I'm a storyteller. I enjoy writing, analysing, discussing. Like its title, this blog is an amalgamation of thoughts and experiences from three countries.
I'm TrnAydlEdin, or Tae for short. I also go by the alias TallStranger, occasionally. The names refer to places I've lived in during my 40+ years.
I love stories. I consider myself a storyteller, though the realities of work mean that I usually have to do that via data analysis. My dashboards are beautiful and my reports are excellent.
I'm most familiar with essay and analysis writing. However, I am currently dabbling in fanfic as a means of entering fiction writing. Because I tend to bite off more than I can chew, my first fanfic is a conclusion of the Horizon game series.
(The sci-fi one. Not the racing one.)
It deals with themes of burnout and support, with a subplot of romance alongside the usual plots to save the world. Here's the link to my story:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
I'll try to post links to chapters as I can finish them, but the link above will get you to the main work.
Thinking about the kind of music everyone in Aloy's squad would listen to once APOLLO is back online is a hilarious exercise, for the record.
Based on a combination of research and pure vibes alone, Zo and Varl listen exclusively to indigenous folk music like Mahk Jchi, bands like The Cranberries, and things in the Enigma and Enya vein... when they're together, anyway. On his own, Varl listens to bubblegum pop (think early Taylor Swift, Sugar, Sugar, As Long As You Love Me, etc.). And he sings along to it very, very badly, which Zo pretends to be annoyed by because she finds his embarrassment entirely unnecessary but funny. (On her own, Zo loves Tracey Chapman and Melissa Etheridge.)
Erend, as we already know, listens to the worst techno metal you could imagine, but, after Zo's begging, he's branched out and found a love for classic 70s punk. (Cherry Bomb is his favorite after everything by Concrete Beach Party. )
Drakka likes slightly-scream-y metal with a fast beat like Riding the Eagle (on the nose, he knows it) and Dragonforce. Anything he can hunt to is good listening in his book.
Nil loves disco, especially The Bee Gees, to absolutely everyone's surprise (until Aloy thinks of the implications of Stayin' Alive and that it's supposed to directly mirror CPR and a heartbeat.) Beta loves Celine Dion to absolutely no one's surprise. (Nil will also listen to straight-up dance-club rave music with the bass jacked all the way up and an absolutely deadpan expression on his face. Somehow, this is scarier than if he was listening to an actual horror band. When Beta's overwhelmed, she'll listen to "music" that's genuinely just noise, and Aloy has to remind herself that killing her clone sister isn't a nice thing to do every time Beta plays her playlist loud enough for her to hear it.)
Kotallo enjoys classical symphonic music because it helps him focus and he admires the precision. This is the sole thing anyone in the group has in common with Sylens. (Sylens is also a fan of smooth jazz. The concept of knowing something with such technical proficiency that you break all of its rules and still succeed is something that reaches Sylens at his core. Also, not me imagining Sylens a la J.K. Simmons like, "Aloy, are you rushing, or are you dragging?")
Alva has genuinely eclectic taste and likes a little bit of everything. But she does have a special place in her heart for women who rap (especially Lauryn Hill) and what she considers underrated KPOP groups (think BVNDIT).
Gildun favors Motown classics and won't hesitate to sing along, though Marvin Gaye he is not.
The Hidden Ember crew all enjoy showtunes, but distinctly different ones. Stemmur enjoys real old school Rodgers & Hammerstein (Oklahoma! is his favorite), and Abadund (who loves Chicago and anything with a Bob Fosse touch) would very much appreciate it if Morlund would just listen to Defying Gravity instead of taking it as a personal challenge.
And it brings me no small amount of joy to imagine Avad sitting on his throne vibing out to Matchbox 20's Lonely No More and Santana's Smooth while thinking about how much he relates. Rob Thomas is his boy, period, but he has a thing for any late 90s/early 2000s emo pop-rock (The Goo Goo Dolls, early Maroon 5, Third Eye Blind, etc.)
(Talanah endlessly mocks him for this and will enjoy her non-emo 80s pop music on her own, thanks. She thinks she's having a love affair with Whitney Houston. Petra sympathizes but prefers Stevie Nicks.)
Fashav is a basic bitch like me who likes classic rock. His favorite singers are Bruce Springsteen, Steve Perry, and Joe Elliott, in that order.
