In Defence of Power

[The Good Reverend Roger]

This isn't a bar fight. This isn't even a fight. This is the Internet, and for some fucking reason I'm still responding. Anyway. Bah. This thread was useful while it lasted, and I'll throw some more at it in a few weeks and try my luck.

nobody likes to play anymore

[Freeky]

It'll be okay, dude.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

It'll be okay, dude.

NO!  IT WILL NEVER BE OKAY EVER AGAIN!  IT'S ALL FUCKING RUINED!

[Freeky]

It'll be okay, dude.

NO!  IT WILL NEVER BE OKAY EVER AGAIN!  IT'S ALL FUCKING RUINED!

What?  No it won't.  Don't say that.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

It'll be okay, dude.

NO!  IT WILL NEVER BE OKAY EVER AGAIN!  IT'S ALL FUCKING RUINED!

What?  No it won't.  Don't say that.

And after that brilliant and timely quote about Napoleon's victory over the English in the hundred years war, too.

[Freeky]

It'll be okay, dude.

NO!  IT WILL NEVER BE OKAY EVER AGAIN!  IT'S ALL FUCKING RUINED!

What?  No it won't.  Don't say that.

And after that brilliant and timely quote about Napoleon's victory over the English in the hundred years war, too.

Well, if your analogies were maybe right... 

[LMNO]

Lmno, I'm not sure how to take that. Even my wiki Fu failed me.

I was thinking more along the lines of "In the Company of Men" and "The Shape of Things".


I forget he did "Wicker Man".  What the hell happened there?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I want the characters to be sympathetic enough that you don't just say 'fuck this' and stop reading. But they're not meant to be wonderful people.

Lmno, I'm not sure how to take that. Even my wiki Fu failed me.

"Wicker Man".

And other films in which none of the characters have the slightest redeeming attributes.

Is that the one where Nicholas Cage shouts "Not the bees, not the bees!" ?

I think so. I haven't seen the remake but I hear that it's even worse than the original which is hard to believe.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

There's a point. It's meant to try to illustrate a certain brand of rationalization about power structures.

Edwin starts powerless (not confident, attractive, charismatic etc)

He develops his power by developing these attributes and acts off the belief that power has an obligation to the powerless; the gym he runs sponsors ten other guys intimately with weight loss, people skills etc.

Its a clusterfuck; he gives up and ultimately takes a zero-sum attitude, literally locking away his clients and adrian in the final sequence.

So it's meant to try to look into the mentality of power structures but by examining how they might wOrk on a micro scale, rather than a world power scale.

Wait... is Adrian supposed to be confident and attractive, and not a slimy douche?

Also, why are all the women in the story essentially furniture?

[Cramulus]

This isn't a bar fight. This isn't even a fight. This is the Internet, and for some fucking reason I'm still responding. Anyway. Bah. This thread was useful while it lasted, and I'll throw some more at it in a few weeks and try my luck.

I would love to read some more of the story. Is this going to go on your blog?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Lmno, I'm not sure how to take that. Even my wiki Fu failed me.

I was thinking more along the lines of "In the Company of Men" and "The Shape of Things".


I forget he did "Wicker Man".  What the hell happened there?

I am guessing a psychotic break.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

This isn't a bar fight. This isn't even a fight. This is the Internet, and for some fucking reason I'm still responding. Anyway. Bah. This thread was useful while it lasted, and I'll throw some more at it in a few weeks and try my luck.

I would love to read some more of the story. Is this going to go on your blog?

I'd like to read more, if only to see if any of the women develop a brain or a personality, and also in the hope that everyone dies in the end.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

To clarify about the women, what is alienating is not the lack of a female character... you don't really need one... but the fact that the women who already appear in the story just sort of do whatever Adrian wants them to. In reality, there are women who are that easily manipulatable, but it's kind of a bottom-of-the-barrel situation, with only the dumbest and most desperate (or drug addicted) girls being that malleable. You can walk into any bar and see Adrian-types hitting on the bottom feeders, but if they try to approach the smarter girls they get made fun of or ignored. I have sat with my friends completely openly mocking douches who were trying to pull NLP/seduction/"caahnfidence" crap. It just doesn't work on the majority of people, and so it is completely unrealistic to depict the women in your story as unthinking cows who simply do as they're directed by the supposed "alpha male" who is actually exhibiting complete loser dork behavior which would get him SQUASHED in real life. He's like a caricature of what basement-dwelling WoW players think successful alpha males are supposed to act like... the exact reason that the seduction-technique eBook scam artists are able to make money off so many clueless desperate guys.

Just pointing this out. It's still early in the story so it's hard to know what exactly the effect is you're going for, but I am totally picturing these guys at the New Copper Penny hitting on brain-fried tweaker girls who are automatically willing to suck the cock of whoever buys them a drink and a baggie of meth.

[Placid Dingo]

Basically writing a pickup scene is new to me.

Adrian is confident and attractive. He's also a slimy deuce. He is meant to be successful with women. He's very far removed from what I'm like as a person, or people I know as more than aqusintances, so I'm sure there's parts where I miss the mark with his character.

Adrian is meant to be the kind of guy who can pretty much end up taking home a beautiful girl every night. The opening sequence relies on tight pacing, which really ends up portraying the girls as dumb cattle, which I didnt pick up on at first.

I can readily agree with the women problem; it's meant to portray a real world (albiet with larger than life figures) but it's not meant to rewrite the nature of feminity. So I'll work to redress that, probably by throwing around the kind of female figures that you and LMNO have mentioned.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Basically writing a pickup scene is new to me.

Adrian is confident and attractive. He's also a slimy deuce. He is meant to be successful with women. He's very far removed from what I'm like as a person, or people I know as more than aqusintances, so I'm sure there's parts where I miss the mark with his character.

Adrian is meant to be the kind of guy who can pretty much end up taking home a beautiful girl every night. The opening sequence relies on tight pacing, which really ends up portraying the girls as dumb cattle, which I didnt pick up on at first.

I can readily agree with the women problem; it's meant to portray a real world (albiet with larger than life figures) but it's not meant to rewrite the nature of feminity. So I'll work to redress that, probably by throwing around the kind of female figures that you and LMNO have mentioned.

The thing is, that guy doesn't exist as such. There are people who think they're that guy, such as Lysergic, whose reality tunnel causes him to view himself as "awesome and smooth and picking up beautiful women every night" while other people view him as a kind of creepy con artist who sleeps with meth hos.

I mean, maybe this is just my reality tunnel making me say this, but your belief in the existence of people like Adrian, who are 100% fake and yet manage to be admired by everyone around them, seems really naive. The schtick just doesn't work on everyone... it works on people who are themselves a bit dumb and a bit pathetic. The only way for Adrian to remain a big fish is to stay in the smallest pond, otherwise someone smarter and more socially adept will call him on his shit, and that would challenge his reality tunnel. It's like that guy who's totally the biggest baddest methiest tweaker in the trailer park; he may be admired as long as he stays where he is but if he leaves the trailer park people will look down on him.

See what I'm saying?