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Samedi (Worm Altpower)

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So... Essentially Deadpool Voodoo version, with fourth wall breaking meta narrative? Interesting concept, even if I would have preferred a more straight forward approach. This seems to open you up too the issue of mistakes no longer being possible, and Taylor having to act perfectly and anything less would be considered an idiot ball moment for purely forced or fabricated reasons.

Edit: also, wtf is wrong with this website, it CONSTANTLY crashes my iPads web browser, it's getting really fucking annoying.
 
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shinkicker444 said:
So... Essentially Deadpool Voodoo version, with fourth wall breaking meta narrative? Interesting concept, even if I would have preferred a more straight forward approach. This seems to open you up too the issue of mistakes no longer being possible, and Taylor having to act perfectly and anything less would be considered an idiot ball moment for purely forced or fabricated reasons.
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Well, sort of, I guess. Taylor and company never break 4th wall. The only one shuttling back and forth between the fictional and real worlds is the baron. Her story within the fictional world mirrors or parallels the meta-narrative, rather than actually being part of it.
 
SquirrelZombie said:
Okay, here it is. I don't have any reason to hide what was going on any more.

The story of Bourbon Street is about Taylor becoming possessed by Baron Samedi, who, while being the Loa of death and resurrection, also represents a threat to the established order, and the breakdown of social structure. He's a figure of fun and partying and being irresponsible. He's the part of the human psyche that looks at death and says, ok, nothing I can do about it, let's have a party.

In the story, Taylor gets crazier and crazier. Her power is fucking with her head. She is having a hard time keeping herself sane.

In the story that's surrounding the story, the character of me, the author of the thread, is obviously playing a little game with everyone where he's pretending to speak as the baron. What's going on behind the scenes, but still in character, is that he's slowly losing it. He's becoming obsessed by the story he's writing, being taken over more and more by the Baron, until he gives in and throws in the towel.

Then, because the Baron is not satisfied with the Bourbon Street story ending where it did, he hops bodies. Because one of the things that loa do is possess willing people. They get some benefits, such as better luck or health or inspiration, and the loa get to live it up in their physical bodies, and enjoy the physical world. That's part of why Samedi loves to drink and smoke and fuck and swear. Because a lot of the time, he can't.

This dichotomy is represented in the lower level story by Taylor's popping back and forth to the street. In the street, she's Taylor, she's herself, but everything is muted. Colors, tastes, everything.

So, when the Baron gets fed up with me being unable or unwilling to continue the story, he pops on over to Seylerius and continues it anyway.

Oh, another important thing is that Baron Samedi is a psychopomp- that is, a god specializing in helping ferry mortals around from one plane of existence to another. He's all about breaking barriers, smashing through taboos. If any god could jump between fiction and reality, it'd be a god like the Baron.

I hope that helps.
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Uh...okay. Normally I'm much more on the ball than this, but I totally missed all that. :p
 
SquirrelZombie said:
Okay, here it is. I don't have any reason to hide what was going on any more.

The story of Bourbon Street is about Taylor becoming possessed by Baron Samedi, who, while being the Loa of death and resurrection, also represents a threat to the established order, and the breakdown of social structure. He's a figure of fun and partying and being irresponsible. He's the part of the human psyche that looks at death and says, ok, nothing I can do about it, let's have a party.

In the story, Taylor gets crazier and crazier. Her power is fucking with her head. She is having a hard time keeping herself sane.

In the story that's surrounding the story, the character of me, the author of the thread, is obviously playing a little game with everyone where he's pretending to speak as the baron. What's going on behind the scenes, but still in character, is that he's slowly losing it. He's becoming obsessed by the story he's writing, being taken over more and more by the Baron, until he gives in and throws in the towel.

Then, because the Baron is not satisfied with the Bourbon Street story ending where it did, he hops bodies. Because one of the things that loa do is possess willing people. They get some benefits, such as better luck or health or inspiration, and the loa get to live it up in their physical bodies, and enjoy the physical world. That's part of why Samedi loves to drink and smoke and fuck and swear. Because a lot of the time, he can't.

