Harry Connolly's Blog, page 41

You might know them, but they don’t know you.

So, apparently Anne Wheaton started to receive harassment because she offered cash support to Feminist Frequency, and once the inevitable creepy tweets started, she decided to donate extra for every jerk she had to mute.

Then, inevitably:

Yes, threats are happening constantly. No, I'm not lying about it. @twitter @Support please ban accounts like this. pic.twitter.com/VRpdVgkepL

— Anne Wheaton (@AnneWheaton) April 24, 2015

Apparently, this ridiculous threat is a copypasta meme, and that supposedly means that it’s not supposed to be taken seriously. Wheaton was supposed to recognize it, then dismiss it as a non-issue.

But really, even if she’d recognized it (I’d never heard of it before), why should she write it off? It’s coming from a (now-suspended) user account that she knows nothing about. Why’s the burden on her to make assumptions about strangers?

Yeah, a big part of the answer to that last question is “Sexism,” but other more knowledgeable people can address that better than I can. I’d rather talk about illusory internet friendships.

I’ve seen people on social media shit-mouth writers, artists, and actors as though they were old college pals who talked trash all the time. I’ve seen fans of a TV show criticize the creators in the most outrageous ways. And I’ve seen authors and other non-celebrities asking people not to glom onto them in public spaces.

Yes, the anonymity of the internet contributes to these problems, but too often I’ve seen people insisting they were not trolling, not trying to be awful. They’re just being friendly with someone they know, and were treating the person the way they treat their friends: with good-natured ribbing and straight talk. Sometimes the harassers act like casual acquaintances; not friends, but people who know you and feel they have the social capital to set you straight.

And that’s the problem: because they have someone in their social media, they think they have them in their social circle.

The thing is, it’s only friendly trash-talk if the recipient thinks it is. And while the trash-talker might have donated to cover a vet bill, or have closely followed months of complaints about a contractor, or a child’s learning disability, or a new job, the recipient might not know that person at all.

Now, to be clear, it’s unlikely that Wheaton’s harasser was simply misguided, treating her like a pal. It seems pretty obvious that he’s a straight up shit eater. The people I’m talking about are the hangers-on, who slide into her mentions telling her how she’s supposed to feel about a threat against her life. I’m also talking about the times John Scalzi has posted pictures out his hotel room windows while on book tours, then had to ask people not to track him down and stalk him in the lobby. I’m talking about the people who drove Damon Lindelof off Twitter because they didn’t like the last episode of LOST; in fact, if Lindelof’s harassers had faced, in real life, the sort of contempt they showed, over something as minor as their shoes or their haircut, they’d have been griping about it to their friends for a week. But they felt perfectly comfortable lashing out at him over a project he spent years of his life creating, which they got to watch for free.

This isn’t to say that people should never try to interact with others online–or that they should be obsequious about it–just that it’s important to understand that it’s the recipient who decides how “jokes” and criticisms will be interpreted.

Actually, that’s a useful writing tip in general, but never mind.

Randomness for 4/23

1) The day Hank Aaron’s bodyguard didn’t shoot.

2) Onlookers mistake fallen construction crane at Dallas Museum of Art as an art installation.

3) Yelp reviews of new-born babies.

4) A person is creating 3d printing templates for every creature in the Monster Manual.

5) The simple brilliance of David Aja. This dude is half of the reason that the Hawkeye comic has been so amazing. I really love the design sense that artists bring to comics now. They’re so much more interesting than they used to be.

6) Why don’t our brains explode when we see movie cuts? (What a sensible way to phrase that question.)

7) Pictures of food that very little kids “can’t eat” and why.

Get signed and numbered copies of a new anthology I’m in

So, I’m going to be in an anthology called Unbound (which I’m assured will not be sold as sheets of loose paper–the authors are not constrained by a shared theme, but the book will be thoroughly bound) which will be coming out later this year. The publisher is offering a signed and numbered edition, and I’m told it’s not yet sold out.

Curious? Find out more, including a list of the other authors and how to get yourself a copy, right here.

Man, it’s nice to have my website back.

