Christmas of 2020 was…rough. Not only were we self-imposed pariahs, separated from almost all family and friends as the (seemingly) only ones still taking the pandemic seriously, but the looming treatment of Gayle's breast cancer cast a pall over a very subdued holiday. One thing, however, that has come from that time was I've picked up a new hobby, thanks to the gift Gayle gave her boys of mini-fig paints. I've been playing D&D off and on for about three years now. My boys have all created characters that they use in our adventures, and thanks to a generous neighbor and my school's 3-D printer, we've even created 3-D prints of them to use when the mood hits us right. As good as these prints are (which, considering the constraints of the technology, are pretty good, I think), they're still monochromatic versions. Despite that, I thought it might be a good father/son bonding experience for us to learn how to paint those same miniatures. I was this close to buying a starter painting set at the last FanX convention we went to, but distance and crowds prevented me from following up. Ever observant, my wife decided to pick up some paints for us as a Christmas gift, thus allowing us to paint together as a family. We kind of have. My younger two boys have sat down with me on a couple of occasions as we've taken some molded miniatures that Gayle gave us and tried our hands at painting them. (My oldest is not really interested in artistic endeavors of any sort, so he has yet to sit down and participate with us.) I watched some YouTube videos, listened to my wife's artistic advice, and then set to work. We primed the models (using a spray-paint primer, in order to prime a lot of them all at once) and painted them in the stock colors that came with the original set. The first one I did was of an elven archer. I was surprised at how well it turned out, considering my inexperience. It was also fun to sit with my boys and quietly work on something together. My middle son has shown the greatest interest, having painted a couple of dragons, a skeleton, and a couple of others. (Ironically, despite the fact that we started this hobby in order to paint the miniatures of our characters, we've yet to try to paint the 3-D printed minis.)
Where I really became interested was when I got the Bloodborne Board Game, a hefty investment of Christmas cash that arrived back in February or March. I learned about the game after its Kickstarter campaign had ended, so I was forced to buy through an alternative website that incorporated the main game and three additional add-on packs of different types. It was a lot of money (more than I spent on the video game, that's for sure), and I didn't want it to go to waste. Fortunately, the game is really enjoyable--I've played it for dozens of hours so far--and I want to keep my interest in it as high as possible. To that end, I've continued my painting hobby. See, having all of these new miniatures (probably over 100 of them, if I were to sit down and actually count them) means that I have plenty to keep me busy for the next couple of years or so. Each monster of the game comes with two or four miniatures, meaning that I can experiment with different color sets, motifs, and techniques. If I do one that feels incorrect, it's okay: I don't have to reset on that one as I can just paint another one in a better way. It's also helpful in keeping me from secluding myself in my office when the rest of the family is downstairs playing video games, sewing, or otherwise interacting. I sit in the corner of the kitchen table next to a stack of drawers filled with paints, brushes, pallets, and figurines, quietly painting my models. I use an old orange juice bottle with a bit of 3M double-sided adhesive to keep the models attached. A Tupperware container provides the perfect place to put a wet paper towel and a square of parchment paper in order to make a wet-pallet that keeps the mixed paints from drying out before I can use them all. Because Gayle is an artist, she has a huge collection of acrylic paints that I'm now learning how to use. Her generosity is always impressive, if you ask me. There are a couple of downsides: I'm not sure if it's because they're cheap or what, but I think I'm wearing out the brushes. I make small mistakes sometimes because the brush-heads act in ways I'm not expecting, or fail to keep a strong point when I need them to. I also sometimes get irritated by having to paint the same thing four times (eight, if I prime them by hand). I know, I know--I just said that it's good that I have so many options. And that is true, for reasons I mentioned above. It's also true that it can be tedious to go over the same details again and again. This doesn't happen all of the time--I have so many figurines to paint that I really can just bounce from one to another whenever I want--but as far as the game is concerned, I want to play with the pieces that I've painted. When I've only painted one or two, then I feel the urge to paint the remaining ones, but struggle against the aforementioned irritation of being involved with the same one again and again. It isn't a massive con, or anything, just one of the quirks of the situation. Paint choices are also limited, in a sense. I mean, I can paint them whatever I want--obviously--but the game's source material is rather grim, bleak, and dark. There are lots of blacks, browns, and blood-red, yes. However, bright colors that really pop, or provide interesting contrasts don't really fit into the game's design. (I cheated a bit when it came to painting the item chests, as it gave me a chance to make some that were gold or silver and much more eye-catching.) So, I've had to settle with going in slightly different directions as far as the coloring goes. Despite these slight difficulties, I am really enjoying this new hobby. It has taken away from my writing and reading (though I just finished