Who I am
Updated: Feb 14, 2021
YEAR 2, WEEK 17 2/7/21 - Narrative writing and exploration
Current thesis thoughts:
I end this week by asking the question of who I am in the context of my cultural identity. After meeting with Maria and a conversation with Scott I realized that what I wanted to tell was a story not of myself but coming from myself. While that is something that seems obvious to anyone who writes fiction it's a growth area for me so it's a pretty major, I'm mostly about drawing and modeling after all. so I took something Maria had said to heart "you're not really writing your autobiography" and in figuring out what it is I wanted to write "I think the first thing to find is your autobiography." I looked into my past and started listing out all these aspects of my past associated with death. My first memory is actually of a funeral, my grandmothers, seeing my whole family at their most vulnerable and fragile I never think I got over that though, that death does this to people. growing up with my family anytime my grandmother was brought up there was this hidden underlying sorrow and I was asked to feel it, for someone I had never met.
Media list:
Badawy,T (Producer), (2020, September 12). Amphibia[Television broadcast]. Disney
Approach:
I was advised to develop now a better understanding of my own background so that's what I've been doing as I was also designing my main character.
I remember this animation snippet someone forwarded to me when I talked to them about death and loss in media. This small segment from Matt Braly's Amphibia. In this segment, this small amphibious character talks to the main character asking her about her mother who she missed. the conversation shifted to the other character talking about their mother actually passed when they were so young they couldn't remember them and asked "could you miss someone you never met?" he was then hugged by the main character and started to tear up.
that thought resonated with me. I never met this woman my family all loved and to me, I missed them as well. there's this idea in my culture that the departed live on in our memories, in a very real sense. they get to be around as long as possible as long as they're remembered. even though my family has some degree of separation from their traditions, I think it permeated how they grieve. it's active and constant but not overbearing. my mother talks about her mother because she misses her.
when it comes to my losses, they are very fresh. Losing my best friend, who had her whole life ahead of her, crushed something in me. it resonated with that old memory of family crying at a wake. it sort of crystalized that pain.
I find myself thinking about my friend sometimes. it fills me with rage, sadness, and the urge to drink. Not because I have any desire to drink mind you, I hate the sensation, but it was a part of our friendship for a small time. we'd drink and she'd talk about how she wanted the world to change, how she was going to fix it, and in her lowest point how it was never going to change. I remember this animation snippet someone forwarded to me when I talked to them about death and loss in media. This small segment from Matt Braly's Amphibia. In this segment, this small amphibious character talks to the main character asking her about her mother who she missed. the conversation shifted to the other character talking about their mother actually passed when they were so young they couldn't remember them and asked "could you miss someone you never met?" he was then hugged by the main character and started to tear up.
that thought resonated with me. I never met this woman my family all loved and to me, I missed them as well. there's this idea in my culture that the departed live on in our memories, in a very real sense. they get to be around as long as possible as long as they're remembered. even though my family has some degree of separation from their traditions, I think it permeated how they grieve. it's active and constant but not overbearing. my mother talks about her mother because she misses her.
when it comes to my losses, they are very fresh. Losing my best friend, who had her whole life ahead of her, crushed something in me. it resonated with that old memory of family crying at a wake. it sort of crystalized that pain.
I find myself thinking about my friend sometimes. it fills me with rage, sadness, and the urge to drink. Not because I have any desire to drink mind you, I hate the sensation, but it was a part of our friendship for a small time. we'd drink and she'd talk about how she wanted the world to change, how she was going to fix it, and in her lowest point how it was never going to change. But I find myself instead in my car talking. I talk to them as if they were there. like my mother did with her mother. it's in this pain of missing her that I think she's around. But why do I do this? I miss them sure but why? selfishly I remember that I would talk to them whenever something important happened in my life and vice versa. and in the end, I realize I don't have that with other people. she was like a sister and when I lost that I find myself still wanting to reestablish that fractured connection.
Work was done and Choices made:
from that small investigation, I've generated a new vocabulary list for my game. as well as a thought on how to turn this process into a mechanic for my game.
in this game, the player would interact with the "waking world" as if it were a visual novel. talking to people and it effecting their "HP" either positively or negatively based on the choices they make. as they go into the land of the dead they are looking for someone specific but have a hard time doing so. my thought is that in my own grieving I there's this clear divide. sort of compartmentalized out. I remember the pain I had at the start made it hard to access the memories of the friend I lost. it took a while to "find" them in this collection of negative feelings. "I wanted to hate her" it was easier than accepting that they weren't gone from my life.
Current Questions
now my current questions are all around my thesis. what parts of myself are going into this story and how can it be accessible to everyone. and does it? obviously, it doesn't but death is universal, but it means different things to different people.
Likely next steps
my next steps are to keep on working with my narrative and going full steam ahead with my coding, I know the KIND of game I want to make even if my narrative is a little undercooked still.