Awkward story
May. 5th, 2019 06:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI'm a bit frustrated with my story making brain today because I keep thunking on problems of the wizarding world, specifically, how many wizards there are, and how many babies they have each.
Like, the pureblood wizards were worried about blood status because they wanted wizard babies who grew up in a wizard culture. Which is reasonable, but the people being loudest about that stuff tend to be, like purebloods, very rude about every other sort of culture. Lots of racists worrying about their people not having enough babies, lots of bad eugenics stuff going on when you worry about heritability of ability.
Except, it's also a disability story? But the other way up? Like, the vast majority of people lack this one ability, and want to be treated fairly despite that lack of ability. From a wizarding point of view they have both sensory and mobility impairments, yesno? They can't sense magic or move it around? Not an exact comparison obviously, but all us poor muggles stuck not flying is like other mobility difficulties, just with a different point of view on what's standard. So tell the story one way and it is about the majority of people being treated like they're disabled and really not liking it. Readers would all start with the idea that of course mundanes should get to make their own decisions and live independently, so if they come to understand the disability comparison, they get an interesting empathy bridge.
A lot of poor treatment of different groups seems to have ableism in its roots. Like, when people say women or black people are inherently less capable, there's a good true argument to be made that they're not, and lots of stats around to prove it. Equal abilities when they get equal treatment, right? But the inequalities in treatment are partly based on the idea that it's fair to treat people worse if there's stuff they can't do. Which is ableist.
Like there was a thing in the news where a guy banned some disabled people from karaoke night because they can't sing. He said it wasn't about their disability, it was about the ability they didn't have. Which he considered a defence. Because it wasn't a prejudiced decision based on looking at them and deciding they'd sing bad, it was an informed decision based on not wanting to hear them sing any more. At least one person figured that was fair. But if you have to be good before you can sing karaoke then how do you get good? And how long is his banned list? Isn't the point just equal access, everyone can have fun singing, even if the amount of fun the listeners have is variable?
So, anyways, it seems to me if people fix this idea that people have to be good at stuff to be allowed stuff, then they'd fix a lot of the underpinning logics on several other isms.
But there are times you need a basic level of ability for safety, ie driving cars.
And muggles making laws about their own lives seems fine and fair, because they understand their own lives, but making laws about magic? Well that could be like blind society banning driving because they couldn't do it safely. But blind people on the whole do not want to ban driving? They take sighted people's word for it that they can see? There's tests too, obviously. Mostly done by sighted people. But repeatable tests. With results in formata blind people can check just as well. So that lets them make informed choices and good decisions, vis a vis other people doing things they personally could not.
Same with magic.
... except GURPS magic has an irreducible possibility of demon, every time a spell happens, though I've repeatedly got the math wrong on exactly what that chance is. Two 18s in a row on 3d6, I think. Nope, 17 is a crit fail if your effective skill is 15 or less, so sometimes a 17 or 18 followed by 18 gets demons. And actually lower numbers can crit too if your effective skill is seriously low. Even more demons!
Point being, there's a point past which everyone doing everything perfectly can't make magic safe. Luck can make a problem of a scale to be everyone's business.
I suppose you could say magic is only legal inside a Pentagram. Then a demon is only a problem for the caster, if they can't jump out fast enough.
GURPS magic is obviously only one set of assumptions, but you get very different stories if the population is against magic because it's something they canlt do, against magic because it's something they don't u derstand, or against magic because they understand it perfectly well but demons.
Obviously people could also be all for magic. Then you get the problems of having a set of uniquely useful people who are very much outnumbered.
I mean you could say everyone can do magic, but then demons a lot.
Also if spells are Hard or Very Hard and take a lot of studying before you can actually do anything much then the people who get good at it are going to be specialists with weird special interests.
The problem of staffing unpopular jobs is perennial, but unpopular dangerous work that only the highest IQ people are going to be able to achieve in full measure? Tricky.
There's a lot of sidetracks in setting the parameters.
The purebloods are scared of a condition where they are persecuted or die out because of muggle actions. Except in HP they're wrong, They've got no reasonable cause to think that will happen.
Okay, so, I also watch Buffy?
And in Buffy the only magic user we saw interact with the legal authorities was Ethan Rayne.
That did not work out well for him.
... other mages just kind of shrugged it off and broke walls out or similar, but, in theory, the regular authorities could and did detain magic users
and in one case kept him there until they got around to killing him.
