Daughter/Woman Discussion

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Good Lord.

None of this occurred to me while I was reading this story. Literally none of this at all.

I presume they are younger than the age we can play them as because while we are trying to keep creepy shit from happening in our play (like rape), the world we play IN still has plenty of creepy shit still occurring (like rape), and, because nothing in the story has turned creepy (like rape), yet.

[Maso]

Wow... Just because players can't be trusted with youthful characters doesn't mean that children don't exist in the world. There is nothing overtly sexual or crude in the story.. It is literally just a coming of age story where we are seeing how a character grew and developed to become... I guess we will find out? And the blossoming of a girl into a woman..

Really don't understand how her age is a big deal.. like.. at all. You guys are making it weird by making a thing out of it. Stop being weird.

[Hestia]

Your minimum-age 16-year-old was born and lived for 16 years before they showed up out of the Hall of Kings. They had a backstory, which is referred to as a "background" in the chargen process.

What we're seeing is the background of a couple of characters. Move on with this line of thought, please.  Is is getting a little strange.

[Ender]

I do wish the latest story was not written in the male gaze.  I understand the POV character is a male, but when setting up a powerful woman NPC in the vein of NPCs like Tek, Muk, Isar, and Kul I feel it really hurt the narrative to have so much focus be on her appearance, and even having the POV character leer at her ass just kinda hit home how uncomfortable it made me as a narrative device used to set up this NPC.

Imagine if the Coming Soon post about Isar and Kul's rivalry really focused on how rock hard Kul's abs were?

[Pariah]

I do wish the latest story was not written in the male gaze.  I understand the POV character is a male, but when setting up a powerful woman NPC in the vein of NPCs like Tek, Muk, Isar, and Kul I feel it really hurt the narrative to have so much focus be on her appearance, and even having the POV character leer at her ass just kinda hit home how uncomfortable it made me as a narrative device used to set up this NPC.

Imagine if the Coming Soon post about Isar and Kul's rivalry really focused on how rock hard Kul's abs were?

I don't think he made this story to hear about how you all think it should be written better or differently.  This is like the age thing everyone is hung up on.  Come on guys get over it and either enjoy it or don't, stop ridiculing something that obviously took a lot of effort and thought to put together.

[Brokkr]

I'm assuming you realize by now that literally each paragraph can change the character whose perspective it is written from.  It's a shortcut to quickly and succinctly give you individual character motivations.  Males have male perspectives.  It is beyond quite likely on Monday (I am busy tomorrow so won't be posting a section) you will get some female perspectives.

[Inks]

I do wish the latest story was not written in the male gaze.  I understand the POV character is a male, but when setting up a powerful woman NPC in the vein of NPCs like Tek, Muk, Isar, and Kul I feel it really hurt the narrative to have so much focus be on her appearance, and even having the POV character leer at her ass just kinda hit home how uncomfortable it made me as a narrative device used to set up this NPC.

Imagine if the Coming Soon post about Isar and Kul's rivalry really focused on how rock hard Kul's abs were?

I felt the same way completely, and your rock hard abs comment made me laugh.

[Usiku]

I'm kind of expecting Caul to get toasted.

[mansa]

I'm kind of expecting Caul to get toasted.

Caul is going to fall in love with a grey-eyed Chalton.

[betweenford]

Caul will get torn apart by the three-fingered rending claws of a sappy anakore while under the delirious effects of a color-spray spell.

[Night Queen]

Experience and skill does come with age whether anime likes it or not.

Very old people often tend to say stuff like this, but it's rarely borne out in the case of people who are quite different from the norm. In primary school I was reading novels using a borrowed adult library card (so I guess it does feel a bit personal the attacks on this character) and teaching the teachers how to use the fucking computers. Later years I became involved in the leadership of many different organisations. Different people are better at different things. You know what I actually find really jarring? Unnaturally strong short people who aren't even young, yet people keep creating "tiny and cute" characters that somehow are able to wield weapons the size of themselves, which I am convinced is just fetish pandering. People should not take these characters seriously, or question their dwarven-breed heritage.

