Exams, Stories
Jun. 17th, 2004 07:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlaA good day!
Today exams started. I love this part of the year. The only downside is my parents have nervous breakdowns over my studying (or lack thereof) and are determined to bring me down with them. So last night I stayed up while my mother asked questions that weren't on what we were taught and grew more and more frantic as I didn't know what the answer was. I expect the studying kick to last until the end of today.
But the exams themselves are fun. Today there was only one, for science, and just multiple choice. I got out of school at nine, and the teacher handed out food.
At home I had to dump out the water from an outdoor tank. It's very narrow and several feet tall. I'd dropped a water lily bulb in but it was a dud, so the water was just collecting mosquito larvae. I scooped out a great many of the larvae, then poured out the remaining water. The dead bulb was colonized by bloodworms, which was very lucky. I scraped them out.
I gave my goldfish some, divided most of them between the two betas, and gave my new crayfish a few, as well as all the bloodworms (and some of the rotten plant they were stuck in). There are still a lot of larvae in with the betas, and I expect them to finish up by tomorrow. The crayfish was the most enthusiastic of all of them. She's between two and three inches long and very aggressive. We're going to fill a bowl with water, drop the lily bulb in, and let her eat the plant as well.
An interesting (if, I suspect, temporary) trend has begun in the pokemon section. Although for the past few months it's been almost exclusively chaptered stories, there was just a great jump in the number of new stories submitted. Some of these threaten to become chaptered stories, so it's not much of an improvement, but it's still nice to see.
I think chaptered stories are of the main failings of the section. They have this marked tendency to…what's a diplomatic way of putting this? Ah, yes, suck horribly. The author is often new and has no experience. Maybe they had a good idea, but instead of making it a one-shot, they try to drag it out. Of course, they don't have enough writing ability to make it last that long, and the story fizzes out somewhere between the first and third chapter, never even getting to whatever their idea was. They often waste their time with (stupid) banter between (unrealistic boring mary sue) characters of their creation, which has the benefit of at least making sure no reader is disappointed when they drop the story.
And, of course, there's the horror that is the one-paragraph chapter, the one-filler-scene chapter, the one-inane-conversation chapter…
One-shots do not get the respect they deserve.
And now, because it amuses me to show such hypocrisy, I'll add that I currently have three stories in consideration to write. They're all long, chaptered stories. (Of course, they're chaptered because it's a long, detailed story, not because I want to keep the story on the first page for all eternity, but still).
One is Reality. The idea for it comes simply from the fact that self-insert stories suck, people-from-the-real-world-get-sucked-into-the-pokemon-world stories suck, stories that want reader characters (which tend to be sues/stus) suck and stories that make references to the author's own stories coming true suck to the nth degree, where n is the inverse of Bush's political ability. Sorry, couldn't resist.
So, with this in mind, my idea is to create a character based on me, have her in the real world, and then have the real world start to warp into the pokemon one. This doesn't make everything happy and cheery, of course. It's not the wish-fulfillment one might expect. The simplistic fantasy world of the pokemon one merges with the pokemon world, effecting everything, and everyone.
During the transition, things exist that shouldn't. Random trainers stalk the forests, but they seem like constructs rather than other people who left like she did. Her laptop works without batteries or a connection, and posts on forums don't seem to have actual posters behind them. People know things they can't know. Existing animals seem to transform into pokemon, but haphazardly, and other pokemon seem to simply appear. Plants grow impossibly. Humans vanish and reappear. Paths spring up while walking in a prairie. Even the character herself is affected by the transformation.
Other humans from the start exist as well, which is why I'll take character submissions. But things don't work out as intended. The boy who wrote himself in with an articuno finds he's released a nearly unstoppable monster of destruction. Anthros might go insane or are killed by other pokemon. Those who fare best are the more restrained ones.
My character's goal is simple. She's trying to find Ho-oh. The story takes place from during her travels, from the start of the change to the end.
I have several pages of this written, although I keep running into problems with her interacting with other characters.
