- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh right, damn nasty memetic Abyssal infections.
An Imago of Rust and Crimson (Worm crossover)
- Thread starter EarthScorpion
- Start date
Oh right, damn nasty memetic Abyssal infections.
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
By the way, how many noticed -
"Oh. Right. Other Place. A moment later, it turned out to say
Username: blackwellj
Password: jngpu9bhg"
A big fat nine there. Much less fancy then normal this time, but it's in the real world.
"Oh. Right. Other Place. A moment later, it turned out to say
Username: blackwellj
Password: jngpu9bhg"
A big fat nine there. Much less fancy then normal this time, but it's in the real world.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
The password is 9 characters long, too.
That's basically what you get when a work is constructed from the ground up to convey a certain theme and mood.
See, most people don't actually sit down and think long and hard how to weave themes throughout the work. Most people just... write. They think about what the scenes they want to see are, they might plan out a story arc if they're not just writing off the cuff, they decide the roles of the characters and where they want them to end the story at, and that's about it. This results in thematic inconsistencies and a variable tone which jumps around a lot.
Imago goes rather further. I know Imago's genre - it's made of horror and cyberpunk narrative conventions. I know its aesthetic - the aesthetic mixes certain kinds of horror with a sort of street level superhero look. I know how I'm using both the horror and cyberpunk genre, and where certain aspects apply. I have a whole set of recurring motifs which appear in scenes. I'm a fan of psychological horror - which is precisely why Taylor's horror power essentially realifies and externalises psychological horror. When I write a scene, I'm constantly considering whether it fits the overall themes and mood. Even little things like the weather in the scene is something I'm actively making use of - the pathetic fallacy is in full use here.
This does, of course, mean that if you find the mood oppressive and the themes rather darker, it might be rather hard going because these things saturate the entire work. Sorry.
As for the plot? This is something very personal to me, because essentially I have very good natural pattern recognition skills. I get bored very quickly if I can predict where a story is going to go - and I'm good at reading cues and putting data together. I therefore structure my plots so they wouldn't bore me from "I know exactly where this is going". If you've read my other things, you might have guessed that I am not a friend to the stations of canon. Because I swiftly grow bored if I know things are chained to canon and I write on the assumption that others will grow bored too. I pretty much always extensively rewrite settings, at least in part because things get dull if the readers feel sure they know what's going on.
Uncertainty is necessary for tension - a rule which holds equally true in both comedy and horror, incidentally.
(At least I'm trying to make sure I don't repeat my pacing mistakes from Arc 2 and early Arc 3. Which also make people grow bored.)
- Location
- Massachusetts
That's basically what you get when a work is constructed from the ground up to convey a certain theme and mood.
See, most people don't actually sit down and think long and hard how to weave themes throughout the work. Most people just... write. They think about what the scenes they want to see are, they might plan out a story arc if they're not just writing off the cuff, they decide the roles of the characters and where they want them to end the story at, and that's about it. This results in thematic inconsistencies and a variable tone which jumps around a lot.
Imago goes rather further. I know Imago's genre - it's made of horror and cyberpunk narrative conventions. I know its aesthetic - the aesthetic mixes certain kinds of horror with a sort of street level superhero look. I know how I'm using both the horror and cyberpunk genre, and where certain aspects apply. I have a whole set of recurring motifs which appear in scenes. I'm a fan of psychological horror - which is precisely why Taylor's horror power essentially realifies and externalises psychological horror. When I write a scene, I'm constantly considering whether it fits the overall themes and mood. Even little things like the weather in the scene is something I'm actively making use of - the pathetic fallacy is in full use here.
This does, of course, mean that if you find the mood oppressive and the themes rather darker, it might be rather hard going because these things saturate the entire work. Sorry.
As for the plot? This is something very personal to me, because essentially I have very good natural pattern recognition skills. I get bored very quickly if I can predict where a story is going to go - and I'm good at reading cues and putting data together. I therefore structure my plots so they wouldn't bore me from "I know exactly where this is going". If you've read my other things, you might have guessed that I am not a friend to the stations of canon. Because I swiftly grow bored if I know things are chained to canon and I write on the assumption that others will grow bored too. I pretty much always extensively rewrite settings, at least in part because things get dull if the readers feel sure they know what's going on.
Uncertainty is necessary for tension - a rule which holds equally true in both comedy and horror, incidentally.
(At least I'm trying to make sure I don't repeat my pacing mistakes from Arc 2 and early Arc 3. Which also make people grow bored.)
So you don't just post chapters that appear overnight written in blood on your wall composed by the crystallized eldritch horror that is embedded in the back of your skull?
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oi mate! @EarthScorpion is a self-respecting Hermetic and spends hours conjuring his inner Goetia and binding them to the pages of of this thread, unlike those stupid Hollow Ones who couldn't conjure a damned hat if their lives depended on it!
Carrnage
Human
- Location
- New Zealand
Well international trade is down the shitter due to monsters.
Why do you think that? The post you quoted could have appeared the same way.
It's traditional to mark things as being an alternate universe by putting in zeppelins to show how different things are.
I instead made Detroit still an industrial hub and somewhere that has jobs.
- Location
- Canada
I actually love psych horror in movies and short stories, but in long form fiction it's harder to swallow.This does, of course, mean that if you find the mood oppressive and the themes rather darker, it might be rather hard going because these things saturate the entire work. Sorry.
