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Edited by Girraffalope: 8/22/2022 7:43:11 AM
12

Blood and Water: Revisiting Cringe

In september of 2018, I began to write a story. I was only 14. Armed with nothing but mediocre creativity and a deep desire to make something special with Offtopic, I wrote Blood and Water. A 40 part mystery story filled with the (relatively) old names of Offtopic. For the sake of cringe and nostalgia, I recently took a long look at the immortalized mess that was my passion. I read through it, in its entirety. It’s a pretty goofy story, riddled with angst and teenage naivety. Poor craftsmanship and barely acceptable storytelling. Younger me would be thrilled to know all this time later, I am here writing a scathing review of my past self. Obviously, spoilers ahead. Let’s deep dive. [b]The Characters[/b] Like all stories on Offtopic at the time, I cast users as my characters. Did they get to design their characters? Nope. Did they have some say over the direction of the plot? None whatsoever. Were their personalities based on their users? Lol what personalities. I did it because it was simply the norm at the time. Let your prewritten character share a similar name with an active user, and you’re guaranteed returning readers. Everybody did it. I had users pick a variation of their name to be slapped on the most boring, one-dimensional character I could write, and my story stayed relevant for over 9 months (for those of you that weren’t born yet, that’s a long time to rule trending on Offtopic.) Sure, attention post-to-post would sometimes dwindle, but giving Offtopic personal investment in my amateur story kept me with steady viewership enough to post as inconsistently as I pleased and feel no hurt for it. With reliable popularity I faced more problems than just my lack of character writing ability. Everyone wanted a piece of the action. I couldn’t post signups fast enough before my DMs were flooded with pleas of inclusion. At the end, I had 20 characters, most of which were barely fleshed out beyond a name and occupation. Only 6 of which I ever really regarded as important, the rest were fan-service. [b]The Plot[/b] Oh boy. The plot. I had no plot. I am not kidding when I say I just started writing. I had a loose idea following a maniacal killer onboard a cruise, and I ran with it full speed. It wasn’t just dumb, it was stupid. I knew the mystery of the killings had to build somewhat beyond insanity, and money was a boring motivator, but the plot line I eventually sprung for was completely far-fetched and almost laughable. Our killer had become infatuated with the Greeks interpretation of death, so much so that he thought an act such as gassing a cruise ship would gain enough public attention to convert others to his beliefs. Again, this plot did not exist when I started writing. Even halfway through the 40 part story, I hadn’t given a single thought to the killers motives. Early on I laid out some minor plot devices like the newspaper and a mysterious white gas canister, to be used when I finally got around to writing my own damn story. Thanks to my lack of planning or really even critical thought, this story reads like a 10 year old determined to give her fairy tale a happy ending, no matter the corner she’s written herself into. Plot is carried by luck and convenient coincidences. There was no “it all ties together in the climax” moment. More like a million “where did this come from” moments as the yarn frayed into a disconnected jumble of predictability. But did I care at the time? Did any of us care? Hell no. We were babies. I wrote my silly little stories and you ate them up. [b]The Writing[/b] I am not a good writer. I am a creative person, and since blood and water I’ve thankfully learned how to build a real plot. When it’s just me without an audience, I can write about anything. Plot has become my strength in writing, and thankfully so, because I am a terrible writer. And as you can assume, I was even worse at 14. I do not like to proofread. In fact, I don’t proofread, and never have. Every new B&W installment was riddled with grammar mistakes, autocorrect fumbles, and read about as smoothly as a squared-wheeled bike. I spent no energy on descriptive words, and simply threw the bare minimum at every page, hoping it carried my nonsense plot far enough to set up the next chapter. I speedran every plot point, eager to flourish the dramatic ending that I hadn’t even made up yet. [b]The Good[/b] I can’t help but feel a little love for this story. Maybe if the initial idea had occurred to me a few years later, I could’ve done something really special. It had promise in the premise, which I squished by being an overconfident amateur. My only qualifications to write such a story were that I wanted to. I was constantly inspired by my favorite authors to build a grand adventure of peril and mystery, but beyond that, I gave no thought to my technique, and passed my lack of poeticism off as my “style.” My excuse? I was 14. I was just having fun, and a lot of my fellow children enjoyed my stories. Nobody on Offtopic was a particularly talented writer, because nobody really cared. [b]The Bad[/b] Pretty much all of it. [b]The Ugly[/b] I will never live this down. That’s all. I’ll go ahead and use the B&W tag, just in case anybody wanted to re-experience the cringe. The nostalgia in there is like a throat punch. Kids, don’t do what I did. You could never be me.

