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Extended Thoughts on: Saturn Grier/Jeong Jae-hwa
5 years ago
General
This character is one of two halves, moreso than my other characters with two 'final forms'. And that's not only from the character itself, but from a bunch of things that happened while I was writing it.
Let's get to the character, first. You probably noticed the relative lack of mental changes in the first half, and that's by design (as if I'd ever skimp on the opportunity for mental changes...). My commissioner wanted more personality tweaks than outright changes, which might actually be a first for one of my characters! As such, it was tricky at first to figure out a direction for this one, since I use mental changes as a big ol' cognitive crutch. But once I found my groove, it went by super quick!
Despite the lack of MC (compared to my other characters, at least), I'm still really proud of this character, and for reasons that I didn't really intend while writing it. My commissioner and I agreed on an 'implant' that could supply mental changes while keeping the character's personality intact. Oh, did I say 'we agreed on'? I meant to say 'they were kind enough to tolerate my rabid need for mental changes'. I kinda feel a little selfish for implementing it-- these characters are for my commissioners and their tastes-- but it did mean I had a lot of fun writing this character, even without big mental changes!
The other big change that happened during the second 'half' of the character is something so big I made a separate journal about it. To recap, I learned basic CSS stuff, got access to the game's information on another site, and found a way to implement characters online without having to upload the base files. The CSS stuff happened literally after I finished the first half of the character; that's why you'll start to see semicolons and paragraph breaks as soon as Meoli makes themselves known. I think it's unintentionally added a really cool aspect to the character's story. Saturn starts off thinking he's just turning into a woman, and the text is very reactionary because of that. Then, just as he's coming to terms with his 'horrible' fate, a whole new world opens up, and he learns about the power he now has, slowly accepting his not-so horrible fate as the text gets more and more detailed, leading to them using their new power to revisit their old stories, and chatting to their programmer friends, and constantly forgetting to close their goddamn brackets...
...Wait, whose transformation were we talking about again?
Back on topic, I love when stories use their medium to portray their themes, which is why, even during this fever I've been battling, and even without extensive mental changes, I really liked writing this character... enough that I wrote the last 50 stages in like two days, lol. Anyway, here's the trivia:
- Saturn Grier is a name my commissioner uses for RPing (I've been lucky enough to RP with them for more than a year!), and so Jeong Jae-hwa's name is my own creation. Jae-hwa means 'respect and beauty', and Jeong is a relatively common Korean surname.
- I really like the trope of a voice in the character's head insidiously reshaping their mind and slowly turning from an enemy to an ally (as if identity death wasn't enough of an esoteric kink...), so I'm happy I got the chance to do it again, with a new twist. Murphy Suder's 'voice' is robotic and pragmatic, Buck Bicorn's 'voice' is dominant and authoritative, and Saturn's 'voice' is understanding and soothing!
- Speaking of Buck, I was reformatting that character while I was working on Saturn, and... holy hell, the ace undertones in that are thick. Can't believe I ever questioned my asexuality when I was writing characters that actively remove their libidos. And that's not even considering the nullification stories I've written! ...Actually, not sure if I've come on here on FA. Yeah, I'm ace. You all probably knew that from... well, the everything that I've written.
- ...No, of course I didn't subconsciously base Fight Mode's initiation code on Jean Valjean's prisoner number, shuddup.
- I wish Meoli's text was a bit narrower, but you can't use semicolons in the creator, even for code, so I had to just change the font and nothing else. Oh, and Meoli is Korean for head, because I have the subtlety of the author of Buck Bicorn.
- The music choices for this character were... ska punk. I'm serious. Nothing but ska punk.
- I got a lot of the details on the augmentations from a friend who's super knowledgeable on cyberpunk and transhumanism. The only things I didn't use were stuff that was too out there for my brain to comprehend (though they also mentioned the removal of organs, and... hoo boy, was it hard to resist the urge to do THAT to poor Saturn. Yeah I know, I'm fucked up).
- Though I'm happy to say that the pronouns replacing middle names thing was my idea! ...And then my cyberpunk friend brought up stuff like 'linguistic superpositions', and I went back to small-brain yoshielder again.
- I also added a bit of late-stage capitalism critique here and there, cuz cyberpunk. My favourite addition is legitimately a subtle touch: the phrase, “All rights reserved” is outdated now, let alone in 2100, but it's there as like a reminder to the consumer that, yeah, you don't own any of this, even though it's in YOUR mind.
- I was way too pleased with myself for ending this cyberpunk character with a Blade Runner quote, if you needed any more evidence that I'm basic AF.
My question to you: what was a recent breakthrough you've had in work or in your life in general?
You're ALL BREATHTAKING!!
- yoshielder
Let's get to the character, first. You probably noticed the relative lack of mental changes in the first half, and that's by design (as if I'd ever skimp on the opportunity for mental changes...). My commissioner wanted more personality tweaks than outright changes, which might actually be a first for one of my characters! As such, it was tricky at first to figure out a direction for this one, since I use mental changes as a big ol' cognitive crutch. But once I found my groove, it went by super quick!