More on Daredevil, this time with spoilers

I wanted to talk more about Daredevil, and you can’t stop me. What follows is both disjointed and spoilerific, so don’t say you weren’t warned.

— First of all, there are a lot of ways to screw up a show like this, and the easiest one would be to get Foggy Nelson wrong. In the comics Foggy is a scold, a jerk, and a mediocre lawyer. He’s more exposition device than friend.

On the show, he has tremendous warmth and charisma pretty much from the start, and the second episode makes you love him. It’s no secret why he’s Murdoch’s best friends. Yeah, he’s sort of screwed up and inappropriate a lot of the time, but he also has a lot of heart.

— And that’s why the change in tone in later episodes so powerful. There’s a lot of helpless fury and despair in this show, but there’s a lot of warmth, humor, and humanity, too. The latter makes the former more powerful and I hope the people creating direct-to-DVD cartoons for DC watch this show and realize this.

— What about Easter Eggs? I’m not the guy to speak to that, but here’s this guy:

And here I thought there was no Stan Lee cameo.

BTW, they mention Leland Owsley’s son several times, and he could certainly have his father’s name (They call him “Lee”). I bet he’ll show up as a villain in Season 2, without being the creepy freak show from the comics.

— And this:

I wasn't 100% sold until I saw that fire extinguisher drop down the stairwell. I'm in. #Dardevil

— Emily Blake (@Bambookiller) April 11, 2015

For me, it was the scene in Josie’s where Foggy is talking about the other regulars.

— Ben Urich! I love Ben Urich’s character, but when we were 3/4 of the way through episode 12, I turned to my wife and said: They’re setting things up as though Urich is going to die, but there’s no way they’ll kill off this character. Not in the whole connected Marvel movie universe. I was honestly astonished when they did it. It’s one thing to kill off walk-on characters, but Ben Urich is the go-to “honest reporter” in Spider-man and Daredevil comics.

— Which leads to one of the worst scenes in the whole series, the “We never had kids of our own, but…” scene with Urich’s invalid wife at his funeral. The three main characters don’t have to be the center of everything, show.

— Which is just one of several odd choices the show makes. The biggest issue is that the narrative routinely portrays the characters as overmatched in a conflict or endangered by a threat they don’t know about, only for them to make a surprise turnaround at the end. Everyone do this in the fight scenes all the time, where it’s completely expected, but they also do it in the legal scenes. For instance, in the (terribly lit) first confrontation between Foggy and his ex, Marcy, the scene is played as if she has the upper hand from before he even leaves his office. Then he turns things around, makes his argument, and comes out with the upper hand. It’s a great scene.

The thing is, they do this even with the villains. Fisk is repeatedly shown as nervous, unsure, or outmatched, and then he turns things around at the last moment. On his first date with Vanessa, he’s nervous and awkward. When the date is ruined, he has his first berserk rage on the guy who interrupted them. On his second date, he’s more commanding, but that initial impression lingers, especially because, while he’s sitting having dinner with this woman he loves, his enemies are moving against him.

Now, it turns out that he’s orchestrated everything, including what looks like a restaurant worker informing on him for a cool million reward, but for most of the episode, the viewer doesn’t know that.

It makes him, the main antagonist, look feckless and ineffectual, and that undercuts the tension. It’s almost as if the show wants us to see Murdoch and Fisk as co-protagonists, which they’re not.

— Another issue with the show is the oil-and-water mix of noirish crime drama and superhero power fantasy. Unless you’re very carefule, the latter undercuts the power of the former.

Frankly, I think this could have been solved by featuring less of the crime bosses and more lawyers vs regular folks. The scenes where regular folk were threatened or attacked by criminals was scary, yeah, but the scenes where expensive attorneys bullied people with threats of lawsuits were the most infuriating. Frankly, DAREDEVIL needed more lawyer stuff. There was plenty of corruption, plenty of guns, plenty of violence, but it needed more instances of the wealthy and powerful turning supposedly legitimate institutions against regular folks.

That’s the sort of thing that makes a viewer angry enough to cheer the power fantasy parts, rather than view them as inevitable wrapup.