This dichotomy is represented in the lower level story by Taylor's popping back and forth to the street. In the street, she's Taylor, she's herself, but everything is muted. Colors, tastes, everything.

So, when the Baron gets fed up with me being unable or unwilling to continue the story, he pops on over to Seylerius and continues it anyway.

Oh, another important thing is that Baron Samedi is a psychopomp- that is, a god specializing in helping ferry mortals around from one plane of existence to another. He's all about breaking barriers, smashing through taboos. If any god could jump between fiction and reality, it'd be a god like the Baron.

I hope that helps.
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Well, I guess I commend you for trying to experiment with the medium. It's certainly a neat idea in principle.

That said, you may notice I don't sound very enthused. Frankly, I think you failed in the execution. Like, my first instinctual, emotional reaction was 'That's so pretentious', and I think I have above average tolerance for pretentiousness. Also, the setup with the 'I don't know anymore' post was problematic, because at that point my interest tanked. I don't think that's the intended experience.

Also, unless you have some deeper/more meta level incorporation that explanation, it feels too early. That's the sort of thing you post after the story is over, not straight after the introduction. Seriously, that's like revealing the murderer at the end of the second chapter. It's weird. Mind, I might well have stopped reading before that point, so it might've been a good idea after all.

Finally, I want to repeat that I really do appreciate the intention. I want to like this more than I do. I hope this feedback helps in future works.
 
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dz1 said:
Uh...okay. Normally I'm much more on the ball than this, but I totally missed all that. :p
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Oh, here's some more hidden stuff that's been going on just out of sight behind the scenes. Most of you should have figured out by now that Taylor has some sort of master power associated with her eyes, or vision, or locking gaze with someone, right?

Well, what's happening here is that her connection to the Baron is opening her victim up to the knowledge of ultimate reality. It's an existential crisis power. Then that victim's attitude towards her changes based on the character's attitude toward death. Since she represents death, their feelings about their own inevitable demise get transferred to her.

Sophia is ultimately a coward. Her power lets her run away. She triggered after being made into a victim, which is why she has the predator/prey thing. But she's never actually fixed the problems in her psyche, just plastered over them with bullshit. Taylor ripped off the plaster, and Sophia had nothing left to fight with. That's why she just froze.

Piggot gets angry at death. She becomes enraged, disgusted, contemptuous. This is why she thinks of Taylor as an S-class threat without a good reason.

Danny shuts down. He becomes depressed and listless and unable to function. This is why he is silent and just goes along with shit for the first part of the story. Things don't start to change for him until he triggers.

I've planned out a bunch of similar reactions for most of the other characters in the fic, but I'm not going to explain them all.

Leave me some few mysteries at least.
 
SquirrelZombie said:
Goddamnit Baron, stop it. I've taken enough of your shit these last few days.
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*puffs some cigar smoke out of his ears*

Come again? All I heard was:

BurnNote said:
Also, unless you have some deeper/more meta level incorporation that explanation, it feels too early.
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*steeples his fingers*

Oh really? Your feedback is appreciated.

SquirrelZombie said:
Leave me some few mysteries at least.
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Oh STAHP...
 
BurnNote said:
Well, I guess I commend you for trying to experiment with the medium. It's certainly a neat idea in principle.

That said, you may notice I don't sound very enthused. Frankly, I think you failed in the execution. Like, my first instinctual, emotional reaction was 'That's so pretentious', and I think I have above average tolerance for pretentiousness. Also, the setup with the 'I don't know anymore' post was problematic, because at that point my interest tanked. I don't think that's the intended experience.

Also, unless you have some deeper/more meta level incorporation that explanation, it feels too early. That's the sort of thing you post after the story is over, not straight after the introduction. Seriously, that's like revealing the murderer at the end of the second chapter. It's weird. Mind, I might well have stopped reading before that point, so it might've been a good idea after all.

Finally, I want to repeat that I really do appreciate the intention. I want to like this more than I do. I hope this feedback helps in future works.
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I do appreciate the feedback. I knew it was going to be problematic for some readers. My intention was to have the two tracks running in parallel, so those who didn't want to engage with the meta-nonsense wouldn't have to.