The next story is Imagine. The original idea was just to write a bunch of stories where I put pokemon into the place of real-world animals to make people feel bad. It evolved a bit further than that and became an interwoven story involving a cast of several pokemon. Not that complex, but a bit gruesome/unsettling. It's also a story that sticks to a strict format cycling through each character once before moving on to the next timeperiod or event. I haven't tried that before, so I'm unsure of how well it will work. I have quite a few chapters of it typed up, though.
The third story is Ice's story, my favorite character. I wrote out a slightly long (fifty page, but a great deal of dialogue) story once for her in seventh or eight grade. It was horrible, although I couldn't figure out what the problem was at the time, so I just sat on it.
Ice is an inhuman character. She doesn't see things like humans do or think the same. The story starts with her as a young child and continues from there. She's fascinating to write about, as are many of the other characters she meets (Subhuman Jennies, a sentient program that was the forerunner of porygon, disconnected psychics, bloodthirsty fearow and their overconfident keepers, mild-mannered murderers, and some of the earlier attempts Giovanni made at created pokemon) but I'm having trouble with the story later on because of my severe lack of knowledge about the structure and methods of highly bureaucratic evil organizations.
I have the childhood bit typed, and dozens of more written pages, although it'll probably be less once I type it.
So, two or three people actually reading this, what do you think?
Today exams started. I love this part of the year. The only downside is my parents have nervous breakdowns over my studying (or lack thereof) and are determined to bring me down with them. So last night I stayed up while my mother asked questions that weren't on what we were taught and grew more and more frantic as I didn't know what the answer was. I expect the studying kick to last until the end of today.
But the exams themselves are fun. Today there was only one, for science, and just multiple choice. I got out of school at nine, and the teacher handed out food.
At home I had to dump out the water from an outdoor tank. It's very narrow and several feet tall. I'd dropped a water lily bulb in but it was a dud, so the water was just collecting mosquito larvae. I scooped out a great many of the larvae, then poured out the remaining water. The dead bulb was colonized by bloodworms, which was very lucky. I scraped them out.
I gave my goldfish some, divided most of them between the two betas, and gave my new crayfish a few, as well as all the bloodworms (and some of the rotten plant they were stuck in). There are still a lot of larvae in with the betas, and I expect them to finish up by tomorrow. The crayfish was the most enthusiastic of all of them. She's between two and three inches long and very aggressive. We're going to fill a bowl with water, drop the lily bulb in, and let her eat the plant as well.
An interesting (if, I suspect, temporary) trend has begun in the pokemon section. Although for the past few months it's been almost exclusively chaptered stories, there was just a great jump in the number of new stories submitted. Some of these threaten to become chaptered stories, so it's not much of an improvement, but it's still nice to see.
I think chaptered stories are of the main failings of the section. They have this marked tendency to…what's a diplomatic way of putting this? Ah, yes, suck horribly. The author is often new and has no experience. Maybe they had a good idea, but instead of making it a one-shot, they try to drag it out. Of course, they don't have enough writing ability to make it last that long, and the story fizzes out somewhere between the first and third chapter, never even getting to whatever their idea was. They often waste their time with (stupid) banter between (unrealistic boring mary sue) characters of their creation, which has the benefit of at least making sure no reader is disappointed when they drop the story.
And, of course, there's the horror that is the one-paragraph chapter, the one-filler-scene chapter, the one-inane-conversation chapter…
One-shots do not get the respect they deserve.
And now, because it amuses me to show such hypocrisy, I'll add that I currently have three stories in consideration to write. They're all long, chaptered stories. (Of course, they're chaptered because it's a long, detailed story, not because I want to keep the story on the first page for all eternity, but still).
One is Reality. The idea for it comes simply from the fact that self-insert stories suck, people-from-the-real-world-get-sucked-into-the-pokemon-world stories suck, stories that want reader characters (which tend to be sues/stus) suck and stories that make references to the author's own stories coming true suck to the nth degree, where n is the inverse of Bush's political ability. Sorry, couldn't resist.
