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Message forum for readers of the BoM/TWS interactive universe. |
| (This message was edited by seuzz on 04-22-24 @ 12:21 pm EDT) Hope Seuzz doesn’t mind me starting the commentary thread early, wanted to save Seuzz the trouble of editing the post title like he did the last time. Anywho, the new girl seems interesting. Honestly, I was halfway suspecting when she invited Will to hang out, she was gonna test mind band on him, so my expectations were subverted. She kinda reminds of Paulina personality wise. And it’s always neat to see more of the sophomore class. Which I assume Teresa is anyway. It appears to be that she’s trying to make some new friends in the literal sense at the moment, which is interesting to say the least. Anybody else have any thoughts on her? Also, as an aside, I’m gonna guess that the girl Teresa copied for Will is Kaylee Mercier just because of her noted resemblance to Chelsea. EDIT: "Keith Does It Again"  |
| I think this is the first time a Teresa McNeal has ever been mentioned so I really had zero idea who she was supposed to be initially and it wasn't until I think the mention of Mary Boucher that I picked up that she's supposed to be a sophomore. I don't know if I'd say she's like Paulina, more of a middle ground between Paulina and Lindsay which is fine because I like Lindsay a lot, as antagonistic as she is. One thing I've picked up on is that it feels like the sophomores, especially the girls, are very no bullshit. They're blunt and to the point and approach everything with all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop. |
| Yeah, I'm pretty sure that she's brand new. And I'm kinda in the same boat as you in regards to being a bit thrown off at first about her. I didn't realize that she wasn't a senior until she said she didn't know who Chelsea Cooper was, upon which I went back and did some rereading. I think you make a good point about her character being somewhere betwee Paulina and Lindsay. They're all quite assertive, so they give off some pretty similar vibes. |
| Well, I was guessing it would be Kaylee Mercier, but Madison Crawford is interesting on for sure. She’s one of the characters with a personality that just seems to sweep Will along for the ride when he gets under her mind band. |
| This was written for a commission, the idea being to see the guys gradually assuming some female personas: First just with the bodies, then with some personalities to go with them. That was supposed to be the fun part. And Teresa, who has gotten the commentary? She was an unexpected intrusion. She came in because I realized as I wrote that the guys were going to be running some heavy expenses: not only memory strips, but clothes and makeup. So I figured they needed someone to come in and help financially. As for the way she came in: I've long been bothered by the fact that Will and the others are always so successful at getting masks and whatnot onto people without getting caught, and it was particularly egregious here, as Keith kept lucking out and was becoming very smug about it. So I decided this was the place to turn their luck rancid, and in the most embarrassing possible way, by having a short, pushy undergraduate girl catch Keith in the bathroom, and yell "Rape!" It took awhile for me to figure out some semi-plausible mechanics that would graduate her to partner from that unpromising start, and there were some other hiccups along the way as real life and some other things intruded, but here we are. I will also confirm that ThePrussian's observation that Teresa is "literally making some new friends" is on the nose. Oh, and if you were late to pick up on Teresa being a sophomore, that's okay (says I). Though I knew from the start that she was a sophomore, I also knew that Will and guys wouldn't know that, and that they would only gradually pick up on it. Maybe that leads to slightly confusing and somewhat suboptimal storytelling. I don't know. I only know that this is all written from Will's POV, and that frequently I am as clueless as he is. |
| One thing I like is how it explained how mixing masks work. As I suspected, the first time the mask is used to copy imago, it effectively fixes gender - in the first case, since it copied Keith, it fixed gender into a male, with features softened by adding Jenny's own. In these ones, all three had girls copied first, so they all ended up as girls but with their features "hardened" by the guys. I'm intrigued, however, by the Caleb + Maria mix. When I read it, it suggested that the end result was shorter than either Caleb or Maria, which is a trait that neither of them shared. Is it possible, then, that masks sometimes randomize traits when mixing imago, rather than make an average of them? Teresa was a completely unexpected surprise. She could easily take over the boys' operation, acting in the way Fairfax does whenever he gets ahold of the book, but she doesn't - instead, she's helping them without any ill judgment. It's not even like she's curious at first; it's almost like she's doing it for shits and giggles, finding the idea of three guys prancing around as girls as a big joke. I agree with rugal; all the sophomores seen thus far are pretty no-nonsense, as if they were waiting for a moment like this and had an idea of what to do with it. I'm not sure if I like what Teresa's planning, but for some reason she doesn't seem like she's got some ulterior motives. Conversely, she doesn't seem to be entirely excited to be with seniors. I suppose it's because she's being used as a literary device and hasn't had enough character development - but I suppose furthering the branch will deal with that. |
