waving hello
Dec. 2nd, 2021 07:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabetha determination to answer my comments just rebounds into not updating until I've answered my comments. *sigh*
they are good comments but I've been having some
answer with 🖖👍🌞
kinds of days.
so, answering comments is likely to wait a little more.
Today I had a 12 minute 'walk', marching on the spot while I watched three vids.
youtube shows ads in between every single vid, usually more than one ad.
that has passed the point of Useable.
I got grumpy because I forgot the last day of November was the last so I ended up in the region of ten minutes activity short of achieving my monthly challenge on my watch.
frustrating.
I have been re-reading fic...
I wrote some paragraphs that boil down to
why are no stories like this exact story I have in my head?
which, obviously, is because I did not write it
or find the fandoms that write similar stuff.
why if high school and university age people having all the adventures makes me so grumpy
do I watch and read
high school and university people having adventures?
an mystery.
Also most tv shows just have a very different idea of what they should be about than I do, so the longer they exist the less I click with them.
Except for, usually, Doctor Who
and Legends of Tomorrow, but I'm quite a bit behind on that due to waiting for DVDs.
For obvious reasons, most fic keeps the story 'verse the same, and just moves the characters around in it. They want to hang out in the world of the story they cared about enough to write it, but they also want these two guys in particular to kiss.
And cool, I have read so much of that. So so much.
But.
I keep getting frustrated because a lot a lot a lot of story 'verses have set ups where
the characters are fine, ish, doing their best
but the whole set up around them is wrong.
Like, I dont want to follow characters around while they do law enforcement,
I want them to get stuck in and fix the laws.
Which is... some of why I fixate on villains?
The ones with a plan to change things and shake things up tend to be villains
while a hero defends the status quo
or some idealised status quo ante that they never quite restore.
It's like, so many stories are about the proper use of power, but then they show people who actually use their power are always doing it wrong. Like the story wasnt about how to do SHIELD right as an international agency, it's about breaking it down so it's a Plucky Band Of Heroes again. Like being hugely out pnumbered is a moral necessity? Which seems rather anti democratic to me.
But then when for instance the Arrowverse does show systems being set up and laws being made, they are setting up a dystopia, and I'm not always sure how clear they are on that.
It's a bit like in the Pathfinder Adventure Path Curse of the Crimson Throne, you have an evil Queen, who got to the throne by talking the King into marrying her and then poisoning him. So you can run the story the monarchist way, where the problem is Evil and the solution is Good Queen, or you can run it like someone who actually likes democracy, where the problem is Queen and how having one cruel woman inherit from one gross guy can mean now everything in the whole city state is Bad. And since it is an rpg the approach you take is down to you and your table.
But.
The setting has many many kingdoms but only two democracies, one of them in a state of permanent revolution.
And the whole zero to hero arc built into the game mechanics makes an in universe case for power coming down to a small band of plucky heroes, because they can, for instance, cast wish, by the time they're done.
But one thing I want more stories to notice is how often they're about ablism.
Like, in universe Pureblood stuff isnt wizard racism, it's wizard ablism. Racism often has an ablist argument underpinning it, like its racist suggesting that skin color correlates with reduced ability, but that wouldnt be a compelling argument to anyone if there wasnt also a belief that certain abilities are Better and should be In Charge.
If the baseline idea is ability has very little to do with if you 'should' decide your own life, if free will and self determination matter no matter what the assorted ability levels, then the racist layer doesnt gain anything by calling people less able.
nothing about us without us.
A lot of my favourite stories have vast differences in ability between individuals. The experience of a mundane or even badass normal in a world of superheroes or supernaturals is kind of like being disabled in a world set up with baseline assumptions you cannot meet. It feels like the right scale to tell that. But. Then the story is about the supers. And very often, plot armour and protagonist privilege mean the story is about the supers always being right.
Especially vs everyone else saying 'maybe you should not do that to us'.
Whatever the that is, if they're saying it to the hero, they're likely to be wrong and the story will act like we shouldnt have listened to them.
Kind of a problem.
If I bring a Star Trek sensibility to most of these supernatural shows, things start looking bad fast, because the baseline on for instance Buffy the Vampire Slayer is that vampires need staked for being vampires, even fresh out of the grave, and really, there are some very bad words for that.
But providing other solutions kind of takes it into an SF genre attitude even when you're still using horror story names for everyone.
I'm sure there are better stories around and its just me being vague and grumpy that makes them feel the same
but if 'horror monsters' like vampires and werewolves are approached as people with a different and urgent set of medical and accessability needs... well then you dont get the genre staple responses.
Being SF isnt enough to fix things on its own, obvs.
I can get frustrated at how Stargate set out a problem with the goa'uld and then decided the only solution was to kill them all. I know, it is mil sf, it shoots things and blows them up, but... *sigh*
There's an opportunity to take alien life cycles and use them to defamiliarise and question the basis of our own value sets. Like, the goa'uld's whole problem can be argued to have a biological base, but not just with the brain sharing thing. Humans have few offspring and care for them intensively, and kind of make that their moral baseline. Must care for individuals, in both practical and emotional ways.