You may well be right about the timing of the resignation letter. I don't know, this is my first time trying something like this, and like I said, it's largely improvisational. The meta-narrative part is taking a back seat from here on out, although I doubt it will ever really go away.

If you're enjoying the other storyline, feel free to skip the other bullshit.

And thanks again for your honest, considerate criticism.

Oh, one final bit of the meta explanation. This one is a bit philosophical, and it really is something I do actually struggle with personally.

Stories are bullshit.

Narrative itself is an artificial abstraction, the shapes of which are designed to lie to us about the real nature of reality.

We create these things for lots of reasons- to teach lessons, to try to understand our own motivations, to find a way to move through the world a little easier.

Each one of us is building a story about ourselves all the time. And none of them are true. They're all colored by wishful thinking and self-delusion and self-distraction.

And death is the thing that cuts right through it.

That's what the Taylor/Emma scene is about.

And I'm sorry if that sounds pretentious. It probably is. I'm a pretty pretentious person.

But this is a serious issue for me philosophically, and it's one I've never found a satisfactory answer for, and part of this exercise was to try to work through some of these ideas in an entertaining way.

I'm sure I could have done a better job than I have. This is a first draft after all.

But if this exercise has had some value for anyone, if it has made someone think about things they wouldn't have otherwise, then it was a better use of my time this past week than watching Netflix and eating ice cream

Which is what I would've been doing otherwise.
 
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I twigged to the tune but I've been kaleidoscopic the last week or so. No way that would have gotten by me. Personally, well played.
 
Hotdog Vendor said:
I suppose. Now I know what it's like to have a joke explained to me after completely missing its existence.
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I wouldn't worry about it too much. The only people who were really catching on were the ones who were directly interacting with me a fair amount. There were a bunch of pretty big thematic hints that I dropped in the middle of pretty low rated comments. I'm pretty sure I know the exact comment that clued in Dancingrage.

SquirrelZombie said:
I wouldn't worry about it too much. The only people who were really catching on were the ones who were directly interacting with me a fair amount. There were a bunch of pretty big thematic hints that I dropped in the middle of pretty low rated comments. I'm pretty sure I know the exact comment that clued in Dancingrage.
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In hindsight I should have known the joke would fall relatively flat. It was only going to be funny to the handful of people who were paying close attention already anyway. I should never have threadmarked it. It would have flown under the radar to most, but been caught by those who would have gotten it.

Those of you who enjoyed it, I'm glad. Those of you who didn't, I'm sorry. And that's going to be my final word on the matter for the time being.
 
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I would have missed it because I don't generally read most comments in between chapters. I didn't really think it was that funny, but didn't think it was bad either, just mildly interesting. Would like to see a more traditional take on the story without the meta narrative just Taylor with the Barons powers if you ever feel like writing that. Since the meta stuff now will run the chance of overshadowing the actual story.
 
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SquirrelZombie said:
Oh, here's some more hidden stuff that's been going on just out of sight behind the scenes. Most of you should have figured out by now that Taylor has some sort of master power associated with her eyes, or vision, or locking gaze with someone, right?

Well, what's happening here is that her connection to the Baron is opening her victim up to the knowledge of ultimate reality. It's an existential crisis power. Then that victim's attitude towards her changes based on the character's attitude toward death. Since she represents death, their feelings about their own inevitable demise get transferred to her.

Sophia is ultimately a coward. Her power lets her run away. She triggered after being made into a victim, which is why she has the predator/prey thing. But she's never actually fixed the problems in her psyche, just plastered over them with bullshit. Taylor ripped off the plaster, and Sophia had nothing left to fight with. That's why she just froze.

Piggot gets angry at death. She becomes enraged, disgusted, contemptuous. This is why she thinks of Taylor as an S-class threat without a good reason.

Danny shuts down. He becomes depressed and listless and unable to function. This is why he is silent and just goes along with shit for the first part of the story. Things don't start to change for him until he triggers.

