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Thanks! I'll have a look.

I'm not sure I can offer much feedback or discussion on it, since again, I don't have any sort of background in these sorts of things, but I'll be glad to read this.
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I'm quite interested in this, even though I'm not involved in social studies or any literary analysis and have no formal education in literature or fiction. I'd really be down for seeing some of those course materials, and advice from real, trained, educated professionals!

One of the things that really strikes me about colonial attitudes is how readily we see parallels to it in science fiction and fantasy. When we start painting people green, give them tusks, and call them Orcs I sometimes wonder where the line is between a bit of harmless fantasy fun and making a caricature for "savages" or "primitives" much the same way I'm guessing some of the early explorers may have felt during the scramble for Africa and the Americas. Sometimes the caricature isn't so bald-faced when laser guns, space ships, and aliens add a fresh coat of sci-fi paint overtop it but it's still there. I've fallen into this trap of numerous times without meaning to and only realized it when someone called me out on it. So I'd be very interested to read what you have to have to say about the matter.
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I found a website which generates badfics. I think this could be of use to the PPC.

https://fanficmaker.com/

(It's funny because normally plants are grown in plots of land, but here, mentioning plants produced plots!)

. . .

. . .

. . .

—doctorlit is sorry












—doctorlit is actually not sorry at all

I appear to have misunderstood the meaning of the phrase 'colonialist ideologies' in this context.

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Indeed they are, and much more informative.

For instance, it's one thing for me to tell you "My character likes to speak her mind and can be arrogant but knows when to shut up and be humble too." That really doesn't tell you anything and I can extrapolate that into ways that the author who tells that to me might never have intended. It doesn't do anything for the character. Despite that, lines like that are some of the most irritatingly common ways I see people try to sell me on their characters.

But if I told you something along the lines of "My character is very outspoken when it comes to her political views, but remembers to be diplomatic and polite when discussing them with strangers." or "My character loves to show off her knowledge about space and astrophysics to other people, but whenever someone brings up the science of economics she immediately knows to shut up and listen." That tells you as someone that's going to be evaluating the character a lot more, and also give me more to launch into, without being appreciably longer than the first example I gave.

This kind of approach is something I first found encouraged in online speed dating profiles, where getting as much information in as few words as possible across is more important than anything else, since you only have a couple seconds (if that) to make the best impression you can. This is the same method, but adapted to describing a fictional character.

The best part is, those kinds of pitches also can be used to branch off and provide starting points to talk about other things that has to do with your character.
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I end up with that middle section lull pretty often, since I find that starting a story and finishing it are the easiest parts. It's everything inbetween that I find is the most difficult, or finding a way to connect the scenes that I've got a clear idea how to write. It's the scenes that connect those scenes that I have the most difficult time writing, myself.

I've got a fairly simple method that I find works for me when I hit the scenes that act as glue to hold the other scenes together. It's not very efficient, but I find it works when all else fails. I usually try to take off on different tangents with one guiding rule: they must get me to or get me closer to the next bullet-point in my outline. From there I just try to write as many of those as I possibly can in the shortest amount of time without regard for their quality and produce as many tangents as I possibly can. In a way it's almost like NaNoWriMo, except rather than going for word count, I'm going for anything that will at least get me closer. In some cases I might just even write the tangents in point form.

After I do a enough of these, I find that one of them just works or clicks and I get that 'aha!' moment that I've been hoping to get. Or I can even put two or more together that I like. From there, once I have at least something visualized and a few words, it's a simple enough process to rewrite and rework that tangent into something that I won't immediately feel ashamed of.
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I read music, sorta, but I don't compose music. Which is why I need a friend to help me with that. {= )

I'm also not enough of a poet/lyricist to whip up a whole album's worth of pieces in one month, if that would even count. I don't know; I've only just heard of it.

Is that something anyone around here does, or might want to do, though? That would be cool to see.

~Neshomeh

How is speculative fiction influenced by colonialist ideology?

First and foremost, I continue to write my Magic: the Gathering blog. I'm rather proud that I've kept it up this long.

I'm also working on that Baron Phobos story that I keep saying is almost done. In my defense, it is more almost done than the last time I said it was almost done. So...

Also, I keep meaning to go back and figure out a way to take the suck out of this mission I've been writing. I should do that.

-Phobos

Aka, the pile of files I have open that I could see getting bigger at some point.

- Honors thesis (the experiments are done, I just need to write the thing, due by May)
- An interlude set after the RP in which Kk'kttak fell into HQ (aka, the one where he's been arrested)
- Two short stories
- An effectively abandoned recruitment interlude for Peregrin (like, I might maybe get back to it eventually, but probably not anytime soon)
- A dormant Young Wizards/Animorphs crossover (... there's an outline! I have a plan! Sort of...)

And as to questions, do any of y'all have this problem where you sometimes get a project blocked by fleshing out the middle of a story? Like, you know where you are, you know where you'd like to end up, and you have a general notion of how to get from here to there, but you need much more detail than that to write the thing. If so, how do you deal with it?

