Well it is intentional to a degree, i really like a level of vague-ness in my writing and it is supposed to be that way, but different people have different reactions / tolerance for that sort of thing, so you need to find the level that works while remaining acceptable to as much of your intended audience as possible.
anyhoo, i finished the thing i wrote (i had to wrap it up it in a rush, school assignment and all. I think that, given how this turned out, I will keep writing other things in my spare time):
The inside of the taxi was a musty, unkempt affair. The seat leather was cracked and aged, with some splotches being ever so slightly browner than others. For a person of average eyesight the wear and spills throughout the interior of the vehicle that trundled along the slush filled streets in the dead of the December night would have no doubt gone unnoticed. Catherine's keenly trained eyesight, on the other hand, picked up on these things easily. Her gaze drifted out the window to the snowflakes racing through the flickering yellow beams cast by the streetlights that seemed to crawl past, causing her to instinctively pull her thick mink shawl closer around her neck. A slight sigh passed her lips as her mind quickly entertained and then dismissed the thought of asking the swarthy, heavy-set driver if he could go a bit faster. As if he could read her mind, the man cocked his head a little and smirked in the rear view mirror, keeping his eyes on the road.
“You know, I could speed up a little if you feel like covering my deductible when we crash.”
Catherine rolls her eyes and waves her hand playfully
“Now Jeff, you know I simply don't have that kind of money”
they burst into laughter, and after everything quiets down a bit the two old friends set to talking
“Fancy seeing you around here at this time of night, you really should reconsider taking any old job some rich man with no sense of decent sleepin hours dangles out for ya”
“And yet you expect ME to cover your deductible?”
More laughter echos through the cab as the two
“but really, what kind of job do you have that has you out so late?”
She readjusts her shawl as the wind
“Going to the big party at The Reivu, I've been hired to keep an eye on Sarah Plotkin, of all people, and by her husband no less.”
“Sarah? You mean like Sarah Plotkin, from school?”
“That's the one.”
“Damn.”
There is a moment of uncomfortable silence between the pair. The wind outside the car picks up a notch, both occupants of the cab shivering in response.
“Who'd she marry?”
“Some old paranoid sleazebag, goes by Gerald. How someone like her ended up with someone like him is beyond me.”
“Is she cheating on him?”
“Well, to be perfectly frank, as far as me and 3 other Pis he's hired can tell, no”
“Jesus”
“Jesus has nothing to do with this sort of thing.”
“you have to wonder how someone so goddamn paranoid got married in the first place. You actually doing this?”
“I need the money Kurt, you know that”
“But really?... I mean, come on Cathy, it ain't right.”
Catherine could feel her mind stall out under the self-imposed weight of her decision, a small part of her mind kicking herself for her lapse in professionalism. Really, she never should have started discussing this, not again, she has made up her damn mind alrea-
“...I don't know”
The cab returns to a state of uncomfortable silence, broken only by the squeak of the windshield wipers. Catherine gazes out the window, preoccupied with thought.
“Wait”
The driver cranes his neck around a little to look at her, she can barely be seen, her eyes are still fixed out the window at some point in the distance.
“...Stop. Take me back.”
The taxi ground to a halt in the slush. Catherine sighed.
“You sure?”
Catherine gave a curt, affirmative nod, and the taxi took a quick u-turn against the winter wind, back to whence it came.
I was intending for there to be more dialog between the two to flesh out Catherine's character more so it'd generally point towards her not taking the job, plus i was going to create more of a contrast between the sliding-down-the-slippery-slope wealthy private eye and the less well off but morally upstanding taxicab driver who helps her realise the error of her ways.
I have a plan for a comic book series, a plan where I'd have a villain rape a nondescript woman for no reason except to establish his villainhood. And when the heroes catch up with him and violently interrogate him, he goes off into this monologue about how rape increased his threat level and their anger more than killing her would have, and that the woman that he raped won't last as long as he will (he's functionally immortal, btw), and generally attacking how society treats rape while providing no justification for his deeds. Because he's sociopathic towards almost everyone, and he doesn't care that much about what he's done. That's why he's the villain.