I've planned out a bunch of similar reactions for most of the other characters in the fic, but I'm not going to explain them all.

Leave me some few mysteries at least.
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Honestly I don't miss Danny at all.........he either drags a story along, or is actually helpful. Him triggering just leads me to think that he wont do anything but stalk Taylor since he's been a pretty shitty father. But whatevas........waiting for more!:p
 
*drags industrial-grade fan to suck all the smoke out of the room* right, now that I can breath again.....

I think that for a first try at this sort of thing, it wasn't that bad. A bit unpolished, and for people not fully-engaged with the story it didn't stand much of a chance of getting picked up on, but that's prolly just because I'm an almost obsessively literal person and projecting that on everyone else. ^^

For me, the fun part of the story is seeing where it goes. The meta is almost entirely ignored, because for the most part I don't read those things. I was damned lucky to have just logged in a minute after your resignation letter to even see that before the big NOPE! post. And, by the by, thank you for the kind words about it.

I suppose my point is that you were sorta telling this as if you had a live studio audience to perform to, people who were fully attentive and watching everything you did. A lot of us just weren't doing that, and thus missed the meta-points to make things less utterly bewildering. Like I said, a good first try, and I have no doubts at all that you'd do better next time. ^.^
 
Vyrexuviel said:
*drags industrial-grade fan to suck all the smoke out of the room* right, now that I can breath again.....

I think that for a first try at this sort of thing, it wasn't that bad. A bit unpolished, and for people not fully-engaged with the story it didn't stand much of a chance of getting picked up on, but that's prolly just because I'm an almost obsessively literal person and projecting that on everyone else. ^^

For me, the fun part of the story is seeing where it goes. The meta is almost entirely ignored, because for the most part I don't read those things. I was damned lucky to have just logged in a minute after your resignation letter to even see that before the big NOPE! post. And, by the by, thank you for the kind words about it.

I suppose my point is that you were sorta telling this as if you had a live studio audience to perform to, people who were fully attentive and watching everything you did. A lot of us just weren't doing that, and thus missed the meta-points to make things less utterly bewildering. Like I said, a good first try, and I have no doubts at all that you'd do better next time. ^.^
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Thanks for clearing the air.

I think you're exactly right. I was absolutely doing that. I read very closely those things that I care enough about to engage with, and although I know intellectually not everyone does the same, I still tend to behave as if they do. I misjudged my audience. Now I know better.

I'm pretty confident about my technical writing ability. I'm also pretty sure I understand narrative structure and using beats and pacing action reasonably well. But my main areas of interest are in really esoteric, experimental shit that pushes the limits of how stories are supposed to work.

And of course, by definition, these things are hard to do. Pushing the limits means you're right up against all the things that are beyond the limits. They're beyond the limits because they don't work. So if I'm dancing on the line, I'm gonna step off the other side from time to time.

I can either accept it, learn from it, and move on, or I can step back where it's safe.

Safety fuckin sucks.
 
A note that there's stuff happening outside of the thread marks would help people to at least skim that content. Usually Imm not interested at all in reading quip after quip by people who aren't the author about a story where there's still content I haven't read.

Like, if you look at one of Ack's story threads do you really want to read 899 pages of squealing about how Taylor needs to marry Amy (or whatever)? Especially if there's a chance that said event has happened in a more recent chapter anyway??
 
@SquirrelZombie I am loving this story, and I am one of the ones following the play. It it starting to seem like a battle of trolling between you (either blessed by or possessed by Anansi in his storyteller version) and the Baron. I am waiting to see how this goes.
 
Zampano said:
A note that there's stuff happening outside of the thread marks would help people to at least skim that content. Usually Imm not interested at all in reading quip after quip by people who aren't the author about a story where there's still content I haven't read.

Like, if you look at one of Ack's story threads do you really want to read 899 pages of squealing about how Taylor needs to marry Amy (or whatever)? Especially if there's a chance that said event has happened in a more recent chapter anyway??
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shinkicker444 said:
Which story was that?
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None of them.

It happened in Amelia by @TanaNari but I've never actually written a TaylorxAmy SFW pairing.
 
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