canisaries
still occasionally here
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- #81
For the romantization of gore being disturbing... well, it's a horror thing. Meant to be disturbing. Character-establishing on how fucked up this guy can be, and also how this god is even worse news. It's really a genre thing.
I still just don't really get it. I mean I can see that Red does have a lot going on now that I'm looking at it, but each one really comes back to his core values. He's trying to repress his rage due to the damage it would bring him in the supermarket situation, but when alone, he has no need to repress that so much as he can - and does - take care of all witnesses. He's not meant to come off at all as someone who'd like to stop murdering or being violent because he'd think it was bad. Did it come across as that and if so, where?
His funk is supposed to be a mystery to him, but I mean, when this guy is such a mess, are you surprised his mood isn't that great? Long time stress and internal conflict is great poison for the mind.
The Twitch is what caused both the aversion to technology and the attachment to Helix. The latter is a source of conflict in the story and the former is what prevents Red from using the internet instead of the library like a normal person. For story purposes, he's required to visit the library. Formerly, when I didn't explain the Twitch causing the phobia of tech and instead only mentioned that Red was demotivated to use online material, this was seen as strangely unrealistic. The merge, on the other hand, explains how Red gained his secret room. What I've mentioned here is found in the first and third chapter. But if I explained these things thoroughly without leaving anything out, that would really just be a massive exposition dump and put a roadblock on the actual story. I really have to balance between streamlining the story and avoiding plotholes.
With Red, it is simply, in my view, a case of two quite conflicting personality traits. You can say it's different sides of a character, but they are two very different traits. You say he's in a funk, but that funk isn't really explained and doesn't bridge the prologue to the rest of the story. If it's meant to be him looking to have a "good time" again, that doesn't come across in him trying to repress his rage and getting angry over shrimp. It reads as him trying to quell this side of his personality/move on, and feels like a different character to the one we get in Chaps 4 and 5. If that's not your intention, then I think you need to spell it out a bit better that he's repressing the rage for that reason and take out some of this angst/anger towards Helix. If he is meant to be in a funk, then his funk needs to be better explained and work in more with the brutalistic ritualistic murdering side of the character. The two are in conflict and don't really work together.
I still just don't really get it. I mean I can see that Red does have a lot going on now that I'm looking at it, but each one really comes back to his core values. He's trying to repress his rage due to the damage it would bring him in the supermarket situation, but when alone, he has no need to repress that so much as he can - and does - take care of all witnesses. He's not meant to come off at all as someone who'd like to stop murdering or being violent because he'd think it was bad. Did it come across as that and if so, where?
His funk is supposed to be a mystery to him, but I mean, when this guy is such a mess, are you surprised his mood isn't that great? Long time stress and internal conflict is great poison for the mind.
Is it necessary to mention? If the story doesn't need an explanation of it, then it doesn't really need to be mentioned. The story could still feature the Fonz and Abe and that and not have to dance around promoting it's a Twitch fic, which it does, at the moment. If that element is necessary, some explanation is needed, because it stands out at the moment. You are the author here, after all, so you can interpret the canon and turn it into whatever you want. At the moment, all this half-talk of a merger just feels tacked on for no real purpose.
That aversion to technology is what I was referring to. It's not explained in these five chapters, unless I accidentally skimmed over it, what that means and why it's caused him to quit.
The Twitch is what caused both the aversion to technology and the attachment to Helix. The latter is a source of conflict in the story and the former is what prevents Red from using the internet instead of the library like a normal person. For story purposes, he's required to visit the library. Formerly, when I didn't explain the Twitch causing the phobia of tech and instead only mentioned that Red was demotivated to use online material, this was seen as strangely unrealistic. The merge, on the other hand, explains how Red gained his secret room. What I've mentioned here is found in the first and third chapter. But if I explained these things thoroughly without leaving anything out, that would really just be a massive exposition dump and put a roadblock on the actual story. I really have to balance between streamlining the story and avoiding plotholes.