Not doing that again.
Hell no.
So, I finally got Rapture open in my browser!
W00T! Took me long enough!
Haven't actually started it, though. Got distracted.
By dolls. :3
I COULDN'T HELP MYSELF, I HAD TO MAKE ONE OF MEEEEE!!!
^_^ You're supposed to make a "hipster" opposite-gender doll. So I did.
Is it weird it looks exactly like my little brother now? xD I find this oddly hilarious as fuck.
Oh, for future reference, my little brother's name is Michael. I just call him Mikey, though sometimes I make fun of our slavic heritage and call him Mikhail (pronounced MEE-chall [gurgle your tongue in the back of your throat for that ch sound]). Then we start talking in Russian accents. And then we just start talking Ruski.
I'll show you what I look like as a doll later. As for now, let's get this informative shtick going!
The Grotesque
The Grotesque, the Reverie, Somnivore, Oneirophage, the Living Nightmare, the Restless Dream, the Dark Carnival, Eternal Waking, DREAM, Phobetor, PRE 21
Description:
So, this one's going to be really difficult to explain. :/ I mean, it's not a physical Fear.
It doesn't manifest in the "material" world.
It's a Fear that inhabits your dreams, your subconsciousness.
And it fucks shit up big time, yo.
Okay, so from what I've managed to gather, the way the Grotesque works is it starts off with a dream. Almost every description I've read says it's like, in a circus. I'd say to think Cirque du Soleil, but I dunno if that's quite right. I mean, I guess you should think more like 50's circuses, with tightropers and acrobats and clowns and a ringmaster.
Did I mention this one was going to be hard?
BECAUSE THIS IS SERIOUSLY HARD.
Um.
Okay, so you're at a circus. And all this stuff's going on. Then the ringmaster, or the magician, I guess it really doesn't matter who because it's not always the same performer, asks for volunteers.
That's when you realize you're the only one in the audience.
Of course, you're chosen.
You go down to the ring, and turn back to see the house full of people! Your family, your friends, everyone you've ever given a shit about is there, watching and clapping, all excited and shit.
Yaaaay circus!
The performer tells the audience they're going to make you disappear. A big, black cabinet appears. You know there's something wrong, you can feel it in every fiber of your being. 'Don't you dare go in that cabinet, pal!' your brain screams. But the performer tells you to go inside, it's part of the act. Everyone in the audience is expecting you to play along. Just before you step in, the man (it's always a man) says, so only you can hear, "But be careful; if you're in there too long, you may not wake up." Before you can jump out, once you realize something is seriously not kosher about this wardrobe you're being shoved into, you're thrust forward...
And either you wake up, or you don't.
I guess it really depends on the nature of the Grotesque, what mood it's in? I dunno. I suppose the longer it haunts you, the less likely it is you'll wake up. And when you don't wake up, well, obviously you're either in a coma, or you're six feet under.
Take your pick, bub.
The way it really gets to you, though, is it breaks your psyche. You can start to have terrible "day terrors," as I like to call them; it's like having a nightmare when your eyes are open. I get these, though it's not from the Grotesque. It's not necessarily an indicator, though it is a symptom. Think of hallucinations, if this makes no sense to you. You'll fight sleep, doing everything you can to not have the nightmare again, anything to not risk never waking up again.
But, as we all know, you have to sleep sometime.
And that's when it gets you.
Now, I haven't heard of anybody escaping this Fear. Then again, how do you escape a dream? I'm starting to notice a pattern, here. Once you've become a target of a Fear, you're pretty much fucked.
How are you supposed to stop a supernatural Eldritch monster??
Seriously?
You can't.
You fucking can't.
Either you die, or you go insane.
There is no alternative.
Don't let that keep you up at night.
As I was saying before, I wanted to make a little doll thing of me, so you guys would have a good idea what I look like. I don't like photos of myself, I happen to think I'm a big fat ugly cow. :D So I try not to show off my fatness.
And no, we can't blame it on the baby, because I lost weight during pregnancy. Yeah, you read that right. Lost Weight During Pregnancy.
Fuck you if you think that's a good thing.
Picture time!
Surprisingly enough, if it weren't for the brown boots, that'd be me to a T.
***HINT HINT WINK WINK I NEED BROWN BOOTS FOR CHRISTMAS KTHX***
Anyshwah, it was fun to play with that little game thinger. I enjoyed it immensely. If you want to find it, you can look for it on DJay's blog OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING.
I can't wait to get into it!
... Soon as I read into this radio dealy-o... And the thing about needing a voice actress...
HEY! I CAN DO VOICE ACTING! AND I EASILY PASS FOR AN AMERICAN 15 YEAR OLD! Just ask the lady at the Holiday who cards me every time I buy cigarettes, even though my 23rd birthday is next month. :D
I can sing, too. Despite the smoking habit.
Yay cancer!
