Far over the Misty Mountains cold, to dungeons deep and caverns old.
Wow, hey, LJ! So, you still exist, good for you! I still exist, too! Fancy that.
I know I haven't been around much lately, but I swear I'm still alive. Grad school has just been kicking my ass, but in a good way (mostly, I hope).
Dragon Age also ate my whole head (and also my soul) again. It does that, kind of every chance it gets. My being is sort of split between epic fantasy/Dragon Age on the one hand and Japanese studies on the other--and, well, I'm enjoying this state of existence so far.
I've kind of realized lately that I don't even express half of what I think to people. Probably about a fourth of it. It's not necessarily that I think this is a bad thing, per se--but I think I got an LJ in order to go about expressing that, and then I never find myself doing it, because I . . . don't know how to? Or I don't think other people would want to read it? I'm not even sure why. But I've been thinking that maybe if I post every day, even about something random, that I'll express my thoughts more.
Rambling.
The major thing that intrigues and bothers me about the Dragon Age setting is how much people hate magic. Intrigues me because it really differentiates the setting from others, and I'm interested to see a fantasy setting that will actually go there. Bothers me mostly because of how the fandom responds to it--like magic really is this bad, awful thing, and I'm just sitting here going, "If we didn't find the idea of magic at least a little beautiful, why are we consuming fantasy media in the first place?" But then I realize that not everyone is a dedicated fantasy fan like I am, and so this attitude makes more sense. But because the magic in the world is what makes me want to write (this is putting it extremely metaphorically, just so you know), the magic in fantasy settings is what fascinates me about them, playing with making the impossible possible in writing. But, you know, it does also make perfect sense to me that it would be a double-edged sword. There's a fine line between ecstasy and pain, after all. (And one of the reasons I like the Dragon Age series is that I feel it addresses that thematic element in particular.) There's also part of me that likes it because it puts a lot of emphasis on . . . non-mages, and I sometimes feel like non-magical people are far too overlooked in fantasy settings. (Tangentially related: I really like that the Hawke in the Dragon Age II trailer is a mage, but I wish there was more mage-specific dialogue in the game. Especially with the Qunari, because dayum. "Your role would not change much were you to submit to the Qun," ? UM, YEAH, IT WOULD. BEING PUT ON A LEASH AND HAVING YOUR LIPS SEWN SHUT IS A BIG CHANGE.)
The use of metaphor in writing is an interesting thing. I always find myself admiring other people's deft and elegant metaphors, but I never end up using them myself--my writing is still incredibly reliant on adjectives and adverbs in description. I wonder: if I could train myself to use more metaphors, could I streamline the clunkiness of parts of my prose?
Lack of subject-verb inversion in questions, tense errors, and incorrect article usage are the three things that tip me off about a piece of writing not being by a native speaker of English. I wonder what tips native speakers of other languages off?
Speaking of the fine line between ecstasy and pain, I feel like that's sort of becoming the key to my own writing. I have always wanted to write about what I find fascinating and beautiful, but a great deal of the time that involves things I find painful or sad as well as happy. A big pull of The Lord of the Rings for me is the thread of tragedy running through it that almost sharpens and refines the beauty in the story for me. And similarly, the idea that the heroes ALMOST don't triumph, and the cost of that triumph will always be with them. (This is probably also why I like Dragon Age so much.) I love a happy ending devotedly, with all my heart, but my favorite happy endings are the ones you see the characters earn. I want to weep and laugh with joy along with them, and I want my writing to do the same to others. So as I grow as a writer, I find myself trying to understand pain and how it warps and twists people, as well as the strength people use to get through it, find that I'm often drawn to writing about that, but also that I'm drawn to writing about joy--about what makes people happy. This might be why a lot of the characters I write about have hobbies and passions of some kind, and that I end up dwelling on the small things that make life . . . well, fun and pleasant, I suppose. People who have read my writing have probably noticed that I have a tendency to go on and on in almost inexhaustible detail about the little everyday parts of life. I think my writing could use better pacing, but that once I have that under control, this is probably a good thing (at least in moderation). At the very least, it's a distinctive part of my writing style.
