Subject: You should be careful when using gore.
Author:
Posted on: 2017-07-16 09:19:00 UTC
Not just because other people might not like gore. I personally don't have anything against using gore. However, you should be careful that the violence used doesn't become cheap; everything, including gore, should have some significance.
Well, hello again. It seems that I have been infected by this, fanfic bug again after some years. I hope I had not antagonised anyone during my leave. if so, I deeply regret it and asked for your sincere forgiveness. I have been writing a new fanfic very recently, since I was smitten by Kuroko no Basuke and for some reason, decided to crossover it with Mount and Blade. it has graphic violence though, so I will be not be sharing it here.
Lastly, Hello again!
Hey, it's a returnbie! Take this returnbie gift! *hands you a replica of the Spear of Destiny* Doesn't work like the original, that'd be too dangerous in a Boarder's hands.
I'm interested in this fanfic you're writing, or at least, your stuff in general. What fandoms are you in, what type of stuff do you like to write about, etc? Just curious. :D Anyway, nice to meet you! *waves rapidly with entire arm*
-Twistey
"Hey! About the returnbie gift, what's the Spear of Destiny?" It's a really cool weapon from the iD Software verse! Let me show you!
http://wolfenstein.wikia.com/wiki/SpearofDestiny_(item)
I am interested in Kuroko no Basuke, Mount and Blade, ERASED, Black Lagoon, FATE series, and most recently, Re:Creators. I had a fling with Silmarillion once, but I grew distant from it. .
I have read Historie, drawn and written by the same guy who did Parasyte, and are starting to read Vanguard of Archer, the same guy who did Kuroko no Basuke. I am far more drawn to seinen than shonen for some reason.
I have no idea how to use this spear though. Well, time to HEMA again. Oh, in return, please accept this three replicas of Silmarils, batteries sold separately. *bows slightly*
I like posting things about worldbuilding. For example, I am not satisfied with hammerspace as just a trope. I often want to expand it to something like Doraemon's dimension pocket or Gilgamesh's treasury, forgot its full name. It has drawn quite a complaint from someone reading my fics or stories. I also am interested in fighting or blood, though I am a lily liver myself.
Might as well post my fic here. It's not good though. http://archiveofourown.org/works/11459085
It's called Gate of Babylon, or king's treasure in kanji. It's nice to see another Fate fan. Out of curiosity, do you follow the rest of Nasuverse as well?
I have seen the Fate/Grand Order movie, a little of Kaleido Prisma Illya Ruby, the DEEN Fate, and UBW. Haven't played any games or visual novels of the franchise, their genres just isn't my type.
The novels were pretty good, and the anime movies are as well. It's a shame you aren't interested in the rest, since you appear to like worldbuilding. Nasuverse is a very rich world to explore.
I am just not into visual novels. As for the nonexistent anime, I haven't the time to watch it yet. I had other obligations. This is the reason only now am I able to return to fanfic writing.
Nasuverse has the same problem I had with Tolkienverse. It's hard to build upon a world where its main attraction, in this magic, is leaving it. It may be an interesting exercise, but it hurts my heart. I prefer the AWoIaF, but as fanfiction isn;t permitted by the author, all we could legally do is to raise madder and madder fan theories regarding things. You should look at r/asoiaf, only recently their madness had lessened, by a bit.
What do you mean by leaving? If you meant reaching the root, it's not exactly a portal that leads outside.
As technology progresses, magic and magecraft becomes weaker and weaker. I am not referring to reaching the Root. That is another thing that I do not understand fully.
Tolkien's magic has the same situation, as the Ages progresses, there is less magical things and methods left to be used. By the fourth Age, magic is really weak, except possibly for the cults in the East and the remaining Quendi.
It is technically called "outside the world" but there is a slight technicality here. The root is the source of all souls, all phenomena, it is everything and nothing at the same time. Everything because it is the source of all things and where everything will return to. Nothing because, well, everything that exists came from a blank slate, a state of nothingness. To touch the root is to recieve knowledge of everything and essentially become god. At the same time, touching the root "returns your soul to whence it came" thus causing one's death. So a person will become god, but will cease to be a person; his or her very concept will be altered by the experience. The first and fifth magics draw directly from the root, the second, third, and fourth magics are means to reach the root. Some people such as Void Shiki have an intrinsic connection to the root.