And then, two weeks after that issue is published, I'd have a miniseries written by Gail Simone (or, if she refuses, another popular feminist comic book writer) with advice from organizations that help women with rape, one that shows how the victim is scared of leaving the house, how she flinches when a man approaches her unexpectedly, and essentially shows the long-term effects of sexual assault. And the series ends with her being able to function in society again, but still pretty screwed up from the incident. Basically, a counterpoint to the Identity Crisis bit where a woman's rape is shown to have no visible effect on her long-term mental state. It's a way to give women who've been sexually assaulted a figure that they can empathize with, and to help males understand how sexual assault or the threat of sexual assault affects the female psyche. And I'd have it published online and make it free with a unit of whatever media I'm using to write said series.
I don't know why I'm telling you all this. It'd take years to get the theoretical series to the point where this plot development would make sense; it's not going to happen. I guess I'm just in a rambling mood tonight, and I kind of want to know if the whole thing's worth bringing rape into a story.
I also want to do a black version of Robin Hood, because Robin Hood is a traditional symbol of class struggles, race struggles and having an uneasy relationship with law enforcement while still being a decent human being, and the fact that there hasn't been a black version of him is an embarrassment.
I wanted to call it Hoodrat, but urban dictionary says it's an insult (and a feminine one at that), so I'm still working on a title.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
I also want to do a black version of Robin Hood, because Robin Hood is a traditional symbol of class struggles, race struggles and having an uneasy relationship with law enforcement while still being a decent human being, and the fact that there hasn't been a black version of him is an embarrassment.
I also want to do a black version of Robin Hood, because Robin Hood is a traditional symbol of class struggles, race struggles and having an uneasy relationship with law enforcement while still being a decent human being, and the fact that there hasn't been a black version of him is an embarrassment.
I wanted to call it Hoodrat, but urban dictionary says it's an insult (and a feminine one at that), so I'm still working on a title.
"hoodrat" would seem to imply a modernised robin hood, but i think a black robin hood in england the middle ages could have some interesting possibilities. (*+ think of cool backstory opportunities*)
On one side, there's basically this guy who wears a hood, and he's trying to take down this corrupt police commissioner. One's black and one's white. You can guess which ones. So he starts gathering a group of activists and ex-Panthers and anyone else he thinks will help with breaking into the Police Chief's various locations and stealing evidence that'll get him fired. Kind of like Mass Effect 2 with a little Metal Gear mixed up in it.
And on the other side, there's this 16-year-old Black/Asian kid that the Hood saves early on in the story, and his job is to drum up support for the Hood. He disseminates whatever evidence Team 1 has gathered, convinces key people to join the cause, and he helps direct charity projects in the Hood's name. A mix between Persona 5's Social Link Building and your standard management game.
I don't remember why he's Black/Asian. Or Blasian. I think I wanted to give him Chow as a nickname, and making him Blasian was a logical next step. It's a reference to Munch, that guy who gets saved at the beginning of the 1938 Robin Hood movie.
"hoodrat" would seem to imply a modernised robin hood, but i think a black robin hood in england the middle ages could have some interesting possibilities. (*+ think of cool backstory opportunities*)
It would, but I'd prefer using Robin Hood to look at the current state of things over going back over the old legends.
The thing about Robin Hood is that he's one of the most malleable heroes in recent history. It's why he survived in pop culture where hundreds of other legendary outlaws and knights didn't. He naturally reflects the times where he's portrayed. 1930s Robin Hood had commentary on WWII, for example.
In either case, I think they're, as the tropers say, anvils that need to be dropped. Particularly the former.
Humanity likes to use stories to put themselves in someone else's shoes. We like the Great Gatsby because it communicates the emptiness of the party-loving 1920s. Books like The Awakening and Ethan Frome stuck around from the 1800s because they communicated something unique about the Victorian woman and the Northeastern rural life, respectively. We don't have a big story like that for sexual assault victims, and the last story like that for the urban black person was....A Raisin in the Sun, maybe, and A Raisin in the Sun is getting on in years.
