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Emergent Utena Behavior
Apr. 9th, 2006 08:29 pmSo, Dance and the Dawn. Was awesome. And certain elements of its awesomeness really ought to be recorded for posterity, as they were fucking amazing.
(Quick catch-up for those who are as yet uninformed: D&tD was a fairytaleish LARP, in which six Ladies of Ash had until dawn to find their True Loves from among the six Lords of Ice (and their Prince), at a glamorous ball hosted by the cold, cruel, manipulative Queen of Ice. Ladies could ask questions as they danced, and the lords could answer or not as they pleased. There were favors which could be given, which could inspire Lords to greater feats in deuling each other. It was really magnificent.)
The thing you need to know is,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thekinginyellow based all of the lords and some of the ladies on characters from Utena. Not usually with regard to backstory, but very much personality-wise. Nobody was given any specific instructions or directions related to this, of course -- it was just a cute little organizing principle. Thing is, purely by coincidence and acting out our characters' motivations, we managed to recreate the plot of Utena to a truly scary degree.
I want to talk about all that "emergent Utena behavior" (to borrowlocke61dv's term, but it's going to be spoilerful. So I would reccommend that those of you who have not yet seen the series, or those of you who intend to play in the next game of D&tD, stay away from the rest of this entry. Because it would be a shame to spoil yourself for either the anime or the game.
( Spoilerful stuff ahead )
(Quick catch-up for those who are as yet uninformed: D&tD was a fairytaleish LARP, in which six Ladies of Ash had until dawn to find their True Loves from among the six Lords of Ice (and their Prince), at a glamorous ball hosted by the cold, cruel, manipulative Queen of Ice. Ladies could ask questions as they danced, and the lords could answer or not as they pleased. There were favors which could be given, which could inspire Lords to greater feats in deuling each other. It was really magnificent.)
The thing you need to know is,
thekinginyellow based all of the lords and some of the ladies on characters from Utena. Not usually with regard to backstory, but very much personality-wise. Nobody was given any specific instructions or directions related to this, of course -- it was just a cute little organizing principle. Thing is, purely by coincidence and acting out our characters' motivations, we managed to recreate the plot of Utena to a truly scary degree.I want to talk about all that "emergent Utena behavior" (to borrow
locke61dv's term, but it's going to be spoilerful. So I would reccommend that those of you who have not yet seen the series, or those of you who intend to play in the next game of D&tD, stay away from the rest of this entry. Because it would be a shame to spoil yourself for either the anime or the game.( Spoilerful stuff ahead )