listening to The Fellowship of the Ring while painting in my corner, so it's good for audiobooks), but it's also immensely cathartic. I mean, there's a lot in my life that requires a lot of my emotional energy. Writing is one of the most demanding things that I do outside of my job. Sometimes--most times--I'm drained when I get home from work. The last thing I want to do is spend time slapping a keyboard. Add to that a continuing doubt about ever writing something worth being published, the (perhaps) connection to increasing my medication dosage to deal with my depression, and the overall stress of the continuing cancer treatments while in a pandemic from which my oldest is still at risk, and it makes sense that I want to do something that doesn't have any higher stakes than "Can I make this look cool?" Anyway, I'm pretty proud of what I've done. There's a whole thread on Twitter that you can look through everything I've painted so far, as well as a few more here below. Have you heard of Artstation? It's a website that, like DeviantArt, allows users to upload their art in order to share, show off, gain work, and archive the vast amount of talent that the art world has. Today, as I was browsing through the "Shakespeare" search query on their site, I stumbled across a picture by Stephanie Ross (pictured above). It is a mashup of Shakespeare and Overwatch characters and I think it's pretty awesome. While Ross' style isn't my number one favorite, I love the concept. She has a couple of others, including Sombra as Puck and Mercy as Titania, which got me thinking about how much further I could push the idea. What about Wrecking Ball as Yorick's skull? Doomfist as Othello--or Aaron the Moor to do a deep cut? Zarya as Viola from Twelfth Night, dressed as Cesario? Junkrat as Malvolio or Feste or any of the other fools (he already has a jester skin)? I'd love to see someone make these--or anything like them--as more fanart. As the ideas percolated in my brain, I thought, Why don't I just make some of these? And the instant response was, I don't draw that well. I'm not being falsely modest when I say this, either: I'm not a very good artist, and much of what I conceive in my head gets lost between the skull and the fingertips. True, I can cartoon pretty well: I've been drawing Calvin and Hobbes knock-off style since I was in seventh grade, and I have memories of cluttering up worksheets in elementary school with my drawings (of Wolvemato, a mash-up of Wolverine and a tomato…man, I was a weird kid). I teach my Socratic classes with drawings all of the time. In fact, here's a copy of one of the sections of Paradise Lost that we discussed this past week. I made this painting of Pennywise a few weeks ago, using a still from the movie as a reference--so it's really more of a trace than a painting, I would say. So when I say I don't draw that well, I'm not saying that I'm relegated to stick-figures and explanatory arrows. I'm good enough at drawing to know and recognize my shortcomings.
Now, could I change that? Could I have my own Inktober (or participate next year) and see myself improve? Duh, absolutely. It is, as is so often the case in grown-up life, a matter of time and energy. Could I fit in Inktober efforts for October, then NaNoWriMo for November? Probably not; just in terms of my own limited emotional and physical resources--mostly patience and energy--I couldn't do that and all of the other things that are expected of me. The point is, I would wish for a brush of fire so that I could paint the thoughts that are in my brain…but I don't think I'm willing to get there. The amount of effort that drawing requires is staggering. Good art--that is, art that a person finds pleasing, even on a casual, quick-glance basis, rather than a lengthy argument about what "art" is or what "good" may mean--is a massive investment of time by the artist. Yet how long does one spend looking at the art? How long did you look at the pictures in this post? The writing of this particular essay took about thirty or so minutes, though the time to find those links and format the webpage added a few more than I normally need for an essay of this length. And it probably took between three and seven minutes (I'm guessing) for most people to read this whole thing. In other words, the amount of time it takes for someone to read this is a visible percentage of how long it took to write it. Art, on the other hand, can take multiple hours and will get an appreciative glance that lasts fewer than ten seconds--probably closer to two or three. That's less than one percent of the time it took to make. Obviously, the art isn't just for the viewer, nor are my writings just for the readers--there are lots of reasons why a person sits down to make art, regardless of the medium. I don't have the same artistic talent as a great many millions of people out there, and the time it would take to develop a style that I like (my own really irritates me, which is part of the reason that I don't like putting more time into my drawings) isn't going to happen. But that doesn't mean I don't wish that it would. Instead, I have to focus on the kind of art that I can make, which means finishing up this essay and doing something else with words. Who knows? Maybe I'll even write something worth reading… One of the ways that I help fill my creative well is by flipping through DeviantArt. The website showcases artists from around the world, with a lot of really interesting styles and approaches. (There is--unsurprisingly--a lot of weird stuff on it, too, so discretion is advised.) Professionals and amateurs alike use the site to both bolster their own work and be part of the larger artistic community. Not being particularly artistic (I have my cartoons that I doodle, and I like to use my Surface pen to draw during church on Sundays), I don't add to the website anything substantial. Instead, I just look.