So, with this in mind, my idea is to create a character based on me, have her in the real world, and then have the real world start to warp into the pokemon one. This doesn't make everything happy and cheery, of course. It's not the wish-fulfillment one might expect. The simplistic fantasy world of the pokemon one merges with the pokemon world, effecting everything, and everyone.
During the transition, things exist that shouldn't. Random trainers stalk the forests, but they seem like constructs rather than other people who left like she did. Her laptop works without batteries or a connection, and posts on forums don't seem to have actual posters behind them. People know things they can't know. Existing animals seem to transform into pokemon, but haphazardly, and other pokemon seem to simply appear. Plants grow impossibly. Humans vanish and reappear. Paths spring up while walking in a prairie. Even the character herself is affected by the transformation.
Other humans from the start exist as well, which is why I'll take character submissions. But things don't work out as intended. The boy who wrote himself in with an articuno finds he's released a nearly unstoppable monster of destruction. Anthros might go insane or are killed by other pokemon. Those who fare best are the more restrained ones.
My character's goal is simple. She's trying to find Ho-oh. The story takes place from during her travels, from the start of the change to the end.
I have several pages of this written, although I keep running into problems with her interacting with other characters.
The next story is Imagine. The original idea was just to write a bunch of stories where I put pokemon into the place of real-world animals to make people feel bad. It evolved a bit further than that and became an interwoven story involving a cast of several pokemon. Not that complex, but a bit gruesome/unsettling. It's also a story that sticks to a strict format cycling through each character once before moving on to the next timeperiod or event. I haven't tried that before, so I'm unsure of how well it will work. I have quite a few chapters of it typed up, though.
The third story is Ice's story, my favorite character. I wrote out a slightly long (fifty page, but a great deal of dialogue) story once for her in seventh or eight grade. It was horrible, although I couldn't figure out what the problem was at the time, so I just sat on it.
Ice is an inhuman character. She doesn't see things like humans do or think the same. The story starts with her as a young child and continues from there. She's fascinating to write about, as are many of the other characters she meets (Subhuman Jennies, a sentient program that was the forerunner of porygon, disconnected psychics, bloodthirsty fearow and their overconfident keepers, mild-mannered murderers, and some of the earlier attempts Giovanni made at created pokemon) but I'm having trouble with the story later on because of my severe lack of knowledge about the structure and methods of highly bureaucratic evil organizations.
I have the childhood bit typed, and dozens of more written pages, although it'll probably be less once I type it.
So, two or three people actually reading this, what do you think?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Ice's story!
Date: 2004-06-18 07:18 am (UTC)Imagine's my second choice, it sounds pretty interesting, but before you do any of that... PLEASE finish off Midnights Story, it's just been rotting like that lily bulb of yours, and be careful with those bloodworms. They carry parisites and diseases sometimes, I lost three goldfish to a batch of bad bloodworms. Whoo.. Alliteration. Oh yes, and about that first one... Real world/pokemon world crossovers make me want to vomit, I don't think anyone can pull off a good crossover fic, even with good intentions.
Cold as Ice?
Date: 2004-06-18 12:15 pm (UTC)Imagine also sounds interesting- you could have different actions by a Pokemon affecting another later on- or even two different views of people or organisations.
Reality could be quite dark- thinking even a disabled person in a wheelchair wanting to walk so much - all goes wrong.
Sound interesting anyway
Nita
Re: Ice's story!
Date: 2004-06-19 02:31 am (UTC)...but Midnight's Story is really, really awful. And also I don't want to put it back at the top of the list again because I don't want more people reading it. If I do update it I'm going to screw with the chapters so none of the older ones show up.
Yeah, I know bloodworms and mosquito larvae can have problems. I don't use any from ponds or anywhere like that, just new ones in fresh water. I suppose it's still a risk but my pets seem to enjoy the snack so much.
The thing about Reality is I want to figure out why they don't work, and see if I can get around it. But it's true it probably still wouldn't work, since I'm having trouble with it already.
Re: Cold as Ice?