Oh, my aunt recommended a book to me, called Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys. I may have to read it before I get too into Rapture, just in case she quizzes me on it. Not saying she would, she's not that kind of person, but I wouldn't put it past her to do so for shits and giggles. :3 We're way too much alike. You should see us joke, we end up laughing so hard our faces hurt. <3
I s'pose I ought to end this. I mean, it is almost 20 past 9. I've been typing for a solid half hour. And I could seriously use a nic-stick.
Tomorrow we'll do The Plague Doctor, if only because of Scipio.
I'll tell you who that is when the time comes. ;D
As always, leave comments or suggestions or wtfever in the space below, or email me. I'm loving talking to my ONE AND ONLY FOLLOWER. Though, that's fine by me, because I really like his work and he's surprisingly fun to talk to.
Hehe, it's like talking to a male version of me! I love it! :D
(To be fair, I'm fucking spectacular, so that's really saying something about DJay over der, don't'cha know. Minnesota accent for da win, eh!)
Toodles! ^_~v
Wow, I feel very much flattered now. xD It's also a ton of fun to talk to you too! o:
ReplyDeleteRegarding The Grotesque, it was actually originally going to debut in Topography Genera under the name The Lotophagi, but other people in the Fear Mythos came up with the idea of a dream-Fear so alliterator and I decided to let them in on the fun. Considering it's been almost a whole year now and we're STILL not at the Lotophagi part of Topography Genera, I'm rather glad we let him loose upon the world early.
I'm personally not a big fan of the circus motif; that's actually just supposed to be a couple stories that do that. In Rapture, The Grotesque (or The Reverie, as I call him) manifests as nothing more than water in your dreams. Could be as simple as dreaming of drinking a glass of water or as complicated as being rained on in the middle of being bullied. And in Topography Genera, to parallel this, we're having the Lotophagi appear as fire/heat in general. (Fun fact: In some stories, if The Grotesque catches you in your dreams, your head explodes and the Fear flies out of your mind and is unleashed upon the world!)
My point is that The Grotesque is just a dream Fear, but people don't seem to fully comprehend the concept of an open-source creature so they keep thinking the circus motif is mandatory.
Ooh. I see.
DeleteTo be fair, lots of people are deathly afraid of clowns and circuses; in a way, I think it works. I've never had a dream where water or fire have scared me. In one of my zombie nightmares, there was a barn Mikey was in (he was homicidal in this dream) that caught alight. But it was good. Saved me from the crazy broski. And when I was like, 4, I had a recurring nightmare about a giant squid in a ginormous indoor pool trying to eat us. But I barely registered the water itself. I just don't find major elements scary? I dunno. I'm speshul. :3
Side note: I get that a lot. Would you believe I've only had 5 boyfriends in my life? :D So serious right now. How I've managed this is beyond me. Mom says she raised me "too tough." Dad blames Mom. rofl I think boys are vaginas, or at least the ones I tend to date. Like the ex before Danny's dad. Wouldn't take me out cuz he thought I'd leave with a hotter guy? xD Ha!
You males are silly. :P
Only 5? ..I've only had two girlfriends, and they were both online, and they both lasted two months. Then again, I've been trapped in complete isolation for two and a half years, and I had an abusive childhood before that, so maybe it's less of a problem with me and just the way things went.
ReplyDeleteMy point with applying broader concepts to The Grotesque is that it makes it easier for writers to take liberties. The circus dream does appear in Topography Genera, but it still applies to the fire motif because some of the circus attractions involve fire. It's not supposed to be the fire itself that scares people; it's The Grotesque's "tell," the way to tip the reader off so they know when a dream is influenced by the Fear or not. But this way, a writer can write with the circus dream but then still be able to write other dreams as well, rather than feeling like they HAVE to write circuses all the time.
Which, believe me, is what people do assume.
People aren't the brightest.
Hey, if it's any consolation, I've never had a relationship last more than 6 months. I usually end up breaking it off. My dad says I'm "domineering." I don't get it, though, because I don't THINK I'm dominant? I mean, I don't like to boss people around. I like to be on equal terms, if you will. But I guess that makes me dominant in a mostly male-oriented society.
DeleteMy aunt's a big feminist (not quite to feminazi status, though once in a while...), and that's why she says I have boy issues.
I personally think I'm scary. :3
Makes me feel all badass and stuff.
Y'know, it's not necessarily a bad thing to keep the circus motif. I mean, like I said, lots of people are scared of that kind of thing. I suppose using fire as a "tell" is a pretty good idea, though it'd be kind of hard to really put that into a nightmare Fear without having some kind of concrete way of saying "Hey, this is The Grotesque, this is how it operates, and this is how you know it's not bullshit." Just using fire, or water, in a nightmare doesn't really tell a reader something's up. I agree, being able to use other nightmare "themes" or "stories" could feasibly work, I have a hard time finding it really... Ugh, I can't think of how I want to explain this... I just don't see it working /well/.
And yes, we of the not-so-obviously-stupid know that people, in general, aren't the brightest lightbulbs in the crayon box.
