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NaRevolves
Dec. 22nd, 2008 10:52 pmHuh. So out of the blue I'm starting to hit stuff like "I'm just goanna let that pass. If you have anything bad to say then keep it to yourself." and
"Right, um..
Sorry my story is not so damn freaking perfect.
I have my own ideas for it, and if you have a problem then just don't bother
reading it.
So now the question is - are these things actually coming in a pattern, or is it random chance and I'm just seeing the pattern there?
Especially when I'm still getting regular stupid responses. One particularly lulzy one I'll post tomorrow, it deserves a full showing.
I do think a clearer moral here is that snapping at bitchy authors is counterproductive or unnecessary, as the second one here and a number of others have had the author send me another reply where they apologize for overreacting. This is nice since I seem to be heading toward a minimum involvement level naturally.
I need to answer my email.
But I'm sleepy, so instead it's time for another installment of discussing hypothetical stories that weren't written but would be so totally awesome if they were.
So there's this fic Wish Granted, which is one of those real world/pokemon world fics. As with so many fics, the author's obviously at a loss as to how to make this happen. So they have their character arranging a trade with their friend for Jirachi. Then after they make a wish while using the wish move, they talk with their friend who says that, oh, BTW, Jirachi's wish move is like magic, so you should probably delete it to be safe forgot to tell you LOL. (Turns out it seems it can only turn people into pokemon)
Now, aside from the fact this is all stupid and contrived, there's the fact the basic setup is actually really cool.
Magic is awesome. I mean, really, really awesome. That there's real magic in the world and that you can find it somehow is just such a wonderful idea. So I am totally behind a story where it turns out there's a particular mcguffin that's magic. Especially in this context - the pokemon fandom has been a hotbed of crazy rumors and silly kids forever. The idea there's this one Jirachi that grants your wish for real is something that, for all I know, is an actual rumor somewhere on the internet among young fans. So imagine there's really one of these, and there are these rumors about it, and mostly, people just think it's a stupid story but some people do believe the rumors and try to track down whoever has the pokemon at the moment and then trade it, and it's actually real.
Wouldn't that be cool? A story just about that alone.
Then there's the idea that this jirachi has powers because it's basically a conduct to the pokemon world, and that the more its power is used the closer it gets to making a true, stable bridge. So it's like every doomsday mcguffin ever, only instead of unleashing eldrich abominations to bring about the end of the world, it's bringing magic and pikachus. So now the jirachi is being passed about to people, and everyone who believes and tries to make a wish on it brings things one step closer. Again, you have the people tracking it down and making the wish, but now there's a firmer plot foundation - what sort of wishes are people making, what do they do, what happens when the connection finally stabilizes, is there anyone trying to stop them?
And there's the seed of something kinda like that old Ray Bradbury story where the kids are playing Invasion, which is to say the Martians contacted the kids to trick them into preparing the way but the point is, all the kids are running around doing this thing, and they do think/know it's all important and stuff but in that kid way of it being a game at the same time, all the while the adults don't even realize. A bit like the early episodes of the third season of Digimon, which I loved to death, only lower-powered and with them working toward a particular goal.
Then there's the idea that the jirachi can only answer some wishes. In the fic it seems to be that it can turn you into pokemon. (Much like the idea everyone is screwing pikachus, this seems to be an issue of an author assuming their fetish is something that's standard to the population.) So now you have the jirachi being passed around to particular people, because if the wish only works for people who can sincerely wish for this, you'd want to try to get the jirachi to them as directly as possible if X number of wishes need to be granted before a conduct can form. And since the people are going to disappear after transforming, you'll now have competing rumors about a trade pokemon that makes anyone who gets it disappear, or that if you wish on it Jirachi will appear and kill you, and so finding and trading for it will be hard because people don't keep it long (they trade it before they finish transforming) and pokemon sites probably ban you for trying to ask about getting it, cutting down sane discussion, so we're back to the characters trying to seek it out. And again, the only wish it grants is turning into a pokemon, which in itself is a huge ball of story potential - not the idea of changing, the psychological issue of the wish itself.
Let me digress for a moment.
Years ago I was writing up little bits of things for a story where, for some reason, there were kids who would get a wish granted simply by it being the thing they wanted strongly enough. The main character, for example, grew wings. Key to the concept was that it only worked in cases where the desire for the thing was to the point the kid themselves was pretty much disassociating out of life - the sample wishes ranged from "can turn leaves into five dollar bills" to "having their mouth and ears seal over and their hands melt off", with the unifying theme of the kids dropping right out of society in favor of the life their wish gave them. The wishes weren't double-edged themselves, but they only worked for people who were fucked up because to want something like this that much required a damaged psyche.
This, to me, is what you should be getting into on a character who, when asked the thing they most want in the world, ask to be a skitty. That's not a normal response. That is so far from the normal response it comes out the other side of funny. Who are the kids, then, who are trading this jirachi and making this wish? If their greatest wish is this, what, now that it's granted, are their other goals? If the jirachi isn't causing a direct connection to the pokemon world to form as a result of its use, maybe they'll start trying to find a way there on their own.