They also had whole categories of people they had declared not-people because of their ancestry, deciding that any part demon meant humans could do as they pleased to them. ... and by 'they' I might mean the writers, because the assumptions about heroic conduct end with, you know, slaying, and that could be problematic.
But then in Angel there were demon lawyers who seemed to be running the place
so
in universe
magic users and descendents of magical beings
were both persecuted
and in charge.
Lot of different stories that way.
They also had no statute of secrecy and bumped along with people plain not believing.
Which seems unlikely given the scale and reliability of effects.
But
stories you could tell
purebloods see what happens to Ethan Rayne and figure they have some legit reasons for concern.
It gets awkward though because it's then
people with power feeling persecuted?
Bit like x men. Yeah the world hates and fears us, but at least we're hot chicks with superpowers. /buffyquote
I always want to yell at Buffy though. She goes on about how hard it is to be the Slayer and have all this demon stuff happen to her. But it happens to Cordelia? And a lot of other girls? Their town has a death rate? Because of this exact stuff? So Buffy is in neither more nor different danger than the next girl, if the next girl is Chase. The only difference is she has the power to survive it and fight back.
And you can do the 'with great power comes great responsibility' bit, but again, the same bad stuff is happening to everyone, so everyone has the same responsibility to do something about it, it would just be really handy if the ones with greater ability did a lot of it.
Like, absolutely everyone could volunteer to help proportional to their abilities, but some of them are going to be a lot more help if they do. That's not a Burden. That's just handy. They can put in the same effort to get further.
The bit where the Slayer is standing alone against the forces of darkness makes no sense.
There ought to be something like SHIELD if there's something to be the SHIELD against.
Except I want to yell at SHIELD too sometimes, because they're not standing between the world and the weirder world, there is only world, and everyone is living in it. Weird is people too. They're weird's SHIELD or they are no heroes. But then that's why Daisy etc are both SHIELD and weird, because SHIELD improving.
Also not best pleased at the argument that heroes are heroes because they risk death and losing people. I mean, the risk is there? A lot of people are experiencing risk? Especially if the risk is to an entire planet? But some people are getting armed and trained at serious time and money expense so they are better equipped to handle that. Or, they get some kind of upgrade, or are born different. Like, everyone is in the danger whether they like it or not, but some of them get better toolkits.
Obviously it matters that some people volunteer to head towards the screaming, it's just something about the way they talked about heroes bothers me, because it leaves out so much.
I think it's the assumption that danger happens Over There and is something you can go to and leave? Presence in danger is optional? But that is demonstrably not the story they are telling, so why are they talking like it is?
But I started out talking about magic users.
And then demons.
And now I'm thinking genres. Like, in the DC universe, Con Job exists, amd demons, and people selling their souls to demons. But most of the time most heroes live in their own genres? Until some great big crossover event where someone gives out candles or whatever. So like, John gets to live in a horror story, but everyone else wanders around like they don't. And mostly survives that? But only mostly. And when it goes wrong they call the specialists, even if that's the same people they complain about a lot when it is not going that specific variety of wrong.
So the place of magic on the DCU isn't regulated or repressed or particularly widely sought, it's just hanging out doing same things other heroes do, until they need to do different. Kind of like how Aquaman can fight lots of battles but is the only one who can do the undersea stuff on the big days. Magic is just a different setting with its own toolset. And some really big risks.
But
heritability and magic
was where I started.
So like
it bothers me that only one story is being told
the one where purebloods are worried magic will die out and they're wrong.
Because they're just being racist and really magical ability can come from anywhere.
Because there's another story, and that's where quite a lot of people would happily get rid of diability? Or neurodiversity, ways of thinking different but potentially just as well.
... I watched Alphas once and was not keen on how they used the words.
But there's a community of people who think different, perceive different, have different sensory perspectives, and do different things.
There's a story to be told if that community could fade away
same like the x men stories where someone 'cures' mutants
but instead of being in fear of newly emerged abilities
it's a fear of old stuff dying out
which... I don't know, some stories are so bad stuff adjacent that I don't know if you can cut the mouldy bits off?
Like I want to tell a story that's all neurodiversity yaay and supports minority cultures from the angle of sensory difference, but it's got so much in common with some racist stories I just... I don't know.
If I was from a culture or language group that really had been oppressed and was endangered then I'd have a very different perspective, but I'm white and English and we are, historically, the group being the danger, so at best I'm coming up with ideas I don't know a thing about.
