Episode 566 - feeling the vibe!
Jan 16, 2022
Let's talk about total immersion… When consuming media rather than creating it, if you're lucky you become immersed: the struggles and fears of the character become your own. You feel for them, you care, their pain, their hunger, even their shivers and sweats, you care about the world in which they live… That can be an amazing feeling and it's pretty much WHY we really enjoy and keep consuming media. Themes, great visuals, intellectual explorations of ideas and concepts are all very well but nothing compels and excites you as much as when you really CARE what's happening. So that's what we're chatting about! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
Topics and Show Notes
Tantz and I talk about some of the times when we've felt really immersed in a story and what that felt like. It's amazing how comics, movies, games, radio plays etc can take you away from your present and plonk you into the world they're depicting. Personally I find the less visuals provided by the media the easier it is to be immersed (so books and radio plays), because most of the story has to be built in your head, but you can find immersion with any media. That's why when its over you feel so bereft and marooned: you've been bumped out of that world. It's also why we want sequels so much and are usually always disappointed by how they turn out: we don't really care about another story with the character starting over, what we want is to live in that world with them one more time, and when it's inevitably not the same (because most writers don't understand the real point of a sequel), we're unsatisfied.
This is also the main reason I don't like horror movies: I will become immersed in the story so I feel the pain and fear of the characters, I care about them too much so horror movies depress and sadden me if I let myself become immersed.
What are your experiences with story immersion? Are they good, bad, do you love it or just not care too much?
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Dude in Distress - a classical, slow, dancing promenade… careful steps in satin slippers on mirror polished wood… At full speed we’re launched into relentless movement. Hydraulic, electric servos of enormous power push us ever on, altering the world in unimaginable and extreme ways.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
INTERSTELLAR BATTLE GIRLS LEAGUE of SUPER WARRIORS - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/jan/11/featured-comic-interstellar-battle-girls-league-of-super-warriors/
Featured music:
Dude in Distress - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Dude_in_Distress/ - by EssayBee T, rated T.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
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Episode 552 - Tropes we like
Oct 11, 2021
Last time we covered tropes we hated! This time we're talking about clichés we actually like. It's quite a bit trickier because clichés are clichés for a reason (overuse) so it's not easy to like them, except in some cases… For me it's Isekai. That's a Japanese word for “another world”. This is a very old genre, it's basically a story where a person from our normal world goes to a magical world, we see this in ancient fairy stories, Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and many others. until the mid 20th century it was the default way of writing any fantasy story. It has always been around, the Japanese were just the first to come up with a popular name for it.
Episode 540 - DD crash update and tests of character
Jul 19, 2021
On Friday the 16th the site was down for a while. Nasty, but we fixed that and chatted to our programmer Alexey about starting the update program on DD. The DD Anthology is also out now too, so you can buy a copy and help support the upgrades! Pit and Banes were MIA today but as a special treat you can meet my Russian hatted Ex, Miss-Judged, who's with me and Tantz in this cast. And as a super extra special treat you can see us ALL in our pateron video which is free to ALL this week! In the links bellow.
Episode 537 - Historicity
Jun 28, 2021
We have a chat about historicity in this Quackcast. What IS historicity? It's historical authenticity basically but a nicer way of saying it! It's pretty important for a lot of reasons to make the best effort you can with historical authenticity- it increases immersion of the audience, gives you a better understanding of the story and the world you're looking at (because things will make sense), and leads you to better understanding of your own history and where we came from. BUT, that doesn't mean you always have to be strict. As long as you as a creator properly understand historical context then you've got a lot more leeway to play without creating something stupid. Playing fast and loose with history is ok as long as you know what you're doing, not just being a moron and faking it (hey, many of us are guilty of that). Historical fantasy, myth, classics, fiction, biography etc are all different classes of story where it's more or less forgiveable to mess around.
Episode 472 - CoVid-19-cast
Mar 30, 2020
In this strange time of global pandemic it'd be crazy NOT to acknowledge what we're all experiencing together, so that's what we're talking about today: How the virus stuff is affecting us. Pitface joins us once again so today the quartet is complete: Pitz, Banes, Oz, and Tantz!
Episode 460 - Enough trope to hang yourself with
Jan 5, 2020
Happy 2020 all you lovely people who listen to us! What we're talking about today are tropes in fiction that bother us because they don't exist in reality: they ONLY exist in fiction pretty much. In the cover pic we have an image from The Witcher: he has two big longswords on his back. In fantasy people always carry longswords on their backs. This is a trope that only exists in fiction because you can't draw a sword longer than about 60cm from your back. So people just didn't carry swords like this. Even if it was only to transport them (although ta transport only option makes a sort of sense). This was only even rarely done with Asian swords. We'd LOVE to hear about more of these that other people have noticed!
Episode 447 - Indiana Jones and the temple of Duck!!
Oct 7, 2019
For the month of October we've decided to look at a different movie franchise each week, starting with Indiana Jones! Banes and Tantz have way more knowledge about the films than I, having watched them much more, but we all have a fondness for the character.
Episode 440 - Character tropes VS characterisation
Aug 19, 2019
Today we compare and contrast two ways of making characters: starting with a pure archetype and building it with tropes, or creating a character organically through circumstance and interaction with other characters.