Date: 2004-06-19 02:32 am (UTC)I love my twisted little worlds.
Don't do Reality!
Date: 2004-06-19 03:28 am (UTC)Look at all those random two dimensional characters that appear out of nowhere in those self insertion stories, doesn't that sound familiar?
Her laptop works without batteries or a connection, and posts on forums don't seem to have actual posters behind them. People know things they can't know.
Once I went to a (now extinct) Pokemon roleplaying forum and saw this horrible, horrible self-insertion multiple person RP. One of the characters had a magical laptop where he was connected to people from both the real world and the pokemon world he made up the conversations he had with them and they were boring and awful. Professor Oak seemed to know everything that went on in his little journey and gave him new pokemon every time he did something good. He talked constantly to his imaginary family where they congratulated and supported him on his pokemon journey and sent him money. Yes. Sent him money.
"Existing animals seem to transform into pokemon, but haphazardly, and other pokemon seem to simply appear. Plants grow impossibly."
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1133712
If you're feeling lazy, her two dogs turn into pokemon when she crosses over. Here's a snippet of exactly HOW she crosses over?
"Duke stared lovingly at me (I like to think it was me, and not the sandwich I was stuffing into my face) and Sandy whined and shoved my hand. I ignored her and made a quick round of my favorite pokemon sites, checking for updates. Nothing. I had some time on my hands (3 hours until dinnertime), so I decided to search for more pokemon fan sites on Google. Hmmm. “The Magic of the Pokemon World”. That sounded interesting. I clicked on the link.
“Welcome to The Magic of the Pokemon World! Click HERE to begin your adventures!” I read. “Well, why not?”
And so I clicked."
Humans vanish and reappear. Paths spring up while walking in a prairie. Even the character herself is affected by the transformation.
People vanishing and reappearing? It sounds like what some authors do when they get an idea for a oh-so-cool new character or decide that they're bored of one. Sometimes people also find out that when their OC is walking through a prairie, that they don't know what it's actually like to walk through a prarie so they put a road right through it. Some people also put "special walking paths" in their prarie and have their OC stumble upon it. The word prarie is interchangable with other words like mountain or forest...
Other humans from the start exist as well, which is why I'll take character submissions. But things don't work out as intended. The boy who wrote himself in with an articuno finds he's released a nearly unstoppable monster of destruction. Anthros might go insane or are killed by other pokemon. Those who fare best are the more restrained ones.
This seems like the part of the story that would work best. I can't find any parallels with other self-insertions.
My character's goal is simple. She's trying to find Ho-oh. The story takes place from during her travels, from the start of the change to the end.
A character trying to find a rare/legendary pokemon. That's been done so many times it's not even funny anymore.
Re: Don't do Reality!
Date: 2004-06-19 04:08 am (UTC)The laptop too. It's not particularly useful, and the canon cast certainly won't be talking to her over it. It's there mainly because it shows how uneven the change is. Although the world has thoroughly changed into the pokemon one, posting a question about pokemon will still provoke a response like 'Its just a cartoon!' until very late in the story.
Basically, everything happens like you'd expect, but it doesn't work like you'd expect. One of her pets comes with her too, a cat. He's now huge but still can't fight, pokeballs don't work on him, he's scared of people, he attracts the automaton trainers, and it's a headache. Same goes for the appearing/disappearing people. They're like the trainers, just rogue things wandering around that are mostly harmless and look human but aren't. The fake people mainly scare her because she doesn't know what they are or why they're there or what they'll do. Imagine being surrounded by things like that. None of this stuff is actually useful to her.
And my character isn't trying to get Ho-oh. She's already got five or so, as well as a dozen mewtwo (and she doesn't dare open those pokeballs because of what happens to trainers who try to use their inserted legendaries). She's trying to get the sacred ash.
PleasePleasePlease
Date: 2004-06-23 06:43 am (UTC)Re: PleasePleasePlease
Date: 2004-06-23 04:53 pm (UTC)Re: PleasePleasePlease
Date: 2004-06-23 06:07 pm (UTC)