NorthHugr

I am once again calling for the complete and total shutdown of big light

I actually really appreciate how they did the first, like, fifth of the book as this quick dream sequence. Much to study cinematographically.

We don’t talk about that enough.

It's been about a decade and still nobody has made a multiplayer shooter that's a fraction as electric or emphatic as Titanfall, where moments like this are a dime a dozen.

“Everyone thinks they were Napoleon or Caesar in their past life and not one of a billion Chinese peasants” - Mark Corrigan

My Top 10 Favorite (live action) Sci-fi Shows... 10. Star Trek: Voyager 9. Stargate: Atlantis 8. Stargate: Universe 7. The Twilight Zone 6. Babylon 5 5. Firefly 4. Stargate: SG-1 3. Black Mirror 2. Star Trek: The Original Series 1. Dark Matter (2015)

Why Wokies Can't Write Did you ever wonder why wokies can't write good fiction? No, it's not just because they insist on making every story a soapbox to deliver a lecture from. They do that, but it's covering up a far deeper problem. That's why they write stories that suck even when they are compelled to stop preaching for five minutes by the threat of immanent bankruptcy. Even when they try to write a story that's just a story, they're no good at it, because they lack the one most critical skill that a fiction author must have. Empathy. Yeah, you read that correctly. Wokies lack empathy. Yes, they say they have loads of it, they berate the chuds for lacking it, they talk about it constantly. But wokies are actually defined by their lack of empathy. Lacking empathy is the very thing that makes them wokies. And they are blind to this fact because they don't know what empathy really is. They think it means being nice to people or having sympathy for them or thinking well of them. But it means none of these things. Empathy means the ability to understand someone else's point of view. Doesn't mean you like him. Doesn't mean you trust him. Doesn't mean you want to invite him to your country or let him babysit your kids. Doesn't mean you want to excuse his crimes. It just means you know what he's thinking, how he feels, and why he does what he does. Wokies are wokies because they have little or no empathy. They don't understand other people. They only understand themselves. When they try to understand other people, they do so by assuming that everyone is like them. If they are nice, sweet, good-natured people, they will assume that George Floyd was just like them, and he only robbed people because he wasn't given enough money or hugs. If they are sociopathic thugs like George Floyd, they will assume that middle class professional are just like them, and the only reason they don't rob banks is because they are too scared to take the risk. But whoever they are, this is why they subscribe to blank-slatist theories of human nature. This is why they say dumb things like "there is only one race, the human race", when they would never say there are no dog breeds. This is why they want to invite Pushtun tribesmen to their nice middle class American neighborhoods and expect them to fit in. It's why they want to hug serial murderers and forgive them instead of hanging them from the nearest oak tree. It's why they insist every show on television has to include a character who looks and talks exactly like them. Because they can't identify with anyone who doesn't. It's why when they adapt, for TV, the story of a fantasy-world hedge knight, written by someone who actually read some medieval history, it's full of irrelevant brown people, childhood backstory inserts, saxophone soundtrack music, and snarky millenial dialogue. It's why when they have to write their own stories, they write snarky dialogue about minor Chinese-American intergenerational trauma that they have because their parents lacked empathy, too. This shit is fascinating to them, and they can't even conceive of the very obvious fact that everyone else in the room is stifling a yawn. And it's not just why they can't come up with interesting stories, it's also why they can't actually write. Empathy is the primary skill of a fiction writer, because every moment that you are actually sitting at your desk, banging away on your keyboard, trying to write something compelling about a fictional guy in a fictional situation, what you have to do is empathize in two directions at once. You must empathize with the character, who is a bit like you but not completely, to understand and convey what he's thinking, what it feels like for him to be where he is, and what he's likely to do. And you must simultaneously empathize with the reader, who is a bit like you but not completely, and isn't there for you to observe, so you can present all of the above in a way that's interesting to him. And wokies can't do either one, because they have no empathy, and can only understand themselves. So they write stories about carbon copies of themselves, for carbon copies of themselves. And no one is interested except carbon copies of themselves. Which is why even wokies don't consume wokie stories at anything like the rate that chuds read chud stories. Because wokies are not actually all the same except in their lack of empathy. They just think they are. So they get served stories that they ideologically approve of, and will write a social media post in support of, but they don't really follow those stories too much, because they're actually not that into it. After all, even if you choose to write a self-insert character, you still need the empathy to make that character interesting to someone who isn't a self-insert reader. Good authors can write stories about characters and situations that all compelling for people who like those characters and situations. Great authors can write characters who are understandable and interesting to readers who are totally different from both author and character. Wokies can only barely manage to entertain clones of themselves.

* Ｅｍｐａｔｈｙ ａｎｄ ｔｈｅ Ａｕｔｈｏｒ * The hardest thing when writing is to not turn every character into a poorly disguised version of yourself.

Die Nibelungen (1924), directed by Fritz Lang.