Or yeah, the super perfect young male characters that are oh so pretty and perfect, often noble or merchant characters that just don't act like their age at all, not even like an unusual person for their age. Yet no one ever comments on these, it's always frankly misogynistic attacks that come up whenever a female protagonist dares to exist, not just in this game but in fiction in general. Thankfully the pushback is well under way now, and those days, and those people, are starting to die off.

This brings to my mind the time there was an event and an entitled male player (everyone knows because they were very loud in shouting it) started shouting an OOC rant in IC about how they didn't want want to see flirting between two female characters and ending with "My gay ass is out" (seriously, all shouted with the IC shout command), imagine if those kind of comments were turned the other way around on two men there'd surely be a ban, but it's sort of accepted and expected - they wanted to make sure they ruined it for everyone and especially the people who dared to have organised a public party.

Stares can be obnoxious but sometimes expected, but you know what is often unforgiveable for many people? Unasked for creepy comments. Especially by people that then start to compare things to anime as if expecting most of us to be familiar or "should" be interested in the same things they are.

[Pariah]

Experience and skill does come with age whether anime likes it or not.

Lots of stuff

I'm super confused, what does that have to do with the story?  This almost sounds like something that should have been a player complaint and handled by staff, why is this being brought up now?

[Ender]

I'm assuming you realize by now that literally each paragraph can change the character whose perspective it is written from.  It's a shortcut to quickly and succinctly give you individual character motivations.  Males have male perspectives.  It is beyond quite likely on Monday (I am busy tomorrow so won't be posting a section) you will get some female perspectives.

I welcome and am excited to read those perspectives!

There are a few things that I got hung up on in reading that may be more my reading comprehension.  Shifting narratives can be tough to follow unless readers are carefully reading.  And I know I'm being nit picky about this, but I really think its worth rereading these pieces and making sure they properly do the NPCs justice as I these are stories we can use to show new players how great this game is.

I did not realize the first bit was Caul's perspective until he is mentioned in the third sentance, so it reads as omniscient 3rd person until you reach that third sentence.  Maybe start out with an indicator it is from his mind.  Also, shifting the sentence to focus on the power of her eyes first gives more narrative weight to the fact Caul's reaction to her is atypical.

Presenting Caul's perspective first will give his gaze more weight.  It's just the way it is.  First impressions matter, and every other perspective will be through the lens of comparison to Caul's during that portion of the story.


"The beauty of this sixteen-year-old woman, slender with slight yet alluring curves, would captivate most, if it were not for the sheer intensity of her grey-eyed gaze known to hold others so enthralled they didn't even notice her body except as an afterthought. Still, thought Caul, it would be difficult to hold anyone entranced with the sounds, and smells, of the chalton in the small pen in the enclosed space of the cavern so disturbingly pervasive."

could become:

"Caul could not deny the sheer intensity of the piercing grey eyes of this sixteen-year-old woman.  No one could.  Caul noticed her developing curves, but her gaze was known to hold others so enthralled they didn't notice her body except as an afterthought.  Still, he thought, it would be difficult to hold anyone entranced with the sounds and smells of the chalton in the enclosed space of the cavern so disturbingly pervasive."

This way two things I think are more well established. 

1.  Caul's perspective and making her beauty more subjective to him and filtered more clearly through his gaze. 
2.  More narrative weight is given to the thing MOST would view about her: the grey eyes.

[Brokkr]

When I read your version, only pieces come through as his opinion, and pieces come through as fact.  Not what I was going for, which is presenting as fact but then modified by subsequent way in which things are phrased to imply the entire thing is just his opinion and not fact.

[mansa]

When I read your version, only pieces come through as his opinion, and pieces come through as fact.  Not what I was going for, which is presenting as fact but then modified by subsequent way in which things are phrased to imply the entire thing is just his opinion and not fact.

Hey Brokkr,

Is it okay with you that we give a bit of critique to the writing, rather just the story being told?
I mean, I'm coming from the heart.  I really enjoy your work.

