#narrative construction

This is a post about Aerith Gainsborough.

If you are wondering, this is not a post about shipping.  It is also very long. 

I do talk about the love triangle from a narrative construction and game design standpoint, though. If that interests you, go ahead. If not, scroll on.

+++ Open Spoilers for FFVII (1997) and FFVII: REMAKE +++

I have tried to make a deeper comparison between Savannah and Lisa. Tell me what you think about them and about Luke and Lisa story ^^ 

Conclusion: 

Conclusion: it’s clear that BAU writers have built Savannah and Derek relationship with more diligence than Lisa and Luke’. Savannah appears in 24 scenes, even if some of them are very short, instead Lisa appears in 9 scenes, most of them in the episode “Luke”, when they try to show a super-special relationship, they try to make us believe that Luke is so in love with Lisa… even if Luke doesn’t speak so much about her. This happened just with Matt, at the begging, when he seems really interested in her and taken by her, with Tara, for a second, again, in the episode “Luke”, with Garcia and finally with the team (especially Garcia, again) because Lisa wants to meet them. Savannah, instead, is very present in Derek life, from the begging until they have Hank. The first time we see her, their relationship has been in place for a long time. We see a “new” Morgan, as Reid said. He is taken, he thinks about her even during the cases, he talks about her and his fears of losing her with the team. Derek and Savannah seem happy together and even when they have a problem, they work to find a solution (as when Savannah is upset because Derek can’t meet her parents). Savannah and Lisa are both doctors. But, if Savannah has the time to help Spencer and Meg Callahan, Lisa seems not able to find a minute to, not only meet the team, but, above all, to participate at the most important moments of the BAU family (as Rossi wedding). And Luke seems not so upset that she is not there with him. Lisa has a relationship just with Garcia (it’s just a case). And how many times we see them kiss? Savannah and Derek twelve times, almost in every moment they are together; Lisa and Luke just one (and it’s not a very special kiss, luckily for my mind and my heart and my whole body). How many times we see them say “I love you” or something like that? Savannah and Derek five times; Luke and Lisa just one, again. And it’s just a case the fact that we see Luke and Lisa kiss each other in the same episode when we hear him say for the first time “I love you”? And what about the fact that Lisa says it first? I think that she is really in love with him; I have many doubts that Luke feels the same for her.

That’s why I hate him and not Lisa in this situation. And I also hate the CM writers. If I have to accept their relationship (or, any romantic relationship of Luke with a woman who is not Penelope), so, at least, please, built something decent! Show me Luke more in love, show me Luke so disappointed that Lisa is not there with him, not just for say “I know that this would happen” (as in the episode of the housewarming party. And why they wait so long to do this?). The CM writers did the worst at the begging. They showed us Luke so taken, but then? We have to wait nine (NINE!) episodes to hear again something about Lisa and their relationship. In that time garvez shippers, but also ralvez and any fan of other Luke team ships, has believed that with Lisa wasn’t work. I know that they can’t pay too many actors, but they didn’t need to use Daniella, they can just show Luke smiling while he is reading her text, just something banal like “How is your day going on?” and he could reply “I miss you”. Ok, I’m honest, if they show us these scenes, I would have lost my mind and my heart would be broken, but… I think (I’m not sure) that maybe after some time I could accept and understand it. But the CM writers should have to show less a “smiled Luke” when Penelope is around. I don’t know what you think, but, for me, it’s like that when Lisa is not useful to the plot, she seems like never existed; Luke seems not a man in a stable relationship. Luke’s love for her in 14x6 seems to come out of nowhere, and then to go back to that in the successive episodes.

I think they did this to create as little disturbance to as possible to us, that’s why we see Lisa and Luke kiss just one time, and the same is valid for the declaration of love. But I hate this “compromise” even more. If they want Lisa and Luke together, ok (I’m dying as I’m saying it) but then show us: 1) Luke really in love, at least every 2 o 3 episodes maximum he has to say her name with a smile; 2) Luke happy at the idea of Garcia with another man (especially if it’s his best friend); Luke and Penelope just as friends, not with the usual ambiguous atmosphere, and, overall, stop with Luke faces with heart eyes when he sees Penelope.

This is what I think about Savannah/Lisa comparison. I think that they are similar just to the fundamental traits, but their love stories are so different (and I hope that it will be so even at the end of the show). And I hope that this could mean something (i.e. Luke will find the courage to be honest with himself and to ask out Penelope), not that the CM writers are just tired to work.

P.S. I’m aware that most people hate Savannah even if CM writers built her arc better than Lisa’s. But I don’t want to be the kind of person who hates a character without reason. And remember that it was Shemar who wanted to introduce her 😉. I don’t think Adam wants the same for Luke, especially cause he loves Kirtsten’ character.