As a side note, it would be very difficult to PPC Nasuverse fanfic because of how the world works, unless DoSAT has got something to circumvent that.
Yes magecraft is getting weaker as humanity grows stronger. However this does not actually affect magic as the phantasmal species that are governed by mystery simply moved to the reverse side of the world. It is only humanity that has lost touch with magecraft and mystery due to Alaya-shiki's interference with the laws of Gaia's reality marble. Species that are not human such as those connected to Gaia (i.e. True Ancestors) still have a hight level of mystery. At least until Angel Notes and/or Tsuki no Sango happened, but these two events happen only in some timelines.
Weird formatting thing. T_T
-Twistey
Generally speaking, as long as you put warnings at the beginning of your mission to let the readers know there'll be heavy stuff, you're okay, but going into full-blown gorn is generally frowned, on, especially if it involves torture of a Sue.
Personal opinion: I've had my agents put through the wringer, but when it came to describing fatal injuries I leaned on the safer side and let the readers know how bad it was by showing the other characters' reactions rather than describing the blood and squishy body parts.
The PPC's supposed to be funny, not horrifying. Try to keep it that way, please.
My writing skills need work, and as of now, it is barely polished, if you can call it that. I mean, about posting fanfics that I write to this place. The fanfics I wrote have people die in graphic detail.
In Mount and Blade: Warband or its mods, I have the option to turn on or off blood. I intend to capture this effect in writing my fic, but the last time I tried gore, someone compelled me to ditch the fic. So, I am wondering if I am allowed to post such fanfic here, that do have gore.
I want to capture the effect of turning the blood option on. As in, we could see people fight while bleeding in the game, and die with blood on it.
Not just because other people might not like gore. I personally don't have anything against using gore. However, you should be careful that the violence used doesn't become cheap; everything, including gore, should have some significance.
May I use it for worldbuilding, such as pointing out the weakness of immortality? In video games, lives are cheap. But people try to not get themselves killed anyway in the games. I intend to show it by describing in graphic detail how it hurts the character, both physically and mentally.
I may also employ for plot significance, but no death, since I hate seeing my characters die. After all, in Mount and Blade, your characters don't die, they retire. How will tragedies work in this world? If one of my characters become bandits, how can they atone for their crimes in the eyes of their fellow friends?
Okay, pardon, but I'll need to get some clarification here and there, if you don't mind.
so, what do you intend on using your gore for?
You want to use it as a technique through which you can criticise immortality? How so? I can't see how the experience of gore (and, therefore, the experience of seeing yourself get injured and all,) works to subvert and criticise the concept of immortality - surely an immortal would, by a certain point, have learnt to get over all the icky things that happen when they die and then promptly un-die? I mean, the general idea is that gore is feared because it's a reminder of mortality - the fact that we're all a bunch of squelching biological machines that could just shut down at any moment like any other machine. This is a fear that is irrelevant to an immortal, hence the name!
What is your point about video games? Is it that people try not getting killed because they want to avoid gore? I mean, I doubt it's that point - plenty of videogames lack gore and you don't want to die in them! Not-dying in videogames is more easily attributed to the whole 'I want to win and not lose' mindset. But, yes, I'm not sure what your point there is, pardon.
What do you intend to show by 'describing in graphic detail how it (presumably the gore) hurts the character physically and mentally'? Does this relate to your earlier mention of wanting to criticise immortality?
Also, surely the lack of death in Mount and Blade is more of a game mechanic, than a function of the game's canon and worldbuilding? Surely death exists within the plot, and world and all, the plot and world and all being the things relevant to fanfic, over the game mechanics, oy?
I disagree with the notion that tragedy requires gore, because that is a nonsense notion. It is a tragedy when a young boy grows up without a father figure because his dad's passed away from diabetes type-two, and it hardly stops being tragic by not having any gore about! Or did you mean something else with that point?
Your last sentence lost me completely. I'm not sure what gore has to do with a character atoning for crime in the eyes of their mates if they become a bandit.
Yes, ah, pardon for the barrage of questions. Clarification'd be helpful in getting your question, y'know?
Because I seem to fail to deliver my wish. Here goes.
Later on, I want to write about a friend of one of the protagonist. He raided a caravan, and the protagonist comes to help the attacked caravan. The friend was caught and he cries before the protagonist. I still want them both to work together, which is why I am thinking about a proper to make an immortal to atone for his banditry.