A lot of my characters are fundamentally solitary people, and I wonder how that happened, because I feel like writing relationships is not only often a preferred way to go about it, but also that I prefer writing connections between people. But Yanari, Atrea, Trys, Yuefen, Selian, Yuukita, Jibril, Merlin, Al--all people who are fundamentally solitary or "alone," in some way, whether because of power or position or because of natural introvertedness. Yanari, Atrea, Trys, Jibril are all introverted. Yuefen, Selian, Yuukita, Merlin, and Al are isolated because of position or position and temperament both. As is typical for introverts, I think, most of these people have at least one strong connection with another character, however--but their stories are chiefly about them as solitary entities (well, except for Al, who is more of a background character). And Selian and Yuukita are not naturally introverted; they are only solitary because of circumstance (Selian a king, Yuukita born with the ability to see spirits). But maybe I gravitate toward such characters because it gives me the opportunity to write one or two strong connections between characters, rather than a great deal of them, and naturally to focus a great deal on those involved. I often write pairs of characters. It's more recently that I've become able to begin to create believable groups, and I think I'm still far from there, even though they're pretty much my favorite thing to read about (writing fanfic for video games, with their mechanics-driven parties, has been incredibly helpful in this regard).
I've really grown to like and appreciate dwarves lately. In all fantasy settings, really, though Dragon Age had a lot to do with making me look at them in a different way. I feel like they're extremely underused. This may have something to do with the trope that on TV Tropes is entitled "All Dwarves are All the Same." Actually, when you think about it, though, dwarves and elves are basically the two sides of the same "Fair Folk" coin in most European mythologies--on one side you have "Up the Airy Mountain, down the rushy glen, we daren't go a-hunting for fear of little men" and on the other you've got the Sidhe. (I know Tolkien mostly used Norse mythology of the dvergr and álfar, but Germanic mythology gets a lot of play in Europe generally, anyway, and as he wanted to make a myth for Britain, he definitely worked in an inherently British strain. Speaking of Norse mythology, this sentence from Wikipedia kind of cracks me up, because I'm immature: "Loki is particularly difficult to classify; he is usually called an áss." I keep thinking . . . you are so right. He is usually called an ass. At least, that's definitely what I'd call him.) But anyway, back to dwarves. I think it's to the practicality that comes with them being so "down to earth" (hur hur), typically, that endears them to me the most. Tolkien also kind of set me up to love them, I think, by giving almost all my favorite poetry in Middle-Earth to the dwarves. Overall, though, I feel like a lot more could be done with them than is typically being done in fantasy. (So true of so many things, but dwarves are close to my heart, okay?) They have a lot more to them than they've usually been given the chance to have, in what are often fairly one or two-dimensional portrayals. But then, I'm odd--I've always that huge soft spot for humans in fantasy, too. I don't hate elves or anything, but a lot of the time I feel like everyone else loves them enough already. But then, I do tend to be the person who's like I LOVE EVERYONE. EVERYONE IS INTERESTING. So there is that.
End of rambling for now!
I know I haven't been around much lately, but I swear I'm still alive. Grad school has just been kicking my ass, but in a good way (mostly, I hope).
Dragon Age also ate my whole head (and also my soul) again. It does that, kind of every chance it gets. My being is sort of split between epic fantasy/Dragon Age on the one hand and Japanese studies on the other--and, well, I'm enjoying this state of existence so far.
I've kind of realized lately that I don't even express half of what I think to people. Probably about a fourth of it. It's not necessarily that I think this is a bad thing, per se--but I think I got an LJ in order to go about expressing that, and then I never find myself doing it, because I . . . don't know how to? Or I don't think other people would want to read it? I'm not even sure why. But I've been thinking that maybe if I post every day, even about something random, that I'll express my thoughts more.
Rambling.
The major thing that intrigues and bothers me about the Dragon Age setting is how much people hate magic. Intrigues me because it really differentiates the setting from others, and I'm interested to see a fantasy setting that will actually go there. Bothers me mostly because of how the fandom responds to it--like magic really is this bad, awful thing, and I'm just sitting here going, "If we didn't find the idea of magic at least a little beautiful, why are we consuming fantasy media in the first place?" But then I realize that not everyone is a dedicated fantasy fan like I am, and so this attitude makes more sense. But because the magic in the world is what makes me want to write (this is putting it extremely metaphorically, just so you know), the magic in fantasy settings is what fascinates me about them, playing with making the impossible possible in writing. But, you know, it does also make perfect sense to me that it would be a double-edged sword. There's a fine line between ecstasy and pain, after all. (And one of the reasons I like the Dragon Age series is that I feel it addresses that thematic element in particular.) There's also part of me that likes it because it puts a lot of emphasis on . . . non-mages, and I sometimes feel like non-magical people are far too overlooked in fantasy settings. (Tangentially related: I really like that the Hawke in the Dragon Age II trailer is a mage, but I wish there was more mage-specific dialogue in the game. Especially with the Qunari, because dayum. "Your role would not change much were you to submit to the Qun," ? UM, YEAH, IT WOULD. BEING PUT ON A LEASH AND HAVING YOUR LIPS SEWN SHUT IS A BIG CHANGE.)
