#i have smaller character based predictions but these are the Plot relevant ones | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

skullmechaenthusiast · 2 years

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becoming what i hate for a hot minute. here we go:

something something evidence that i base my wishful thinking of kid’s potential plot relevance on. i’m not trying to make predictions, just point out things that have the potential to be expanded on in the future.

in no particular order.

conqueror’s haki. there’s still an overseeable amount of conqueror haki users and kid is one of three from those that haven’t had a “proper” backstory yet (the other two being shanks and sengoku (unless you wanna count sengoku’s cameos in other people’s flashbacks)) (proper backstory as in: we fully understand this character and their motivations, no more mystery around them.).

south blue. interesting things happen in the south blue. i’m a big fan of the observation that kid’s birth lines up with the time the marines were searching for ace’s mother rouge (or rather just roger’s child in general). and interesting people come from the south blue, like bonney, the one other lesser developed supernova, or kuma who both have their kingdoms in the south blue (and also sengoku and kuzan are from the south blue). but especially bonney and kuma are characters with supposed high future importance.

am still convinced that mr fire scar might be vegapunk.* the punk is in the name, the name association is there. dr vegapunk who so subtly worked on an island called punk hazard and among other things seems to be into cyborgs and engineering. if it’s not vegapunk, then there’s still something kid knows that we don’t yet.

*call me a clown once the next chapter refutes that lmao

you’re telling me the captain trio defeated two emperors and one of them is severely underdeveloped in this direct comparison to the other two?

luffy parallel. nothing like a good parallel character. we’ve heard it. kid is just luffy but angrier. but my main point is the whole theme around laughing actually, which is, associated with luffy, something entirely positive. luffy spreads joy wherever he goes and all that, new dawn, happiness, all that. he wants to be free and happy. but regarding kid laughter, for him, is pretty much entirely connecting to making fun of/looking down on someone which is way more negative. so idk potential character arc to be had here.

devil fruit. lots of potential in that devil fruit. magnet stuff is not to be underestimated and depending on the extent ot it, it might have significance if you consider that travelling the grand line works because of the islands’ individual magnetic fields.

he had a run-in with shanks that cost him his arm, so what happened there? shanks is too significant a character for something like this having happened and then not matter in some way beyond yeah, maybe cutting the kid’s arm off will calm him down. :/

general smaller moments. we’ve pretty much have always been kept up to date on kid and what he was doing which wasn’t done as much for other supernova characters. like we learnt that he attacked big mom’s ship during fishman island. during punk hazard we learnt that he was very much keeping up with the current affairs before doing his own alliance and landing in prison. an alliance he wanted to form specifically to fight shanks again.

apart from the revolutionaries obviously, kid is one of few characters that express explicitly how much they hate the world government. unlike the strawhats who of course literally declared war against the wg but for them it’s not about hate, it’s about their freedom, their dreams and their freedom for which the wg is an obstacle, and they’ve occassionally temporarily allied with marines like smoker or fujitora. which would be unthinkable for kid, like he looks down on wg people so hard.

#untagged #like hell i'm putting this in the tags what if next chapter refutes all of it haha haaaaaa #anyways yeah i hate doing theory things i just wanna enjoy things as they come but #i guess i needed this off my chest? so there my bible of my blorbo's potential relevance #he means everything to me #okay to reblog unless you wanna clown on it then keep it to yourself

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duckprintspress · 3 years

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Advice for Writing Trans Male Characters

Hi everyone, and welcome to our second guest post! We approached a trans man, and fellow writer, to put together a list of suggestions for cis people who want to write trans male characters! He has chosen to remain anonymous. Always remember, there is no one trans experience, and no one trans person’s knowledge will reflect the range of ways that trans people live. Our post author writes from his perspective, based on his knowledge and research, and much of this is relatively specific to the modern United States. Always use multiple sources when writing a character with an identity or identities that you don’t share!

So, you want to write a trans male character but you're not a trans man yourself. Good! We need more trans male characters out there in the world. There are a few things to consider, however. This is not a perfect list (I would never claim to be perfect), but here are some thoughts from a trans man about writing people like me.

Trans men are men. They talk like men, think like men, and walk like men, except where socialization as women has forced otherwise. By this I mean that descriptions should not include things like “he walked delicately, like a woman”. However he walks, it's like a man, because he’s a man. Other characters should not note that he “thinks like a woman” or that he “acts like a woman.” If you talk about a trans man transitioning and you mention that he is working on ways to masculinize his speech patterns or walking, that's fine, but make sure it's done from his perspective, e.g. “Michael tried to lower his voice, attempting to sound more like his father.” Do not use “Michael tried to lower his voice, not wanting to sound like a woman.” It's his voice and he sounds like a man. Also, many woman have deeper registers and many men have higher registers, and there's honestly not that much difference between a woman who speaks in a low alto and a man who speaks in a high tenor. Avoid gendering voices, mannerisms, and other things. A good rule of thumb is that if it's a concept, idea, or an inanimate or non-sentient thing, it is physically and/or emotionally incapable of having a gender and you should not assign one to it.

1. A trans man who has decided that all he needs to do is come out to be a man is still a man, with a man's body and male genitals, because he says he's a man. Even if he is not out, he is a man. He can be uncomfortable with his body, or with how others perceive his body, but it should not be described in terms of “womanly” aspects.

EX: David's breasts made him uncomfortable, reminding him that others looked at him differently than how he would have liked.

2. 72% of trans men do not ever want full gender reassignment surgery, and this doesn’t make them “less of a man.” The surgeries are expensive, invasive, and don’t always result in a fully functional genital apparatus. Also, there are a lot of them. A trans man, to have a full semi-working penis (one that will not be useful for sex but will at least be useful for urination), is looking at at least three surgeries: to remove the labia, to 'bulk up' the clitoris, and to move the urethra. There are also surgeries to remove the cervix and/or the uterus, to create a scrotum, and to add a pump inside the scrotum attached to a surgical implant in the penis to assist with arousal. Even if a man has all these surgeries, the penis he gets loses most of its sensitivity and won’t become physically aroused (as in, achieve erection) without medical intervention. He may also need electrolysis to remove pubic hair. Ultimately, many trans men opt not to deal with it. Many still want top surgery, or a hysterectomy, or both, and often testosterone is used to help deepen their voice and change their body shape (but, again, gendering a trans man's voice by suggesting it's “feminine” because he's not on testosterone or because his voice hasn't dropped yet is not a great idea). It depends on the type and amount of dysphoria a person experiences, versus their financial and mental ability to deal with the different choices. Some trans men are happy with no hormones and only top surgery. Others want or need everything. There is no “correct” way to be trans.

3. Unless your story revolves around their transition (which, as a cis person, maybe it's best you don't do, honestly), there’s no reason to go into detail about your trans male character's surgeries. If it’s not plot relevant, it's probably not necessary.

4. If you’re writing porn, make sure to always use male pronouns for him, even if he has chosen not to go through surgery. If he has gone through surgery, what he has will be indistinguishable from a cis male penis except that he may need viagra or a surgical pump.

5. Reactions to testosterone are different for every trans man. Some men never have their voices drop, never grow a beard, and/or never bulk up and get all muscle-y. Some men are on testosterone for two weeks and have a Gandalf beard with a voice low enough to sing bass. It just depends, mostly on genetics. If your character's father is a super hairy mountain man who sings bass in his lumberjack quartet, then your character is more likely to end up similar. If your character's father is basically an elf, then he's likely to be similar to that. Also, for a number of reasons, a trans man may choose not to or may be incapable of taking testosterone. Most doctors won’t prescribe it if the man wants to carry his own children in the future, for example.

6. Keep in mind that the order in which testosterone produces effects on a man’s body isn’t predictable, so don't worry too hard about 'getting it right.' Even trans men can't predict what they'll look like after being on testosterone for a while.

