This commentary covers the following posts:
Untitled
Untitled (Ravens and Writing Desks)
This is why I barely ever drink
Introduction (Ravens and Writing Desks)
Wrapping a few things up
Another Report
Messenger's Report (Heavy Boy)
Caper's Last Tale (Ravens and Writing Desks)
A lot of posts to cover again, but a lot of them with little substance that can be glossed over more simply.
The first post, as you may have gathered, was simply just trolling. It appears to be a stereotypical "Slender Man is making me lose my mind!" post until it's revealed in my next post that...Messi just had a hell of a hangover. Some people like realism, some people like meta, but what I really, really like to do when I'm writing is mess with people's expectations. Build something up, and then subvert it.
Around this time, I had started getting worried about writing Poe. I knew she would be a difficult character, largely because of who she was, and I knew it would be difficult for me to avoid writing her in a way that seemed sort of backwards in terms of female characters. After all, Poe is quiet and submissive, and with potential romance playing such a large role in the story, you can see how I might have been a bit worried. So I asked AJ, who had previously just helped me brainstorm some, if she'd want to write Poe, since she had helped develop the character and all. She eagerly agreed, and Ravens and Writing Desks was born.
The first post is a poem by Edgar Allen Poe, entitled, "Annabel Lee." As you might already know, that's Poe's real name. She was, in fact, named after the poem as her parents were (as is later mentioned) both English majors. This poem is the reason her name became Poe, so it made sense to start the blog with it. The second post is just a basic introduction that's fairly self-explanatory.
Anyway, moving on past that discourse. An important event that occurs offscreen (or, at least, more offscreen than anything else in the blog) is Poe visiting Messi and spending the night drinking with him. This encounter was actually roleplayed through a Skype chat, with Alex playing the part of Poe. While I don't believe I have the conversation anymore, it helped develop both characters and, more importantly, bring them closer together. They bonded over memories of Caper. Poe had many and Messi had few, but talking about them helped nonetheless. The two also started actually paying attention to each other at this point. Before that, they had been sort of peripherals in the other's life, connected by a mutual friend. They do something close to flirting while drunk, though it's mostly just trying to cheer each other up. And really, at that point in time, it's something that both characters needed. Poe needed someone to latch on to, and at this point in time, Caper and Helios are both dead. Messi was the next closest person. And Messi, had Poe not reached out, would have shut himself off from the world and gone spiraling down into depression.
This is where we planted the first pushes towards a relationship between Poe and Messi, bolstered by their awkwardness surrounding the whole thing. Also note that Messi states that he is not a frequent drinker at this point, whereas he's practically an alcoholic by the end of the blog.
I really have nothing to say about the other posts, other than Poe's eulogy for Caper straddles the line between heartbreaking and funny.
Showing posts with label AJ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AJ. Show all posts
Monday, November 26, 2012
Monday, October 15, 2012
Commentary, Part 4: Punchline
This commentary covers the following posts:
The Role of Stories
Once Upon a Time
Untitled
This is around the time that I had not only found my footing with the blog, but was falling into my stride as well. This is when everything really starts kicking off and, in my opinion, starts getting good.
I had set up a small arc in earlier posts. It was largely just an introductory arc based around Messi's backstory and character development, but it also introduced Caper and Poe. Like I said, it was a small arc, but it set up everything that I needed to launch the story I wanted to tell, or at very least, introduce themes and concepts that I could use later on.
In "The Role of Stories," we really get to see the deeper side of Caper that was only hinted at earlier. His speech, as many of you have probably figured out, was taken directly from House of Leaves. I included it because I had been reading the book at the time and the passage stood out. It felt like it had been written with Caper in mind. While the entire passage was transcribed word-for-word and with the same punctuation, I probably should have varied the actual transcription a bit. After all, the punctuation is erratic and there's no way Messi would be able to get it down perfectly by ear. Maybe Caper manage to sneak onto his computer and edit it. Or maybe it's just a minor plot hole. Oops.
While Caper's statement that his name is "William Navidson" and the potential clips of his life are obviously largely bull, there was one that I did adopt and make pseudo-canon later on: the line about his girlfriend aborting his unborn daughter. Maybe that one was true, but it was confirmed by Caper himself, who's admittedly not the most reliable source. You, the audience, gets to decide what all Caper says is true and what he's made up. Maybe it's all true. Maybe it's all a lie. Your choice.