| It might be that the imago editor's melding multiple imago together like it does results in the melded DNA expressing different traits that donor imago's DNA might have contained but been dormant. |
| The author-as-author says: Yes, the first face to go into a mask fixes the sex; subsequent faces modify the form but not that biological fact. It was another author who had the idea for that (I want to say it was rugal, but it might have been imaj or WordSmitty) and expressed it privately. This spot in the interactive is as good as any for getting it onto the record. The author-as-author further says: Most of the major characters have reference photos, and to get an idea for the "blend" of faces I use a facemorpher site. (I also occasionally use it to construct or reconstruct faces, to get the original reference photos closer to what I imagine the characters to look like). In the case of Caleb and Maria, I don't have a good reference photo for Maria, so couldn't construct one. As I invented a form, though, I found it diverging from what you'd imagine a real blend to feel like. I don't know why -- my subconscious seemed to rebel at everything being quite so neat. Magic, if it is to be more than simply an obscure technology, has to retain a degree of anomalousness, I feel. So I decided to my intuitions and decided the results should not be perfectly predictable or replicable. So how does it work in story? Shrug. Mostly you can see both people in the blending, if you know what to look for. But sometimes weird things happen because the magic gets its own ideas. |
| Can you share the character reference photos? |
| Hmm. I don't want to do this too often, because I have no idea how many resources I am allowed to consume with images. But let's see ... [Images removed] The unfortunate merger of Keith's imago with Lin's. The more fortunate merger of Will's imago with Chelsea's. The merger of Caleb's and Maria's, which doesn't look much like either original. EDIT: Okay, it appears I have room in my portfolio for ~70 more items, but every image counts as one item. I don't want to post too many images, and I certainly don't want to post images like the above permanently--there's just no permanent interest in them. So I'll leave the above images up for ... oh, the foreseeable future. But I'll be deleting them at some point. I suppose if people want to see certain other reference photos, I can post them in the forums on request, on a temporary, rotating basis. |
| I want to say it was me who came up with the idea but I don't remember if I ever said anything privately or publicly. Mostly it just seems like the idea that the first person copied in a mask acts as the base and then any other faces added are just building on that makes the most sense. It's like playing a modded video game. Depending on the mods, the game can be changed very extensively but it's still the same game at its core, even if it looks different or new features have been added. Face mixing also was never really used all that frequently for quite a long time so there was never much of a reason for it to come up. |
| Have you considered leaving them in a site like Dropbox or something, as a .zip file? You could also use Google Photos and set a file for pics, but that depends on having a Google account, so YMMV on how effective it is. |
| Could you possibly post what each character looks like pre merger as well? I have limited reference to know if mergers were fortunate or unfortunate |
| rugal and I share access to a dropbox account that smitch set up ages ago. I thought you (Nostrum) had access to it; I know a few other people do. I don't see a way to display images here which are hosted on Dropbox -- is there one? I don't want to give the entire world access to Dropbox. I would prefer not to use anything related to Google. I dislike and distrust the company. EDIT: There are so many photo references that it would be a tremendous chore to try making all of them available to the community. I am also unsure if I really want to make photos regularly available. The photos are not of the "real" people, they are only used to ensure consistency of description across time and appearances. The descriptions should, if possible, speak for themselves. If I do share photos publicly, it would be on a case-by-case basis. In the present case, for instance, I am willing to share them because I have talked about how I used software to create the "merged" faces that I used in my descriptions. |
| Images of Will Prescott, Caleb Johansson, Keith Tilley, Chelsea Cooper, Lin Pol. [Images removed] Though there is a photo reference for Maria Vasquez, I don't use it because I long ago decided it didn't really look like her. |
| Things being what they are, I can concur that Keith (perhaps fittingly) is objectively much less attractive than how Will’s blend turned out. Maria/ Caleb didn’t turn out too poorly. |