P.S. (2) I killed myself to make this comparison (because I had to watched again all Luke and Lisa scenes), so, tell me what you think about it. I will appreciate it! ^^

Your English teacher was wrong, for starters. The presumption that all writers develop their work the same way is flat-out incorrect. I know writers who can only write with outlines, writers who don’t use outlines at all, writers who believe they’re writing out events that happened in some other place in the multiverse, and writers who strongly attest to just the opposite. 

Depending on who you ask, writing is intellectual or personal or philosophical or spiritual or any combination of the above, and no two people approach it identically. Writing, like all art, is as personal an alchemy as the construction of your own identity. 

So it’s entirely possible Hussie is a writer who could indeed have thought a lot of this out ahead of time. I don’t know the guy and am not in the habit of speculating as to his nature or allowing ideas about what’s “possible” for a writer to influence how I read the text, because usually what people think is “possible” is just a bunch of self-limiting bullshit. That said, I don’t really know how Hussie wrote the story, beyond a few methods that are beginning to seem self-evident to me. We’re lucky in that one such method is one he’s discussed himself, presented here through @curlicuecal ‘s excellent roundup of Hussie’s quotes on writing:

The takeaway here is that Hussie is a very rules-focused author, who values consistency and strict adherence to the parameters he lays out. This is specifically about character writing, but Homestuck is a rules-focused narrative in all things, so it’s easy to extrapolate elsewhere:

The Alpha Timeline, Classpects, Roleplay, The Active/Passive Spectrum, Denizen symbolism, Dreamselves–all have corresponding sets of rules, whether they be guides for behaviors, logical consequences to actions taken, or the fundamental structures of the setting itself.

It’s also demonstrably true that Hussie is something of a culture remixer, who will freely adapt entire plotlines from other sources for a particular character’s arc if it’s useful to his goal.  

So I’d suggest that this hypothesis is somewhat likely: At least insofar as the Gnostic symbolism that pervades the entire story goes, you’re mixing up cause and effect. 

Hussie didn’t need a second draft to “add” symbols to his story, because Homestuck is built around the symbols in the first place.It’s worth noting that Homestuck itself puts a massive emphasis on the power of Symbols through the TRAGICALLY overlooked Drunk Rose District section:

So, for example, Hussie didn’t need to know every minute twist and turn of Caliborn’s ridiculous story in order to build him up as a compelling villain--he just needed to start Homestuck’s story with the understanding that it was about being “Trapped” in a flawed world created by a “Yaldabaoth” figure:a flawed, evil Creator God associated with the Sun. 

This means Hussie could use the symbol of the Sun to stand in as a symbol for Yaldabaoth/the central antagonist, which is precisely what we see him do:

And the details of the antagonist’s nature could be developed and presented later, linking the character to the Symbol explicitly in any number of ways:

Like the red sun being presented later in Caliborn’s artwork, “Homosuck”--represented by his red cheek spiral, no less.

Hussie could also hypothetically build from the symbolism already associated with Yaldabaoth to flesh out the character further. All it would take is some cursory research on, say, Wikipedia or other freely accessible texts like Jung’s 7 Sermons. 

The Demiurge is sometimes described as an Angel, and through association with Samael, specifically an Angel of Death. There we get LE embodying Death to Troll-kind, and Caliborn and Calliope’s Cherubic origins. So on and so forth. This is the logic that guides my approach in researching everything Homestuck presents, not just Caliborn. The Classpects, the Denizens, particular character beats--everything. So far, I think it’s been pretty fruitful, so I might be onto something with all this.

And doing this kind of freeballing, primarily online research for mythbuilding would also make a lot of sense if Hussie were, for example, writing primarily for an online audience known for researching and analyzing pretty much everything the story presents.

It would in fact be quite efficient to include some references to Wikipedia and then litter the story with thematic and symbolic callouts, letting the fandom pick up the threads and apply them to the plot, which itself would benefit from being able to focus on itself without having to take the time to explain and break down every symbol and reference.

Again it’s worth saying that this is just me guessing based off what I’ve seen in Homestuck itself. I have no idea if Hussie actually approached the story at all like this. I could well be wrong.

But whether or not it’s true in Hussie’s specific case, it’s certainly a way one could plausibly construct a story like Homestuck, if one were inclined to write a very complex story with profound symbology and approached writing as a process of setting and then holding to a series of rules.

So whether or not it’s true here, I think it lends a certain logic to how stories like Homestuck could be written, and that makes it a valuable exercise in critical analysis and in considering how I might like to write things someday, myself. 