7. Also, a note: If your character is transmasculine and nonbinary, and taking testosterone, it's likely they will be on a lower dose than a trans man. That's not always true, but testosterone can be given at a few different doses, depending on how drastic a change a person wants and how quickly they want that change to occur. There’s still no guarantee: a trans man may never be able to grow a beard on a full dose, while a transmasculine nonbinary person might be on a very low dose and have a beard within the first month. But, generally, lower doses are meant to bring out smaller changes over a longer period of time, while higher doses are meant to bring out larger changes over a shorter period of time.

8. A non-fluid trans man is going to consider himself a man at all times, and always use he/him pronouns for himself, whether or not everyone else does. If you're writing a trans man point-of-view piece where he's not out or where he's not fully accepted, make sure he or the narrator always uses the right pronouns when others don't. That helps remind your audience that he's not the person other people think he is.

EX: Daniel was frustrated. His grandmother insisted on calling him “Sarah” no matter how many times he corrected her.

9. Menstruation is a difficult topic for a lot of trans men. Some men lose their ability to menstruate when they take testosterone, while others continue to menstruate. If they retain their uterus, however, the possibility of a menstrual cycle is always there. If/when menstruation happens for a trans man, it's often a time of major dysphoria. A trans man may have a lot of issues surrounding menstruation. Having a cervix also means yearly Pap smears, which can also be uncomfortable or dysphoria-inducing. Dysphoria can also happen during ovulation, when a person is most fertile. The body during this time is “getting ready for a baby” and the changes can be very triggering.

10. Testosterone may stop menstruation, but it doesn't necessarily stop pregnancy. Also, some trans men will go off their testosterone in order to carry their own child. During their pregnancy, it is important that they are still referred to as men. A trans man will generally prefer to be called “father” even if he carried the child, but some may prefer the term “mother.” If a cis person wishes to write a pregnant trans character, it would be better to err on the side of caution and use “father.” A trans man who has gone through top surgery will not likely be able to nurse his own children, but a man who has chosen to use a binder instead will be able to (probably - some people don’t/can’t lactate for other reasons). Whether or not he chooses to will be up to him.

11. Gender Dysphoria is the medical diagnosis given to trans people who want to do any form of medical transitioning. Being transgender is not in and of itself a diagnosis. A person can be transgender and choose never to transition medically. Dysphoria is generally most clearly understood as a form of discomfort in the body you possess. Sometimes a person experiencing dysphoria is uncomfortable with their body no matter what. He doesn't like his breasts, for example, unless they are bound, no matter what his setting is, who is looking at him, etc. His dysphoria takes the form of nausea at the mere sight of them. Alternatively, some people only experience dysphoria relating to how others see them. For example, a man may not mind his breasts when he's alone, and he doesn't usually bind, but on a specific day while he wasn't binding someone glance at his breasts before calling him 'ma'am' and now he can't uncross his arms in case someone else looks his way. For some people dysphoria comes and goes, and they have good days and bad days. Also, images can be dysphoria-inducing. For example, seeing a pregnant person might remind a man that he has a uterus, and make him extremely uncomfortable all day. Other people may go several days, or weeks or months, without experiencing dysphoria, but when it hits it affects them for a long time or very severely. Or a person might experience dysphoria every day, as kind of a low-level mental fog they can't shake.

12. Gender Euphoria is as valid as Gender Dysphoria. Gender Euphoria is the idea that a person might be content in the body given to them, but will never be truly happy unless they make a change. These people can live their whole lives as the gender assigned to them at birth without severe mental issues or physical problems, but it's like living a life without color. They can do it, but if there's a way to get color back, why wouldn't they?

13. Changing names is complicated and takes time. It also differs in every state/country, and may need to be re-done when a trans man moves. In some states, all they need to change their name legally is a court order. In other areas, a trans man needs to have lived using their new name for a period of time, or have doctor’s notes and authorizations. Once the character has changed their name legally through the courts, they need to change their driver's license, banking information, insurance, work papers, social security information, passport, birth certificate, and any other documentation bearing their name. It can take anywhere from a month to a year or more, and is expensive, sometimes prohibitively so. It's okay to have a trans male character who goes by “Mark” but whose parents or grandparents refer to as “Melissa.” The important thing is to make sure narratively you are confirming that those people are wrong.

EX: “Melissa! It's nice to see you come to visit!” Mark's mom said. Mark cringed, hating the sound of his deadname, but he hadn't yet been able to convince his mother to use the right one.

14. Do not portray a character binding for more than eight hours or with unsafe binders in a positive light. Just don’t. Binding, even with professional/high-end binders, is not safe. It's a stopgap - safer than not binding at all for some people whose dysphoria is really bad. It constricts the lungs and can break ribs if not done properly. It can permanently alter a person's chest cage if done for an extensive period of time. It's a necessary evil for people who are waiting to get their surgery done, in order to keep them alive to have that surgery. It's not a permanent cure-all. Binding also can cause dysphoria. A person who doesn't have dysphoria surrounding his chest can develop it after wearing a binder. So, have your character bind safely, or discuss the issues surrounding unsafe binding. (And yes, this applies even in a fantasy setting or world where the technology may be different. A story is a story, but the impact it could have on a real trans man is potentially dangerous, so write with consideration, and if you do introduce a magical or technological solution to this, maintain awareness of the reality.)

15. Transitioning without an in-person support group is one of the most common factors in transitioning regret. Give your character someone to go to the doctor with them, someone to hold their hand when they get scared, someone to talk them through moments when they're unsure. No one who goes under the knife is always completely 100% sure all the time. They need a community. Surgery and hormones are scary, even if a trans man knows he wants them, and trying to go it alone can spell disaster.

16. Given that a trans man will consider himself a man, it can be challenging to make it clear to a reader that he’s trans. If he's the main/POV character, you can write him dealing with some dysphoria. For example, if you decide your character binds, mention that his breasts are bothering him particularly badly one day. Have him adjust his binder. Describe putting a binder on. That kind of thing. If he's a minor character, it can be more challenging, but you can still have him do things like adjust a binder. You could also mention surgical scars, if a character takes off their shirt. Another thing you can do is just have the main character remember a time “before Mark went by Mark” (for example). Another way is to have the character mention some way in which they are fighting for trans rights, and acknowledge that the issue is personal to them. Try not to use the deadname unless he’s facing an actual microaggression by another character. The narrative or narrator character should never deadname the character.

17. FTM is not an accepted term anymore, as it implies that a person was one thing and changed. Generally speaking, if a trans man is not genderfluid, then he was never female or a woman. Likewise, the phrase “born in the wrong body” is not acceptable for use by cis people. The only real use it has is to explain dysphoria by transgender characters to cisgender characters who aren't inclined to listen or try to understand. The accepted term is AFAB, or Assigned Female At Birth. Keep in mind that terms and labels change with time, so do your research. For example, if you’re writing a historical piece, different terms may be more appropriate, and if you’re writing a modern current-day piece, understand that in ten or twenty years the terminology you use will likely have grown outdated.

18. The proper way to write the term is always “trans man” and never “transman”. Trans is an adjective describing a type of man, just like you might say an Asian man or a muscled man or a gay man. This comes back to the idea that a trans man is always a man, first and foremost.

19. An easy pitfall to avoid if your trans male character's setting is modern or modernesque is: Don't make the story all about their oppression. We are aware of the many ways in which the modern world is trying to oppress and harm the trans community, but trans men can still be happy and interesting people. They can have dysphoria without being depressed. They aren’t necessarily the “down in the dumps” character. Also, trans men have a long history of being activists, and are often erased in history, so don't be afraid to make your trans men an out-and-loud activist. Yes, terrible things have happened and continue to happen to trans men, and any trans man who has done any research into trans history will know about individuals like Brandon Teena. Trans men know the dangers they face. Knowing that bad things can and are happening doesn't mean a trans man can't find his own joy in life, despite things not being perfect.