After a while of writing in the Fear Mythos, you stop wanting to explain in concrete terms what the Fears are. My method of using "tells" to subtly suggest Fear involvement is something I developed when I started getting really creative. If I want to make a Fear obvious, I will do so on my own terms, but being subtle is my way of having fun with it. Plus it means that, around the end of a story, I can insert some rather overt clues of like "HEY READERS, THE FIRE REPRESENTED THE GROTESQUE," and then the readers will read through the story again and spot the fire and be like "WOW I AM NOT AS STUPID AS I THOUGHT I WAS!"
DeletePlus, it raises the question of "Why do I WANT to concretely tell the reader what this Fear is? Why do I want it to conclusively be a Fear? Is it possible to write a Fearblog that is considerably vaguer in its intentions?" These are the kinds of things I love to experiment with.
I should also clarify, in case you were wondering, I've been writing for the Fear Mythos since its conception. I was one of the people who helped create it. I've written plenty of more canonical and closer-to-vanilla Fear stories; the thing is that everyone in this mythos writes those, so I wanted to try stretching our mythos's boundaries a little. I hate our mythos being limited to just horror, and just genre fiction at that. I want to write stories that "mean" things!
And that's where Rapture came in. :D Fun fact for you: "I just don't see [convention] working well" is usually how I come up with ideas for Rapture. Like "I don't see Candle Jack working well in a Fearblog," or "I don't think Fears should be mortal/represented this way or that way." I love raising the questions of "How CAN we make it work?"
..but really, when you get right down to it, I'm rather pretentious when it comes to writing. I don't like to think I'm BETTER, per se; I just.. like to be more conceptual and free-thinking. Yet there is no way to say that without sounding pretentious.
I talk about myself a lot.
Dude, I started a blog half explaining Fear thingies and half blabbing my fingers off. Don't get me started about talking about yourself. I'd be willing to bet I would win. >3
DeleteUnconventional thinking is a good quality to have as a writer. I knew you were in on the mythos' creation. I have done my research, kthx. ;P And I prefer reading more obtuse plots and character developments. It makes it more... personable?
Oh, and because I'm a dork and was reading on the ipidz during my cancer stick break:
~At 9:25PM on the Friday, July 8th, 2011 post...
"BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE" would have totally been appropriate. :3
I feel like a dork, because when I read Rapture, it's like reading a movie...? I mean, I can imagine everything in my head, and even though I'm reading it and I'm looking at a computer screen or my iPod, it's like I'm watching an awesome chibi cartoon. ... Don't ask me why it's chibi, whenever I imagine things it's always in chibi. Drawn with crayons. I can actually draw my chibi imagination. With crayons. :3
I TRIED TO TAKE A PICTURE EARLIER SO I COULD POST IT TO SHOW YOU BECAUSE I KNEW YOU'D SEE IT, but this desktop is literally that much fail and wouldn't let me pull the pics from the camera. T_T
Fair point. I'm rather okay with you winning.
DeleteOne last fun fact before I go to sleep for the first time in almost 48 hours: I AM VERY VERY VERY FREAKING GLAD YOU FIND THE STORY EASY TO VISUALIZE. Because I do too. In fact, as the story has progressed, I've focused more and more on writing a visual story. And yes, this is why I make sure to get so much art for the story (I specifically make sure to get different artists' interpretations because I want the logs to be something you make your own visualizations for!).
I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but if I haven't then this is the perfect place to mention it: Rapture is being made into a series of four graphic novels, one per act. >W> Though it's still in the early stages, so don't get too excited, but there should be something we can show for it soon (And yes, a graphic novel would stand in contradiction to the "make your own visualizations" comment above, but I stand by the argument that the logs and the comic will be considered separate entities with separate focuses).
:3
ReplyDelete... Wow, I really am domineering, aren't I. xD
Oh, bud, seriously, it's the way I roll. You should've seen my drawings for Neil Gaiman's "Stardust". I own an original copy, and that poor book has been loved so many times over... <3 It's one of my all-time favorites. That, and Stephanie Meyer's "The Host". Don't judge me, it's actually a very good read compared to the shit she spilled ink on every female I know swoons over.
NO YOU HAVE NOT, AND I WILL DEFINITELY HAVE TO BE ALL LIKE, O_O ZOMG! And then you tell me not to get too excited.
Haha, too late. :D
And no, a graphic novel wouldn't contradict the idea of making personal visualizations, mainly because it's only one (or more, depending) person's artistic viewpoint. Have you seen Picasso? Have you seen Starry Night? Jordan, he looked at A NIGHT SKY and made it all kinds of new wicked awesome. Just because you have one artist's depiction of events doesn't mean that's how it looks to another. If anything, it'll help give a baseline visual for new artists. THINK OF THE FAN ART, GOOD SIR!
I ought to go to bed too, I'm supposed to do Christmas shopping tomorrow. Danny's gonna love getting out of the house; he's absolutely infatuated with the Salvation Army bell ringers. It's the bells he's infatuated with, mostly, but the ringers love his attention. ... I don't think we've met a single person who hasn't fallen in love with his attention. And I don't mean that as his mother and of course I love him and everybody else should too, I mean legit, EVERYBODY LOVES DANNY.
Okay. Stop typing now. Good night sir! ^_~