#narrative stuff

[stephenwithav]

Self-Care

[starter for @marc-the-merc]

————————————————————————

Steven tossed the styrofoam container into the bin, clearing out the last empty from the fridge.

“Jesus, we have got to get shopping soon.”

He sighed and rubbed his hip. Marc had decided it was an I’m-not-getting-up-from-the-floor kind of day, after a less than pleasant exchange with Jake that morning.

No one’s fault, as usual, just one of the typical conflicts, where one or both decided at some point to get shitty about it to try and make the other drop it. And Marc had. And then he had dropped to the floor.

The disinterest, Steven could manage, that was okay, he had enough for the both of them. The spiraling thoughts? Fine, he knew how to calm Marc and himself down.

But the wallowing? The soul crushing loop of I am just bad and I don’t deserve anything? Steven couldn’t front for hours when Marc got like that, couldn’t even stand being around with how bad Marc made their body feel, the stomach pain, the whole body tension— and dear God, his back was killing him, he could hear all of his joints.

But he knew frustration wasn’t going to get any of them anywhere. It was already well past seven, and they’d eaten nothing but a single stale almond granola bar.

“Alright Marc,” he addressed, keeping as much of his exasperation out of his tone as possible. “You’ve had a bad day, what do you feel for dinner? Indian? Cup o’ noodles again? I could compromise on a fried egg for protein if you’ll eat that.”

[bardnuts]

the longer i study narrative theory the more I become absolutely convinced that "character traits" are a lie.

Real people don't have character traits--they have certain patterns of behavior they're prone to, yes, but that behavior is defined by a combination of motivations, mood, emotions, and external context. You cannot point to any one behavior as a singular "character trait."

And yes, characters aren't real people, and it's useful to have a shorthand to fall back on for quickly sketching out what a character might do in a given situation, but overall I'm beginning to believe that over-reliance on traits is unnecessarily limiting and makes for less organic characters. You build a character's personality over time, by revealing things about that person in the context of the narrative, and not by deciding ahead of time that this character has [x trait], [x trait], and [x trait]. People are built in real time by their active choices.

That's why nothing a character does at the beginning of a story can be "out of character." You've just met them--they're necessarily a foundation, a blank slate. I might do something radical and start leaving character design out of my planning process entirely: allow the characters a core motivation, but otherwise let the narrative do the heavy lifting. I think I'll end up with fundamentally more organic individuals.

[thatweirdenby]

I love villains with a moral code

Hero shocked that even the villain finds something immoral

The villain: I have morals darling, they just aren’t yours

[wellspringrpg]

INCOMING TRANSMISSION: [MIRAGECO_WELCOME] WOULD YOU LIKE TO LISTEN? > Y // N

Alright: we're gonna be up front with this. No cherry picking and painting this place as some kind of perfect fantasyland. First things first: welcome to the broadcast.

And second things second: the world itself is trying to kill us.

See, it's succeeded once before; we've built our foundation on the bones of a dead civilization. Some of the Archivists think they were the ones who brought it out. They built temples of steel. Mountains of concrete and glass. Technology that drank deep from the Wellspring and burned bright with progress. And it was only then that the Gloom rose up.

That's the only logical progression of events, anyway. We know from experience: a footprint that big couldn't have been left if they were like us. Under threat from the start. The thing is, we don't know why the Gloom came to be. Maybe it was a consequence of their way of life. Or maybe it was something like us, brought to the world by pure chance. Whatever the cause, even they didn't stand a chance against it.

The Gloom scraped them from the face of the world. Sucked dry the mana from their great civilization and left it as nothing but wastelands.

Then we fell here.

We didn't really choose this place—the Grand Shift placing us here was something of a cruel act of fate. Once we arrived, we couldn't leave. A disparate array of people from worlds we no longer remember. Trapped on—say it with me now—a world that's trying to kill us.

That was a long time ago, though. And you may have noticed that we're still here.

Whoever we were once is lost to history, but it turns out the people who came here in the Grand Shift were a stubborn bunch. They banded together to survive. They learned how to fight back.

Now, we are the Great Family. One people united against an apocalypse that never ends. There's not many of us, but we've managed thus far. Pushing back the Gloom little by little. Building a civilization in the face of ever-present doom. Learning from the people here before us. We've made ourselves a place here, and we'll be damned if we let this world get the better of us.

(We know, that's a lot of history right up front. Don't worry, we're about to get to our point. The reason you're hearing this broadcast.)

The Gloom still looms. Its threat is ever present. No matter how many victories we claim, there's a lot of world, and only a handful of us to fight back.

That's why we're calling on you, Traveler. Why this transmission has reached your eyes and ears. We need you to give in to that siren song of wanderlust. To venture out into our world. Whether you want to delve into the mysteries it holds or fight in the name of the Great Family is up to you. We just need protagonists for this story.

Don't worry—we've made sure to prepare a guide for you. We wouldn't just throw you into the deep end like that. Everything a new traveler might need to know—just give it a read.

When you're done, tell 'em the Mirage Company sent you. We'll have your back out there.

[sunzonked]

stuff

[thecraftgremlin]

Something I’ve noticed particularly in podcasts is that one of the best ways to communicate that a character is passionate about something is to establish a certain way of speaking and then break it when they talk about their subject of interest.

[stephenwithav]

Movie Night

[starter for @layla-el-faouly and @khonshus-favorite-son

Jake’s mod we are going to be doing it turn based, so you only reply after Layla, and then I reply to you. This is so we don’t get branches in the thread. DM me if you’re confused or have any questions

Don’t feel pressured to match style or length! The starter just has all the set up n stuff, replies can and should be shorter, unless you’ve got things you want to add. Don’t feel constrained by the tone, either, we can take this anywhere really]

————————————————————————

Steven tucked away the last bit of papers, standing up straight and checking one last time over the tidied space.