Goa'uld have many many many offspring at once. There are not enough minutes in the day to treat them like humans treat their children. Plus with genetic memory they kind of dont have to? Young ones are physically vulnerable but once they're old enough to gran a brain to use they will wake up as a functioning adult. So what does good look like to a goa'uld? What would be the basis of their morality?
Caring for one individual to the exclusion of many others could be the basis of *evil*, not good.
But then they plug in to human brains and find a vastly incompatible moral framework
and you can read a lot of how the system lords do things as a result of the clash.
Maybe goa'uld good looks like making the environment a great place to swim in. Maybe the only way to care for a thousand offspring is to care for everyone at once.
You could write it that way.
Lots of ways out along that path, no booms.
Seeing them requires a willingness to see other people's needs are different than ours
and that's okay.
And like, there was only ever one Tok'ra host from Earth? And that makes no sense. Sure it's a major investment, but the health benefits are myriad and inimitable.
Plus it's the ultimate in needing support, right? Needing a whole body to get around in. Its just there's ways and ways to do that, so they get time for their stuff too.
I'm not being very focused. and I think I've said all this before. oh well.
The story I'm kind of writing doesnt adress much if any of this? It's just getting one set of characters through an adventure module. Good start, not a whole epic.
It would take something pretty epic to shift the worlds the ways I'm thinking.
Storytelling, not Masquerade! Say no to sevarfrith! Everyone to decide how their world works together, including social workers and teachers who know something other than fireball!
... I just got very sidetracked trying to check my spelling on the Young Wizards astafrith/sevarfrith thing. Without success.
The whole secret world hardly anyone knows about thing means the baseline background world hasnt diverged from our own, so its easy, but its *wrong*.
Cannot make good choices on bad data. Down with disinformation.
... at the same time I am sure I dont mean 'unmask the masquerade'. lot of vulnerable individuals that way.
And in most superhero worlds the problem isnt secrecy as such, it's unaccountability, in too many directions. So. Not simple.
So for someone who sat down thinking I did not have many words I wrote a whole lot of words right there.
But it's frustratingly difficult to get them to add up to good story, rather than ongoing grumble.
I shall think more.
they are good comments but I've been having some
answer with 🖖👍🌞
kinds of days.
so, answering comments is likely to wait a little more.
Today I had a 12 minute 'walk', marching on the spot while I watched three vids.
youtube shows ads in between every single vid, usually more than one ad.
that has passed the point of Useable.
I got grumpy because I forgot the last day of November was the last so I ended up in the region of ten minutes activity short of achieving my monthly challenge on my watch.
frustrating.
I have been re-reading fic...
I wrote some paragraphs that boil down to
why are no stories like this exact story I have in my head?
which, obviously, is because I did not write it
or find the fandoms that write similar stuff.
why if high school and university age people having all the adventures makes me so grumpy
do I watch and read
high school and university people having adventures?
an mystery.
Also most tv shows just have a very different idea of what they should be about than I do, so the longer they exist the less I click with them.
Except for, usually, Doctor Who
and Legends of Tomorrow, but I'm quite a bit behind on that due to waiting for DVDs.
For obvious reasons, most fic keeps the story 'verse the same, and just moves the characters around in it. They want to hang out in the world of the story they cared about enough to write it, but they also want these two guys in particular to kiss.
And cool, I have read so much of that. So so much.
But.
I keep getting frustrated because a lot a lot a lot of story 'verses have set ups where
the characters are fine, ish, doing their best
but the whole set up around them is wrong.
Like, I dont want to follow characters around while they do law enforcement,
I want them to get stuck in and fix the laws.
Which is... some of why I fixate on villains?
The ones with a plan to change things and shake things up tend to be villains
while a hero defends the status quo
or some idealised status quo ante that they never quite restore.
It's like, so many stories are about the proper use of power, but then they show people who actually use their power are always doing it wrong. Like the story wasnt about how to do SHIELD right as an international agency, it's about breaking it down so it's a Plucky Band Of Heroes again. Like being hugely out pnumbered is a moral necessity? Which seems rather anti democratic to me.
But then when for instance the Arrowverse does show systems being set up and laws being made, they are setting up a dystopia, and I'm not always sure how clear they are on that.
It's a bit like in the Pathfinder Adventure Path Curse of the Crimson Throne, you have an evil Queen, who got to the throne by talking the King into marrying her and then poisoning him. So you can run the story the monarchist way, where the problem is Evil and the solution is Good Queen, or you can run it like someone who actually likes democracy, where the problem is Queen and how having one cruel woman inherit from one gross guy can mean now everything in the whole city state is Bad. And since it is an rpg the approach you take is down to you and your table.
But.
The setting has many many kingdoms but only two democracies, one of them in a state of permanent revolution.
And the whole zero to hero arc built into the game mechanics makes an in universe case for power coming down to a small band of plucky heroes, because they can, for instance, cast wish, by the time they're done.
But one thing I want more stories to notice is how often they're about ablism.