20. Keep in mind when writing in historical settings that trans men have existed for as long as people have existed. Many trans men were able to go through life completely “undetected” until they died and those around them conducted culturally-common burial practices. It’s not unreasonable to have a trans man in Regency England, Yuan China, or Roman times. If you're writing about non-European-centric history, many cultures acknowledged those who didn’t present the way their AGAB (assigned gender at birth) would suggest, and do your research. Also, keep intersectionality in mind, and tread especially carefully when writing a trans man from a culture and period other than your own. This post is mostly applicable to trans men in the modern era, and especially in the United States. The trans male experience will be different in other places in the world, for people of different ages and of different religions and ethnicities and races, so the more traits your trans man has that are outside your own experience as a cis writer, the more you should consider if it’s wise for you write the story you have in mind, or if it might not be better to allow in-group members to tell those stories. And never forget - trans men can and are all things - all races, all religions, abled and disabled, etc. People have nuanced identities and multiple identifiers and trans is always only one of many.

21. In fantastical or science fiction settings, please always ask yourself if oppression of trans people or bigotry against them is even needed. Maybe a society doesn't assign gender at birth, but waits until a child is old enough to tell the society where they belong. Maybe a society reveres those who are under the transgender umbrella. Maybe children are considered genderless until they reach puberty. You have a million and one options; why limit yourself to what modern predominantly Western white Christian society says? If you do make a society that doesn't look anything like the modern world, for example they assign gender at age five, think about how that would affect society as a whole. What kind of pronouns would be used for children under five? Are young children genderless, or are they seen as genderfluid? What about people who age past five and are still genderless or genderfluid? What are the naming conventions for children?

22. There are mixed feelings regarding how a science fiction or fantasy setting should treat transitioning. Should it be an easy fix, with magic or advance science doing it instantly or nearly so? Or should it be difficult, reflecting the modern situation where the process often years before a person can feel “finished?” That's up to you. Trans people themselves are split on this, so there’s no pleasing everyone. Do your best, and whichever way you choose, make sure to tag it accurately or, for original fiction, be clear up front what approaches you’ve chosen, so people can choose not to read something that may make them uncomfortable at best or trigger them and profoundly harm them at worst.

Ultimately, your trans man is your character and you can do with him as you wish. Write responsibly, and do your research, and if you can, get a sensitivity reader or a beta who is a trans man.

So, go, diversify those stories, write the things, and present good representation! Happy writing!

#duck prints press #original content #writing advice #guest blogger #trans characters #trans men

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ghostmartyr · 4 years

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SnK 131 Thoughts

Eren what the fuck.

Like.

What in the actual fuck, my dude.

There are parts of this that make sense.

Then there are the parts that absolutely do not, and it’s all wrapped up in this chapter where, as previous chapter posts predicted, people are screaming and dying.

Since that’s pretty much the majority of the content, I guess we have the luxury of a short post that almost entirely focuses on Eren.

With added Annie and Armin. They can go at the start, I guess. They exist, they are cute if you’re into that, they’re also dumb and mopey if you’re into that, Paths make for a great radio, and just generally

WHAT THE FUCK, EREN.

Did I already talk about Rebellion? Is that a thing I did in these past few months? -checks- Damn it. Not that the well can’t be visited again, since it’s very obviously appropriate, but twice in two months starts to look like the laziness that is indeed threatening to take me.

-spins the wheel-

Okay then, let’s talk about Anakin Skywalker.

Cool dude. Rad kid. Born into slavery. Freed from slavery by a dude with magical plot magic who immediately dies. Inherits dude’s desire for him to follow the leanings of the religious sect responsible for plot magic. Has hormones and has a meltdown over having hormones, and also feelings, and proceeds to protect everything he loves so hard that it burns to the ground while someone he eventually throws into a pit laughs maniacally in the background.

It’s mainly that last part that is arguably relevant to today.

Anakin is terrified of losing his wife in childbirth. Instead of contacting a doctor, he decides that it’s best to rely on himself. Plus shady mentor. His fear turns into a longing for a power to destroy that fear, and the combination drives him to the Dark Side. When he starts demolishing the very things he wanted to protect, he digs in deeper. For twenty years, he kills, and kills, and kills, because he can’t admit he was wrong.

(Clone Wars is a good show, if anyone is interested. It fleshes the emotional weight of the script out, and makes the horror and tragedy stab you in the heart.)

I can’t say that I entirely hate this for Eren. I don’t particularly like how it’s been presented, but that might just be the part of me that looks at the “GENOCIDE IS THE ONLY OPTION” button lit up on his forehead and finds it so fundamentally disagreeable that I haven’t been looking at it even when the plot tells me that’s what it is.

Here’s the thing: Genocide is presented as a feasible course of action all throughout this series. From Zeke, from Marley, from Paradis; whoever’s pitch you want to listen to, a conclusion everyone always comes to is that it would be easier if all of these people causing problems would just die.

They can make that happen. They have the technology.

Marley is a cesspit. The moral cost means nothing to them.

Zeke is abused, traumatized, and molded into thinking death is a mercy.

Floch survives, and teaches himself that the evil he lives through needs to be repaid in full.

Kill, kill, kill. If something stands in your way, murder it.

This is a concept of horror to the characters who are establishing the moral center of the tale. They’ve killed people. They’ve fought to the death against people who would gladly see them die. The titans are their victimized kin, and all they can do for the greater good is put them down.

They’re tiny humans trapped in a cage, and they’re just trying to get out. Whenever they try, their jailers try to eat them. That is forever what Paradis is attempting, and whenever they do try to lessen the amount of violence in their tactics, they get fucked over by the plot. As much as the story can, it’s thrown the main Paradis cast into the light of being innocent victims who are just trying to defend themselves.

The whole series is a study in the damage genocide has caused.

Nothing excuses it.

There is no motive that justifies this scale of premeditated violence.

There is the fear that one day the people who belong to you will be victims, and the only way to stop them from being victims is to make victims of everyone else. Kill or be killed.

In self-defense.

Defending from an attack that might never come.

Genocide is not an option that has ever deserved a seat at the table.

Why don’t we just kill everyone off?

Why not erase everyone’s memories of it?

Why not continue to use this power to herd everyone into our vision of what the world should be like?

Why not say that we deserve life so much more than any other living creature on the planet?

The entire story tells us why.

From the very first chapter, we’re exposed to the violence and terror of an uncaring world devouring anyone unfortunate enough to be on the outskirts of what supposedly greater people have decided is most important. Eren’s entire home is destroyed because some children kick down a wall. The people in the core of those same walls are disturbed, but send out their lesser to be fed to the monsters so that they can continue living.

Karl Fritz locks everyone away on an island and tells them the world has ended.

Anyone who is too curious, or too interested in beginning a new world, is killed. They’re robbed of their memories or their life. The remaining Ackermans are alive because they were too far away from the true history of the world to actually know anything.

Marley, the whipping boy of the Eldian Empire, finds its escape through Karl’s mercy, and immediately mimics the way of life that has caused them so much pain. Titans continue to run rampant in the world, simply with different reins. They redefine what’s acceptable based on who’s pulling the trigger.

Every single major plot point comes back to the ruin that perpetrating genocide has conceived.

Nothing is fixed by saving Marley from Eldia. Marley chooses to renew the evil.

Nothing is fixed by Karl walking away from the world. He just picks on smaller targets.

Nothing is fixed by pretending this is a solution.

The series’ history is a cycle of people grabbing power and tormenting their enemies with it. It shows no sign of stopping. It takes Paradis a hundred years, but they go from a blank slate of a starting point to producing someone ready to destroy the world.

Nothing suggests that another hundred years won’t do the same.

We have seen this all before. The only difference is that Eren is trying to commit to a large enough scale that no one alive will have the kind of grudges that will produce this fuckery.

It is vile.

This is not a defensible course of action. Some things are simply wrong, and even without morality coming into play, we’ve spent years reading an object lesson in the consequences of this behavior.

This horror is where Eren comes from.

Eren is not special.

He is a normal human born into this world.

His actions are ones that any other person could duplicate.

Not easily, and not without a great deal of coincidence, but nothing about Eren makes this a choice that only he can make. His power is borrowed, and no matter how he dies, that death means there will be a next person in line.

