Beckett, Joshua Beckett. This is my repository for various musings and works of typescript; you want excessively developed characters, psychological/philosophical commentary and painful waits between posts? Here you are, enjoy.
First in a mini-series of “prologues” for my writing project, Virtual Crisis. I’ve had to go back to restart and re-edit this project numerous times over the years, but hopefully this time it’ll stick.
I dont??? Even know what kind of emotions this brings me? All i can think now is Slug-girls and i hate it
Ok so i did some digging because… It’s fascinating. They called Sloads, from Toad and Slug and boy let me tell you wiki is roasting these guys hard, just look at that
They are arguably the most hated race amongst the people of Tamriel
The most commonly seen stage of Sload is that of the adult, which appear as large, bipedal, slug-like creatures, known for their highly obscene odor.
Sload have a rather clear lack of morality, having no issues with
committing acts of blasphemy, theft, torture, kidnapping, murder,
genocide, or other similar atrocities.
Sload are unable to sincerely display notable human emotions beyond that of greed.
The Sload do not have any affinity with the concept of honor,
friendship, or any form of loyalty, only showing a strange respect to
those who are able to defeat or trick them.
The only known race the Sload have ever had any diplomatic contact with was the Maormer,
due to their mutual hostilities against all other races
It is true that Sload use massive amounts of their own larvae in necromantic rituals
Fully matured Sload are incapable of reproduction and do not care for any of the offspring that they have spawned beforehand.
Dont they sound like fun! Some also cool facts!
They were so heavy that it is rumored they used telkinessis to move on land
They were well know for being Necromancers, and managed to invade Hammerfell using dead criminals people buried on Hammerfell’s islands
They were like crazy stans of Mannimarco, like really some considered him national hero or something
Young adults were
hermaphroditic
and fully grown adult absorb their reproductive organs?? No Slug-girls my dudes :(
They made a plague that fucking killed half of Tamriel, for shit and giggles
Ysgramor had a wine sack made from a Sload??? Um why would you like to DRINK FROM THIS MY GUY??
Sload are said to be blessed with perfect memory and are capable of remembering everything they have seen or heard
They dont feel emotions but are perfect at mimicing them, when needed like in diplomacy, but they also overdo often it, for example bursting into tears at
slight misfortunes
(mood)
there is a rumour that they spend years before making a decision
“In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, there is a ship called the Dainty Sload north of Solitude. The figurehead on the front is in the shape of a Sload.”
D:
They’re fucking hated by everyone and vice versa:D i cant its so funny
i really could write an essay on how shit is that we’ve completely abandoned the monster-of-the-week episode format even when rebooting shows that relied on it to replace them with grimdark edgy plotlines where nothing feels good or accomplished at the end of the day
I was just thinking the other day about how every show loses its monster/crisis-of-the-week formula a couple of years in–and that’s honestly why I tend to lose interest in shows as they go along. Examples that come to mind:
X-Files
Supernatural
Heroes (to a point)
Torchwood
Lost
Wynonna Earp? (I still love this one but I only rewatch season 1)
As the myth-arc takes over (which might be a natural progression, I don’t know), you also get stuff like villain decay, where last year’s Big Bad looks like a puppy-dog compared to these new enemies. Plus, how do you keep the tension? Once you kill Satan, how do you up the stakes?
I don’t know that I actually have a point, except that there’s value in “saving people, hunting things” as a plotline and I wish all my faves didn’t abandon it so quickly.
Honestly i think its an instance of putting plot over characters, because people actually think that’s Peak Storytelling™ rn. Its also an instance of thinking high stakes and constant drama = good storytelling.
Lots of peoples think monster of the week isnt interesting enough because its low stakes, not generally as plot driven, and because its ultimately, i would argue, a character-building excerising. The emotional core of each episode has to be the characters and whatever aspect of them the monster of the week lets you explore. Their relationship(s) also has to be solid enough to carry it. And your story has to be engaging enough that it doesnt need a convoluted plot to keep it moving.
An enormous complicated plot can shuffle the characters around, but if your stakes are low your characters have time to settle into a casual dynamic and talk to each other about inconsequential things, things that actually put meat on the bone when fleshing out your characters.
A lot of people dont think this is meaningful enough. They mistake grandeur and perpetually high stakes for good storytelling, the only good storytelling. they devalue character dynamic-centric plots and any kind of whimsy or lull in narrative pressure. They don’t stop to realize that the reason those Big Stories work is because of the kind of groundwork for both character and worldbuilding monster of the week stories lay, and owes its effectiveness largely to moments that let you catch your breath. They also don’t realize that one of the reasons people get invested in larger plots is the variety of storytelling, otherwise its no longer an interesting novelty.