| I actually don't - I always have to ask for references because of it. And as for the proposal regarding Dropbox, I didn't mean to make it freely accessible but done upon request - that way, you can decide who has access to it or not. P.S.: Given the usual description, Will's reference photo isn't half-bad. He's not even unassuming. |
| I think Will's problem has always been his personality more than his actual looks. He's a nervous spaz which makes him come off as more unattractive than he actually is. You can see this in the sophomore brach where Will!Gordon pretty much carves out a niche for himself pretty quick and seems to have little problem getting girls interested in him. |
| The description always places him in an unfavorable spot, though. Take the teeth, for example. Most of the times Will's teeth are described, they're done so as comically large - yet, comparing the reference photos, Joe has larger teeth. Though it works as a way to emphasize his low self-esteem (particularly when describing himself on the mirror, or on a "out-of-body" experience), when it comes to visualize him as-is, it leads to a less flattering mental picture than the reference shows. Of course, not everyone's mental picture is the same - a reference photo can bring up two different descriptions because people focus on different things, and a description can conjure two vastly different mental pictures because you draw from what you know. That's why I was surprised that Will's reference photo shows he's not that bad looking. For one, though it demonstrates his stiff hair, I imagined it a lot drier. And as for the teeth, I imagined him with a slight overbite - the reference shows a full smile but not an unpleasant one. Because the description didn't support a different image, I was led to believe that his looks were a big part of the lack of attractiveness - that it was an equal complement to his poor charisma and sense of self, rather than one magnifying the other. ("You'd look better if you fix up a bit" doesn't necessarily help.) |
| Re: Dropbox. Because it belongs to smitch—even though he's disappeared long ago—I am shy about extending privileges. I hope it doesn't come across as too untrusting to say that I'd prefer to share images upon request, directly from my computer to whoever else! Re: Will. Much of what has been said is one reason I really like the reference photo. It is capable of supporting some complex and even contradictory assessments. It is undoubtedly a handsome face. But it is unkempt--particularly the hair and the whiskers--and could stand a good clean up. I think it is easy to see a lack of confidence in the eyes: a wary squint. The teeth are probably smaller than Joe's, but the mouth is also much smaller than Joe's, so they seem relatively big and slightly ill-proportioned, like they're just a bit too much of a mouthful. Joe's teeth may also fill his mouth, but his mouth fills his face, and more. Joe's smile, IMO, says "Daddy's here to eat you all up with love!" Will's says "Are we done here can I go?" [image removed] You can look at Will from the outside in that photo, and assess him as someone who just needs a good stiffening and a brighter opinion of himself -- which he gets in The Wandering Stars (in most sections). But the photo also does a good job of reminding me of what I see as his inner character. Uncertain, a little nervous, ready to bolt. That's his character. His story in BoM, when it has a happy development, is of the inner character evolving to more accurately reflect his outer appearance. |
| As best I can recall, most of the people who comment about Will's appearance have complaints about things that he could fix with better self-care, i.e. his unkempt hair, sloppy unshaved facial hair, style of dress, et cetera. Lucille mentioned in TWS that he would be handsome if he kept his hair under control even. Most of the negative comments about his appearance that isn’t something he could change with better discipline is Will’s poor self-esteem coloring any description of himself imo. |
| I assume it's not an exact mirror of what the characters are supposed to look like, but I gotta say, Keith is the reference photo that surprises me. He’s a hell of a lot less ugly than I was imagining in my head lol. And inversely, Caleb is much cuter |
| Huh, that's Joe's reference? Interesting, that's not what I would have imagined in a thousand years lol. I gotta ask, mind sharing Franks? |
| I understand why you'd prefer to show photos upon request, but they tend to clog up e-mails when sent, and when you need a ton of references, an external resource is often preferred. (Particularly when writing!) |