But all that can be fairly easily deduced from context. Consequently, this is maybe the most interesting tidbit of this post: Caper is referring to a specific blog at the end of the post. The girl he's tracking and that he ends up saving is Anya from It's All David's Fault, written by AJ (who helped with a lot of ideas in DSTM and who wrote Poe's blog). More specifically, it refers to this post, where they're (I believe) at the Vietnam memorial. This was a one-sided crossover, but was acknowledged by AJ. While it's part of DSTM's canon, it may not necessarily be part of IADF's canon, and it really doesn't matter either way. Maybe it's an alternate universe version of IADF. That's always possible.
Moving on to "Once Upon a Time," though. I'm slightly curious as to who all assumed that Kyle was the Messenger and when they realized that it was Alan. This post was largely to establish Kyle's existence and provide Messi's background and motivation. And of course, the natural question is this: is this story true/canon? The answer is actually "no." The account that Messi gave wildly varies from the truth in a lot of places. It can be called "essentially true," meaning that it's similar enough to what happened that it shouldn't really matter, but it's also been heavily dramatized. So what is the true story? I don't know. Make up your own.
This post also included a comment from Caper that was nothing more than me trolling everyone. I knew that I would be killing Caper the next post. In all the chats I had with the larger community, I built Caper up and expressed how excited I was to post the Q and A with him. And then, I posted my punchline.
This post was untitled, and I'd like to take a brief digression to explain a choice I made here and elsewhere. I'd already read a LOT of blogs featuring the Slender Man at that point. And some of them spoiled things with their titles or, in some cases, leading with the most important detail and leaving the post untitled--which would reveal the first sentence or two in the archives. I specifically hid major plot events behind vague enough titles and text so that people looking through the archives wouldn't be surprised. This is also the reason I removed the feed with Turtle's Twitter account from the blog: having current updates displayed in such a prominent place would potentially spoil major plot events for future readers.
I bring this up because this post was the first time I had to use it, considering it contained the first hard-hitting event: Caper's death.
This post is the conclusion of the first arc of DSTM, and is possibly still the most important post, if only because I was able to keep going back to it and further exploring it. There were a lot of retcons in this post, though you wouldn't recognize them as retcons because I didn't have to actually change anything: just interpret things a bit differently. In fact, these retcons actually made the post make more sense, since it provided perfect explanations for things that had been a bit iffy before.
On the basic and original level, though, the Slender Man came in and killed Caper for letting Anya slip past. There were multiple reasons for this. One was to hit the audience hard by killing off someone who was rapidly becoming a fan favorite. How better to enforce that anyone could die in this story than by killing a prominent character only fifteen posts in? What better way to manipulate their emotions and grab their attention? The other reason was to push Poe into the spotlight. Up to this point she had been a mere accessory for Caper. This was the point where she started actually getting development of her own.
The major "retcon" in this post was the reason for Caper's death. Later on, it was revealed that Caper had not only destroyed their leads, but killed one of the Hunters assigned to Anya. It was this act--killing one of their own--that drew the Slender Man's ire. Why he took action now when he didn't take action for similar events later on, though? That's a bit harder to answer. Maybe he approved of the later actions. Maybe he's just random. The Slender Man in DSTM was impersonal and consequently never fully developed.
This also had the effect of giving Nee-chan a reason to show up when she did. Her appearance after Caper's death had been a bit too coincidental, but having her replace a guy who had been killed earlier? Things fell into place way too well with that retcon.
Changing this also cast Poe's insistence that Caper be quiet in new light. Instead of shutting him up so he didn't overexert himself, it was at least partially to keep him from revealing things that she didn't want Messi knowing.
This post also established a few more things: Caper's love of kids, for one, which contributed to his pseudo-canon backstory later on. Further foreshadowing of the fact that it was, in fact, Concrete Giraffes that introduced Poe to the Slender Man ("But it's what I dooooooo..."). Giving Poe dialogue past more than a sentence or two.
Finally, there were two parts of this post that I really liked. The first was Caper's final joke. I was surprised that I'd never heard a subversion of the "light at the end of the tunnel" like the one I used, and I love the idea of Caper trying to be funny (for both his sake and the sake of those around him) until the end.
But then, in his last moments, he gets deadly serious. The facade breaks. He's scared. Terrified. He hates the life he's lead and seems to realize that he's going to die as a villain. Worse, the person he turns to for one final validation of himself finds himself unable to say anything. A tragic end to Caper's tale.