I mean if you get all Star Trek attitude at traditional faerie or demon races then you have Story. But it's about people being people regardless of their outsides?
And if everyone is human wizards who look the same varieties as human non wizards, it's a different story, about ability.
About abilities they have but others don't.
Nope, still awkward.
Like you need to tell the story where the less able are just as worthy and valuable and entitled to self determination
but
I'm interested in the story where the more able are proving those things
but typically that, you know, works? Without an argument? Because they are powerful and can sort it out themselves?
So I keep finding interesting chewy bits
in a mouldy story
and it's frustrating and awkward.
I do not need to protect the rights of the aristocracy or worry about them dying out
I just keep on being interested in the stories of people who might need their rights protected and be in danger of dying out or losing their culture in the modern muddle
and some wizards very nearly almost resemble that.
If you turn them upside down, shake them, and ignore most of what falls out.
I am also interested in setting up proper systems that look after everyone:
do wizards and demons and faerie even get birth certificates? but they're British if they're born here, right? or is it that simples? But if they're British they're entitled to decent healthcare and a proper and well rounded education. Also financial support if they can't earn a living elsewhere for whatever reasons. All the basic stuff, you know? I don't know what a social worker would do for the demi monde but I'm sure they're entitled to get one to do it.
But it do keep bumping into that problem where the people with the power are the people who set up and influence the systems, so why wouldn't they be getting all the good stuff already?
You'd have to come up with some reason magical power isn't political power
like them ending up like Ethan if they get found out
except Ethan had been like that for decades before authorities caught up with him so what even...
I just don't see how something like the wizarding world ends up being the wizarding world. Or why demons would stay a secret. Or any of that masquerade stuff. Not if it disadvantages the powerful in any way. And if they are powerful then there's a different set of stories where they're already running things. And just...
Worldbuilding, I get stuck on it, but combining the logical world with the right assumptions about power and limits to make it work out that way and make it tell stories I think are interesting is just... a lot of moving parts.
I keep ending up with the unfortunate implications stuff instead.
Meh.
Like, the pureblood wizards were worried about blood status because they wanted wizard babies who grew up in a wizard culture. Which is reasonable, but the people being loudest about that stuff tend to be, like purebloods, very rude about every other sort of culture. Lots of racists worrying about their people not having enough babies, lots of bad eugenics stuff going on when you worry about heritability of ability.
Except, it's also a disability story? But the other way up? Like, the vast majority of people lack this one ability, and want to be treated fairly despite that lack of ability. From a wizarding point of view they have both sensory and mobility impairments, yesno? They can't sense magic or move it around? Not an exact comparison obviously, but all us poor muggles stuck not flying is like other mobility difficulties, just with a different point of view on what's standard. So tell the story one way and it is about the majority of people being treated like they're disabled and really not liking it. Readers would all start with the idea that of course mundanes should get to make their own decisions and live independently, so if they come to understand the disability comparison, they get an interesting empathy bridge.
A lot of poor treatment of different groups seems to have ableism in its roots. Like, when people say women or black people are inherently less capable, there's a good true argument to be made that they're not, and lots of stats around to prove it. Equal abilities when they get equal treatment, right? But the inequalities in treatment are partly based on the idea that it's fair to treat people worse if there's stuff they can't do. Which is ableist.
Like there was a thing in the news where a guy banned some disabled people from karaoke night because they can't sing. He said it wasn't about their disability, it was about the ability they didn't have. Which he considered a defence. Because it wasn't a prejudiced decision based on looking at them and deciding they'd sing bad, it was an informed decision based on not wanting to hear them sing any more. At least one person figured that was fair. But if you have to be good before you can sing karaoke then how do you get good? And how long is his banned list? Isn't the point just equal access, everyone can have fun singing, even if the amount of fun the listeners have is variable?
So, anyways, it seems to me if people fix this idea that people have to be good at stuff to be allowed stuff, then they'd fix a lot of the underpinning logics on several other isms.
But there are times you need a basic level of ability for safety, ie driving cars.
And muggles making laws about their own lives seems fine and fair, because they understand their own lives, but making laws about magic? Well that could be like blind society banning driving because they couldn't do it safely. But blind people on the whole do not want to ban driving? They take sighted people's word for it that they can see? There's tests too, obviously. Mostly done by sighted people. But repeatable tests. With results in formata blind people can check just as well. So that lets them make informed choices and good decisions, vis a vis other people doing things they personally could not.