And that'd be an interesting story.
"Right, um..
Sorry my story is not so damn freaking perfect.
I have my own ideas for it, and if you have a problem then just don't bother
reading it.
So now the question is - are these things actually coming in a pattern, or is it random chance and I'm just seeing the pattern there?
Especially when I'm still getting regular stupid responses. One particularly lulzy one I'll post tomorrow, it deserves a full showing.
I do think a clearer moral here is that snapping at bitchy authors is counterproductive or unnecessary, as the second one here and a number of others have had the author send me another reply where they apologize for overreacting. This is nice since I seem to be heading toward a minimum involvement level naturally.
I need to answer my email.
But I'm sleepy, so instead it's time for another installment of discussing hypothetical stories that weren't written but would be so totally awesome if they were.
So there's this fic Wish Granted, which is one of those real world/pokemon world fics. As with so many fics, the author's obviously at a loss as to how to make this happen. So they have their character arranging a trade with their friend for Jirachi. Then after they make a wish while using the wish move, they talk with their friend who says that, oh, BTW, Jirachi's wish move is like magic, so you should probably delete it to be safe forgot to tell you LOL. (Turns out it seems it can only turn people into pokemon)
Now, aside from the fact this is all stupid and contrived, there's the fact the basic setup is actually really cool.
Magic is awesome. I mean, really, really awesome. That there's real magic in the world and that you can find it somehow is just such a wonderful idea. So I am totally behind a story where it turns out there's a particular mcguffin that's magic. Especially in this context - the pokemon fandom has been a hotbed of crazy rumors and silly kids forever. The idea there's this one Jirachi that grants your wish for real is something that, for all I know, is an actual rumor somewhere on the internet among young fans. So imagine there's really one of these, and there are these rumors about it, and mostly, people just think it's a stupid story but some people do believe the rumors and try to track down whoever has the pokemon at the moment and then trade it, and it's actually real.
Wouldn't that be cool? A story just about that alone.
Then there's the idea that this jirachi has powers because it's basically a conduct to the pokemon world, and that the more its power is used the closer it gets to making a true, stable bridge. So it's like every doomsday mcguffin ever, only instead of unleashing eldrich abominations to bring about the end of the world, it's bringing magic and pikachus. So now the jirachi is being passed about to people, and everyone who believes and tries to make a wish on it brings things one step closer. Again, you have the people tracking it down and making the wish, but now there's a firmer plot foundation - what sort of wishes are people making, what do they do, what happens when the connection finally stabilizes, is there anyone trying to stop them?
And there's the seed of something kinda like that old Ray Bradbury story where the kids are playing Invasion, which is to say the Martians contacted the kids to trick them into preparing the way but the point is, all the kids are running around doing this thing, and they do think/know it's all important and stuff but in that kid way of it being a game at the same time, all the while the adults don't even realize. A bit like the early episodes of the third season of Digimon, which I loved to death, only lower-powered and with them working toward a particular goal.
Then there's the idea that the jirachi can only answer some wishes. In the fic it seems to be that it can turn you into pokemon. (Much like the idea everyone is screwing pikachus, this seems to be an issue of an author assuming their fetish is something that's standard to the population.) So now you have the jirachi being passed around to particular people, because if the wish only works for people who can sincerely wish for this, you'd want to try to get the jirachi to them as directly as possible if X number of wishes need to be granted before a conduct can form. And since the people are going to disappear after transforming, you'll now have competing rumors about a trade pokemon that makes anyone who gets it disappear, or that if you wish on it Jirachi will appear and kill you, and so finding and trading for it will be hard because people don't keep it long (they trade it before they finish transforming) and pokemon sites probably ban you for trying to ask about getting it, cutting down sane discussion, so we're back to the characters trying to seek it out. And again, the only wish it grants is turning into a pokemon, which in itself is a huge ball of story potential - not the idea of changing, the psychological issue of the wish itself.
Let me digress for a moment.
Years ago I was writing up little bits of things for a story where, for some reason, there were kids who would get a wish granted simply by it being the thing they wanted strongly enough. The main character, for example, grew wings. Key to the concept was that it only worked in cases where the desire for the thing was to the point the kid themselves was pretty much disassociating out of life - the sample wishes ranged from "can turn leaves into five dollar bills" to "having their mouth and ears seal over and their hands melt off", with the unifying theme of the kids dropping right out of society in favor of the life their wish gave them. The wishes weren't double-edged themselves, but they only worked for people who were fucked up because to want something like this that much required a damaged psyche.
This, to me, is what you should be getting into on a character who, when asked the thing they most want in the world, ask to be a skitty. That's not a normal response. That is so far from the normal response it comes out the other side of funny. Who are the kids, then, who are trading this jirachi and making this wish? If their greatest wish is this, what, now that it's granted, are their other goals? If the jirachi isn't causing a direct connection to the pokemon world to form as a result of its use, maybe they'll start trying to find a way there on their own.
And that'd be an interesting story.
