it does carry the threat of fanaticism like anything else. I can see where someone following this line of thought could become hostile to anybody that believed their people to be chosen by Heaven. The fear would come that such a person would come to force that way of thinking on me. I'd have to get them to change their mind and come to my way of thinking, and, if not, well if I kill them to protect myself then they'll just go on to their next life and maybe then they'll understand better. It's not like I'm hurting the real person, just the physical body.
This is not exactly a happy thought.
Though, of course, I'm pretty much just Joe-Schmoe nobody over here, nobody is likely to up and decide I'm some sort of spiritual guru and go off on crusades in my name.
I just wanted to show case the process.
Personally, I tend to think that fanaticism is more a show of a lack of Faith than a show of Faith. Fanatics seem to me to be afraid of the idea that they could be wrong, where as for me the knowledge that you are human and thus capable of being wrong about anything, especially religion and ideology, is a necessary awareness to have for actual Faith.
I believe in the existence of God. I believe so, but I do not know so. Knowing would mean it is a fact and you can't have faith in a fact. A fact is whether you believe it or not. It requires no effort to believe in a fact.
Faith requires active effort.
Since Faith isn't something I can know, it can only be something I believe, therefor it logical includes the concept that I could be wrong.
This is a problem for a lot of people. Because if its possible to be wrong, then how can the Faith be true?
But then, Truth does not require proof. Only Fact requires proof.
And, yes, I know I'm butchering Descartes, I'm sorry.
In any case, a lot of people equate "I believe, but I could be wrong" with "I say I believe, but I really don't" because in a lot of people's minds, belief requires that you not accept that you could be wrong.
But look at this.
I think *I* could be wrong.
I don't think God could be wrong.
Accepting the possibility that I'm wrong about the existence of God is not a denial of God's existence, but simply an acceptance of the fact that I'm a pitiful human being that is capable of hallucinating or having errors in logic.
Accepting the fallibility of humanity does not mean I don't believe in God.
In addition, if I am right, that doesn't necessarily mean that another person is wrong.
In the case of an atheist, yes, my belief in Christ and God is directly counter to their belief in the lack of a supreme being.
But in the case of Islam, my belief that Christ is the Messiah does not mean Mohammed was not a prophet of God. There are, of course, likely individual beliefs that I would not agree with, but again, I could be wrong.
Likewise, with Shinto, my belief that God is supreme and the creator of all does not mean that things like kami and yokai don't exist. After all, Christianity has angels and demons and Catholicism has saints, so within Christianity it is canon to accept the existence of beings that are neither God nor human and yet have supernatural power.
My belief in American democracy and civil liberties doesn't mean that a dictatorship is automatically bad.
Being proud of my heritage as a American does not instantly make me proud of the atrocities committed by Americans against the Native Americans and around the world.
One thing being right does not always make another thing wrong. It is possible to believe two different things.
Now, a fanatic believes in their chosen ideology, but that belief is shaky. The sight of someone else who believes something else bothers them. It bothers them even more if that someone else is happy and successful. After all, if they're right, then nobody who doesn't follow their ways should be either happy or successful, right? This means that the very existence of the other person threatens not just their lives, but their entire concept of life and existence.
And this threat exists simply because the other person just....is.
Without the acceptance of "you could be wrong" or at the very least the idea that someone else could be right, then you are closer to a situation where your world view can be threatened and you feel the need to defend it.
Anyway, that's my random rant.
Published on January 06, 2012 22:35
•
Tags:
random-rant
Character Profile: Genevive Robles
World Setting: Bystander
Status: Published: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006ESG092
DrivethruRPG: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product... (print $6.99, Kindle $1)
Birth Name: Eldon Dwyer
Aliases: Sightseer
Age: 34
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 132 ilbs
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Complexion: Healthy tan
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Nationality: American
Home: Seattle, Washington
Occupation: Mercenary, Former Intelligence Operative
Languages: English, Spanish
Quotes:
"The prison was the only public place set up to handle peak offenders. Do you trust the not-so private ones with a minor?"
"Yes, it's a Termite."
"Your abilities don't make you Captain Kirk."
"Don't play with the clips. It won't be pretty."
"Ah, someone who doesn't call me by my old rank. That's somewhat refreshing."
"They probably should have put a gag on Lucretia."
"Unlike most goddessess, my former temple doesn't hate my guts."
Abilities:
Nothing inhuman
Skills:
Weaponsmithing: Genevive Robles is a highly skilled gunsmith and bladesmith, able to craft her own avatars given the appropriate workshop. She's also produced a number of attachments and modifications to her avatar, its ammunition, its sights, its clips and other such things.
Mechanic: Robles maintains her Termite herself, the car has a reputation for smelling like ozone, but it runs well enough.
Goddess Fighting Skills: She is a highly accomplished student of the fighting program given the NAMA goddesses. This includes knife-fighting, grappling, marksmanship and the use of a heavy pistol as a melee weapon. It is a highly unique martial art that incorporates elements of a number of pre-existing forms and programs.
Command: As a NAMA goddess, Genevive ran a "temple" (mercenary organization) of roughly ten to fifteen three-man teams throughout the majority of the Cartel Wars. She personally led numerous missions during the most heated parts of the time period and in one of the more volatile locations. She is skilled in management, recruitment, development and placement of mercenaries tactically and strategically.
Contacts: She retains contacts with elements of NAMA, the US government and the Mexican government. In addition, she also has connections with former clients taken to maintain her freelance cover before the Goddess organization was burned en masse. Since the burn, she's been operating as a more or less public freelancer and has acquired a few more contacts both in the public domain, among some governments and with elements of the Faction Wars including the Inquisition.
Disguise/Undercover: Robles was a Deep Cover agent of the North American Military Alliance. Part of her cover involved running an independent, semi-legal mercenary organization out of Mexico with a shifting size of thirty to forty-five operatives. At the same time, she was interacting with elements of both the Mexican and US law enforcement and militaries without alerting either that she was a direct operative under NAMA. While she is not a master of disguise in the traditional sense, Genevive is able to alter her appearance to a desired effect fairly reliably.
Signature Weapon: All avatars are heavy handguns with reinforced body and either a hidden blade on a spring release or else a bayonet attachment point. Robles has her blade hidden in her grip beside the clip and has modified to accept various attachments.
Appearance:
Robles' is a woman who appears a youngish thirties to forties, the actual age she appears varies based on how she desires to look at any given moment. She keeps to a rather basic appearance and style, with shoulder length hair mostly so that she can model herself to different styles at need. Genevive is in very good condition and seems as fit as a professional athlete in their early twenties.