Because of that habit, I noticed that some (very few, in my honest experience) of the pieces of art feel like they're a snapshot in the middle of a story. Among the pencil sketches of hands, yet another Fursona, fanart from the latest Netflix hit, fractal art, and anime characters of sundry shapes and sizes (and clothing options) lurk the occasional piece of art that has a sense of momentum, of dynamism, of being part of something greater than just a practice. These little snippets of a broader story sometimes make me wonder enough that I've decided to start writing what I call DeviantStories. I've so far started three of these (with only finishing one), each one coming from a picture that I spotted, favorited, and let germinate in my brain. One is a picture of a couple in a truck. Another is a cloaked person in an autumnal forest. Another is a mother hugging her son after giving him a bath, or a father helping tie his son's tie. The point is, I see potential for more than what's on the screen or in the frame and then want to explore it. This has been harder than I expected. I can sit down and weave some thousand words or so into an essay and feel content enough with what I've written to send it out into the world. It's not the best way of writing--it certainly doesn't teach me about anything more than nonce editing, for example--but it's what I've the bandwidth to complete most days. When it comes to fiction, however, I expect more of myself…enough that I think that I should probably polish, edit, and improve the original product. Not only that, but my original product as an essayist tends to be a single-shot (that is, I sit down, write the thing, and then I'm done). While there are exceptions, those tend to be because of scheduling constraints--I start an essay, need to do something else, and come back to it--than because I have to let the idea fully form. In a lot of ways, the point of writing the essay is to help form the thoughts. The point of writing the story, however, is to tell the story. And, for some reason, I feel like I'm doing something wrong if I can't get the story out in a single go. I rarely write chunks of chapters--I push through until the chapter is as long as it's supposed to be, only stopping when I've finished that scene. This matters with the DeviantStories because I'm not really adept at seeing the image, "hearing" the inspiration, and then completing the project. It's a lot harder, in other words, for me to put down the story this way. All that being said, I have finished one of the three that I've started. (It was inspired by the picture that's at the top of this post, made by PrismoTheSmoke.) I do feel like I need to read it over before adding it, but I think it's fair to say that, every once in a great while, I'll be posting a piece of short fiction on the website instead of an essay. When possible, I'll add a small behind-the-scenes of why I picked the story, what stood out to me in the picture enough to want to put the words down, and any other thing that strikes my fancy. Who knows? Maybe I'll get practiced enough at this that someday I can look back at my short story collection and feel something like a flash of pride. Maybe. I haven't seen the new Joker movie--in part because, as I'm writing this, it's not yet released, but more than that is it doesn't interest me. Not only is it rated R (not a deal breaker for me, but certainly an indication that I need to make a more educated decision if I were to want to see it), but the story of the Joker from which, I take it, much of the film derives its inspiration is a graphic novel that has heavy emphasis on the graphic part. I've flipped through it and…yeah, it's not for me, I think. (I mean, seriously: Who wants to read a hyperviolent story about a killer clown?) And though the early reviews are definitely mixed--well-made movie that ultimately says nothing is what one chap on the radio said this morning--there's no doubt that the film has caused some reflection and conversation. Much like Game of Thrones, I can appreciate how these quasi-polemic texts--even if it's full of content that I don't want to see--can generate debate and worthwhile considerations. That, I think, is really worthwhile. To go along with this, I saw an article that deserves a read. It's a bit long, but Wilkinson's analysis is really thought-provoking. She doesn't spend a lot of time calling out the bed-wetters whose lives are so devoid of purpose that threatening critics of a movie they haven't been able to see seems to be the best use of their time, though she certainly would be justified in making an article exclusively like that. Fandoms are a peculiar thing; belonging (in the unofficial way in which anyone belongs to a fandom) to a handful of eclectic pieces, I can assert that being able to enjoy a thing on its own levels and for what it is can be enjoyable. So, too, can the feeling of belonging that a mutually shared interest provides. That is to say, I get where fans are coming from when they want to defend the art with which they've cultivated their identities. But Wilkinson's piece is about more than that, including the tricky balance of how art is massively influential yet somehow held guiltless for crimes done in its name. Neither violent movies nor violent video games cause real-life violence, but that doesn't mean that art is amoral. It does affect people--otherwise, we probably wouldn't worry about it. I think to my own feelings about Hamlet (and Hamlet) and I know that the art of Shakespeare can definitely make a difference in how a person feels. Wilkinson brings up a number of good points throughout her essay, but there are two that I'd like to focus on. First: [I]f Joker engenders sympathy for the devil, so to speak, then it’s well within critics’ and audience’s rights to call it out and decry its moral bankruptcy if they think that’s bad. This made me sit up a bit straighter. I've been reading Areopagitica with my CE class students this term, and it's put me on a months-long Milton buzz (though I feel like we didn't wrestle with the text nearly enough). Not only is Areopagitica pertinent to what we're looking at here (licensing, not censorship, is Milton's bugbear, but the idea of stifling content is significant in our day just as it was when he wrote the pamphlet), but so is Paradise Lost. When Wilkinson writes about a right to call out the "moral bankruptcy" of a piece of text that "engenders sympathy for the devil", then there's a major question about what to do about Paradise Lost. I think of Blake's comment about how "Milton was of the devil's party without knowing it" and how charismatic, charming, convincing, and conniving Milton's Satan is. I've had plenty of students admit that they really like him as a character--and, stripped of the religious context that Milton was expecting his readers to bring with them (indeed, could not, I think, imagine a world without, despite his prodigious powers of imagination), Satan is the most interesting and sympathetic character of the whole poem. The life that infuses Paradise Lost's first ten books peters out in the final two books, in no small part because Satan has finished his part of the story. Should there be a moral outcry over Paradise Lost on the same grounds as the valorization of violence that Joker purportedly generates? Clearly, Paradise Lost is old news: The poem was published in the mid-1600s, and though it has always been significant and in print, it's a stretch to call it fresh. (At least, in terms of its longevity. The ideas, I would argue, are perennial.) Joker is so new that we're buzzing about it before the general public could see it. But the fact is that if there's something pernicious in the art, it ought to be opposed…right? And that's where the second part of Wilkinson's piece, a thought found in the final paragraph, comes in: Safe art is usually bad art; then again, not all unsafe art is good art.
