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We need to have a talk.
Topic Started: Sep 16 2017, 01:33 PM (57 Views)
Castiel
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Destiel Trash. Deal With it. Also: GM, Admin
There's something the admins and I have been saying like a mantra. Many people understand it... some say they do, and then completely illustrate that they don't. I want this to be friendly, I don't want this to sound like a lecture, but if I've linked this, I request you read it through and really... really try to understand it.

Pull up a chair. Share some coffee. [Pours cup and passes]
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This should be... fun.

First I'm going to ask you: What really enraptured you with Supernatural when you first watched it? Sure, there's monsters and bad things, but there's a million shows and movies that do that too. So what, in particular, made Supernatural a success?

The network about Eric Kripke
 
"We had been talking internally about wanting to do a show that truly scares and creeps you out, and (McG and Kripke) came in and pitched this show that not only serviced that need in our development but truly entertained us with the mythology and eeriness that they want to convey in the show," WB Network entertainment president David Janollari said. "The notion of doing a dramatic show that focuses on a really unique brother dynamic and allows us to enter worlds that scare us and creep us out each week to me is a great recipe."


There's something there: the unique brother dynamic. Do you know why this is important? Because without a strong human dynamic, this original review would have been true.

Review by Dark Horizons
 
This is an interesting new X-Files meets the OC, meets Buffy type show from the WB which is being positioned after the Gilmore Girls, the show stars Rory's former deflowerer play by Jared Padalecki who plays Sam Winchester the younger brother of Dean Winchester played by Jensen Ackles of Smallville fame....Overall I would rate this as a possible half season run, I can't imagine the same people who tune in to see the Gilmore charm and intellect are going to find this Buffy want-a-be anything but lacking.


Insight, thought, intellect and study of literature and culture were imperative to the show's early success.

USA Today
 
Although Supernatural may fit with the times, Kripke, 31, has been nurturing this idea for almost a decade. He considers himself a disciple of the late Joseph Campbell and his examinations of mythology. The names of the two lead characters are an homage to the wandering Sal and Dean of Jack Kerouac's On the Road. And Kripke also cites contemporary signposts, including Star Wars and The Matrix, when discussing the heroes' journey.


But in the end and attached to it all, the song remained the same.

Sera Gamble
 
I sometimes say it's "the epic love story of Sam and Dean," but that's just to tease Eric. Yes, I do keep the "Star Wars on Route 66" thing in mind. However huge the scope of Star Wars got, it never stopped being a personal story that was very simple and family-centered at its core.



Now, am I saying there's no room for other people than Sam and Dean? No! Of course not! But it was the human element and great counter-play dynamic that kept it from being X-Files meets the OC, meets Buffy. Kripke changed his entire style when he saw their sheer dynamism.

So what am I getting at here?


Time and again I have stated that we want human/hunter characters. Time and again I have stated that it will be difficult to meaningfully engage if you try to make a special character. I have made walkthrough after walkthrough, pointer after pointer, case after case. If you really, really want the struggle of playing some demon or vampire walking a good path, you have to understand that you will have very limited space to interact.

Supernatural is about the human struggle against infinite odds. Not an endless sea of good witches/vampires/dragons/demons that are all just the special little snowflakes and make human characters obsolete.

There's some irony as I type this through a Castiel name, but for those who haven't taken marked effort to observe, for the last twelve months I have run this, Castiel has been human level by plot mechanics for 10 of them, and the rest has been story-motivated pushes as an engine. In fact, the show creators quite literally made a 20 minute exposition special involving how and why they nerf Castiel and what explicitly his creation and character development brought to the show and story.

Characters that are non-humans that come in have always had a place in the show. Ruby moved them forward. Castiel was literally created as a concept to raise Dean from hell and guide him through destiny. These are plot engines. The authors (during good seasons with vision) didn't just go "WOULDN'T IT BE COOL IF-" and lob a new magical friend into the story like a grenade launcher. Because if you're making something that's stronger than all the people and immune to all of the things, because "wouldn't it be cool", you're basically asking, "wouldn't it be cool if I was cooler than the entire cast?"

If you're making a magical character, if you're even humoring it - you need to ask what can this character bring to the story? Frankly if you're someone that struggles with interaction in general, you need to ask yourself that even about humans. All characters need to find a place to sync if they're going to engage, and I promise that is infinitely more difficult if you insist on being the one with something cool attached.

If you're looking for sensationalism and things that'd be cool in CGI... you need another fandom, and I'm sorry. Because I'm going to be blunt. Here's something I've heard a few times:

"Humans are boring."