Personality:
Robles is a mostly serious and to the point woman though she definitely has her own sense of humor. She thoroughly enjoys tinkering around with her avatar, her car and other mechanical objects. Like her mother before her, she is highly patriotic and proud of her homeland. Robles is a Continentalist, meaning that politically speaking she leans toward a more permanent and official joining of the North and Central American countries. She sees the US and Mexico as leading that future regional government, but generally thinks in terms of what's good for the continent first and foremost and expects that to carry down to the member countries.
Robles tends to react to Robles in a manner that is a combination of big-sister and motherly. She is constantly exasperated by Lucretia and her antics while at the same time impressed with the younger woman's abilities and skills. She shares Lucretia's interest in history, but tends to prefer specifically military history as adverse Lucretia's interests in more economic and political histories. She has come to know Lucretia fairly well, enough that Lucretia isn't entirely sure just what Robles knows or thinks she knows. This tends to mean that Lucretia has a tougher time fooling her with a ploy.
The family motto, carried from her mother, is "Skill trumps Power, Will trumps All."
Background:
Genevive Robles is the daughter of Breanna Robles, US Army (KIA - Afghanastan 2003), and Vitali Markovic-Robles, NYPD (KIA - 2014, start of Cartel Wars). Her mother's father was Sergio Robles, FBI (KIA - Classified, 1989). Her grandfather's mother was Jacinta Hierro-Robles, CIA (KIA - Unknown, 1963). Her great-grandmother's father was Bolivar Hierro, State Department Agent (KIA - Pearl Harbor, 1942). Her family has a rather long history of military or government work and dying young to leave children taken care of by other relatives. So far, she's beaten the curve on the dying young part.
In 2018, at age 17, Genevive was scouted and recruited into NAMA's independent armed forces. By 2022, she was listed as a Sergeant in the receptionist pool. By that time, the so-called Cartel Wars had been running for eight years and were going to be running for another ten. The conflict would not be recognized until later since the majority of those involved were law enforcement with only occasional military involvement. During this time, Genevive was operating as a deep cover operative, a Goddess with the code name Tlazolteotl, answering directly to NAMA rather than any specific country. Despite the burning of her cover, the majority of her missions remain classified. She still has a standing bounty on her head from that time.
She is currently working directly for Eric Novac, a friend of the family, as a combination body-guard and probation officer for Lucretia, a high-profile peak in Seattle, Washington.
Status: Published: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006ESG092
DrivethruRPG: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product... (print $6.99, Kindle $1)
Birth Name: Eldon Dwyer
Aliases: Sightseer
Age: 34
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 132 ilbs
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Complexion: Healthy tan
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Nationality: American
Home: Seattle, Washington
Occupation: Mercenary, Former Intelligence Operative
Languages: English, Spanish
Quotes:
"The prison was the only public place set up to handle peak offenders. Do you trust the not-so private ones with a minor?"
"Yes, it's a Termite."
"Your abilities don't make you Captain Kirk."
"Don't play with the clips. It won't be pretty."
"Ah, someone who doesn't call me by my old rank. That's somewhat refreshing."
"They probably should have put a gag on Lucretia."
"Unlike most goddessess, my former temple doesn't hate my guts."
Abilities:
Nothing inhuman
Skills:
Weaponsmithing: Genevive Robles is a highly skilled gunsmith and bladesmith, able to craft her own avatars given the appropriate workshop. She's also produced a number of attachments and modifications to her avatar, its ammunition, its sights, its clips and other such things.
Mechanic: Robles maintains her Termite herself, the car has a reputation for smelling like ozone, but it runs well enough.
Goddess Fighting Skills: She is a highly accomplished student of the fighting program given the NAMA goddesses. This includes knife-fighting, grappling, marksmanship and the use of a heavy pistol as a melee weapon. It is a highly unique martial art that incorporates elements of a number of pre-existing forms and programs.
Command: As a NAMA goddess, Genevive ran a "temple" (mercenary organization) of roughly ten to fifteen three-man teams throughout the majority of the Cartel Wars. She personally led numerous missions during the most heated parts of the time period and in one of the more volatile locations. She is skilled in management, recruitment, development and placement of mercenaries tactically and strategically.
Contacts: She retains contacts with elements of NAMA, the US government and the Mexican government. In addition, she also has connections with former clients taken to maintain her freelance cover before the Goddess organization was burned en masse. Since the burn, she's been operating as a more or less public freelancer and has acquired a few more contacts both in the public domain, among some governments and with elements of the Faction Wars including the Inquisition.
Disguise/Undercover: Robles was a Deep Cover agent of the North American Military Alliance. Part of her cover involved running an independent, semi-legal mercenary organization out of Mexico with a shifting size of thirty to forty-five operatives. At the same time, she was interacting with elements of both the Mexican and US law enforcement and militaries without alerting either that she was a direct operative under NAMA. While she is not a master of disguise in the traditional sense, Genevive is able to alter her appearance to a desired effect fairly reliably.
Signature Weapon: All avatars are heavy handguns with reinforced body and either a hidden blade on a spring release or else a bayonet attachment point. Robles has her blade hidden in her grip beside the clip and has modified to accept various attachments.
Appearance:
Robles' is a woman who appears a youngish thirties to forties, the actual age she appears varies based on how she desires to look at any given moment. She keeps to a rather basic appearance and style, with shoulder length hair mostly so that she can model herself to different styles at need. Genevive is in very good condition and seems as fit as a professional athlete in their early twenties.
Personality:
Robles is a mostly serious and to the point woman though she definitely has her own sense of humor. She thoroughly enjoys tinkering around with her avatar, her car and other mechanical objects. Like her mother before her, she is highly patriotic and proud of her homeland. Robles is a Continentalist, meaning that politically speaking she leans toward a more permanent and official joining of the North and Central American countries. She sees the US and Mexico as leading that future regional government, but generally thinks in terms of what's good for the continent first and foremost and expects that to carry down to the member countries.
Robles tends to react to Robles in a manner that is a combination of big-sister and motherly. She is constantly exasperated by Lucretia and her antics while at the same time impressed with the younger woman's abilities and skills. She shares Lucretia's interest in history, but tends to prefer specifically military history as adverse Lucretia's interests in more economic and political histories. She has come to know Lucretia fairly well, enough that Lucretia isn't entirely sure just what Robles knows or thinks she knows. This tends to mean that Lucretia has a tougher time fooling her with a ploy.
The family motto, carried from her mother, is "Skill trumps Power, Will trumps All."
Background:
Genevive Robles is the daughter of Breanna Robles, US Army (KIA - Afghanastan 2003), and Vitali Markovic-Robles, NYPD (KIA - 2014, start of Cartel Wars). Her mother's father was Sergio Robles, FBI (KIA - Classified, 1989). Her grandfather's mother was Jacinta Hierro-Robles, CIA (KIA - Unknown, 1963). Her great-grandmother's father was Bolivar Hierro, State Department Agent (KIA - Pearl Harbor, 1942). Her family has a rather long history of military or government work and dying young to leave children taken care of by other relatives. So far, she's beaten the curve on the dying young part.