Plus, it'd be a chance to give Gail Simone some work, which would be nice because DC's screwing her over now.
As someone who has been planning a very large-scale, complex comic-based narrative that exploits the .html format to its fullest, is it weird for me to fear unjustified accusations of Homestuck imitation? I mean, I will acknowledge that it should be a lot easier to get something like this off the ground in the wake of such a beast, but I do not want to be thought of as derivative in that way, let alone when most of my ideas for the format were developed long before I started reading this thing. Although it would not be entirely unfair to accuse me of ripping off elements of Partydog's Lamezine—it definitely made me reconsider format in a big way, along with hearing David Merlin Goodbrey talk about hypercomics—that's a way more niche thing, and therefore a less likely accusation... assuming that I complete this thing, let alone reach any level of notability.
This is true. But at the same time, I want it to be known which ideas I received from where without the insinuation that I am riding someone else's coattails—or at least, riding them in a certain way. That is to say, Homestuck may have proven to me that an epic-length work of sequential art with numerous characters, a fairly complex plot and generous helpings of medium exploitation vis à vis animation and hypertext abuse could attract a healthy following, but that does not mean that I set out to create such a work because of Homestuck. I am creating such a work because the story that I want to tell demands it.
More people have said that and been killed than there are thorium decay products.
Since HS, I think more webcomics are utilizing .gif animations and video. Olympus Overdrive in particular uses a lot of flash and has influence from HS but is clearly something very different. :)
^^ If anyone throws an imitation insult at you, just tell them that last sentence. That's basically the same reason why Hussie did Homestuck the way he did, moving away from his previous work with Problem Sleuth.
So, I'm working on the first post for my video game blog.
Hello, my name is Tucker. And I like a lot of games. But three series are particularly important to me; in ascending order of importance they are the Elder Scrolls series, the Kingdom Hearts series, and the Legend of Zelda series. Why these three? Well, every day for the next three days I will delve into each one and see what it is about it that draws me to it so much. Today I will focus on Kingdom Hearts.
In theory, Kingdom Hearts, a crossover between the Final Fantasy series and, of all things, Disney,should have been a niche game. Strangely enough, I've found that pretty much everyone has had some experience with it. Even stranger, most of them will admit to liking it. At least in my experience this has been the case, and since this is about my personal experience with the games, I feel that's appropriate. So, back to the central question: What is it that draws me so much to this series? Initially, it was the story. When I first picked up the original Kingdom Hearts, at seven years, I had never played a game with such an interesting cast and engaging plot. Kingdom Hearts was the first game I played where I was genuinely into the plot, and play it I did. I think I put in upwards of one hundred fifty hours into it, which I spent completely maxing out all the stats, obtaining as much money as is possible, beating every single bonus boss, and unlocking every other miscellaneous secret.
And then I just sort of... forgot about it.
I played Chain of Memories for a little while, but never beat it. For four years afterwards, I didn't play a single Kingdom Hearts game. Finally, at eleven, I decided I wanted to try it out again. I got a copy of Kingdom Hearts II, and my obsession was swiftly rekindled. What really made these games so compelling to me was ultimately three things: the characters the unabashed cheesy sentimentalism, and the tear-jerkers, all three of which Kingdom Hearts II had in spades.
This is it so far. What do you guys think? I'm aware it's far, far from quality writing, but I'd still be interested in hearing you guys' opinions.
Hello, my name is Tucker. And I like a lot of games. But three series are particularly important to me; in ascending order of importance they are: the Elder Scrolls series, the Kingdom Hearts series, and the Legend of Zelda series. Why these three? Well, every day for the next three days I will delve into each one and see what it is about it that draws me to it so much. Today I will focus on Kingdom Hearts.