Like, in universe Pureblood stuff isnt wizard racism, it's wizard ablism. Racism often has an ablist argument underpinning it, like its racist suggesting that skin color correlates with reduced ability, but that wouldnt be a compelling argument to anyone if there wasnt also a belief that certain abilities are Better and should be In Charge.
If the baseline idea is ability has very little to do with if you 'should' decide your own life, if free will and self determination matter no matter what the assorted ability levels, then the racist layer doesnt gain anything by calling people less able.
nothing about us without us.
A lot of my favourite stories have vast differences in ability between individuals. The experience of a mundane or even badass normal in a world of superheroes or supernaturals is kind of like being disabled in a world set up with baseline assumptions you cannot meet. It feels like the right scale to tell that. But. Then the story is about the supers. And very often, plot armour and protagonist privilege mean the story is about the supers always being right.
Especially vs everyone else saying 'maybe you should not do that to us'.
Whatever the that is, if they're saying it to the hero, they're likely to be wrong and the story will act like we shouldnt have listened to them.
Kind of a problem.
If I bring a Star Trek sensibility to most of these supernatural shows, things start looking bad fast, because the baseline on for instance Buffy the Vampire Slayer is that vampires need staked for being vampires, even fresh out of the grave, and really, there are some very bad words for that.
But providing other solutions kind of takes it into an SF genre attitude even when you're still using horror story names for everyone.
I'm sure there are better stories around and its just me being vague and grumpy that makes them feel the same
but if 'horror monsters' like vampires and werewolves are approached as people with a different and urgent set of medical and accessability needs... well then you dont get the genre staple responses.
Being SF isnt enough to fix things on its own, obvs.
I can get frustrated at how Stargate set out a problem with the goa'uld and then decided the only solution was to kill them all. I know, it is mil sf, it shoots things and blows them up, but... *sigh*
There's an opportunity to take alien life cycles and use them to defamiliarise and question the basis of our own value sets. Like, the goa'uld's whole problem can be argued to have a biological base, but not just with the brain sharing thing. Humans have few offspring and care for them intensively, and kind of make that their moral baseline. Must care for individuals, in both practical and emotional ways.
Goa'uld have many many many offspring at once. There are not enough minutes in the day to treat them like humans treat their children. Plus with genetic memory they kind of dont have to? Young ones are physically vulnerable but once they're old enough to gran a brain to use they will wake up as a functioning adult. So what does good look like to a goa'uld? What would be the basis of their morality?
Caring for one individual to the exclusion of many others could be the basis of *evil*, not good.
But then they plug in to human brains and find a vastly incompatible moral framework
and you can read a lot of how the system lords do things as a result of the clash.
Maybe goa'uld good looks like making the environment a great place to swim in. Maybe the only way to care for a thousand offspring is to care for everyone at once.
You could write it that way.
Lots of ways out along that path, no booms.
Seeing them requires a willingness to see other people's needs are different than ours
and that's okay.
And like, there was only ever one Tok'ra host from Earth? And that makes no sense. Sure it's a major investment, but the health benefits are myriad and inimitable.
Plus it's the ultimate in needing support, right? Needing a whole body to get around in. Its just there's ways and ways to do that, so they get time for their stuff too.
I'm not being very focused. and I think I've said all this before. oh well.
The story I'm kind of writing doesnt adress much if any of this? It's just getting one set of characters through an adventure module. Good start, not a whole epic.
It would take something pretty epic to shift the worlds the ways I'm thinking.
Storytelling, not Masquerade! Say no to sevarfrith! Everyone to decide how their world works together, including social workers and teachers who know something other than fireball!
... I just got very sidetracked trying to check my spelling on the Young Wizards astafrith/sevarfrith thing. Without success.
The whole secret world hardly anyone knows about thing means the baseline background world hasnt diverged from our own, so its easy, but its *wrong*.
Cannot make good choices on bad data. Down with disinformation.
... at the same time I am sure I dont mean 'unmask the masquerade'. lot of vulnerable individuals that way.
And in most superhero worlds the problem isnt secrecy as such, it's unaccountability, in too many directions. So. Not simple.
So for someone who sat down thinking I did not have many words I wrote a whole lot of words right there.
But it's frustratingly difficult to get them to add up to good story, rather than ongoing grumble.
I shall think more.
no subject
Date: 2021-12-03 10:37 am (UTC)a. replying to comments is interactive communication with individuals, which requires not only brain, but social brain and conversation. Should be distinct from posting, which requires just thoughts into words and willingness to make those public.
b. PSA - Ublock Origin and privacy badger are helpful against yt ads. I use both simultaneously, so I don't know which one is more effective in isolation.
no subject
Date: 2021-12-04 02:46 pm (UTC)a. indeed
b. I use adblock on my computers, but my 'smart' tv just has apps. Good for bbc iplayer, increasingly useless at anything else.
no subject
Date: 2021-12-06 12:08 am (UTC)On my tv, I totally blank out when ads come on, but if there's too many, I go watch it on normal browser.
OTOH, yt have these little questionnaires. which of these ads have you seen? do you know these brands? I systematically answer 'none of the above'. If they're gonna put ads in the middle and not just the edges of a vid, I'm absolutely not acknowledging recognition of the fucking brand.