He isn’t ending a fucking thing. He’s become a cog in the machine that broke him.

So that’s the starting point. Even if killing younglings did have a logical undercurrent, no. No, no, a million times no. Eren chooses this. Eren causes this. Eren picks genocide without anyone putting a gun to his head. Eren picks genocide when he has access to a power that could easily discourage anyone from attacking his home for years.

He chooses to murder people.

Because he’s afraid, and because he can.

Then we get to what I find infinitely more interesting:

Eren doesn’t want this.

In the present day, we have an Eren who no longer has a body, and what amounts to a hallucination of his younger self, dreaming of a world hidden away in a book. His physical self has its eyes closed, and his younger self looks more alive than Eren has in ages. He isn’t looking at the damage he causes, just the open sky.

In the past, we have Eren bawling apologies to a boy he meets once. We have an Eren who realizes that this world is one that has let him down, and that, completely outside protecting his home, is what makes him want it gone.

This doesn’t just happen.

Eren wants it to happen.

Eren looks at this world that wants him and everyone like him dead, and he wants it to be like the book. No mention of other people -- other people aren’t in the outside world anymore. Just beautiful scenery, and the freedom to enjoy it.

He can’t have that, and it hurts. He’s been through Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt. He’s lost friends and seen even more people die protecting him. He’s lost limbs and sleep and sanity to see a world beyond the walls.

It’s a world that wants nothing to do with him.

And Eren, who has rejected that line of thinking since he was a child, rejects the entire world.

He can’t dress it up.

Deep down, he doesn’t like the world he’s going to destroy.

He’s known for four years that he’s going to end countless lives.

He walks off Paradis’ ship knowing that.

But when he sees this world, he does want it gone.

Knowing what he’s going to do is one thing; seeing the beginning of a reason for it is what drives him to his knees. It isn’t some strange inevitability of the future. He’s the one who does this, and behind every bit of love for his friends and Paradis, there’s the knowledge that this world, where so many people live lives just like his, is one he’d liked better in a dream where none of them existed.

And that is where the plot thread loses me.

Not because any of this is something that I find particularly outlandish. There’s a plain, hysterical logic to it, and a small fraction of identifying with that logic has Eren in tears.

Eren does this.

There is no evidence of him wanting it.

He sees the shadow of want in himself, and he freaks out.

Eren of the present is dissociating so hard I don’t view his childhood hallucinations as a stable mind choosing something.

Eren of the past is continually horrified that this is going to happen.

If I had a tablet, this is where there would be a bad drawing of present Eren and past Eren, linked by an unstable line of red question marks.

I don’t have a tablet.

I do have Paint.

In the immortal words of an angry fictional nine-year-old, “If you don’t fight, we can’t win.”

In the immortal words of a very sad fictional nineteen-year-old, “I don’t know when in the future it will happen... But I... am going to kill every one of these people...”

Eren going full villain is a choice, I guess. It’s not a very interesting one. As previously stated, we know what happens in this world when people do a genocide. We also know what happens when the walls go marching. We are now watching a genocide as the walls go marching. There are no revelations here. There’s death and gloom.

I mean this as sincerely as I can: This, on its face, is boring.

Eren is just the latest person killing people for Reasons.

There is very little reason to be invested in that as a plot. As a character drama, there are tears to be shed and hearts to be torn asunder, but as a basic plot??? This has nothing in it.

I don’t personally believe we’ve come this far for nothing, so I apply my magnifying glass where I choose, and where I choose is the part where I believe this all slips:

Eren takes his visions as an inevitability.

He has the conversation with himself, counting out the lives. Paradis versus the world. In a simple game of numbers, the world should win, and he knows that.

Presenting our problem.

Eren can’t accept a future where Paradis, and Eldians, are sacrificed for the world. Paradis is his home, and he’s spent his life fighting for Eldians to be free, even if he doesn’t know them by that name for most of it. In the case of Paradis v World, Paradis wins out. It’s wrong and it’s terrible, and Zeke’s plan means less dead bodies, but he can’t let go of Paradis.

A binary is presented. Paradis can live, or the rest of the world can. Pick one.

Except that’s stupid.

Following this, Eren leans so far into that choice that he does what he can to manufacture an impossibility of any other results. He makes Paradis a priority. He makes Paradis an international concern, not simply a Marley one. He has the power to knock back any assault on the island they can make, but he still goes on offense.

Paradis dies

World dies

That is not the choice. It is the choice Eren locks himself into, but frankly, he doesn’t even try before he jumps at the genocide route.

As a story thing, whatever. Valid, I guess. Let the protagonist’s own misconceptions break him.

As an Eren thing, it falls short of working.

He’s clearly being torn apart by what he’s going to do.

He’s a protagonist who enters the story yelling about people never winning if they don’t enter the ring.

Eren sees a vision of him destroying the world, thinks on it, and effectively goes, “seems legit,” and cries himself to sleep feeling sad about it.

Eren.

You can have your characters fail. You can have them drop their principles one by one until there’s nothing left. You can have their character development be entirely negative. You do not have to have your hero be a Hero.

Eren is appalled by his own feelings, and walking around the world like a zombie. He sees himself ending the world, and plays it back over and over again, never questioning that this is exactly what he’s going to do.

But when he finally starts, there’s not even a trace of this conflict. His eyes light up at the amazing sight he believes is waiting for him. He spits his defiance at Zeke for even suggesting the sterilization plan. He’s still a zombie in every human interaction that happens with his flesh body, but he goes about his plan with an unconcerned ruthlessness that is disconnected from the humanity Eren has spent the whole story personifying.

Arguably, Sasha dying is the tipping point, and that’s where he fully commits, and blah blah blah stuff.

Only defiance, and not bending to anyone else’s will, is the key trait of the Attack Titan. It’s the key trait of Eren. To keep fighting well beyond sense.

This plan’s inception comes from Eren yielding to the inevitable.

He’s going to kill these people.

There is no choice to it, it’s simply what’s going to happen.

Eren has always had a choice. He might not like the options, or know what’s right, but he has always, always known that the decisions he makes are his.

The story is making the case that Eren buys into inevitability so completely that he denies himself freedom.

That isn’t uninteresting, but we don’t see that. We don’t see what convinces Eren that it’s no use fighting. He chooses to save a boy, and his memories of the boy don’t change. Big deal. That’s one kid in four years of choices. As a proof of concept, it’s weak, and it’s weaker still because Eren makes the choice to save him.

None of this was inevitable, but we approach Eren’s actions from the perspective of there being no way out. Maybe if we had even more flashbacks to him trying to change things, and a play-by-play of him slowly realizing that nothing he does changes what he sees --

But even then, if Eren doesn’t want to kill people, he’s allowed not to. He’s allowed to continue working with his friends. He could have told any of them, at any point, that this was an upcoming problem. He’s always trusted Armin’s mind.

Eren hides himself away with his problems and tells himself he can’t fight this.

Bullshit.

I’ve made this argument before, about Historia and Ymir:

If you’re going to have a character renege on a core of their personal identity so completely, you need to put in the legwork of showing how it happens. Otherwise there’s no reason to trust anything the story tells you, and the grand illusion falls to pieces.

The character work in this series has always been solid, even when everything down to the art hasn’t.

This doesn’t quite work.

There’s a compelling case. There’s a viewable logic that pretends to be believable.

The internal consistency is still off. Something’s wrong here, and if it turns out to be the character ball being dropped in the final inning... really, that’s just such a waste. Personal preference colors all of this, obviously, but if this is the whole truth of the matter, it’s boring.

“I still want to believe... that there’s still a world we don’t know about yet out there... past the walls.”

C’mon, Armin. Earn your fandom hatred. Be right one more time.

We’re not done yet.

#Shingeki no Kyojin #SnK 131 #Eren Yeager #shingeki no spoilers #SnK spoilers #spoilers #tl;dr #chapter post

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marithlizard · 3 years

Text

First Impressions: RWBY v8c9, “Witch”

"Witch", huh? Presumably Salem. Are we going to get more backstory lore? Because YES PLEASE.

