Reviewing roundup.

[farla]

Today's crazy bitching award goes to Chibi Sensei Chan. While all of her reply was an impressive exercise in self-justification, it's one line that really stands out. As she ran down her list of things that were not in fact mistakes (she never said anything about the roses being bought, clearly the bouquet just materialized in the arms of the twelve year old giving them to May!), she grudgingly admitted that a grammar error was actually an error, then said:

Harley - i'll semi-give you that one

By this, she was referring to when I pointed out that she had hit enter midway through a sentence involving Harley. This is not, apparently, a cut and dried situation where it's either an error or it isn't. Luckily, she's gracious enough that she'll semi-give me it - not "it's not really an error, but I'll give you it anyway", "it's not really even an 'it's not really an error', but I'll semi give you it".

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And now to go on to stories that (through not fault of their own) raise interesting points.

One story involved an abused mary sue. She was beautiful, but she had no friends because everyone thought she was weird, and also her parents beat her for no reason. So a magic fairy decided to send her to the pokemon world, where she'll have friends.

Wouldn't it be interesting to read a story that actually addressed whatever issues prevented them from having friends? Not in the sense of "oh, woe, you don't understand meeee!" but with them actually being recognized as flaws that need to be overcome? Their transition to this new world is like a rebirth, and their pokemon journey is also their journey to change and grow as a person. The differing culture of the pokemon world might give them new opportunities for friendship and interactions, or they can rely on their pokemon, who make better friend-surrogates than the average pet, as they slowly claw their way to the point they can interact normally with other human beings.

Next, how might they get there? Well, instead of having some random abuse tacked in to show how dark and goth of a special snowflake they are, what if we actually tie it into what happens? I thought of three more interesting possibilities:

Option One: Their abusive parent begins hitting them. They cower. The next blow doesn't come, and they uncurl warily to realize they're currently cowering in the middle of an unknown forest. Somehow, they've been rescued. What do they do now? Are they relieved to be away, or do they become scared because they don't know where they are or what happened? What if it happens again? (And indeed - what if it does happen again? Someone who uncontrollably teleports out of danger will also have a lot of trouble making any positive relationships as well. Perhaps they'll start to feel like there's no point in trying to build anything of a life when they might be taken away again at any time.)

Option Two: Their abusive parent hits them hard enough they black out. They wake up in an unknown forest. Were they rescued by magic? Are they in a coma? Are they dead, and this is heaven/purgatory/actually hell? Or are they so overjoyed to be out of there and into their fantasy that they ignore all the implications and dive headlong into the new world? (The final option is not a sign of a healthy psyche and should be portrayed accordingly.)

Option Three, or The-Subtle-Knife-Is-Cool option: After their abusive parent hits them for a while, they're locked in their room. They decide to show some initiative and run away. After climbing out the window, they set off, intending to get as far away as humanly possible, and run into the woods. They wander around, quickly getting more and more confused. When they finally make their way back out, they find that the city is one they don't recognize. Somehow, they've found their way into another world. Now what? Should they try to figure out where the doorway is (or if there's a doorway), risking getting trapped back in their original world? Do they try, but they can't find it? What happens when they enter the new city and attempt to explain what's going on? Do people think they're insane? Are they just insane?

Comments

[purplekitte.livejournal.com]

Mm, yeah. I once played with that a little in a story. My character could talk to Pokemon so everyone in her town thought she was cursed and evil and eventually she ran away from home. Then the problem disappeared.

It actually worked quite well once I put an explanation together. Her powers are not crazily magic but similar to those of a high status/rank trainer or priest. The people in her town know she has had them since early childhood and so are unnatural but people who just met her don't. They see a (presumed) child protegy walking around with the insignia of the monastery where she was raised and think, Hey, powerful priestess, let's shove our problems at her. Her social problems during the story are based around having been raised in a monastery and being rather oblivious to and/or misinterpreting how normal people act.

[farla.livejournal.com]

Hm, that's a really interesting take on it...there's probably a reasonably varied set of abilities that would seem freakish if the kid had them from birth, but would just be impressive to outsiders who assume the kid just learned them at an unusually young age and/or was unusually skilled.

Might even work if it was applied more broadly - there are probably a lot of situations where someone would be isolated for backstory reasons that apply because everyone there knows about it, but wouldn't be evident once they got out of the area.