In theory, Kingdom Hearts, a crossover between the Final Fantasy series and, of all things, Disney, should have been a niche game. Strangely enough, I've found that pretty much everyone has had some experience with it. Even stranger, most of them will admit to liking it. At least in my experience this has been the case, and since this is about my personal experience with the games, I feel that's appropriate. So, back to the central question: What is it that draws me so much to this series? Initially, it was the story. When I first picked up the original Kingdom Hearts, at seven years, I had never played a game with such an interesting cast and engaging plot. Kingdom Hearts was the first game I played where I was genuinely into the plot, and play it I did. I think I put in upwards of one hundred fifty hours into it, which I spent completely maxing out all of the stats, obtaining as much money as is possible, beating every single bonus boss, and unlocking every other miscellaneous secret.
And then I just sort of... forgot about it.
I played Chain of Memories, the sequel, for a little while, but never beat it. For four years afterwards, I didn't play a single Kingdom Hearts game. In the spring of 2009, I finally decided I wanted to try it out again. I got a copy of Kingdom Hearts II, and my obsession was swiftly rekindled. What really made these games so compelling to me was ultimately three things: the characters the unabashed cheesy sentimentalism, and the tear-jerkers, all three of which Kingdom Hearts II had in spades. Particularly interesting to me was Organization XIII, an association of black-coated sort-of-kind-of ghosts. All of the members you see in this game (only eight of the original thirteen remained; five of them, I learned later, were killed during the events of Chain of Memories) were very well written, and were the main reason I loved II so much. Aside from them, the story was just as ridiculous (yet strangely engaging) and melodramatic (yet still very engaging), as always.
And then came Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, which magnified everything polarizing about the series by a factor of around a thousand. Some loved it for it's, again, ridiculous but compelling plot/characters/title, some hated it for them. I fell in the former category.
Have you ever read a book, seen a movie, played a game, that simply ripped your heart out of your chest, stomped it, crushed it with a hammer, and then beat you over the head with it? Yeah, playing 358/2 Days was something like that. This game delves into the story of Roxas, the protagonist of the main series' ghost-clone-something-or-another, and his 358 days spent working with the aforementioned organization of ghost-clone-something-or-anothers. This game is positively bursting at the seams with the series' trademark cheesy sentimentality and melodrama, dealing with such fun topics as good people working for an evil organization, having to leave people you hold dear, being forced to kill your best friend, the loss of everything that once made you happy, and issues with identity. Hearts were shattered, mine included. And that's all that can be said on the matter.
Where does that leave me? Well, there have since been three games- Birth by Sleep, re:coded[sic], and Dream Drop Distance. Birth by Sleep is allegedly even more tragic than 358/2 Days, although my lacking a PSP to play it on has prevented me from testing the veracity of this. I have beaten re:coded, which attempted to match the emotional gravitas of its predecessors and mostly failed, despite being a reasonably fun game, and am in the process of playing Dream Drop Distance, which I have mixed opinions on so far.
Hello, my name is Tucker. And I like a lot of games. But three series are particularly important to me; in ascending order of importance they are: the Elder Scrolls series, the Kingdom Hearts series, and the Legend of Zelda series. Why these three? Well, every day for the next three days I will delve into each one and see what it is about it that draws me to it so much. Today I will focus on Kingdom Hearts.
In theory, Kingdom Hearts, a crossover between the Final Fantasy series and, of all things, Disney, should have been a niche game. Strangely enough, I've found that pretty much everyone has had some experience with it. Even stranger, most of them will admit to liking it. At least in my experience this has been the case, and since this is about my personal experience with the games, I feel that's appropriate. So, back to the central question: What is it that draws me so much to this series? Initially, it was the story. When I first picked up the original Kingdom Hearts, at seven years, I had never played a game with such an interesting cast and engaging plot. Kingdom Hearts was the first game I played where I was genuinely into the plot, and play it I did. I think I put in upwards of one hundred fifty hours into it, which I spent completely maxing out all of the stats, obtaining as much money as is possible, beating every single bonus boss, and unlocking every other miscellaneous secret.
And then I just sort of... forgot about it.