The Atlas army vs. the whale whose teeth loom like mountains on the horizon. They look like toys. I can't help thinking these soldier mooks equal any Huntsman in courage, if not in skill. And this is the first real large-scale action any of them have seen - that anyone in the world has seen in their lifetimes.

eyy Ren has gotten over the snappishness as well as the despairing angst. Suddenly gaining control of his evolving Semblance must help a lot with the feelings of powerlessness. (And though we haven't seen him use it on Jaune or Yang, I'm thinking being able to know for certain how much your friends care about you and have your back is a source of power in itself.)

They're discussing fairy tales MY HEART

Ozpin continuing to confirm he has handed over the reins completely to Oscar. I don't like this about the accelerating merge, though. It feels like we're going to lose Oz very soon. And yet, Jinn's vision definitely showed us Oz and host coexisting in middle age. Did they not use magic in that lifetime? Or is the merge somehow not about "losing" either one of them?

Team FNKI in a line of regular soldiers! They've got to have mobilized all the students, but I wonder if we'll see any others besi- Neon. Neon you are wearing rollerskates to the apocalypse.

...well, why not?

Marrow, YOU'RE just a kid. You can't be more than a few years older, and you're not that much more seasoned. Though I understand the feeling.

So, Hazel, you're ready to rejoin fact-based reality? Or at least listen to someone who pretty much definitionally can't be lying?

(Actually...the only information we have about Jinn comes from her, and it'd be a hell of an interesting twist if she was editing facts to fit her own agenda. I don't think it's very likely for meta reasons, but it'd make a great fic premise, wouldn't it?)

Huh. He sounds much much calmer, and like he's been thinking through everything for the last few hours.

....what? He's not even going to ask??? THAT is a surprise. The existence of Jinn and knowing Oscar gave him the password in good faith were enough to deradicalize a violent extremist. (Wish it was that easy in RL.)

Oscar's little wave

(You know, now that I think of it, Ozpin has never interacted with Jinn himself. She's greeted him twice and he hasn't answered. Does he resent her for not answering his predecessor's questions more helpfully? Mistrust her? )

yes rescue Emerald good

"Just to be clear" - oh god I thought that was Salem's voice and nearly jumped out of my seat.

"I'll come back for it" crap crap crap Hazel's redemption arc is going to be short, painful, and fatal. And Salem will keep the lamp, if not have the password.

And we'll just all turn our backs on the divine artifact-entity and walk away. I guess they don't think she's enough of a person to say goodbye to?

And our eavesdropper is...the one person who CAN'T summon Jinn or ask her a question.

Oh no. No. Please don't have the fandom descend into "Jinn is ablist" discourse. (ETA: upon thinking further I take it back, the gods suck and providing a Relic that not everyone can use is in its way a tiny symbol of their callous attitude to people. )

RJY working smoothly together, nice.

Robyn said people are always suspicious of her, and her truthsense ability has a clearly visible limiting condition. But Ren can apparently read the emotions of everyone around him all the time without them knowing. Surely that would make a lot of people uncomfortable. (Although I expect the writers to ignore this, and will be pleasantly surprised if they explore it at all.)

That's always the way isn't it, you roll a 4 on your concentration check right when a demonic jellyfish is floating by.

Huh, they separated from Oscar? And Hazel is worried about him? I'm still dizzy from the speed of this 180.

uh...hi, Salem. Nice...weather outside the whale today? Seen any good dismemberments lately?

Hazel, you are a terrible liar and you can't bluff. Admittedly the stakes are a lot higher here than in the weekly WTCH poker game.

Salem NYOOM

No one can accuse Yang of not understanding the core competencies.

"Juan"??? I did hear that correctly, yes? Marrow not remembering Jaune's name is hilarious. And I was about to say understandable, but no, they worked with the Ace Ops for weeks! Did you just have him mentally filed as "the blond himbo tank"?

O-kayyyyyy. I can't blame Emerald, but this could go so horribly wrong so fast.

Isn't Hazel-disguised-as-Oscar way too heavy to pick up like tha- OHHHHHHHHH. Now things make much more sense. Oscar was the one worried about Hazel earlier, and failing utterly to bluff. Infinitely more in character.

Awkward Semblance is also extremely convenient in short-cutting negotiations. Nice.

I do not, in fact, have any doubt that Winter would blow up her sister. And in this situation I can't say it's the wrong thing to do. As far as they know their bomb is the only hope.

Wow. I really did not think we’d go to toe to toe with Salem herself at this point in the plot. It's so traditional to save the final boss fight for, well, the final boss. She's terrifying and unstoppable, but not actually more terrifying than the giant whale.

Her regen is just like the Hound's body morphing, but far smoother and faster with a thousand "deaths" of practice.

She sounds more normal right now, oddly. Her voice is lacking both the measured slowness and the resonance it has when she's making speeches. I like the idea of that falling away when she's surprised and exasperated.

Our heroes are very very lucky that RWBY is not a darker show, or those Grimmhand restraints would be doing a lot of gross agonizing damage with their nails. There's no reason she'd want to be gentle at this point.

Yeah, there's the sonorous voice again. Although it wavers again with that "Why do you Keep. Coming. Back?" Does she not know? How can she not know, Jinn's vision said Ozma told her everything. Perhaps she means: why do you keep fighting me instead of hiding like the hermit.

Yang, don't give her information, gah! "Her again." She sounds pleased. I think we are going to find out Summer's fate this volume after all. Salem will reveal it to break Ruby’s spirit. Prediction: it will work.

(EDIT: I completely missed the significance of Yang calling Summer “my mom”. Wow.)

She definitely intends to turn Emerald into something like the Hound.

"No more Gretchens." Oh, of course that's what Oscar said he needed before they could leave, the cane.

Hazel's life expectancy is minutes long but at least it included a satisfying KAPOW. And every single sparkly crystal he owns. Somehow he seems smaller here, less bulky than he did at Haven. Less a titan and more a man.

yigh he's pounding her into mush. Which he has several times before, apparently. This is all to buy you time, Emerald, why are you not running. (I know, I know. She's never had someone actually help her and care about her, only scraps of affection to establish control. At this moment Cinder's hold on her is breaking forever.)

(Neo, on the other hand. Will she bring the lamp to Cinder, who frankly has been a totally crap partner and deserves no loyalty? Is she still after revenge? My bet is still firmly on her planning to backstab Cinder as soon as Ruby is gone. But beyond that, we don't know her thoughts at all. She might join the heroes, or disappear like Raven to hide while the apocalypse works itself out.)

That's true, Oscar, but what can you do to stop her?

Hah! Clever, Hazel. And she's actually screaming in pain from the fire, whereas she didn't make a sound when being pulverized.

What does the cane DO? It's impressive as heck, but I can't tell. Channeling his magic, certainly. Are we going to lose Oz right now? With no chance to talk to Ruby or Qrow or anyone, to reconcile? It seems all too likely, and such a waste.

Which makes me think, in turn, that perhaps we will lose Oscar too in a way. Unexpected - I have always thought the merge would end with Oscar holding all the memories. But maybe he won't be quite either of them anymore, even if he remembers both and the others still call him Oscar. And that thought also makes me sad.