In 2018, at age 17, Genevive was scouted and recruited into NAMA's independent armed forces. By 2022, she was listed as a Sergeant in the receptionist pool. By that time, the so-called Cartel Wars had been running for eight years and were going to be running for another ten. The conflict would not be recognized until later since the majority of those involved were law enforcement with only occasional military involvement. During this time, Genevive was operating as a deep cover operative, a Goddess with the code name Tlazolteotl, answering directly to NAMA rather than any specific country. Despite the burning of her cover, the majority of her missions remain classified. She still has a standing bounty on her head from that time.
She is currently working directly for Eric Novac, a friend of the family, as a combination body-guard and probation officer for Lucretia, a high-profile peak in Seattle, Washington.
Published on January 06, 2012 20:41
•
Tags:
character-profile
January 1, 2012
Divine Blood Project Status
The Balor murder cult has been written up and is available for view by backers of the kickstarter project.
Also available for view there are notes on the histories of some of the universe's nations, such as the Empire of Myanmar, and discussions on psychic powers and non-human races.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1...
Divine Blood: Semester Start
Also available for view there are notes on the histories of some of the universe's nations, such as the Empire of Myanmar, and discussions on psychic powers and non-human races.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1...
Divine Blood: Semester Start
Published on January 01, 2012 22:02
•
Tags:
project-status
Korean TV Drama - My Girlfriend is Nine-Tailed Fox - Paranormal Romance
Title: My Girlfriend is a Gumiho
Episode Length: 1:04 to 1:09
Series Length: 20
Premise: Cha Dae-Woong is a young man trying to become the world's next big action movie star. However, his grandfather is getting tired of the way he irresponsibly throws money around and the way he skips school and tries to drag Dae-Woong away from his classes and to a military college. Dae-Woong escapes, but in doing so finds himself stuck on a truck heading for a country shrine where he unwittingly releases a nine-tailed fox (Gumiho) from its prison.
Rating: 5 stars
Review: Lee Seung Gi as Dae-Woong and Shin Min Ah as Gumiho have wonderful chemistry and they show the character development of each of their characters extremely well. They are by far the best part of the story and their reactions and interplay are wonderful. There are several extremely touching moments spread all through out the story. Watching the way Dae-Woong develops into a responsible young man and watching Miho adapt to the human world is worth every moment of this story.
Park Soo Jin's portrayl of Eun Hae In is another favorite part of the show. The more supernatural antagonist is interesting, but not as captivating as Miss Park's portrayal of the delightfully petty, intelligent and caustic Eun Hae In. All done so that the woman is an antagonist without being an inhuman evil, thing.
The story is based on the idea of the Korean nine-tailed fox which is said to have to eat the livers of a hundred human beings in order to become human. It is very much a romantic comedy more than a dark horror story however. The gumiho is powerful and somewhat inhuman in the way she thinks, but she is hardly malicious. In fact, she is very innocent.
Episode Length: 1:04 to 1:09
Series Length: 20
Premise: Cha Dae-Woong is a young man trying to become the world's next big action movie star. However, his grandfather is getting tired of the way he irresponsibly throws money around and the way he skips school and tries to drag Dae-Woong away from his classes and to a military college. Dae-Woong escapes, but in doing so finds himself stuck on a truck heading for a country shrine where he unwittingly releases a nine-tailed fox (Gumiho) from its prison.
Rating: 5 stars
Review: Lee Seung Gi as Dae-Woong and Shin Min Ah as Gumiho have wonderful chemistry and they show the character development of each of their characters extremely well. They are by far the best part of the story and their reactions and interplay are wonderful. There are several extremely touching moments spread all through out the story. Watching the way Dae-Woong develops into a responsible young man and watching Miho adapt to the human world is worth every moment of this story.
Park Soo Jin's portrayl of Eun Hae In is another favorite part of the show. The more supernatural antagonist is interesting, but not as captivating as Miss Park's portrayal of the delightfully petty, intelligent and caustic Eun Hae In. All done so that the woman is an antagonist without being an inhuman evil, thing.
The story is based on the idea of the Korean nine-tailed fox which is said to have to eat the livers of a hundred human beings in order to become human. It is very much a romantic comedy more than a dark horror story however. The gumiho is powerful and somewhat inhuman in the way she thinks, but she is hardly malicious. In fact, she is very innocent.
Published on January 01, 2012 13:12
•
Tags:
korean-drama-reviews
Korean Drama Theater: 49 Days
Title: 49 Days
Episode Length: 1:05 minutes
Series Length: 20 episodes
Basic Premise: Shin Ji Hyun is a girl who has to have everything. She is rich, she has loving parents and many friends. She's about to get married to Min Ho and hoping to introduce her best friend, In Jung, to one of her fiancee's friends. Then an unfortunate series of events leads to a car accident that puts her into a coma and puts her soul wandering out into the world. Not long after, she meets a Scheduler, whose job is to guide people to their appointed times and places of death. Because Shin Ji Hyun's death was not on the schedule, she has a chance to come back to life. If she can prove that three people not related to her by blood truly loved her by collecting tears of 100% pure love. Given that she is considered one of the kindest most genuinely honest people anybody knows, this doesn't seem difficult at first. Of course, nothing is as simple as it seems. First, she has to borrow the body of Song Ji-Kyung, who has her own tragic past, and second she can't tell anybody who she is or about or her mission.
Rating: 5 stars.
Review: 49 Days delivers heavily on character development, plot twists and touching moments. While all the actors perform excellently, it is Lee Yo-Wan's dual portrayal as both Ji-Kyung and Ji-Hyun in Ji-Kyung's body that really sells the show. She does an excellent job of portraying both characters including the ways that their personalities overlap. There is at least one scene where the personality in control changes and the expression and attitude of Lee Yo-Wan cools and hardens severely with only minor changes of expression about the eyes and lips. Her performance is nothing less than exemplary and amazing.
The supernatural elements of the story are consistent and subtle, adding flavor without overwhelming the wonderful character interplays going on. For the most part they manage the ghost elements by practical means such as people simply ignoring the ghost character. And making cuts such that suddenly one character is just no longer present. There is some CGI and overlay to show the act of possession and when Ji Hyun tries to touch anything, but for the most part the story has no need of anything but stage-settings and the like. I also like the mythology of the show. Because Ji Hyun isn't really a dead-soul, just a wandering one, she can't walk through most walls or people. The Schedulers keep track of things with a rather humorous smart phone and the rules regarding Schedulers and wandering souls are very simple, easy to follow and dreadfully poignant.