Only if you write boring people. Humans have an endless amount of personality potentials, conflict and more. If you stick on cat ears, or fangs, or glowing eyes to a boring character, they're still a boring character. If someone has the personality of a wet paper bag, it doesn't matter if you draw a kitty emoticon on the front, it's still a paper bag. A furry character with no meaning is still a character with no meaning.

If you're having trouble building a character without having to attach sensationalist traits to it, there's really no harm in sitting and taking a few days to consider essentials. What kind of character is both widely engage-able and easy to fit into a group, but still capable of depicting struggle? It's okay to stop and think about this. Sometimes I'll spend months trashing character ideas I don't think are evocative enough, but when I have one... they stick. They don't fade, they don't struggle, because I've built someone that is dense enough of a concept to always find some sort of way to be relevant.

Sometimes characters with powers and abilities are in fact necessary. Sometimes you can build a base personality that you think may connect with the group, and you can look at the story direction and go, "Maybe if this personality is on this [demon] they can help them with their [hell] problem by providing guidance." - but that personality also needs to be equipped to bear through the social stigmas and know how and when to niche in instead of being like "hey guys, what's up."

I don't want to get met with proposals for "good" monsters that just "sounded fun" and then you try to retroactively structure a callow plotline around. We're happy to entertain monsters. Monsters are hunts, and generally, are bad guys, even just on a survival level. We welcome playing antagonists. We ask you to give a presentation that shows how you can engage the entire room. But we are exhausted of special snowflakes. Every goddamn witch, vampire, demon, or whatever that isn't played by the staff or Holt always ends up being the special snowflake that's just the softest warm cinnamon bun and only wants the best for everybody, and that has to stop.

This is going to sound harsh... but Supernatural is where it is because of character development and human struggle, and if you can't figure out how to do that, how to write that, how to be interesting in that, we ask you take some time to do so. We're happy to give you tips and ins to increase access, but we can't make your character... well, competent for you. There are things people should and shouldn't say, or should or shouldn't do, that will upset certain character types and basic social function is beyond our control. And if you play someone that you designed to be socially insufficient, much like Castiel is, then you have to expect a struggle on connection. You can only expect people to bend their characters so far to meet yours. But it's okay to be different if you're willing to consider how chemistry is built. It's okay to make conscious decisions to be a different or conflicting or weird personality type, as long as you're aware of the limitations it puts on that character, too.

Jensen Ackles
regarding Castiel/Misha
Misha had such a take on Castiel that it really threw me, because I didn't know him well enough to know that this was an actor making a specific choice for his character. Which, to be honest, for a television series a lot of people just come on and act, but they don't really sit down and make a choice for the character, like 'I want to take it this way and I want to do something that's completely not me and make a character of it.' They'll just come on and play themselves and that's usually why they got the role. But Misha did something special. At first I was like, 'Oh no, what is he doing? Why is he acting so weird? Is this guy really like this? Is this who we're going to deal with?' Then I got to know him and he's a cool, laid back guy. It was very exciting for me to know that I was going to be working with somebody who could really make a committed choice to a character. And it worked--I loved it! I was caught off guard at first, and it took a little while to get used to what he was doing, but that actually played well for the character because Dean would have been caught off guard by an angel as well.


And while we're at it. It's okay to have characters that aren't great at everything. Sam has book smarts. Dean has a GED but street smarts. Castiel at times has powers but complete lack of social or technological function. All have different types of combat they excel and fail in. This is okay. You don't have to be a master spellcaster hacker stealth ops monster that's a hunter and can do all the things. The more you set yourself up to handle alone, the harder it will be to do anything in a group. The more you'll end up writing by yourself.

I don't know how else I can illustrate this anymore.

It's okay, and highly suggested, to be human. That's ironically what Supernatural is about. If you haven't caught that clue yet, you need to watch the show again.


I have covered this in literally infinite other threads. Yes, you CAN make a basic vampire, the question is if you should. The Character Creation FAQ has been very explicit about all of this but apparently not enough, because there are certain subsets of players that insist on making EXTREMELY niche character types and then being upset when they can't just casual into the storyline with it. I've even covered pretty much this same topic in the RP Objective announcement, but it hasn't sunken in yet. All of these will just show that for months, and months, and months we've said the same thing, repeatedly, and if you can't listen, and if you choose to continue on a path, it is not the group's fault if you refuse to make something that they can engage with, without taking your head off.

It has to be said... again. It has to be ground in.
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