Now introducing chapter titles! All of the previous chapters have been given one, and today's newest entry is no different! While I'm proud of only being a day late with this one, I've also been neglecting my Tuesday and Thursday content. I will try to get more material for you in the future.
Anyways, Tarik tells Ferlyn an inspiring legend, Captain Calnipal has doublethink, and Kornelus faces one of his worst fears in today's chapter!
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A brand new sonnet about creativity, persistence, and building something that'll outlast you! I love writing sonnets so much.
As always, like and follow me on Wattpad and enjoy!
Thursday's short story became a long-runner, and my efforts to finish it Friday made it even longer. For this reason, I'm actually splitting it into two parts- the next one will appear this Tuesday, and will conclude the story.
Welcome to a world afflicted by a violent disease, where the authorities are doing everything in their power to eradicate it. Larry was a perfectly normal man until he caught it. Try and catch him, suckers.
As always, like and follow, and enjoy!
(No image for this one; this was a perfectly original idea this time.)
Sorry for not having a story out yesterday, but I think you'll find this one worth the wait!
A Princess must make a choice after receiving a dreadful vision in my new short story!
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Enjoy!
The Last of Us 2 was one of the many disasters that plagued 2020, due in no small part to Abby, the girl who murders Joel in cold blood with the help of her crew, before spitting on and desiccating his corpse, over Ellie's desperate pleas.
That's not a spoiler, that's all most people know about the game. Even before it came out.
Naturally, this was very divisive. I was one of many who decried Abby's character, and hated her even after learning her backstory- how Joel killed her father while saving Ellie, and how her quest for revenge led her down a path of self-destruction.
But then, I encountered a character I've discussed in earlier posts that made me reevaluate my position- Gabi, from Attack On Titan Season 4. Like Abby, she also kills a beloved character and lets revenge lead her down a path of ruin, but on closer analysis, I decided that this was the perfect way to demonstrate where Neil Druckmann went wrong with his portrayal of Abby.
First off, as a writer, you must understand that the reality of the setting is exactly how you dictate it to the reader. In this reality we've constructed, Abby is a random weirdo with a bunch of weirdo friends hanging around outside of town, and Joel is a heroic badass who saved Ellie numerous times, but has a dark history. Therefore, having Abby suddenly completely overpower Joel and straight-up murder him is shocking and repulsive. We learn later that it makes a lot of sense, both for her motivations and her personality, but the way the context is delivered to us is extremely lackluster. There's no getting around the fact that from this moment forwards, Abby is the antagonist.
If I'd been the lead writer, I would've put the scene where Abby sees Joel killing her father at the very beginning. Assuming we're still going with the dark and deconstructive angle, I would've had Abby and Ellie meet first, and have a large section where they interact and get to know each other, and thus, familiarize Abby with the audience. As a matter of fact, I would've made Abby the playable character for this half of the game, instead of the latter half. We establish that her motivation is to kill Joel from the beginning, leading up to the scene where she ultimately gets her wish. It would also make a lot more sense narratively; Joel would trust Abby because Ellie trusts her, instead of just telling his name to a whole pack of strangers like an idiot.
Now, Ellie's mission to hunt down Abby is far more dramatic. Not only because she was betrayed by a friend, but because we also actually sympathize with Abby and actively played a role in helping her kill Joel.
However, I think there's a way to save this whole mess even if you changed nothing up until the point where Joel gets killed. Instead of playing as Abby, Ellie goes investigating, and finds out Abby's past herself. She confronts Abby at multiple times during the game, and learns something new each time. She eventually figures out that Joel killed Abby's father, and all of this is what leads her to spare Abby's life. Abby becomes a sort of mystery to unravel, slowly but surely unwinding Ellie's motivation. I think you would have to drop the Seraphites in this version as too much extra baggage, but oh well.
Now, this first approach of establishing motivations before killing off the crucial character is the route they take with Gabi. We begin Season 4 in the middle of a pitched battle in a years-long war, with one of the main characters almost dying immediately. Gabi and her friends have been forced to participate in this conflict because of the brainwashing they've been subjected to all their lives. Gabi actually uses the skills the Marleyans have taught her to trick the enemy into letting her be, allowing her to derail a train with a cluster of grenades.
Several episodes pass with us seeing the entire situation in Marley- the ghettos, the propaganda, and the self-hatred the Eldians have. When Eren attacks the internment zone, and a massively destructive battle follows, it makes perfect sense that Gabi should be after revenge. We see Sasha kill two guards who were trying to protect Gabi, and thus she chases after Eren and the airship even though she thinks it's pointless.
Sasha's death is sudden, but it's not out of nowhere like Joel's was. Gabi has already been set up as a tragic character, and not only that, the scene makes narrative sense. She takes the Eldians by surprise by using a dead soldier's ODM gear, and gets one shot off before she's swarmed.
The following episodes are also better than the following scenes in the game. We actually get to develop Gabi's character further, while the game instead has to go back and explain her entire character retroactively. And while we haven't seen the end of Gabi or the show yet, I doubt we're going to have a scene where the main characters forgive her for no reason. No one's seeking revenge on her, but she is still an enemy combatant.
Update as of Episode 13: While it looks rather like my prediction was disproven by Sasha's father refusing to kill Gabi, unlike Ellie he has very valid reasons on why he's not killing Gabi, and why he won't let Niccolo do so either. First off, she's still a scared little girl. Secondly, he understands perfectly well the role his daughter played in the conflict, and what she must have inflicted on Gabi. And third, his desire for peace and to break the cycle of violence doesn't violate anything about his character or motivations. In fact, for the kind of man he is, I think it makes perfect sense.