Episode Length: 1:05 minutes
Series Length: 20 episodes
Basic Premise: Shin Ji Hyun is a girl who has to have everything. She is rich, she has loving parents and many friends. She's about to get married to Min Ho and hoping to introduce her best friend, In Jung, to one of her fiancee's friends. Then an unfortunate series of events leads to a car accident that puts her into a coma and puts her soul wandering out into the world. Not long after, she meets a Scheduler, whose job is to guide people to their appointed times and places of death. Because Shin Ji Hyun's death was not on the schedule, she has a chance to come back to life. If she can prove that three people not related to her by blood truly loved her by collecting tears of 100% pure love. Given that she is considered one of the kindest most genuinely honest people anybody knows, this doesn't seem difficult at first. Of course, nothing is as simple as it seems. First, she has to borrow the body of Song Ji-Kyung, who has her own tragic past, and second she can't tell anybody who she is or about or her mission.
Rating: 5 stars.
Review: 49 Days delivers heavily on character development, plot twists and touching moments. While all the actors perform excellently, it is Lee Yo-Wan's dual portrayal as both Ji-Kyung and Ji-Hyun in Ji-Kyung's body that really sells the show. She does an excellent job of portraying both characters including the ways that their personalities overlap. There is at least one scene where the personality in control changes and the expression and attitude of Lee Yo-Wan cools and hardens severely with only minor changes of expression about the eyes and lips. Her performance is nothing less than exemplary and amazing.
The supernatural elements of the story are consistent and subtle, adding flavor without overwhelming the wonderful character interplays going on. For the most part they manage the ghost elements by practical means such as people simply ignoring the ghost character. And making cuts such that suddenly one character is just no longer present. There is some CGI and overlay to show the act of possession and when Ji Hyun tries to touch anything, but for the most part the story has no need of anything but stage-settings and the like. I also like the mythology of the show. Because Ji Hyun isn't really a dead-soul, just a wandering one, she can't walk through most walls or people. The Schedulers keep track of things with a rather humorous smart phone and the rules regarding Schedulers and wandering souls are very simple, easy to follow and dreadfully poignant.
Published on January 01, 2012 06:11
•
Tags:
korean-drama-reviews
December 31, 2011
My Themes: Non Traditional Relationships
So, this is less about writing skills because it's not about what makes a good story, but does deal with things I like to use in stories. I'm fairly sure this started with the same sort of juvenile "cool lesbians" thoughts a lot of guys end up having at some point in their lives. That said, I've always liked stories and, as said in my bit on candy and distractions earlier this week, just randomly adding in sex scenes usually results in me losing interest in a story as it becomes repetitive. I am much more interested in emotions and interplay of the characters involved than merely the physical expression of the emotions. That said, I've found that I like doing what some people would consider weird things with relationships.
Cross-racial relationships (or cross-species in some of my settings) is not so unusual these days, but that is certainly something I do a lot of. Half-human hybrids are pretty common in fiction as far back as the Greek myths. In real life, inter-racial marriage is a lot more common these days. So, while I like matching people of different races, this isn't quite non-traditional anymore.
However let's look at some of the relationship situations that'll be showing up in some of my novels. To preserve spoilers I'm not naming which series or character but I'm sure some people can figure it out.
Anyway:
a bisexual woman who tends to fall in love with people not attracted to women
two straight females psychically bonded and in love with the same guy
a straight woman and a lesbian in what amounts to non-sexual life-partnership
a lesbian couple...probably the most normal of the three
A lot of this came up because of me wondering "what would that relationship be like"?
The first arrangement is born out of that particular character's hangups with trust and intimacy. It's more an expression of how damaged she at least starts out as that she tends to really fall for people which she has no possibility of ending up in bed with. Though, initially, the matter will be treated rather lightly to make it seem more of a running joke rather than a symptom of her personality issues.
The second arrangement came out of an earlier version of the story where a number of fans of the story repeatedly asked for X guy character to end up with both Y and Z girls. This is a rather common situation in fanfic and other such things and another situation that goes with the "jackpot" scenario (to use a Dodgeball reference) is the idea that the girls are also sexually attracted to each other. So having two girls that intimately care for each other and the same guy but reacting to implications that they're intimate with shock and dismay appeals to me as a joke at the community and myself while also being an interesting situation to deal with. Though I'm certain that if I'm successful, that there'll be a number of fanfics and fan art that ignores my version.
In the third arrangement, I kind of like the idea of two women that everyone else sees as acting like an intimate married couple while the two involved have no idea everybody else thinks that way about them. Add in the "are they or aren't they" because of the sexuality of the one and you have some meat for some excellent humor. And it also lets me explore the idea that true intimacy and true love doesn't necessarily have a sexual aspect. The fact that one of them is a lesbian lets me add a bit of a test to that relationship.
The last relationship also has more going on with one of the individuals being very mentally unstable and the other having to grow up to take care of them. But that interaction can happen in any sort of relationship where one or another of the two has severe mental issues and has less to do with their sexuality.
In all these cases, one thing I like about the non-traditional relationships is that they do make people stop and think. Simply setting up one of these weird relationships breaks the common mold and will make the reader focus more on the interplay for one reason or another. Simply for the fact that it is unusual.
And it has to be unusual.
If every relationship is non-traditional, it loses its impact. The majority of real world relationships are one man and one woman and, unless you're telling a story about a community of people that are non-traditional, so will most of the relationships in your story. And I tend to find that it is better to string out the development of these relationships over time rather than *BANG* there it is.
For the most part anyway.
Cross-racial relationships (or cross-species in some of my settings) is not so unusual these days, but that is certainly something I do a lot of. Half-human hybrids are pretty common in fiction as far back as the Greek myths. In real life, inter-racial marriage is a lot more common these days. So, while I like matching people of different races, this isn't quite non-traditional anymore.
However let's look at some of the relationship situations that'll be showing up in some of my novels. To preserve spoilers I'm not naming which series or character but I'm sure some people can figure it out.
Anyway:
a bisexual woman who tends to fall in love with people not attracted to women
two straight females psychically bonded and in love with the same guy
a straight woman and a lesbian in what amounts to non-sexual life-partnership
a lesbian couple...probably the most normal of the three
A lot of this came up because of me wondering "what would that relationship be like"?
The first arrangement is born out of that particular character's hangups with trust and intimacy. It's more an expression of how damaged she at least starts out as that she tends to really fall for people which she has no possibility of ending up in bed with. Though, initially, the matter will be treated rather lightly to make it seem more of a running joke rather than a symptom of her personality issues.
The second arrangement came out of an earlier version of the story where a number of fans of the story repeatedly asked for X guy character to end up with both Y and Z girls. This is a rather common situation in fanfic and other such things and another situation that goes with the "jackpot" scenario (to use a Dodgeball reference) is the idea that the girls are also sexually attracted to each other. So having two girls that intimately care for each other and the same guy but reacting to implications that they're intimate with shock and dismay appeals to me as a joke at the community and myself while also being an interesting situation to deal with. Though I'm certain that if I'm successful, that there'll be a number of fanfics and fan art that ignores my version.