Anyway, good episode, though now the title doesn’t seem particularly relevant. Hazel was much more the focus.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby v8 spoilers #rwby volume 8 spoilers

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f-nodragonart · 3 years

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Worldbuilding, briefly

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I approach worldbuilding in my own work, and how worldbuilding appears in the media that I admire, and just want to share some thoughts

so, y’know how lot of writers admit that it feels like their characters end up writing themselves? hijacking the creators’ brains and acting out their own lives? I feel the same can be said for settings, if they’re given the chance to breathe freely

suffice to say, a setting should feel dynamic-- a living, changing thing that affects (and is affected by) characters/plot/etc., and has solid internal logic. I think the two central concepts which make for good worldbuilding, in this respect, are:

a sense of history

holistic integration with all other story elements

History

when a setting only exists in the present moment, it comes off flat and static-- merely a cardboard set-piece that could fall over at a gust of too-strong wind (or critical thought). settings need history to feel vibrant and alive, just as any individual character needs history to inform their actions and beliefs

essentially, good worldbuilding answers the question of, “How did we get here?”

in practice, having a sense of history helps a great deal in predicting and designing how a setting looks at the present. think of it like following branching pathways back to the source-- the main divergence(s) from real-life. as humans living on planet Earth in our particular sociocultural environments, whatever we create will automatically borrow from what we’re familiar with, so it helps to track down where we may be subconsciously starting at. once we find that initial divergence, it’s a simple matter of following logical stepping-stones from that source, up to the present point

thus, you can break the broad question of, “How did we get here?” down into smaller, more manageable chunks by carefully tracking along a path of history

some examples of what I’m talking about here:

need an explanation for the current geopolitical climate? trace back the basic history of all the countries in question, follow it back to basic sources (fighting over resources/territory, power/ideological struggles, etc.), to figure out why the geopolitical landscape looks as it does today. want to figure out how a particular culture came to their current beliefs/practices? look back to the history of their land-- what resources do they use, what ecological cycles impact them, how much cultural overlap do they have with their neighbors, and how does this impact what they most cherish in themselves and others? want to figure out how/why a creature exists in your world? map their evolutionary taxonomy and ecological relationships back to a point that connects to the other creatures on your planet-- where exactly did they “start” out and what pushed them to evolve the way the did?

most of these sub-questions will likely never be directly answered in your story, and you don’t even need to have detailed answers for most of them. but trust me when I say that YOU knowing the answers (even answers that you may consider broad and simple) will affect how you craft the present setting and its sense of history

of course, the level of divergence from real-life will impact how much reworking a given setting needs in order to feel self-sustaining and whole. a world where political history diverges from real-life only a few years previous is going to have different needs than a story whose very life-forms are built on different molecular structures than Earth life, for example. it can be intimidating in some cases, but if you’re willing to put in the work and research for it, you can make some pretty incredible discoveries

Holistic Integration

I’ll fully admit, Folding Ideas’ video on Ludonarrative Dissonance is what rly got me thinking abt this topic (and more deeply abt my own thoughts on stylistic/tonal consistency). his central idea about how we can approach story elements as separate or integrated rly clarified some of my vague opinions/feelings on certain media

essentially, worldbuilding shouldn’t be treated as separate from other story elements like plot and themes, if you want it to work holistically in your world. otherwise, your worldbuilding may start telling a different story from the plot/themes/etc. you’re consciously trying to craft. in fact, I’ll even argue that it’s impossible to treat worldbuilding separately, on a fundamental level

let me focus specifically on themes for a moment when I say, humans don’t create objectively. we don’t craft worlds or stories without automatically inserting our own beliefs and ideas into the settings. to say that a setting is free of theme in particular is highly arrogant, imo, and a sign that the creator likely thinks their own views are simply the “norm”. a magic system will reflect a creator’s views on souls and energy and existence; creature designs will reveal the aesthetic and types of animals a creator gravitates towards; various political systems will reflect a creator’s background and assumptions about the power/morality of said systems

in this way, I think it’s downright impossible to craft a world without themes in the first place. so it just makes sense to recognize and lean into that, while crafting the more deliberate themes of a story

but even if we do assume, for sake of argument, that worlds COULD be crafted objectively, I just don’t understand why they would? why/how a world functions the way it does will affect the ways characters move through that world, and how they experience their arcs and subsequent themes. like, it’s genuinely baffling for me to imagine crafting a story without every element organically weaving into and affecting one another, it just doesn’t feel like it would even work

because when an element of the story doesn’t exist in service of the other elements around it, that element becomes a useless distraction rather than an asset. folks complain all the time about useless characters-- people that take up precious screentime without moving any other element (plot, character arcs, tone, etc.) forward. yet the same can absolutely be said for settings-- settings which just exist as spaces to set characters while they experience a plot, separate from that given setting. when these settings don’t touch any other element of the story in any meaningful way (or vis-versa), they become distracting and useless, and ultimately destabilize/undermine the other elements

like, when we’re told a setting is rough and dangerous, but the characters that live there don’t act like it (no street smarts, no sense of caution towards their environment, no sense of where they are and how to get where they need to quickly--), it undermines the reliability of the characters’ personalities/arcs. when we’re told a setting is full of casual magic which affects everything, yet we’re shown a 1:1 picture of real life with no sign of how people using magic, how tech may integrate with magic, how magic affects aesthetic or history, it distracts from and undermines the fantasy/escapism. when we’re explicitly told that a story’s themes center around defying expectations/roles, yet the setting we’re supposed to root for only reinforces pre-defined roles and rules, it completely undermines any of the deliberate themes the creator intends. when we’re following a plot through various environments meant to showcase the variety of culture and aesthetic a world has cultivated, but we’re merely shown variations on a very similar theme, it’s distracting and boring

worldbuilding should not feel like a dissonant piece from other story elements. worldbuilding should harmonize with and enhance all other story elements, and those elements in turn should enhance the worldbuilding. while it absolutely is useful to tackle or talk about certain elements separately (I mean, I am taking a whole post to discuss worldbuilding, specifically), ultimately a good story is a whole whose parts can’t be fully removed from one another

Internal Logic

you may be wondering why I have yet to make any real mention of “logic” up to this point, since that’s how most folks analyze worldbuilding. hell, even I usually judge worlds based on how well they stick to their “internal logic”. but I think focusing on a vague sense of “logic” puts the cart before the horse, so to speak

if you don’t know the history of a particular setting, how can you track any cultural/political/etc. logic to its source? to say that logic “pre-establishes” certain rules is to admit that there is a sense of history there in the first place, thus specific events preceding the present text which explain why the present exists as it does. like, the big bang is a historical event that’s set up the logic of our entire universe, the same way a war sets up the political logic of a nation going forward. thus, history precedes logic

but before history can set precedents in worldbuilding, it’s really the other story elements which decide what history is important enough to establish in the first place. a story whose themes center around biological imperatives and ecology will need worldbuilding with a strong biological history; a story whose plot centers on political intrigue will need a world with a strong political history; a story with characters ranging across all different cultures will need to establish history for those cultures, etc. you aren’t obligated to establish the history of every single aspect of a setting, merely the parts that are actually relevant to the rest of the narrative in some way

this is how the internal logic of a story is established: by knowing exactly what history needs to be established to enhance the other story elements. logic should organically follow, once you have a strong grasp of history and holistic integration

-Mod Spiral

#worldbuilding #mod spiral #me: *holds worldbuilding/lore/specevo* I just think it's neat :)

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aelaer · 5 years

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Hey aelaer, I have a question and since you seem to have been writing fanfic forever, I think you're a good person to ask this. I have a crossover idea with Doctor Strange and another universe, but to my dismay someone has already written something similar (not the same universe). I did have my story plotted out already, but there's some key concepts that can't be avoided I don't know if I should give up. I don't want to be accused of plagiarism even if the story is completely different.

Hi, thanks for thinking of me for your question! I have a tendency to ramble (and I ended up writing an essay for this) so let me answer you immediately: yes, you should still write it.

Now the rest of the answer delves into the why, in entirely too much detail as I am wont to do.

According to plagiarism.org, Merriam Webster defines the following items as plagiarism:

to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own

to use (another’s production) without crediting the source

to commit literary theft

to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

For instance, if I were to state that the above was my own words, I would be plagiarizing both Merriam Webster and plagiarism.org (which is just irony at its finest).

Figuring out how to avoid plagiarizing words is easy: don’t copy-paste words that aren’t yours and declare them as yours. Slight rewording of the content doesn’t keep it from being plagiarism, either. The issue of ideas, however, is a good deal more difficult to quantify, especially in the creative space.