We all remember the ending of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Specifically, the final battle against Ozai.

Aang has been terrified of the confrontation and has decided with his friends, off-screen, to just wait until after Sozin's Comet passes to actually try and fight Ozai. Zuko is utterly taken aback by this, revealing to Aang that Ozai is going to burn down the Earth Kingdom under the power of the comet and if they wait too long, the world will be a wasteland.

Aang reveals that his fear is not necessarily that he cannot defeat Ozai, but that he doesn't know how to defeat him whout killing him, which Zuko further berates him for. Ozai must be stopped, and if that involved ending him, then so be it.

That night, Aang sleepwalks onto the back of a Lion-Turtle, who imparts on him the knowledge of energybending, which Aang ultimately uses in order to cut off Ozai's bending, rendering him helpless without having to kill him.

A lot of people have a problem with this.

Xenophobia in stories often serves as a mirror to our deepest fears and instincts about the unknown. It’s the stranger in the narrative, the outsider, who embodies the tension between familiarity and the foreign. This fear of the other, rooted in our primal instincts, can drive characters to act irrationally, leading to conflict and drama. In many tales, the stranger represents a challenge to the…

Using an interactionist perspective, ethnographic practice is based on a procedural understanding of social reality, social identities, and the relations between structure and agency. Despite the changing character of work, health, education, and other domains of social life, interactionist ethnography remains essential. It has been said that we are living at the outset of a Fourth Industrial…

Now I want to quickly jump in here and point out that Love basically promises people things all the time. This was established as a big thing of her’s back in Episode 1. I have a hunch she’s forgotten one or two,especially when they are to plan to do something in the future.

This isn’t to say that Love has no right to feel bad or even that Daisuke shouldn’t be allowed a little frustration. It’s foundation to what I’m getting to.So, when was that promise made?

So, like, an issue here is that we didn’t see this and Love isn’t particularly specific about when this happened. “before break started” could mean a lot of things; we could be talking around episode 16 and the Cultural Festival, we could be talking closer to 20-21, we could maybe even bet talking earlier than 16. It’s hard to say because Love provides no context clues and the flashback’s are kinda vague? Like, it’s hard to judge the scale of the issue here because Fresh simply isn’t written to provide the ability to do so. 

So the guilt Love feels that dominates so much of the rest of the episode makes little sense. She has had to deal with over a dozen Labyrinth plots, deal with Eas’ entire arc, get Setsuna integrated into the group and family, and go through crises like, potentially, Tarte getting revealed, at a bare minimum. 

It makes sense that Love would still feel like garbage over this, that’s in Love’s character, and wanting to make it up to him. I honestly don’t think it’s totally unreasonable for Daisuke to get frustrated when he doesn’t know everything and cares this much about Love.

But the rest of the episodes narrative is about Love’s guilt and never once do they give any inclination that they feel she’s being too hard on herself, if anything, the show agrees with Daisuke and Love that she’s in the wrong too, when she just... can’t be in any logical sense. It’s just incoherent. 

This would actually have been a good episode to really hit on Love’s sense of responsibility to others and how it can even get out of control, and that maybe she thinks she is capable of far more than she is at times, and she needs help. Like, that’d be a cool message and build on Love’s character some. 

Instead they feel the need to force the Daisuke/Love parallelisms to rather absurd extremes, because that’s how the narrative thinks it can convey romantic chemistry (it really doesn’t do a great job of that).

James Bond Casino Royale

I love this stairwell fight scene from Casino Royale. The camera work is terrific, constantly moving with the subjects as much as the subjects are passing through the camera field of view, they are cut and timed to transition to the next frame to create a seamless fight sequence. 

The music track is fast and although already loud seems to increase in volume as it helps tell the story of a frantic and chaotic moment where you feel part of the action.  There is even the use of particles as the machete passes over the metal handrail that sends sparks into the air, highly unlikely but effective nonetheless.

Of all James Bond fight scenes over many movies; this scene is a real as it gets. The camera angles are continually changing, from above to below revealing the vulnerable and dominant, oscillating in and out from tight full and to loose camera framing that help reproduce the confines of space the action requires. It makes you part of the action never remaining still, and the colour grading that is somewhat sepia from the yellow walls and leadlight give the scene its rough edges.

There is a moment 20 seconds in where the glass is smashed yet behind the glass briefly appears solid before it then fakes to what looks a corridor one floor down, it does quite look right but at speed it doesn’t detract. 

The narrative of this fight scene is really told through the camera lens and music score as much as it is the action sequences, something I find inspiring when thinking of my own production and the use of angles to help narrate the story.