In the third arrangement, I kind of like the idea of two women that everyone else sees as acting like an intimate married couple while the two involved have no idea everybody else thinks that way about them. Add in the "are they or aren't they" because of the sexuality of the one and you have some meat for some excellent humor. And it also lets me explore the idea that true intimacy and true love doesn't necessarily have a sexual aspect. The fact that one of them is a lesbian lets me add a bit of a test to that relationship.
The last relationship also has more going on with one of the individuals being very mentally unstable and the other having to grow up to take care of them. But that interaction can happen in any sort of relationship where one or another of the two has severe mental issues and has less to do with their sexuality.
In all these cases, one thing I like about the non-traditional relationships is that they do make people stop and think. Simply setting up one of these weird relationships breaks the common mold and will make the reader focus more on the interplay for one reason or another. Simply for the fact that it is unusual.
And it has to be unusual.
If every relationship is non-traditional, it loses its impact. The majority of real world relationships are one man and one woman and, unless you're telling a story about a community of people that are non-traditional, so will most of the relationships in your story. And I tend to find that it is better to string out the development of these relationships over time rather than *BANG* there it is.
For the most part anyway.
Published on December 31, 2011 01:18
•
Tags:
my-themes
December 30, 2011
New Day Job
Well, it looks like I'm going to be heading to Japan in the near future. I've applied for a job through Interac which provides Assistant Language Teachers to the Japanese public schools among other things. The job pays around 230,000 yen (close to $3k) a month out of which I'll have to pay rent, utilities, insurance and a couple of other things. I might be required to get a car (for which I'll be reimbursed).
What I'll basically be doing is traveling to different schools in an assigned schedule. One day at one school with one set of classes and another day at another school. I'm legally required not to work more than 29.5 hours in a week, but that's just scheduled time. Anybody who has taught knows that teaching as a lot of off the clock work associated with it.
I'll be leaving either in the middle of March or the middle of summer and I might be out of internet contact for a month or so afterwards while my apartment is getting set up. But all the dates I've seen so far indicate I'm leaving in March on either the 18th or the 26th.
I've been looking at getting a job in Japan for a long time and I've finally succeeded. Hopefully while there I'll be able to open up some opportunities with the Japanese film festivals similar to what I do for the Korean film festivals: watching their English-speaking movies and typing up an annotated script for the translators to make use of. And finally get to experience a little bit of the Japanese culture.
I was in Korea for 3 years at a Hakwon and I hope to have about as much time in Japan, possibly more.
It is a very exciting and nerve-racking event. Not the least because I'm going to have to pay for my own airline ticket to Japan as well as the set-up costs for my new apartment. This combined with the fact that I won't get paid until the end of the second month. Which is why they ask you to be bring around 500k yen (about $6.5k) with you.
If I had gotten this job last year, this wouldn't have been much of a problem, I'd have used my Texas Public Schools retirement to fund the trip. If this was happening in mid-summer, I'd have tax season (tax preparation), test season (Pearson testing projects) and the start of the Korean film festival seasons (transcription) that could be used to gather the necessary money.
Since it's looking like they'll be sending me in March regardless of when the job starts due to paperwork issues (my Certificate of Eligibility and my Visa both have to be good when I enter the country and the CoE, which I think they're applying for now, is only good for three months), I'm worried that I'm going to be in a bit of a bind.
I've got roughly $3.2k in expenses coming in the next 3 months, if I really reduce myself to bare essentials like food, rent, gas and various bills. And maybe $4k in income...assuming substitute teaching and tax prep run well. I hope to see some of my November/December transcription pay out as well, but it's hard to tell when that stuff will finally reach my accounts. I also plan to sell my car, and that might be another $2k to $3k, but the 3 month time limit is really short, especially with the really weird way substitute teaching pays its employees. (I'm told that the way my substitute pay schedule works would be illegal if it wasn't run by the Texas government).
As such, I'd really like to ask for everybody's help here.
And I don't mean by giving me donations. I mean by spreading the word about my books.
:thumb174325098:
:thumb271201123:
:thumb67362163:
:thumb168381983:
The electronic copies of all three are currently $1 and will be through January.
And this is the point I sound like one of those charity commercials and say "this doesn't sound like much, but..."
Okay, ready for it?
Not going to say it. Except I already did. Moving on.
I'm not going to give the stats on how many watchers, friends and followers I have on various social media.
I'm also well aware that some of you have already purchased my books and a lot of you have helped me out with spreading the word on my books and that's basically what I'm asking now.
Please, again, pass the word along.
I'm fairly certain most of you like the same sort of things I do and most of you have your own large list of friends, watchers and followers each of whom have their own lists. There's no way that I can expect everybody to purchase a book or even to pass the word along. And I know that I ask for help in this way fairly regularly and some of you are probably tired of it, but I still need to ask.
I am tired of being embarrassed about self-promoting my own books. I know my books are good. Bystander and Divine Blood aren't what I'd call thought turning classics or great works of introspective art for art's sake. But they're fun and they're entertaining and at some point they'd both make really good TV shows, animations or movies. Greenwater and Zodiacs are the same. Some think Bystander's my best, some think Greenwater's the best and I already have one person asking me advice on writing a Divine Blood fanfic set in the US that seems to involve Sumerian Demons.
They're fun for fun's sake, one-liners, over-the-top fight scenes and a few hints of a deeper world for when I progress the series. I have no shame in saying they're the kind of stories that I like to read, so yeah, lots of author appeal in the form of lady badasses, cute non-human girls, ridiculous coincidences and non-traditional relationships. They're aimed at a light-hearted easy read looking for adventure and a few laughs.
Also, no, I'm not depending on this. Even if I sell close to the 125 books I sold this December, that still be just a drop in the bucket and most of my books sales go back into advertising. However, if I'm lucky, if I'm really lucky, word of mouth might cause an explosion and I might sell tons upon tons of books. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how good my books are if no one knows about them, but I suppose I have more chance of that than...say...winning the lottery.
So here we go.
****************
Stuff that costs you nothing save a little time.
Post links to my books on facebook, twitter, deviantart and here.
Favorite the public chapters and art for my books here.
Tell friends about the really cool independent author you've heard of/read. Luke Green.
***************
Stuff that does cost money.
Buy my books. They're a $1 right now. I'm going to be honest and say right now that DrivethruRPG currently pays me better than Amazon so I really prefer people to go to DrivethruRPG (which also has better publisher tools than Amazon). At Amazon I get 35% royalties and at DrivethruRPG I get 65% royalties.
If you want print copies, lulu is still selling them, though you might want to wait until the drivethru print run starts, it'll be both cheaper for you and more profitable for me.
**************
If you've already bought my books and, more importantly, read them, please leave reviews.
