Bright End of Nowhere

How to Write a Generic Sci-Fi Novel by Paul McAuley.

Includes such gems as:

Also include either a kickass woman who can do the unacceptable things that would make your hero unlikeable, or a wise old soothsaying woman who speaks in parables and knows things that can’t be found on the internet. See also: sidekick comedy robot.

and "No matter how technologically advanced your future society might be, its sociology and economics are basically those of the seventeenth century."

It's really "generic TV/movie sci-fi", BUT YOU KNOW. I need to now go and find Paul McAuley's books.

David Gaider is a lovely man.

(Warning I guess for stupid homophobia but worth it for the eloquent smackdown on the Privilege of the Majority by one of Bioware's writers. Of course, there may be Stupid in the comments, I didn't read them.)

This coupled with recent serious discussions I've seen on inclusiveness and intersectionality (racism! sexism! homophobia! We need to FIX THESE THINGS!) in the gaming world is starting to make up for years of stupid.

Finished Persona 4 earlier tonight (like I said, January 31, 2010 is really the perfect day to beat a Persona game. Only thing better would have been if it were Persona 3). Now I'm kind of sifting through my feelings for it while listening to the soundtrack on iTunes.

Which is causing interesting feelings in my chest as my heart clenches at certain moments with the music as I remember key plot points and battles. (Shoji Meguro absolutely outdid himself on this soundtrack. "The Genesis" is some of the most epic music ever.)

It's interesting, you know, how music can be tied into events in visual media, and how it's used to hammer home an impact. And how if it's used badly, it can totally ruin everything. P4's the latest in this string for me, but I can't help but want to kick some serious ass whenever I hear "Libera Me from Hell" (Tegan Toppa Gurran Lagann) or "Battle for Everyone's Souls" (Persona 3), or straighten up a little when I hear the "Imperial March", or a hundred other little things. (Oddly, I can't recall a leitmotif from the 'gateverse that really has the same effect.)

I don't know if that's a remnant from my (very slim) music training as a kid. Or rather, whatever that music training I got left is that I react very well to crazy electric guitar chords. I do wonder how it is for other people.

Anyway, I know that this seems odd for most people on my flist, to have such an emotional response to a video game. To a lot of people, it probably doesn't make much sense. I can argue that it's very much like TV shows or movies or books, that the games I'm fond of (RPGs, especially Eastern RPGs) can have engaging characters and stories, but it's possibly outside the realm of easy comprehension for a lot of people. How in the world can I have an emotional reaction and get attached to characters who exist only as a series of 1s and 0s on a disc? It's not the printed word, nor is it actors on a screen, or animation.

Maybe it's because video games are still a young industry. And that it's only been within the last 20 or so years that RPGs have really been trying for stories (Eastern, at least. Western still is more sandbox-y, but that's changing too). That's not a long time. And it's very different from other game genres, like FPSes (Half-Life) and platformers (Mario, Sonic).

But I just finished spending over 100 hours of my life with a group of characters, who were fleshed-out and had character development and grew as people over the course of a year in-game. 100 hours. That's more hours than Stargate Atlantis has.

So when I put down the controller and watched the ending, since the Protagonist is such a blank slate in this game, he really pretty much is you...I felt like I was leaving Inaba myself. And all my dear friends who'd been through so much with me, and grew stronger as people, were saying good-bye to me as well.

Damn if that doesn't hurt.

I haven't had this feeling from a game in a very, very long time, if ever. (Maybe the closest was Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete) In fact, I don't recall having this feeling for any form of media in a long time.

Well done, Atlus. You now own my soul.

I occasionally read Joystiq. Not nearly as often as I check out Engadget or RPGamer, but I do. Anyway, in my obsessive drive to avoid schoolwork watch P3P trailers endlessly find out if an English release date for P3P has been announced, I stumbled upon the following:

New 'Gaymer' Survey Explores Sexual Identity, Interest in Games

I haven't looked at the survey yet, but, holy shit you guys, it could be the exact opposite of SurveyFail! The guy who wrote the survey is himself a member of the community he's surveying! And his goal here is to make things better because he's a baby game designer!

Anyway, I'll probably take a look at the survey at some point, and I really, really hope it isn't full of Fail. But these excerpts from the Joystiq article are promising:
( Excerpts: )

(And yeah, he totally has a point about the pain female gamers have gone through with the industry trying to "reach" us. Oh, the stories I could tell...)

-Crack fic has broken 10k words. I haven't even finished Part I (really, Act I) yet. I'm vaguely worried about how the hell I'm gonna post this thing. Vaguely. I'll figure something out when the time comes. (Er, sorry if this seems like all I'm talking about lately. It's just seriously eaten my brain.)

-Speaking of brain nomming, I've apparently found myself writing a SIK game based on the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 'verse. Why, I don't know. But I made a fusion table! Hurray for d20s.

-We will NOT speak of how my character for my friend's Persona-based tabletop seems to be influencing the crack fic development. She is accomplishing this mostly by looking sad and pathetic at me in my head and why can I not resist a character's puppy-eyes?!

I swear there is something wrong with me.

-We will also not speak of how the Atlantis d20 rulebook has stalled. All I need is flavor text on NPCs, an intro, and damn vehicle stats. It's really just grunge work that I keep being a lazy ass about and putting off.

-I should really buy my Chicago con tickets at some point. And I guess autograph tickets so I can get the Core d20 book signed, because I am a dork.

-Leverage makes me happy. We just finished s1 last night. We're savoring it, like a fine wine. Okay, actually, we're well aware that once we catch up, getting our fix is going to be less immediate.

Have been mainlining Sarah Connor Chronicles. I just finished 02x12. I have found that I can barely talk about this show without resorting to capslock and mad flailing on the keyboard. This will prove to be problematic when I have to write 10 pages about Terminators and AI and what it means to be human and and and... YOU GUYS. EVEN THE CHARACTERS WHO SHOW UP FOR (PROBABLY) ONE EPISODE ARE AWESOME.

( spoilers for 02x12: Alpine Fields )

Why are my monitors not spontaneously-combusting from the awesome? (Er, not that I'm complaining, because they were expensive)

NEED SCC ICON. YESTERDAY.

We managed to get the second group of Dr. Who watchers through the end of s1 of New!Who this weekend. Well, except for one who left 3 minutes before the end of the season 1 finale, so we're debating on how mean we want to be and not let him watch the last few minutes just so we can see him be all confused by the appearance of David Tennant and lack of Christopher Eccleston.

Yes, we are bad people.

I also managed to get Torchwood foisted upon me, mostly because we (the first group of watchers) can't see the last 4 episodes of s4 until next week. And the mastermind behind all this needs his fix. Well, when he's not playing Titan Quest.

I did manage to get copies of the first few episodes of In Plain Sight, so maybe eventually I'll understand what everyone is talking about.

( I'm still blaming Splash )

TV Tropes

To be fair, I have come across this before. I just managed to resist its power then.

This time, however, I was so damn bored. So it became an exercise in this.

Oh hey. Maybe I should go watch the new SGA/work on fic/finish FFV. (Concerning FFV: if this continues, I swear to god there is going to be pirate fic. Balthier, Faris, sky pirates, sea pirates, space pirates with SG, something. I am not kidding.)