It reminds me of a tweet I saw somewhere in passing that was grousing about the "clean" comedy of BYUTV's comedy troupe, Studio C. The tweet said, in essence, "Just because something is 'clean' doesn't mean it's inoffensive." I think they were talking about a skit that relied on fat-shaming for its laughs. That's "safe" in the sense that, content-wise, it isn't edging into profanity or sexuality or even politics for its presentation. And though I've enjoyed bits from Studio C in the past, their comedy isn't really one that I follow. (I think I may not like skit-comedy, now that I think about it, since I don't find SNL funny either.) Anyway, the point I'm going for here is the idea that Wilkinson is bringing up: "Not all unsafe art is good art". We don't get absolutes in this part of life--we struggle to even define art in the first place, to say nothing of the modifiers good or bad. Earlier in her piece, Wilkinson mentions that she used to do film reviews for conservative Christian audiences. Being in that demographic (kind of), I knew exactly what she meant when she said that her audience cared more about the explicit content sections of the film than the overall point that the movie was trying to make. I think this is some of what I struggle with when I bring up (in a tired way) how It changed me for the better, despite the bad things inside of it. What I really like about Wilkinson's observations is that she's teasing out important nuances: The Passion of the Christ did quite well at the box office because of church groups going to see the film en masse, despite it being rated R for intense violence. And, as many people have mentioned within my hearing, a faithful adaptation of the Book of Mormon would also be rated R for violence, what with the decapitations and dismemberments that pepper the text. Oh, and the cannibalism, too. That's…gross. Yet I'm certain many members of the Church would not let that rating interfere with their participation in the art because it is doing something within it. Or maybe I'm wrong. That's what's been difficult for me to parse out lately: Perhaps we're just sublimating our desires for extreme content by justifying post hoc benefits. It almost feels the same to me as when I figure out why I should, say, buy a Moleskine Pen + Ellipse digital notebook: I could benefit from being able to digitize and store my hand-written notes. I would be able to produce a lot more content for my website and there's a lot of stuff that I write but don't share simply because I don't want to type up the same thoughts again. See? I really should buy this $200 pen! It's actually beneficial! Do we do that with the harsher, more titillating parts of art? Do we say that vicarious violence lets us indulge in the baser impulses without it damaging an actual person, so it's really okay? Are we unimpressed with the hypocrisy of decrying violence in our media yet saying that films like Saving Private Ryan are acceptable because it's historical violence--as if that film isn't a fantasy of its own, or that the on-screen violence somehow not violent because of its historical nature? Should we be carving out such exceptions? Part of me wants to say no, as then we have an actual standard of behavior that isn't bending to whims and changes of culture. But part of me thinks that suppression of feelings isn't wise and that we have to acknowledge the parts of our humanity that are just as much integral to us as loving and eating and breathing, but are much less flattering. How much of our darkness do we need to look at? Are we less moral because we've sheltered ourselves too much from the harshness of our natures? Maybe someday I'll be able to find answers to these questions…or, even better, answers that I can believe in. Video gamers are a peculiar lot. While I wouldn't say that I'm a "gamer"--it carries with it enough negative connotations that I'm leery to use it--I definitely call myself an aficionado. And I like what I like the way I like it, rather unapologetically. Though my stance is shared by many who play video games, others--purists of one stripe or another--don't see games the same way I do.
For a long while now, there's been arguments about whether or not a video game should have an "easy mode" or some sort of accommodation so that the player can enjoy the game on her own terms. On one hand, the game's conception and conceit is designed around a particular experience--more than many other media, video games' ability to interact with the player (and vice versa) means that the personal connection is, at times, crucial. Though particularly impenetrable cinema or literature (I haven't, for example, been able to finish Alan Moore's Jerusalem yet, despite picking at it for years) can require mental fortitude or an intellectual flexibility to "get" what the filmmaker or writer was trying to say, there isn't a skill set that has to be attained when one picks up the latest John Grisham novel. Almost every video game demands a certain level of skill to enjoy the product. It's part of the nature of the medium. And so the desire of the designer to enjoy their vision is, in a sense, predicated on the assumption that the game will be played a certain way. This means, however, that the ability to enjoy the video game is contingent on something outside of the designer's control. I may get bored of a movie and turn it off, but I've abandoned video games that I liked because I got stuck in one particular part. My skills weren't enough to be able to continue accessing the content that I enjoyed (and paid for). The designer wasn't able to anticipate my skill level, thereby shutting me out of the experience of the game that I wanted to enjoy. And that's where the other hand comes in: I've invested in a product in the hopes of being entertained and--if the video game is good in more than superficial ways--leaving the title behind having had an emotional response to it. Not only do a great many games rely on narratives to pull the disparate parts of the game into a coherent experience, but the catharsis of completion--of hitting an end state--is a crucial component to the point of video games. There's a reason that characters in video games have specific missions, actionable desires…players want to be able to know if they have succeeded. It's a primal thing--some writing advice insists that a character should always be wanting something, even if it's just a glass of water--that helps propel interest in what's on the screen. Completing the objective--regardless of what it is--requires that the game allow a way deeper into its contents. If there's an obstacle between the player and the game, and that obstacle is the game itself, then the game isn't actually doing what it was designed to do: be played. Yet there are some neckbeards out there who are really adamant that a game even having the option (not even that it would force them into using the option, mind you) to play the game on an easy mode is an insult to the designer's vision and ought not to be. The idea that a feature programed and implemented by the designer as somehow being against that designer's vision is…um…stupid. Why sugar coat the absurdity of that argument? If it's in the game, it didn't happen by accident.