The Office of Research Integrity starts off by giving us a base point of idea plagiarism with the sciences in the following statement:

“In the sciences, as in most other scholarly endeavors, ethical writing demands that any ideas, data, and conclusions borrowed from others and used as the foundation of one’s own contributions to the literature, be properly acknowledged. The specific manner in which we make such acknowledgement may vary depending on the context and even on the discipline, but it often takes the form of either a footnote or a reference citation.”

This makes sense. In many educational systems kids are taught to properly site sources for information, which extends to ideas within the scientific community. If you are building your thesis on cancer research upon the discoveries of other researchers, they need to be referenced and cited properly (and it builds credibility for your own studies).

But how does this apply to creative writing, or indeed any creative medium? Obviously you don’t see footnotes for every source of inspiration in popular fiction across creative media, and it’s not like magical schools are banned from fiction because JK Rowling wrote a series about such a place. How do the rules of plagiarism of ideas that have a clear guideline in formal writing adapt to the creative arts?

To answer this question I am first going to turn to the modern legal system. Every country has its own set of laws regarding the protection of original works and ideas, but for the sake of ease the following is based on US laws and definitions. If you’re interested in your own country’s specific laws (and how they differ from what is stated here) I recommend a quick Google search.

Copyright is a concept that puts some (but not all) acts of plagiarism into a legal liability. It came into form as the printing press (and printed works) became more popular, but has grown significantly over the past 150 years as new technology and new ways to distribute media have come into play. As Wikipedia succinctly summarizes, “In law, copyright is the exclusive right, given to the creator of a work, to reproduce the work, usually for a limited time. Copyright protects the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fairuse doctrine in the United States.” This is how parody and criticism are protected, for instance.

It’s important to note that copyright protects the specifics, but not the actual idea. For instance, Marvel (and thus, Disney) have the copyright to the story of Stephen Strange, the arrogant surgeon that had a terrible car crash and went to Kamar-Taj and learned the ways of the Mystic Arts. However, if someone were to write about Trevor Baker, the arrogant baseball player that lost his arm in a car accident and went to a secret society in Japan to learn magic to become a sorcerer, there is no copyright protection. The idea is the same (and perhaps plagiarized), but there is enough difference to make it its own work.

You may note that, under that copyright definition and the current state of US law, all fanfiction are copyright infringements. Alongside that, all fanfiction can be considered a plagiarism of ideas in the eyes of some original creators. However, you’ll find that most authors, studios, and creative organizations are tolerant and sometimes encouraging of fanfiction and other fan-derived works so long as it’s not done for profit and clearly stated to be a fan-derived work (one time commissionsseem to be a grey area that most seem okay with, but something like art prints of copyrighted or trademarked characters is not something I’ve found definite rules for, and I imagine that it is also on a case by case basis; publishing written fanfiction works widely for profit is a big no for most creators). For more on this subject and how fan-derived works have fared legally, take a look at this wiki article, which mostly looks at cases within the United States but is still an interesting read. For more details about specific cases you can go to the sources linked.

You’ll note that, since copyright law does not protect ideas, that it doesn’t really fall into the scenario prompted in the original ask. The reason I bring up copyright is that it is important to recognize the differences between copyright and plagiarism.

I think Sara F Hawkins (an actual attorney, unlike me) states it best in her article about it. She has a whole list of the differences between copyright and plagiarism, but I think for the sake of this topic, this point is especially relevant to us: “Plagiarism is a violation of moral, ethical, or organization norms not laws.”

So let’s look at this case from those three viewpoints (for the sake of ease, I am using this definition to show the difference between ethics and morals. I don’t know if it’s right, but it’s useful).

Moral: The plagiarism of ideas and where it stands on a moral ground really varies from person to person. For instance, one may accuse me of plagiarizing @amethyst-noir‘s ideas with the embellished or different spins on the prompts and asks received in her inbox. However, my moral stance would be that this falls into inspiration rather than plagiarism because there is enough of my own work within these prompts. This is a stronger argument as I also have her full support (as well as the support of a couple of the anons), but even if I didn’t, I think that if you put enough of your own spin onto the base of an idea, you craft it enough to make it your own. Many, many stories follow the same general plot lines and tropes; that does not mean they are all plagiarizing each other. Furthermore, the original ask makes it sound like you, anon, did not know this story existed after crafting the outline, making the argument null. How can you plagiarize something you did not know existed? You can’t, not from a moral standpoint.

Ethical: Unfortunately this one is a bit harder and the one you seem most concerned about. There is no one culture amongst the fan fiction community, and even every fandom has its own set of different communities with their own sets of norms, leaving this not entirely possible to predict. Instead I would rather critically examine the key plot points that are the same as this writer and figure out if they are relatively common tropes or entirely too specific to each other. For instance, if there’s a kidnapping, that’s in half the fiction out there. It’s way too broad a trope to be considered an idea one can really plagiarize. However, if both your story and theirs feature a kidnapping of the same character in the same spot with the same method after a very similar series of events, then there may be more people that see the similarities between them.If you want to take precaution against overzealous fans of the other work, upon publication of your own story, you can outright mention that you found a work similar to yours well after beginning your story and that any similarities are unintentional, with a link and a positive plug to the story in particular. You could even reach out to the author themselves before publishing, but I don’t think this is necessary, especially since you are crossing over a wholly different world (which already distinguishes itself as a different piece of work in regards to the base idea in most cases).

Organization: The authority on transformative works is usually considered to be AO3. AO3 would not pull a work for very similar ideas; if that were the case, the hurt/comfort, chatroom, and E-rating categories would be much, much smaller than they are now. So no worries on that end.

I cannot predict the behavior of your reviewers, anon, and without specifics I cannot say how similar your work is to this work already published, but I hope that everything I outlined above gives you an idea of where to go from here.

I am going to end this essay of an answer with something I found in my research on this subject. I came across this fantastic article by a Jonathan Bailey about the plagiarism of ideas and how they apply in US patent law (unlike copyright law, you can patent ideas), and what it would mean for the creative space if they were applied similarly. I recommend reading the whole article, but this passage especially stood out to me:

The best thing that we can do is realize that, in the eyes of the law, the value of a creative work is in its execution, not the idea behind it. As such, we have to take it upon ourselves not only to be original, but to carry out our visions the best possible way.

I think that should be a mantra everyone working with both original and derivative works should take to heart. Supposedly every story has already been told, so we may as well just tell the stories with our own spin, in our own words, and our own specific ideas that make them distinctly ours. That is how we make them unique and memorable.

#fanfiction #fanfic #fan fiction #writing #plagiarism #copyright #ao3 #ask #answered #Anonymous #long post

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thesearchforbluejello · 5 years

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Okay. Like I said yesterday, I'm now going to scream into the void about Whiskey Cavalier. This ain't completely spoiler free kids, and there's no page break on mobile, so scroll on by if you haven't seen episode three yet.

First of all, I screamed on Twitter yesterday at length about how good the setup of this show is, so let me start there. A lot of people keep saying that it feels like fanfiction and it's killing me that no one seems to be pointing out why it does. Fanfiction is by and large character-based fiction, where there's priority given to character growth and interaction. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WHISKEY CAVALIER IS DOING AND IT'S SO GOOD. The B plot is whatever simple just-what-you-need-to-know plot has popped up this week, but the A plot is all about the characters. In this episode, for example, the B plot was the bomb and the A plot was Will and Frankie not trusting each other (to oversimplify it). The A plot causes most of the conflict and tension and drives the relevance and plot points of the B plot. This is a pretty aggressive simplification but this is where we're seeing this similarity. We get to see tension and characaterization that most other shows don't get to for ages because they leave the character development as a B or C plot. Though of course the unbelievable levels of UST have a lot in common with fic too. The way that they prioritize characters is so refreshing to see and I am enjoying it immensely.

