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I'm genuinely impressed with how much research progress I was able to make this week when I had an exam, a presentation in front of my entire department, and a busier-than-usual social calendar. I feel like it's a testament to how much I'm genuinely enjoying and am invested in this project.
So on the Shuri characterization/Wakanda worldbuilding research front, I watched Black Panther with audio commentary from Ryan Coogler (director & co-writer) and Hannah Beachler (production designer), and holy crap. I knew BP was a phenomenal film since I first saw it, but the audio commentary gave me a whole new appreciation for the amount of genius and passion that went into this movie. I also watched some one-on-one interviews with Ryan Coogler, and it's just so awe-inspiring the way he has so clearly put so much careful, deliberate thought to everything from characters to costumes to setting. Listening to him speak was extremely refreshing after all these months of infuriating flippancy from the filmmakers behind Avengers: Endgame, and as someone who's trying to play around in the sandbox he built, I'm really grateful for his eloquence and clarity when he talks about his creative choices and vision for the story.
I also watched some Letitia Wright (the actress who plays Shuri) interviews, and she is such a delight to listen to. She is so obviously aware of Shuri's importance to young girls (especially young Black girls) who are interested in science and might feel embarrassed by their love for learning. And that aspect of Shuri -- being someone who has been inquisitive since she was a young girl -- is something that really resonates with me and that I want to express in my fic.
On the neuroscience side of things, I was able to dedicate some time this week to reading some papers on the neural correlates of hypnosis. In order to come up with a plausible procedure for Shuri to fix Bucky, I first need to flesh out exactly what HYDRA did to him in the first place. So I'm looking into the neuroscience of hypnosis because that's the phenomenon that most resembles the whole trigger words thing. Turns out, the research that's out there so far is extremely mixed, with different experimenters finding different things depending on methodology. Nobody knows exactly which brain regions are involved in hypnosis, and even for the regions that everyone can agree are involved, it's still not clear exactly what said regions are doing. If I had to do serious academic work in this area, I'd be tearing my hair out. However, because this is fan fiction, I don't have to make complete sense of it all, I just need to draw on the info that is out there and come up with something plausible.
So, I've basically got the trigger words aspect of things squared away, but there's also the issues of the memory wipes and PTSD to tackle so that's where my research is going next. I'm also planning to do some Black Panther comics reading for worldbuilding inspiration.
What I accomplished this week:
So on the Shuri characterization/Wakanda worldbuilding research front, I watched Black Panther with audio commentary from Ryan Coogler (director & co-writer) and Hannah Beachler (production designer), and holy crap. I knew BP was a phenomenal film since I first saw it, but the audio commentary gave me a whole new appreciation for the amount of genius and passion that went into this movie. I also watched some one-on-one interviews with Ryan Coogler, and it's just so awe-inspiring the way he has so clearly put so much careful, deliberate thought to everything from characters to costumes to setting. Listening to him speak was extremely refreshing after all these months of infuriating flippancy from the filmmakers behind Avengers: Endgame, and as someone who's trying to play around in the sandbox he built, I'm really grateful for his eloquence and clarity when he talks about his creative choices and vision for the story.
I also watched some Letitia Wright (the actress who plays Shuri) interviews, and she is such a delight to listen to. She is so obviously aware of Shuri's importance to young girls (especially young Black girls) who are interested in science and might feel embarrassed by their love for learning. And that aspect of Shuri -- being someone who has been inquisitive since she was a young girl -- is something that really resonates with me and that I want to express in my fic.
On the neuroscience side of things, I was able to dedicate some time this week to reading some papers on the neural correlates of hypnosis. In order to come up with a plausible procedure for Shuri to fix Bucky, I first need to flesh out exactly what HYDRA did to him in the first place. So I'm looking into the neuroscience of hypnosis because that's the phenomenon that most resembles the whole trigger words thing. Turns out, the research that's out there so far is extremely mixed, with different experimenters finding different things depending on methodology. Nobody knows exactly which brain regions are involved in hypnosis, and even for the regions that everyone can agree are involved, it's still not clear exactly what said regions are doing. If I had to do serious academic work in this area, I'd be tearing my hair out. However, because this is fan fiction, I don't have to make complete sense of it all, I just need to draw on the info that is out there and come up with something plausible.
So, I've basically got the trigger words aspect of things squared away, but there's also the issues of the memory wipes and PTSD to tackle so that's where my research is going next. I'm also planning to do some Black Panther comics reading for worldbuilding inspiration.
What I accomplished this week:
- Watched Black Panther with audio commentary
- Watched Ryan Coogler interviews
- Watched Letitia Wright interviews
- Read up on the neuroscience of hypnosis
- Formulated my ideas on what HYDRA did re: the triggers words and how Shuri removed them
- Read up on the neural correlates of memory and formulate Shuri's plan for that aspect of Bucky's recovery
- Read the Ta-Nehisi Coates run of Black Panther