Amazon
your journal
leave critiques on the public chapters at http://thrythlind.deviantart.com
Goodreads
Facebook
whatever sci-fi/fantasy forums you can think of
Trope up my stories on tvtropes.org
Divine Blood: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php... (not started yet)
Bystander: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...
Greenwater: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...
Zodiacs: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...
Do anything else you can to tell people what you think and show people that my stories are good.
Luke Green
What I'll basically be doing is traveling to different schools in an assigned schedule. One day at one school with one set of classes and another day at another school. I'm legally required not to work more than 29.5 hours in a week, but that's just scheduled time. Anybody who has taught knows that teaching as a lot of off the clock work associated with it.
I'll be leaving either in the middle of March or the middle of summer and I might be out of internet contact for a month or so afterwards while my apartment is getting set up. But all the dates I've seen so far indicate I'm leaving in March on either the 18th or the 26th.
I've been looking at getting a job in Japan for a long time and I've finally succeeded. Hopefully while there I'll be able to open up some opportunities with the Japanese film festivals similar to what I do for the Korean film festivals: watching their English-speaking movies and typing up an annotated script for the translators to make use of. And finally get to experience a little bit of the Japanese culture.
I was in Korea for 3 years at a Hakwon and I hope to have about as much time in Japan, possibly more.
It is a very exciting and nerve-racking event. Not the least because I'm going to have to pay for my own airline ticket to Japan as well as the set-up costs for my new apartment. This combined with the fact that I won't get paid until the end of the second month. Which is why they ask you to be bring around 500k yen (about $6.5k) with you.
If I had gotten this job last year, this wouldn't have been much of a problem, I'd have used my Texas Public Schools retirement to fund the trip. If this was happening in mid-summer, I'd have tax season (tax preparation), test season (Pearson testing projects) and the start of the Korean film festival seasons (transcription) that could be used to gather the necessary money.
Since it's looking like they'll be sending me in March regardless of when the job starts due to paperwork issues (my Certificate of Eligibility and my Visa both have to be good when I enter the country and the CoE, which I think they're applying for now, is only good for three months), I'm worried that I'm going to be in a bit of a bind.
I've got roughly $3.2k in expenses coming in the next 3 months, if I really reduce myself to bare essentials like food, rent, gas and various bills. And maybe $4k in income...assuming substitute teaching and tax prep run well. I hope to see some of my November/December transcription pay out as well, but it's hard to tell when that stuff will finally reach my accounts. I also plan to sell my car, and that might be another $2k to $3k, but the 3 month time limit is really short, especially with the really weird way substitute teaching pays its employees. (I'm told that the way my substitute pay schedule works would be illegal if it wasn't run by the Texas government).
As such, I'd really like to ask for everybody's help here.
And I don't mean by giving me donations. I mean by spreading the word about my books.
:thumb174325098:
:thumb271201123:
:thumb67362163:
:thumb168381983:
The electronic copies of all three are currently $1 and will be through January.
And this is the point I sound like one of those charity commercials and say "this doesn't sound like much, but..."
Okay, ready for it?
Not going to say it. Except I already did. Moving on.
I'm not going to give the stats on how many watchers, friends and followers I have on various social media.
I'm also well aware that some of you have already purchased my books and a lot of you have helped me out with spreading the word on my books and that's basically what I'm asking now.
Please, again, pass the word along.
I'm fairly certain most of you like the same sort of things I do and most of you have your own large list of friends, watchers and followers each of whom have their own lists. There's no way that I can expect everybody to purchase a book or even to pass the word along. And I know that I ask for help in this way fairly regularly and some of you are probably tired of it, but I still need to ask.
I am tired of being embarrassed about self-promoting my own books. I know my books are good. Bystander and Divine Blood aren't what I'd call thought turning classics or great works of introspective art for art's sake. But they're fun and they're entertaining and at some point they'd both make really good TV shows, animations or movies. Greenwater and Zodiacs are the same. Some think Bystander's my best, some think Greenwater's the best and I already have one person asking me advice on writing a Divine Blood fanfic set in the US that seems to involve Sumerian Demons.
They're fun for fun's sake, one-liners, over-the-top fight scenes and a few hints of a deeper world for when I progress the series. I have no shame in saying they're the kind of stories that I like to read, so yeah, lots of author appeal in the form of lady badasses, cute non-human girls, ridiculous coincidences and non-traditional relationships. They're aimed at a light-hearted easy read looking for adventure and a few laughs.
Also, no, I'm not depending on this. Even if I sell close to the 125 books I sold this December, that still be just a drop in the bucket and most of my books sales go back into advertising. However, if I'm lucky, if I'm really lucky, word of mouth might cause an explosion and I might sell tons upon tons of books. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how good my books are if no one knows about them, but I suppose I have more chance of that than...say...winning the lottery.
So here we go.
****************
Stuff that costs you nothing save a little time.
Post links to my books on facebook, twitter, deviantart and here.
Favorite the public chapters and art for my books here.
Tell friends about the really cool independent author you've heard of/read. Luke Green.
***************
Stuff that does cost money.
Buy my books. They're a $1 right now. I'm going to be honest and say right now that DrivethruRPG currently pays me better than Amazon so I really prefer people to go to DrivethruRPG (which also has better publisher tools than Amazon). At Amazon I get 35% royalties and at DrivethruRPG I get 65% royalties.
If you want print copies, lulu is still selling them, though you might want to wait until the drivethru print run starts, it'll be both cheaper for you and more profitable for me.
**************
If you've already bought my books and, more importantly, read them, please leave reviews.
Amazon
your journal
leave critiques on the public chapters at http://thrythlind.deviantart.com
Goodreads
whatever sci-fi/fantasy forums you can think of
Trope up my stories on tvtropes.org
Divine Blood: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php... (not started yet)
Bystander: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...
Greenwater: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...
Zodiacs: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...
Do anything else you can to tell people what you think and show people that my stories are good.
Luke Green
Published on December 30, 2011 18:54
•
Tags:
ranting
December 29, 2011
Candy and Distraction
What is candy?
Candy is when you give the reader something that they want and it doesn't really have anything pertinent to add to either character development or moving the plot forward. There's a couple of reasons to add candy.
One is to give the reader a breather patch where there isn't anything really much to process and they can just enjoy the next scene or two as things carry on.
A second is to summarize the plot as its developed so far or else to showcase some point of character development.
The last is to pad space in your story and make it longer than it otherwise would be.
Any sort of scene can be candy as long as it: a) is primarily there to provide fanservice in one form or another; and, b) it really doesn't add anything to the overall plot.
An impressive fight scene show-casing numerous daredevil actions, superpowers and clever stratagems could be one form of candy. This is especially true if the fight scene in question is more or less a foregone conclusion. A random encounter with mooks, for instance, is not a plot-necessary fight and is really just there for people to enjoy a good sequence of the characters mowing through enemies. Likewise, in a horror story, any sequence where the characters are pressed by the monster but nothing significant happens tends to exist just to continue the flavor of being stalked.