I played Chain of Memories, the sequel, for a little while, but never beat it. For four years afterwards, I didn't play a single Kingdom Hearts game. In the spring of 2009, I finally decided I wanted to try it out again. I got a copy of Kingdom Hearts II, and my obsession was swiftly rekindled. What really made these games so compelling to me was ultimately three things: the characters the unabashed cheesy sentimentalism, and the tear-jerkers, all three of which Kingdom Hearts II had in spades. Particularly interesting to me was Organization XIII, an association of black-coated sort-of-kind-of ghosts. All of the members you see in this game (only eight of the original thirteen remained; five of them, I learned later, were killed during the events of Chain of Memories) were very well written, and were the main reason I loved II so much. Aside from them, the story was just as ridiculous (yet strangely engaging) and melodramatic (yet still very engaging), as always.
And then came Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, which magnified everything polarizing about the series by a factor of around a thousand. Some loved it for it's, again, ridiculous but compelling plot/characters/title, some hated it for them. I fell in the former category.
Have you ever read a book, seen a movie, played a game, that simply ripped your heart out of your chest, stomped it, crushed it with a hammer, and then beat you over the head with it? Yeah, playing 358/2 Days was something like that. This game delves into the story of Roxas, the protagonist of the main series' ghost-clone-something-or-another, and his 358 days spent working with the aforementioned organization of ghost-clone-something-or-anothers. This game is positively bursting at the seams with the series' trademark cheesy sentimentality and melodrama, dealing with such fun topics as good people working for an evil organization, having to leave people you hold dear, being forced to kill your best friend, the loss of everything that once made you happy, and issues with identity. Hearts were shattered, mine included. And that's all that can be said on the matter.
Where does that leave me? Well, there have since been three games- Birth by Sleep, re:coded[sic], and Dream Drop Distance. Birth by Sleep is allegedly even more tragic than 358/2 Days, although my lacking a PSP to play it on has prevented me from testing the veracity of this. I have beaten re:coded, which attempted to match the emotional gravitas of its predecessors and mostly failed, despite being a reasonably fun game, and am in the process of playing Dream Drop Distance, which I have mixed opinions on so far.
Kingdom Hearts is an odd series. I don't think any other series could match it in its ridiculous concept and the fact that it seems to take itself seriously 100% of the time. But in spite of that, or perhaps even because of it, it's strangely charming. Its characters are well written, the gameplay is some of the best in the action-RPG genre, and the story, while strange, while absurd, while occasionally needlessly melodramatic, is still surprisingly involving. Kingdom Hearts is important to me because it's the first game that made me honestly care about the characters and want them to succeed.
Finished.
^The Zelda entry will be the last one. Honestly, it might be kind of difficult, as I have a hard time articulating what, exactly, draws me so much to that series.
Man, don't assume that no-one is going to give you feedback just because no-one has in the last two hours, let alone passive-aggressively complain about it. I was considering giving the post a proper once-over when I felt like I had the time and energy, but I don't right now, so could you just hold your horses?
I feel that your paragraph breaks are a bit haphazard. The second paragraph, for example, goes from generalizations about the game to anecdotal information. The general flow of the article is a bit jumpy. You should try to keep to one paragraph per thought rather than the one and a half thing that you have going here.
You also go between too much exposition and not enough. You talk a good deal about various characters, but you don't really go into the plot machinery that so captivated you. If you're afraid of spoilers, then just stick spoiler alert at the top. It's unlikely that anyone will care about spoilers from an 8-year-old game anyways.
Feel free to ask about any of this. I'm not feeling like an in-detail thing, but I'll do it if you need me to.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
Bleh, I'm thinking of writing outright power fantasies now
Comments
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
rape a nondescript woman for no reason except to establish his
villainhood. And when the heroes catch up with him and violently
interrogate him, he goes off into this monologue about how rape
increased his threat level and their anger more than killing her would
have, and that the woman that he raped won't last as long as he will
(he's functionally immortal, btw), and generally attacking how society
treats rape while providing no justification for his deeds. Because he's
sociopathic towards almost everyone, and he doesn't care that much
about what he's done. That's why he's the villain.