Same with magic.
... except GURPS magic has an irreducible possibility of demon, every time a spell happens, though I've repeatedly got the math wrong on exactly what that chance is. Two 18s in a row on 3d6, I think. Nope, 17 is a crit fail if your effective skill is 15 or less, so sometimes a 17 or 18 followed by 18 gets demons. And actually lower numbers can crit too if your effective skill is seriously low. Even more demons!
Point being, there's a point past which everyone doing everything perfectly can't make magic safe. Luck can make a problem of a scale to be everyone's business.
I suppose you could say magic is only legal inside a Pentagram. Then a demon is only a problem for the caster, if they can't jump out fast enough.
GURPS magic is obviously only one set of assumptions, but you get very different stories if the population is against magic because it's something they canlt do, against magic because it's something they don't u derstand, or against magic because they understand it perfectly well but demons.
Obviously people could also be all for magic. Then you get the problems of having a set of uniquely useful people who are very much outnumbered.
I mean you could say everyone can do magic, but then demons a lot.
Also if spells are Hard or Very Hard and take a lot of studying before you can actually do anything much then the people who get good at it are going to be specialists with weird special interests.
The problem of staffing unpopular jobs is perennial, but unpopular dangerous work that only the highest IQ people are going to be able to achieve in full measure? Tricky.
There's a lot of sidetracks in setting the parameters.
The purebloods are scared of a condition where they are persecuted or die out because of muggle actions. Except in HP they're wrong, They've got no reasonable cause to think that will happen.
Okay, so, I also watch Buffy?
And in Buffy the only magic user we saw interact with the legal authorities was Ethan Rayne.
That did not work out well for him.
... other mages just kind of shrugged it off and broke walls out or similar, but, in theory, the regular authorities could and did detain magic users
and in one case kept him there until they got around to killing him.
They also had whole categories of people they had declared not-people because of their ancestry, deciding that any part demon meant humans could do as they pleased to them. ... and by 'they' I might mean the writers, because the assumptions about heroic conduct end with, you know, slaying, and that could be problematic.
But then in Angel there were demon lawyers who seemed to be running the place
so
in universe
magic users and descendents of magical beings
were both persecuted
and in charge.
Lot of different stories that way.
They also had no statute of secrecy and bumped along with people plain not believing.
Which seems unlikely given the scale and reliability of effects.
But
stories you could tell
purebloods see what happens to Ethan Rayne and figure they have some legit reasons for concern.
It gets awkward though because it's then
people with power feeling persecuted?
Bit like x men. Yeah the world hates and fears us, but at least we're hot chicks with superpowers. /buffyquote
I always want to yell at Buffy though. She goes on about how hard it is to be the Slayer and have all this demon stuff happen to her. But it happens to Cordelia? And a lot of other girls? Their town has a death rate? Because of this exact stuff? So Buffy is in neither more nor different danger than the next girl, if the next girl is Chase. The only difference is she has the power to survive it and fight back.
And you can do the 'with great power comes great responsibility' bit, but again, the same bad stuff is happening to everyone, so everyone has the same responsibility to do something about it, it would just be really handy if the ones with greater ability did a lot of it.
Like, absolutely everyone could volunteer to help proportional to their abilities, but some of them are going to be a lot more help if they do. That's not a Burden. That's just handy. They can put in the same effort to get further.
The bit where the Slayer is standing alone against the forces of darkness makes no sense.
There ought to be something like SHIELD if there's something to be the SHIELD against.
Except I want to yell at SHIELD too sometimes, because they're not standing between the world and the weirder world, there is only world, and everyone is living in it. Weird is people too. They're weird's SHIELD or they are no heroes. But then that's why Daisy etc are both SHIELD and weird, because SHIELD improving.
Also not best pleased at the argument that heroes are heroes because they risk death and losing people. I mean, the risk is there? A lot of people are experiencing risk? Especially if the risk is to an entire planet? But some people are getting armed and trained at serious time and money expense so they are better equipped to handle that. Or, they get some kind of upgrade, or are born different. Like, everyone is in the danger whether they like it or not, but some of them get better toolkits.
Obviously it matters that some people volunteer to head towards the screaming, it's just something about the way they talked about heroes bothers me, because it leaves out so much.