Sex scenes are very often candy. There are books where sex is at least close to the main focus or sometimes the actual main focus. Erotica books certainly focus on sex and the natural result of many romance books comes with "on screen" sex scenes eventually. However, in other genres, sex is often very much in the candy category.
Comic relief is another sort of candy. A brief period of misadventure, ridiculous coincidence or amusing grating of different personalities can be a great breather for the reader. Sometimes this doesn't even have to be a full scene, you can, for instance, randomly have something like a frozen turkey fall out of the sky to kill a vampire. That can be a great moment for giving a bit of much needed relief in an otherwise serious situation.
Now, to summarize:
If the characters don't learn anything plot relevant.
If they don't come out of the circumstances with much if any real change.
If the direction of the story remains the same.
If the reader doesn't learn anything new about the story.
Then that particular element or scene is candy.
Candy is fine for the most part. So don't worry if you find yourself in cases where you have a scene that doesn't really add to your story. If possible, filter in some stuff there that does add a little in retrospect, but as long as it's only a few scenes and there's a lot of distance between them, you're probably using candy appropriately.
Now, the problem with candy is that you can lured off into using too much of it. At which point it becomes a distraction. Remember, the more space you use on something that doesn't advance the plot, the longer the book is going to be. Also, if you put in lots and lots of candy, you'll find that you'll be having to spend a few pages to re-affirm just what the plot had developed to towards the current point. And as much as people like candy, if the plot doesn't move forward, you're going to lose audience.
I'm a little biased, but I tend to think that sex-scenes are especially bad about this. In something like Pandora Pox, yes, I expect sex to come up a lot since one of the themes of that story setting is sexual innuendo and comedy. However, even when I get around to that setting, I don't expect there to be all that many actual sex scenes, but rather Winter telling the reader "it happened, let's move on".
In Bystander the chapter linked here has what a friend of mine called a "no-sex sex scene" in that the sex is described in the single sentence of "Lucretia's skin was pure and soft as new fallen snow." Anything else I left to reader imagination.
An excellent example of a necessary sex scene is the one with Liriel Baenre and Fyodor in either Daughter of the Drow or Tangled Webs. Liriel, used to sex being just a simple past-time, is troubled by the amount of emotional content she experiences with Fyodor. Up to the point that she closes her eyes because she is having troubles looking into Fyodor's. There isn't much blow by blow, rather most of the seem focuses instead on the searing emotions of the situation and how it makes Liriel think of the way things are.
The thing is that people get wrapped up in sex scenes and can start producing one after another until the plot is more or less lost. The immense amount of investment people place into sex and making love tends to overshadow a lot of the rest of the story and you use a lot of your space to show it. Also, doing a blow by blow every time sex happens will tend to dull the emotional impact of the individual scenes. It becomes less guttural and passionate and more mechanical.
Fighting and comic relief can likewise get out of control, but sex seems to be the biggest of the candy-gone-wild suspects.
Jim Butcher
Bystander
Elaine Cunningham
Candy is when you give the reader something that they want and it doesn't really have anything pertinent to add to either character development or moving the plot forward. There's a couple of reasons to add candy.
One is to give the reader a breather patch where there isn't anything really much to process and they can just enjoy the next scene or two as things carry on.
A second is to summarize the plot as its developed so far or else to showcase some point of character development.
The last is to pad space in your story and make it longer than it otherwise would be.
Any sort of scene can be candy as long as it: a) is primarily there to provide fanservice in one form or another; and, b) it really doesn't add anything to the overall plot.
An impressive fight scene show-casing numerous daredevil actions, superpowers and clever stratagems could be one form of candy. This is especially true if the fight scene in question is more or less a foregone conclusion. A random encounter with mooks, for instance, is not a plot-necessary fight and is really just there for people to enjoy a good sequence of the characters mowing through enemies. Likewise, in a horror story, any sequence where the characters are pressed by the monster but nothing significant happens tends to exist just to continue the flavor of being stalked.
Sex scenes are very often candy. There are books where sex is at least close to the main focus or sometimes the actual main focus. Erotica books certainly focus on sex and the natural result of many romance books comes with "on screen" sex scenes eventually. However, in other genres, sex is often very much in the candy category.
Comic relief is another sort of candy. A brief period of misadventure, ridiculous coincidence or amusing grating of different personalities can be a great breather for the reader. Sometimes this doesn't even have to be a full scene, you can, for instance, randomly have something like a frozen turkey fall out of the sky to kill a vampire. That can be a great moment for giving a bit of much needed relief in an otherwise serious situation.
Now, to summarize:
If the characters don't learn anything plot relevant.
If they don't come out of the circumstances with much if any real change.
If the direction of the story remains the same.
If the reader doesn't learn anything new about the story.
Then that particular element or scene is candy.
Candy is fine for the most part. So don't worry if you find yourself in cases where you have a scene that doesn't really add to your story. If possible, filter in some stuff there that does add a little in retrospect, but as long as it's only a few scenes and there's a lot of distance between them, you're probably using candy appropriately.
Now, the problem with candy is that you can lured off into using too much of it. At which point it becomes a distraction. Remember, the more space you use on something that doesn't advance the plot, the longer the book is going to be. Also, if you put in lots and lots of candy, you'll find that you'll be having to spend a few pages to re-affirm just what the plot had developed to towards the current point. And as much as people like candy, if the plot doesn't move forward, you're going to lose audience.
I'm a little biased, but I tend to think that sex-scenes are especially bad about this. In something like Pandora Pox, yes, I expect sex to come up a lot since one of the themes of that story setting is sexual innuendo and comedy. However, even when I get around to that setting, I don't expect there to be all that many actual sex scenes, but rather Winter telling the reader "it happened, let's move on".
In Bystander the chapter linked here has what a friend of mine called a "no-sex sex scene" in that the sex is described in the single sentence of "Lucretia's skin was pure and soft as new fallen snow." Anything else I left to reader imagination.
An excellent example of a necessary sex scene is the one with Liriel Baenre and Fyodor in either Daughter of the Drow or Tangled Webs. Liriel, used to sex being just a simple past-time, is troubled by the amount of emotional content she experiences with Fyodor. Up to the point that she closes her eyes because she is having troubles looking into Fyodor's. There isn't much blow by blow, rather most of the seem focuses instead on the searing emotions of the situation and how it makes Liriel think of the way things are.
The thing is that people get wrapped up in sex scenes and can start producing one after another until the plot is more or less lost. The immense amount of investment people place into sex and making love tends to overshadow a lot of the rest of the story and you use a lot of your space to show it. Also, doing a blow by blow every time sex happens will tend to dull the emotional impact of the individual scenes. It becomes less guttural and passionate and more mechanical.
