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Desert Iguanas (Dipsosaurus dorsalis), EAT A TASTY LEAFS!!!, family Iguanidae, Kern County, CA, USA

if you don't know, there's a very popular 3d printing model out there called "benchy". this is used for benchmarking your 3d printer because it's a difficult print and will help test it out.

this is so widely used that people make their own little versions of it, remixing the 3d model to make benchy look cooler and stuff. however, a new company owns the benchy license. they are sending copyright takedowns to all those who wrongfully uploaded the benchy model.

of course, this is pissing off the 3d printing community greatly. everyone loved benchy and have used it for years. so someone on reddit decided to make a new model that is designed as a 3d printing stress test. one that works a lot like benchy, and people are freely able to edit it as they please. you know what they called it?

Hi everyone! We're back with another entry into my Perfecting series, where I break down fics that I think perfectly embody some aspect.

I was watching a youtube video (link) about how to write a climatic fight scene. It was excellent and very enlightening! So I thought I would apply some of the concepts to SWWL’s climatic fight scene; Rumi vs Mira and Zoey. 

Massive, massive spoilers ahead for So We Were Liars by @arendellesfirstwinter

Also, happy Aren day!

The first concept is “The most climatic fight should be a World Cup.” Well, what is a World Cup? See the diagram below. 

This is gauging the strength of the winning party versus the strength of the losing party. The winning party is Zoey and Mira, while the losing party is Rumi. Now, the actual results of this fight are Fly Swatting, I won’t deny that. But it’s only because Rumi wasn’t seriously trying to harm them. I count this as a world cup fight because it is that on paper, ignoring the characters. These are the top characters of the verse/story, it is the strongest players fighting each other. In the context of the story this is the strongest going at it, even if one of them is severally handicapped. That's the spirit of World Cup. It's saying that the climatic fight shouldn't be two random bums going at it. It needs to have the highest stakes of that story, and this is our three main characters all fighting each other, making a World Cup series.

Looking at what type of fight excels at which metrics, you can see that World Cup fights feature both characterization and strategy. There is strategy involved in the fight, Mira and Zoey have a solid win condition and outplay Rumi.  Ideally, the climatic fight shouldn't play out as X wins because they're stronger. Or Y wins because they have a better strategy. It should be the combination of characterization and strategy, better detailed by the diagram below.

This is essentially a way of visualizing a fight- you gauge their strength against each other, who has a better strategy, and who has the narrative behind them. Whoever wins the fight will have a higher bar. And an excellent fight will make use of all three categories. 

Before we can break it down, though, we have to further understand the rules of this fight. You, dear reader, may be confused. Is it really a fight? It’s more Rumi running away. 

I am arguing yes, this is a fight. It’s just both an emotional and physical fight. We’ll get into it more during the strategy section, but the girls are fighting each other. Rumi just tried to fight in a different way. 

Let’s get into the chart! Strength is the easiest. Rumi, with her demon physiology, and being the leader, would probably be a tough challenge for Mira and Zo, strength wise. However, the fight isn’t decided by just “who’s stronger.” You also have to consider mental strength and fortitude. Mira and Zoey want to protect their girlfriend from a Demon. Rumi wants to live, while hating herself. Rumi fundamentally has a weaker mental here from lying to others and herself, she has less stakes in this fight.

Strategy. This fight can be broken into each party’s win conditions: Mira and Zoey want to kill Rumi. (Okay, they want to kill what they think is an imposter, but, it’s Rumi. We’re speaking from an outside perspective here)

Rumi’s objective is to convince them she is not an imposter, or escape. So “Winning” the fight for Zoey and Mira looks like killing Rumi. Winning the fight for Rumi is basically any outcome that isn’t anyone dying. She could win by killing Mira and Zoey, but obviously that would be bad. Technically she has a win condition of “incapacitate Mira and Zoey” but I do not think mentally she can hurt them. 

So the fight starts and their strategies initially form. Mira decides to 1v1 Rumi, while telling Zoey to scout for information… to find Rumi. And Rumi decides to convince them, getting within range of Mira’s weapon. Mira decides to wear down Rumi, which makes sense as Zoey did suffer a concussion. Rumi does attempt escape here, though is unsuccessful. She does manage to stave off Mira physically, though, at which point Zoey joins the fight. This isn’t explicitly stated, but I like to imagine that Mira forcing Rumi back gave Zoey space to work at range. It would be good strategy from Mira, along with synergy. Speaking of synergy, time to bring up another graphic! The youtube video has the 5 S’s of strategy, shown below. 

Important to note! You do not need every single one of these for a good fight. But you should have a handful, and every one helps. A fight with none of these is just fists flying in an empty parking lot, which is boring.

So far, Mira and Zoey have mainly used Synergy with a tiny bit of Sneak Attack (Mira at the beginning rushing Rumi). 

Zoey continues to throw at range, landing a hit on Rumi, in her thigh. You could count this as Spot of Weakness, since running away is one of Rumi’s win conditions, which is now firmly shut down. 

Rumi begins throwing items at Mira and Zoey. While ineffective, this is a use of Surroundings. 

Rumi begins to beg, switching her strategy from convincing Mira and Zoey to saying she’ll leave. While still trying to run. 

Zoey flanks, launching her weapon into Rumi’s ankles to pin her, and Mira moves in for the killshot. Excellent use of synergy and sneak attack, from Zoey’s perspective. We never see either party sacrifice something to gain an advantage, but that also doesn't really make sense in the story. Mira and Zoey don't need to sacrifice anything, they have the advantage. (Though you could argue by agreeing to leave and never return, Rumi is sacrificing her relationship to fulfill a win condition, running.)

So the final requirement is Narrative Characterization. There’s a statement here, from the video, that must be filled in. “_____ won because they are more ____.” 

Alternatively, “_____ lost because they are less ____.” Basically, narratively, why did Aren make Rumi lose? What was the purpose of it? What is the message behind So We Were Liars? 

I could pretend to be some giant brained analyzer here that picked through the text and studied it for 100 years. 

But Aren yaps about this fic a lot and we already have an answer. This fic is a character study on Rumi, and how her mistakes lead to her ruin, and how she has to shed those mistakes to heal. The front half is an explicit tragedy, a warning and lesson wrapped together. Per the title of the fic, “Rumi lost because she was a liar.” 

That’s it! Kinda. 

Rumi lost because she had done too good of a job convincing Mira and Zoey she wasn’t a demon. Rumi lost because she separated herself from her girls, causing confusion. Rumi lost because she didn’t value her own life. 

Rumi lost because she lied about being a demon while getting closer to the girls. So close, they were sent into a panic at the thought of losing her. 

Going back to our diagram, it would look something like: 

Then he says, “I mean, the problem isn’t the gender thing. The problem is four words: she, her, he, and him. We got rid of stewardess and turned it into flight attendant. It doesn’t matter if the flight attendant is a man or woman, so we got rid of it. We just need to get rid of those. I don’t need to know.”

“You don’t need to know… people’s gender?”

“No. I don’t care, I don’t need to know, and I don’t want to remember it.”