Solace Scribe

• What are you most proud of with your writing process?

I think the process as a whole. Getting down the assignment into my draft and working out the details and pieces I need. Stringing that together and forming the ideas needed to fill in the gaps and then cut down and rearranging or wording things before sanding down the edges and getting it to a point that feels solid.

The writing process can be difficult. Part of me was concerned getting back into things this semester given it was after 5 years out of college. But as I continued with this course, I think I managed it well enough. It felt like riding a bike. I’m glad I decided to take the step to come back and finish my degree.

• Where will you adjust your writing process based on your experiences in this class? #writ318mu #week15

I would say most English courses don’t necessarily place importance on how the writing itself looks past the general MLA format. This course required you to be mindful of design and layout.

While I utilize design elements in writings for my own notes and campaign diaries when playing ttrpgs, such as the sectioning and organizing ideas, using different fonts and colors to assist.

I see the ways and value in adding those design elements when it comes to writing in general. It will help make my writing in the future to be better designed and structured, allowing for it to be more easily read, better recalled, and easily navigated.

• What are you most proud of with your writing assignments in this class, this semester?

I think the effort was my biggest motivation. I wanted to make sure I did as well as could with whatever assignment I was doing.

I think in particular the work I did with this last assignment with “Favorite Show” and the back and forth with the fans and TV Movie Studio Co. turned out great. I had fun making the icons and have each post have a different color scheme, profile picture, blog name. Each being tokens from npcs and monsters from a ttrpg, the references in the blog names, in the posts and responses.

It was all thought out and string together nice visually since I used tumblr itself to frame it. It was aesthetically pleasing to see all the different images laid out side by side on my screen. It felt good to work on and something I was proud of having done.

• What assignment questions do you have that will help you complete the assignment successfully? @npfannen

The assignment seems pretty straightforward. Answer the questions using examples from your work this semester. Reading the questions over they are definitely interview focused. This question maybe be unnecessary but I just want to make sure I’m conceptualizing the right thing as I respond.

So to clarify, should we answer the assignment question as students in this class? Or as someone being interviewed for a “job”?

There’s also mention of a time you worked with other people on a writing assignment. I’m assuming an example in general works for that one rather than something specific to this course?

I think from there the rest of it makes enough sense to work through without issue.

• Share an example of your favorite television show or movie - how does that show/movie help you work through this project and understand angry fandom?

My “Favorite Show” is an animated series based on an actual play ttrpg campaign. It has a lot in common with Critical Role’s Vox Machina given that aspect but the show I’m using as a large source of inspiration is actually Game of Thrones.

The more serious vibes, the attention to detail, the fantasy being more grounded with a dark edge, it coming from a solid and rich source material with a lot of potential. Only for it be mishandled and end on a sour note.

Game of Thrones could have been THE show, it was so well done and well received to the point where everyone was taking about it, even people who aren’t necessarily big into the fantasy genre. People, myself included, were really enamored by the show. For myself it felt like the first time a show felt a piece of art in a similar vein to watching a quality film.

It’s ashamed it had such a sorry end.

• Share an example of your experience as a fan of a show that was cancelled. Help us feel the feels.

I was a big fan of Steven Universe. It’s an animated show with younger kids as the primary demographic but those sorts of shows still are enjoyable to watch. Things like Avatar, Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, all have that in common, where the audience is intended to be younger but they have stories that are interesting and that don’t exclude an older audience.

I actually didn’t like the show very much at first. The main character Steven I found to be annoying and unfunny but the concept of the gems as a race of interstellar life made of light was intriguing enough for me to give it a chance eventually.

I came to enjoy the series a lot as I watched the story unfold. Seeing the plot of the gems, Homeworld, and Steven grow and become more involved was an experience. It also showcased characters who exhibited gender expressions that were atypical. Steven was shown to be who he was, there were non-binary characters, and the gems themselves are all fem or non-binary presenting— relationships between them was inherently queer. While I didn’t think about much at the start was nice to see different sorts of people and experiences being shown. The show even had a wedding between two of fem presenting characters.

This unfortunately was part of the reason it was canceled. It got to end without a hard cut off but the show was canceled and this affected the story in a lot of different ways. The series received a min series sort of epilogue given the success of the film but it was honestly bittersweet given everything that lead up to it.

I respect the creator for sticking to her values. Steven Universe lead to a lot of shows having more representation in general. It walked so others can run and I’ll take that over it being cancelled for no reason.

• What assignment questions do you have that will help you complete and revise successfully? @npfannen

I intended to add images like one normally would with a post. There’s some original art in the Part 1 submission, being the main cast of characters featured in “Favorite Show.” That will mostly likely be the extend of it though since I probably won’t have time to include anything more.

That said I do intend to add hashtags to the cancellation post. But I’m confused by the question you posted about where the fan responses will be located? I intended to draft up what they were in Part 2 of the assignment since part 1 was a draft. Did we need to specify whether the posts were replies, comments, or reblogs to the original cancellation post in the draft portion?

The other thing was the hashtags - you asked how will the fandom find each other? I intended for the first cancellation to lead to the fan reblogs, and those reblogs would receive comments from TV Movie Studio Co. Also I was under the impression the angry fan posts were supposed to look “real”, so the hashtags I included were supposed to mimic that. Most people include pretty varied hashtags from what I’ve seen. Should I include a central hashtag across all the posts?

As for the company responses - in that section I included a numbered table with the previous angry fan response comments. Directly under each fan post was the company response to said comment. Perhaps in the back and forth of plugging the information I forgot to label everything properly, I just assumed the table made sense.

TLDR:

- Does including images like we do on tumblr work for this assignment? I only have so much original art and it’s mostly character focused.

- I included hashtags for the fan posts in a way that I felt mimicked real life. Should I make it more uniform? Is one unified hashtag across the various posts enough? My plan of format for the various posts is:

- Initial cancellation post

- Angry fan reblogs

- TMSC responses in the form of comments

Does that sound reasonable?