|
Post by frankthetriviaman on Oct 16, 2016 16:15:02 GMT -5
Unofficial Blog Post I'm just posting here to answer a critical question:
3WSR: WHERE ARE THE ENGINES?
The 3WSR Universe is based on the Island of Sodor in Thomas and friends, and yet in recent months there seems to be more focus on the original characters, i.e. The Colormen, VEC, SOM and others, heck even a new island called Elbaf is the subject of an arc right now. With everything going on, it begs the question: why? Why are we focusing so much on the original characters and not giving the engines much attention at this point?
If I had to guess, it's because we are currently in the middle of a very important process within our fandom universe. Currently, we are in the process of "world-building" our story universe.
To just say that we take place on the Island of Sodor does not do the story justice. No, we also have a history and a whole new... well, everything that also must be accounted for as we write this story. To give a sense of perspective, the history being established is far from complete, but what we do have so far accounts for hundreds of years of history. For example, going off of the Sudrian history developed by reverend Awdry, we talk about how King Godred himself actually played a role in the establishment of the Colormen.
Though much of everything is not established, if you take a chance to look at some of the Colormen lineages which have been written, it really gives a sense for just how much history there is to this universe.
Given that our world building is far from complete, it is no wonder why we haven't been able to focus much on the engines recently- we have a lot to work on in terms of establishing the history. Some of us have ideas which need developing, others have ideas which are conflicting and need resolution.
So yes, the engines are busy off doing their own things right now, but rest assured, in due time we will be bringing our attention back to them... we just have a lot of world building to do right now.
|
|
|
Post by Biblically Accurate Angel on Oct 16, 2016 16:16:59 GMT -5
Would you like me to post that on the blog, Frank? I think it would fit right in.
|
|
|
Post by frankthetriviaman on Oct 16, 2016 16:19:37 GMT -5
If you would like to
|
|
|
Post by Biblically Accurate Angel on Oct 16, 2016 16:31:31 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by frankthetriviaman on Oct 18, 2016 0:29:55 GMT -5
The Colormen: A character Analysis
As many of you are aware, the primary original character faction of heroes in this universe is The Colormen, the sworn protectors of Sodor, and the World when needed.
While they may come across as "another set of fan characters that don't really belong here" the truth is there is a lot more to The Colormen than meets the eye.
When in battle, they always defeat whatever evil force comes before them. All those who are good see the Colormen as heroes, with only those who are truly evil despising the Colormen. Though the forces of evil put up a strong fight, at the end of the day, they just can't win against The Colormen.
But why? Why is it like this? You see, the Colormen aren't just fan characters, they are a vehicle for social commentary.
In this day and age, there tends to be a lot of "division" in the world, especially right here in the United States with everything going on right now. (Because we keep actual politics out of 3WSR, this is as far as we will go for talking about this). There is so much division with certain groups against others, that it is driving people apart when we should be trying to come together to solve our problems.
And that is why the Colormen are the way they are- they represent an ideal for humanity. That our diversity coming together is what makes us stronger, not forces us apart. The fact that no two Colormen are the same Color represents humanity as a whole- that no two humans are alike, and yet they are able to come together and make incredible things happen.
The Colormen rarely, if ever lose a fight because they are not intended to lose... now a writer may argue that it is bad storytelling to have them win over and over, but that is not the point. The Colormen have a deeper meaning that cannot be ignored; even though we are all different, at the end of the day we still come together in a common thread, much like how all the colors of the spectrum may be different, but as a prism will reveal, all colors are actually derived from the same, single common source: white light.
And the Colormen represent the same idea; everyone is different and unique, like the many colors out there, but at the end of day, much like how all color comes from white light, all people, when we ignore political, social, economic and other dividing factors still have one thing in common: we are all human, and when we come together, that is when we are able to make the incredible happen.
So the Colormen are yet to lose a major battle, and they will not any time soon. No, this is not because they are "overpowered" or "completely perfect" or even "plot armored" in any way. No, they will not lose to any force... because they represent what happens when we put differences aside and celebrate diversity rather than fight over it- when everyone comes together and unites behind a common goal, there is nothing that can break that unstoppable force.
.........
(NOTE: Not to be included in blog post, but I do want to answer an important question here)
Before someone asks "Well if you celebrate diversity, why are there so few LGBT characters?" I want to make something clear: as a person, I regret that I have met very few LGBT people (in fact I can probably count that number on one hand), and as such I have limited understanding of said community. My concern is that if I introduce an LGBT character, I will end up creating a character based on "stereotypes" and be offensive, causing more harm than good, so I tend to shy away from those characters not because I don't want them, but because I don't understand them.