I think it's the assumption that danger happens Over There and is something you can go to and leave? Presence in danger is optional? But that is demonstrably not the story they are telling, so why are they talking like it is?
But I started out talking about magic users.
And then demons.
And now I'm thinking genres. Like, in the DC universe, Con Job exists, amd demons, and people selling their souls to demons. But most of the time most heroes live in their own genres? Until some great big crossover event where someone gives out candles or whatever. So like, John gets to live in a horror story, but everyone else wanders around like they don't. And mostly survives that? But only mostly. And when it goes wrong they call the specialists, even if that's the same people they complain about a lot when it is not going that specific variety of wrong.
So the place of magic on the DCU isn't regulated or repressed or particularly widely sought, it's just hanging out doing same things other heroes do, until they need to do different. Kind of like how Aquaman can fight lots of battles but is the only one who can do the undersea stuff on the big days. Magic is just a different setting with its own toolset. And some really big risks.
But
heritability and magic
was where I started.
So like
it bothers me that only one story is being told
the one where purebloods are worried magic will die out and they're wrong.
Because they're just being racist and really magical ability can come from anywhere.
Because there's another story, and that's where quite a lot of people would happily get rid of diability? Or neurodiversity, ways of thinking different but potentially just as well.
... I watched Alphas once and was not keen on how they used the words.
But there's a community of people who think different, perceive different, have different sensory perspectives, and do different things.
There's a story to be told if that community could fade away
same like the x men stories where someone 'cures' mutants
but instead of being in fear of newly emerged abilities
it's a fear of old stuff dying out
which... I don't know, some stories are so bad stuff adjacent that I don't know if you can cut the mouldy bits off?
Like I want to tell a story that's all neurodiversity yaay and supports minority cultures from the angle of sensory difference, but it's got so much in common with some racist stories I just... I don't know.
If I was from a culture or language group that really had been oppressed and was endangered then I'd have a very different perspective, but I'm white and English and we are, historically, the group being the danger, so at best I'm coming up with ideas I don't know a thing about.
I mean if you get all Star Trek attitude at traditional faerie or demon races then you have Story. But it's about people being people regardless of their outsides?
And if everyone is human wizards who look the same varieties as human non wizards, it's a different story, about ability.
About abilities they have but others don't.
Nope, still awkward.
Like you need to tell the story where the less able are just as worthy and valuable and entitled to self determination
but
I'm interested in the story where the more able are proving those things
but typically that, you know, works? Without an argument? Because they are powerful and can sort it out themselves?
So I keep finding interesting chewy bits
in a mouldy story
and it's frustrating and awkward.
I do not need to protect the rights of the aristocracy or worry about them dying out
I just keep on being interested in the stories of people who might need their rights protected and be in danger of dying out or losing their culture in the modern muddle
and some wizards very nearly almost resemble that.
If you turn them upside down, shake them, and ignore most of what falls out.
I am also interested in setting up proper systems that look after everyone:
do wizards and demons and faerie even get birth certificates? but they're British if they're born here, right? or is it that simples? But if they're British they're entitled to decent healthcare and a proper and well rounded education. Also financial support if they can't earn a living elsewhere for whatever reasons. All the basic stuff, you know? I don't know what a social worker would do for the demi monde but I'm sure they're entitled to get one to do it.
But it do keep bumping into that problem where the people with the power are the people who set up and influence the systems, so why wouldn't they be getting all the good stuff already?
You'd have to come up with some reason magical power isn't political power
like them ending up like Ethan if they get found out
except Ethan had been like that for decades before authorities caught up with him so what even...
I just don't see how something like the wizarding world ends up being the wizarding world. Or why demons would stay a secret. Or any of that masquerade stuff. Not if it disadvantages the powerful in any way. And if they are powerful then there's a different set of stories where they're already running things. And just...
Worldbuilding, I get stuck on it, but combining the logical world with the right assumptions about power and limits to make it work out that way and make it tell stories I think are interesting is just... a lot of moving parts.
I keep ending up with the unfortunate implications stuff instead.
Meh.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-05 09:47 pm (UTC)Do you know Doom Patrol or Titans? There was "The Bureau of Normalcy, formerly the Bureau of Oddities, is an organization dedicated to the weaponization or eradication of entities they deem to be odd. " Uncomfy thing. May be relevant to this post.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-16 10:53 pm (UTC)I have not watched those two shows and don't recall from comics.