Dreams, complex

Yesterday I got woken up by fireworks and decided to nope out of the rest of the evening and ended up sleeping... Many hours.

So, dreams.

I can't remember all the twists now. I know I got the boring back to school anxiety dream where I haven't signed up for class yet Oh Noes, except this time once I was signed up we 'discovered' I had already got my degree and there weren't any classes to do, which was somehow Worse because bonus embarrassing. Also there was a bit where 90s websites were only accessible on 90s computers at 90s speeds, which, obviously, A Bit Bad.

... I remember internet cafes. *blinks* ... so long for so little...



The actual interesting dreams though started with D&D gone horribly wrong, and A J Crowley. ( Read more... )

So those were a couple of dreams with useful parts
and not enough plot to go around
as usual.



But that was more fun than being awake
so
yaay.

(no subject)

I am not getting better at Wingspan and it's getting frustrating.
I have played 9 games against the automa and I feel like we're getting like the same range of scores.

automa 76 67 61 71 77 81 64 66 77
and me 74 97 71 76 80 67 68 57 65

I guess my scores are more variable in both directions, 57-97 vs 61-81

But my scores dont have a learning curve they have a lot of wobbling around
and their scores are Random.
If my scores are also Random this game stops being fun.

I found a message board for Strategy but it is more questions than answers
and depends on getting The Good Cards
but which cards happen is so random it's from such a large deck so you don't know.




Munchkin is also random cards from a large deck yet somehow I'm fine with that and have fun anyway.

I guess this Wingspan game has so many moving parts it looks like something you could get good at
so I want to.


Oh well, is an interesting game.

thing that bothers me about aus

I'm reading a pseudo medieval au
and it does the thing where people speak in overly formal old fashioned language
to show it is olden times.

the problem with this is twofold.

one, by the time we're reading text, about the only thing we have left of the characters is how they speak. how they move and how they look are both out, and in aus how they act is going to be variously translated. and now this style of writing removes how they speak. at that point it pretty much loses me, because they aren't them any more.

two, many people aren't very good at writing old fashioned. they lose all the different registers, getting stuck in formal, but not super fancy formal or anything, just kind of stiff. and they wander around eras a bit. there might be fan writers that are good at doing shakesperean, but what often happens is they throw a few thous in and call it a day. Shakespeare had different vocabularies for different social classes, different styles of writing, applied rhyme and meter, but by the time people are writing vaguely shakespeare prose? I guess it's a lot of work and unless the fandom is shakespeare nobody much will notice anyway.

and people rarely get as old as shakespeare, let alone rewind enough to go Chaucer or similar. Medievalish setting yes, anything like medieval language no, not least because then it's not same English.

So then it's just... stilted and with no degrees of formality to suggest they're talking to bosses or friends and it's... it removes a lot of a writers tools before they get started.

Fantasy epics can do something of the sort, but they're crafting characters from scratch so it dont smack you in the face quite as much.

I just open up fanfic and nope out on style grounds.



... I mean I shouldnt complain because I dont write, but, if anyone cares, that's the things you've got to figure out how to write old fashioned: levels of formality, styles of address, and how to keep unique character voices when they've changed both history and geography.

Not simples.




My other pet peeve is when people mix up Majesty and Highness and suchlike. There's rules, and it's like calling a General Captain if you get the wrong one. But those rules do differ by country and era so there's a lot of room to manuever in imsginary places. Still, consistency helps.


/grumble




I am out of sorts and frustrated and bored today, so the internet gets to hear my opinions. oh well.