Aloy herself, meanwhile, can't be bothered with music because it's a distraction... buuuuuuut she secretly quite enjoys folk music and old school outlaw country. She becomes irrationally annoyed with herself when she discovers that APOLLO's entire backlog of Johnny Cash comes straight from the archives of Travis Tate (or, more specifically, his mother).
In Horizon: Forbidden West, I think it's pretty well implied that when members of the GAIA Gang learn to "use their Focuses" then they're also learning to read. Yes, there are scrolls and parchments and other datapoints you can collected that signal literacy among the tribes, but I'd argue it's a specialised skill that most soldiers/warriors don't need.
Like, Varl mutters "That's a lot of glyphs" when he first puts on his Focus in HFW's intro. He, Erend, and even Zo talk about having difficulty getting through Focus documents on multiple occasions. In HZD, Helis records his personal thoughts and manifesto on thousand-year-old voice recorders, which has to be less efficient than a written journal for your average warlord-on-the-go. Not that they all start from scratch, necessarily, but there's a big difference between understanding CAUTION signs and reading summaries of historical events.
So we can say that a large chunk of the GAIA Gang learned to read as adults, yes? But did they learn to write?
That's not as well established in the Horizon series. So - headcanon time!
Writing is an entirely different skill to reading, as it's a productive skill while reading is receptive. The same goes for speaking and listening, respectively. We don't see the gang actively learning writing, but some of them do leave written datapoints behind. My headcanon is that they *do* learn to write, but at different times and with different skill levels.
(This is not a reflection on mental ability, btw. Oral history is a thing. Reading maths and diagrams is separate from reading text. This is just my personal HC because Guerrilla maybe didn't separate writing as a distinct skill from reading.)
Here's my list of the HFW characters' writing backgrounds, on a scale of "writing is as natural as breathing" to "getting along fine without it."
Beta: Taught to write very early in life, because she was created as a tool for scientific discovery. Received no praise for learning "basic" skills, even as a child. Exclusively trained on reports, essays, and proofs. Zero skill at creative or fiction writing, save for mental challenges and paradoxes she wrote for herself out of sheer desperation for entertainment. Effortlessly types on a full keyboard one-handed, Eureka Seven style.
Aloy: Angrily taught herself how to write after finding her Focus at age 8. No writing models, so she became extremely perturbed by the differences between standard examples on her Focus and snippets of adverts found in the wilds. Writing skills further separated her from the rest of the Nora; but it's a skill so she's gonna master it, damnit. She can write very well, but doesn't.
Alva: As a Diviner, she embodies one of the specialised roles that would require reading and writing skills. She learned writing when she began her Diviner training, which I assume would begin around age 11 or so - old enough to start thinking about the future, but young enough to manipulate into Ceo's vision of the future. Yes, this is an allegory for religion. Since all Diviners are taught writing in their tween years, abbreviations and slang developed during that time are not cringe but a mark of pride for your generation.
Zo: Easily the best student among the adult learners in the GAIA Gang. She may have had some experience in writing earlier, but whatever training she had was completed at the Base. Since she's repeatedly pulled in to help train other members of the gang, her grammar and spelling are excellent. Her sentences are straightforward - nothing too complicated, but still effective.
Varl: One of the few creative writers in the gang. Being part of the Nora, he would have experience with their songs and stories, both in evidence at the Proving ceremony. He learned to write while at the Base, and during that time he was especially interested in turning those songs into written works. At first, the interest was just to make nice things for Zo, but he developed a passion for it as he practiced. He gained the most out of the DEMETER files, just because he found that poetry didn't have to follow a specific pattern or even a specific grammar. His prose writing skills aren't great, but his poems are thoughtful and earnest.
Kotallo: An example of learning exactly what he needs to hone his skills, and no more. Like the rest of the warriors, he learned writing at the Base. It was effective to learn how to write clear instructions, so he did. But after that, there were more important things to focus on. Questions, dialogue, clauses and phrases - none of it. Kotallo writes exclusively in statements.
Erend: He had a hard enough time learning to read at the Base, so there wasn't a great deal of time to learn to write as well. He's excellent with numbers and diagrams - he's the captain of specialised royal guards, which means good organisation - but text proved frustrating. And, frankly, Erend knows that you need to take what enjoyment out of life that you can get. So, he has the barest of basics only. Rather than beating himself up over a skill he never needed before, he'd much rather beat you at a game of Machine Strike.
