From the Shadows: Setting as an Expression of Character Development in the Epic Fantasy Genre

Epic fantasy is a genre defined by its setting. It offers writers the opportunity to be incredibly specific with the way setting contributes to the overall story, specifically as an aid character development. In order to successfully use setting to support character development, the writer must understand what preconceptions with which the reader enters the epic fantasy genre and what purpose setting plays in the overarching story world. The writer must determine what setting elements to include and, just as importantly, which to leave out. Finally, because setting is such an abstract component of writing, it is useful not only to discuss generalities that apply to all writers but to examine a specific example in order to better understand how worldbuilding can be implemented in a way that feels natural to the reader

Kaiken takana : Miten sarjakuvaan luodaan tarinankerrontaa tukeva miljöö?

Opinnäytetyön tavoitteena oli selvittää, miten sarjakuvaan luodaan tarinankerrontaa tukeva miljöö, eli aika- ja paikkakonteksti, sekä luoda opitun pohjalta uudelleen produktio-osuutena tehdyn sarjakuvan miljöön esittelykuva uudelleen. Koska yksittäin miljöösuunnitteluun paneutuvia tietoteoksia ei löydy, oli tarkoituksena luoda aiheeseen kattava katsanto, joka ei kuitenkaan ole sarjakuvanteko-opas. Tästä tarpeesta syntyi lähtökohta tutkielmalle. Tietoperustassa käytiin läpi sarjakuvantekoprosessin kaari kokonaisuudessaan. Liikkeelle lähdettiin kompositiosta osa-alue kerrallaan, minkä jälkeen siirryttiin worldbuilding-osioon, jossa käsiteltiin tarpeellisessa määrin käsikirjoittamista sekä sarjakuvalle ominaisia kuvakerronnallisia keinoja. Tutkimusmenetelmänä käytettiin kvalitatiivista eli laadullista tutkimusta, ja aineisto kerättiin informoidun survey-kyselyn kautta. Kyselyssä selvitettiin, millaisia mielikuvia herää kahdesta erilaisesta sarjakuvan tapahtumapaikan esittelykuvasta sekä mikä on vastaajien henkilökohtainen lähestymistapa miljöösuunnitteluun. Vastaajiksi valittiin kahdeksan eritasoista sarjakuvan ja kuvituksen ammattilaista tai harrastajaa. Opinnäytetyön keskeisiä tuloksia olivat uudelleen luotu sarjakuvan esittelykuva sekä kyselyn tulokset. Tietoperustan ja tutkimuksen pohjalta syntyi laadukas katsaus miljöösuunnitteluun sarjakuvissa ja kuvituksissa. Lisäksi onnistuttiin luomaan toimivampi miljöö opinnäytetyön produktio-osuutena tehtyyn sarjakuvaan. Saatuja tietoja voidaan jatkossa hyödyntää sarjakuvien ja kuvitusten teossa ja myös muissa visuaalisen suunnittelun tehtävissä.The aim of this thesis was to find out how to create a setting that establishes a comic’s milieu (i.e. its context in place and time). Additional aim was to redraw a worldbuilding panel from the comic that was made as the practical production of this thesis. Since there are no works focusing solely on milieu design, the idea was to compile a comprehensive overview of the topic, with the result not being a comic drawing guide. In the theory section, the process of creating a comic was introduced in its entirety, the starting point being composition. After that relevant parts of worldbuilding were discussed: script and various means of visual storytelling. The study was a qualitative one. The data came from a questionnaire, where the eight respondents were illustrators and comic artists with professional or amateur backgrounds. In the questionnaire the respondents were asked to evaluate two worldbuilding panels of a comic, as well as to explain their personal approaches to worldbuilding. The main results of the study were a recreated worldbuilding panel for a comic, and the results from the questionnaire. Together the theoretical background and the research worked as a basis for a good quality overview of worldbuilding in comics and illustrations. In addition, the milieu of the practical production comic was improved. The results gathered from the study can be utilized in creating comics, illustrations, and other visual design projects

