The Hammel Institute

A blog for The Hammel Institute. You can visit our website HERE. Hammel is a meta-human role play centered around a private school for young meta-humans, The Hammel Institute, and the nearby town of Pilot Ridge. New members always welcome. JOINING GUIDE FAQ CHARACTER SPREADSHEET PLAYBY CLAIM

[strongcat]

[thehammelinstitute]

This is applicable to more Hammel characters than I can count.

[thebluebird]

[fictionwritingtips]

thebluebird:

A professional script reader read 300 screenplays for five different studios, all the while tracking the many recurring problems. The infographic he made with the collected data offers a glimpse at where screenwriting goes wrong.

[xekstrin]

pay attention to this

this is important even if you don’t write scripts

[mumblingsage]

This is exceedingly important to all storytellers

[thehammelinstitute]

What types of characters does Hammel need?

Where to begin with this?

 We need teachers for all of the subjects. We need recruiters. We need security. We need dorm staff. We need researchers. We need PUSE members. We need locals. We need college students. We need Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Ian McKellen, and Patrick Stewart based characters for a complicated personal plot. We need Hammel alumni. As always, we need women and girls, we need non-binary characters, we need lesbians, we need POC. We need lawyers and people who work in the government and for public works and USPS, and we need someone to work for a singing telegram delivery service.

[thehammelinstitute]

If your real-life self was a character in the Hammel universe, what do you think your relationship with your characters would be like?

I think they would have a good working relationship and could enjoy spending some time together after hours.

Also, we established in that AU that Sean the character would take Sean the player to Hammel to slap people with fish.

[thehammelinstitute]

If you could give every one of your characters a theme song, what would they be? ~Pollo

I'm sorry, Apollo, since I think this was also a question for Tony, and you are stuck with Sean who only has one character.

Sean's theme song was asked about on Sean's personal Tumblr, but I'll repost that answer and then add a few more:

"Dazzling Blue" by Paul Simon

"When I’m Gone" by Phil Ochs

"And So It Goes" by Billy Joel

 Also, any version of "500 Miles.

 As an aside, am I the only one who thinks that "Weapon of Choice" by Fatboy Slim, song and music video, fit with Hammel?

[thehammelinstitute]

This is a two part question. Imagine you were no longer allowed to RP. 1) What would your reaction be? 2) What would be your new creative outlet?

1) Weep openly.

2) I would write stories.

[thehammelinstitute]

What is/was your favorite plot line for Hammel?

I might have to go with the complete and utter chaos of the very first Power Swap. There weren't as many threads for that as there were for subsequent Power Swaps, but, as the kids say, everyone nailed it.

[thehammelinstitute]

what are your crack ships you wish could sail?

I apologize, because you want Tony for this question but instead you have Sean, who doesn't have crack ships. I'm sorry to disappoint.

 The closest I have is Stefan/lamp post and that is canon.

[thehammelinstitute]

Which active character at Hammel would you least like to run into/ have to teach/ have a dinner party with?

This is a tough one because Nicholas Kells isn't active and he's the easy answer.

I think Harmony Muller-Barton is high on the list.

[thehammelinstitute]

If you could adapt any character in Hammel (retired or not), who'd you go for?

I don't know if this is supposed to mean adapt or adopt. If adapt, I admit that I don't know if you mean adapt for a television series or for a book or for something else? Or if you mean adopt, then if you mean legally.

 I'll say Josh regardless.

[thehammelinstitute]

Tell us some headcanon you have for your characters!

I apologize for only having the one, so please enjoy this anecdote:

 Josh reads lots of news blogs (Sean cares less about the Internet than Josh does). As a result, Josh tells Sean every time he is outraged by someone or something. On one of Josh's news blog, there is a troll who sockpuppets, but who is lazy about it. So he changed his name from "Super Man" to "Super Guy" after being banned, and Josh had many opinions about this.

 For other Sean head cannon:

-Sean is sad that Lauren Bacall passed away today. She was very important to him, insofar as a celebrity whom he never met or never saw in real life was important to him, due to her and Humphrey Bogart's on-screen and off-screen relationship was to him and to Josh.

-Sean knows about Percie's erotic friend fiction.

-Sean keeps a list of meta-human friendly and meta-human unfriendly media representations.

-Sean has a mix tape of lullabies that he made for hypothetical children he might have.

 For other Josh head canon (from Dryope):

 -He has some clothing that could be called pink. He insists that it is red.

-He loves the song Girl In a Country Song by MADDIE and Tae (thanks Cap for linking me).

- He also loves You Sound Good to Me by Lucy Hale.

-His first pride parade overwhelmed him. He was uncomfortable and envious of those who seemed to have more confidence in themselves.