Despite the lack of MC (compared to my other characters, at least), I'm still really proud of this character, and for reasons that I didn't really intend while writing it. My commissioner and I agreed on an 'implant' that could supply mental changes while keeping the character's personality intact. Oh, did I say 'we agreed on'? I meant to say 'they were kind enough to tolerate my rabid need for mental changes'. I kinda feel a little selfish for implementing it-- these characters are for my commissioners and their tastes-- but it did mean I had a lot of fun writing this character, even without big mental changes!
The other big change that happened during the second 'half' of the character is something so big I made a separate journal about it. To recap, I learned basic CSS stuff, got access to the game's information on another site, and found a way to implement characters online without having to upload the base files. The CSS stuff happened literally after I finished the first half of the character; that's why you'll start to see semicolons and paragraph breaks as soon as Meoli makes themselves known. I think it's unintentionally added a really cool aspect to the character's story. Saturn starts off thinking he's just turning into a woman, and the text is very reactionary because of that. Then, just as he's coming to terms with his 'horrible' fate, a whole new world opens up, and he learns about the power he now has, slowly accepting his not-so horrible fate as the text gets more and more detailed, leading to them using their new power to revisit their old stories, and chatting to their programmer friends, and constantly forgetting to close their goddamn brackets...
...Wait, whose transformation were we talking about again?
Back on topic, I love when stories use their medium to portray their themes, which is why, even during this fever I've been battling, and even without extensive mental changes, I really liked writing this character... enough that I wrote the last 50 stages in like two days, lol. Anyway, here's the trivia:
- Saturn Grier is a name my commissioner uses for RPing (I've been lucky enough to RP with them for more than a year!), and so Jeong Jae-hwa's name is my own creation. Jae-hwa means 'respect and beauty', and Jeong is a relatively common Korean surname.
- I really like the trope of a voice in the character's head insidiously reshaping their mind and slowly turning from an enemy to an ally (as if identity death wasn't enough of an esoteric kink...), so I'm happy I got the chance to do it again, with a new twist. Murphy Suder's 'voice' is robotic and pragmatic, Buck Bicorn's 'voice' is dominant and authoritative, and Saturn's 'voice' is understanding and soothing!
- Speaking of Buck, I was reformatting that character while I was working on Saturn, and... holy hell, the ace undertones in that are thick. Can't believe I ever questioned my asexuality when I was writing characters that actively remove their libidos. And that's not even considering the nullification stories I've written! ...Actually, not sure if I've come on here on FA. Yeah, I'm ace. You all probably knew that from... well, the everything that I've written.
- ...No, of course I didn't subconsciously base Fight Mode's initiation code on Jean Valjean's prisoner number, shuddup.
- I wish Meoli's text was a bit narrower, but you can't use semicolons in the creator, even for code, so I had to just change the font and nothing else. Oh, and Meoli is Korean for head, because I have the subtlety of the author of Buck Bicorn.
- The music choices for this character were... ska punk. I'm serious. Nothing but ska punk.
- I got a lot of the details on the augmentations from a friend who's super knowledgeable on cyberpunk and transhumanism. The only things I didn't use were stuff that was too out there for my brain to comprehend (though they also mentioned the removal of organs, and... hoo boy, was it hard to resist the urge to do THAT to poor Saturn. Yeah I know, I'm fucked up).
- Though I'm happy to say that the pronouns replacing middle names thing was my idea! ...And then my cyberpunk friend brought up stuff like 'linguistic superpositions', and I went back to small-brain yoshielder again.
- I also added a bit of late-stage capitalism critique here and there, cuz cyberpunk. My favourite addition is legitimately a subtle touch: the phrase, “All rights reserved” is outdated now, let alone in 2100, but it's there as like a reminder to the consumer that, yeah, you don't own any of this, even though it's in YOUR mind.
- I was way too pleased with myself for ending this cyberpunk character with a Blade Runner quote, if you needed any more evidence that I'm basic AF.
My question to you: what was a recent breakthrough you've had in work or in your life in general?
You're ALL BREATHTAKING!!
- yoshielder
And yes, yes, definitely agreed with the medium usage. That's definitely a part of why I'm enjoying these ones in particular so much. (Heck, I even wrote a review that I do believe mentioned that!) I have been appreciating the tendency towards a gradual shift from dismissive, short snippets of familiarity to elaborate prose as well, which is so good! And font changes. Oh, yes, you can do so much identity stuff with font and color and such (and not even just TF related stuff, like "The Neverending Story" did it for reality shift).
Weird and dark TF is also even better in second person, I know, it is a tad messed up but oh boy, I just wanna see more now, haha.
I may not have had any breakthroughs recently, but...uh! My cyberpunk listening often includes "The Magic Whip" album by Blur, incidentally. X3