— Finally, another huge issue is that fucking devil suit. Boy howdy, does it not work. The black “Man without Fear” suit that people were complaining about looks way better than what they finally went with.

— What does work? Like, what really really works? For me, it was the mix of warmth and despair that permeates the whole show. There are so many characters who are good but flawed people, caught up in a system that could grind them down to nothing.

I plan to make full use of that for my next project.

— Finally, I just want to say: so many great voices, and so many great clothes. I’d dress like Ben Urich all the time–plaid jacket, check shirt, striped tie–if I wasn’t so damn fat.

“How can I capture that in text?”

This post by Max Gladstone demonstrates something that I ask myself all the time: How can I capture that feeling in text? One of the reasons I wrote CHILD OF FIRE was because I wanted to capture the feeling I got at the end of RED HARVEST.

Anyway, worth reading.

Amazon is having a huge sale on tabletop games

I don’t usually pay attention to the sales that Amazon puts on, but this one is interesting: a big sale on tabletop board and card games.

“Up to 50%”, they say. I always love that “up to”. Obviously, it’s better to buy them at a local gaming shop (assuming you have access to one) because most have a library of games and let you try them out in the store.

Still, Ticket to Ride and Labyrinth are fantastic games, and I’ve become kinda obsessed with the iPad version of Sentinels of the Multiverse, since the fam doesn’t really like superheroes and I prefer to let the software track everything (SotM can be complicated to track).

And if you like RPGs, Fate Core is on the second page. Have I mentioned that I’m working on a Fate Core rpg supplement for The Great Way and Key/Egg? They’re Kickstarter rewards, and I should be typing in those documents rather than this one.

In fact, I think I’ll go do that now. In the meantime, check out my books.

Spoiler-free: Marvel’s Daredevil

I wasn’t originally planning to stay up overnight to watch DAREDEVIL, but frustration with my current WIP and a 20% off deal on beer at my local supermarket seemed to suggest that the world was conspiring to make me blow off a little steam. Which I did.

There won’t be any serious spoilers in this post, but I do want to talk about it in a general way. The show does several things very well:

In the first few episodes, Foggy is charismatic as hell. His relationship with Matt is funny and real, and the delight they take in their interplay contrasts powerfully with the pain in disillusionment they feel as the story progresses. And he’s not the only one. This show is really well cast.

Obviously, D’Onofrio has the flashiest role as Wilson Fisk, the crimelord villain of the piece, and he plays it against type. Instead of the smooth and commanding figure of the comics (and the previous movie), he plays Fisk as perpetually awkward and uncomfortable, without any of the presence and charisma of movie crime bosses. It’s a weird choice; it undercuts the power and efficacy of the show’s antagonists, making them seem less threatening.

But this isn’t really about the power fantasy of overcoming a seemingly unbeatable foe. There are power fantasy elements, obviously, but the show wisely undercuts them. For instance, after a (blessedly brief) origin scene which lasts less than two minutes, the show cuts to Matt Murdoch in the confessional, talking for at least three times the length of that “origin” scene about his dad, his father’s boxing career, and the violence he had inside him. The show is much more concerned with the characters’ histories, their damage, and their vulnerabilities than they are in feats of power.

Not that there aren’t plenty of fight scenes. There are, and they’re also well done. Guys who choreograph ARROW, take note.

Early trailers had a lot of viewers complaining that Daredevil was sporting all black with a Dread Pirate Roberts mask rather than the costume from the comics, but once the costume shows up, it doesn’t look nearly as cool as that black suit did. Sorry, I’m a DD fan, too, of a sort, but the simple black costume was way more effective than the devil suit.

But what really makes this show work is the paranoia and helpless despair the characters have to endure in the face of wealth and power in a thoroughly corrupt system. No one can be trusted. No one is safe. The hero can venture out in a mask and kick the crap out of bad guys, but he takes a helluva beating doing it.

Frankly, this is the first superhero show/movie to capture a winning noir tone since BATMAN BEGINS. Everyone, heroes and villains alike, are in tenuous positions. Everyone has loved ones they fear for. Everyone has powers working against them. Everyone thinks of themselves as the hero.

