(no subject)
Sep. 10th, 2009 07:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dmxratedAs it turns out, I went to the wrong classroom for Psychology this past Tuesday. The right room was 311; the classroom for Marketing yesterday was 309, but I misread the card and went to 309. Good thing Mom had the receipt for my textbooks in her car, or else I would've sold back the right books and bought the wrong one online. Good thing even more, because the teacher there assigned us to take notes on something over the following two weeks, on one or two fixed times a day.
I went to my first day at workstudy since last winter, and someone was supposed to be in the office with me. However, he couldn't come because he got in a motorcycle accident, so Vincent had to come instead. I didn't have a whole lot of work to do, actually, and after I got done with what little I had, Vincent and Patty led me outside where the welcome-back fair was taking place. I only had a Sprite and read some brochure about sex and alcohol. Vincent said he was surprised I didn't get a burger, but I told him that whenever I make one for myself, I cut a slice of cheddar cheese to melt on it. Those always taste better than cheese singles.
So anyway, now that I was off of work, Vinnie offered to drive me home, and I called Mom to let her know not to come to the school.
-----
On the way home, Vinnie asked me if I could tell people apart just by looking at them, such as a Harvard professor from someone who watches wrestling. I told him that, to me, people are just people until you get to know them better. He said that that's good that I don't have the biases that most people have. It's called "labeling", which I've read about in several self-help books years ago. I told him that this is a lot more blatantly glaring in certain works of fiction than it is in real life. For example, in The Simpsons, most of the adults have a theme, and most of the kids have an archetype: Bart's the naughty boy, Lisa's the genius, Nelson's the bully, Milhouse is the dork and Bart's best friend, there are the twins whose names I don't remember, and so on and so forth.
There's also this movie called The Breakfast Club, where we have one Princess, one Criminal, one Brain, one Jock, and one Basket Case, all in detention on the same day. Vinnie says that he has heard of that movie, and even heard that the author of said movie died about a month ago. He said that the situation is more contrived than the actual archetypes themselves, but the author's whole point was that to some extent, we're all of these and other types.
One example I didn't cite? Sailor Moon. To quote someone who created an anti-SM site:
Ever character with a personality (ie not people like Molly) is a stereotype. Serena herself is the silly & stupid, but giggly girl, irresponsible and whiny but cute (supposed to be cute...). Rei is the more serious one who makes fun of the main character. Melvin is the geek. Amy is the smart one who spends her time in the library. Lita is the tough tomboy. And so on and so forth; NONE of the characters are really original. And did I mention Darien, the "pretty-boy?"
http://www.angelfire.com/anime2/antism/why.html
You get what I'm saying with this whole section of this entry, right?
Y'know, that whole thing used to piss me off, and it's still something I'd prefer to steer clear of. That, my friend, is exactly why I hardly ever got started exploring the characters' personalities for Monster Collection Chronicles. For that ficseries, there are 24 Knights altogether (25 if you count someone who might replace Katsuo after he ditches them), and most of them are based on kids I used to know, even if just superficially. The furthest I got with their character is going to .Hack New World and finding some biographies there, except with Drake (whom Jake wrote up a bio for).
-----
I know what you're probably thinking now: Isn't 24 kinda redundant? Well, let's put it this way: Mondo would represent the Sun; Rockna would represent the Moon; Kasumi, the highest of the Supporting Knights, has the element Time; and 24 is the number of hours in a day. Katsuo, Rockna's brother who has the element Darkness, could represent one of two things:
1) The eerie, pitch-black night sky and the full or new moon (in which case, Rockna would represent the beautiful, star-filled night sky and the crescent moon), or
2) A black hole. While the sun gives light and heat for life to prosper, and the Moon stabilizes the Earth to life's benefit, a black hole would do nothing but threaten its existence. If a real black hole was in Earth's vicinity, it would look like a black orb in the sky, as opposed to the golden orb known as the Sun and the silver orb known as the Moon.
I went to my first day at workstudy since last winter, and someone was supposed to be in the office with me. However, he couldn't come because he got in a motorcycle accident, so Vincent had to come instead. I didn't have a whole lot of work to do, actually, and after I got done with what little I had, Vincent and Patty led me outside where the welcome-back fair was taking place. I only had a Sprite and read some brochure about sex and alcohol. Vincent said he was surprised I didn't get a burger, but I told him that whenever I make one for myself, I cut a slice of cheddar cheese to melt on it. Those always taste better than cheese singles.
So anyway, now that I was off of work, Vinnie offered to drive me home, and I called Mom to let her know not to come to the school.
-----
On the way home, Vinnie asked me if I could tell people apart just by looking at them, such as a Harvard professor from someone who watches wrestling. I told him that, to me, people are just people until you get to know them better. He said that that's good that I don't have the biases that most people have. It's called "labeling", which I've read about in several self-help books years ago. I told him that this is a lot more blatantly glaring in certain works of fiction than it is in real life. For example, in The Simpsons, most of the adults have a theme, and most of the kids have an archetype: Bart's the naughty boy, Lisa's the genius, Nelson's the bully, Milhouse is the dork and Bart's best friend, there are the twins whose names I don't remember, and so on and so forth.
There's also this movie called The Breakfast Club, where we have one Princess, one Criminal, one Brain, one Jock, and one Basket Case, all in detention on the same day. Vinnie says that he has heard of that movie, and even heard that the author of said movie died about a month ago. He said that the situation is more contrived than the actual archetypes themselves, but the author's whole point was that to some extent, we're all of these and other types.
