I’ve been thinking about a short story arc that happened in Star Wars : Clone Wars. It was that bit where Anakin and the others meet what are described as god-like avatars of the Force and Anakin had to prove himself as the Chosen One. It’s nice that the whole chosen one thing was elaborated on but the whole ark always felt really out of place to the rest of the show…
…The story suddenly went from a war that threatens the governments of this civilisation to the universe being at risk and then right back down to the war. They never mentioned it again (I think) and it didn’t seem to have any impact on the show, apart from making the war feel kinda Podunk to me.
It made me remember a few other long form stories that had the tension sucked out of them by a sudden, brief threat that was a lot worse than the main obstacle of the story. Like there was that crossover in the Fables comic where they confronted the writer of the universe who wanted to erase them all. Or basically any time Q showed up in Star Trek after Next Generation.
It’s a matter of scale. How is the audience supposed to be worried about say, a city being destroyed when your protagonist just took 15 minutes out to stop the world from exploding?
A lot of the time, they make sense from a character/universe development point of view. Like in Clone Wars, it was a quick way of demonstrating that Anakin and the force itself is (potentially inherently) unstable. That’s something really important to the larger themes of the show and needed to be looked at. But if the story has to be temporarily twisted into nonsense to get some point about the character or world across, then maybe some more development should have happened earlier on, or later, or generally in a more subtle way.
I get that a lot of it is meant as metaphor. It’s not always meant to fit into the world because it’s representative of an abstract concept. If that’s the case though then why is it in the world? Why are these actual events taking place and being presented as a functioning part of the established universe? Then to top it off, all the characters usually pretend it didn’t happen.
It’s like saying to the audience “yeh, what just happened was crazy important, not in regards to the story but still crazy important. No no, it was all canon but not in the way that has any impact on the events to follow. Keep it in mind though, just don’t mention it ever again.”
Come to think of it, it’s probably just a specific way the pacing of a story can go wrong. A lot of these examples probably would have worked really well if they’d happened towards the end of the story, when the stakes are already high.
I suspect that this is something that only happens in episodic stories with no set end in sight. It seems like this kind of earth-shaking, self-examination by the story could happen in a dream sequence or something.
I donno. I just don’t think they work as a narrative tool. There’s probably a specific term for them, like mid-season story bomb or reverse narrative pause. If you know what they’re called, let me know :)
(If there’s some extended piece of Star Wars lore that puts the Space Gods into better context, please don’t shout me down by explaining it at length. In the context of the show, it was a self-contained incident and completely disconnected from the story as a whole.)
why do people look like their art styles so much like they don’t look exactlylike it but you can look at a person then at their art then back at the person and be like “yes, this is definitely the person who drew this”
Hey so this was really interesting to me, so I went and asked some of my friends to share a recent drawing and a photo.
And then there’s me
Kinda scribbly and ill defined. So yeah, I think the theory holds water.
You kids should add your own.
I LOVE THIS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-makes I don’t know sound-
?????
:V
I have some Doubts
:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
I’ve always thought this!!!!! I also find that the way I daw hands by default looks like my own hands, too (I’m too lazy to try and find some comparison photos though)
It’s so fun to see all these comparisons!!
why yes, I am a gross, surly, eyeball monster!
Here’s to forever having my face associated with fandom trash. :P
I’ve written something about my own personal feelings and experiences with trying to socialise on the internet. It’s under the cut. It’s rambling and self indulgent and it doesn’t really stay on topic or go anywhere so if you’re not in the mood for that, here’s some pictures of Potoo birds that I drew instead. Have a nice day :)
A lot of people use the internet as a kind of diary. Somewhere to talk about very personal feelings that they’re dealing with, which is great. It’s good for you to talk about things that are bothering you and to get them out of your head. I’ve tried to do it myself a few times (I guess that’s what I’m doing right now). I’m not always comfortable with it but I understand the benefits.
But it’s not just a diary. It’s a diary that anyone can read and a lot of the time, someone you don’t know will tell the world something very personal about themselves. So now you know this very intimate thing about this other person on the internet. Something that in other circumstance, would probably only be told to a friend in confidence.
It creates this Illusion of familiarity. An idea that you know them and that you’ve already gone past that introductory stage. But you’re still strangers. You don’t know them. You’ve never met them, you may never meet them but you still know this very intimate detail about them.
I think it gets worse when someone is having trouble or going through something awful. I want to try and help. Try and give support or advice if I have any experiences that might be relevant.
Part of me thinks that’s the point of posting such personal information online. You’re being open and honest with your emotions and people don’t necessarily need to know you to be supportive and helpful. We can just help each other out.
On the other hand, it almost feels like you’re prying. Like the only reason you know this is because you read there diary. You’re still a stranger and you made a choice to dig into their business and decided that you have the right to comment on it. I have no idea, I’m just running through thought processes.
If you’ve seen any of my bitching on here or twitter, you might know that I moved to a very isolated location at the beginning of the year for work. There’s no real artistic or geeky community here as far as I can tell and I’m a long way from any friends or family so I’ve been making an effort to try and make friends online.
I’m pretty atrocious at socialising and the idea of trying to introduce yourself and start a dialogue without being in front of the person is completely baffling to me but other people do it so I guess it works out. So I’ve been trying to strike up conversations with other artists and joining online communities to find topics I can contribute to. Anything to try and meet new people.
Short version, it’s not really working. I guess I’m doing something wrong, or maybe I’m not and it’s just random. It has changed my view of the internet community though.
I think people on the internet who see themselves as socially awkward aren’t as bad at socialising as they think. I’m sure in real life that they have trouble, they wouldn’t think they were bad at socialising if they didn’t. But I think the internet takes a similar level of interpersonal skills as anywhere else, just a different kind.
That might sound weird but I see artists having group streams for hours with people they’ve never met in person. I’ve seen people sending messages that, to me at least, seems way too forward and prying to someone they don’t know but it’s somehow fine because internet.
I guess I’ve become a bit of a weirdo. Or a lot of a weirdo. Isolation make you weird. Like everything else in life, socialising is a skill and if you don’t do it for a while, your skills will dull. It gets harder to hold a conversation. Harder convey ideas. That’s what’s happening to me in real life and I never really developed internet social skills in the first place.
I can kind of see now how people can disappear into the internet and never resurface. When you’re alone with no easy way to be around others, that ambient feeling of knowing people and community that the internet provides is there without any effort on your part and that can be enough to keep you going. But it’s not really helping, the opposite in fact. They’re still strangers, you’re still alone and that’s the way it’s gonna stay unless something changes.
I think it’s a great thing that people are being open with their emotions. It’s a healthy thing to do and the fact that the internet has become a place where people feel like they can be open is amazing. I just don’t think I’m built for it.
Built?! I mean grown! Who said I was a robot?! Bleep bloop! Fuck you!