I thank you all for understanding this predicament; and I hope to get more exposure to understanding the LGBT community in the future.
|
|
|
Post by Toz76 on Oct 18, 2016 1:02:03 GMT -5
3wsr: We Stink at Diversity (But at least we try) An editorial thing by Toz76
So, Frank recently mentioned that we have a lack of LGBT+ characters, and as the only active *cough cough you know who you are* LGBT+ writer, I have to say there is a rather striking lack of diversity in 3WSR that we definitely should work on. LGBT characters are actually fairly commonplace in 3WSR, with characters such as Man In Pink (FTM Transgender), Woman In Gold (Lesbian), Vivian Bloodsphere (pansexual), Darkstorm and Darkhart (gay couple) to name a few, to say nothing of people like Man In White who's sexual orientations are deliberately left ambiguous. But by comparison, 3WSR is not very diverse in terms of race and gender.
Sure, we have a lot of strong female characters. The Colorwomen, Vivian Bloodsphere, Priori, Vados, and a couple others are all major female characters who aren't simply one-dimensional "fan service" or "damsel in distress" characters. However, for every strong female we have, there's a weak one, and there's way more male characters, to the point it's almost a running gag. As an example: Woman In Gold is a headstrong, no-nonsense, dare I say badass with unrivaled fighting skills. But Woman In Blue, on the other hand, is mostly "Man In Blue's love interest". Some characters are a mix of both: Vivian Bloodsphere is easily our most developed female character. She also is married to someone who is her superior in the VEC ranks, and pregnant too (although if you think that will stop her from curbstomping her foes, you've got another thing coming). Not really characteristics of a strong female character, although at least she's not subservient to her husband. All told, strong males outnumber strong females by a wide margin. Given that 50% of people are women, this is a problem.
But our race problem is even worse. Here, for your convenience, is a list of characters who we know beyond a shadow of a doubt aren't white: Woman In White: African-Sudrian Deathnote: African-Sudrian Killerman: East Asian Priori: Russian Alaine: Middle Eastern Um... I think the rest are all white. Or at the least "Sudrian", aka British, aka probably white. Not a single Hispanic person, or any other minority. It's completely possible that an established character isn't white but we were unaware, but we have no way to know. In fairness, as Frank pointed out, the majority of Sudrians would indeed be white, but it's still a disproportionate amount. EDIT: Tug has kindly pointed out that a number of SOM characters, such as Yao, are of various other races and nationalities. I'm rather disappointed I forgot about Yao, he's one of my favorite SOM members. Oh well... EDIT II: Oh, right, Man In White is said to have some sort of Asian ancestry too. But still. That's not a whole lot.
I'll just touch on religion too while I'm at it: most characters are either Christians or atheists/agnostics, with a couple exceptions (Man In Silver is Wiccan, Alaine is a Muslim, and of course there's COTHO, but spoilers). Again, while probably accurate for a fictional island created by a Anglican Reverend, not terrifically diverse.
But why? The answer is simple: people tend to write what they know. As the local non-straight writer, I've introduced most of the LGBT characters. Every other active writer is a straight guy, and while I'm bad at telling race, especially from poor quality video chat, I'm pretty sure they're all white too. So everyone writes for straight white men, with the occasional straight white woman thrown in for variety.
So what do we do? Simple. We need to make an effort to increase diversity through new characters. Since a lot of characters in play ATM aren't human, that won't do much now, but an arc centered on the engines is coming up, so hopefully we'll be able to give their crews some diversity. Until then, we'll have to develop existing characters to increase diversity. It won't be easy, but in the interest of being nice people, it will be done. Hopefully.
|
|
|
Post by Biblically Accurate Angel on Oct 18, 2016 1:46:58 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by frankthetriviaman on Oct 18, 2016 20:13:04 GMT -5
So is toz's post good to go now, or are we waiting on something?
|
|
|
Post by Biblically Accurate Angel on Oct 18, 2016 21:24:48 GMT -5
Waiting for him to give me the all-clear.
|
|
|
Post by Tug on Oct 24, 2016 17:04:24 GMT -5
Adapting Characters into 3WSR,- The Fine Line Between Creativity and Copyright:As Written By: Tug As recently been brought forward, yes I adapted characters/places from popular shows, cartoons, and such into 3WSR, but not for ill intentions and today would like to explain the difference between the Blood Alchemist and characters like Darkwing Duck appearing in 3WSR... First things first, almost all characters have an inspiration from someone or something coming before them no matter what, what makes the character different from the ones before them, however, is how the writer uses the character in ways not recorded down beforehand... The characters I've added into 3WSR are similar to the originals, but are in no way the same. This is the difference between creativity and copyright in my personal opinion, yes their names, and sometimes powers, are similar, but I was never intended to be seen as a 'ripoff', no I wrote these characters into 3WSR as my own take on them and how I thought they could fit well into the story, as well as a tribute of sorts to my favorite shows through these characters...
