The Salonbox -For Exploration by Discussion

Started by The Great Triangle, May 30, 2008, 12:06:33 PM

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ShrowdedPoet

Quote from: Greenthorn on June 09, 2008, 10:34:57 AM
New Topic:

Is anyone else going to come up with discussion questions or just me?

Do you prefer stories based on real life scenarios, or purely fictional settings?
 

Me, RL is easier to write, but I like fictional stories.  It seems though that even my werewolf games, I'm always the human...lack of imagination on my part I suppose.

It all depends.  I like a good fantasy RP but also real life situations are good. 
Kiss the hand that beats you.
Sexuality isn't a curse, it's a gift to embrace and explore!
Ons and Offs


Paradox

I write my best in scenarios that I could see happening, given a moderate suspension of disbelief.

The first two stories I joined are ones that are based in some sort of Medieval/Victorian setting. I've always loved to read that sort of literature (both fiction and nonfiction) from those settings. They're the most "real-life" ones that I'm doing, except for a new story about a mob boss and the little sister of a rival who naively wanders into the club he owns. That's the most real life one, since it's set in present day New York; however, I still find it easier to write in the old-fashioned ones. The Asylum extreme small game that I run isn't very realistic, since no psychological facility could be run that way for long without severe penalties/consequences. I still prefer for all patients to have a legitimate explanation of their psychiatric disorder(s) though.

Like you, espina, I think that RL is easier to write for, but that's precisely why I don't like writing for it all that much. I enjoy the challenge that writing for a fictional scenario presents. I do my best writing that way, and I also like reading it a lot more than normal, modern situations.


"More than ever, the creation of the ridiculous is almost impossible because of the competition it receives from reality."-Robert A. Baker

The Great Triangle

I have an easier time with fictional settings.  I'm pretty good at verisimilitude and absurdism, so I can count on anything I come up with fitting into one of these categories.  When I write in a RL setting, I feel compelled to research details and make sure everything works.  In a fantasy setting, I can just go ahead and write whatever I want so long as I keep it consistent or establish a reason why things are inconsistent. 

That might be something of an anime influence, since about 80% of anime is set in some kind of fantasy setting even if there aren't any fantastic elements.  Sometimes artists just wan't to draw the phones as rotary spools or depict all of the characters as wearing uniforms that would qualify as fetish wear in the real world.  I usually don't go to the length of arbitrarily changing the number of moons or making the sky orange, but I do like messing around with the world quite a bit.
Meow!  I'm a kitty; made of fire.

Ons and Offs

Tant de Tentation

I wish I were better at fantastical settings or magical realism.  However, my deep-seated prejudice against an overly free imagination (it feels 'sloppy' to me) and an abiding rationalism require that I do what I'd best characterize as a 'shit-ton' of research before I write.  I have, let's see, 20 enormous books on the Renaissance for my current project.

And I tried to start a topic, but I wasn't sure it was allowed!
"Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit."
--Aristotle

My ONs and OFFs
TNT's crazy intro thread.

Greenthorn

TT -anyone- can start a topic..especially if the current one seems to be answered already by most!!
 

The Great Triangle

New Topic:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

What do you make of this painfully anti intellectual quote?
Meow!  I'm a kitty; made of fire.

Ons and Offs

Greenthorn

Quote from: Great Triangle on June 09, 2008, 07:36:41 PM
New Topic:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

What do you make of this painfully anti intellectual quote?

So to be able to know everything, especially about our own selves..to know all the answers...would therefore make us insane...or would it merely make us more sane yet more inwardly focused, able to exist without visiting the minds of others, which is what we do in fact do when interacting?
 

Custos Morum

Quote from: Great Triangle on June 09, 2008, 07:36:41 PM
New Topic:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

What do you make of this painfully anti intellectual quote?

Your scenario is impossible, and I ground the thesis on the fact that even those who stretch the borders, after all, are men and woman, humans like us. Why should they have the power to translate what is incomprehensive to the rest of humanity?
This will never happen, I say. Scientists will move towards the horizon, the truth, driving them further and further, taking them to incredible places. But they will never actually reach the sun.

The Great Triangle

That quote is actually from H.P. Lovecraft's Call of Cthulu.  The idea it is based on is that the more knowledge one acquires, the more one becomes aware of one's fundamental insignificance, and the more one slips into despair.

This, of course, is much much worse in a universe where it turns out the universe was an accidental delusion of a several million year old alien God, yet it also applies to the possibility that science simply makes man more and more insignificant in the universe.  How can one rationally live as happily if one realizes that their life has no significance, and is fundamentally pointless?  If aliens came tomorrow and revealed that humanity had been artificially created to serve as a race of slaves, what would that do to people's psyche?
Meow!  I'm a kitty; made of fire.

Ons and Offs

Custos Morum

Ah damn, I should have known. I was into the Cthulu-myth for some time. I stoped when I started to believe some of it was actully true, wich sadly happens to a lot of fans to the setting, story and everything related.

Greenthorn

New Topic?

What do you do most often while logged into Elliquiy?


