Megan R. Miller's Blog, page 3

Consent to Conflict and Genre Expectations in RPGs

So this is something that's been coming up a lot for me both in my writing life and in my tabletops and as is the custom when this sort of thing happens, I'm gonna blog about it.

Content Warning: Vague allusions to grimdark content (nothing graphic), obnoxious insinuations regarding player and reader expectations and a healthy dose of irreverence.



Imagine you're shopping for a book. You know what genre you usually read and basically what to expect in that genre, and yeah, there's some wiggle ro...

Dissection: The First Scene

-casually loading rubber gloves into a t-shirt cannon-

Tuesday we had a nice conversation about the anatomy of a scene and story beats. Today we're talking about the very first scene in a story, what it has to do, and what that means for you. Get your scalpels back out, my curious congregation of degenerates, because we are about to talk about beginnings.

Content Warnings: The usual dose of irreverence, probably some swear words, and me, telling you how to live your life. Very minor Harry Potte...

Dissection: Anatomy of a Scene

-snaps rubber glove-

Hello, my most peculiar posse. My inexplicable assembly. My curious congregation. I'm in a mood, today, if you couldn't tell.

Today we're going to be dissecting scenes.

Content Warning: This product can expose you to chemicals including a (presumably) healthy dose of irreverence, the aberrant ideals of plot structure and a less than 3% chance of detonating into a cloud of vaguely human-colored mist.

Let's dive in, shall we?



So scenes. What do we know about them? We know bigger...

What Character Agency Is and Is Not

Character Agency is one of those buzz topics I see thrown around all the time and it amazes me how often people use it wrong. So let's grab a definition, shall we?

Agency, is a character's ability to make decisions and affect the story in a meaningful way.

Alright, blog entry's done, everybody pack up and go home. Good job.

Not quite.

Stick with me, there's a lot to unpack here.

Content Warnings: Insinuation that characters should be...you know...characters and not furniture, ripping on old school...

RP: Access Points And Why Your PC Cannot be Played Like a Novel Protagonist

Something I've noticed in a lot of RPGs are people getting so wrapped up in their characters that they forget what the RP is for in the first place. It's great to have your own narrative, and in fact that can be really helpful, but it's not always the best for an access point to other players. Especially in bigger multi-player games like World of Warcraft of the kinds of things you find in chat rooms.

So, access points. What exactly do I mean by that? Let's find out.

Content Warning: A lot of t...

Why Can't We Candidly Talk About Vagina?

Raise your hand if you've heard a dick joke this week.

I'm willing to bet most people have because they're extremely common and nobody thinks twice about penis. Nobody thinks twice about pointing out when something is phallic. Meanwhile when the topic of vagina comes up, people get squirrely and I don't get it.

So. I'm about to rant about female genitalia (and similarly there are going to be a lot of penis references as well). If you've met me, you know this is going to be irreverent. If you ha...

Ascended Fanfiction: Some Thoughts

Once again, I was having a conversation with some friends and stumbled across a topic that I had more to say about than I realized. Surprise, now I'm blogging about it. Strap in, because we're about to talk about Fanfiction, its place in literature, reasons some authors are totally fine with it while others want to burn it to death with a flamethrower, and what happens when it transcends fanfic and enters the public eye as its own thing.

Content Warnings; Allusion to toxic relationships and th...

Writing Romantic Conflict Part 3: Guilty Pleasure Relationship Conflict

Alright, Tuesday I talked about trash relationship conflicts, which was coming on the heels of good relationship dramas parts one and two. Today I'm going to talk about some of my guilty pleasure romantic conflicts. Ones that have their problems, but for whatever reason I just can't get enough of them anyway.

Try not to judge me too hard, okay? ;)

[Spoilers for Moulin Rouge and Fairy Tail ahead.]



One Of Them is Already in a Relationship
(That They Did Choose for Themselves)

Alright listen, I...

Writing Romantic Conflict Part 2: Trash Relationship Conflict

Alright, moving back to romantic conflict, today I want to talk about a few things I never want to see again. I've already talked about good romantic conflict a little bit here and here and will be getting into my guilty pleasures (romantic conflict that isn't explicitly good but I nonetheless really like it) eventually but today, allow me to indulge in an unmitigated rant.

I bring you, Trash Relationship Conflicts.

Trigger Warnings: Lots of swearing, discussion of domestic abuse, pas...

Let's Take 5 Minutes to Talk About "The Orville"

I. Love this show. I cannot express how much I love this show. It's kind of like having the best parts of what I loved about Star Trek as a kid back but funnier. And yes, it is hilarious but it has such good drama too. I will Stan this.

Okay so anyway I just saw the episode "About a Girl" and if you haven't seen it I'm going to suggest you don't click the read more link because this is going to be full of spoilers. Basically, I'm confused. I really liked it and I'm confused.

I'm about to get wo...