* This reminds me of how excited my five year old, Demetrius, has been going through my old catalogue of Spider-Man video games from the original PlayStation era. They both have a "Kid Mode" which allows for the player to swing about more easily, take less damage, and basically have a way through the story and beat the game. Demetrius was ecstatic when he beat the first game (though he did need some help from his more experienced dad, even with the kid mode). Why? Because it's a Spider-Man game and so it was awesome to play as Spider-Man. It's pretty straightforward: He wanted the experience of playing as the wall-crawler and the game allowed him to do that. No vision** was corrupted, no video game gods offended that a player of a different level than an "ideal" player got the opportunity to play through a game. It was nothing but positive. The inspiration for this essay comes from a kerfuffle that I just learned about, explained well here. Since you can click through and read that article, I won't repeat what it's about. Instead, I want to dig into the sanctimony of what Fetusberry (I'll pass over the name without comment) was implying by his tweet. Not only is he completely wrong about the idea of the writer "cheating [him]self", but he's also, apparently, confusing real life benefits with digital ones. There's nothing risked in video games. I quote this bit by McKenzie Wark's Gamer Theory all of the time, but it's always important to how I view the medium: "[In games,] violence is at its most extreme--and its most harmless" (23). The reason it can be so extreme while still being harmless isn't just that it's pixels and digital representations--it's because there's nothing risked anyway. The stakes in a narrative aren't a personal stake; they're important for the characters. And though the interaction that a player can give the video game shifts this to a small degree, unless someone is playing video games professionally (like with e-sports), they're not "risking" anything when they plop onto the couch and fire up Bloodborne. What really irks me about Fetusberry (besides his*** asinine name) is that he's probably (and I'm acknowledging that I don't know this person and I'm making a broad generalization and assumption that could be wrong) the type of gamer who 1) doesn't think that violence in video games affects a person, nor should there be controls over who has access to violent content; 2) video games are art, but; 3) it's "just a game" so who cares if someone is offended by problematic content in, say, a Grand Theft Auto game? The reason I assume this is because there seems to be a trend among people of a certain gaming stripe: The more hardcore they are, the more they abide by those three interpretations (though number two is a bit squishy, since the concept of art--what it is, how it works, why it matters--is often lost on them). The thing is, number three can't be a defense if numbers one and two are true. If it's "just a game" then it's not really art--it's a game--and toys that lead to harm and violence can easily be banned. Additionally, if it's "just a game", there's very little to talk about. People don't get hot under the collar over a game of Parcheesi, why should they if someone is playing Sekiro differently than they would? Yet he insists, almost as if Sekiro and its punishing difficulty are part of a divine aspect of spiritual growth, that the author somehow skipped over an Abrahamic test by playing differently. We can't have it be "just a game" and the path to apotheosis--some contradictions can't work, no matter how hard we try to force them together. Now, as I said before, I may be wrong about Fetusberry (*ugh*) specifically, but the mentality is one that I see really frequently. One of the complaints that I see surface is when a video game is called out, criticized and critiqued, and its defenders seem incapable of realizing that criticism of a thing that they like isn't the same as a criticism of them. Just because I think that the treatment of race is immensely problematic in Resident Evil 5 doesn't mean that I can't appreciate and enjoy it. Shakespeare's treatment of women, while progressive for his time, doesn't mean that he's above reproach in our era. He has women behaving in all sorts of damaging and dangerous ways--just look at what Kat puts up with in The Taming of the Shrew--and that needs to be confronted. The same can happen to video games: If they are supposed to be treated seriously enough to inspire people and change who they are and how they see the world, they are serious enough to receive criticism. Perhaps more importantly, if they're going to slap an M for Mature rating on their boxes because they have "mature content" (boobs and blood and bad words), then those who play them they should be "mature" enough to know how to converse about games, to listen to criticism, and to empathize with others' points of view. Accessibility in video games is a hot topic now, in no small part because (no surprise here) disabled people like to play video games. If designers can accommodate that, it's a sign of maturity and respect for their audience to provide them. The greatest thing about video games is the interaction between player and game. Why not rely on that strength to allow it to be flexible, so that players can interact with it as they will? And, for crying out loud, Fetusberry, change your insipid handle. --- * Glitches are a bit of an exception to this rule, but only in the sense that it's impossible to get a perfect product. I've purchased books that had pages printed out of order, or with screwy margins. Flaws abound. An easy mode, however, isn't something that glitches into a game. It's not a bug. ** Vicarious or otherwise. Okay, that's a really deep cut for that joke. Hats off to whoever gets that one. *** Yeah, I don't know the pronouns, but let's be real: The person behind that stupid of a name with that stupid of a comment has gotta be a dude. Ever since Dragonball Z hit my teenage years, I've been an appreciator of anime. (I'm hesitant to call myself a fan, if only because I'm one of those trendy people who only watches what's popular and I know comparatively little about the vast quantity of content out there.) I've talked about a couple of different anime series/seasons that I've watched on here before, so it's clear that, while I do have some experience in the medium, I can't say that I'm an expert.