| Really? What did you expect of Joe? Maybe I should caution that the reference photos for Frank and Joe, like for 90% of the photos I pick out or create, are meant to capture the character foremost (as they exist in my imagination), and the physique only secondarily. The photo of Joe is not really accurate in many physical details. The hair is far too dark, for instance, the nose too large, the eyes lack the full life I imagine him having. It's his smile that the photo captures -- the glad, "we're here to have fun aren't we?" excitement of it -- that makes it "look" like him. Same thing with Frank: [Image removed] The physique is probably close to Frank's physique: He is far stronger than he looks, though he looks strong. But the face isn't as strong as it should be, and the eyes are too soft. But it is that air of inner preoccupation the photo conveys that makes him "Frank" to me. By contrast, this photo: [Image removed] except for being several years too old for a high schooler, is much closer to my idea for the shape of his face: strong bones and nose, firm mouth, deep set eyes, and darkly handsome. It would also be him when he is "off duty": a kind of "resting bitch face" that conveys strength but not the inner thought and preoccupation that to me mark his character. This is what he looks like when he speculating about whether to break the vampire's neck,or bend it double and force it to drink it's own blood from its own crotch. But it's not a look he often THAT often. I've tried blending the two with a face morph, but the result loses what I like in each and retains what I don't like. |
| I think it's the guy's chin that throws me off. A lot thinner and longer than I would have imagined for Joe. And the hair color for sure. Though tbh, I'm also really bad at reading a physical description of somebody and imagining what they look like, so I tend to just make something up in my head that fits the broad strokes of the character description lol. I will say though, Frank's references are very close to what I had imagined he looked like in my head. |
| Commentary revival for this branch, for the run of chapters "Making a Fourth Maskateer" --> "A Rescue and Retreat" This was written for a commission, for the same person who commissioned the earlier batch of chapters. The brief was along the lines of "Will and the others get deeper into the female personas" and "They get involved with some boys." That pretty much explains what happens, and why, though I thought it was fun, and I also worked in some more subtle hooks on which to hang some further plot developments, if ever I return here. Most of the posts immediately above are about photo-references, so I'll risk going a little off topic by revealing that all the new characters -- Micah and his brother and cousins, and Josh -- were inspired by chance creations while playing with AI-generated photos. Somehow these randomly generated images sparked ideas for personalities, and I went with them in preference to dragging out some of the more familiar usual suspects. I doubt these guys will ever be encountered again outside this branch -- their connection to Will and the others is highly tenuous -- which some readers may regret and others might celebrate, depending. |
| This was a good arc, thank you! |
| "A Male Mix-n-Match" --> "Making Mickey" I almost didn't publish this run of chapters. I remember I wasn't pleased with them when I wrote them. I find I am more pleased with them now. There is still the awkward turn-not-taken in "Masked Desire" and "A Date That Wasn't," which is the main reason I was unhappy with this segment of the branch. But I'm not sure it could be helped. It is there in order to set up an actual, possible connection between Will and Teresa; at the same time, I didn't go down that path because I'm more interested in setting up a quick, direct path to the point where replacements and full-on impersonations can be made. After that, unexplored roads can be taken. Things would have read more smoothly, I guess, if the published segment had gone down the path of Will and Teresa doing something, and then if the alternate had been published later. But I actually don't know about Will and Teresa. I have no idea what is or could actually go on between them. Which is why (I suppose) it is so easy for me to write those scenes where Will twists himself into knots trying to understand if he feels anything for Teresa or is only tempted by a possibility or is only feeling teased by his friends, along with his anxiety about what she might be thinking or feeling, and whether he's just being conceited by thinking that she might be thinking about him. Because like Will, I honestly don't know what is going on with her. |
| Aww, and just when it was getting good! I can see why you wouldn't like the idea about Will shunning Teresa, because the writing felt downright depressing. Specifically, on the point where Will doesn't even want to work with the masks because of how weirded out he is, drifting more than usual. (I feel this is the best depiction of Will's "drifting along", specifically on "Adrift and Seasick", where things just happen and he reacts. I do feel that Teresa's trying to make the best out of this new situation for her. I don't see her as a "female Will" the way Natalie would, but I could see why her lack of commitment makes it hard for her to write things. Had Will and the guys taken a mind band of Teresa, she would've been explored a lot further. Personally, this part of the branch is moved more by Caleb and Keith than by Will and/or Teresa, and would've gone a lot smoother if they were the POV characters - but unfortunately, they aren't and they won't, and thus things are seen from the POV of the least-interested member of the group. The golem, however, has the potential to twist things around, because while Caleb and Keith want to make girlfriends out of them, Will grows a lot more sympathetic with his "creation". (Therefore, why I said "and just when things were getting interesting".) Hopefully things will be explored in detail later and Will gets more interest in the book, because for what it's worth, it'd be better if he left it to Caleb and Keith. |