I tend to be all over the place, but intro threads, steambox, and shoutbox are probably my most visited places.  I actually love quiet days like today though...I've gotten posts out, I've been on top of recruiting, and yet still was able to socialize with all you amusing people *grins*
 

Tant de Tentation

I browse others threads, oftentimes quickly, quickly clicking out of them when I see things on my Offs list; I hang about places like the salonbox; I love to kick it in the shoutbox and just keep refreshing the main page while I pester people with pontifications; and I post, then run off to some IM to chat/plot with my RP partners. 

... that's about it.
"Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit."
--Aristotle

My ONs and OFFs
TNT's crazy intro thread.

Greenthorn

Well since no one else likes to ask questions...

New Topic:

Does anyone in your RL know about your sexual kinks which you indulge in here in Elliquiy?


Believe it or not...most people in my real life do.  Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it does make for a few interesting conversations with people like my mother *laughs*
 

GrinningHound

Nope, no one knows, because I haven't been in any sort of relationship where I would discuss that.

I don't plan on keeping any secrets, though, because I want to play around. ;D

Tant de Tentation

Yep--I just told my RL friend Jesse about my thing for French incestuous erotica set in 15th-century hamlets, so now he tells me, when I have writer's  block, to 'switch to French erotica!'  He's also broached the possibility of Zorro porn.  What I want to know is... is there a second mask?

Real friends: able to tease you far more mercilessly than online friends. :D
"Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit."
--Aristotle

My ONs and OFFs
TNT's crazy intro thread.

Greenthorn

You know..I never get teased about those strange things that start my engine..I either get strange looks coupled with complete silence, or someone thoroughly intrigued who wants to know -everything- about it!
 

Tant de Tentation

Yes, GT, but that's because your kinks are far more interesting than mine.  I'm pretty vanilla.

The thing that does intrigue people, both on- and offline, is my misogyny and penchant for playing dominating, cruel male characters.  It puzzles and surprises people who expect the typical liberal-arts feminist when they talk to me.  I am not that.  I'm not really a typical anything...
"Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit."
--Aristotle

My ONs and OFFs
TNT's crazy intro thread.

GrinningHound

I like vanilla more than chocolate. ;D  (And NO, that is not a 'racial comment', get off my back).

You could experiment someday.  You seem to be disappointed that you are 'vanilla', why not toy around and see what happens? :P


Tant de Tentation

I'm actually not disappointed!  On this forum, though, it does make for less-interesting conversation.

So maybe I'll leave the toying for online.
"Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit."
--Aristotle

My ONs and OFFs
TNT's crazy intro thread.

Custos Morum

Quote from: GrinningHound on June 12, 2008, 12:13:44 PM
I like vanilla more than chocolate. ;D  (And NO, that is not a 'racial comment', get off my back).

You could experiment someday.  You seem to be disappointed that you are 'vanilla', why not toy around and see what happens? :P



Now, what do you mean by saying chocolate then?

Tant de Tentation

I'm going to be audacious here:

When you're writing, do you imagine yourself in your character's head, looking out through their eyes; as an observer, as though you were watching them in a movie; a combination; or does it depend upon whether you're using first or third person?  Or do you not visualize at all, and focus more on the words?

I may have to get back with my answer to this; I want to give it serious thought.
"Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit."
--Aristotle

My ONs and OFFs
TNT's crazy intro thread.

Paradox



"More than ever, the creation of the ridiculous is almost impossible because of the competition it receives from reality."-Robert A. Baker

GrinningHound

Quote from: Custos Morum on June 12, 2008, 01:12:49 PM
Now, what do you mean by saying chocolate then?
I mean the flavor, like ice cream for example.

Quote from: Tant de Tentation on June 12, 2008, 01:32:57 PM
I'm going to be audacious here:

When you're writing, do you imagine yourself in your character's head, looking out through their eyes; as an observer, as though you were watching them in a movie; a combination; or does it depend upon whether you're using first or third person?  Or do you not visualize at all, and focus more on the words?

I may have to get back with my answer to this; I want to give it serious thought.

Hmmm...I don't know.  I like to think through the character's eyes, truly 'role playing', as if I were them, and then I write according to how I might act were I that person in that situation with those mannerisms. 

However, I also write as if I were an observer, and think of how it would be most interesting to 'watch' a scene, to write for the reader, and not myself.

So, I guess I combine both.  I know I certainly get more satisfaction out of writing something that I know others are enjoying reading, but it is fun to imagine, so I mix that in. ???

Make ANY sense? :P

Greenthorn

I don't..since they come from my head...I don't need to go in theirs.
 

Maeven

I visualize everything... It's like the whole scene is playing out in my mind. When I change something... say from the character wearing a purple shirt to a blue shirt, the visual in my mind changes when I type the new color. 

Generally speaking, I am the outside observer and I describe what the characters are doing-- or more precisely, what they have done, since I tend to be more comfortable writing in past tense.  I constantly struggle with present tense writing.
What a wicked game to play, to make me feel this way.
What a wicked thing to do, to let me dream of you.
What a wicked thing to say, you never felt this way.
What a wicked thing to do, to make me dream of you. 


The Cardinal Rule