Huh, this EXACTLY explains why I feel how I do about certain shows and how they change!
Also shows with that format can build an interesting, smart and compelling big plot right in front of our noses without losing the “monster of the week” format, just leaving small clues that slowly will get us to something bigger, which can be the season finale.
Many of Gravity Falls episodes are just a “Monster of the week” situation, a conflict that starts and gets solved in the same chapter, but also allows another bigger plot (Bill, the Stan twins) be built in the background, getting the public interested in finding the answers to all those clues, until it all gets together in a satisfactory revelation and epic ending.
Some Stock Photo Sign Reminders To The RPC From Your Friendly Neighborhood Psychotic Because As Much As I Love Halloween I Am Actively Scared Of This Shit!!
happy goddamn halloween (some of these have captions)
Will humanity ever be free of the influence of Edna Mode? Can any of us so much as consider the character design for a hero or villain without her manifesting in the room, fully aware of our sins?
You know what, another layer of difficulty is when you’re thinking about villains, and the wise words of Megamind come into your head. You don’t just want your child to be just a regular villain. But how do you make your villain a Supervillain with no cape? Where is the drama? But Edna says no capes, you must deny them the flair. It is impossible to please them both, and it’s tearing this family apart.
The Radium Girls were a famous group of women who worked as dial painters in the late 1910s to the 1920s. While there were dozens of women who worked in these factories, only a small group of women challenged the company they worked for over their illnesses, which they eventually came to believe (rightfully so) were due to the radium they worked with. All other medical professionals and owners of the companies were aware of the dangers, but failed to warn the dial-painters of the dangers of radium, which had previously been marketed as a miracle element. In fact, the luminosity it gave to one’s skin was considered beautiful and desirable.
The girls painted radium onto the dials of watches in the factories, and often tipped the brushes, still coated with radium, in their mouths. Other radium companies also faced lawsuits after the initial court case, as they had used similar procedures. Numerous girls died due to radiation poisoning, and their battle to recognize the source of their suffering was a long and arduous one.
Kate Moore has written an excellent book about this topic, aptly named “The Radium Girls,” that I’m reading now. So far, I’d highly recommend. It embellishes points of view and some details to kind of keep the reader in the era, but it’s very well researched and written. There are some graphic descriptions of what happens to these girls, so be wary of that.
I think my favourite take on the dichotomy between the scriptural Devil and the folkloric Devil is “the Devil is fully capable of kicking your ass, but he chooses to act like a cowardly dumbass because wisdom and courage are virtues”.
Counterpoint: The Devil, Lucifer, Hell-prince of Pride knows you know he’s fully capable of destroying you. He lets others ‘win’ against him because Pride is not only a deadly sin, it’s HIS deadly sin.
Imagine hating homeless people so much u find ways to make their lives shittier instead of providing them with the resources they need
and unfortunately this isn’t the first time people have did things against poor people…
…THIS SHIT NEEDS TO END NOW
“hostile architecture” is one of those things that sounds like it should be awesome from the name
and then you find out what it actually means and are filled with violent nausea
Destroying Hostile Architecture is an act of human decency
There was a bridge where i went to school, under which homeless people hung out a lot. Where I met this guy Bill. This guy who’d been fired from his job as an air traffic controller for testing positive for weed, whose wide had left him and taken everything. We sat there talking for like hours and he shared his vodka with me and offered me a smoke even though he had next to nothing.
And i come back to visit a year later and the motherfuckers have cemented fucking jagged rocks to all the support structures so nobody can sit on them i was fucking livid i hate this shit so much this man had the clothes on his back, a plastic bottle of booze, and a pack of cigarettes, and a place to rest. That’s it. That’s all he had and he still had the kindness and generosity to share what little he had with me, someone who didn’t need it at all
You know what come to think of it, i haven’t met a single homeless person who hasn’t at least offered me a cigarette or something when i’ve talked to them and you sons of bitches won’t even let them have a place to sit down for 5 fucking minutes
If you see this shit and you’re physically able, break it. Get rid of it. Put a mattress over those spikes between pillars
Anyone who thinks homeless people are a nuisance or an inconvenience should have every single thing that they own and hold dear removed from them for at least a year and see how they fucking like it!
like, instead of wasting money to build these horrific sharp anti-homeless crap, how about they donate it to shelters instead???
Like this is just to keep up ~aesthetics~ instead of putting human life first