The Role of Stories
Once Upon a Time
Untitled
This is around the time that I had not only found my footing with the blog, but was falling into my stride as well. This is when everything really starts kicking off and, in my opinion, starts getting good.
I had set up a small arc in earlier posts. It was largely just an introductory arc based around Messi's backstory and character development, but it also introduced Caper and Poe. Like I said, it was a small arc, but it set up everything that I needed to launch the story I wanted to tell, or at very least, introduce themes and concepts that I could use later on.
In "The Role of Stories," we really get to see the deeper side of Caper that was only hinted at earlier. His speech, as many of you have probably figured out, was taken directly from House of Leaves. I included it because I had been reading the book at the time and the passage stood out. It felt like it had been written with Caper in mind. While the entire passage was transcribed word-for-word and with the same punctuation, I probably should have varied the actual transcription a bit. After all, the punctuation is erratic and there's no way Messi would be able to get it down perfectly by ear. Maybe Caper manage to sneak onto his computer and edit it. Or maybe it's just a minor plot hole. Oops.
While Caper's statement that his name is "William Navidson" and the potential clips of his life are obviously largely bull, there was one that I did adopt and make pseudo-canon later on: the line about his girlfriend aborting his unborn daughter. Maybe that one was true, but it was confirmed by Caper himself, who's admittedly not the most reliable source. You, the audience, gets to decide what all Caper says is true and what he's made up. Maybe it's all true. Maybe it's all a lie. Your choice.
But all that can be fairly easily deduced from context. Consequently, this is maybe the most interesting tidbit of this post: Caper is referring to a specific blog at the end of the post. The girl he's tracking and that he ends up saving is Anya from It's All David's Fault, written by AJ (who helped with a lot of ideas in DSTM and who wrote Poe's blog). More specifically, it refers to this post, where they're (I believe) at the Vietnam memorial. This was a one-sided crossover, but was acknowledged by AJ. While it's part of DSTM's canon, it may not necessarily be part of IADF's canon, and it really doesn't matter either way. Maybe it's an alternate universe version of IADF. That's always possible.
Moving on to "Once Upon a Time," though. I'm slightly curious as to who all assumed that Kyle was the Messenger and when they realized that it was Alan. This post was largely to establish Kyle's existence and provide Messi's background and motivation. And of course, the natural question is this: is this story true/canon? The answer is actually "no." The account that Messi gave wildly varies from the truth in a lot of places. It can be called "essentially true," meaning that it's similar enough to what happened that it shouldn't really matter, but it's also been heavily dramatized. So what is the true story? I don't know. Make up your own.
This post also included a comment from Caper that was nothing more than me trolling everyone. I knew that I would be killing Caper the next post. In all the chats I had with the larger community, I built Caper up and expressed how excited I was to post the Q and A with him. And then, I posted my punchline.
This post was untitled, and I'd like to take a brief digression to explain a choice I made here and elsewhere. I'd already read a LOT of blogs featuring the Slender Man at that point. And some of them spoiled things with their titles or, in some cases, leading with the most important detail and leaving the post untitled--which would reveal the first sentence or two in the archives. I specifically hid major plot events behind vague enough titles and text so that people looking through the archives wouldn't be surprised. This is also the reason I removed the feed with Turtle's Twitter account from the blog: having current updates displayed in such a prominent place would potentially spoil major plot events for future readers.
I bring this up because this post was the first time I had to use it, considering it contained the first hard-hitting event: Caper's death.
This post is the conclusion of the first arc of DSTM, and is possibly still the most important post, if only because I was able to keep going back to it and further exploring it. There were a lot of retcons in this post, though you wouldn't recognize them as retcons because I didn't have to actually change anything: just interpret things a bit differently. In fact, these retcons actually made the post make more sense, since it provided perfect explanations for things that had been a bit iffy before.
On the basic and original level, though, the Slender Man came in and killed Caper for letting Anya slip past. There were multiple reasons for this. One was to hit the audience hard by killing off someone who was rapidly becoming a fan favorite. How better to enforce that anyone could die in this story than by killing a prominent character only fifteen posts in? What better way to manipulate their emotions and grab their attention? The other reason was to push Poe into the spotlight. Up to this point she had been a mere accessory for Caper. This was the point where she started actually getting development of her own.
