Week 4 Story Lab
As much as I wanted to give Icarus a happy ending, I could not resist the siren's call of the story lab videos. The TV Tropes was a tempting one, as I am a fan of perusing that site, but the TED Talks grabbed my attention first and felt like they would provide more benefit for me. I think I will definitely be doing another story lab in the future; this one was a lot of fun.
The first TED Talk I watched was The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I must confess that I have actually watched this TED Talk before for another class (Native American Music), but it is very good and the speaker is very charismatic so I watched it again. I love the message and the anecdotes are hilarious, albeit cringe-inducing due to the secondhand embarrassment. She introduces herself as a storyteller and I find that description apt. She reminds me a lot of the Cherokee storytellers I've met with the way she talks to her audience and with the tone of her overall talk. The message is also one that really resonates with me. I think it is important to hear multiple sides of a story, and I love exploring stories from different perspectives. I even said in my high school valedictorian speech that "the early bird may get the worm, but the late worm stays alive," as an example of things always coming down to whose perspective we are meant to take.
The second TED Talk I watched was Imaginary Friends and Real-world Consequences: Parasocial Relationships by Jennifer Barnes. I find the concept of parasocial relationships interesting, and somewhat exploitable. You see, I play D&D and my role in it is the Dungeon Master, or DM. My role is to create the world, plotlines, villains, and side characters for the other players' main characters. The stories I have been writing and sharing with my partner (one of the players) have been mostly pertaining to one minor character in particular who I am planning to hold hostage. You see, as a DM I cannot stop my players from doing whatever they want with the narrative so if I want them to go down the narrative path that I have spent the most time developing, I need incentive. I have written 100,000 words about the life and adventures of side character/minor antagonist Arthur Wynne: a traveling bard with a dark secret. Now, my players have a parasocial relationship with Arthur, and thus will be willing to defeat the villain I have prepared if Arthur is threatened.
While we are on the topic, I find D&D interesting with regards to parasocial relationships because in D&D you act as the characters you play. I have met people at gaming tables who knew me as Arthur before knowing my real name (he is my most developed character so I usually use him when I am in other DM's games because he is easy for me to role play). It is interesting because you sort of form a parasocial relationship with both the character and the person playing them. I confessed to a friend of mine that I met through D&D that I still refer to her in my head by her character's name (she played a druid named Lydda Tealeaf) and she said she still calls me Arthur in her head.
For the image, I would like to share a picture of Arthur's favorite dice set. I'm more partial to green personally, but Arthur prefers Tyrian purple with shades of gold - a name and a color scheme befitting royalty.
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