Introduction

So this is me, Wallac. A friend of mine suggested I blog about my interest in gaming so here goes. I’ve been a gamer since I was 10 (?) years old. My first ever game was Pokemon Blue. I still remember playing that game through till the very end. I was thrilled with the gym battles and the puzzles in each area. I was engulfed in pokemon games until gen 3. After that for a while, i didn’t have any videogames. Until recently, i discovered emulation and have been playing new games through that. I am now 25 and I still love videogames to death. On this blog, I will attempt to cover games that I am playing currently.

Thank you for your interest.

~wallac

Orange You Glad…

CWC Group Play

Orange You Glad We Can’t Die Anymore

MC greatest fear…death

Alex is MC

ATG what’s behind their anger at the world…price of oranges too high

ATG is Sarah

MC all consuming goal…to become immortal

New character enters w/ distressing announcement…oranges are in short supply because they’re the key to immortality

NC is Ivy

AGT age & descriptions…tall woman w/ taller hair, 25 yr, disgruntled college student, Present Mic hair

Complication…MC allergic to oranges

ATG name…Citrus Reamer, (a tall pale man with tall pale hair)

ATG occupation…orthodontist

Why MC can’t stand up to ATG…fears Novocain.

CR drowning in student loans…has nothing to lose.

Setting at rise…shopping mall where the dentist’s office is.

MC owes $ to Ivy, but CR overcharged her to pay off student debts.

MC gonna die in a month b/c can’t pay back orange mob.

Orange mob can make “lactose-free” oranges but they’re $$$.

MC behind on payment plan to orange mob.

__________

ALEX: First of all bitch. CR overcharged me for my orthodontic work. I went in to get my braces off, and they insisted I needed bottom braces and I was already being fitted for a retainer and I don’t have insurance and the mob is staked out. I’m running out of immortality juice for the month.

MOTHER (deuter) : Why are you so obsessed with being immortal even though you’re allergic to the oranges. Just age normally. You’re mother’s begging you, Pro Jean Tagonist.

CITRUS: Please, Miss Tagonist, idk what you’re talking about, I provide nothing but the best quality bracial remover. That’s a medical term.

MS TAG: Wow, you’re such a good orthodontist.

Enter mob boss, on a pogo stick.

IVY: I went on an expedition in some jungle, and instead of finding the fountain of youth, I found some oranges. But then my wife died. And then divorced me in the middle of the jungle. I’m gay and mad.

Falls off pogo stick. Falls to knees and screams in pain at the sheer cost of obtaining these oranges.

IVY: *pterodactyl scream*

CITRUS: Pogo no.

MS TAG: You’re so funny.

Pogo stick boing boing is like snapping in Westside Story.

One of the oranges is the infinity orange of space, time, and life…but can’t use it on herself.

•   *    *

Starting over—Flash round!

ATG goal…trying to design a Nascar car.  That guy at Faniel Hall

Taylor

MC fear…going fast

Me

ATG age and desc. — 7.5 ft tall (can’t fit in other racecars. No one let her drive one. 40 yrs, all you want to do in ride in a car. Has to walk everywhere.)

Character in mask—ATG wears a small animal mask to make herself look bigger

MC goal…disband Nascar, or make the world stop.

Narrator from Into the Woods, Meg

Behind ATG anger at the world…already explained. Never been in control of driving. Nascar is a family business. She has to be pit crew.

ANT name.. Slola LaCar

MC name…Dashley

Character enters with package…delivery man ( brings limo.

Fantasy scene of Slola as a pigmy owl in a pigmy owl race.

Vroom…indicates the duality of man.

Family…all played by Ivy

_________

SLOLA: I’m not working on a car right now.

NARRATOR: She was.

SHORT DAD: (on phone) You need to bang all the dads. Vroom.

NARRATOR: In this family they don’t say I love you, they say “vroom.” And I think that’s beautiful.

SLOLA’s SISTER: That’s not what bang means dad.

DASHLEY: You’re trying to make the world too fast, bitch. The world is spinning too fast. I feel sick.

NARRATOR: She felt sick.

DELIVERY MAN: I agree. The world is going too fast. I’m not going to deliver things so fast anymore.

SLOLA: I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that.

Thinkin’ About Character

During the character unit, we looked at a few different methods and systems for finding and/or thinking about the “seed” of your character–their inner them-ness that drives them through the story.

Most of these feature a positive and negative idea working against one another.

 

The Misbelief:

from Story Genius by Lisa Cron

Driving Desire: the character’s ultimate, specific, desire.

Misbelief: a belief the character that was true when they learned it, but is false. They see it as a key insight they were lucky to figure out, but it holds them back.

Case study: Zuko

• Driving Desire: capture the avatar to regain his honor
• Misbelief: honor comes from his father’s approval; gaining honor does not require acting honorably.