The major "retcon" in this post was the reason for Caper's death. Later on, it was revealed that Caper had not only destroyed their leads, but killed one of the Hunters assigned to Anya. It was this act--killing one of their own--that drew the Slender Man's ire. Why he took action now when he didn't take action for similar events later on, though? That's a bit harder to answer. Maybe he approved of the later actions. Maybe he's just random. The Slender Man in DSTM was impersonal and consequently never fully developed.
This also had the effect of giving Nee-chan a reason to show up when she did. Her appearance after Caper's death had been a bit too coincidental, but having her replace a guy who had been killed earlier? Things fell into place way too well with that retcon.
Changing this also cast Poe's insistence that Caper be quiet in new light. Instead of shutting him up so he didn't overexert himself, it was at least partially to keep him from revealing things that she didn't want Messi knowing.
This post also established a few more things: Caper's love of kids, for one, which contributed to his pseudo-canon backstory later on. Further foreshadowing of the fact that it was, in fact, Concrete Giraffes that introduced Poe to the Slender Man ("But it's what I dooooooo..."). Giving Poe dialogue past more than a sentence or two.
Finally, there were two parts of this post that I really liked. The first was Caper's final joke. I was surprised that I'd never heard a subversion of the "light at the end of the tunnel" like the one I used, and I love the idea of Caper trying to be funny (for both his sake and the sake of those around him) until the end.
But then, in his last moments, he gets deadly serious. The facade breaks. He's scared. Terrified. He hates the life he's lead and seems to realize that he's going to die as a villain. Worse, the person he turns to for one final validation of himself finds himself unable to say anything. A tragic end to Caper's tale.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Commentary, Part 2: Finding my Footing
This commentary covers the following posts:
Death Threats?Back to the Daily Grind
Only two posts this time because there's a lot of ground to cover.
"Death Threats?" requires a little bit of context. It was sparked by this comment:
Marnax May 25, 2011 12:33 AMBasically, he had entirely missed the point of what the character was saying, so I had the Messenger unload on him (and anyone else who might think that way). The Messenger was very much intended, even from that point, to be a sympathetic proxy. So I hammered the sympathetic proxy nature of the blog over everyone's head.Okay, you can either join us, or I'll have to kill you when I see you, and I WILL see you. Count on it.
I like the post for several reasons. For one, it allowed me to flesh out Hyde post-blog a little more, as well as reveal the name of "Girl" as Erin. It also allowed me to present my view of the "hallowed" form of proxies. It was also the birth of "William," an identity passed around from proxy to proxy. Who (or what) exactly is William? I'm not entirely sure. I like to think of it as a sort of an infectious identity. It gets passed on from one person to another, and then the original host dies. There's probably still a William around somewhere.
In terms of plot, the post didn't have much purpose. However, it set up the themes of identity I used throughout DSTM, and introduced the concept of Messi searching for answers about his place in the organization. In reality, this post is where the blog really starts.
Once I had an idea of what I wanted to do with the blog, I started asking around for ideas. I wanted to examine more proxies, and two blogging friends ended up helping me: Alex M (Dreams in Darkness, Watch this City Burn, Maleorderman, Deja vu Dreamer, and others), and AJ (It's All David's Fault, Throwing Voices, and others).
I asked a Skype chat of creators for a name, and AJ offered Poe. From there, we started chatting about how we could work the character into the story, and after a bit, AJ, Alex, and I split off to a separate chat to talk about it. I had an idea of a possible romance between a proxy and a runner, and Alex offered to involve an upcoming character he had planned to write. As a result, Poe quickly switched to being female (she had originally been male), the romance developed into a love triangle, and her character started developing.
"Back to the Daily Grind" was the post where I introduced Poe and Caper. Caper was originally named Eternity (or possibly Epitaph; though Eternity was how I remembered it), but I switched it when I realized that it was a terrible name for his character. His nature was cemented with the name change, and Caper became a larger-than-life character designed to steal the whole show. In fact, I purposely built Caper up more to hide Poe's importance. In fact, I edited the original post, which had subtly revealed Poe's gender, to make it even more ambiguous.
There's also still some "Early Installment Weirdness" going on here. Messi's talking about the Slender Man visiting regularly (or as he calls him, "The Boss"), when later on it was implied that Slendy doesn't really care much about what the organization is up to. I'm also a bit embarrassed now by the small-texted "safer for everyone" line. Really, all that did was draw attention to the line when it should have deflected it away. It's really not Messi's style.
Anyway, like the post says, this is really where I started finding my footing and realizing where I was going to go with the blog. I had some advice from AJ and Alex, and I was really excited to start putting it into action.
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