I'll give you some examples to show you where I'm coming from, so might as well begin it with my first 'ripoff' character, Hohenheim, better known in The Game as the Blood Alchemist:
In summary, the character of Hohenheim in the Game is he is the former Man in Blood, corrupted by the Philosopher's Stone turning him into the rogue Alchemist and eventually joined VEC. The Blood Alchemist is in short, a homage to Fullmetal Alchemist and that's what he always was meant to be. He's an amalgamation of three, really four, characters from FMA and the ancient alchemist Paracelsus. If you've seen my avatar design ofthe Blood Alchemist in the Artwork thread, his design is clearly a homage to the Hoheheim for FMA, with him being trapped in the armor as a reference to the character Alphonse from that show as well, and his name Edward Amestris coming from the country in the show and the Main Character with that names as well... The Paracelsus roots I've followed more closely than the show, being more tied to his search of knowledge of the Philosopher's stone, though the stone in 3WSR is more closely tied to FMA, and don't worry, Philos is an original character, created in my messed up head... But, even if the Blood Alchemist is based on Hohenheim that's where the line is drawn, the Blood Alchemist is a completely different character than the one in FMA, who is a depressed immortal man who is seeking redemption from his sons and a way to lift his curse, the Blood Alchemist is an insane magic caster trying to revive a horned deity, so yeah...
Another example is one of the Co-leaders of SOM, the shadow sorcerer himself, Raios. Raios is based off the character of Rogue Cheney from Fairy Tail. His appearance of in the show inspired his avatar look, his alias' Romanji name, that's Japanese translated into English characters, is the inspiration behind his name, that and his shadow powers, are all I took when adding him to the Game, while Rogue is a quiet, kind guy at heart with a foreboding impression, Raios is the complete opposite of that, being a sadistic psychopath bent on creating chaos in a world fit to be ruled by his Dragon Master, oh, and they were raised by dragons, that's it... This is a similar case as Metalicana, I merely took inspiration from the names and created my own characters, again as a tribute of sorts...
To settle worry about Elbaf, the Elbaf in One Piece we currently no nothing about besides it is a land where a tribe of giants come from, I liked the name and expanded on the idea to include multiple mythical races in 3WSR to better suit the style of the story in the Game, so I was a liberty with this one so cut me some slack...
I will concur that Impel Down, and i's staff, are for the most part carbon copies of the One Piece originals, but, I would like to apologize if you thought I was 'ripping it off', I was really doing it as a tribute to the Arc in One Piece, because at the time it was coming out in English, and to spice things up with SOM, I decided I would add it in to see where it took things...
Now that I've given some examples let me tell you the main part of this blog, the different between the above characters and a character such as Darkwing Duck appearing in the Game. The difference is I never was intending to use the characters from the shows they;re based on in the Game, I wanted to use my own versions with they're own histories and stories to tell, just at the same time so people with similar tastes as me could see I'm a fan of these shows and this is my appreciation of them but adding my own take to things, while with a character like Darkwing Duck, it's very clearly just the same character, with the catchphrase and all, which is where we turn into copyrighted territory. I believe as long as I can create a story that's different from the original, a different backstory, a different personality, but still hold true to the original somewhat I see it as a tribute to these great creators that have inspired me, the next generation, to do as they did and create things that they themselves started to create from seeing inspiration from the generation before theirs. While with Darkwing, it's not a different character, it's just the Disney owned Superduck appearing out of work and for no reason in the Game since his 90s cartoon... When it's clearly just Darkwing Duck, and not any way of even hiding it, even if his appearance is for laughs, this is where the border is drawn, while I've not tried to be clear ripped right out of the show and tried evolving my own visions into their own thing to where you would never really realize the the basis was the basis to begin with, Darkwing is clearly Darkwing, no matter the way we look at it, this is what a consider a 'ripoff', more of stealing than a crossover actually, and is where I draw a line with my characters I've added, they are never and will never be the exact same character from the shows their bases hail from, just my own interpretations and what I want to do with characters having similar powers, though I am definitely not the first person to do this... Probably one of my favorite writers/artists of all time, the creator of One Piece, Eiichiro Oda, is 'guilty' of this across multiple of his characters, with the most obvious cases being these two, who I also added into the Game for fun...
As taken directly from the One Piece Wiki:
- Abdullah's name and appearance is based on a real-life professional wrestler:
Abdullah The Butcher was famous for his brutality and had signature scars on his forehead. The Butcher attacked and bloodied opponents with his signature fork, which may be the basis for Abdullah's tridents.
- Jeet's name and appearance is based on a real-life professional wrestler: Tiger Jeet Singh has a tendency to taunt his opponents with his swords.