Sasha: Look, mate, I don't really get this magic stuff super well, but I promisse I won't betray you just cause you can't even try a cool acrobatics anymore. Worms are very sneaky. Wait halfling sized worm or worm sized worm? Cause I'll still stick by you but we might have to do something about it.
Zolf: You're not a worm, Hamid.
Grizzop: This is nonsense. Time wasting nonsense... I would still be your friend but wow what a dumb question.
Azu: Yes. Of course s2.
Cel: Yup. *infodumps about worms for two hours*
Bertie: Ew. Gross. I would pity kill you.
*part 2: party adjacent*
Wilde: I suppose being a worm would make you more down to earth. (S: and you are already worm, you get it, warm, worm).
Skraak: *genuine consideration* No.
Eistein: You are a funny man, Hamid.
Carter: Hey! That's my question when I get too drunk at parties too!!
Barnes: I don't think we have this level of intimacy.
Kiko: No but Azu would.
*part 3: sibs*
Saira: Dragons aren't worms, Hamid, and frankly that is quite an offensive comparison.
Aziza: I would be a worm right with you.
Isaq: Sure... Anyway If you were a worm would I get your stuff?
Ismail: Yeah, I guess, but like I would be the one getting your things right, bro?
Saleh Jr: Wait last night happened? I thought I was just very high and had a very weird hallucionation... Oh... uh...
Zolf's frankness and Azu's sincerity came through the most in this one, I think. At least those were the responses I read in their characters' voices on the first read.
If you're writing anything involving cons, scams, heists, or morally questionable characters who are very good at lying, here are some free resources I've been using for research. Saving you the "why is this in my search history" anxiety.
1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.
2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.
3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.
4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.
5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.
Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.
Reblog to save for later. Your WIP will thank you.
Four months after the events at the Burning Shores, Aloy has been searching fruitlessly for answers, weapons, information - anything, really - about HEPHAESTUS and Nemesis. With her stress and trauma catching up to her, Aloy withdraws into herself. Beta decides to do something about it.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
The first chapter of my work picks up right at the very end of Horizon: Forbidden West, specifically the Burning Shores plotline. Aloy reflects on what she's accomplished after defeating Londra, and worries over what else she has to do. She allows herself a moment of peace, which immediately causes another concern.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
I have been mulling something over for a while and have decided to share.
As part of my job, I read a lot of fiction that's still in development. After a while, you start to see the same errors, misunderstandings and shortcuts crop up repeatedly with different creators and it gets me thinking what is the most elegant way possible I could explain the issues to someone wanting to improve?
The one that comes up the most often and is the hardest to explain is:
"Why don't people care about my characters and/or story".
It's always a thorny problem and I think I have a workable answer that applies in most cases:
A story is a series of revelations regarding compounding, unintentional consequences to character decisions.
The further you stray from this, the less people care.
It translates to:
1) characters have to make decisions otherwise there is no drama
2) Those decisions have to matter otherwise there are no stakes
2) The consequences have to interact with one another. A affects or causes B affects or causes C etc. otherwise there is no progression
3) There must be some unintended consequences otherwise there is no conflict
4) The consequences have to be revealed (even at least implied) otherwise there is no conclusion
This works at the micro scale in terms of dialogue:
The specific word/tone/movement a character uses affects how another character reacts in an unexpected or interesting way which in turn causes another reaction and these layer onto one another until a decision is reached and a consequence implied thereby completing the scene.
It also works at the macro scale in terms of plot:
The decisions characters made in a scene prompts/affects the characters and context of the scene that follows (even if we don't know it at first) and by the end those layered interactions have been revealed to us and we see the unexpected or interesting result.
In my anecdotal experience, most times people don't care about a work of fiction is not because of a technical issue with the execution but because the writer has subtly misunderstood what makes a story a story. Their main character doesn't make any decisions, the decisions don't seem to matter, it feels disjointed because consequences aren't layering, there's no conflict because there are no misunderstandings etc.
There countless technical aspects which affect the quality of a piece of fiction but most times when someone asks me to help them make people care about their story they first need to realise they have misunderstood what actually makes a story at a fundamental level and they need to recognise that before things can improve.
I dunno if this helps anyone. I hope it does. Sorry if it doesn't.
If anyone wants to use this to assess their own work let me know what you discover, I'm genuinely curious.