- Tomash

If there are no objections, I probably will.

~Neshomeh

Because, I mean... it has fan animé. And KYM is for, well, memes - major social phenomena. It must be nearly five years old now, right? I say go ahead and add it.

I can't take on another mission right now... and I dunno about taking an obvious My Immortal retread at all... but all the same, it's hard to find sufficiently awful crossovers so squarely in my wheelhouse.

So, maybe. But I won't cry if someone else really wants it.

~Neshomeh

(...that would be because I now have a VPN and it was on. Still me. Don't worry. All is well. I'm happy to confirm it's me via gchat or something as well, if necessary now or in the future--so far I've been leaving it off to post on the Board, but there's every chance I'll forget again, so...yeah. Heads up! ~Z)

Seriously, thank you for your comments. Both this set and the ones from the previous prompt session are very nice to read. This one is especially nice because when I came up with the Calaquendi (...five years ago, eek), I originally struggled some with figuring out what they were actually like, what made them distinct from each other. I doubt I'm done figuring it out, but it looks like at least a good chunk of what I have figured out came through here, so...thanks.

The plants...well. I went back to the first place that mentions them (a giant unfinished 50+ page mission that Lily and I were writing, which I might try to edit and finish since it does have a lot of things I like in it and the badfic is even still up)...it doesn't say there, of course, but there are definitely roots on the floor. I'm going to say that some of them are in pots--flowers especially, and whatever's just been brought in--but for the most part they're...well, there's probably a dirt floor? Either that or they really are growing out of the generic surface, which I can't imagine would make the Calaquendi feel at all at home. Either way, they're mostly not in pots.

Also. Um. I'm completely sure it was unintentional, but your one little question about the plants sparked a whole long thing that culminated in a new piece of plot being added to some interludes I was already working on and four pages of writing for it, all over the course of one evening. So. Um. Thank you? It's been one heck of a snowball, and I'm pretty sure it's still rolling, to some extent (beyond the fact that I now have to figure out what happens next...)

Anyway. Thank you.

~Z

For one thing, at the very least it's mixing Grelvish and Sindarin (or maybe it's completely Grelvish--I don't think so, but I still need to go looking. 'Amin mela lle' is most assuredly Grelvish, though).

More hilariously, of course, is that she's the last Elf-witch ahahaha. I needed that laugh. Also, Celebrian (unless her mother is someone else and I missed it) was murdered...by Suron.

I'm sure the writer had fun with this. I, too, will have fun with this :D

~Z

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Hey Thoth,

I recall you've seen my own sort of take-on-the-PPC-that-isn't-a-PPC-spinoff; I've considered rewriting it to more closely resemble the PPC continuity since. Unfortunately, some of the elements conflict too much with what's established and existing to make it compatible with the PPC continuity, so Watanabe & Smith has unfortunately been in limbo for the past little bit and I'd like to discuss the direction I'm going in with other people. I'm currently leaning toward continuing on the road I'm on, and just keeping the disclaimer that it's not endorsed in any fashion by the PPC.

I've also been working on writing a couple essays and how-tos that I also intend to put on my website for different pieces of advice. One that I've thought to add includes a more expansive take on what I'm calling the "micro-story" method of describing a character or as an exercise to brainstorm when building a character. I've mentioned it here before although it was on the tailing end of another discussion. It's a method of using small, short descriptions of what your character does or has done, rather than use adjectives. I find that adjectives are inherently subjective and open to a wide amount of interpretation depnding on who you describe your character to and in many cases can be extrapolated to fit almost any character at all, wheras what they do say much more about them. That's why I champion the "micro-story" method so much and why I like to share it with other people. After that, we'll see what else I have to offer.

Unrelatedly, I might add some musings on the (extremely sad) state of computer security at the consumer level and some tips to stay safe at a later date.

Even though things have been going much more slowly than I'd like, I wanted to mention that they're still going.
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I'm a little unsure as to whether it still meets the required "five in twenty" Google hits for the past year, since a lot of the returns are Know Your Meme and various video hosting sites that seem to contain the fanime? I think there are still sufficient hits of people talking about it, but you have to go back a few pages to find them in all the garbage.

I don't need this to be acknowledged to stoke my ego or anything—I've waited this long, it won't change my life one way or the other—but maybe it's a good test case?

~Neshomeh

And by that I mean I'm stuck in the World Builder's Syndrome, unable to even write an opening, but spending hours nitpicking every possible aspect of my universe.
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Send help.

Unfortunately, I don't think it's a feasible one. First because of all the practical concerns, and second because I'm with doctorlit: any book of mine with particular sentimental value attached to it is one that I want to keep. Sending off ones I don't care about that much is not quite what you had in mind, I think. {= )

Plus I don't write in my books, that's sacrilege.

~Neshomeh

I'd be interested in reading the essay and reflection, if you're able to share it.

Also interested in writing advice!

~Neshomeh