Still, I know the basics: Japanese-animation, called anime, is the broad term for a whole slew of different types of animated story. If it's animated, then the Japanese word for the thing is anime. In the case of RWBY, it's considered anime in Japan…but what is it, exactly? The thing about RWBY (which has a good synopsis here) is that it's not Japanese. Sure, it has a lot of conventions often seen in anime--boarding school for gifted kids, lots of girls in outrageous costumes, bizarre hair styles, and over the top fighting styles--but is it anime? (A similar question can be asked about Avatar: The Last Airbender series.) It sure has a lot of admirers in the anime fandom. Even anime-exclusive online streaming service Crunchyroll has RWBY on its site, with both English and Japanese dubs. If I had to choose, I'd say that RWBY is an anime in that broader sense of being enough within the parameters of anime tropes. I don't know if it's me being too precise, but I feel that, since it wasn't made by a Japanese studio (it's made by an American company, Roosterteeth) nor was it originally distributed in Japan, RWBY is more of an American-anime than pure anime. But that's something that is open for debate and I think it's healthy if others feel differently. But what drew me to the magnum opus of the late Monty Oum, an American of Asian descent (according to his Wikipedia page, he claimed a host of Asian countries as part of his heritage) who created and directed the series until he died of an allergic reaction during a medical procedure. Oum's sense of scale, pacing, and action was something that drew me to him before RWBY came out, as I watched his Dead Fantasy animations often. When I learned* that he had made RWBY, I was interested immediately. Though the first volume was rough from an animation standpoint, the writing, world-building, and characterizations were all intriguing. In fact, that's part of why I love RWBY (and Ruby, the main character, is one of my favorites, too): It's a long-form story told with confidence and panache. The action sequences are fun, of course, and they're crucial to the style of the franchise, but Oum made something enjoyable when he shifted from cartoons fighting each other for no reason and started giving his attention to the characterizations and motivations of his girls. And that's absolutely where the strength of RWBY lies: In the way the story about the girls unfolds. It's a very large story--the cast is huge and a lot is going on--but because Oum originally focused on Ruby herself as the linchpin of her crew, the world is shaded by her unflagging optimism. If Ruby loses heart, it's clear that there's something really wrong with what's happening. Ensemble stories are never easy to write. When done well, they are some of the most powerful stories we get--think of the success of Game of Thrones or the first Avengers movie--but they can also fall apart (think of the second Avengers movie) more easily than others. There's a reason why Wolverine is in most of the X-Men movies, even when it doesn't necessarily make sense (looking at you, Days of Future Past): He's a single character on whom we can focus, despite being part of a team. With RWBY, there's a strong sense that it's about the world that Ruby inhabits, yet still manages to make the plot demonstrating how world events are affecting Ruby and her three main friends. And that's another thing I find really great: I like stories wherein women are in the lead, especially when there's a lot of fun world building and action to go along with everything. As my friend said of me, "It's all girl-power, or whatever you call it." "I call it good stories with women, but yeah…" Ruby is unique among the girls for her endless optimism. Yang, her sister, has a fierce competitive streak that doesn't interfere with her caring about others. Weiss is the rich snob whose drive to improve makes her cold to others, warming up to her friends as the series progresses. Blake is the goth of the group, more removed and distant emotionally, yet still anxious to prove herself. Each girl has separate motives that coalesce into a logical whole, and they always show themselves at their best when they work together. But because of their different personalities, they sometimes forget how to do that, which leads to additional conflict--and, as we all know, conflict fuels stories. That kind of dynamic is always fun to watch. It's why the Teen Titans (and, to a lesser extent, Teen Titans GO!) works so well--the characters are distinct in style, design, motivation, and abilities. The same goes for RWBY, which is no small feat, considering the scale of the series and how many different characters are similarly rendered. I guess what I'm saying is that, if you've any interest in well-told stories, you could do much worse than watching RWBY. It's fairly family appropriate--very rarely do they say a mild swear, and there's almost no blood, with all of the violence stylized--and incredibly well done. I recommend it.** --- * I was watching the ScrewAttack YouTube channel series, Death Battle, in which Yang of RWBY and Tifa of Final Fantasy VII fought to the death. Yang beat Tifa (a verdict I still disagree with--why wouldn't they let Tifa use her materia?) but I was interested in this world where every weapon doubles as a gun. I poked around and that's how I found the series, which was only two volumes deep at the time. ** I probably should point out, if only in a footnote, that I'm not finished with the series yet. I've watched the first three volumes and I'm about a third of the way through the fourth as of the time of this writing. Each volume is two to three hours long, so there's a lot of content to get through. ==== Hey, friends. I have been releasing essays on my website for a couple of years now at a pretty steady rate. I'm happy to do so, as it benefits me as a writer and (I hope) you as a reader. I also think that, as a writer, it's okay if I believe that my work has some value monetarily as well as emotionally. To that end, I've created a Ko-Fi account, which is basically a way to give an online tip to a creator whose work you appreciate. The idea is, you can buy them a cup of coffee. (That's what the name of the website sounds like, if you're curious.) I'm not charging for any of the content on my website; instead, if you'd like to toss me a cup-le (see what I did there?) of bucks to show your gratitude, that would be cool. I'd totally appreciate that appreciation. If you don't? No problem. We can still be friends. As always, thanks