The microwave dinged and Steven turned and pulled out both the puffed-up bags, emptying them into a large bowl, hissing as one of the kernels nearly burnt his hand.

He was nervous, Marc had been so very quiet recently, and even all the things he’d read about how alters could go dormant, and come and god and that not fronting consistently didn’t mean anyone had done anything wrong, didn’t make him feel much better.

It was his system, his headmates, and he knew them; and Marc was going through yet another something, something Steven apparently couldn’t help with. Something he needed to talk about, but something that also involved Layla.

He felt so much responsibility to the both of them, but also to this relationship. It was repairing things with their literal wife, the closest support they had. It wasn’t just something he wanted, though there was that too, actually having a girlfriend and romance in his life like he’d dreamed of for so long was something that made him joyous to get out of bed every morning.

And today was going to be a date Jake had invited himself to. Which was totally fine, right, yeah, because he and Layla both wanted Jake around more, as much as possible, even, after he’d been hidden for so long, they were happy to have him, and they didn’t want to tell him he couldn’t come, not when and if he was quite literally going to be there in the room, right there in the same body.

But how the bloody hell were they going to manage if things got touchy, and they wanted to kiss, and Jake was co-conscious? Even as open minded as Steven was, that gave him the squick, and he didn’t think Jake would be too fond of it either.

Two knocks sounded from the front door and he perked up and hurried over to answer it, a bright smile on his face.

“Layla!” He exclaimed. “So glad to see you!”

[okiedokievariantloki]

Loki is literally a spoiled brat with the mind of a frat boy who’s had it good his whole life and gives his adopted Dad shit for nothing. Why are people not realizing this?

I will agree that Loki can be spoiled.

I'm not sure what you mean by "frat boy"? From the movies we cannot tell if he's into partying the same way as Thor, though it does appear that he, along with many other characters of whom we know of from other movies, enjoy a good party if you look at What If's alternate universe.

As far as "adopted Dad," let's take a look here- is stealing a child truly adopting? There is a dark history of human beings doing similarly (especially if you read it as a parallel to those who stole Native and POC children from their parents after massacring, enslaving, or imprisoning their parents and then raised them in a house that is abusive or dismissive of their needs, or literally raised them to be servants to their own biological children), and I would argue that this is more the case than anything.

From what we see, Odin keeps Loki around similarly to how Mother Goethel keeps Rapunzel around- he's a tool that Odin expects to use later on. He even admits this during the scene in the treasure vault where Loki asks him about why his skin is turning blue. Just because people like Odin or Mother Goethel feed and clothe and generally take care of the physical needs of their wards does not necessarily make them good parents.

I would also say that it's pretty shitty for Odin to constantly tell both Thor and Loki that they were both "born to be king." Not only does this set up a rivalry, but it is dishonest as we know that Hela is actually his eldest child and as soon as Odin dies, Hela appears to kick their asses.

Loki also doesn't really directly give Odin shit. He disagrees, but Odin basically silences him every time. When he talks to Odin about his Jotun form, he is hurt and scared about what is happening to him because it's been hidden all his life. Odin's response is to pass out and even THEN, Loki comes up with an underhanded plan to kill the Jotun king RIGHT IN FRONT OF ODIN so that ODIN WILL SEE AND APPROVE OF HIM. His last words as he falls off into the void is that he wanted his father to be proud of him. I don't see him giving Odin shit so much as realizing by the second and third films that the only way for him to deal with Odin's increasing senility is to put him somewhere else where he can't harm anyone. And do you honestly think that Odin couldn't just get Heimdall to bring him back if he wanted to? Odin shows himself as being erratic and angry in the second film, and after the death of his wife, he loses his grip even more. He is willing to kill his ENTIRE PLANET'S POPULATION to avenge the death of his wife. Even Thor doesn't agree with this tactic, and has to go behind Odin's back to go with a different plan with a lower body count.

I do think that Loki is often portrayed in the comics as a downright nasty fellow. He is capable of great evil, and is often selfish, impulsive, and enjoys causing chaos. He is also written (at least in the MCU) as a complicated character, one who has been raised with a deep sense of duty and loyalty to his people, but who also knows that he is constantly in his brother's shadow, and there's a resentment there that comes out in conflicts between the two.

Both Thor and Loki have a very patronizing view of humanity and other races with less power. This mirrors a lot of how the British feel about, well, everyone else they colonized. Though Thor is nice to humans, his general consensus is "humans are weak and stupid but they are cute like a bunch of puppies and need me to protect them." Loki sees humans as weak and stupid and short-lived, but that they need overt control by a superior being to properly reach their potential. Loki didn't plan to commit genocide on humanity, he just wanted to rule the planet (haha, shows what he knows about humans).

These two sentiments are authoritarian in nature, but they are a product of their own society, which is also highly hierarchical and authoritarian with a king on top. Looking at how humanity segments things out and does stuff like voting and civic engagement must look like a weird backward custom to Asgardians.

Of course, I don't really think that the MCU thinks this stuff through all that much. I just think that, like most media, it's a reflection of our own society, which is often very authoritarian and patronizing towards "the masses" already.

These stories are written this way to hit a chord with the audiences that will watch them. Human beings can understand the story of two brothers fighting for the crown. Human beings recognize the narrative conflict of two people going down different paths to try and achieve the same goal.

Loki exists within the narrative to move the plot along in a specific way. He needs to act in the way he does in order to satisfy the story. Without Loki's interference, there is no plot. There is no movement. It is within the moments of chaos that he devises that the various notes of the story unfolds.

Does that make Loki a nice guy you'd want to bring to dinner with your family? Probably not. But does it make him a powerful narrative force in the overarching story? Yes, yes it does.