The Problem of Evil in Virtual Worlds

In its original form, Nozick’s experience machine serves as a potent counterexample to a simplistic form of hedonism. The pleasurable life offered by the experience machine, its seems safe to say, lacks the requisite depth that many of us find necessary to lead a genuinely worthwhile life. Among other things, the experience machine offers no opportunities to establish meaningful relationships, or to engage in long-term artistic, intellectual, or political projects that survive one’s death. This intuitive objection finds some support in recent research regarding the psychological effects of phenomena such as video games or social media use. After a brief discussion of these problems, I will consider a variation of the experience machine in which many of these deficits are remedied. In particular, I’ll explore the consequences of a creating a virtual world populated with strongly intelligent AIs with whom users could interact, and that could be engineered to survive the user’s death. The presence of these agents would allow for the cultivation of morally significant relationships, and the world’s long-term persistence would help ground possibilities for a meaningful, purposeful life in a way that Nozick’s original experience machine could not. While the creation of such a world is obviously beyond the scope of current technology, it represents a natural extension of the existing virtual worlds provided by current video games, and it provides a plausible “ideal case” toward which future virtual worlds will move. While this improved experience machine would seem to represent progress over Nozick’s original, I will argue that it raises a number of new problems stemming from the fact that that the world was created to provide a maximally satisfying and meaningful life for the intended user. This, in turn, raises problems analogous in some ways to the problem(s) of evil faced by theists. In particular, I will suggest that it is precisely those features that would make a world most attractive to potential users—the fact that the AIs are genuinely moral agents whose well-being the user can significantly impact—that render its creation morally problematic, since they require that the AIs inhabiting the world be subject to unnecessary suffering. I will survey the main lines of response to the traditional problem of evil, and will argue that they are irrelevant to this modified case. I will close by considering by consider what constraints on the future creation of virtual worlds, if any, might serve to allay the concerns identified in the previous discussion. I will argue that, insofar as the creation of such worlds would allow us to meet morally valuable purposes that could not be easily met otherwise, we would be unwise to prohibit it altogether. However, if our processes of creation are to be justified, they must take account of the interests of the moral agents that would come to exist as the result of our world creation

Women & Tolkien: Amazons, Valkyries, Feminists, and Slashers

This paper reports on an early pilot project that asks women who self identify as readers or fans of Tolkien\u27s work and/or teachers who have taught Tolkien\u27s work, and/or scholars who have published on Tolkien\u27s work to answer a few open-ended questions about their reasons for enjoying his work. By women, I mean anybody who identifies as a woman. By Tolkien\u27s work, I mean any of his published novels, stories, poems, or academic essays. The study arises from the question that is often asked of fans of Tolkien\u27s work: why do women so enjoy it, given the relatively minor narrative roles women play

"Pirate Fishing". Analisi di un prodotto di giornalismo transmediale

Over the last years news organizations, publishing houses and media companies have had the need to research new forms of journalistic storytelling to cope with the current hybrid media system. Moreover, new journalistic theoretical frames are arising over academic literature, such as those debated on this paper, the transmedia journalism and the slow journalism. Starting from these conceptual references, the aim of this paper is to investigate which kinds of forms journalism narratives could take. On this purpose, we will analyze the web - documentary and serious game Pirate Fishing, one of the first transmedia journalism projects designed in Italy

A Different Kind of Wealth: Mapping a Baseline of African Community Foundations

This article focuses on how building on existing traditions of solidarity is challenging the conventions of mainstream developmen

Sub-creating Arda (2019), edited by Dimitra Fimi and Thomas Honegger

Book review by Dennis Wilson Wise of Sub-creating Arda (2019), edited by Dimitra Fimi and Thomas Honegge

More Than the Poor Cousin? The Emergence of Community Foundations as a New Development Paradigm

This paper sets out findings from a baseline study of 50 applications for grants from the Global Fund for Community Foundations. The paper uses information gained from the processes of assessing the grants to learn lessons about the state of the field, what it can contribute in terms of outcomes and impact, and hypotheses in taking forward work of this nature. The paper suggests that community philanthropy may have an important role to play in creating a new paradigm for development. This paper is based on a cohort of grantees that will be followed up as part of evaluation work by the Global Fund for Community Foundations