| "Restroom Raids" -->> "Golems Three-ish" So, we finally get to the point where shenanigans are happening. Only Will's not involved! This very long and twisty branch was, from the start, intended to set up lots of chances for exploration in lots of ways. Making masks for one-time impersonations. Mixing and matching faces inside of masks to make new people. Setting up golems for use in lots of different ways. Setting up different potential relationships. And now, in this last twist of the branch, setting up lots of impersonation scenarios in different places. None of the set ups ever had an actual payoff, which was probably frustrating for people. But it was all intended to be scaffolding. A highway with off ramps into potentially interesting destinations, but not much interesting along the way. But highway construction is completed. All those nodes are now set up and potentially active. I doubt there's much that anyone wants to say about this last run of chapters. I suppose if I'm going to invite comment, it would be answers to the general question of "Which of those nodes sound like it would be most fun to dive down?" |
| Probably Teresa's acting class. She's the most interesting thing by far about this route, so anything that would have her show up more is fun to me. I liked this run of chapters though, or at least, I liked the parts where Will was hanging out with Carson, and today's chapter. I have negative interest in the Larson brothers tho, so Will not wanting to put himself in their masks was a-okay with me. |
| The Larsons are pretty awful. They were meant to be. (And I love them for it, tbh!) Kind of like a cross between Kelsey's group and the kind of losers that hang out at the portables. Privileged snots who act like trailer trash. |
| I liked the addition of the Larsons in this branch. I find Teresa and Caleb's partnership/budding relationship really interesting as well. I was really hoping Teresa was going to be a surprise addition to the masking fun but that never came to fruition. I was hoping at one point that Teresa had joined Caleb and Keith in using a mask and was impersonating Jared and Cody's mom. Thought that would've been an interesting twist to spring on Will since it seems like he's the most reluctant to use the masks in this branch (and Teresa doesn't seem to mind replacing people). The only set of chapters I didn't particularly care for were the ones with Carson. I'm not sure I like him too much as a character. |
| It's always amused me that readers can have strong likes and dislikes toward the characters. Some love Frank and/or Joe; others despise them. Some really like Carson; others don't. Etc. I think if everyone liked all the characters, no one would like them because they'd be boring. So it's okay that there's some that are disliked. That the likes and dislikes are personal to the readers, I try to take as showing that there is reality and texture to them, as this is the way it is real life. |
| It's two-tiered of course. There's characters that have a lot of in-story negative qualities associated with them but they're still, generally, fairly interesting or have a charisma to them that makes reading about them enjoyable. Patterson would fall under this category, or Blackwell, or even someone like Stephanie. But there also is a fair few amount of characters where if I don't see them or if they got turned into a golem statue then I'm not going to shed any tears. I think of characters who generally appear pretty regularly, Kirkham and Kelsey feel like watered down versions of other characters to me who are lacking in the qualities that make those other characters interesting. Brayden is probably my least favorite of the regulars. Carson is usually pretty enjoyable whenever he shows up and I generally like him when he's being a little surly but not necessarily pointlessly mean to Will. Most of that grouping is with the exception of James who I don't dislike but IMO lacks that something a character needs for me to latch onto them. Cassie is a character I keep wanting to have central roles in some way (either on her own or as an impersonation) but she usually gets bumped off by others. The Alex/Rae/Izzy trio are really fun. I do wonder who the most generally well-liked and disliked characters are, though. I strongly suspect that Chelsea and Kim would top, or at least be very high up on, the well-liked list. |
| > But there also is a fair few amount of characters where if I don't see them or if they got turned into a golem statue then I'm not going to shed any tears. I think of characters who generally appear pretty regularly, Kirkham and Kelsey feel like watered down versions of other characters to me who are lacking in the qualities that make those other characters interesting I personally love Kelsey, haha. |
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