This one makes more sense if you read it with a drunkin slur!
So… I got a little worked up about being called a troll the other day. The funny thing is- no one actually called me a troll, except me.
When I started writing my big ‘trip down memory lane’, I had convinced myself that everyone reading this website, were other gamers. With the new xpac, I could get a slight increase in traffic, so I wanted to try and get more regular readers. (Which is why i chose that subject matter.) Not that I pester people in game about my site, I just mention it from time to time when I am talking to someone new. I’m pretty sure I miscalled it though, I let too much of my inner Geek out… and I lost more than I gained.
This idea that I was talking to all gamers, was also why I didn’t really go into detail about game mechanics, how it all works, and basically just using in-game abbreviations. Yet, at some point I decided that last one was not fair for those that may have come across the site from other avenues. I do have a facebook page (that only those local to me seem to know about), Twitter, though, I rarely use it, and tumblr which I haven’t been back to since I set it up like 3 years ago. Anyway, I stopped mid-sentence to check if ‘troll’ was going to make sense to everyone… aaand that’s where I got worked up and attacked, um… all of reality.
Honestly, I’m not even that big of a treehugger, I felt it was just a fairly harmless example of a ‘keyword’ compared to some of the other choices. And I’m not even anti-business. I just want the balance restored, and it seems completely impossible. Nothing I said actually helps anything. But whatever, that’s not what I’m writing about. As I’ve said before, this is NOT a political site. I say this mainly because, I feel, you have to actually choose a side for it to be political- I flip-flop like crazy, all, hopefully, to make the story better. Plus, I don’t like feeling like I’m influencing people, either. (I would not be surprised if Dakota’s story suddenly picks back up once Hillary is made official.)
I got to say, that article was a cold splash of water though. Woke me up to some of the insensitive things I had posted over the past year. I cleaned up some of the mess in my wake. I took down a few blog posts.
The MoP one for sure, that was just a great big ball of pissing on WoW. I don’t know why I thought a list of complaints would be interesting to anyone at all, or why I thought it might increase regular readers. Although I did leave the cata one up, I think there was some positive stuff in there, at least in the beginning, but mostly I left it up so that the crazed rant, after it, made a tad more sense.
There was that old one about the comiccon, which made me look like a soulless monster. I could not even see it. I was carrying that all with me for like eight years, so it felt good to get it out of my brain. But all that hate blinded me to what a horrible light it put me in. I posted it, and forgot all about it- just like that; All those bad feelings finally dispersed. Honestly, I had not felt so good in years- but that’s not fair to anyone, and no one wants to be dumped on.
Ultimately, I’m just going to stop mentioning other people completely. I seem to remember something similar happening to me, and being flushed and embarrassed for no reason at all, like it wasn’t even mean or nothing, just sudden unexpected attention. I’ll raise my estimation of what this site comes off as, in the future, in the hopes of sparing someone else’s feelings.
That’s enough about that, I wanted to talk about some of the character decisions I made in aWLoN!
Actually, what kind of flows in the same vein as what’s above, is what I did to Sadie Blue.
Sadie is actually a retelling of Colin Vice’s story. I mean, it is pretty much the exact same story, yet, while his is dismissed as just a tough guy back story, hers remains this horrifying nightmare.
It was also meant to reflect Craiden in a way too. Because while he was held captive and beaten to the point he started to act like a beast, it was still dismissed as ‘yeah well, just another action hero’. Mostly I got arguments as to whether or not a ‘berserker’ would be a futuristic superpower. What? He lost his humanity. He was beaten over, and over, and over again. Until he was finally freed and had to regain what it was to be human. (Although the last couple times when I read ‘frothing at the mouth’ I did chuckle at the visual; it was metaphorical frothing when I wrote it.)
Anyway, I knew I needed some sort of retaliation from Grady, and it had to be horrible, as some sort of horrible balance or price to be paid for avoiding all out war. Ultimately, I knew if I put a guy in Sadie’s place, no one would have looked twice. Originally she was meant to lose her ability to have children, like Colin, but she did lose a baby she did not even know about. This tied the sheriff into it. And, it worked better, because it gave Ratchet that extra punch in the gut, so that he would speak out against his father, rather than just allow him to steamroll the Sheriff… and all of Grady.
It was meant to be subtle, but I think I got heavy handed with Ratchet’s dialogue. At the time, I thought it was okay because Ratchet was this kid that didn’t really understand what he knew, so blathering it out without even realizing what he’d given away, fit the character. But… it might look more like, it is just common knowledge, and no one knows to treat it as sensitive subject matter, which might break the fourth wall, and cause people to blame the writer. Which sucks!
It probably won’t be harped on very much.But it makes Sadie a bit more comfortable to write for. I tend to gravitate towards characters that don’t have children, because- I don’t have children. Like, I was writing for Raymond, as this widower, but man I never been married either, yet that was where the story took me, so I had to try and push through. Who knows how that came off.
So we are moving into Ratchet’s arraignment, which is what I got stuck on last week, and probably was the real cause of my descent into a crazed ranter. I don’t want it real realistic, but I don’t want it too silly. I got a science fiction angle that makes it all worth it I think, but I don’t want to give it away here.
I will say that I think I am going to make it an inquisitorial system, as opposed to the Adversarial system that we are used to in the US. I think I should just state right now, that I am not doing it because I think it’s a better system, just different. I know that if I don’t say something now, I will end up writing a bunch of Hogwash explaining that I don’t advocate an Inquisitorial system over our adversarial one, which will be the same as droning, ‘I am not a communist, I am not socialist, I am not a fascist…’ all over again.
This will give an interesting contrast between the Confederation, and what the UM might advocate.
Although, I suspect the Consortium might have already instated an adversarial system, and the fact that the Judge is an Inquisitor, would be because of the Red Faction. This might put Sheriff Dunn on Ratchet’s side, because normally, Grady would use Consortium processes, but since they are threatening to secede… and the judge wants to just speed it up and get it out of his courtroom… It might make for better conflict.
There was more character stuff but, I’m drawing a blank, so I’ll just wrap this up right here.
ty,DD
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