I really wish there were more fanfiction authors that treat AU the way you do. I've browsed your other works but I'm not familiar with the source material for most of them. Mass Effect I am familiar with but I don't really like reading fan fiction from it. The games had great story lines for games, but compared to a good SciFi novel? Meh.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'm currently working on an Alternate Universe Worm-thing, though I'm still planning out the specific length of the story and the themes I want to be in focus as well as some setting details.
More on topic, @EarthScorpion is a really good writer, who has a huge breadth of stuff he can call on when he needs inspiration for his themes, he likes psych horror, so he will draw on the metric fucktonnes of psych horror he has read (and seen, and played...). This allows him to do a more nuanced and interesting world, when combined with his prodigious writing skills.
I've sometimes wondered if that's a product of my pen-and-paper RPG background. I tend to treat "canon" as a jumping off point - as effectively a sourcebook - from which I build the story I want to write. A normal thing of running RPGs is making up shit to fill in gaps, whether that's new characters, new locations, or new storylines.
I wonder if that's a more general thing.
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Comedy gold, both of these.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I think? Or maybe a more nWoD thing? Like, I prefer to have a jump-off point, but I can totally make new shit up all the time.
You have a background heavily immersed in nWoD and Exalted. The first of those, tends to emphasize creative ability and treating the setting like you want, while the other emphasizes a focus on consequences and thinking of the bigger picture. Maybe this will have influenced your disposition somewhat.
I'll admit, that I certainly have been influenced by my pen-and-paper background. Like, when I read about the Yangban, my first thought was "WHY HAVEN'T THEY TRIGGERED AN INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT YET!?" And by then I had basically lost the ability to take Worm seriously.
A spooky scary fascist Chinese brainwashed cape army that all share the same powers because they're evil fascists!
The horrooooor!
Probably. RPGs do encourage creativity and tweaking of the setting to suit your needs over canon. I mean, the protagonists of role-playing games are typically a bunch of OCs by default, which is a big departure from fanfiction conventions right there.
It also helps that your auditory is usually just a bunch of your friends whose tastes you know, so it's much easier to anticipate the reaction to changes than it would be with wider auditory. Plus, you share a pre-existing bond, while fanfiction readers and writers typically have only love for the source material in common, which helps smooth over potentially controversial changes.
Then there is the spontaneous nature of games since players can always do something unexpected or asks questions about things their character should logically know but that aren't detailed in the source material or generally wander off the rails, in which case making shit up is pretty much inevitable if you don't want to break the flow of the game.
Such factors, combined, do result in an attitude where canon-compliance is somewhere at the bottom of priorities compared to shared fun and catering to specific tastes of a given group.
- Location
- Austria
I probably don't understand what "horror" is, but the feelings invoked were close to, for example, those from blind binge of NGE. Psychological, tense, uncomfortable, weird - sure, but I am not sure whether it qualifies as horror.
The thing to remember about Worm is that its goal was to rationalize Marvel-esque comic book universe into something having semblance of reason, not make coherent and internally consistent setting.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
In what world or universe is fascist superhero squad who all share the same powers due to plot device powers in any way reasonable?
Though granted, they are rather amusing.
- Location
- Austria
In a world of giant multidimensional space whale-polyps-things who can emulate and predict universe with at least atomic precision at will and still seek "creativity" of puny bald apes who can't even think in more than 3 dimensions.
Wildbro did try to bring reason to Marvel-esque settings; such endeavor is doomed from the beginning.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I can take the Entities seriously because they at least admit that they are completely fucking bullshit by all measures, and also magical space aliens.
Meanwhile, the Yangban are still supposed to be people, and the sequence of events that has led to their creation, is incredibly contrived and comes off as rather silly. The fact that they haven't caused any international incidents with their kidnapping of capes from other countries is even more hilarious.
Though I can tolerate their presence by virtue of not being as infuriating as the continued existence of Saint, or his Heavenly Sword of Plot-Enforcement.
- Location
- Austria
Simurgh, Contessa, Number Man and Scion are in-universe walking multidimensional Ruby Goldberg devices of arbitrary complexity level as demanded by plot. However contrived and silly is X, at least Simurgh can arrange it in all cases which don't involve Scion or Eidolon. And it can be argued that even Scion's death was her plot all along.
As long as there is multiverse-predicting with atomic precision, nothing is too silly to not be handwaved by "Simurgh/Contessa/Scion/Eden/Abaddon did it". Hence why I mentioned Entities: they are so broken every single inconsistency in setting can be traced back to them being broken aka "prediction shards are that bullshit".
Kinda curious what ES intends to do with it all though.
- Location
- Spain
The problem here is having hyper-precise precognition in the first place. That thing is narrative poison.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I could take Worm seriously when it was street level, if you ask me or @EarthScorpion for that sake if I remember his preferences correctly.
Let's stop at "As long as there is multiverse-predicting with atomic precision", and solve the problem with "there isn't".
Tadah! Functional setting where everyone isn't a chump that has been manipulated from behind the scenes!
Burn it, like the poison it is probably.
Sasha
Not the Leader
- Location
- The Ever After
I can't claim to know ES' plans, but I get the sense that most of the endgame stuff from Worm (Simurgh, Number Man, Contessa, Scion, etc.) won't really play a visible part in Imago. It just doesn't jive well with the themes I've seen so far, and ES just mentioned how important such things are to him when writing.