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  • My brother in RNGesus, you must embrace the cringe

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  • Have you ever been on a road trip with your buddies and all of y’all’s favorite song comes on and y’all belt it out together? Does it sound great? No it’s terrible. Is it awesome? Yes, because everyone is together and gets to share that moment gathered around something they all love. That’s how blood and water is to me and despite it’s shortcomings it is by far one of my favorite things to happen here. The one thing, at the time, I knew would knock what ever stupid thing I was posting here off trending was blood and water. I enjoyed it. Thanks for the kwality

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    1 Reply
    • I did the same. I wrote and wrote and wrote. The thing is, I was always pretty good at it. But, I’m cursed with ADHD, so I lost internet in what I was writing after anywhere between a few days or a few hours. I never wrote more than a quarter of a story. God dammit, now I want to write something.

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    • Ah yes, cringe. The old friend of the matured.

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    • Edited by Breaking_08: 8/22/2022 4:08:09 PM
      Release it. Here. I’ll publish. We’ll get this thing off the ground. In all seriousness I’m working on one right now called “A True Mind’s Bravery,” detail will be out soon.

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    • [i]It's Important to you and that's what matters. [/i] [spoiler]It's like reading your journal entries from when you were 15 and thinking what the -blam!- was this kid on, besides hormones; what trivial worries and concerns, what an unhealthy obsession with unimportant things, where was all the concern for school... lost in [redacted] both mental and actual...[/spoiler] I don't really care if you can't relate to that last part;🤷‍♂️but, my point is I relate to the feeling of looking back and thinking- "yeeee kid, what the hell?" It was a necessary part of your personal growth. #thekidsarecringehoney

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    • Edited by Pie: 8/22/2022 4:05:42 PM
      1
      [quote]only qualifications to write such a story were that I wanted to[/quote] Society needs this to an extent. "-blam!- your institutions. I'm interested in this thing, let's get weird." After some exposure we can make a more informed call on what we want to do with life. Or maybe a different step to take, possibly within the same field just in a different role, if it doesn't play out favorably. Buy the ticket, take the ride. [quote]Kids, don’t do what I did. You could never be me.[/quote] I wouldn't want to be anyone but myself, no offense. But there's something to be said for "ye olde college try".

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    • Unless you’re actively aiming to get published, the only important part about writing is that you have fun writing it, so sounds to me like it was a success! I’ve debated doing something similar, albeit more along the lines of what Blueberry’s doing where the users do get to actually create a character. Alas, the new crowd doesn’t seem to be too interested in stories, and since I was in Gaming until it got purged the older users don’t come out of lurking for me either. But I so envy the day when things like this were possible. I remember popping down from Gaming every now & then and seeing a few of these, and they seemed like fun.

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    • Interesting... [spoiler]I'm probably not in it but if I am, you should make me do something stupid[/spoiler]

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    • When’s Season 2

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      2 Replies
      • Damn. How relatable is this? I wouldn't consider myself a good writer, but I am very creative enough to keep my story going. I used to be pretty frequent around the beginning, posting episodes the next day to even a week. Now I take 2-3 weeks to really deliver (somewhat) quality episodes. I could also make recap posts on my story arcs so I don't have to hunt down links to my story posts, or the most obvious reason; procrastinate.

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      • gasp

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