It’s a good show. I recommend it.

Daredevil and Binge Watching

The Daredevil Netflix series premieres today. If you see me online, it’s because it’s boring and I’m looking for something else to do.

Or that I’m taking a break or something.

Anyway, I’ve never binge-watched a TV series before. I’ve done a few episodes at a time, but a whole season? First attempt. I hope I hate it, for the sake of my productivity.

Randomness for 4/9

1) A map of all the places mentioned in Tom Waits songs.

2) An autobiographical webcomic imagining Conan the Barbarian as a spirit guide.

3) Reader, I LOL-ed. Reaction Table: High Level Cleric of Law Asked to Raise Dead Associate(s).

4) Every Frame a Painting on film editing, video essays, and creating narrative. Video.

5) When Nerf Modding goes too far.

6) Understanding Art: The Death of Socrates. Video. Interesting to see a tool as simple as masking in Photoshop used to such good effect.

7) Risky Date: a lesson in a webcomic.

Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson invented an art form, and it’s awful

For a long while now, I’ve believed that tabletop rpgs were an art form in its infancy, and that there’s a potential for gaming sessions to be a kind of performance art based around collaborative improvisational narrative.

I also think that, as art, rpgs are mostly terrible and have been since their beginning. Recently, that’s begun to change.

Last Sunday night, my game group wrapped up a campaign in a fun and satisfying way (don’t worry, I won’t tell you about it[1]). How amazingly different it was from the games I played as a teenager.

I’m old enough to have played D&D before it became AD&D, and while I had fun[3], the game itself was a crude simulation of the books I loved. It was all numbers, hex paper, and moving little figures around. My friends and I moved to a new, simpler system[4] that struck us as more realistic, but we still played dungeon crawl after dungeon crawl.

After many years and a shitload of other systems, we moved to superhero games, which gave us narratives beyond “Kick down the door and murder everyone inside, then take their stuff” although it was hard to break the characters from their lawless power-gaming habits. We had fun, but a spectator would have been bored out of their minds.

And thanks to YouTube, people are playing games for spectators. I’m not going to link the ones I’ve seen, but most are as interesting as a dude telling you about a workout routine he’s thinking of doing later[5]. In short, it’s the worst art imaginable: lifeless, irrelevant, and utterly lacking in enjoyment for people outside the circle of players.

Before games become actual art, they’re going to have to become pop art[6]. They’re going to have to become as fun as pulp adventure, and at the moment, (typically) they’re not. But! Games have changed. They’re much more collaborative and focused on narrative than they were when I got into games, and I’m sure there’s someone out there, somewhere, making collaborative improvisational narrative art with the verve of the old pulps.

Which brings us to this:

Will this be the kind of pulp adventure fun that can grow into something more serious? Well, it’s combining something I really enjoyed (Thundarr) with something I hated except for the boobs (Heavy Metal), and it’s Wil Wheaton. Also: Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana. So maybe.

Of course, Wheaton has already aired a two-part gaming session, and there are lessons to be learned from that show. Have they been? I guess we’ll see[7].

What about my gaming session from last Sunday? It was art, and I sure as hell enjoyed it. However, it also was not designed to be a performance the way that Wheaton’s is, or those guys who record their sessions and post them on YouTube.

I guess the question is: What would have to change in role-playing games for them to become art that could be enjoyed by people who aren’t playing? I do have some ideas.

[1] Probably.[2]

[2] And isn’t that part of the problem? If you describe a great movie, you can make it sound wonderful. Describing a game session? OMG, get this weirdo away from me.

[3] Like most activities you do, the fun comes mostly from the people you do it with not the activity itself.

[4] The Fantasy Trip, by Metagaming, if you care

[5] “First I’m going to do five push ups, then flip over and do five crunches, then roll over for more pushups, without any pause, and I’m going to keep doing that wait where are you going…”

[6] Video games don’t count. I’m talking about tabletop now.

[7] And by “we’ll see” I mean “someone else will have to watch it and tell me how it goes.”