One example I didn't cite? Sailor Moon. To quote someone who created an anti-SM site:
Ever character with a personality (ie not people like Molly) is a stereotype. Serena herself is the silly & stupid, but giggly girl, irresponsible and whiny but cute (supposed to be cute...). Rei is the more serious one who makes fun of the main character. Melvin is the geek. Amy is the smart one who spends her time in the library. Lita is the tough tomboy. And so on and so forth; NONE of the characters are really original. And did I mention Darien, the "pretty-boy?"
http://www.angelfire.com/anime2/antism/why.html
You get what I'm saying with this whole section of this entry, right?
Y'know, that whole thing used to piss me off, and it's still something I'd prefer to steer clear of. That, my friend, is exactly why I hardly ever got started exploring the characters' personalities for Monster Collection Chronicles. For that ficseries, there are 24 Knights altogether (25 if you count someone who might replace Katsuo after he ditches them), and most of them are based on kids I used to know, even if just superficially. The furthest I got with their character is going to .Hack New World and finding some biographies there, except with Drake (whom Jake wrote up a bio for).
-----
I know what you're probably thinking now: Isn't 24 kinda redundant? Well, let's put it this way: Mondo would represent the Sun; Rockna would represent the Moon; Kasumi, the highest of the Supporting Knights, has the element Time; and 24 is the number of hours in a day. Katsuo, Rockna's brother who has the element Darkness, could represent one of two things:
1) The eerie, pitch-black night sky and the full or new moon (in which case, Rockna would represent the beautiful, star-filled night sky and the crescent moon), or
2) A black hole. While the sun gives light and heat for life to prosper, and the Moon stabilizes the Earth to life's benefit, a black hole would do nothing but threaten its existence. If a real black hole was in Earth's vicinity, it would look like a black orb in the sky, as opposed to the golden orb known as the Sun and the silver orb known as the Moon.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-12 04:45 pm (UTC)it would look like a black orb in the sky,
A 'black hole' is extreme gravity, it isn't actually black nor is it a literal hole. A black hole wouldn't be able to be seen in the night sky, because it would pull in all light of the sun and the stars moments before pulling in the earth.
As for stereotypes, stereotypes in fiction don't fully function the same as stereotypes of real life, but they certainly influence them, and quite drastically at that. Labeling however refers to a real life practice, not to the creating of characters.
Sailor Moon created the Magical Girl warrior genre, they weren't cliches much back when it was made, but they weren't developed much either. But you're shooting your own foot here when complaining about Sailor Moon being stereotyped : Mon Colle Knights does exactly the same so you cannot avoid stereotypes when writing fanfiction of it.
Mondo is the spiky haired optimistic hero, Rokuna is kinda inspired by Lum, Beginner exists purely to be a Moe Generator (somewhat parodies though) and is the clutz, Luke is the arrogant rival, Ichirobei the mad scientist, Guuko the ditz, Bacchi is the tomboy and Count Collection would be the Fangirl Bait if he wasn't already a parody of it.
A stereotype is a conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image.
is exactly why I hardly ever got started exploring the characters' personalities for Monster Collection Chronicles. ...... and most of them are based on kids I used to know, even if just superficially. The furthest I got with their character is going to .Hack New World and finding some biographies there,
Lol. This is what you say in a condensed fashion : "I don't want to stereotype, so instead of developing my characters I'm going to stereotype real world people into characters or copy other people's biographies". You cannot transcend stereotypes like that, you need to personally develop your characters. Stereotypes can be developed into wonderful characters through character development, while nonstereotyped characters will be completely dull and irritating through lack of being fleshed out.
Also, how are you going to handle 24 characters plus all the side characters that will pop up in the stories? The reason almost every story has a central cast of no more than 10 is because otherwise, track is lost and then you're going to have distracting danglers. Heck, even that can get irritating (for example Fushigi Yuugi, which needed seven knights, had seven knights and then never really bothered with three of them).
no subject
Date: 2019-07-12 04:45 pm (UTC)Most of the time, the Knights will be on separate missions at any given time, usually in groups of three to six. That way, only a few will be focused on in any given scene, except for the few that call for everyone to be present (such as each fic's final battle).
Furthermore, some of them, if not most, are likely to die along the way, so the number of Knights altogether might be considered some sort of death buffer. Each Knight that dies would mean one less Knight to keep track of.
I hope this answers your question.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-12 04:46 pm (UTC)If you don't develop them, don't bother to play their deaths for sympathy, the readers won't care a bit, but don't try to develop them all, cause that will distract from the adventure story you're writing. It's going to either break the narrative or result in readers going :"Who is this person that just died here, again?"
And I'll rephrase my question a bit : how are you going to handle 24 characters of near identical roles, some of whom are inconsequential, within a single narrative line when you are not writing a character driven story? Is it necessary to have that number in spite of the throwbacks?
no subject
Date: 2019-07-12 04:46 pm (UTC)At this point, I'm gonna have to reconsider this whole thing and talk about it with other people I know. I know you're pretty much suggesting that I scrap a whole bunch of them, and maybe you're right, but let me just talk it over with them first. Okay?
no subject
Date: 2019-07-12 04:46 pm (UTC)Stories like Monster and Twelve Kingdoms have huge casts and manage to use the whole lot of them because all can serve widely varying roles and a widely varying climate for them to play in. None of them however have more than a few focus characters within a specific group. Why? Because there are only so much characters needed to convey the actions of the rebel army or the nazi group. Furthermore, those are primarily character driven stories that go from arc to arc, changing the players often while keeping a few key figures to carry the story.
What you've got however is 24 of the same class and your only way of developing them is the same angle and the same playing ground for all of them. That's the part that's not gonna work well.