[characterandwritinghelp]

I feel like I'm a bad person for not writing more POCs. Should I write more, or just ignore the feeling?

Short answer: yes, you should write more characters of color. But let me tell you why, really why.

I have said it before and I will say it again: The reason to include diversity in your work (and this goes for race, sexuality, gender, ability status, everything) should not be because you are afraid people will complain if you don’t. The reason to write POC is because we deserve stories, too. Please do not join the ranks of people who ignore us. You have recognized a problem in your writing—call it whitewashing, lack of diversity, what have you. But what I want you to do is recognize that it is a problem, and take the initiative to learn how to fix it.

Troubleshooting: But my story isn’t about race. Why do I need POC in a story about [not race]?

There is a misconception out there that characters of color need a reason to be characters of color. White characters never face this kind of criticism, as if “white stories” are “normal stories” and “POC stories” are “race stories.” Race does not need an explanation.

In this post, thewritingcafe said it best:

"By saying that a character’s skin color needs to be essential to the plot to be described, you are saying that only white characters are worthy of having stories that don’t have anything to do with racism, racial identity, and other issues related to race and colorism. It’s not that hard to say your character isn’t white. Their ethnic and/or racial background does not need to tie into the plot for them to exist."

Troubleshooting: I can just add in a few more characters and it’ll be fine.

The answer isn’t to toss in a few extras just to have characters of color. This is tokenism, and is not at all going to solve the problem. People of color deserve more than to be relegated to the background. We deserve to be represented as more than set pieces and one-off characters that revolve around a white cast and their problems.

Troubleshooting: I’ve never done it before. / People will be mad if I do it wrong.

I get that it can be daunting to write POC if you have little or no experience doing so, if you have written them poorly in the past, or if you aren’t used to it. These are not valid reasons to avoid characters of color. These are flimsy excuses that writers hide behind to explain why they don’t write characters of color. 

If you find yourself thinking this, it means that you need to do your research and get to writing. At some point, you need to buckle down and commit to writing what you learn about. This is not a task for next time, this is not a task for later, this is a problem now and there are answers now.

And it’s true—if you do it poorly, people will get on your case. This does not mean the only characters you are good at are white characters, but it does mean you had a misstep somewhere in your writing and research. That’s why we edit and have beta readers: to catch and identify these things before they go to print. Do not be afraid of criticism, it’s how we learn. There are plenty of kind people in the world who can help you, but they cannot help you if you refuse to start.

Troubleshooting: I don’t know where to start.

We have plenty of resources here on the blog, and there are plenty of others out there that can help you get started writing characters of color:

writingwithcolor. PLEASE FOLLOW IMMEDIATELY.

Is It OK for a White Writer to have POC Main Characters?

Racist writing is a craft issue

Visibility Matters: Why POC Must Be Described As POC

Tokenism vs. Representation vs. Inclusion

NK Jemisin’s Guest of Honor Speech

Why Representation Is Important: a bunch of links on the matter

Diversity tag

Race tag

So here is the thing: Maybe you wrote exclusively (or at least mostly) white in the past. Maybe this is the first you are learning of the whitewashing phenomenon in fiction and you want to learn more about diversity and representation. That’s great, and I am glad you want to learn more. What is going to cause problems between you and I is if you take all this information and decide that none of it applies to you. It does. It applies to everyone.

Now you know better. So—do better.

-Headless

[writingwithcolor]

Thank you :]

[thehammelinstitute]

To ALL of Hammel - Roses are red, Violets are blue, Whenever I'm sad, I come visit you. - love, me

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 Send Hammel members anonymous love notes, and we'll publish them.

[marniegoestohammel]

BIRTHDAY WOO

Things I should probably not do during my upcoming weekend of constant inebriation: PM my favorite players with awkward, hyperbolic compliments

Things I will almost certainly do: That

SORRY NOT SORRY, I LOVE YOU GUYS

[thehammelinstitute]

A Very Hammel (and Happy) Birthday to you!

[disneyyoungprofessionals-deacti]

The 16 Types

I just realized it would probably make sense to consolidate all of these into one post.

[thehammelinstitute]

In honor of Hammel's forays into the Myers-Briggs test, please enjoy this handy breakdown.

Who/which are you? And who/which are your characters?

[thehammelinstitute]

Join us for Hammel's 2014 commencement ceremony, as we bid farewell to several characters in their journeys to adulthood.

[kingprochan-deactivated20210515]

Does anyone else have that one ship that they keep falling deeper and deeper in love with??? And, like, when you think you’ve already hit rock-bottom with it you end up falling further??????

[thehammelinstitute]

I think that this applies to almost every player and pairing on Hammel.