Fighting and comic relief can likewise get out of control, but sex seems to be the biggest of the candy-gone-wild suspects.
Jim Butcher
Bystander
Elaine Cunningham
Published on December 29, 2011 17:35
•
Tags:
writing-skills
The Harem Character Profiles
World Setting: Divine Blood
Status: Published:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006ESG092
DrivethruRPG: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product...
Lulu-Print: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback...
Age: 16 (all three)
Height:
Hannah: 5'6"
Wen: 5'3"
Maria: 5'7"
Weight:
Hannah: 128 lbs
Wen: 106 lbs
Maria: 145 lbs
Hair:
Hannah: Red
Wen: Black
Maria: Brown
Eyes:
Hannah: Green
Wen: Brown
Maria: Brown
Complexion:
Hannah: Slight Pallor, occasional freckles
Wen: Healthy tan
Maria: Dark tan
Ethnicity:
Hannah: Caucasian (Bostonian)
Wen: Chinese (US Asian State of Shandong)
Maria: Hispanic (New Mexico)
Nationality: American, all three
Home: Vollstahl, Australia
Languages:
Hannah: English
Wen: English, Mongolian, Mandarin
Maria: English, Spanish
Quotes:
"I mean I bet you had to leave all your friends and...other people behind." - Maria
"Oh, so you didn't have anyone...special?" - Wen
"Well, if you need any help with school work or anything..." - Hannah
"I'm sitting next to him on the plane, maybe we'll have turbulence." - Maria
Abilities:
None demonstrated
Skills:
As students of Bravura Academy, all three are 16 year old kids currently studying college-level curriculum including heavy amounts of math, science and rhetoric.
Hannah is easily the most social skilled of the three. She is the one that puts herself and her friends forward fearlessly.
Maria is the most athletic, including participation in the school karate club with a black belt to her name.
Wen is the smartest, with the highest grades in the maths and sciences of the three.
Weaknesses:
Appearance:
Hannah: Is a slightly below average height Bostonian red-head with a low-hanging pony tail and moderately freckled skin. Hannah is the most fashionable in her manner of dress.
Maria: Is tall for her age and has definite muscle tone. She keeps her hair short for easy of care. Maria is moderately fashion concerned.
Wen: Is a short Chinese girl. She wears a simple shoulder length cut. Wen out of uniform dresses more like the tomboy that Maria is.
Personality:
Hannah is a take charge girl always out to help her friends and achieve her goals. She's mostly likely the one that suggested approaching Deimosu as a group rather than separately. She isn't very fond of physical activity and tends to try to avoid it.
Maria tends to be awkward in social situations, stumbling over words. She's definitely a tomboy, but when not actively involved in any sport or competition has a feminine fashion sense that comes close to Hannah's.
Wen would be a wallflower without Maria and especially Hannah. She would stay silent and unnoticed if her friends didn't pull her along with them. A result of this is that she is slightly more outspoken than she was prior to the novel's time period.
Background:
Hannah is an orphan who managed to earn a Bravura Academy scholarship. She is one of the few students who lives at the academy more or less year-round, even through vacations, with the exception of the times that she joins Wen or Maria on their vacations.
Maria is the daughter of a Mexican industrialist and a Texan oil investor. Both of her parents are known to be active in sports and outdoors activities and have encouraged their daughter to be likewise.
Wen is a military daughter. Her mother is a US upright pilot and her father is an army ranger. Due to her parents' fears that the Burma/US border is going to heat up in the following decade, she's been sent to Australia for her schooling and safety.
Divine Blood: Semester Start
Status: Published:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006ESG092
DrivethruRPG: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product...
Lulu-Print: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback...
Age: 16 (all three)
Height:
Hannah: 5'6"
Wen: 5'3"
Maria: 5'7"
Weight:
Hannah: 128 lbs
Wen: 106 lbs
Maria: 145 lbs
Hair:
Hannah: Red
Wen: Black
Maria: Brown
Eyes:
Hannah: Green
Wen: Brown
Maria: Brown
Complexion:
Hannah: Slight Pallor, occasional freckles
Wen: Healthy tan
Maria: Dark tan
Ethnicity:
Hannah: Caucasian (Bostonian)
Wen: Chinese (US Asian State of Shandong)
Maria: Hispanic (New Mexico)
Nationality: American, all three
Home: Vollstahl, Australia
Languages:
Hannah: English
Wen: English, Mongolian, Mandarin
Maria: English, Spanish
Quotes:
"I mean I bet you had to leave all your friends and...other people behind." - Maria
"Oh, so you didn't have anyone...special?" - Wen
"Well, if you need any help with school work or anything..." - Hannah
"I'm sitting next to him on the plane, maybe we'll have turbulence." - Maria
Abilities:
None demonstrated
Skills:
As students of Bravura Academy, all three are 16 year old kids currently studying college-level curriculum including heavy amounts of math, science and rhetoric.
Hannah is easily the most social skilled of the three. She is the one that puts herself and her friends forward fearlessly.
Maria is the most athletic, including participation in the school karate club with a black belt to her name.
Wen is the smartest, with the highest grades in the maths and sciences of the three.
Weaknesses:
Appearance:
Hannah: Is a slightly below average height Bostonian red-head with a low-hanging pony tail and moderately freckled skin. Hannah is the most fashionable in her manner of dress.
Maria: Is tall for her age and has definite muscle tone. She keeps her hair short for easy of care. Maria is moderately fashion concerned.
Wen: Is a short Chinese girl. She wears a simple shoulder length cut. Wen out of uniform dresses more like the tomboy that Maria is.
Personality:
Hannah is a take charge girl always out to help her friends and achieve her goals. She's mostly likely the one that suggested approaching Deimosu as a group rather than separately. She isn't very fond of physical activity and tends to try to avoid it.
Maria tends to be awkward in social situations, stumbling over words. She's definitely a tomboy, but when not actively involved in any sport or competition has a feminine fashion sense that comes close to Hannah's.
Wen would be a wallflower without Maria and especially Hannah. She would stay silent and unnoticed if her friends didn't pull her along with them. A result of this is that she is slightly more outspoken than she was prior to the novel's time period.
Background:
Hannah is an orphan who managed to earn a Bravura Academy scholarship. She is one of the few students who lives at the academy more or less year-round, even through vacations, with the exception of the times that she joins Wen or Maria on their vacations.
Maria is the daughter of a Mexican industrialist and a Texan oil investor. Both of her parents are known to be active in sports and outdoors activities and have encouraged their daughter to be likewise.
Wen is a military daughter. Her mother is a US upright pilot and her father is an army ranger. Due to her parents' fears that the Burma/US border is going to heat up in the following decade, she's been sent to Australia for her schooling and safety.
Divine Blood: Semester Start
Published on December 29, 2011 16:34
•
Tags:
character-profile