And this is definitely not his first time doing this, Oda, in all his wonderfulness, has for multiple characters based them on the strangest and out there people and places, and personally, this quote from him I think summarizes how I feel creators should feel about others using their own works in different ways:
"This is just my personal opinion regarding all of the characters I've ever created... but in all honestly, it doesn't really bother me. One of my own great teachers told me once: everything within "the world of manga" is pretty much just merchandise. Nobody within that world is real, and it wouldn't be very professional of a creator to get offended over whatever a customer decides to do with the goods he has bought. I feel just about the same way. You're free to your own interpretations, fantasies, and any other methods of enjoyment. It makes me happy just knowing that you even care to follow along with my series at all." - Eiichiro Oda, 2016
On a final note, I will tell you that I have created a lot of original characters during the Game, Man in Steel, Adrianna, Ruth, Volund, Arkwright, Maguire, Dr. Sterben, Philos, the list goes on, heck, Steel is based on a personal idea of mine I thought would transition well into the Game when I first joined! Anyway, I will admit these will probably won't be the last times I base characters in the Game on some of my favorite characters from across fiction, but I will tell you this, no matter how similar they are, the ones in the Game will always be my versions, my interpretations, and mine to tell a story with, no matter if someone sees them as a 'ripoff' or not, what gives them the right to decide that, anyway? In the end, this is a Game that I play to have fun in and create my own and my own versions of characters to mess around with you guys and tell a story I couldn't without the inspiration I have received from these creators that spawned these characters I probably now can't live without. Also, isn't it funny how before all this I was going to create a thread about the references these characters I've molded in the Game share with the originals, and see if you uys had done anything similar? It's funny how events play out, huh...
- Tug
|
|
|
Post by frankthetriviaman on Oct 24, 2016 17:10:02 GMT -5
Nice tug.
Btw, I swear I never accused you of "copying no" characters, I simply noted that you borrowed names and concepts, which I think is ok in 3WSR
|
|
|
Post by Tug on Oct 24, 2016 17:11:20 GMT -5
I know Frank, this blog wasn't really addressed towards you specifically, mostly the other two from their comments I read from the chat transcript last night
|
|
|
Post by Toz76 on Oct 24, 2016 17:19:15 GMT -5
Toz responds:
Yeah, I overreacted. I thought the characters you had created were closer to the animes than they were (but seriously man, Impel Down...), so I apologize.
However, with regards to Darkwing Duck, that falls under something else altogether: parody. I don't like his inclusion either, but it is technically a parody, so I let it slide. Heck, the inclusion of TTTE itself falls under parody.
As for that thread on inspiration from other media, that actually sounds like a good idea. Go for it.
|
|
|
Post by Tug on Oct 24, 2016 17:26:37 GMT -5
As I said, Darkwing Dark falls in that fine line between Copyright and Creativity, with parody being apart of my definition of 'creativity', I love parody, but Darkwing pushes it from what I've seen, thus he's borderline and falls right upon that line...
|
|
|
Post by Biblically Accurate Angel on Oct 24, 2016 17:31:13 GMT -5
I was doing it because I was half asleep and felt it was time someone else got killed instead of me. I wouldn't say that Darkwing Duck or Sherlock Holmes in The Game are rip-offs, because they are explicitly Darkwing Duck and Sherlock Holmes. It's not like I put Parkling Muck in The Game, someone that's pretty much the same thing, and then copyrighted him. I agree with Toz, it's a parody (or something close to that). But if you don't like DD, well sucks to you!
|
|
|
Post by Toz76 on Oct 24, 2016 17:33:53 GMT -5
As long as we're accusing each other of plagiarism... Megadeth. Why are they characters?
|
|
|
Post by Tug on Oct 24, 2016 17:38:57 GMT -5
I don't think you quite get what I mean, I know you're trying to use him in a parodying sense, with you probably using this meaning: an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect, but just having the character act word for word, using his catchphrases and all that jazz is really pushing it to where we get into the copyrighted territory, you can only parody so far until you're stealing it...
Sherlock is a little easier to use since if I recall he's in the public domain...
|
|
|
Post by frankthetriviaman on Oct 24, 2016 17:49:18 GMT -5
Yes, Sherlock Holmes is public Domain
Under current United States law, any character created before 1923 is considered public domain.
|
|
|
Post by Biblically Accurate Angel on Oct 24, 2016 18:00:05 GMT -5
Well then let's set the record straight: Darkwing Duck property of Disney. We do not profess to own Darkwing Duck and use him only for laughs. There that should settle it. While we're at it we can talk about using TTTE characters, because they are: an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect, but just having the character act word for word, using his catchphrases and all that jazz is really pushing it to where we get into the copyrighted territory, you can only parody so far until you're stealing it...
|
|
|
Post by Biblically Accurate Angel on Oct 24, 2016 18:02:44 GMT -5
As long as we're accusing each other of plagiarism... Megadeth. Why are they characters? Cause I felt like adding Megadeth to 3WSR for some reason, don't ask me why. The only other time they appeared was when they came to play at the Steam Festival.
|
|