The use of metaphor in writing is an interesting thing. I always find myself admiring other people's deft and elegant metaphors, but I never end up using them myself--my writing is still incredibly reliant on adjectives and adverbs in description. I wonder: if I could train myself to use more metaphors, could I streamline the clunkiness of parts of my prose?
Lack of subject-verb inversion in questions, tense errors, and incorrect article usage are the three things that tip me off about a piece of writing not being by a native speaker of English. I wonder what tips native speakers of other languages off?
Speaking of the fine line between ecstasy and pain, I feel like that's sort of becoming the key to my own writing. I have always wanted to write about what I find fascinating and beautiful, but a great deal of the time that involves things I find painful or sad as well as happy. A big pull of The Lord of the Rings for me is the thread of tragedy running through it that almost sharpens and refines the beauty in the story for me. And similarly, the idea that the heroes ALMOST don't triumph, and the cost of that triumph will always be with them. (This is probably also why I like Dragon Age so much.) I love a happy ending devotedly, with all my heart, but my favorite happy endings are the ones you see the characters earn. I want to weep and laugh with joy along with them, and I want my writing to do the same to others. So as I grow as a writer, I find myself trying to understand pain and how it warps and twists people, as well as the strength people use to get through it, find that I'm often drawn to writing about that, but also that I'm drawn to writing about joy--about what makes people happy. This might be why a lot of the characters I write about have hobbies and passions of some kind, and that I end up dwelling on the small things that make life . . . well, fun and pleasant, I suppose. People who have read my writing have probably noticed that I have a tendency to go on and on in almost inexhaustible detail about the little everyday parts of life. I think my writing could use better pacing, but that once I have that under control, this is probably a good thing (at least in moderation). At the very least, it's a distinctive part of my writing style.
A lot of my characters are fundamentally solitary people, and I wonder how that happened, because I feel like writing relationships is not only often a preferred way to go about it, but also that I prefer writing connections between people. But Yanari, Atrea, Trys, Yuefen, Selian, Yuukita, Jibril, Merlin, Al--all people who are fundamentally solitary or "alone," in some way, whether because of power or position or because of natural introvertedness. Yanari, Atrea, Trys, Jibril are all introverted. Yuefen, Selian, Yuukita, Merlin, and Al are isolated because of position or position and temperament both. As is typical for introverts, I think, most of these people have at least one strong connection with another character, however--but their stories are chiefly about them as solitary entities (well, except for Al, who is more of a background character). And Selian and Yuukita are not naturally introverted; they are only solitary because of circumstance (Selian a king, Yuukita born with the ability to see spirits). But maybe I gravitate toward such characters because it gives me the opportunity to write one or two strong connections between characters, rather than a great deal of them, and naturally to focus a great deal on those involved. I often write pairs of characters. It's more recently that I've become able to begin to create believable groups, and I think I'm still far from there, even though they're pretty much my favorite thing to read about (writing fanfic for video games, with their mechanics-driven parties, has been incredibly helpful in this regard).
I've really grown to like and appreciate dwarves lately. In all fantasy settings, really, though Dragon Age had a lot to do with making me look at them in a different way. I feel like they're extremely underused. This may have something to do with the trope that on TV Tropes is entitled "All Dwarves are All the Same." Actually, when you think about it, though, dwarves and elves are basically the two sides of the same "Fair Folk" coin in most European mythologies--on one side you have "Up the Airy Mountain, down the rushy glen, we daren't go a-hunting for fear of little men" and on the other you've got the Sidhe. (I know Tolkien mostly used Norse mythology of the dvergr and álfar, but Germanic mythology gets a lot of play in Europe generally, anyway, and as he wanted to make a myth for Britain, he definitely worked in an inherently British strain. Speaking of Norse mythology, this sentence from Wikipedia kind of cracks me up, because I'm immature: "Loki is particularly difficult to classify; he is usually called an áss." I keep thinking . . . you are so right. He is usually called an ass. At least, that's definitely what I'd call him.) But anyway, back to dwarves. I think it's to the practicality that comes with them being so "down to earth" (hur hur), typically, that endears them to me the most. Tolkien also kind of set me up to love them, I think, by giving almost all my favorite poetry in Middle-Earth to the dwarves. Overall, though, I feel like a lot more could be done with them than is typically being done in fantasy. (So true of so many things, but dwarves are close to my heart, okay?) They have a lot more to them than they've usually been given the chance to have, in what are often fairly one or two-dimensional portrayals. But then, I'm odd--I've always that huge soft spot for humans in fantasy, too. I don't hate elves or anything, but a lot of the time I feel like everyone else loves them enough already. But then, I do tend to be the person who's like I LOVE EVERYONE. EVERYONE IS INTERESTING. So there is that.
End of rambling for now!