for reading! Many years ago, I went to an LTUE symposium where Isaac Stewart taught a panel about how he makes maps. While his method may or may not have changed, I've really enjoyed taking his principles and applying them to my stories. In fact, writing a novel without an actual map has proven frustrating. Even a post hoc (or sometimes in the nonce hoc) drafting of a map makes the world doesn't fully satisfy the solidity of a good map from the outset. This right here is a rough map I made of Stann-over-Kenth, the primary location of my book Ash and Fire (which needs a new title because there's neither ash nor fire in the whole thing). The quality isn't wonderful, but if you look closely, you'll see that every single street in the entire city is named. Additionally, I chose to have roads run north to south and streets stroll from east to west. But, like any city, there are plenty of incongruities (and, in the case of "Millner Street", misspellings), including two Gate Roads that are far separated from each other. The template I used--and this goes back to Stewart's methods--is I found a map of the City of London.* Then I twisted it 90 degrees and began modifying it to suit my fancy. It follows a lot of the paths and major roads that are there in the actual map--and I have a reason for doing it that way, which doesn't pertain here--but I made some adjustments, too. You'll notice that, much like the historical City of London, I put a red line demarcating the wall that surrounds Stann-over-Kenth. I put the seat of power in the Keenhall section, along with the expansive Keenhall Grounds, outside of the City because I figured the Queen of this fictitious place probably would want some space and privacy. I also included a handful of gates (you may be able to see them as the gold stars) to help me understand how they control people coming and going from Stann-over-Kenth. In other words, I use the map to inform my writing, and my writing informs my map. I wrote a chapter in which one of the characters comes across an expansive chapel, so I had to make sure that I put that chapel on the map. However, if you look near the bottom, there's a large gray splotch that's called "Kenth Mount". The shape of that splotch inspired me to have the Chapel at Kenth Mount be that big--which means that the chapel itself is enormous, taking up city blocks worth of space, with enormous land surrounding it to give it a barrier between it and the rest of the chip (which is a modification of the word cheap, which meant market back in the day). I don't only crib maps of famous cities for my own use. I also use Stewart's method more fully, which is to find an interesting, naturally occurring shape. Sometimes it's a creative-commons licensed photo of a coffee stain or a leaf. In the case of the picture below, some scrambled eggs were stuck to my pan whilst I was doing my dishes. I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture of it, later transferring the image into a drawing program and tracing the outline of the food. It gives the continent a naturalistic shape, but also a unique form. With the outline in place, I can modify it as necessary, adding in the topography that best suits my story. Sometimes I wiggle some rivers, other times I use a carefully created brush in the program to make mountain ranges. The entire process is really enjoyable for me, in part because I can do it and watch a Netflix movie or listen to a book--it's just mindless enough to be boring if I do it independently, but just thoughtful enough to be engaging with some background noise. When I was making the map of Stann-over-Kenth, it was during Parent/Teacher Conferences. Few people showed up that night, so I spent the majority of the time inventing the names of the streets, spinning around the letters so that they fit in the spaces available, and waiting for parents to come talk to me. It was quite nice, now that I think on it.
As far as the map goes, I have the added bonus of knowing that, if I do it well, I will have added a great deal of detail to my world, as well as a concreteness. It's a visual sort of story bible**, and because of its quasi-canonized state, I can rely on it, even if I come back to the story much, much later. For example, whilst editing Ash and Fire recently, I printed out a page-sized copy of my map. Then, every time I had a character walking from one place to another, and I mention street names in the manuscript, I can flip to the map and look to see if I'm accurate. Just the other day I was doing this, and I found that I couldn't follow my own directions. The streets that I named didn't seem close enough to fit into the action, so I knew that I hadn't described things well enough. My goal, at least for that book, is that the writing and map work so well together that, were a person so inclined, she could trace the movements of each character of the story throughout the entire book.*** Not to belabor the point too much, but the value I find in this is immense. And, strangely enough, I don't always prioritize making my maps the way that I ought to. This is a failing on my part in a huge way, though it comes about because of my eagerness to get to writing as soon as I possibly can. Nathless, I think it's a great way of building a world. While Adobe Photoshop is the best program for this sort of thing, GIMP and MediBang Pro are free and can do a serviceable job, if you're as cash strapped as I am. Good luck! --- * There's a difference between London and the City of London. Watch the video that I linked to learn more. Learning is fun! ** The phrase "story bible" is something I've heard of from the Writing Excuses crew, and it basically means the backstory, geography, history, magic/technology systems, and all the "behind the scenes" stuff that's needed for a story. The reason a story bible matters is because, without it, continuity suffers. It creates a skeleton off of which the muscles of the story hang, so without it, the chances of really messing up the world you're trying to write is large. *** And, like…that would be incredible. Not just that someone could do that, but that someone would do that. Like, that I would have fans who would obsess over my worlds as much as I do someone else's? That would blow my mind. In case you missed it, Eminem released a freestyle rap battle against the president. As a number of tweets noted, winning a rap battle means that Eminem is now the president, I guess. But it's less the content about the video (which, if you consider the source, has a lot of language in it, so be