And then, two
weeks after that issue is published, I'd have a miniseries written by
Gail Simone (or, if she refuses, another popular feminist comic book
writer) with advice from organizations that help women with rape, one
that shows how the victim is scared of leaving the house, how she
flinches when a man approaches her unexpectedly, and essentially shows
the long-term effects of sexual assault. And the series ends with her
being able to function in society again, but still pretty screwed up
from the incident. Basically, a counterpoint to the Identity Crisis bit
where a woman's rape is shown to have no visible effect on her long-term
mental state. It's a way to give women who've been sexually assaulted a
figure that they can empathize with, and to help males understand how
sexual assault or the threat of sexual assault affects the female
psyche. And I'd have it published online and make it free with a unit of
whatever media I'm using to write said series.
I don't know why
I'm telling you all this. It'd take years to get the theoretical series
to the point where this plot development would make sense; it's not
going to happen. I guess I'm just in a rambling mood tonight, and I kind of want to know if the whole thing's worth bringing rape into a story.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
I wanted to call it Hoodrat, but urban dictionary says it's an insult (and a feminine one at that), so I'm still working on a title.
probably none of you ever saw that movie
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
On one side, there's basically this guy who wears a hood, and he's trying to take down this corrupt police commissioner. One's black and one's white. You can guess which ones. So he starts gathering a group of activists and ex-Panthers and anyone else he thinks will help with breaking into the Police Chief's various locations and stealing evidence that'll get him fired. Kind of like Mass Effect 2 with a little Metal Gear mixed up in it.
And on the other side, there's this 16-year-old Black/Asian kid that the Hood saves early on in the story, and his job is to drum up support for the Hood. He disseminates whatever evidence Team 1 has gathered, convinces key people to join the cause, and he helps direct charity projects in the Hood's name. A mix between Persona 5's Social Link Building and your standard management game.
I don't remember why he's Black/Asian. Or Blasian. I think I wanted to give him Chow as a nickname, and making him Blasian was a logical next step. It's a reference to Munch, that guy who gets saved at the beginning of the 1938 Robin Hood movie.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
The thing about Robin Hood is that he's one of the most malleable heroes in recent history. It's why he survived in pop culture where hundreds of other legendary outlaws and knights didn't. He naturally reflects the times where he's portrayed. 1930s Robin Hood had commentary on WWII, for example.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
I think I'd still use Chow because it'd be a nickname. A racist nickname given to him by schoolchildren who don't know better.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
In either case, I think they're, as the tropers say, anvils that need to be dropped. Particularly the former.
Humanity likes to use stories to put themselves in someone else's shoes. We like the Great Gatsby because it communicates the emptiness of the party-loving 1920s. Books like The Awakening and Ethan Frome stuck around from the 1800s because they communicated something unique about the Victorian woman and the Northeastern rural life, respectively. We don't have a big story like that for sexual assault victims, and the last story like that for the urban black person was....A Raisin in the Sun, maybe, and A Raisin in the Sun is getting on in years.
Plus, it'd be a chance to give Gail Simone some work, which would be nice because DC's screwing her over now.
It's not that I would be doing it for the wrong reasons, mind you, just that I was inspired to do it for all the wrong reasons.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
I feel that your paragraph breaks are a bit haphazard. The second paragraph, for example, goes from generalizations about the game to anecdotal information. The general flow of the article is a bit jumpy. You should try to keep to one paragraph per thought rather than the one and a half thing that you have going here.
You also go between too much exposition and not enough. You talk a good deal about various characters, but you don't really go into the plot machinery that so captivated you. If you're afraid of spoilers, then just stick spoiler alert at the top. It's unlikely that anyone will care about spoilers from an 8-year-old game anyways.
Feel free to ask about any of this. I'm not feeling like an in-detail thing, but I'll do it if you need me to.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Ah, no wonder then. It was a challenge for me, and I had a few years advantage on you.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
That could be a story