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Mar. 6th, 2012 02:19 am Another Battlefield
Let's say the character is Minoru, because I haven't placed him anywhere definitive yet.
He keeps waking up in different situations, some in his real-world life and others in the game he plays. When the reader joins him, they expect him to be just as confused and disoriented as they are. But to their surprise, he's skilled and knows how to work the situation with barely any context or understanding of how he got there. Experience made him that way.
Sometimes the situations are from his job or his personal life, both of which are a mess. It's hard to tell at first because they are only glimpses. The online/game situations are usually mid-battle, hence the title "Another Battlefield." He slips into the situation much more naturally and fluidly than the real-world ones. And enthusiastically--he tends to approach many offline situations with detachment, sometimes cold indifference.
As the story progresses, the splintered pieces of his lives (online and off) begin to form some kind of picture. But as the fragments of experience accumulate, the distinction between them blur. This loss of ability to recognize fantasy/virtual from reality doesn't surprise him too much. He knew it was coming.
How did he get this way?
"You've lost interest in this world, haven't you?" For someone to let themselves slip into an immaterial world, they must be broken in some way. Something about the world they live in is not right. It doesn't offer something they need. And that other world, as "unreal" as it may be, provides that missing element. They find what they need in a world separate from reality, and slip deeper and deeper into the dream...
I haven't determined what made Minoru the way he is, but it's definitely some dark experience. Something jarring enough to cause this mental illness of sorts, too.
Other characters/relationships:
Offline, there is a concerned and strong-willed girl who senses something wrong and hopes to save him from it. Ambiguous relationship--okay, just 'cause there's a girl doesn't mean she's in love with him or whatever. Gender-socialized cliche, much. She doesn't express any romantic feelings but does care a great deal. Wake up, Minoru. This world still needs you here.
Online, there's a devoted battle partner. He doesn't gush sensitivity but he definitely cares about Minoru. Ambiguous relationship in the sense that there's lots of bromance/ho-yay potential (actually...why don't we just make this a BL story?). Think...IkexSoren. Anyway, he is the biggest reminder of what Minoru's contribution and importance to the game world is. But he (painfully) knows that Minoru has another life to take care of as well. Is it more important? Equally? He is an NPC...or so we think? Maybe at the end it's revealed that he's another player and they could possibly meet in the real world. If we're going the BL route.
Themes: Okay, How Images Think must be getting to me or something, because this seems to be tackling conventional and new understandings of the real and the virtual. Is Minoru more accountable to his offline world because it's "reality," and the online is not? Is there a legitimate guilt in submitting to fantasy? To a dream?
Let's say the character is Minoru, because I haven't placed him anywhere definitive yet.
He keeps waking up in different situations, some in his real-world life and others in the game he plays. When the reader joins him, they expect him to be just as confused and disoriented as they are. But to their surprise, he's skilled and knows how to work the situation with barely any context or understanding of how he got there. Experience made him that way.
Sometimes the situations are from his job or his personal life, both of which are a mess. It's hard to tell at first because they are only glimpses. The online/game situations are usually mid-battle, hence the title "Another Battlefield." He slips into the situation much more naturally and fluidly than the real-world ones. And enthusiastically--he tends to approach many offline situations with detachment, sometimes cold indifference.
As the story progresses, the splintered pieces of his lives (online and off) begin to form some kind of picture. But as the fragments of experience accumulate, the distinction between them blur. This loss of ability to recognize fantasy/virtual from reality doesn't surprise him too much. He knew it was coming.
How did he get this way?
"You've lost interest in this world, haven't you?" For someone to let themselves slip into an immaterial world, they must be broken in some way. Something about the world they live in is not right. It doesn't offer something they need. And that other world, as "unreal" as it may be, provides that missing element. They find what they need in a world separate from reality, and slip deeper and deeper into the dream...
I haven't determined what made Minoru the way he is, but it's definitely some dark experience. Something jarring enough to cause this mental illness of sorts, too.
Other characters/relationships:
Offline, there is a concerned and strong-willed girl who senses something wrong and hopes to save him from it. Ambiguous relationship--okay, just 'cause there's a girl doesn't mean she's in love with him or whatever. Gender-socialized cliche, much. She doesn't express any romantic feelings but does care a great deal. Wake up, Minoru. This world still needs you here.
Online, there's a devoted battle partner. He doesn't gush sensitivity but he definitely cares about Minoru. Ambiguous relationship in the sense that there's lots of bromance/ho-yay potential (actually...why don't we just make this a BL story?). Think...IkexSoren. Anyway, he is the biggest reminder of what Minoru's contribution and importance to the game world is. But he (painfully) knows that Minoru has another life to take care of as well. Is it more important? Equally? He is an NPC...or so we think? Maybe at the end it's revealed that he's another player and they could possibly meet in the real world. If we're going the BL route.
Themes: Okay, How Images Think must be getting to me or something, because this seems to be tackling conventional and new understandings of the real and the virtual. Is Minoru more accountable to his offline world because it's "reality," and the online is not? Is there a legitimate guilt in submitting to fantasy? To a dream?