Second of all, the way the plots are formulated, both the action-based and character-based plots, this far has employeed a bait-and-switch method that is just top notch. First of all, you have a show that is literally titled Whiskey Cavalier, so whatever you expect out of this show and out of the character whose codename is this bad ass title... is probably not Will "Lemon Verbena" Chase. The very title of the show is a bait-and-switch!!!!! We see it a lot in the smaller plotlines as well: to use episode two as an example, we have both the honeytrapping-honeytrap Karen uses to beat Will and the admission of Frankie's jealousy of Will, both of which I've yelled about before so I won't here. BUT. This a great way to surprise the audience, until they start expecting it. No matter what expectations they might form, if they know the show is going to do the opposite, or throw in a twist, they'll start expecting that. So, what this show does is play on those subversions and then throw in things that are so in line with what you would already be expecting that it hits you like a bag of bricks to the face because you've started doubting if you should expect it. Case in point? The plot twist about Frankie's backstory from episode three. Holy shit. It's so glaringly obvious, and it's so in line for a spy thriller, which this isn't, that I was definitely not expecting it. It makes so much sense, looking back, especially with the line "I don't know every assassin!" from episode two. It was so easily expected that I DIDN'T expect it, and my point here is that they way they're blending predictable and baited-and-switched (I know that's not a real thing, chill) elements is a masterful way of creating a dynamic show and definitely something I didn't expect out of this show.

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karinakamichi · 7 years

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Manga vs. Anime: Fullmetal Alchemist (x)

I've made no secret of the fact that I'm a pretty big fan of the first anime adaptation, but I also understand why so many people love the heck out of Hiromu Arakawa's original manga. So consider this a guide to figuring out which version is the Right FMA For You. (For the sake of this article, since Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is more or less the exact same story as the manga, I'm going to focus on comparisons between the manga and the first anime from 2003.)

How The Anime is Better

Moral Complexity

The manga includes some sympathetic villains for sure, but you're never unsure of where you should stand. Even the story's "anti-heroes" are all fully turned over to the heroes' side by the end, upholding beliefs in the sanctity of all life, the worthlessness of revenge, and the power of friendship. All the heroes get their darker sides ironed out by the narrative and never go back once they reach their own catharsis. The villains who remain evil are mostly inhuman monsters or sociopathic humans.

That's a perfectly valid way of writing morality that works for the kind of story the manga tells, but it doesn't reflect human nature in the real world. By contrast, the anime adaptation's villains have more understandable motivations, based in more human backstories. Anti-heroes aren't so easily wooed to the heroes' side, and the audience is often left unsure who to agree with. The anime fleshes out everyone's point of view, leaving viewers to draw their own conclusions. The Fullmetal Alchemist anime has enough patience for every character's struggle to show you all sides of the story, even though it's smaller in scope.

(read more below this cut)

Political Relevance and Social Commentary

Both versions of Fullmetal Alchemist were inspired by real-world history and politics, but the anime is much more directly political. It was made when the USA’s war with Afghanistan and Iraq was at the center of world affairs, so director Seiji Mizushima and head writer Shou Aikawa channeled their frustration at this conflict into the anime, leading to some downright prescient predictions about the future in the show. Much of the series deals with issues of war, racism, imperialism, colonialism, and many characters explicitly challenge the attitudes of others on these topics.

If you prefer anime fantasy as a form of escapism, this intensity can be a drawback, but it was a big part of what drew me into the series as a teenager and keeps me coming back to it now. While the show is grounded in the time it was made, its events are inspired by many different parts of history, so its ideas remain universal. Either way, it has a lot to give anime fans looking for stories with real-world significance.

Stronger Characterization and Theme

In the manga, it often feels like everyone has an "endgame" characterization. There is one central problem that separates each person from the best versions of themselves, and once they figure it out, they might never struggle with it again. This is a useful way of building a large number of positive character arcs into a long-running graphic novel series, but the first anime has a more realistic take on human behavior. Characters struggle with their flaws over and over as they encounter tough times throughout their lives. That isn't to say that people don't grow, change, or improve over time, but it's rarely without pitfalls along the way. As a coming-of-age story, the Fullmetal Alchemist anime more honestly reflects the ways people might grow up.

The anime also features a more open-ended conclusion than the manga, but it fulfills the central themes of the series and addresses all the complicated moral questions its main characters face. A more neatly-plotted or happier ending would have flown in the face of this version's ideas, and that's why I find the way the anime's ending completely satisfying. For some people, the plot is the most important part of a story. For others, satisfying characterization and themes take precedent. If you find yourself in that second group, you might find more to love about the anime ending.

The Music

While it’s a little unfair to compare it with a silent manga, I think this aspect of the anime is too important not to mention. Michiru Oshima’s score is rich and diverse, perfectly matched to each character and event in adaptation. It makes many scenes, like tragic flashbacks or shocking reveals, more emotionally resonant. The music of Fullmetal Alchemist has had a powerful impact on fans, and people are still making remixes and covers of “Bratja” on YouTube over a decade later. The first anime’s soundtrack is a standout part of its very special alchemy.

How The Manga is Better Worldbuilding and Scope

The first anime does a lot of streamlining of both the cast and worldbuilding. The characters it does retain sometimes have more detailed motivations and backstories than their manga counterparts, but the overall story does lose that grand scope and "cast of thousands" appeal that draw so many people to epic fantasy. While the anime hints at larger parts of its world, we never really get to see them.

The manga shows you its entire world, from Xing to the Northern Wall of Briggs. With each new area, you get more characters with roles to play in the final plot. Each of their stories tell us more about their universe and how alchemy works in it. Think about if Game of Thrones left out some big but non-essential location, like the Iron Islands. If a large part of Fullmetal Alchemist's appeal lies in the scope and variety of its world and the people within it, the manga is the better version for you.

Tighter and Grander Plotting

Creating one big epic plot where everything fits together is clearly the focus of the Fullmetal Alchemist manga. It's very successful at creating a large-scale puzzle where all the pieces slowly fit into place as the story winds down. This is especially true considering the sheer size of its world and cast: just about every major character gets a part to play in the big finale. If seeing your favorite heroes and villains engaged in an giant sweeping battle is important for you, you'll find a lot to enjoy about the manga throughout, but especially in its final volumes.

Brighter and Lighter

The manga maintains a lighter tone throughout than its anime adaptation. In a fantasy war story where everything slowly builds to a big confrontation, things might get a little too dark by the time we reach that final destination. You sometimes forget about the light and happiness that brought you to that world in the first place. The first anime falls into this trap sometimes, but the manga never does. Even when Arakawa can't put levity into the story itself, she always keeps it up in the omake at the end of each volume. She can put a humorous spin on even the worst villains and their actions.

Can You Switch Between Versions?

This is a common suggestion from the people who like the anime's faster pace in the beginning, but dislike its darker anime-original second half. On the surface, it makes a lot of sense. It's ostensibly the same story up until about the halfway point, so you might as well just switch off there. Unfortunately, doing this will just leave you horribly confused. The first anime sets up its eventual drastic differences very early. Within the first 13 episodes alone, it introduces several important characters who never show up in the manga (Lyra) or do show up in a completely different form and role with the same name (Sloth). It also hints at important revelations that do not apply to the manga (like villains' origin stories). Newbies who switch versions halfway will be frustrated by setups for revelations that never come, before getting blindsided by other reveals that were never set up for them.

It's a perfectly fine way to watch the series on a repeat viewing, or if you have the patience to be briefed on all the differences by someone who's intimately familiar with both versions. If you're a true FMA virgin though, you need to pick one version and stick with it.

Final Results

The Fullmetal Alchemist manga is an incredibly strong example of shonen action-adventure, some of the best in the genre. If you love stuff, where larger-than-life figures give inspirational speeches about heroic values, and clear villains are defeated by the end in epic fashion, the manga will sate your desire for that and then some—since it also occasionally dabbles in bigger issues.

The first Fullmetal Alchemist anime has more to offer those who like a challenge. It stands alongside other "groundbreaking" series that address social and political issues with broad audience appeal, If that's what you prefer from your fiction, and you don't mind some clunky early-2000s animation, the first anime is the choice for you.

#fma 2003 #fma #fullmetal alchemist 2003 #fullmetal alchemist #lust the lascivious #lust 2003 #comparison to manga

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