To drive this home even further, Kaya tries to attack Gabi with a knife herself, letting us know that Gabi isn't a Mary Sue, and that she's not so easily forgiven like some other anime villains. She still has to earn redemption, unlike Abby who gets to ride off into the sea.
And one more minor difference: Abby is built like a damn body-builder in the middle of the apocalypse. Gabi is part of an oppressed minority, and appropriately looks like a mildly underfed child soldier. Character design matters.
Last of Us 2 is what happens when you put social justice over making a good game. The only truly good video game that did the anti-violence message well was Undertale. You cannot tell the player that violence is wrong if the only way to complete the game is violence. But that's an article for another day.
God bless y'all and have a nice day!
Is finer than you'd think.
Yesterday, I watched Chris Nolan's Inception for the first time. Absolutely loved it. Great film, managed to avoid spoilers so the twists landed, and the ending was great.
I think the basic plot is ubiquitous enough to remove any need to summarize it, and the movie is 11 years old now, so I'll be spoiling everything. Basically, I loved pretty much every minute of the film except for one moment in particular.
When we first see the scene were Mal commits suicide, DiCaprio's reaction made me genuinely laugh. It's supposed to be an incredibly sad and tragic scene, where we discover his whole motivation in the movie thus far. It explains why he's on the run, and provides context for scenes we've seen already. But as great an actor as DiCaprio is, the script completely screwed him over. The passion with which he conveys emotion only served to make the scene more funny to me.
The way comedy works is to build up catharsis, and subvert that build-up with a punchline. Drama is the same way, but the "punchline", instead of subverting the buildup, resonates with it.
I wrote a scene for a sci-fi movie once, where a civil war is going on and a rebel has to escort a spy into the capital, so he can gain the trust of the dictator they're trying to overthrow. Unfortunately, the shuttle cruiser transporting them crashes somewhere in the desert, killing everyone aboard but the rebel. Once he makes it back to civilization, he contacts the leader of the resistance, Kai Hir, to tell him what happened. The conversation goes like this:
REBEL: This is Arthur Vell, ID number 39401. Requesting direct access to Chief Kai.
KAI: Patched in. What is it?
REBEL: Sir, I have terrible news. Our transport crashed out in the desert. Edward [the spy] is dead.
KAI: No! What happened?
REBEL: I don't know! One moment we were sitting pretty, the next one of the engines caught fire.
KAI: [Expletive]. Are you sure he's dead? You didn't try to save him?
REBEL: No, sir.
KAI: Why?
REBEL: I couldn't pick him out from the other burned corpses.
Now, I meant for this to be a very serious scene, as it kickstarts the plot and sets the tone of the movie. The image of an entire shuttle going down in flames, roasting everyone alive is horrifying... usually. But you see, the way the scene builds tension, in that we don't know what happened, but that it's bad, makes the last line too comical. It's not just bad, it's ridiculously bad. It's so incredibly bad that the entire shuttle is now full of burned corpses, and the rebel's attempt to save the spy was hilariously futile.
I realized this when I went back over it later, and I rewrote the scene to give it much more gravitas, being careful to build everything up in a more dramatic way this time:
REBEL: Sir, I have terrible news. Our shuttle caught fire. Everyone aboard is dead. We crashed in the desert several hours ago. I just got back into comms range.
KAI: No! You're telling me Edward is dead?
REBEL: Yes, sir. I'm sorry. There was nothing I could do.
KAI: What happened?!
REBEL: When we realized what was about to happen, we raced for the emergency exits. Our parachutes were all ready to go. Then the engine exploded, and the fuselage snapped like a twig. I was falling out into the sky, and I tried to pull him along with me, out of the way of the fireball. I was too late. By the time I found the wreckage... I couldn't even find the body.
Those last six words are the "punchline" of the scene, and they're dramatic because they resonate with the build-up we've established. Everyone's dead, he couldn't save the spy, and the shuttle went down in flames. Naturally, it would be very hard to find the body.
So let's go back to this scene from Inception. We learn that Mal was consumed by the idea that her world wasn't real, and that it eventually led her to try to frame DiCaprio for her own suicide, so that he'd join her in the real world- the one they created in limbo, where they were like gods. On their anniversary, he finds their hotel room trashed, and Mal sitting on a ledge on the building across from his. After failing to persuade her to come back inside and talk to him, Mal jumps to her death.
DiCaprio's reaction is "Mal! No! Jesus Christ!"
I literally just went back and watched the scene, and it was still funny to me. Imagine watching your spouse fall to their death. Your first reaction would not be "No! Jesus Christ, goddamn it!" The first stage of grief is denial.
If I had written the scene, I would've had him scream Mal's name just as she fell, before everything goes dead quiet. Instead of the dramatic music and DiCaprio's over-the-top performance, we get total silence and a shot of him staring down at her body and weeping. Then, maybe after a moment, enough sound comes back that we hear him cursing and calling out to her.
The scene is much more dramatic when we learn that her speech about the train is actually what he said to her when they were leaving limbo, but that doesn't make his reaction any less funny. It's very similar to the moment Jennifer Lawrence finds out that Chris Pratt woke her up in the movie Passengers. The greatest actors in the world can't salvage a bad script.
Anyhow, other than that, the movie is a 10/10 and DiCaprio does do a good job for most of it. My only regret is that Ariadne turned out to be a tranny.