Case study: Toph

• Driving Desire: prove her strength
• Misbelief: strength means never needing others

 

The Ghost

from The Anatomy of Story by John Truby, as explained by JustWrite

Desire: the character’s desire.

Ghost: something from the character’s past that haunts them in the present, an “open wound” that is the source of their weakness and holds them back.

Case study: Aang

• Desire: have fun
• Ghost: running away from responsibility ended in disaster for him and the world last time, and he must not let it happen again.

 

The Grand Passion

from Beginnings: Setting a Story in Motion by Michael Arndt

Grand Passion: what the character loves most, can be a thing, person, role, feeling etc; what defines them.

Flaw: their Grand Passion taken too far. A negative trait that comes out of the positive thing that defines them.

Case study: Katara

• Grand Passion: waterbending. Katara’s actions are driven by her love of waterbending and her desire to master the skill.
• Flaw: Katara’s passion to learn drives her jealousy of Aang, pushes her to steal the waterbending scroll, and later to briefly explore bloodbending.

 

The Basics

elements repeated from ATLA – the Delicacy of Character

Want: the desire pushing them forward

Fear: the fear holding them back

Case study: Sokka

• Want: to be a good leader, live up to the responsibility placed on him.
• Fear: that his is not worthy.

 

 

Here’s those Snape books…

 

If anyone is interested in reading those books I mentioned tonight about the characterization of Snape, here they are:

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Snape-Debate-Snapes-Innocence/dp/0979233119

https://www.amazon.com/Snape-Definitive-Reading-Lorrie-Kim/dp/1940699134/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1940699134&pd_rd_r=QZFR6AJ7TQY2TH8VAW8G&pd_rd_w=T9JbW&pd_rd_wg=FSueW&psc=1&refRID=QZFR6AJ7TQY2TH8VAW8G

 

-Sarah 🙂

Links in the Description

I’ve found these all incredibly helpful. Check them out!

Videos:

Pixar Beginnings with Michael Arndt (Grand passion and flaw)

A:TLA and Compelling Backstory by JustWrite (Ghost and Desire) (ft. Truby’s Anatomy of Storytelling)

A:TLA and the Delicacy of Character by Weight of Cinema (motivation, personality, development)

The Best Explanation of Three Act Story Structure by Lindsay Ellis (not what we were talking about, but one of my favorites)

 

Books:

Story Genius by Lisa Cron

Anatomy of Story by John Truby

Also the ones about magic systems:

Hard Magic  •  Soft Magic  •  Deep Dive on ATLA by Hello Future Me

 

 

Some resources for worldbuilding

Here are some links with suggestions for questions to think about while you’re worldbuilding!

http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/fantasy-worldbuilding-questions/

https://tianawarner.com/2016/04/04/worldbuilding-checklist-creating-cultures-and-religions/

Some (Very late) Summary Mad-libs

Hey everyone! I finally found the sheet with last year’s mad libs from the final party! Gaze upon our beautiful creations–

Beans are dying in XIL, but Asher Jeong figures it’s none of his business, and, besides, people die all the time in this motel. Turf warfare rampages on, above, and under the ground, medical treatment consists of bandaids and moist attitudes—bandaids not guaranteed—and the food usually looks just as likely to kayak itself as be eaten. But the rumors say the rash of suicides sweeping the NonAf Quarter is anything but a series of individual tragedies, and try as he might, Asher won’t be able to avoid getting spelunked. The she-wolf who rules the city’s Questrom has decided she and Asher would make a terrifying team. Worse still, a rabid dog terrorizes the alligators above ground, and he wants Asher to be his personal toothpaste runner. Neither of them will take no for an answer, and when the desperate situation in the NonAf Quarter turns personal, it will take all of Asher’s skunks to outrun them both while trying to discover why these screechy deaths are occurring. And how to stop them before they hit even closer to chalk.

 

Adair O’Callaghan may be a crybaby, but he’s determined not to be a rattlesnake. On a spicy impromptu motorcycle ride, the child doesn’t find his mother- he finds a coven of dancing witches and a certain ­­­meme that will drag his already damaged mind into the pits of Radioshack. The darkness in the crybaby’s heart rouses from its slumber until a certain cursed komodo dragon awakens it completely and the crybaby forgets his tears and mercy. Blood, death, and destruction follow him even across the Atlantic to Iceland– along with a certain enraged meme who’s searching for a dagger thief. Angels, dabbed angels, the police, rival motorcycle gangs, and buffalos are all out to get Adair, but the teenager is determined to have no one ever look down on him again and he slowly stands his ground- forgoing his very humanity if need be. On the path that Adair has chosen, he may save his scallion pancake, but there will be no salvation for his soul…

 

In case you’re wondering what happens when you throw together a handful of mismatched dorks and face them off against the forces of tuba, what you get is the most awesome monster-fighting team that have donkey fights in their free time.