[Brokkr]

When I read your version, only pieces come through as his opinion, and pieces come through as fact.  Not what I was going for, which is presenting as fact but then modified by subsequent way in which things are phrased to imply the entire thing is just his opinion and not fact.

Hey Brokkr,

Is it okay with you that we give a bit of critique to the writing, rather just the story being told?
I mean, I'm coming from the heart.  I really enjoy your work.

Feel free.  I'm not a professional writer and this was just sort of a one off creative thing I did to align the Staffing team towards where things were going at a certain point.

[Veselka]

As these coming soon type threads are more rare than rain on Zalanthas, I highly encourage Staff to continue to pursue writing them. We are all arm chair commander fantasy nerds at the end of the day (minus a few professional writers we have in our little society) so take our opinions with a grain of salt!

I personally enjoyed the story so far and appreciate its connection with events in the game world. Totally welcome and makes what we do as PCs seem to matter more.

[mansa]

When I read your version, only pieces come through as his opinion, and pieces come through as fact.  Not what I was going for, which is presenting as fact but then modified by subsequent way in which things are phrased to imply the entire thing is just his opinion and not fact.

Hey Brokkr,

Is it okay with you that we give a bit of critique to the writing, rather just the story being told?
I mean, I'm coming from the heart.  I really enjoy your work.

Feel free.  I'm not a professional writer and this was just sort of a one off creative thing I did to align the Staffing team towards where things were going at a certain point.

I'd suggest a slight change of a word here:

Bendito, said to have Muarki blood in his line somewhere, was carefree and uncaring.  Attractive Handsome since he was a toddler and only growing more so, everything in his life had come easy to him, and she supposed he did not see a future where it would not. Not above a lie here and there, to smooth the way.

I feel Handsome still has the punch you're looking for, but doesn't have the sexual connotation that the word Attractive has.

[Night Queen]

Kind of like a Freudian Monty Python sketch: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/thesaurus/articles/a-beautiful-person-painting-sight-etc

[ShaiHulud]

Kind of like a Freudian Monty Python sketch: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/thesaurus/articles/a-beautiful-person-painting-sight-etc

Thank you. What I was thinking. Lol.

[Lotion]

Five words, one of them rarely used, spoken in a steady and firm voice, unleashed a power

imo this implies either the existence of an eighth horn (unlikely) or some reach other than un or qntlz was used.

[Hauwke]

Five words, one of them rarely used, spoken in a steady and firm voice, unleashed a power

imo this implies either the existence of an eighth horn (unlikely) or some reach other than un or qntlz was used.

Theory crafting aside, I can't imagine if Tek throws a fireball its a piddly mon. There has to be more that are super secret and ultra powerful.

[Inks]

Tek always used the rare deusexmachina reach.

Also night queen, you missed my main point, all the physical descriptions in each story and arse oggling takes away from the badass sorcery stuff. To imply me being mysogynistic (and old, which was weird ageism stuff on your end, mid 30s) due to disliking anime pcs (of both genders) in a harsh and brutal world with a burning hot sun and no rain misses the point completely.

Nobody cares about your primary school reading level. This is a post apocalyptic desert world with no literacy, dentists or sunscreen, fraught with danger, but with gender and sexual equality (if someone is acting outside these docs oocly then simply report it, not use a fantasy game as a soapbox). My earlier gripe about perpetually beautiful pcs in commoner roles is a realism and thematic one.

Ender: Love your ideas.

[triste]

"I cannot love you back, the way you love me, Hiiral," the grey-eyed young woman spoke, in the most tender and caring tone Hiiral had ever heard from her.

"It would be selfish of me to ask you to, we love someone because we love them, and will keep on loving them, however they feel" she replied, following with, softly, "Or at least I do."

WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME BROKKR

* cries in lesbian *

[triste]

edit: accidental double post, someone else post, this is why my employers should never allow me free time.

I know there was some shrieking about age earlier but honestly IDGAF, IDK if that even applies here because I've been busy and half reading. Regardless, puritanical censorship bores me much more than honest explorations of human nature.