advised) and more the final thirty seconds or so that has me thinking. And any fan of mine who's a supporter of his I'm drawing in the sand a line: You're either for or against. And if you can't decide who you like more in your split On who you should stand beside, I'll do it for you with this: He then proceeds to flip off the camera and drop an edited expletive and close with a final thought about loving the military, the country, and hating Donald Trump. What Eminem is highlighting in this final part of the video is a longstanding issue that I think everyone has to come to grips with at one point or another, and that's the idea of what financial support equals. When I was a teenager and the Parental Advisory sticker became a part of the musical landscape--and yet another battleground for the culture wars of the 1990s--I took pains to avoid most albums with the sticker. I didn't like a lot of the bands that swore a lot anyway, but part of it comes from a hazy memory I have from a car ride home from...somewhere. My parents had cottoned onto the fact that my brother had recently purchased the debut album of Korn, which, in retrospect, is funny to me. Mostly because the band Korn is one of the more stupidly named bands from the nineties, to say nothing of the fact that I didn't--and still don't--like their music. But it was a flashpoint for the family, so it matters, I guess. Part of the reason that I remember this conversation so much is that it was one of the rare times in my childhood that I can remember my father getting angry enough to raise his voice. Unlike me, he didn't lose his temper often, and when he did, it was over something that really meant a lot to him. As a musician, my father took especial umbrage to this, I think. I remember him "shouting" (which is quotation marks because even at his most upset, "shouting" levels, it was never a full-scale lung-expulsion that one had to deal with) about how he didn't want such offensive language in his house. "I don't listen to the bad songs," my brother contended (probably half-heartedly, knowing that all of the songs were "bad" in one way or another). "I skip them." "That isn't the point," my dad said as he drove our faux-wood paneled minivan down the street, the sun setting to my right. "The point is, you've paid them to say what they're saying. You buy their albums, they think you like what they say, they say more of it. They don't know that you're skipping the bad songs." End memory. Back to Eminem.
He tells his fans that he's not interested in their money if they also support Donald Trump. That has a lot of interesting layers, in part because Eminem has been the de facto voice of white rage since Korn was making creepy album covers, and the idea that a man whose lyrics glorify a lot of the rhetoric that attaches to Trump (bigotry, homophobia, misogyny) smacks of hypocrisy. But it isn't the politics that interests me here (though I am curious about Mathers' politics now). Instead, it's the question of how to support people with whom you disagree. I pointed out before that there's nothing that isn't tainted by negativity in some way or another. So on that simplified level, it's easy to say, "I don't support Eminem's view on the president, but I will still buy his album," and by saying it's easy to say, I would imagine that a person who likes both the rapper and the president wouldn't have a hard time saying those two things. I don't really fancy myself as that kind of person (though I'd rather hear a freestyle, obscenity-laced State of the Union than whatever Agent Orange gasses about next year), but, yeah, I guess it would be pretty easy for anyone to keep that cognitive dissonance at bay. I mean, we do it all of the time. I know that many video game companies are some of the worst businesses in America who treat their workers like cogs in the wheels, demanding more and more of them as projects continue. Yet I buy video games. I'm fully aware that sweatshops are part of the dynamic for how clothing is made, shipped, and marketed, yet I buy cheap clothes all the time, grateful that I have more money in the pockets of these inexpensive jeans I purchased. I recognize that the film industry is filled with sexual predators, disreputable people, exploitative behaviors, drugs, booze, and everything else that I find morally repulsive. But I love going to movies. I love watching cinema. I don't abstain from seeing Dr. Strange because Marvel put a talking tree in a movie before they gave us a female-lead and -directed superhero film. So what does it mean to be a consumer? Aside from the tawdry implications of the whole thing, can one participate in the market without tacitly endorsing everything that allowed that product to arrive? If so, we're all complicit with a lot of things. And, perhaps, for that reason, that feels like it's not the right answer. Having each person be responsible for their actions makes a lot more sense, but the injustices that are becoming evermore apparent point to the idea that many times those who are responsible for some pretty despicable behaviors either get away with it or receive so much adoration, praise, and attention that though things are going badly for them now, they've spent most of their lives in safety. I'm thinking particularly of Bill Cosby at this point, but there are countless others that can be involved. If you're a Trumpkin and an Eminem fan, what do you do? Politics over art? All art is political, even if that political stance is enabled by the political status quo, so it isn't a matter of grousing that "they get politics out of my rap and my sports". This isn't a conservatives-only question, either. Do you support Hobby Lobby and its attempts to control its employees healthcare? If you shop there, are you implicitly saying that Hobby Lobby is right in their behaviors? If you shop there, are you also complicit in funding ISIS, as Hobby Lobby is allegedly guilty of? If I buy another Goodkind novel, am I supporting objectivism and the libertarian nonsense his fantasy novels embrace? Is buying Mein Kampf supporting white supremacy? Is reading The Communist Manifesto an implicit assertion of communism's principles? I'm thinking out loud here, but it seems that the concepts of freedom are maybe more self-styled than we're really comfortable with. And what that means, I can't comment on. I will say: The fact that Eminem dissing on the president as the fodder for this essay is, strange to say, not the weirdest thing that 2017 has delivered. |
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