Regarding criticising immortality, what I want to point out is simply that getting hurt hurts, even if you are immortal. Take Ajin for example. I want to see if the pain of death inhibits people by how much if they don't die because of it. Or in my fic, their body reattach themselves perfectly a few hours after they die.
Well gore can be used to torture an immortal using methods that would kill a normal person. And if one could keep the immortal restrained, said gore would last forever. How does drowning for an eternity sound? Not fun, right? I can think of much more gory examples that I will not mention here. For further examples look no further than the tv tropes article on "fate worse than death" and "and I must scream".
that's just the experience of pain and misery. Which can, and is frequently associated with gore, but is not inherently tied to gore. I mean, you, yourself mentioned a non-gory example! Drowning isn't gory but it's certainly (or very frequently) painful and miserable! And there's plenty of works that have explored the psychological torture of immortality - just the experience of watching everyone and everything sort of wither around you, you being unaffected by it but unable to help. Which isn't gory at all!
I wouldn't say, once more, that it's the gore that's the problem for the immortal, it's the experience of continued pain and misery that goes on forever and ever which they can't stop, being immortal and such.
But remember, in addition to hurting the character, it should also appeal to the reader, for whom gore greatly increases the squick factor and the percieved pain. A writer can describe pain and misery and the reader would sympathize, however they may not be able to understand how bad it is because some of these methods are just so out there. Add a dose of gore and the reader instantly goes, "I DO NOT WANT THAT TO HAPPEN TO ME!!!!!" because gore is assiciated with pain and the amount of pain is related to the level of gore.
Yes, what I mentioned can be done without gore, and gore may not affect the immortal. However, gore affects the reader, and the reader's reaction is as much part of the story as the reaction of a character. Therefore, some things may not be necessary from a character standpoint, but can be added to the story to elicit emotions from the reader to deliver a larger impact.
I find that a lot of authors who like to use violence use it much too often. Which in turn, makes the entire thing look very artificial. Think of how the characters think, or how a gamer might percieve enemies in a game. One would not notice a mook or redshirt that got killed by the protagonist. In such cases, a simple phrase describing the death should suffice because no one, not even the one performing the killing, cares about it. On the other hand, if this was a final battle of ultimate destiny against a nemesis, or a boss fight, or anything of emotional significance, then the character begins to notice details.
Adding details of the act will add emotional significance to the killing, or hurting, of a character. Basically, it is the difference between "seeing" and "feeling" the violence. So, if the violence is not significant to the characters and plot i.e. hurting a mook, then intricate details should be used less. If it is significant, then more details could, and should, be added. If it is very emotionally significant, then you may do tiny details of you so choose. Although this is my own personal views.
And yes, gore can be used to point out weaknesses of immortality. In fact, this was done in baccano.
Aaah, I've always hated the concept of some deaths inherently meaning 'less' than others (which then, naturally, leads into the concept of other lives inherently meaning less than others.) It's an ugly, worrying, and rather dystopian concept to me. But, to be fair, I can't say I'm particularly fond of works in which the protagonists kill swathes of sapient people and not feel a thing about it!
Although, yes, you do add a very good point - the point of emphasis. Putting more detail in order to show us that, well, this bit's important! That is a very good point, indeed. Even in cases where the gore doesn't seem particularly over the top, the impact of the situation can be increased by the detail of it, like, say, someone getting nicked by a knife they know is poisoned, or a character that's been sheltered and never been injured getting injured and being utterly shocked by it. That sort've stuff.
Gore is, as with everything else that gets put into writing, a technique, and it really can be used to great effect in the right places. As long as it feels like it has a genuine purpose and its presence and appearance doesn't 'overstay that purpose,' as it were, and make it feel unnecessary and weird, gore seems perfectly fine.
I think that's the main issue with gore, over other particular writing techniques - the fact that, given its inherently visceral and sort of ugly nature, you just need to be more careful balancing it, so it doesn't overstay its purpose and feel all icky.
And about the lesser life thing, unfortunately it also occurs in real life. Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable for some lives to mean less to specific characters. Since most pieces of fiction are writting partially from the protaginist's perspective, naturally some lives look cheap because they are, from the protagonist's perspective at least. In the grand scheme of things, all lives are equal. From the perspctive of an individual, definitely not.