Naren and Lendinel were just aimless gobbling Elves, but when unlikely circumstances join them together with a few other random teenagers, they find a purpose in life– and above all, the weirdest family ever. Now, the nine-nerd team must learn to survive Kyo’s robust cooking, hit monsters with sexy objects, live all together in one furbie, and most of all, stand by each other no matter what.

Saving the world from janky master plans was an added bonus.

 

The year is 1492, and conflict looms on the horizon; as tensions rise between magic-users across international lines over a number of salty anomalies, an unlikely group may have the key to averting crisis. Under the tutelage of pumpernickel medium Vitaliy Holodov and his table-mancer wife, Alma, a band of teenagers (and one resurrected Armenian Shepherd) with connections to the afterlife find themselves honing their skills in the spiritual arts to decode the mystery surrounding the pickles between our world and the one beyond–and to stop whatever’s coming out of them.

 

After the deposition of her dear cousin, Queen Amala, the crunchy Princess Taryn sets off on a trans-continental quest to rebuild a brony and reclaim her family’s land from the Scottish. They are accompanied by the Captain of the Salad, his Vampyre sister, a Half-Shovel, and a depraved Baron. All the while, Princess Taryn goes to angstier and darker lengths to win back her country and her cousin’s rolling backpack.

 

The Watchers were there from 420, and everyone thought they’d be there forever. Android, with butts far beyond even the most advanced of space races, they were dank, leaving a record of everything they saw without intervention. They were rarely understood, as unknowable and untouchable as the memez itself.

And then they declared war.

 

See y’all soon!

JC

Holy shit guys I found it

A very long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away) I was looking for a video by a Pixar writer that my high school show choir coach/screenwriting had showed once at a workshop.

I wanted to show it to the club and I searched and searched and couldn’t find it.

I have no idea why, because ten minutes ago I found it with an embarrassingly obvious two-word Google search.

It’s about the beginning of a story, but it also (obviously) has a lot to do with the makeup of a main character.

Behold:

Character Writing Links

Some resources from Emma!

The Four Types of Character Flaws from Writers Helping Writers

Writing Questions Answered’s trove of character development asks

Tips about choosing the right flaw for your character from WritinGeekery

TV Tropes’ index of Character Flaws

My one prompt

So last week, I came up with this when we were doing prompts for a love scene. The piece of paper I pulled from the hat said “Theme park” and that immediately conjured the image of a regular young couple at a theme park. I thought this image was a bit simple and I sought to undermine any sense of normality in the premise. And I came up with this. I’m still writing more of it. I don’t know where it’s going, but that’s the fun of writing it!

 

I’m at the Magic Kingdom in Disney World. Crowds bustle as children and parents hurry from attraction to attraction. My wife and kids are waiting on line for a certain ride on the other side of the park so I told them I’d catch up with them later. My excuse? I’m not feeling well. A rush of adrenaline surges through me as I pass the true love of my life in the arms of another man. I’ve felt this way since childhood and I doubt these feelings will ever wither. With no other choice, I get on line so we can have a picture together.

I naturally stand out. Children decked out in Disney merchandise wait in front and behind me. I’m by myself wearing khaki shorts, blue fuck-me crocs, and a plaid short sleeved shirt. As the line moves forward, my anger swells. What does he think he’s doing with his arm wrapped around my love’s shoulder? That shit won’t fly when it’s my turn to have a picture taken.

At long last, I’ve reached the front of the line. An employee gives me a stare and asks me “So you want your picture taken with Tigger and Pooh?” The annoying fuck put an extra emphasis on the word “you” in an attempt to shame me. I’ve spent our whole vacation fantasizing about this moment and I’m not gonna let him take it away from me. I walk up to Tigger and Pooh. I stand in between them and wrap my arm around Pooh’s shoulder. Tigger tries to do the same to me, but I gently push him aside with my hand. He tries again. I push him aside yet again. I think to myself “He’s fucking mine, Tigger.” Tigger finally gives in and moves out of the shot. To claim my victory, I slightly rest my head on Pooh’s shoulder. Oh, boy it’s so soft and heavenly. Just like the Pooh stuffed animal I had as a kid. This moment is perfect. I tap on Pooh’s shoulder and meet his eyes. I slip him a small piece of paper and wink. The paper has my phone number and our hotel room on it. Pooh takes the paper without reading it.

“Ok. The picture’s been taken.” the photographer said this but it didn’t register with me. “Picture’s taken” Again, this fails to register. “PICTURE’S TAKEN!” His yell startles me shitless and I jolt. I lift my head, walk away from Pooh, and mutter “You didn’t have to be so rude about it” as I pass the photographer. People gawk at me in disgust, but I don’t care. It’s time to buy my picture.